(November 12, 2015 at 8:50 am)bennyboy Wrote:(November 12, 2015 at 8:00 am)robvalue Wrote: I understand the idea of not confusing the current discussion, but a single line outlining the actual point of having the discussion in the first place is surely not too much to ask. Is it? If there is ever another genuine reason, I'd be interested to hear it.
He has stated, perhaps in his other nearly identical thread, that the purpose of all this is to undermine the theory of evolution by show how those against religious positions engage in the same (lack of) logic as they accuse religious folk of: reliance on unverified testimony, a bias toward hunch rather than proper evidence, etc.
In other words, he's trying to move the goalposts and lower the bar to such a degree that evolution must be discarded and religious ideas must be seriously considered.
Actually I was mostly joking.... Sometimes I try to use these arguments with the same criteria and often pick evolution, because it really gets those who advocate scientism going. Evolution is extraordinary, and hasn't met the extraordinary requirements for evidence.... The I just go to saying that there is no evidence at all and they are just stories..... Think about it... how much of this science have you personally experienced. Or are you believing the stories written down in books. Do you know that anyone is actually doing these experiments, or just a bunch of people writing books, and collecting a paycheck. The advantages of this, is you really don't have to know anything about the subject, and it doesn't require much research. You cannot really reason with these arguments because they are not based on anything objective.
However most people don't realize when I'm done that you can make these arguments against anything you choose not to believe. If something goes against your beliefs, you just turn the hyper-skepticism on, and go at it. You go to modernism where everything has to be absolutely certain. Except when it turns back to your own beliefs, and then you remember that little can be absolutely certain.
It's not normally effective, but it sometimes is fun. However, I don't really believe the arguments, so I can't keep it up for very long.
