My mother was a school psychologist so I know something about children with mental disabilities from her stories from work. I would never use the term "retard" because it effectively insults people who were born with mental handicaps through no fault of their own.

I prefer "fucktard". I define that term as being willfully ignorant. Fucktards have a brain every bit as functional as you or I but they just choose not to use it. They prefer to believe stupid things and refuse to listen to reason.

PC, great.

Repetition doesn't add weight to any given claim Stat. Maybe you should slow down and demonstrate the veracity of any single claim before moving on the the next? If it was bullshit the first time, it's going to bullshit the next time. Unless you have some modifications to make to any of these claims that would give us reason to reassess them? Or, you could stop complaining about science and do science. Be the man who closes the book, so to speak.

Late edit: Just to be clear. It may be that you've happened upon a factually accurate explanation for everything in existence. It's not beyond the realm of possibility even if it stretches plausibility. What you've offered up thusfar in any thread; about any subject, doesn't fit the the evidence. So, if you're correct in your assumptions it isn't for the reasons you've given. Everything we know is wrong. Science is a blank slate for you to work your magic upon. Now, find some evidence, build a better argument, and stop repeating yourself. The things you offer up must be able to withstand criticism to a higher degree than most or any of us here are capable of offering. Nothing in your beliefs-as-science line of argumentation has managed to do this yet. There's a word for people who peddle things like this; charlatan. Whatever you feel you gain by repeatedly pushing this garbage is illusory, you've probably gained the opposite. The particular brand of belief you peddle is a disservice to belief as a whole. You make the bible, and by extension christianity an easy target. It would be much more difficult to criticize faith if people didn't advocate positions such as yours.

(December 16, 2011 at 1:52 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: This sounds an awful lot like….well you to be honest. Mr. I can’t rationally account for anything that I believe, but God is a big meanie-face!

We've already been down this road. I have fully explained what I believe and why. Just because you pretend I haven't doesn't mean that I haven't. It only says something about your intellectual honesty.

Quote:but God is a big meanie-face!

No, god is a figment of your rather fucked up imagination. A fact true of all gods everywhere since the dawn of time which was not 6,000 years ago.[/code]

(December 9, 2011 at 4:35 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote:

(December 8, 2011 at 11:11 pm)Chuck Wrote: The problem of scientific nature is what neurological malfunction could it be for there to still be "theology" after the bronze age.

That’s actually kind of funny, if you’re an Evolutionist you’d have to believe that Humans developed a belief in God because it provided some sort of survival advantage. So being an atheist would actually make you a bit of an evolutionary throw back.

Nope. Common but fundamental misunderstanding of how evolution works.

Evolution is a process without set goals (apart from survival for species as a whole - or more precisely the gene). As such, not every hereditary trait needs a clear reason to exist. Some traits may have provided an advantage in the past, some might be remnants of reduced traits and still others might simply be side-effects of other useful traits developed.

The idea that every trait _must_ have some sort of survival advantage is patently false. As long as the trait does not pose (too great) a disadvantage to the survival rate of the species it can arise and persist.

My personal belief is that religion is a side-effect of several useful psychological traits developed; including the tendency of humans to believe what father figures tell us and our capacity to find causality and intent in everything that happens in the world around us. Children who do not listen to their father when he says "don't play near that tiger" are clearly at a disadvantage when it comes to survival; as are those who cannot connect the rustling of grass with the approach of said tiger.

Some of the time daddy and rustling grass might be wrong, and there is no tiger (or God, for that matter). But better to err on the side of caution and believe His every word.

In this view, theists are simply suffering from the some of the side-effects of the evolution of our species. How ironic.