Topic: Because I love debate... and I am bored

[upperlake04]

to clarify the disjointed replies a few posts above - I had inserted a copy of the Katrina twins to disprove Anubiscycles theory that everything comes in threes. It was an attempt at humour, but in deference to Toms tender sensibilities I deleted it. 

 One can decide to believe either - with faith, but the asylums are full of individuals who believe their idea of the framework of the universe is correct( sorry RM, you're still a good guy)  or by logic,  which is incomplete because we as humans don't have the cerebral or diagnostic tools to reach a final conclusion.          One can spend alot of life spinning in circles babbling and contriving more complex questions, but the bottom line is we can't know for sure - thats the human condition.
 

WHO CARES.  I'd rather spend the time on my hobbies.

right on OB

Edit> I see AC has now deleted his complaint

[anubiscycle]

Go out in your yard, look around.....

All that #$%* happened once.. Just once... by total chance huh?  Don't take me a religious person as I AM NOT. Anyone who is and has the "Bible" skills up to par can contest me. When I say I have been there done that, I mean it. I spent some time in seminary as well as at the bottom of the barrel. Jehovah's Witnesses (Elders) hate me. They ring my door bell and I send them away thinking about the total accuracy of their given faith after only a few minutes.

This comes into the same thing it always does when slicing and dicing creation and the belief of God or whatever. YOU ARE ALL RIGHT AND YOU ARE ALL WRONG at the same time. This is why I said "creation" as we know it is both creation and evolution. This is concept that is beyond many people, as this means you would build something that would learn to adapt to a given environment. Did I mention you would have to set some of the "learning" parameters?

Show me people who have all of the answers and I will show you liars. If we did have all the answers, why the heck would we be here? The Buddhists have a saying "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" Anyone who is truly enlightened is not here. Not where we can talk to them.

No matter how we try, we CAN NOT create ANYTHING. the punch line to a joke "No, create your own dirt"

To believe that this world came into being by chaos alone is stupidity. Not meant as a dig to those who do not follow. But it seems clear that this is a matter of common sense I think.

I will not slice and dice the existence of a God with people. I will simply make them think about just what the hell they do believe. Religions as a whole: They are all wrong and all right at the same time. The chase of this understanding is just futile.

A friend of mine threw me a curve once with the idea that we just might all be here to do a certain job. This is why the tolerant fight with the intolerant. He put out the idea that our world as we know it is simply school. Learning how to build things right later. (why is there such a quest for knowledge if where not true?)... With that said what the hell will you build if there is such a thing as an afterlife?

I know I am a tester. I test #$%* to see what more can be had by the same thing.

EDEN: if there was such a place in time, had the supposed good without the bad. Just what kind of experience is that? Sort of like the Matrix analogy that the whole first crop just about died because the machines gave them a Utopia.....

Intelligent debate - is my Hobby.

[neudl]

I am a confirmed believer in evolution, trained scientist, and a Lutheran, meaning I don't believe that the Bible is literal truth. The whole Biblical creation story flies in the face of all scientific evidence and logic. That said, I cannot discount that evolution might be guided by a higher power.  BUT - intelligent design is not science, as evolution is, and has no place being taught as a science.

The term science refers to the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical world, especially by observing, measuring and experimenting. Being that intelligent design relies on supernatural phenomena, it does not fit under this category. Furthermore, scientific theory must undergo what is known as the scientific method to be scientifically acceptable. The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate representation of the world. It involves a number of important steps. These are: observation and description, formulation of a hypothesis, experimentation to test the hypothesis, and finally, acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis. Intelligent design does not fail to meet these steps, but instead actually reverses them. Supporters of intelligent design began with a conclusion and are currently working to prove it.

For good reading:

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/47366?&print=yes

Now get back to working on your bikes, becasue I don't think this forum is going to chance any minds (although it is an interesing tpoic of discussion).

[andy750]

In the context of Intelligent debate there are a few inaccuracies within your argument Tom;

"The Buddhists have a saying "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" Anyone who is truly enlightened is not here. Not where we can talk to them."

It may just be a saying and even then I find it hard to belive (you have a source for this quote?) as Buddist philiosphy specifically beleives in "do not kill" - as follows...

The Buddha established a monastic Order (the San.gha), with five basic Precepts: not to kill, not to steal, not to be unchaste, not to drink intoxicants, and not to lie. Practice and Enlightenment then lead one to Nirvân.a ("Extinction"), which the Buddha refused to positively characterize. Do we even exist when we achieve Nirvân.a? The Buddha denied that we exist, denied that we do not exist, denied that we both exist and do not exist, and denied that we neither exist nor do not exist. This kind of answer is called the Fourfold Negation and becomes a fundamental Buddhist philosophical principle to deal with attempts to characterize Nirvân.a or ultimate reality: we cannot either affirm or deny anything about them.

"Anyway thats Buddishm......another belief system .

"This is why I said "creation" as we know it is both creation and evolution. This is concept that is beyond many people, as this means you would build something that would learn to adapt to a given environment. Did I mention you would have to set some of the "learning" parameters?"

To make this sound sensible you need to presume that SOMEONE or SOMETHING has built something or created something that will then EVOLVE. This theory depends on a higher presence that has BUILT something in the first place. A simpler theory that dosent require FACTOR X (in this case "higher presence) is the Big Bang Theory (note: factor x was used in Ensteins theory of gravitation when he didnt know the missing part - factor x was a convienent term to use for the 'unkown" - turned out factor x in that case could be explained years later by scientific observation).

"To believe that this world came into being by chaos alone is stupidity. Not meant as a dig to those who do not follow. But it seems clear that this is a matter of common sense I think."

I would recommend you read some literature on the Big Bang theory before calling it stupid. And if its not common sense to you then where is the common sense in believing that a higher power created something out of nothing)  - this is not common sense its called Faith. In the absence of proof there is Faith.


cheers
Andy

[Noel]

Religion has existed, apparently, as long as Man. Religion has always been a way for us to explain things we do not yet understand. As our understanding of the natural world has increased, individual religions have had either to bend or to die. This pattern has been ongoing for all of recorded history.

This, to me, is evidence enough that there is no god, or at the very least that there is no valid religion.

Not that I'm trying to stir the pot or anything.

[samfig]

What about the idea that religion should be a private and should not be forced upon children in a government institution (public schools).  There is and should always be a separation of church and state (although some like Bush are trying to blur it).  What about those of us who are atheists?  Don't we have the right to send out kids to school and know that a religious idea isn't going to be institutionally pressured on our kids (I don't have kids but I would be pissed).  I think this debate should be re-thought in the context of why one religious view should be supported by our government when that clearly goes against our constitution.  If people want Intelligent design to be taught or any other religious belief they should enroll their child in a religious school, not a public one.

just my 2 cents

[Bob Wessner]

I'll jump back in here with one other comment. It can be difficult to look around our environment and think how could something like this be the result of something simply called evolution. Actually, evolution is a long, long series of trials and errors. The errors disappear, the successes live on and contribute. Actually, even the failures contribute in their own way. What we humans have difficulty grasping is the concept of the amount of time involved... millions and millions of years of nuances leading to other nuances.
The process of weeding out the failures from the successes is still going on. I just hope we humans are smart enough to allow the process to continue without screwing everything up completely.

I told you I was an evolutionist.  

[Ebrandon]

Thanks guys for an interesting discussion. I purposely asked the question specifically about should Intelligent Design be taught as an alternative science to evolution, so as not to purposely stir the whole believer vs non believer pot.

I personally am a scientist and do not believe that intelligent diesign has any place in public school. For the reason someone stated above- if you allow for the option of teaching Intelligent Design as a science, you are underminding religious freedom. Evolution does not preclude someone's ability to believe in a religion. However in order for intelligent design to work you have to believe in a higher power (be it god or aliens). Scientologist have a very different view of how life developed on earth- should that be taught too. Some people believe that we as physical beings don't actually exist, we are just spiritual beings having a dream- should that be taught?

Evolution is science- you can do experiments that show natural selection works, you can measure the results of random mutation, you can see genetics and study it. You can not do that with intelligent design- it is not a science. I do think that people should learn that there are still things about evolution that aren't understood, and that one day there might be a better model out there then Darwinism. But to teach that intelligent design may answer these questions is to try to pass it off as a science and that seriously undermines the education of children.

If anyone is interested in this topic and ever has the chance- I would suggest "Flock of Dodos" it is an excellent documentary.

PS- It has been raining here in ridiculous amounts. Last  night I even had a dream that my house was flooding- Hence no riding for me, this I am forced to find other ways to occupy my time (and more importantly my mind)

PSS- as someone who will most likely have kids in public school someday, I think it is very worth my time to think about and discuss that may be part of their curriculum one day.

[anubiscycle]

This Statement I think speaks to both:

"If there is a God?, Why would those who follow him have such a short view that he would not make things to adapt?" My attitude is the same when the right wing fools rally. If it offends God, why does he do  nothing about it?

My point with the Buddha comment was: If you meet the supposed enlighten person on the path to enlightenment they are a liar.

http://www.humanistsofutah.org/1996/IfYouMeetTheBuddhaOnTheRoad_DiscGrp_4-96.html

"If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him!" This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be our master. We must each give up the master without giving up the search. The importance of things lies in the way we have learned to think about them. How often we make circumstances our prison and other people our jailers! At our best we take full responsibility for what we do and what we choose not to do. The most important struggles take place within the self.

No one answered my question about what you will build? Some will build only strife...

No matter who you ask, they are eventually liars by faith. This is nature.

I failed science class 2 years in a row because I refused adopt evolution as the only creation.

[andy750]

Thanks for the link and the quote Tom. I appreciate it. It does put your original sentence in a clearer conext though I still think it dosent address the Evolution v Intelligent design debate in any way. 

cheers
Andy

[anubiscycle]

Both, like I have been saying. How can evolution happen without intelligence? Sorry for ranting 

Topic is sort of redundant isn't it?  But was a great thread, thanks Ebrandon. Got me salvating without causing problems 

[samfig]

So basically I'm right ... so what did I win

[loonymoon]

I'll jump back in here with one other comment. It can be difficult to look around our environment and think how could something like this be the result of something simply called evolution. Actually, evolution is a long, long series of trials and errors. The errors disappear, the successes live on and contribute. Actually, even the failures contribute in their own way. What we humans have difficulty grasping is the concept of the amount of time involved... millions and millions of years of nuances leading to other nuances.
The process of weeding out the failures from the successes is still going on. I just hope we humans are smart enough to allow the process to continue without screwing everything up completely.

I told you I was an evolutionist. 

I'm possibly a little "after the fact here" but I agree wholeheartedly with Bob above. Evolution is NOT intelligent. It is as Bob says a series of lots of error and the occasional accidental success. If you beleive in evolution like a religion then you're thinking about it the wrong way. Animals do not really evolve to suit their environment (which suggests that they did something intelligent to get there) the animals living in a certain environment are simply the ones who survived in that environment because millions of years of mutations and slight differences allowed them to. As Bob says the time involved is something that humans cannot imagine.

However if you look at a living organism that can double it's population in a day you can see evolution happening in a time scale that we can understand. For instance bacteria that are challenged with an antibiotic will die. Well infact most do die  (and the ill patient survives) but perhaps one in a billion has a mistake in their genome which produces a dodgy enzyme which means that the antibiotic won't work on that one mutant. Of course that mutant will survive. It may take several weeks or months for that one mutant to become a significant part of the population of bacteria again but mutants will be proportionately more in the population, and the next time that antibiotic is given then it will be less effective because that mutation is now dominant in the population. No-one can deny the existance of MRSA the "superbug" how did it get like that - because it evolved to be like that and we used the drugs that made it like that.

To me evolution is simple common sense and something that is bound to happen. I am actually an atheist in that I don't beleive in a super being. I have more of a Buddist perspective on life but although i don't beleive in intelligent design there's nothing in science to say that a higher being or a greater conciousness didn't start the whole process off in the beginning.

[firecracker]

Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
 - John Keats

[Rhonda750F]

To Answer Toms question on what I would build.......  
First on the list would be a quarter operated blowjob machine.  I could make a fortune placing these all over town, and of course I would make it pleasureable for both men and women.  
I would then use my fortune from the first machine to make the next series of machines.

I would build a machine that would bring me back from death.  Then I would build a death machine.  
I would then procede to use the death machine in the attempts to see if there is an afterlife.  Shoot the #$%* with God, Buddha, JC, Lau tzu, Abraham, Satan, Mohamed, Kung fu tzu, or whoever is hanging around in the afterlife.  Have my second machine bring me back to life and then tell you all about it.

[upperlake04]

  thats the most practical and intelligent answer I've read here today   thanks for that

[anubiscycle]

Again this thread dies the same painful death all of them do here. Starting to feel like this is just a race to see how fast we can crap up thread. The ones at the top are ones we are still working on. the ones on page 3-4 are ones that we crapped up a long time ago.

With your blow job machine, it will be a wonderfull life. We wont have to trully interact, or converse in a real subject matter.....MMMMM??? sounds familiar. I think your machine has been made with the help of lotion and internet porn.

"Evolution is NOT intelligent"? WTF? Some people will continue dispute the air we breathe. If you make some #$%* that learns to adapt (like stupid humans) you would expect much more. I now know why we are not enlightened people. WE ARE TOO STUPID, and that is sad.

A great many of us do not deserve to breathe air because our world is governed by opinion an nothing more.

If evolution is not intellegence, why does the "rules of natural selection" NOT work. Look around, we are surrouded by stupid people. People we thought would have died off long ago. Still not sure why some people bother to breed. Maybe the blow job machine would fix that. Thanks for the quarters..............


If evolution is not intelligence..... we are all ACCIDENTS.. Maybe the best part did leak away 

[upperlake04]

Relax Tom - the majority of the people on this forum are intelligent people. Most can  readily recognize the difference between seriousness and humour when they read it.
  A quick witted piece of original humour related to the topic is  welcome to this reader. Its a good break in a weighty discussion.  There is no reason why the serious conversation can't resume and usually does without a break. Its read, a chuckle, and on to the next reply.  No big deal.  If its not your kind of humour, so what?   Police yourself not the forum members.
  The truth is nothing kills a topic faster than someone throwing a temper tantrum.

[loonymoon]

If evolution is not intelligence..... we are all ACCIDENTS.. Maybe the best part did leak away 

Physical evolution of species is accidental.. yes. we are two legged and naked because of accidents way back in pre-history. BUT there's a difference between the evolution of physical form and adaptation. Adaptation to environments can be intelligent - but physical evolution cannot. An intelligent species like man ( well some of them anyway the others are just hangers on!) builds shelters and uses tools to adapt to living in a harsh environment.

Although I'm intelligent enough to realise that without wings I'm just gonna get stuck in traffic everyday, I cannot evolve myself and sprout wings, even if this is the "intelligent" thing todo. However what I could do is adapt and use a motorbike....

I'm sure some great things did leak away, we will never know what "prototypes" there may have been.

[GeoffT]

Have to say that this has been a very interesting read. Upperlake your right about the humour. I had a wry laugh when i read the ironic remark made by Rsnip calling Oldbiker a whipersnapper. I may be wrong but I always thought that term was one used by our elders in reference to young upstarts. I reckon that OB has a good 40 years on Rsnip.  

Come on guys keep inteligent debate going. Scruff like me are learning new stuff. I'd never even heard of this inteligent design theory.

[dusterdude]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. where does it say in the first amendment that there should be a separation of church and state,no where.it does say that congress shall not by law establish a religion and thats it.it doesnt say my government cant prefer christianity to islam or budhism or judaism,it just says not to have a law.it doesnt say that my local city hall cant have a christmas scene out front,if religion offends you tough,this country was founded on christianity and its done us well,until the damn liberals got it outlawed back in the 60`s.you folks ask  yourself this,why do you think kids act the way they do nowadays,its because their parents grew up without religion in school.ok,ill shut up now.

[Raul CB750K1]

When I was at university I used to believe only in what can be proved, and as a telecom engineer it seemed that the whole world could be explained by the laws of physycs and mathematics.

If you think about how the world has evolved the last century, you have to believe the Man is almighty. Planes, space rockets, computers, mobile phones, the human intelligence has created things that has changed our way of living.

But if you think about the computer you are reading my words from, it has been designed by a man -or team of-, built by another man, and so has been the operating system. These people must be very intelligent, that's for sure. And the source of their intelligence is some gray matter inside their skull. And in the gray matter there are no copper tracks, no batteries, no integrated circuits, and still it works like a computer based on chemical reactions. Not even the most intelligent man on earth is capable of creating a brain from scratch, not even repairing one. It's the greates of all paradoxes, the human brain cannot explain how it works.

And what about plants? You throw a sunflower seed to the ground, and it creates roots that go down -with no eyes or indication to where it should go- and from it a plant is born. The man is not capable to create a simple seed from where a plant will be born.


If you think outside the box, this cannot be pure coincidence. The human body -or any animal body for that matter- is a complex structure. Bones that support the body. Muscles that create movement. Blood that transport nutrients. Eyes, ears, tongue, nose to interact with the outside world. What are the odds that, if a planet explodes like in the Big Bang, from nowhere life will be created and it will evolve by natural evolution to the state it is now? From this reasoning I believe there is a supreme creature that created everything, not because I can prove it exist, but because without it nothing will exist. After that, Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, are just cultural interpretations of divinity, because as opposed to animals, humans are the only ones who have religious feelings and are conscious about existence.

Once you adopt this reasoning, as Descartes said, "it's just simple to understand that everything in this World is the way God wants it to be". Because, if it was otherwise, it would mean God doesn't want us to be like we are, and that would mean he had a failure, therefore he is not perfect. But if God is perfect, it means everything is perfect because he can not fail, and for that reason we are perfect because we are his creation.


Raul

[anubiscycle]

My point made by the opinons on this thread alone. just read above

Feel free to show me something you have created - This does mean from nothing... No air, no dirt..... just stop and create something- anything.  No matter how much science anyone throws in. Science is the study of that which already is.

[martini]

I used to be an atheist and a firm believer, and I stress the word "believer", in evolution. However after many, many, many debates on this subject, the subject of religion generally, I realized that my "faith" in science was just that faith. I can no more prove that god does not exist then I can that he does. It simply can't be done, there is not enough evidence to establish proof. Its a matter of faith for people in both camps. I tend to think that evolution makes more sense in that, as others have pointed out, it can be scientifically observed in nature but that doesn't exclude intelligent design. People often tell me that being an agnostic is a cop out. I don't see it that way. I know what I think is more likely in my mind, atheism, but I really have no better arguments to "prove it" then those who believe in a god.

My 2 cents

[anubiscycle]

You can not have one without the other.....................

Create something and prove me wrong.