Smut for Smut

[tavarish]

hey again Tavarish,

I appreciate your response. May I try to apologize for being a little thick headed, and attempt to return to a more sociable debate? I do truly appreciate the time it takes to listen to and respond to me. I also fully admit that I can be stubborn, and also hold values and opinions that are very strange to others.

OK.

I always try to avoid this route. I know it is a red cape in a sense, because all the bad theists stop when it comes time to provide quantifiable evidence. I have seen enough of the world to come to my own judgments about my current standing on such philosophical issues as the existence of a higher power and the origons and nature of reality. For me to go and find links on the web would take time I am always so begrudged to spend. I have a lot of work to do, and although I thoroughly enjoy my time here, it would be a daunting and difficult project. To try to find some website that describes me ideas perfectly, I may as well write my own website and cite it (hehe cite the site). And I know it is easy to label this attitude as ignorance, that I choose to deny evidence or ignore the information other people have. But I can only assure you that while others are watching porn and TV and playing video games and all the stuff I say I hate, I have been trying to figure out these eternal questions. I have read more books than I can count... I just don't even want to get into that.

The base of my reason for believing is an understanding of the complexity of this reality, of the thousands of years of albeit blurry information and current scientific results and knowledge about the world. I understand that you said I couldn't mention complexity, but I don't know why. It is my most moving argument (not that I would make to you, but that I make to myself). It seems unfair almost to cut me off before I can assert the complexity issue, unless of course it is because there is a standard argument you agree with that you didn't feel like going over. If so, please do, because I haven't found a compelling argument to disregard the complexity issue... That both the argument from causality and the limits of Darwinian evolution alone convince me that there is no other possibility than "more than meets the eye" in our current reality.

This is just an argument that I tried to avoid on day one with Kyu when I got here ages ago. I beleive in god. You do not. I appreciate that you do not, and although perfectly willing to discuss and debate the issue, I stop short of wanting to try to convert or convince you. Call that bakcing out if you like, but I just don't have the time or drive, and it's already taken this long to say I won't provide evidence...

So you fail to provide evidence for your claim.

You don't understand that you're solving a problem with an answer that is MORE complex than the factors in the equation. It doesn't make any sense.

"Irreducible complexity" has been laughed out of court and disproven on many accounts. That's why I said don't use it, as it's a shit argument.

When you make an assertion, especially such a bold one, please be sure to back it up.

Next.

Moving on.
Do I? Without wasting too much of your time, enlighten me if you would. I have always felt that I understood evolution pretty well. I still remember being taught it as a very small child (my mother is a microbiologist) and being kind of unimpressed. Things randomly change in tiny ways. Most changes are bad, and it is unfortunate but necessary as a function of the system. If this random change happens to be advantageous, it will create a slightly newer version of the organism and that newer version may replace the older one. It seemed kind of common sensical for an earth shaking theory. But really this is not a designed system, if there is a god she didn't make evolution just as she didn't make the hurricane or whatever bad thing. She made the system, knowing that it had to have time and change (which is only time, change and time are inseparable, entangled if you will). Knowing that it had to have hurricanes and supernovas. Evolution is a byproduct of time creating noticable change. There are limits to evolution theory, namley things that are too complex for a given time frame, and things whose seperate parts create a fully functioning system that would be absent wiout all of the parts. How does evolution account for (a tired example, and not the best) a flagellan motor? That the organism either evolved each seperate part of the system, and it was somehow selected for? Or that the organism evolved the entire motor systrm in one generation, so as to be selected for. All of the reality around us falls into that paradox, in my humble opinion. That most things here are too complex, myself and my ability to have this conversation with you included, to be wholly attributed to evolution. And if they are, then the creation of the systems that support evolution can not themselves be attributed to it. If I do differ from your understanding of Dawinian evolution theory, please help me out.

You're making the exact same point I asked you to elaborate and back up with supporting evidence. And yet you STILL came up with irreducible compexity. Ouch.

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ7ubVIqo4

The entire 2 hour video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVRsWAjvQSg

By the way, Ken Miller is a devout theist.

But again, by calling something inefficient you are asserting prepositions between the lines. If the fact that every living thing would overpopulate given the chance is inefficient, you are (I think, but not to be rude) defining efficiency as much more limited than it has to be. The efficiency of the system is only on the largest scale, so the overpopulation 'problem' is really part of the necessary cycles of death and breaking down essential for the continuation of the environment that allows ANY population of said species to survive. Or another is that there may be factors within the system. What if the unfortunate (in a sense) consequence of overpopulation drive is the necessary strength of a species (or life in general) to populate. Life needs to bring a certain amount of veracity to the table, and although it has extenuating difficulties, it is fully necessary...

You misunderstand yet again. I'm saying if you believe that beings were intelligently designed by a perfect creator, he sure has a way of making imperfect creations. Naturally, it is very necessary for species populations to overpopulate and adapt to their environment, that's the only way it works. However, with a God directing all of this, you'd think the process wouldn't have such a large percentage of extinction. If God started evolution, he essentially made 100% of animals will the knowledge that 99% of all species would die out. Why not just make that one percent in an environment that does not change? An intelligent design argument would be much more apparent and plausible in such a scenario.

The only disagreement I was trying to make is that is does not. That saying porn is only catering to what depravity people already want natrually is like saying cigarettes only lovingly provide a service for people who are addicted to nicotine (or just have addictive personalities). That porn has no stake in pushing the envelope, and that they are playing catch up to the wants of their consumers, I think is incorrect. I appreciate that you disagree though. That simple disagreement led to quite a volley.

Would you make the point that before porn, there was less perversion in mankind?

No certainly I cannot, but do you disagree on merit? The only way for me to produce the total revenue of child sex slavery would be to ask all the slavers. That information is not available, but I assert that I'm sure it makes a stunning ton of money. I may be wrong though. Drugs run the world, of course, that one is easier. I still don't feel like looking it up, but I bet all my chips that drugs (especially if you include such dangerous narcotics as SSRI's and mood enhancement drugs) make more money than anything else. Illegal narcotics make more money than guns, food, precious metals, real drugs, houses, cats, and pornography. I bet you it's the case, if you feel like looking it up, and you can disprove that, please do. although the estimates of the total revenue of drug creation and trafficking are just that still, estimates...

Again you don't have anything to back this up. Taking your word for it and "I bet you" it's a persuasive argument.

But your first response to my hatred for the porn industry was that it makes so much money. What other argument were you making? That it makes so much money, so there must be a lot of people who disagree with my dislike for it, therefore I may be wrong based on the mass appeal? I assumed you weren't. I apologize again if I misunderstood you.

I addressed this in my last post.

It is a personal assertion, and a generalized one as well. I was trying to reiterate the point I was attempting to make about how I disagree that the porn industry caters to the already present depravity in it's customers. That some things are so foreign and gross to our minds, and that there are so many interesting perversion choices, that most of these extreme (but more and more mainstream) choices in porn are new to us when we encounter them. I know I never imagined the kinds of things I have seen in extreme porn, I simply couldn't have. Allow me to admit defeat though, I missed the mark on the point I was trying to make.

Personal incredulity again. It seems to be the cornerstone of all your arguments.

Next.

Good poitn, I agree. There may be something out there worth arguing about for the sake of debate, but the only thing that can be called the practice of objective morality seems to be tyrannical. At least until we can all agree on everything...? One day...

I love that sentance. I agree. But we disagree on how harmless a big mac is. In my world (just imagining, not deulsional) if would be criminal to sell big macs. To sell a product as important to quality of life as food, in a knowinlgy unhealthy, deceitful and dangerous way is fraud and almost basic eugenics. If you argue that some people really, really want big macs, then let them. But I see it as poison pretending to be a good healthy hamburger, like porn is poison pretending to be adult videos. Detrimental to the quality of life.

I was making the point that Big Macs don't come with inherent moral values. Neither does porn. They're fine in moderation. You won't die from eating a Big Mac if you're taking care of yourself, just like you won't have an addiction to porn if you're psychologically healthy. If you want to equate a Big Mac to genocide, then go ahead. Your claims are a stretch by any facet of imagination. I don't care if people really want Big Macs or not, Mcdonald's makes money, just like the porn industry makes money. It doesn't disguise itself as anything other than what it is. It doesn't pretend to give you life advice, nor does it portray a facade in which it lures you in to get to the goal of becoming some sort of deviant pervert.

I am not a virgin, although it would be cool. What a line at the bar. Oh wait, I never go to the bar or use lines... I am not old, but not young. I am young enough that old people glower, and old enough that I make teens nervous. Soon I will be 27. But really I am a soul, and it is 6,438 years old. Next life I get to be a bathroom attendant!

Thanks for listening, and please forgive me for being thick in the head. I was born in America, I can't help it. I 'm doing all I can to remedy that situation.

Do I get the longest post award?
-Pip

I'm really a butterfly, and my name is Zanzibar.

Spare me.