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  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    I once asked a question of all my religious acquaintances: Why are there dinosaur bones? My two favourite answers: "They lived along side man until they died for some reason." "The bones were put there by Satan to weaken our faith in the Bible."
  • RC7RC7
    Posts: 10,512
    RC7 wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know why people cling to evolution it’s about fear more then anything else

    This guy.
    Is he now trying to claim that evolution is the outmoded and blinkered way of understanding the universe and that true critical thinkers and the enlightened are all turning to religion?

    You have to admire his chutzpah if nothing else!

    It’s either grade A trolling, or he’s some sort of AI bot.
  • Posts: 15,125
    Pretty rich mentioning the platypus when you believe two of them left mount Ararat after the Flood to go to Australia, leaving no trace whatsoever on the way.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Pretty rich mentioning the platypus when you believe two of them left mount Ararat after the Flood to go to Australia, leaving no trace whatsoever on the way.

    At least they can swim. How are the koalas and kangaroos getting there?
  • Posts: 15,125
    Ludovico wrote: »
    Pretty rich mentioning the platypus when you believe two of them left mount Ararat after the Flood to go to Australia, leaving no trace whatsoever on the way.

    At least they can swim. How are the koalas and kangaroos getting there?

    Miracle I guess.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    edited June 2018 Posts: 9,117
    He'll be unearthing his 'Noah's Ark is true' youtube vids on us in a minute!
  • Posts: 9,847
    Evolution is a creation myth without the creator atheist cling to it for fear of the alternative and bully those who try to oppose it look at this video from Ben Stien



  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Evolution is a creation myth without the creator atheist cling to it for fear of the alternative and bully those who try to oppose it look at this video from Ben Stien



    A summary from Wiki:
    Stein has denounced the scientific theory of evolution, which he and other intelligent design advocates call "Darwinism", declaring it to be "a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies", "the most compelling argument yet for Imperialism", and the inspiration for the Holocaust.[51][52] Stein does not say belief in evolution alone leads to genocide, but that scientific materialism is a necessary component.[53] He co-wrote and stars in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a film that aims to persuade viewers that evolution was instrumental to the rise of the eugenics movement, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust, and portrays advocates of intelligent design as victims of intellectual discrimination by the scientific community, which has rejected intelligent design as creationist pseudoscience.[54][55][56] In the trailer for the film, Stein said that his aim was to expose "people out there who want to keep science in a little box where it can’t possibly touch God."[1]

    What's he trying to prove there? Who said evolution and nature was nice and fluffy. The animal kingdom is full of brutality and killing so, as fellow animals, why is it surprising when we do similar? Even if you prove evolution did cause the Holocaust that doesn't make it not true as a theory. Because Zyklon B killed all the Jews does that mean I should not believe in the existence of hydrogen cyanide?

    Bad shit exists. The fact that it is bad doesn't make it any more or less true.

    Nonetheless to avoid accusations hypocrisy for closing my mind to alternate views I'm about to start watching that vid to see if it holds the slightest water. Wish me luck all.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    RC7 wrote: »

    Yeah I thought as much.

    Sorry @Risico007 but that was just terrible. I did try for 10 mins but it was just apologism for 'Intelligent Design' being bullied by big bad science when the real reason ID is ridiculed is because it is completely baseless and without the slightest shred of evidence.
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Ben Stein is funny in movies; comedy acting is his only real skill.
  • Posts: 9,847
    10 minutes... bravo

    Perhaps I should inly give you guys 10 minute YouTube clips?
  • Posts: 15,125
    Ben Stein is as clever as he looks. And let's face it: he looks like a plonker.
  • Posts: 9,847
    Ah but he still exists so clearly based on Darwinian claim he must be more adapted and evolved right
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Ah but he still exists so clearly based on Darwinian claim he must be more adapted and evolved right

    Comedy (attempted). Will you be working here all week? ;)
  • Posts: 9,847
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Ah but he still exists so clearly based on Darwinian claim he must be more adapted and evolved right

    Comedy (attempted). Will you be working here all week? ;)

    As long as wiz keeps giving me chocolate martinis and the conversation is as enjoyable I have no problem dancing with you fine folk so let’s start the band up again
  • Creasy47Creasy47 In Cuba with Natalya.Moderator
    Posts: 40,976
    Risico007 wrote: »
    10 minutes... bravo

    Perhaps I should inly give you guys 10 minute YouTube clips?

    I'm still awaiting the ones that prove God exists and this whole "religion" idea hasn't been a sham all along.
  • Posts: 15,125
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Ah but he still exists so clearly based on Darwinian claim he must be more adapted and evolved right

    Huh?
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Risico007 wrote: »
    chrisisall wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Ah but he still exists so clearly based on Darwinian claim he must be more adapted and evolved right

    Comedy (attempted). Will you be working here all week? ;)

    As long as wiz keeps giving me chocolate martinis and the conversation is as enjoyable I have no problem dancing with you fine folk so let’s start the band up again

    I like your fine and funny attitude! Let's carry on!
  • Posts: 15,125
    RC7 wrote: »

    Yeah I thought as much.

    Sorry @Risico007 but that was just terrible. I did try for 10 mins but it was just apologism for 'Intelligent Design' being bullied by big bad science when the real reason ID is ridiculed is because it is completely baseless and without the slightest shred of evidence.

    Something just struck me about this article @RC7 shared. It is from Scientific American, the very same publication @Risico007 fished an article from, earlier in this thread, not bothering to read the thing (well, of course). I wonder if he's going to give the article some credit this time. I mean assuming he read it. Which he won't.
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Ludovico wrote: »
    RC7 wrote: »

    Yeah I thought as much.

    Sorry @Risico007 but that was just terrible. I did try for 10 mins but it was just apologism for 'Intelligent Design' being bullied by big bad science when the real reason ID is ridiculed is because it is completely baseless and without the slightest shred of evidence.

    Something just struck me about this article @RC7 shared. It is from Scientific American, the very same publication @Risico007 fished an article from, earlier in this thread, not bothering to read the thing (well, of course). I wonder if he's going to give the article some credit this time. I mean assuming he read it. Which he won't.
    I think he only allows himself to read the bible in case he sees something that might contradict it's 'truth'.
  • Posts: 9,847
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature
  • Posts: 15,125
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature

    Do you read it the way you read Scientific American?
  • TheWizardOfIceTheWizardOfIce 'One of the Internet's more toxic individuals'
    Posts: 9,117
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature
    So like most of us you read the Bible and The God Delusion and you decided one made total sense and other was a load of old bollocks?
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature
    So like most of us you read the Bible and The God Delusion and you decided one made total sense and other was a load of old bollocks?

    Hahahahahah! No soda coming out of my nose though, thank God...
  • Posts: 9,847
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature
    So like most of us you read the Bible and The God Delusion and you decided one made total sense and other was a load of old bollocks?

    Yes but I bet you can’t guess which is which
  • chrisisallchrisisall Brosnan Defender Of The Realm
    Posts: 17,801
    Risico007 wrote: »
    Risico007 wrote: »
    You know I have read Dawkins right I mean as shocking as that sounds I own a copy of the god delusion and have read it along with other books of that nature
    So like most of us you read the Bible and The God Delusion and you decided one made total sense and other was a load of old bollocks?

    Yes but I bet you can’t guess which is which

    You are clearly a master debater.
    ;)
  • Posts: 4,617
    The Bible versus the God Delusion.

    You really have to be deluded if you pick the former over the later. But, of course, thats the point that Dawkin's is making.

    It's a great book but, as with the man himself, it lacks humour.
    God is Not Great is the best book on atheism I have read. Just superb
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,183
    @Risico007

    Just dropping by very quickly to comment on your post about evolution and how we cling to it out of fear. The truth is quite the opposite, friend.

    People who reject evolution, the Big Bang, the true age of our Earth, ... mostly do so out of fear. They fear feeling humbled, unimportant, rendered cosmically unanimous. We're a temporary thing; our existence is barely felt outside the Moon's orbit. We're small, fragile and still "work in progress". Creationists struggle with that notion because since childbirth, they have been spoonfed the idea that God cares about us, that we're the pinnacle of his divine Creativity, that we are kings and queens of mortal life throughout the cosmos. To accept our infinitesimally small presence, both in time and space, is to see ourselves as anything but the ultimate creation.

    But we are arrogant. We don't like to feel small and unimportant. So we rather make up stories that "explain" our divine descent, than face the facts. And we have been doing it for ages, since long before the foundations of math were discovered. This is an absurdly ancient way of thinking, a vastly more primitive and, like most primitive ideas, incorrect one. Science has revealed a reality which, out of fear of being rendered cosmically insignificant, many blind followers of creationist theories reject.

    However, they reject them in the face of hard evidence, staring at them from a petri dish, from the LIGO-experiment, from particle detectors, ... They stubbornly invent logically flawed arguments to counter the objective findings of science, making up excuse after excuse for why all of that empirical evidence and those millions and millions of independently conducted and peer evaluated experiments is just nonsense. It is, as @Ludovico said a few pages ago, like sticking your fingers in your ears and going "lalalala!". What drives you is an existential desperation, the need for a higher patriarch, for someone who will look after you even after you have died.

    Our logic dictates that when science cleans up fables, we have to accept things as they are and be the best people we can be. Your logic demands that you twist and bend scientific findings and rally behind eloquent charlatans so that the oldest, simplest and most flawed concepts of our place in the universe are finally, after exhaustive syllogistic engineering, given more credibility than hard, objective, falsifiable and testable science. This is the child being caught by his parents doing something wrong, inventing some supernatural excuse in one last, pathetic attempt to stay clear of punishment. The fear of having to cope with the reality of things and of having to take all of your moral, spiritual and existential matters into your own hands, is what's driving you. What's driving us isn't fear, but hope. Hope that the more we learn about the universe, the closer we can come to survinging as a species, to evolving into an even better one, and to finally start making smart decisions rather than be guided by superstition, magical thinking and, worst of all, emotion. It is not us who are afraid, my friend. It really is you.
  • edited June 2018 Posts: 4,617
    @DarthDimi "Your logic"

    Agree with your post but not on this.

    There is no "our logic" and "your logic": there is just logic. You either embrace logic and accept the conclusions (including the bad news) or reject it with the fantasy and fairy tales providing more comfort.

    Sorry, another point "it is not us who are afraid" - we must be careful about such statements. It's perfectly possible to be a non believer and afraid. It's perfectly normal to be afraid, for example, of death. And misleading to say that atheiests are not afraid. Some are, some aren't. We are all different. We must not portray atheists as versions of Mr Spock. We do have emotions.

    But it's how we face those fears that makes us different from those that turn to fiction.
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