Atheists Unite!
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i don't try to. =)Originally posted by Cystaire:You have neglected to mention the other faiths that worship God(s). They still exist too and their followers are also in the billions.
Of course there are also non-religious people who don't believe in any sort of personal God. They number in the hundreds of millions, which is approximately a few hundred million more numerous than you.
Try convince all these people that yours is the only King.
i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.
a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,
how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =) -
I can feel that christianity is going down the slope. If that's the case, according to them, hell will be overcrowded soon.Originally posted by dumbdumb!:i don't try to. =)
i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.
a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,
how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =)
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As we know, what you feel and 'think' can be very wrong most of the time. You don't exactly have a very good track record where accuracy and credibility is concerned.Originally posted by NUS_Superst@r:I can feel that christianity is going down the slope. If that's the case, according to them, hell will be overcrowded soon. -
On a related note...Originally posted by dumbdumb!:i don't try to. =)
i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.
a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,
how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =)
Three guys who were broke and created a company by working a few hours a week. They only had one venture capitalist firm who believed them. They made enemies among many powerful media companies.
In 20 months they attracted 80 million daily viewers to their website and sold their company to Google for US$1.65 billion.
WTF?
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Which is why we need data! Woo hoo!Originally posted by SumOne:As we know, what you feel and 'think' can be very wrong most of the time. You don't exactly have a very good track record where accuracy and credibility is concerned.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-10-europe-religion-cover_x.htm
As a double whammy this article also contains one reason why institutionalized religion have so much staying power. -
why wtf? my friend once told me money can be found anywhere, if u know where to look?Originally posted by Cystaire:On a related note...
Three guys who were broke and created a company by working a few hours a week. They only had one venture capitalist firm who believed them. They made enemies among many powerful media companies.
In 20 months they attracted 80 million daily viewers to their website and sold their company to Google for US$1.65 billion.
WTF? 
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Originally posted by Cystaire:Which is why we need data! Woo hoo!
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-10-europe-religion-cover_x.htm
As a double whammy this article also contains one reason why institutionalized religion have so much staying power.
Can you see why now, dd ? -
WTF because you were thinking that because something grows fast and has lots of adherents it must be divine.Originally posted by dumbdumb!:why wtf? my friend once told me money can be found anywhere, if u know where to look?
Let's all bow down to Chad Hurley and Steve Chen! -
Interesting view, but then again, you are going against the Penal Code.Originally posted by NUS_Superst@r:I can feel that christianity is going down the slope. If that's the case, according to them, hell will be overcrowded soon. -
Nehru:
"The spectacle of what is called religion, or at any rate organised religion, in India and elsewhere, has filled me with horror and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always it seemed to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition, exploitation and the preservation of vested interested." -
You can say the same of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and even Taoism. Almost all religions follow the same model.Originally posted by dumbdumb!:i don't try to. =)
i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.
a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,
how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =) -
Sorry for my late reply....Originally posted by Cystaire:As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about science, so I hope that you are getting your scientific information from reputable sources. So quoting your source will help convince me and other readers that you have credible data.
In addition, I am working hard to debate with you personally, so it's laziness on your part to paste other people's argument wholesale without even analyzing them.
Ibram Gaunt has already written well on the importance of evolutionary biology to science (see above).
I know you will not be convinced by whatever evidence I present here, but for the benefit of other readers I shall try to address your (actually other people's) criticisms.
1. Evolution is untestable? False.
J B Haldane once said that if you can find rabbit fossils in the Precambrian, it will help refute evolution. None have been found.
In addition to fossil evidence, modern genetics experiments also overwhelmingly support evolution. I have already mentioned experiments on flies, butterflies and chick that test evolutionary theory. Other models include zebrafish and mouse.
2. Irreducible complexity is pure bunk. Paley's brass watch and Behe's mousetrap are both terrible analogies of living systems. I have written a criticism of their analogies in this article.
http://freshbrainz.blogspot.com/2006/10/irreducible-complexity-pwned.html
3. The "increase in information" angle comes from Bill Dembski. In reality, new information enters genomes all the time. I have already mentioned polyploidy in plants. In addition to whole genome multiplications there are additional chromosomes, gene multiplications, lengthened genes, truncated genes, modified genes...many modes of increasing information.
4. Fossilization of organisms is rare, so it is unreasonable to expect all the transitory forms to be recorded in fossils. Palaeontologists can find dozens of transitory fossils per genus, but creationists are never satisfied. Do you know why?
If they can find one million transitory fossils, creationists will demand 2 million. If they can find 2 million, creationists will want 4 million. Where scientists build evidence, creationists always see gaps.
5. Abiogenesis is not part of evolutionary biology, and personally I think it is not as strongly supported as evolution. Still I should remind you that the definition of life (as an emergent trait) has always been controversial.
People (vitalists) once considered sub-cellular components such as "organic" chemicals (eg. urea) as alive. Today we can synthesize them chemically, so we don't consider them alive.
Since cells are made of non-living parts, how can cells be alive? We just accept this. So if it is easy to imagine life emerging from non-life spatially, we can also imagine life emerging from non-life in time.
Anyway even if life has always existed, it would not support special creation. In fact it would refute creationism, since life has always existed it would by definition not require any sort of creator.
6. Biological evolution is a non-random process, because it acts via natural selection. Also, since genes have organization, sequence changes can produce predictable effects.
Also, very low probability events are inevitable at evolutionary (geological) time scales.
As for that extra arm you were waiting for... someone someday will eventually sprout an extra arm.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2021142&page=1
7. "Microevolution" is just the creationist excuse to have their cake and eat it too. They know that bacteria and viruses mutate rapidly and display wildly different characteristics such as virulent, host jumping and multidrug resistance. So they say that microevolution can only occur below the species level.
But here's the trick: they don't accept the scientific definition of species (reproductive isolation) and use their own definition called "kinds". So no matter how much the descendant populations diverge they are still the same kind.
Using this word game no organism can ever evolve beyond the "kind" level! Monkeys evolving into other monkey species are still monkeys - only microevolution!
In reality there is no such barrier to evolution. Every speciation step is of course at the species level, but it does not magically stop at that level. Life continued to evolve until we have the full biodiversity we see today.
8. You say that since no human was around to record exactly what happened during the inception of life, everyone is only guessing and the origins must be taken on faith.
If all criminal investigators believe that, then murderers will never be convicted, because many murders occur without anyone else around. Also the data is usually incomplete. Even if caught on camera, video cameras have a 1/20 second gap between frames.
Yet the bloody shoe prints, knife in the sink with suspect's fingerprints and victim's blood, absence from usual routine during time of crime... various evidence using different approaches, demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that the suspect is guilty.
Faith is not used to determine the truth here.
So why do you insist on using faith to refute something which already has so much supporting evidence???
Doesn't matter if I quote or not... important thing is Truth should be shared and to prove you wrong.... I'm sure you got your knowledge else where too right? YOu don't learn how to walk the first day you are borned...
Secondly.... The difference between the murder case is...
I know the result and the suspect is capable to kill the person... But did he?
For evolution its:
I don't know the result if he is capable to kill the person.... is he able to?
For the second test if it is true that the person is capable... he is able to be test to do so... It can be tested a thousand times and it turn positive....
You really don't test something by looking at two things... When you see the a dagger and a man beside a dead man... you think just think he is the murderer..... That's what you are doing now.... What you had said are observation but not tests.... Test are things that can be replicate again and again under the same conditions... Why not start creating some life for a start from nothing if you can I believe you. So for the last time.... EVOLUTION CANNOT BE TESTED....
I read your website.... it stated..."evolutionary theory had predicted." You mean.... its not yet concluded?
And finally not of what you said on the above.... can concrete tell me evolution is true... since it can't be tested... whatever findings you have is still an observation... And observation can always be interpreted in different ways.... which is true coz there isn't just one theory out there in the world.
You haven't tell me are your bacteria able to grow an arms or fingers after so many generations of reproduction? The grow stronger towards other bacterias right? Because their life model is capable to work within this.... For so many years you work have you seen a bacteria grow into something else? -
Indeed, Jesus said that the gate is narrow.Originally posted by NUS_Superst@r:I can feel that christianity is going down the slope. If that's the case, according to them, hell will be overcrowded soon. -
What do you mean evolution cannot be tested and replicated? We have been doing artificial selection for a long time and it obvious that the cattle that we breed and the crops that we grow are substantially different than those in the wild. The only difference between natural selection and artificial selection is that natural selection is done in a natural environment in a larger scale. The species that gets to spread its gene's best survives. It's a fact that sometimes the genes mutate and this mutation causes a change in that particular living thing. If that change helps that living thing to better survive than it could lead to a new 'species' as more of that living thing with that particular gene is reproduced.Originally posted by banzie:You really don't test something by looking at two things... When you see the a dagger and a man beside a dead man... you think just think he is the murderer..... That's what you are doing now.... What you had said are observation but not tests.... Test are things that can be replicate again and again under the same conditions... Why not start creating some life for a start from nothing if you can I believe you. So for the last time.... EVOLUTION CANNOT BE TESTED....
I read your website.... it stated..."evolutionary theory had predicted." You mean.... its not yet concluded?
And finally not of what you said on the above.... can concrete tell me evolution is true... since it can't be tested... whatever findings you have is still an observation... And observation can always be interpreted in different ways.... which is true coz there isn't just one theory out there in the world.
That is why I don't believe in Intelligent Design. Because there is no such things as a perfect design for ALL environments. It is only perfect given a certain range of environment variables. If the environment changes, it is no longer perfectly suited for that new environment. Evolution shows how species evolve to suit their environment so it seems as if that species is perfectly designed to that environment.
"So many generations?" It took a billion years for simple-cell organisms to form the complex-cell organisms we see today. What is a billion years compared to 2006? Evolutions is about extremely SMALL incremental changes occuring over a HUGE amount of time. You won't see a bacteria going straight to creating a finger in "so many generations". And if the environment is not conducive, you would never see a finger. If you really want to see the effect of evolution, just look at artificial selection.Originally posted by banzie:You haven't tell me are your bacteria able to grow an arms or fingers after so many generations of reproduction? The grow stronger towards other bacterias right? Because their life model is capable to work within this.... For so many years you work have you seen a bacteria grow into something else? -
Good marketing strategy. Look at Scientology now, so many people ridiculing them yet they are still surviving. Christianity is not the main religion before but it is now. Same with Islam. Scientology of course cannot conquer countries like the Christian nations before so it might take them longer to gain recruits.Originally posted by dumbdumb!:i don't try to. =)
i'm just quoting a book which states how ridicuiously interesting this is.
a man who didn't travel much, had only 70 believers, had been crucified by thousands of people hating him. made lots of enemies ranging from rulers to scientists and philosophers,
how did christianity bloom despite so much opposition? =) -
Originally posted by banzie:
Doesn't matter if I quote or not... important thing is Truth should be shared and to prove you wrong.... I'm sure you got your knowledge else where too right?Secondly.... The difference between the murder case is...
I know the result and the suspect is capable to kill the person... But did he?
For evolution its:
I don't know the result if he is capable to kill the person.... is he able to?
For the second test if it is true that the person is capable... he is able to be test to do so... It can be tested a thousand times and it turn positive....You really don't test something by looking at two things... When you see the a dagger and a man beside a dead man... you think just think he is the murderer..... That's what you are doing now.... What you had said are observation but not tests.... Test are things that can be replicate again and again under the same conditions... Why not start creating some life for a start from nothing if you can I believe you. So for the last time.... EVOLUTION CANNOT BE TESTED....
I have no idea what you trying to say. I work so hard to address your criticisms clearly and directly, and in response you simply throw some incomprehensible word salads at me.
I completely give up.
I ask you this: if creationism the which truth can yet so FALSE, which not is be consider other sort around like? Which questions so? -
I'm not yet talking anything with regards to creation science.... but rather to the point still debating about the credibility of Evolution....Originally posted by Cystaire:I have no idea what you trying to say. I work so hard to address your criticisms clearly and directly, and in response you simply throw some incomprehensible word salads at me.
I completely give up.
I ask you this: if creationism the which truth can yet so FALSE, which not is be consider other sort around like? Which questions so?
I think most people understand what I'm trying to put there.... really how test are conducted for evolution... you can't because there is unable to do such a test... -
I fully agree with youOriginally posted by kheldorin:Good marketing strategy. Look at Scientology now, so many people ridiculing them yet they are still surviving. Christianity is not the main religion before but it is now. Same with Islam. Scientology of course cannot conquer countries like the Christian nations before so it might take them longer to gain recruits.
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i have no bloody idea what on earth are you talking about!Originally posted by banzie:I'm not yet talking anything with regards to creation science.... but rather to the point still debating about the credibility of Evolution....
I think most people understand what I'm trying to put there.... really how test are conducted for evolution... you can't because there is unable to do such a test...
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http://www.atheistalliance.org/
Sam Harris:
We have names for people who have many beliefs for which there is no rational justification. When their beliefs are extremely common we call them 'religious'; otherwise, they are likely to be called 'mad', 'psychotic' or 'delusional' ... Clearly there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident in history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. -
Now I know why the president of a certain country looks like a white chimpanzee
Paul Bell (Mensa Magazine 2002):
'Of 43 studies carried out since 1927 on the relationship between religious belief and one's intelligence and/or educational level, all but four found an inverse connection. That is, the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold "beliefs" of any kind.' -
You guys are still going !??!?!
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lol you are so naive to have said this.Originally posted by NUS_Superst@r:Science can prove most religions are BS.
you really study nus? hope it's just a nick out of fun haha -
Originally posted by JansenX:Now I know why the president of a certain country looks like a white chimpanzee
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First I need to say is,
I didn't read through all the replies in the thread
It is just too much
Secondly, the most simplest definition of atheist is tat they do not believe in the supernatural. Tat is if it is not seen, felt, tested, verified, then it is not believed. As such do not require faith like some religion where u have to believe in everything tat is written even if it contradicts, never experienced, hearsay, unverifiable, logically flawed, insensible, outdated etc. U have to believe something is true even though there is no single shred of evidence for u to believe it is true other than hearsay
About evolution and creationism, sad to say I have probably debated more than 10 times with each thread spanning more than 10 pages and I am really tired of the whole thing and the same old flawed arguments made by creationists. If evolution is wrong, then the whole knowledge of biology is wrong because it depends on evolution to make it sensible. There r many species of living things such as virus like SARS or nylon digesting bug (nylon is manmade) tat could only occur with evolution. Otherwise do u expect these living being to feed on nothing for many thousands of years ? Fossils r a good sign tat show the gradual change of being over time... or u prefer to believe in animals tat suddenly created then suddenly extinct, then they gradually change to the animals we see now ? Creationism only got to show the fossil of a modern chicken/dog/cow/cat/human to exist in the past to prove the whole evolution wrong. Did they manage to ? No ! WHY CAN"T THEY FIND THE FOSSILS OF MODERN ANIMALS IN THE PAST ? (tat evolution claim it is evolved)
I can present a few hundred evidence on evolution etc (trust me... if not u can ask the more older people here like laurence or icemoon in eternal hope)
Lastly, I present a challenge to creationists who claim creationism is a science. Show me a reputable sceintific community tat support creationism as science. (not those church funded organisation) If u can't show a reputable scientific organisation tat support creationism, then the conclusion is creationism is not scientific.