if god was a designer, he did a poor job

[Beorn]

*sigh*

 

[Beargryllz]

Every feature of an organism that has ever existed once served a purpose. There is no blank slate on the arrow of time, one can only move from on place to the next. Is it stranger that an organism adapts using features already present, or to recreate the sum of those features simultaneously when faced with the need to adapt? The universe clearly has some sense of direction and some recognizable chain of events that would result in the existence of certain "silly" (from a limited, human perspective) features in the process of undergoing further adaptation as the linear progression of time continues. And who are you to criticize a designer? Many engineers spend huge portions of their lives trying to design the near-undesignable, yet life is functional, regardless. If there was a god, I would be the first to nominate him for a Nobel prize in biology.

 

[Lady_X]

:/ it was very interesting but i'm gonna need something with less cutting and giraffe blood i'm afraid...can you just tell me what the deal is please?

 

[Beorn]

:/ it was very interesting but i'm gonna need something with less cutting and giraffe blood i'm afraid...can you just tell me what the deal is please?

I'll explain.

A giraffe dies and travels from one immensely diverse and yet self-sustaining eco-system in Africa to another diverse and self-sustaining eco-system on an island off the coast of europe. But, here the plants and animals making up the eco-system are quite different from the one's in africa and suited for a more temperate climate.

Once it arrives it is cut up by humans. These humans stand upright utilizing the vestibular system contained within their inner ears to keep themselves from falling over. They also are able to see what they are doing by by the light reflecting off of the objects in front of them then being received by the eyes and finally flipped right-side up by the brain. They then hear and speak to one another using their brains as well as a host of other organs all working in unison.

They use their voices to tell us that the giraffe has an organ that is much longer then is necessary for its apparent function. Thus they prove that the world is flawed, that there must not be a designer and everything that is must have happened by chance.

 

[Lady_X]

hmmm....thanks....

 

[Beorn]

hmmm....thanks....

I'm here to help.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Why? Why is the glass half empty if some angry, vengeful, sexist Daddy in the sky doesn't exist? The god of the Holy Bible amounts to basically an uneducated brute guided by his emotions. People won't actually go to hell to burn forever for being homosexual, being an unbaptized baby, committing suicide due to clinical depression, or not knowing that about the Christian god because they're from another part of the world. That seems like good news to me

Is this post serious or facetious? I don't think I could have written a more "glass half-empty" post if I tried.

(Also for the record I don't believe in an ever burning hell. Nor do I think God will punish people simply for being homosexual, unbaptized, clinically depressed, or from another part of the world.)

 

[Lark]

bible says that god was a creator for everything and that he knows everything.

if it were true, how the heck could he make mistake this big? this kinda proves that god is either short sighted, stupid, or that he didnt design us. either way, what bible says about god must be false.

one thing i dont understand people who believe in bible, many things in it has been proven wrong, but still people keep on believing in it. there is few things that those people do, ignore the facts, try to explain these things with ridiculous arguments like "god created dinosaur bones to test our faith", or just are unable to question things that are said about god, even tho the view to the bible has changed completely.

id like to hear what people who believe in bible have to say about laryngeal nerve.

More anthropomorphism.

You've stated that by the measure of human design God is a bad designer, I agree entirely. Human designers are to God as a single cell organism is to a human designer.

This is what I cant abide about most athiest evolutionary theorists (yes, there are theist evolutionary theorists, the ideas of Darwin or others are not anathema to Roman Catholics for instance but they do contain narratives about nature, humanity, life and God which are disgraceful or have been made so) they really have no idea of divinity and no wonder what so ever.

Your criticism of scriptures is pretty lame, its a little like, for instance, mocking science and medicine because of its earliest days when it, for instance again, was convinced of the transmission of disease by miasmas (spelling) or smells.

If you had a good appreciation for history you would know that there has been generations of higher criticism and the dominant authorities within Christendom do not cling to literalism, still others have always considered tradition and a living faith to be more important than foundational texts or mere books, the greatest authorities have known that was idolatrous from day dot.

 

[Lark]

But I'm pretty sure it's not some guy with a beard that created us after his own looks, that's ridiculous. Looking down from the clouds.

You're right it is, is that biblical and who believes that?

 

[Lark]

I think what sets human design and divine design apart is infact the capacity for autonomous evolutionary development, can man achieve that? Can machines man has created do that?

No, not even if you believe all the stuff about AI and a singularity (which I dont because machines have no emotional or moral compass and without that I dont believe that logic, calculation, rationality ever amount to consciousness. Infact I think if machines ever became self-aware they would be as liable to self-terminate as anything else).

It's a pretty wonderous thing, even if you believe that all material, life and the universe is accident and all religion man made error there is a lot of coincidence there and it is pretty unscientific to dismiss frequent coincidences. The myriad forms of religion, study of eastern vs. western wisdom and consideration that metaphysical speculation is frequently an outgrowth of despairing of goodness and harmony in this life to inspire incredible doubts in me. However, doubt is different from disbelief or even hostility, which I think accounts for both agnosticism and atheism or anti-theism.

Its never been more difficult to believe anything, consequently the easiest course, not believing anything, becomes the mature, clever and objectively/psychologically most credible existence. Not with a bang but a wimper. So it is.

 

[Nicodemus]

When did you choose to believe, Lark?

 

[Thalassa]

Is this post serious or facetious? I don't think I could have written a more "glass half-empty" post if I tried.

(Also for the record I don't believe in an ever burning hell. Nor do I think God will punish people simply for being homosexual, unbaptized, clinically depressed, or from another part of the world.)

I'm being totally serious. And whatever you may or may not believe there are scores of people who do believe those, and other bizarre, damaging things, because of religious texts.

 

[figsfiggyfigs]

There is a thread about this already by Nico, you should check it out, although to be fair, it was filled by rantings of anger more than people debating the concept of gods existence.

 

[KDude]

I'm being totally serious. And whatever you may or may not believe there are scores of people who do believe those, and other bizarre, damaging things, because of religious texts.

^I guess my point above (although I'm sure you noticed) is that I can always find a religious text to defy them. I notice a lot of religious people have some sorry ass reasons to condemn people too (and, also notice that atheists are mostly just responding to them).

 

[Nicodemus]

There is a thread about this already by Nico, you should check it out, although to be fair, it was filled by rantings of anger more than people debating the concept of gods existence.

Unfortunately, my own threads are much less popular.

 

[Thalassa]

^I guess my point above (although I'm sure you noticed) is that I can always find a religious text to defy them. I notice a lot of religious people have some sorry ass reasons to condemn people too (and, also notice that atheists are mostly just responding to them).

No, I'm not just responding to those who are filled with irrational hate for random things like being gay or a woman choosing to have a first-trimester abortion, but find absolutely nothing wrong with their own hate, or even violence toward those people. I was raised religious and at one time identified as Christian. I believe there are very kind, forgiving people who are Christians or Muslims or Jews. I just think those people are just conveniently ignoring passages in their own religious texts and comparisons of what is described in those texts to real world evidence and science that don't fit into their made-up world view.

Christianity is every bit of ridiculous and silly as Wicca or revering Greek gods, but somehow people don't see that, and I think it's often because they can't seem to break out of being brainwashed as children, or they were frightened (or made hopeful) by the idea of a religious conception of god while in a heightened emotional state in a temple of worship.

Apparently they've found that people who go to church are happy not because of being religious, but simply because it gives them a strong social safety net.

 

[Nicodemus]

Christianity is every bit of ridiculous and silly as Wicca or revering Greek gods, but somehow people don't see that, and I think it's often because they can't seem to break out of being brainwashed as children, or they were frightened (or made hopeful) by the idea of a religious conception of god while in a heightened emotional state in a temple of worship.

Apparently they've found that people who go to church are happy not because of being religious, but simply because it gives them a strong social safety net.

Soon you will be punished for saying the truth. They do not like to hear it.

 

[Sniffles]

No, I'm not just responding to those who are filled with irrational hate for random things like being gay or a woman choosing to have a first-trimester abortion, but find absolutely nothing wrong with their own hate, or even violence toward those people. I was raised religious and at one time identified as Christian. I believe there are very kind, forgiving people who are Christians or Muslims or Jews. I just think those people are just conveniently ignoring passages in their own religious texts and comparisons of what is described in those texts to real world evidence and science that don't fit into their made-up world view.

Care to give some examples of this?

Christianity is every bit of ridiculous and silly as Wicca or revering Greek gods, but somehow people don't see that, and I think it's often because they can't seem to break out of being brainwashed as children, or they were frightened (or made hopeful) by the idea of a religious conception of god while in a heightened emotional state in a temple of worship.

Well perhaps in some cases, in other cases people can turn to Christianity for reasons other than you specify. People often turn away from Christianity for equally irrational reasons - such as being embittered from having grown up in a religious enviroment for example. Such was the case with the composer Verdi, who became atheist because a priest kicked him during mass when he was an altar boy. While people may hold beliefs for supposedly illegitimate reasons, it still doesn't show those beliefs are actually false. One can be right for the wrong reasons.

Apparently they've found that people who go to church are happy not because of being religious, but simply because it gives them a strong social safety net.

Well man is a social animal by nature, so strong inter-human relationships are an important component to human happiness overall. As is often said, the two great commandmants of Christianity are Love God and Love thy Neighbor. I don't quite understand this argument that the social component of religion is necessarily negative or invalidates religious belief as a whole.

 

[Ginkgo]

If every man has beliefs, and every man is a leader (even of himself), then every man is religious. The only thing that varies is what a man is devoted to. Even secular humanists hold that mankind has intrinsic value in and of itself. Their beliefs are entirely faith based, whether they admit it or not. Unfortunately, there are some institutions in which faith and intuition have been relegated to the rank of "inferior byproducts of nature"; meanwhile, rationality has become a fetishistic practice of the "intellectual elite". Even among them, the evidence suggests that rationality proceeds from faith, and that the intellect proceeds from the will. Under the house of reason lies a firm rock of faithful devotion; though the house is sometimes furnished to cover the rock up. This 'rock', I believe, is the spiritual relationship between a man and the rest of everything around him, and even further beyond that to God.

Some of you may have a distaste for organized religion, as though it's a sort of oppressor, or as though the social aspect of it somehow exposes it as "fake". I'm not too privy of it myself, just on gut instinct. But you must admit that it is amazing how some have them have created a balance by harnessing the chaos of the spirit and channeling it into the civilized conduct of the common man. The Truth does not only include scientific fact, but also ethics and personal devotion. Therefore, a man who values the truth cannot correctly justify his own conduct by referring to the natural order which has already been established. The backbone of the Judeo-Christian tradition isn't to cover up the facts, but to remind people to love each other. Though this rule is easily dismissed as crude, it is apparent how quickly we may forget it when we forget the existence of an absolute. We may even forget it still.

 

[wildcat]

God from the bible does not exist. You cannot convince the bible believers that God doesn't exist, you just can't.
However we do not know what lies outside of our universe. Is it just one big ball expanding, or one of many balls expanding.
If the universe is limited there might just be something outside of it. But I'm pretty sure it's not some guy with a beard that created us after his own looks, that's ridiculous. Looking down from the clouds.

I wonder who wrote the bible......
However I do believe that the bible has served it's purpose in the past, uniting people, conditioning their behavior a little. I mean...1800 years ago there were no forensics, the odds of catching murderers was pretty slim, so some people may actually have not killed or stolen or whatever, because they feared god. Although most killers do not care about God.
The bible also kept families together. And made people better (the ones who believed)

It was a brilliant idea (that was abused a little), and I believe that it's obsolete now.

I find it amusing that people are allowed to go to heaven or hell, but animals are not. If the rest of the life on Earth dies it just dies. If a human being dies something magical happens...gee.. that's awesome.

Loci does have a place. A place is something tangible, concrete. It has a temperature.
Interspace void has a place. It is therefore it has a temperature.

Outerspace void does not have a temperature. It does not have loci. It does not have anything. It does not exist. There is nothing outside of the universe. There is no outside. If there were an outside, the universe would not expand.
What is an absolute vacuum? It is not even there.

Loci is finite and it has no end.