AtticaFlinch

Why are these clowns even in office???? Vote them out. All of them.

I do my best to vote against anyone who makes grand gestures demonstrating their faith in any form of ancient superstition.

I'd do the same for anyone who told me they believe in unicorns or leprechauns.

Does anyone remember Donald Trest? He parachuted off of an antenna in a gorilla suit.

http://www.chron.com...?id=1985_213607

He sounds like a really cool guy. I can only imagine his line of thinking... "Cancer sucks, therefore I must basejump off this broadcast tower."

I've never met the guy, nor had I heard of him before this thread, but I seriously want to hang out with him.

What do you think that they were "chosen" for?

Whatever it is, it certainly isn't athletic domination.

Mike Huckabee is a political sideshow.

He's a political sideshow who happened to get elected as governor of Arkansas. (And I'm sure none of us can think of anybody who jumped from that job to the office of the President of the United States.) Perhaps Huckabee is a joke. Perhaps he'll never be more than a pundit on Fox News. What he represents though is the problem, and if Huckabee isn't the one who leads us all on the march to Armageddon, then surely he's paving the way for someone who will. Look at the popularity of Sarah Palin for proof. These two represent an encroaching anti-intellectualism in the political arena, but not the faux-anti-intellectualism of the past. This is the real deal. These people are idiots and proud of it. And worse yet, they have a following. They may currently still be a fringe group of wingnuts, but I could easily imagine several scenarios where they could rise to power. It's not as if the American people are discerning voters.

And the End of Days stuff is also prominent on channels such as Discovery and the History Channel. The same stuff gets repackaged with fresh graphics every year and reaches a broad audience of believers and non-believers, alike. And that's because it's entertainment. People like disaster flicks.

I am going to be so happy on December 22, 2012. At least one insipid end-times "prophecy" (term used very loosely) will be over with.

It isn't paranoia if they're justified. The problem is, though, that it is paranoia...and the consequent effect of their insane lack of military restraint only creates a kind of paranoia-heightening feedback loop of violence.

The fight over Israel is the dumbest fight in world history. The land is barely arable and it sits on virtually no natural resources. But, Mohammad went to heaven there, and Jesus walked around there doin' miracles and stuff and God promised the land to the Jews (another God-is-a-bastard moment - he could have promised them a less butt-ugly hole than that speck of land considering they are the "chosen people"). If religion were to be removed from that conflict, the Jews and the Arabs would take a look around them and say, "WTF is wrong with us? This place is garbage. Let's combine forces and invade Austria."

An Irish newspaper talking about Houston and not one mention of the Blaggards? Shame on them.

Blaggards

It's a Belfast paper. It's Ulster Irish, not the plain ol' regular Irish. Belfast may as well be a suburb of London (or at least Edinburgh).

The unresolved question relates to whom is genuinely a fundamentalist theocrat. I'm not convinced that anybody at a sufficiently high level in the U.S. government to precipitate a nuclear conflict would qualify as one. It's not for lack of concern, mind you. But I'm far more concerned with Israel's lack of military restraint than with the remainder of the "Axis of Evil".

Israel's lack on restraint is well-known and well-documented but never without provocation. If those religious zealots in the desert would tone down their religiousity and come to terms with the fact the Jews aren't leaving, then the Israel powderkeg would be diffused. But, because those nutty Muslim fundamentalists hold some insane belief that some utterly useless piece of salty, briny, sand-covered real estate is somehow sacred, and the Jews themselves believe the same thing, and a number of our elected politicians believe it too, because of this Israel has no choice but to be a demonstratively reactive nation. I'm telling you, all it'll take is a nut like Mike Huckabee in office to OK Israel pushing the button, which would ignite a series of other nuclear launches.

People may have been frightened by Ronnie and W, thinking they'd do the same thing, but their handlers were capitalists and pragmatists. They would not have allowed those two to actually pull the trigger on the end of the world. There's no money in total annihilation. On the other hand, Huckabee surrounds himself with Jerry Falwells, Pat Robertsons and Chuck Norrises. These people are concerned with meeting God and ushering in the end times (and according to the internetz in the case of Chuck Norris, their main concern is roundhouse kicking things). Have you watched something on TBN lately? That crap is crazy scary, especially when they start trying to fit modern news events into the book of Revelations. Most of those nuts already believe we're on the precipice of the second coming or whatever other stupid myth they believe in.

There are four types of nuclear players: A) developed superpowers, developed non-superpowers, C) developing superpowers, and D) developing non-superpowers. And in the real world, there are three strategies: 1) rational actors, 2) rational actors that convincingly appear irrational and 3) genuinely irrational actors.

Theocrats and fundamentalists of every stripe, most especially the ones who believe the world will come to a violent end, should not be trusted to act rationally. You have a lot more faith than me (<--see what I did there) that these religious nuts can be trusted not to try to jumpstart Armageddon.

Today...we develop the infrastructure that is demanded in the near future and preserve an easement along designated transit corridors. Tomorrow...we upgrade.

This is like deja vu all over again.

As far as atheism being self-defeating, I think it is just because of the semantics of god/God. Maybe a more earthly/pantheistic approach would be less unsettling than the anthropomorphic ones..

I find them all unsettling, though strictly in terms of belief and the damge wrought by belief. Hell, even buddhists have blood on their hands. But, I don't wish believers to turn away from their beliefs, especially if, like Lockmat suggests for himself, they need their beliefs in order to be good and decent people. What I would like is for believers to be more rational about the limitations of their beliefs and recognize that other beliefs are similarly as valid as their own. And in recognizing that, I truly wish people of faith would STOP trying to force their beliefs on others.

So, basically you're advancing an alternate plot for the movie Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb as a criticism over issues of high-ranking individuals gone mad in concert with poor technological fail-safes.

That scenario strikes me as implausible in the modern day. 1) Creationism is increasingly marginalized in our society; the only reason it gets press is because those people are generally perceived of as crazy, and media loves crazy. 2) There is no compelling political reason (i.e. survival, economic advantage) to instigate a nuclear conflict...anywhere. 3) Iran wants to optimize its diplomatic bargaining power, and nuclear weapons combined with the outward appearances of being irrational will provide them exactly that. 4) Let's say I'm wrong about my last point. Any conflict would be short-lived. Basically, Israel and a handful of other cities in the Middle East would be erased; no other country would be so ridiculously stupid as to interject themselves into such a conflict if it went from cold to hot.

It's not as implausible as you think. We have the ability to actually destroy the world. All we need is a reactive election pushing fundamentalists to power and sufficient cause for those politicians to feel they're doing the Lord's work by bringing the end of days. We've already got the Middle Eastern powderkeg. If we threw someone like Huckabee into the mix, we'd have Armageddon within five years.

I was referring to some government officials who happen to be creationist, who also happen to be in a decision making capacity (for the rest of us) who also happen to have the codes to the nukes. One might say that any trouble in the middle east might be the start of armageddon (or whatever they call it) or the second coming, and rush to nuke everyone. It's not off the wall. It's a very real threat/issue. And I say this because while locmat may not be one of those officials with the nuke codes, he is one of a growing number of creationists. While this may not be a bad thing in the context of morality and what is right and wrong, it is disturbing when our science education is faltering and other nations are gaining on us.

I got what you meant. It just appears my tongue-in-cheek humor was more clumsy than usual.

Happened to read this in USA Today this morning - thoughts/comments?

http://www.usatoday....lumn24_ST_N.htm

I agree with the sentiment. Atheism is a bunch of intellectual snobbery. Likewise, many atheists are bullies and hypocrites. But, whining about how athiests are acting rude or whatever is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Christianity has spent millenia squelching dissent, often at the end of a sword, and just now, for the last decade or two, Christians have been acting as weak victims to the overwhelming voice of reason. They've got a martyr complex, and they feel anyone who addresses their beliefs with logic is oppressing them. I say let the Christians squirm. That is, unless they stop voting their beliefs and start using their brains. Unfortunately, the whole makes-no-difference-what-you-do-as-long-as-it's-not-hurting-me thing doesn't work as long as we put mouth-breathing retards in office who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and they want their beliefs reflected in high school textbooks. I don't care if someone wants to believe something dumb, but when they try to make all of us believe the same dumb thing, I have a problem with that, and I won't play nice.

Interesting. You've mentioned that before. Do your views lean more towards creationism as do countless other of our government officials (with the codes to the nukes)?

I never wrote that I was a government official, as I'm not, so I fail to see how that's relevant.

Oh, if you'd be so kind, please stop referring to the slave trade as the slave trade and pretty please start calling it the "triangular Atlanticular trade". Thanks.

What do government officials have to do with anything related to history or science? Typical LTAWACS off-the-wall post.

Out of curiosity, since when does "outside the 610 loop" equals to the "suburbs"?

Fifteen minutes ago. Sorry we couldn't tell you before you wrote your comment, but now you know.

I am of the opinion that the more officers we have on the street the better.

Regardless of the circumstances?

You guys have waaay too much free time on your hands.

Not really. It doesn't take me too long to respond to these. As a trained and studied archaeologist, and as having been raised a Southern Baptist, I've got the perfect storm of credentials to have been challenged on this debate literally hundreds of times in my life, from both sides. I'm pretty well prepared for every point or position made. This debate to me is as familiar as can be, and this thread covered no new ground.

I just woke up.

Actually, you were dead. Jesus just reanimated your corpse. Unfortunately, rigor mortis has already set in, so you may find it difficult to move.

Locmat, apparently you were right, and LTAWACS, enjoy them brains!

The reason to be a good person is not because of fear. It's for love.

You can't love if you don't believe in God? Weird, because I love the crap out of my family but I don't believe in God.

Interesting how laws were never setup in the name of evolution for our group or species though.

What are you talking about? Our gigantic brains and our development of tools and culture is in itself an evolutionary advantage. The very fact we can create laws, morality and ethics is law set up by evolution.

Genesis 7:11 - In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

Somehow, water came up from under the ground. And it rained for 40 days and nights, so I'm not sure where you're coming from saying that there's not enough water on earth to cover the planet.

Below is the description of it drying up.

Genesis 8 - ¹But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the water subsided. ²Also the fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained; ³and the water receded steadily from the earth, and at the end of one hundred and fifty days the water decreased.

Arrrgh! No, Lockmat, no! You cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible. That isn't the way logic works. Is Niche the messiah for Pastafarianism simply because he says he is? Good god, learn to recognize your fallacies before you make them.

I really don't give two flying flips what the Bibles says about where it got the water. The fact remains, there isn't enough water on the planet to cover the entire surface.

I don't see why I have to abide by the laws just because they were "developed" over time. What if I am a stray part of the species and I want to obey my own ideas of good and bad? Nobody has any real authority to tell me that's wrong.

Yes they do. The police have authority over you. The government has authority over you. They can and do tell you what's right and wrong. People who disagree and act accordingly are termed sociopaths. It's not sin, it's a disruption of what is right and best for the group. Right and wrong are relative terms, and each and every group has a set of rules to define them. If sin was determined by God, an understanding of right and wrong would be universal, but it's not. And since God is impotent to define sin for all humanity, the God you know doesn't exist. The debate could end with this, but I have a feeling you're going to quote the Bible to me again. (And the next Bible quote you use to prove something to me will be met with an opposing quote from the Book of Mormon or the Koran.)

We shouldn't even talk about what's right and wrong anyway. We should just talk about what's best for the species. So when we teach our kids what to do, we should tell them, do this or don't do that because it's beneficial to our species, not because it's right or wrong.

Why would what's best for our species not also be "right"? Taking God out of the equation doesn't matter at all to that end.

And honestly, I am not sure what other species is threatening our existence. Apes? Lions? Aliens someday? I think we have a pretty darn good advantage over any other known species, it's not even close.

You're going off of the rails on a crazy train. That's not even what I was talking about.

I understand, I will have to look for them online. Is there one species or whatever...a string of transitional forms, that we have from any point in time to the present? i will look, but if you already know of a source online, I'd like for you to share it with me.

Oh god yes. There's a ton of information, and there's a ton of evidence. However, you'll have to stop looking at evolution as having a delineated string, and think of it more an amorphous web. Here's the evolution of just the Homo genus (to which we belong). Every one of the species listed has representative fossils, all in various stages of morphological transition (ie. missing links).

Why are the scientists who do not agree that it is reliable discounted?

Because their conslusions are unverifiable and their test results cannot be duplicated. Look up a priori and post priori.

I did not say it is about morals. But it has moral ramifications.

Only if you continue to insist the only reason you're a good person is because you fear the consequences of being bad. If you could take a second and recognize all the other reasons not lying, not stealing and not murdering is beneficial to human groups (and in turn individual humans), this wouldn't be such an issue for you.

Yeah, my parents told me it was wrong, but by what authority do they have to tell me that, in the name of evolution, their parents? What about their parents? For me to respect that, I need a final authority. Evolution does not provide that, therefore, I do not have to adhere to whatever authority someone else claims they have.

In the name of what is good for the group as a whole. It doesn't do society much good to allow people to run around raping and murdering at their own whims. Therefore it's not legal. It's a pretty simple concept. Murder isn't illegal merely because your God says it's wrong. Murder is illegal because it disrupts the herd.

I have nothing else to offer but the bible. In that same sense, how can we even trust science? If science is observation, who is to say that scientists observations are correct? Afterall, we can all look at a red square and it can be a different color to each one of us, apparently.

Other scientists say it's correct. One person performing one test doesn't make something a scientific fact. The ultimate triumph of science is its use of testing over and over again by many people, often across the entire planet, to come to any conclusions.

Fossilization fits perfectly into the worldwide flood. And remember, all the biblical arguments are not a reaction to evolution. It's been written for 2,000 years.

And as Niche brought up, 2000 years ago people believed the sun revolved around a flat Earth. I don't know why you put so much stock into the knowledge of ancient people. By and large, they had very little understanding of the world around them. In place of real answers they just made a load of wacky crap up.

If God spoke creation into existence, he can certainly make it look old from the beginning (don't we do this with buildings and other things and make them look old when they're new?). And when the worldwide flood happened, volcanoes went off and there were earthquakes, so who knows how that effected things.

Goelogists know! Geologists know exactly how that affected things! And NO, fossil creation isn't consistent with any sort of flood, let alone the preposterous idea of a biblical flood. You do realize there isn't even enough water on the planet to cover all the Earth's surface, not even if the polar ice caps melted? Geez, the process of fossilization often can take longer the age you've set on the Earth!

If evolution was real it would be perfectly ok to steal and lie. On what authority are you ready to tell me it's not? And it's not about my species, it's just about me. Afterall, I want the next generation of species to come from me, not someone else. What is good? Who defines good? My standard of good could be different than yours.

It could be different than mine, and it probably is. But, we don't exist outside of our species in a vacuum. We've developed laws as a way to ensure our mutual survival, and even though we haven't rooted out all the bad seeds, if religion's place on the pedestal is bumped for reason, we'd all be more concerned with the good of all people, not less. As it is, religion creates the idea of chosen people or wrong people or people who are going to suffer for eternity anyhow, so their place in this world is negligible.

I don't think God is out to decieve us, but yes, it's possible. He has revealed in the bible plausible events to explain the things we are debating. More than anything he wants us to have faith in him, synonumous with trust. If he just gave us facts, that would not be trust, and most people wouldn't believe the facts anyway.

Why would it make sense to trust someone who's deliberately deceived us? That's asinine.

We've got a saying down here in Texas. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice... won't get fooled again.

The entire bible's main focus is redemption. If God did not create man and they did not sin, what is he redeeming them from?

Why does he have to redeem man? You've never satisfactorily answered why the tree of knowledge was placed in the Garden of Eden in the first place.

The old testament follows the seed promise through the nation of israel. The seed promise is revealed as Jesus. The rest of the new testament is telling us how to live in light of redemption. If we do not need to be redeemed then there is no pont of sanctification. If evolution is true, we need no redemption, we're just another point in time, another transitional fossil waiting to happen.

Fair enough. So why, in spite of the overwhelming evidence, do you believe in a 6,000 year old Earth and the God of the Bible (as you interpret him)?

Also, all those rituals were for israel to do at that time. They didn't really do anyting. They were a symbol for the israelites. now that Christ has come, those are no longer necessary. They were also to protect the promised seed and to cleanse israel. The promised seed is here now and salvation is open to jews and gentiles alike, so there's no need.

This is a cop-out answer. It seems to me people like to pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to believe as literal truth, and you're hung-up on the inconsequential parts.

So basically, God is truth and claims to be truth. He has revealed himself so we should not be affraid of that. If I had made it up or it was my own idea, then yeah I would be affraid. But as we've discussed, the bible says it was "God breathed" and that God wrote it through man, so it is authoritative.

You can't do this. You can't use the Bible's words as proof the Bible is legitimate. It's like using a word to define itself. The Bible is completely useless to prove the legitimacy of the Bible.

Ok, so I read that the scientific name is transitional fossil. However, it is plausible that those are simply variations or even bigger/younger animals. And if things evolved over millions of years, there should be a humungous inventory of these transitional forms. I would highly doubt these are available. It cannot be a complete chain if one link is missing.

As I said before, you obviously have no idea just how difficult the process is for fossils to transmute from organic material to rock. The fact so many do exist is the amazing thing. Given the necessary conditions, it's amazing anything has survived at all to clue us into the planet's prehistory.

There is probably no reason to argue it here, but I understand that radioactive carbon dating is not reliable; at least there are scientists who believe so. I know everyone will say it is, and I am no expert in it, so it's probably not worth getting in to. We can just agree to disagree.

Carbon dating is incredibly reliable and amazingly accurate, but only up to about 64,000 years, and only with organic material containing carbon. After that, you get into other radiometric dating that uses relative and absolute dating to gauge something's age. C-14 isn't used at all for fossils. Not ever. The most common technique for dating fossils is looking at their relative position in a geological stratigraphic layer, and dating the potassium/argon isotope ratios. That's the most common, those these dates are nearly always cross-referenced with other radiometric tests.

Speaking of which, how do you account for the enormous time difference is the scientific fact of the Earth's age and your Biblical conjecture for the same thing? 4.3 billion years old is much different than 6,000 years old, and while there is a whole lot of evidence for the 4.3 billion years, there's only the Bible for the 6,000 years.

In evolution, there are no morals, except the ones you make up for yourself; there is no authority. It's the survival of the fittest. We are just evolving into the newest and best species. Nobody can tell me stealing and lieing is wrong; what authority do they have to tell me that?

Survival of the fittest isn't necessarily selfish. It's a mistake most fundamentalists who try to debate the topic make.

Are you suggesting that if God wasn't real, it would be perfectly reasonable to steal and lie? Are you saying that the betterment of your species and your planet isn't reason enough to be ethical? Do you need consequences for your misdeeds in order to be a good person? Do you need fear of punishment?

In short, if creation is false, then God is not real and the bible has no authority; jesus has no authority; it's a lie. How can the rest be trusted? I think the link here gives a good thorough explanation.

http://www.gotquesti...reationism.html

Here is a more lengthy explanation with the main topic of our conversation in the latter half (http://www.answersin...k/2006/0804.asp)

Nah. Those relate the creation myth to a building's foundation, which it hardly is. It's fairly simple to agree with the Bible without taking it literally. All you have to do is accept that even though it's God inspired, it's written by men. Men are not infallible. What made sense at one point in time isn't going to make sense for all time. I know a number of people who believe in the same God as you (or at least some close proximation) who are perfectly comfortable accepting that God is divine but the Bible is not.

And, iIf you accept the Bible as literal truth, you'd have to do a lot of effin' weird rituals that aren't even legal today.

That statement leaves room for doubt, does it not? If so, then I will accept your interpretation. But I must still reject LTAWACS'.

Theories aren't immutable, so yes, it does leave room for doubt. The Hubble telescope could discover God at the edge of the universe tomorrow playing Texas Hold 'Em with Satan, or the rapture could happen which would serve to confirm at least part of the Bible therefore casting doubt on everything in toto that opposes the Bible. Then again, it's just as likely the Hindu god Ganesha will come to Earth and win the WWE title belt using his patented elephant headbutt move, or that Xbalanque and Hunapu will guide us all to Xibalba in a canoe made from a hollowed ceiba tree trunk and lead us to victory on the ball court. It could be that Thor will leave Valhalla to star in a movie based on a comic book based on his life, and it could be that the Flying Spaghetti Monster materializes on my dinner plate to give me next Saturday's Power Ball numbers. These things could happen to nullify LTAWACS' post, but they're pretty damned unlikely.

Yeah, there's room for doubt, but not much.

Are you sure?

I've got pillars of garlic salt in my spice cabinet older than 6,000 years. I'm sure of that. I'm positive sin and morality is relative. I'm 100% positive "missing link" is outdated terminology. I'm also sure that humans didn't evolve from apes, but that we share a common ancestor. I'm also certain this isn't speculation and there exists mouintains of evidence to support this. I'm also sure this can be referenced online and at the library. And lastly, I'm positive the common ancestor for man and the various extant ape species has long since gone extinct (or at least gradually evolved into other species).

I feel pretty confident that LTAWACS' post was accurate.

Edit: But, before we go down the epistimological nihilism path again, I'm confident this is fact as far as anything can be known.

Perhaps the teachings (dont kill, dont steal, dont eat pork(?)) present in all of these religious texts are ultimately good and may provide some kind of moral framwork. However it may be that the WAY they are presented are becoming more and more dangerous. We should be able to teach certain things (dont kill, dont steal) without all the religious/creator/jesus mythology.

So, while teaching our children that stealing is not a good thing, it is deplorable that we teach them that some guy named jesus was here to save us all and that he is the only way we can be "saved" and everyone else on this planet has got it wrong ala 'my saviour is better than yours'.

I don't disagree. (Except for the pork thing; bacon could possibly be the best thing ever.)