Sorry Creationists ... Evolutionary gap in early land animal fossil record filled

[Kulindahr]

The smaller point is that the Abrahamism you believe in "flunks" for exactly the same reason: it can't even agree on who god is! Yahweh? Allah? Who?

It's pretty ignorant to keep bringing up "Allah". In the Bible, it's Yahweh, period.

The larger point is that if this is an example of the way you are conducting your rational survey of the worlds' religions, it flunks.

You don't possess an elementary grasp of the religions you are pretending to examine and pass judgment on.

I possess enough understanding to determine whether any of the criteria are violated.

 

[Kulindahr]

Except, O Scientist, that isn't a "finding;" it's an ode.

I took English lit, and an ode has nothing to do with reaching a conclusion guided by a set of reasoned criteria.

For instance, other than by your fiat, there is no evidence to suggest that one creator is preferable to multiple creators.

Another worshiper of science?

You proclaim yourself ready to be reasoned out of faith. It has been my experience that i often see reasonable objections dismissed when, if this is truly an enterprise of reason, those objections would actually yield to an explanation which would satisfy both parties to the discussion.

It's not an enterprise of reason because my attackers refuse to be budged from their faith -- or even admit they have it.

 

[zoltanspawn]

How surprising that a thread designed to bait succeeded?

If only we could involve race somehow to have a completely typical JUB clusterfuck.

I think some of this conversation has been very interesting and not a clusterfuck at all.

 

[zoltanspawn]

It's pretty ignorant to keep bringing up "Allah". In the Bible, it's Yahweh, period.

I possess enough understanding to determine whether any of the criteria are violated.

Of course, I was merely parodying your comprehension of Hinduism.

 

[Kulindahr]

So? Allah is involved in practically the same creation myth. In fact, they must have come from the same source, because there are so many similarities it can't just be chalked up to coincidence. Allah created Adam from dust (or dirt, whatever) and Eve from his rib. There was even the paradisiacal garden and Satan's tree they weren't allowed to eat from but did anyway.

Face it. Your religion is the same as every other. Regardless of the details, it's still derived from a fantastical patchwork of ancient man-made myths with no basis in reality. Dude, it's the year 2012 for crying out loud.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how the date is a rational item for determining if something is true.

 

[Kulindahr]

To my assertion, if you posted a poll on JUB, you'd have a hard time getting more than 5% of those present to endorse Creationism as a scientific theory, and almost universal endorsement of Evolution. So, apart from hectoring the 5%, what is the point of the thread? It's not as if Fundamentalists frequent the site.

You'd want to distinguish Young Earth Creationism from that which has no problem with evolution, though distinguishing between the latter as no interference from God or God tweaking things now and then would probably be overkill.

To me, the "design" in intelligent design was selecting the basic constants of the universe. To me that's far more elegant than picturing God setting up the planet like a kid arranging his toy animals.

 

[Kulindahr]

Here's an interesting article to read:

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/adam-eve-and-evolution

That contains one of my favorite parts of the Catholic Catechism:

"Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth"

That basically describes the divide between religion where people are rational and religion which is irrational. Y.E. Creationists are irrational in two aspects: they deny science, and they deny scholarship concerning the Bible. Of course those two go hand in hand, because both involve refusal to think.


Though I noticed my position doesn't fit into one of the article's three categories: I don't think God constantly guided everything, I think He knew from the selected constants that He'd end up with what He wanted.

 

[frankfrank]

Actually, as I've shown you, there are very specific stories about various gods said to be involved in creation.

Your religion can't even figure that out. Was it Allah? Was it Jehovah? Was it Yahweh? And just how do Jesus and the Holy Spirit (forming the holy trinity with god) factor into this?

Actually, there are more Biblical god names than I care to count ...

OLD TESTAMENT NAMES FOR GOD
MORE NAMES OF GOD

That is extremely interesting! Somebody did a LOT of work to compile this list. I don't think I've seen a Concordance that was "categorized" like this, before.

[EDIT: I like kulindahr's answer to this list, and there's truth in what he says. I would add, for more precise semantics, that the name "Allah" belongs to another GROUP of religions, as there are multiple sects of Islam, just as there are multiple sects of religions which use the capitalized name "God" - Catholic, Baptist, pentecostals, Coptics, Quakers, etc.]

 

[Kulindahr]

That is extremely interesting! Somebody did a LOT of work to compile this list. I don't think I've seen a Concordance that was "categorized" like this, before.

[EDIT: I like kulindahr's answer to this list, and there's truth in what he says. I would add, for more precise semantics, that the name "Allah" belongs to another GROUP of religions, as there are multiple sects of Islam, just as there are multiple sects of religions which use the capitalized name "God" - Catholic, Baptist, pentecostals, Coptics, Quakers, etc.]

It is a nice list -- I don't think I've ever seen one quite that complete, though it's a bit sloppy due to a couple repetitions/redundancies.

If it was called "Appellations of God in the Bible" it would be accurate, because those are all things God is called.

 

[Kulindahr]

Well, It is possible that God (Singular) has many titles that we might have missed. LOL

I read a story once, called "The Nine Billion Names of God". The premise of the story was that if mankind ever managed to write down all the names of God, the universe would end.

 

[bankside]

You'd want to distinguish Young Earth Creationism from that which has no problem with evolution, though distinguishing between the latter as no interference from God or God tweaking things now and then would probably be overkill.

To me, the "design" in intelligent design was selecting the basic constants of the universe. To me that's far more elegant than picturing God setting up the planet like a kid arranging his toy animals.

I acknowledge this is a more convincing hypothesis than that of the young-earthers. I can still find it to be unconvincing however, and not have succumbed to "scientism." I think that's because the charge of scientism is a dodge. One of my objections to your theory is not being able to see a connection between your feeling of wonder at mathematics and any necessity for there to be just one divine creator. Having asked, rational person to rational person, why you come to this conclusion, I am accused rather than educated. I don't see how it is a corollary of anything that one uncreated creator is more likely than several, and if it is true, and reason does not defy truth, then there must be a rational way to explain it to me.

 

[Kulindahr]

I acknowledge this is a more convincing hypothesis than that of the young-earthers. I can still find it to be unconvincing however, and not have succumbed to "scientism." I think that's because the charge of scientism is a dodge. One of my objections to your theory is not being able to see a connection between your feeling of wonder at mathematics and any necessity for there to be just one divine creator. Having asked, rational person to rational person, why you come to this conclusion, I am accused rather than educated. I don't see how it is a corollary of anything that one uncreated creator is more likely than several, and if it is true, and reason does not defy truth, then there must be a rational way to explain it to me.

Elegance -- that's the term I was trying to recall earlier.

It's more elegant that there's one source to everything than multiple sources -- that's Occam's Razor, too, I suppose. It's why particle scientists are frustrated when they think they're about to pin down THE root particle, and run into (another) swarm of entities -- it isn't elegant. It comes from knowing that for any graph, there is just one equation to describe it, and that for any one formula there are an infinite number of ways to fill it in.

Scientism: how is it a dodge to point out that someone is doing exactly what they're using as an attack -- that someone's position is "just faith"? youfiad's position was pure faith: he maintained that the only way to know things is through science, so if no scientific evidence can be found, the thing being examined is false. That's faith, and it's faith with no evidence at all; all we know is that science has brought lots of knowledge and achieved amazing things, but we have no evidence whatsoever that it's the only way to know things. It's why, BTW, so many people call evolution a religion, because so many of its proponents, like Dawkins, engage in the error of operating of blind faith.

I looked back at my post where I said "worshiper of science", and I have no clue what I was talking about -- it makes no sense at all at this point.

 

[Telstra]

I am the all powerful.
I demand everyone to worship me. !!!





* now think about it. Am i god ?

 

[Kulindahr]

There are no criteria that we know of. Everything you've mentioned is a highly biased and completely man-made construct. Deities need not subscribe to a human's perception of "elegance". Deities might even exist outside the known universe and might not even be governed by the laws of physics or math.

All my criteria are perfectly reasonable.

Any deity who doesn't exist outside the known universe isn't worthy of the name.

 

[youfiad]

Althought I hate to be a hyporite, I must chime back in, without diving back into the debate, but mearly as a self defense. I find it sort of childish how you bring me back up in your argument and falsely represent my arguments by contorting my words into nosense. Please do not lie and say things that I did not say and did not imply. And if you think that I said, or implied those things, may I suggest taking an elementary reading course at a local college or university. My position was never on pure faith as I never claimed to know anything for certain. My claim was purely that science is the best system we have now, that has shown us consistent results and models of representing what we know. Although I have not been responding to this article, I have still been following it

 

[Kulindahr]

Althought I hate to be a hyporite, I must chime back in, without diving back into the debate, but mearly as a self defense. I find it sort of childish how you bring me back up in your argument and falsely represent my arguments by contorting my words into nosense. Please do not lie and say things that I did not say and did not imply. And if you think that I said, or implied those things, may I suggest taking an elementary reading course at a local college or university. My position was never on pure faith as I never claimed to know anything for certain. My claim was purely that science is the best system we have now, that has shown us consistent results and models of representing what we know. Although I have not been responding to this article, I have still been following it

Then you should be willing to concede that your demand for scientific evidence for God is merely personal preference.

 

[Kulindahr]

How about any kind of evidence whatsoever? Even if god could appear to me in my bedroom while I watch TV at night, it would be more convincing to me than any scientific evidence I could read in a science journal. But even then, I wouldn't expect people to believe me. People make up crap all the time. If god wanted people to believe in him then he'd make himself known.

Asking for evidence is never too much to ask. Personal preference? Hah! Faith based on assumptions and wild speculation just doesn't cut it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's not a personal preference. That should be a downright requirement for all of mankind.

I think you're not content with just not knowing. That's understandable. I find the mystery of life frustrating as well. But you want to believe so bad you convince yourself that you have it all figured out.

You sound so much like the fundies I used to know it's scary. You have your assumptions about the other 'side' down pat, and aren't interested in whether they have any resemblance to reality.

"Want to believe"? What fairy tale did you drag that out of?

"Not content with not knowing"? What fable does that come from?

"Have it all figured out"? That's a laugh -- it's far more a characteristic of atheists like Dawkins.

 

[Kulindahr]

Your criteria are not reasonable. If you're right about any of them it's because it's a lucky guess.

My atheist physics professor at OSU thought they were reasonable -- he said they fit well with what's known of the universe.

There's no reason to think there isn't more than one god. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't.

Elegance -- it's a principle in mathematics and in science.

There's no reason to think god's perfect. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't.

The brilliance of the basic constants of the universe argue otherwise.

There's no reason to think math can apply to him. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

That's ludicrous. If math didn't apply to Him, it wouldn't apply to His Creation.

And of course, there's no reason to believe there's any god at all. I hope there is, and maybe there is, but then again, maybe there isn't.

I frequently wish there weren't -- life would often be easier.

Humans want to understand everything. The meaning of life is the biggest mystery of all time. We yearn for a purpose. Maybe that purpose is just to be fit, survive, and pass on our genes like every other animal.

That we all yearn for a purpose should make us ask whether we were made for a purpose.

 

[youfiad]

Then you should be willing to concede that your demand for scientific evidence for God is merely personal preference.

Sure. I am not one to believe things merely because somebody tells me to. I only believe things when the evidence points in that direction. Scientific evidence has advanced our civilization more than anything else that has ever been known. And I have to say that the argument that it is necessary to have only one God not at all true. There is jut as much probability of having one god as there is many.

Also, I'm waiting on the math for your proof to the contrary.

I've said it once, and I'll say it a million times. The fact that you refuse to acknowledge any argument on our side as valide, goes to show that you're not willing to debate this topic and that you aren't searching for the truth but rather to maintain your belief at all possible cost.

It all comes down to the fact that, nobody knows anything for sure. Nobody will ever know for sure whether or not God exists and those who claim otherwise are just ignorant (that being those who say they are sure God does not exist and those who assert they know God does exist.). The reason for this is because definition of a God makes sure that it cannot be known.

So can't we all just just admit that we don't know and never will and we should just focus our life on understanding everything we can understand without killing our neighbors in the meantime? I have nothing wrong with religious people as long as they don't use their belief in actions against other people. The problem is, that has always happened, and will always happen as long as people still do believe. That's why I fight against religion.

 

[youfiad]

Also, feel obligated to point out that there has been an overuse of the false cause logical fallacy. It is a logical fallacy to assume that God is the cause for anything in the Universe. You can look at the logical fallacy yourself.