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Capitalism Didn’t Make the iPhone, You iMbecile

vil says...

1) Definitely - but without a market improvements fall flat and dont stick. Ancient people had a lot of good ideas but overall progress was really slow and retrograded often until.. well until capitalism became a thing. Abolishing serfdom, general civil rights, separation of church from state and the fall of absolutism made the Iphone possible.

2) No, that is my point. People "discover" things all the time, some of these things are deemed useful by the general public and capitalism provides the tools to finance production and distribution (the profit part is optional - it is entirely legal to sell your invention for any price or indeed give it away for free).

So to get to the original point capitalism did not discover or design the Iphone but it certainly MADE the Iphone.

3) Not impossible but incredibly slow. Generations lived out their entire lives without perceptible changes in their environments prior to the onslaught of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The advent of science from the renaissance onwards was OK, but only once factories and transport infrastructure became a thing did living conditions start to change for everyone.

A big problem with free markets is that they are never really "free". A theoretical free market implies too many things that dont ever happen in real life, like everyone having all relevant information and being able to make a good decision. People just dont do that IRL.

Also not everything can be solved by free markets because you cant just let your neighbors die poor because the market says they deserve it. However the Iphone is really not something the state should subsidize. I understand that it paid for some of the technology that went into designing it. But true socialism would have to make sure everyone could afford one, and would design a cheap bad phone to fit the need.

newtboy said:

1) There are many incentives not based on profit too, as you mentioned. I don't think it's an either/or equation.

2) Didn't iPhones basically create the smartphone market?

3) The implication is that without capitalism, science and progress are impossible.

Cops Owned By Legal Gun Owner

chingalera says...

All below exercised, and the point is lost to so much sophistic treason. The cop get's a glimpse of ego-loss and goes about his merry cop way, and Billy here making a non-violent public statement of laws vs rights is fingered by a paranoid delusional (cop-caller), harassed-with-the-hope-of-a-fumble by a dutiful enforcer/instigator (cop), and the ONLY thing that kept him off the National Terrorist Database was his acumen and legal knowledge...in publicly showcasing his RIGHTS under the LAW, he barely escapes arrest.

The point being, that with increasing frequency, a routine police-encounter because of someone's 'suspicion' may quickly and more often than not, escalate into an innocent citizen being FUCKED into a state-system of the state-sanctioned organized criminal business of keeping people in a state of fear of arrest and incarceration, oh ye clueless dumb-asses who think the world works or should work in some universally, equitable fashion.

Bravo for this Mainer's low-swinging balls and fuck the vortex of the US police forces in retrograde-The entire justice machine is rotten with institutional corruption and overdue for a major douche, or the future of Americas' headed for boots, clubs, and riot shields.

newtboy said:

Something does not have to be illegal for it to be suspicious. If you are found to be carrying a hammer and a towel down a residential street at night, you will be stopped and checked out to be sure you aren't using them to steal from cars or homes. That doesn't make hammers illegal, it makes someone carrying one at night suspicious.
A gun on your hip on a public street is more suspicious than a hammer, and at the least should give the officer the ability to stop and identify the person carrying it. In most jurisdictions, you must identify yourself to an officer when asked, (but nothing more) and they can 'hold' you until your identity is known.
As mentioned before, he could be a felon, therefore committing another felony by carrying a gun...therefore it's legally suspicious. Or you might be a known suspect in another crime...suspicious. Or you might be about to use that gun for a crime...suspicious. Or you might be selling crack and using the visible gun as a deterrent other crack dealers....also suspicious. So yes, anyone intentionally visibly carrying a gun on main street (where there's no need for a gun to protect yourself from anything) is suspicious, just as anyone carrying 15 legal knives would be, or someone with a samurai sword, or handcuffs, a blindfold, and a stun gun might be...none of them illegal but totally suspicious.
His actions were suspicious, more so when he won't identify himself. The officer could have said he 'met the description of a suspect at large', which he (and nearly everyone else on earth) does, there's lots of suspects at large of every description, and as I understand it he could have held him until they identified him. (really I would see that as harassment, but as I understand the law it would be allowed, I was held for 'meeting the description' of a vandal once, and the person eventually arrested turned out to be a 25 year old 6 foot black man, while at the time I was a 13 year old, 5 foot tall white boy).
Yes, people who act in a way that 'freaks normal people out' will likely be stopped and inspected if they're reported. We have all tacitly agreed to that long ago.

Obama Delivers at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

chingalera says...

Fuck him. His acting and timing be-damned, he's one of the most tethered and groomed shills ever placed into the office and has continued to wholesale fuck the United States closer and faster to fascism and economic retrograde as his 2016 due-date approaches. He's a goddamned embarrassment and an ally only to the machine.

Molyneax on Bundy Ranch Standown of BLM

chingalera says...

Videosift: All it takes is here to call-out the rabble is one video offering of current events that doesn't fit the retrograde paradigm of illusion and irony.

Yogi, that sir is more typing on a single video embed than I believe you have EVER taken the time to spew. Congratulations. You are hereby awarded the Choggie Kendall Long-Winded Inner-Direction Award For Self-Indulgence and Foment.

You sir join the ranks this month bringing the total of 5 who have been inducted into this hall of shame, including one of our newest and most loquacious of newer members, forgive us if we don't name any names, for it really ain't worth the key-strokes nor the wearing-down of ink delineating the alphabet on each cheap plastic button, to do so....

Something though tells us that we think y'all know who the FUCK y'all are....

(sarcasm not intended, nor be the poncy, little square box filled)

-SIncerely, little thing...

Demand A Plan to End Gun Violence

Icon Big Tex Fries at the State Fair

Stormsinger says...

Point 1: If by misquote, you mean substituted a larger term (religion) for a smaller one (churches), I suppose I did. But without religion, there -are- no churches. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Point 2: Texas has worked damned hard to earn its reputation as a major-league collection of wingnuts. I'm not sure how you can justify getting upset when that reputation is assumed to be true. You have a problem with the reputation, maybe you should start blaming the people who are going out of their way to earn it...like Rick Perry, or the Texas Board of Education. As long as the state is trying to rewrite history to eliminate reality's liberal bias, you're going to be stuck with that.

Point 3: Perhaps I should have slowed down and spent more time in the step-by-step logic...I really thought most people who read her could follow the shorthand, but I did indeed jump about a bit.

In many ways, churches are no different than any corporation. They exist as a means to concentrate funds and offer the controller(s) of those funds a method of avoiding personal responsibility for misuse of those funds. On top of that, churches pay no taxes, although they still make liberal use of publicly funded services, -and- in many cases, they keep lobbying for public funds to be handed over to them as well. Now add how many churches are politically active and advising their cult members how to vote, and you might begin to see why I refer to them all as corporate welfare queens. Or maybe not...I don't know if you're even going to try to follow it or not, and don't much care at this point.
>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Stormsinger:
>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??
This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.
Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.
Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.
But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

Icon Big Tex Fries at the State Fair

chingalera says...

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^chingalera:
>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.
I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.
It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).


No, you misquote me and then infer bullshit in that same smug manner that libby there used and that anyone on the receiving end of such smug could expect after reading a gajillion similar quips. I said CHURCHES and meant the members of the same whose communal efforts keep the building's physical plant in order and supports the members in time of want or need. You know...The first places to get raided and ransacked when the jackboots come??

This didn't start about about religion: I started it when Potato-libro there took a jab at Texas and lighted upon another opportunity to bash "them ignernt conservatives, etc.", NOT UNLIKE a shitload of folks with "holier than thou" attitudes concerning politics and government. QUITE laughable really, because the opinions they have and the conclusions they have arrived at, are based on limited and incomplete information or worse, they have been programmed to do so through systematic efforts by do-nothings in colleges or universities.

Stormsinger, YOUR rant began with religion and politics and manically concluded with corporations and Wall Street....WTF??!! By the way, my solution as an anarchistic, soon-to-be expatriate is to use the BIG TEX method on governments and corporations. You hate em so much, be like the Hulk. SMAAAASH! Then burn, repeat.

Can we talk about how fucking progressive IDAHO is now??? Jesus Christ, Allah Mustapha!!
I suspect anyone who can start with anti-religion rants, switch to blaming churches for the state of America's demise, bash tax-exemption and somehow blame corporate welfare (whatever the fuck!??...see where this is going?) and arrive at a total solution by blaming BELTWAY INSIDERS AND THE SENATORS/CONGRESSMEN THEY HAVE BOUGHT for pharma, defense, etc. shifting the blame to people without any power or influence???....I'd have to call them schizophrenic! Which is how most rabid concerning politics ion one side or the other are to me. ALLL OF THEM, conservative or liberal. I could give a fiddler's fist-fuck about working within a failed system. I prefer to keep to the fringes of this broken machine and put as little of my resources or mentations into it.

But some, like stormie and libby here...well, hopeless fiends and junkies for the dance politic. Playing right into the hands of the corporations iffn ya axe me!

Icon Big Tex Fries at the State Fair

CreamK says...

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-


Well, that escalated quickly

Icon Big Tex Fries at the State Fair

Stormsinger says...

>> ^chingalera:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.

Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.
As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

I was gonna...but then decided it's not worth it, then changed my mind one last time.

I suspect aAnyone who can call religion "the last bastion of sanity" is too far gone to make sense, but... Religion supplies a cushy lifestyle for priests...that's the sum total of it's accomplishments. Churches have, if anything, helped push the government down the path you so self-righteously condemn...and they preach and stump political issues all without paying any taxes. Yet more corporate welfare.

It's time for the -real- welfare queens to start paying their share...churches, Wall Street, Defense contractors, big Pharma, etc. Time to either start contributing to the upkeep of society, or be broken up (or strung up, as the case may be).

Icon Big Tex Fries at the State Fair

chingalera says...

>> ^Boise_Lib:

Someone just explained separation of church and state to him.


Jeeez dude, you are about a party-liner ain't ya?? Texas would be the first state to "separate" from the diseased political system you so faithfully believe in and, as we observe, believe in as fervently as any bible-thumping proselytizer determined to beat a moot point into oblivion.

As the government of the U.S. continues down her retrograde path, churches will become for many, a last bastion of sanity exempt from a really retarded form of totalitarianism and fascism. Retarded, because folks who talk shit from the comfort of their programming who belie intelligence with their words should have seen the shit coming from miles away but were too comfortable in their delusion to see the boots and badges-

Tribute to Christopher Hitchens - 2012 Global Atheist Conven

shinyblurry says...

>> ^messenger:
Someone who believes in something despite evidence against it is not using sense, reason and intellect. The Bible contradicts itself internally (contradictory lists of the "begats" is the clearest example I can think of), so cannot be accurate. If you believe the Bible is infallible, that isn't a reasonable belief. Some people "believing in a personal god" doesn't equate to "believing in Yahweh", which is your contention, so it doesn't matter if they're true or not. There's nothing unscientific about spirituality, and identifying some aspect of your spiritual experience a personal god. There's plenty unscientific about declaring the Bible to be infallible. Again with not understanding science.



If you're referring to the geneology of Jesus, it is presenting one geneology through David's son Solomon, which is the royal line, and one geneology through David's son Nathan, which is the non royal line. The lineage in Matthew is Josephs line, and the lineage in Luke is Marys line. There is no actual contradiction there, or anywhere else in the bible. What skeptics call contradictions are usually things they simply do not understand.

In any case, it would not be unreasonable to believe the bible, even if there were contradictions. This is simply a fallacious argument.

>> ^messenger:
The absence of circumstantial evidence where you might expect to find it is circumstantial evidence of absence. If the Bible were true, we would should expect, for example, that miracles would continue to occur, because why not? They should be even more commonly documented because of our massively increased population and information technology. But they appear to happen less! This is absence of circumstantial evidence. Amazing discoveries in science aren't evidence for God. God is one theory that explains them, but it doesn't work the other way -- you can't start with an amazing fact, and declare that it suggests all other theories are wrong. No matter what the universe looks like, it will still conform with the theory of God creating it, so amazing discoveries are not evidence -- they're just things we can't explain yet, like retrograde motion was once considered "amazing" and attributed to gods.)



Your contention is false for a few reasons; first, that miracles do not occur, and second, that we should expect to find an abundance of miracles. Not only have I seen miracles occur, I have been a party to them. As far as the number of miracles, we shouldn't expect to know how many miracles occur. God isn't performing for the general public. Even the post-resurrection appearances were only for a limited number of people.

We do have circumstantial evidence for Gods existence, such as the information in DNA and the evidence of fine-tuning. The theory of God has explanatory power, and is a better explanation for these phenomena. We should never ignore a theory which better explains the evidence.

>> ^messenger:
This where I start picturing you with your hands over your ears going LALALALALALA! Nothing rules out God's agency. Nothing rules out God period. He cannot be ruled out because there's nothing verifiable about his existence whatsoever. Nobody ever makes this claim, ever, ever, ever. It's like you wish we were saying this, but we're not. Really, we're not. BUT, if someone claims that their god has a chariot that moves the sun across the sky, I call bullshit because we have actually seen with our eyes that the Earth is spherical and rotates on its axis, which causes the apparent motion of the sun. If someone says the Earth is only a few thousand years old, I say bullshit and refer you to archaeology and to every branch of science that demonstrates the Earth to be much older.



It is the persistant claim of atheists that science has sufficiently described the Universe and is regulating God to a smaller and smaller corner. It's called the "god of the gaps" and you hear this all the time. You hear it from eminient scientists like Dr Krauss. So I don't wish it is being said, it is being said all the time.

As far as the age of the Earth goes, there are more evidences for a young earth than an old one. Since you don't know much about macro evolution, you probably don't know much about the theory of deep time either. Paleontology and archaelogy are historical sciences. The age of the earth is assumed, and the evidence is interpreted through that assumption. The assumption itself is never challenged.

>> ^messenger:
This is the least scientific thing you have ever said.



Messenger, you seem like a thoughtful person, so step outside of your box for a moment and think about this. The statement that "If God exists, the entire Universe is evidence of His existence" is a scientific statement of absolute fact. If it isn't, explain why not.

>> ^messenger:
You and I agreed before, no solipsism.



I engaged in no solipsism, as you will see, and I also thought we weren't going to be doing cherry picking either. I noticed you avoided these questions:

The question I would put to you is, how would you tell the difference? How would you know you're looking at a Universe God didn't create? What would you expect that to look like?

>> ^messenger:
You realize that you are using logic to prove that logic isn't real? "If-then" statements and implied questions come from logic. If logic doesn't stand on its own, then you can't use it to prove that it doesn't stand on its own. If you want to know where the rules of formal logic come from, you can look it up. If you don't accept them as valid, you've descended into solipsism, at which point I don't even accept that anything exists but my own mind. If you accept the definitions and rules of logic as valid on their face, then we don't require anything to explain where they came from. Logic is definitions, like equality. a=a. How do I know this? It's the definition of equality. If you disagree, then words have no definition, and thus no meaning, and we also agreed that "words have meaning".



I am not using logic to disprove logic, I am using logic to show you that you don't have a foundation for your own rationality. You live your life as if logic is a transcendent and absolute law, the same way as you do right and wrong, but you can't account for it in your worldview. It's a bit like sitting in Gods lap to slap His face. If logic doesn't have the same value independent of human belief, then you have no basis for your own rationality. Words do have meaning, which is why I am pointing out you have some intellectual sinkholes in your worldview that you just accept without thinking about it.

>> ^messenger:
Also, as your argument goes, if you assert that logic is a creation, and that God created logic, this entails that God exists outside of logic. Interesting prediction.



I didn't say God created logic, I said He is a rational being. Since we are made in His image, we are also rational beings.

>> ^messenger:
No, I wouldn't, necessarily. That's one field of science that I know very little about. If you've read a single book about it, you know more than me. That' doesn't mean you understand better than me how science works in general.



It doesn't mean that, no, but it does mean that you spoke authoritatively and condescendingly about something that I actually know more about than you do, jumping to conclusions based on your misunderstanding of what I said, that on a lack of knowledge about the theory itself. I would say this is positive evidence in my favor, and negative evidence against you.

>> ^messenger:
But since you bring it up, the theory of macro evolution may or may not be weak, I don't know, but outdated quotes from Darwin and about Darwin about the impossibility of macro evolution don't convince me any more than outdated quotes from Newton about the impossibility of the Solar System holding together. Do you know what Newton concluded? He concluded it must be God holding it together. Einstein figured out why it really doesn't fly apart, and it wasn't because of God.



They aren't outdated quotes, they are predictions that were made about what we should expect to find if the theory is true. Darwin made a great discovery, that changes can occur within a species. From there, he made an unjustified extrapolation that all species had a common ancestor. He expected to find evidence for this theory in the fossil record, but what he found was evidence against his theory. He blamed this on the relative poverty of the fossil record. 120 years later, we know it isn't the poverty of the fossil record; there simply is no fossil evidence to confirm macro evolution.

Do you know what a gluon is? It is a theoretical sub-atomic particle that binds quarks together. It has never been observed; it is simply a fudge factor, and without it, atoms would fly apart. Scripture says God is upholding them.

>> ^messenger:
Likewise, the problem of the lack of fossil records has been resolved since Darwin's time. The fossil evidence of intermediary links isn't a problem with the fossil evidence: it's a problem with Darwin's model. Darwin believed all evolution happened gradually, as he had observed. But there's no reason to believe it must all be slow. If one species had some tiny mutation that happened to give it a massive advantage over other species, its descendants would naturally spread into all sorts of new niches and tons of evolution would take place, both for it and other animals in its environment. Again, these changes were very rapid, so rapid, that they may not have left fossil evidence. Sometimes they did and other times they didn't, or we haven't found it yet. Check this video out: It's mostly a rebuttal to the "God is not a blind watchmaker" argument for Intelligent Design, but you can skip to 1:33 and still understand the premise. If you watch until 8:42, you'll see the reason why we wouldn't expect to find fossils of intermediary links, and why this isn't an argument against macro evolution anymore.



You're talking about the theory of punctuated equillibrium, or the modern "hopeful monster" theory. This is one of my favorite quotes:

In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has been favorable. We are especially pleased that several paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence a conclusion that had been previously been simply embarrassing; 'all these years of work and I haven't found any evolution.'

Gould & Eldredge
Paleobiology v.3 p.136


It's the theory to explain why there is no evidence for evolution. How convenient. Do you realize that this makes macro evolution unfalsifiable? It also makes macro evolution a metaphysical theory, like abiogenesis, which you must take on faith. The video you referenced is not an accurate demonstration of macro evolution, either, since nothing is being added to the genome. A reconfiguration of the same genetic material is not traversing above the species level and is therefore micro evolution.

Since you're never read a book on macro evolution, try this one and challenge yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890510628/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

Tribute to Christopher Hitchens - 2012 Global Atheist Conven

messenger says...

It's the entire contention that someone who believes in God is not using their sense, reason and intellect that is prideful. Did you know that 40 percent of biologists, physicists and mathematicians believe in a personal God? Some extremely intelligent people believe in a Creator, and they can back up their beliefs with logical evidence. You see theists through a grossly distorted lens created by your own prejudice, and it blinds you.

Someone who believes in something despite evidence against it is not using sense, reason and intellect. The Bible contradicts itself internally (contradictory lists of the "begats" is the clearest example I can think of), so cannot be accurate. If you believe the Bible is infallible, that isn't a reasonable belief. Some people "believing in a personal god" doesn't equate to "believing in Yahweh", which is your contention, so it doesn't matter if they're true or not. There's nothing unscientific about spirituality, and identifying some aspect of your spiritual experience a personal god. There's plenty unscientific about declaring the Bible to be infallible. Again with not understanding science.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Although I think there is evidence, such as fine tuning and information in DNA.

The absence of circumstantial evidence where you might expect to find it is circumstantial evidence of absence. If the Bible were true, we would should expect, for example, that miracles would continue to occur, because why not? They should be even more commonly documented because of our massively increased population and information technology. But they appear to happen less! This is absence of circumstantial evidence. Amazing discoveries in science aren't evidence for God. God is one theory that explains them, but it doesn't work the other way -- you can't start with an amazing fact, and declare that it suggests all other theories are wrong. No matter what the universe looks like, it will still conform with the theory of God creating it, so amazing discoveries are not evidence -- they're just things we can't explain yet, like retrograde motion was once considered "amazing" and attributed to gods.)

You think because you describe a mechanism, how something works in a mechanical sense, somehow it rules out an Agent. God says He upholds the entire Universe; that He is the one that keeps the atoms from flying apart. How does mechanism rule out Gods agency?

This where I start picturing you with your hands over your ears going LALALALALALA! Nothing rules out God's agency. Nothing rules out God period. He cannot be ruled out because there's nothing verifiable about his existence whatsoever. Nobody ever makes this claim, ever, ever, ever. It's like you wish we were saying this, but we're not. Really, we're not. BUT, if someone claims that their god has a chariot that moves the sun across the sky, I call bullshit because we have actually seen with our eyes that the Earth is spherical and rotates on its axis, which causes the apparent motion of the sun. If someone says the Earth is only a few thousand years old, I say bullshit and refer you to archaeology and to every branch of science that demonstrates the Earth to be much older.

...if God created the Universe, do you realize that the entire Universe is evidence of Gods existence?

This is the least scientific thing you have ever said.

What about the laws of logic? Where do they come from? If they're only in our brains, subject to constant flux, then what is rationality? It isn't anything you can trust if what you believe is true. Therefore all of your arguments fall apart. You have nothing in your worldview that can explain it, yet I can explain it.

You and I agreed before, no solipsism. You realize that you are using logic to prove that logic isn't real? "If-then" statements and implied questions come from logic. If logic doesn't stand on its own, then you can't use it to prove that it doesn't stand on its own. If you want to know where the rules of formal logic come from, you can look it up. If you don't accept them as valid, you've descended into solipsism, at which point I don't even accept that anything exists but my own mind. If you accept the definitions and rules of logic as valid on their face, then we don't require anything to explain where they came from. Logic is definitions, like equality. a=a. How do I know this? It's the definition of equality. If you disagree, then words have no definition, and thus no meaning, and we also agreed that "words have meaning".

Also, as your argument goes, if you assert that logic is a creation, and that God created logic, this entails that God exists outside of logic. Interesting prediction.

Stephen Fry on God & Gods

messenger says...

Remarkably, every sentence you wrote except for one (I'll let you figure out which one it is) is factually incorrect, even the ones about monkeys and Dawkins.

Fortunately for me, many of them are debunked by some of my favourite videos and Wikipedia articles:

* Neil deGrasse Tyson explains what Fry means by God receeding (if you watch up to 2:20, you'll have enough of the picture, as long as you understand why apparent retrograde motion really happens). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_retrograde_motion
* The answer to a fundamental question about life
* It's the bible that draws upon the imagination alone. Science draws upon evidence. Ideas without evidence are not science.
* A single eternally living monkey at a single eternally functional typewriter would, on an infinite timeline, create everything ever written, not just Shakespeare. OR an infinite number of such monkeys at an infinite number of such typewriters would produce all the written works there ever have been or will be in the amount of time it takes to write the longest of them. That said, I don't see what this has to do with this argument, but decided to refute it anyway.
* Dawkins never said any such thing.

(edited)

>> ^shinyblurry:

The argument was that science has explained so much therefore God is barely even probable anymore. That's completely false..science has not answered a single fundemental question about life, or purpose, or the human condition. It just points to vaguer and vaguer conclusions, which draw entirely upon the imagination. The belief in abiogenesis for instance is a metaphysical belief. There is absolutely no evidence to ever suggest that life came from non-life. Nor is the evidence any good that something as complex as a cell or DNA could ever arise via random mutation. A billion monkeys on a billion typewriters are never going to write shakesphere. Even someone like dawkins admits the Universe appears to be designed..but posits that to explain that there are multiple universes and we just happen to live in the one that appears to be designed. That's not science, that's called living in denial.

Rucka Rucka Ali ~ Me No Rikey YouTube Part 2: No More DJ Nic

Hey Earthlings....Open Yer Noggins (Blog Entry by choggie)

choggie says...

Thy connection with the universe, all beings, all matter, all non-matter is a fact. Everything is part of one thing-The whole-As all addicted to science should become more fully aware of as the next 20-50 years begin to re-write the history of a symbol-addicted world of infants. GOD, as most twits still fumble about with the concept, is a symbol for this mystery that only now, quantum physics is beginning to unravel. Two things to log into the data base forfuture reference are
A. The technology to construct much of what we have not seen as civilians (the applications being highly classified), is a mixed bag that may or may not be of our own design.
B. The dark aspects of our government would like nothing more than for people to be as predictableas insects,and pooh-pooh the facts before them, as bullshit.

According to some on the inside (and like enoch says correctly,many many people from the intelligence community, high ranking military officials,civilians employed with security clearances in the N2K/above top realm, and others of note and with a background that can't be denied), the sightings many have seen have been terrestrial applications whose technology came from off-planet.

We have free-energy, it has been witheld from humanity. Period. The political and corporate structure of the prison the pouppeteers have create3d for humanity is apalling. Sickens me to the core that still, with the data available to so many, that so-called and self-labled, intelligent people continue to play the game created by a pathetic,dying few. The pardigm is in retrograde and the next will scare the shit outof those sop ill-prepared to face the truth. Weaklings,mental, spiritual,self deluded weaklings.

Future generations will look back on the 20th-21st century with anger nad joy. The fact that most of the people on tis site have their heads so firmly planted in their asses regrding the true nature of the world around them is testimony to such a future sentiment and to our current dilemma-

I suggest you catch up with the world around you,and get your heads out of the televison,and out of the box-Here's a good start




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