My Book On Evolution

MtW writes: Conclusion: There is no way out of the bind. It's to logically corner the evolutionist, and no chess move can save you.

Except that (and to USE the believer's random CAPITALIsatioN) you're making more deliberate ERRORS again.

Evolution is how organisms change over time. It requires an original organism for there to be ANY evolution, BUT it isn't yet PART of evolutionary THEORY.

Abiogenesis is an open question as far as science is concerned. Us normals have the working hypothesis that life here started naturally from simple chemicals and evolved from there, but it may have come from a colliding asteroid from another part of our galaxy, and some would probably say that some random god sparked it into life magically a few billion years ago.

Then there's the complication that at the very basic level, no-one really knows when life becomes LIFE, and that replicating chemicals that we might call life could stay the same doing nothing more than than forever - no evolution.

So no, evolution is not abiogenesis. You're making a CATEGORY error.

Maybe if we ever get to fully understand the processes that started life off, it can be incorporated into the ToE, but until then, they're regarded as separate. Like IT or not.

Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Well that was quite a sermon. I'll just pick three things to complain about.

Faith writes: Hey, I get it. I even understand why some of you think and believe that there is no "God" and that the very story of Jesus Christ may well have been a myth. You were taught this belief.

You very definitely don't get it. You shown over and over that you can't get it because you're applying your feelings and beliefs to a non-belief. In this case you say that my non-belief was taught. Well no it wasn't. My belief was taught, I worked out for myself that it was bollox.

Tangle wonders about free will in Heaven as if he could simply be there and keep his current worldview intact.

Tangle doesn't wonder this at all. Nothing like it. In asking you about heaven and freewill (which is a stupid notion to start with) I'm trying to get you to see the paradox in one of your beliefs.

The religious idea is that there has to be suffering here because people must be allowed to choose there actions - good or bad - which means we must have freewill. I ask that if god is capable of creating heaven where there is no suffering and death then why can't he do it here? And, indeed, why is here necessary? The road block doesn't not seem to be freewill.

If there is freewill in heaven and no suffering and it works ok, why not here? If there is no freewill and no suffering in heaven, why not here? The only way this silly 'logic' seems to work is if there is both freewill AND suffering in heaven. Go figure.

I do predict, however, that Christians will be shut down (in the interest of public safety) rather than allowed to simply preach their belief.

Yes, it's a Christian preoccupation and longing for persecution. Sadly for both you and Faith, it's not going to happen. What will happen is what is actually happening across the developed world is that extreme beliefs like yours will gradually just get diluted and fade out. They eventually become irrelevant.

Phat writes: You would have to ask Him, of course. This question does not keep me up at night, that's for sure

Best not to think about it eh?

Not sure I understand this question. What do you mean "why is here necessary? " You mean the "experiment" that I suggest God may be conducting? The obvious answer is to build and develop human character in the face of ongoing adversity.

How is that obvious? As has been said often, if god knows who'll pass the character test, he doesn't need to run the cruel experiment. And the question was about suffering - why is it necessary if perfect happiness can be achieved without it? ie in heaven. Does it really make sense to you that god builds this whole routine to see how many pass his test? I mean really? I'm mean why would he? What possible motive is there?

And you get that but don't accept it

I certainly don't get it - it makes no sense at all. I hear you say it, but it's absurd.

I'm not sure that you understand what it is like to be a believer. It is not like Santa Claus.

Of course I do, I've been one!

It is being internally and objectively certain that GOD exists through Jesus Christ and that Jesus is alive and present today.

And then one day you realise what a pile of shite that was. It's called delusion - it's very powerful. You really think that it's real. I know.

Once one has actually met somebody, one cannot deny the existence of such a person. But thats a discussion for another sermon.

This gets to the heart of it - pretty much all the people I've met that believe like you do that you've met god, spoke to him etc etc. That 'experience' rules out any further objective thinking; nothing can shake it. I've seen it in mental hospitals, the belief in the personal experience - regardless of how bonkers it objectively is, people claiming to actually be Jesus for example - is very strong and hard to break.

Ringo writes: I have never read a word of atheist writing so I could not have been "taught" to abandon belief in God.

I hadn't thought of that.

I don't think I'd ever heard the word 'atheist' when I became one. It's a bit like the father Christmas thing, you don't have a name for it when you realise you don't believe.

The idea that I might have been taught atheism, is well, wrong. My parents and my younger sister still went to church every Sunday and I went to a religious school. I had blazing rows with them for months. I was about 14. Never heard of evolution either.

It just became obvious that it was a pile of shite.

Phat writes: Explains why you reject authority figures and chalk them up to human mythos.

No it doesn't, it explains that I have a mind

Iron sharpens iron.

Many a mickle makes a muckle.

quote:

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Mike is a stickler for formal logic, but unfortunately he gets it wrong very often, so these turns of phrase could also be viewed as a stylistic improvement on an otherwise muddled thought process.

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Mike has learned the names of every logical fallacy but then goes on to make them. He's immensely proud of himself, imagining that he's some form of genius. He's quite a puzzle.

In cognitive terms he's a functional stupid; like there’s a circuit broken somewhere that makes it impossible to apply his thinking properly. He's a working example of cognitive dissonance and motivated thinking.