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It doesn't matter what your assertion is, or how long its standing.

Does my assertion that Invisible Pink Unicorns gain more credence if I write some stories about it? If I get some people to say prayers to it?

Suppose I get 10,000,000 people to say that the Invisible Pink Unicorns exist.

NONE of these reasons give any more credence to the idea. What I'm saying is, there is nothing making "God" any more real the "Invisible Pink Unicorns" than more people claiming to believe in it. And no matter how many people think something is true, that has NO EFFECT ON ITS VERACITY!

How can you suggest that God is more valid a concept merely because it's an outstanding idea?

*supplies a giant fucking chill pill*
Will that be Oral, or Suppository?

For those trying to "prove" God.... Get a grip.

The whole idea of faith hinges on the fact that you CANNOT prove anything - that's what faith is. If you're busy trying to prove God exists, or disprove theories which might conflict with a particular religion, then by default you have no faith, and defeating your stance in the process.

Go figure. It's in the bible somewhere.

Goddamn, it's moments like these when I REALLY miss our valkyrie Honor! She could shred and rip apart a poorly formed argument with just a flick of her marvellous wrist... American highways and big semi-trailers and truck stops are so dammned lucky.... I'll be in my bunk thinking of greasy, wrench wielding Honor....

Lulu....download skype T______T

Oooh bugger! Sorry Swordsie - I'll go do that right now

By the way - The wonderful Douglas Adams neatly sums up my previous point about faith, and also the concept of Intelligent Design, in one glorious little nutshell -

""I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED"

I believe that God then dissapears in a puff of logic...

I was actually considering looking up that quote, thank you!

RavenxDrake wrote:

Indigo Violent wrote:Do I need to refute the existence of invisible pink unicorns? If not them, why God?

Because there is no standing asertion that Invisible Pink Unicorns exist, as opposed to the assertion that god exists(or does not exist).

Okay, I assert it. I believe in invisible pink unicorns. They cavort around behind clouds.
Is anyone going to say this is a reasonable belief just because it can't be disproven?
And please do not waste all our time by saying that theists outnumber me and have believed as they do for a much longer time, so their belief is more credible. I notice no one present is arguing for the existence of the Hindu pantheon, arguably the oldest surviving religion on Earth and with a fairly hefty following.

Not that it was intentional or malicious, it merely seemed a very dismissive argument as though deeming belief in anything that could only be indirectly detected as fanciful or silly.

I suppose it could be interpreted maliciously, but I generally think the metaphor works because it employs something that almost no one believes in, and is in fact almost famous for not existing. But what are our grounds for concluding unicorns don't exist, and how is God exempt from them?

Indigo Violent wrote:

Not that it was intentional or malicious, it merely seemed a very dismissive argument as though deeming belief in anything that could only be indirectly detected as fanciful or silly.

I suppose it could be interpreted maliciously, but I generally think the metaphor works because it employs something that almost no one believes in, and is in fact almost famous for not existing. But what are our grounds for concluding unicorns don't exist, and how is God exempt from them?

Come on now listen to your Irish Rovers everyone knows the unicorns got wiped out in the great flood, cause Noah got impatient.

MistressMaggie wrote:*supplies a giant fucking chill pill*
Will that be Oral, or Suppository?

Hmm... This is a tough case; I think it'll require both.

Lulujayne wrote:Goddamn, it's moments like these when I REALLY miss our valkyrie Honor! She could shred and rip apart a poorly formed argument with just a flick of her marvellous wrist... American highways and big semi-trailers and truck stops are so dammned lucky.... I'll be in my bunk thinking of greasy, wrench wielding Honor....

swordsman3003 wrote:[stuff from Talkorigins]

That all completely missed the point. The writer of that piece was completely bullshitting out of a superiority complex towards thiests. The argument is NOT one based on just complexity, or a lack of understanding. It's based on this: Natural, random evolution requires us to believe that an infinite number of random events occured perfectly, in synchronization, in just the right circumstances to combine and grow, without any being evolved out before they were complete. When you have that many random occurances, each occurance with an infinite number of different possibilities that could of happened, ALL occuring perfectly, it starts to look like there was a seperate reason for these events invisible to us. Something or someone fixing the game. Like I said: If you rolled a die 50 trillion times, and each time got 6, wouldn't you assume that the dice was weighted before assumed you're just goddamned lucky? I'm not arguing that because of these, God exists. I'm arguing that because of these, attributing existence to nothing but random dumb luck doesn't quite fly.
I'm just not going to respond to squidflakes. Of course, all of his points are either assumptions or misunderstandings (It's not the SHAPE of DNA, it's the order the elements are in), but I don't waste my time on assholes.


Just ask yourself the question about those dice. Ask yourself about why you don't assume your computer in naturally occuring. Ask yourself why it's easier to believe in an infinite lucky occurances than an infinite intentional acts.

On your dice analogy, do note that the universe, well, infinite/hueg and stuff. There are planets without life, with life in some stages, and that had life (like Mars). And earth isn't like 50 million sixes in a row, there's a one and a three every here and there (like, say the comet that allmost annihilated every multi-cell organism from the planet).

Jetsetlemming wrote:

swordsman3003 wrote:[stuff from Talkorigins]

Stuff from out of Jetsetlemming's ass

You sir, are a fucking idiot.

READ A GOD DAMN BOOK YOU IGNORANT SHIT FOR BRAINS!

NOTHING in evolution is perfect. AT ALL! Nothing happened "perfectly" to evolve things to the point where they stand now. To insist that this is so shows the complete lack of understanding and mind-numbing self-centered attitude that you don't seem to be willing to release in order to understand.

Now, I'll attempt to use really small words so you can get this through your thick skull, k?

There is no endpoint to evolution. There is no final goal. There is no perfect form. Evolution is very rarely random. Evolution happens to get shit done. Evolution stems from environmental or predatory pressures on an organism. These pressures can take many forms, whether they be to take advantage of a resource, to withstand some aspect of your environment, or to avoid predation. Sometimes these pressures go away, so after a great deal of time has passed, there are evolutionary traits that don't seem to make any sense. Sometimes, something so drastic happens that an organism is left completely unprepared, and is unable to adapt to the change. This has happened on a mass scale at least three times in the history of the world, but, I'm getting off track.

The thing you need to understand is that humans are NOT the center of the universe. One of the ways we could prove evolution false would be to look at ourselves and see that everything we have fits our environment perfectly. However, it doesn't. No animal is perfectly adapted to its niche. That there are areas of the Earth where we can't survive, that there are plants and animals that are poisonous to us, that there are things we can't digest, that we are unable to inhabit over 75% of the Earth's surface should be a huge clue that we are not perfect for this planet.

Evolution to fit an environment will stop once it gets to well enough, and since I know a lot about them, we're going to use squid as an example.

Squid (along with the other non-shelled cephalopods) are THE MOST SUCCESSFUL ANIMALS EVER. We've found fossils of early cephalopods (ammonites) as far back as 500 million years, and since then, cephalopods have filled ecological niches that have been dominated by more advanced organisms (usually fish). However, cephalopods have many disadvantages that a designer or a guide should have known to fix. For instance, their blood is very poor at carrying oxygen, and their blood pressure is very low. Although they have three rudimentary hearts, they are unable to sustain a high level of activity for very long. Even so, squid manage to be some of the most numerous and successful animals in the ocean because their adaptation is good enough. Its not perfect by any long shot, but it works.

Same with humans. Frankly, we suck at this whole living on land thing. We have no fur to keep us warm, we have no claws or teeth or armored shells to defend us. We have no scent glands for marking territory or bright colorful plumage for attracting mates. Even our senses are dull as dishwater compared to the rest of the animals on the planet. For the most part, humans are a dead end. However, we have one huge advantage that took us from the jungle canopy to the moon, and that is our big, sexy, expensive brain. Our brains enabled us to survive (barely) in enough numbers to be considered successful, and look where we are now.

Really, you need to become better informed on this topic before you start to argue. No one familiar with the theory would bring up your little dice example because it is completely fallacious. It is a fabrication used by religious folks to dumb down the conversation to a level everyone can understand, and its tactics like this that make it so tempting to talk down to theists like yourself.

Ad hominem aside, you're smart enough to use a computer, and you're smart enough to post on these forums, which already makes you above average. That you have faith in a higher power is completely immaterial to science, and you should know this.

Jestle, the "unlikelihood" arguement is crap. I'm going to show you now.

"Oh Muse, Sing in me and through me tell tell the story, of that man skilled in all ways of contending."

"smes~!me4osmsjeoflensmeodnesjemxhe2osmsldifmqw3owdndkslss234nemwcioscioiovxo5iidmf$$e"

Tell me, what is the likelihood of each sequence being produced by a random character generator? Your first instinct is to say 'well, the liklihood of producing the opening line to the Oddessy is very very unlikely, compared to a meaningless gargle of text'.

But think for a momen. In fact, EITHER sequence is equally likely to be produced.

Just because we can attribute meaning to the first sequence does not make it any more significant.

It's entirely possible a meteor could have wiped out humans before we got a chance to evolve to what we are now. It's also possible a meteor did not wipe us out. Just because we luckily were not all killed does not mean someone is fixing the numbers! Please understand that.

Jestle, that's a new one.
I've got just about 0 interest continuing this discussion, as fun as it has been, with assholes like squidflakes shouting their blind statements from the rooftops and declaring anyone who doesn't agree with them idiots (among other things).
I'll say this: I wasn't trying to prove God's existence. I wasn't trying to prove evolution wrong. I was simply showing you the.... reasonable doubt, we'll call it. For the record, I'm a Diest (believes God created the universe, and hasn't laid a finger on it since), and I fully believe in evolution. I just have a hard time closing my mind to other possibilities like some people.

I refer interested parties to South Part episodes 1012 and 1013, and this video I found on YouTube.

Jetsetlemming wrote:assholes like squidflakes shouting their blind statements from the rooftops and declaring anyone who doesn't agree with them idiots (among other things).

Excellent back-peddling sir!

The thread definitely did lighten up a few dreary afternoons, that's for sure.

Ok, I'm out. I was all for a bit of friendly debate, the key word being friendly. I haven't pulled out all my study books or cited all my sources because I'm busy playing neopets while responding to thses posts . I don't mind if you don't believe in god. I don't mind if you don't believe in the big bang. I believe in both. Yes I used alot of silly terms and odd comparisons. I'm not a scientist, that's my grandfather. He introduced me to the Chaos theory because he's working on it now and although I don't fully understand it, my artful comparisons all fit within it's range. Any way, I'll sit and debate all day but in doing such I prefer a relaxed setting. These boards are no longer comfertable for me. I give all my points up happily and bow down to the all knowing god of science. Please don't continue to post rude.mean things toward/about me. I just don't feel like dealing with the bitterness. It's the Christams season, and I don't wanna get all angry and ranty. Thake care every one, Farewell.

I wouldn't even have gotten in to this thread if you (faeoori) and jetset hadn't started ganging up on Swordzie and telling him he was wrong, then substituting your opinion for fact. You're also lucky that Honor isn't around, or you would have gotten a double screen load from the both of us.

If this had mutated in to a debate on faith, it would have been a lot more civil.

But ahhh well, damage done.

I think swordsie could have told me if he was bothered by the debate. I withdrew when I felt it got mean. For every arguement he gave, I gave my own, rather art skewed answer. Remember, he was the first to debate my views. I honestly enjoy debating every thing from religion and science to anime and videogames, but I don't like it when things get personal. You may note I made an effort to add jokes to each of my posts, letting it be known no hard feelings were intended. Any way, This will be my last post on this board and likely this forum. I had hoped this was a place where varied oppinions and views were allowed. I fear I no longer feel this way, whether my views are correct or not.