Theists truly bother me

[Ronni_W]

If people were disease free, had enough money to live, had access to clean food and shelter, and were safe, most of the crime would disappear in the world.

I 100% agree with you. I believe, though, that it is people -- greedy, power-hungry people in all walks of life (not just religious) -- who are not only preventing the entire global population from enjoying basic rights and freedoms, but also limiting abilities to strive for and achieve highest potentials.

 

It is not notions, ideas or concepts doing that...it is people who are motivated by greed, power and needs/desires to have control over the masses. IMO.

[VertexSquared]

Ok and see this is where we come at a crossroads where we disagree. I do not believe evolution is a fact, as much as I don't believe creationism is a fact. Both are theories on how life began. I think when you look at the similarities in both methods your able to get to a more accurate picture of how things work.

 

Except evolution IS fact, just as much as gravity is fact or the fact of the sun rising and setting every day. To deny evolution is just as silly as denying any other scientific fact. To deny evolution is to deny the myriad evidence that makes it fact.

Edited June 28, 2010 by VertexSquared

[Shakz]

Except evolution IS fact, just as much as gravity is fact or the fact of the sun rising and setting every day. To deny evolution is just as silly as denying any other scientific fact. To deny evolution is to deny the myriad evidence that makes it fact.

 

I'm not sure creationists or ID'ers or whatever you call them necessarily deny the evidence for evolution, unless they're died in the wool Biblical literalists. I think they dispute the mechanism, that is natural selection. The argument generally seems to revolve around the idea that the kind and number of mutations required to produced major evolutionary changes defy the odds of random chance.

[Ronni_W]

Except evolution IS fact, just as much as gravity is fact

Gravity is only a fact for Earth, as is the sun's influence and importance. Who knows what's going on, on Arcturus?

What if the speed of light is different in other galaxies? And what if our scientists and physicists would learn more if they used base-8 math instead of base-10?

 

What if creationism and evolution will some day in the near or distant future be proven by our own earth-bound scientists and physicists to be inextricably, irrevocably linked and connected?

 

What if?

[VertexSquared]

Alright, I'm stepping out of this thread now.

[Trojan John]

Alright, I'm stepping out of this thread now.

 

Understandably so. People are spouting all sorts of nonsense now.

[Shakz]

And so it dies it's inevitable pointless death. Glad to have been able to place my stone.

[NoIDidn't]

Such a shame that the premise of this thread is the basic problem.

 

"Theists truly bother me"

 

That's like saying

 

"homosexuals really bother me"

 

Or

 

"Women really bother me"

 

The problem isn't with the theists. The problem is with not understanding them or even trying to understand where they might be coming from. Same with the substitutions.

[VertexSquared]

It's nothing like "being bothered by homosexuals" at all -- that is an extremely unfair and illogical comparison. I am bothered by theists due to their arguments. I understand their positions perfectly well.

[Ronni_W]

I am bothered by theists due to their arguments.

Atheists arguments don't always hold up, either. I found it interesting to have it pointed out to me (in real life), that it is usually atheists who can't sustain their own arguments and who resort to any number of tactics (quite often negative labeling) to shut-down conversations, frequently that they themselves started.

 

Our (humanity's) problem...one of our many problems, is that the majority of us just keep thinking with our tiny, 3D-bound, limited, linear minds -- and we're using thoughts that arise out of that to try to pretend that we know something about the Universe. It's just a crazy and futile endeavour, isn't it? But the moment it gets any broader than what we already know and think we know...then the mind can't handle it and calls it "nonsense" or "pure speculation" or whatever else, with the hope and goal of shutting-down thought itself.

 

What are innovation and creativity for, if not to also ponder what the mind cannot easily wrap itself around or has not pondered before? What is the fear that leads to auto-pilot responses like, "That's just nonsense" or "Well, I'll be taking my leave now"?

I honestly don't get it. It puzzles me greatly.

[aerogurl87]

Overly religious zealots who constantly put down other's views bother me as much as self righteous atheists who go around calling other's idiots because they choose to believe in a higher power. Both are equally annoying in my opinion.

[Yamaha]

Atheists and evolutionists truly bother me but I am not starting threads proclaiming such. I think the old saying, "can't we just get along?", is in order here.

[aerogurl87]

Except evolution IS fact, just as much as gravity is fact or the fact of the sun rising and setting every day. To deny evolution is just as silly as denying any other scientific fact. To deny evolution is to deny the myriad evidence that makes it fact.

 

Wait a second, I'm sorry but that's a big contradiction. How is a theory a fact? Last time I checked there was the THEORY of evolution, not fact. Gravity is a fact, as what goes up must come down (on Earth at least). But evolution is not a fact, but only a theory that most scientists use to base more theories off of.

[VertexSquared]

This is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

That is such a common mistake that it's making me angry just replying to this. Evolution IS a theory, but people misinterpret what that means.

 

For instance, the Law of Gravity is a law because gravity EXISTS, but Newton's Theory of Gravitation is a theory because it is a way to describe how that law behaves.

 

Evolution is the same way. We *know* evolution took place, but we don't necessarily know *how* it took place at every point in time. If you go by its specific definition, evolution is "a change in allele frequencies over time" in which case evolution is an indisputable fact. The theory of evolution not only says that life evolved, it also includes mechanisms, like mutations, natural selection, and genetic drift, which go a long way towards explaining *how* life evolved.

 

If you wish to challenge the theory of evolution, you must address the evidence. You must show that the evidence is either wrong or irrelevant or that it fits another theory better.

 

Most Creationists will simply disregard the evidence, stick their fingers in their ears, and say "I don't care what evidence you have. I don't need to understand the statistical implications of genetic variation and why that concept is important. I don't need to look at the genetic evidence. God did it."

 

If you're the type of person to do this, then you're beyond arguing with. It's no different from the people who are willing to argue that the Law of Gravity is actually just God's Invisible Hands pulling on everything even though we have amazing theories of relativity that are not only consistent with everything we know in COUNTLESS other situations, but make groundbreaking predictions accurately. People will twist and turn any evidence they can to get it to fit God rather than changing the conclusions to fit the evidence. It's come to a point where it's absolutely silly -- a Creationist has to support a mammoth explanation if he wishes to be correct. God would basically have to be an amazingly devious God for creating a universe that didn't need him at all in the first place.

 

Of course, if you're always going to just assume that God is outside of science, then there's no point in us discussing this.

[VertexSquared]

Atheists arguments don't always hold up, either. I found it interesting to have it pointed out to me (in real life), that it is usually atheists who can't sustain their own arguments and who resort to any number of tactics (quite often negative labeling) to shut-down conversations, frequently that they themselves started.

 

Our (humanity's) problem...one of our many problems, is that the majority of us just keep thinking with our tiny, 3D-bound, limited, linear minds -- and we're using thoughts that arise out of that to try to pretend that we know something about the Universe. It's just a crazy and futile endeavour, isn't it? But the moment it gets any broader than what we already know and think we know...then the mind can't handle it and calls it "nonsense" or "pure speculation" or whatever else, with the hope and goal of shutting-down thought itself.

 

What are innovation and creativity for, if not to also ponder what the mind cannot easily wrap itself around or has not pondered before? What is the fear that leads to auto-pilot responses like, "That's just nonsense" or "Well, I'll be taking my leave now"?

I honestly don't get it. It puzzles me greatly.

 

The reason why such conversations shut down is typically not because atheists can't hold up their arguments. They absolutely can, but it's impossible to argue with theists if their only response is going to be "I don't care what you have to offer as evidence, there's always that one little chance that atheists are wrong." There's literally nothing anyone can say to that because as long as a theist is throwing in with that absurdly small chance, the debate is over.

 

You can't just sit back and think "Oh, we're so limited, we're so bound, what can we know as humans, etc" and give up on pursuing science and resort to "Isn't life mysterious? God must have done all this." Yes, we're limited, but science is a system to describe our universe. We can detect all sorts of things that we can't even see with the naked eye (the various points of the electromagnetic spectrum, atoms and quarks, galaxies from afar, etc). We've been able to learn so much despite our limitations. It doesn't help to just assume that because we're limited, we should disregard everything that we've learned THROUGH overcoming our limitations.

 

If you're going to assume "God did it," you have to address the evidence. The problem is that most Creationists wildly misunderstand the evidence or make absolutely silly claims, or disregard the evidence altogether. They will just assume that everything is automatically part of God's plan without taking the evidence at face value -- and, to take it a step further, they won't bother evaluating why they believe what they do in the first place.

 

Science adjusts its views based on what's observed -- faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved. It's completely ridiculous. Give a theist an argument and they will literally make something up just so that it fits God into the picture.

Edited June 29, 2010 by VertexSquared

[VertexSquared]

Gravity is only a fact for Earth, as is the sun's influence and importance. Who knows what's going on, on Arcturus?

What if the speed of light is different in other galaxies? And what if our scientists and physicists would learn more if they used base-8 math instead of base-10?

 

What if creationism and evolution will some day in the near or distant future be proven by our own earth-bound scientists and physicists to be inextricably, irrevocably linked and connected?

 

What if?

 

Might as well address this, too, while I'm at it.

 

Gravity is not only a fact for Earth. It's a law. And it's a law for the entire universe. We know what's going on with galaxies and stars from afar because we have well-established methods for such detections that are consistent with direct observation and are logically sound (we know what's going on on Arcturus because it's a giant star, and we know how to detect all sorts of things with stars).

 

And octal versus decimal? A base is just another way to write a number, but they still represent the same thing. We can determine what "base" to use based on the observation and application of what we're trying to solve (say, the use of binary in computer technology, or the use of base-e for natural log applications). It doesn't make sense to say we'd "discover" something new with a different base.

 

Creationism and evolution don't mix well together at all, because evolution is basically a theory that describes NATURAL changes without the need for a creator. If macroevolution is untrue, for instance, then Creationism would imply that everything wasn't created in one sitting since we've been getting new species all the time for billions of years. Except that we know how these new species arise from generation to generation, so if Creationism is true, then God must have labs all over the world where he cranks out new species all the time completely indistinguishable from the slightly-changed animals we'd normally be getting through the natural reproductive processes.

 

Creationism is just so absurd that it literally doesn't hold any intellectual merit. Most people who believe in Creationism simply don't have all the facts/evidence that evolution has given us. It would be like a flatlander insisting that the Earth is flat when he isn't aware of the evidence that shows that the Earth is actually an oblate spheroid. It would be like an advocate of the Stork Theory insisting that flying birds deliver our children because they aren't aware of the evidence that shows how storks aren't needed to describe reproduction because we have a well-established system that explains how this works. Evolution is no different. It's a well-evidenced, established system no different from reproduction or Earth topography in its support. If you're going to deny evolution, you should also be equally willing, intellectually, to accept the Stork and Flatland theories. We don't need those theories to explain anything because we have systems that do it for us that are full of support and are consistent. Evolution is, again, no different.

 

Trying to reconcile Creationism and evolution together is a horribly absurd concept no more absurd than trying to reconcile human reproduction with the Story theory or astrophysics with the Flatland theory.

[VertexSquared]

You seem to have the need to be right...so you're right. I don't feel the need to justify my choice at all. You are right there is no reason to discuss anything with someone who calls me stupid, ignorant, put my fingers in my ears(though I haven't done that literally or otherwise for years). I hear everything that people like you say, it means what to my life?

 

I am a well educated person. I know the the theories, I understand the concepts and I can repeat them when necessary. My choice to believe other than what I have been taught is also the choice to be comfortable enough in that decision to be okay with the ridicule and in some instances even welcome it. As far as I am concerned that means I am doing something right.

 

Faith for me is the ability to live without having an answer to every aspect of life and still treating people with diginity and respect...even when they don't deserve it.

 

I am not trying to directly insult theists so much as I am expressing my frustration over the dynamics of the arguments. It bothers me when people get the facts wrong or mix up their terminologies and misunderstand concepts. If people are going to debate, I want it to be against someone who knows their stuff. It's not about "being right." It's about people conflating arguments. It upsets me when I'll be debating a theist with a direct argument against a claim only to have it be misconstrued or ignored altogether.

 

For instance, say I was debating you -- your statement: "I hear everything that people like you say, it means what to my life?" To this I'd typically reply with some kind of argument asking why our universe has to MEAN anything, since meaning is a human construct. We can still live moral, ethical lives as atheists and be just as happy and live meaningfully by our own standards (which we do already, theist or atheist, like it or not). Of course, a theist might say that meaning is explicitly defined by God and that life without God or a higher purpose is meaningless, etc -- to which I ask what they base this decision off of. The answer is always something emotional, to which I explain how emotion itself is a physical construct prone to all sorts of biases, and so on and so forth.

 

It's a neverending cycle, and I'd love for a theist to pose some intelligent responses to these arguments for once. I have a very, very hard time believing that theists actually "understand all the science/theories" because every time I do a little digging, I find that they do not. Those that do tend to be atheist. If I am incorrect in this claim, someone please, please, please prove me wrong.

[Trojan John]

And my absolute last post in this thread is as follows:

 

Atheists will use words like "nonsense", and "idiocy" for the simple reason that the vast majority of the creationists who they encounter haven't the foggiest idea of the difference between the word theory as it is used in lay terms, and scientific theory, as it is used when coupled with terms like Gravitational Theory, the Theory of Relativity, Atomic Theory, and the Theory of Evolution.

 

Your educations are sorely lacking.

[Ronni_W]

Of course, if you're always going to just assume that God is outside of science, then there's no point in us discussing this.

I agree with that.

Now. What if I believe that "god" is the Supreme Scientist, the Ultimate of all scientists, physicists, mathematicians, biologists, astrologists, astrophysicists, etc's.?

 

 

Kind of related. Well, totally related. I am no math whiz, and I've asked others but so far no one's come through: How does one express Pi in base-8? This is a serious question, but it is just to satisfy my own curiosity...I just want to know/see what Pi looks like, in base-8. I've heard that we (humans) would be surprised.

Thanks if you (or anyone else) can assist, but no prob if not.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Ronni_W

[VertexSquared]

I agree with that.

Now. What if I believe that "god" is the Supreme Scientist, the Ultimate of all scientists, physicists, mathematicians, biologists, astrologists, astrophysicists, etc's.?

 

Kind of related. I am no math whiz, and I've asked others but so far no one's come through: How does one express Pi in base-8? This is a serious question, but it is just to satisfy my own curiosity...I just want to know/see what Pi looks like, in base-8.

Thanks if you (or anyone else) can assist, but no prob if not.

 

Pi is 3.1415926535... in base 10. In base 8 (octal) it would be 3.1103755242...

 

We can express any number in any base we want. It doesn't matter what base we choose as long as we convert every system to it so that we operate under the same system. We chose base 10 as the default due to specific conveniences, but also because mathematics itself is a sort of language (and, much like history, written by the victor).

 

If you don't want to calculate bases by hand, there is a handy tool to help show what numbers look like:

http://www.eval-wims.com/wims/fr_tool~number~baseconv.en.html

Edited June 29, 2010 by VertexSquared

[Ronni_W]

Pi is 3.1415926535... in base 10. In base 8 (octal) it would be 3.1103755242...

That was fast! Thanks so much. I personally can't see what is so great about "Pi in base-8" -- so either the source was misguided in what it said...or I'm still just not getting what the source meant In any case, though, I do appreciate your help with it.

 

Trojan John, do atheists ever step out of their 3D, linear minds? Because, if they don't (or won't, or can't) then...yes, definitely. A lot of the other stuff will totally be out of their reach and they will have to relegate it to the "nonsense" pile. I do agree with you, on that.

[VertexSquared]

That was fast! Thanks so much. I personally can't see what is so great about "Pi in base-8" -- so either the source was misguided in what it said...or I'm still just not getting what the source meant In any case, though, I do appreciate your help with it.

 

Trojan John, do atheists ever step out of their 3D, linear minds? Because, if they don't (or won't, or can't) then...yes, definitely. A lot of the other stuff will totally be out of their reach and they will have to relegate it to the "nonsense" pile. I do agree with you, on that.

 

There's nothing great about pi in base 8 because it's... just pi in base 8. It's not like writing numbers in different bases is anything extraordinary. I am not sure what you're trying to find by writing numbers in different bases. What source are you referring to?

[VertexSquared]

A quick lesson in how you write numbers in other bases (utilizing the mathematics of base 10):

 

Say we take 13 in base-10.

 

13 base-10= 1*(10^1) + 3*(10^0) base-10 = written as 13 (under base 10)

 

This same amount written in base 2:

 

13 base-10 = 1*(2^3) + 1*(2^2) + 0*(2^1) + 1*(2^0) base-10 = 1101 (under base 2)

 

Or how about 43981 in base 10 converted to base 16:

 

43981 base 10 = 10*(16^3) + 11*(16^2) + 12*(16^1) + 13*(16^0) base 10 = ABCD base 16

(Recall that in hex, A hex = 10 dec, B hex = 11 dec ... F hex = 15 dec, etc)

 

Base-N means we use N items to represent our numbers (this is technically incorrect to say this, but for this example it works well). Base-1 would mean writing numbers with one digit:

 

1 base 10 = 1 base 1

2 base 10 = 11 base 1

3 base 10 = 111 base 1

4 base 10 = 1111 base 1

5 base 10 = 11111 base 1

...

 

As you can see, this would get a bit silly. Base-2 is binary, which uses 0 and 1. Base 8 uses 0-7. Hexadecimal uses 0-9 immediately followed by A-F.

 

All these numbers refer to the same quantity -- but it's simply a different way of writing it.

Edited June 29, 2010 by VertexSquared

[Shakz]

Resurrection! It's a miracle!

[Ronni_W]

There's nothing great about pi in base 8 because it's... just pi in base 8. It's not like writing numbers in different bases is anything extraordinary.

My SERIOUS apologies, VS. It's base-12, not base-8 . It says that Pi is a rational number when converted to base-12.

But I just Googled, and there is a site that says: PI in base_12 = 3.184809493b9186459aaa3a83 (approximation)

 

So...I have no freakin' idea (not that that is anything new or startling, mind you.)

 

I'm choosing not to reveal the source because it will just open up a whole different can of worms, which I don't need or want to play any part in.