Posted on 02/05/2002 8:18:30 AM PST by JediGirl
For those of us who are constantly checking up on the crevo threads, why do you debate the merits (or perceived lack thereof) of evolution?
You assume that we are destined to be exist.That does not follow from what I said there.
Destiny does not play into it. Things are a particular way. They could be any other way, or they could not be at all. But they are. The odds of them being this one way out of the infinite possibilities are zero.
I reject that assumption and think that, in all liklihood, it is pure chance that humans exists and, while that is pretty amazing, it doesn't prove to me that there is a god who wants all of this.The odds that things exist the way they are, regardless of if it is destined or not, are zero in my eyes, by the logic I gave above. To me this disproves the possibility that it could have occurred just by random chance.
So what else could explain it? To me, the most likely is that God exists. Is that proof? Nope, but it is a smaller leap of faith to believe in God than to believe that something with zero chance of having happened by chance, happened by chance.
What? You've never heard of the babelfish? How old are you?
Your question reminds me of the six year old that just learned the rudementary basics of chess watching a master make a move and then saying, "Gee, if your so smart, why didn't you take that pawn with your queen?"
In all sincerity, please keep asking the questions. We all have to start somewhere...
Actually, depending on my level or respect for the source, I kind of like being called stupid. It gets the ol' adrenalin flowing for the ensuing fight. Didn't the Taliban call Dubya stoopid...?
First, do you believe in the physical world? If yes, do you achieve you understanding of the physical world through sensory experience filtered through logic?
Second, do you believe in anything meta-physical? Do you believe that emotions are more than chemical reactions?
Third, do you believe in good and evil? Do you believe in responsibility for your actions? Do you believe in holding others responsible for their actions?
Fourth, do you have a sense of the temporal? Do you understand what it is to not exist, do you strive to understand that concept when you think of death?
Fifth, how do you explain logic? Do you explain it through forms, do you explain it through figures? How do you logically explain anything?
Answer these and I'll have a sense of where your core beliefs are. From that starting point I can talk to you about the existance of God.
Not to worry. Apparently the post (along with the poster) have been "sanitized" for our protection.
Because all they really want is to return to the good old days, the Dark Ages, when everyone believed that creation was a divine miracle -- a magical, incomprehensible, inexplicable event. If our origins can be explained, and understood, they're sunk; their fragile worldview instantly collapses. And the real world, where people do their own thinking, and run their own lives, and live in freedom, and write Constitutions like the one we have, that world is utterly terrifying to them, so they insist on maintaining their comforting fantasies. Evolution is a major threat to such people. But then, I believe that unthinking people are a threat to all of us.
It took 15 posts this time. It usually takes less. I do not enjoy threads which turn into ad hominem fests, and these threads ALWAYS degenerate to that level.
when I do participate, it is to point out the other fallacies which pass as "debate" on these threads. Each thread contains fine examples of circulus im demonstrado, composition, division, and undistributed middle fallacies. Sometimes, I can't stand it anymore, and I interject. I usually regret it. The evo crowd will chime in with a "knuckle dragging fundie" as rebuttal, or I will have my puported brothers deny what Christ accomplished by implying I am in for the "smoking" section of the afterlife; this constitutes rebuttal for suggesting that the Genesis account COULD BE metaphorical or allegorical in describing how this started.
The conduct of most of the participants on these threads leaves much to be desired. < /rant>
There are an infinite number of viable outcomes. One had to be selected and this one was it. Any other outcome could have been equally as viable and the equivalent of "you" would be asking the same question.
One could ask with equal ernestness why a particular sequence of Lotto balls is selected even though the odds of that sequence occurring is vanishingly small. It is a logical flaw to attribute significance to a single sample of a random space, as it is not generally possible to prove (even with a very large number of samples) that the selection was not the result of a non-random process. And of course, there is also the problem of sample selection bias. There could be a million other universes where some human equivalent never existed and therefore the question was never asked. You can only prove the one sample where you do exist, and you'll never have a sample where you don't even if there are an infinite number of such universes.
Therefore, asking why our only sample of a universe allows us to exist is not logical path, nor is it logical to infer that we exist by external intent. Asking the question REQUIRES that we exist and says nothing about the actual distribution or probability. The easiest way to think about it is the Lotto ball example. By your reasoning, no one should ever win as the odds of any particular combination occurring are miniscule. By the way, when dealing with infinite sets it is quite possible to have non-zero probabilities. Assuming that the outcome probability must be zero is not necessarily (and in this particular case almost certainly not) a valid mathematical assumption.
Agreed. You use a Mac and like it. I run Windows (among other things) and like it. It's fine that way.
One thing FR really doesn't need any more of is yet another "Mac Fags" versus "Brainwashed Microserfs" thread. Take it to comp.os.*.advocacy, I say...
This thread looks like Ned Flanders Cable TV.
For the spectators, of course.
More specifically, the entire idea of science is under attack from the alliance of Creationists, the Post-Modern Deconstructionists, the New Age Neo-Pagan Gaeaists, Fortunetellerettes, and others. Each group claims to have a kind of knowledge that is superior to that obtained through observation and logic. The rejection of scientific inquiry can have disasterous consequences, for example, the AIDS (and other STD) epidemics to a large extent stem from the refusal to recognize that AIDS is the result of a viral infection; people invest money in "free energy" scams; people may base their actions on the turn of a Tarot, etc. All these are self-destructive actions that could benefit from a dose of scientific method.
Evolutionary Biology is threatening to people of faith, along with other branches of science that objectively examine the precepts they hold dear. Objective scientific inquiry has unearthed information that casts doubts upon the validity of religious institutions. This threatens not only the belief system that keeps them going, but also their position in society. If the Christian God is a myth, who cares what believers have to say on substantive issues like abortion or homosexuality?
What is at stake here is not the answer to a scientific inquiry but the justification to rule a society, the power to tell YOU how to live your days, and the ability to determine the course of a nation. The posters to these threads in their unsophisticated way are battling for the hearts and minds of a nation. That is why I am interested in these debates and why I think they are important.
One had to be selected and this one was it.One had to be?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.