Deludedgod is not alone in his frustrations.
Offline I was reminded of Deludedgod's recent frustration with a creationist/IDer recently in these very forums not too long ago as I read about this high school science teacher:
A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash
I've said it before and this article demonstrates more evidence for it: Faith is an emotional, not a rational, issue. For all his hard work to carefully and unoffensively teach basic facts of evolutionary theory certain students could not help but be totally caught up in thier emotional reactions to it.
I feel for every serious high school science teacher in the US right now.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
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That's strange.... I had NEVER heard that anyone in my country would bring a religion into a school class. (like biology or physics) I can't imagine, how would other kids and a teacher react... Well, probably by a weird look or a laughter.
I believe that's because of 40 years of communism, which left the country pretty much atheistic, mainly in offices and government. Wow, lucky me.
(I just emphasize, that beyond emotional and rational, there is also a higher form of thinking)
Creationism is IMHO not a theory, nor hypothesis, anything, because it's just Goddidit. It doesn't even try to guess HOW. This is why it can't be taken seriously. If anything has to be taught, it must be a theory, otherwise there's nothing to teach. What a lessons of creationism would be like, a silence, or a celebration of God by singing, so there's at least something to do?
Evolution theory isn't perfect. Don't get me wrong, I don't defend creationism (not that there is anything to defend) but the evolution theory is not nearly finished. The basic observation, an evolution among one species, is a fact and proves this theory worthy. But, as the evolution became a favored fighter against a threat of creationism, it's imperfections and flaws must be hidden, and it must appear as perfect in the public. This may be good for a fight with creationism, but it's not good for a further development of the evolution theory.
Creationists already found some of the evolution's holes, but this pointing out the flaws doesn't lead to fixing them, it's considered as an act of war against evolution.
A world, where people would be allowed to say "I don't know", would be much more sincere and true place.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Many things can be justified by a need for a survival, but not this one, because it comes when a need for survival (and many others) is already satisfied. What does people want, when they get the proverbial bread and games? Most of them nothing, but there is an increasing group of people, who wants more.
The abstract, mystical thinking I'm talking about, is meant for increasing a quality of life beyond the bread and games. For that purpose, it's here to create ethical, harmless relationships, to estabilish a cooperation instead of competition, to understand what unnecessary mistakes makes us suffer, to determine what is God, so no more people can be killed, enslaved or fooled in it's name, to determine a sense of life for every individual which expresses this need, to heal the mind and body by non-invasive methods, to build houses and cities which are beneficial for living, (and not just a anthills of commerce), to humanize what is dehumanized, and thus harmful, and to speed up the evolution of everything, mainly humans, by our own, conscious effort.
This higher, abstract mind takes care of questions, which rational thinking doesn't ask, but which are still more important, as our development increases. Basically, it's like a rational thinking, just there's synthesis, instead of separating all aspects of the world, there's a respect to subjectivity, and objectivity is considered as illusion, there's disrespect to illusions, and there's a knowledge of universal laws, which observably influences all the world.
Today, humanity is in many crises, and they're all self-inflicted. Something is wrong. Everything, in fact. This is caused by a lack of understanding of who we are. When we will know who we are, it will transform all aspects of our lives.
I hope I specified it enough for a basic idea, but there are dozens of meaningful books on this subject, and it's just as diffcult area of study, as any other science. It's a science of life.
I had read a book, which basically consisted of a count and photographs of several hundred of archeological findings, and also a data of why and how they were misinterpreted. Basically, the archeologic discoveries are less or more intentionally judged according to an existing theory, which afterwards supports the existing theory. "Thousands of years here, thousands there, who cares, this bone probably fell into this deeper layer by a sedimentary shift, it's not worthy of arguing with the boss..." These were mostly a small changes, but if there are thousands of them, it may give a different image of prehistory and evolution. I could search at home if the book is still there, and give you a name and author if I find it, are you interested? (I hope I'll find it, it was a few years ago)
All right, so:
- there was a flawed theory, that every mammal embryo goes through stages of evolving as a fish, reptile, and then mammal. This was based on some old, fake drawings, but even when it was refuted, it survived in textbooks for quite a long time. Fortunately, that's fixed now. (this is, if I remember number 4 in the 10 questions to ask your biology teacher)
- in a case that's not good enough, there was always a problem with transitionary species, there was never found enough of them. Some people says, that no such species were ever found, I mean those, which were not entirely adapted on environment they lived in.
Just recently I had read that the idea of transitionary species is flawed, so I guess there was some new update in knowledge, but how and what exactly, this wasn't written there. I hope it will solve also the question of too low number of fossilized misfits of evolution. A computer chip test of evolutionary process produced over 4000 of imperfect generations per one very simple succesful achievement. So where are these in nature?
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Dude
Noone´s saying that the theory of evolution is "perfect", or "fully developed" as a sort of end to history. What we are saying is that there is none alternative explanation which yields a higher degree of explanation than the evolution theory. There is no reason why we couldn´t believe in creationism or ID if there was empirical EVIDENCE for it. The whole issue of where we come from, and so on, may be somewhat uncertain - If you read Bill Bryson´s book on "A short history of nearly everything", you´ll see that. That does not, however, mean that the methods applied are fallible.
If you read up on some basic statistics and the history of science and science philosophy, you will see that once religion and science parted, science boosted and religion stalled. Science is, in a way, an evolutionary descendant of religion - meaning that you change your way of viewing the world once you realize your previous view was wrong, which, again, is science at its best. The church lost ground when it fell short of explaining a number of phenomena based on the sort of "deistic science", which is apparent in ID and Creationism.
The biggest issue here, though, is that a theory isn´t a scientific theory, unless it is falsifiable. That does not go for ID and Creationism, when the strongest falsification there is, namely the theory of evolution, is disowned by the very people who claim to be "scientific".
We, as you, love to find out more about the world, and how it works. The difference is that your approach is based on tendencious, and unsupported claims, whereas we stick to well-tested, rational arguments.
I understand your Holistic world-view - but its a philosophical one, not scientific. You´re just throwing out claims that are unable to be tested, hence they have no rational, nor scientific merit.
I´d love to write "stick a sock in it", but as they say:
Know thy enemy
ake the life-lie away from the average man and straight away you take away his happiness.
- Henrik Ibsen
You are referring to an argument regarding Haeckel's embryo's by Jonathan Wells, along with several other arguments. This is, however, fixed. It is not an argument against evolution in the slightest. It is an argument against a discredited 19th century piece of embryology misunderstanding.
That's right. Strictly speaking, the concept of a species is flawed, and is essentially a helpful form of taxonomic and morphenogenic classification. The concept of a transitional fossil is equally egregious. People seem to have this misunderstanding whereby they think that species are fixed phenotypic classifications and that fossils should somehow act like a flipbook. This is utterly preposterous. There are plenty of fossils which are clearly intermediate between two distinct species, but if you think that fossils are going to provide you with a geological flipbook, then you can dream on. The process is extremely rare.
They will be eliminated by natural selection. It is clear that your understanding of the principle of modular conservation is highly egregious. Natural selection predicts that within some generation f0 there will be a variation rate and that of the various possible genetic alterations to a gamete that could produce a variable organism, there will be a certain high probability p1 that a mutation will be deleterious and a certain low probability p2 that the mutation will be advantagous and positively selected. There will also be a certain probability p3 that the mutation is silent. So, to understand how speciation works, at least, at an extremely basic level, it is necessary to understand that any gene frequency that is now a characteristic of the whole species began as a mutation in a single organism. If this organism exists in a breeding population of size N, for sexually recombining organisms, than for diploid organisms, the initial allele frequency of the mutation which later spreads throughout any population is obviously (N/2). The change and rate of change of this allele will depend on consequences. If it is deleterious, like most, it will probably be eliminated quickly. If it is selectively neutral, it can spread via sampling error, the general rule is that for any neutral mutation, it will take 4N generations in a population of constant size N, to spread through the genome. As for beneficial mutations, such spreads are determined by virtue of their ability to propagate, by which I mean increase the survival and procreation of the organisms which hold it, and so, itself. This holds true regardless of whether one accepts gene centers evolution. It is fallacious to draw the conclusion based on this that for some population x the probability p4 that a deleterious variations will be found among individuals of the population is equivalent, or even close to p1, due to natural selection, the obvious factor you left out.
You need to read this before continuing:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/molecular_evolution_lecture_section_iv_part_ii_homology_and_evolutionary_modularity
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Not just the US- with two Christian political parties in our (Dutch) government currently, teaching evolution in schools is slowly becoming a topic for discussion again- especially, of course, in Christian schools. And it may be because some Dutch conservative Christians are inspired by AiG and sites like that or just that "people with a message" find the internet the ideal soap box, but there seem to be more and more Dutch forum threads (but also "real life" ) discussion on the topic. Which is really weird since I thought we here were waaaaay past that stage.
The striking example that comes to mind: couple of years ago the principle of a Christian school here had a bitter fall out with his teachers after said principle had demanded that they stop teaching evolution theory. The teachers, naturally, refused, and lots of drama ensued. The second one is our lame-arse (and VERY Christian) Prime Minister, saying, on a Christian TV show, that atheists do not have a "moral framework". I don't thing even George W ever said something as appalling as that, but, to my astonishment, our JP Balkenende got away with it.
And this is all besides legislation that worked, slowly being replaced by legislation that sounds "morally correct", but isn't, and only result in people being fined or arrested for basically nothing harmful. In other words: Christians are clearly using their current political power to attempt to re-evangilize my country and re-introduce "Christian Values".
Vague language and weasel-words.
I never claimed anything to be perfect. You knocked down a straw man. I disputed that there is any effort at all to hide flaws or claim perfection of the theory.
None of these are actual flaws in the theory but stem from ignorance of it. Problems get handled eventually, and these happen to be a list of problems that got handled, and one big misconception on your part (in nature there are plenty of examples of flawed species, they get selected out by nature. See? Natural selection.). See Deludedgod's many and various posts on the subject here in the RRS forums to get yourself educated.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Man that article bothers me. It must be nice to be a 16 year old know-it-all who every single day lives off the achievements of intellectual giants in the field of science.
"A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." -- former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien
What a big, steaming pile of psi balls
I hope Jello is referring to luminon's usual crap and not the teacher in the article.
Thanks for that read JillSwift.
What struck me most was the photo that accompanied the article - by the look of the students' ages they are well past the point of indoctrination where reason alone can be employed to disabuse them of irrational beliefs masquerading as fact so I can only commend David Campbell on his efforts in educating them despite that huge handicap they have been lumbered with.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I have to use a vague words, otherwise you wouldn't even know if it's vague or not. For example, "monadic consciousness" is for me as specific term, as "New York Rangers player" for other people. What about you?
Ok, this would require to find that book full of mistaken and shuffled archeologic discoveries. I trust my memory, but not that much.
Yeah, this proves I don't know what arguments creationists uses today. But as for secrets of evolution I know about (not creationists), there was allegedly a discovery of practically modern human skulls 160 000 years old. Of course I can't know if it's true, there are some theoretical problems with the used argon/argon dating, but the avalanche of known names is quite convincing.
Place: Etiopia, Herto, valley near Awash river
When: discovered in 1997
What: skulls of 2 adults and a child (7-8 years)
Who: team of more than 45 scientists from 14 countries, experts on geology, archeology and paleontology
Dating 1: Team from Centre for geologic chronology, Berkeley, led by Paul R. Renne
Dating 2: Wolde Gabriel from National lab in Los Alamos and Bill Haart from Miami University in Ohio
Result: the skulls are 160 000 - 154 000 old
The found skulls were very similar to australian aborigine people, practically identic. The differences between these skulls and a modern people, were as big, as there are differences between skulls of various contemporary races, thus minimal and well within definition of a modern human.
Modern people are classified as 'homo sapiens sapiens'.
These fossilized people from Etiopia received their whole new sub-kind, 'homo sapiens idaltu'. (in Afar language it means 'older') Just for that they doesn't have to admit something, that scared them, that they found a 160 000 years old Aborigine in Africa. This discovery was allegedly kept hidden from public for 6 years...
The geologist Jim Bowler stated, that "If you would put that guy into a grey suit he wouldn't attract any attention among people on a street of an Australian city." Well, I'm not so sure, the illustration at the article looked very similarly to Morgan Freeman.
(article from 2003, from various abroad sources)
Wikipedia article writes about that discovery:
...has many archaic features not typical of H. sapiens (although modern human skulls do differ across the globe).
So what archaic features are these, that they're atypical enough for it to not be a normal homo sapiens sapiens? Bigger superciliary ridge? C'mon, I've had such a classmates.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
You can't just make up definitions and claim they make sense. And you certainly can not hide behind your made-up definitions and claim you can't explain anything because I don't know the definitions. If you can't define something for discussion, then it can't be discussed.
Also, that these 160,000 year old humanoids were similar enough to modern humans that they'd blend in well with the general population is not evidence that there was no evolution between them and us. To say so is to prove without doubt that you don't understand what evolution by natural selection is.
Your score: Fail!
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Now would be a good time to inject some optimism. Although ID/Creationism enjoys popular support especially in the United States, it is putting up a hopeless and inherently pointless struggle.
Take my discipline for example. Genomics has become very integrated with cellular and molecular biology. We no longer talk just about genes, we talk about the mRNA and rRNA products (transcriptomics), the protein components that result (proteomics) and the epigenetic inheritance that results from the activation and inactivation of certain genes(epigenomics) and the molecular feedback loops occurring in the cell as a result (cellular metabolomics). Historically (“historically” in molecular biology means “in the last 10 years” ) genomic analysis has used a combination of protein threading analysis and homologous analysis to analyze the structure and function of genes for organisms that would otherwise be hard to study in the lab. As cytology becomes heavily integrated into genomics, more and more of molecular biology will need to directly refer to evolutionary biology. As embryogenesis study and developmental biology becomes more heavily integrated into molecular biology and proteomics, it too will need to refer directly to molecular evolution. Biology is the most tightly integrated of the three major arms of scientific inquiry, and as more and more of it becomes integrated, students of biology will need to know more and more about evolution. Students of molecular biology and genomics/epigenomics certainly need to know about molecular evolution and homologous analysis if they want to accomplish any meaningful research. ID lobbyists might be trying to force ID into schools, but students who are even bothering to seriously contemplate a career in life sciences will already be heavily versed in evolutionary biology. I certainly was when I was in high school. If I wasn’t, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with entering a life science course, and the admissions officers would probably also have not bothered with me. This will hold even more true for students today.
To put it another way, as biology becomes more tightly integrated, in about 20 years essentially every journal article dealing with any arm of molecular or developmental biology will refer directly to evolutionary principles and analytical techniques. The only way to untangle evolution and biology is to destroy the entire discipline, and every industry attached to it.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Heh. Biology already has it's "grand unification theory". Take that, you silly physicists!
I think it would probably be a good idea to wrap up jr-high introductions to evolution and biology with that fact. Where it's true that we'd "lose" students to denial and religion I suspect it would be no more than would already be lost to other interests and disciplines.
The article I posted focuses on the teacher's concern for one particular teen's interest, all for the emotional response of it. If we remove the kid's indoctrination, would the chances of his interest in evolution and biology rise significantly? Probably not. I think those intelligent and interested enough to be eyeing a career in science will have skirted indoctrination on thier own, or will start feeling the pangs of doubt early enough to be receptive.
Where I still feel for the high school science teachers who are caught in the middle of this aspect of the culture wars, I have to admit that the article is a bit unessesarily gloomy.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Come on Luminon, do your god damned research.
The Homo Sapiens Idaltu 'flaw' in evolutionary theory is actually a boon, linking the fossils we have from up to 100,000 years back to those from 300,000 years back. They fit perfectly within the family tree that evolution predicts. As for them 'hiding' the skulls, what, you expect them to find some pieces of bone and throw them at the local newspapers before they've even finished assembling them? The skull of the child alone to 2 years to assemble its more than 200 pieces(*1). The parents skulls also likely took time, plus they then needed to do research on them in the laboratory. Then the papers on this had to get through the peer review process and the skulls had to be physically rechecked by other scientists, getting through all that in 6 years, 1-2 considering it took 5 years to assemble the skulls(*2).
Finally, there is the ultimate problem of you making the 'exception=rule' fallacy. Namely, you've found an example of something taking a while to get to the general public, saying they were 'hiding it' [which is itself not supported by the evidence] and then taking that singular example and making it indicative of the entire establishement to try and make it seem like every biologist is frantically trying to keep the public from looking at the Theory of Evolution for fear of it spontaneously combusting. Frankly, its not surprising to me that it took a while for the general public to learn about this. Why? Because the General public is stupid and doesn't care about stuff like this, plus the scientists themselves have much better things to do than try to educate an ill-informed populace, you know stuff like get grants so they can do their research, and maybe even do some of their research.
To put it simply, ever article I have read thus far has named the Homo Sapiens Idaltu Fossils as a great boon that bridges a gap in human evolution. These fossils are what proved that humans didn't descend from Homo Neanderthalensis. There was no hiding, the scientists just weren't shouting the discovery from the bell tower because they have other things to do, like Science.
Also, the fact that the artists representation of what he thinks the human might have looked like looks like Morgan Freeman is meaningless for scientific purposes. I suppose next you'll bring up the artist representation of Nebraska Man and say "See, Scientists make mistakes all the time!".
*1> http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/06/11_idaltu.shtml
*2> http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/foss-j25.shtml
*3> (Not sited but still useful): http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/herto.html
Seriously, both of these articles were on the first page of my Google Search.
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
Sinphanius, you're new here. You'll soon get used to the fact that, for some strange reason best known to the site organisers, luminon is allowed post to threads in a section of the site intended to be devoid of hooby-jooby thinking, and to deposit his excreta willy nilly as he goes - oblivious to the appalling bad manners of his action or the extreme nuisance it can often prove to be to avoid (textually, he is quite prolific, if not in terms of intelligent output).
It's extremely unfair. Some very intelligent and eloquent theists could be here creating worthwhile discussion. Or better still, the section could REALLY exclude all those who do not wish to think rationally.
Just one of those great mysteries, as the church might say. And one of the reasons why I'm fast losing interest in the site.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I'm also curious as to why Loonynon is allowed to post in this forum, especially since he really is a theist - just one that uses other words for "god".
Though: It occurs to me he's an excellent example of what happens when religion is simply removed from the picute. His country had most of the religious facet of life forcibly removed by its time under a communist regime. He's young enough to have not had any significant indoctrination because of that, and so is a default atheist, per se. However, he has had just as much education in critical thinking as any religious person would have, and so is full of stupid fairy tales of the sort the communist regime was unconcerned with quashing as they weren't a threat to its power base.
He's the perfect argument for teaching skepticism as a cure for religion rather than trying to simply remove religion from the picture.
Not that we need an active example running around the forums pewing dipshittery to know that.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
The first problem (yours, not mine) is in my physical perception of the world. It's quite normal, just with an exception of that touch sense - a perception by etheric body. And if this etheric (vital) body exists, and I've checked it, then it gives a completely different way of looking at the life and world, it gives new possibilities. You may think it's a faith, but not, it's a quality of my sensoric perception.
Second problem is, that I don't f*ckin' shut up. No matter how much freethinking an atheist may be, there are limits and I pass them daily. All right, I declare, that I will think more about my behavior, thus saving others from information they didn't ever want to hear or read. I had forgotten that feeling since leaving the school, until this moment, but I'll try to remember it now every time I write something. Also, I guess that in all local philosophic threads there's an unwritten rule to not spoil the mystery.
There's no sense in more making people angry by stomping on their mud pies. I'd never thought about myself as being such a kind of person, but this site has a humanitary and therapeutic purpose for helping a less or more former theists and I probably didn't help it much. I apologize for my misunderstanding of this fact.
A people who are so much pissed off at a religion can't withstand anything what even distantly resembles it, and they've got a damn good reasons, like wasting a part of their life. It's my vice, whenever I sense an unbalance, to represent the other side, to create an equilibrium. It's a balance in everything, a golden middle path I value the most, but which is also the most diffcult. It should warn me enough when the dear local contributors sometimes couldn't recognize a joke or a half-joke in text, unless there was a heap of smillies next to it. I.A.G.A.Y. is very wise when he uses so much of emoticons. This is probably a reason why there is a scenic background laughter in some American comedies. Ok, I end this post, this is getting less apologizing than I meant it.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Quaint.
Can you prove this 'Etheric Body' of yours exists in a laboratory with repeatable tests? Then why should I believe in it? I do not experience this 'feeling' you experience, therefore I see no need to believe in it. After all, if you cannot demonstrate it I see no useful effects, if I can not experience it then it clearly either does not impact me, or I have gained such a state of unification with it that it has become a part of my assumed status. Either way believing in it appears to have no effect and therefore it is irrational for me to believe in it.
Again, Demanding evidence and rejecting a proposition when that evidence has not been provided is NOT close mindedness, it is rationality and practicality. Likewise embracing every fad on the street and relying on subjective personal experiences is not rationality nor is it being open minded.
Furthermore, if You can call me close-minded because I refuse to accept your 'etheric body' or whatever else you try to push without evidence then I can call you close minded when you refuse to accept my proposition that you are delusional.
Neither of us have any evidence other than subjective personal experiences for either of the propositions in the proceeding text, however my proposition does not require that everything we know about physics is wrong whereas yours does, therefore mine is superior. Frankly they are both unsound, and can both be refuted quite easily. I will not stand by my proposition in a court of law, though I would begin testing based upon it, because although the persona you have created and post under easily fits into the niche that is the raving lunatic, this could easily just be a phantom persona you have created just to joke with us. I would not be surprised either way.
Finally, I welcome any evidence you can provide, feel free to provide it.
P.S. I can appreciate a joke, so far you have not made any worth noting. At least none that I have read.
P.P.S. This inane notion of 'balance' has always annoyed me. Balance is a fine concept when talking about the ecology, and the climate, and population/resource consumption. Balance has no meaning in ethics or science, or anything else human made unless it falls into the categories in the proceeding sentence. Just because one side of an argument is losing does not mean you should take up their banner, sometimes they simply have no position upon which to stand. Do you likewise try to dismantle the Round Earth Theory or the Heliocentric Theory because the debates between them and Flat Earthism and Geocentrism respectively is unballanced? I have no problem if you try to dismantle Evolution to try and reveal flaws so they can be corrected, that is a valuable service, however trying to refute it just so Creationists don't have to cry themselves to sleep because they know how retarded they are is not compassion, and it is not having an open mind, it is being a Fool. Defending something purely to preserve the Balance is completely retarded, and I will stand by that statement. Ecological Balance you can defend on the grounds that if you do not the planet may die, same thing with Climatological and Populational Balance. I shed no tears because Creationists are openly ridiculed.
P.P.P.S. If you are going to try and dismantle Evolution, at least come up with an argument that hasn't been indexed in the Index of Creationist Claims
P.P.P.P.S. THHBBBBBTTTTTTT!
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
Most of people doesn't feel anything beyond their skin surface, but I've seen people to gain this sensitivity by training. Knowledge of etheric matter and etheric body will be a great benefit for medical sciences first of all, because today doctors heals symptoms more often than causes.
I don't claim that all knowledge about physics it's wrong. It's thorough, very detailed, but with very narrow area of interest. For an orientative comparison, in a graph of the known world, the physical science researches the lowest 3 of 49 known forms of matter. On the contrary, the esoteric knowledge has it all mapped, but involves not even one mathemathic equation. I will be most glad if scientists discovers the 4th lowest form of matter, which is also the lowest ether. Not even that. Just a discovery of nadis, the acupuncture meridians, would eventually do it. And they're practically discovered and succesfully used for millenia, for healing of humans and animals.
Make a group of patients. Let them have a blood test, EKG, blood pressure test, and other common medical examination, maybe even PET, if the need shows up. Store the results.
Send the same patients to a person, who makes a diagnoses by an electric resistivity of nadis. One lives right near in this town. She uses a simplified form of ohmmeter.
Compare the first and second diagnoses for every patient. If they match, then it suggests the existence of nadis, a tracks in body for vital energy.
I did exactly this test on myself this year, and guess who won... The nadis metering told me the same things as a blood test, even more, and faster. The session took about for a half of an hour.
There is some controversy around where exactly the nadis are, but I never saw it as a practical problem. For my diagnosis, I just held an electrode in my hand and the other one was put to spots between knuckles on my other hand and feet.
This is something anyone can try, if there is such a therapist in their town or city. I'd suggest it mainly to Deludedgod, because he's a real scientist and he might be curious how it really works. This would be the best possible scenario.
As I had mentioned, a study of esoteric sources is one of my hobbies. By now, I'm convinced that both esoterics and science are basically a methods of research of the same thing, the world. As for the balance, I imagine it like bringing these areas of knowledge together. It is, what is anyway happening today in top science, it just would be more conscious and sophisticated. The worst case of it, "shallow and narrow" already manifested itself in pseudoscience, but the best case, deep understanding of science and broad overview of esoterics, still waits for a realization. Metaphorically speaking, West and East has their problems, but together they can solve all of them.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Luminon, are you willing to entertain the concept that your experiences are all tricks of the mind? As opposed to what you currently believe they are?
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
A trick of mind wouldn't be identic for many people, it wouldn't provide direct, conscious sensoric response and feedback (interpersonally), and it wouldn't have a strict way of functioning.
Unless someone discovers the system of nadis in body (by mere ohmmeter, I remind you) and develops some technologic tools, then there will be always people who think that it's some kind of lunacy. Arthur Clarke said, that technology may be so advanced, that it seems like a magic. I could say, that when it's even more advanced, it seems like a lunacy
Fortunately, my role in this is minimal. The real effort will be done by curious, brave and able scientists, who will overcome their professional prejudices and take an ohmmeter to hand.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Just like you did for my experiment that rather proved that homeopathy was bunk, right Luminon?
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
An ohmmeter? A device which measures Voltage per unit current? Are you fucking serious? I have an ohmmeter on my desk. What could I possibly do with an ohmmeter that will tell me anything meaningful apart from the electrical resistance of the object it is put across? That is what an ohmmeter measures. Nothing else. Nothing.
EDIT: A US Navy serviceman won a Darwin Award by attempting to measure his resistance with a standard US Navy Ohmmeter. When he hooked the device from thumb to thumb, the salt bridge formed the aqueous conducting ions in his blood with the current passing through the meter was sufficient to stop his heart.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Ah Acupuncture, my favorite Placebo effect.
If Acupuncture is so great and is such an important or basic part of this etheric body, or if the practive of acupuncture to heal the chinese for thousands of years is proof that the etheric body exists, then how come fake acupuncture has the exact same effect as normal acupuncture?(*2) Its all in their head, nothing more.
Furthermore, how come Acupuncture doesn't actually do anything for the life expectency of a population? Chinese Life Expectancy sucked up until western powers began trading modern Medicine. When taken relatively Chinese life expectency was no better than the life expectancy in Midieval Europe, except this was in the year 1900(*4). And it is likely for the same reasons, namely relying on outdated and superstitious 'medicine' when more advanced and modern treatments exist. Ironically enough, as China has embraced western medicine, so to has the West, at least the lay people, embraced Ancient Chinese Medicine. The main difference being that China's life expectency has risen dramatically while the West's has not.
I hate to break it to you, but in a fight between an 'ancient chinese master' and a modern human with a comprehensive knowledge of the modren sciences, the modern human will always win, at everything. Unless 'blindly following tradition' is one of the categories of competition. The Ancients Sucked, at everything, when compared to modern humans.
As for this Etheric Body of yours, If it can be quite easily proven to exist inside or outside of the laboratory, show me the studies that have proven it. Furthermore, if the link is already known then why do scientists not acknowledge it, oh right let me guess. They just don't want to, they would rather preserve the status quo despite the fact that their entire job is based around finding stuff that upsets the status quo.
Right now I'm going to shift gears away from debating the 'evidence' of this with you, partly because you haven't provided any evidence except for vague assurances that you have done the tests and partly because I would rather talk to you about this imaginary confirmation bias you think the scientific community has. It seems like a common Mantra of the metaphysicist or the creationist or anyone who is trying to push something science has refuted to just chant 'the scientists are blinded by pride' and hope it assuages all of the times that acupuncture or whatever other thing they are trying to push has been debunked, sometimes on camera(*3). Why do people think the scientific community is trying to maintain the status quo? Are you kidding? If any of this actually worked the scientist that could prove any supernatural occurance to exist would win a nobel prize, be set for life, and would have the honor of knowing that all around the world brilliant kids would be called "Little s" rather than "Little Einsteins." Scientists have more incentive to find one of these claims true than to find it false, unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case. Just look, all of the most famous scientists in history are the ones who upset the status quo, modern Scientists understand this and look forward to it.
Furthermore theres the simple fact that if any of this worked it would be a chance for Scientists to gain back all of the power and prestige they used to have over the common man before they started demystifying the world. Look at it this way, Mystics and 'Ancient Chinese Masters' are more respected by the common person than Scientists despite the fact that through Science almost half the world is fed. All of this is because the common unwashed masses don't care about knowledge, they care about fancy light shows and Abracadabra magic tricks or superstitious fear of curses or just simple entertainment, hence why actors and atheletes make more money than Nuclear Physicists. Especially once you consider that most of this stuff is said to only work for 'those with strong minds and willpowers' the Scientists would be great at it. This would be an easy way to reclaim all of the prestige lost by getting the name changed from 'Court Magician' to 'Scientist'. To put it simply, if any of this existed the scientists who could actually understand the garbled mess of pseudo-logic would become the most powerful people on the planet. You think 'ancient chinese masters' understand it well? Just imagine if you actually got a team of 3,000 people using the Scientific method on this thing instead of just waiting for 'inspiration' or 'enlightenment' or following 'tradition'.
In Short but longer, read the 1585 essay We've got Magic to do!
There is no reason why the scientific community would not have embraced this other than it doesn't work.
P.S. In regards to people having similar personal occurances with this sort of thing, I would like to caution you about the possibility that you have experienced Psychological Inbreeding. Thank you Captain Disillusion!
P.P.S. Yeah, Ohmmeter's can be nasty, considering its essentially designed to try and shove a large amount of electrical current between two points.
*1:> Fake Acupuncture Cures Smoking Adiction
*2:> Acupuncture the Placebo
*3:> Chi Fails on Camera
*4:> Effect of Western Medicine on China
When you say it like that you make it sound so Sinister...
Let's say, you went to a river, and suddenly you see, that down the stream, there is a lot petrol on the water flowing towards you. It's a local ecologic catastrophe, fishes are gonna die. You've got to stop this, maybe put a floating dam across the river, or search for the source of petrol, and remove it. You go against the stream and you see a big canister with petrol, which leaks into the river. So what to do now? Use the floating dam?
Now what you did in that experiment, was exactly like you would put the floating dam even farther, than the source of petrol was, where there wasn't any. You stopped nothing.
The characteristic feature of finer-than-material bodies is, that when there is a problem with one, it leaks into a bodies below it. (not above, that would be like floating against the stream) You won't cure anything permanently, unless you cure the cause in that particular body. In your experiment, there was a problem - a parvovirus, in physical body. You tried homeopathics, which are supposed to affect etheric body. But there wasn't a problem with etheric body. There was a pretty much physical parvovirus to deal with. Giving the patient a homeopathics on a disease with a physical cause (infection, toxins, parasites, etc) is like giving a medicine to someone else, instead of a patient.
Next problem with homeopathics is, that they require a clean and undamaged system of nadis to work. Nadis are the connection between etheric body and physical body, so it is good to have them in a good shape. They are damaged mainly by drugs, like narcotics, hallucinogens, alcohol in greater amount, psychoactive toxins (nicotine, for example), and so on, and the damage is long-termed. I suspect that one of the reasons why New Age-ish activists says that homeopathics works on them, is because they're often vegetarians, they don't smoke, don't drink, they exercise yoga, they meditate, and thus their nadis are surely in better shape than these of J. Randi or an average american.
Do you remember, on a celebrations, family gatherings and so on, there's usually at least one person who doesn't want to drink. He (or she, more often) says, that just sniffing the alcohol, or a tiny, microscopic sip makes him/her immediately drunk. My mom, a vegetarian, is a lot like that, we're making fun, that we'll always just give her a stopper from a wine bottle, instead of a wine. I know this kind of effect too, and I can confirm it, it's really fast, like a psychosomatic simulation of alcohol. I use it to spare the money, which others spend on a booze. Maybe it's just a... well, trick of a mind, whatever it's supposed to be, but also it may be the effect of the purity of nadis and thus a good sensitivity. It's a hypothesis anyway, I can't know yet how much it's correct. Some information came to me just recently.
The resistivity is exactly what I mean. According to theory, acupuncture points are outlets of the meridians, or nadis. The meridian passes through a specific set of organs on it's way through the body. In that diagnosis method I had undergone, one electrode is held in hand, and the other is placed to a specific acupuncture point. The ohmmeter shows a specific resistivity. A therapist writes down the number of kiloohms the ohmmeter showed, and then measures another meridian. The numbers are written according to each set of organs related to a meridian.
I have seen it as a bare fact, with my blood test results freshly in memory, that the lower resistivity the point had, the worse state were the organs in. 50-70 or more kiloohms was a very good state of things. 50-30 was not so good, demanding a cure. And below 30, it was getting rather serious. So, by examining these numbers, the therapist exactly repeated what a doctor told me earlier.
Eh...man, you scared me, if someone would try that at home... It had beeen a while since i saw a normal ohmmeter.
DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME, PEOPLE!!!!! The ohmmeter by which I, my dad and hundreds of previous and future clients were measured, had a special design, was small, didn't have a numeric scale, but a set of diodes for tenths of kiloohms and an accustic signal. It had also one electrode more bulky, to be held in hand. It was obviously a special, safe, bio-friendly ohmmeter for this kind of diagnostics.
I don't think that any placebo effect was involved, rather contrary. You know, needles and children.
I'll read the articles and respond to the rest of your post later. Thanks for your attention and good night for now.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Organised religion is the ultimate form of blasphemy.
Censored and blacked out for internet access in ANZ!
AU: http://nocleanfeed.com/ | NZ: http://nzblackout.org/
I'm sorry, DG. This just shows how limited your thinking is.
Used correctly, it also measures the gullibility of a certain segment of the population.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Unless you can give me proof these "nadis" and related "ethiric" things actually exist instead of your usual ruse of making various claims as to why I won't belive you.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Thingy's post + Nigel's post = Jill's sides ache =^_^=
Thanks. You just made my day.
If I can cause pain to someone, I'm happy.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Are you on acid 24 hours a day?
Or just when you post here?
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
Thingy: well, if you believe that scientologists can hit a tiny acupuncture spot with such a huge electrodes, then you can believe in anything...
I suspec that this scientologic device has a very rational physical basis, it must have a hidden controls somewhere, and when a visitor looks rich, then a scientologic priest switches it to display that the visitor "definitely needs help".
There are homeopathics for common diseases, which works as a support for organism and it's immunity, and they work for me. I just wouldn't think, that homeopathy itself can magically make a virus or bacteries come away, that's the point.
Also, I already mentioned, that not all diseases has a physical cause. In fact, some of them has a non-physical cause, which eventually weakened the body so it became an easy prey for a virus.
Medical tactics in many cases is to suppress these symptoms for so long, that patient thinks of him/herself as healed, and when the symptoms returns, then it looks like another disease.
And what about a pain, which doesn't seem to have any physical cause at the spot where it's felt? Doctors usually think, that the patient just made it up, that they have a hypochonder in their ordination. This is how they say "I don't f***in' know."
If you think I can, anyone can give you a proof through a computer screen, then don't be so sure. Sometimes a proof requires to pick up the butt off a chair, go outside and do something, until it shows a definite, positive or negative result.
I can't even guarantee you that it will confirm what I say, I know just this one AM therapist near here, and one lab which analyzed my blood. There aren't yet a definite standards, which makes a proof by "give the link to a scientific study" so comfortable. These are the real world problems. Yeah, and I paid MONEY for both diagnoses.
This is a psychedelic trance/ambient music, is that a problem? If yes, then you should be just as appalled by psychedelic rock, specially Captain Beefheart, Ozric Tentacles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or The Beatles.
Anyway, it's possible that the placebo effect is basically what acupuncture does - an affection of bioenergy. I think, if the acupuncture will be ever proven to work, it will have very similar effects as placebo, only it won't show them on something, which is dependent on a subjective testimony, but which is visible.
You surely know, that the bigger the change is, the greater resistence it meets. The status quo has it's strength and manages to resist for some time. Every now obvious great truth had to fight for it's existence, and sometimes was proven long after a founder's death. This is why it isn't hopeful to expect that I can pull proofs and scientific studies out of my sleeve.
Next, even if the scientists does new discoveries every day, there's a fundamental difference. They already have a decades of experiences in this kind of research, and they discover things, rather within their area of interest and imagination. For example, still smaller particles, still more dense microchip architecture, and so on. Even if the outcome is unexpected, it came from a device or method they confidently know for many years. They're not likely to go on completely unknown grounds, where all this backup is not yet developed.
Next, the fact that the etheric and other finer-than-material bodies were known under various names for millenia, makes it all quite corny.
1) as you wrote, all ancient ancestors sucked, with their superstitions.
2) the idea of etheric body is ancient.
3) ergo, etheric body is a superstition.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. A human being is originally not aware of having an etheric body, or anything like that. This awareness comes with a personal development (or spiritual if you want, that's the same), just as a sexual maturity comes with age. Some people are much faster in it than the others. They became gurus. The eastern mentality supports the infallible word of the gurus, so if a guru said, that etheric body exists, it was so. Western mentality demands a proof. Unfortunately, western population doesn't have any more of developed people which perceive finer-than-material reality than the eastern, and the little they have, gets locked up in asylum, instead of being revered. This forced the most of psychics to go underground and work unofficially. They largely opened the public area to conmen. Thus, if a scientists wants to expose a false psychic, they're likely to find one, because they don't hide themselves so much, they need an attention and hopes of masses for their profit. Their fame will mute angry voices. A real worker, a biotronic, for example, works rather privately, and personally. If he fails, the customer knows where he lives, and also will "recommend" him to people he knows. Such workers gets most of their clients from a positive personal references, and they don't have a mass attention. I had seen several of such people, and they were usually modest and sincere people, with their problems like everyone else. Of course, there were also the deluded ones, not by a lack of any abilities, but by what they did with them. Just as scientists have problems with pseudoscience, we have problems with invasions of angelomania, Mother Meera devotees (Germany), Wagnerists, and emotional "spiritual teachers", who often actively slanders what we do and gives out pure lies about the concurence. Of course, they're often succesful, because they rake money and herd people, who are emotional enough. Emotionality is not just a problem of religion, it's less or more everyone's problem. Surprisingly, Scientology isn't yet a threat. There's not enough of rich people around.
It's important to know, that all metaphysicists consider themselves as generally correct. When someone expresses doubts about them, or demands a proof first, they perceive it as an unnecessary delay from a real work at best, or as a sign of impoliteness at worst. They very well know, that subjectivity is alpha and omega of human experience. What we call objectivity, is an artificial construct, kept updated, but obviously false for them, because all this glorious objectivity didn't yet discover what they work with daily. For them, objectivity is a set of similar subjective experiences. Even if you read a scientific study, it's a subjective experience, and it's hopefully true, because there's a lot of collective effort behind it.
The same thing is with a researchers of metaphysics, they make a subjective experiences, which are somehow identic, or different enough to learn from it. It's similar as a verifying process of science, it's just very unofficial, and there is no official authority, which would protect them from the mentioned pseudospiritual crowd.
Do you feel an awe in looking at some magnificent scientific discoveries, or really good photos from Hubble's telescope? Besides that, I feel a similar awe, every time I try to imagine the universe as it is with some of the things I learned about. For example, a breakdown of a coincidence illusion. I saw some events, obviously 'normal' and 'random', which turned out to have a meaningful and mind-boggling cause. I don't even want to think if all "random" events are like that, and I'm grateful that I don't know it. It's too much of information per one person.
I've got to go now, brb later.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
This eejit has gone WAY beyond the threshold (probably in every sense).
Aside from a sadistic pleasure derived from baiting him (which I don't share but which some people here seem to get a kick out of), why on earth is he still allowed to pollute threads of conversation conducted by rational people?
I must admit I'm observing this fool and how his endemic and disruptive interference is encouraged through misguided tolerance in this particular area of the site, and I'm seriously beginning to wonder on that basis how committed the site's administrators are to genuinely promoting rational debate, or even if such a thing is recognised by them.
He has also singlehandedly scared off several potential members of the site who may think, like me, that despite the tagline attached to the top of the forum, it is the administrators' policy to still allow mind-numbingly stupid claptrap to carry equal time, space and weight as anything rational produced by others. His verbose, stupid and arrogantly profuse interventions can only damage the credibility of the RRS forum in question as the "oasis" of rationality it claims to be, and that of its administrators in their ability or willingness to enforce that rule.
Don't they want more rational people subscribing?
All very strange, and not a little disappointing either.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Lum,
I know you speak English as a second language. This was a joke. It was not meant to be taken seriously, either as an indication of my character, or as a freudian slip. I don't really wish to see Jill (or anyone, for that matter) in pain, let alone to cause them pain.
I hope I've clarfied that for you, so you can refrain from posting seriously in response to posts meant entirely in jest.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
"Particular area of the site?"
*/me looks at forum location*
Hey! Mr. Nordmann is right! This is supposed to be an area for rational discussion of irrational things, or rational discussion of rational things, not irrational discussion of irrational things.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
I think lame-inon is a great example of the fact that atheism doesn't = skepticism. The atheist community only has one binding feature, lack of belief in any God/s. Loonynon seems to fit that description. And the rule for this forum is that only theists can't post here. It doesn't mention non-skeptics and woo warriors.
Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one fills up first.
Place needs a new forum so.
Until then, I'll answer people's questions (and they deserve answers) as best as I can.These answers are meant to make known
a) the existence of invisible worlds
b) immense power of thought
c) the need for scientific knowledge of a) and b).
Please, explain me this, Nordmann. Rationality, logics, and so on, it's a non-directed process, which requires an input data (the perceived reality) and gives a result correlating with the input data.
And yet you somehow presume, that there are any possible limitations, some things which are rational, and some which aren't. The only possible explanation is The Gospel of Nordmann.
1) Rational thinking must always disprove the things Nordmann disagrees with. It gets paid for it.
2) Nordmann's opinion is more valid than someone else's direct and frequent experience.
3) Nordman had been everywhere and seen everything. What he didn't see, is identic with a definition for non-existence.
4) Petronius, the Roman poet was the arbiter elegantiae. Nordmann is the arbiter veri.
5) Nordmann sees into your mind. If you claim to have a psychic experiences, Nordman can look there and see, that you have no mind to have a psychic experiences in.
6) Nordmann knows you better than you know yourself.
7) Nordmann was already elected to be a president of Earth, but he prefers to pull the strings from behind the curtain like a grey elite. Superstrings too.
8 ) He-man once led a conquest to the north. He returned as She-man.
9) Some people wears a pyjamas with Superman. Superman wears pyjamas with Nordmann.
10) The only man who isn't afraid of Nordmann is Chuck Norris. He loves the daddy.
All right, gotta respond to the last part of Sinphanius' post.
The specific mind has no such problems, it is much closer to the material world, in fact, it was developed by interaction with material world. The abstract mind wasn't developed that way.
Both versions has tragic results. I think this is why scientists didn't yet embrace metaphysics.
1) a technology may be so advanced, that it seems like a magic.
2) magic is an irrational and unscientific thing, which also doesn't exist.
3) therefore, some areas of knowledge are not likely to be scientifically examined any soon.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Nordmann doesn't need to "see" into anyone's mind (or even be elected earth president) to recognise a deluded, immature and very unmannerly person when he sees one.
Amazing, isn't it? Where DOES he get his powers from?
Lunimon, you're a pollution on the boards here. You bring your stupid theories (which no matter how much you mention the word science in your over-long and largely indecipherable twaddle have as much to do with science as faeces have to do with the digestive process) into thread after thread on a forum where people are led to believe they can raise rational subjects for discussion safe in the knowledge that this discussion will be grounded in reality and not be (as you do over and over again) hijacked by self-obsessed, self-deluded and ignorant little fools who value their own assertions above deduced reason, their hunches over scientifically constructed theory, their subjective take on their own personal experience (you don't have much of that by the way) over everything, and their inflated sense of ego and intelligence over everyone else's.
You are an arrogant, rude, stupid and incredibly mendacious person, luminon. The crap you spout is not offensive since arrogant, rude, stupid and mendacious fools are ten-a-penny and it is silly to be riled by the rubbish they come up with. But your placement of that crap on this forum is offensive. Your insistence that you have a right to do so is offensive. Most offensive, of course, is that you think by repeating your crime you can get away with it. That is an insult to the intelligence of the rest of us and a gross insult to the people who are providing this facility.
Go home.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
I've been mulling Nordmann's points.
For my part, I'm not going to engage Luminon anymore. He's a lost cause. I am, however, going to suggest, and keep suggesting, that these forums be concerned with rationality and skepticism ahead of atheism.
Faith is an emotional issue, it does not go away in the face of a rational argument. The first, best hope is to teach folks what it is to be a skeptic and rational thinker, then let that knowledge erode their faith.
"Let me show you why you are wrong" is only worthwhile when arguing a point with someone who is being rational. It's just flat out scary to those who have based their whole lives on a lie. It's just annoying and frustrating to those who want to think they have discovered some hidden ultimate truth about the world.
Here's to advancing the idea of skeptical and rational thought.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
I couldn't agree more JillSwift. This forum (and this site) can only benefit from closing the "loophole" whereby a looper like luminon can assume his input is as valid as a rational person's and consistently fill this forum with crap. I know the tag line on the forum only mentions theists as being unwelcome, and I for one assumed that this was to provide the rest of us with an environment where we could debate issues knowing that our time and effort would not be monopolised and our discussions usurped by irrational fools. Seems I was wrong?
The rule needs to be changed, or else the rest of us can only assume that RRS actually never intended such a facility and we go find somewhere else that does. Luminon can rant away scaring off potential new members and getting whatever kicks he gets from advertising his illness if he wants. I for one will be elsewhere.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Did you get my PM?
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
I did, Deludedgod, and thank you for the advice. Others also have sent me messages expressing their agreement with my publicly stated view.
But I live in forlorn hope that the fool this time will see the error of his ways himself without having to resort to such an action as you describe. Besides, it's not my style.
It is already, even as the deluded person himself agrees, a question now for the moderators and administrators of this site to decide. If, as is becoming more and more clear, it was never their intention that this forum be free from delusional claptrap, then it means that no oasis such as I described exists here and that all threads on all forums can descend into crap with their blessing. Such a site is not for me (and it seems not for quite a few others who venture in, get as a "greeting" a fresh pile of horse manure from luminon, and then promptly disappear again never to return).
If on the other hand they really did intend by banning theists from this forum to keep it a haven of rationality, then their intervention is required rather urgently (the weed of idiocy tends to propagate itself with much more vigour than the delicate flower of intelligent discourse ever can, and requires little encouragement apart from inattentiveness on the gardiner's part before it overruns the garden).
Their call - and they shouldn't need a message from me to alert them to it. If they do, then the site is already in deeper trouble than that caused by this idiot.
I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Back to the original topic, before this thread was hijacked by weirdness.
I live in Florida, so I was very happy to read this article. With the education system in such a shambles, it's good to see a step in the right direction. Even when the teachers have an uphill battle against the indoctrination their students have gotten previously. I don't know if anyone watched the video that was imbedded in the article, but I was quite impressed to hear the middle school Christian girl at the end declare that she was going to do her own research about evolution outside of class (she was brought up to believe that evolution is untrue). Hopefully she will do real research and not just wind up reading a creationist website. That gave me some hope, because I was the same way when I was a kid. Indoctrinated with all kinds of things (I went to a Christian school where I was taught that dinosaurs and people lived at the same time among other weird things), but I did my own research, and here I am now, happy, healthy atheist. We're not going to win everybody. Not by a long shot. But if a few more kids are now going to understand evolution that wouldn't have before, or a few more kids are going to examine their dogmatic beliefs that wouldn't have before, then it's successful.
And that's your optimism for the day.
Rill
Well exactly like in my country (Poland) go communism , go Stalin :D XD LOL.
May I ask : Czy jesteś z Polski ?
Remember evolution is perfect and its completely insane to challenge it.
1) There are better organisms and worse organisms ( I define better and worse for survival/adaptation ). A athlete will out run a brain dead full body amputee.
2) There is inheritance we will never see 2 Europeans(white) produce rapidly a African American(black).
3) There is a little change in the offspring’s. We are not all identical clones.
Congratulation you have discover evolution if you accepted thus 3 aspects or show me a 2 white persons giving a black of springs or a brain dead outrunning a athlete or the proof that all people reproduce only 100% clones. If not congratulations this is evolution.
Warning I’m not a native English speaker.
http://downloads.khinsider.com/?u=281515 DDR and game sound track download
*beginning the transmission*
Tylko troche. Chodzilem rok a pol do polskiej klasy. Mieszkam blisko Cieszyna, jestem Slazakiem z czeskiej strony.
*transmission of obviously random letters is over*
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.