The Truth (As I see it)

Are you literally that stupid? Borderline retarded, like? Basing the argument on this 'evidence' is informally fallacious, because the 'evidence' is not evidence. It's dogma. If all you're talking about is what the book says, then it's fine but pointless; if you mean to say that such-and-such means anything other than the fact that certain things are written in a certain book, then you're committing an informal fallacy.

To put it in a way I'm sure even you can understand: the 'evidence' is not informally fallacious; but once you base an argument on it, the argument is.

More logical? What does that even mean? The informal fallacy is basing anything on scripture.

 

Female mules and female ligers are recorded as somewhat fertile, the males are almost always sterile, so there can not be a pure-breed second generation liger or mule. They can, however, accept sperm from male donkeys, horses, tigers, or lions to produce offspring that is closer to one side of the parent species. Seriously, if you doubt me that much you can always do a google search, unless it's beneath you.

 

The thread would probably end up differently if there was a "You are arguing with someone claiming to have psychic powers" reminder above the "Submit" button.

 

Not sure what have you been doing for the past 120 years, Xyle, if fertile hybrids are something new to you.

 

My interests don't lie in that field ... of study.

If you have a mind, you are psychic. The word "psychic" means pertaining to the soul. Therefore, the ability to think and the ability to be self-aware are "psychic powers". But otherwise you are right; I do claim to have uncommon powers. But I also claim that anyone who is willing to be vulnerable to another can duplicate this ability; but, of course, the ability is uncommon for the reason that few are willing to be vulnerable. And who wants to be weak? But a word to the wise, wait until after you are married before being this vulnerable.

Do you Yahoo?

Truth be told, this "debate" didn't begin as creation vs evolution argument.

If there is one thing that I know, that my gulliblity has taught me countless times through out my life, it is that people's understandings are never complete and what they think they communicating is not what others hear.

The complexity of the world shall continue to confond me. It's just so sad that there so many simpletons who never see how complex and unfathomable the world really is because they refuse to accept things outside their worldview.

But still, I still haven't encountered any tangible science that disproves that God created the world. While species may interbreed, evolve, change and become something new, it doesn't disprove the notion that all genes have a spontaneous origin. All it disproves is the outdated notion that all species are breeds incapable of genetic diversity which was predominate in Darwin's day.

The Big Bang theory is as believable as the String Theory and I can't accept either one as a valid science. They just don't compute. So we'll have to agree to disagree on that point.

But there is one thing that I have been trying to disprove that you guys haven't caught on yet. I do not believe what the others you have argued against believe even thought it appears that way. Just because I say that I am Creationist doesn't mean that my understanding is formed with the stupidity that other Creationists use. Basically, I am not a closed minded individual who rejects others arguments just because it contradicts my worldview. I am listening and considering what you say.

 

Mind? Definition, please.

Never? So you definitely have an incomplete understanding of the Bible and so could be wrong about every single thing that you've ever said about it?

(Along with the spelling of 'confound', apparently)

Agreed.

And what does this say about God? That he must exist based on an informal fallacy and lack of physical evidence (what would that even be in the form of?) for his non-existence (which is striking, seeing as I told you before that you cannot prove a negative; but don't take my word for it! Think about it yourself).

It's not their fault you don't understand them; don't spread around your nonsense and stupidity simply because of a lack of intelligence.

I'm delighted: you can start by addressing some of the valid points made, and not just picking and choosing those which suit you: believing in anything because of an appeal to authority is an informal fallacy; you said it yourself, but won't then apply it to your own worldview, and I hope I'm not the only one interested in hearing what kind of stupidity and misunderstanding you pull out on this one.

 

Epicly trolled guys.

 

Xyle didn't respond to my post on evolution. So... is this what being shunned feels like? Sad smiley face.

 

That's either funny or idiotic. That's like saying there is three binary digits: one, zero and not-one.

The knowledge that is imparted to you about your friend's date is both knowledge and non-scientific knowledge. The knowledge that people love is also both knowledge and non-scientific knowledge. Also, Scientific knowledge is a subset of knowledge. The only reason I treated as separate was because your words seemed to place it on a pedestal above all other knowledge.

On what topic? This thread is as a bad as my verbal monologues when I tie philosophy, science and religion together by citing examples of an understanding developed in one field to explain an understanding in another. I can't even remember what my original points were and I haven't been able to develop the inclination to try to unravel the muddle that this thread has become. (Even though I did download all the pages so I could do so offline.) But as I started outside the conversation, my original comments were either expressions of myself or expressions contrary to arguments that I cannot make part of myself.

Therefore, since I seemed to have moved to within the conversation, What position would you like me to espouse upon?

But does not the ground change in response to the external stimuli of air and water? And therefore evolve? <-- This is a trite argument and I don't expect it to be valid. Especially since is based on the perception that their is no difference between the words evolve and change.

Anyways, after you initially made that point, did I argue against it? Oh, wait; I forgot. People don't know what changes I have made to my world view unless I tell them. I have the same problem when talking face to face because people can't read my facial expression that shows my acquiesce to their arguments. But considering the number of jackal-like comments, showing too much weakness suggests that I will be eaten alive here. So if I refrain from admitting that you were right and I was wrong, ... well, whatever, I burnt out of that emotion.

I keep hearing the need for logical & reason, but this site isn't driven by logic. It is driven by emotion. Is it my fault for pointing out your emotion-driven logic errors? Yep. I can always keep my "mouth" shut. But then, if everyone did that there would be no forums. Anywhere.

 

Right. I'm really, really interested now. If you believe something that I don't have any idea about (and have a sneaking suspicion that it doesn't even make linguistic sense to talk about), then you must have some sort of knowledge or evidence or something which makes you believe rather than not believe or suspend judgement. I want that knowledge, free from emotion-driven logical errors, presented to the forum, so that we can all see what exactly it is that you understand that seems to be eluding all of us, and driving us to fallacies that nobody but you can see, as well as providing you with valid arguments that seem fallacious to us, in our folly, so that we can see the source of your magical powers.

Edit:

No it's not, especially since saying there are three binary digits is a contradiction. 'Not-one' is not a digit; but in this case, it would mean '0'. Think.

 

You're quite right, Xyle. There's more emotion than reason in the motives for posting here, and in the language.

I just remind myself that RPGs and internet forums are primarily a safe practise-ground for the socially retarded, like me.

Therefore the diverse beliefs and abyssmal communication skills are all quite understandable.

 

Well, frankly, it is. For reasons I've gone over several times. But if you don't value those reasons then I'll never be able to convince you. I've had similar debates with Christians in the past, where they don't agree. To me it just seems perfectly obvious that the mathematical representation of Newton's laws of motion are a quantitively superior form of knowledge from my taking my friend's word for it when he says he's dating a "total hottie". But if you want to place more value in "faith" and "a warm feeling I get when I think about how super God is" then that's your business. Just don't then go telling me that "evolution isn't science" or some such nonsense.

Just write something like the following: "I accept that a literal interpretation of the Bible is at odds with the findings of scientific inquiry, and that in the places where there is conflict, the scientific findings are far more likely to be true. I also realise that being largely unqualified as a scientist, I have no business criticizing any individual scientific theory."

That'll do me just fine, thanks.

No, because air and water are part of the system, and are causing the change. Whereas in an evolution-like system, the changes happen anyway (e.g. DNA mutation), and then certain changes are selected as being more favourable than others by a mechanism external to that which caused them.

A selection mechanism for geology would be if an alien flew around the galaxy blowing up any planets that he didn't like.

In your posts on this thread you have said:

These to me demonstrate an anti-science position, not to mention a lack of understanding of the difference between evolution and geology. If you have in fact changed your mind on these issues then maybe we have nothing more to argue about.

 

When I was a child, I was book-learned. Then someone called me "a gentleman and a scholar" and I realized that there was more to knowledge than what you read in books. Theory and science is all well and good, to a point. Past that point science and mathematical theories become inaccurate, misleading or outright wrong.

Einstein was a patent clerk; Sir Isaac Newton was alchemist; Darwin was a natural philosopher. What made these great scientists great was not a belief in scientific dogma but a belief in themselves. When faced with truths that could not be explained by known science, they didn't try to fit the facts within known theories, but rather, they created theories to fit with the data presented to them.

The research on Einstein's theories done over the past 100 years since Einstein published his theories wasn't done mostly by Einstein. It was done by the average scientist who believes in science and whose work is to merely understand what the greats already revealed. If you wish to be one who studies the works of others and explain it in new and profound ways, that is your business. But to try to force others to that worldview will make knowledge become stagnant -- and that I is why I won't change my position on faith. Unexplained events do not become science through rigid scientific discipline. Unexplained events become science when individuals accept the validity of the event then discover the laws that govern them in such a way that the events that couldn't be duplicated become common every day events. And faith that such events are real is a prerequiste before they can enter into the fold of science.

• "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --Arthur C Clarke

I am not anti-science. But the extrapolation of theories beyond known parameters (which would include the idea that all life has a common ancestor) are constantly be proven wrong by science, whether it be the classical physics when taken outside of the daily occurrence by accelerating it to near light speed or something else. I value scientific knowledge, but I also value knowledge acquired in more “mystical” means because I believe that science is limited by what science already knows. And I also believe that skeptism is essential to denounce frauds, but skeptism is not disbelief.

----

I told you that my position is more complex than you believed it was.

 

Actually I expected something like that. My belief of your beliefs was more complex than you believed.

I register as INFJ too, most days, and I quite understand the limits of science and the delusions of the cult of science. But there's plenty more complexity up for grabs than what you just describe, and being an unusual personality type doesn't give you special insights.

Also, quoting Arthur C Clarke at us is so offensive. Please go back to quoting the bible. Arthur Clarke is a self-referential self-declared prophet and a delusional, doting force of destruction. Talk about the cult of science.

 

Considering your displays of ignorance, misunderstandings, and general lack of intelligence, I wonder what kind of books were characteristic of your book-learning, and whether this has any relevance.

I'd be interested to know what you think this consists in.

As above, I'd be interested to know where that point is and why you think this is true.

Considering your alleged book-learnedness, I'm surprised that you don't know what the word 'dogma' means.

What this has to do with strengthening your position in any way, shape, or form doesn't immediately present itself, since these people obviously regarded observation and experiment to be more reliable than their own understandings of the Bible, since they tailored the latter to suit the former, and not vice versa, and relied on scientific verification, and not faciful dogma.

I'm sure you must be familiar with the work of Lewis Carroll, since I've never seen such absolute nonsense before, save for there. How these thoughts connect together (especially the leap from the first three sentences to the final one) is completely beyond both me, and reason in general. I can't even extract what your argument is (if you are, indeed, making one) since it's obviously quite well concealed in with all the irrelevant rubbish around it. I think that perhaps I get the general gist of what you think you're talking about; but I don't suppose even you to be as stupid as you're making yourself sound.

Again, I'm surprised that a gentleman and a scholar such as yourself has neither the decency to look up a word before he uses it ('faith'), nor the prudence to not use it at all if he doesn't know what it means.

And..? Even ignoring the irrelevance of this quote, I'd like to point out that you can't give me a definition of magic that refers to reality and which isn't also equally a description of nature or something.

(Why this is the case is also beyond my scope of knowledge and understanding, and isn't explained, here)

(Ignoring your incorrect use of the word 'constantly', this, like the above, is simple speculation, and dogmatic, too, as far as your presenting it is concerned)

(Why science is limited by what it already knows doesn't seem to be explained or justified here, and why mysticism isn't limited in a similar fashion here remains unexplained, along with the reason why it is a form of knowledge at all, which seems as mysterious as mysticism itself)

What you believe has no effect on what is or is not constituted as knowledge; I fail to see your position beyond its subjective and embarrassingly erroneous viewpoint, and wonder if you'd accept a similar argument from me, when I say that I believe or feel, or similar nonsense, that, for example, there is no God. While you may 'respect my beliefs' or something, I doubt that you'd take an unsupported assertion of mine as fact, no matter how much you believed that I believed it, and you'd most likely still take your own fairy-stories with a similar non-existent foundation as correct, even though you wouldn't extend the same courtesy to others. In fact, having the kind of foundation for knowledge which you've exhibited can be shewn to be insufficient, since beliefs can be, and are often, mutually exclusive. Though you seem to consider yourself complex and to have access to deep, meaningful truths, you couldn't possibly but doubt yourself and doubt those doubts, and so on, unless you had an outside influence which wooed you one way or the other, and I suppose the fact that many people disagree with your viewpoint makes your feel that you are in a position of understanding where they are not; however, I'd like to point out that on that basis (the bell curve), it's also possible, and perhaps even more likely, that your beliefs are the result of below average intelligence and dogmas which were inculcated and instilled at a young age, and that people's opposition to you, rather than being the ordinary person's indignant misunderstandings of a great mind, are merely the average person's dismissal of the stupid person, and it is quite characteristic of the stupid man to place himself so firmly in his faith (which you seem to have done) that he won't listen to criticism from others, and can't seem to understand or grasp it if he does (which you have displayed, here), as well as being unable to see that he doesn't understand the arguments levelled against him.

Ignoring your previous misuse of words, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and ask you whether you find your view complex and perspicacious despite its inherent stupidity and subjectivity, or because of it.

The position you've exhibited here is neither complex nor profound, and even falls short of making coherent sense. I'd advise you to use a dictionary when you write, have a good think about how concepts do and don't relate to other concepts, and perhaps learn a little bit about how to construct an argument which supports a conclusion. Even if one were to ignore the fact that your arguments are fallacious, and accept their conclusions, a belief in your specific religion doesn't follow from any of them. I suspect that you don't, in fact, have any reasonable, rational argument in favour of anything which you believe in, and have undergone some psychological event (upbringing in the faith with dogma presented as facts before you have a chance at critically assessing it for yourself, traumatic experience, sickness/alcoholism, &c.) which clouds your judgement concerning these issues, and the fact that you find belief in them comforting should be kept in your own head, both for others' sake and for your own, since nobody in their right mind (and I mean the phrase literally) would entertain any of these ridiculous notions, and may, though I doubt it, confront you with something which forces you to question the lie/metaphor/whatever with which you are comforting yourself; also, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to conjecture that any lunatic who could actively believe in the things you do after having thought about them could go absolutely insane once he/she realizes that their whole life has been based on lies and idiocy.

 

...Reading this I realize my street-smarts aren't cutting it anymore.

Some call it learning by experience, I call it knowing is believing, not the other way around.

 

I stopped paying attention to this and that other thread about 8 pages ago, now I just click it so I don't have an unread thing on my index.

 

How can this possibly be true? Science encompasses the study of the natural world. All of it. It's possible that an individual scientific theory could be wrong about a particular phenomenon, but that means the theory should be amended, not that science as a whole should be abandoned.

If all you're saying is that science doesn't lend itself to the study of "unnatural" phenomena, then that's fine. But since "unnatural" phenomena by definition can't have any impact on the natural world, who cares about them?

That's what all scientists do. That's pretty much the definition of a scientist.

I realise it is difficult when you are coming from a religious viewpoint, where the cult of celebrity is king, but science doesn't work like that. Religious people follow the teachings of a select few, whose views are held to be correct because they are deemed to be wise. But with famous scientists it's the other way around - they are deemed to be wise because their views turn out to be correct. For every Einstein there are a hundred others who proposed theories that turned out to be wrong. Most of Einstein's theories turned out to be right, and for that he is lauded. Note that I said MOST of his theories. He was wrong about some things, and some of those things he admitted, and some he didn't. No scientist alive today would tell you that Einstein got everything right. But try to find a devout Catholic who will say that any given Pope got something wrong. Nope. Even when two Popes say contradictory things, they are BOTH right, because THE POPE IS ALWAYS RIGHT. That's dogma.

Yes they do. Einstein proposed "relativity" as a theory to explain certain phenomena. People tested it against events. It was accepted. Even though plenty of existing scientists didn't like the new theory, their rigid scientific displine meant that they couldn't dispute its validity. That's science.

I don't know what you mean by "events that couldn't be duplicated". Usually it's events that CAN be duplicated but which don't fit an existing theory which then cause the theory to be amended. But otherwise, you are right. That's science.

Uh... well I don't think it takes "faith" to believe that events are real. But otherwise, you are right. Real events are considered by science. Imaginary events are not.

When there are two competing theories, the evidence is used to decide which is better. So in the case of Newton -vs- Einstein, relativistic effects are observed, so Einstein's model comes out on top. In the case of evolution -vs- creation, fossil evidence shows life forms becoming simpler the further back in time you go, PLUS all known life shares a common DNA framework, PLUS computer simulation shows that more complex structures can spontaneously evolve if conditions are right, PLUS there is no obvious cut-off point that indicates there was any kind of creation event earlier than the Big Bang. So evolution comes out on top.

I could just as well argue that your "mystical" means are limited by what your "mystics" already know. The fact is that science is only limited by our ability to collect data and our imagination to come up with new theories to explain it. Progress is continual on both these fronts. Whereas progress on the "mystical" front is negative, as more and more phenomena are explained in purely natural terms by science.

Also, Zanza smells of poo.

 

That's the Act of Papal Infallibity. Not quite sure how they work that one round the fucking Crusades but there you go.

 

My eyes instantly gravitate towards my name.