Or maybe if you just stopped trying to spread your atheist zealotry to others like the disease that it is.Atheism is a religion, and is just as bad as other religions. Your "refusal to believe without evidence" and adherence to Dawkinism is just as much something that harms the world as the idiotic belief of Christians and Muslims. It creates pointless arguments and accomplishes nothing.Fundamental Apathy is the only way to go. Do not care about where you came from, because you'll never know.
I just say ni-ux is right and not worry about your arguments bullet points.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081118/news_lz1c18secret.htmlWhen was the Bible written and who are the authors?“The Bible's Buried Secrets” supplies theories by examining how history and Scripture intersect. The PBS program generated controversy with a sensational preview last summer.“It challenges the Bible's stories if you want to read them literally, and that will disturb many people,” archaeologist William Dever of the University of Arizona said then. “It's a very controversial film, but it ends on a positive note. It should bring to lay people a new appreciation of the literature and history of the Bible.”More controversy is likely. But the two-hour “Nova” program, which debuts tonight, is low-key, detailed and scholarly.The handsome documentary uses maps, drawings and re-enactments to illustrate points. Liev Schreiber is the narrator, and Stockard Channing reads portions from the Bible.“Buried Secrets” focuses on the first five books and suggests that they came together in the sixth century B.C. Discrepancies in the text indicate that at least four groups were writing over several hundred years – which goes against the traditional belief that Moses wrote the books.Among the other findings:David, who lived around 1000 B.C., is the earliest biblical figure whose existence is confirmed by archaeology. A victory stele, discovered in 1993, provided the evidence.“The further you go in the biblical text, the more difficult it is to find historical material in it,” says David Ilan of the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem. “The patriarchs go back to Genesis. Genesis is, for the most part, a compilation of myths, creation stories, things like that. And to find a historical core there is very difficult.”For instance, archaeologists have found evidence that a small group of Canaanite slaves escaped from Egypt – not the mass migration described in Exodus.The death of Solomon, David's son, has been put at 930 B.C., through a convergence in Bible and Egyptian history. Three large gates, built in Solomon's time, suggest a great kingdom.The Merneptah Stele, found in Egypt in 1896, provides evidence of the Israelites in Canaan in 1208 B.C. The thinking is that the early Israelites were actually displaced Canaanites who abandoned city-states and moved to the hills.“The Israelites were always in the land of Israel,” says Peter Machinist of Harvard. “They were natives but they were different kinds of groups. They were basically the have-nots.”Why does the Bible present the Israelites as outsiders in Canaan? To fashion a new identity.“The Israelites did not like the Canaanite system, and they defined themselves in contrast to that system,” says Avraham Faust of Bar-Ilan University. “They developed an ideology of simplicity, which marked the difference between them and the Egyptian Canaanite system.”The Israelites' beliefs became Judaism, and the Jews gave the world monotheism. But the Israelites didn't necessarily believe in one God.“The Israelites frequently worshipped other gods,” says Michael Coogan of Stonehill College. “On a practical level, many – if not most – Israelites were not monotheists.”Yet the Torah, the Bible's first five books, provided inspiration to the enslaved Israelites after the Babylonians crushed Jerusalem in 586 B.C.“The exiles realized that even far away from their homeland without a temple, without a priesthood, without kings, they were still able to worship God, be loyal to God and to follow God's commandments,” says Shaye J.D. Cohen of Harvard. “This is the foundation of Judaism.”“The Bible's Buried Secrets” may stir controversy but also discussion. The Bible rarely receives such in-depth study in prime time.
Quote from: ni-ux on November 18, 2008, 07:06:43 AMOr maybe if you just stopped trying to spread your atheist zealotry to others like the disease that it is.Atheism is a religion, and is just as bad as other religions. Your "refusal to believe without evidence" and adherence to Dawkinism is just as much something that harms the world as the idiotic belief of Christians and Muslims. It creates pointless arguments and accomplishes nothing.Fundamental Apathy is the only way to go. Do not care about where you came from, because you'll never know.I suspect ni-ux was probably just venting rather than attempting to construct a defensible argument. But in any case, the above makes several claims which vary between arguably untrue, and arguably nonsensical.As I read it, the claims made are:1. Atheism is a religion, and is just as bad as other religions.2. "Refusal to believe without evidence" is just as much something that harms the world as the idiotic belief of Christians and Muslims.3. Adherence to Dawkinism is just as much something that harms the world as the idiotic belief of Christians and Muslims.4. (a) Fundamental Apathy is the only way to go. (b) Do not care about where you came from, (c) because you'll never know.5. The disease of athiest zealotry (challenging religious dogma?) creates pointless arguments and accomplishes nothing.I believe claims 1 and 2 are easily argued to be false, and that claim 3 is nonsensical. Claim 4 is wrong on (a) and (b), and historically wrong on (c), despite there being some truths about our origins we are likely to never discover. Claim 5 can be true but is not always true.If anyone disagrees and would like to take up a position in support of any of the above claims, I'll be happy to engage.Stripped of all of the above claims, all that remains of ni-ux's post is, "Or maybe if you just stopped trying."Regards,
All of the points I made are inexplicably inarguable.
Speaking of arguing the "inarguable truth", and "escaping reality"...http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=3936.msg45488#msg45488Did you ever say this, Nick?
Quote from: ni-ux on November 18, 2008, 03:18:41 PMAll of the points I made are inexplicably inarguable.Inexplicably? No doubt.In any case, I look forward to your efforts to make a supporting argument for or produce any evidence in favor of the claims you've made.(Although, I have a hunch that when you try, you may indeed find your claims to be "inexplicable".)Regards,
Quote from: Whirlingdervish(Q2C) on November 18, 2008, 03:38:31 PMSpeaking of arguing the "inarguable truth", and "escaping reality"...http://tastyspleen.net/quake/forums/index.php?topic=3936.msg45488#msg45488Did you ever say this, Nick? No, I didn't.
You attempting to convince someone that there is no god is no different from someone trying to explain that there is. Neither claim is based on evidence, neither has merit.
Attempting to discern the impossible must be discouraged wherever possible - apathetic fundamentalists will rule the land (by default).
4:00 talk begins4:30 Ptolemy - AD 150 - one of the greatest, most influential scientists ever - greatest work "Almagest" - in it he codifies the Geocentric Universe - this Earth-centric prevailed for centuries until Copernicus and Galileo turned that around - Back then, you'd look at the night sky, and the planets would move, against the background stars. They would wander--that's what the word means in Greek is wanderer. And there were seven of these objects, the sun and moon included. And they would just kind of move, they'd go to the left, they'd slow down and pause, then they'd reverse again. And this was a mystery. Complete mystery. And of course the 'heavens' were not 'earth', and so the fact that you didn't really understand what was going on up there was kind of OK, and expected, because that was the work of the Gods. And we, being mortal, down here on Earth: If you can't understand it, don't lose sleep over that fact. You perhaps never will! - Ptolemy had sort of the best going explanation anyone had put forth, with the epicycles and the like. But nonetheless, this is the boundary between what is known and unknown about how the machinery of the universe works, and he pens these words: - Notes penned in the margin of the manuscript of Almagest: I know that I am moral by nature, and ephemeral. But when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself, and take my fill of ambrosia. - And so therein, is this emotional--he's got this sort of religious feeling at the limits of his knowledge. And this is a trend that will continue, for thousands of years to follow this. - This is Ingelligent Design. This quote that I just read to you, is Ptolemy invoking Intelligent Design. No, he's not trying to get that into the classroom--you know, there's the politics of Intelligent Design in modern times. But: what I think has been swept under the rug, that we have to contend with as a community of people who are sort of truth-seekers, is the fact that some of the greatest minds that have preceeded us, have done just this.7:20 - Galileo8:50 - Sir Isacc Newton - Now, I don't know what you know of Isacc Newton, but everything I've read of his tells me that there's no greater genius to ever walk the surface of this earth. I don't know if you've ever felt that way about anybody--I didn't feel that about anybody, till you just read what this man wrote. OK, line by line by line. This guy was plugged in to the machinery of the universe. He's unimpeachably brilliant. Unimpeachably brilliant. - Here's page zero of his Principia. In it, he discovers the laws of motion, F=ma, discovers the laws of gravity... it's all there. And he did this all before he turned 26. And in this, when he talks about motion, there's no reference to God. When he talks about his two body force, that he deduced--this universal law of gravitation, there is no mention of God. It's just not anywhere there. Because he understood it, he was on top of it, he was there. Even though, the understanding of the motions of the planets before he came along, *was* given unto God. Because nobody understood it. Or nobody understood well enough to really believe that they had a full, predictive handle on it in the way the universal law of gravitation supplied. - So what you have is, Isaac Newton, abandoning reference to God, until he realizes: If all you do is calculate the two-body problem... Here we have like, the Moon and Earth--yes, he's got that calculated. Now you have the Sun and the Earth--you've got that. But wait a minute, now the Earth and the Moon go around the Sun, and sometimes we're close to Mars and sometimes we're not. And when it comes near Mars, there's a tug--that's stronger there than in any part in the orbit. And then it comes over here, and then Jupiter tugs. All these mini-tugs. And so he's got to do this two-body problem, for Earth, the Moon, Earth and the Sun; Earth, Moon, and Mars; Earth, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter, and it becomes a rapidly complex problem. And he realizes, that in fact, applying this simple sort of approach to calculating the stability of the solar system--he finds he can't stabilize the solar system. He can't account for how we have stayed this way for as long as what was possibly necessary from the beginning of the universe. - And so what does he say? He's at his limits. You read Principia, God is nowhere! Until you get to the General Scholium [a supplemental text to the Principia.] And then he says, "the six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun. And with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane." He's got the whole picture now, and he's trying to sort of account for that. But he can't, just simply doing two-body calcuations. Certainly not without a computer or with a new kind of mathematics. He says, "But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to _so many_ regular motions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." This is Isacc Newton, invoking Intelligent Design! At the limits of his knowledge. 15:45 - C. Huygens - 169618:20 - P.S. Laplace - 1799 - Wrote a five volume tome on Celestial Mechanics. - What it does is, it takes Newton's laws of gravity, and brings them into a full expression with the hammer of calculus. He brings all the armament of mathematics to bear on the laws of physics that were put forth by Isacc Newton. Isaac Newton only touched on them, they were not fully developed. And in this work, he demonstrates-- he further develops something that had been percolating in the mathematical community--but he developed and one might even say perfects a branch of math we could call perturbation theory. - In perturbation theory, it allows you to systematically and reliably calculate the effect of a series of small tugs in the presence of singular big tugs. And that's kind of what's going on in most of the solar system. [...] You can demonstrate that in fact the solar system was stable beyond the predictions of Isaac Newton. - So, he figures this out, does _not_ invoke God. Because he figured it out! - Napolean asks Laplace what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. That's what Newton would ask, right? Lapace replies, "Sir, I had no need for that hypothesis."20:50 - ...and so what concerns me now is, even if you're as brilliant asNewton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God,and then your discovery stops. It just stops! You're kind of no goodanymore for advancing that frontier. Waiting for somebody else tocome behind you, who doesn't have God on the brain, and who says:That's a really cool problem, I want to solve it! They come in and solve it.But look at the time delay!This was 100 year time delay. And the math that's in perturbationtheory is like _crumbs_ for Newton. He could have come up with that.The guy invented calculus just on a dare, practiclly.When someone asked him, you know, Ike, how come planets orbit inelipses and not some other shape? And he couldn't answer that.He goes home for two months, comes back, and out comes integraldifferential calculus 'cause he needed that to answer that question.And so - so this is, this is the kind of mind we were dealing withwith Newton: He could have gone there, but he *didn't*.His religiosity STOPPED HIM. And so, we're left with the realization of course that Intelligent Design, while 'real' in thehistory of science, while 'real' in the presence of sort of philosophical drivers, is nonetheless a philosophy ofignorance.And so, regardless of what our political agenda is, all you haveto say is, science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent Design is a philosophy of ignorance. Have you discovered anythinglately? If not, get out of the science classroom. But I'm not going to say, "don't teach this." Because it's real,it happened. So I don't want people to sweep it under the rug,because if you do, you're neglecting something fundamental that'sgoing on in people's minds when they confront things they don'tunderstand. And it happens to the greatest of the minds, as ithappens to everyone else.
Okay...Quote from: ni-ux on November 18, 2008, 03:58:43 PMAttempting to discern the impossible must be discouraged wherever possible - apathetic fundamentalists will rule the land (by default).The difficulty and challenge, though, is that it's often far from clear what the limits of our understanding will be. If one weeds out the easy, axiomatic limits, like "science can never prove that no god exists", we are still left with an infinitude of questions about the nature and origin of the universe, some of which we may some day be able to discover answers to.And as we'll see below, there's plenty of evidence of the best scientific minds in history stopping short--being unwilling to "attempt to discern the impossible"--categorizing these impossibly undescernable aspects of the cosmos as the sole province and domain of a divine being. And then, hundreds of years later, the next brilliant mind solves what the previous guy thought was impossible to discern, only to yet again pull the same cop-out with the next problem.This brings us to an excellent and engaging talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson, given at the 2006 Beyond Belief conference."The Perimeter of Ignorance"A boundary where scientists face a choice: invoke a deity or continue the quest for knowledgehttp://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=275693092937060684I've transcribed parts of the talk, here:Quote4:00 talk begins4:30 Ptolemy - AD 150 - one of the greatest, most influential scientists ever - greatest work "Almagest" - in it he codifies the Geocentric Universe - this Earth-centric prevailed for centuries until Copernicus and Galileo turned that around - Back then, you'd look at the night sky, and the planets would move, against the background stars. They would wander--that's what the word means in Greek is wanderer. And there were seven of these objects, the sun and moon included. And they would just kind of move, they'd go to the left, they'd slow down and pause, then they'd reverse again. And this was a mystery. Complete mystery. And of course the 'heavens' were not 'earth', and so the fact that you didn't really understand what was going on up there was kind of OK, and expected, because that was the work of the Gods. And we, being mortal, down here on Earth: If you can't understand it, don't lose sleep over that fact. You perhaps never will! - Ptolemy had sort of the best going explanation anyone had put forth, with the epicycles and the like. But nonetheless, this is the boundary between what is known and unknown about how the machinery of the universe works, and he pens these words: - Notes penned in the margin of the manuscript of Almagest: I know that I am moral by nature, and ephemeral. But when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies, I no longer touch Earth with my feet. I stand in the presence of Zeus himself, and take my fill of ambrosia. - And so therein, is this emotional--he's got this sort of religious feeling at the limits of his knowledge. And this is a trend that will continue, for thousands of years to follow this. - This is Ingelligent Design. This quote that I just read to you, is Ptolemy invoking Intelligent Design. No, he's not trying to get that into the classroom--you know, there's the politics of Intelligent Design in modern times. But: what I think has been swept under the rug, that we have to contend with as a community of people who are sort of truth-seekers, is the fact that some of the greatest minds that have preceeded us, have done just this.7:20 - Galileo8:50 - Sir Isacc Newton - Now, I don't know what you know of Isacc Newton, but everything I've read of his tells me that there's no greater genius to ever walk the surface of this earth. I don't know if you've ever felt that way about anybody--I didn't feel that about anybody, till you just read what this man wrote. OK, line by line by line. This guy was plugged in to the machinery of the universe. He's unimpeachably brilliant. Unimpeachably brilliant. - Here's page zero of his Principia. In it, he discovers the laws of motion, F=ma, discovers the laws of gravity... it's all there. And he did this all before he turned 26. And in this, when he talks about motion, there's no reference to God. When he talks about his two body force, that he deduced--this universal law of gravitation, there is no mention of God. It's just not anywhere there. Because he understood it, he was on top of it, he was there. Even though, the understanding of the motions of the planets before he came along, *was* given unto God. Because nobody understood it. Or nobody understood well enough to really believe that they had a full, predictive handle on it in the way the universal law of gravitation supplied. - So what you have is, Isaac Newton, abandoning reference to God, until he realizes: If all you do is calculate the two-body problem... Here we have like, the Moon and Earth--yes, he's got that calculated. Now you have the Sun and the Earth--you've got that. But wait a minute, now the Earth and the Moon go around the Sun, and sometimes we're close to Mars and sometimes we're not. And when it comes near Mars, there's a tug--that's stronger there than in any part in the orbit. And then it comes over here, and then Jupiter tugs. All these mini-tugs. And so he's got to do this two-body problem, for Earth, the Moon, Earth and the Sun; Earth, Moon, and Mars; Earth, Moon, Mars, and Jupiter, and it becomes a rapidly complex problem. And he realizes, that in fact, applying this simple sort of approach to calculating the stability of the solar system--he finds he can't stabilize the solar system. He can't account for how we have stayed this way for as long as what was possibly necessary from the beginning of the universe. - And so what does he say? He's at his limits. You read Principia, God is nowhere! Until you get to the General Scholium [a supplemental text to the Principia.] And then he says, "the six primary planets are revolved about the sun in circles concentric with the sun. And with motions directed towards the same parts, and almost in the same plane." He's got the whole picture now, and he's trying to sort of account for that. But he can't, just simply doing two-body calcuations. Certainly not without a computer or with a new kind of mathematics. He says, "But it is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to _so many_ regular motions. This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the council and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." This is Isacc Newton, invoking Intelligent Design! At the limits of his knowledge. 15:45 - C. Huygens - 169618:20 - P.S. Laplace - 1799 - Wrote a five volume tome on Celestial Mechanics. - What it does is, it takes Newton's laws of gravity, and brings them into a full expression with the hammer of calculus. He brings all the armament of mathematics to bear on the laws of physics that were put forth by Isacc Newton. Isaac Newton only touched on them, they were not fully developed. And in this work, he demonstrates-- he further develops something that had been percolating in the mathematical community--but he developed and one might even say perfects a branch of math we could call perturbation theory. - In perturbation theory, it allows you to systematically and reliably calculate the effect of a series of small tugs in the presence of singular big tugs. And that's kind of what's going on in most of the solar system. [...] You can demonstrate that in fact the solar system was stable beyond the predictions of Isaac Newton. - So, he figures this out, does _not_ invoke God. Because he figured it out! - Napolean asks Laplace what role God played in the construction and regulation of the heavens. That's what Newton would ask, right? Lapace replies, "Sir, I had no need for that hypothesis."20:50 - ...and so what concerns me now is, even if you're as brilliant asNewton, you reach a point where you start basking in the majesty of God,and then your discovery stops. It just stops! You're kind of no goodanymore for advancing that frontier. Waiting for somebody else tocome behind you, who doesn't have God on the brain, and who says:That's a really cool problem, I want to solve it! They come in and solve it.But look at the time delay!This was 100 year time delay. And the math that's in perturbationtheory is like _crumbs_ for Newton. He could have come up with that.The guy invented calculus just on a dare, practiclly.When someone asked him, you know, Ike, how come planets orbit inelipses and not some other shape? And he couldn't answer that.He goes home for two months, comes back, and out comes integraldifferential calculus 'cause he needed that to answer that question.And so - so this is, this is the kind of mind we were dealing withwith Newton: He could have gone there, but he *didn't*.His religiosity STOPPED HIM. And so, we're left with the realization of course that Intelligent Design, while 'real' in thehistory of science, while 'real' in the presence of sort of philosophical drivers, is nonetheless a philosophy ofignorance.And so, regardless of what our political agenda is, all you haveto say is, science is a philosophy of discovery. Intelligent Design is a philosophy of ignorance. Have you discovered anythinglately? If not, get out of the science classroom. But I'm not going to say, "don't teach this." Because it's real,it happened. So I don't want people to sweep it under the rug,because if you do, you're neglecting something fundamental that'sgoing on in people's minds when they confront things they don'tunderstand. And it happens to the greatest of the minds, as ithappens to everyone else.So.A philosophy of apathy is no better than an invocation of intelligent design. Neither leads to discovery.And the best minds in history have been wrong over and over about "attempting to discern the impossible."Regards,quadz
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