(September 30, 2021 at 10:33 am)MadJW Wrote:

(September 30, 2021 at 10:14 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Not as far as I can tell.  You appear to have two religious beliefs about creation.  

One being that science supports it - but, paradoxically, the other being that science currently states (and the only alternative to a creator is) blind chance.

Neither belief is true.  The current understanding is that determinative and replicable processes of organic chemistry produce variations within a breeding population which effect the rates of survival of some portion of that population.  Where people misunderstand this as random is that it's demonstrably true that mutations occur without respect for the value of a given trait which may be conferred by the same - ie..at random.  Does that clear anything up for you?

Not talking about mutations- but how life was CREATED or by ACCIDENT.
(Abiogenesis is just an excuse)

Neither?

MadJW - "Does it rain by accident or did Thor create the rain ?"

This question might make you wonder if I know anything about the rain cycle or how precipitation works chemically.

The answer is neither.
Rain doesn't happen by accident, nor is it created by Thor.

Chemistry can be a very complex field of study.
At different temperatures, water can be in a gaseous state (water vapor), a liquid or even a solid.

Life on this planet mostly likely came about through a billion year long process of chemical changes and replication.

It wasn't an accident any more than rain is.

I think our JW, playing in the basement, found out it wasn't as fun as he thought.

I'm trying to read OP as charitibly as I can. What does the poll question actually mean?

I think OP is pushing a familiar notion. That the idea of atheism is somehow promoted by science. That scientists intentionally take God out of their assessment of nature. See the quote below:

(September 29, 2021 at 12:56 pm)MadJW Wrote: I LOVE science; I just hate how they whisk away a Creator from their findings.
As if they are gonna chooses of the the world's many Gods!

I think the "many gods" sentence fragment is trying to say we atheists "worship" things like money and sex, etc. It's in line with JW's contempt for "worldliness." As is OP's notions of "inside JW" and "outside JW." His cult has a serious us/them or inside/outside mentality going. Hence "inside science/outside science" actually makes sense to OP given the nomenclature of JWs.

But it makes no sense to us.

If OP is indeed a young person, we might consider being cordial to him. After all, somebody is feeding him bad ideas. Rather than seeing him as just another internet asshole, we could view him as somebody being manipulated by one or more members of the JW religion. They DO prey on people.

Will being cordial actually help us "reach" MadJW so that we can have an honest conversation with him? Probably not. But confirmation bias is a serious risk for MadJW. In a way, his primary aim for coming here was to confirm his biases. He also came to say, he likes science "except the parts that try to "whisk away a Creator." It's uncertain whether we can explain to OP that science is neutral on the existence of a Creator, that science is all about evidence, and the evidence leads many to conclude that life evolved. Even IF it was all the doing of a creator 6,000 years ago, God made it look like evolution happened. That's why many of us reach the conclusions that we do.

But I don't see any way that discussion could have been had with OP. Shame.

(October 2, 2021 at 12:32 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: I'm trying to read OP as charitibly as I can. What does the poll question actually mean?

I think OP is pushing a familiar notion. That the idea of atheism is somehow promoted by science. That scientists intentionally take God out of their assessment of nature. See the quote below:

(September 29, 2021 at 12:56 pm)MadJW Wrote: I LOVE science; I just hate how they whisk away a Creator from their findings.
As if they are gonna chooses of the the world's many Gods!

I think the "many gods" sentence fragment is trying to say we atheists "worship" things like money and sex, etc. It's in line with JW's contempt for "worldliness." As is OP's notions of "inside JW" and "outside JW." His cult has a serious us/them or inside/outside mentality going. Hence "inside science/outside science" actually makes sense to OP given the nomenclature of JWs.

But it makes no sense to us.

If OP is indeed a young person, we might consider being cordial to him. After all, somebody is feeding him bad ideas. Rather than seeing him as just another internet asshole, we could view him as somebody being manipulated by one or more members of the JW religion. They DO prey on people.

Will being cordial actually help us "reach" MadJW so that we can have an honest conversation with him? Probably not. But confirmation bias is a serious risk for MadJW. In a way, his primary aim for coming here was to confirm his biases. He also came to say, he likes science "except the parts that try to "whisk away a Creator." It's uncertain whether we can explain to OP that science is neutral on the existence of a Creator, that science is all about evidence, and the evidence leads many to conclude that life evolved. Even IF it was all the doing of a creator 6,000 years ago, God made it look like evolution happened. That's why many of us reach the conclusions that we do.

But I don't see any way that discussion could have been had with OP. Shame.

I appreciate that you wanted to make an effort with MadJW. However, as I pointed out, JWs aren't supposed to interact with worldly people any more than necessary. And here he is on an atheist forum...he didn't fall in here accidentally. He sought us out. The door-knockers come around to spread the word as they see it...acting like a jerk on an Internet forum isn't the same thing.

In science, you can't whisk away something that isn't there.
Like you literally can't remove something that doesn't exist.

No one has found any evidence for a creator or a god or even an alien that has terra formed a planet

The best we have are humans that build skyscrapers or maybe farmers that grow food on thousands of acres.

As far as I can tell, gods are an anthropomorphic invention made by human beings. We are a very creative species who love to tell stories. We fabricate and exaggerate and lie to our hearts content in order to entertain or calm our fears.

When you realize what we enjoy doing, then it's much easier to explain why we invent gods.

(October 2, 2021 at 12:32 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: If OP is indeed a young person, we might consider being cordial to him. After all, somebody is feeding him bad ideas. 

Nope.  We all get fed bad ideas - some people are just assholes in their cause. The way these chucklefucks are - completely optional. No one forces them to embarrass themselves or their religion. They come here to do it, without prompt.

It's sad.

Well, I guess it doesn't matter because there's no way to really have a genuine conversation with him anyway. But I would if I could. Because, like I said, cults prey on people. Take advantage of their weaknesses. It's not always their fault that their heads are filled with bad ideas. It was often done deliberately.

JWs also caution their flock against pursuing higher education. Gee, I wonder why? Exposure to critical thinking is the undoing of their spiel and they know it.

In any case, who knows who MadJW is? He could just be some schmuck as you presume, Nudger. I was just considering possibilities.

It looks like MadJW got what he needed from this thread.

He gets to return to his JW flock, and show them how all we did is insult him. He 'got us' with all his intellectually superior, and completely not at all fallacious, arguments.

In his mind, he won.

(September 29, 2021 at 4:14 pm)MadJW Wrote: When you see a Tinkertoy (do they still EXIST?) construction do you say that it was Evolution (Blind Chance) that made it?

---

You're a fucking idiot. When you see the state of our recurrent laryngeal nerve (and if you think a nerve going from the brain stem to the the larynx is bad, you should see how far it has to travel for the giraffe), do you think that this is an obvious bodge created by an undirected process or something made by a perfect being (i.e. the voice in your head)?

Evolution is a fact, in fact it is the most well evidenced fact in science. Get over it.