51. Church of Scotland mediators to quell disputes

Comment #179336 by riandouglas on May 13, 2008 at 6:16 am

clearthinker: I would find it very difficult to live with the fundamentalist certainties rational evidence based reality of ....let me think....the RD website? (we're right and we know we are back claims up with evidence and reasoning - anyone else is if you aren't able to do the same you're obviously talking rubbish).

Fixed it for you clearthinker. It's more reflective of the discussions you've tended to be involved in here :-)

irate_atheist: Certainly, if that's what you want. You tell people lies for a living.

It doesn't get more basic than that.

Is it actually lying if he's deluded enough to believe?
Sure, he's "obviously talking rubbish", but if he believes it, it's not lying right?

52. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #179260 by riandouglas on May 13, 2008 at 1:34 am

Goldy: Rian, he's ignorant. Militantly so and will fight each and every attempt at education. Save your typing for those that wish to learn.

I realise that, though I don't know that he does.
It is kind of fun, and I enjoy learning new things :-)

EDIT

Goldy: He believes in the Biblical flood - what does that tell you about him?

That he has no idea what emprical evidence and the scientific process are. Nor does he understand what scientists actually do.

53. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #179244 by riandouglas on May 13, 2008 at 1:01 am

txpiper: You asked two questions. The answer to the first is no. As I have mentioned, the sheer size of some of the formations is difficult to explain with a conventional interpretation. The second question is posed as if the evidence is clearly in favor of the interpretation you have accepted with no anomalies that oppose that view. That is simply not the case.

I didn't ask you if you were going to accept the conventional geological model. Your flood hypothesis was shown to be flawed on the very example you gave to promote it as valid. I wonder why you stick with it?
The second question was posed in that fashion because the evidence does not in any way support your hypothesis. I wonder why you stick with it, not even adopting an agnostic position. Are you trying to find some evidence to support your flawed position?

txpiper: Because it is lame. Having an incidental resistance to one parasitic disease on account of a genetic blood disorder barely qualifies as a beneficial mutation.

Why barely? It shows that a beneficial mutation depends on environment. Without malaria, sickle cell anemia is deleterious. In an envirnoment with malaria it is advantageous. Which environment is likely to select for sickle cell anemia? And which environment do we find people with sickle cell anemia?

txpiper: The idea that they will serve some other function in the meantime is absurd in most any biosystem or subsystem, especially when you consider that they could only be waiting for another rare beneficial mutation that might never occur. I'll be glad to provide you with some examples if you think you can describe what their intermediate usefulness might be.

Do you mean intermediate stages of a bacterial flagellum functioning as, say a molecular syringe to inject toxins?

txpiper: It was an idea designed to cope with the fact that there isn't sufficient evidence.

I may be mistaken, but PE was a theory to account for the apparent "fits and starts" in the fossil record. Gradualism was taken by some to mean that we should see a constant and gradual rate of evolution.

txpiper: What next step? What should make another one-in-a-million replication error occur in the same region so that it would just happen to code for a protein which adds another enhancement? What are the odds in of that occurring in a molecule with millions of places for an error to occur? They are astronomically against that happening.

You may want to check the literature on this stuff. These questions have been and are asked.

txpiper: This is total nonsense. You have morphed selection into fairy godmother.

I see no mention of the supernatural in Cali's comment. From my understaning:
- A beneficial mutation is likely to cause greater replication (read: more offspring)
- Those offspring will be likely to also have the beneficial mutation, and therefore have more offspring
- Rinse, repeats, and you end up with the mutation being spread through the population.
It's a fairly simple concept wouldn't you agree.
Now, if you coule that with multiple advantageous and deleterious mutations all having varying effects on the phenotype, and mixing in a fashion which selects advantage over disadvantage (natural selection), what do you end up with?

I still don't understand txpiper. Thousands, perhaps millions of scientists do this every day. They run the numbers. The make predictions. They gather evidence. And the theory of evolution still stands. People like Behe and Dembski make claims, and they are shown to be false or flawed.
Do you think there is some huge conspiracy going on, or is it simply your ignorance of the subject?

54. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179163 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:53 pm

Wow. Just wow!

55. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #179156 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Stumbled upon this interestiong quote from one Ben Stein:

"As a casual observer of what makes this country work and what stops it cold, I hereby offer a few suggestions on how we can ruin American competitiveness and innovation in the course of this century. I think the reader will agree with me that we are already far down the road on many of them...

12) Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind. Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable..."

â€" How to Ruin American Enterprise, by Ben Stein
Forbes Magazine, 12/23/02

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1223/225_print.html

I suppose nobody was working hard enough to bring them about, so Stein decided to take it into his own hands

56. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #179150 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:33 pm

Give me a break Brian, I was in a hurry! :-)

57. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #179131 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 6:20 pm

psaturn: The point is quite simple...Eugenics were proposed by the inheritor of Darwin: his cousin and his son. His cousin founded the Eugenics Society and it seemed to be quite racist..

How are they his inheritors? As eugenics amounts to selective breeding in homo sapiens, somehing which had been done for centuries (see sparta's treatement of their children), it seems unrelated to Darwin's undirected process.
Europeans at the time believed themselves to be superior. It would have been common knowledge. Singling out one group which represented those views doesn't seem fair.

psaturn: People repeatedly disavow Eugenics as being part of Darwinian thinking but his family did not seem to think so...

It really doesn't matter what his family thought.
In the quote I gave above, Darwin disavowes eugenics. Darwinian evolution, like the modern synthesis, is descriptive, not proscriptive. It doesn not say something should be done, only describes what has happened.
Eugenics is selective breeding, the thing we do for dogs, horses, cattle etc, ie not darwinian natural selection.

58. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178956 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 9:58 am

Diacanu: Why they bother with this intelligent design stuff is anyone's guess.

Because it lets him feel a little more sure that his beliefs are based upon reality?

Frankus1122: I read some of his other postings. And hence my point about the futility of trying to use reasoned argument and evidence and proofs to convince this person.

A paradigm shift is required

I agree, and he is the only one who can manage it for himself.
There is also a large viewing audience here, who I usually assume we are "performing" for (*waves* Hi), and who may find the evidence and arguments new and/or compelling :-)

59. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178933 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:48 am

Artful_Dodger, do you have any response to the arguments which have been put forward to refute your belief in dualism?
If not, will you continue holding that belief, knowing that it is unjustified?
Will you accept that it is unjustified, and adopt a rational position?

60. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178925 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:26 am

Mitchell Gilks: I'm beginning to wonder what doesn't prove god. Maybe they should start with that, it would surely be a shorter list.

"All truth is god's truth". Everything proves god. Simple!

61. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178921 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:23 am

Darwin's Badger: You'll ignore any evidence that contradicts your belief, so I'll bring the conversation down to your level, AD, and say that you're a warped, obfuscating, willfully mendacious wanker. I'll even supply evidence if necessary.

I find your argument compelling.
While it would take a small amount of evidence to the contrary to falsify you statement, I doubt that evidence will ever exist :-)

62. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178916 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:20 am

"I make mistakes, therefore god!"
brilliant :-)

63. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178913 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:16 am

al-rawandi: There is a Hadith, where Muhammad said that during pre-Islamic times he saw a group of monkeys stoning a she monkey because it had committed adultery, and that he himself joined in.

Does that mean Mohammed would have supported pushing morality as dictated by Allah onto primates?
Just how does a monkey convert to Islam? :-)

64. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178900 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 8:02 am

Keith: That is, since nobody has come up with the desired correct results, in fact, only evidence that points the other way spurious denials of the truth, it will be considered a work forever in progress rather than a lost cause the truth?

There Keith, I think that is a little more representative :-)

Keith: Oh, the twisting and turning!

It is such fun to watch :-)

65. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178887 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:40 am

Artful, I appreciate the response.
You didn't propose any mechanism, or evidence supporting your position, so I'll assume you don't have any, and dismiss it (EDIT: your position that is, not the evidence or mechanism, which you don't have). That's not to say there isn't valulable work to be done in investigating the mind. Just that you've not justified your position. Edit: that position being that the supernatural is required.

You might want to engage someone who is a little more sophisticated than myself, such as MPhil. Then again, as he and others have already ruined your argument, you'll probably be better off continuing to ignore them. Cheers! :-)

66. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178871 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:15 am

Mitchell Gilks: In which case you are immune to rational discourse, and the best way to sway you is to make you feel better about a natural answer emotionally. Something I don't think many people on here are up to.

Personally, I wouldn't know where to begin. How do you replace the warm and fuzzies of Baby Jesus^TM with the warm and fuzzies of scientific explanations?

67. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178867 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 7:06 am

Artful, how does something non-physical/immaterial interact with the physical/material? Wouldn't such interaction be subject to scientific inquiry? Why has no such interaction been observed?
If there is no interaction, then how do we know about it (EDIT: the non-physical)? Can't we simply ignore it?

68. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178858 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 6:55 am

Artful_Dodger: "CS Lewis's Dangerous Idea" by Victor Reppert

From http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/reppert.html

"Reppert argues that the Problem of Reason is for naturalists comparable to the Problem of Evil for Theists (128). I agree in one respect: there are facts that need explaining here, and if naturalism has difficulty explaining them, then that difficulty is comparable in kind to the difficulty Theism has in explaining Evil. But I do not believe the difficulty is remotely the same in degree.

First, Naturalism's solutions to the problems Reppert proposes are all heavily backed by empirical findings from the sciences. Theism has absolutely no empirical evidence backing its solutions to the Problem of Evilâ€"they are all ad hoc, because God isn't around for us to ask him questions or observe his behavior."

69. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178832 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:50 am

Thanks epeeist. It was really an off the cuff response. I realise I have sitting near me "Origins of Virtue" which I assume has something to say on the matter too :-) MPhil has pointed me at Mackie's "Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong", Churchland's "A Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of Mind and the Structure of Science" and Dennett's "Consciousness Explained".

Given he has pointed me at a whole stack of other stuff as well it may take me a while to get around to these, but they look to be a starter.
After typing that quick answer, I realise I am half way through "consciousness explained" and have "The origins of virtue" sitting right nearby. I was really wondering what Arty's response was going to be, whether he was going to try the "you can't explain it, therefore Yahweh!" response.

Thanks again, though I think you added a book to my list :-)

70. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178826 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:36 am

Just curous, txpiper. If christ and anti-christ touch, do they anihilate each other?
And what form does the resulting energy take, as obviously high energy photons would not be exotic enough?

71. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178814 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:20 am

gommo: Sometimes I really wish there was a GOD, as I'm sure he'd take great pleasure in sending these fucktards to hell!!

Unfortunately, if it was this guy's god, the father would be rewarded.

72. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178813 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:17 am

Artful_Dodger: As I said before, it is you lot who are side-stepping my questions. No one has come up with anything like a credible account of how reason and morality can be shown to have a natualistic origin.

Ok, my straight out answer, just so you don't keep trotting out that tired old response - "I don't know". That isn't to say that the supernatural is a probability, as there is no evidence to support that assertion at present. EDIT: If anyone knows of some good papers, I'd be interested in reading it. Thanks
double edit: Unless it is simply the research showing moral behaviour in other species etc.

Think back to people a hundred or two hundered years ago, before atomic theory. Ask the question "Why is the Sun hot/bright?".
we have Mr "God makes the sun shine", and Mr "I don't know".
Now, in the light of current scientific knowledge, who was less "wrong".

73. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178809 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 5:11 am

Quetz: Ironically, I recently wrote a blog post on this very subject. This discussion is an excellent example.

I thought you wrote the blog in response to this actually :-)

74. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178795 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 4:28 am

Artful_Dodger: Thank you for your consideration riandouglas. "Mankind cannot bear too much reality".

Considering the effort you go to to avoid answering questions in a straighforward manner, or avoid answering them all together, I assume you are unable to cope with "reality".

75. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178783 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 3:19 am

scooternyc: I'm almost shocked at his antediluvian posts regarding the existence of god; I thought everyone already knew that god didn't exist, that we were merely just waiting for the religious to catch up.

Shh, we don't want to spring the full surprise all at once. A little bit at a time :-)

76. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178738 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 1:33 am

Mitchell Gilks: Seriously? What world do you live in were things are assumed true until proven false? That is not this one.

Don't be too hard on Artful. Earlier he seemed to have difficulty understanding what reasoning was :-)

Mitchell Gilks: Cats are omnipotent entities hiding their true potential. Are you going to assume this is true until you can disprove it?

I knew it! Mine always seemed a little to satisfied with himself - a little too sure. Now that the truth is out, how can we use this information? :-)

77. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178729 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 1:07 am

epeeist: Not only are you presupposing a god (which makes your argument circular), but a particular god.

And I thought Artful was simply trying to convince us of the possibility of a god, prior to discussing which words if any, were it's. Shame on me!

78. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178723 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 1:00 am

DalaiDrivel: Jesus Christ.

Metaphorical :-)

79. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178720 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:57 am

Artful_Dodger: Epeeist, there is nothing metaphorical about the fall, except (possibly) the images, the word pictures, that were used to describe it. The tree and the fruit and the talking serpent may not be literal, but the all too real narratives that they are intended to illustrate:

So, you're admitting that you don't have a method to separate the literal from the metaphorical, regardless of your protestations to the contrary earlier.
Thanks :-)

80. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178718 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:52 am

Artful_Dodger: Epeeist, there is nothing metaphorical about the fall, except (possibly) the images, the word pictures, that were used to describe it. The tree and the fruit and the talking serpent may not be literal, but the all too real narratives that they are intended to illustrate: of defiance against God, of human beings setting themselves up as gods, of human self-deification leading to human destruction (with implications for the created order of which humans (men and women equally) had been made the custodians, are absolutely literal. The evidence of them lies all aroound us everywhere we look.

Again, you're presupposing a god. Why?
I think a long struggle into sentience and civility (or at least, what passes for it around here) describes humanity well. Even better for me, I have evidence to back up my assertion - evolution and common descent :-)
Your evidence for the fall, which would include evidence for the god who caused the fall, would be what?

81. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178712 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:37 am

epeeist: No they are all myths.

Whoops, sorry. Zeus and Thor are myths, Yahweh is real.

That one trips me up all the time. I keep forgetting the reasoning behind Thor and Zues being myth, and Yahweh being real. I'm so confused. Can you help me out with that Artful?

82. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178710 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:34 am

epeeist: Given that it is, then the whole story of Jesus is an irrelevance since there was no literal fall only a metaphorical one.

In that case I wont bother to mention that the story of Jesus is also heavily metaphorical, if not entirely.

83. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178704 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:22 am

Artful_Dodger: But while you discount the possibility of God existing let alone speaking there is hardly much point in my arguing that he has spoken through one text rather than another. Let me know when you change your mind about the former and we can start discussing the latter.

Can you present any argument or evidence for the existence of this god of yours? Before I entertain the existence of your god as a probability, you'll have to show that to be the case.
We can get down to arguing about texts after that.

EDIT:

epeeist: No he isn't, he is presupposing his "God" (note the capital G) and at the same time implicitly denying the existence of other gods.

I did note that, but isn't the term "god" a generic term and not a proper name?
Yahweh, Zeus, Thor are all gods, right?

84. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #178697 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:04 am

psaturn: Dear Professor Hawkins, you are right that Darwin did not propose Eugenics but rather his family:
It's Professor Dawkins. And Darwin spoke out against Eugenics in "Descent of man":
"The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil."

psaturn: [quote]Built into the idea of natural selection is a competition between the strong and the weak, between the fit and the unfit. The eugenicists believed that this mechanism was thwarted in the human race by charity, by people and churches who fed the poor and the weak so that they survived, thrived, and reproduced. [/quote]

I'm not really sure what the point of your post is.
"Fit" or "strong" in darwinian terms is that which survives to have more offspring.
Eugenics is akin to "artificial selection", like breeding dogs or horses, or the way in which the spartans operated. Darwinian natural selection has no guiding force, no "plan".

85. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178695 by riandouglas on May 12, 2008 at 12:02 am

Artful_Dodger: There is no "general decision procedure", only a willingness to take seriously the possibility that God could have used the medium of "the word" to make Himself known to us via the operation of reason in engaging with this "word", and also awareness of the rich panoply of literary devices available to the writers whom he inspired so to make himself known. Without this willingness on your part, nothing I could say about individual instances, no "hermeneutic" would cut any ice with you.

You're presupposing the existence of the Christian god Yahweh. Why would you do that?

Artful_Dodger: I know that you lay into me with questions like "why this sacred text and not any of the others?". Let's first establish the willingness to take seriously the possibility of God speaking through "words".

Ah, you're simply presupposing a god. It's better than going all the way to Yahweh & Jesus, but it still needs justification.

Artful_Dodger: After that there will be plety to say about the respective merits of one text as opposed to another. But that's another issue. If you have already ruled out the possibility of God existing, let alone "speaking", there's hardly much point in talking about which text He has spoken through, and how!

How about we settle the issue of the existence of a supernatural entity before we start discussing which words if any might belong to it?
What can you offer to support the existence of this entity?

86. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178688 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 11:37 pm

Brian English: You believe wrongly then. :)

I believe that would not be a first for Artful.

epeeist: No you didn't. You gave one particular instance.

What you didn't provide was the general decision procedure. Nor did you tell us who gives you the authority to determine that something which is supposedly the direct or indirect word of your god is a metaphor.

But he did, honest:
1) The parts that look a bit metaphory are obviously metaphor, even if they appear that way to us simply because we know more, or morality has changed.
2) The parts which we can still get away with calling literal are of course to be taken literally, for all eternity, or at least until they start looking a bit like metaphor, in which case see 1 above.

87. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178676 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Cartomancer: Last time I checked we had fairly good evidence that nature exists...

Comedy gold. Thank you Cartomancer :-)

88. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178670 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 9:55 pm

utelme: It's difficult to think clearly when you hear of atrocities like these being committed and especially when it seems that their religio/cultural system seems to approve and encourage this type of barbaric behaviour.

Not to belittle anyone's emotions on this issue, but typing on an internet forum is not the first thing on my mind if I'm in a rage. Swearing, ranting etc, sure, even wanting to break physical things. Internet forums are a poor mechanism for actual venting, in my opinion.
If I'm not thinking clearly, I don't type so well. Then again, I don't type so well regardless.

utelme: I doubt that many would want to put themselves in the position of pressing that "final solution' button and wipe out an entire country but I can understand their venting their rage. We all say silly things in the heat of the moment.

This is not real life. There is no pressure here for a "knee jerk" reaction, as there could be in a face to face conversation.
Stating that this is disgusting, that the father is mentally damaged, that a culture which supports or turns a blind eye to this behaviour is barbaric, are to my mind completely expected. Calling for and supporting carpark-ification of the middle east is another thing entirely, in my opinion.
I don't feel the need to type in the "heat of the moment". I prefer to think about what I'm writing, so as to get my opinion and point across.

Any evidence to the contrary, mined from my previous posts will be summarily ignored :-)

EDIT:

utelme: I can only hope that those in charge never resort to that solution.

You'd hope that they'd think about their response before acting, right? :-)

89. On Fitna, the Movie

Comment #178662 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 9:01 pm

Islamic states and the UN General Secretary have all condemned the movie as anti-Islamic.

To be impartial, shouldn't they also comdemn Christianity, Judaism, etc, as they're also "anti-islamic"?

90. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178658 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 8:54 pm

txpiper: To put it in perspective:

Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species â€" you are here

Which are all human designated classifications. What is your point here?

txpiper: Don't forget, I quoted them, and the quote represents the known statistical realities about mutations.

You quoted them out of context. They do not support your position.

txpiper: Of course they did. It was an admirable parade, but I'm surprised that they still have to include sickle cell anemia as one of the lead floats. You'd think with 18,000 papers a year being published that they'd have something a little more impressive by now so they could move that to the B list.

It's widely known, easy to explain and a very good example of beneficial mutation in the context of an environment. Why move it to the 'B' list.

txpiper, I think you said earlier you accept "microevolution". The problem for you is that there is no separate mechanism/process for macro evolution vs micro evolution. It is all "evolution".
The macro/micro distinction is, as far as I can tell, a description of the effect, and nothing to do with the cause.

Ready to say sedimentation doesn't support your flood hypothesis, or are you going to cling to that in the face of evidence as well?

91. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #178326 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 8:10 am

epeeist: The one that is currently making me angry is the special pleading that is occurring on another site that I am contributing to. Within two posts we were at the "argumentum ad hitlerum", Hitler was an atheist therefore all his crimes are down to atheism. Conversely when you present the sacking of Beziers in the Albigensian crusade the demand is that you show exact causality for it being a religious crime.

A personal favourite is "...in your worldview, there is no objective basis to logic and morals, so I can simply ignore you!"

92. Discussion between Richard Dawkins and Paula Kirby

Comment #178325 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 8:08 am

eppeist: While similar practices are made by non-theists there doesn't seem to be the immediate recourse to the vicious tactics that theists employ.

epeeist: While similar practices are made by non-theists there doesn't seem to be the immediate recourse to the vicious tactics that theists employ.

I'm curious as to whether that is not exactly how our "side" appears to the "opposition"?
I don't think it is, and I don't think I think that simply because I feel like I'm "one of us". Basically, is there some objective method of comparing arguments to show that one is tragically flawed?
I assume there is ( I think I can hear calls of "rational argument" and "logic"), but the problem would seem to be that there is disagreement concerning that.

Maybe I'm simply tired, and shouldn't be at a keyboard :-)

93. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #178308 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 6:26 am

MPhil: Just wanted to note that quite some knowledge of modal logic (possible worlds semantics) to understand and critique the modal ontological argument by Plantinga.

Anyway - Mackie debunks it in "The Miracle of Theism"

Excellent, I don't have to buy another book! I think this is the first comment of yours which hasn't caused me to run off to Amazon :-)

94. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #178280 by riandouglas on May 11, 2008 at 4:34 am

MPhil: It takes only a good debater to take Craig down - if you were to refute all his arguments from a defensive position, you would need far too much time to make clear the relations between all the single flaws and how they make his position untenable.

That's the thing exactly. If debate was really about getting to the truth, and WLC was right, then he'd never lose. As a corollary, if he was wrong, he'd never win. Debate is about debate.

MPhil: This was done brilliantly by Eddie Tabash. Just search google-video for Craig Tabash... Craig doesn't stand a chance.

I did enjoy that debate. It seems, against an "academic", WLC does well (though I thought Vic Stenger did well). Against someone practiced in debate, and prepared for WLC's arguments and tactics, he does not fare so well.

MPhil: Hell, I would take on Plantinga - his arguments are actually quite disgraceful... that is except his ontological argument, which is quite beautiful - but useless since it doesn't manage to demonstrate what it sets out to demonstrate.

Is there anything I can do to help bring that debate about? :-)

Will have to look up that argument now - I swear Mike, your sole purpose on this forum is to cause myself and others to learn stuff :-)

95. Research Volunteers Needed

Comment #178194 by riandouglas on May 10, 2008 at 8:07 pm

jeffro2, I can't speak for Prof. Dawkins (nor would I want to).
Here is my opinion:
- Debate is a skill which is improved with practice.
- WLC is a professional debater, with many years of experience.
- Adversarial debate is a poor way to determine the truth.

96. $271 Million for Research on Stem Cells in California

Comment #178192 by riandouglas on May 10, 2008 at 7:55 pm

Dr. Benway: The frozen embryos in IVF clinics are destroyed when they're not implanted. Strangely, no one cries.

Baby Jesus cries!
It is interesting that that point doesn't seem to enter the debate, even as an after thought "...abortion is murder. Oh, and destroying IVF embryo's is murder too."
Something to do with weight of numbers, or selective ignorance?

97. Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal

Comment #177926 by riandouglas on May 10, 2008 at 12:56 am

fides_et_ratio: Granted it's not especially funny, but it is sufficiently ludicrous to reveal its true nature.

My thoughts exactly. Wait, we are talking about christianity and catholocism, right?

98. Atheists are nice people who will roast in hell, says Cardinal

Comment #177918 by riandouglas on May 10, 2008 at 12:40 am

Spinoza: Hell would be an afterlife full of these assholes.

Isn't that (his) heaven?
Hell is where the more interesting people seem to end up.

99. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177888 by riandouglas on May 9, 2008 at 10:39 pm

Diacanu:
Oh, heck no, God WANTS us to have tumors.

It's his divine plan.

No, no, no, it's all because of the fall.
Wait, that was all part of Yahweh's plan wasn't it?
What an asshole!

Diacanu: And we can't call God an asshole for this, because who are we to judge God?

Yahweh is all good by definition.
Being an asshole is not good, therefore Yahweh can't be an asshole.
Unless he is an asshole, in which case being an asshole is good, at least if you happen to be Yahweh, who is an asshole.

100. Losing Our Spines to Save Our Necks

Comment #177882 by riandouglas on May 9, 2008 at 10:12 pm

wootmind: In India british soldiers once cut the 50 thousand fabric weavers hands of indian people. Is it barbaric or civilized?

The question seemed to be about western foreign policy suppression of women, slavery and child-rape in Islam. As usual, you simply wrote an unrelated nonsense reply.

clearter: If you judge any divine religion without reading it whole, what you say is only twisting, distorting, spreading and smearing which fits in evolution theory very much.

So more than one religion is divine? What about the contradictory claims? The claims of "only this one is correct".
The theory of evolution has nothing to say regarding religion. As I'm sure you've been told on numerous occasions, evolution is a model to explain the process of change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next.