# Do humans have a tendency to believe in the unlikely?



## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 12, 2017)

This has always been a question I found intriguing and interesting. [/FONT]_Do humans have a tendency to believe in the unlikely rather than the likely?_[/FONT] I'd say yes. It appears that way. To me, it seems that most people would rather chose the fairy tale ending over reality. And you might think: [/FONT]_Well, duh. Wouldn't you rather have a good ending over a tragic one?_[FONT=&Verdana] Ofcourse, I would [FONT=&Verdana]_like_[FONT=&Verdana] to. But what I would like to be true is beyond what is relevant, to reality. The world is full of coincidences, accidents and general disorder. Sometimes nice things do happen, but sometimes they don't. The universe is not a forgiving place, it doesn't take into consideration what we would like, or what we favour. It just does it thing. Regardless.​
We see these ideas all over the place, in movies, books, and religion. For instance, the poor boy from the other side of town gets the posh girl, yadayada. And stories of the unlikely superhero or someone who survives a tragic and brutal accident, but in a "surprising" turn of events, he survives, miraculously. These are fictional movies and books, I get it. But people take this with them into reality and those who don't are usually called.. pessimists. And who likes a pessimist? A word that has truly lost it's meaning because most people who are categorized as pessimists are in reality.. just realists. "Stay positive and everything will turn out alright." Comforting thought, but not rational. Let me quote a character from a sitcom: "You can get everything you want if you lower your expectations." It requires compromise, something people in general don't want.

[FONT=&Verdana]And who hasn't read articles about terrorist attacks or accidents where hundreds, or thousands of people lose their lives and rescue teams pulls dead or severly injured people out of the rubble- and then recovers a person who escaped with their life with barely a "scratch." Suddenly a terrible incident turns into a story of a miraculous event, despite the fact that most people did die. Is it a miracle or merely just a desperate attempt to turn a disasterous event into something good?
Okay, it's not fair to say something is unlikely when you don't know the truth yourself. But that is not the idea I am pushing. I am talking about situations where the evidence provided tells a different story than what a person would like to be the truth. Because some have a tendency to lean towards the most comforting narrative on a situation rather than what the facts tell us. Hence the terrorist attack/accident example I used.​[/FONT]
[FONT=&Verdana]A good example would be evolution. It's a proven fact of reality, the evidence is there. It cannot be refuted. Yet, some dismiss it because it doesn't fit their narrative or their personal belief, because it contradicts any creationism story there is. But evolution is not a leap of faith one decides to believe in or one decides not to embrace. It's fact and therefore personal opinion or belief is irrelevant. Religion doesn't provide a vito card for reality. It's just the way it is, whether you like it or not. The catholic church has understood this, that is why it has officially accepted evolution.

[/FONT]


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## ArtBlinked (Mar 12, 2017)

I would say humans have a tendency to believe in what fits the reality they have already chosen to accept. No matter what that may be. We people find comfort in the familar. We like to think ourselves correct.

That's not to say nobody changes their beliefs, it happens quite a bit but when it does it's a huge turning point in our life. 

Because our beliefs make up the core of who we are and impact everything we do, say, and think. 

Few far left librals will wake up and go vote Trump and vice versa. Unless something huge happened to cause such dramatic change in worldview. 

As far as what determines a person's original worldview, the variables are innumerable. I favor the idea that who we are is a direct consequence of what temptations we succum to. Or rather, who we are is defined by those temptations we refuse. 

But then, how you define temptation is directly related to your worldview, if you take it to relate to morality. Ive found abstract discussions like these tend to go in circles unless you have an absolute by which to define it all.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 12, 2017)

Yes, that is true to a certain extent. But that is implying that our realities differ from one another. Which (obviously it doesn't.) But the crucial difference is that our perception of reality might differ, and I put 'perception' quite loosely in that statement. Because some would reject fact just for the sake of rejecting it, whether it makes perfect sense or not. Based on a superstitious claim which requires faith, or the belief in the unconceiveable, rather. Which no one could really justify using logical and rational thinking, considiring the fact it requires irrationality or inlogic to reject it.


Your second point about leftist liberals is valid, sure. But it doesn't serve the punch or make it anymore convincing. Political opinions (in most cases anyway) are based on preferences. Reality doesn't work in that same fashion. You cannot choice your own reality based on what you prefer. As I have stated, the universe doesn't take into consideration what we would like to be true compared to what happends to be true. This might be a cheap point but I could dare a person with a deep belief in God that he would take the elevator up to the 10th floor of a building, jump out the window whilst I take the elevator down. And we'd see who could walk at the end of the day. It's a cliche point, sure. But it serves it's purpose. The laws of physics applies, whether you like it or not.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 12, 2017)

If you want to talk about your personal beliefs, I'd recommend a blog, instead of starting a thread with a simple question only to discuss your disbelief of religion and faith in evolution with a great many big words.

It is a theory still, my friend.  How people interpret adaptation and the fossil record is their own belief, but there are flaws in the dating process and theory itself. There are a great many, learned and accomplished in their respective fields, that do not believe we evolved. 

But I won't argue in this fine place. Attacking someone's beliefs is not appreciated here.


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## ArtBlinked (Mar 12, 2017)

I agree that an objective reality exists, the trick is determining what that objective reality is. 

The reason this is tricky is because our perceptions of reality are built on two main things. What we experience first hand, and what we trust to be true. 

Anything we cannot experience first hand, is something we trust. We trust authority figures. So teachers, parents, scientist, scholars etc.

What's more, what we trust is often built on what we have experienced. Experience is the underlying factor for all beliefs. However some things simply cannot be experienced firsthand by the majority of people. That's when trust and faith come in.

Now in regards to religion, many claim they experience God. If this is true then you can't place their belief in the category of trust or faith. It is an experience. That is why some people will go to the ends of the world, suffer, and die for their religion. Because ultimately, there is nothing more convincing to a person than a first hand experience. 

So it may not be so much about whether we have a tendency to believe one thing over another as what our experiences lead us to believe.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Mar 13, 2017)

Please, do start a conversation about this in the blogs. This is a good philosophical question but it is also too easy for someone to come in and start a flaming war if it veers off course a little. You have a lot more leeway in the blogs so I would encourage that.


But again, this is a good question that deserves some thought.


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## bdcharles (Mar 13, 2017)

Sure. If believing in the unlikely is more, ahem, likely to spur you on to survive/thrive/create/whatever else then people will do that. Also if everyone's peers believe in the unlikely, then what is the motivation to believe otherwise? Reality is a pretty hard sell that doesn't have much going for it other than being objectively true.


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## Bloggsworth (Mar 13, 2017)

Yes. God, alien abduction, personal angels, crytals, runes, chiromancy, arse readings, homeopathy, Donald Trump...


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 13, 2017)

@Crowley K. Jarvis 
This is an off-topic section, here I can ask any question I want. And you have the liberty to ignore it and move on. Your comment doesn't elaborate on anything constructive or even relevant, you only question why I asked it in the first place. If you hadn't been so offended in the first place by a completely legitimate question, you'd see why I asked it. It isn't personal belief, by the way. My question revolves around unrefuted facts about our world, and why some (despite it being facts) choose to ignore it. You'd notice I never said "God doesn't exist!!" Because I could neither prove or disprove his existence. There is no attacking, just challenging. A huge difference. Religion is not excluded from any rational questioning or scrutinizing. Oh and FYI, gravity is also just a theory.


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## Ariel (Mar 13, 2017)

To whom are you speaking?


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## dither (Mar 13, 2017)

I think that belief gives a person hope and well? Why not? I say.

And maybe it's a form of escapism, but what do I know?


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## Deleted member 56686 (Mar 13, 2017)

Just so people know (again), we do have a no debate policy here at Writing Forums. Any discussions about religion and politics, or what evolves into religion and politics, tends to get personal which is why the no debate policy is enforced. Again, you're free to ask the question as it is a philosophical one,  but if it becomes an argument about politics/ religion, etc, then we'll have to step in, especially if insults start to be thrown.

Okay, so you were asking if humans tend to believe in the unlikely. Well, yeah, I think they do. I think each person has his or her own belief system and they will go to sources that support their beliefs, whether it be the truth or not. That is true of any stance, left or right.


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## dither (Mar 13, 2017)

Apologies 615,
point taken and comment amended.


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## Thaumiel (Mar 13, 2017)

Belief in something bigger clearly helped society develop. A bit like stabilisers on a bike.

I'd say humans as whole do have a tendency to trust in stuff like religious texts etc like a herd mentality. But individually it differs completely 


Sometimes I wish I could believe there was something more so I didn't always feel like taking a long walk on a short pier, but without evidence I'd just be pretending.


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## JustRob (Mar 13, 2017)

I think it is legitimate to interpret the expression "a tendency to believe in the unlikely" as the single word "hope", making the question "Do humans have hope?" On the other hand it might be interpreted as meaning that they fear the worst, making the question "Do humans despair?" Perhaps the general question is whether humans have unrealistic expectations. One could answer that if there were an undeniable definition of what is realistic. Maybe science has come closer to being a realistic portrayal of our universe than many religions, but that just makes it the most successful religion to date, nothing more, to my mind. Where then is the undeniable definition against which we should measure likelihoods?

In recent years I have been obliged to review my mental model of reality. The new one explains many things in my life far better than the more conventional one that I accepted by default for some sixty years from around the age of five to sixty-five. Those were the years during which I needed to cooperate with society, so it made sense to do so. I have not changed my beliefs though, only what I am prepared to accept. Belief comes before the event while acceptance comes after it. Strangely what I accept now is that "before" and "after" may themselves be irrelevant concepts, so perhaps belief and acceptance are also synonymous. To understand that you have to be there though.

On a slightly different tack, there are two types of logic, if anyone is putting their faith in logic to resolve this type of issue. Conventional logic determines truths on the basis of evidence and it is assumed that these truths will replace any preconconceptions that people might have provided that the evidence is strong enough. In contrast Bayesian logic states that any evidence, no matter how strong, can only modify people's preconceptions. Hence, given a group of disparate people with preconceptions about science, philosophy, politics and religion, any evidence may cause some convergence of their views but will not make them identical, no matter how strong it is. As a result there will always be divergent opinions within the group. Bayesian logic is more realistic than absolute logic, so that is why debate is fruitless and deterred in WF.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 13, 2017)

*@JustRob
*I have issues with your first statements, on your interpretation of the title of the thread. That is implying that I by putting "unlikely" reduces "hope" and "despair" to something which it is not. The notion that unlikeliness means "the absence of hope" or "the presence of despair" is turning it into something it is not. And this sort of thinking is what I have a problem with. I don't have an active agenda against hope, nor do I condone despair and wish to enhance it. Hope is very real, and a good thing. Within reason, ofcourse. To have hope requires you to have some sort of reason or rational thinking about the situation you find yourself in. For instance, imagine someone you hold dear has diagnosed with a terminal illness, and is dying. But there is a 10% chance
your beloved will make it. The statistics prove it to be unlikely. That is not saying you have lost all hope because hope takes various forms. Perhaps you can be hopefull about your loved one passing with minimal suffering due to modern medicine etc. That is finding rational and reasonable hope in a "hopeless" situation, because it doesn't requires faith in any superstition. We both know modern medicine can grant a patient a much more dignifying death.

And do not deduce science to a modern 'religion.'
*
Science by definition
*1.a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truthssystematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws:_the mathematical sciences._


2.systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained throughobservation and experimentation.

3.any of the branches of natural or physical science.

*Religion by definition

*1.a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of theuniverse, especially when considered as the creation of a superhumanagency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritualobservances, and often containing a moral code governing the conductof human affairs.

2.a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreedupon by a number of persons or sects:_the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion._


3.the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs andpractices:_a world council of religions.

_*@James*
Yes, that is a valid point. I would never claim that there isn't a deep rooted need for humans to believe, or have an explanation. That is completely valid and has served positively as something a civilization or a tribe can unite through, and make connections. But religion is nothing more than humans first attempt at philosophy, because in it's core that is all it is. A philosophy of life, and the very first one. 

And your second point about your personal experience with the need of "faith" also makes perfect sense, ofcourse. That is fair. But the distinction is basically what we want to be true and what we know to be true, and some decide to reject it all together. Despite of what is known and proven. It's when this sort of thing happens we steer into the wrong direction as far as moving forward and progressing as people.


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## ppsage (Mar 13, 2017)

What I like to consider is whether we put _belief _or _believing_ into a proper paradigm. To me it seems like an involuntary bodily function, sort of like sweating. We all do it. We do it about everything, from browser preference to prime mover. Our attempts to control it are of limited application. When too many people do it in one place, it's really icky. I try to get suspicious, when I find myself believing something.


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 14, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Crowley K. Jarvis
> This is an off-topic section, here I can ask any question I want. And you have the liberty to ignore it and move on. Your comment doesn't elaborate on anything constructive or even relevant, you only question why I asked it in the first place. If you hadn't been so offended in the first place by a completely legitimate question, you'd see why I asked it. It isn't personal belief, by the way. My question revolves around unrefuted facts about our world, and why some (despite it being facts) choose to ignore it. You'd notice I never said "God doesn't exist!!" Because I could neither prove or disprove his existence. There is no attacking, just challenging. A huge difference. Religion is not excluded from any rational questioning or scrutinizing. Oh and FYI, gravity is also just a theory.



I wasn't offended? Gravity is a law?   And I avoided elaboration because I knew I'd get a six paragraph response if I did. You seem the type. 

Yes, you didn't say anything in a direct way, but the relevant point I made is that by calling certain things factual, you are reducing the opinions of others and calling them wrong, when they are not wrong to believe something that does have a solid foundation in evidence found. 

I personally look at DNA and RNA, how they are made, how proteins are made. How the first cells even could have begun whatever circumstance or process which might have developed it. Even things such as sight, or hearing. There would be no reason to develop senses to detect something which would have no way of being detected, or no logical reason or circumstance to be developed. We take the adaptation of advanced organisms for granted, when these systems would have had no rhyme or reason to be developed. 

Even the most simple organic structures would have taken the most rare and impossible circumstances to form.  The earliest forms of life would have no systems for adaptation, and the circumstances to cause even the most basic changes defies the incomprehendably high odds against it happening. 

All answers I have been given are unsatisfactory.  So yes, I believe most humans have a tendency to believe in the unlikely. The unlikely chance that organic material would have formed under these circumstances.... formed structures... magically came to life....

But again, I will not argue with you. I only mean to make the point that my own belief and that of many others does not lack a basis in logic.


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## sas (Mar 14, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge...As I don't believe in censorship of topic, especially in The Lounge, thumbs up on this excellent discussion. Beats just posting one's beliefs (which others do here, disguised as poetry, with no objection, I've ever seen) without inviting discussion. Thank you. sas


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## Phil Istine (Mar 14, 2017)

Believe in the unlikely?

I do it every day.  It's one of the reasons I use this forum.


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## Plasticweld (Mar 14, 2017)

Who is to say what is un-likely?
 To the one person you mentioned that was pulled from the rubble.... yeah I bet they believe in the un-likely, just as the lottery winner does as well.  There is always the top 5 percent of anything, it could be sports, or music or income or just landing a better looking partner when your looks are merely average along with your average pay check.  

For some all the long odds turn into reality, for some who are on the other end the odds are always stacked against them.   Believing in the unlikely is probably the key to success for many at the top.  It might be the reason that someone trained and worked out for their particular sport...even though everyone said, You'll never make it.  To guy stuck in the rubble hoping against all odds that someone is going to come an save him might be the difference between giving up on life and doing all he can to survive and lasting a few more days, thus increasing his odds.  To guy with balls enough to ask out the beautiful girl who is way out his league, to the fool who bought a lottery ticket knowing the odds but put down a couple of bucks anyway. 


None of that is scientific, none of that falls into the realm of things you can explain but just do anyway.    


All of that being said, the center focus on most stories and books that we all love to read or dream about writing, all have one thing in common...The unlikely happening.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 14, 2017)

Gravity is a law, yes.. But a theory, nonetheless. The reason behind me stating that is because you made an obvious attempt to challenge evolution on it's 'credibility' by pointing out it's merely a 'theory.' It's still a fact of reality, no scientist would beg to differ. And choosing not to elaborate on a point you, yourself, made just comes to prove that you are not taking this serious at all. And what a cheap shot, "you seem the type." I made the thread. Why? Because it's a question that intrigues me and is interesting to me. Why are you surprised that I have a lot to say about it?

And the reason behind why life is exactly how it is today are based on random circumstances, sure. But the evolutionary process is far from random. It's selected. Natural selection, a term I suppose you are familiar with. So, our circumstances might be random, yes. But adaption is far from it. Life could've evolved in millions of different ways if the circumstances were altered, even just by a tiny fraction. That doesn't make it special at all. It's like rolling a few dices, do it again and the results will be different. So what?


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## Crowley K. Jarvis (Mar 14, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Gravity is a law, yes.. But a theory, nonetheless. The reason behind me stating that is because you made an obvious attempt to challenge evolution on it's 'credibility' by pointing out it's merely a 'theory.' It's still a fact of reality, no scientist would beg to differ. And choosing not to elaborate on a point you, yourself, made just comes to prove that you are not taking this serious at all. And what a cheap shot, "you seem the type." I made the thread. Why? Because it's a question that intrigues me and is interesting to me. Why are you surprised that I have a lot to say about it?
> 
> And the reason behind why life is exactly how it is today are based on random circumstances, sure. But the evolutionary process is far from random. It's selected. Natural selection, a term I suppose you are familiar with. So, our circumstances might be random, yes. But adaption is far from it. Life could've evolved in millions of different ways if the circumstances were altered, even just by a tiny fraction. That doesn't make it special at all. It's like rolling a few dices, do it again and the results will be different. So what?



So, you avoided my point about cell origin and the development of those processes to begin with. c:  Yes, chances. My point is, the chances that the very first building blocks of organic matter being made all is so microscopic ( And those circumstances were tested and failed I believe, something about gas and other factors causing the formation of proteins) that many believe it is so microscopic that it would not have happened. 

I challenged it's credibility by first calling it a theory and then pointing out it's lack of answers as to the development of the advanced systems we see today.

Natural selection exists because of the systems on earth and the adaptations living organisms are able to perform. There is no explanation as to how our genetic code would have even begun to be developed, or any of our senses; as well as our bodies awareness of their need for food and developed systems to take it in. Things that even the smallest organisms have, by format. 

I read about how complex these systems are, while people point out how modern species have adapted.Yes, they have. But the systems for our bodies adapting to stimuli or environment are not perfect, and natural selection does not answer every question I have about how living things developed these processes. 

I do not disagree with the estimated age of the earth or any other evidence, rather, the evidence I see, (excluding my paragraphs worth of comments on the fossil record...) does not convince me to believe what people say about it. 

I take the TOPIC very seriously, my friend; just not your approach to discussing it. 

Of course, I say this with no ill will against you personally, you just do seem the type to discuss this for hours. 

However, I think I'm done.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 14, 2017)

I apologize for not answering your second point, in the spur of the moment I simply forgot to. Now I will.


I could not possibly, with fact, begin to dwell on the development of those processes you mention and give you an absolute answer. I could theorize, sure and present you with various theories. But that is not the issue that I am asking to discuss. After all, this thread is about people embracing the unlikely despite what is known. Now, to me, it seems that you are misunderstanding me or just evolution all together. Let me pin-point this; Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is NOT called the origin of life, but the origin of species. A huge and important distinction. We do not understand the origin of life yet, perhaps one day we will. Ironically, I think it's likely that we will. Considiring our staggering scientific progress in the last century alone. To sum it up, we've been discussing the origin of species, not origin of life itself. We do understand the origin of species (evolutionary process, which is based on fact) not origin of life which can only be debated with theories, and then the evidence that supports and/or the evidence that rejects it. Both equally valuable and important.


Now to answer your second point, which is partly the same point you make in your first one if I am not misunderstanding you. But if you are trying to argue that we do not understand our senses, as to why we have them then you are utterly mistaking. They are obviously effects of evolutionary process and natural selection. For instance, we see because it serves a vital importance to our survival. Seeing food, dividing night and day, spotting predators or spotting prey. We eat because if we don't we get hungry and are fatigued, so we eat to restore energy. This is an automatic mechanism, it's just something we do and don't neccessarily think about. Even depression and anxiety has got an evolutionary function. Depression causes one to have little interest, moving less and using less energy and loss of appetite. How can this serve as a function that can possible benefit us? Our brain is the same as it was to humans living 100,000 years ago and in times of being depraved of food (or sunlight) they developed depression, and the symptoms that follow caused them to be able to save more food and use less energy. These are facts that are logical and rational, instead of dismissing mental illness as demons or ghouls. Which according to religious texts, they are.


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## bdcharles (Mar 15, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Even depression and anxiety has got an evolutionary function. Depression causes one to have little interest, moving less and using less energy and loss of appetite. How can this serve as a function that can possible benefit us? Our brain is the same as it was to humans living 100,000 years ago and in times of being depraved of food (or sunlight) they developed depression, and the symptoms that follow caused them to be able to save more food and use less energy.



I'm not sure about that - I think you might misunderstand. Don't forget that evolution relies on a smattering of mutations occurring that happen to confer an advantage. That suggests a distribution of mutations that don't confer an advantage; they just might not present a significant enough setback, at the time of their occurring, to mean they don't get passed on. Life hasn't evolved to a perfectly functioning state and quite possibly never will, but it has evolved to a functional one whereby things like depression, or being shortsighted, or any number of things, can be handled quite adequately despite having no traceable benefit. And as technology advances, these things become less and less of a problem (though of course they can still be significant issues to those that suffer from them).


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## JustRob (Mar 15, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> *@JustRob
> *I have issues with your first statements, on your interpretation of the title of the thread. That is implying that I by putting "unlikely" reduces "hope" and "despair" to something which it is not. The notion that unlikeliness means "the absence of hope" or "the presence of despair" is turning it into something it is not.
> 
> And do not deduce science to a modern 'religion.'



Did you misinterpret what I wrote? Didn't we agree in what we wrote that hope is believing, or wanting to believe, that the 10% chance will prevail over the 90%? I think we do.

On the matter of science being a belief system which requires its followers to accept certain fundamental tenets, i.e. that just like a religion it has a basic creed, I agree that that may be considered an extreme view but to a pedant like myself it remains a valid one. This just demonstrates my point about evidence only modifying fundamental attitudes without eradicating them. I consider myself more of a mathematician than a scientist and sometimes I even refer to mathematics as being a form of religion, so science being founded on mathematics doesn't materially change my views in this respect. Once again that shows how fruitless debate can be.

One of the biggest modern problems to overcome has been reconciling science and religion and I suspect that a key aspect of this is simply the different language used in each. To a great extent any debate can dissolve into semantics. For example, wasn't the big bang a superhuman agency that created the universe according to science, but aren't those the same words that you used in your post about religion? As apparently nobody has any idea why the big bang happened, or indeed whether anything could "happen" then because time itself hadn't been created yet, it could just as well have been Thor banging around with his hammer for all we know. Again debate is fruitless. 

Personally I am quite happy to use the term "God" as shorthand for a complex concept that would need many words to explain it even inadequately, so my use of religious terminology doesn't indicate what my true beliefs might be. They are just too complex. As a septuagenarian the one thing that I have learned is that life is far too short to debate many things, the relative merits of science and religion included.

One important aspect of WF is enabling members to exercise and improve their word power. That is a benefit of discussions such as these. We get to see how our words can be misinterpreted, even to the extent of meaning something radically different from what we expected our readers to see in them. So long as we bear the objectives of WF in mind and indulge in these discussions in good humour they should not be a problem. Do I really "believe" what I wrote? Does that actually matter? The real question should be how convincing I was and whether I persuaded my readers to suspend their own disbelief for a while. That is what being a writer is all about, isn't it?


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## Kevin (Mar 15, 2017)

Pessimism vs optimism...hmm. Evolution, survival of the fittest; survival of the most enduring... Believing in the farcical vs believing in something that could possibly come to pass. The distinctions are many.

If you're looking at a cure for cancer it is unlikely,  or is it less likely, or likely, but after extreme statistical failure? Are we talking things that are not provable? Or things that are not _yet_ provable? 

Optimism as a tool...as a driving force. Does it prevent quitting before we even start? We are driven by emotion, are we not? Desire, want...are they not emotions? For instance, did not  ( insert researcher) _want_ to discover a cure (name the ailment)? Is it logical for us to want anything? We want food in our belly, but why would we care if our offspring carry on? Why? 
Why anything? I exist...I have to eat, poop, sleep. Beyond that...
 Postulation... 

Does the amoeba have desire? Does it want? It seems to move toward things, toward things it _likes_, beneficial things; away from the opposite. Why should it care? Does it care? Or are those automatic responses? Are you sure? It's not a plant, simply sitting and waiting( drifting possibly); it is motile, the definition of animal; the active choosing of direction, of action( I will grasp and swallow- I will..).

Should we not be motivated to be motile? Even against great odds? Should we accept? Accept but not give up? Should accept rationalization? Of the unbelievable? What the acceptance do? Cause inaction, or bolster?


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## JustRob (Mar 15, 2017)

Kevin said:


> Are we talking things that are not provable? Or things that are not _yet_ provable?



On the subject of word power, that is why I use the words "paranormal" and "preternatural" selectively. The former word refers to things that are beyond the normal and likely always to remain so, while the latter one refers to things that seem unusual but could possibly be explained as being the result of nature working in unusual ways, maybe not now but in the future. Personally I would currently regard angels, in the conventional sense, as being paranormal but the soul, in the sense of the psyche, as being preternatural. Maybe when quantum neuroscience makes some headway we will begin to comprehend exactly what the psyche, the essence of self and consciousness, actually is.

It seems most unlikely that all the strange coincidences that I have experienced in the past few years were really caused by a long evolved ability within the human mind to sense fragments of the future and certainly this is currently neither provable nor disprovable, both of which I've tried at length. This thread has already touched upon the way that evolution has provided senses and abilities beneficial to survival and sensing future knowledge certainly qualifies as a candidate there. Despite the unlikelihood I have no simpler explanation for them, so I have to follow the example of William of Ockham and Sherlock Holmes and accept that although apparently unlikely it is most likely true. That does not indicate that I am predisposed to believe in the unlikely though, given that I have been considering and researching the matter off and on for years now. There is a big difference between a "tendency to believe" and a grudging willingness to accept. My grudging willingness is evident in my lengthy writings on the subject on my website.

So, we have to add to the list of possibilities the things that are not yet disprovable, even though we feel that they ought to be.

"Tendency to believe" works in both directions as what psychologists call "confirmation bias". A person will tend to seek evidence that their preconceptions are true regardless of evidence to the contrary. When I contacted a psychologist, a supposed expert in the field of dreams about future events, about my suspicions of sensing the future she advised me to read the Wikipedia article on confirmation bias, implying that I was exhibiting it. She didn't know that I had read it a long time ago and taken the phenomenon into account but, exhibiting her own confirmation bias towards the likely rather than the unlikely, she apparently just assumed that I was biased. When I suggested this about her she admitted that she had been too busy to consider my case and had just palmed me off with a pat response, which I found much more acceptable as the truth. So actually humans often have a tendency to believe the most likely just for a quiet life. Truth is an expensive commodity and preconceptions are much cheaper.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 16, 2017)

@bdcharles

But depression does serve as a benefical trait, developed for and TO benefit us. Now, as we live in a civilized society it does not serve as such, since we don't live by the so-called 'Darwinian way of life' (Natural Selection.) So I would agree, in modern society it should be actively treated, not praised and embraced. Let alone dismissed. Quite the contrary. But you have got to keep in mind we share the same brain with the people that lived 100,000 years ago, and the world was a 'dog-eat-dog world.' Therefore it served, along with anxiety, as a survival mechanism. Anxiety functions as an alarm within the body. It tells you that you are in danger and that you should flee. Obviously a benefical trait, if say, a predator was lurking around. So keep in mind, 100,000 year old brain, a rather primitive one. Now merge that with modern society. That is why people suffer from anxiety attacks when they are to speak infront of an audience, for instance. There is nothing dangerous about that, so to speak. You are not under threat, yet your anxiety tells you that you are. A false alarm. Logical and rational explanations.

@JustRob

I don't interpret belief and hope in the same way, no. Depends on the context, really. Hope is desire and belief is trust.
And yes, ofcourse. But it always comes down to context. Say there is a 10% chance that something you dread is going to happen. You can recline, kick back, relax and with great confidence BELIEVE (trust, reasonably so) assume it will not. Now, let's say there is a 10% chance of someone you care for surviving a terminal illness, you can hope (desire) that to be the outcome. Yet, it is not reasonable. The problem I have is that people make the assumption that circumstances can somehow be altered, and almost everytime in their favor. On paper it sounds like a terrible thing to say, because it is in direct contradiction with what we would like. My point is, the universe doesn't care. Statistics doesn't care. And circumstances will never be ruled with you in mind.

And you make a very good point here by drawing the 'similiarities' between religion and science as a belief system. But they hold no value and I can easily dismiss them, and I will.

Religion is a belief system based on accounts of people and revelation. And in most cases, after the fact. In most cases, especially in the Bible, there is no passages written during, it's always after the fact. And often by people who never even met the person they are writing about. It doesn't require scientific explanation and it often detests being overly scrutinized. Christianity is very forgiving in that sense. I'll use an analogy to explain why I mean that. Imagine Christianity as a medical product. 'You can choose to buy it, but you are also free not to. But you'll be sorry later.' You are free to accept it and free to reject it, but when you die, you will be sorry. That is essentially what I mean by saying Christianity is forgiving in that sense, in our life. Not the one that is to come, obviously. This wasn't the case a thousand years ago though, when they brutally killed anyone who didn't embrace it. It doesn't have punishment for leaving the religion, which Islam has. Apostasy leads to capital punishment. To sum it up, religion makes extraordinary claims. And merely just claims, no explanation as to why. They are final and absolute. Now I can easily draw the distinction between science and religion.

Science is an instrument used to understand and explore the world and the universe. And the biggest distinction is that science revolves around rejection and contradiction. It is not absolute, it proves and dismisses. One can come up with a mathematical theory and then another scientist can continue on it and end up with a result that either dismisses it or proves it, or perhaps only expand on it. That is one big distinction. Religion doesn't do that because it is total, absolute and final. The word of 'God.' Science does not work in that way, quite the opposite.


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## Terry D (Mar 16, 2017)

People will believe the unlikely, because it is often simply more interesting than the prosaic. Alien spacecraft are much more fun to think about that are Earth-bound explanations for UFOs. Reading horoscopes that tell you what sort of day you are going to have is more fun for some than studying the life-cycles of the stars that make up the constellations of the zodiac. Conspiracy theories are more interesting -- and less frightening -- than random acts of madmen.

There have been a lot of fancy words bandied about in this thread, but many have been inaccurate. Evolution is not a "fact", in reality it probably doesn't even rise to the level of 'theory' (theories are testable, they can be proven wrong). There are still many questions to be answered about Darwin's baby (not the least of which is, why in the 158 years since Chuck published The Origin of Species have we not even once seen a new species develop?). That doesn't mean evolution isn't real, it just means our understanding of it is incomplete enough that we cannot label it as 'fact'. To try and do so indicates a very unscientific bias.

The 'Law' of gravity was mentioned; gravity is not a true law of physics, it is one of the four forces which emerged after the Big Bang (also not a fact as of yet). We know gravity exists, and we know it is related to mass, but we have no idea yet how, or why, it works. There are several theories (real theories, testable ones) about gravity, but little has been 'proven'. This whole concept of anything being 'proven' is not scientific. Science doesn't try to prove anything, it postulates and it tests. Physicists don't look for proof, they look for results of tests. If a particular test provides the expected results, great, more testing needed. To you and I the difference between evidence and proof might seem slim, but in science it is huge. 

Science deals with the how, what, where, and when of the universe. Religion deals with the why, and the what-does-that-mean-to-me. There is no incompatibility between real science and real religion, only between those who don't understand enough about either. The believer in religion will say, "God created the universe from from his word." The believer in science will say, "The universe was created from a singularity at the moment of the Big Bang." The believer in religion will say that we cannot know the mind of God because he is not of this world (universe). The believer in science will tell you that we cannot know the nature of the singularity, because none of the physical laws of this universe apply there. I ask, "What's the difference?"


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

If you're referring to Darwinian trans-species evolution, it absolutely has NOT been proven. There have been no findings of any missing link between ape and man. The partial skeleton "Lucy" was proven not only to be a monkey, but a male monkey at that. So sorry, but in REALITY, believe in the type of evolution requires as much faith as creationism. The difference is...the priests of the evolution faith wear white robes and the priests of the creationism faith wear black ones.


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## Terry D (Mar 16, 2017)

dale said:


> If you're referring to Darwinian trans-species evolution, it absolutely has NOT been proven. There have been no findings of my missing link between ape and man. The partial skeleton "Lucy" was proven not only to be a monkey, but a male monkey at that. So sorry, but in REALITY, believe in the type of evolution requires as much faith as creationism. The difference is...the priests of the evolution faith wear white robes and the priests of the creationism faith wear black ones.



The whole concept of a missing link is flawed and hasn't been used in anthropological circles in decades. There have been many pre-human and quasi-human individuals found. One just recently dates back 400,000 years. They are all steps on a path, not fixed links in a chain. It makes no sense to expect one, irrefutable ancestor definitively linking humans and apes. It is a continuum with multiple paths and dead ends.


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

Terry D said:


> The whole concept of a missing link is flawed and hasn't been used in anthropological circles in decades. There have been many pre-human and quasi-human individuals found. One just recently dates back 400,000 years. They are all steps on a path, not fixed links in a chain. It makes no sense to expect one, irrefutable ancestor definitively linking humans and apes. It is a continuum with multiple paths and dead ends.



Just to make it clear....the entire concept of evolution would dictate white supremacy. People can't have it both ways, although they try real hard to. Kind of like the op point. People gonna try to pigeonhole whatever they wish to believe to fit their bubble worldview...   And faith in the THEORY of evolution is no different.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 16, 2017)

Evolution is testable to some extent, actually. Have you heard about Darwin's finches? 



> Darwin's finches (also known as the Galápagos finches) are a group of about fifteen species of passerine birds. They are well known for their remarkable diversity in beak form and function. They are often classified as the subfamily Geospizinae or tribe Geospizini. They belong to the tanager family and are not closely related to the true finches. The closest known relative of the Galápagos finches is Tiaris obscura. They were first collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle. Apart from the Cocos finch, which is from Cocos Island, the others are found only on the Galápagos Islands.
> 
> The term "Darwin's finches" was first applied by Percy Lowe in 1936, and popularised in 1947 by David Lack in his book Darwin's Finches. David Lack based his analysis on the large collection of museum specimens collected by the 1905–06 Galápagos expedition of the California Academy of Sciences, to whom Lack dedicated his 1947 book. The birds vary in size from 10 to 20 cm and weigh between 8 and 38 grams. The smallest are the warbler-finches and the largest is the vegetarian finch. The most important differences between species are in the size and shape of their beaks, and the beaks are highly adapted to different food sources. The birds are all dull-coloured.


But to ask the question why we haven't seen a new species develope in the last 158 years is utterly stupid. I cannot even phantom that you would even ask that, because you appear to atleast know basic evolutionary theory. Evolution is a really gradual process that cannot be observed with the naked eye. What is 158 years compared to 4,5 billion years? Still you cannot understand why we haven't seen a new species develope in 2 generations?

And do not make the claim that scientists aren't interest in proof. Proof leads to truth, and truth to understanding. To expand on a theory, or twarth it into something else it requires knowledge (truth) of certain aspects of our world. If a scientist would reject what is proven to be true there would not be any progression to begin with.

And do not dumb down religion to something innocent, because it isn't. Not at all. It is not merely a belief in God, it is also a political system with laws that takes care of you for all of your life, that includes: sexuality (and what position, mind you), diet, banking and economy. It contains laws and punishment, most that would be dismissed as ridiculous in modern days. Capital punishment for homosexuality, adultery, apostasy and the list goes on. It is not innocent, it is equally political as it is 'spiritual.'


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> And do not dumb down religion to something innocent, because it isn't. Not at all. It is not merely a belief in God, it is also a political system with laws that takes care of you for all of your life, that includes: sexuality (and what position, mind you), diet, banking and economy. It contains laws and punishment, most that would be dismissed as ridiculous in modern days. Capital punishment for homosexuality, adultery, apostasy and the list goes on. It is not innocent, it is equally political as it is 'spiritual.'



By this criteria, homosexuality would be regulated as a deformity or aberration according to concepts of evolutionary theory. Another fine point the fanatical adherents to the religion of evolution tend to gloss over.


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## LeeC (Mar 16, 2017)

OMG, I guess a lifetime of natural history study has been a waste. And here I accepted the scientific proof of both evolution and extinction. I guess I should have been reading more "alternate facts" material.

“_Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping._” ~ Hubert Reeves

"_Life is a journey of adventure and understanding, traveled along the slippery slope of self gratification._" ~ L. G. Cullens


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 16, 2017)

Even if that was the case, so what? That does not mean that capital punishment, oppression and cruelty against them should be actively aided. In that case, you could compare it to down syndrome. Even though it is a genetical error, we do not actively and systematically eradicate people who suffer from it. We conserve and protect them. But I beg to differ anyway. Homosexuals are not intellectually inferior and they aren't in any shape or form a threat. However, religion is threatened by it. Else it wouldn't call for the slaughter of people born in it. So even if it is a error, which it might aswell be, it doesn't pose a threat. Not in society, and not genetically. Since a homosexual having a child doesn't affect the outcome of the child's sexuality. So, sexuality might be a result of some sort of genetical error, but I would deem it a minor one in that case. And a result of zero to none importance, since the question of sexuality was never a choice. Genetics never is. But that is only my opinion on that theory anyway, because it is not yet proven. For instance, it might aswell be a beneficial evolutionary trait in respect to the continious rising population. That is two of possibly thousands of theories on that question.


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

LeeC said:


> OMG, I guess a lifetime of natural history study has been a waste. And here I accepted the scientific proof of both evolution and extinction. I guess I should have been reading more "alternate facts" material.
> 
> “_Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature, unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshipping._” ~ Hubert Reeves
> 
> "_Life is a journey of adventure and understanding, traveled along the slippery slope of self gratification._" ~ L. G. Cullens



Maybe you should have. The earth being round was once an "alternative fact".


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Even if that was the case, so what? That does not mean that capital punishment, oppression and cruelty against them should be actively aided. In that case, you could compare it to down syndrome. Even though it is a genetical error, we do not actively and systematically eradicate people who suffer from it. We conserve and protect them. But I beg to differ anyway. Homosexuals are not intellectually inferior and they aren't in any shape or form a threat. However, religion is threatened by it. Else it wouldn't call for the slaughter of people born in it. So even if it is a error, which it might aswell be, it doesn't pose a threat. Not in society, and not genetically. Since a homosexual having a child doesn't affect the outcome of the child's sexuality. So, sexuality might be a result of some sort of genetical error, but I would deem it a minor one in that case. And a result of zero to none importance, since the question of sexuality was never a choice. Genetics never is. But that is only my opinion on that theory anyway, because it is not yet proven. For instance, it might aswell be a beneficial evolutionary trait in respect to the continious rising population. That is two of possibly thousands of theories on that question.


So then you're saying that evolutionary theory doesn't require breeding? Oh. I did not know that. I always thought breeding was a certified requirement of the religion. My bad.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 16, 2017)

No, you are now putting words in my mouth. What I am saying is that evolution as a process is not flawless, so errors do occur. There are many cases where someone is born healthy in every respect, yet unable to breed due to genetical errors. And there are even cases where two partners are fertile, and have the possibility to breed- just not with one another. What I am saying is that evolution and nature has a way of regulating itself, perhaps homosexuality is a result of evolutionary regulation? It's sole purpose might aswell be to regulate the growth of human population. Both theories are equally valid. Alfred Kingsley theorized in 1948 in his book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, that 10% of males are homosexual. This was in 1948 so it was a conceived as a rather controversial statement.


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

Believe it or not, I won't argue against the possibility of that point maybe having merit. But that's more akin to Neitzscean theories on evolution than Darwinian ones.  And if you really want to go that route? Then it would conclude warfare beneficial to the evolution of man and initiatives such as universal healthcare detrimental to the evolution of mankind. To be honest, as insensitive as it might be, Neitzscean evolution is more realistic than Darwinian evolution on many points.


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## Kevin (Mar 16, 2017)

Warfare beneficial? Healthcare detrimental... Short term, perhaps. You have know way of predicting any ultimate outcome. And attitudes actually change very easily. Perhaps the most possible choices is what's best for survival.


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## dale (Mar 16, 2017)

Kevin said:


> Warfare beneficial? Healthcare detrimental... Short term, perhaps. You have know way of predicting any ultimate outcome. And attitudes actually change very easily. Perhaps the most possible choices is what's best for survival.


Well...I was talking about population control which he brought up as a reason for homosexual behavior. If weeding out the population is going to be taken into consideration in regards to evolution, then war and lack of healthcare would fit into that equation.


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## bdcharles (Mar 17, 2017)

dale said:


> The difference is...the priests of the evolution faith wear white robes and the priests of the creationism faith wear black ones.



No. The difference is that science, theories of evolution and so forth require no faith but proof. Until then it is absolutely the norm to call them flawed and incomplete. Science invites disbelief, demands it, and is constantly evolving (if you will) along the lines of inquiry that such scepticisms throw up. Religion is the other way; question it and you don't get to partake (which only serves to undermine its validity in my book, as though its practitioners know it's not robust enough to withstand such scrutiny so a crop of "serious-sounding" tenets are invented to head them off). Spiritual faith, experienced first hand, however I would say is something different. People swear blind by it. I do have theories - well, hypotheses - regarding that too, which I'm not gonna share unless you accept me as your ultimate leader


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## Kevin (Mar 17, 2017)

My neighbor thinks seashells in the hills are evidence of the great flood. Never mind that the deposit is many feet thick. My in law thinks AIDS is a retribution. Never mind Afica, unless they are cursed, too. Another neighbor of mine thought that we had evolved since just a couple centuries ago since our average lifespans have become longer. My mother in law thinks that if animals evolved, then pavement will just be a new habitat. During ww2 they thought eating carrots gave you brain cancer. When I was a kid, my friend told me that the best thing to do with cuts was to first squeeze all the blood out. At the time, there was an ice-age coming, and a pipeline that would allow us to never be dependent again. Some actions grow hair on your palms; cause you to go blind. I know someone who says "No-née nah-nee " in place of 'No' to her child, always. My nephew's baby-mom-family roll an egg on his son's head to remove illness, a chicken egg still in the shell...


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## Firemajic (Mar 17, 2017)

I believe in Big Foot, Sasquatch.... whatever name he answers to... I KNOW  for a FACT he exists.... I have PROOF. His phone number is 555-555-5555..... He is the reason i still believe that there might be a chance that there are still some good guys out there... of course he did not ask me out again, but still...


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

dale said:


> Just to make it clear....the entire concept of evolution would dictate white supremacy.



I won't waste much time with this, other than to say it's not even wrong, as Wolfgang Pauli would say. 



Oblivious Plunge said:


> Evolution is testable to some extent, actually. Have you heard about Darwin's finches?



Studying finches in nature is not a test.




> But to ask the question why we haven't seen a new species develope in the last 158 years is utterly stupid. I cannot even phantom that you would even ask that, because you appear to atleast know basic evolutionary theory. Evolution is a really gradual process that cannot be observed with the naked eye. What is 158 years compared to 4,5 billion years? Still you cannot understand why we haven't seen a new species develope in 2 generations?



2 generations of what species? 158 years is about 6 or 7  human birth-to-reproduction generations, and many thousands, even millions of generations for species with shorter reproductive cycles. That's plenty of time for evolution to occur naturally. Hell, we haven't even been able to create a new species in a laboratory under artificial conditions (new varieties, yes. And we have been able to force adaptation to manipulated conditions, but no new species [by the scientific definition of species] have yet evolved). In a number of your posts you've call evolution "a process" and have alluded to it having a direction. These are both common misconceptions. Evolution is simply the name we have given to the result of many processes which have an influence on one-another. It is no more a 'process' than a cake is a process, or a house. And, it has no direction. It does not 'move' a species forward. Species which result from evolution are not 'more advanced' than previous species, they are simply different. Perhaps more complex, but not more advanced. You and I are not more advanced than the bacteria floating around in our gut, just more complicated. In fact, in evolutionary terms, a case can be made that Homo sapiens sapiens is an evolutionary failure. In just a quarter million years we've already out populated our resources, essentially halted our own evolution, and are in the process of poisoning ourselves into extinction, and taking hundreds of other species with us.  



> And do not make the claim that scientists aren't interest in proof. Proof leads to truth, and truth to understanding. To expand on a theory, or twarth it into something else it requires knowledge (truth) of certain aspects of our world. If a scientist would reject what is proven to be true there would not be any progression to begin with.



This shows that you don't really understand what science is all about. Scientists don't try to 'prove' anything. If one is looking for 'proof' then one already has a conclusion in mind and is only looking to confirm their bias. This is the fundamental weakness of every atheistic argument which tries to use 'science' as its foundation. Scientists look for evidence, not conclusions. They test theories, not to 'prove' them, but to find their weaknesses. Lay people with agendas want 'proof'.



> And do not dumb down religion to something innocent, because it isn't. Not at all. It is not merely a belief in God, it is also a political system with laws that takes care of you for all of your life, that includes: sexuality (and what position, mind you), diet, banking and economy. It contains laws and punishment, most that would be dismissed as ridiculous in modern days. Capital punishment for homosexuality, adultery, apostasy and the list goes on. It is not innocent, it is equally political as it is 'spiritual.'



Any system which involves more than one person has a political component to it. Why would religion be any different? A belief in a God, or gods, or goddesses, is not responsible for all the terrible things you listed. People are. People will bastardize the tenets of any belief system to advance their own agenda. Do you think science is immune from politics, corruption, and cruelty? Atrocities have been committed in the name of science too. Just ask the Guatemalan mental patients and prisoners who were infected with syphilis in the 1940s, or Mengele's victims at Auschwitz. Read about Japan's Unit 731, or the University of Iowa's 'Monster Study' in which stuttering was induced in children for research purposes. The list goes on and on. Science has been used to justify mass sterilizations, targeted euthanasia, and even genocide. Atrocities are the fault of of the people who commit them, not of the philosophy used in a bogus attempt to justify them.

Listening to atheists try to use science to debunk religion gets tiresome to me. As is the case here, they usually don't understand either topic well enough to make a reasonable argument. Some of the best scientific minds in history were people of belief, and many religious folks are comfortable with the scientific interpretation of our universe (did you know the man who first postulated the Big Bang was a catholic priest?). Conversely, ignoring well accepted science (like carbon dating, and evolution) because it's 'just a THEORY' exhibits a lack of understanding, and exposes a preconceived bias that is every bit as short-sighted as the argument they rail against. We live in a world where support for your belief, no matter how antiquated or extreme, is just a Google search away. I don't care what anyone believes, so long as they don't try to use their belief to affect my life. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive philosophies. In fact, when you look at the evidence in-depth and without preconceptions, they actually support one-another. But that's not something either 'side' likes to hear.


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## LeeC (Mar 17, 2017)

Thank you Terry, my faith in human reason has been ebbing of late.


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## LeeC (Mar 17, 2017)

Firemajic said:


> I believe in Big Foot, Sasquatch.... whatever name he answers to... I KNOW  for a FACT he exists.... I have PROOF. His phone number is 555-555-5555..... He is the reason i still believe that there might be a chance that there are still some good guys out there... of course he did not ask me out again, but still...


Precious Fire  The wife says she sticks with me because no male is perfect, and the few that are marginally acceptable are all taken ;-)

Got to watch what I say because the microwave can see around corners


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## Firemajic (Mar 17, 2017)

LeeC said:


> Precious Fire  The wife says she sticks with me because no male is perfect, and the few that are marginally acceptable are all taken ;-)
> 
> Got to watch what I say because the microwave can see around corners





" Marginally acceptable".... hahaaa..... yeah...  
Love you bunches, lee...


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## dale (Mar 17, 2017)

bdcharles said:


> No. The difference is that science, theories of evolution and so forth require no faith but proof. Until then it is absolutely the norm to call them flawed and incomplete. Science invites disbelief, demands it, and is constantly evolving (if you will) along the lines of inquiry that such scepticisms throw up. Religion is the other way; question it and you don't get to partake (which only serves to undermine its validity in my book, as though its practitioners know it's not robust enough to withstand such scrutiny so a crop of "serious-sounding" tenets are invented to head them off). Spiritual faith, experienced first hand, however I would say is something different. People swear blind by it. I do have theories - well, hypotheses - regarding that too, which I'm not gonna share unless you accept me as your ultimate leader



Religion is often ambiguous and can be interpreted multiple ways. At least in the original texts. It's why it is difficult to really prove wrong. Take the 7th day Adventist interpretation that the earth is 6000 years old. Well....the fact is....nowhere in the bible does it claim the earth is 6000 years old. But the atheist will take 1 church interpretation and point their finger and say.....GOT YA!!!!!..
When the fact is....they have nothing. Because the majority of theists don't accept that interpretation. Science is different because the priest in the white coat has a degree and the "science" is in scholastic books and blah blah. Like they still use that idiotic diagram that starts with an ape and the progresses into a modern man even though there's no real basis for it being true except hypothesis. But people take it as fact. The same with the monkey skeletal pieces called "Lucy". Been proven a monkey but still taught in schools as proof of something that isn't real.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

I'd love to read about the evidence for 'Lucy' being a male monkey, dale. Can you give me some direction?


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## Thaumiel (Mar 17, 2017)

Does anyone even actually, really deeply care if god exists in the end?

I don't really see myself as an atheist anymore. I mean, I don't believe, that's true. But in the end, as far as I can observe, the existence of any god out of the countless numbers people have worshiped makes literally no impact on my life. No impact on anyone's. 

Believers and non-believers don't have better or worse lives according to who they do/don't believe in.


So why does it matter?


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## Ptolemy (Mar 17, 2017)

Well, Lucy got her name because the researches and excavators that found her in the 70s were blasting "Lucy in the sky of Diamonds" by the Beatles. There is only 40% of the earliest Australopithecus known to us. It's very unlikely that we will find its gender without a full pelvis. 

The thing that made Lucy so special is that it was the oldest example of evolution in that bipedalism proceeded an increase in brain mass. The specimens gait was akin to that of the hominids and in conjuncture Humans.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 17, 2017)

@Teddy

Studying finches on a secluded island where they kept breeding and breeding. And suddenly food began to run low and then some of the finches began a plant based diet whilst the others kept a carnivorous diet. And in a couple of generations their beaks began to change drastically. So their beaks 'evolved' in benefit of their diet. Making it easier to hack and devour prey or making it easier to break nuts and that sort of thing. The extraordinary thing is that those finches were of the same species.


You talk of evolution as just being there, with no purpose whatsoever. You speak as if it is random. It is not called random selection, it's natural selection. It embraces beneficial traits and removes comprimising ones. Which leads to what? Yes, progression. And are you seriously claiming that we as humans haven't made progress and moved forward, despite evolution? 
Where do you even get this from? Have you seen how human skulls have grown throughout history? That is because of brain capacity. Is that not progression as a species?


Religion is definitely not innocent in the actions of it's followers. They draw ideas directly from their holy books. Women are objectified and seen as property in the holy books. Am I surprised when a religious person treats his woman as such? No. Why? Because he follows a religious ideology that condones it. Same goes with killing homosexuals or unbelievers and whatnot. Let's not pretend that those passages don't exist, because they do. If a religion such as Islam was created today, and pushed as an ideology and not a religion. It would be compared to nazi ideology and deemed hateful and disgusting, and most likely banned.


I do not care if a scientist believes in a god or not. Scientists doesn't put god into the equation when doing science. That would be a disgrace, and even believing scientists know this. Dr. Lawrence Krauss once said that god has never been added into any equation in a lab. Which means it's not even mentioned. It's a non existent theme.


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## Ptolemy (Mar 17, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Teddy
> 
> Studying finches on a secluded island where they kept breeding and breeding. And suddenly food began to run low and then some of the finches began a plant based diet whilst the others kept a carnivorous diet. And in a couple of generations their beaks began to change drastically. So their beaks 'evolved' in benefit of their diet. Making it easier to hack and devour prey or making it easier to break nuts and that sort of thing. The extraordinary thing is that those finches were of the same species.



If im not wrong your first point is of Adaptation, not evolution. Evolution would be through years of selective breeding, natural selection, mutuation, "survival of the fittest" AND adaptation.

You hit on this but you didn't point out everything in your first point. They adapted to the diets that were available to them, those who did not adapt died out, which strengthened the finch gene pool. Essentially the finches would eventually evolve into to different species due to these adaptations being passed on as  genetic traits. But they wouldn't have just "evolved" in the years that Darwin did his studies, they would have adapted.

Evolution takes years to culminate.


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## Firemajic (Mar 17, 2017)

James 剣 斧 血 said:


> Does anyone even actually, really deeply care if god exists in the end?
> 
> I don't really see myself as an atheist anymore. I mean, I don't believe, that's true. But in the end, as far as I can observe, the existence of any god out of the countless numbers people have worshiped makes literally no impact on my life.** No impact on anyone's.***
> 
> ...





It matters. It matters to the person betting it ALL on ONE specific way of thinking/ believing/ trusting/ hoping... The impact of any belief if far reaching, and then when they indoctrinate their innocent children into a certain way of believing .... it impacts them...
The Bible speaks of "The blind leading the blind"... so, yes, it matters...


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

James 剣 斧 血 said:


> Does anyone even actually, really deeply care if god exists in the end?
> 
> I don't really see myself as an atheist anymore. I mean, I don't believe, that's true. But in the end, as far as I can observe, the existence of any god out of the countless numbers people have worshiped makes literally no impact on my life. No impact on anyone's.
> 
> ...



To the billions of people who use their belief to help shape their moral compass it means quite a lot. To the thousands of poor in Calcutta who benefited form Mother Teresa's work it means quite a lot. To those who have lost their lives in wars waged in the name of religion it meant quite a lot.


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## bdcharles (Mar 17, 2017)

dale said:


> Religion is often ambiguous and can be interpreted multiple ways. At least in the original texts. It's why it is difficult to really prove wrong. Take the 7th day Adventist interpretation that the earth is 6000 years old. Well....the fact is....nowhere in the bible does it claim the earth is 6000 years old. But the atheist will take 1 church interpretation and point their finger and say.....GOT YA!!!!!..
> When the fact is....they have nothing. Because the majority of theists don't accept that interpretation. Science is different because the priest in the white coat has a degree and the "science" is in scholastic books and blah blah. Like they still use that idiotic diagram that starts with an ape and the progresses into a modern man even though there's no real basis for it being true except hypothesis. But people take it as fact. The same with the monkey skeletal pieces called "Lucy". Been proven a monkey but still taught in schools as proof of something that isn't real.



Just the fact of it being interpretable multiple ways (or even a few ways), and the clinging onto what is difficult to gainsay is a red flag. It's Classic Power Moves 101 stuff; make your system hinge on things that can't be disproved, use that to underpin your argument and most people find themselves quickly unable to refute any of it. But all it really is, is a lttle light logic abuse, powerfully presented by a few snazzy hand gestures and selected words ("idiotic" is an excellent choice, by the way, when it comes to straw-manning the folks you're looking to  trip up  ).

Many clergy have degrees too. I know someone who has a degree, plus years of a solid career, in a scientific discipline and is married to the local vicar and active in the church. They're nice folks - they come to tea sometimes, and we see them socially now and again. So you might ask what happened there? I am guessing, based on similar accounts, that she had an experience she was unable to explain by conventional argument. Add to that a set of rituals that give a sense of identity and significance and there you have it. I don't begrudge her any of this. I am even open to the idea that there is some spiritual or "otherness" to her experience, though I am also open to there not being. None of this however need negate the science taught in schools. And as for Lucy, again this is the joy of this approach; one part of it can be wrong, and be corrected, without the whole shebang tumbling down. That is what science is. It is a work in progress, like a novel. You don't ding down a first draft and say that's it, no more, this here is the masterpiece. Well, okay, maybe some people do do that. Maybe I did.  

Hard to base a counterargument on a single Time-Life cartoon though. I mean, there's a fair whack more to the evolution argument than that. That's like saying one doesn't believe in God because - look up in the sky! No bearded man!


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 17, 2017)

Using Mother Teresa as an example to anything doesn't impress me much. She is by far the biggest fraud in catholic history. She was used as a tool for catholic propaganda and given way too much false media coverage. She encouraged members of her order to secretly baptise dying patients. And the conditions of the hospitals in Calcutta you speak so fondly about were down-right inhumane. And they romanticized this idea, pushing it as equivalent to Jesus' suffering on the cross. It is appaling, and wrong. Not to mention the nurses had no medical experience whatsoever.


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## bdcharles (Mar 17, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Using Mother Teresa as an example to anything doesn't impress me much. She is by far the biggest fraud in catholic history. She was used as a tool for catholic propaganda and given way too much media coverage, that are plainly falls. She encouraged members of her order to secretly baptise dying patients. And the conditions of the hospitals in Calcutta you speak so fondly about were down-right inhumane. And they romanticized this idea, pushing it as equivalent to Jesus' suffering on the cross. It is appaling, and wrong.



To be fair, if they were dying, you could argue that she made their last minutes/days bearable. That's not without merit.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 17, 2017)

Bearable because of secretive baptism? My whole point is that the last days were not bearable at all. How is spending your last days in a hospital where conditions are inhumane and the nurses have no medical experience whatsoever, in your words, bearable? Those people were stripped and robbed of the possibility of a death with dignity.


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## dale (Mar 17, 2017)

Terry D said:


> I'd love to read about the evidence for 'Lucy' being a male monkey, dale. Can you give me some direction?



https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=76


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## bdcharles (Mar 17, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Bearable because of secretive baptism? My whole point is that the last days were not bearable at all. How is spending your last days in a hospital where conditions are inhumane and the nurses have no medical experience whatsoever, in your words, bearable? Those people were stripped and robbed of the possibility of a death with dignity.



Well that sounds like a failing of the Calcutta hospital at the time, or their illness, not of Mother Teresa's personal morality. Many people, for better or worse, respond to this sort of thing. Yes, it may be factually incorrect. Yes, the ideal solution may have been to whizz them over to a western hospital where they could get treatment. But in the absence of the ability to do that, then what? Devastate them with facts? How's that more dignified, or more bearable? How would you, or me, or anybody know unless they were there? I admit as a fiction writer I find value in faslehoods to the point where I might reasonably expect people to fork over money for my made-up stories, so maybe that influences my view on truth at all costs, but much depends on what the immediate goal is. When my mother was dying I put to her the choice of not knowing "how long she had left", because why? Because what benefit will it bring? As far as I could tell, she was happy in her blissful ignorance, which was rudely upturned into a state of clockwatching hell when the care workers let slip she had weeks to go.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Teddy




If you want me to take you seriously, you might, at least, get my name right.




> Studying finches on a secluded island where they kept breeding and breeding. And suddenly food began to run low and then some of the finches began a plant based diet whilst the others kept a carnivorous diet. And in a couple of generations their beaks began to change drastically. So their beaks 'evolved' in benefit of their diet. Making it easier to hack and devour prey or making it easier to break nuts and that sort of thing. The extraordinary thing is that those finches were of the same species.



Again, studying finches in the wild is not a test of the evolutionary theory. It is simple observation. A test would have inputs, limits, parameters, and controls. Yes, animal species can adapt, or be adapted as with selective breeding programs, and adaptation is one component of evolution, but my point remains that we have never, ever observed the development of a new species. That's why evolution cannot be called a scientific fact. And that's okay, there are very few true scientific 'facts'. 




> You talk of evolution as just being there, with no purpose whatsoever. You speak as if it is random. It is not called random selection, it's natural selection. It embraces beneficial traits and removes comprimising ones. Which leads to what? Yes, progression. And are you seriously claiming that we as humans haven't made progress and moved forward, despite evolution?
> Where do you even get this from? Have you seen how human skulls have grown throughout history? That is because of brain capacity. Is that not progression as a species?



The whole point behind the idea of evolution is random genetic mutation. Sometimes the mutation is good, giving the species an advantage and those characteristics get passed on, and sometimes it provides no advantage (neutral) or creates a disadvantage which results in the owners of those traits dying out, or, at the very least, not getting those genes passed along. That is what 'natural selection' means. If evolution is some purposeful force, bent on moving species forward, why is it that many species haven't changed at all for millions of years? I don't know what you mean when you say, "humans have moved forward despite evolution". Human brain size has not changed since the earliest Homo sapiens walked the Earth. you are confusing humans with our pre-human ancestors. In point of fact the human brain has actually shrunk over the last 28,000 years, look it up. Humans are generally bigger now than in prior generations, but that's a function of nutrition not genetics.

I'm intrigued by your idea that there is a purpose for evolution, that it is a "process" for advancing species. It's not a biological trait like your gall bladder, or the spots on a fawn, or the poison in a spider's bite. It's not a genetic trait, or a physical one at all. It is simply the result of random mutation. Atheists usually believe that the universe has no purpose. That it came to be as the result of a cosmic accident and everything since the Big Bang has been the result of random chance. I can understand that mind-set, it makes sense in some ways. What doesn't make sense is the attribution of 'purpose' and 'direction' to these random systems. If there is a reason for evolution, I'd ask, "Who's reason is it?" 




> Religion is definitely not innocent in the actions of it's followers. They draw ideas directly from their holy books. Women are objectified and seen as property in the holy books. Am I surprised when a religious person treats his woman as such? No. Why? Because he follows a religious ideology that condones it. Same goes with killing homosexuals or unbelievers and whatnot. Let's not pretend that those passages don't exist, because they do. If a religion such as Islam was created today, and pushed as an ideology and not a religion. It would be compared to nazi ideology and deemed hateful and disgusting, and most likely banned.



Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda. As I've said before, atrocities aren't the exclusive domain of people who profess to be religious and this old argument gets boring quickly. Atheistic societies have been just as brutal (se, Stalin, Joseph). Human barbarity is an equal opportunity affliction.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

dale said:


> https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=76



Thanks, dale. I'll read it, but I'm skeptical. I've read articles from Apologetics Press in the past and haven't been sold on their objectivity.


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## dale (Mar 17, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Thanks, dale. I'll read it, but I'm skeptical. I've read articles from Apologetics Press in the past and haven't been sold on their objectivity.



I knew questioning the website was coming. Lol. There's thousands of sources to choose. From. I chose this one because it was the best compilation of all the hoaxish qualities of lucy, plus it is well sourced and annotated...not just be creationists, but also by secular evolutionists who also slam Lucy as a hoax.


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## Ptolemy (Mar 17, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda. As I've said before, atrocities aren't the exclusive domain of people who profess to be religious and this old argument gets boring quickly. Atheistic societies have been just as brutal (se, Stalin, Joseph). Human barbarity is an equal opportunity affliction.



Stalin was raised a Christian, hell his parents wanted him to be a priest. The connection of him being an atheist is kind of an odd sentiment in my mind. Yes, early in his occupation of Russia he tried to run out religion but that was more of a power play (as the head of state in Russia (who was taught to be akin to God) was a tyrant) than as an act of "atheism". He even revived the Russian Orthodox Church after he was firmly in power of Russia as a sort of "patriotic" effort to get people moving towards the war effort. So the connection of Stalin to athiesm just seems odd here.


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## Thaumiel (Mar 17, 2017)

Terry D said:


> To the billions of people who use their belief to help shape their moral compass it means quite a lot. To the thousands of poor in Calcutta who benefited form Mother Teresa's work it means quite a lot. To those who have lost their lives in wars waged in the name of religion it meant quite a lot.



I'm not saying that religion hasn't greatly shaped the past, but in a world where people are allowed to not believe, there is no fundamental difference in the quality of life of those who do an don't believe.

But on the point you make, while those people happen to be affiliated with religious groups, it doesn't mean that the existence of the god actually matters. People place blind faith into it, the answer of whether or not it's true is meaningless.

A god didn't tell those people how to behave, they were taught by other people.
A god didn't help the poor, people did.
A god didn't send those soldiers off to war, other people did.

Just because they did it in the name of a god doesn't mean that it would happen without the god, because people will continue to do those things.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

James 剣 斧 血 said:


> I'm not saying that religion hasn't greatly shaped the past, but in a world where people are allowed to not believe, there is no fundamental difference in the quality of life of those who do an don't believe.
> 
> But on the point you make, while those people happen to be affiliated with religious groups, it doesn't mean that the existence of the god actually matters. People place blind faith into it, the answer of whether or not it's true is meaningless.
> 
> ...



Their _belief_ in God motivated them to do all those things. That's why it makes a difference... at least to them.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

Ptolemy said:


> Stalin was raised a Christian, hell his parents wanted him to be a priest. The connection of him being an atheist is kind of an odd sentiment in my mind. Yes, early in his occupation of Russia he tried to run out religion but that was more of a power play (as the head of state in Russia (who was taught to be akin to God) was a tyrant) than as an act of "atheism". He even revived the Russian Orthodox Church after he was firmly in power of Russia as a sort of "patriotic" effort to get people moving towards the war effort. So the connection of Stalin to athiesm just seems odd here.



Soviet Russia was atheistic by doctrine. A State sponsored atheism, if you will.


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## Ptolemy (Mar 17, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Soviet Russia was atheistic by doctrine. A State sponsored atheism, if you will.



I don't want a debate about atheistic USSR, this thread has gotten way out of hand anyway. 

But the communists banned religion in relation to the state. Because it was against the Marxist vision of Communism. They never formally outlawed private practice or personal beliefs. Their goal was a total Atheistic state under the roots of communism. So sure, you are correct of an "atheist doctrine" to a point but it was more than just "lack of a fervor for religion" it was based on their doctrine of communism spelled out by Marx. Many people (who were not forcibly converted and many converts still keep their religious identities) were still religious under the communist doctrine.


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## Terry D (Mar 17, 2017)

Ptolemy said:


> I don't want a debate about atheistic USSR, this thread has gotten way out of hand anyway.
> 
> But the communists banned religion in relation to the state. Because it was against the Marxist vision of Communism. They never formally outlawed private practice or personal beliefs. Their goal was a total Atheistic state under the roots of communism. So sure, you are correct of an "atheist doctrine" to a point but it was more than just "lack of a fervor for religion" it was based on their doctrine of communism spelled out by Marx. Many people (who were not forcibly converted and many converts still keep their religious identities) were still religious under the communist doctrine still.



Point taken.


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## Kevin (Mar 17, 2017)

"You talk of evolution as just being there, with no purpose whatsoever. You speak as if it is random. It is not called random selection, it's natural selection. It embraces beneficial traits and removes comprimising ones. Which leads to what? Yes, progression. And are you seriously claiming that we as humans haven't made progress and moved forward, despite evolution? 
Where do you even get this from? Have you seen how human skulls have grown throughout history? That is because of brain capacity. Is that not progression as a species?" 

It is random, random mutation. 

Those finches... Did the originals die out? Or did a a parallel type that ate other things happen to evolve alongside?

In my neighborhood we have ground squirrels, and tree squirrels. They eat some of the same foods, but they are not competing. One primarily forages in the trees, one on the ground. They also both Forages in the others niche area... sometimes.  

We have foxes, coyotes, and wolves. Each of those species have their own niche with some overlap, some. 
They are not competing to see which one is better. They are each, specialized. 

Beneficial traits-- those are specialization. Given a change in conditions those benificial traits become the opposite. Go ask a polar bear( off-shoot of the brown bear). White was an advantage in the Arctic.  How about in twenty years? Things change. 

Now then, our big brains, what happens when we're  so smart that we can't survive what a cockroach or a rat can? Say an asteroid hits...Who's more successful then? As with the dinosaur,  what's 'progress' today becomes detriment tomorrow. 

And that is random. Predictable ( in that you know something will happen) but random, just like mutation.


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## Firemajic (Mar 17, 2017)

Do humans have a tendency to believe in the unlikely?
Wellllllll.... maybe.. I know I do... I KNOW it is highly unlikely, but I believe that for the most part, Humans are kind, compassionate, honest and intelligent, capable of loving and learning from past mistakes... sooooo, the answer to your question is... maybe... maybe... I guess I believe in the unlikely... ... sometimes.... with enough medication... and IF I have just had a good date... soooo.... anyway....


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## LeeC (Mar 17, 2017)

And now for a bit of hard science (from a past paper of mine).

Consider, if you will, the fact that natural world ecosystems sustain every life-supporting function on the planet, including climate regulation, water filtration, soil formation, food, fibers, medicines, and so on. All that and yet these ecosystems are essentially just combinations of biotic and abiotic components. They are life, as we know it, which sustains, builds upon, and propagates further life in a cycle of renewal, through an elaborate dance of successional state changes in geologic step with changing environments.

Basically, these combinations of biotic and abiotic components function in a closed-loop manner (aside from solar energy and cosmic radiation) to recycle the elements that make possible biotic existence in any form. An ecosystem works because all the applicable abiotic elements are present, and all the biotic components act paradoxically to bind the system together. Moreover, with ongoing environmental dynamics, biotic disruptions, and mutations, successional ecosystem state changes are ongoing more or less reciprocally.

Through such ongoing successional ecosystem state changes of varying degrees, Earth's natural ecosystems have evolved over billions of years to include our own existence. Just how long our life form exists depends on the extent and progress of further biotic and abiotic disruptions, in which, though we don't have a controlling role, we do have a consequential role. If we consider the question of ecosystem states, in terms of what it is to sustain human existence, then it means preserving and fostering Earth's natural ecosystems, to the extent possible, that allow our habitation—everything else is undeniably secondary.

Pertinent to higher life forms, like ourselves, the two key measures of ecosystem states are sustainable long term productivity and relative stability. Productivity builds up over time as the diversity of the biotic community builds to exploit all the ecological niches (in time, space, and kind). That is, greater biodiversity leads to greater primary productivity through better coverage of habitat heterogeneity by the broader range of species traits in a more diverse community. The second key measure (i.e. relative stability) is dependent on the overall balance of ecological processes in minimizing ecosystem state shifts to background evolutionary changes, as much as possible. Ecological processes are the basis for self-maintenance in an ecosystem, and involve both biotic interactions with each other and with abiotic components. Examples of ecological processes are competition, predation, parasitism, various forms of symbiosis (e.g. mutualism, facilitation), and so on. The more balanced, on the whole, the dynamic, opposing attributes are, the more stable the system will be.

It’s blatantly obvious that our species plays a major role in ecosystem disruptive practices, and that such are accelerating successional ecosystem state changes to our detriment. 

————————

This isn’t intended to be condemnatory, as we are but a variation on a theme of physical life, with the same inherent basic behaviors. That is, in the big picture we are a liminal thread in the web of life. 

As to the lead in question, "Do humans have a tendency to believe in the unlikely?" there are countless examples, some good, some detrimental. One need look no further than their microwave ;-)


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## dale (Mar 17, 2017)

Yeah. But only white people are bad.


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## ppsage (Mar 17, 2017)

dale said:


> Yeah. But only white people are bad.


Except on TV.


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## LeeC (Mar 17, 2017)

ppsage said:


> Except on TV.


Don't get me started ppsage  I remember all those slanted cowboy and Indian movies that are still on TV. TV is a major manipulation tool of the excessively greedy, though they'd like us to believe microwaves are a major threat. Gotta dump my GE and Whirlpool stocks before their earnings plunge :lol:


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

@Terry


Just comes to prove how petty you are with your opening statement. Sad.


As I have previously stated you cannot openly question why we haven't observed a new species evolve without sounding like a total illiterate. You're not, by the way. But you sound like one. You are just so unaware and so clueless about evolutionary theory. Evolutionary is so gradual that you cannot observe with with the naked eye. It's not like a homo erectus couple got pregnant and birthed the first homo sapien. It doesn't work like that. I cannot stress this enough.


I am one of the people who accept that the universe serves no purpose. We live on a tiny spec of dust in this giant universe. And I came to realize how little we matter in comparison. And the thought that another human being, with confidence, can say that the universe was not only created, but DESIGNED, with you and all who has ever existed in mind, is a self-indulgent and delusional idea. And I resent it, with much passion.


Atheist is a word used to describe people who doesn't believe in God. Atheism doesn't teach ethics, morals or anything else. Atheism isn't an ideology of ideas. Atheism doesn't tell you how to live your life. It's simply a word used to describe people who don't believe in God. Religion on the other hand tells people how to live their lives, what is wrong, what is right. Who to pray to, who to have sex with. Atheism doesn't. So how can you possibly blame atheism for the atrocities committed by Stalin? Stalin was a genocidal dictator, who happened to be atheist. What is it that you do not understand by this? It's really simple.


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## escorial (Mar 18, 2017)

Richard Dawkins kind of sums this up for me when he wondered why people believe in fairy tales and magic at a young age and lose it in adult life but still believe in religion...


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## ppsage (Mar 18, 2017)

Any discussion of the anti-religious nature of revolutionary movements stemming from the nineteenth century, the Bolsheviks being a prime example, has to consider the nature of the religions opposed, which, in the Russian case, was a mainstay of the absolutist monarchy: part and parcel of the Romanov regime. ALL monarchies were supported by religion and in many kingdoms by a state religion which was maintained by force to the exclusion of any other. The 'opiate' which these religions spread included the doctrine that the ruler, and generally his family line, had divine sanction. Anti-monarchist revolutionaries of any stripe opposed them vigorously.

Edit for context:





> > Stalin was raised a Christian, hell his parents wanted him to be a priest. The connection of him being an atheist is kind of an odd sentiment in my mind. Yes, early in his occupation of Russia he tried to run out religion but that was more of a power play (as the head of state in Russia (who was taught to be akin to God) was a tyrant) than as an act of "atheism". He even revived the Russian Orthodox Church after he was firmly in power of Russia as a sort of "patriotic" effort to get people moving towards the war effort. So the connection of Stalin to athiesm just seems odd here.
> 
> 
> Soviet Russia was atheistic by doctrine. A State sponsored atheism, if you will.


There's more of this earlier in the thread too.


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## escorial (Mar 18, 2017)

ppsage said:


> Any discussion of the anti-religious nature of revolutionary movements stemming from the nineteenth century, the Bolsheviks being a prime example, has to consider the nature of the religions opposed, which, in the Russian case, was a mainstay of the absolutist monarchy: part and parcel of the Romanov regime. ALL monarchies were supported by religion and in many kingdoms by a state religion which was maintained by force to the exclusion of any other. The 'opiate' which these religions spread included the doctrine that the ruler had divine sanction. Anti-monarchist revolutionaries of any stripe opposed them vigorously.



compact and solid....not sure what the context is regarding the thread but i found this a steadfast piece of writing....


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

It doesn't matter how Stalin was raised. Hitler was raised Christian also and then called Christianity "the illegitimate child of bolshevism and stated that Christianity and national socialism could not coexist. There are many atheists who were raised Christian. And some of those atheist will use Christianity to manipulate mass appeal. Barack Obama did it. Most American politicians use religion in one way or another for appeal to their constituents, whether for or against. But the fact is....Stalin was an atheist when he ruled Russia. As was Mao in China. As was Hitler in Germany.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

@Dale

Hitler used the following words "The Creator" "God" and "The Lord" plenty of times in his autobiography Mein Kampf. Not to mention his frequent references to God in his speeches to the germans. Hitler didn't reject religion or God. He just resented the jewish part of it, so he created a very nihilistic spin on it. Nazi soldiers belt buckles read 'Gott mit uns' which is german for "God with Us." Hitler was definitely not an atheist. He wasn't very christian either, I will give you that. But he was nonetheless, a man of faith.

But we all have got to realize; atheist is just a title that describes people who lacks belief in God(s). It isn't an ideology that tells you anything about morals or ethics. It is merely a title. On the contrary, you have religion. Which tells you these things.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Dale
> 
> Hitler used the following words "The Creator" "God" and "The Lord" plenty of times in his autobiography Mein Kampf. Not to mention his frequent references to God in his speeches to the germans. Hitler didn't reject religion or God. He just resented the jewish part of it, so he created a very nihilistic spin on it. Nazi soldiers belt buckles read 'Gott mit uns' which is german for "God with Us." Hitler was definitely not an atheist. He wasn't very christian either, I will give you that. But he was nonetheless, a man of faith.
> 
> But we all have got to realize; atheist is just a word that describes people who lacks belief in God(s). It isn't an ideology that tells you anything about morals or ethics. It is just a description. On the contrary, you have religion. Which tells you these things.



I understand what Hitler did in me in kampf. I've read it a half dozen times. But he knew he was speaking to a largely Lutheran based mass. But the fact is....when you read his "table talk" diaries? He despised Christianity. And only a fool would believe he didn't. He despised jews. What? You think that man who despised jews to that degree would actually hold reverence to a religion based on one?


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

Exactly, that is what I said in my post aswell. He despised the jewish origins of Christianity. Infact, he didn't even claim Christ's divinity. But an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any God. Hitler by definition was therefore not an atheist. He did believe in God, a deity, a creator.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> Exactly, that is what I said in my post aswell. He despised the jewish origins of Christianity. Infact, he didn't even claim Christ's divinity. But an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any God. Hitler by definition was therefore not an atheist. He did believe in God, a deity, a creator.



Well..I won't try to argue the point he may have been a agnostic or deist. I didn't know him personally. Possible he was. He was a non-marxist socialist. He could have believed in a creator quite easily as he did believe in hierarchy.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

And while we're on the subject? What about Mussolini? The father of fascism. He wrote the doctrine of fascism. Now...this man was an avowed atheist. Born and raised by marxist socialist parents. Despised religion so much he granted the Vatican sovereignty as its own country so they had no more power to influence his atheist government. Or...we could go into the huns and Mongols. Who's rampages and mass murder had nothing to do with religion at all. The point is....conquest and killing isn't about religion. Religion isn't essential to war. Never has been. War and conquest are human nature.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

Mussolini was a facist that happened to be an atheist. The fact that he was an atheist is not even relevant. Atheism isn't a doctrine, it isn't a way of life. It's simply a title used to describe a person who doesn't believe in God or gods. Mussolini's motives wasn't atheism. It was facism. Facism is an ideology, atheism isn't. It's just a title. Now, religion also teaches ideological doctrine. So what is to blame? Ideology, ofcourse. I am not surprised when a muslim blows himself up in a crowd of unbelievers. Why? Because Islam calls upon slaughter of infidels. It's found in the ideology. I do not believe that most muslims supports these kinds of terrorist attacks. Because they have common sense and moral principles. Those principles lay within their own reason and rationality, certainly not in the Qu'ran where it's condoned. I have always stressed that a good muslim is a bad person and a bad muslim is a good person. And most muslims are bad muslims but good people. What I mean by saying that is that most muslims do not follow these kind of violent passages and doesn't take the Qu'ran all that literal. But keep in mind, 20% percent of muslims are categorized as radicals. And considiring it is one of the biggest religion and the fastest growing one in the world, that is a cause for alarm. Those numbers are staggering.


Some may find what I wrote offensive. If you do, feel free to PM me and challenge what I stated. Let's not pretend this problem doesn't exist and let's not act as if those passages doesn't exist. They do.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

But Mussolini isn't just "a fascist". He wrote it. He's the creator of the ideology. And yes...a lot of people confuse fascism with national socialism. But those people are ignorant. 1/3 of the jews in Italy were members of the fascist party when the movement 1st began. But this isn't really my point. My point is....all men are at war. Conflict is our nature. Religion and atheist ideologies such as Marxism are simply banners which some men use to unite men in a common cause of conquest. Both religious and atheist ideologies can and will be used for this purpose. As far as Islam? It is the most dangerous. Because Muhammad was at war when he dictated it. Jesus wasn't at war....or at least not in that sense. And the old testement of the bible? Lot of war and violence in that. But it was written as historical documents, not perpetual command. Like Joshua. Probably the most violent book of the bible. But it was just a record of Joshua. Not a perpetual command to all that read it. And that's the basic difference between the religions.


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## Ptolemy (Mar 18, 2017)

dale said:


> And while we're on the subject? What about Mussolini? The father of fascism. He wrote the doctrine of fascism. Now...this man was an avowed atheist. Born and raised by marxist socialist parents. Despised religion so much he granted the Vatican sovereignty as its own country so they had no more power to influence his atheist government. Or...we could go into the huns and Mongols. Who's rampages and mass murder had nothing to do with religion at all. The point is....conquest and killing isn't about religion. Religion isn't essential to war. Never has been. War and conquest are human nature.



The problem with your Mongol point is that the Mongols had no writing source like the Chinese, Indians or Muslims. So most of our depictions of Mongols (bloodthirsty barbarians who only had a taste for human flesh) are from forgien sources that the Mongols conquered. While their conquest wasn't aligned with their religion, there are still some studies and sources that proclaim that the Mongols did have polytheistic religious deities. So the point about the Mongols and the Huns being atheistic is a bit off center.

But your point about all war and killing not being religious is semi correct, I guess, however it can still be a cause of war. Most wars are actually facilitated by expansionist or militaristic goals. Both World Wars, Alexander the Greats conquests, the multiple Greek and Roman wars. They were all facilities of war that were facilitated by expansion and militarism tendencies. Of course there is more too it but still. But that's not to say there are not Wars based around religion, the multiple Holt Crusades are an easy example. So are the multiple Islamic Jihads called in history. There are many causes for us humans to go to war, and religion is definitely one of those causes.

I also contest your "killing is human nature standpoint" because in all honesty that's a cop out. Killing is not a "force of human nature". If I give you a gun and tell you to kill someone for no benefit or loss, I highly doubt you (or anyone in that matter) would take the shot. Killing is forced by desperation, loss, paranoia, orders, a sense of benefit, precedent etc etc. Many people do not have the gall to kill someone. I'll be honest here, I would never kill someone, I would never have the stones to just kill someone for no reason. Eating is a force of human nature, breathing is a force of human nature, we do these things regularly everyday, we don't just go out kill someone and call it a day.  It's not a force of "nature" or "human nature" it's an action that is dictated by external events that shape your vision on the situation.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

I agree with everything you just stated apart from the title "Atheistic ideologies." There exists no such thing. Atheism is just a title to describe a person who doesn't believe in a God or gods. Atheism doesn't provide ideology or ethics, thus there is no such thing called "atheistic ideology." It's merely a title. And the belief in a creator of some kind doesn't exclude anyone from being facist. Facists opposed organized religion, not the belief in a god or gods itself.


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## LeeC (Mar 18, 2017)

Ever study Mormon cricket behavior? You’ll find a healthy dose of human behavior ;-)


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> I agree with everything you just stated apart from the title "Atheistic ideologies." There exists no such thing. Atheism is just a title to describe a person who doesn't believe in a God or gods. Atheism doesn't provide ideology or ethics, thus there is no such thing called "atheistic ideology." It's merely a title. And the belief in a creator of some kind doesn't exclude anyone from being facist. Facists opposed organized religion, not the belief in a god or gods itself.



Ok. But I could make an argument on Constantine here. The man basically initiated Christianity as an organized force. But he himself was a pagan until he was dying on his death bed. He just used Christianity as a banner to give his armies courage. But in reality? At the time...he didn't give a shit about Christ. He didn't even believe in it himself. His "crusade" was nothing but a defensive war tactic to defend Europe against a rising Islamic horde invading southern Europe for their own conquest purpose.  So honestly? Not even the crusades had to do with religion. It was simply about territorial pissings.


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## Kevin (Mar 18, 2017)

We believe the unlikely, and, in the absence of knowledge, we're likely to believe whatever we make up.

the secret histories
Tata-tonga


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Kevin said:


> We believe the unlikely, and, in the absence of knowledge, we're likely to believe whatever we make up.
> 
> the secret histories
> Tata-tonga



Lol. But isn't that what we do? "Conflict" doesn't just mean "war" as far as bombs and guns. Men are always at conflict. Don't really matter if you're religious or not. The conflict is within as the microcosm. And outward as the macrocosm. Even in writing. If we weren't in conflict? We'd simply write about the weather. But no...it goes much deeper. We are at war with ourselves and everything around us. It's physical and spiritual. We love and we hate. It don't matter which. We want change. We want evolution. We want war. We want peace. Really don't matter what, as long as it serves our own vanity. So as writers....we push the shit onto the page. Whether beautiful or horrible. Because we are men. And this is what we do at war. We bleed and we make others bleed. Just to smile and change it. Like gods. Because in essence? That's what the writer is.....a god.


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## Kevin (Mar 18, 2017)

Shysters, propagandists, shills, deluded egomaniacs; fools and foolers.


Urg and 'Bob' are sitting in the cave. Bob is roasting a piece of meat, something he killed, or found, over the fire. 

Urg is hungry. Maybe he has a woman somewhere in another cave. Maybe she has a 'bulge' growing in her belly. There's a rock lying over in the corner. Urg sees it. Human nature takes over.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Kevin said:


> Shysters, propagandists, shills, deluded egomaniacs; fools and foolers.
> 
> 
> Urg and 'Bob' are sitting in the cave. Bob is roasting a piece of meat, something he killed, or found, over the fire.
> ...



I doubt the conversation will last much longer....I'm actually surprised a warning hasn't been thrown up yet with me involved in it......but this caveman scenario actually envelops it all
 Back the...it was hunter/gatherer. So women are the weaker sex. So men fight over women. Then they fight over territory. Grow the crops. But they can't really do that without civilization. Men are killing eachother and taking women and food. Constantly. Man discovers spirituality. Shares it. Now the elements have a deeper meaning. Man becomes tribal by uniting under the banner of solidation. He understands man lusts after woman. The weaker sex. He creates religion to establish patriarchy
 Rules where no other man can touch his women and daughters without approval. The system works. It may be a sexist system....but hey...nature is sexist. Sometimes even to males. The female praying mantis bites her lover's head off and eats it after he fucks her. That's sexist as hell. But nature defined it like that. But we're human. So human nature dictates man protects his mate from outside harm. This is chivalry. And so religion has very little to do with it except for connection to the spiritual. Because the physical nature was already there.


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## ppsage (Mar 18, 2017)

dale said:


> Ok. But I could make an argument on Constantine here. The man basically initiated Christianity as an organized force. But he himself was a pagan until he was dying on his death bed. He just used Christianity as a banner to give his armies courage. But in reality? At the time...he didn't give a shit about Christ. He didn't even believe in it himself. His "crusade" was nothing but a defensive war tactic to defend Europe against a rising Islamic horde invading southern Europe for their own conquest purpose.  So honestly? Not even the crusades had to do with religion. It was simply about territorial pissings.


Yep. And he and his descendants did pretty good for a few hundred years. Then Mohammad went and got born.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

I am happy to conceive nature as "sexist." It's a man-made word so it's.. in reality just nature. But I wouldn't categorize anything that is beyond our choice as sexist. If you make a conscious decision to unjustly treat the opposite sex, then that is categorized as sexism. Perhaps in your eyes the fact that nature can be 'sexist' justifies sexism in religion. In mine, it doesn't. We are intelligent enough to not let sexism get the better of us, same with racism. Same with natural selection, actually. To say that sexism is OK in civilized society because it's in nature is the same as saying mothers should kill off their mentally and physically disabled infants. That's what animals do in nature. It's something humans also did, and some still do. It's grotesque. And we as so-called 'civilized people' know this. You as a human can make a conscious decision not to be sexist.


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## dale (Mar 18, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> I am happy to conceive nature as "sexist." It's a man-made word so it's.. in reality just nature. But I wouldn't categorize anything that is beyond our choice as sexist. If you make a conscious decision to unjustly treat the opposite sex, then that is categorized as sexism. Perhaps in your eyes the fact that nature can be 'sexist' justifies sexism in religion. In mine, it doesn't. We are intelligent enough to not let sexism get the better of us, same with racism. Same with natural selection, actually. To say that sexism is OK in civilized society because it's in nature is the same as saying mothers should kill off their mentally and physically disabled infants. That's what animals do in nature. It's something humans also did, and some still do. It's grotesque. And we as so-called 'civilized people' know this. You as a human can make a conscious decision not to be sexist.



But why would I make that conscience choice? In a man. I have a beautiful 7 year old daughter. She's in my avatar. Knowing how I think as a man? I mean...about women? I know for a fact she needs protected b me. She's my baby girl. And men are animals. This is just the truth. And we've witnessed over the past couple or few decades what has happened with the death of chivalry. We can't even let our kids play outside alone anymore. I'm sick of it. And I know....I know...I'm gonna be in prison for the rest of my life when she comes of age. Because it's all I see. Teenage girls being treated like slits and being raped and abused and selling themselves. But that shit only gonna happen to my daughter over my dead body. Why? I still got chivalry in my heart. I'll kill a muther fucker over it. And thats the way it is. Feminism has destroyed females. True. But the worst part is? It's destroyed men. But not me. I'll still fight for my girl.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 18, 2017)

I am actually thrilled to read your response to this. Because in a way, I consider myself much like you in that sense. Protective, not cruel. That is a big difference. I am much younger than you though so I haven't started a family yet but.. I'd be protective aswell. I will be when the time comes. But I don't think it's feminism that has ruined men and women. Atleast not in it's literal definitive sense. I think it's this 3rd wave feminism that is on the rise now that is destructive. Where the idea is to
denormalize everything that is normal, and make everything that is alien and unnatural the norm. Social justice warriors, waging war against everything that is politically incorrect. They are all muppets. You see this BuzzFeed crap with this anti- white male agenda.  And these fat acceptance movements, people pushing the notion that there are more than two genders or that you can be trans-species or trans-racial, or even identify as a 6 year old. It's a result of 3rd wave feminism, so I absolutely agree with you. But it's feminism's ugly cousin, not feminism itself.


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## dither (Mar 19, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> I agree with everything you just stated apart from the title "Atheistic ideologies." There exists no such thing. Atheism is just a title to describe a person who doesn't believe in a God or gods. Atheism doesn't provide ideology or ethics, thus there is no such thing called "atheistic ideology." It's merely a title. And the belief in a creator of some kind doesn't exclude anyone from being facist. Facists opposed organized religion, not the belief in a god or gods itself.



I WOULD just like to add to this that I haven't met an Atheist, and I can't say that I'm aware of many "real" Atheists, who wasn't very tolerant of others and simply wanted to get on with their own lives. Their beliefs, or rather non-beliefs, being a very private thing but they don't like being preached to. " You believe in "x y and/or z"? Okay, I can live with that. I might express a view and then let's agree to differ. I won't try to convince another person of anything so don't try to convince me. BUT, if we MUST discuss can we do so without verbally abusing each other and remain friends please.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 19, 2017)

dither said:


> I WOULD just like to add to this that I haven't met an Atheist, and I can't say that I'm aware of many "real" Atheists, who wasn't very tolerant of others and simply wanted to get on with their own lives. Their beliefs, or rather non-beliefs, being a very private thing but they don't like being preached to. " You believe in "x y and/or z"? Okay, I can live with that. I might express a view and then let's agree to differ. I won't try to convince another person of anything so don't try to convince me. BUT, if we MUST discuss can we do so without verbally abusing each other and remain friends please.


I think you are misunderstanding me. I am an atheist myself and I am obviously not trying to convince anyone that atheists cannot be moral. I am just saying that the word atheist is merely a title, it doesn't tell anyone how to live their life. Atheists find morality in rationality and humanism.


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## dither (Mar 19, 2017)

Apologies OP,
I am an atheist also.
Merely stating what appears to be with atheists.


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## Nellie (Mar 19, 2017)

dale said:


> But why would I make that conscience choice? In a man. I have a beautiful 7 year old daughter. She's in my avatar. Knowing how I think as a man? I mean...about women? I know for a fact she needs protected b me. She's my baby girl. And men are animals. This is just the truth. And we've witnessed over the past couple or few decades what has happened with the death of chivalry.


And who is responsible for that? Men choose to behave like animals and let wickedness prevail chivalry.



			
				dale said:
			
		

> We can't even let our kids play outside alone anymore. I'm sick of it. And I know....I know...I'm gonna be in prison for the rest of my life when she comes of age. Because it's all I see. Teenage girls being treated like slits and being raped and abused and selling themselves. But that shit only gonna happen to my daughter over my dead body. Why? I still got chivalry in my heart.


 Do you really? By the sounds of it, you're full of anger and since your precious daughter witnesses it, she will turn on you in her teenage years, becoming a feminist. That is really what happens. Don't think it won't happen to you. That is really being 'unlikely'.



			
				dale said:
			
		

> I'll kill a muther fucker over it. And thats the way it is. Feminism has destroyed females. True. But the worst part is? It's destroyed men. But not me. I'll still fight for my girl.



You may "fight for your girl" but that does not mean you will win. Feminism is what has made women fight for their rights, taking away sexual predators at their door and being able to stand tall against oppression.


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

Feminism has robbed women of their true power. It basically tells a woman she is worthless unless she becomes more like a man. Masculine. Feminists are broken garbage.


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## LeeC (Mar 19, 2017)

A SIL posted a piece about how insecure men are threatened by women that demand equal respect. I thought it quite insightful.


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

LeeC said:


> A SIL posted a piece about how insecure men are threatened by women that demand equal respect. I thought it quite insightful.



Lol. That's Marxist academia for you. Always saying the opposite of reality is some kind of hocus pocus truth.


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## Deleted member 56686 (Mar 19, 2017)

Okay, so far I haven't intervened because for the most part, everyone here has been civil, but if this thread does turn into one of those us vs. them discussions and it starts to get personal, then I will then have to get involved.


Anyway, I thought the OP was asking if we can believe in the unlikely. It doesn't necessarily have to do with religion or politics, does it?


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## Nellie (Mar 19, 2017)

mrmustard615 said:


> Anyway, I thought the OP was asking if we can believe in the unlikely.



If I believe like everyone else believes, it would be highly unlikely that I would be alive to this day. After I suffered "brain trauma", my husband at the time told me I was "unbelievable" because for a time my memory was very, very bad. He obviously thought (and still does think that way) it is _unlikely_ that he will ever suffer any brain damage. All it takes is one accident!! And what is funny to me now, is that he is suffering from depression and cannot fly (he was a pilot). He always thought that it was highly unlikely he would EVER have to take an anti-depressant. 

Beliefs always change as we get old(er).


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## Phil Istine (Mar 19, 2017)

mrmustard615 said:


> Anyway, I thought the OP was asking if we can believe in the unlikely. It doesn't necessarily have to do with religion or politics, does it?



OK then.  I believe that writing will make me rich.  Does that qualify?


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

Phil Istine said:


> OK then.  I believe that writing will make me rich.  Does that qualify?



Lol. Best post of the thread.


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## Firemajic (Mar 19, 2017)

Phil Istine said:


> OK then.  I believe that writing will make me rich.  Does that qualify?




Yes! AND... watch TV.. watch commercials... If you use this toothpaste your teeth will be 20X whiter... If you take this vitamin supplement, your %#^% will be 3 inches longer . If you use this shampoo, your hair will be thicker, fuller... and if you use THIS anti-wrinkle lotion, you will look 10 years younger..... in 4 WEEEEK!!! Ok, that I use, cause even though it IS HIGHLY unlikely... I am still hopeful... 

Don't deny it guys... You probably have used that vitamin supplement...


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## PiP (Mar 19, 2017)

If you drink our_ amazing_ diet shakes/take slimming pills, have your jaws wired you will lose weight...

IT is true but you pile all the weight back on when you come off them


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## Nellie (Mar 19, 2017)

How likely is that someone who talks/eats too much will wire their jaws? 
1)Highly unlikely
2) Likely
3) Maybe


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## ppsage (Mar 19, 2017)

From my study, I would say that the code of chivalry was mainly a device of medieval warlords which used the authority of religion in an attempt to ensure the loyalty of their henchmen. It has modern descendants in the arcane initiation rites of certain criminal associations. The number of people to which it offered protections was tiny: allies of noble birth. Its knights raped, burned and plundered with the best of robber barons, usually against the working people of their own community as enforcers to guarantee wholehearted support for the ruling elite.


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## escorial (Mar 19, 2017)

ppsage said:


> From my study, I would say that the code of chivalry was mainly a device of medieval warlords which used the authority of religion in an attempt to ensure the loyalty of their henchmen. It has modern descendants in the arcane initiation rites of certain criminal associations. The number of people to which it offered protections was tiny: allies of noble birth. Its knights raped, burned and plundered with the best of robber barons, usually against the working people of their own community as enforcers to guarantee wholehearted support for the ruling elite.



again reads like a soundbite from an essay....i did like history in school but the books where dire and the teachers dry...dude you bring facts and pov together to make for an engrossing read....


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## ppsage (Mar 19, 2017)

escorial said:


> again reads like a soundbite from an essay....i did like history in school but the books where dire and the teachers dry...dude you bring facts and pov together to make for an engrossing read....


Thanks E. Since the history revolution of the nineties, British tv has experienced a renaissance of vital and authentic history programming, much of it on Youtube.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 19, 2017)

mrmustard615 said:


> Okay, so far I haven't intervened because for the most part, everyone here has been civil, but if this thread does turn into one of those us vs. them discussions and it starts to get personal, then I will then have to get involved.
> 
> 
> Anyway, I thought the OP was asking if we can believe in the unlikely. It doesn't necessarily have to do with religion or politics, does it?



I think we all have gotten along just fine this far despite having conflicting views. My original question was that, yes. But I am very happy with the various themes discussed this far. I think the transitions made from topic to topic has been smooth aswell.


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## escorial (Mar 19, 2017)

watched the russian revolution in colour the other day on tv....can't get enough of it at times


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## Kevin (Mar 19, 2017)

Dale, you're obsolete. 
edit- I had a great photo -kim Jong un's mini-skirt army- oh well


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

Kevin said:


> Dale, you're obsolete



Lol. Why you gotta tell everyone for?


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## Terry D (Mar 19, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Terry
> 
> 
> Just comes to prove how petty you are with your opening statement. Sad.



That sounds exactly like a Donald Trump tweet! Uncanny!




> As I have previously stated you cannot openly question why we haven't observed a new species evolve without sounding like a total illiterate. You're not, by the way. But you sound like one. You are just so unaware and so clueless about evolutionary theory. Evolutionary is so gradual that you cannot observe with with the naked eye. It's not like a homo erectus couple got pregnant and birthed the first homo sapien. It doesn't work like that. I cannot stress this enough.



And yet here I am questioning it. I mentioned this in a previous post, but you may have missed it; How quickly, in time, new species evolve depends upon the rate of their reproductive cycle not on the calendar. Yes, it takes a long time for complex, relatively slow breeding species to mutate, thrive, and reproduce themselves into a new species. I never said it didn't, and I certainly never implied that I expected to see new Homonid species pop up from one generation to the next. The number of _generations_ of a species which we can observe over a given time period, under natural, or artificial, stressors directly impacts what evolutionary developments we should expect to see. For instance the yeasts used by evolution researchers can produce new generations in a matter of minutes (that's why they use them, so they can expect evolutionary changes very quickly) yet still the most they have achieved over years of these experiments is some adaptations toward clustering of individuals, no new species. Also, the fossil record shows various periods of extremely fast evolution for much more complex species after major extinction events of the past. The Cambrian Explosion might be a good place to start looking to find out more about that. I'm not arguing against evolution, as a person who double majored in zoology and botany, I believe species develop in incremental steps based on the mutation/advantage/reproduction cycle. But I also understand why some folks have their doubts. We still have many gaps in our understanding. I can't stress _that_ enough.




> I am one of the people who accept that the universe serves no purpose. We live on a tiny spec of dust in this giant universe. And I came to realize how little we matter in comparison. And the thought that another human being, with confidence, can say that the universe was not only created, but DESIGNED, with you and all who has ever existed in mind, is a self-indulgent and delusional idea. And I resent it, with much passion.



Your opening sentence here is a bit confusing, earlier you were very clear that you believe evolution has a purpose, even a direction, but now you claim the universe serves no purpose. Either you don't really understand your own arguments, or, in the space of these few pages, your philosophy has evolved. Interesting.



> Atheist is a word used to describe people who doesn't believe in God. Atheism doesn't teach ethics, morals or anything else. Atheism isn't an ideology of ideas. Atheism doesn't tell you how to live your life. It's simply a word used to describe people who don't believe in God. Religion on the other hand tells people how to live their lives, what is wrong, what is right. Who to pray to, who to have sex with. Atheism doesn't. So how can you possibly blame atheism for the atrocities committed by Stalin? Stalin was a genocidal dictator, who happened to be atheist. What is it that you do not understand by this? It's really simple.



What I understand is that you are hiding behind the definition of a word which doesn't fit your argument. It's true that an atheist, a real, atheist, doesn't believe in any sort of theology. But that's not what you appear to be. You are what I call an anti-theist. That's a person who doesn't believe and is dead set on convincing others they shouldn't either. These folks preach their gospel of disbelief; starting threads just so they can proselytize to the deluded, and are often filled with 'passionate resentment' of anyone who has the temerity to believe differently than they. That's not disbelief. That's an ideology, whether you choose to admit it or not. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

And finally, you don't do your arguments any favors by lumping all people who have various forms of faith into one lump and calling it "Religion". There are many religious denominations, faiths, and doctrines which have done none of the things you so broadly accuse religion of. People commit bad acts. People hold prejudices, and hate. Not religion. Most faiths have as one of their central tenets a version of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Sadly, people struggle living up to that ideal, deviating from it in small ways, and in terrible ones. Theists, atheists, or anti-theists it doesn't make any difference.


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 19, 2017)

@Terry

I appreciate the sarcasm. But this is a ridiculous notion you are pushing. I could spin this around and say: Are you implying that the sole purpose of the existence of the universe is so that evolution can exist? I do not think there is a particular reason that the universe exists, that doesn't mean that the circumstances here on earth serves no purpose.

What you state here just proves how much of a wranglid person you are to begin with. You begin to make an arguement which I cannot refute or even go up against because 'I won't ever admit to it anyway.' Cowardice. Straight up. And for the record, I have no problem with people believing in a God or gods. I do not care. But I do not approve of ignorance just for the sake of being ignorant. So what I would like to do is challenge people with questions and every so often question their principles. I do not care if someone believes in a deity or a creative designer but if someone were to make the claim that the story of Muhammad flying up to heaven on a winged horse is literally true, I would challenge it. That is just one example out of many. 

You just did the same thing you claimed I did.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is from the bible. Not the Qu'ran, not the Talmud. You would rather live blissfully and consider anything and everything as simple as possible. It doesn't work like that. Some questions are complex and have no definite answer, the world and it's social problems are not always black/white. The label 'religion' doesn't ultimately mean good. There are passages in these books where atrocities are committed and condoned. The world would be a better place if that wasn't true, I know, Terry boy. But I am sorry to break it to you, they do exist. I am tired of people sticking their heads in the sand once a statement that challenges their entire world view has been challenged. I am not pulling this out of thin air, they do exist. It's like a kid sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting: Lalalala!

Anyway, I have discussed with possibly a dozen people in this thread alone and we have never ended with personal attacks. Me and you are steering into a personal direction and I'm not going to have that.


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

Ahahahaha....there you go, terry. You the bad guy now instead of me. Woot-woot. Lol


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## LeeC (Mar 19, 2017)

“_Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together._” ~ George Santayana


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 19, 2017)

LeeC said:


> “_Why shouldn’t things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together._” ~ George Santayana



I love the way you sweep in with captivating quotes from different people from time to time.


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## dale (Mar 19, 2017)

Hey. Can we all just calm down here, people? And admit that I'm right about everything?


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 19, 2017)

For as long as I can remember I have romanticized the idea about humanity meeting extraterrestrial species out there somewhere in the universe, with intelligence equal to ours or perhaps even superior. And to come up with the genius conclusion that the alien species would be equally thrilled as us is to be... over compensating, to say the least. Because when we come along with our teen moms shoving their new born babies down the nearest dumpster, or a wallmart dwelling land whale comes strolling down the aisle with the new additions of geox sneakers with light in them.. or perhaps those holy men mutilating children.. I am sure those extraterrestrials will be more than just thrilled for us to show up.


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## ppsage (Mar 20, 2017)

dale said:


> Hey. Can we all just calm down here, people? And admit that I'm right about everything?


I was all set to do this but you were just so wrong about Constantine I couldn't get past it.


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## Terry D (Mar 20, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> @Terry
> 
> I appreciate the sarcasm. But this is a ridiculous notion you are pushing. I could spin this around and say: Are you implying that the sole purpose of the existence of the universe is so that evolution can exist? I do not think there is a particular reason that the universe exists, that doesn't mean that the circumstances here on earth serves no purpose.



I never said anything about any purpose for the universe, or for evolution. The purpose of evolution is your argument, not mine. 



> What you state here just proves how much of a wranglid person you are to begin with. You begin to make an arguement which I cannot refute or even go up against because 'I won't ever admit to it anyway.' Cowardice. Straight up. And for the record, I have no problem with people believing in a God or gods. I do not care. But I do not approve of ignorance just for the sake of being ignorant. So what I would like to do is challenge people with questions and every so often question their principles. I do not care if someone believes in a deity or a creative designer but if someone were to make the claim that the story of Muhammad flying up to heaven on a winged horse is literally true, I would challenge it. That is just one example out of many.



I have been very specific in my comments, there is nothing there which you could not attempt refute if you had a deeper understanding of of any of the issues at hand. But, without any reference to the comment you have an issue with (and some definition of what "wranglid" is), I can't comment on this other than to say your arguments are getting very inconsistent. Not long ago you wrote this:  *And the thought that another human being, with confidence, can say that the universe was not only created, but DESIGNED, with you and all who has ever existed in mind, is a self-indulgent and delusional idea. And I resent it, with much passion*. Yet now you don't have an issue with what others believe? Which is it? 



> You just did the same thing you claimed I did.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is from the bible. Not the Qu'ran, not the Talmud. You would rather live blissfully and consider anything and everything as simple as possible. It doesn't work like that. Some questions are complex and have no definite answer, the world and it's social problems are not always black/white. The label 'religion' doesn't ultimately mean good. There are passages in these books where atrocities are committed and condoned. The world would be a better place if that wasn't true, I know, Terry boy. But I am sorry to break it to you, they do exist. I am tired of people sticking their heads in the sand once a statement that challenges their entire world view has been challenged. I am not pulling this out of thin air, they do exist. It's like a kid sticking his fingers in his ears and shouting: Lalalala!



Well, what I _actually_ said was that most religions have that concept in their doctrine. Here's what Dictionary.com has to say about it:

*Behave toward others as you would like to have them behave toward you, as in Of course I'll help him out; it's a case of do unto others, and I may be in the same boat one day. This so-called golden rule is stated in just about every ancient writing about behavioral precepts (including the New Testament, Talmud, Koran, and the Analects of Confucius). Among the earliest appearances in English is Earl Rivers' translation of a saying of Socrates ( Dictes and Sayenges of the Philosophirs, 1477): “Do to other as thou wouldst they should do to thee, and do to none other but as thou wouldst be done to.” It is so well known that it is often shortened.*

You are the only one labeling 'religion' in any way. I never have. You are the one trying to simplify it to a binary thing, good or bad, with everything religious automatically on the bad side of the equation. I admit people have interpreted religious texts in terrible ways, and have used them to condone terrible acts. But there are many secular texts which have been similarly misused. As one small example, quickly found with a simple search, *here is a list* of scientific books supporting racism. So, if you want to condemn 'religion' for fostering evil, you must also condemn the anti-theist's god and refuge of 'science' on the same count. Belief evolves along with culture. How texts were interpreted in ages past was influenced by the culture of the times.  And I agree with you that the world would be a better place if people didn't try to find ways justify their desire to label and vilify people who don't see everything the same way they do. I'm sorry about that too.



> Anyway, I have discussed with possibly a dozen people in this thread alone and we have never ended with personal attacks. Me and you are steering into a personal direction and I'm not going to have that.



I know I've frustrated you to the point where you've felt compelled to use veiled insults (as for me, I'm nowhere close to using "personal attacks". I don't need them.) All I've done is answer the challenges you are so fond of with reason and research. I like discussing the ways religion and science interrelate, it's far more interesting than the tedious old, religion-is-bad-because-people-have-done-terrible-things-in-its-name argument that pops up every few months on here. I've treated you like an adult although it is apparent you are very young, but I'm done now. Your arguments are becoming circular, getting frayed around the edges, and your emotions are showing. I don't want to be responsible for you getting in any trouble. So I will leave you with this thought, just because you don't agree with someone doesn't mean their opinion is invalid (if you think they have their head buried in the sand, it might be because yours is stuck someplace else). Each one of Earth's 7.125 billion people have their own idea of what's true; you and I are just two of them.


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## Firemajic (Mar 20, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> For as long as I can remember I have romanticized the idea about humanity meeting extraterrestrial species out there somewhere in the universe, with intelligence equal to ours or perhaps even superior. And to come up with the genius conclusion that the alien species would be equally thrilled as us is to be... over compensating, to say the least.***** Because when we come along with our *teen moms shoving their new born babies down the nearest dumpster,* or a wallmart dwelling land whale comes strolling down the aisle with the new additions of geox sneakers with light in them.. or perhaps those holy men mutilating children*****.. I am sure those extraterrestrials will be more than just thrilled for us to show up.




Yes, but it is highly unlikely that this would be an Alien's first experience... for every "Teen mom who throws her baby in a dumpster, there are MILLIONS of single moms [ and dads] who spend their lives raising their children, struggling to give them a good life. Who see that their children are well connected to family, church and community. 
I do not understand the "Walmart dweller" comment... soooo.
And for every Holy, baby mutilating man... there are millions of courageous men, who believe in family and country, who fight on the front lines, in the trenches or quietly, behind the scenes.... doing the right thing, for all the right reasons. 
For every dead beat, there are thousands and thousands who volunteer their time to help the homeless, feed the hungry and travel this beautiful globe, offering words of comfort, hope and faith....


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## Terry D (Mar 20, 2017)

Firemajic said:


> Yes, but it is highly unlikely that this would be an Alien's first experience... for every "Teen mom who throws her baby in a dumpster, there are MILLIONS of single moms [ and dads] who spend their lives raising their children, struggling to give them a good life. Who see that their children are well connected to family, church and community.
> I do not understand the "Walmart dweller" comment... soooo.
> And for every Holy, baby mutilating man... there are millions of courageous men, who believe in family and country, who fight on the front lines, in the trenches or quietly, behind the scenes.... doing the right thing, for all the right reasons.
> For every dead beat, there are thousands and thousands who volunteer their time to help the homeless, feed the hungry and travel this beautiful globe, offering words of comfort, hope and faith....



Thanks for this, Fire. As always, you add a little compassion to the www. I think the "Walmart dwelling land whale" comment is in reference to a condescending stereotype of overweight Walmart patrons. There's a tragic trove of photos on the web making fun of people shopping in Walmart wearing scanty, or ill-fitting clothes.


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## Firemajic (Mar 20, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Thanks for this, Fire. As always, you add a little compassion to the www. I think the "Walmart dwelling land whale" comment is in reference to a condescending stereotype of overweight Walmart patrons. There's a tragic trove of photos on the web making fun of people shopping in Walmart wearing scanty, or ill-fitting clothes.




Thanks for your kind words, Terry... I was not aware that people were wasting their time posting things like that.... I hate face book and social media for That reason and many others... I don't understand why people think it is ok to make fun of anyone...for any reason... jeeeeze.... how sad...


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## Terry D (Mar 20, 2017)

There was a time I would have thought such pictures funny as hell, but then I turned 16...


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## Gofa (Mar 20, 2017)

Quote 
Anyway, I thought the OP was asking if we can believe in the unlikely. It doesn't necessarily have to do with religion or politics, does it? :grin:

Believing in the stuff I know seems hardly worth while.  If I know it belief becomes redundant.  I only believe in that which I don't know. If it is likely then collectively as an idea it's in the mostly known bucket so not longer needing belief

now for the good stuff. I like to believe in the unlikely otherwise there is no fun.   One has to differentiate between the unknown and the unknowable but unlikely is a long way way from OMG that can never happen 
then again I like thinking about OMG that can never happen,   I call that fantasy.
  Sandra Bullock is not going to turn up take me out to dinner and then home for afters. OMG that's never going to happen. But but but however unlikely, it's still nice to think about   
PS Sandra, this is unlikely but, I could be the best you have never had


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 20, 2017)

@Terry

No, I stay by that statement. I don't have a problem with anyone believing, I have a problem with people who say, without doubt, that the universe is designed. I have a problem with people pushing it as fact, it leaves out room for debate and intelligent discussions. No one can say with pin-point precision that the universe is WITHOUT a doubt created by some kind of deity. That is ignorance. And I do not appreciate people who use the "God of the gaps" argument. "Ah, so we do not understand this yet. Must be God then." Ignorance. Failing to disprove God neither proves him.

I am not in a cult. I make up my own mind and I use science as a tool to understand the universe and the world around me. I am a person with my own ideas and values, I do not like being told how to dress, how to speak, what to believe or who to praise. I am my own person. I am tired of people using the "interpretation" argument in discussions. Some things are exactly how they seem. How can you possible interpret this as something positive? 

Quran (2:191-193) - "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing... but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun(the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)"


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## Kevin (Mar 20, 2017)

Sandra Bullock...


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## Firemajic (Mar 20, 2017)

Kevin said:


> Sandra Bullock...





Mr. Clean... from those TV commercials.... well... he CLEANS... the house. And his bald head... seXXXy.... of course he is a cartoon, but still.... it is highly unlikely that I will get to meet him in RL.. and did you ever notice? He NEVER speaks!!! He just smiles... and cleans..... sooo HOT... anyway...


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## Oblivious Plunge (Mar 20, 2017)

And for the record, about my hypothesis about meeting alien species. Don't read too much into details, it was obviously exaggerated and it wasn't to be taken that literal. The examples used were mundane at best, it was just used as a punch. By the looks of it, you both took the punch rather harshly. Brush it off. The point in which I was trying to make was that, perhaps we haven't progressed enough as a species to even accurately handle a situation like the one I presented. We've come a long way, but in my opinion we are not quite there yet. We are still divided as people. Take this into consideration.. When we walk by an ant, it's not intelligent enough to really conceive us anything else but just another species among thousands. It can't dinstinguish the difference in our intelligence from a cow's intelligence, or a sheep's. So, in comparison.. Imagine the intelligence of an alien species be exactly that, but just to us. In conclusion, we're the ant in this sceneario. We wouldn't even be intelligent enough to acknowledge it's presence, no less communicate with it.


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## Firemajic (Mar 20, 2017)

Oblivious Plunge said:


> . When we walk by an ant,*** it's not intelligent enough to really conceive us anything else but just another species among thousands.*** It can't dinstinguish the difference in our intelligence from a cow's intelligence, or a sheep's. So, in comparison.. Imagine the intelligence of an alien species be exactly that, but just to us. In conclusion, we're the ant in this sceneario. We wouldn't even be intelligent enough to acknowledge it's presence, no less communicate with it.




Well that is intriguing.. JMHO... But intelligence is of course a survival mechanism ... So, to the Ant, humans would be considered ignorant of survival according to THEM and their society.. We as humans know some about the inner working of an Ant hill, but not everything... we could not survive in the Ant's world, because we don't have the innate knowledge and wisdom to know how their society survives...
So, if aliens came here, to our society, might they be so ignorant of the earth's seasons, tides, storms, ect... that they would lack the intelligence to .... well, come in out of the rain....hahaaa... sooo what... hummmm???


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## Gofa (Mar 21, 2017)

Aaaahhhhh. Kevin. You have said the scared name.  Some believe having said that name instantaneously you have reached enlightenment. Others that you are now trapped with in the Church of the Later Day Sandra Bullocks. 
The Former Day Sandra Bullocks a divisive bunch of heathens if ever there was will deny the intelligent design of her later taste in clothing, but we true believers will continue in the true understanding 
In terms of religious beliefs my actual position and personal belief is as follows
Go with God whom ever and how ever you believe Her to be.  
Seeing as how this thread is about belief. Show me someone who as no belief. 
Belief is everywhere.  Aethists believe in nothing but let's face that's still a belief


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