(July 28, 2014 at 11:42 am)Harris Wrote: Very interestng, there is no foundation yet there is a big theory with so may intricate details. More interestengly everyone seems to be happy with this theory without even knowing this theory at its root level.

Are you even listening? Evolution has nothing to do with the formation of life. That's a separate theory called abiogenesis, and your desperate insistence that the two are one and the same is just making you look foolish. Evolution is an aspect of population genetics, and it acts upon genes exclusively; given this, it only begins to work when there actually are genes, meaning that it only starts working once we already have life with genetic codes.

If you want to doubt abiogenesis go right ahead, but don't pretend it's something it's not.

Quote:I am pleased to see the writing above because it contains the word god. The concept of God is naturaly embossed over our conscious. You can take it serious or not but you can negate it only by denying your own conscious person.

That's not true: the Piraha tribe is an isolated human population without a concept of god at all. Are you saying that they're lying, when they say that?

Quote:I agree that gravity doesn’t give an explanation about the birth of the first cell. But the trouble here is that no one is believing that gravity has produced life. All what you are saying is evolution and natural selection responsible for the life on earth. Therefore, your example does not fit in here.

Except that nobody is saying that evolution produced life either. We attribute the current diversity of life to evolution because it's observable, but evolution by natural selection can only act upon life that already exists, it doesn't create life from non life. That's why what you're saying is so nonsensical, you're literally talking about a completely different thing.

Quote:Abiogenesis and evolution are not separate things, they are deeply interconnected with each other.

I don't care that you think that; what you think is meaningless here. The two are definitionally different.

Quote:Tell me if there was no first cell then would evolution (in which you believe) ever happened and do you think you and me were corresponding with each other here?

If there was no initial life form, there would be no evolution. It's that simple. Evolution requires two things: a self replicating life form, and an environment to act upon it. Without those, no evolution.

Quote: Further, what makes you believe that life started from the first living cell. Maybe life has started in absolutely different way.

I don't believe anything about how life started, because there's not enough information to make a judgment about it. I'm comfortable suspending my belief until the evidence comes in: why aren't you?

Quote:As far I know an axiom is a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true. You are saying that these are basal assumption made in order to actually function. In other words axiom is an idea that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof.

Uh, we have plenty of evidence that the universe will remain intelligible? It has, every day of my life, without exception. That's evidence. As to my other axioms, well, employing them in my day to day life has provided results consistent with my expectations for if those axioms were true... that's evidence too. I know why you're so excited to drag us down to your level, but it's not going to work. Unfortunately for you, I can just point to my continued survival on the planet as evidence that my axiomatic beliefs are working just fine at their intended purpose.

Quote: The important point to which I am trying to draw your attention to is how that statement, proposition, or basal assumption first appeared in your mind. I think it is not comming in form of dream, hallucination, vision, revelation, etc. It is obviously initiated after you have observed something that clicks some idea in you. You can developed that idea only if you have faith in what you have observed.

Yes, I've already called you on your dishonest equivocation between reasonable expectations of a coherent world, reverified every day by the fact that the world is coherent, and capital F Faith in god. You don't need to repeat the same fallacy.

Quote: I have already given many logical evidences for the existence of God. They are looking towards for your second glance.

All you've done is present a series of known falsehoods and then dismissed or ignored everyone who has called you on them. I'm still waiting on you to acknowledge and admit that you quote mined Darwin in your other thread, something you haven't even appeared to look at yet.

Quote: Perhaps it is you who have closed eyes on obvious facts that I have presented in my post and in the responses.

You still don't know what evolution is. If you disagree, then please define evolution for us.

Quote: I neither support Ben nor Dawkins. However, I have heard dawkins lying deliberately and purposefully. I do not trust in anything what Dawkins said. For me he is the king of hypocrite. Only follow few of his interviews and you will see how cunning he is in manipulating his words.

Do you have evidence of any of this?

More importantly, will you even acknowledge that when you said Dawkins believed in space aliens seeding life on earth, you were wrong?

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: If there is no God or anything supernatural (a creator) then there is nothing.

Is someone paying you money to say increasingly stupid things? If there is no God or anything supernatural, all that's left is everything that exists.

f you have FAITH in nothingness instead of God only then you can have belief in things like evolution, multiuniverse, blind and unguided forces etc.[/quote]

I don't even believe there ever was actual nothingness, and I've never met an atheist who does. That's how badly you misunderstand us.

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: Without having Faith in something, you cannot have belief in that thing. In any case FAITH is crucial for mind to work or not to work.

Not faith with a capital 'F'. The only faith our minds need to function day-to-day is that which is best defined as 'justified confidence or trust in a person or thing', not 'belief without evidence or proof'. I need enough faith to sit in a chair without worrying it will collapse or turn into a parsnip, I clearly don't need to believe that it wouldn't support me if not for the will of a divine being. I'm not THAT heavy.

It's just so easy to accept their usage though and simply say that you don't have any faith in anything. If that's faith, if that's belief, I don't have it. Just isn't in me, about anything. Hasn't ever been, so far as a can remember. That faith, that belief is simply not required for me to do, well,...... anything.

(July 28, 2014 at 8:53 am)Harris Wrote:

(July 28, 2014 at 12:19 am)Mr.wizard Wrote: We get the concept of god not existing from the claim you make that god exists. Its a default position to the claim, you claim god exists, we say we don't believe your claim. Why is this so hard to understand?

No, I am not only saying God exist. I am giving logical evidence from science and nature. You are concentrating only on the mechanism but not the agency, which has produced this mechanism, and running it. Perhaps, because you cannot perceive that agency with your direct senses.

Perhaps, because you cannot perceive that agency with your direct senses either, so it is literally impossible for you to actually know what you're talking about on the matter. Why should we believe your claims about an entity completely beyond your ability to grasp even if it did exist?

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: It is just as if you are saying electronic circuitry inside Sony TV is more important than Akio Morita. Well it is explaining how the circuitry works but it is not if I ask you the question, how that circuitry does comes into existence in first place.

It's just as if you have a piece of electronic circuitry with no way to determine who made it and admitting there's no way you can honestly say who made it.

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: At this stage, everybody got speechless.

Harris, Harris, wake up! You're drifting off into some kind of dream where other people react to the stupid things you say the way you wish they would.

---

(July 28, 2014 at 11:42 am)Harris Wrote:

(July 28, 2014 at 12:46 am)Esquilax Wrote: (Today 03:56)Harris Wrote: If abiogenesis is not the base of evolution, then how you justify the evolution in the first place.


We don't know. And that's it.

Very interestng, there is no foundation yet there is a big theory with so may intricate details. More interestengly everyone seems to be happy with this theory without even knowing this theory at its root level.

The foundation of the modern synthesis is the multiple lines of evidence supporting common descent modified by the interaction of natural variations with natural selection, which is what evolution is.

What's very interesting is how the fact that evolution is not and never was founded on abiogenesis is completely incapable of penetrating your invincible ignorance.

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: Abiogenesis and evolution are not separate things, they are deeply interconnected with each other. Tell me if there was no first cell then would evolution (in which you believe) ever happened and do you think you and me were corresponding with each other here?

If there was no first cell, we wouldn't be standing here even if there IS a God.

(July 28, 2014 at 8:19 am)Harris Wrote: Further, what makes you believe that life started from the first living cell. Maybe life has started in absolutely different way.

It doesn't matter how it started, evolution is something that happens to populations of reproducing organisms over time. However the first reproducing organisms came into being, evolution comes into play afterwards.

He's put me on ignore, what a dick.

Our reputation should be partly based on the quality of the people who ignore us.

(July 28, 2014 at 7:22 am)Harris Wrote:

(July 27, 2014 at 10:28 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote: I don't understand why creationists bother with trying to discredit evolution? Even if they could prove the theory of evolution wrong it gets them no closer to proving creation. I also don't know why they bother posting their objections to evolution on an atheist forum, go post your bad understanding of evolution on a biology forum. Reading the headline of this thread made my blood boil, if you have to ask if evolution is based on faith then you either are completely ignorant of how science works or you are trying to denigrate science in order to bring it down to the level of your unfounded faith based position of creation.

As I stated earlier, I am not trying to prove or disprove existence of God by using science. Science is a wrong address for the question of God. However, you guys are persistent to put evolution in place of God. In other words, you are trying to eliminate the idea of God using science, which is logically a fault. What I am trying here is to convey that Theory of evolution has ridiculous amount of flaws and all these flaws make this theory unscientific. Henceforth, using theory of evolution to eliminate the concept of God is nothing more than an absurd.

No, you still don't get it! We don't need evolution to not believe in your god claim, the only reason people are defending the theory is because your understanding of evolution is flawed. Even if evolution was completely false I still would not except your god claim because evolution being false is not proof of your god.

(July 27, 2014 at 11:48 pm)Harris Wrote:

(July 26, 2014 at 12:33 pm)Stimbo Wrote: @Harris: What if I said that I do not believe in the existence of "God" (or any god)? What then?

My job is to give you convincing logic for the existence of God. Once I conveyed that message to you, my job is done. Further, you are free to choose whatever you like.

I don't care about logic in a vacuum, divorced from reality. If your logical games don't match up to anything real (and which would require additional defending), what's the point? I can prove, logically, that elephants are pink, water is poisonous, or any number of other scenarios. All that will have happened at the end of the esercise is we'll have wasted time and bandwith on a pointlessly boring circle jerk. (Not saying that circle jerks are necessarily pointless or boring, but real ones at least have entertainment value.)

However, that's not even the point. My question to you was in response to your contention that atheists believe "God" doesn't exist. My position is I lack the belief that the character does exist. Now the ball is in your court.

(July 27, 2014 at 8:25 pm)ignoramus Wrote:

(July 27, 2014 at 7:09 pm)Polaris Wrote: The problem is people such as yourself who take things at face value without actually doing the research. I have a stronger backing in evolution than any of you. Like I know the flaws of the Bible (of which none of you have actually been able to mention), I also know the flaws concerning the assertions made to support evolution.

Then why are you still religious?
The only logical explanation I can think of is you are a product of successful indoctrination. To which now there is no point in trying to reason.

The same reason why I accept evolution. Just because there are mistakes does not mean the whole itself is bad. I actually gained more faith in both by examining the flaws than by pretending they don't exist.

(July 28, 2014 at 12:30 am)Harris Wrote:

(July 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm)little_monkey Wrote: There's a difference between "having beliefs" and "having faith". If I believe that the universe can be comprehended it's because there is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting that belief. OTOH, faith is belief in spite of no or insufficient evidence.

If you have faith in someone or something, you feel confident about their ability or goodness even without having any evidence. Belief is something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion. Belief may require, but not necessarily, the evidence.

All this reduces to the fact that without faith, belief has no meaning. If you do not have faith in science, you cannot do science no matter it puts mountain of evidence in front of you.

Your logic is far too reductionist to be useful for anything but rhetoric, mainly because you're confusing denotations of both faith and belief. Let's look at the definition of belief to see what you're up to:

The Oxford English Dictionary Wrote:Definition of belief in English:
belief
Syllabification: be·lief
Pronunciation: /biˈlēf /
NOUN

1 An acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists:
his belief in the value of hard work
a belief that solitude nourishes creativity

1.1 Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion or conviction:
contrary to popular belief, Aramaic is a living language
we’re prepared to fight for our beliefs

1.2 A religious conviction:
Christian beliefs
I’m afraid to say belief has gone
local beliefs and customs

2 (belief in) Trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something:
a belief in democratic politics
I’ve still got belief in myself

[emphasis added by Thump to differentiate examples from definitions]

As you can see, you're picking the two denotations which support your argument, and ignoring the two which apply to science, (1 & 1.1). Cherry-picking your definitions does little to buttress your point, especially when you are clearly ignoring those which undermine it.

(July 28, 2014 at 1:53 am)Harris Wrote: Science depends on faith, without FAITH, our minds reject any evidence.

So let's do the same exercise with faith:

The Oxford English Dictionary Wrote:Definition of faith in English:
[b]faith[/b]
Syllabification: faith
Pronunciation: /fāTH /
NOUN

1 Complete trust or confidence in someone or something:
this restores one’s faith in politicians

2 Strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

2.1 A system of religious belief:
the Christian faith

2.2 A strongly held belief or theory:
the faith that life will expand until it fills the universe

[Again, emphases added by your ob'd'nt servant]

As you can see, the only denotation that seems to touch on faith's application to science seems to be the fourth one. However, it is clear from the example sentence that they are using the colloquial meaning of theory and therefore not referencing science. To ensure that this was the case, I linked to their "Get More Examples" link and got these:

The OED Wrote:Consider a faith, a belief system, as a theory about how the universe works.

This at least is the assumption of many writers and readers, and in Latin America it amounts to something like a political faith.

Arthur had a strong faith and belief in Rome and what it stood for, but that changes in the movie.

And clearly they are using "theory" in the colloquial sense, except in the first one, which is a questionable conflation of "faith", "belief", and "theory".

Getting back to the denotations of faith:

1) doesn't apply to science because in the scientific method there is no such thing as "complete trust or confidence"; indeed the very acceptibility of a theory depends in part upon its supporting observations and experiments being replicable (which is another way of saying "we don't trust your results, we want to see for ourselves").

2) is the standard religious conception of faith.

3) is the sociocultural construct of faith; it is a form of synechdoche, usoing a part of something to represent the whole (in this case, using faith to represent religion).

4) is a future-tense variation on belief.

Clearly, none of those denotations apply to science. So please, quit equivocating your faith with a process which demands evidence.

It strikes me as an insecure faith that would strive to equivocate itself with that which it detests, simply in order to garner the cache that its apposite carries. If your religion were a more powerful way of grokking the Universe, where are its inventions? They are in the arts. Where are its discoveries? They are in the field of psychology, that wobbliest of fields. Where is its universal application? Certainly not on this Earth. You cannot convincefive billion others of the truth of your faith, yet you bleat on about science on a computer posting on the internet.

If your faith reflected reality, you should be able to simply pray to change our minds. How galling it must be to you that you must use the tools of science to pick up the slack of "unanswered" prayers.

______________________

ETA: And yes, I did use the word "grokking", ladies and gentlemen.