Evolution Vs Creation

[DickyC]

DickyC said:

... woman at work... blah blah blah... "You have great boobs."

Chunkymonkey71 said:

And is he right?

Let's just say there is a God.

[Justaredbadge]

ChrisGB said:

Stalker?

No. He probably did the same as me and looked back through your posting history to see if you had posted anything of merit.

ever.

It turns out you haven't, as you have only ever posted below par middle school debating society level nonsense in religious threads on a car forum.

I couldn't find anything other than your profile picture which would seem to attract you to this site.

Anyway, enjoy your retirement. I'm sure you'll be able to justify your existence to your god when you get to your heaven.

[Justaredbadge]

ChrisGB said:

Stalker?

No. He probably did the same as me and looked back through your posting history to see if you had posted anything of merit.

ever.

It turns out you haven't, as you have only ever posted below par middle school debating society level nonsense in religious threads on a car forum.

I couldn't find anything other than your profile picture which would seem to attract you to this site.

Anyway, enjoy your retirement. I'm sure you'll be able to justify your existence to your god when you get to your heaven.

[DickyC]

Justaredbadge said:

No. He probably did the same as me and looked back through your posting history to see if you had posted anything of merit.

ever.

It turns out you haven't, as you have only ever posted below par middle school debating society level nonsense in religious threads on a car forum.

I couldn't find anything other than your profile picture which would seem to attract you to this site.

Anyway, enjoy your retirement. I'm sure you'll be able to justify your existence to your god when you get to your heaven.

You're absolutely right. He has. How depressing is that?

Mind you he writes very erudite vehicle related posts for several Methodist websites.

[Engineer1]

DickyC said:

You're absolutely right. He has. How depressing is that?

Mind you he writes very erudite vehicle related posts for several Methodist websites.

Methodist unless I am very much mistaken he's Catholic and probably of the school of thought that services in the Vulgate was a bad decision up there with translating the Bible into the Vulgate as well, Priests and the learned should be able to tell everyone else what is true.

[DickyC]

You could well be right. I went for Methodist simply to convey the Spartan air he conjures. Can you picture him in a cold, bare room, bent over his laptop, poring over the internet looking for anything faintly religious to lead off about.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

burwoodman said:

Just the other day my 6 year old said 'jesus died for us' i started asking who told her that but figured why bother, she isnt old enough to understand the truth.

Don't be so laid back about it. It's when their not old enough to understand the truth that these parasites like to get their teeth into their victims. When she's old enough to understand the truth, they will have missed their chance!

[burwoodman]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

burwoodman said:

Just the other day my 6 year old said 'jesus died for us' i started asking who told her that but figured why bother, she isnt old enough to understand the truth.

Don't be so laid back about it. It's when their not old enough to understand the truth that these parasites like to get their teeth into their victims. When she's old enough to understand the truth, they will have missed their chance!

i'll hunt out a childrens version of Origin of Species.

[Engineer1]

burwoodman said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

burwoodman said:

Just the other day my 6 year old said 'jesus died for us' i started asking who told her that but figured why bother, she isnt old enough to understand the truth.

Don't be so laid back about it. It's when their not old enough to understand the truth that these parasites like to get their teeth into their victims. When she's old enough to understand the truth, they will have missed their chance!

i'll hunt out a childrens version of Origin of Species.

I wish my memory wasn't so crap but there is a good children's book on evolution, The Tree of Life: The Wonders of Evolution could be it,

[Timsta]

Dawkins did a good one called "The Magic of Reality"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Reality-Illustrated-...

[Captain Muppet]

ChrisGB said:

Captain Muppet said:

ChrisGB said:

Captain Muppet said:

ChrisGB said:

I do not want my children taught things that are irrational as if they were true, this is imposing falsity. I don't see how a pro-science person could deny this.

I don't see how a pro-religion person could beleive this. If one religion is true then all the others are false. So unless you can rationally choose the one true religion (which I'd love to see a proof of) then teaching any religion at all is an overwhelming risk or teaching something that is false.

Classical theism is rationally demonstrable, it would be fine if that were taught without going beyond the shared revelation of the religions that it entails.

So you agree that teaching any of the organised religions is abhorent? Fine.

I'm happy to accept a rational demonstration of a classical theist god, just as long as it also demontrates that no imaginable alternative could also produce exactly the same results. Otherwise it's pretty much useless as a demonstration.

Assuming your demonstration is convincing: I'm not really sure how such a vague concept of there being a god could possibly make any difference at all to anyone's life without dressing it up in one of the organised religions (which, obviously, no one in their right mind would teach as if it was true).

For convincing demonstrations:
Feser The Last Superstition
Oderberg Real Essentialism
Feser Aquinas

Could someone who cares read these and tell me if they are worth the effort please? I'm lazy. If anyone has read them and not been convinced then just say so, not need to go in to details.

Speaking of lazy, could someone who cares address my issue of "I'm not really sure how such a vague concept of there being a god could possibly make any difference at all to anyone's life without dressing it up in one of the organised religions (which, obviously, no one in their right mind would teach as if it was true)."

[Chris77]

Engineer1 said:

burwoodman said:

TwigtheWonderkid said:

burwoodman said:

Just the other day my 6 year old said 'jesus died for us' i started asking who told her that but figured why bother, she isnt old enough to understand the truth.

Don't be so laid back about it. It's when their not old enough to understand the truth that these parasites like to get their teeth into their victims. When she's old enough to understand the truth, they will have missed their chance!

i'll hunt out a childrens version of Origin of Species.

I wish my memory wasn't so crap but there is a good children's book on evolution, The Tree of Life: The Wonders of Evolution could be it,

Have this in my favorites, came up on my facebook feed when we were expecting our boy so saved it

http://www.atheistrepublic.com/blog/karenloethen/b...

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Timsta said:

Dawkins did a good one called "The Magic of Reality"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Magic-Reality-Illustrated-...

That's more a general science book for kids, although it does cover evolution. Superb book, even for adults. (and especially some on this thread....evolution can't be true or we'd have grey peacocks....FFS!!!! )

[Moonhawk]

ChrisGB said:

I see it could look like that.

It looks exactly like that. If a "pure act" does exist and does so without having to had a prior cause. How does this not violate causality? So far your reasoning has resulted in no more concreted an argument than "because it doesn't".

ChrisGB said:

Prime mover explains premise 2 as no potentiality being able to actualise itself.

This is another way of saying that things can't create themselves. But that in itself does not prove

a) That causality cannot be an infinite regression.
b) That causality holds under all circumstances.

ChrisGB said:

The conclusion deduced by the argument, an unmoved mover, is in these terms "purely actual", or pure act.

You keep stating this as fact - but this is nothing more than your opinion. There are many potential conclusions to this argument - you haven't demonstrated why yours is any more valid than any other proposition.

ChrisGB said:

So there is no exception or rule breaking here - the rule is that change is change of potentiality to act, and the argument proves there is something that is pure act, therefore no potentiality, therefore no change.
Nothing broken then, once these concepts are used, as they are to get us over the problem of imagining any of this.

The argument "proves" no such thing. You have simply drawn a conclusion that is convenient to your beliefs.

Can you demonstrate that "prime movers", "pure acts" etc even exist - or are you simply assuming they must to suit your argument? How about giving an example (a real example - not one derived from a philosophical thought exercise).

Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 15th April 10:49

[Engineer1]

Moonhawk said:

The argument "proves" no such thing. You have simply drawn a conclusion that is convenient to your beliefs.

Can you demonstrate that "prime movers", "pure acts" etc even exist - or are you simply assuming they must to suit your argument? How about giving an example (a real example - not one derived from a philosophical thought exercise).

Edited by Moonhawk on Tuesday 15th April 10:49

The problem is ChrisGB is a true Christian his belief is part of him so he forces everything to fit round GOD, because if it doesn't then he has been living a lie, his afterlife insurance policy is a sham, the Sundays spent in church a waste, the things during a teenagers experimental stage sex, drugs, rock and roll etc that were declined because they would upset God are now regretted. Basically if we attack his assertion therefore God we ae attacking his whole being.

[Timsta]

Engineer1 said:

The problem is ChrisGB is a true Christian his belief is part of him so he forces everything to fit round GOD, because if it doesn't then he has been living a lie, his afterlife insurance policy is a sham, the Sundays spent in church a waste, the things during a teenagers experimental stage sex, drugs, rock and roll etc that were declined because they would upset God are now regretted. Basically if we attack his assertion therefore God we ae attacking his whole being.

This is exactly where I found myself. It's a hard bridge to cross.

[Jabbah]

ChrisGB said:

This is exactly what you were doing in your first posts on this thread - assuming that the empirically verifiable is all there is "in reality" and running with that. And you are still doing that.

Once again you choose to misrepresent to preserve your arguments. I am not assuming that what can be empirically validated is all there is, just that that only theories that can be validated are supportable by empirical evidence. It's a fine distinction that you don't seem to be able to grasp.

ChrisGB said:

You are saying that any claim about reality needs to be "empirically validated". This begs the question. You are assuming that all of reality is empirically verifiable, when this is exactly the question that we disagree about, so you can't assume it, you need to demonstrate it. And to demonstrate something about the whole of reality, there is nothing for you to do but deal with metaphysics.

This doesn't beg the question at all, it is just the reality of the tools at our disposal. It doesn't assume that all of reality is empirically verifiable, just that the only things that are verifiable in reality are empirical. The only places where truths can be verified non-empirically are in pure logic axiomatic systems. As soon as you try to apply those systems to reality though you need empirical data to show the correlations. Something that you haven't been able to do.

ChrisGB said:

Thanks for the not understanding jibe, though. You wrote a post with no insults and I matched it. I'm happy to carry on civilly or polemically, your call.

You have a strange definition of insults. You have been the only one throwing about phrases such as "You are a child" or "Joker". You seem to think that showing obvious errors in your reasoning constitutes an insult.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

Engineer1 said:

the things during a teenagers experimental stage sex, drugs, rock and roll etc that were declined because they would upset God are now regretted.

That must be soooo annoying. Fortunately I came to atheist aged 8 or 9 so those avenues of pleasure were fully open to me. Unfortunately, my ugly mug was a barrier to copious amounts of sex, but the odd short sighted girl came my way.

[Timsta]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

That must be soooo annoying. Fortunately I came to atheist aged 8 or 9 so those avenues of pleasure were fully open to me. Unfortunately, my ugly mug was a barrier to copious amounts of sex, but the odd short sighted girl came my way.

At least you never turned them down! doh!

[Jabbah]

ChrisGB said:

We can go round this circle for ever if you like:
Searle's arguments are used by non-materialists to refute materialism.
In particular his Chinese room argument and Is the Brain a digital computer? paper give the non-materialist arguments showing that no complex patterns of symbols lead to understanding, and that no intentionality inheres in physical processes.
These arguments can be taken in two directions - Searle's way or the non-materialist way. You are not going into why you think only Searle's way is valid, but ok.
Searle's position shares the essential feature of property dualism, whichever way he then goes on to explain the mental. He knows the weakness of property dualism so creates a distinct version based, and I take your word for it, on emergence. This doesn't affect his fundamental property dualism or its problems.
We've gone through the quotes that support non-materialism in the Brain paper, I'm happy to dig those out again.
No time to do your homework though, but I'm happy to discuss your summary.

With your refusal to even entertain Searle's own words then going round in circles is all you will ever do. Dualists are using a misinterpretation of Searle's argument to attack materialism. His thought epxeriments are based on a narrow definition of computation and attack that directly whilst accepting that physical processes themselves (eg. the brain) can generate can assign syntax to physical tokens. The argument is against the brain (mind) as a digital computer not against it being a physical process which is explicitly accepted. Even his Chinese Room thought experiment is based on a programmed digital computer or set of written down rules and not that no physical process can support consciousness. Searle even states that other physical processes other than the brain could support consciousness.

ChrisGB said:

While we're on Searle, why don't we go back and rehash Turing and Ross etc. too?

Quus...?