301. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170145 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 12:44 pm

... why limit (2) just to "all deities"?

302. Does science make belief in God obsolete?

Comment #170080 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 10:50 am

I can see how an ET god could make it pretty rough on you, but could one send you to hell for all eternity?

303. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #170065 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 10:29 am

I wrote:

All the deities (envisioned by and in the image of the human mind) are mythical until demonstrated otherwise

304. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169846 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 12:28 am

While I am at it, am I the only one who is gripped by the irony of the criticism of Atheists getting morals by seriously thinking the subject through versus religious people who claim that morals cannot come from the minds of humans so they get them from antiquated, made up, miscopied stories written by humans?

P.S. Flood?

305. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169841 by Quine on April 27, 2008 at 12:15 am

Judging a non-existent being??? Hold on folks, I call for a return to reality. All the deities (envisioned by and in the image of the human mind) are mythical until demonstrated otherwise. That is what our demand for evidence is all about. This is why I avoid using the big "G" deity word when referring to the Christian deities (see my post at the RF Forum over a year ago). This instantiation gives an unearned weight in rhetoric beyond Zeus, Baal, Krishna, etc. and gets people to talk as if there is somebody home.

Get real.

306. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169597 by Quine on April 26, 2008 at 11:40 am

I suspect it does some good for creationists to read this in so far as they are just victims of falsehoods spoon-fed to them at an early age. When they witness the lunatic behavior, here, of those on that side, and see the presentation of rational steps to understanding on this side, some deep self questioning may happen. Also, we happily give the creationists the exact questions to answer to convert us; here is a video that has been up for some time with a specific step by step method for converting an Atheist.

P.S. Flood?

307. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169385 by Quine on April 26, 2008 at 12:17 am

Comment #168050 by hopeful:

TheTruthID,

There has obviously been a drawn out debate with you.

I have a request.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0

Also google "evolution simulation" and have a look at some of them.

These aren't tricks. They are demonstrations of a fundamentally simple but powerful natural process that can create complex things out of simple things, and that can create things that LOOK AS IF they have been designed.

If you think you have an open mind, and if you think you can consider both sides of an argument, then look at these and think about what you see.

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

Comment #169381 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 11:42 pm

I have noted the times of some of your other posts, and given your location, I have wondered about when you get to sleep. I have to actively work to keep myself from sliding into the very late night schedule my mental activity seems to prefer. Good night to you from here, which I see is Guten Morgen to you there.

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

Comment #169378 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 11:26 pm

Yes, I read it some time ago. I should probably go pull it off the shelf and look again because I have read so many things after.

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

Comment #169375 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 11:11 pm

Yes, the mirror neurons are more for same species interactions. Two individuals meet and must decide "are we gong to fight, or foster future generations?" (However, imputing intent to potential predators is still in there.)

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

Comment #169373 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 10:47 pm

Hi Mike,

Yes, I think you are on a good trail there. I look at it this way: early on living things mostly had to deal with very simple environmental strategies. The first thing they needed was a system that would identify inanimate objects v. other living things. Most of the time the inanimate objects were harmless while other living things might eat you.

So, when it came to dealing with other living things it became useful to have a system that could make some predictions about the behavior of the "other." Of course, with evolution going on from every side, this turns into an arms race to have a better predictor than all the others.

I suspect this leads straight to theory of mind. Mirror neurons become the jewel in the crown for intuitive prediction. When the evolution of the system goes into run away (like the peacock's tail) it becomes capable of turning its empathy inward giving rise to a self. The self then gives a "place to stand" from which the long lever of cognitive abstraction can "lift the world."

Highly hypothetical, but I thought you might like it.

312. Gunk in T. Rex Fossil Confirms Dino-Bird Lineage

Comment #169065 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 2:33 pm

I hate the way the press messes up the science. Birds did not descend from the T. rex, they descended from an ancestor of the T. rex.

313. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #169026 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Comment #168928 by ipashchuk:

I think Jesus made a good point after writing something in the sand, "Those of you who are without sin, throw a stone" at the woman caught in adultery. As you know, all of them walked away... So, if the Bible is taken literally based on its full counsel, stoning someone is not logical because we are all guilty. So, yes, it is a strawman...

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

Comment #168936 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Berlinski uses Expelled to springboard his book:

"Do you really want Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris telling you what to believe about the deepest issues of life, faith, responsibility, [and] moral character? These guys have no standing. Why do they pretend they do? And that is essentially what I argue in my book,"

315. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168888 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 12:33 pm

Comment #168622 by Dr Benway:

And if one concedes that an accumulation of changes will occur with each new generation...

316. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168867 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 12:11 pm

epeeist,

&#43 gives you +
&#35 gives you #

317. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168842 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 11:50 am

I wonder how the stats change when you back out all the contribution money that goes to the scam artists because the religious are such easy marks for grifters? Also, is it charity to give money that is going to be used to teach children things that are not true?

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

Comment #168297 by Quine on April 25, 2008 at 12:34 am

Here is a moving piece by Paul Abrams that, contrary to Expelled, salutes the memory of teachers in Norway who stood up against the Nazis to teach truth to their students. It fits right in with Prof. Dawkins' open letter.

And yes, AllanW the guy, TTID, is beyond help. This "decision" he goes on about was PZ Myers simplifying a description of random selection down to "more or less decide by eeny-meeny-miny-moe." Apparently, eeny-meeny-miny-moe went whoosh over his head, so I don't know what more there is to be done.

319. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #168285 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 11:10 pm

Yo, Brian. That was his first post. He expressed his view. Perhaps he will be shown to be trolling along as time goes, but how about giving him a chance?

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

Comment #168276 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 10:11 pm

The conservative press provides cover and Expelled provides a stage for Darwin twisting author in this piece of, well, you know.

321. Interview with Dan Dennett

Comment #168274 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 9:25 pm

I think the part about Sartre's spots was more than I needed to know.

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

Comment #168228 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 7:16 pm

I just got back from a bike ride through my town with a few friends. One of these happens to be an active Christian (does church work in the community) named Joe who has been talking with me during and after these rides for the last few weeks. So, today, at the end of the ride he tells me he has just seen this movie called "Expelled" and proceeds to give me the outline. He told me he was especially concerned because the teachings of Darwin were used by Hitler to base his philosophy and actions to create a super race by following Darwin's advice to breed for better humans and get rid of the defectives.

I stood there, leaning over my bike, and had one of those "how can reality be doing this to me right now?" moments. Those following this thread will know that I had just been reviewing the Darwin=Hitler blogs this morning. Joe is a middle aged man of reasonable education; the truly disturbing part is that he just took the thing as fact. He did not ask me (known to him as not a person of faith) if I knew any link between Hitler and Darwin, he just bought it.

Now, I can talk to Joe about this (he wants to cover the ethical necessity of a "higher power" on the next ride), and send him email links to expose Expelled, but what about all the other "Joes" out there?

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

Comment #168126 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 2:39 pm

I just ran through my usual blog and news searches to monitor the Expelled waves in the frothing sea of the culture wars. At this point, I am going to refrain from posting links to the crap from the tiny minds freeloading the voice expanding technology they, themselves, do not understand nor could have had any part in developing. This is because some of it has gotten so bad I do not want any part in linking to it.

In accord with the base of this thread, the darkest form is the Darwin equals Hitler meme. Stein's big lie has provided a crystallization seed for hate groups who were desiring some excuse for being. We are seeing rampant quote mining form Darwin riding on the context shift in the last 150 years. Cases are being made that unless the teaching of evolution is stopped, Atheists will start running death camps for believers in this century. These voices should continue to be monitored, but I have run out of the numeric range of the color red for link posting.

Against this, there are plenty of voices of sanity, and I do recommend you point your friends and family at pieces such as this Darwin equals Hitler rebuttal.

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

Comment #168057 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Ben Stein is going to be at the University of Vermont tomorrow. Anyone in the area might want to drop in and ask him if he is ready to stop lying about science.

325. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167927 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 12:29 pm

Thank you, Steve. As you go along, I would appreciate any new thoughts you have about this.
-Q

326. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167885 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 12:01 pm

Steve,

As you look into the models of the early Universe, I am interested to hear your take on when (going back in time) the average energy level and space time curvature exceeds our current empirical data from colliders, cosmic ray detectors, observations of exploding stars, gravity wave detectors, etc. Of course, this is a moving target, and wherever the line is now, the next hundred years of experimentation will, hopefully, move it back further.

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

Comment #167395 by Quine on April 24, 2008 at 1:56 am

It would be nice to set things up such that private threads were always some name derived from these public comment threads. For example, knowing that there is a "Lying for Jesus" public thread at richarddawkins.net means that there is also a private "Lying for Jesus" thread at whoeverishostingit.net. This allows us to open two web windows and talk privately about our public postings as we write them.

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

Comment #167352 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 11:33 pm

Geodesic17, yes, I do understand what he is about. I have no desire to argue with him, and I feel it is valuable to present information sources that can be of value to all the others who read these threads. He serves a purpose counter to his stated goal by his failed attempts to sound like he knows something. When people see how wrong he is, it devalues the IDiots in general.

Here are three quick examples: when Steve referred to virus evolution, he thought this was about antibiotics; he pretended to know about QM, but missed Steve's point about virtual particles; he was clueless about sex in microorganisms. I think we need to keep pointing people at the real truth about the world as it comes from scientific investigation, and let these IDiots stand in stark contrast.

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

Comment #167330 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 10:52 pm

TheTruthID, here is a link to a nice description of chromosome number evolution by PZ Myers. It will help you understand more of the picture. Also, here is a paper for you on the development of sex in prokaryotic cells; yes, they do it.

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

Comment #167094 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 3:54 pm

I just found this quote in an Expelled review:

The film is aimed squarely at the choir, and if you don't know much about evolution or intelligent design, you might leave the theater knowing even less. You won't learn the full story behind the alleged blacklistings, and you won't learn that science is not defined by committee, but by whether you can present a testable hypothesis.

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

Comment #167082 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm

TheTruthID, at a point in the past, eclipses were "miracles" then we found out the cause. Try to imagine how miraculous fire must have seemed to our ancestors before they could make it. At some time in the future we may have the technology to take apart old rocks atom by atom looking for fossils of the early replicating molecules.

Now, why is ID science?

332. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #167032 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 2:54 pm

Religious blog comment about Dawkins:

Complaining early in his column about another scientist being evicted from an advance screening, Dawkins headlines it "Lying for Jesus?" Pretty funny, given Stein's Jewish identity.

333. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166987 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 2:27 pm

The combined probabilities for all of the events that had to happen for a simple cell to spring to life from non life has been calculated as 1 in 10 to the 40,000 power.

TheTruthID, here was my response when pacman71192 also tried the clueless probability argument. Please go try to learn some non-fiction.

P.S. Answer Epeeist's questions.

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

Comment #166917 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 1:40 pm

TheTruthID, you are grasping at the straws of Irrefutable Perplexity, the argument "What I say is right because you can't prove it isn't, and what you say is wrong because I don't understand it."

Any statement of the form "this must have come form creation because there is no other way" is a form of the well known Sherlock Holms Fallacy because its truth depends on the speaker actually knowing all possibilities. As time goes on we keep getting proof that, no matter how well informed, no one knows all possibilities.


Now, how about those answers?

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

Comment #166858 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 1:07 pm

clodhopper, dumsky is equivocating, as usual. He misdirects the question of the lack of predictive power of the theory itself to prediction of what would be designed. Again and again the IDiots deflect the requirement to prove that what they are doing is science. They answer as if the question was to establish the proof of the designer, and invoke the current lack of proof of abiogenesis as a standoff.

Keep pinning their ears back and make them justify ID as real science (which they can't).

And TheTruthID, how about those answers?

336. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166815 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 12:44 pm

Geoff:

3431. Comment #166566 by Quine

I was going to try to get him to learn something...

"...Anything can happen. In a year the king may die. Or I may die. Or the horse may die. Or ...
The horse may learn to sing."

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

Comment #166788 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 12:32 pm

The writer seems to think Ben Stein is a comedian.

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

Comment #166773 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 12:24 pm

YOKO SUES EXPELLED

And, TheTruthID, where are those answers?

339. 'Expelled' ripped off Harvard's 'Inner Life of the Cell' animation

Comment #166766 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 12:19 pm

YOKO SUES EXPELLED

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

Comment #166675 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 11:26 am

TheTruthID, here was my response when pacman71192 also tried the clueless probability argument. Please go try to learn some non-fiction.

P.S. Answer Epeeist's questions.

341. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166625 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 10:51 am

Remnant, why do you suppose we don't have any evidence of writings circa 33 CE of:

EXTRA, EXTRA ... READ ALL ABOUT IT: JEWISH ZOMBIE IS OWN FATHER!!!

342. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166605 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 10:38 am

14. The Romans and Jews did not and could not produce Jesus' body which if they could have, would have ended the Disciples claims of the resurrected Christ and destroyed their evangelistic efforts.

343. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166566 by Quine on April 23, 2008 at 9:59 am

Comment #166357 by epeeist:

That naughty Quine gave a creotard the Sorites paradox in another thread (it actually went "whoosh", straight over his head but that is another matter).

344. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #166135 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Hi Brian,

On the subject of a logic text: the math/philosophy divide can make a difference in how it comes across to you. As it happened, I ended up taking the beginning logic classes from both the math and philosophy departments at my college and got double credits for learning the same thing. However, the departments did not talk to each other, there, and it was not presented the same way.

True to my moniker, I am going to recommend Methods of Logic by W.V. Quine. (It won't give you KM-calculus, but you can get started in an understandable model.) A used copy is cheap, and you can take a look at an excerpt at that Amazon link. Unfortunately, I did not have W.V. Quine as a direct teacher, whereas Dan Dennett did.

On the subject of a proof of a (or more) supernatural being(s), if such were found it would reduce the length of the "leap of faith" to zero, thus devaluing faith itself to zero. I doubt the "faithful" would be too happy about that.

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

Comment #165902 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 2:44 pm

chewmanfoo, is it your position that a deity set the Universe into its evolving action, and then sat back (with arms folded, per Hitchens) until self aware beings (like us) "popped up" and only then started the voices-in-heads? If so, when in this process did something that survives death start to happen, and how?

346. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Comment #165880 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 1:55 pm

Sexpelled mentioned by this Wall Street Journal piece.

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

Comment #165859 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm

PZ just posted links to this very nice inside cheat-sheet to Expelled by Troy Britain: part1 and part2

348. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165851 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 1:11 pm

Note: Dan Dennett will be debating Lord Winston tonight about Is religion a threat to rationality and science?

Dennett on religion:

... People are revered for their capacity to live in a dream world, to shield their minds from factual knowledge and make the major decisions of their lives by consulting voices in their heads that they call forth by rituals designed to intoxicate them.

349. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #165833 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 12:46 pm

I have stopped making comments about this pointless Kardashovel subject; that includes this one.

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

Comment #165821 by Quine on April 22, 2008 at 12:18 pm

chewmanfoo, I find it emotionally satisfying to work on the problem of what makes something emotionally satisfying.