God as an axiom

[Calilasseia]

@Sheldon

I’d assumed that was an attempt at trolling, albeit a very poor one? Surely no one can be quite that ill-informed?

I’ve observed creationists post even more cretinous bilge than this in my time. Over at the dreaded Farcebook, last night I had one specimen dismiss my exposition on why palaeomagnetism destroys creationist lies and fantasies, with a level of gibberish that would have caused me and my fellow pupils to point and laugh at the age of 11.

Never underestimate the stupidity of mythology fanboys. The ones who think they’re being clever usually manage to dress up their lies and ignorance in at least some raiment of apologetic effort, or else head to the usual duplicitous outlets for ready-made and recognisable copy-paste garbage.

The sincere ones frequently demonstrate that they have cognitive functioning beneath that of the bacteria in my aquarium gravel, a phenomenon I’ve seen exhibited in especially florid manner among certain subsets. Such as naive homeschooled specimens who never exerted the effort to learn anything of substance themselves, but instead simply spooned up whatever ideological gruel they were fed in woefully complacent and indolent fashion.

Frequently the aetiology is to be found in those who spent their lives insulated from both ideas and serious life challenges. Such as early teens raised in closeted fundamentalist enclaves, that haven’t yet hit puberty and, for example, have yet to discover that they don’t conform to anachronistic and Palaeolithic gender stereotypes. Or decrepit specimens who never left the insular Sundowner Town they were born in, and derive their “news” from AM radio and the TV network run by the local “pastor”.

[Sheldon]

@Get_off_my_lawn

I think you can be even more specific - “some individual animals seem to lack intelligence”

Yes that’s more accurate, just because it was (partly at least) meant as levity is no excuse, I need to up my game.

[Sheldon]

@Calilasseia

Frequently the aetiology is to be found in those who spent their lives insulated from both ideas and serious life challenges.

Whilst I am at least partly sympathetic to the fact they have in all likelihood suffered a level of indoctrination that would make the Taliban roll their eyes, in this day and age with the internet at your fingertips, that level of ignorance still startles me a little. Maybe I am getting more cynical, but I have stopped smiling when someone blithely declares the scientific theory of evolution as “just” a theory, or in the case of this clown, “just” an opinion. He should travel to Hiroshima, and tell them atomic theory is “just” a theory.

I have said more than once that my own formal education was mediocre, but the little I have learned has been learned since, and it’s not that hard to diligently fact check things, as objectively as possible.

This latest visitor made relentless assertions, that frankly had me more than once reminding myself to breath through my nose.

[Kevin_Levites]

@Prycejosh1987

This shows we did not evolve from monkeys. or apes. Science assumes alot that is backed up by a case here and another case there. But God consistent in His approach and closely connected with evidence

Some of the most consistant, robust, and firmly established evidence for anything scientific has to do with the evidence that supports evolution.

Apes (such as chimpanzees) fight wars, they develop friendships and alliances, they use tools, and they seem to worship at waterfalls and trees. They even engage in treachery.

Any differences between us and them are a matter of degree, not kind.

Young Earth creationists throw out arguments like:

1. If we evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?

Well, we didn’t evolve from monkeys. Monkeys and us have a common ancestor, if we go back far enough. And we are a branch of apes, not monkeys.

2. Mutations are always bad, so how can a living thing become more adapted to the environment if mutations are bad?

Good and bad are a matter of context. Eyes are good for a fish that lives in a pond, yet a relative of this fsh that lives in a cave may not have eyes, as eyes are metabolicly expensive and a liability in an environment with no light.

3. Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics, because evolutionists believe that life gets more sophisticated over time.

This canard shows a vapid misunderstanding of thermodynamics. The increased “orderliness” of life comes at the expense of a vastly larger decrease in order in the Sun, as the Sun provides the vast majority of the energy that powers life.

4. Evolution goes against common sense. It seems stupid to believe that a fish can become a human.

Common sense is often wrong, as common sense is only a guideline. It’s common sense that the Earth is at the center of the Universe, because you can see this if you go outside at night and watch the sky rotate . . . yet this belief is wrong.

5. Evolution diminishes the value and meaning of human existence.

Evolution shows us that more than 99.9% of all species that have ever lived have become extinct . . . so this should show how precious and rare we are, and is a reason why we should value human life all the more.

And so on.

Creationism comes from Biblical literalism, and Biblical literalism kills. Lightning rods were prohibited on church steeples because lightning was God’s punishment, and church bell ringers kept getting electrocuted.

Also, Jehovah’s Witnesses (and their children) sometimes die from need of a blood transfusion.

This refusal to accept evolution should be viewed in a similar light.

[Get_off_my_lawn]

@Kevin_Levites

Common sense is often wrong

Common sense is not all that common.

[Old_man_shouts_at_cl]

@Sheldon

I am a bit conflicted here, on the one hand there are mountains of research contradicting this idiotic assertion, on the other hand there are your posts. So I’d definitely say some animals seem to lack intelligence, though it is relative of course.

10/10. That had both Captain Cat and meself falling off me gaming chair with laughter. CC didn’t even leave claw marks when I elbowed him as I landed. My trousers are a bit damp though. Props to you my friend still giggling

[Sheldon]

@Calilasseia

The evidence from both palaeontology and molecular phylogeny is conclusive - we ARE apes, thst share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. Not only thst, we share a surprising number of behaviours.

I’d recommend Chimp Empire on Netflix, the parallels between them and humans are too well evidenced to ignore. how they form hierarchal societies, form alliances, make war on neighboring tribes for food and territory, the way they reward allies, and hunt, and use altruism, and on and on it goes, it’s fascinating. much more than the bare unevidenced claim goddiditall, which of course has no explanatory powers whatsoever.

[MrDawn]

@Sheldon

I’d recommend Chimp Empire on Netflix,

I wonder if this is where Pagans get it from. They worship trees. So do chimps.

Strange Ritual Behaviour in Chimps Caught on Hidden Cameras. Is this the origin of religion?

Since the 1960s, researchers have recorded a myriad of surprising behaviors from chimpanzees: they use leaves, twigs, stones and spears as tools, sticks as dolls, and throw rocks in displays of dominance. Now, scientists think they may engage in ritual activity similar to our early ancestors.

An international team of researchers observed chimpanzees in Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire routinely throw stones at certain hollow trees creating rock piles reminiscent of a cairn. A new study published in the journal Nature documents this unusual behavior.

Though not definitive evidence of ritual, scientists think that the chimps may be creating shrines under specific “sacred trees,” writes co-author of the new study Laura Kehoe for The Conversation. ​“Indigenous West African people have stone collections at ‘sacred trees’ and such man-made stone collections are commonly observed across the world and look eerily similar to what we have discovered here,” she writes.

Kehoe and her colleagues discovered the rock piles after a wildlife guide in Guinea led them to a hollow tree that he thought had been marked by chimps throwing stones. The team set up a camera trap at the site and soon recorded a male chimp approaching the tree, looking around, then tossing a large stone at it. Further investigation revealed many similarly marked trees in the area, some of which had piles of stones in them or at their base.

Chimps May Be Performing Rituals at “Shrine Trees”

[Kevin_Levites]

Chimps also worship (if that’s the right idea) waterfalls.

See below:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://religioninsociety.com/news/chimps-and-the-zen-of-falling-water&ved=2ahUKEwj309PRheuGAxVDQzABHc5DBuYQFnoECCgQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3JD1puwod1lxnDf1C8Grt4

[MrDawn]

@Prycejosh1987

But God consistent in His approach and closely connected with evidence.

Apparently you’ve never read Ephesians 2:8-9. It is a sin for Christians to brag to others about their Christianity. Yes, that includes proselytizing at Atheists.

[Kevin_Levites]

@Prycejosh1987

believe God exists because of how His world relates to our world. Animals do not have intelligence or relationships and social or economy like a human does. This shows we did not evolve from monkeys. or apes.

Yes they do, but just not to the degree that we do.

It now seems that orcas (killer whales) may have an intelligence that’s almost on par with humans.

Apes (especially chimps, bonobos, and ouragutangs) use tools that they modify from the environment.

Also, even ants farm and raise livestock . . . namely aphids, which excrete a sweet honeydew that ants like.

As for relationships, animals love each other, and sometimes people (My dog loves me. So did my cat, may he rest in peace).

[Sheldon]

@Prycejosh1987

Animals do not have intelligence or relationships and social or economy like a human does.

That was funny, everything in that assertion is so demonstrably and utterly wrong. Firstly humans are animals, it’s beyond absurd to deny that, secondly many other species of animal clearly have intelligence, relationships, social order, and some even barter goods to allies in hierarchical social structures, like chimpanzees for example.

He’s wrong, and how.

@Prycejosh1987

This shows we did not evolve from monkeys. or apes.

Not only was it wrong, it would not follow, were it true, that we didn’t evolve, but this idiocy is moot, since all the overwhelming evidence from multiple scientific disciplines, from almost 165 years of global scientific scrutiny, demonstrates it is an objective fact that all living things have evolved slowly over time.

In stark contrast to the dearth of any objective evidence, that any deity exists or is even possible. FWIW, humans are classified taxonomically as part of the family of great apes, we didn’t just evolve from a species of ape, we remain a species of great ape.

“Living members of the primate order include monkeys, apes, and humans; and any member of this order of mammals is called a primate. At some point in the distant past, we shared ape-like ancestors with all these modern groups of primates. We share between 93 percent and almost 99 percent of our DNA sequences with them, providing hard evidence that we have relatively recent common ancestors. Besides genes, what traits do we share with other primates? Primates are considered generalists among mammals. A generalist is an organism that can thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and make use of a variety of different resources, such as consuming many different types of food. Although primates exhibit a wide range of characteristics, there are several traits that are shared by most primates.”

Read on HERE for a description of those shared traits, which he wants to wave away in favour of an unevidenced deity using inexplicable magic.

[Calilasseia]

Our latest sad little mythology fanboy proves he’s an idiot with his reply.

In direct address thereto … @Prycejosh1987 … What part of “massive amounts of evidence exist point to our sharing a common ancestor with the other great apes” do you not understand? Evidence both from palaeontology AND genetics?

Indeed, even BEFORE we had access to modern data, Linnaeus, way back in 1747, regarded the anatomical similarities between humans and chimpanzees, to be sufficiently compelling evidence to warrant placing us in the same taxonomic Genus. The reason he didn’t? Religious interference in his scientific work. About which he lamented in a letter written to the fellow taxonomist Johann Georg Gmelin. The letter in question can be read in full here:

http://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?aq=[[{"COL"%3A"uub_linnaeus_correspondence"}]]&c=939&aqe=[]&af=["PER_PID%3Aalvin\\-person\\%3A1090"]&searchType=EXTENDED&pid=alvin-record%3A223725&dswid=-2480#alvin-record%3A223725

Here’s the original Latin passage:

Non placet, quod Hominem inter ant[h]ropomorpha collocaverim, sed homo noscit se ipsum. Removeamus vocabula. Mihi perinde erit, quo nomine utamur. Sed quaero a Te et Toto orbe differentiam genericam inter hominem et Simiam, quae ex principiis Historiae naturalis. Ego certissime nullam novi. Utinam aliquis mihi unicam diceret! Si vocassem hominem simiam vel vice versa omnes in me conjecissem theologos. Debuissem forte ex lege artis.

This translates to:

It does not please (you) that I’ve placed Man among the Anthropomorpha,[22] but man learns to know himself. Let’s not quibble over words. It will be the same to me whatever name we apply. But I seek from you and from the whole world a generic difference between man and simian that [follows] from the principles of Natural History. I absolutely know of none. If only someone might tell me a single one! If I would have called man a simian or vice versa, I would have brought together all the theologians against me. Perhaps I ought to have by virtue of the law of the discipline.

Note that Linnaeus wrote this SIXTY TWO YEARS BEFORE DARWIN WAS BORN.

Now if one of the seminal contributors to biology thought that we were sufficiently closely related to chimpanzees, to warrant being placed in the same taxonomic Genus, even BEFORE the massive amounts of palaeontological and genetic data became available reinforcing this view, what makes you think we were the product of a cheap conjuring trick with some dirt by a mythological magic man?

Oh, and you might want to work on your command of basic English, before posturing as being in a position to lecture me on intellectual rigour.

[Sheldon]

@Borgel

Is there a fundamental difference between presuming the existence of god and then building up from that starting point on the one hand and using axioms in science or presuming things like the existence of an objective world on the other?

Yes, objective evidence is required for science to proceed, and it’s ideas must be falsifiable, and when tested must reflect objective reality, and offer real world predictions that can further verify the idea through experimentation.

All the god concepts I have encountered never go beyond bare assumptions, and subjective personal experience.

This is why scientific facts don’t vary, as they’re not dependant on subjective cultural and anachronistic influences, in stark contrast to religions of course.

[Sheldon]

I wonder why apologists like @Borgel (for example), come here and ask questions, then invariably ignore the answers, almost as if they aren’t really asking a question at all, and have no interest in anyone answering it.

[CyberLN]

@Sheldon

I wonder why apologists like @Borgel

@Borgel listed themself as an atheist.

[Kevin_Levites]

@Sheldon

wonder why apologists like @Borgel (for example), come here and ask questions, then invariably ignore the answers, almost as if they aren’t really asking a question at all, and have no interest in anyone answering it.

They want to preach, not debate. Or that’s my take on it. Maybe I’m wrong.

[Sheldon]

@CyberLN

@Sheldon

I wonder why apologists like @Borgel

@Borgel listed themself as an atheist.

You’re right, I usually make a point of checking as well. My mistake.