What you're doing is showing your faithiesm

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.

francis collins human genome project

The difference between everything you mentioned and God as a concept is that the idea of God has explanatory power. The question of whether the Universe had intelligent causation is a valid question, and from what we know (that space time energy and matter had a finite beginning), the cause of the Universe would be immaterial, spaceless, timeless and transcendent. These perfectly describe attributes of an all powerful God. We also have evidence of design in the Universe and the fine tuning of physical laws. So, to rule God out as an explanation is simply ignorant. Between evolution and special creation, you have virtually exausted the possibilities of how life came to exist.



>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^Morganth:
No, this just illustrates that you do not understand. If there is a god who created the universe, why then would he have to be wholly provable from inside of it? You're actually having to make a number of assumptions about the nature of god to make your claim.
If there is a creator god, we would not relate to him in the way that Hamlet relates to a character in another act of the play, but rather in the way that Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. He could not find him in the highest tower or prove that Shakespeare exists in the lab. Really, the only way Hamlet could ever know that Shakespeare exists is if Shakespeare writes something about himself into the play.
Seriously dude? Hamlet? That's not a person. He's a character in a play, your analogy is utterly useless other than to confuse the gullible.
I make no assumptions about the nature of God, you are the one who makes assumptions about the nature of God. You HAVE to make assumptions about the nature of God to make your argument work. I'm saying there is no God, so there are no necessary assumptions about his nature, since he doesn't HAVE a nature.
There is an infinitum of proposals you cannot prove to be true or false. Unicorns, wizards and dragons ruled the earth 2000 years ago. The Flying Spaghetti Monster created God. All the matching pairs of socks that go missing are stolen by sock-goblins. The proposal that God exists is, therefore only one in an infinity of unprovable junk. Unless you are prepared to believe that UFOs abduct people and mutilate cows and every other stupid theory people throw out there, you have no reason to believe the Universe was created by some kind of sentient being. One is just as likely as the other. If we believed in unprovable junk we'd never get anything done, the scientists would all be bogged down in nonsense and we wouldn't have iPods and personal computers. We'd still be banging rocks together.

>> ^Morganth:

No, this just illustrates that you do not understand. If there is a god who created the universe, why then would he have to be wholly provable from inside of it? You're actually having to make a number of assumptions about the nature of god to make your claim.
If there is a creator god, we would not relate to him in the way that Hamlet relates to a character in another act of the play, but rather in the way that Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. He could not find him in the highest tower or prove that Shakespeare exists in the lab. Really, the only way Hamlet could ever know that Shakespeare exists is if Shakespeare writes something about himself into the play.

Seriously dude? Hamlet? That's not a person. He's a character in a play, your analogy is utterly useless other than to confuse the gullible.

I make no assumptions about the nature of God, you are the one who makes assumptions about the nature of God. You HAVE to make assumptions about the nature of God to make your argument work. I'm saying there is no God, so there are no necessary assumptions about his nature, since he doesn't HAVE a nature.

There is an infinitum of proposals you cannot prove to be true or false. Unicorns, wizards and dragons ruled the earth 2000 years ago. The Flying Spaghetti Monster created God. All the matching pairs of socks that go missing are stolen by sock-goblins. The proposal that God exists is, therefore only one in an infinity of unprovable junk. Unless you are prepared to believe that UFOs abduct people and mutilate cows and every other stupid theory people throw out there, you have no reason to believe the Universe was created by some kind of sentient being. One is just as likely as the other. If we believed in unprovable junk we'd never get anything done, the scientists would all be bogged down in nonsense and we wouldn't have iPods and personal computers. We'd still be banging rocks together.

First paragraph is interesting, and has 2 good questions in it. One, how can you trust something that comes from something that can't be trusted. Second is the issue of what rationality even is. And is it even possible to bring it into question, ever. These 2 questions are the prime questions in my own person philosophy, and mirror some of the greater minds of history, I am, after all, only a single man in the long history of human thought.

I too am but a man, limited and small, but hopefully I can bring some godly wisdom into this. Between the two of us, maybe we can reduce this down to size.

I think the first question is actually very easy to answer, not to say that I didn't struggle for an answer for a long time. It is hard to think of things like this completely unclouded. But, the answer remains very easy, for me that is. There is a famous logical fallacy called "Guilt by association" , or, the Hitler Card, or various other things *Reductio ad Hitlerum when being MR. Smarty Pants *. For me to have a problem with its emergent nature from nature; I would need to be able to make an argument against it based on its own lack of integrity, not its associations with nature. One shouldn't be to troubled making this failed comparison, I do it more often than I care to admit!

Yes, I believe it is commonly referred to as the genetic fallacy. That the conclusion is inferred based on a defect of origins rather than the current meaning. I would not condemn rationality on that basis alone, but I use it to show that necessarily in the secular worldview, rationality is not the invincible and eternal God it is made out to be; that it had very humble origins inside a petri dish. This is just to crack open the door of introspection.

To say the same thing over, an objects creation doesn't mean it is still only consistent of the properties that made it. One can see this in ourselves, we are made from inorganic material, and thusly, it isn't proper to say we aren't organic because we came from the inorganic. Also, when I combine things of 2 different chemical properties, it is likely that I will arrive with something with completely different properties from the other two. So both in the logical base, and the higher abstraction, we fail to condemn rationality, we must attack its merits if we hope to win!

You're right, not much is to be gained by this particular argument about rationality. We must go deeper and suss out what it actually is.

The way you went about trying to condemn rationality from my own starting point of naturalistic existence was, however, the correct way to go about it. What I mean to say is you didn't try to use reason to undercut reason, like the postmodernists do, but tried to show that the foundations, at is concerns my own world view, are unfounded at the base. Proper technique, but a flawed argument, IMO. Leaps ahead of some European thinkers though

Thanks. I am happy that you understand that this is about worldviews and their foundations, because that is really the heart of the matter. Many people don't seem to realize that their belief system is a lens through which they perceive reality. Jesus said this is the pivotal issue:

Matthew 7:24-27

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.

The second issue of the first statement is that of rationality itself. What is it that we even mean! For myself, I have divided the term into several sub-terms to help me both think about it, and talk about specific properties of rationality. The 2 terms that I an other continental philosophers have used are Logic and Reason. Reason being the so call a posteriori method of thinking, which fall to the realms of science, and Logic; being the dubed A priori, or statements that are a necessarily true...or true without need for examination. You might of read many of my rants on how I do not trust A posteriori as a method for finding truth. It leaves itself to all the problems of induction that for my part, have never been resolved.

I agree that we can reduce rationality into those two sub-terms, Logic and Reason. So let's examine..

For logic, we have the laws of logic, which are absolute, immaterial and unchanging. Yet the Universe is material and always changing. There is nowhere in nature to point to the laws of logic, yet they clearly exist. I account for these because God is a logical being who is absolute, immaterial and unchanging. So where does logic come from and how is it absolute? I don't see how they can be accounted for in a secular view.

To analyse reason, I'll just ask a simple question. How do you know your reasoning is valid?

As far as "TRUTH" with a capital T, I hold that science and all inductive methods have ZERO claim to it, and because of the way I define knowledge (as true, certain, belief) also does not expand human knowledge. So, as an element of rationality, I don't not hold it to any great merit of truth. It is GREAT at understanding the universe as humans can experience reality, but only so far, and only so much, and never in the fullest nature as to be consistent with the word "Truth". ( Turns out, I don't explain that I believe in truth only as far as A priori methods can show them, I think any attempt to say A priori isn't a good way to think about things results in you using A priori logical statements to show it isn't true, thus thwarting the objection)

Now here is the elusive question, and the one that plagued me as an agnostic. As pontius pilate asked Jesus, what is truth? Jesus claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life, and He meant this in a literal sense. The way, is in, the only true path for all human beings. The truth, because He is the Creator and Logos. The life, because He is the source of life. Bold claims, to be sure. He claimed to be the foundation of all foundations.

Is there is a truth? Well, it is true that I typed those words "is there a truth?". It is absolutely true even though only you and I know about it (and anyone else reading this). If the record were destroyed and the witnesses were gone it would still be true. If the Universe were destroyed it would still be true. Nothing can ever change that I wrote those words; the truth is the truth. Even if someone went back in time and stopped me from doing it, it still definitely happened. So, absolute truth exists.

The question is, how can you know what it is? You can know the things you have done, and seen, to a limited extent, but beyond that it gets progressively vague. Senses deceive, and so do people. How do you know anything for sure? Well there are really only two alternatives.

To know the absolute truth beyond a doubt you would either need to be omnipotent, or, you would need to receive revelation from an omnipotent being. So you would either need to be God, or God would need to tell you directly what is going on. Everything else is just speculation. It is like a person living in a pitch black room, who goes round and round inside of it, and thinks it is the whole Universe, until God opens the door from the outside.

Side question..what do you think of this statement?: God is perfect.

I don't know that I have ever heard a good explanation about free will. I should point out, that even in my Christianity, I was a 5 point Calvinist. I never have accepted that this quazi-random thing called free will exists in any way, shape or form. In the end, it doesn't even matter, either.

I agree that this is outside our control, of course. My assertion is that it is impossible unless it is something that is given to us. There is no meaningful free will in a determinalistic Universe, which I think is the inevitable conclusion of materialism. Personally, I believe that God controls everything, but in regards to love, we have the choice to love Him or not.

Let me expand why I think that. For me, I don't have the Theological problem you do. I don't have to explain goodness or evil in terms of human choices.

It is pretty simple theologically. Only God is good. Therefore, everything God tells us to do is good. Everything God tells us not to do is evil. The only way to know goodness is to obey God, because we canot obtain to it on our own.

I don't even have to believe in good or evil, or even if I do think it is a "something that exists", I HAVE to remain agnostic about it in the same way I do God, reason being is there isn't really a reasonable way to go about forming the groups "Good" and "Evil". Is it good to tie my shoe laces, or to just slip my feet right inside that shoe! It seems that most of life would either be impossible to show its good or evil value, but even more problematic, why and how!?

You may not define it but I submit that in your conscience you know what good and evil is, and that you live as if they do in fact absolutely exist. It is an intellectual quagmire if there is no moral lawgiver; it is all relative and meaningless. Yet, the whole world acts as if there is an absolute moral standard, and our conscience tells us that, before our intellect kicks in, that some things are right and others wrong. That isn't just wrong to murder someone, it is absolutely wrong. The guilt we have from past misdeeds tells us that we have trangsressed a moral law. So if there is no good and evil, how strange is it that we live as though there is? It makes no sense unless there is an absolute moral law, and in turn, a moral lawgiver.

We can see this problem in Christendom itself, there is no "one way" to be a christian! That was ALWAYS problematic for me. If truth was as easy as being in the bible, then everyone, and I mean everyone would be the same type of Christian. It would be the logical outcome of such a perfect and holy notion of good and evil. So either Christendom is in my same problematic position of not knowing the difference between good or evil, or if that even exists at all; if it wasn't some problem we created to increase the suffering of the world (like good ol Man Schopenhauer though!)

It isn't as black and white as all of that. Remember in the bible that God did non-stop miracles in front of the Israelites and they rebelled against Him anyway. Remember that Jesus did even more miracles and they ended up crucifying Him. So, the problem isn't with God, or His Word, it is with human beings. If you put God on the right and Satan on the left, and you lined up all of the Christians in the world between them, their placement in the line would be determined by what percentage of their heart they had given to God. Whatever percentage they haven't given to God is run by the world and their desires, and the more true this is, the less able they are to interpret the holy scriptures. It is the reality of sin that has created all of these different interpretations and denominations. There is one truth, and billions of Christians imperfectly interpreting it. The fact is, only Jesus was able to lead the perfect life of obedience to the Father. We all have a teacher, the Holy Spirit, to guide us into all truth, but only if we listen to Him.

So in other words, being the result of atoms bouncing around off each other degrading the absolute randomness of choices I make isn't something I have a problem with personally. As it is, my own existence, even if planned by nature or God or even myself, still remains so far beyond my ability to grasp at even day to day instances of any particular situation that even that; planned or random I have no real guess as to the goings on of that day. Perhaps if I was an all powerful God, with absolute knowledge of all factors of existence and all properties of existence I might find reality a little tedious.

It is much bigger than our limited awareness, that is for sure. What I have learned is that there is no such thing as coincidence. Try eliminating that word from your vocabulary for a few days. You might notice some very interesting things.

As to the quote, I think it a little dubious. For instance, it relates thoughts to fizz of a soda. That is fine, but they also have a comparison to HOW similar they are to each other. For instance, 1 and 2 are both numbers. There isn't really a problem with them both being numbers at the same time, its a party yall, all the numbers get to the dance floor! However, even in their exact "numberness" of being all "numbers", they still have differences to each other, even while still being numbers! So while the "one"ness of 1 being one is still just a number, a number which is a number exactly the same way 2 is, their is also a difference between 1 and 2, and it is inherit to the way that both exist. In the same way that A=A, A!=(!A). The basic laws of identity and contraindication. 1 may be of some degree of similarity to 2, and likewise, Fizz to thinking. But there is also a degree of separation. One could say the same, on a high level argument, that both smell and touch are of the "Same" physical representation of an object. So while the object they correspond to has a oneness with itself, the individual properties of its oneness are unique and independent. And not just via the method of induction, but it is AUTOMATICALLY apparent and true that things that are different are not the same. So the comparison of the atomic nature of both fizz and thoughts is ABSOLUTELY true, but so are there differences. It is those absolute differences that I, personally, use in my own method of philosophy which I borrowed and adapted from my limited understanding of Phenomenology.

I think you kind of missed the point here. It is just an analogy to show that if our thoughts are just the product of some brew of chemicals and electricity, and you and I just happened to get different chemicals, then your doubt and my faith have nothing to do with what we believe. They are just the natural result of how we are assembled and nothing else.

As to the last assumption of my beliefs, I actually don't have the same material requirement for existence. I find the views of George Berkeley, that we all exist in the minds of God, as the one of MANY, near infinite, plausible methods we could exist metaphysically.

Sure, there are many ways to imagine this, and I've heard quite a few. I think the only two meaningful questions concerning this is..is there a God, and if so, has He introduced Himself?

One might also mockingly bring up the idea of a spaghetti monster, but I have ALWAYS found that to be extremely uncharitable with the way "NORMAL" theory is crafted.

The FSM has no explanatory power. You don't get a Universe from flying pasta. The only workable theory is one that could explain all the meaningful questions that we have. I find all of those answers in Jesus Christ.

My current understanding of the universe certainly allows for a God, in fact, I find myself leaning that way more than my atheist brethren. It was, for me, certain, though, that the God of the Christian variety didn't satisfy all the problems that I had.

What problems do you feel He fell short on?

So my metaphysical undemanding doesn't have to find its roots in matter. I don't hold that matter is all there is, or that matter ISN'T all there is. I think there is not enough evidence to say either way. Moreover, I don't know that such evidence could even exist, which is why I am not only atheist, but also agnostic.

Ahh, but if you're agnostic you cannot be an atheist. If you don't know if the evidence could exist, then necessarily you don't know that it couldn't exist either. To be a true agnostic is to have no bias in either direction.

I think we are most likely creatures that are good at doing what we do, and truth...absolute truth, isn't really valuable as far as not getting eaten by a tiger is concerned.

It would be very valuable if God could help you avoid the tiger.

As such, I think humans have very few tools for understanding truth, from a Gods eye view perspective. It is the great arrogance of man that most cranktankerous arguments between scientists and religious people have with one another. We really do have more in common than different...we really have no clue what's going on. 7000 years of human discovery, great monuments of technology and thought, and yet, the truth is still as elusive as it ever was.

As I was saying above, without being God, or having direct revelation from God, we are only chasing our own tails. If there is no God we will never know how it all began or what is really going on. What I believe is that there is a God who has revealed Himself through the person of Jesus Christ. That we can know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Hopefully, this huge wall of text has some merit and value, for I have written it while ill. I hope I have portrayed my message without the normal anger and hate associated with such inquiries. Of note, such pleasant conversations are truly all I exist for, if not for them, my life is worthless. As a person, I hope only to accomplish knowledge, and the pass that knowledge on to others. Nothing else really matters to me at all. Which is why, at times, I have lashed out at those undeserving because of the deep relationship I have with this type of endeavor. Imm'a let this fly now, and hope the typos don't completely obscure it, but I need to sleep.

I have enjoyed and appreciated your conversation. It certainly is a lot to chew on. I enjoy these kind of philosophical discussions; they have always been my bread and butter. I also appreciate that you are strictly concerned with knowledge, and how committed you are to it. I wholeheartedly approve of your endevour. Truth is what matters to me, second to love. When I was agnostic, I tied my brain into a million knots searching for it, and when I became aware there is a spirit, the mystery deepened 1000 fold. I feel I have found what truth is, which is the love of God, and I hope to share as much of that with you as I can.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK

@shinyblurry

First paragraph is interesting, and has 2 good questions in it. One, how can you trust something that comes from something that can't be trusted. Second is the issue of what rationality even is. And is it even possible to bring it into question, ever. These 2 questions are the prime questions in my own person philosophy, and mirror some of the greater minds of history, I am, after all, only a single man in the long history of human thought.

I think the first question is actually very easy to answer, not to say that I didn't struggle for an answer for a long time. It is hard to think of things like this completely unclouded. But, the answer remains very easy, for me that is. There is a famous logical fallacy called "Guilt by association" , or, the Hitler Card, or various other things *Reductio ad Hitlerum when being MR. Smarty Pants *. For me to have a problem with its emergent nature from nature; I would need to be able to make an argument against it based on its own lack of integrity, not its associations with nature. One shouldn't be to troubled making this failed comparison, I do it more often than I care to admit!

To say the same thing over, an objects creation doesn't mean it is still only consistent of the properties that made it. One can see this in ourselves, we are made from inorganic material, and thusly, it isn't proper to say we aren't organic because we came from the inorganic. Also, when I combine things of 2 different chemical properties, it is likely that I will arrive with something with completely different properties from the other two. So both in the logical base, and the higher abstraction, we fail to condemn rationality, we must attack its merits if we hope to win!

The way you went about trying to condemn rationality from my own starting point of naturalistic existence was, however, the correct way to go about it. What I mean to say is you didn't try to use reason to undercut reason, like the postmodernists do, but tried to show that the foundations, at is concerns my own world view, are unfounded at the base. Proper technique, but a flawed argument, IMO. Leaps ahead of some European thinkers though

The second issue of the first statement is that of rationality itself. What is it that we even mean! For myself, I have divided the term into several sub-terms to help me both think about it, and talk about specific properties of rationality. The 2 terms that I an other continental philosophers have used are Logic and Reason. Reason being the so call a posteriori method of thinking, which fall to the realms of science, and Logic; being the dubed A priori, or statements that are a necessarily true...or true without need for examination. You might of read many of my rants on how I do not trust A posteriori as a method for finding truth. It leaves itself to all the problems of induction that for my part, have never been resolved. As far as "TRUTH" with a capital T, I hold that science and all inductive methods have ZERO claim to it, and because of the way I define knowledge (as true, certain, belief) also does not expand human knowledge. So, as an element of rationality, I don't not hold it to any great merit of truth. It is GREAT at understanding the universe as humans can experience reality, but only so far, and only so much, and never in the fullest nature as to be consistent with the word "Truth". ( Turns out, I don't explain that I believe in truth only as far as A priori methods can show them, I think any attempt to say A priori isn't a good way to think about things results in you using A priori logical statements to show it isn't true, thus thwarting the objection)

I don't know that I have ever heard a good explanation about free will. I should point out, that even in my Christianity, I was a 5 point Calvinist. I never have accepted that this quazi-random thing called free will exists in any way, shape or form. In the end, it doesn't even matter, either. Let me expand why I think that. For me, I don't have the Theological problem you do. I don't have to explain goodness or evil in terms of human choices. I don't even have to believe in good or evil, or even if I do think it is a "something that exists", I HAVE to remain agnostic about it in the same way I do God, reason being is there isn't really a reasonable way to go about forming the groups "Good" and "Evil". Is it good to tie my shoe laces, or to just slip my feet right inside that shoe! It seems that most of life would either be impossible to show its good or evil value, but even more problematic, why and how!? We can see this problem in Christendom itself, there is no "one way" to be a christian! That was ALWAYS problematic for me. If truth was as easy as being in the bible, then everyone, and I mean everyone would be the same type of Christian. It would be the logical outcome of such a perfect and holy notion of good and evil. So either Christendom is in my same problematic position of not knowing the difference between good or evil, or if that even exists at all; if it wasn't some problem we created to increase the suffering of the world (like good ol Man Schopenhauer though!)

So in other words, being the result of atoms bouncing around off each other degrading the absolute randomness of choices I make isn't something I have a problem with personally. As it is, my own existence, even if planned by nature or God or even myself, still remains so far beyond my ability to grasp at even day to day instances of any particular situation that even that; planned or random I have no real guess as to the goings on of that day. Perhaps if I was an all powerful God, with absolute knowledge of all factors of existence and all properties of existence I might find reality a little tedious.

As to the quote, I think it a little dubious. For instance, it relates thoughts to fizz of a soda. That is fine, but they also have a comparison to HOW similar they are to each other. For instance, 1 and 2 are both numbers. There isn't really a problem with them both being numbers at the same time, its a party yall, all the numbers get to the dance floor! However, even in their exact "numberness" of being all "numbers", they still have differences to each other, even while still being numbers! So while the "one"ness of 1 being one is still just a number, a number which is a number exactly the same way 2 is, their is also a difference between 1 and 2, and it is inherit to the way that both exist. In the same way that A=A, A!=(!A). The basic laws of identity and contraindication. 1 may be of some degree of similarity to 2, and likewise, Fizz to thinking. But there is also a degree of separation. One could say the same, on a high level argument, that both smell and touch are of the "Same" physical representation of an object. So while the object they correspond to has a oneness with itself, the individual properties of its oneness are unique and independent. And not just via the method of induction, but it is AUTOMATICALLY apparent and true that things that are different are not the same. So the comparison of the atomic nature of both fizz and thoughts is ABSOLUTELY true, but so are there differences. It is those absolute differences that I, personally, use in my own method of philosophy which I borrowed and adapted from my limited understanding of Phenomenology.

As to the last assumption of my beliefs, I actually don't have the same material requirement for existence. I find the views of George Berkeley, that we all exist in the minds of God, as the one of MANY, near infinite, plausible methods we could exist metaphysically. One might also mockingly bring up the idea of a spaghetti monster, but I have ALWAYS found that to be extremely uncharitable with the way "NORMAL" theory is crafted. My current understanding of the universe certainly allows for a God, in fact, I find myself leaning that way more than my atheist brethren. It was, for me, certain, though, that the God of the Christian variety didn't satisfy all the problems that I had. So my metaphysical undemanding doesn't have to find its roots in matter. I don't hold that matter is all there is, or that matter ISN'T all there is. I think there is not enough evidence to say either way. Moreover, I don't know that such evidence could even exist, which is why I am not only atheist, but also agnostic. I think we are most likely creatures that are good at doing what we do, and truth...absolute truth, isn't really valuable as far as not getting eaten by a tiger is concerned. As such, I think humans have very few tools for understanding truth, from a Gods eye view perspective. It is the great arrogance of man that most cranktankerous arguments between scientists and religious people have with one another. We really do have more in common than different...we really have no clue what's going on. 7000 years of human discovery, great monuments of technology and thought, and yet, the truth is still as elusive as it ever was.

Hopefully, this huge wall of text has some merit and value, for I have written it while ill. I hope I have portrayed my message without the normal anger and hate associated with such inquiries. Of note, such pleasant conversations are truly all I exist for, if not for them, my life is worthless. As a person, I hope only to accomplish knowledge, and the pass that knowledge on to others. Nothing else really matters to me at all. Which is why, at times, I have lashed out at those undeserving because of the deep relationship I have with this type of endeavor. Imm'a let this fly now, and hope the typos don't completely obscure it, but I need to sleep.


Edit ome hasty edits in the a priori section that I can expand out if you take issue with it later

Dammit

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Spaghetti-Night-No-Utensils-Needed

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by ponceleon. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

>> ^ponceleon:

dupeof=http://videosift.com/search?q=parrot+dog+feed


FAILED! Here's the correct way: *dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Spaghetti-Night-No-Utensils-Needed

Tags for this video have been changed from 'spaghetti, dog, parrot, parakeet, feed, cockatoo, yellow crested' to 'spaghetti, dog, parrot, feed, cockatoo, yellow crested' - edited by Lann

Yellow-crested Cockatoo.

My grandparents have a Goffin's Cockatoo and his best friend was their dog. Sadly Oscar (the dog) is no longer around.
>> ^ant:

Not a parakeet, but a cocktail.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'spaghetti, dog, parrot, parakeet, feed' to 'spaghetti, dog, parrot, parakeet, feed, cockatoo, yellow crested' - edited by Lann

Do you think if the dog accidentally bit the bird's foot that it would feel anything akin to what we humans call remorse or is that emotion uniquely ours as a species?

The gentleness and care in which the dog grabs the spaghetti in conjunction with the bird's willingness to endanger itself for no easily perceivable gain to itself hints at some pretty complex emotional relationship potential.

The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science.

I'll have to disagree with you here. To say the evidence for a creator is just filling in the gaps isn't true when it is a better explanation for the evidence. Take DNA, for instance. DNA is a complex coded language which contains grammar, syntax, phoenetics, etc There is no naturalistic explanation that can account for it; DNA is information, and information only comes from minds. The medium doesn't matter. Just as a message transcends the paper and ink it is written in, and just as you can write that message in the sand and has no loss of data, DNA is transcendent of its medium. A designer is a better explanation for the existence of DNA. Check out this article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3040594/The-Linguistics-of-DNA-Words-Sentences-Grammar-Phonetics-and-Semantics

What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

That is just a fallacy, though. Just because people used "God did it" as an explanation for things we know understand in more detail is not evidence against the existence of God. It is just evidence for the ignorance of people. Christians aren't against science. I am against things which aren't science, like things which have never been observed and are untestable, like macro evolution.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

Science does a lot of guessing. This is why theories have changed so many times in the last few centuries. Not too long ago, science was certain the Universe was static and eternal. It was one of the evidences that atheists would use against Creationists. Now, we know the Universe had a definitive beginning. The scientist who discovered said that there is no other theory which lends itself so well to the creation account in Genesis.

My main point is that science has nothing to say about the existence of God. It is not anything it can prove or disprove. God is a spirit, and a spirit is an immaterial being. There is no empirical evidence for something immaterial.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

Again, intelligent design is a better explanation than natural selection by random mutation for a number of things. When darwinian theory was created, the cell was thought to be a simple ball of protoplasm. We now know the cell is more complex than the space shuttle, by an order of magnitude. There is no naturalistic process which can account for the existence of this complex and intricate nano-machinery. Just because you consider it "bullshit" doesn't make it so. The Universe has the appearance of design. There are 30 or so factors in physics which have to be precisely calibrated for the Universe to even form correct, let alone for life to develop. The odds of this happeneing by chance are beyond calculation. Instead of admitting that and changing the theory, scientists then postulate multiple Universes to make the design features in this one seem plausible as happenstance.

Here is a nice video on the complexity of the cell:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSasTS-n_gM&feature=related

If you want to talk about radiocarbon dating, this again is something which is an interpretation of evidence based on a number of unprovable assumptions. It presumes that radioactive decay rates have remained constant in the past and that there was no contamination over periods of millions or billions of years. Check out this article:

http://biblicalgeology.net/blog/fatal-flaw-radioactive-dating/

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

I am relying on my own experience, and in my experience I have observed that the material reality is a veil, and behind that veil is a spiritual reality which encompasses it. I have seen the evidence of a higher power working in the world, who relates to us on a personal level. I believe the bible because my experience confirms it, not because I just assume it is true.

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

When you have faith in metaphysical claims, and that faith informs your entire worldview, that is indeed like a religion. What you are seeing is through the lens of that worldview..

>> ^Quboid:
I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.
Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.
However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.
I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?
Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

I haven't seen any good evidence for Christianity. I haven't seen any good evidence for the existence of God. The best evidence is just filling in the gaps in science. What happened before the Big Bang? I don't know. "God did it" isn't evidence, it isn't rational or logical. "God did it" used to be the explanation for the shape of the Earth and the movement of the stars, when that was questioned, the questioner was threatened with death. However, by continuing to question, we now know a lot about the solar system, enough to put satellites into orbit and photograph distance planets.

Scientific theories are indeed interpretation of facts and in many cases, it involves jumps because we can't explain everything. This is what the word "theory" means in this context, rather than the meaning the Fox News's of the world use when they pretend it means that science is guessing. That's why there is always doubt, always questions to be asked and answers to be listened to. The important thing is that it is interpretation and extrapolating data, i.e. it is based on what we can prove.

However, some answers have been listened to and fallen short. For example, Intelligent Design. This has been discussed and no rational, logical or empirical evidence have been put forward. This is why it has been rejected, by me and by the scientific community: not because we don't want to hear but because it's been talked to death, causes distracting controversy and frankly, it's clearly bullshit. I wouldn't want my child taught it in school because if you teach one unsubstantiated load of nonsense, where does it end? I want rational and logical things taught to my children. If I want my children to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I will teach them myself and when I struggle to explain the dinosaurs and radiocarbon dating that they learnt about in school, I should take a long hard look at myself.

I do rely on empirical evidence, we all do. You are relying on what you see too, what you see written on the pages of the Bible. Short of Descartes' "I think therefore I am" philosophy, everything we think exists is empirical. If we can't believe what we see or what we consider to be self evident, how can you believe what you think you are reading from what you think is a Bible?

Is believing my own eyes and my own mind what you want to call my religion? That seems to be to be very different to religion as I know the word.

Love the air quotes around "spaghetti."

I swear to the spaghetti monster, what is it with these movies? They just have such an effect on us when we're kids.