The joy of religion - part xxxxxxxxx

[MongGrel]

NM, it's like trying to have a conversation with a parrot anyway.

 

[BxgJ]

I DO believe that mutation and selection hasn't been demonstrated to be able to do what you need them to do. That is a belief. Beyond that isn't really necessary.

Still no explanation. So you say mutation and selection could not produce what we see. What did so then?

 

[buckshot24]

Still no explanation. So you say mutation and selection could not produce what we see. What did so then?

Do you have any evidence or not? My personal views have nothing to do with your claim that mutation and selection can build complex biological machines.

 

[BxgJ]

Do you have any evidence or not? My personal views have nothing to do with your claim that mutation and selection can build complex biological machines.

So you have no theory to explain what we see? Why would you not say?

 

[FelixDeCat]

buckshot24: 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.

M: It sounds like what you are saying here is that a bacterium that has developed a propulsion mechanism, in an environment where the energy required to run that mechanism is not necessary, might revert to a more primitive state, lose the genes that are involved in producing the propulsion mechanism. One would not, I think, call that an extrapolation to new biological functions, but a reversion to a more primitive state. If an organism has food delivered to it, it doesn't benefit from mutations that would help it acquire it's own food. You wouldn't expect evolution to go in that direction where an organism is perfectly adapted to its environment. Being a bacterium is a very successful form of life.

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

M: Man is according to evolution, just one of billions of possibilities that evolution could have taken. Man was never evolution's intention. But the accumulation of genetic changes and the preservation of some of them into future generations into changing niches the environment provides means that organisms differentiate. Tiny changes over huge spans of time causes massive changes. The time involved is humanly incomprehensible.

b: 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.

M: That's OK. Only genes that express are selected for or against. An organism that carries a recessive fatal gene and a dominant beneficial gene or is homozygous for that gene will have positive adaptability regardless of the negative genes it carries.

b: 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.

M: M: I am speaking of genes that express. A fatal gene that pairs with a fatal gene means the organism can't survive to bread and those genes are eliminated from the gene pool with tends to eliminate them or keep them very rare, while a positive gene that expresses will tend to be preserved and replace less adaptive alternative forms of that gene. Selection always keeps up. We can survive with lots of genetic defects because we have evolved means to survive with them, taking care of each other for example. We may also develop means to correct our genetic defects.

M: It sounds like what you are saying here is that a bacterium that has developed a propulsion mechanism, in an environment where the energy required to run that mechanism is not necessary, might revert to a more primitive state, lose the genes that are involved in producing the propulsion mechanism. One would not, I think, call that an extrapolation to new biological functions, but a reversion to a more primitive state. If an organism has food delivered to it, it doesn't benefit from mutations that would help it acquire it's own food. You wouldn't expect evolution to go in that direction where an organism is perfectly adapted to its environment. Being a bacterium is a very successful form of life.

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

M: Man is according to evolution, just one of billions of possibilities that evolution could have taken. Man was never evolution's intention. But the accumulation of genetic changes and the preservation of some of them into future generations into changing niches the environment provides means that organisms differentiate. Tiny changes over huge spans of time causes massive changes. The time involved is humanly incomprehensible.

b: 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.

M: That's OK. Only genes that express are selected for or against. An organism that carries a recessive fatal gene and a dominant beneficial gene or is homozygous for that gene will have positive adaptability regardless of the negative genes it carries.

I disagree.

 

[buckshot24]

So you have no theory to explain what we see? Why would you not say?

Who said that? What I think happened doesn't make mutation and selection more or less able to produce the biodiversity we see on the planet.

 

[BxgJ]

Who said that? What I think happened doesn't make mutation and selection more or less able to produce the biodiversity we see on the planet.

Was that an answer to the first part? If you have a theory why would you not explain it to us? Normally one would put forth a better theory when explaining why the currently accepted one is wrong.

 

[brianmanahan]

what would jesus do with this thread

 

[MongGrel]

Who said that? What I think happened doesn't make mutation and selection more or less able to produce the biodiversity we see on the planet.

 

[Moonbeam]

I disagree.

With what I said, what I was hoping to say, or what you thought I said?

 

[FelixDeCat]

With what I said, what I was hoping to say, or what you thought I said?

Wait, what?

 

[Moonbeam]

Wait, what?

I didn't know how to use the fact that you disagree because I don't really know if I said what I meant to say well enough that it communicated, if I was wrong about what I said, or if you heard something I didn't say or intend to say.

If I say that evolution is a fact, I mean evolution as I understand it. I believe that I am right not wrong, but I am an ignorant person. I don't know if what I think of as evolution is actually what science says. I also don't know how well I communicate what I think evolution is, and I don't know what you think of when you use the word evolution. I just try my best and if you don't agree I simply wonder why that is.

 

[Omar F1]

Obvious and must be taken into consideration? Not at all. If a community commits rape and enacts sex slavery, that community is to be punished. I'd prefer with death penalties for the rapists and slavers, but I'd settle for life imprisonment.

You think morals are subjective. They are not.

Quantize the harm. The more unnecessary harm done by an act, especially if it's for the sheer pleasure, the more immoral it is. Social circles, societies, communities, counties, the year, the era, the location? Doesn't matter one bit.

Morality is not dependent on what everybody else is doing. Rape is rape, and rape is bad. Rape 1,600 years ago, committed by Mohamed (e.g) is bad. Rape 20 years ago or so, committed by Junko Furuta's hundred odd rapists and torturers, is bad. Rape committed by Jimmy Saville, fifty years ago or so, is bad.

A killing crime in a civilized society is worse than that in a primitive, or plagued with poverty, education-lacking community. What's not so obvious about it.

I agree with you about the other points. However, taking into consideration the people different mentalities across the different places and ages might give us a better understanding about particular group and their tendencies toward committing crimes.
And I repeat it again, I'm not just talking about plain simple killing or rape, as there are dozens of other subjective moral examples to be talked about.


As for Mohamed being called 'child rapist', that is completely false accusation.
1) He was never called a child rapist by his worst enemies. That hints that it was 'acceptable' to do so by both; males & females, back then. It's nonsense to hold them accountable for such 21st-century social standard.
2) It was never reported that Ai'sha, the 12-years old wife, ever had resented such marriage through her entire subsequent life.
3) It's usually not mentioned that his precedent wife was 15-years-older than him.
4) What matters most importantly, is that he saw himself marrying her is a dream, that's why he went and asked her from her father, Mohamed's best companion and friend - that wasn't a random guy.
Before making fun of it, you've to know that prophets dreams are considered to be kind of revelation and must be followed. For example Abraham's story, when he saw himself sacrificing his own son, and once he told him his reply was "do as you were ordered, dad" to hit the best example of obedience to the God. For latter to be stopped and given a ram from heaven to be sacrificed instead.

What? If people are immoral, efforts are to be made to bring justice unto them, for the sake of the victims

Don't forget along to weigh in benefits Vs. overall harm, before you take such actions.

Wouldn't work; religion cannot be stamped out by the sword, and it is religion that regresses societies and cultures. Take a look at any country that takes their religion seriously; Saudi Arabia, for example.

I wasn't talking about religion but rather to force the Africans to well-utilize their own resources and stop the influence of colonization influence over their lands.
As for Saudi Arabia, trust me it's such a mixed bag and complex case beyond imagination.

Nope. You presented a straw man. Kissing causes no harm, generally; it's not an immoral act. Those who take issue with kissing have no moral superiority, and should be ashamed for wishing to forbid the display of affection.

This example is beaten already. You may or may not give a slight consideration for others' perspective, which is btw not just a religion-bound matter.

That's not an issue of free will; there isn't any will present. That's an issue of circumstance

And that circumstance is governed by luck? and luck is distributed by God among his creation. So I'd consider it a matter of will.

All the grace and prosperity he has given us? The fuck? It's through the efforts of men, and men alone, that society (at least in the west) has transcended iron age barbarism. Guess what the Abrahamic texts preach? You guessed it, iron age barbarism.

Killing rape victims for being raped? Oh, how graceful!

Commanding sex slavery for non-hebrew virgins? How loving!

Creating a world filled with suffering and violence? Praise be to Allah!

Ah, ignorant arrogant humans...
It's like we deserve each and every feature of our bodies, we earned it, right?
That amazing eyesight ability, go and compare your eyes with the best ever created ultra-wide photography lens - without post-processing - and you may understand what I mean.

Humans have the worst teeth imaginable. We have teeth that don't even fit in our gums, that cause sores and bleeding.

Humans are incredibly inbred; it only takes two generations, on average, for a child, born of incest, to have all sorts of problems.

Humans have to create shampoo to have clean hair.

Humans need planes to fly in the sky; birds just flap their "arms", so to speak.

Humans need oxygen tanks and diving suits to swim in water for long lengths of time; fish are able to stay underwater, naked, for yonks.

Humans tend to develop poor eyesight as they age, requiring the creation of glasses.

Humans sometimes cum over themselves when they sleep, because they haven't ejaculated often enough.

Humans are absolutely pathetic for the first thirteen years or so of their lives; try pitting a 5 year old against a 5 year old tiger. See how that works out.

The list goes on.

Your ego, inflated by just being a naked ape that is half a chromosome away from the chimpanzee, is too damn big.

Design is about balance, and obviously we've the best balance out there compared to every one else, period.
Yet, he was intentionally created imperfect, as everything else in this short life, of which the God doesn't care much for - as he clearly stated he just created it a kind of test-bed for his creatures.

But notice how all those problems were solved by using our own minds, the same exclusive minds given to us by God.
And in that regard, my previous question still stands; show me another species, out of thousands out there, that possess such similar intelligence-level of human beings. Only then I might start take that monkey-ancestors fantasy seriously.

 

[MajinCry]

A killing crime in a civilized society is worse than that in a primitive, or plagued with poverty, education-lacking community. What's not so obvious about it.

No it isn't. This is known as moral relativism. Moral relativism is indistinguishable from moral cowardice.

I agree with you about the other points. However, taking into consideration the people different mentalities across the different places and ages might give us a better understanding about particular group and their tendencies toward committing crimes.

Doesn't matter. Immorality is immorality. And should be punished extensively. Your moral relativism would state otherwise, however.

And I repeat it again, I'm not just talking about plain simple killing or rape, as there are dozens of other subjective moral examples to be talked about.

Rape is never the morally white course of action. Of course, you could make some high-fantasy bollocks hypothetical, but that would simply be fiction.

As for Mohamed being called 'child rapist', that is completely false accusation.

Wrong. Aisha was nine. He fucked her on their wedding night. He committed statutory rape.

You're going at length to defend a child rapist, huh? Are you like this towards Jimmy Saville as well?

1) He was never called a child rapist by his worst enemies. That hints that it was 'acceptable' to do so by both; males & females, back then. It's nonsense to hold them accountable for such 21st-century social standard.

Wrong. Rape is bad. A rape committed today is bad. A rape committed 40 years ago is bad. A rape committed 1,000 years ago is bad. A rape committed 2,000 years ago is bad.

Oh, how dare we have morality that trumps that of iron age rapists, child molesters and sex slavers!

Please.

2) It was never reported that Ai'sha, the 12-years old wife, ever had resented such marriage through her entire subsequent life.

She was nine when they consummated. You're saying that a nine year old child, that has grown up in a culture where that is the norm, as is women being vastly more uneducated than their male counterparts, is going to have a well-informed stance and not have any brain-washing as to whether or not she should be accepting of having an old man as a husband?

You're god damn disgusting.

3) It's usually not mentioned that his precedent wife was 15-years-older than him.

So? Doesn't mean he didn't rape and molest a kid.

4) What matters most importantly, is that he saw himself marrying her is a dream, that's why he went and asked her from her father, Mohamed's best companion and friend - that wasn't a random guy.

Here we have it, folks! Having sex with a kid is fine, so long as you have it dominate your thoughts and it's the kid of a close friend!

My god.

Before making fun of it, you've to know that prophets dreams are considered to be kind of revelation and must be followed. For example Abraham's story, when he saw himself sacrificing his own son, and once he told him his reply was "do as you were ordered, dad" to hit the best example of obedience to the God. For latter to be stopped and given a ram from heaven to be sacrificed instead.

So if God says it's okay, it's okay?

That's just sad. An appeal to authority; it's moral because the big guy says so!

Totalitarianism at it's most obvious.

Don't forget along to weigh in benefits Vs. overall harm, before you take such actions.

Oh won't somebody please think of the poor rapists!

I wasn't talking about religion but rather to force the Africans to well-utilize their own resources and stop the influence of colonization influence over their lands.
As for Saudi Arabia, trust me it's such a mixed bag and complex case beyond imagination.

This example is beaten already. You may or may not give a slight consideration for others' perspective, which is btw not just a religion-bound matter.

When your perspective clashes with what is moral, your perspective loses. And no, what a deity says, nor what a prophet says, is moral through that alone. You've sold out your humanity, your morality, for an iron age book of savagery, rape, child molestation and sex slavery.

That's both sad and disgusting.

And that circumstance is governed by luck? and luck is distributed by God among his creation. So I'd consider it a matter of will.

What? Yahweh makes things happen, so it's the child's fault that it's born?

Are you sober?

Ah, ignorant arrogant humans...
It's like we deserve each and every feature of our bodies, we earned it, right?
That amazing eyesight ability, go and compare your eyes with the best ever created ultra-wide photography lens - without post-processing - and you may understand what I mean.

So you just poo-poo it away, huh? Weren't you the one that just said humans are damn near perfect? Oh, yes you were!

Come on man. Don't be such a snake.

Design is about balance, and obviously we've the best balance out there compared to every one else, period.

Humans can't fly without airplanes and helicopters. Birds can.

Have a limb amputated? It ain't coming back. The Axolotl can, as well as regenerate organs.

Get cancer? You're lucky if the chemo fixes it.

Man, you really are just sticking your fingers in your ears.

Yet, he was intentionally created imperfect, as everything else in this short life, of which the God doesn't care much for - as he clearly stated he just created it a kind of test-bed for his creatures.

Didn't you say it's an issue of balance? But now we're created imperfect?

What the hell. Do you have schizophrenia?

But notice how all those problems were solved by using our own minds, the same exclusive minds given to us by God.
And in that regard, my previous question still stands; show me another species, out of thousands out there, that possess such similar intelligence-level of human beings. Only then I might start take that monkey-ancestors fantasy seriously.

Monkey ancestors? You don't even know what you're talking about; we share a common ancestor with the great apes. Not monkeys.

It's funny that you call evolution a fantasy. Have you heard of this thing called religion? It's where anything from child molestation, to mass rape and sex slavery can be justified, if someone super-galactic sky-dweller says it's okay.

Come on man.

 

[soulcougher73]

Wrong. Aisha was nine. He fucked her on their wedding night. He committed statutory rape.

Not that i agree with your opponent on anything else, but something like this would require context of the day. If they were allowed by their laws and customs to marry and have sex at 9 then this would not be rape in said culture. It would today here in the US and most other countries for sure.

 

[Thebobo]

interesting active. i personally believe this because of all the exact same story's like the flood and resurrection from earlier gods.

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ"

Atwill asserts that Christianity did not really begin as a religion, but a sophisticated government project, a kind of propaganda exercise used to pacify the subjects of the Roman Empire. "Jewish sects in Palestine at the time, who were waiting for a prophesied warrior Messiah, were a constant source of violent insurrection during the first century," he explains. "When the Romans had exhausted conventional means of quashing rebellion, they switched to psychological warfare. They surmised that the way to stop the spread of zealous Jewish missionary activity was to create a competing belief system. That's when the 'peaceful' Messiah story was invented. Instead of inspiring warfare, this Messiah urged turn-the-other-cheek pacifism and encouraged Jews to 'give onto Caesar' and pay their taxes to Rome.

 

[buckshot24]

interesting active. i personally believe this because of all the exact same story's like the flood and resurrection from earlier gods.

Except those accounts come afterward and I think you're stretching the term "exact" to the extreme.

What gods are you referring to as "exact"?

Don't post a debunked meme either.

 

[buckshot24]

Ancient Confession Found: 'We Invented Jesus Christ"

So, the Romans tricked a bunch of zealot Jews about a made up messiah? You probably believe random genetic copying errors and selection "created" you as well, which explains your uncritical acceptance of pathetically inadequate evidence.

So now we have a description; let's talk about errors:

A chief impetus for this idea, Atwill says [1], was that he could not conceive of how Judaism could produce two movements so diametrically opposed as the warlike Sicarii and the "peace"-advocting Jesus.
Atwill's conception, unfortunately, lacks a certain perspective; one may as well ask how early 20th century African-American society could have produced both a Malcolm X and a Martin Luther King.

The clue missed is that Jesus' message was not one of peace, but of a sword, as he himself said -- the Gospel message undermined the values then held current, via subtle influence rather than direct force as the Sicarii preferred. If Atwill cannot see that Jesus' message was not indeed, at its core, hostile to Roman authority and society in terms of the components it offered, then he needs to do some more research (see here).

Furthermore, it is clear that Atwill fails on the point of ancient social psychology. He supposes that Jesus was invented to attract militaristic, messianic Jews; yet the figure of Jesus is precisely what a dedicated Sicarii would least follow. Jesus would be regarded as being as far out of the ingroup as could be conceived; he would even be taken by the Sicarii as a disgrace to YHWH.
Indeed, Atwill openly contradicts himself, for he claims he cannot see how Judaism could produce such diametric opposites, yet he argues that Christianity was built to make these opposites attract. He supposes, in other words, that Judaism would not produce such a group; but he hypothesizes that Jews then converted to such a group.

Yet that is unreasonable even in truth, for such rebels would not approve of Jesus even as we know him; the positive view of tax collectors, Roman officials, etc. that Atwill sees would have been exceptionally repugnant to the very people being targeted. The idea that Christianity was intended to prevent the spread of messianic Judaism to the provinces [19] ignores the fact that Jews of the Diaspora were Hellenized enough that they did not support such a movement in the first place (the misplaced hopes of the rebels, recorded by Josephus [19], notwithstanding).

Atwill cannot have his cake and eat it too. In addition, the idea he sees in Paul and Josephus that "the Romans were God's servants" finds its roots in OT indications that punishers like the Assyrians and Babylonians were doing God's will -- and finds no particular favor for the Romans.

One also wonders why in the world Titus would care to start a new religion for Jews that he had already soundly beaten on the battlefield. One also wonders how and why a mission to the Gentiles got started; indeed, why Titus would allow his own "Frankenstein's monster" to get loose onto persons with whom he had no problems of loyalty.
Even more problematic for Atwill is what is said by Roman writers whose works he ignores. Tacitus' comment in Annals 15.44 places the origins of Christianity, and Roman reaction to it, nearly a decade before Titus' final victory. Atwill says nothing at all about this critical passage; nor does he mention Pliny's letter to Trajan asking what to do about Christians.
Atwill wishes to posit convenient forgetfulness as the cause of the loss of knowledge about Christian origins; and how credible is it that Hadrian and Pliny "forgot" this, or did not know about it? How credible is it that Domitian (himself a Flavian) persecuted Christianity and forgot that his own relatives had created it in the first place? Why would some of those relatives actually become Christians?

Atwill makes no effort to explain how Christianity spread; he offers a single paragraph on this saying that "wicked priests" introduced the religion to the masses (Jewish?); but then, "The first people to hear the story of Jesus would most likely have been slaves (Gentiles???) whose patrons simply ordered them to attend services. After a while some began to believe, then many." [258] End of explanation.

http://www.tektonics.org/books/csmessrvw.php

 

[fskimospy]

So, the Romans tricked a bunch of zealot Jews about a made up messiah? You probably believe random genetic copying errors and selection "created" you as well, which explains your uncritical acceptance of pathetically inadequate evidence.

http://www.tektonics.org/books/csmessrvw.php

Oh Jesus he's at it again. Apparently he still thinks that if he refuses to accept evidence hard enough it doesn't count.

If nothing else I guess it's a good object lesson as to how sufficiently fanatical people can make their own facts and their own reality. Sad.

 

[soulcougher73]

Oh Jesus he's at it again. Apparently he still thinks that if he refuses to accept evidence hard enough it doesn't count.

If nothing else I guess it's a good object lesson as to how sufficiently fanatical people can make their own facts and their own reality. Sad.

I know you're probably pushing for that 40k post count, but just let this thread die and hopefully he will go away lol