Creation and Evolution

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Apparently so. I haven't seen a single reference to genuine humanist philosophy. Really, humanism is merely the assertion that morality is a characteristic of humanity inherent in any culture in which the worth and dignity of all Mankind is acknowledged and respected.

Oh, so what Tim is really trying to say is that our scientists, some of the most intensively and thoroughly educated people in the world, are all blithering, useless idiots. Wonderful.

Never met anyone yet that wasn't a blithering, useless idiot.

Last edited by sigholdaccountlost on 18 Apr 2007, 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry to hear that. I've rarely encountered a person I found completely useless.

Well, individual scientists are only human, and some certainly have been driven by ego and irrational convictions in the past. Hence the critical importance of the scientific method and peer-reviewed studies, to keep science as free as possible of personal biases and bad research. But I have confidence in the system as a whole to correct individual errors, and I do trust a majority consensus of scientists on issues.

No, what gets my goat is that Tim is acting on the assumption that the scientists don't research this stuff at all. Jeepers! I can't believe that the government is actually giving these guys money! What do they do, just sit around scratching their rumps all day? I mean, seriously, I never would have guessed that billions of highly educated people of myriad religious backgrounds were going by numbers that some guy just pulled out of his colon to serve some international nazi-atheist conspiracy. Until Tim kindly revealed to us that it was so, it simply wouldn't have occurred to me that we were entrusting the development of our technology to illiterate schlongs who are too dimwitted to pick out one of the simplest, most blatant logical fallacies possible! Tim must be a great genius. Let's entrust the education of our future generations to him, for he is surely infinitely wise.

The planet is going to burn to a cinder, but that's okay because I'm going to ride away on the back of a gargantuan, blue, interstellar space donkey. Serve me up one more Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, please.

True. I don't really see why you argue - you're not going to convince those who believe in something outside the realm of science to accept your faith, any more than they are going to convince you.

This brings up the topic of ridicule. You know the above is not true.

We have a social instinct that is powerful, especially during puberty. This social instinct is powerful enough to cause us to compromise our own integrity for the sake of acceptance. I recall a boy I knew who was a good Christian, but he was badgered and yelled at by his peers about his faith until he cracked and quietly left the faith to receive acceptance from his Humanist peers. Twenty years later, he is still in that Humanist culture and is unapproachable about Christianity.

I myself just suffered general rejection that didn't care what I did or believed. As a result, I gave up on social acceptance. It was a very lonely road. However, my mind was my own; my thinking was not forced upon me by my peers. I became the "fool on the hill who saw the sun going down and the world spinning 'round".

The use of praise and rejection was used in North Korea on our captive troops to "brainwash" them. It works on adults too.

When I hear open-minded liberals sneer, scoff, ridicule and slander people they disagree with, I can't help wondering if that is how they were brainwashed into their intellectual positions. Doing unto others as had been done unto them. Get bullied long enough and you become a bully.

I'm sorry I don't have time to answer all the arguments on this thread, but I am rather busy. The bunch of you can write ten times more than I, so there is no way I can respond to you-all. So I will continue to pick a couple of things a day to respond to. Last Friday and Saturday I helped build a wheelchair ramp for a poor, lame woman. Today I helped install a stove in the roach-infested home of a poor woman. I am managing setup for a major festival scheduled for this Saturday, so you won't hear much from me. These are more important than this thread.

Demanding me to "prove" things that are empirically known is an absurd concept. Proofs are found through experiment, not by empirical means.

Calandale, try to get it through your insufferably thick head that faith is about unreserved trust. This is even the most approximate meaning of the word that "faith" is derived from. Now, if you'll open your annoyingly closed mind, actually read the posts that I have made in this thread. I haven't made a single statement asking Tim to put his trust in science or biological evolution. In fact, if you will read closely, my stance throughout this thread has consistently been that evolution is really the only solution to the question of our origins that seems viable within the bounds of empirical reasoning. I certainly haven't given any glowing endorsement of the theory, and I have only attempted to explain to him how one can arrive at it from (presumably) mutually accepted first principles. I have attempted to explain to Tim that he will have to actually address our own views on the subject for us to have any productive discussion on it because, so far, all he has done is attack a straw man. I haven't said a single word about what I actually put my unreserved trust in. The most that I have done in this regard is state that evolutionary theory holds up under empirical reasoning.

Now, please forgive me for being frank here, but it is really none of your business what I put my unreserved trust in because this is really a deeply personal issue for me. I really take a great deal of offense over you making suppositions about it. Since what I unreservedly trust is something that only I can know with any certainty, you are effectively calling me a liar when I refute these suppositions. Therefore, you're not only trespassing on a very personal aspect of my life, but you're making a grave insult against me in doing so. Shut up.

Frankly, I'm rather tired of dealing with your rudeness. I don't believe that I've made a single assumption about your faith - I do see that it appears very different from the faith that Tim is bringing to this discussion. I would argue that your view of empirical reasoning differs from his, and from mine as well, and would appear to be an element of your faith. If it is not something essential to your belief system, why would you found all of your discussions upon it? Actually, I would question that there is ANYTHING that any of us can know with certitude, wherein may well lie our problem. It seems that you believe in your faith, while I hold mine as mere speculation.

People get mocked out of hatred, peer pressure, xenophobia or because they present uncomfortable truths.

They also get mocked because they're making absurd arguments and thoroughly failing to produce evidence for their claims.

(And for those keeping track, spot another example of paranoia at work. Of course nobody who's thinking clearly could disagree with TimT, they must have been brainwashed.)



Hmm, I'm keeping up with this thread fine, despite my day job of helping epileptic people (so the holier-than-thou argument falls a bit flat). It's chuckleworthy how your charitable works only became so pressing when people started to call you on your arguments.

Anyway, the significant thing about your reply is that you refused to produce any evidence for your conspiracy theory when asked. So therefore I conclude that the whole thing is a product of your imagination and paranoia.

And at the end of the month, this will still be here. Which is another reason why the holier-than-thou arguement won't hold water.

Excuse me. I become defensive when people assign attributes to me that I don't have and continuously speak on the assumption that they exist. It causes me violent emotion. If you'd like to have an objective discussion about your views on what constitutes a "faith," I'd be more than happy to do so, but don't make a personal trespass.

Yes, you have. Stating anything about my values and beliefs that I have not stated or knowingly implied is making an assumption.

When we're discussing the empirical sciences, it is categorically necessary.

The system that the empirical sciences are based upon isn't designed for knowing things with certitude. It's designed for eliminating error, using more sophisticated and strictly methodical manifestations of the methods of reasoning that one can observe in the antics of a marmoset. Any scientific theory is simply an attempt to design a viable construct of the truth using feedback between empirical data and various methods of reasoning. When you say "I think that this theory is sound," you're saying that "as far as I can tell, this theory is consistent with the data and has few, if any, flaws in the reasoning behind its construction." I could make a completely bogus theory based upon completely fictional data, and I could tell you with a straight face that it's a perfectly sound theory if we were agree to go by this fictional data.

No. You see, the real problem is that you don't even seem to care about the possibility that my basic approach to this subject is radically different from your own. I tend to work from a model that I have developed using my very own, handy, dandy synapses. I go on the assumption that my entire perception of reality is just an attempt to draw a portrait (map, mock-up, construct. approximation) of the world around me using acknowledgedly imperfect sensory input and tools that are prone to their own ideosyncrasies. I do the same thing with the sciences, only it's a different model in spite of having a relationship with the model that I have developed from direct sensory input. The only thing that I have any actual faith in is that I, as a human being, am limited in my capability of making judgements and observations and should be careful not to confuse the painting of truth with the actual truth (which, to put it in Christian terms, "only God can know"). Now, if you still don't understand how I approach this subject, I am completely and utterly defeated.

My post, someone else's, or the whole thread?

My persistence in pursuing such an obviously fruitless discussion.

No, your persistence is admirable, and the discussion may bear fruit yet...