The joy of religion - part xxxxxxxxx

[buckshot24]

Do you have the knowledge that the child will grow up to do the acts he committed as an adult (e.g, you used time travel)?

Does it matter? If preventing the maximum amount of suffering is your criteria then it shouldn't matter.

The latter, however, is. That reads like an act done for pleasure, unlike the former.

The end result is that he won't kill the millions he ended up being responsible for. Why are these distinctions important?

 

[Moonbeam]

The sad part is you took the time to try and make out to be a hypocrite. I didn't put the last guy on the list for disagreeing with me. The ignoramus thing did it.

Instead of wasting your time with this trivial stuff why don't you just post some irrefutable evidence that mutation and selection is sufficient to explain the diversity of life?

don't follow most of the pro con arguments about evolution because, basically, I am happy with the theory so I was wondering if your argument against it here is based on a disagreement with the theory itself, or based on the idea that if it is right then God doesn't exist because His book appears to say something different?

Sorry for my ignorance, but the reason I ask is because I don't think whether evolution happened or not has the slightest effect on whether God exists. God exists and whether evolution is right or wrong won't change that if you see what I mean.

 

[MajinCry]

Does it matter? If preventing the maximum amount of suffering is your criteria then it shouldn't matter.

Because if you don't have the absolute knowledge of what he committed in the future, you just committed a cold-blooded murder.

The end result is that he won't kill the millions he ended up being responsible for. Why are these distinctions important?

Because morality is not black and white.

 

[buckshot24]

don't follow most of the pro con arguments about evolution because, basically, I am happy with the theory so I was wondering if your argument against it here is based on a disagreement with the theory itself, or based on the idea that if it is right then God doesn't exist because His book appears to say something different?

Sorry for my ignorance, but the reason I ask is because I don't think whether evolution happened or not has the slightest effect on whether God exists. God exists and whether evolution is right or wrong won't change that if you see what I mean.

The theory suggests that the very complex systems in life came about because the genetic material in the very first living things didn't replicate perfectly. These errors are what they think created the differences between a bacteria and you and I. I don't buy the idea because it is nonsense. What I believe about God doesn't matter. The claim is a positive claim that I simply find absurd.

 

[buckshot24]

Because if you don't have the absolute knowledge of what he committed in the future, you just committed a cold-blooded murder.



Because morality is not black and white.

Well crap, I guess there is a rule book stating all of these limitations?

 

[WelshBloke]

Does it matter? If preventing the maximum amount of suffering is your criteria then it shouldn't matter.
The end result is that he won't kill the millions he ended up being responsible for. Why are these distinctions important?

You're still murdering a baby that hasn't done anything.

How do you know he'll grow up to do those heinous acts? I thought you believed in free will even if god knows what you're going to do.

 

[soulcougher73]

They get put on the list?

lol

 

[soulcougher73]

Does it matter? If preventing the maximum amount of suffering is your criteria then it shouldn't matter.

Of course it matters numbnuts. How would you know otherwise the things you are trying to prevent..duh?

 

[MajinCry]

Well crap, I guess there is a rule book stating all of these limitations?

It's certainly not the Bible nor the Quran, despite what the books say and the people that follow them.

Morality isn't hard. It's complicated and murky, but it's not hard. It's the measurement of harm caused, and harm prevented/undone.

To be moral, seek to do as little harm as possible whilst doing your best to help those that suffer harm, and foiling those that wish to perpetrate harm, and those that have perpetrated harm.

 

[sandorski]

An alternative would be to kidnap Baby Hitler and bring him forward in time where he would be raised and live his life never having killed millions.

 

[MajinCry]

An alternative would be to kidnap Baby Hitler and bring him forward in time where he would be raised and live his life never having killed millions.

Or just go back in time and bribe the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to accept his drawings. He'd be too busy painting to go out and become Fuhrer.

 

[buckshot24]

It's certainly not the Bible nor the Quran, despite what the books say and the people that follow them.

It certainly isn't some foul mouthed atheist either.

Morality isn't hard. It's complicated and murky, but it's not hard. It's the measurement of harm caused, and harm prevented/undone.

Then me torturing and accidentally killing Hitler by negligence is a morally GOOD action by this standard. Your standard doesn't work.

To be moral, seek to do as little harm as possible whilst doing your best to help those that suffer harm, and foiling those that wish to perpetrate harm, and those that have perpetrated harm.

Is misrepresenting the bible a moral action? You seem to enjoy doing so at every opportunity.

Your version of morality isn't objective, it is as subjective as can be.

 

[buckshot24]

Or just go back in time and bribe the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to accept his drawings. He'd be too busy painting to go out and become Fuhrer.

Or just realize you have no moral grounds to call what he did as objectively wrong. You can merely tell him that you didn't like what he did.

 

[Moonbeam]

The theory suggests that the very complex systems in life came about because the genetic material in the very first living things didn't replicate perfectly. These errors are what they think created the differences between a bacteria and you and I. I don't buy the idea because it is nonsense. What I believe about God doesn't matter. The claim is a positive claim that I simply find absurd.

Thank you. I personally have more of a hard time with inanimate to duplicating material than I do from bacteria to man. My sense is that the billions of years since life begun on earth, if you happen to believe that, is incomprehensible to the human mind. A titanic amount of mutations can take place in that time span. Imagine the difference between a year and a second. 2 billion seconds is over 63 years.

 

[shira]

The theory suggests that the very complex systems in life came about because the genetic material in the very first living things didn't replicate perfectly. These errors are what they think created the differences between a bacteria and you and I. I don't buy the idea because it is nonsense. What I believe about God doesn't matter. The claim is a positive claim that I simply find absurd.

So your problem with evolution via natural selection has nothing to do with the science. It has everything to do with your opinion of what you "find absurd" or not.

Fortunately, science doesn't proceed on the basis of whether or not people "find absurd" a theory. Science is based on the collection of objective evidence that supports or doesn't support predictions based on theoretical models.

 

[WelshBloke]

Fortunately, science doesn't proceed on the basis of whether or not people "find absurd" a theory. Science is based on the collection of objective evidence that supports or doesn't support predictions based on theoretical models.

Yeah. I find a lot of ideas in quantum physics absurd. I'm self aware enough to know that its probably because I'm not clever enough or haven't spent enough time studying it to understand it.

Of course I could go the easy route and just say that anything too complicated must be magic and leave it at that.

 

[JEDIYoda]

So your problem with evolution via natural selection has nothing to do with the science. It has everything to do with your opinion of what you "find absurd" or not.

Fortunately, science doesn't proceed on the basis of whether or not people "find absurd" a theory. Science is based on the collection of objective evidence that supports or doesn't support predictions based on theoretical models.

Jesus still loves you!!

 

[WelshBloke]

Jesus still loves you!!

Shame he's dead.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Jesus still loves you!!

Why would a retired Mexican politician care?

 

[JEDIYoda]

Shame he's dead.

your opinion....

 

[soulcougher73]

Jesus still loves you!!

Too bad he doesn't love you. He told me so.

 

[buckshot24]

So your problem with evolution via natural selection has nothing to do with the science. It has everything to do with your opinion of what you "find absurd" or not.

Fortunately, science doesn't proceed on the basis of whether or not people "find absurd" a theory. Science is based on the collection of objective evidence that supports or doesn't support predictions based on theoretical models.

The complete lack of lab results confirming the mechanism can do what you claim it can do is a pretty good reason for rejecting it. How about you quit playing games and produce some actual evidence? I've been asking for the last 2 weeks for some evidence for mutation and selection building molecular machines and all I get are platitudes.

 

[buckshot24]

Thank you. I personally have more of a hard time with inanimate to duplicating material than I do from bacteria to man. My sense is that the billions of years since life begun on earth, if you happen to believe that, is incomprehensible to the human mind. A titanic amount of mutations can take place in that time span. Imagine the difference between a year and a second. 2 billion seconds is over 63 years.

Given that we know what mutations can do more of them aren't going to help.

 

[Moonbeam]

Given that we know what mutations can do more of them aren't going to help.

Why do you say that? My understanding is that there are a couple of things involved in species differentiation, one that a beneficial mutation occur and that it happen in a somewhat isolated population. The only thing that is required for a mutation to be beneficial is that it grant some survival capability in a particular niche. Given more and more time life has a chance to experience more mutations and the same species being more frequently isolated by changes in the environment. Genetic material is preserved only when handed down to the next generation, so it's really a matter of odds, according to the theory. The fact that most mutations are detrimental or fatal doesn't affect things. A tiny number of beneficial mutations that help a species survive in a particular environment and an environment that is somehow separated from the environment of the parent species will accumulate random changes that will confer survivability in that particular environment, allowing species to differentiate randomly. Detrimental mutations, no matter how numerous are weeded out and favorable ones, no matter how rare, tend to be preserved. Add in the enormous time scale involved and you can see change in the fossil record.

 

[buckshot24]

Why do you say that? My understanding is that there are a couple of things involved in species differentiation, one that a beneficial mutation occur and that it happen in a somewhat isolated population. The only thing that is required for a mutation to be beneficial is that it grant some survival capability in a particular niche.

All you need to do is look at what is causing the benefit. There was a mutation in Lenski's experiment where the propulsion mechanism of the E. Coli simply didn't exist. The "bugs" who had this mutation didn't waste any energy on producing the flagellum. The reason this was a benefit is that the medium the "bugs" were in was constantly vibrated so the food sources would get to the E. Coli that didn't have a way to swim. This is clearly a beneficial mutation but obviously not something that you could extrapolate out into the formation of new biological functions.

You need more than benefits to make a microbe turn into man. It doesn't matter how many generations you wait.

Given more and more time life has a chance to experience more mutations and the same species being more frequently isolated by changes in the environment. Genetic material is preserved only when handed down to the next generation, so it's really a matter of odds, according to the theory. The fact that most mutations are detrimental or fatal doesn't affect things.

Lets say there is a truly beneficial mutation that is extremely rare 1 in 10^20 organisms any other mutation on that same chromosome comes along for the ride.

Detrimental mutations, no matter how numerous are weeded out and favorable ones, no matter how rare, tend to be preserved. Add in the enormous time scale involved and you can see change in the fossil record.

That isn't true. Look at humans, mutations are accumulating and selection can't keep up. You also need to look at H1N1 flu virus that has undergone multiple extinction events over the last 100 years. It comes back because some pocket of the dormant virus gets exposed and reintroduced. They go extinct because of genetic meltdown because detrimental mutations build up.