aronnov reborn
Banned
wow.. sums up GAF perfectly..... way to generalize a faith in a troll thread.. and confirmed by the red ink.
Why do so many theists think they can back up their faith?
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wow.. sums up GAF perfectly..... way to generalize a faith in a troll thread.. and confirmed by the red ink.
Our physical bodies are essentially repositories for genes that we pass on. Why? Because that's what genes do - they propagate themselves, and natural selection is ultimately limited with what it has to work with in order to further that propagation.
These processes are mindless and directionless and involve a lot of time and a lot of waste. The hereditary traits that have a higher likelihood of surviving to the next generations are simply the ones which come from organisms with higher fitness. They happen to survive and produce more offspring, thus contributing to the gene pool more than the ones who die earlier on and don't reproduce as much or at all.
The organisms that survive longer do so because they are likelier to have adapted to their environment, and those adaptations are passed on because the genes exist to replicate, so maximizing fitness is key (and the only key). Random mutations (random in the sense that they don't show up either to help or harm the organism) result in variation. All of it seems perfectly naturalistic. And then there's genetic drift - is that guided?
It has nothing to do with anyone or anything caring, as that implies intent; it's simply just the way things happen to work, whether we find it intuitive or comforting or whatnot. One of the powerful things about science is it doesn't particularly care what is counter-intuitive or what makes us feel good or bad; the universe works the way it does whether we like it or not, and it frequently clashes with common sense.
Darwinian evolution as a process that ultimately resulted in complex life is remarkable but only when viewed as a naturalistic one; if viewed as a process governed by an intelligent agent of some sort, it seems quite wasteful and inefficient. Natural selection isn't guided; it's something you just end up with when you combine heredity, variation, and reproduction.
Do you disagree?
aronnov reborn
Banned
absolutely.. and it's pretty offensive.
Lack of critical thinking skills?.. so because some engineer somewhere has faith and believes it to be the true faith for him he lacks critical thinking skills?.. I know many Christians that believe 100% in evolution... as the process that man was created.
Can a person have critical thinking skills in one area, but lack it in another?
Dude Abides
Banned
He didn't say that. Persecution complexes sure make people bad at reading.
He was specifically answering the question in the title, there are religious people who aren't deluded enough to think there is anything empirical or provable about their faith, those were not addressed.
on abiogenesis, there is a Ted talks video showing experiments done where liquids made up of just a few chemical compounds start "behaving" similar to life. Seeking out food/energy, growing, "reproducing", combining and taking on new traits. The entire talk discusses the idea that our understanding and presumptions about what constitutes life is a bit short sighted
Yes
Aahh. Theologians lack critical thinking skills. Never a wiser word was spoken.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Well, yes. Everyone does.
Sanky Panky
Banned
What evidence could go against abiogenesis?
If evidence arose that certain cellular structures are utterly impossible to replicate, no matter how advanced our technology becomes, that would go against abiogenesis. If in a thousand years we cannot take beakers of elements and put them together in an exacting fashion to create life from scratch...that would go against abiogenesis.
We have been over this.
Religious peole can have critical thinking skills, but not apply it to every aspect of their life.
Religion is FUNDAMENTALLY irrational. No one can deny this claim.
Of someone want to re-evaluate their values and opinions rationally and conveniently skips religion, it is cognitive dissonance.
Religious peole can have critical thinking skills, but not apply it to every aspect of their life.
Religion is FUNDAMENTALLY irrational. No one can deny this claim.
Of someone want to re-evaluate their values and opinions rationally and conveniently skips religion, it is cognitive dissonance.
cutmeamango
Banned
He is a philosophy major, yet says atheism isn't philosophical?
Repeating myself from another topic:
They are reasonings of a subject.
Theism is positive on the idea of deities.
Atheism is negative to the idea of deities.
Not knowledgeable to present a perspective? Agnostic to the subject then.
If you were ignorant to the subject, you'd be nothing.
Don't care enough to reason? Apathetic!
A for the subject of species racial differences (not qualitative differences, but taxonomic) as a philosophical conceit (which is a "touchy" approach since social aspects bleed into it):
Positive to racial differences-> racism
Negative to racial differences -> racial egalitarism
Not knowledgeable to present a perspective? Agnostic to the subject then.
If you were ignorant to the subject, you'd be nothing.
Don't care enough to reason? Apathetic.
Since he is talking about the racism as ethnical prejudice, why would there be word for it? People just say "I am not racist" when touching the subject, or "don't get me wrong".
Which I'd agree then if he was saying "the common use of religious and atheist are filled with prejudice (or partisanship), we need to educate people on those words", but still a silly point.
Bold is factually incorrect.
Atheism - A-Theism, without Theism. It does not matter WHY you are without theism, only that you are. You could not believe, you could be unaware, you can be unconvinced - doesn't matter as long as you do not hold to the belief.
Agnosticism - without gnosticism. It doesn't matter if you lack knowledge, have all the knowledge required to make a decision - if you are 'unsure', you are agnostic. If you are SURE, you are gnostic.
Ignorant to a subject falls under atheism - if you do not know about a god, you do not believe in one. A-theism.
Sanky Panky
Banned
Ok, just making sure. That our current technology and countless experiments show it to be impossible is not enough, since there is always faith that in the future we'll find out.
cutmeamango
Banned
Liguistically you are correct, etymologically yes and no. But philosophically? Factually correct, even if 'modern atheist scholars' try to classify differently.
I wasn't aware that philosophical terminology was immune to scrutiny, or that there was some sort of agreement on the definitions of terms in philosophy.
Watch this video if you want to see why it's not so easily dismissed, and why we are compiling more and more evidence that supports the theory of Abiogenesis.
edit: blegh, double post - should have smushed them together.
cutmeamango
Banned
Is apple the fruit or the name of the fruit?
Anyone can scrutinize all terminology they want but saying it is factually wrong? Only when it's factually wrong!
It's all good brah, I understand your use too, I was contesting Sam Harris saying it wasn't a philosophical conceit
Watch my video!
uh... that's a good question. Do you have anything in mind?
Sanky Panky
Banned
I've seen the video before, and it's a great experiment on how chemicals react under certain conditions. However, it nowhere near touches the problem of DNA and abiogenesis. I don't want to derail this thread, but just wanted to point out that being a secular humanist also entails faith.
None that can't be explained away by "we don't know how yet, but it did" by scientists. Not so scientific when you think about it.
What? Faith in what? Secular humanism is non religious altruism, essentially.
Also, the video incorporates RNA, so it does touch on DNA kinda!
How so?
I mean, I assume we're using the term faith in the manner that gives it a meaning that is unique from simply belief right?
That is to say, faith = belief independent of evidence, reason, logic, rationality etc?
You're missing his point. He's not denying that atheism isn't the right term to use. He just rejects that it should be used. Firstly because atheism is the 'neutral viewpoint' in his opinion. Secondly that it should not be used to classify people, because nobody uses the term racial egalitarian to classify people either.
Four billion year old bacteria containers from aliens.
Sanky Panky
Banned
Faith as in, they have faith that there is a natural answer even though natural mechanisms constantly fail to show it. Faith that it's a matter of time before they figure it out. Faith that technology will one day lead to a breakthrough.
But it's ok, since it has already been stated in this thread that there is no other possible natural cause for life. Independent of evidence, reason, logic, or rationality, we must believe that one day we'll find out how.
Pretty much.
You misuse the term secular humanist. And you think that belief is binary - I do not. I don't believe with 100% conviction that abiogenesis is how it happened, but I believe it enough that I'm not neutral about it
Faith in what, abiogenesis? Observations point directly towards it. We are still searching for gravity waves to no avail. We are still searching for the Higgs Boson. These are not being searched for based on simply "faith", but in a trust of all the knowledge we have accumulated about the respective subjects. The Higgs may not even exist, but the LHC is not a cathedral, it is an instrument, it is doing work.
Scientists are working on solving the big mysteries because there is work yet to be done. Otherwise why don't we just say that abiogenesis is the absolute truth, and anyone who does not believe should suffer eternal hell fire? That the Higgs boson absolutely exists? Why not claim that a formula exists that links macroscopic to quantum worlds even if there is none? Why not just make it up and just all agree upon the "faith".
I'm confident in my belief of these things because there are several lines of evidence, because it accords with other evidence and patterns of expectations that has been built, and because evidence continues to build.
I'm not so confident in my belief that I can continue to hold it should there be evidence to the contrary - but if I'm following your implication... the lack of a way to show evidence against something... isn't really an argument against that thing.
In the context of the discussion - our inability (that is, you and me) to figure out what kind of evidence we might need to falsify abiogenesis - is not any kind of argument against abiogenesis.
I've mentioned my point of faith before - you can criticize the idea - that is, the belief that the universe and its matter/energy operates on a consistent set of principles and laws - and that much of it is discoverable...
But what are the alternatives? Can you tell me what other alternatives there are to this premise?
Machspeed007
Member
Christian theology is rational within the given assumptions. Same can be said about other areas of rational thought.
The thing with abiogenesis is that it's an all encompassing term for a natural emergence from life from non-life (the main suspect is chemistry). In that sense it's actually a very broad term. Besides being a very broad term, not accepting abiogenesis requires invoking some sort of unnatural cause like God or aliens. This not only tremendously violates Occam's razor and poses more and harder questions, it's also against anything else that we have observed in nature.
The most basic functions of all life (including viruses here) is just somewhat complex chemistry, so abiogenesis through natural selection on chemistry 'feels' right to me - it would be the simplest explanation. That and the basic experimental evidence that points to self-replicating (in other words, selectable by nature) are my reasons for giving a lot of credit to, or 'believing', abiogenesis.
This reasoning is inherently superior to the alternative explanation of the origin of life.
cutmeamango
Banned
Really awesome to see it moving around and shaking even if chemically motivated only.
As he says "life-like".
Oh I didn't missed his point, what you said is in the phrase "Since he is..."
Atheist here, if there is anything worth taking away from this thread, this is it....IMO...
David Incorporated Esq.
Member
Oh cool, this thread has reached the "Like, science is faith too, man" stage of the argument.
That is a cynical view point - lets say it this way. Would anyone strive to pursue an ideal that doesn't align with their own? Everyone is out to make the world to be what THEY perceive is a better place, or the ideal - and you can't really condemn anyone for doing that.
Those two have nothing to do with the origin but what came after.
Some evangelical atheists are annoying though, just like their religious counterparts.
Damn those militant atheists with their angry forum posts and youtube links.
Sure - that's fine - I should be a bit more clear. It's one thing to dislike someone's worldview and their attempt to realize it - it's another thing to think "you shouldn't be attempting to make your ideal the reality" - that's silly. Everyone is going to.
Precisely. We've got a million threads already on that subject, why do we need another forty million?
Okay. This made sense to me. Fair enough.
Well, evolution does describe how modern species evolved from simpler species, trace it back far enough and you get to the simplest life-forms...trace it back further and you have constituent molecules. I read an interesting article that proposes that metabolism (the machinery for metabolic processes) predate any other aspect of life and through a form of molecular evolution (the most effective molecules using fuel in a given medium, say, a primordial ocean) which laid down the building blocks for everything which came after. Experimentation will be necessary to lend any credence to the theory, but it is interesting non the less.
crazy monkey
Banned
you are all just meat and cells controlled by electrical impulses. There is no such thing as feeling it is just current in your upstairs triggering chemical change and physical reaction.
Dude Abides
Banned
Stop talking about things!
No. Stop talking about the same thing every two posts/threads.
That's so un dude like.
edit: Having said that, you are free of course to create as many threads as you wish. I wouldn't like someone to remain/or withhold their questions, just to please me or something.
In a sense, yes.
If we accept that there's no such thing as a feeling, then we must also accept that there are no such things as words...
they're just a bunch of graphite atoms arranged on a piece of paper, itself a bunch of atoms arranged in a particular fashion... or its a bunch of pixels lit up or darkened on a screen, or a series of neural connections in someone's brain that interact and mix together to form this particular set of sounds when vocalized...
Why can't the nature of feeling be just the product of 'meat' and 'electricity' as you so eloquently put it?
crazy monkey
Banned
you are correct. our life as as a being is just a mechanical /biological machine.
huh? I didn't start this line of thought, somebody else did. And to be fair to him, he rephrased and I think I ended up agreeing with him, somewhat.
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