Playing Mind Games
Offline Since I've been around RRS for a while now, I have noticed some patterns.
One of these is the activity of certain "theist" posters who are inviting "discussion" on various issues.
Common to all such endeavours seems to be an agenda of fragmenting, or distorting, philosophical concepts, scientific theories and "logic", in order to establish that particular type of shaky mental ground which requires "faith" in order to make sense. An example of such posters is the notorious Paisley, who is a complete fucknut without even a faint trace of a clue - but he's still brazenly going at it with considerably more ambition than talent.
I suspect that these posters are playing for an audience. What audience? I suspect a third party, perhaps something like young-ish doubters who are naivly asking their religious slave-masters questions about philosophy, science and logic. They will then be directed towards RRS, where they are told they will find proof that theist philosophers can not only hold their own, but even excel whenever confronted with godless atheists who are sporting big words.
In lieu of this, it doesn't matter that the "discussion" is going nowhere and that these arcane, mental somersaults at best have entertainment value to people who know how to think and organise cognitive structures in a disciplined manner. This is not the point. The point is to have bona fide "discussions" on almost incomprehensible topics between theists and atheists that can be referenced if and when some victim of religious influence is showing a budding capacity for independent thinking.
The point isn't to make sense or discuss towards cognitive cohesion, much less consensus; the point is that the theist is "winning" a discussion on an "advanced" topic which has a lot of big words and bizarre meanderings in a mock scientific discourse; designed to impress the gullible.
Consider this: What the human mind wants to understand it will simplify, but what it wants to control it will complicate.
Think about this the next time you feel like indulging these trolls.
"The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind." (Alphonse Donatien De Sade)
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Interesting thought, but probably not the case; most people don't bother reading more than a couple posts, and for indoctrination, it's far more efficient to isolate those people converted and surround them with identical opinions and positive feedback.
Here is not likely where they come to convert to theism; I've seen more people transition from theist to agnostic on these kinds of forum than any other transition.
Do you have any evidence of this (e.g. posts on some Christian forum to go watch a debate?)
Which is why I try to do more informing than arguing. Particularly, I won't argue most cases around evolution (I agree with Dawkins' view there- evolution isn't in trouble)- it's far too obvious, and soundly discussed elsewhere. I will argue with other atheists about evolution (particularly, that evolution doesn't have any more to do with chance than does gravity- if anybody suggests anything to do with "chance" or "luck" in reference to evolution, I'll argue against it unless stated in the most conservative possible way). When it comes down to it, I mostly just argue with other atheists about how to say things.
That said, while not everybody here may be competent enough on the subjects, those who are can serve to educate, and lead any audience to understand the opposing point. Even if the Christians are coming here to watch, anybody on the fence with a knowledgeable atheist at the helm will see reason, and any Christian/etc. could only benefit from the discussion. The majority are already on the other side, so any press theological debate gets ultimately benefits skepticism.
Your argument definitely applies, however, to those who might mangle the debate- and worse yet, possibly lose it for lack of experience by giving ground, falling into traps, etc.
We have the advantage of logic, the bounds of scientific evidence, and being of sound mind- there's no reason there shouldn't be an overwhelming victory for reason, and an overall benefit to skepticism from any ill-conceived ploy on the part of the other party.
Yah, I too have suspected that some of the weirder threads have something to do with there being a shadow audience. However, as Blake observes, I doubt that that audience is the fresh meat that theists are trying to convert.
While there may be a low level of that here, I suspect that the theists really don't want to spend weeks or months tearing someone down to the point of being that vulnerable that they will grab at straws to see a world that provides some level of stability only to expose them to an environment where certain things may be explained to them in a fairly simple manner.
To do that would be to invite the risk of losing potential converts which they may have put no small amount of work into. Remember also that any loss for them is seen as a loss to the fires of hell or whatever silly crap they are into.
Really, I have it figured that the worst of the theists are either coming here for kicks (David Henson comes to mind) or are possibly more akin to middle management types. The latter being people who are close to or not long past having reached the point of lock-in on the silly season stuff. Truden's “About Time” thread is an possible example of that.
Pretty much I suspect that that is not even an organized effort on the part of any specific group. Rather, I think it more likely that in the private sections of some theist forums, there may be a sitcky thread that list us, among other forums, as places to go to spout raving nonsense just so that they can see what comes of it.
Then, when the responses start coming in, they can sit back and show other theist how easy it is “to destroy the atheists” by forcing them (us) to use words with more than seven letters. Somewhere out in cyberspace where we will never see it, there are probably a bunch of threads where the senior members of idiotic forms point to the threads and they all metaphorically high five each other and go “Booyah!” because they were so clever.
For that reason, it is fairly uncommon to see me bothering with silly season threads that have more than, say, 25 posts. By the time a thread is already that long, the OP will already have his self reinforcement. On the other hand, if I get to a thread early enough, I will try to post something fairly short so that I can possibly defeat the general purpose of such a thread.
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Being new here, I can't comment on the state of affairs here on RRS, but I have seen on other sites frequented by us atheist/skeptic types that the theists post their rants for brownie points with their CreaDerthals pals. Just by posting on a site like this, even if their "arguments" are completely blown out of the water, it gives them their "I fought the Debil!" merit badge. Because most CreaDerthals will only read the theist claims, so afraid of opening their mind to other ideas that they will censor the rest, that our well reasoned arguments mostly fall on deaf ears.
Yet I don't think any religious types would send one of their deluded compatriots here if they sensed any hints of questioning, too afraid of the natural outcome of it (questions actually being answered instead of just being stifled with fear of eternal torment). With that being said, I think any and all chances to show the light of reason to a questioning theist should be taken.
"This may shock you, but not everything in the bible is true." The only true statement ever to be uttered by Jean Chauvinism, sociopathic emotional terrorist.
"A Boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished." Mikhail Bakunin
"The means in which you take,
dictate the ends in which you find yourself."
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme leadership derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!"
No Gods, No Masters!
I think this entire thread, which I have read in its entirety, is hysterical. What a bunch of paranoid nuts you all are! Such illusions of grandeur. At least you, Genie, have the sense to recognize my primary motive for posting here rather than misinterpret it as some dark sinister plot to secretly expose your sincere efforts to save the world from those mean crafty ol' fundies!
Most of the opposition probably think of you as an isolated minority of wanna be science geeks too stoned or lazy to get off your asses and organize yourselves like the bigots 'n hom'sexuals have. For most of the outspoken ones the only thing compelling them to come forth into your perilous lair is their own insatiable ego, and their more modest or sensible contemporaries probably scoff at them. You are both probably a great deal more alike than you would think if you were not so obviously vilifying each other in the guise of self satisfaction and justification.
This coming from the self proclaimed only man alive with a correct interpretation of the Bible.
I proclaimed that did I? Dude, I have known average Jehovah's Witness children who know the stuff I know. It isn't a big deal.
Of all the theists in here. I control them. NOW BOW TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regardless of the potential for creating a facsimile of sensible debate for roving bands of young mutants I think the Marquis who has stalled on 666 posts for sinister effect, is correct when he suggests some theists seem to spend days battening down the hatches on their conceptual Tiger tanks before trundling them out to combat. Some threads are positioned in such a way as to be impossible to sensibly contend - flanked by the unknowable and buttressed by the unprovable.
Still. As a few folks have pointed out over the past few months it would be shit if there were no theists to play with even if some of the things they say like "I believe the bible" before haring off on their own personal interpretations can be a bit tough to take. On the topic of bible I've been reading about chinese fossils lately and it's beyond me to understand why theists refuse to understand that the contents and the chemical layers of sedimentary strata can be read like the pages of a book.
The same ability to read evidence applies to ice core samples, tree rings. fossilised DNA. Why is it that these inviolate things are discounted in favour of bible? My theist brother discounts the entire fossil record because of conjecture over the "folding of strata". What a fucking crock. Lifting, folding, shearing and igneous intrusions are not only readable but provide additional evidence to conditions life faced in the past.
How old is our oldest nucleated cell fossil - 1.5 billion years? Our book is so much better than theirs.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Has it escaped your attention that there is a) the possibility of the pages of your book to be misinterpreted and b) no real disagreement between the two books regarding what you have just said?
There's always potential for some misinterpretation but reading chemical signatures, matching DNA samples and recognising vestigial characteristics in fossil skeletons is not the same thing as interpreting bible. The bible is a complex mix of old timey moral norms, myths and spiritualism combined with some history - it's never clear where the boundaries are.
A fossil of itself, is immutable. It's the skeleton or shell of a creature that once lived, not an interpretation of something some one may have once said about something that probably never happened to a deity who probably didn't exist. It's wrong to compare these 2 streams of information.
As to whether bible and the fossil record can co-exist - I think that depends on your point of view. I think the fossil record suggests we evolved from bacteria that formed from self replicating RNA strands about 3.5 billion years ago. The bible suggests god made us in seven days.
It depends on your interpretation, of course. I guess god could use evolution to create biodiversity through a hands-off approach - if he could be proven to exist, that is.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Really! Can you show me the latest results of your having read chemical signatures, matching DNA samples and recognising vestigial characteristics in fossil skeletons and then show me some examples of old timey moral norms, myths and spiritualism from the Bible in order for me to see if what you are saying is true or something you just believe to be true? In other words just something someone said that didn't actually happen.
Six, actually. And of course you know that the Hebrew word yohm, which is translated as "day" actually means any given period of time from a few hours to thousands or millions or billions of years? Judgment Day, for example, is a thousand years. The seventh "day" which was the day of rest began shortly after Adam's creation and was mentioned by Paul as still going on thousands of years later, not to mention that an actual time of the creation couldn't possibly be marked because the first day of creation took place an indeterminate period of time later than the creation of the earth in Genesis 1:1? What this means is that, no matter what age science places on the universe and earth, the Bible doesn't disagree because it doesn't actually state the point of creation.
You see, you form your opinion of the creation account in the Bible based upon the estimation of people who are more concerned about getting creation taught in school than they are the creation account itself. But that is understandable because your opposition probably uses the same methodology. You just want evolution to be taught in the school without giving it much study or examination.
I know you were only being sarcastic. You don't really think that the creator of life, the universe and everything needs to prove himself to you or science in order to accomplish anything at all.
To begin, let's talk about a famous fossil - Archaeopteryx. What does this fossil tell us? For a start it was found in rock formed of anaerobic mud that became shale and the geological nature of the area suggests when it died about 150 million years ago the creature fell to the bottom of a warm tropical sea. The lagerstatte in which Archaeopteryx was discovered is particularly rich in fossils and they are beautifully preserved. So - what does this fossil tell us? For a start this is the most primitive bird ever found. It has claws on it's wings, jaws with proper teeth just like a dinosaur. Its feathers are well formed flight feathers - that means the creature could fly - yet it had a bony tail and a hyperextensible second toe. This is a bird crossed with a troodontid - it's an obvious transitional fossil that links dinosaurs and birds. We have 11 fossils of Archaeopteryx. We even know some of the other creatures that lived alongside it because they died alongside it.
Now let's consider old timey cultural norms, myths and spiritualism combined with history. To cover all these bases we need go no further than Genesis Chapt 6 when the author (Moses isn't it?) starts quoting god directly from god's own thoughts as god moans away about how nasty people are and how he wishes he'd never made them. Once the self pity is out of the way god gets down to his next plan - mass murder and the destruction of all life - but before we get to this delightful moral repast god has an unlikely conversation with Noah, the justest and goodest man alive according to the narrator, despite the fact we've just been told a few sentences earlier that every thought of man's imagination is evil.
God instructs Noah that although god wants to kill everything he really doesn't want to kill everything so Noah had better set to work to save all living animals on earth before god kills them. It's heady stuff. Noah's boat, the HMS Improbable was 450 feet long and 75 feet wide yet had one window about a foot and a half square. Working with no tools and with no experience, Noah manages to crank out the largest wooden ship ever built in human history. At 450 feet, this boat has an LOA longer than the second largest wooden boat of all time by a solid 100 feet. And Noah didn't have the benefit of a crack team of shipwrights - it was just he and his wife and their 3 sons and their wives. What was their expertise, David? Exaggeration?
Not only did Noah have to put together this vessel, they had to transport all the material to build it while undertaking a wildlife rescue operation on a global scale. So, Noah and his intrepid family of lion tamers and bear baiters, after another dialogue with the mighty lord, hustle 2 of every unclean species and 7 of every clean into the ark all in a single day. Now the bible is light on detail but researchers have cataloged 2 million species so far and the thinking is there are between 5 million and 10 million species in total. So - even if there were 2 million species involved in this concoction, Noah and his kids needed to turbocharge 40 animals per second onto the ark if they were going to get the job done in 24 hours. I'm not even going to talk about fodder or the challenge of providing habitat for creatures from land and sea and from diverse parts of the globe. Then there's all the plant life. Gee I hope they were getting good light in through that window. Oh - and I know you think a day is a nominal period of time but more time probably wouldn't help the Noahs. Their logistical problems are too vast to be possible.
Now, once all the preparations are complete, god opens the wells of the sea and windows of heaven and merrily floods the earth and everything dies. Later god remembers Noah and sends a mighty wind somehow forgetting that the hydrosphere is constant and all the water he has just magicked up is not going to go any higher than the clouds before it rains down again. Once the magic wind has blown for a while Noah's dove collects a leaf from a live olive tree that after miraculously surviving the flood more miraculously puts forth leaves a week later. Best of all once the animals all get off the ark the herbivores survive with no grass to eat and the fish and whales get back to their oceans unaided. Cool.
As this towering whopper draws to it's silly close, Noah with no sense of propriety whatever, happily sacrifices some of the animals he has saved to god, who has just sacrificed every living organism on the planet to his towering ego. When god smells the "sweet savour" of burning meat (that's the smell of burning blood for anyone who doesn't own a barbecue) he's so moved (or so pleased to get a steak) he says in his heart - yep, the narrator knows what god is thinking, folks - that he will never again smite every living thing on the earth. And then he creates refraction just to prove he means it.
Now David - I know you will have your own interpretation of this. But it seems obvious to me that on the one hand we have a fossil that tells undeniable, irrefutable facts about a living organism's actual existence and on the other hand we have a combination of old timey moral norms, myths and spirituality. Which do you think is which?
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Noah is 600 years old by the time the flood water start bubbling up - he's lived longer than any known human in the history of the world by a factor of about 4.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
The problems with Archaeopteryx, from an evolutionary stance, is obvious and numerous. First of all, although most used to regard it as a link between reptile and bird, many now do not regard it as such. The supposed reptilian features are found on birds of prey today. Most importantly it doesn't predate birds. Reptiles are cold blooded and birds are warm blooded. Its feathers were fully formed and its head and brain case were proportioned as that of a bird, far different from a reptile. Its feet were equiped for perching.
The Hebrew word nephilim means fellers, or those causing to fall. Rebellious spirit creatures took physical form as men and mated with human women and their offspring were called the Nephilim. They were giants compared to men and exceptionally violent. They were causing a great deal of trouble and a terrible influence of the people of Noah's day. God, seeing that this would most likely result in the complete destruction of mankind had to do something, so he brought the flood.
It was about 438 feet (134 m) long, 73 feet [22 m] wide and 44 feet [13 m] high. It had a gross volume of about 1,400,00 cubic feet [40,000 cu m] so it was roughly the size of the Titanic. It was an Ark, which basically means a chest. A wooden box, it only had to float. It took them probably about 50 years to complete.
Actually God brought the animals to them, they didn't have to go looking for them. When you talk about species you are using the wrong word. The Bible uses the word kind, which is different than the scientific term "species." This means that not every breed of dog needed to be represented, only 2 dogs. 60 percent of the species are insects, of 24,000 amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, 10,000 are birds, 9,000 are reptiles and amphibians which could have survived outside the ark. Only 5,000 are mammals, including whales and porpoises, also outside the ark. So about 290 species of land mammals larger than a sheep and 1,360 smaller than rats. 43 kinds of mammals, 74 kinds of birds, 10 kinds of reptiles would have been enough to provide the variety of species known today. In other words there was more than enough room for the humans, animals and feed for the time in which it took. There would have been no need for having plant life on the ark, and I believe that at one time the the continents were all one.
Edit: By the way, don't think I didn't notice that you completely ignored almost everything I said in the post you responded to. I didn't get to see any of your work I asked for. Only a criticism on the flood and a seemingly unrelated portion about Archaeopteryx.
Did you notice that the lifespan of mankind drops considerably after the flood? It must have had a tremendous effect, the water canopy that brought the flood. To me what is interesting is that Moses, in constructing the flood account, and later Peter who remarked upon the canopy that existed before the flood, didn't just say that it rained and caused the flood, like you would think primitive superstitious people taking note of their surroundings would. They somehow knew that it would take more than that.
You asked for an example of a fossil or a DNA sequence or chemical sample and Archaeopteryx sprang to mind as a fossil. You asked for an example of myths and moral norms and spirituality and Noah's Ark sprang to mind. The measure of time - a jewish word for days or millenia or whatever - well. Do the jews have divisions of time or do they just say: "I'll see you at time oclock." The ambiguity here gives plenty of room to move. I'm confused about the mobile goalposts when it comes to the ark's passengers. Are you saying that god handed noah a manifest of primary animals and they evolved into the current five or ten million species from an ark-full in about 5000-6000 years? How did the plants survive the flood?
That stuff about the big people causing trouble. I don't know. It sounds to me like a montage of the titan legends which according to a recent study may have been driven by the discovery of fossilised mastadon bones across the Mediterranean thousands of years ago. Many ancient Greek temples have these bones buried under their alters. The greeks thought they were from gigantic people. It can't be easy for you to rationalise all this bible, David. The morality for the most part at least has the merit of its humanity but the myths about giants and floods are not supported by the evidence. I don't know what the canopy is in relation to the flood but it sounds magic to me. Any device able to serve up vast swathes of water that then disappear from the earth must be magic.
Archaeopteryx is definitely an early bird with serious dinosaur characteristics including teeth, the very unusual claws on the wings that exist in no other bird, a flat breastbone and a long bony tail. I can't find any scientific source that says otherwise.
P.S. I was wrong about the shale deposits. Middle aged memory. Archaeopteryx was found in limestone. Sorry 'bout that.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
that I'm not entitled to quote science texts unless I've done the fieldwork personally - read the chemical signatures, studied the DNA, etc... That's a position that would eliminate most scientific discussion the world across. I collect fossils - mostly marine. But they are heavy and take up a lot of room. I'm also a member of the Australian Museum in Sydney and they have a great collection with plenty of dead stuff coming through to gloat over. I work nearby so it's very convenient. No planks of gopherwood with Noah carved on them yet, sadly for you.
I've seen the famous archaeopteryx fossil (as a cast) and an archaeopteryx skull. The teeth on this creature are not like any bird. It looks like an aerial johnson's crocodile.
The other things I have never done. But happily there are people who devote their lives to doing that time consuming stuff and those righteous researchers then publish their studies. It's just great.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I fixed your post. I love you, Dave.
Thats sweet, Jonathan, but a heathen is perfectly capable of understanding the Hebrew word yohm. By the way . . . any, uh . . . any news from Sapient regarding the illusive 1 on 1?
Edit Postscript: My brother has been diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and I am going to visit with him out of state for most of next week.
Did you notice that the civilizations that were around before the Hebrews had a practice of deifying their earliest ancestors (particularly royals) by giving them abnormally long lifespans? Those spans also dropped as the line of kings approached their present.
Did you also notice that the water canopy would have cause such tremendous pressure on the planet and those living on it (by its mere existence) that they all would have been crushed into goo before a flood happened?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Explain to me how you know that. Don't give me a link, I want to know what you think or what evidence you have gathered to that effect and then we can discuss it.
The thermosphere is over 100° to 3000° F which is the chief requisite for retaining a large quanity of water vapor, which is substantially lighter than air and most other gasses making up the atmosphere. There is nothing physically impossible about the concept of a vast thermal vapor blanket once existing in the upper atmosphere. The result would be a planet wide tropical or sub-tropical climate
Interesting. You want to know how I gathered the information but you don't want to be bothered to read the sources I used. What good is that?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
The Hebrews, like the Phoenicians, Numidians, and Athenians, was officially marked a day from evening to evening. It started after sunset, though they would sometimes speak of the day beginning in the morning. The day was divided up into periods - morning twilight or morning darkness; the rising of the sun or dawning; the morning; noon or midday; the time of sunset or close of the day and the evening twilight or evening darkness.
I'm not saying any evolution took place, I'm saying that the Bible "kind" isn't the same as the scientific kind or species. Basically the word species means "sort; kind or variety" but the biological definition of species is applied to any group of inter-fertile animals or plants mutually possessing one or more distinctive characteristics. The Biblical "kind" constitutes any divisions of life forms wherein each division allows for cross fertility within its limits. The boundary between kinds, then, is drawn at the point where fertilization ceases to occur. So Noah didn't need every species of cat or dog etc. There is a great diversity within each kind. Feline, for example have developed many varieties since the flood, but they are all of the same kind.
When you read about the giants in the Bible you are not talking about the measurements comparable to mastodon bones. You are talking about 9 to 13 feet tall people, which isn't so difficult to comprehend.
It is often proclaimed by atheists that there is no evidence of the global deluge, but is it possible that that is only because there are no scientific conclusions regarding the flood and the evidence is before our eyes? The water canopy is scientifically possible, the result of it would be a much milder climate planet wide, which there is evidence of, there is evidence of river channels reaching far out into the oceans meaning the oceans were possibly smaller and the continents larger, the catastrophic weight of the sudden water would push mountains up in what was a much flatter surface than it is now - there is currently 10 times the volume of oceans then the land above sea level. The Earth is mostly water, what makes you think it went anywhere? In what was a tropical climate the polar ice caps would form rather suddenly. Animals would be suddenly frozen in the middle of grazing. There is evidence of a flood. The result of the protective shield of the water canopy against harmful radiation could have greatly increased the average lifespan. 2 tons of water pressure per square inch might have fossilized fauna and flora very quickly. Flood myths would have spread throughout the earth with the people from Babel.
What I don't want is to have to read everything on the Internet you think would address whatever we are talking about without your having to put any effort or thought into beyond that. I almost never read posts that have links as answers. If your sources are wrong it means nothing more or less to me than if you are wrong. You want to provide clips from your sources, off or online and credit those sources with a reference or link that is great but I could do that myself. I almost never check links because I don't need them, I have my own library and I could look anything up on the internet as well as you can. The only links I will most likely ever offer are the ones I made in the first place. I don't have time to read an entire website page on a subject that you could answer in a few short paragraphs.
My point is that you and I can see eye to eye on something we don't agree on if we realize each others obstacles in doing so. It is very difficult for you to understand how I could believe the things I believe when you think they are only myths and legends and it is also very difficult for me to understand what you believe when I think of them as fanciful, irresponsible, dogmatic academia. So when you say that what I believe can't be trusted because it is something I just read in a book that will cost you. You said yourself it would cost you most scientific discussion the world across. From your perspective and mine it is wise not to underestimate ones opponent. To express doubt, to question, to ridicule even is one thing, but to underestimate - altogether different.
If you're more into accepted definitions - Here are Webster's .
1: Positive in assertion of opinion especially when unwarranted or arrogant.
2: A viewpoint or system of ideas based on insufficiently examined premises.
Now I'm not just trying be a thorn in your side, but it bothers me when the same arguments which apply accurately to religion are regurgitated back at science and academia, where they don't hold at all.
The point of academia is to explore premises (collaboratively) with the explicit purpose of gaining understanding of them and sharing this knowledge. In my experience, you don't get to just throw BS around as if it were fact. You will get called out on it and your claims will be investigated. This doesn't seem dogmatic at all, unless you really want to assert that the practice of verifying postulates through the evaluation of hard evidence is dogmatic. You probably realize that this would be silly.
When it comes down to it, you are just recognizing a common approach to acquiring accurate knowledge, and choosing to criticize it because it challenges your world view.
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins
Please remind me, are you one of those who believe there was a literal world flood in the literal times of Noah?
SciGuy,
Dogmatism is, as you say, not an appropriate description of anything which is truly academic. It is my opinion that academia would obviously have the potential for abuse resulting in dogmatism by the very definition you gave and I think that anyone that tries to deny this possibility is blinded to the very possibility of that corruption. There is no reason why one should be surprised that the very same potential for abuse that obviously plagued the theocratic and bureaucratic couldn't do the same with the academic, and being oblivious to that possibility can only do more harm than good.
KSMB - Please remind me, are you one of those who believe there was a literal world flood in the literal times of Noah?
Dave - Yes. I wouldn't have stated it exactly like that, but I do believe the Bible account of the global deluge was a literal one.
Heh, they taught me canopy theory in school.
One thing I never understood though: How does preventing radiation increase lifespan? If you lock a person/animal in a giant, underground lead vault with a high humidity and heat they aren't going to live to be 900. So why would a vapor canopy do any better? Or is it just a miracle? If it is just a miracle, why try to justify it?
It isn't like it would be difficult to set up a test environment that matches the supposed characteristics of a pre-flood earth. Don't get me wrong, I understand why the theories are bandied about...because they are a desperate attempt to create a logical basis for fantastical claims.
I'm also pretty sure that the amount of water vapor needed to cover the earth in a mile of water would cause some fairly dramatic unintended behavior, even if it didn't violate physical laws. For example, I doubt light could make it through that much water vapor.
If you want, we could look up how much water can be held by air at any particular temperature, then figure out how much air would be needed to hold enough water to create a flood covering the highest mountains, then figure out how much sunlight would be filtered by that layer.
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
He's going to feel well vindicated by the contents of this thread. BTW, Dave, sorry to hear about your bro. Hope that all works out, eh.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
That sucks, my condolences
Everything makes more sense now that I've stopped believing.
PM from Sapient:
"It's fine by me but I'm having a problem with the permissions in that forum. Not sure how soon I can address it. It's possible if we do it now that other people could interject. If that's ok with you, I can get you in right away."
I'm okay with that if you are. I trust everyone will respect the sanctity of the thread as long as we have a peanut gallery for general commentary from the smart masses.
All else aside, I genuinely wish the best for your brother and for you. Be with your family, I'm not going anywhere.
Thanks, AE, I appreciate that.
Yeah, it does suck. Thanks, mellestad.
Okay, so I guess when I get back its on. It is okay with me if anyone wants to interject if it is with you. I assume that when I'm ready I just go over there and start posting and if I'm not able the permissions haven't been set.
Thanks for your well wishes, I appreciate that.