There's similarity between some insects and reptiles. There's similarities between us and reptiles. There are similarities between jellyfish and some predatory plants despite one being a plant and one being an animal.
So... what's the argument against evolution?
Because 3 does not follow from 1 or two? Can't tell if serious...[/quote]So now you agree it is possible to prove or disprove logical statements?
Earlier you claimed that it was rational to believe something that we have no evidence for and can't be falsified: "Is totally rational though there is no evidence and isn't really falsifiable". If you're quibbling between "falsifiable" and "disprovable" - well okay, I'll accept a hypothesis of God that is disprovable too.
That we can prove or disprove the logical statements is why believing them to be true is rational.
I'm not trying to convert anyone.[/quote]Then why are you in this debate? Fair enough if you don't want to persuade anyone.
I don't go up to people and demand they justify their belief - but if there's a debate where they argue for something, it's fair game for me to do so also.
Similar to what I said before, would you feel comfortable justifying your love for your wife scientifically?[/quote]No - though if I was on a forum claiming this, in a situation where it seemed unlikely. people might question me. Though that someone has an emotion in general is a far more likely thing than say the existence of some supernatural creature.
Also as someone with a partner in another country, please tell the UK Border Agency that their questioning of our relationship is unreasonable
Would you appreciate someone calling you irrational for loving your wife?[/quote]Not at all analogous. The analogy would be if someone claimed love existed where it didn't - e.g., if I claimed that two people who had never met and didn't even know each other were in love somehow, you would reasonable say that was an irrational claim to make.
Would you appreciate it if someone compared your actions and reasons for loving your wife to the actions of a drunk teenager who vandalizes his ex's new boyfriend's car because he's in "love"? Would you appreciate someone telling you that your opinion on science is invalid because you believe that you love your wife? [/quote]What?
Such a belief is reasonable. You're basically saying "My belief in fairies is reasonable, because someone who believes Paris is the capital of France is reasonable too. You wouldn't call someone who believed in Paris irrational would you!"
The whole debate is about emotion and the emotional connection people have with another entity.[/quote]No. No one is questioning your emotion. We're questioning the existence of this other entity.
The analogy would be someone claiming to have a girlfriend, who suspiciously doesn't seem to exist.
No doubt your emotions are real. Whether they are a sign of anything existing outside your head is another matter.
This was repeatedly met with hostility and name calling.[/quote]What names?
And if you think that criticising a belief is intolerance, then you're being intolerant also, by being in the debate.
[quote name='mikeman']If you accept, based on everyday observation of, well, everything around us and common sense, that everything that happens has a cause that comes before it, and that cause defines how and when it will happen, otherwise that event/thing has no reason to emerge and no initial conditions to define how it will progress, you should accept that the universe, as a physical entity, has such a cause.[/quote]Firstly, no one disputes whether the universe has a cause. The question is the existence of God.
Secondly, no we don't accept that. It's not true (e.g., nothing causes when radioactive decay happens). And even if it was true, it would apply to the universe's cause too, and be an argument against a first cause.
As an aside, there are some Christians who I don't find irrational. Those are the ones who truly believe they've had first-hand contact with God. Can't really find anything irrational about believing something which you've personally experienced.
I mean, what the hell? That just makes god out to be a massive jerk.
When you start with the assumption that God is a jerk and you write the story reflecting God as a jerk obviously he will sound like a jerk. That's true of any entity regardless of how much a jerk they may or may not be. You could make Nelson Mandela sound like a huge asshole doing the same thing.
[/quote]
You assume I started out assuming god is a jerk, I did nothing more than follow the story but instead of taking the point of 'god created man' I applied our understanding of evolution (for which we have evidence for human form) to account for the story.
Our understanding has our species developing from animals to creatures which can judge right from wrong; at which point god damns us ALL for 'some reason' (in the myth it is because someone ate from a fruit tree they weren't meant to, clearly that makes no sense given that at the time of the event there would have been more than 2 people in the world) for all time from our moment of birth and then gives us a set of rules to follow to undo that damning, then a few thousand years later changes the rules once again.
So, you have an all powerful being who decides to damn a whole species (or if you don't think they were modern humans then multiple species) for all time for 'some reason'. And by your reasoning above the whole reason we were damned was because we figured out 'right' from 'wrong'. Honestly, how can you dress that up any other way?
And yes, during the 15 years or so I went to church I was taught that we are sinners from the day we are born and only by beliving in Jesus as our lord and saviour can we get into heaven. There are thousands of people out there who will believe the same thing so it's not like you can argue that my take on this is wrong unless you are willing to also tell thousands of people they are also wrong, at which point you have to ask yourself why YOUR belief is any more right than theirs because weight of numbers and probablity would suggest you are the one who has it wrong.
This is an issue with you thinking that Christianity is a guide to everything. It is not. It is an isolated guide on how to live a fulfilled life leading to salvation. It doesn't need to answer anything more than that, so why read into more than is there?
[/quote]
No, I don't believe that 'christianity is a guide to everything'; I think the complete opposite but that's a digression.
I'm simply trying to understand how the belief system works given the evidence we have before us of human evolution. At what point did we stop being 'animals' and pick up a soul. In the creation myth we are created with one, yet evidence tells us we didn't pop into the world fully formed but instead are the process of millions of years of change from one species to another.
So, based on this evidence any integration of a religious nature must have occured at a specific point in our development; in other words god showed up and popped a soul in our bodies to make us 'special' in some way and apart from the animals around us.
The thing is, your take above about high it is an isolated guide, is just that; your take.
Others have different views and the points I'm making here are linked directly to those views.
That's fine if it doesn't work for you. If you can't justify that it's a metaphor, ok; it works for you and more power to you. Religious people still shouldn't be looked down on just because they are religious.
[/quote]
I think you've taken it wrong; all I see there IS a metaphor or a story.
All I see is the written down understanding of the world as put forward by someone X thousand years ago trying to understand the world around them and filling in the blanks with 'there must be something greater than this'. No different to any of the other creation stories from any other religion. Take any creation story, put yourself in the place of the people who developed it thousands of years ago, the world they knew, the life they knew and the reason their creation story is as it is comes down to nothing more than where they were when they were.
All these stories position humans as 'special', that everything is made 'for us' and present a world which, at the time, made sense because they knew no better. Life was hard, people sort a way to explain it. Life ends, so people found a way to take solace in the fact that it wasn't "the end". When bad things happen to good people they take solace in the fact 'god has a plan we can't understand'.
The universe is a big uncaring place, I can see why people like the idea that we are special, that there is an all powerful entity out there which cares about you.
It's natural, it's human and it's understandable.
Congratulations you are a member of a massive group of people who are all scared of the end and who need to feel special.
The problem is the more you look at the world and the universe around us the more you realise we aren't special, at least no more special than any other life. The stars weren't put there for us, they just happen to be. We are in a non-descript area of the universe part way down a spiral arm of an unimportant galaxy in a sea of galaxies. There is even hints in a new study of the CMB that our universe is one of many and we bumped into some others at the point of creation. So we are just one of many species living on one of many planets in orbit around one of many stars in one of many galaxies in what could be one of many universes.
The position of wanting a 'loving god' is understandable but, given the scope of what we are talking about, nothing more than arrogance born of the fear of the unknown to assume we are special.
Instead of explaining evolution to post-cro-magnon humans, tell them I took 7 days to create everything. (Well 7 days for Me is a few billion years for them, but whatever)
Explain the wiping of the neanderthals and other pre-homo sapiens with the Flood. (I've created quite a few in the past 1000 years)
I'm all for peace and love but since everytime I get directly involved in mortal matters some sort of catastrophe occurs, I'll just tell you how to defend yourselves so you won't get completely slaughtered.
I'll have them worship Me. It'll give them some focus and won't have them doing who knows what to themselves or others.
If they do what I say, they'll get bonus points and 'Armor of Invincibility'. If they don't well, they're on their own for the most part. I'll keep an eye on them though.
They're a bit crude for right now, so I'll give them these set of rules, but when things settled down and they get smarter, I'll allow the rules to change and adapt to future situations.
Hopefully the guys writing this down passes it to someone with good memory, handwriting, and a vast but accurate vocabulary.
i think purpose of religion and science has ended. most problems are morality and geo-political and what not. "a practical steam engine has been around for long time too." -- Famous Person
every one should eat 1-3 pieces of animal factory processed meat a day because it has protein. But how much protein is in it? Can I look under microscope with references?
