(Today at 2:09 am)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 3:51 pm)Paleophyte Wrote: Yahweh isn't a Creator. He's a creation. A god cobbled together from ignorance and superstition so that our ancestors could explain thunder.

Sheer assertion. Regardless of how many man-made religions exist, it's not absolute proof that every religion is man-made.

You're responding to a claim that Paleo didn't make. Strawman.

Do you get your posts from the 'Big Book of Fallacies'?

Boru

(Today at 2:10 am)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 7:09 pm)Angrboda Wrote: How to understand curved spacetime for our smooth-brained friends.





Curved spacetime needs no space pixies to make planets orbit in an ellipse.   No invisible forces needed!

Curved space is mumbo jumbo. Please don't pretend that anyone comprehends that term.
So the shortest distance between two points is NOT a straight line? Got it.

Argument from incredulity.

And yes, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line.

Boru

(Today at 2:35 am)Jal Wrote:

(Yesterday at 12:20 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: All matter is visible? You’re piling silly on top of silly. 

‘Visible’ means something is seen or can be seen. The distance between you and Africa is immaterial to the discussion and a very poor point. It isn’t possible to see, for example, a proton, yet protons are matter.

Cheap shots and nitpicking have worked for me my entire life, and I’m not about to change on your say-so.

You have been and remain an extraordinarily silly person.

Boru

Yahweh sees all matter.  He has eyes everywhere and, on top of that, His (self-propelling, self-locomoting) Light is an ineffably more effective illumination than ordinary light.

You can dismiss that as silly if you want to. I think we both agreed already  - I'm just a silly guy. Silly, silly, silly.

Sheer assertion AND ad hoc.

Boru

Soooo, jumping in the on the initial premise of this entire thread [apologies, but 67 pages is too much for me to catch up on]:

Quote:Natural Selection Seems Insufficient

I suppose because, in a way, natural selection IS insufficient. Bear with me and I'll explain...

Evolution itself is a process - it "happens" via random mutations. It isn't a case of "evolution something how 'thinks' and thus does what is best for the organism" which I think some people assume is how it works.

As an example: Giraffes have long necks. This is [via evidence we have found of both the items I am going to mention] their food sauce started small, and grew taller to survive. But it was obviously not "knowingly" so - the smaller/lower to the ground food sauces got eaten quicker, thus died off before they had time to produce seeds. Thus those that survived were simply taller - this then effected the giraffe population in the same way. At first over time, nothing major would change, but as the food sauces got taller and taller, eventually only those animals with pysically longer necks would indeed be able to reach, thus the shorter animals would die off before they passed their new mutated genes on. And so on, and so forth.

And that's the point - evolution only favors those that get to live longer. Where the "natural selection" comes in is where the natural world favors something that then influences where this goes - For example, humans picking a partner based upon things we see: facial hair/eye colour etc - all of those things will ultimately factor into how humans now evolve over time. A more strange example: humans have been born with extra fingers - completely separately from each other all over the world. One could argue, that if [for some reason] a trend of "people are really hot that have extra fingers" comes around, we would most likely see an increase of babys born [later, from parents now with extra active fingers] until the general population now has 6 fingers - you could argue "well you can grip tools better" which might be true, but the ultimate cause in this example at least, is that it was a "natural selection" process to amend that. Not that this why we look the way we do, with x amount of digits etc, but thats the natural selection part via mate - where as other things come because those that have X mutation just live longer because it suits the environment etc.

Evolution ultimately is something that "happens" regardless if its actually beneficial or not. It helps "weed out" those that won't be able to reproduce, but of course with human beings certains changes are now no longer "natural world" style natural selection because we can actively choose what we like/not like in some circumstances etc.

Wall of text, but there we go

(10 hours ago)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(Today at 2:35 am)Jal Wrote: Yahweh sees all matter.  He has eyes everywhere and, on top of that, His (self-propelling, self-locomoting) Light is an ineffably more effective illumination than ordinary light.

You can dismiss that as silly if you want to. I think we both agreed already  - I'm just a silly guy. Silly, silly, silly.

Sheer assertion AND ad hoc.

Boru

Not really a sheer assertion. I'm not insisting Yahweh exists.  Here I'm the Christian, on an atheist forum, providing the atheist gallery a definition of Yahweh, explaining how things could work with Him.

You had seemed to imply that some matter isn't visible (perhaps due to human limitations?). I was just pointing out that, if Yahweh exists, He likely wouldn't face these limitations.

Not sure what you mean by ad-hoc. I wasn't "suddenly improvising" if that's what you mean. For almost 35 years I've held my position.

(10 hours ago)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(Today at 2:10 am)Jal Wrote: Curved space is mumbo jumbo. Please don't pretend that anyone comprehends that term.
So the shortest distance between two points is NOT a straight line? Got it.

Argument from incredulity.

And yes, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line.

Boru

Not always a straight line? You buy that crap? You really fell for it?

Hey listen, I've got a bridge I'd love to sell you...

(11 hours ago)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(Today at 2:09 am)Jal Wrote: Sheer assertion. Regardless of how many man-made religions exist, it's not absolute proof that every religion is man-made.

You're responding to a claim that Paleo didn't make. Strawman.

Do you get your posts from the 'Big Book of Fallacies'?

Boru

That claim seemed implicit. I stand by my assessment until he is able to convincingly provide a plausible alternative reading of his words.

(10 hours ago)OakTree500 Wrote: Soooo, jumping in the on the initial premise of this entire thread [apologies, but 67 pages is too much for me to catch up on]:

Quote:Natural Selection Seems Insufficient

I suppose because, in a way, natural selection IS insufficient. Bear with me and I'll explain...

Evolution itself is a process - it "happens" via random mutations. It isn't a case of "evolution something how 'thinks' and thus does what is best for the organism" which I think some people assume is how it works.

As an example: Giraffes have long necks. This is [via evidence we have found of both the items I am going to mention] their food sauce started small, and grew taller to survive. But it was obviously not "knowingly" so - the smaller/lower to the ground food sauces got eaten quicker, thus died off before they had time to produce seeds. Thus those that survived were simply taller - this then effected the giraffe population in the same way. At first over time, nothing major would change, but as the food sauces got taller and taller, eventually only those animals with pysically longer necks would indeed be able to reach, thus the shorter animals would die off before they passed their new mutated genes on. And so on, and so forth.

And that's the point - evolution only favors those that get to live longer. Where the "natural selection" comes in is where the natural world favors something that then influences where this goes - For example, humans picking a partner based upon things we see: facial hair/eye colour etc - all of those things will ultimately factor into how humans now evolve over time. A more strange example: humans have been born with extra fingers - completely separately from each other all over the world. One could argue, that if [for some reason] a trend of "people are really hot that have extra fingers" comes around, we would most likely see an increase of babys born [later, from parents now with extra active fingers] until the general population now has 6 fingers - you could argue "well you can grip tools better" which might be true, but the ultimate cause in this example at least, is that it was a "natural selection" process to amend that. Not that this why we look the way we do, with x amount of digits etc, but thats the natural selection part via mate - where as other things come because those that have X mutation just live longer because it suits the environment etc.

Evolution ultimately is something that "happens" regardless if its actually beneficial or not. It helps "weed out" those that won't be able to reproduce, but of course with human beings certains changes are now no longer "natural world" style natural selection because we can actively choose what we like/not like in some circumstances etc.

Wall of text, but there we go

I'm not getting your point. Your giraffe example seems moot. You provide a scenario where Natural Selection would likely suffice while conveniently ignoring the scenarios in my OP  - scenarios critically dependent on the ability to rapid-respond to needs and danger (instead of waiting in vain for the Universe's domino-effect to randomly, blindly, and fortuitously shove the mammal in the needed direction at the right instant in time).

(9 hours ago)Jal Wrote:

(10 hours ago)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Argument from incredulity.

And yes, the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line.

Boru

Not always a straight line? You buy that crap? You really fell for it?

Hey listen, I've got a bridge I'd love to sell you...

A straight line is only the shortest distance between two points on a plane. The shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere, for example, is a curved line.

If you have a problem with that, take it up with Euclid.

Boru

(9 hours ago)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(9 hours ago)Jal Wrote: Not always a straight line? You buy that crap? You really fell for it?

Hey listen, I've got a bridge I'd love to sell you...

A straight line is only the shortest distance between two points on a plane. The shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere, for example, is a curved line.

If you have a problem with that, take it up with Euclid.

Boru

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.  Period. 
Conceptually, any alternative conclusion is impossible to conceive. 

You didn't accept curved space on account of intuition/ comprehension. It doesn't "really" make sense to your mind. 
You bought it because one particular model of physics demands that mumbo jumbo.