Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: July 21, 2025, 4:40 am

Thread Rating:
  • 2 Vote(s) - 1 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
13 Questions
#67
RE: 13 Questions
(May 25, 2011 at 8:34 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: I think you are getting my arguments confused here. I am making a logical argument here, not a scientific one. So the fact I was not there to observe the first cause is irrelevant to its logical validity. If I remember correctly I think my objections to your use of radiometric dating was focused on your uniformitarian principles and the fact you had no control to prove the method was valid. I don’t think any of that is relevant to the “first cause” logical argument for God. You say the evidence disproves my position, are you suggesting you have evidence that one, something can create itself, or two it is possible to have an infinite series of causes? I feel have plenty of empirical evidence that out of nothing nothing comes and a good logical argument against an infinite series of causes.
I did say that the evidence disproves the position that radiometric dating is invalid, but I was setting that aside for the purposes of pointing out a bit of hypocracy on your part.

My point being that even using your logical arguementation in which you say that there must be a 'first cause' contradicts your logical arguement of radiometric dating being invalid.

(May 25, 2011 at 8:34 pm)Statler Waldorf Wrote: I disagree that evolution would preserve rationality in humans (even if it did preserve it, that doesn’t explain where the first rational mind came from). Say I have a set of berries, the red ones are poisonous and the blue ones are not. Even if I hold an irrational view that eating anything red will turn me into a frog and I thus do not eat the red berries I will survive and this irrational thought is thus preserved. I think there is plenty of empirical evidence suggesting that non-rational events cannot give rise to rational minds. A rational creator is a better explanation I think. Feel free to opine though.
Really? What if that irrational thought is based on very rational observations? Perhaps his information was wrong. Perhaps he saw someone die four hours earlier after eating the red berries and returned only to find a missing body (thanks to woodland creatures) and a frog that just happened to have decided that his shoe (or other garment) was a pleasant place to hide from predators? Perhaps this person is ignorant of nature enough to not understand what happened, so he rationalized it by attributing the berry to being magical.
Irrational or otherwise, the dangerous nature of the red berries was logically concluded to be dangerous in my more complete scenario, even if the exact conclusion wasn't entirely rational (thanks to lacking a proper education on the part of the observer).
People rationalize things they don't understand all the time. This is why christians attribute natural disasters to somehow mean that god is angry at americans for repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell or some other ridiculous thing.

A rational god is a better explaination for what? Better how? It's certainly an easy explaination, but hardly a rational one or even one that can actually explain how the human mind came to be.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925

Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Reply



Messages In This Thread
13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 10, 2011 at 7:47 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by SleepingDemon - May 10, 2011 at 9:54 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 10, 2011 at 11:16 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Eudaimonia - May 11, 2011 at 12:04 am
RE: 13 Questions - by SleepingDemon - May 11, 2011 at 12:15 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Eudaimonia - May 11, 2011 at 5:31 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Whirling Moat - May 11, 2011 at 12:53 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Shell B - May 11, 2011 at 1:33 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Faith No More - May 11, 2011 at 3:44 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Violet - May 11, 2011 at 3:58 am
RE: 13 Questions - by tackattack - May 11, 2011 at 7:10 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Doubting Thomas - May 11, 2011 at 10:11 am
RE: 13 Questions - by tesseract7d - May 11, 2011 at 11:02 am
RE: 13 Questions - by everythingafter - May 11, 2011 at 11:31 am
RE: 13 Questions - by R-e-n-n-a-t - May 11, 2011 at 1:01 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Tiberius - May 11, 2011 at 1:39 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Girlysprite - May 11, 2011 at 2:42 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Doubting Thomas - May 11, 2011 at 3:02 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by prayforme - May 11, 2011 at 7:07 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by simplychris - May 11, 2011 at 7:17 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Gawdzilla - May 11, 2011 at 7:35 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Girlysprite - May 12, 2011 at 1:24 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Cinjin - May 12, 2011 at 1:40 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 12, 2011 at 2:03 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Doubting Thomas - May 12, 2011 at 12:19 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 17, 2011 at 7:52 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Strongbad - May 12, 2011 at 1:12 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by SleepingDemon - May 12, 2011 at 2:05 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Doubting Thomas - May 12, 2011 at 2:13 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by SleepingDemon - May 12, 2011 at 2:41 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by reverendjeremiah - May 17, 2011 at 10:02 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Rev. Rye - May 18, 2011 at 12:14 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 20, 2011 at 1:16 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Cinjin - May 20, 2011 at 3:13 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Zen Badger - May 20, 2011 at 5:46 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 20, 2011 at 2:40 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Cinjin - May 20, 2011 at 4:19 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 20, 2011 at 4:30 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Cinjin - May 20, 2011 at 6:46 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 21, 2011 at 12:03 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Anomalocaris - May 20, 2011 at 7:43 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Zen Badger - May 21, 2011 at 7:40 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by LastPoet - May 20, 2011 at 10:23 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Darwinian - May 20, 2011 at 4:48 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Anomalocaris - May 21, 2011 at 4:50 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Wombosi - May 21, 2011 at 5:44 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Mong - May 21, 2011 at 5:30 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Arcturus - May 22, 2011 at 1:23 am
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - May 22, 2011 at 8:02 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Cinjin - May 22, 2011 at 4:42 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Mong - May 22, 2011 at 5:22 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by reverendjeremiah - May 22, 2011 at 5:31 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - May 23, 2011 at 8:53 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Tiberius - May 23, 2011 at 9:48 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 23, 2011 at 8:38 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by reverendjeremiah - May 24, 2011 at 7:56 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 24, 2011 at 9:22 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Welsh cake - May 23, 2011 at 10:37 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 24, 2011 at 1:50 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by TheDarkestOfAngels - May 24, 2011 at 7:44 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 24, 2011 at 8:08 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by reverendjeremiah - May 24, 2011 at 9:32 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - May 26, 2011 at 1:05 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by TheDarkestOfAngels - May 24, 2011 at 8:23 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by TheDarkestOfAngels - May 24, 2011 at 2:51 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 25, 2011 at 8:34 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by TheDarkestOfAngels - May 25, 2011 at 10:52 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 25, 2011 at 11:43 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Anomalocaris - May 26, 2011 at 1:39 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Anymouse - May 25, 2011 at 9:52 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - May 26, 2011 at 6:49 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Anymouse - May 30, 2011 at 6:21 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by tavarish - May 27, 2011 at 5:15 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Girlysprite - May 28, 2011 at 5:18 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by reverendjeremiah - May 29, 2011 at 10:39 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 31, 2011 at 7:05 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by DoktorZ - May 28, 2011 at 6:16 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - May 29, 2011 at 7:11 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - May 31, 2011 at 3:14 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - May 29, 2011 at 8:18 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - June 2, 2011 at 12:51 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Anymouse - June 6, 2011 at 5:07 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Anomalocaris - May 30, 2011 at 2:39 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by tackattack - June 1, 2011 at 6:20 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Violet - June 6, 2011 at 5:08 am
RE: 13 Questions - by tackattack - June 2, 2011 at 2:03 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Girlysprite - June 2, 2011 at 3:00 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - June 2, 2011 at 7:03 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Zen Badger - June 3, 2011 at 7:21 am
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - June 3, 2011 at 2:40 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - June 3, 2011 at 6:59 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - June 6, 2011 at 2:21 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by Statler Waldorf - June 6, 2011 at 8:05 pm
RE: 13 Questions - by downbeatplumb - June 2, 2011 at 6:05 am
RE: 13 Questions - by Angrboda - June 6, 2011 at 4:51 am



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)