Atheism requires as much faith as religion?

[Hidingfromyou]

Eagle12 wrote:

<quoted text>
I have and what I see is a bunch of smoke being blown up a peoples a**.
It’s going to take more than hype to convince me. A lot of scientist don’t believe it either but in order to keep their jobs they have to accept it. This is what I mean when I say evolution has an enforcement arm.
If you are a scientist and you come out publicly that you don’t believe in macro evolution. You’re suddenly unemployed. But if a scientist questions some theory in physics, that’s ok. Just as long as he doesn’t question evolution.
This is why I love Hans Christian Andersons book. It brings to light the scam that has been pulled on the general public.

No, Mr. Eagle's paranoia, that's not how it works. All us academics are 100% familiar with the Christian Anderson reference - we use it in the titles for our research papers sometimes.

You are incapable of being a critical thinker. I don't know why, but you are. You're incapable of applying critical thinking to your religion, your own beliefs and the stupidity that you have been taught as creationism.

Creationism is hollow. It's worthless garbage - it cannot produce new knowledge and technology. But you fail, utterly and completely, to comprehend that. Creationism is literally "the emperor has no clothes." It teaches you a whole bunch of nothing that jives with your religious beliefs and so you like it - and so you are unable to critique it.

A tenured biological scientist can stop producing research and proclaim his/her creationism. You could not get fired for that - that's what tenure is for. To protect scientists and academics from dangerous ideas.

I've told you this before. You never listen when I write to you but instead condescendingly write back "hug" so you can dodge thinking. After all, Michael Behe came out as an Intelligent Design advocate, and has since not done biological science, and is not fired. He can't be. He just remains an embarrassment to the department.

Evolution is the only theory that unifies all biological phenomena, provides predictions about how to test biological phenomena, leads to new research, knowledge production and new technology.

There are no competing theoretical frameworks - the vast majority of biological scientists understand that. The evidence only supports evolution.

[RiversideRedneck]

timn17 wrote:

<quoted text>I know. We can drop it, as long as you accept my conviction that voodoo works because one day I smacked around a George Bush doll and the next day he choked on a pretzel. Deal?

Sure. As long as you can accept that God answers my prayers.

[Tide with Beach]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Examples of something you don't have free will in.

Any decision we might make would be an example.

Many factors determine what choices we make. We aren't aware of all of them. We can't change many of them. We cannot change the past. We are bound by a complex set of circumstances that we have little control over, and little knowledge of. It seems to us like we have the freedom of choice, but where is freedom in constraint? We obviously feel like we have control, but how is it determined how we would want to control anything? That direction of control is also determined by factors that we cannot fully understand or control. It's just complex enough that we can see free will where there is none. That doesn't detract from what we actually have. It just gives us a little more insight into how humans work. It also causes us to look closer at how we view responsibility. There's an opportunity for real progression here.

[RiversideRedneck]

Givemeliberty wrote:

Still making a complete jackass out of yourself I see. LMFAO!
This reject doesn't know that catholics are christian :))
Wow loser even the theists are cringing at your stupidity!
<quoted text>

Does your atheism promote your anger?

Are you THAT stupid to think that Christianity & Catholicism are the same thing?

Not *were*.....*are*

[Hidingfromyou]

Aerobatty wrote:

<quoted text>
Sure.
All figures are skewed by infant mortality and accidental or non-natural death.
But I'm willing to bet that many adults in pre industrial times succumbed to harsh winters.
That's not nearly as common now.
Heck, people start screaming if the power goes out for a couple of days in the winter.

Their bodies would be better developmentally capable of tolerating harsh winters than ours are. They would have been exposed to very cold temperatures as children, for longer periods of time. When that happens, the body produces developmental adaptations that enable greater tolerance of cold.

But, humans aren't cold adapted species - the Inuit represent the greatest morphological adaptations for cold weather. So, you're right, the oldest, sickest people would die in harsh winters if they weren't protected from the cold.

Incidentally, that still happens in Mongolia among the pastoralists. Every year they make a harsh and long trip to bring their animals to new pastures and every year some of the elderly die. But we're talking about people in their 70's.

[Givemeliberty]

Dave's world continued.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[RiversideRedneck]

scaritual wrote:

<quoted text>
Variations on the sandwich, yes I would.

And Christianity & Catholicism are variations of an ancient religion. They are different.

Similar, yes. But still different. There's a lot if beliefs & traditions that Catholics do that Christians don't.

[timn17]

Givemeliberty wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =Orpe14IQfvU
Dave's world.
<quoted text>

I have a much.. bleaker... fantasy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[RiversideRedneck]

Tide with Beach wrote:

<quoted text>
Any decision we might make would be an example.
Many factors determine what choices we make. We aren't aware of all of them. We can't change many of them. We cannot change the past. We are bound by a complex set of circumstances that we have little control over, and little knowledge of. It seems to us like we have the freedom of choice, but where is freedom in constraint? We obviously feel like we have control, but how is it determined how we would want to control anything? That direction of control is also determined by factors that we cannot fully understand or control. It's just complex enough that we can see free will where there is none. That doesn't detract from what we actually have. It just gives us a little more insight into how humans work. It also causes us to look closer at how we view responsibility. There's an opportunity for real progression here.

That's not an example, that's another rant.

Here: if I change the channel in my TV, that is my choice, my free will, to do.

No?

[Givemeliberty]

So again you are saying Catholics are not Christians!

OMFG it's like you got stuck the stupid button stuck!

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
And Christianity & Catholicism are variations of an ancient religion. They are different.
Similar, yes. But still different. There's a lot if beliefs & traditions that Catholics do that Christians don't.

[timn17]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
Sure. As long as you can accept that God answers my prayers.

No, I can accept that you believe god answers your prayers. Why do you care if I believe your prayers are answered? If you believe it, good for you. I hope your religion brings you more fulfillment than it appears to bring most of the people I've seen on here.

[timn17]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
That's not an example, that's another rant.
Here: if I change the channel in my TV, that is my choice, my free will, to do.
No?

It wasn't really a rant. You should look into some of the research on the subject of free will - you will see that what we imagine as free will is more like an illusion of control after the fact.

[Hidingfromyou]

Eagle12 wrote:

<quoted text>
I don’t think the majority of scientist are involved in some kind of mass conspiracy. Understanding that there are many disciplines of science. Only a very small percentage are evolutionist. These evolutionist truly believe in their discipline.
However, there is a hell of a lot of speculation and imagination in this field. Great spans are missing in their theory. It is and remains a science of the imagination. Full of artist conceptions to convince students and the public that it indeed happened.
It’s an interesting theory. But it lacks any real substance. I have looked at the fossil record. It’s pretty damn scarce for human evolution. A single bone from six million years ago. Another millions later. Here a bone and there a bone. O McDonald had a farm E I - EI - Oooo.
Doctor, I’m going to have to remain a sinner when it comes to macro evolution. I just can’t come down to the alter over a speculation based theory.

Utterly false!

1. You have not "looked" at the fossil record. Further, if you did, you wouldn't know what to make of it since you don't seem to know the first thing about fossils or morphology, primitive and derived characteristics, species categories and so on. You don't even know what information can be learned from a fossil.

2. We have tons and tons and tons of hominin fossils.

Here's the wikipedia page listing fossil finds by site and not by number of bones (meaning that the no. of specimens is much higher than that list):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_ev...

Here is the most comprehensive review paper I could find that is freely available. So you can read it if you honestly want to know these things. It lists only first fossil found and then includes a brief discussion of interpretations and subsequent fossils found:

http://www.gwu.edu/~hogwash/BW_PDFs/RP156.pdf

The real beauty of that paper is that it describes the controversies in paleoanthropology. If you were truly interested in critiquing the findings of paleoanthropology, you'd read it. I don't believe that you are, though.

[Hidingfromyou]

Eagle12 wrote:

<quoted text>
Also in the past few years a number of Medical Doctors have came out against macro evolution.

They represent a time when medicine was taught from a dualism perspective. That's changing. Medicine is modernizing and becoming evolutionary medicine - so the old guard is resisting. It's to be expected, but will pass as they retire.

[timn17]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
That's not an example, that's another rant.
Here: if I change the channel in my TV, that is my choice, my free will, to do.
No?

I believe Tide posted this video a while ago. Here it is again. It's a good beginner introduction. I recommend you check it out if you are interested in the subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

[Tide with Beach]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
That's not an example, that's another rant.
Here: if I change the channel in my TV, that is my choice, my free will, to do.
No?

Our decisions are bound by determining factors. These factors are knowable. Knowing these factors would allow predictability. If all of your decisions can be predicted before you make them, you cannot demonstrate freedom from these factors. You don't make choices freely. You are bound to make them exactly as the determining factors dictate. This is what makes free will an illusion, or at least a misnomer.

[Aura Mytha]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
ugh to the nth degree....
Would you consider a cheeseburger & a hamburger the same thing?

Would you consider a hamburger with cheese a hamburger?

[Hidingfromyou]

Eagle12 wrote:

<quoted text>
I tell you what, how about you showing me some of that real undeniable proof. I’m not talking about some scientific article written in Greek.
I’m talking about real proof, not speculation, nor could have, maybe, should have, kind of, may haves, suspected, presumed, alleged, assumed, we think, suppositions , hypothesis.
Real proof, you say it’s out there. Let me see it. Don’t send me off to some University web page that has no proof but a pages of professing a theory. I want to see facts and not theory.

"Two major goals of laboratory evolution experiments are to integrate from genotype to phenotype to fitness, and to understand the genetic basis of adaptation in natural populations. Here we demonstrate that both goals are possible by re-examining the outcome of a previous laboratory evolution experiment in which the bacteriophage G4 was adapted to high temperatures. We quantified the evolutionary changes in the thermal reaction norms—the curves that describe the effect of temperature on the growth rate of the phages—and decomposed the changes into modes of biological interest. Our analysis indicated that changes in optimal temperature accounted for almost half of the evolutionary changes in thermal reaction norm shape, and made the largest contribution toward adaptation at high temperatures. Genome sequencing allowed us to associate reaction norm shape changes with particular nucleotide mutations, and several of the identified mutations were found to be polymorphic in natural populations."

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi...

"We outline similarities between this well-studied system and several recent examples of adaptive evolution associated with heritable mutator phenotype in a similarly small proportion of survivors of selection in nature and in the lab."

http://www.genetics.org/content/148/4/1559.fu...

"Evolution in the Lab: Biocide Resistance in E. coli"

http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1662/0002-76... (2003)065%5B0056:EITLBR%5D2.0. CO%3B2

"Laboratory selection for desiccation resistance, which has been imposed on five replicate populations of Drosophila melanogaster for >200 generations, has resulted in enhanced survivability during periods of extreme water stress. The ability of these populations to persistently resist the fatal effects of desiccation is correlated with evolved physiological traits, namely preferential storage of carbohydrates (associated with reduced lipid reserves) and a dramatic increase in blood volume, which has led to a significant increase in extracellular sodium and chloride content, as well as body mass. When compared to other populations of this drosophilid species, these adaptive traits are unique."

http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/3/49...

Not in the lab:

"Coevolution of Host and Virus: The Pathogenesis of Virulent and Attenuated Strains of Myxoma Virus in Resistant and Susceptible European Rabbits"

https://rowan.biology.ualberta.ca/courses/imi...

"Comparative genomics of the lactic acid bacteria"

http://www.pnas.org/content/103/42/15611.full

"Hox genes in brachiopods and priapulids and protostome evolution"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v399/n67...

I could do this all day. There are literally hundreds of thousands of papers published about evolution every year.

Stick your head back in the sand or open your eyes.

[Hidingfromyou]

timn17 wrote:

<quoted text>Well, that sucks, and I don't necessarily agree with that - but the fact is, he is a scientist, and as such, he should be able to recognize the difference between a scientific belief and a personal religious belief. If his religious beliefs corrupt his ability to be objective, then maybe he shouldn't be a scientist. He represents NASA, and he makes them look bad by lending credence to psuedoscience. Would you want our scientists to believe the earth was flat?

What Eagle is not telling you is that this person insisted on trying to convert those around him to his strange beliefs, much like Eagle insists on posting his delusions about evolution rather than addressing them.

All that person's coworkers said that his behavior was grossly inappropriate.

[scaritual]

RiversideRedneck wrote:

<quoted text>
And Christianity & Catholicism are variations of an ancient religion. They are different.
Similar, yes. But still different. There's a lot if beliefs & traditions that Catholics do that Christians don't.

You mean Judaism?

LULZ>...