Mea Culpa

[Frogacuda]

Me using magical thinking? Wrong. You're the one trying to imbue very basic naturalistic forces with spiritualist garbage.

I told you several times that that's not what I'm doing at all, but if you won't believe me, at least kindly shut the fuck up about it and make a real point.

The way things are is just because they are, and if the variables were changed the outcome would be different, simple as that. Take your math example from earlier; 2 + 2 = 4 but if I switch out variables and make it 2 + 3 it isn't going to stay 4 because it's ironclad prime mover bullshit. It changes.

I'm 26 years old, and that might be the worst attempt at analogy I've ever heard. Addition will work the same way every time. The same two numbers will always have the same sum. Ordered processes happen a certain way for a certain reason, and that doesn't change.

By definition, things are either ordered or random (as randomness is the absence of order). I'm simply isolating the ordered and calling that an intelligent process as opposed to a chaotic one.

You act as though the laws of physics are variable. The notion of something which could both be and not be is kind of loaded. What does that even mean? What is is. What isn't isn't. Could we imagine what isn't to be? Sometimes. Does that mean it actually could be? Probably not.

The notion of possibility stripped of the bounds of the universe as we understand it is just an empty idea. It doesn't really mean anything. Conceivability and possibility are not the same thing.

There's nothing nihilistic about eliminating the lie of a grand design when there is neither a need for it or evidence to support it.

Isn't that quintessentially nihilistic? A lack of meaning or purpose?

Most scientists? Wrong again. Stephen Hawking, for example, believes in a completely naturalistic and undesigned universe.

Oh, of course. Because Stephen Hawking automatically represents 51% of scientists. Why don't I just throw out Einstein in the believer camp, and we can volley back and forth until everyone is accounted for?

I based my statement on an anthropology lecture I heard a couple years back studying the incidence of religious beliefs (both organized religion, and a more general belief in a maker) among uneducated people and those in the academic and scientific community. The study concluded that there was no significant deviation from the frequency of people's beliefs in a maker among the scientific community and those who never attended college. It is possible for people a lot smarter than you to believe in God, like it or not. Doesn't make them right, but it does mean you shouldn't be so arrogant about your beliefs.

[Josh]

[icarusfall]

Somewhere along the line this thread got really bonged-out.

[Brand X]

That's a nice custom Roor. A friend of mine had one just like it.

[Mykozo]

I'm back.

[g0zen]

I told you several times that that's not what I'm doing at all, but if you won't believe me, at least kindly shut the fuck up about it and make a real point.

Fuck off, you've been dancing in circles for three or four posts now without ever making a point.

II'm 26 years old, and that might be the worst attempt at analogy I've ever heard.

And then you go and top it with this:

I based my statement on an anthropology lecture I heard a couple years back studying the incidence of religious beliefs (both organized religion, and a more general belief in a maker) among uneducated people and those in the academic and scientific community.

What the fuck does that have anything to do with the science itself? I don't give a good goddamn what they 'believe' only what they have evidence that supports. As it stands they don't have evidence for what you're proposing (which is essentially intelligent design), no matter how hard you want it to be there it just isn't.

The study concluded that there was no significant deviation from the frequency of people's beliefs in a maker among the scientific community and those who never attended college. It is possible for people a lot smarter than you to believe in God, like it or not. Doesn't make them right, but it does mean you shouldn't be so arrogant about your beliefs.

I read about similar studies, they've been trotted out by creationists and IDers for years now. The fact is that it's all bullshit, there have been better studies done by, for example, the journal Nature. The fact is that the majority, the VAST majority, of scientists don't believe in supernatural creation or a creator, because they've been compelled by the evidence.

By definition, things are either ordered or random (as randomness is the absence of order). I'm simply isolating the ordered and calling that an intelligent process as opposed to a chaotic one.

This is by far the stupidest oversimplification of the universe ever uttered in history, congrats. It's not an intelligent process just because it works. You continue to misuse the word intelligence, I'm guessing because you don't understand it.

You act as though the laws of physics are variable.

There are places where physics don't act in the usual pattern, take a black hole for example. If physics were absolute and constant then this discrepancy would not (or in your smarmy ass case, could not) exist. I don't have a problem though, because I base my understanding on observation and testing. If we think physics acts differently in this very select set of circumstances then we can accommodate for it, it doesn't mean we throw a hissy fit and burn all the physics books.

Isn't that quintessentially nihilistic? A lack of meaning or purpose?

Only if you consider some para-natural purpose as having value. I don't. Why does the universe need to have a design or a purpose?

[Calliander]

I know I'm late...

Again, your concept of the universe is disturbingly small in scope. No rational, intelligent or thinking person can honestly think or believe that an impossibly vast expanse filled with hundreds of trillions upon trillions of galaxies (some eight times larger than our own) just......happened. There is too much fucking order for that to be true.

It's not too much of a coincidence for me and I'm a rational, intelligent and thinking person.

Modern science is only applicable to what we can observe from this vantage point here on earth. Once we finally master space travel and make first contact, I garuntee we as a species will be constantly revising every scientific and biblical theory and concept for centuries.

If all that Asimov/robots/aliens stuff happens in our lifetime I guarantee you'll ditch God in a second, you big nerd.

[MarsKitten]

This just in: eliminating gods from your belief systems does not equal nihilism.

[g0zen]

Recommended Reading: Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins

Oh and specifically for Frog: The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

[MarsKitten]

I was wondering how long before someone brought Dawkins into this.