<p>“How about our favorite flavor of cake?” -> Good</p>
<p>"MosbyMarion, I don’t see why you fight evolution so much. It doesn’t even contradict the possibility of God. " -> Bad</p>
<p>I do love a good Devil’s food cake.</p>
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<p>Clearly, you are absolutely clueless about the nature of my religious faith. But it’s not like you have any way of knowing, so I don’t blame you.</p>
<p>Mosby, you are ignorant with respect to evolution so theres no need for you to open your mouth and prove it.</p>
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<p>He obviously doesnt understand evolution. Every single thing he posts about evolution is TOTALLY ignorant. He misleads, he lies and he deceives.</p>
<p>How can anyone be brainwashed enough to believe that evolution isnt true, that humans walked with the dinosaurs and that the earth is 6,000 years old?</p>
<p>And he doesnt refute arguments — he construes them and then uses false reasoning.</p>
<p>Can you imagine what this thread would be like w/o mifune posting?</p>
<p>"Can you imagine what this thread would be like w/o mifune posting? "
Rather empty.</p>
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<p>Agreed. That’s why I left - this was completely pointless. Like life. :(</p>
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<p>Wikipedia defines religion as “the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship”.</p>
<p>Merriam-Webster says it is “a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith” or “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices”.</p>
<p>I said that religion starts with an idea, rather than an observation, which seems to agree with all definitions. I said that religion starts with the truth, rather than seeking it out, which once again agrees with all definitions.</p>
<p>I grant you, however, that ‘perfection’ may not have been the right word to use; my point was to emphasize the falsifiability of each: religion can never be wrong simply because the world around it is interpreted in light of religious beliefs. If something is wrong, it’s invariably the world around that is at fault.</p>
<p>I don’t know what belief system you adhere to, but if it truly is a ‘religion’, I highly doubt that it is compatible with science (without, as I previously said, the use of doublethink).</p>
<p>From post 639 onward I would agree that the thread has decreased in quality. Except a few.</p>
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<p>Each human’s religious experience is different from anyone else’s. I don’t see why you insist on generalizing religion with a loose definition. </p>
<p>Anyway, that hardly matters. I believe this passage best conveys my religious nature:</p>
<p>"The first God I remember was a Santa Claus God, who you only turn to around Christmas time, who you tried to butter up, and you got mad at if you didn’t get what you wanted.</p>
<p>That didn’t make sense.</p>
<p>I knew if there was a God, he could see through us, like we were made out of cellophane, like he could stare directly into our hearts, the way we look into an aquarium, like he’d know what was floating around in there, like he were the one feeding it.</p>
<p>Then there were those people who used god to threaten you, saying “you’d better be careful- God’s watching,” like God was some badass hillbilly sitting on some cloud, with some binoculars, a cotton candy beard and a shotgun.</p>
<p>Then there were those people who had God’s name on a bumper sticker, like he was running for president. And sometimes those people would cut you off on the freeway and give you the finger, which is very different than lending a hand.</p>
<p>Then there were people on television, dressed in weird clothes and scary make-up, SWEARING that they had the secret to God, like god was a keyhole their eye was pressed to it, and if I gave him some money they’d let me look, and I could see God just hangin’ around in his boxers, and though I liked the idea of spying on God, I began to wonder if the world would be a better place if the Romans had just put up with Jesus and let him die of old age…</p>
<p>And then there were the football players, kneeling down in front of everybody, thanking God, like he was their best friend, but then they’d jump up and spike the ball yelling, “I’m number ONE!!”, and that confused me, for if you’re number one, then what number is God?</p>
<p>Then I saw politicians trotting God out on a leash, like a racehorse they wanted to hop on and ride to the finish-line. But if they lost, it would be GOD’s fault, and God would be the donkey they’d pin their problems on, and that was very nice of God, to be both a racehorse and a donkey.</p>
<p>And then there were those who said, “You’d better be good on earth, if you wanna get into heaven,” Like heaven was the United States, and the Earth was Mexico, and angels were the Border Patrol. Like when you die, you sit in a parked car on the outskirts of Heaven, the engine idling, your soul in the back-seat in one of those kennels used to carry small dogs on an airplane, as you listen to the radio, hearing the voices of all the people you ever wronged testify against you.</p>
<p>And then there’s the church which was like this cafeteria, where they serve God to you on these very un-Godlike plates, but I wanted my God PURE, not watered down by humans. So I had one of those catastrophe gods- you know, the one you called in an emergency, like God was the National Guard you call on to clean up the earthquake of your life.</p>
<p>So I got drunk one night, drove home, passed out behind the wheel, and woke up, going 60mph straight at a brick wall. I slammed on the brakes, my heart banging like a wrecking-ball in my chest, staring at death’s face, close enough to see that we had the same cheek-bones.</p>
<p>Now I have a God who’s like a mechanic who can fix anything. So, when I wanna chew somebody’s head off like a salt-water taffy, or amputate my DNA, or open my wrists like windows that have been painted shut, I just put my soul into a box, like a busted computer, and haul it in. And He never asks to see my paperwork, or says that my warrenty has expired.</p>
<p>And I walk out feeling better.</p>
<p>And I don’t care if He doesn’t exist."</p>
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<p>I don’t think it does contradict God. But I do think that it isn’t supported by the evidence to a sufficent degree that it should be taught to the exclusion of all other options, and supported by lies when the truth isn’t convincing enough.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, anyone who believes as I do is mocked and told that they are ignorant fundamentalists who simply reject any evidence against their religion.</p>
<p>THIS IS NOT ABOUT MY RELIGION!!!</p>
<p><em>sigh</em></p>
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<p>This whole argument is based on a false premise. As worded by you above, the argument should be “Science vs Superstition: which wins?”</p>
<p>This would be a very short argument.</p>
<p>But the real argument here is “Naturalism vs Not Naturalism: Which wins?”</p>
<p>And, as a siderail: “Evolution vs Creation: Which wins?”</p>
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<p>Before I reply to this post, I want to complain about this wording here. I didn’t “conceed” Natural Selection, as I stated it was a part of my opinion from the beginning.</p>
<p>I will reply to mifune’s points one by one:</p>
<p>Fossil dating:</p>
<p>I have already explained my views on this subject. I will not be forced into trying to prove a Young Earth against an Old Earth, as as I stated before I consider them to be two competing theories, neither of which has presented conclusive evidence in its favor. I currently consider a young earth somewhat more probable, and thus use this theory to help me understand the world, but I recognise that further evidence may prove (or at least make highly probable) either side.</p>
<p>Structural, genetic, and biochemical homology:</p>
<p>I do not understand why homology of any type is considered evidence for evolution. Do you expect that a creator would create an arbitrary new DNA series for each creature when it would be accomplishing the same task in each? To claim something as evidence against a theory means you are claiming that things would have been different had the theory been true. Common traits are not evidence for or against evolution or creation, they are simply common sense: Common tasks are accomplished by common mechanisms.</p>
<p>Proposed mechanisms of variation:</p>
<p>I will first post a summarized version in “layman’s language” of each to ensure that you and I understand the same definitions. I believe that all the proposed mechanisms fit into one of these 6 types. Correct me if I have missed any.</p>
<p>1: Transformation, transduction, and conjugation: Mechanisms whereby creatures incorporate outside genetic material into their genomes. Explanations:</p>
<p>Transformation: A creature absorbs genes from another (dead) creature, and incorporates them into its DNA, forming a self-replicating genetic ring structure which is called a plasmid.</p>
<p>Transduction: Genetic material is inserted into a cell by a virus.</p>
<p>Conjugation: Two microbes link to each other, and one of them transfers genetic material to the other.</p>
<p>2: Sexual Reproduction: Two organisms each contribute half of each gene pair in the child organism, resulting in a child with a mixture of the genes posessed by the parents.</p>
<p>3: Natural Selection: A group of organisms with varied traits exist. The organisms with sets of traits that are least advantagous are less likely to reproduce successfully, thus less decendants with those traits are produced. The organisms with the most advantagous sets of traits are more likely to reproduce successfully, and thus more decendants with these traits are produced. Over multiple generations this causes the majority of the population to posess the more advantagous genes.</p>
<p>4: Isolation (includes founder effect and bottleneck effect): When events cause a part of a population to be split off from the main group, this part may have a different ratio of traits than the population at large. It will also face different conditions, and so natural selection may take a different path.</p>
<p>5: Population Mixing (includes gene flow): When members of two populations meet, members may interbreed. their offspring may have traits from both populations.</p>
<p>and lastly,</p>
<p>6: Mutation: When DNA is copied, sometimes segements are accidentally deleted or duplicated. Also, some segments, known as “jumping genes”, are sometimes copied to different locations in the genome.</p>
<p>Am I missing anything?</p>
<p>The 5 requirements for no evolution:</p>
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<p>Contact with other populations may cause traits from one population to pass to another. It does not cause new traits to emerge. Unless an allele already exists within at least one of the populations, mixing them will have no effect on the frequency of that allele.</p>
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<p>Why? If the population is small, existing alleles will be more likely to become prelevant by random chance. New alleles are not more likely to form.</p>
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<p>Again, nonrandom mating has an effect only on existing alleles.</p>
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<p>The presence of mutations does not demand that evolution will take place. We have induced numerous mutations on fruit flies without them evolving any traits that fruit flies didn’t have before.</p>
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<p>Natural Selection alone only changes the frequency of alleles within a population. It does not add new ones.</p>
<p>If this is not enough for you, it will be easy for me to show situations where one or more of these 5 conditions is present yet no evolution will take place.</p>
<p>Evidence I consider possible support for evolution:</p>
<p>Lastly, as to the issue of Cytocrome c, “vestigial” organs (though most if not all of these are not neccesarily vestigial), and the endosymbiote theory, these are the reaons why I do not throw out evolution completely. They are, however, rather shaky evidence on which to base an entire worldview and on whose witness to throw out all alternative theories.</p>
<p>And all debate over whether evolution is plausible still leaves the problem of such wonders as the cleanerfish/grouper relationship, which cannot be explained in an evolutionary context except by construction such a chain of improbabilities as to be ludicrous.</p>
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I know. I wasn’t intending that. I was only talking about evolution. Evolution can exist.</p>
<p>Regarding your last post, you seem to forget how genes can be expressed. Almost 98% of the genetic code is not expressed. Therefore, a change in RNA can lead to the expression of different genes, leading to different proteins and different traits. There’s an entire other level that you aren’t considering that play an even more important role: how that DNA is expressed.</p>
<p>Yes, you can prove the evolution doesn’t always take place, but then again, you haven’t proved it NEVER takes place. Evolution happens over thousands of generation, so we truly haven’t had time to produce enough divergence that would prove evolution. Evolution is quite a tricky thing to prove in a laboratory, but I assure you, there are countless example of it in nature.</p>
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<p>What substantive contribution does that provide to the argument? I never stated that those who believe in the supernatural have never supplied a beneficial contribution or advancement in intellectual thought.</p>
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<p>Groundlessly introducing supernatural elements into scientific inquiry is an egregious contravention of science’s guiding principles of objectively uncovering natural phenomenon. It tests one’s knowledge, aptitude at sound deductive reasoning and recognizing objectively established patterns, and ability to reason, not one’s ability to devise presumptuous suppositions, introduce false variables, or reach erroneous conclusions. It marks a stark departure from using subjective experience, a warm imagination, and unreasonable claims to “understand” the truth by forcing one to exhume reality on an honorable, standardized, and methodical basis. </p>
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<p>You are completely incorrect and neuroscience (which isn’t naturalism) does not support your vacuous, reductionist claim. One can only label me as a “naturalist” insofar as my recognition of the spuriousness or artificial credibility for the supernatural. Attaching to it some set of cemented precepts or fixated scientific claims is an underhanded maneuver than misrepresents my argument. Naturalism, in the way that it is properly understood, is not science nor is it a systematic body for making scientific assertions. Conflating the two as fundamental equivalents is a very mendacious tactic.</p>
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<p>Did you even bother to read the paper that I posted?</p>
<p>And from where are you obtaining these “according to naturalism” claims? Your statements on the brain are not supported by scientific findings. Rather, you are degrading a fully reasonable belief (that complex wholes (such as the human brain) should be explained in terms of their parts) into a simpleminded and grossly misleading travesty (that the properties of an intricate whole are simply the sum of those same properties within the parts). “In terms of” comprises a profusion of immensely intricate causal actions, influences, and mathematical strategies of which summation is only the most elementary. Reductionism, your contention made out of your own dishonesty, misunderstanding, or both, in the “sum of the parts” sense, is profoundly absurd, and is nowhere to be located in the publications of well regarded scientists. </p>
<p>From where are you drawing the connection that those who recognize the inanity of the supernatural fundamentally adhere to your atomistic reductionist theory? Similar to virtually all of your claims, that is a significantly incompetent and misrepresentative assertion.</p>
<p>And again, don’t conflate naturalism with science, because they aren’t the same. Incorrectly uniting the two to stand as fundamental equivalents (and scratching that out to represent the current scientific consensus) is a very fraudulent maneuver from a debate standpoint.</p>
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<p>So your erroneous deduction is that some supernatural bloke is required to endow a “correctness” to our sensory experience. Are you that blind to the absurdity, baselessness, wrongness, and profound inferiority of that explanation? The brain and its subsidiary structures have now been scrutinized to the extent required to demonstrate that no specific locality remains that can rationally and defensibly be assumed to foster a nonphysical ontology or undergo a nonmaterial interaction.</p>
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<p>You continue to misrepresent my position and form arguments incapable of sustaining methodical thought. Our ability to interpret our sensory surroundings to create conscious awareness is something that you simply cannot mentally grasp.</p>
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<p>From an ontological standpoint – human significance on the grand scale of the universe – yes. Does that mean that humans are no less distinctive on a phenomenological level or that we recognize that condition in the daily course of affairs? Absolutely not.</p>
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<p>Your logic and reasoning skills could really use some work. That is like asking: was Beethoven’s brain full of “music” atoms? Was Picasso’s brain full of “art” atoms? Forming unique individuality and developing the ability to reason correctly is a complex process involving genetic constraints and personal development, social context, and individual experience. Your involutions are mortifyingly senseless. And you are not resolving your own brainless complexities by believing that free will is endowed by some fairy in the sky that is superfluous and logically inconsistent.</p>
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<p>By “empiricists,” I was denoting individuals who do not indiscriminately believe that morality or existence is derived from a supernatural basis.</p>
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<p>Absolutely false and your analogizing is completely atrocious and irrelevant to the topic. I am going to contribute my post on the biological origin of moral aptitude and religion shortly, which will, to the unbiased reader, unravel the entire perspective that supernaturalism is necessary for the sake of a moral code and substantiate the claim that it holds nothing more than a psychological internality.</p>
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<p>Your arguments continually get more and more analytically incompetent. This statement is the equivalent of stating the evolutionists believe that humans are descended from bananas.</p>
<p>As part of perfectly suitable digression, there are actually a hefty faction of creationists that legitimately believe that the banana substantiates the existence of some supernatural sentience. They avow, in accordance with the anthropocentric foundations of creationist beliefs, that the banana is impeccably designed for humans. It is well designed to fit into the hand nicely with a non-slip surface and ridges corresponding to the human hand. Is has a tab for easy opening so that the contents don’t squirt all over the face. It is designed in curve-like fashion toward the face for the ease of eating. “God” created a color code to demonstrate that green is too early, black is too late, and that yellow is just right.</p>
<p>The sad part is that who propose it are actually serious. Some do not find the obvious satire within and actually find that argument so convincing that it offers “proof” for intelligent design. That is the exact type of fatuous “evidence” that creationists hop upon to “prove” their point.</p>
<p>(Unfortunately for them, humans created the banana but apparently that is beside the point.)</p>
<p>^ Because of the Acceptable Use Policy of this website, I cannot post the YouTube video corroborating that. But should you be interested, type in “banana creationist” and select the first one.</p>
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<p>Where are you drawing the connection that biological organisms ability to learn “proves” the existence of the supernatural? Your capacity for logical thought is so mind-blowingly perverted that it frankly borders on mental irregularity. Once again, quit misunderstanding what I stated and mislabeling my position. You simply demonstrate an illogical and emotional eagerness to give baselessly formulated ideology priority over objectively determined truth. </p>
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<p>You, on the other hand, dispute something in which you know absolutely nothing about (the brain and its function) and something that you will never be able to grasp until you discard your own irrational ideological fixation. </p>
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<p>No, it’s not. Your pointless retort is merely a tacit confession that you aren’t willing to address each of the points that I raised for discussion in the doubly-quoted statement. </p>
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<p>Your logic, once again, is of exceptionally poor quality. The belief in an infinite, multi-dimensional being (while groundlessly dismissing indisputably confirmed science (evolution, the true age of the Earth, the time in which dinosaurs existed)) is a profound indication of a harebrained ideology. You cannot simply apply the argument to one side while neglecting the other. If “complex” life “requires” a creator, then the creator would require a creator of greater complexity, which would, in turn, need its own creator, ad infinitum. You are merely running yourself into a logical recursion.</p>