Evolution

[Scott Mayers]

That's obvious. It's because there's a plausible alternative. Whenever that's the case, we need evidence on both sides in order to decide the case.

Can you tell me what this 'plausible alternative' is that you also keep denying as religious, please?

There are two alternatives: Evolutionism, and man as a unique creation of God. And whichever one is true is not a matter of "religion," meaning "whatever a person wants to believe," as if believing in God could make it so, or disbelieving could prevent it from being so. It's a matter of truth, of factuality, of reality.

And there's no messing with that. Everybody who tries, loses.

Thus, you now admit you have a religious belief that biases you against Evolution!

Actually, it does...unless you're prepared to think that all those people were simply fools. You would need to prove, not merely assert, that their beliefs were irrational before you were warranted in calling the entire previous world crazy.

So, with this reasoning, do you think that children are such 'fools' as to not know by default where they came from

Of course they don't know anything about that. Good heaven's man...nothing could be more obvious than that a child has no idea at all how he arrived wherever he arrived. That's why you have to explain birth to them, whenever they get old enough to grasp the concept. So yes, they need to be taught stuff.

Then you have to agree that atheism is the normal default given religion has to be taught. This is an argument against your presumption that I cannot presume the earlier non-scientific beliefs is made up of fools. The comparison I made was from

Ignorance to Wisdom

Likewise, the religious beliefs are naive and comparable to the fool's ignorance with Darwin's Theory representing wisdom:

Religion to Evolutionary Science
(ignorant) to (wisdom)

The prior 'theory' was religious and you are stuck being in the Garden of Eden as the scientist has evolved beyond this for being the mature adults who OWN the 'curse' that you pretend doesn't exist.

[Immanuel Can]

Thus, you now admit you have a religious belief that biases you against Evolution!

Ad hominem. It doesn't matter what I -- or you -- "believe." It matters what's true.

Then you have to agree that atheism is the normal default

Not at all.

You might use that argument to say that all people start out with some form of "agnosticism," and I'd agree with you that far. But Atheism is the gratuitious denial of the existence of God; and that's not what people normally think. If they did, the universality of religion in ancient societies would be inexplicable.

Even as ardent an Atheist as Richard Dawkins admits that Atheism is counterintuitive. He says,

“I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it’s tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator."

Nevertheless, says Dawkins, we've all got to refuse the obvious, and become Atheists anyway.

So it's Atheism that is not the default, even if we might say it's some kind of agnosticism. But I'd just use the synonym for "agnosticism," and say that all it means is that children start out "ignorant." They just "don't know," which is what both words mean.

[Scott Mayers]

You know that your religion is NOT the only one either, right?

That's irrelevant.

There are an infinite number of possible answers a person could give to the question "how many grains of sand are on the seashore." But only one of them will ever turn out to be the truth. The proliferation of false answers tells us nothing about the relative possibility of a true one.[/quote]
And yet you demanded that I have the burden to disprove you as a fool for believing in something prior to Darwin's theory!?? This is very relevant. MY argument of the continuity of endless possible falsehoods is what proves the task you expect of me as impossible in practice. So you simply declared the opposite of what you were saying before, ...that ONE truth exists. Yet you have no justice to call what your 'Creationism' means as a form of belief that is impossible to directly disprove. I cannot disprove your fairytale because it IS a fairytale that itself proves to be able to add more falsehoods in the attempt to burden the opponent.

I do not require the impossible task to prove each of your delusions because it never ends.

{I'm going to skip a bit here: I just couldn't figure out any logic in the argument. I literally couldn't tell what point you were trying to make.}

Oh yes you can. I even edited it to be read easier. You again wrote ahead of my edits and so whatever was confusing should be fixed.

I was comparing your purpose here as being 'sinful' to your own God for not understanding the meaning of Genesis' Adam and Eve story and its Curse. You, the religious apologist, are acting like the naive child living splendedly in a type of garden of Eden expecting the intellectual mature world to require continuously babying your delusions like a child having temper tantrums. If you are not will to join in with EVEeryone else in accepting the curse, you are disrespecting your God.

I also compared your belief to a calculator. If God created us to function with the senses He gave us, then why are you 'spitting' in his face like a malfunctioning calculator giving off sparks? God wouldn't need your approval. The senses, not your irresponsible blind beliefs in what other people tell you is true about God matters. I assure you that I have no fear of facing God should he exist because I am not pretentiously being dishonest by doing my role in taking intellectual responsibilty that the Curse implied.

[Belinda]

Literal interpretation of The Bible misses out on the poetry of The Bible.

That's a stunningly obvious false dichotomy.

It's like saying, "If somebody now wrote a beautiful poem about the Napoleonic Wars, then it would make the Napoleonic Wars untrue."

I suppose it also would mean that if somebody sang you a beautiful song at your wedding, then you'd have to choose between your enjoyment of the song and your belief that you were actually married.

[Scott Mayers]

... I'm arguing from the facts that science now admits are true. The "Ascent of Man" scheme was a fraud. You don't need to be religious at all to know that's true. One only has to be an honest scientist or historian.

First off, "Ascent of Man" is a title of a film, not Darwin's book, "Descent of Man". To be clear, are you denying that man has not evolved along with the rest of the life here on Earth?

Are you proposing that we are aliens planted here from some other planet?

Are you asserting that we have NO genetic links in common with our ancestral line linking us to a common genetic ancestor to the other primemates?

Do you know who "Lucy" refers to by scientists?

(You) are just attempting to gaslight others...

Not at all. If you know the current state of Darwinian theory, you know I'm telling you the truth. The monkey-to-man thing is dead as a doornail. it has been for a long time.[/quote]
That's funny! You used a 'gaslighting' deception to try to prove that you are not 'gaslighting'!

Does this work for anyone else reading here?

Sorry if that comes as a surprise, but I do agree that Evolutionist publicists should have told you already. It's really their job, if they were honest.

You are asserting that evolutionist act against their own theory's necessary foundation? That would be like asserting that Mathematicians have proven Numbers did not have any foundation to math!

You are literally LYING here and why you should be ashamed of yourself. Unless you are not merely a paid soldier of those attempting to malign any trust in intellectual reflection for Western democracies, you are acting with extreme hypocrisy to the very God you claim to believe in.

[Scott Mayers]

Thus, you now admit you have a religious belief that biases you against Evolution!

Ad hominem. It doesn't matter what I -- or you -- "believe." It matters what's true.

Then you have to agree that atheism is the normal default

Not at all.

You might use that argument to say that all people start out with some form of "agnosticism," and I'd agree with you that far. But Atheism is the gratuitious denial of the existence of God; and that's not what people normally think. If they did, the universality of religion in ancient societies would be inexplicable.

Many of us use the term, "agnostic" to define approaching that which one is looking into without a predetermined assumption of knowledge. An "atheist" is one who had an 'absence' of a belief in Gods. So a child is an 'athiest' by default. They would be relatively 'agnostic' because they do not presume a predetermined knowledge of any god. So this makes them an "agnostic athiest". Most people who call themselves atheists are agnostic.

For me, however, I am a 'gnostic atheist' given I've learned how and why no gods are necessary to propose and can argue against many religious apologists such as yourself here and now. I also happen to have invested an education in understanding the origins of religion and can confidently assert that the specific beliefs of the Judaeo-Christian-Muslim beliefs are all derived from roots in Egypt most specifically but that the roots of all religious scriptures originated as Non-religious collections of works that evolve into religion as people lose an understanding of the original meanings.

Even as ardent an Atheist as Richard Dawkins admits that Atheism is counterintuitive. He says,

“I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it’s tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator."

Richard Dawkins is a world reknown Evolutionary Biologist and this comment refers to the artistic beauty to which religion CAN have value. He was arguing how and why religious beliefs are themselves 'evolutionary' features. He is the one who made up the term, "meme" (1974, The Selfish Gene) to define the gene-like nature of our monkey minds' capacity to spread information that in itself gets repeated in the same way as Darwinian evolution. The Creationist uses memes that seem effective in keeping IN thier flock or preventing them from trusting the science of things like evolution. It is less effective to convince outsiders but also gets spread by us athiests as we merely TALK about it.

Nevertheless, says Dawkins, we've all got to refuse the obvious, and become Atheists anyway.

So it's Atheism that is not the default, even if we might say it's some kind of agnosticism. But I'd just use the synonym for "agnosticism," and say that all it means is that children start out "ignorant." They just "don't know," which is what both words mean.

I just offered the definitions of how many of us use the terms. The child is both athiest and agnostic.

[Immanuel Can]

You know that your religion is NOT the only one either, right?

That's irrelevant.

There are an infinite number of possible answers a person could give to the question "how many grains of sand are on the seashore." But only one of them will ever turn out to be the truth. The proliferation of false answers tells us nothing about the relative possibility of a true one.

And yet you demanded that I have the burden to disprove you

I did not, actually. I simply said that you need to know the history of the "Ascent of Man" theory, and why it has now been rejected by the scientific community. I didn't put any "burden" on you to "prove" anything at all.

{I'm going to skip a bit here: I just couldn't figure out any logic in the argument. I literally couldn't tell what point you were trying to make.}

Oh yes you can.

No, no I couldn't. But if you want to clarify now...

I was comparing your purpose here as being 'sinful' to your own God for not understanding the meaning of Genesis' Adam and Eve story and its Curse.

See, this is what I don't understand. I didn't say anything at all about "my purpose here," wherever "here" means, or about being "sinfult to [my]own God," nor that anybody was that for "not understanding" the "meaning" of anything.

I honestly have no idea where you're getting all the quoted expressions above -- certainly not from me -- nor do I have any idea what you meant by them.

... why are you 'spitting' in his face like a malfunctioning calculator giving off sparks?

Again, I have no idea what you're talking about here.

You seem to have run off the deep end with some analogy that, perhaps, is apparent to you, but you're not making clear to anybody else. But if you want to try again...

[Immanuel Can]

To be clear, are you denying that man has not evolved along with the rest of the life here on Earth?

Of course. Was that not apparent?

Are you proposing that we are aliens planted here from some other planet?

Of course not. I'm simply arguing that mankind is unique among creatures (a fact which we all know is true anyway) and that that fact argues against blithely assuming that whatever process we posit for lower animals has to apply to mankind as well. We have no reason to think that.

(You) are just attempting to gaslight others...

Not at all. If you know the current state of Darwinian theory, you know I'm telling you the truth. The monkey-to-man thing is dead as a doornail. it has been for a long time.

That's funny!

You just admitted it yourself. You slipped over from arguing from the ape-to-man theory to arguing for the "common ancestor" theory. Which theory do you wish to defend? Because they contradict each other.

Sorry if that comes as a surprise, but I do agree that Evolutionist publicists should have told you already. It's really their job, if they were honest.

You are asserting that evolutionist act against their own theory's necessary foundation?

I am saying that if a scientist claims to be "seeking truth," "being objective and scientific," "not beholden to any ideology," or "just following the data," as is often claimed, and as is the correct agenda of any real science, then he/she owes us to speak truth, represent the data honestly, and uncover any falsehoods that appear along the way.

And if they don't want to do those things, then what's their claim to really being "scientists," instead of petty ideologues for an unscientific theory?

[Immanuel Can]

An "atheist" is one who had an 'absence' of a belief in Gods.

No, actually, it's not. I've seen that claim before, and it's silly.

If that were true, you'd have to say that rocks, trees, fish and emus are all "Atheists," simply because they "lack a belief in God."

Atheists want to say more. They want to say, "I lack a belief in God, and you should, too." In other words, they want to speak about what they think you should be allowed to say you know. And that's obviously irrational.

In contrast, an "agnostic" is somebody who genuinely has no committed position on the relevant matter. And children, since they likely do not even know when they are born that the issue even exists, would fit that definition.

So you could say they're "default agnostics." I just say, "They're children. And children lack a lot of knowledge."

Most people who call themselves atheists are agnostic.

I actually think that's true. I don't believe that even Richard Dawkins wants to label himself as an outright Atheist, because Atheism is irrational. He prefers to call himself a "Convinced agnostic." But there are certainly people who DO choose to take the label "Atheist," and who thus adopt an inherently irrational view. For what sort of evidence or proof can they adduce to show a) that there is no Supreme Being in the universe, and b) that nobody else has a possiblity of knowing the Supreme Being, because the Atheist himself doesn't?

I also happen to have invested an education...

Yes, many of us have. And?

I just offered the definitions of how many of us use the terms. The child is both athiest and agnostic.

That's a contradiction, or else a redundancy. If "Atheist" means "lacking belief in God," then what does "agnostic" mean? So that's redundant...saying the same thing twice.

And if "agnostic" means something substantively different from "lacking a belief in God", then a person has to choose which of the two substantively different positions he represents, because they're substantively different.

[Immanuel Can]

Literal interpretation of The Bible misses out on the poetry of The Bible.

That's a stunningly obvious false dichotomy.

It's like saying, "If somebody now wrote a beautiful poem about the Napoleonic Wars, then it would make the Napoleonic Wars untrue."

I suppose it also would mean that if somebody sang you a beautiful song at your wedding, then you'd have to choose between your enjoyment of the song and your belief that you were actually married.

Well, you get the point, surely. To say that something is "aesthetic" or "poetry" does not tell us anything at all about whether or not it's true. You don't have to choose between truth and poetry -- at least sometimes.

The fall of Troy has been celebrated in poetry...and yet we believe it was a historical event...or the charge of the Light Brigade would be another such example...or what about David's lovely painting of the coronation of Napoleon, or the sculpture of Plato...does the existence of any of these things suggest they never existed? And does knowing that they happened diminish or enhance our aesthetic experience of them?

The answer's quite obvious.

[Scott Mayers]

You know that your religion is NOT the only one either, right?

That's irrelevant.

There are an infinite number of possible answers a person could give to the question "how many grains of sand are on the seashore." But only one of them will ever turn out to be the truth. The proliferation of false answers tells us nothing about the relative possibility of a true one.

And yet you demanded that I have the burden to disprove you

I did not, actually. I simply said that you need to know the history of the "Ascent of Man" theory, and why it has now been rejected by the scientific community. I didn't put any "burden" on you to "prove" anything at all.

But why do you feel the need to lie? First off, I told you that the "Ascent of Man" is a title of a movie. If you want to argue this, using quotations as a title can be troublesome given you could be talking about that movie. The evolutionists, ALL of them, know that man in fact has evolved and genetics proves it. End of story. You continue faking facts which makes me hesitant to even bother with you.

If you don't accept the challenge to be truthful, you prove to NOT even be religious, but just a troll seeking to disrupt the success of freedoms of speech for the rest of us. You are acting like a foreign government agent seeking to create chaos at all costs. If the truth doesn't matter to you, then YOU justify a need for extremes like socialism. Are you WANTING to promote Socialism but just pretending to be a stereotypical Christian hick?

Don't bother answering these as questions. I am asserting that you are definitely lying and nothing you say other than to admit it will matter from here on in. I cannot compete with such behavior.

[I have to stop reading anything else you have to say here unless you correct this obvious lie. It is certain to only waste my time.]

[Belinda]

I agree "you don't have to choose between truth and poetry." as said by Immanuel Can.

However you should choose between bad poetry and good poetry. Reading poetry properly require you to use reason as well as emotional reaction.The first few verses of Genesis 1 are good poetry because they are life-affirming in their expressed love for creation and all the created things. Beware of Genesis when it gets to the verse about man having dominion. Regardless of its import in the past, this is now an evil verse that directly bedevils efforts to curb man's death -dealing impact on creation.

[Sculptor]

I agree "you don't have to choose between truth and poetry." as said by Immanuel Can.

However you should choose between bad poetry and good poetry. Reading poetry properly require you to use reason as well as emotional reaction.The first few verses of Genesis 1 are good poetry because they are life-affirming in their expressed love for creation and all the created things. Beware of Genesis when it gets to the verse about man having dominion. Regardless of its import in the past, this is now an evil verse that directly bedevils efforts to curb man's death -dealing impact on creation.

Genesis is bad poetry.
Good poetry contains a germ of truth.
If you think Genesis is life affirming I suggest you read it again.
The King James version might make you think it is poetry but that is just the effect of archaic language which tends to lend a certian something. The content should make any rational person whince with horror.

Life affirming.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

[Belinda]

I agree "you don't have to choose between truth and poetry." as said by Immanuel Can.

However you should choose between bad poetry and good poetry. Reading poetry properly require you to use reason as well as emotional reaction.The first few verses of Genesis 1 are good poetry because they are life-affirming in their expressed love for creation and all the created things. Beware of Genesis when it gets to the verse about man having dominion. Regardless of its import in the past, this is now an evil verse that directly bedevils efforts to curb man's death -dealing impact on creation.

Genesis is bad poetry.
Good poetry contains a germ of truth.
If you think Genesis is life affirming I suggest you read it again.
The King James version might make you think it is poetry but that is just the effect of archaic language which tends to lend a certian something. The content should make any rational person whince with horror.

Life affirming.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

I am glad you mentioned Cain and Abel, because that story is on the theme of how permanent settlement on and ownership of land is a direct cause of tribal conflicts and international wars of aggression. If you have never been taught how to abstract themes from meaningful stories you may not understand what I am talking about.

[Sculptor]

I agree "you don't have to choose between truth and poetry." as said by Immanuel Can.

However you should choose between bad poetry and good poetry. Reading poetry properly require you to use reason as well as emotional reaction.The first few verses of Genesis 1 are good poetry because they are life-affirming in their expressed love for creation and all the created things. Beware of Genesis when it gets to the verse about man having dominion. Regardless of its import in the past, this is now an evil verse that directly bedevils efforts to curb man's death -dealing impact on creation.

Genesis is bad poetry.
Good poetry contains a germ of truth.
If you think Genesis is life affirming I suggest you read it again.
The King James version might make you think it is poetry but that is just the effect of archaic language which tends to lend a certian something. The content should make any rational person whince with horror.

Life affirming.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;

And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.

I am glad you mentioned Cain and Abel, because that story is on the theme of how permanent settlement on and ownership of land is a direct cause of tribal conflicts and international wars of aggression. If you have never been taught how to abstract themes from meaningful stories you may not understand what I am talking about.

I am, as so often way ahead of you on this matter. I studied anthropology as part of my ancient history and archaeology degree. My masters also included much literary criticism too.
The bible is all about tribal conflict but favours only one megalomaniac god and his special people. I doubt the makr of Cain has much to do with that since it is clearly a family spat.
But nice to try to avoid the issue.
Where the fuck is all that life affirmation you are talking about?