The Truth (As I see it)

I wouldn't be too hasty in reading anything into God or the Bible. I have no problem with anyone living by the ethical principles it lays down, for their own sake, if that's what the reader agrees with; but I don't see the use in arguing something that can be interpreted to encompass both the argument and the counter argument. I'm sure there are a lot of things in the Bible that weren't thought to mean what they're thought to mean now, before scientific investigation came up with undeniable answers, and those things were probably interpreted as meaning the opposite to what they do now, at the time. Same goes for God, if you ask me; the whole thing is just so full of holes that it defies understanding, except by admitting religious 'mysteries' or something; and if that's the case, there's no arguing one way or the other. It's why there are no conclusive arguments for or against God, and why nobody can truly convince anybody but themselves, or so I think.

 

I contend that both play the same game with "evidence" and you can't prove the past so neither is science.

Take the Grand Canyon for instance. How does evolution say it was formed? More specifically, how long does evolution say it took to form it? Now, I don't know the answer, but I suspect years to their unit of measure. Now, after you found the answer, take a pile of mud and dump a huge amount of water over it. Note the erosion pattern and compare it to the erosion pattern of the Grand Canyon. Then come back and tell me that evolution doesn't lie.

My point is that most accept the findings of evolution on Faith. Faith that they aren't lying to futher their careers. Faith that the scientists are so wise that they don't mistakes and when they do they admit to them.


If one challenges a publication on the issue of evolution, what is the response? They are called a creationist. Now what is the response when Real Science is challenged? It is listened to. If evolutionist scientists can't be challenged in academic debate is that science? If the system of peer review is damaged, then can the results be believed?

Prove me wrong by showing me a single article that discredits a evolutionist that is believed by evolutionists.

 

That's not true. People accept evolution because it's based on reason. People accept reason, people accept facts, and they can go and check these facts for themselves and then follow the reasoning process and see if it follows. Faith, on the other hand, is dogmatic. Don't mind that Kirkegaard fella! It's an if-then process: if a triangle is such and such, then its angles add up to two right angles; a triangle is such and such, therefore, its angles add up to two right angles. If such and such is the case, it follows that creatures evolved from 'lesser' creatures; such and such is the case, therefore creatures evolve. If whatever the fact is (the 'such and such') turns out not to be the case, or if there is an error in the reasoning process, then it is not necessarily true; one can check the state of things from observation, and logically verify a line of reasoning. Similarly, you can't disprove evolution unless you prove non-evolution; and you can't disprove creationism unless you prove non-creationism; if evolution is verified, creationism is disproved insofar as evolution is non-creationism; and I leave it to someone better acquainted with the facts to present them, and show the falsity of creationism. That's logic.

Show me an article that discredits anything that is believed by someone who believes in what has been discredited.

 

My point is that people in general don't check. And if you are not willing to check for yourself the simple grade school test that I suggested, then you have proved my point.

Element numbers 100+ which are man-made. Every single claim that a new element has been created in lab is retested to determine that the experiment is duplicatable before credit is given to the individual who claimed First. Every failure to have your experiment duplicated is published and every scientist that performed your experiment believes that it possible to make to such an atom before it has been made. The sole disagreement is How.

You want more? Read the history of science. It is full of people who claimed to reach a notable goal first, but their experiment wasn't duplicatable. Hell, the computer chip is an experiment so difficult to duplicate that most scientists didn't believe at first because they couldn't duplicate the results.

 

Ergo, we should believe in the Bible, because some experiments are really, really hard? I don't believe anything that I can't check myself. Not that I say it's untrue, just that I don't know; however, I can accept a hypothesis and draw conclusions from it, without knowing first if it's true; so I can guess, deduce, and then check, and then suddenly have a whole load of new knowledge from a single experiment.

On the above point about duplicating experiments, If you'd understood my previous post, you'd have realized that you can't draw a conclusion from nothing; so I can hypothesize any boring, batshit crazy maths thing (with no equations) and it won't be disproved by not conforming to experiment: it will be disproved by a contradictory hypothesis being proved through experiment, logically. So while people may believe in evolution, the facts are there for them to check themselves, and they don't 'know' until they do check them; and it can never be disproved by creationism, because that's just blind, speculative nonsense.

If you're still not convinced, God told me I was right.

 

No, we shouldn't believe EvolutionISTS who are liars out to further their own careers at the expense of science.

Appeal to Authority is a logical fallacy. Just because they are "experts" doesn't mean that they aren't human. They should be held accountable for their mistakes and the textbooks should not be publishing "facts" based on hoaxes propagated in the name of evolution. Every disproven experiment is known to the creationist community, even the ones in the textbooks. How can evolution claim to be science when objectivity has been abandoned because they fear the public rejection of evolution on the whole if they admit to being less than perfect?

But creationists are not believed by evolutionists because they are creationists. And if every scientist who tries to publish a paper that dispoves an evolutionist's claim is called a creationist, no self-respecting scientist will dare touch the subject.

What, are trying to disprove you are a person of reason? God spoke on this issue once, when he told Adam. He isn't going to talk about it again because He is not a glory hound. He only told Adam because every action that He takes must be placed in the light.

 

Based on your own arguments, and without even arguing the point you're making, I can conclude that you're lying as well, since I have to take you at face value.

(A logical fallacy? A fallacy that is logical?)

I'd advise you to go back and have a good, hard read of what I wrote before, since you seem to be missing the point of proof and disproof.

Disprove myself as a person of reason because I say God spoke to me? That's a strange view for a man of God to have... And I imagine that you saying what God would and wouldn't do is your own opinion, and therefore discreditable, since you'd have to know why God does what He does, and therefore know God's Mind, and I'd say that's blasphemy or some shit; and God told me so, anyway.

 

I very well may be. Or rather, I may be honestly mistaken as a result of me being a creationist. But based on what I have learned, it is vaild possiblity. And if there are no scientific papers that discredit vain claims by evolutionists, I very well may be correct.

I am not talking about individuals, I am talking about the uneducated masses who don't have time to waste on scientific pursuits because they are too busy making a living. It is they that I wish to protect from the corrupt.

logical fallacy -- it's what it was called in my Rhetorical class.

 

Also, if you mean some evolutionists are liars, then they are not evolutionists insofar as they are lying (since they could not both believe and not believe in evolution, and if their lies to prove evolution are lies, they are not related to evolution, as far as these liars know), and if you mean all evolutionists, then you must know that evolution is false, as if you don't, they can

since

Here's a question: do you believe all that stuff about Adam and Eve and magic and creationism, &c., or do you know it? Cause God told me that if you just believe it, and don't know it, that's blasphemy; and if you claim to know it: on what grounds (without committing a fallacy)? In fact, if you only believe that it might be true, you're a heretic (or whatever), and if you know it as fact because the Bible said so, that's the same fallacy you were just speaking about earlier.

And you clearly fell for the fallacy right as it was being defined. Perhaps you missed the joke, in the class.

 

There's a whole lot of 'ism's floating around. I'm not sure what kind of 'ist' I am.

However, it seems clear that inviting peer-review of theories based on emperical evidence beats the hell out of a literal interpretation of a 5000 year old analogy when it comes to describing reality.

Do you even read ancient hebrew, Xyle? Ever stretched your imagination to the point where you can swallow Genesis and Darwin at the same time?

Looking at the language systems and the historical context, I see no irreconcilable differences, except that 21st century westerners with a bastard-Greek cosmology are using the Hebrew myth as a kind of mental teddy-bear: safe, simple and certain, but wrong.

As for ethics, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The gospels at the end of the bible are doubly extrordinary because Jesus came from such a bloodthirsty and ruthless tradition.

All things considered, most of the bible is extremely unethical.

 

I recently discovered the Buddhist tradition, and it's beyond me why it's not a universal practice (although, it kinda is, even if people don't realize it; or at least, that's what I understood). I'd like to understand this whole meditation business; I don't really know what the story is with it. From what I've seen, I don't think it's meant to be magic, like praying to God and miracles and such; but I'm not quite sure what some of the bases for the practice are. On the one hand, Buddhism seems to talk about reason above all; but on the other, it talks about reincarnation, which I could get behind in a 'conservation of mass/energy' kinda way except for the Buddha achieving nirvana and then not being reborn, which, together and separately, don't seem to have much of a rational basis, in my mind, no matter which way I look at it.

 

Meditation is an inaccurate word, translating as 'reciting aloud' in Latin. I prefer to call it Jnana Yoga, meaning 'mental discipline' or Zazen meaning 'just sitting'.

It is basically the art of paying attention.

As for not returning to samsara after attaining nirvana, the premise of the Hindu tradition is that we are trapped in an eternal cycle of desire and suffering. The buddha established anatma as a doctrine, that there is no eternal soul or spirit, merely an endless succession of cause and effect which we call our selves.

It follows that the most enlightened mind is free from the desire and the suffering of existence and is therefore not drawn into samsara.

 

So I could reach nirvana and float around as nothing or I could get drunk and bang bad bitches in an endless cycle?

 

Bahaha! Exactly. Most people prefer samsara, but beware, your cycle will include hangovers and probably venereal disease too.

 

Point taken; but what I really want to know is, is it really 'just sitting'? Surely there's more to it than just chilling out! And if it is, what benefit is derived from it (though I think I might have an inkling already)?

That's exactly what I want to understand. Is this metaphorical? and to what does it refer? Is samsara the observable world? or just the cycle of suffering within a lifetime? When one becomes enlightened, surely they transcend the cycle of suffering within a lifetime; but does the doctrine say that once you die, you are reborn into the world in a different form, until you become enlightened, as you then achieve nirvana and are not reborn into the world? I actually went out today and bought a collection of Buddhist Scriptures, because I'm starting to find this tradition very interesting.

 

Well there are those who reach enlightenment and are called bodhisatvas, who will return to this life anyway to help others who haven't reached enlightenment.

 

Isn't that cheating? I thought the Ancients don't intervene.

 

Here's basically what I want to know: Is there anything not rational in the tradition? Is it based on enquiry and reason, or is there any unexplained magic, like in the Christian religion?

 

your ancestors called it magic, now you call it science, I come from a place where they are one and the same.