Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ed · 03-24-2003, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by winstonjen

Originally posted by Ed

The only way you could know this is if you were omnimax.

wj: By that argument, the only way you can show that the Xian god DOES exist is if you were omnimax. Are you claiming to be omnimax, Ed?

No, see above about using the law of Causality.

NOGO · 03-25-2003, 07:52 AM

Quote:

Ed:
No, it is unlikely Yahweh was manmade due to his high moral standards especially in the area of sexual morality. If he was manmade you would be able to have sex with whomever you wanted not just your wife, also you could lie about things anytime you wanted, and etc. In addition, I have shown using the law of causality that he is logically the most likely cause of the universe.

Yahweh's morality sucks. He kills babies for things his parents did, He orders people's murder for something that happened 400 years before, He allows people to take female prisoners for sex purposes, He sends people into battle knowing that they will get massacred, He lies, He allowed men to have four wives etc etc.

Many of Yahweh's laws are similar to Hammurabi's code (1750 BC) which were written way before.

Hammurabi's code #129 If a man's wife be surprised (in flagrante delicto) with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

The law of causality cannot apply to the universe since according to science matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed. So your illogical reasoning simply does not hold. When we see matter/energy being spontaneously created we will ask what is the cause of this? but until then you are out of luck.

Quote:

Ed:
It is plainly implied by episodes like the Amalekite scenario. No, it cannot be racist because all the peoples in the land of Canaan were Semitic, so they were the same race as the hebrews.

They could tell each other apart quite easily. Within each major race there are subgroups.

Quote:

Ed:
These are all referring to people of faith. Faith in God's redemption causes your sins to be taken away and forgiven therefore you are considered righteous. Read Genesis 15:6.

So what. You said that all have sinned and these cases clearly say that some people have not.

lpetrich · 03-25-2003, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ed
No, see above about using the law of Causality.

Notice how Ed evades the real questions of how justified his inferences are.

NOGO · 03-25-2003, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Ipetrich:
Notice how Ed evades the real questions of how justified his inferences are.

Ed wants to keep the illusion that he can rationally defend Christianity. So he runs around in circles avoiding the fundamental issues. Ed does not see just how bad his position is and every time he posts it gets worse.

We are here to amuse Ed, hoping that some of the information gets in and eventually wakes him up. For now, it's the merry-go-round. :boohoo:

lpetrich · 03-25-2003, 08:31 AM

Ed:
No, it is unlikely Yahweh was manmade due to his high moral standards especially in the area of sexual morality. If he was manmade you would be able to have sex with whomever you wanted not just your wife, also you could lie about things anytime you wanted, and etc.

So strictness == divine inspiration?

I wonder how Ed accounts for strict Muslims. Is Wahhabi Islam the One True Religion on account of its great strictness?

(mass murder of Amalekites...)
Ed:
No, it cannot be racist because all the peoples in the land of Canaan were Semitic, so they were the same race as the hebrews.

Hairsplitting that would make a sleazy lawyer proud. That's like claiming that the Nazis had not committed genocide because the Jews are not really a race.

Starboy · 03-25-2003, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by NOGO
We are here to amuse Ed, hoping that some of the information gets in and eventually wakes him up. For now, it's the merry-go-round. :boohoo:

Nogo, you are an optimist. The only thing that will change Ed's mind is a major disconfiming event that occurs far from his fantasy support group.

Starboy

Biff the unclean · 03-25-2003, 07:06 PM

jtb: Studies have shown that humans ARE apes. So you're lying again.

Ed:No, if that were true then humans and apes could interbreed like wolves and dogs. But they cannot. So maybe YOU are the one that is lying. Are you?

JTB: Please cite your experiments in which you proved that humans and chimps definitely cannot interbreed

Ah now we get into my field.
Humans cannot interbreed with chimps. Nor can chimps interbreed with gorillas or orangutans.
This is because we are all different species of primate. But we are all still primates. The term "Ape" has more of a literary meaning than a physiological one. An ape is just a large tailess monkey, so that pretty much covers us. But the word is almost always used to mean "the OTHER large tailess monkeys."
Dogs have been separated from wolves only a very short time and their evolutionary differences are not that great so interbreeding can still produce viable young, not unlike different races of people. Horses and donkeys, Northern and Southern White Rhinos are somewhat more separated so while they can have young their young cannot reproduce themselves (mules).
Dolphins and porpoises cannot interbreed at all. But they are both odontoceti

Fiach · 03-25-2003, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Biff the unclean
[B]jtb: Studies have shown that humans ARE apes. So you're lying again.

This idea is controversial. I happen to think that Humans are just another genus in the Ape family that includes Gibbons, Orangs, Gorillas, Bonobos, Sahelanthropus, Australopithcus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neandertalis, and Homo sapiens. It makes sense from comparative blood protein similarity, genetic similarity, and obvious anatomical similarity (somatic and neurological.)

Ed:No, if that were true then humans and apes could interbreed like wolves and dogs. But they cannot. So maybe YOU are the one that is lying. Are you?

You need to review your high school biology text book (I forgot American texts have been dummied.) But dogs and wolves are all dogs. Different dogs are like different human races today. They can interbreed. But dogs cannot interbreed with bears, foxes or hyenas. All humans had a common ancestor close to Sahelanthropus that diverged into chimps and proto-humans 7 million years ago. Earlier still Gorillas branched off, and earlier Orangs branched off what originally was a Gibbon-like ape. Chimps later branched into Chimps and Bonobos. Meanwhile as the climate changed Australopithecus afarensis branched into A. africanus, A. robustus, A. gracilis, and A. boiseii. A. africanus produced Homo habils on to us. But the genus names are somewhat arbitrary. Where is the line separating Australopithecus africanus from Homo erectus? It was a gradual process. I think that the entire family including us are Apes. We are debating if we could interbreed with Neanderthals or Erectus. We don't know here sapiens became a separate status. I supect that it was not a sharp line. Along about 200,000 ancestors (primitive Homo sapiens) had more and more trouble breeding with erectus. Eventually the genes were too different and interbreeding ceased.

JTB: Please cite your experiments in which you proved that humans and chimps definitely cannot interbreed

I know of no such experiments. If they were indeed done, they would have led to loss of professional tenure because it is such a taboo subject. Fundies in America would riot in the streets and burn university science labs.

Ah now we get into my field.
Humans cannot interbreed with chimps. Nor can chimps interbreed with gorillas or orangutans.
This is because we are all different species of primate. But we are all still primates. The term "Ape" has more of a literary meaning than a physiological one. An ape is just a large tailess monkey, so that pretty much covers us.

Spot on.

But the word is almost always used to mean "the OTHER large tailess monkeys."

But a fairly large number of human children are born with a residual tail. So are some chimps. Part of the problem is the supertitious notion that we are not even animals. Of course we are animals. Anatomy, genetics, comparative proteins all prove it. The fact that like all vertebrate animals we have 4 limbs, a vertebral spinal cord with cushioning discs, ribs, the same bones in our limbs (one upper arm humerous, but two forearm bones- ulna and radius, 5 digits, a scapula for each arm, hips of three fused bones, one femur for each thigh, two bones - fibula and tibia for the lower leg, and five digits, penis and testicles on males, vagina in females, skull with a brain. brain with brainstem, brainstem with medulla-pons-mesencephalon, and diencephalon, a hypothalamus, archeocortex, paleocortex, and neocortex.) We also have temporo-limbic emotional systems, occipital visual cortex, parietal association areas, and frontal lobes for thinking of variable size (not qualititative but quantitative differences.)

Dogs have been separated from wolves only a very short time and their evolutionary differences are not that great so interbreeding can still produce viable young, not unlike different races of people. Horses and donkeys, Northern and Southern White Rhinos are somewhat more separated so while they can have young their young cannot reproduce themselves (mules).
Dolphins and porpoises cannot interbreed at all. But they are both odontoceti

Some palaeoanthropologists posit that it might be possible to bread a chimp with a human but the problem is finding a country to let us try it.

Fiach

Ed · 03-25-2003, 09:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

jtb: Fossilization of dinosaur bones has never been observed. So the existence of Tyrannosaurus Rex is an "unwarranted assumption" from natural rock formations that vaguely resemble bones?

Ed: Actually some of the beginnings of fossilization have been empirically observed so this analogy fails.

jtb: Complete fossilization hasn't been observed, and fossilization of dinosaur bones has never been observed. Therefore, according to "Eddian logic", dinosaurs didn't exist. This refusal to extrapolate into the past is exactly what you do with the evidence for evolution happening in the present.

Its been observed by dinosaurs. No, because even partial macroevolution has never been observed so extrapolating fossilization is more rational than extrapolatiing macroevolution in the past.

Quote:

jtb: No now-living observer saw Mohammed Atta's men at the controls of the airliners that hit the WTC and the Pentagon. So it's an "unwarranted assumption" that they were deliberately crashed into those buildings?

Ed: No, they were videotaped boarding the plane, ie empirical evidence, so this analogy fails miserably.

jtb: Nobody doubts that those men were passengers. But "Eddian logic" allows us to say that the assumption that they flew the planes is unwarranted, despite all the clues pointing in that direction. Simply waving away vast amounts of empirical evidence is something you do a LOT of.

The difference is that there are very few clues pointing to macroevolution.

Quote:

Ed: No, he had already attempted to refute my logical demonstration that the Christian God exists and was unable to do so.

jtb: You have never provided ANY logical demonstration that the Christian God exists. Therefore you are lying AGAIN.

Fraid so, see my post using the law of causality.

Quote:

jtb: This is what the Bible plainly states. Therefore this is what any unbiased Biblical scholar would assume the author meant.

Obviously, Christian Bible scholars would put a different "spin" on it, because they don't want to believe what the Bible says. But how many Bible scholars are Christians? Many are either Jews or atheist/agnostic.

I get the impression that you wish to pretend that non-Christian Biblical scholars do not exist.

Ed: Okay, cite one reputable biblical scholar, even a non-christian, who agrees with Nogo's interpretation and provide a quote that confirms it.

jtb: I have already given you the names of several, and invited you to ASK THEM. Your ongoing refusal to do this speaks volumes.

The problem is they are not biblical scholars.

Quote:

jtb: Occasionally, the absurdity of your position gets through to you and slaps you in the face, causing you to briefly wake up and connect with reality. In these brief lucid moments, you realize that the Bible is indefensible and abandon it to concoct an alternative story. Then the walls close in again, and you can't tell the difference between fact and fiction anymore.

Fascinating...

Ed: No, see my earlier posts.

jtb: I did. They support what I have said.

Fraid not.

Ed · 03-25-2003, 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by NOGO
Your position is totally irrational.
You seem to think that giving an answer, any answer, is the same as giving a rational answer. None of your answers are based on reason. They are based on a futile attempt at justifying what is obviously unjustifiable and wrong. Every time you post you give proof of the irrationality of Christianity.

No, the foundation of Christianity is the existence of the Christian God, which I have demonstrated is a rational belief using a basic law of logic, causality.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

03-25-2003, 08:31 AM	#695
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	Ed: No, it is unlikely Yahweh was manmade due to his high moral standards especially in the area of sexual morality. If he was manmade you would be able to have sex with whomever you wanted not just your wife, also you could lie about things anytime you wanted, and etc. So strictness == divine inspiration? I wonder how Ed accounts for strict Muslims. Is Wahhabi Islam the One True Religion on account of its great strictness? (mass murder of Amalekites...) Ed: No, it cannot be racist because all the peoples in the land of Canaan were Semitic, so they were the same race as the hebrews. Hairsplitting that would make a sleazy lawyer proud. That's like claiming that the Nazis had not committed genocide because the Jews are not really a race.

03-25-2003, 07:06 PM	#697
Biff the unclean Banned Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: an inaccessible island fortress Posts: 10,638	jtb: Studies have shown that humans ARE apes. So you're lying again. Ed:No, if that were true then humans and apes could interbreed like wolves and dogs. But they cannot. So maybe YOU are the one that is lying. Are you? JTB: Please cite your experiments in which you proved that humans and chimps definitely cannot interbreed Ah now we get into my field. Humans cannot interbreed with chimps. Nor can chimps interbreed with gorillas or orangutans. This is because we are all different species of primate. But we are all still primates. The term "Ape" has more of a literary meaning than a physiological one. An ape is just a large tailess monkey, so that pretty much covers us. But the word is almost always used to mean "the OTHER large tailess monkeys." Dogs have been separated from wolves only a very short time and their evolutionary differences are not that great so interbreeding can still produce viable young, not unlike different races of people. Horses and donkeys, Northern and Southern White Rhinos are somewhat more separated so while they can have young their young cannot reproduce themselves (mules). Dolphins and porpoises cannot interbreed at all. But they are both odontoceti

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.