Famed Harvard Biologist Gould Dies

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&ncid=716&e=2&u=/ap/20020520/ap_on_re_us/obit_gould ^ | 5/20/02 | yahoo

[general_re]

Can God's law change over time?

No.

Which leads to the following rather amusing syllogism, which must then logically be true.

P1: If there is something that God cannot do, then God cannot be omnipotent and all-powerful.
P2: There is something God cannot do - God cannot change his own law.
C1: Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent and all-powerful. QED.

[general_re]

"Fiendishly clever powers of deduction" ping ;)

[gore3000]

I am simply putting my definitions out there for all to see. If the definition comes up short later, I'll consider redefining the term, but then I'll post the new definition so there will be no weasling out later.

That is funny! If you are redefining your position you are weasling out!

[general_re]

Well said! Don't let him weasel like that!

[gore3000]

Seems pretty clear that morality is not your choice. Pretty sad, because even here on earth you will not find fullfillment. -me-

What does this have to do with morality?

Everything. That you think that acting in a moral way, and living eternally in a moral state would be boring shows that you think immorality = fun.

[gore3000]

Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium is an elaboration, refinement on Darwin's theory. I like how Michael Shermer put it "[Punctuated Equilibrium] no more proves Darwin wrong than Einsteinian relativity proves Newton wrong."

Funny, I can agree with that. Punk-eek is a refinement on Darwinian theory. However, unlike Relativity, Punk-eek has absolutely no evidence going for it. Unlike Relativity, punk-eek is just an excuse for the failures of Darwinian theory, specifically the problem of the Cambrian explosion where we see that by 600 million years or so ago, all the major phyla had already arisen and not gradually, but all of a sudden without any ancestors.

[JediGirl]

I'm glad you do, but in so doing you cannot remain consistent with your definition that whatever society says is right.

But I can. Our society says it was wrong. At the time, German society as a whole did not see it as wrong. Difference in the definition of what is moral varies from society to society.

[gore3000]

How did he make them? Sling a little mud on a bone and say 'Sha-zam Homer!' What makes you think you are qualified to tell God how he had to do it?

It is not us that are telling God how he should have done things, He is telling us how he did it by his own Word - the Bible.

[Junior]

Changing one's paradigm to fit the evidence is not weasling out. I put my original definition out there and it was quickly found to be lacking. Did I cling to it as a creationist clings to his "theories" in the face of confilicting evidence? Not I. I acknowledged my shortcomings and adopted the definition jennyp provided, which works far better than mine ever did. One must occasionally redefine one's terms, after all. HWWNBN however feels that any redefinition is a sign of weakness, hence his refusal to confront his more egregious errors (hippos/whales, wildly eliptical orbits, whatnot). Mr. Saturn and the Lawyer have similar motivations.

[Heartlander]

Your argument is flawed. In essence you are asking, ‘can a square be perfectly round and still be a square.’

[gore3000]

You who prattle that morality is social and that man would need no morality on a desert island - it is on a desert island that he would need it most. Let him try to claim, when there are no victims to pay for it, that a rock is a house, that sand is clothing, that food will drop into his mouth without cause or effort, that he will collect a harvest tomorrow by devouring his stock seed today - and reality will wipe him out, as he deserves; reality will show him that life is a value to be bought and that thinking is the only coin noble enough to buy it. - Ayn Rand

The above is a good example of why Objectivism is a totally bankrupt theory. Morality can never equal selfishness. Humans need other humans as much as they need food and shelter. Selfishness can therefore not be a viable method of structuring a society or man's behavior. What about a person's moral obligations towards one's children? Towards one's parents? Towards one's spouse? What about the moral obligation of protecting the weak? Objectivism is totally immoral.

[gore3000]

Changing one's paradigm to fit the evidence is not weasling out.

It sure is. If you are proven wrong you should admit that you were wrong instead of insisting that you were correct all the time after you have been forced to revise your position.

[general_re]

You have mail.

[general_re]

Your argument is flawed. In essence you are asking, 'can a square be perfectly round and still be a square.'

Which part is flawed, specifically?

And don't blame me - I'm just the messenger. Take it up with gore3000 - he's the one who says God isn't omnipotent, not me...

[Heartlander]

You are asking if God can cease to be God.
And follow with ‘if He can’t then He is not God and if he can then He is not God.’

You are correct when you say that your argument is amusing. That’s all it is though…

[JediGirl]

It is not us that are telling God how he should have done things, He is telling us how he did it by his own Word - the Bible

Is He though? Or is He just providing inspiration? The Bible is filled with stories that gave its readers and followers simplified concepts, i.e. the beginning of the earth. The Genesis story basically provides the concept of things coming into being, but it is not scientifically accurate. The Bible is a religious text and is not meant to be accepted as scientific truth.

[Junior]

Methinks HWWNBN doesn't understand that changing one's position is a tacit admission that one was wrong to begin with.

[general_re]

You are asking if God can cease to be God.

Not at all - the logic is irrefutable, unless one of my premises is somehow flawed. Just because you (apparently) don't like the implications of it doesn't change the truth of it.

Let's look at it again:

P1: If there is something that God cannot do, then God cannot be omnipotent and all-powerful.

This is necessarily true, by the definition of "omnipotent". A being that is omnipotent can, by definition, do anything and everything it wishes. And therefore, a being that cannot do anything and everything it wishes is not omnipotent, by definition.

P2: There is something God cannot do - God cannot change his own law.

This is also true, at least according to gore3000. Gore3000 tells me that God's law cannot change. If it cannot change, God cannot change it. After all, if God could change it, then God's law would be changeable. But it isn't, so he can't.

C1: Therefore, God cannot be omnipotent and all-powerful. QED.

And this is the inescapable conclusion. There is something that God cannot do, therefore God cannot be omnipotent, by definition. The only way you can possibly refute this conclusion is to show that one or more of my premises is flawed. If you don't like the first premise, you'll have to take it up with the people who write dictionaries. If you don't like the second, take it up with gore3000.

I understand very well why you don't like it, but that doesn't change the validity of the argument. The logic is perfectly valid, and therefore if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

Logic can be a real b**** like that sometimes ;)

[Phaedrus]

Our society says it was wrong. At the time, German society as a whole did not see it as wrong. Difference in the definition of what is moral varies from society to society.

You don't have to belong to any society to know that rape and murder are wrong, appreciating always that the moral realm is the social realm. You are arguing garden-variety moral relativism, a socially destructive philosophical vacuum that hides behind "tolerance". And it's not about the definition of words, it's about behavior.

In the real world, immoral acts always have negative consequences. Some thought is required to understand this. It is about character, JediGirl, notwithstanding an infamous former president's confusion as to the definition of "is". He is our finest recent example of a prominent moral relativist (read "sociopath") who certainly had no problem with rape. If everyone behaved as did he, we would soon become a third-world country overwhelmed by anarchy, crime, poverty and disease.

Without individual honesty, the basis for a moral society, it all falls apart. And honesty ultimately requires that we know truth.

[exmarine]

So abortion revolves around the practical question of when the life of a person begins, not how much we should cherish a person's life once the practical consensus (or compromise) agrees it has begun.

You went off on a tangent. I used abortion as an examples that shows that humans do embrace doctrines of death and destruction. Is something being killed in the womb? Yes. Is it human? Yes. I will ask you: What is the difference between a human being and a person? Do you know? No one I have asked yet knows the answer to that. Know why? Because there IS NO DIFFERENCE. There is no doubt whatsoever that personhood begins at conception. Abortion lovers based personhood on mere appearance, stage of growth or mental capactity - wrong, wrong, wrong!

The FACT is that we have destroyed the next generation of people and it is no wonder that the baby boomers do not have enough young people to support them in retirement - we have killed them all! Eighty million pregnancies in the past 30 years and 40 million of those ABORTED! 40 million! That is genocide on a scale that Hitler only dreamed of.