151. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105433 by TonyA on December 31, 2007 at 2:35 pm

evilgenius says:

I am not an idiot and I am certainly capable of understanding physics.

But he first said:

If you assume even a .5 second delay per floor, it would have taken a lot longer than 10 seconds for the buildings to collapse.

I'm sorry, evilgenius, you can't have it both ways.

152. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #105038 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 12:41 pm

However you must consider that we can achieve concentrations a billion times greater in a flask,"

But then you're not performing the same experiment.

Ferinstance the original replicator didn't have legs to walk to the next puddle. How did it then 'eat up' all the other replicators?

Maybe it waited until it could walk over, and then it ate it. Maybe the other replicators managed to cause their own early extinction. Nobody says life isn't on the knife edge, in specific cases.

As you may remember, my personal opinion is that there probably weren't other puddles with different kinds of replicators. I feel, without evidence, I admit, that the likelihood of one abiogenesis is small enough to not expect two different results in the same neighborhood.

Note that one difference between science and religion is that science is still searching for the answer, while the religions never looked for it.

153. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #105035 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 12:25 pm

First, let me say that I truly enjoyed this video. I'm looking forward to more. I'm sure most of us wish we could have been sitting in the fifth chair adding our own elements to this conversation.

evilgenius,

The first thing that occurs to me is that you are relatively new to the world of skepticism. I think many of us experienced a similar, shall I say, overreaction to the awakening feeling of skepticism. So while I encourage your continued efforts, I still have to take your post at face value.

Sorry TonyA but I have to disagree and yes I do understand the difference between kinetic and potential energies.

If you do, then you haven't tried to utilize what you understand. Even Bin Laden says he expected the top floors to fall. Once that happened, by whatever means, the result was unavoidable. The physics are quite simple, the effect is quite obvious and we all saw it happen.

I just find it so strange that people miss the fact that the buildings were designed the way they were to not fall due to fire. You guys seem to be missing the idea that the internal support structures fell and if the pancake theory was even remotely plausible, these internal columns would have remained standing as the the floors came down as well.

The idea that internal support structures would remain standing is absurd. If you know anything about engineering, you know that all design decisions are compromises between various factors such as cost, schedule and objective. In every case, every feature falls short of the ideal, but instead attempts to hit the compromise. Firemen's suits are designed to keep a fireman from burning to death, yet it still happens. The issue isn't just temperature, it's a complicated function of temperature, time and degradation of the protection. Certainly, the central vertical columns were not designed to be able to remain free standing while an enormous building fell on top of it.

As I have never stated emphatically that it was all government that did this, I can only give you an opinion as to why they would have helped. As I said,I personally feel that we would not have been a willing audience to go after Bin Laden without that event. Then you do not really need to prove Iraq had WMD to go there because you already had the mindset that everyone was out to get us and we needed to take action. Do I believe that the government as a whole orchestrated 9/11, I would have to say no.

This is weak. When things happen, other things are affected. Regardless of the cause of 9/11, this claim stands with equal weight. Thus it isn't informative.

However, there was more to the buildings collapse than the fire and there are many scientists who would agree to that.

Who doesn't agree to this? There were obvious structural damages, not just to a facade, but to the external, supporting structure of the buildings, and probably some damage to the magical internal columns.

Bin Laden would of course claim responsibility for the attacks as it helps a lot of causes for him and it was interesting that several members of his family were in the US at the time.

Again, things happen. You cannot deduce causation based on who benefits from it. You can arouse your suspicions, if you like, but ultimately it's evidence that makes the case. Is every insurance beneficiary a crook in your eyes?

But please do not assume that I am an idiot on science. I am a nuclear engineer and have studied physics for many years, and no building would collapse straight down like that at free fall speeds without help.

It's hard to respond to the obvious conflict resulting from these claims. I'll simply suggest that there are engineers who aren't able to use their skills effectively in certain situations.

I guess you are trying to say that the floors that were attached to the central support columns gave no resistance to falling and immediately gave way all the way down. I say that will not happen. If you assume even a .5 second delay per floor, it would have taken a lot longer than 10 seconds for the buildings to collapse.

Okay, I call total BS on your claims to have any reasonable abilities in dynamics. Constant delay per floor!?? Wow! Dynamic systems do not work like this. Did you see the tail of the airplane delay itself as the forward parts of the airplane were crushed into the building? The kinetic energy, caused by the falling of the top part of the building, very greatly exceeded the energy required to crush the floor below. It couldn't have paused. It's true that the velocity was slightly decreased as the kinetic energy was slightly consumed by crushing each floor, but the reduction of kinetic energy was dwarfed by the additional conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy that occurred by falling down another floor.

Why do you all also forget the testimony of those that heard the explosions? The evidence is overwhelming and yet no one wants to hear it because one or 2 people try to tell you it happened a certain way or that the government would never do that. I think that is a backward view.

I didn't forget anything. It's not surprising to me that high pressure acoustic effects were occurring as the towers fell.

This 9/11 conspiracy effort falls short of convincing because it reminds me of the common traits I see with theism in general:
- The appeal to obviousness, credulity.
- The assertion that we don't understand the points being made.
- The carefully weaved, yet weak motivational narrative.
- The emotional commitment.
- The exaggerated claims of agreement by a minority of experts.
- The exaggerated claims of precise or specific knowledge.

Let's see what the response is. Perhaps more parallels will surface.

154. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #105016 by TonyA on December 30, 2007 at 10:43 am

I thought we already covered this.

Sorry, I missed it.

I'd be willing to believe that the Sun hadn't "really moved around in the sky," ... it was probably some sort of an illusion (that's my guess).

So you admit that this miracle might have occurred only within the minds of the observers, for whatever reason. That's hardly an impressive act for an omnipotent being, even if it were true.

All, however, walked away convicted of their veracity.

Even here in Texas, I have to be mindful of the crowd I'm in before I boldly call BS on my god-toxicated neighbors and claim that I'm the only one who didn't see the miracle, lest they think I'm the devil. No believer wants to admit that God isn't talking to them. How many miracles have you actually seen? How many times have you had a rational conversation with God? None, probably, yet you still claim you know who God is and what he wants.

Why can't one God be behind all miracles?

Why can't one Giant Phallus be behind all miracles?

If you want to build belief systems on such flimsy foundation as "Why can't this ..." or "Why can't that ...", then you've taken away the guidance of reality and you have volunteered to credulously go wherever you wish to, evidence be damned. This is close to the state of the religious world as I see it. It is filled with mystics, seers, charlatans, hucksters and devout faithheads who have all willfully decided to go where no logical thought has gone before.

... the Church gives credence to very few such claims.

They shouldn't give credence to any such claims.

Part of the problem is the undue reverence of the church's supposed wisdom. Why accept the words of fully human and fully fallible people so willfully and uncritically? Those people have such an absurdly high commitment to telling a corroborating story that you should have a higher than normal skepticism. They are known to have bent the facts to fit the story since, and perhaps before, the inception of their religion itself. Please, please view your religion as critically as you view all else in the world, especially other religions.

Does your God want you to be credulous and ignorant? Why can't you imagine a creator that has never interfered in any way? I can. A deist god cannot be ruled out and it fits all known evidence very much better than your theist god does. I can imagine a deist god who cries in anguish when he sees the evil done in the name of the bogus religions, yours included.

...You see a car in the driveway, the mail's been picked up and there is a light shining out of a second story window... Someone's probably home.

Well, here is one of the problems. If this is all the evidence you need, you're always going to find enough to suit you! My home fits this description nearly always, whether anybody is home or not. My lights even turn off and on by themselves, without ghostly influence!

155. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104878 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 9:35 pm

... are reasoned ... after one accepts the premises of Christianity in faith.

So if I suspend my critical thinking skills, my innate morality, and my belief in reality, then I can accept that God does reasonable things?

Isn't this just the tired appeal of, 'God works in mysterious ways?'

156. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104876 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 9:29 pm

I look at Fatima as God's display of power; and ensuring 70,000 people of his presence, giving them awe and joy.

Of course you see it that way. You are living in dreamy-land.

So you have 70,000 people, who happened to be standing around waiting for a miracle. While waiting in the rain, the clouds cleared and they began staring at the Sun and claimed it began dancing and changing colors. How can you seriously believe the Sun really moved around in the sky? Do you understand how absurd it is that people can think this way in modern times? Are you absurdly credulous about other things in your life, besides reports of miracles from wishful, self-proclaimed supernaturalists? What happened to all the other people on that half of the planet? Nobody else saw this? Did they have their own Sun in Portugal?

157. THE FOUR HORSEMEN - Available Now on DVD!

Comment #104874 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 9:06 pm

Secondly, the laws of physics would have to be violated to assume that the buildings could fall at free fall speeds which is what they did. You would have to assume that the lower floors were not present or that they gave absolutely no resistance to falling which is absurd!

Your assertion suggests to me that you lack an understanding of the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy, among other things. You seem to be running the scientific process backwards.

158. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #104867 by TonyA on December 29, 2007 at 7:42 pm

However if you put all the building blocks of RNA in a flask and keep them under conditions of the early life world - you don't get RNA.

Not in a billion years.

I guess I should remind you that a flask is much smaller than Earth. Over the entire Earth, you would have had billions of experiments running simultaneously, each (or perhaps just most) with slightly different conditions. While I can't assert the specific multiplier, it's obviously going to improve the odds vs. a flask with only one cocktail in it.

159. The Pagan Christ

Comment #104274 by TonyA on December 28, 2007 at 8:55 am

I object. Science isn't what leads many atheists away from religion.

Of course, what I said is that thinking scientifically leads many to atheism. Many people think scientifically without realizing it. They ask for proof, they evaluate sources, they reconcile what they think with what they see, etc. Perhaps it was sloppy to use a technical term for a more human trait, perhaps it's more reasonably called critical thinking. My background has been all science, all the time. I'm sometimes erroneously inclined to think everything that makes sense has a basis in science.

160. The Pagan Christ

Comment #104269 by TonyA on December 28, 2007 at 8:50 am

krisking

Show me your 100% guaranteed proof that God does not exist. Even Dawkins dare not do that.

You're right. While science has shown above 99% that no interventionist gods exist, it perhaps never will reach 100% confidence that no pre-universe gods existed.

On the other hand, show me any proof that any god does exist. Even 1%? Anything? Anything at all? Hello? Is anybody there? I didn't think so...

161. The Pagan Christ

Comment #104266 by TonyA on December 28, 2007 at 8:40 am

krisking

... you begin from the point of view that atheism is the truth.....and seek to justify it by picking holes in anything anyone says to you!

Well, you've got your irony gun set on 'stun.'

Atheism is the initial condition of a person who knows nothing. A good plan is for that person who knows nothing to begin learning things. A better plan is for that person to learn things that are demonstrably true. The number of possibly untrue beliefs is so huge that it is irresponsible to commit oneself to any belief system without first having learned how to avoid self-deception.

For many people, atheism is a result of thinking scientifically.

- Science answers hard questions about the real world, even as the world changes, as people and societies change and as diseases mutate.

- Science includes a facility by which you can shoot down any answers that you discover are wrong.

- Discoveries of science are not creations of the mind, they are descriptions of apparently discovered reality.

- Science goes wherever the universe takes it. Science does not put the cart before the horse.

- The goal of science is to follow every road and understand everything we are able to discover, even if it upends all of our current knowledge.

Religion, among other things, is the reverse of each of those things.

162. The Pagan Christ

Comment #104249 by TonyA on December 28, 2007 at 7:52 am

krisking

Why would anyone have made it up? It's not like someone sat down and wrote it on one occasion. If some-one had made it up surely they would have done a better job of ironing out inconsistencies.

Where did I say it was made up by someone? I think it's pretty obvious that the rumors, ideas and wishes swirled around in the minds of believers for nearly a century. After a few generations of passed-down credibility enhancement, they decided to write their beliefs into texts that would eventually fool countless good people and bad people alike.

Some Christians feel much the same way about, say Mormonism, as I do about Christianity. If you are one who does, please contemplate the problem of helping a Mormon to realize his delusion.

While I don't think it was a malicious deception, I do think people, to this very day, make outlandish claims about things they know nothing about. We have a continuous flow of people who don't know the difference between a law and a natural law, between a theory and a hypothesis, between a fact and an observation, or between a reality and a belief. Somehow, in my opinion, believers feel authorized, perhaps by virtue of the smugness of feeling superior to non-theists, to make outright lies on behalf of the "good word" whenever they feel it is necessary. To understand this point, consider the amount of cognitive dissonance it would take to allow young-Earth-creationists to put so much effort into their childish and moronic fantasies. Then, after all that, they lie about their results. Surely, they know their beliefs are not true in the real-world, yet somehow they manage to reach a level of, perhaps self-narcosis?, that blinds them of the very world they live in.

163. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104103 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 10:15 pm

epeeist:

Of course you would only want to quote Popper pre-war. You wouldn't want anyone to read this quotation

"I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. ...

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological."
(Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind, Dialectica 32:339-355, 1978)

We are truly blessed lucky to have somebody around who can dig up something like this.

164. The Pagan Christ

Comment #104096 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 9:59 pm

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Clever, but a predictable inclusion for any successful, man-made deceit system.

Where, I wonder, would the bible be different if there was no god...I can't figure it out...It's 100.00% consistent with the possibility that it isn't true.

165. Wisdom From The Founding Rationalists

Comment #104092 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 9:49 pm

... the most likely vacancies will be for the seats currently occupied by the more secular justices. Not much of a gain, ...

Yet it would provide years of insurance against additional theocratic judges.

166. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #104091 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 9:42 pm

Ptolemy's geocentric theory also was imperfect, and it too explained things pretty well. What does that prove?

It proves that science searches for the truth, and even when it finds itself off course, science endeavors to fix the situation, even if it must upend everything. Sadly, religious zealots do not endeavor to improve the truthfulness of their religions. They are stuck with their dogmas, trapped in a comical embarrassment of ridiculousness.

The other thing it proves is that falsification has the power to destroy a false theory. Ptolemy's geocentric theory was falsified when scientific advances came along and revealed positive evidence that disproved it.

Evolutionary theory has endured tremendous advancements in biological knowledge (DNA for one), yet we still haven't found positive evidence that disproves it. You can claim that (ever shrinking) holes in the fossil record or the unknown cause of abiogenesis disproves the theory of evolution, but they don't. Millions of possible ways of falsifying evolutionary theory exist. None have yet been found. Notwithstanding the "immaculate settling" after God drowned nearly every living thing, human skeletons and dinosaur skeletons never seem to coexist.

Were religion to be held to the same standard, it would be a great thing for theists and rational people alike. Even if religion remained alive as a theory, by following the rules of science, religion would necessarily adapt (some might say retreat) to be compatible with good science. That could only be a good thing. At least then science could legitimately push religion out of the spaces where is has no bearing.

Previously, I believed that religion would more quickly crumble if it staunchly held to its absurdly childish position of non-conformance with reality. However, it has become clear that there is no limit to the cognitive dissonance tolerated by believers. So I wish for the dissonance to go away by putting science and religion into the same rational framework, even if religion retreats to things entirely outside our own universe (and therefore outside of our concern).

167. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #103966 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 11:49 am

You guys missed it...

The fact that you (Tony and Steve) thought it was about the watchmakers shows me that you did not understand it.

No. I claimed your arguments are tired and old, but not unexpected or unwelcome. I encouraged you to open up a little to see it.

My analogy was about "ability" not complexity. The universe is UNABLE to create itself, etc.

I'll agree I missed the point if you can show that this idea of your is somehow new. I'm not sure where "nothing comes from nothing" was first posited, but it's no great revelation to anybody I've ever talked to. It's already been shown to be either meaningless in one interpretation, or wrong, in the other.

168. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #103924 by TonyA on December 27, 2007 at 10:45 am

BJohn said:

I hope it will help me further explain the elements of the argument that I think you (and many others) don't see yet.

Hi again. As I've said before, we do understand what your argument is. You are trapped in a fallacy you cannot yet see. You need to understand the criticisms before you can recognize this. Earlier, I trivially demonstrated one obvious problem with your logic, presumably to your own satisfaction. Use that experience to recognize that your unassailable argument is anything but. Consider the fair criticisms that your idea receives as an honest attempt to help you see where the argument's holes are.

169. The Pagan Christ

Comment #103796 by TonyA on December 26, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Anybody else find the humorous contradiction between the dramatic claim "Christianity is struggling today" and the 2.1 billion figure? The largest religion in the world doesn't exactly say "struggling" now does it? Just a thought.

If there were a god and if he revealed himself to his creation and then after 2000 years, only 1/3 of the people on his created world even partly believed in him, then I'd say he is definitely struggling as a communicator. Of course, if he exists, he would have to be inept for so many reasons.

170. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #103628 by TonyA on December 26, 2007 at 10:28 am

1. Evolution does not disprove God. God created evolution and he created man through it. There's a quick harmonization.

By "harmonization," I assume you mean willful delusion. When you bend the rules of sanity to save your precious thought system, don't forget that the rest of us can easily see the mental distortions you are willing to accumulate.

2. It is not irrelevant that a Church of a billion Christians does not believe evolution is opposed to God. I don't understand why you think it is.

Whatever reality is, it is not a popularity contest. Many Christians believe that a billion Muslims could be wrong.

3. I don't think you understood my last point. I was asking how we could prove that there is only the laws of nature. Especially if the only means of discovery we allow are those which discover only laws of nature.

His answer suggests he understands the question. You manufacture, out of nothing at all, a distinctly separate non-reality simply because the "real" reality doesn't agree with your wishes. As the gaps of knowledge shrink, you've "created" a new gap out of the bounds of science, without any evidence at all, in an attempt to run away from the answers.

171. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #103088 by TonyA on December 24, 2007 at 9:46 am

dsouzaphile said:

... there is a realm of the supernatural both angels and demons

Everyone who believes this to be true was at some time told that it is true. However, it has never been independently observed or discovered to be true. Despite this rather critical fact, I'm sure you've not hesitated to tell people who trust you that it is true, thus doing your part to bring more innocent people to the dim world of self-imposed ignorance. Without the abuse of the cycle of trust, this kind of faulty thinking would probably go away by itself, due to lack of evidence, if nothing else.

So why do you suppose that claims like yours, regardless of the underlying religion, are always impervious to critical inspection?

Try to imagine a false religion. Perhaps you are already aware of one. If you think about it for a little while, you will recognize why a false religion will invariably contain a feature which makes it impossible to prove the religion is false. This feature ensures that reliable, factual proof of the religion's truths is nowhere to be found. The only evidence offered by believers of false religions tends to be "available" only after committing oneself to the false religion, usually by a willful suspension of one's natural ability think critically. It is a telling observation that religions, both false and falser, exhibit this feature.

I think it's safe to say that most people without religious faith cannot figure out why your particular religion deserves any additional credence above all of the various other false religions.

You are essentially asking us to suspend the mechanisms by which we prevent our minds from being infected by false religions and circular logic. If I were to do that, I'd be susceptible to whatever religion hit my mind first. This is true because I have never heard of a way to determine that your religion is any more factual than any of the others.

So I think you shouldn't expect much success converting atheists to your religion. However, your contributions can be used to help educate us about the minds of theists and about what mental capabilities remain active in the mind of a theist. Perhaps we can learn from each other. But you cannot expect anybody, who has learned how wonderful it is, to simply turn off their critical thinking ability. I most certainly will not.

172. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #102502 by TonyA on December 23, 2007 at 3:28 am

dsouzaphile:

Why do you guys look at the bible in a way that you would never dream of doing to another historical document?

Probably because Bible believers won't admit that The Bible contains not a single line of any god wisdom in it, and that makes it peculiar enough to treat it differently.

173. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #102390 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 3:10 pm

You may be right, but I think you'd want archaeologists and historical researchers. In my experience, lawyers are skilled at taking flimsy or perhaps non-existent data and making unreasonable claims about it.

174. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #102293 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 8:52 am

Sorry, I am not impressed by Strobel.

... who applied his considerable journalistic and legal talent to the evidence for Christianity

Are you serious? We couldn't find a baker or a candlestick maker to apply his considerable talents to the problem?

175. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #102285 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 8:41 am

Christ died for you to live...

I'm so tired of hearing this crap.

Millions of people have died so that we could live more rewarding lives. Most of these people had done more to help humanity than Christ. On top of that, according to your myths, Christ isn't even dead! Some sacrifice that was!

176. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102278 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 8:31 am

I would not be surprised if most life in the solar system was extraterrestrial.

I'm excited by the possibility, but until we know, I'm not going to believe it on faith. So far, and I'd be among the happiest to learn otherwise, we seem to be alone. I put the odds at 100.0000% that life exists somewhere else, but I have no good way to know if we have life elsewhere in our solar system.

177. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102251 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 7:37 am

Steve,

It's a statistical guess. The key part is "any particular planet." Based on what we see in our system, most planets are not suitable for life. I have no ideas about the likelihoods on suitable planets, except to say that if the likelihoods are small then you shouldn't expect to see it twice on the same planet.

178. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102244 by TonyA on December 22, 2007 at 6:58 am

rainbow said:

We are being asked that life arose on Earth as a result of some universal lottery - with very, very lousy odds.

I fully agree with you that life arising on any particular planet had very, very lousy odds. But the odds are very, very much improved that life could happen on the lottery winning planet, wherever that was, on which life might eventually grow up to wonder, "why this particular planet?"

You seem to expect that life needs to have arisen by chance at least twice on the same planet. That's an absurd expectation, if the likelihoods are very, very small.

179. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #102019 by TonyA on December 21, 2007 at 12:00 pm

rainbow says:

Yet we find ALL life on Earth using the same chemistry. Even down to the chirality of the molecules.
That points to a single origin of life.

One occurence in the entire lifetime of the Earth represents an extremely unlikely event.

Your thinking is all wrong here.

Suppose I claim that throughout the Earth, on average, somebody wins a lottery every single day. A good conclusion is that there are different lottery winners, winning different lotteries, all around the world. However, if you go to a particular lottery winner's house, you should not be surprised if he's only won one particular lottery one time and his entire family spends the same kind of money.

180. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #101995 by TonyA on December 21, 2007 at 11:08 am

re: Comment #101693 by BJohn on December 20, 2007 at 7:05 pm

People seem always to accuse the "religious guy" of making assertions without offering any support. Tony and Steve, re-read your posts--did you guys offer any reasons for your statements? But at least Steve made an appeal to the authority of what "quantum mechanics says."

I was trying to be careful when I wrote it and I've re-read it again to be sure.

The only unsupported assertions I made were identical to your own. Everything else was properly written as a supposition or conditional. I hypothesized a different conclusion that fits your assertions. You don't like the reasoning for the same reasons we don't like yours.

But as you and I both know, people shouldn't always take things just on authority.

Who needs authority? We have our own minds to work with.

If you do not agree with me when I say "nothing comes from nothing" then I don't think we will get very far.

While I don't agree with this, I won't let it interfere with your proposition, in fact I accepted it implicitly when I started from your assumptions.

And Tony, you quote me saying this:

"At the end of this argument we don't know much about the nature of this being, only what it can't be. And one of the things it can't be is a part of the universe (because otherwise it would violate one of the above premises)."

And then you accuse me of this:

"...you think that your logic, which leads to a living, Christian god, is bulletproof logic..."

It seemed to me that you were attempting to show a logical basis for your religious beliefs. Logic is either bulletproof or wrong, as far as I know.

I was addressing the fact that you made an incorrect conclusion, based on a flawed logical premise. I showed it to be wrong by coming up with a contradictory conclusion that conforms to your logical assumptions.

I think your logic is similar to this:

1. Something exists, a swimming pool.
2. Nothing comes from nothing. Swimming pools don't come from nothing.
3. Thus, a man had to dig/build the swimming pool.
4. Therefore, that man cannot swim in the pool.

Do you see the problem?

I did not claim my argument was bulletproof, nor did I claim it leads exclusively to the Christian God (I don't even think the word Christian was in that post).

That is true, but I read some of your other posts before I wrote that response.

How about this rephrase? "If you think that your logic reasonably leads to your conclusion, then perhaps one counterexample would suffice to make you recognize that it doesn't."

I 'm not sure if what I'm writing is being understood.

There is no doubt that we are understanding what you are writing. Your ideas (and ours, for the most part) are thousands of years old and well understood by most of us.

Let me stress something else. The arguments I've tried to offer for the existence of God are not proofs nor are they "bulletproof" logic. They are arguments which show that God's existence is reasonable and probable--"proof" in the sense you demand is not possible for religion, science, or anything else accept for constructive systems of knowledge like math.

Okay. I'll try to be more thoughtful of your approach.

181. Debate between Michael Shermer and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #101677 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 6:10 pm

"some of you have a seething hatred for dinesh and for God in general."

Atheists could only hate god if he existed. If he did exist, then many atheists would probably hate him because of the great suffering he has caused, but some would embrace him out of fear, just like you think he wants us to do. In any case, it doesn't matter, he's just a figment of your imagination. Personally, I do hate the imaginary god that early man created. If there was a real god, I'm certain he'd be quite different and probably much better than the god that man made.

Dinesh is despicable due to the overt and deliberate dishonesty he employs while making his rants. I don't know if anybody actually hates him, perhaps it's the idiotic logic and stupid ideas of his that some people hate.

There is no atheist ideology. Do theists see everything in the world as some form of religion, even when it isn't?

182. Happy Newton Day!

Comment #101657 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 5:10 pm

BJohn,

Let's suppose that you've properly understood the question that we all have about the universe -- "where did it come from?" The problem is that you then inexplicably invent an ultra-detailed and complex solution that we have no evidence for at all.

Using the same kind of logic that you use invites a multitude of possible alternative solutions. In fact, your solution is so needlessly peculiar that you would have to admit that you are determined to force your own special solution to fit the question. I think that for most of us on this site, your solution to this question just creates even bigger questions. It completely sidesteps the core issue itself and it adds unwarranted extra complexity and weirdness.

If you think that your logic, which leads to a living, Christian god, is bulletproof logic, then perhaps one counterexample would suffice to make you recognize that it isn't:
You started with a supreme being that existed outside and before our universe and that this being caused our universe to exist.
Now, suppose that hypothetical god had limited power, such that he could only create a universe if he sacrificed himself. In fact, what if the universe is in fact his exploded corpse. In other words, suppose he thoroughly and completely died in the process of creating our universe. In this hypothesis, "we are all made of god" and "god is everywhere" becomes true. This is just as possible (indeed it fits the evidence better) than your hypothesis. If this hypothesis were true, would it still lead you inexplicably to Christianity?

You said:

At the end of this argument we don't know much about the nature of this being, only what it can't be. And one of the things it can't be is a part of the universe (because otherwise it would violate one of the above premises).

You apparently obvious conclusion is shown to be wrong by this hypothesis.

183. Al Qaeda: We're open to questions

Comment #101325 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 8:29 am

I see your point, but if they didn't have religion to empower and embolden them, they might find better solutions to the problems.

I don't think people are claiming that we need to get rid of religion because it teaches people to blow up other people. I think the problem is religion allows otherwise good people to blow up other people.

Without religion, we have the possibility of compromise. With religion, nobody can dare to back off, for fear of insulting their god.

Their religion gives them the arrogance, racism, bigotry and the idiocy that makes being bad so good (in their eyes).

184. Al Qaeda: We're open to questions

Comment #101316 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 8:15 am

Researchers who say otherwise due to years of political correct thinking, are just deluding themselves.

Prof. Pape says this about the issue:

"Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist
attacks have in common is a specific secular
and strategic goal: to compel modern
democracies to withdraw military forces from
territory that the terrorists consider to be
their homeland."

I guess he's talking about their sacred homeland promised to them by their religion.

185. Synthetic DNA on the Brink of Yielding New Life Forms

Comment #101306 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 8:00 am

"Question:
Why do we not observe the formation of new replicators from non-living matter in nature?"

At least for our replicators, we do observe them, or at least we probably would if we could watch the right environment for a couple billion years. The lack of observation doesn't disprove things that have real probabilities of occurring. We haven't directly observed lots of things that we know did occur.

It is possible that our particular kind of replicator is much more likely to occur naturally than some other kinds of replicators.

186. Al Qaeda: We're open to questions

Comment #101263 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 6:52 am

Yes!

187. Three wise men just legend: archbishop

Comment #101256 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 6:44 am

- It's just a legend.
True.

- Reality doesn't seem to agree with the legend.
True.

- We often lie because it fits well with things.
True.

- I believe it anyway, because it's a part of what I have inherited.
WTF? Are they all taking crazy pills?

- Almost everyone agrees on two things - that Jesus's mother was named Mary and his father Joseph.
WTF? Agreement makes truth?

This is still encouraging... He's already broken through the taboo.

188. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #101249 by TonyA on December 20, 2007 at 6:29 am

... [D'Souza] cannot grasp the difference between an imposed law and an implied law.

How hard is it to realize that 'law' and 'law' might mean two different things? Could D'Souza not be smart enough to realize he is being dishonest?

... the English language is a very poor language indeed.

Well, maybe you have a point. Nowadays, it's its usual usage that usually tricks users used to using English like we used to use it.

Perhaps Dinesh was wounded by a hole in his head. If so, I hope he doesn't mind if I refuse to take a minute to wrap a wrap around the wound so the wind won't wind through the refuse that's wound around the inside of his minute mind.

but [we] REALLY need a new word for the 'laws' of nature or the 'laws' of society.

The word 'law' is too entrenched, so we have to find or use a good modifier word for it.

We already have:
natural law
law of nature
scientific law
physical law

I think the right words are available, but we have to find a way to get people to use and understand them. Of course, if we could get people to learn, the bulk of the religion problem would mostly obviate itself.

189. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #100636 by TonyA on December 19, 2007 at 2:56 am

72. Comment #100591 by wooter on December 19, 2007 at 12:36 am
Stupid is as stupid does. Forrest Gump says.

And it does it so well for you!

Okay let's be scientific. Now you tell me how DNA soup came out in the first place without being evasive, offensive, referring me to web site jungles. My students and I are all ears. tells us simply how DNA soup popped out. Make it simple so that my students can understand.

You are the one who needs to be scientific. Try it out. It might open the world to you and your students.

Here is my attempt to answer the question in a form you will understand:

1. I will hereby give humanity the answer.
2. There is no other answer but mine.
3. Do not believe in false answers.
4. Do not insult my answer.
5. My answer is true because I am true.
6. Do not steal other answers.
7. Do not covet thy neighbor's answers.
8. This list is true, per rule number 5.
9. Rules 2, 5, 7 and 8 prove the correctness of my answer.
10. The answer is "nature did it!"

190. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #100628 by TonyA on December 19, 2007 at 2:37 am

Definations of fact;
Fact: something that has actual existence (2)the quality of being actual(3)a concept whose truth can be proved;(4)
Scientific hypotheses are not facts"

Now let's get real. How do you insert evolution thing in any definations above?

We know that gravity is a fact. It has existence and it is provable. The problem is that the specific details are not fully known. So we have scientific theories that attempt to help us understand gravity better. The theories help to make us more knowledgeable than we would be from knowing the facts alone.

Evolution happens. This is a well-known fact that is only disputed by a small fraction of delirious religious people. It is testable, it is logical and, at least in hindsight, it is self-evident. Evolution was occurring long before anybody was able to recognize it or explain the observations made of it. The theory of evolution is science's effort to explain the non-obvious operational details of something that is otherwise already known to be true.

Religion explains the unborn babies development in mother's womb. What about the evolution? Any ideas? Please give something reasonable without involving any blind watchmaker.

No, religion does not explain it at all.

You are clearly a troll. I very seriously do not believe that you agree with what you said.

If you are serious, please learn that evolution and development are two different ideas.

I've searched the bible and the various prenatal medical supplements to the bible (ha ha, if any actual god had written the bible, it would be in there), and I discovered that the bible totally fails to impart much of any useful medical wisdom. To the contrary, for at least 100,000 years, the god-given childbirth process kill at least 100 times more women and babies than are killed today.
Thousands of years of religion did not fix such problems. Think of the millions of deaths which could have been avoided if only the bible had contained better medical advice.

If you say we came from the worms and this is the fact. Please do not share this with specifically primary school kids. They will tease you so badly. Because I tried and they really went wild while making jokes.

Oh, so you are the type that backs down in the face of such criticism? That's exactly what I wouldn't want to hear from somebody who claims to have students. Holy crap, I'm worried about those kids now.

I guess in your mind, it's better to be a stupid moron and completely misunderstand your own universe, your world, and the lives of those you care about.

What incredible weakness it is to deny the truth because it makes you feel icky.

The problem is evolution thoery does apply amy reason or logic. When the logic LEAVES HUMOUR COMES IN.

Evolutionary theory employs both reason and logic.

Without a sense of humor, I'd be looking for rifles on eBay right now. A sense of humor, however, is not the same thing as laughing at one's own stupidity.

The standard coping mechanism of the idiot is to laugh when confused about something. One theory is that the idiot feels he is diverting attention away from his confusion. In fact, he is advertising his idiocy. This phenomenon is widely exploited in Hollywood movies such as Dumb and Dumber, amongst way too many others.

Please watch these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=potholer54

191. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #99976 by TonyA on December 18, 2007 at 2:33 am

The particular one that gets my goad up the most is when he talks about the 'laws of nature' and how he does that whole comparison of the 'laws' of gravity and things like that to a stop sign.

The twit knowingly uses the dishonest tactic of arguing from different definitions of the same word.

He would probably say something like, "My faith in Jesus is just like your faith in gravity or your faith in Atheism," thus committing a multitude of logical and ethical errors in just one sentence. To compound the disgrace, he has the insolence to spew these nitwit slogans out faster than anyone can say "bullshit!"

192. Biologist fired for beliefs, suit says

Comment #99558 by TonyA on December 17, 2007 at 3:47 am

Wooter,

It is easy to be confused by evolution. In this case, your confusion about evolution is caused by your own carefully cultivated ignorance. The good news is that you can read a few articles or books and learn until the problem goes away, or you could choose to indulge in your own imaginary superstitions and self-imposed religious, creationist delusions.

Evolution isn't just a great theory. It is a factual reality that was waiting to be discovered. The theory of evolution is the effort by science to clarify and accurately describe what is actually happening.

The theory of evolution wasn't created as a tool to confront religion. Evolution simply explains the realities of life better than religion does.

All of us are free to decide whether evolution undermines religion, but we cannot honestly decide that evolution isn't factual. Religion might be transcendent and tolerant of wishy-washy, muddled thinking, but evolution is a fact of reality that cannot be denied by any sane person.

Hand waving and equivocating works great in religion, it seems religion is founded on such ideals, but science is a slave to reality and it must follow reality wherever it goes.

Do you really think anybody is so hot for worms that we desire to distort our sciences until we can finally work worms in our ancestry? How stupid would that be? If the facts point to a particular animal in our ancestry, so what? Those are the facts. Nobody is designing evolution because they like worms more than gods. It's just that worms are more factual than gods.

193. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #94173 by TonyA on December 5, 2007 at 12:24 am

Couldn't altruism simply be caused by our brains? I am altruistic because it makes sense to me. I also like warm baths. Does there need to be a Darwinian explanation for warm baths?

194. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #94170 by TonyA on December 5, 2007 at 12:07 am

(cosmic beavers, dim-witted deities, etc)

Do theists ever contemplate either of these two possibilities:

1. Maybe God was real and he died on the cross as a mortal Jesus, never to be seen again, perhaps while pulling some regrettable stunt of faith in humans.

2. Maybe a deist god died to cause the big bang, thus creating the natural universe as a final act of sacrifice, never to be heard from again. (Would fit all available evidence, but contains an unlikely special pleading.)

195. Daniel Dennett Debates Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #93421 by TonyA on December 3, 2007 at 6:06 am

I wonder if Dinesh D'Souza perceives how twisted, shallow and unsatisfying his misunderstanding of reality is. He really seems to be dimwitted. I suspect he must be straining to hold his warped universe together.

I am saddened and frustrated that so many people have cheated themselves out of so much awareness and amazement by confining themselves to a religious "mind-trap" from which they cannot escape.

I always feel that the theist is just one quick and easy argument away from waking up.

That such an absurd tragedy has endured for hundreds of years testifies to the difficulty of improving the situation.

I think Dennett's religious diversity plan could work, except I fear that in practice, the process would be subverted. After all, who needs honesty when you "know" you're right. I can already visualize the "Religious Comparison Matrix" with nothing but green check-marks in the christianity column and a smattering of red X's everywhere else.

196. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #92557 by TonyA on November 30, 2007 at 7:00 pm

Denevius said

My point, however, is that even if the mechanism is there, why has it allowed religion, in particular, to continue to thrive in human consciousness?

Because the mechanism is not very good at, or perhaps incapable of, distinguishing between truthful wisdom and untruthful wisdom.

I would assume, and someone can point out otherwise, that there have been other manifestations borne from this mechanism in our brains. Do you agree or disagree with this?

I agree with this. If you do as well, then you're close to understanding why people are so susceptible to ideas such as religion, and without attempting to equate these, things such as racial supremacy and ufology.

If you agree, how do you explain the fact that the other manifestations are no longer around, but religion persists from generation to generation?

Because that isn't a fact. There are many, many other manifestations around. They take the form of taboos, pseudosciences, superstitions, etc. I think that many manifestations are even older than monotheism.

There is an apparently innate wonder about where we came from. For many (tens of?) thousands of years, we have wondered where we came from but lacked the necessary skills to arrive at a reasonable answer. In the absence of good answers, most people had little option but to believe improbable fairy tales.

I'll grant to you that religion has been more successful as a mental parasite than most other forms of irrational belief, but I think this is due to a highly developed and sophisticated system of protections and mental tricks that have enabled the survival of the religious belief system.

I understand that there is no evidence to suggest that evolution has acted on us to produce a brain more receptive to religion in particular. I think religion piggy-backs onto a more primitive and useful function.

I'm not a scientists, but I thought illness was needed to build up the immune system? Would not the common cold have had evolutionary benefits? Seems like by the fact that it's still around, it had to have been part of the biological combination to keep humans surviving over the generations.

Just because we have it doesn't mean it has to be good for us. Besides, the cold virus (category) is an invader, it isn't part of what we are. Likewise, I think that religion is an invader, it isn't part of what we are.

And I don't see how putting "ignorance" in the stead of religion makes a good point at all.

Your statement seemed to imply that only beneficial things could persist indefinitely in the face of "survival of the fittest." My understanding is that evolution does not promise that we are the fittest, only that we are sufficiently fit.

The word "ignorance" might have seemed like a snarky choice, but it serves to illustrate that the idea in question is not an inherent biological feature, but rather the way in which we are using (or not using) a biological feature. In other words, evolution gives us a brain with certain abilities, but we can use it for other purposes than that for which it was evolved.

197. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #92509 by TonyA on November 30, 2007 at 4:41 pm

Regarding 16. Comment #92398 by Denevius

But if religion persists in being a part of humankind, and humans, despite the seeming odds, continue to survive and not kill each other off, then there may be more to religion than Dawkins and other atheists wish to admit.

This is faith-based reasoning. Replace "religion" with "the common cold" or "ignorance" to see the folly.

To simplify the survival-of-the-fittest argument, it seems like once upon a time in human development, there were those who were not persuaded by "religious/spiritual" belief, but that those died off, and what we're left with is a world full of people who believe in religion.

You've simplified it until it doesn't mean the same thing. If you did not read the discussion about "misfiring" in The God Delusion, then perhaps you don't understand his point.

Dawkins' point is that non-religious mechanisms which enhance survivability also make it easier for people to be unwitting carriers of religious beliefs. This is because we have a built-in, "trust your parents/leaders/elders" mechanism in our brains. That this mechanism also allows us to be fed superstitions and lies is an unfortunate, but understandable consequence. It is difficult to "breed out" the misfeature because it remains valuable when used for its original purposes.

Instead, we should use our brains to reevaluate these "trusted inputs" and discard the insane and absurd ones.

198. In honour of Dan Dennett

Comment #78059 by TonyA on October 11, 2007 at 5:28 pm

67. Comment #77380 by The author
Dawkins says that everything in evolution has a purpose. If so, why are we able to know about our own death? That, among others, doesn't seem to have a purpose, but to be a by-product. Ironically, Dawkins uses the same argument when he says that religion could have been selected as a by-product.

Why do you assume that knowledge of mortality has no evolutionary value?