10 May 2005, 1:34 pm
10 May 2005, 2:05 pm
10 May 2005, 2:33 pm
10 May 2005, 2:45 pm
10 May 2005, 2:53 pm
Sean wrote:
Really? You always come accross as a staunch Antitheist rather than an Agnostic.
Not at all - as stated, I don't know, can't know if "God" exists. I am a staunch and vehement "anti-Organised Religion"ist (i.e. "Do as we say, give us your unquestioned obedience and money or we'll set God on to you!" - all such religions deserve unspeakable fates and I will fight them to my dying breath)- I've nothing against God himself in the slightest. I'm sure He and I would be great buddies and see eye-to-eye on.... well, everything really.
Sean wrote:
While the scientific mehtod and deductive reasoning can be used to investigate the possibility of Intelligent Design, God Himself would be beyond the universe and therefore outside the reach of scientific investigation. In order for God to make Himself known to us, he must reveal Himselof to us. And if he has revealed Himself to us, that information would most likely be found in the texts of one of the world's major relgions, where I would expect to find information clearly and logically stated if it is genuine Divine revelation.
I agree absolutely. It is for this reason that you have to seperate "science" - the realm of the concrete and demonstrable, from "God" - the realm of the abstract and theoretical. The 2 just don't mix or inter-connect at all, but both are great in their own "spheres of influence". My view is we can know "science", but can only speculate on "God" - noone can have the answer, and we only have the conflicting words of thousands of self-appointed "Holy Men" to even attempt to go on sussing out the truth. Who is to say which religion is "right"? Only one of them can be, and none of them is terribly convincing to be frank..... I prefer to leave it "unknown" and concentrate on the concrete and demonstrable, but that's just me.
P.S. I've nothing against you by the way, despite our little (ahem) spats in the past - you are a perfectly reasonable debater who I can happily do business with.
I apologise that you've been a party to some of the splash-back from..... shall we say..... certain other posters who are not worthy of such an accolade, or anything remotely like it - it wasn't aimed at you. I am a passionate and emotionally aggressive kind of guy who can devastate all in my path indiscriminately when my ire is raised (as you may have noticed 
). I'll apologise now before less reasonable viewpoints invade this thread (as they, sadly, inevitably will 
), requiring an, in-turn, less reasonable tone from me in response.
10 May 2005, 3:38 pm
10 May 2005, 3:47 pm
vetivert wrote:
how humans evolved as aquatic apes, rather than savannah ones, and the former theory is becoming more and more likely to be the accurate version.
Indeed a fascinating theory and the biological facts stack up remarkably well. To precis for those who also "can't be arsed" (honestly
): We have no hair (well, relatively speaking), have very high levels of body fat (errrr.... OK), are naturally strong swimmers compared to other apes, could probably only have developed large brains (well some of us ) through eating loads of fish and numerous other biological traits that are indicative of aquatic rather than terrestrial ancestry. Walking upright is reckoned to be an adaptation to wading, somewhat like herons or flamingos. Fascinating stuff..... I still don't like fish though.... 
10 May 2005, 3:59 pm
10 May 2005, 4:00 pm
10 May 2005, 7:05 pm
MDB wrote:
There is a fundermental flaw in your argument.
Say if the number 1,2,3,4,5,6 we to come up on the lottery people would be amazed however it is no more likely than the numbers 12 ,45 ,8, 34, 27, 22. And at some point the combination must come up. It would be more amazing if it never came up. We happen to live on the planet 1,2,3,4,5,6.
There are many millions of planets in our universe and there for the chances of one not happing to be randomly allocated the necessary resources fro life to start are incredibly low. In other word in a universes as big as our it would be surprising not to find life.
The fitting argument is a flawed analogy;
"man is thinking, 'This hole in the ground fits my foot very well. It keeps my foot warm and fits perfectly; yes, this hole fits my foot nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.”
The hole was there by chance, I would be amazed if there was a hole on this planet that did not fit my foot perfectly. The only way you could use that argument is if you thought that chance and randomness do not exist. Do you?
Again there is the fundamental problem with creationism of who created god? Although there are a few problems evolution none of them are as glaring as this.
As to the proving / disproving the existence of debate. My table is free of glasses, if you were to say that there is a glass on my table then it is up to you to prove it not for me to disprove it. Another example my brother is currently researching mussel cell physiology. He has his theory about how mussel cells get tired, he must prove it, rather than saying here is my theory, disprove it (that would be the most fantastically absurd piece of logic)! Using this indisputably clean logic there is no god that we can see, there is no god that we can feel, there is not god that we can hear, there is no god that we can smell – there is no god! And to say otherwise requires evidence!
Just to avoid the flawed arguments coming up in future basing an argument on the bible is flawed. It is a valid as me pointing to a book about evolution and saying that it proves evolution. Quoting from it is quite absurd.
To all the agnostics: Be very careful; organised religion is a very dangerous thing; currently the pope is causing many thousands of deaths in Africa because of his objection to the use of condoms (aids etc). Even if a god does exist believing in it has a negative effect on society as it simply gives power to moral dictators who abuse their power
Say if the number 1,2,3,4,5,6 we to come up on the lottery people would be amazed however it is no more likely than the numbers 12 ,45 ,8, 34, 27, 22. And at some point the combination must come up. It would be more amazing if it never came up. We happen to live on the planet 1,2,3,4,5,6.
There are many millions of planets in our universe and there for the chances of one not happing to be randomly allocated the necessary resources fro life to start are incredibly low. In other word in a universes as big as our it would be surprising not to find life.
The fitting argument is a flawed analogy;
"man is thinking, 'This hole in the ground fits my foot very well. It keeps my foot warm and fits perfectly; yes, this hole fits my foot nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.”
The hole was there by chance, I would be amazed if there was a hole on this planet that did not fit my foot perfectly. The only way you could use that argument is if you thought that chance and randomness do not exist. Do you?
Again there is the fundamental problem with creationism of who created god? Although there are a few problems evolution none of them are as glaring as this.
As to the proving / disproving the existence of debate. My table is free of glasses, if you were to say that there is a glass on my table then it is up to you to prove it not for me to disprove it. Another example my brother is currently researching mussel cell physiology. He has his theory about how mussel cells get tired, he must prove it, rather than saying here is my theory, disprove it (that would be the most fantastically absurd piece of logic)! Using this indisputably clean logic there is no god that we can see, there is no god that we can feel, there is not god that we can hear, there is no god that we can smell – there is no god! And to say otherwise requires evidence!
Just to avoid the flawed arguments coming up in future basing an argument on the bible is flawed. It is a valid as me pointing to a book about evolution and saying that it proves evolution. Quoting from it is quite absurd.
To all the agnostics: Be very careful; organised religion is a very dangerous thing; currently the pope is causing many thousands of deaths in Africa because of his objection to the use of condoms (aids etc). Even if a god does exist believing in it has a negative effect on society as it simply gives power to moral dictators who abuse their power
Remarkably well put and completely in keeping with my own thoughts on the matter, which means you are obviously correct
. I think it is a mistake to completely discount the possibility of "God" in it all though.... I'm perfectly comfortable with my own feelings on the matter to be sure - namely divine nonexistence and simple celestial probabilities, but we need to keep open minded, otherwise we end up no better than the filthy hatred mongers who crash planes into buildings, start inquisitions and post poisonous, worthless, laughable doggerel on aspie BBS sites....... There is a gaping chasm of unknown knowledge out there, and who knows what it contains - anything is possible (well, except for the hoary old big spoilt child "Christian Brand" God, anyway..... I mean, really..... ).
.....and who's fundamental flaw were you referring to? I'll get very upset if you start accusing me of pro-Religious argument, you know.....
10 May 2005, 7:51 pm
10 May 2005, 8:03 pm
11 May 2005, 12:55 am
TAFKASH wrote:
Very entertaining it was too.....
I'm glad that every body is having fun, but is there anyway that people can discuss the merits of their beliefs without deliberately pissing off other members? I like discussing the merits of Christianity vs. Atheism vs. whatever else people suggest here, but I don't enjoy the flamewars. There is such a thing as agreeing to disagree and I hope people will keep this in mind at least when they are posting in the other forums. A person's views may not be correct, but it is still possible to be friends with people who have drastically diferent views from you if you can make some sort of distiction between the person and the beliefs.
I doubt this thread will end up any differently than most of the others lately, but at least l tried.
tom wrote:
But, why should anyone not take it as logical that the amazing complexity appeared by chance(since the universe is infinite), and that life followed?
The universe is finite, it has a beginning, estimated at about 20 billion years ago, and has finite demensions at any given instance in time (currently estimated at 140-170 billion light years in diameter), and therefore holds a finite ammount of matter albeit extremely large.
Therefore there is not an infinite ammount of time for that random event to occcur in. If there was, there would be an infinite number of inhabited solar systems and the universe would be infinitely bright due to the stars having time to give off an infinite ammount of light.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, there are no non-organig chemicals that are even remotely as complex as a Molecule. The closest one that I am aware of is Methane and it's realted compounds, but it is still not anywhere near as complex as a DNA molecule and does not contain information on how to replicate itself.
tom wrote:
What is it that makes people believe that it was all made for us?
Short answer? Because here we are in this little spot in the universe that is hospitable to life and it is within the character of the God of the Bible to do something like this (see my previous post about God revealing himself through a particular religion).
I'd like to respond to every post, but there are too many to keep up with.
11 May 2005, 2:30 am
11 May 2005, 4:01 am
duncvis
Veteran
Joined: 10 Sep 2004
Age: 48
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,642
Location: The valleys of green and grey
11 May 2005, 4:36 am
I agree. I like these discussions but can't stand proselytising - it is deeply disrespectful. Hopefully we can all keep this one civilised.
