Evolution & common descent: facts. I'll answer all questions and criticisms

Edcrab said:
Of course it's always possible that the universe was formed by an all-powerful being who wasn't a god identified in any of our religious texts...
Click to expand...

Wake up, Mr. Freeman... Wake up and smell the ashhhessss
 
What, you wouldn't call Half-Life 1 and 2 religious works?! BLASPHEMER!

(in other news, you actually made me laugh out loud. I need to wash.)
 
Edcrab said:
While it's true that an entity- for the sake of argument let's call it "God"- created everything with an apperance of age, I'd agree that it's definitely the least likely scenario proposed thus far. Well, within reason- gcomeau's Creationist Cat Hypothesis beats it fair and square, but I'm sure you're all aware of what I mean.
Click to expand...

Hey... in the defense of Feline Creationism, I can at least demonstrate with high confidence that my friend's cat exists. That's more than you can say for certain other proposed creative entities.

I think that puts it out in front of a lot of the competition!
 
God is dead.

-Nietzche

(I ran him over with my car, and he went "meow" before he went)
 
Seems like Apos is an agnostic, not an aetheist.
Click to expand...

I believe Apos said that he didn't believe in a deity because there was no reason to; the universe could have started, and continued to exist and develop perfectly without a higher power pulling the strings as proved by science. I feel the same way. There's no tangible evidence that the universe would require a higher being, so therefor I don't believe in one. Which makes us atheists.
 
Raziaar said:
Thats not where I was going. And that his HIGHLY impossible anyways. God himself said he would not bend the will of mankind, and if he forced their hands in their history while they themselves were not able to act or anything, it would be doing just that.
Click to expand...

"God himself"? Like I said, that's just your particular belief about God. Once you start opening the floor to anyone's untestable beliefs, you can't very well argue that only yours are to be trusted. Who is to say or judge which vision of God is correct?

Simply put, thats something god would not do, at least in part, due to what is written in the bible.
Click to expand...

How would you know what a God outside of your understanding would or would not do? That's why this whole direction is frought with unresolvable problems.
 
Calanen said:
Seems like Apos is an agnostic, not an aetheist.
Click to expand...

Given how I would define "atheist," ("a" = without "theism" = "belief in god") I'm an atheist. But then, other people insist on defining atheist differently. So if that's the case, I might more clearly and more simply be called a non-theist.

But is saying, 'I do not believe there is a God' the same thing as saying 'I know there is not one' or 'There is no God'.
Click to expand...

Definately not the same things.

Its perfectly consistent to say I neither believe nor disbelieve in God I do not know.
Click to expand...

"Disbelieve" is sometimes shorthand for "believe not" which would be logically consistent if that's what you meant.

However, if you mean to say that you can not believe, and also not not believe, then that's logically inconsistent. Either you believe in God, or you don't. Logically, claiming that you neither believe nor don't believe is like that's claiming "A AND Not A" which violates the law of the excluded middle.

You are saying, because one does not know, one should not believe. To your standard of proof perhaps, but not to anothers. Im in the same camp. There may be a God. There may not be. I don't have enough information to know other than to say, I don't know.
Click to expand...

Which implies that you don't believe. If you knew, you'd believe. You don't, so you don't.

You are accused of theft. Someone asks me what I think. I know none of the facts about it. And I say, i neither believe nor disbelieve the claims that Apos is a thief, I do not know.
Click to expand...

Again, "disbelieve" is sometimes shorthand for "believe not" which would be logically consistent if that's what you meant.

If you are an empiricist, then you would not believe that claim that Apos is a theif, because you don't have knowledge of it. If someone accused me of NOT being a theif, then you might also claim that you do not believe that either: you don't know. The claim that I am a theif and the claim that I am not a theif are two different, though related, claims. You can not believe in either of them (even though one must be true). However, you cannot neither believe nor not believe something.

But you will say to me, you must choose - that is an 'incoherent' opinion! No it is not. It is saying, I do not have the facts to either believe or disbelieve this statement. I do not know. It seems more 'incoherent' to believe either premise without further information.
Click to expand...

You don't have to believe either premise. However, you do have to admit that you don't believe the first premise. Just like in a religious discussion, if someone asks you if you believe in god, I can honestly say no, I don't. This doesn't imply that I believe definitively that there is no god, just that I have no cause to believe that there is.
 
Apos said:
"God himself"? Like I said, that's just your particular belief about God. Once you start opening the floor to anyone's untestable beliefs, you can't very well argue that only yours are to be trusted. Who is to say or judge which vision of God is correct?



How would you know what a God outside of your understanding would or would not do? That's why this whole direction is frought with unresolvable problems.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about the Christian belief. Its been well documented, that God as the belief goes did not wish to control the will of man, so that if they were to find him, they would need to do so themselves, without his aid. He wanted people to make a concious decision to put their faith in him, rather controlling their minds so they'd be saved by his bending of their will.

So at least in my opinion, that fact ties in a bit with the whole 'fake' memories of people you were talking about, before the present day. Like everything before yesterday was just put there by god. People having memories of being killers, etc. Nah, I don't think so. Heh.
 
I'm talking about the Christian belief. Its been well documented, that God as the belief goes did not wish to control the will of man, so that if they were to find him, they would need to do so themselves, without his aid.
Click to expand...

I don't see how that's well documented. First of all, revealing himself to them is not the same as controlling them. Second of all, there are several instances in the Bible where God influences people, appears to them, or intervenes in various things. And indeed miracles are just that.

He wanted people to make a concious decision to put their faith in him, rather controlling their minds so they'd be saved by his bending of their will.
Click to expand...

This wouldn't include that. For some unknown purpose, God would make people think the wrong things about a situation. That's not the same thing as forcing them to believe in god.

So at least in my opinion, that fact ties in a bit with the whole 'fake' memories of people you were talking about, before the present day. Like everything before yesterday was just put there by god. People having memories of being killers, etc. Nah, I don't think so. Heh.
Click to expand...

The thing is, if you start playing the game, you can't set the rules so that only your beliefs get to play. If all of reality could be a fraud, then why not individual parts too? Why not every aspect of daily life?
 
I don't see how that's well documented. First of all, revealing himself to them is not the same as controlling them. Second of all, there are several instances in the Bible where God influences people, appears to them, or intervenes in various things. And indeed miracles are just that.
Click to expand...

Where am I talking about him appearing? I'm simply talking about the whole fact of our lives previous to today, and all of history previous to today, is simply a facade that god has created, which you insinuated could be a 'anything goes' thing. I just don't believe that could/would ever be the case. And me and you know its not the case. lol

And the documented thing... its in the bible. Thats the documentation that there needs to be. God does not desire to control the minds of men. He wishes for them to put their faith in him by themselves, so they can choose their salvation or not. Its in the bible.
 
Where am I talking about him appearing? I'm simply talking about the whole fact of our lives previous to today, and all of history previous to today, is simply a facade that god has created, which you insinuated could be a 'anything goes' thing. I just don't believe that could/would ever be the case.
Click to expand...

You are telling me that if the entire physical world was a fabricated lie, then it wouldn't be an "anything goes" situation? If God is willing to so completely decieve humanity by faking all the evidence for an old universe, you're saying that this grand liar would then still be above faking one or two more ordinary things?

And the documented thing... its in the bible. Thats the documentation that there needs to be. God does not desire to control the minds of men. He wishes for them to put their faith in him by themselves, so they can choose their salvation or not. Its in the bible.
Click to expand...

But that's not what we are talking about: we're talking not about conversion, but simply faking evidence for various things in the real world.

Regardless, the god of the bible, for whatever it says about itself, several times manipulates the minds of people. Heck, for some, it wipes them off the face of the planet. But then, this is really, really offtopic.
 
I'm talking about *BEFORE* people were around. Its not that outrageous of a theory that the world would be created with the appearance of age.

EDIT: ANd no. i'm not saying its a fabricated lie. I'm saying that it could be(I don't believe in this theory, but i'm saying it could happen) MADE to have the appearance of age. There's no lie about that. How is that a lie? Its merely made with the appearance of age. I can understand if he said, "And I will create the earth, with shiny, glistening new floors"
 
EDIT: ANd no. i'm not saying its a fabricated lie. I'm saying that it could be(I don't believe in this theory, but i'm saying it could happen) MADE to have the appearance of age. There's no lie about that. How is that a lie?
Click to expand...

You have to understand the sheer calculation and craftiness that would be required to fake the sorts of evidence we see. It wouldn't simply be a matter of giving things a nice dusty look. There are a horde of things God would have to plan out to specifically make false things appear true when we consider the natural world, and indeed far more than simply having things look old, God would have had to make thing all appear to have the SAME old age, compounding the deception. Even if it was before people were around, it still means that there is some point where, when we read physical phenomena backwards through time, that perfectly reasonable historical and forensic processes cross over from the real thing to a carefuly crafted forgery!

I'm talking about *BEFORE* people were around. Its not that outrageous of a theory that the world would be created with the appearance of age.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter whether it was before or after (and I dont' see how you could preclude "after" either). The fact is, it would mean that things like the light images we see of distant stars are NOT ACTUALLY FROM THOSE STARS but are instead careful fakes of starlight.

And the sheer ridiculousness of this, of having to posit this absurd scenario, is a little telling, don't you think? The evidence disagrees with us.... so all the evidence is thus a forgery?! I mean, why would god do any of this? If it was for mere aethetics, he could have created anything, made it look cool, be done with it. Instead, he created the Earth to look as if it had a precise ancient age. There are natural processes on the Earth that aren't just old, but are a _specific_ sort of old: they are observable steady processes that appear to have continued apace for millions of years (like seafloor spreading). And there are elements that don't just have to do with age per se, but rather with a fake _history_. For instance, the geographic distribution of species of this planet is in accord with plate tectonics that separated some species from others when the continents split... and yet under your theory, these entire events never actually happened! The exact species were simply placed in particular regions of the world to make it LOOK like it had happened. The comet that helped wipe out the dinosaurs: it never actually existed, even though the earth shows the damage from it, and the entire biological history of the planet looks as if it was altered by it. Oh, and the dinosaurs never existed either: they are just careful fakes too!

In short, this is not really an issue for science, because science deals only with the testable, and this theory is the very opposite of testable. But as a theological issue, it's really really bad news. I mean, this is really not a road anyone should want to be going down.
 
God isn't human, if there is a god. If god is all powerful, he could do everything you describe simply and easily. If he could create the complex organisms that we are, with our complicated circulatory systems(haha, family guy, a quote comes to mind) etc, do you think he could not simply create a world with the appearance of, or actual purposefully aged features that our modern scientists are researching?

If you look at god, from the standpoint of the creator of the universe and of the earth, and everything inbetween... then this is certainly not beyond his scope of power or ability.
 
God isn't human, if there is a god. If god is all powerful, he could do everything you describe simply and easily.
Click to expand...

But that's exactly part of the trouble! If he's all powerful, he could do it all... WITHOUT creating a forgery of a world! Why would he need to resort to such crude and unimaginative artifice in his design?

If he could create the complex organisms that we are, with our complicated circulatory systems(haha, family guy, a quote comes to mind) etc, do you think he could not simply create a world with the appearance of, or actual purposefully aged features that our modern scientists are researching?
Click to expand...

You missed the point ENTIRELY. It's not at all a question of could, it's a question of what sort of insane monster would create such an elaborate lie, and what possible motive could he have for doing it? There is no way to see doing something like this as anything other than an attempt to decieve. I would think most theists would be horrified at the idea that god would do something like this: that instead of making a universe that is open to honest inquiry, we have to be on the constant lookout for God's trickery and deception in virtually every corner of existence!
 
I saw on the news that the US govt bred Ted Koppel with Rev Falwell and got a down syndrome newsreader! no f____kinGF sh_t guys serious man! It was either exterminated or does infomercials on local Cable TV!!!! I can't remember man, er, where's my bong gone........
 
Calanen said:
I saw on the news that the US govt bred Ted Koppel with Rev Falwell and got a down syndrome newsreader! no f____kinGF sh_t guys serious man! It was either exterminated or does infomercials on local Cable TV!!!! I can't remember man, er, where's my bong gone........
Click to expand...


..ah...you mean Ann Colture :cheese:
 
Heh.

Hey I like Ann Coulter - shes a hottie. Don't always agree with what she says tho. EVen though we are both right wingers.

A few times I've gone, hmm, thats taking things too far.... Shes not seen of in Australia much, and I was in the USA up until 2003, so my info on her is somewhat outdated..... But she tends to go for hyperbole a fair bit more than on substance.

I did say her make a good point once about Condie Rice. Showing how the left went from 'Condie is in the white house and is manipulated by them to be their token black person' - over to the other extreme, that Condie Rice sets the agenda and manipulates the President. A person could do one or the other, but not both you'd imagine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top