Creationists

[warmonger1981]

How do you feel about these articles?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... en-propos/

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

Although the second source has an odd name it supposedly shows direct quotes from the book.

ISIS is based off of religious ideology. Drugs have no religion/dogma.

Does science trump ideology/morals? Who decides what is good or innocent? A president or a majority vote?

I support the separation of church and state.

[Metsfanmax]

How do you feel about these articles?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter ... en-propos/

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

Although the second source has an odd name it supposedly shows direct quotes from the book.

Are you asking, how do I feel about John Holdren, or how do I feel about the views he advocated there? Assuming it is the latter, I will say that the US does not face a serious population density issue and has no need to try such things. I likely would not support any law or scientific solution to limit fertility in the US. I am not particularly concerned about overpopulation as such. What I want is for us to become collectively smarter, not collectively fewer.

ISIS is based off of religious ideology. Drugs have no religion/dogma.

I was referencing the part where you said there would be no murder.

Does science trump ideology/morals?

I do not think this is a well-posed question. Ethics is a field that decides what is morally just and what is morally unjust. It may and should use scientific knowledge to inform its progress. An ethics that is grounded in human biology and evolutionary history is going to be better than one that comes from the armchair, if that is what you are asking.

I quite dislike when either scientists or philosophers say that science and religion or philosophy are non-overlapping magisteria and that scientists should just stick to doing science. Science has quite a lot to say on these subjects, and it is almost always more useful than what people have come up with by pure reasoning alone.

Who decides what is good or innocent? A president or a majority vote?

No, we've got good old ethical philosophers for that, and they've done a pretty good job discussing how to construct a system of ethics (even if we haven't solved this problem yet). Laws of a given society are not a statement of ethics, though in a democratic society one hopes that they are a reasonable reflection of some sort of average moral view.

At the end of the day, each person will have their own view of morals, but I believe that those morals need to be universalizable to be consistent, and this immediately demands the most salient features of a moral system (proscriptions against murder, theft, etc.).

[mrswdk]

Laws against theft are nothing to do with morals. If the ability to own and accumulate private property is not safeguarded then people will have significantly less motivation to work in order to acquire wealth. What's the point in buying a new car if there is nothing to stop someone from simply swiping the keys and driving off with it?

Laws which prohibit killing in a variety of situations are because that killing is judged to come with a net cost to society (hence the reason some killing continues to be allowed - it's not judged to have a negative overall cost).

etc.

[Metsfanmax]

Laws against theft are nothing to do with morals. If the ability to own and accumulate private property is not safeguarded then people will have significantly less motivation to work in order to acquire wealth. What's the point in buying a new car if there is nothing to stop someone from simply swiping the keys and driving off with it?z

Laws which prohibit killing in a variety of situations are because that killing is judged to come with a net cost to society (hence the reason some killing continues to be allowed - it's not judged to have a negative overall cost).

etc.

Nonsense. Your statement is completely devoid of historical or even current context. Moral judgments infuse systems of law throughout the world, given the traditions these legal systems developed from. It would be utter absurdity to suggest that governments today generally have laws on the books because those laws are intended to maximize societal productivity. In the US, there were laws against sodomy on the books until as recently as 2003. Good luck explaining that in your framework. As I said, legal judgments ought not to be considered statements of ethics; however, most of them have been informed by ethics (old or new) for basically all time.

[mrswdk]

Sodomy is one example, which I imagine has its roots in religion. Any others?

Legal systems developed in order to maintain social order. The overwhelming majority of laws were not enacted because of morality/religion.

[Metsfanmax]

Sodomy is one example, which I imagine has its roots in religion. Any others?

Legal systems developed in order to maintain social order. The overwhelming majority of laws were not enacted because of morality/religion.

In ancient times, however, there was no distinction between the concepts of morality and maintaining social order. Legal and moral systems were effectively the same things. If you violated the religious proscriptions in your holy book, you were subject to legal penalty. And this could have been for things that had little to do with actually maintaining social order. So yes, those laws were enacted because of morality and religion. It is only a modern conceit (starting maybe with the Enlightenment, in the West at least) to suggest that the purpose of laws is to do anything other than to reflect existing social mores.

[mrswdk]

Hammurabai's code of law had almost nothing to do with religion. Something like 30-50% of it was purely to do with regulating contracts and labor.

[Metsfanmax]

Hammurabai's code of law had almost nothing to do with religion. Something like 30-50% of it was purely to do with regulating contracts and labor.

Have you ever looked at the Old Testament? A surprisingly large amount of it deals with stuff like what happens if you fail to uphold your end of a contract, or kill your neighbor's ox.

[mrswdk]

So? Just because the Bible talks about contracts doesn't mean that a legal system which deals with contract law is rooted in Christianity.

Legalism and Confucianism - upon which China's first legal systems were founded - placed primary emphasis on maintaining social order and harmony, and since they both preceded Christianity, Islam or anything like that we can be pretty sure that they have nothing to do with the moral codes of sky wizards.

[Phatscotty]

Yet I have not argued any of the things you list as being the argument. The argument I am and have been making is that creationism and evolution don't have to be one or the other, and very likely could be halves of a greater whole.

Do the words in this sentence have any meaning? What would be an example of a model of the universe (other than the ones I offered) in which creationism and evolution are "halves of a greater whole?"

I'm specifically talking about creation of life and evolution of it. You changed the degree of the subject a few notches.

[warmonger1981]

Is it OK to kill an unborn fetus as science sees it as a parasite feeding on its host. Or is that a human? Is it OK to kill children up to age three as that's the average age humans become self aware? Plato's Republic called for parents to basically manage the human inventory until the State needs them. Holdren is talking more than overpopulation. It's also about economics. When does the welfare state get to big and people need permits to have children?


Page 786: Single mothers should have their babies taken away by the government; or they could be forced to have abortions
One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.


Page 838: The kind of people who cause "social deterioration" can be compelled to not have children
If some individuals contribute to general social deterioration by overproducing children, and if the need is compelling, they can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility—just as they can be required to exercise responsibility in their resource-consumption patterns—providing they are not denied equal protection.


Page 838: Nothing is wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size
In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

Who are these people who produce "social deterioration". What's the requirements to be in this category? It's all in the eye of the beholder.

[Metsfanmax]

So? Just because the Bible talks about contracts doesn't mean that a legal system which deals with contract law is rooted in Christianity.

It gives the lie to the claim that religion has always concerned itself only with high, abstract moral principles that affect whether you go to heaven. Religion was indeed intimately tied with day-to-day life, which is why there are things like prohibitions on using two different types of thread in the same garment.

Legalism and Confucianism - upon which China's first legal systems were founded - placed primary emphasis on maintaining social order and harmony, and since they both preceded Christianity, Islam or anything like that we can be pretty sure that they have nothing to do with the moral codes of sky wizards.

*shrug* I'd have to do more research to understand this issue. I am only really familiar with the legal traditions of the West, which really are steeped in these religious overtones. But in any case, this isn't really a response to my point. The laws mentioned above from the Bible are also about maintaining social order and harmony. It was thought that doing certain things like lying with other men, or planting crops a certain way, were an offense against God, and directly threatened the social fabric. It is likely that some Eastern traditions don't say things exactly like this, but if I had to bet, I would guess one could find similarly superstitious rules that we could now agree have no objective basis when it comes to social harmony.

[Metsfanmax]

Is it OK to kill an unborn fetus as science sees it as a parasite feeding on its host. Or is that a human?

Why is this a dichotomy? Of course a fetus is a human. And it is a parasite if you want to use that terminology. The relevant question is whether it is a person with rights of its own.

Is it OK to kill children up to age three as that's the average age humans become self aware?

I think that on an issue this serious you cannot merely appeal to averages -- you want to be certain whether the human is self-aware or not, because there are grave differences between killing self-conscious and conscious but not self-conscious beings. So I would not be ok with anything after six months, I think. Possibly three, to be extra sure. By the time a baby is three months old, you will already know whether it has been born with severe birth defects.

Plato's Republic called for parents to basically manage the human inventory until the State needs them. Holdren is talking more than overpopulation. It's also about economics. When does the welfare state get to big and people need permits to have children?

I am not sure I really want to discuss Holdren's position. He wrote that thing with Paul Ehrlich, and I don't have much else other than contempt for Paul Ehrlich's point of views (and it sounds like Holdren holds similar ones). I just don't really want to discuss it.

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

Its very simple Phatscotty, if evolution is a function of creationism, then how did George Lazenby end up as James Bond?

[warmonger1981]

Fair enough. I thank you for the honesty. I just like to see an atheists point of view. Holdren is our science czar. So he has heavy influence on the administration's policies. With a person with that point if view I would guess the administration supports his ideas.

[Metsfanmax]

Fair enough. I thank you for the honesty. I just like to see an atheists point of view. Holdren is our science czar. So he has heavy influence on the administration's policies. With a person with that point if view I would guess the administration supports his ideas.

Holdren may be the most senior science advisor to the President, but there are a lot of checks and balances between the Director of OSTP and forced sterilization. And as the quotes indicated, he was mostly describing a possibility that doesn't exist at present, so there's really nothing to worry about.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Why would evolution need to be 'set up' by a creator? Isn't time along with an earth that is ever changing enough reason for evolution? Why would anything stay exactly the same, forever and ever? I don't get why some people operate with a rule that if something was created by a creator, it could never ever ever ever change

The argument being discussed here is whether the universe was created specifically for us. The universe couldn't have been created with that purpose if it wasn't certain that we would actually come to exist, which means that the rules couldn't have just spontaneously changed. Also, if they did it means either the Creator is not omnipotent because He cannot control the rules, or He is omnipotent and somehow set up something that could arbitrarily change, in which case He wasn't actively trying to make sure that we existed.

Point is, if the creator had a plan and wanted to create us, that means he needed to control how things went from the very beginning. If instead one believes that the creator made a universe and then just let it go to see what would happen, then one must abandon the assumption that we humans on Earth are privileged in any cosmic way. One must also abandon the idea that the creator has set down any moral rules for how we should live, because he didn't even intend for us to exist in the first place. Indeed, what's the difference between this latter universe and the one that we atheists believe in? The existence of an unidentifiable creator who does not interact with our universe at all and therefore may as well have committed suicide after he created the Universe, for all the difference it would make to us? If you believe that, then you are basically an atheist.

What da fuk you talkin' 'bout Willis? This thread was made to discuss where the CC creationists went.

Most of them were convinced of the rationality of atheism through logical argumentation such as this, and hence they no longer exist

Hardly. Athiesm is hardly rational either. Its like trying to sail a ship without a rudder in most cases. Or drive a car without an engine. The problem lies in how you define morality then (already argued), you can neither argue that that things are good/bad, because morality is then subjective to each person therefor: No absolutes, aka if i think that Stealing and killing is ok, then I can do it without any problems.

What an absurd statement. If you read the history of any religion outside of its tenet writings, including Judeo-Christian religions, you would quickly realize that religions and the morals they proclaim are as mutable as this irrational atheism which you say exists.

Religions change like any other social construct, to fit the times and mores of its adherents.

-TG

[tzor]

The argument being discussed here is whether the universe was created specifically for us.

What da fuk you talkin' 'bout Willis? This thread was made to discuss where the CC creationists went.

I guess the answer is obvious. They went to a universe created specifically for them.
Leaving us in a universe created specifically for us.
It's like a kind of spiritual apartheid.
Perhaps it was the rapture?
Or the rupture?
Or whatever.

[warmonger1981]

I'm not as worried as my children should be. Holdren is just the foot in the door. Twenty years from now this ideology will probably be the norm. Checks and balances are irrelevant. Nancy Pelosi said about the Affordable Health Care Act " We have to pass it to see what's in it". Or executive orders.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... BN8wmFnotA

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source= ... iXYfRfqVig

[rishaed]

Why would evolution need to be 'set up' by a creator? Isn't time along with an earth that is ever changing enough reason for evolution? Why would anything stay exactly the same, forever and ever? I don't get why some people operate with a rule that if something was created by a creator, it could never ever ever ever change

The argument being discussed here is whether the universe was created specifically for us. The universe couldn't have been created with that purpose if it wasn't certain that we would actually come to exist, which means that the rules couldn't have just spontaneously changed. Also, if they did it means either the Creator is not omnipotent because He cannot control the rules, or He is omnipotent and somehow set up something that could arbitrarily change, in which case He wasn't actively trying to make sure that we existed.

Point is, if the creator had a plan and wanted to create us, that means he needed to control how things went from the very beginning. If instead one believes that the creator made a universe and then just let it go to see what would happen, then one must abandon the assumption that we humans on Earth are privileged in any cosmic way. One must also abandon the idea that the creator has set down any moral rules for how we should live, because he didn't even intend for us to exist in the first place. Indeed, what's the difference between this latter universe and the one that we atheists believe in? The existence of an unidentifiable creator who does not interact with our universe at all and therefore may as well have committed suicide after he created the Universe, for all the difference it would make to us? If you believe that, then you are basically an atheist.

What da fuk you talkin' 'bout Willis? This thread was made to discuss where the CC creationists went.

Most of them were convinced of the rationality of atheism through logical argumentation such as this, and hence they no longer exist

Hardly. Athiesm is hardly rational either. Its like trying to sail a ship without a rudder in most cases. Or drive a car without an engine. The problem lies in how you define morality then (already argued), you can neither argue that that things are good/bad, because morality is then subjective to each person therefor: No absolutes, aka if i think that Stealing and killing is ok, then I can do it without any problems.

What an absurd statement. If you read the history of any religion outside of its tenet writings, including Judeo-Christian religions, you would quickly realize that religions and the morals they proclaim are as mutable as this irrational atheism which you say exists.

Religions change like any other social construct, to fit the times and mores of its adherents.

-TG

Did the tenements of the Religion change, or did people change the fundamental tenements of the religion?
I'd wager the 2nd.
The RELIGION didn't change. The people decided to change their views based according to the society around them. This causes bends and other things in how people perceive the religion, but if actually analyzed based on the book/teachings that originated it, it didn't change.
Just like despite the hundreds of laws passed by congress, our Constitution has only been changed (amended) around 25/26 times.
If you take the Constitution as the basis of government, it has changed, but not how much as uneducated people believe.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

^Cut out too many quotes:

You've painted yourself into a corner.

Can shadow exist without light? No. The very fact that people choose to interpret and change "source" writings of a supposed supreme source proves its mutability. Would anyone say a mountain is anything other than a mountain? Religion wouldn't exist without people.

The U.S. Constitution has been around for a tenth of the time of Christianity, and who knows how long of Judeism, and hasn't spread through nearly the same cultural filters and political landscapes. I guarantee if the U.S. is around in 2000 years its Constitution will have vastly changed.

-TG

[Phatscotty]

Why would evolution need to be 'set up' by a creator? Isn't time along with an earth that is ever changing enough reason for evolution? Why would anything stay exactly the same, forever and ever? I don't get why some people operate with a rule that if something was created by a creator, it could never ever ever ever change

The argument being discussed here is whether the universe was created specifically for us. The universe couldn't have been created with that purpose if it wasn't certain that we would actually come to exist, which means that the rules couldn't have just spontaneously changed. Also, if they did it means either the Creator is not omnipotent because He cannot control the rules, or He is omnipotent and somehow set up something that could arbitrarily change, in which case He wasn't actively trying to make sure that we existed.

Point is, if the creator had a plan and wanted to create us, that means he needed to control how things went from the very beginning. If instead one believes that the creator made a universe and then just let it go to see what would happen, then one must abandon the assumption that we humans on Earth are privileged in any cosmic way. One must also abandon the idea that the creator has set down any moral rules for how we should live, because he didn't even intend for us to exist in the first place. Indeed, what's the difference between this latter universe and the one that we atheists believe in? The existence of an unidentifiable creator who does not interact with our universe at all and therefore may as well have committed suicide after he created the Universe, for all the difference it would make to us? If you believe that, then you are basically an atheist.

What da fuk you talkin' 'bout Willis? This thread was made to discuss where the CC creationists went.

Most of them were convinced of the rationality of atheism through logical argumentation such as this, and hence they no longer exist

Hardly. Athiesm is hardly rational either. Its like trying to sail a ship without a rudder in most cases. Or drive a car without an engine. The problem lies in how you define morality then (already argued), you can neither argue that that things are good/bad, because morality is then subjective to each person therefor: No absolutes, aka if i think that Stealing and killing is ok, then I can do it without any problems.

What an absurd statement. If you read the history of any religion outside of its tenet writings, including Judeo-Christian religions, you would quickly realize that religions and the morals they proclaim are as mutable as this irrational atheism which you say exists.

Religions change like any other social construct, to fit the times and mores of its adherents.

-TG

Actually, nobody can prove there is isn't a supernatural God entity just as much as nobody can prove that there is. To make either statement from an Atheist point of view or a religious point of view takes faith. I think it probably takes more faith to be an Atheist.

For starters, which seems more logical;
something came from nothing
something came from something

[WingCmdr Ginkapo]

For starters, which seems more logical;
nothing produces something given infinite time
something came from something

Fixed

[nietzsche]

what are you guys more opposed, to the idea of "god" in general or to the idea of an anthropomophic god?

[rishaed]

^Cut out too many quotes:

You've painted yourself into a corner.

Can shadow exist without light? No. The very fact that people choose to interpret and change "source" writings of a supposed supreme source proves its mutability. Would anyone say a mountain is anything other than a mountain? Religion wouldn't exist without people.

The U.S. Constitution has been around for a tenth of the time of Christianity, and who knows how long of Judeism, and hasn't spread through nearly the same cultural filters and political landscapes. I guarantee if the U.S. is around in 2000 years its Constitution will have vastly changed.

-TG

No, not really. The only thing i made the differentiation to was that the foundation/tenements of the religion didn't change, people decided to modify it to suit them. As people always will. For example during the Time of Jesus, how the Rabbis viewed and practiced the Law, was much different than lets say King David. However, The Law in and of itself didn't change. The point with the constitution is that People changed it to suit themselves, not the other way around. The basis of our Constitution is still the same, the random laws and other things work within its framework. The difference between lets say, the Constitution and the Bible is that the original texts for the Bible is done, finished. It no longer will change. However how people decide to translate it from the original Hebrew and Greek may cause different translations a/o paired with our interpretations of what it says causes the difference in opinions and viewpoints. The Constitution on the other hand, as part of a government that still rules and has need to modify it occasionally will not be a "Finished" document until the U.S. forms a new system of government based on a new document. When that happens there will no longer be any more changes to the Constitution because they have no purpose.