patrick.net

kashif313 says

I do not follow your thought process and you refuse to acknowledge the work of a supreme being. Fair enough, let us agree to disagree and live out our lives according to our tenets - that's freedom.

You mostly refuse to acknowledge what is in fact known.

Your thinking is clear: only top down design can lead to the world as it is.

That's ignoring the fact that bottom-up organization is known to happen, it can be simulated in computers and there is nothing miraculous about it.

Freedom of ignorance indeed.

Quigley says

This is a typical argument of those ignorant of actual biblical text. The first commandment specifically states, "You shall have no OTHER gods before me." This is the strongest possible implication that the deity in question believes in other gods, and is jealous of His/Her worshippers.

Ah... HE must be the real God because he says so. The bible must be true because it says so. Checkmate.

Thank you so much for your proof!

Dan8267 says

Don't give me the bullshit that any agnostic thinks that maybe Garuda, the snake-hating sun god, plausibly could exist. No agnostic puts Garuda on equal footing to Yahweh in terms of possibly existing.

Garuda may have been the prototype of Yahweh. We already know that Akenahten started monotheism with sun god worship.

So-called agnostics almost universally reject polytheism. They are not open-minded. They are conformists. There's a big difference.

There are lots of agnostics who do not reject polytheism or "spiritualism" in the very vague sense.

Heraclitusstudent says

Quigley says

This is a typical argument of those ignorant of actual biblical text. The first commandment specifically states, "You shall have no OTHER gods before me." This is the strongest possible implication that the deity in question believes in other gods, and is jealous of His/Her worshippers.

Ah... HE must be the real God because he says so. The bible must be true because it says so. Checkmate.

Thank you so much for your proof!

hmm, he was saying that the text merely put the deity forward as a tribal deity. Nobody was talking about "the real God."

Reality says

hmm, he was saying that the text merely put the deity forward as a tribal deity. Nobody was talking about "the real God."

I think Dan's argument was "why not imagine something completely different, while we are making things up."
Saying that the Christian god is (was originally) a tribal deity among many doesn't really answer that. Why not stick to the Norse mythology? or the Hindu one?
The only answer is "because the bible says this and that".

Been posted on Pat.net before, bears repeating:

mell says

This is simply not true unless you put yourself above the experts (physicists, believers or not) who do not have an answer to this question but different theories exist.

I'm familiar with the various theories, and none of them use time in the collequal sense. Therefore, the conventional definition of "create", which required that the creator exists in time before the creation, does not apply. Every physicist will tell you that a singularity is a point in which the conventional concept of time breaks down.

In any case, the statement that the one true god is the non-sentient, amoral universe itself still stands.

Quigley says

This is a typical argument of those ignorant of actual biblical text. The first commandment specifically states, "You shall have no OTHER gods before me."

I'm well aware of what your Bible says, but why should I accept it?

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Your Bible is pure fucking evil. It is a terrible basis for morality.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

hmm, he was saying that the text merely put the deity forward as a tribal deity. Nobody was talking about "the real God."

I think Dan's argument was "why not imagine something completely different, while we are making things up."

Saying that the Christian god is (was originally) a tribal deity among many doesn't really answer that. Why not stick to the Norse mythology? or the Hindu one?

The only answer is "because the bible says this and that".

No. Christianity became influential because a borderline convert (Constantine) either won a major battle and later became Roman Emperor, or that he claimed to have made the conversion because he saw a need for the society to embrace a new religion when the old Roman religion's hold on the society was falling apart.

Parts of Norse myths are still with us, such as Santa Clause. In the land of its tribal origin, they would not have picked a pine tree either, or red sock boots.

thunderlips11 says

Been posted on Pat.net before, bears repeating:

Looks like Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Reality says

Garuda may have been the prototype of Yahweh.

Did you just pull that out of your ass or do you have any evidence whatsoever to support that?

In any case, a god that has a prototype is a false god.

Reality says

There are lots of agnostics who do not reject polytheism or "spiritualism" in the very vague sense.

Show me one agnostic who thinks that Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgies, plausibly exists.

Show me one agnostic who thinks that maybe the universe was created by smurfs. Agnostics are highly selective in what they are agnostic about. Their criteria is that if the society they find themselves in is populated by people who believe in myth X, they pretend that myth X is plausible. Otherwise, they say that myth X is ridiculous.

Conformity is not open mindedness.

Dan8267 says

Did you just pull that out of your ass or do you have any evidence whatsoever to support that?

I already told you the logic: Akenahten of ancient Egypt started Monotheism as we know it by mandating sun god worship.

In any case, a god that has a prototype is a false god.

No more false than "government." Both are creatures of people's faith. More importantly, most people apparently need something to worship. "Government" just happens to be a far more dangerous thing to worship than "God"/"gods."

Reality says

Looks like Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Evidence of Climate Change

Evidence of god

Comparing the indisputable fact of climate change to religion is utterly retarded. At this point in time, anyone who claims that climate change is a religious myth is an idiot.

Reality says

No. Christianity became influential because a borderline convert (Constantine) either won a major battle and later became Roman Emperor, or that he claimed to have made the conversion because he saw a need for the society to embrace a new religion when the old Roman religion's hold on the society was falling apart.

I certainly hope no one believes the Bible today for that reason.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

There are lots of agnostics who do not reject polytheism or "spiritualism" in the very vague sense.

Show me one agnostic who thinks that Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgies, plausibly exists.

I do. And I'm working on convincing more girls between the ages of 18 and 25 to do the same. Want to come to my Dionysus Party this summer? Bring a pair of boobs and 3-hole fun.

Dan8267 says

Show me one agnostic who thinks that maybe the universe was created by smurfs. Agnostics are highly selective in what they are agnostic about. Their criteria is that if the society they find themselves in is populated by people who believe in myth X, they pretend that myth X is plausible. Otherwise, they say that myth X is ridiculous.

Conformity is not open mindedness.

Logic can not exclude the hypothesis that the entire universe is run by smurfs, who pause the universe at every moment and look up the rule books and move the objects according to the rule books for the next moment. So there, I'm a smurf agnostic.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

Looks like Anthropogenic Global Warming.

Evidence of Climate Change

Evidence of god

Comparing the indisputable fact of climate change to religion is utterly retarded. At this point in time, anyone who claims that climate change is a religious myth is an idiot.

Notice, you avoided the critically important "Anthropogenic" part.

That "anyone who denies . . . is an idiot" attitude is precisely what the cartoon illustrates

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

No. Christianity became influential because a borderline convert (Constantine) either won a major battle and later became Roman Emperor, or that he claimed to have made the conversion because he saw a need for the society to embrace a new religion when the old Roman religion's hold on the society was falling apart.

I certainly hope no one believes the Bible today for that reason.

When the Christian Bible fails to do the job, the vast majority of the world's population will be converted to the Koran or something else. The big government religion is just not durable, as the Romans found out when their polytheism declined in the face of big imperial government.

Reality says

Notice, you avoided the critically important "Anthropogenic" part.

People are so funny. Like it's hard to find where the CO2 comes from.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

Notice, you avoided the critically important "Anthropogenic" part.

People are so funny. Like it's hard to find where the CO2 comes from.

The vast majority of CO2 comes from non-human sources. The biggest being probably the dynamic release and absorption at the ocean's surfaces.

Reality says

I certainly hope no one believes the Bible today for that reason.

When the Christian Bible fails to do the job, the vast majority of the world's population will be converted to the Koran or something else.

Yep, I'm sure the folks at Fox News will figure out something.

Reality says

People are so funny. Like it's hard to find where the CO2 comes from.

The vast majority of CO2 comes from non-human sources. The biggest being probably the dynamic release and absorption at the ocean's surfaces.

...which explains the spike since the 50's?
I mean, we know how much coal, oil and gas is burnt every year, right?

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

I certainly hope no one believes the Bible today for that reason.

When the Christian Bible fails to do the job, the vast majority of the world's population will be converted to the Koran or something else.

Yep, I'm sure the folks at Fox News will figure out something.

The real reason is human behavior and statistical expectations from one's own behavior. If one's own "staying good" can not be expected to be rewarded and "doing bad" can not be expected to be punished, a significant minority but large enough proportion of people will ill behave to bring down the society. Law enforcement in human history, even now, can only catch a tiny fraction of ill behaving individuals. Without a religion promising the reward and punishment in afterlife, and give people a sense to police oneself and feel good about it, human societies fall apart rather quickly. The cost of bureaucrats catching every criminal and potential criminal is just too high to be ever feasible.

Heraclitusstudent says

The vast majority of CO2 comes from non-human sources. The biggest being probably the dynamic release and absorption at the ocean's surfaces.

...which explains the spike since the 50's?

I mean, we know how much coal, oil and gas is burnt every year, right?

Rising temperature causes oceanic dissolved CO2 to be released into the atmosphere. The AGW crowd has the causality between temperature and CO2 backwards.

bgamall4 says

No, actually that was part of the falling away period. Once the early church passed on, there was a falling away and fusion of church and state is a false religion.

Christianity replacing the old Roman religion managed to extend the life span of East Roman Empire by about a thousand years! The Western wastelands were simply ungovernable before the Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity. After the conversion, the various "Christendoms" came into being in Western Europe. I'm not advocating the fusion of state and religion per se (as that would create too much concentration of power, corrupting both). However, religion does provide the cognitive background in a society for converting one-time prisoner's delima into repeating games, where one can afford to be less prone to double-cross each other at the first chance.

Reality says

The AGW crowd has the causality between temperature and CO2 backwards.

And, let me guess, it's just a huge coincidence that temperatures happen to rise exactly at the point in history where we burn record amounts of coal, gas and oil?

And really we can't calculate how much we KNOW we DO release (i.e. how much we burn), and compare it to how much CO2 presence we MEASURE?

Reality says

Without a religion promising the reward and punishment in afterlife, and give people a sense to police oneself and feel good about it, human societies fall apart rather quickly.

I'm speechless.
You do know there are entire societies on this planet who have been around for very long and don't have a notion of punishment in afterlife. How about Japan Shintoism?

Reality says

The Western wastelands were simply ungovernable before the Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity.

You do know that Clovis converted to Christianity in 496 and what followed was 1000yrs of dark ages, right?

Reality says

Notice, you avoided the critically important "Anthropogenic" part.

That "anyone who denies . . . is an idiot" attitude is precisely what the cartoon illustrates

Actually, I did not.

Anyone who looks at the above graph and thinks humans aren't responsible is the scientific equivalent of a holocaust denier and deserves as much respect.

Those who don't acknowledge the reality and gravity of man-made climate change don't get a vote in the policies passed to mitigate and deal with climate change.

Climate change isn't man-made, my ass.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/gIUN5ziSfNc

Society may have put up with the lying about climate change back in the 1980s, but such lies are no longer tolerable. Too many lives are at stake. Anyone who bullshits about climate change deserves ridicule. Willful ignorance is despicable.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

The AGW crowd has the causality between temperature and CO2 backwards.

And, let me guess, it's just a huge coincidence that temperatures happen to rise exactly at the point in history where we burn record amounts of coal, gas and oil?

Temperature rose and fall both before and after the 1950's. Don't tell me the burning of coal, gas and oil has been declining since 1998, from which time to now the global temperature has been declining.

And really we can't calculate how much we KNOW we DO release (i.e. how much we burn), and compare it to how much CO2 presence we MEASURE?

Two problems with your focus here:

1. The dynamic balance in oceanic surface absorption and release is carried out at far greater CO2 volume than human emission.

2. The minute percentage of CO2 in atmosphere doesn't have significant effect on temperature.

Reality says

The vast majority of CO2 comes from non-human sources. The biggest being probably the dynamic release and absorption at the ocean's surfaces.

Utter bullshit. Irrational adherence to myths, whether religious or political, is dangerous and can cost millions, even billions, of lives. This is exactly why society must no longer tolerate lies, whether about climate change or the afterlife.

Wise decision making requires accurate knowledge and truthful reporting of reality. The consequences, as this thread has shown, are literally life and death.

Heraclitusstudent says

I'm speechless.

You do know there are entire societies on this planet who have been around for very long and don't have a notion of punishment in afterlife. How about Japan Shintoism?

Shintoism is a religion. It promises honors and (worse than death) humiliation in after-life. In any case, the dominant religion in Japan was/is Budhism, which promises re-incarnation in after-life. Shintoism is Japanese politicians' attempt at merging religion with state (Emperor worship).

bgamall4 says

Dan, the Old Testament kingdom was a physical kingdom and had a place in history for a time. But the Zionists, the founding Israel president being atheist, are wanting to extend that kingdom and do unauthorized things to the Arabs that have no sanction by God.

There's some batshit that even I'm not willing to touch.

Dan8267 says

Show me one agnostic who thinks that Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and orgies, plausibly exists.

Yep, for practical purposes agnostics are pussy atheists, or secret believers that can't apply reason to something they came to believe in for non-smart reasons.

As you say, I never met an agnostic that defended Polytheistic Deities, or the idea that every rock and tree is a spirit. Only the approved Real Religions(tm) of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Norse Troth, Greek Gods, Aztec Feathered Serpents, none are taken seriously for a moment by so-called Agnostics.

Reality says

Without a religion promising the reward and punishment in afterlife, and give people a sense to police oneself and feel good about it, human societies fall apart rather quickly. The cost of bureaucrats catching every criminal and potential criminal is just too high to be ever feasible.

Translation: We all know that the afterlife is a lie, but I think it's a useful one.

The problem is that the truly evil people don't fall for the lie, but can use the lie to get otherwise good people to do really evil things like fly planes into buildings, blow up children schools with suicide bombers, "honor" kill rape victims, enslave entire races, commit genocide, etc.

Using lies to get people to behave is not as effective as using an honest, transparent court system, something we should be striving for instead of promoting Bronze Age lies.

Dan8267 says

Notice, you avoided the critically important "Anthropogenic" part.

That "anyone who denies . . . is an idiot" attitude is precisely what the cartoon illustrates

Actually, I did not.

No you did not. You never managed to link Anthropogenic and rising temperature together. Both charts claimed a link between Anthropogenic and CO2 level, which is not the same as temperature rising.

Both charts are actually rather silly for anyone with an clue about scientific charting. The spike at the very right side of the chart consists of a single bar representing 50 - 100 years, which a far smaller a time period than the granuality of 500,000yr old core sample from anywhere.

Dan8267 says

Reality says

The vast majority of CO2 comes from non-human sources. The biggest being probably the dynamic release and absorption at the ocean's surfaces.

Utter bullshit. Irrational adherence to myths, whether religious or political, is dangerous and can cost millions, even billions, of lives. This is exactly why society must no longer tolerate lies, whether about climate change or the afterlife.

Wise decision making requires accurate knowledge and truthful reporting of reality. The consequences, as this thread has shown, are literally life and death.

That's how religious indoctrination gets started. The Old Testament did not include so many horrific death scenarios for nothing.

Reality says

Temperature rose and fall both before and after the 1950's. Don't tell me the burning of coal, gas and oil has been declining since 1998, from which time to now the global temperature has been declining.

Now we were talking of CO2. Don't bring temperatures. There is a huge spike in CO2 concentrations in the last 50 yrs that didn't happen in thousands of years before. So you are now telling us temperatures changed before but didn't affect CO2, but now they do. Make your story straight.

The fact that the extra CO2 comes from humans is one of the easiest thing to prove in the entire climate change concept.

thunderlips11 says

As you say, I never met an agnostic that defended Polytheistic Deities, or the idea that every rock and tree is a spirit. Only the approved Real Religions(tm) of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Norse Troth, Greek Gods, Aztec Feathered Serpents, none are taken seriously for a moment by so-called Agnostics.

When I demonstrate the falsehood of all religions, I am being rational, honest, and sincere. When a so-called agnostic supports the possibility of the gods accepted by his society, but not Native American, African, or Aboriginal gods, then that is racist. At least we atheists apply the same standards to all peoples and societies. We don't make exceptions for our tribe.

Agnosticism is conformity and racism masquerading as respect for others. It is far more respectful to honestly deny another person's religion than to insincerely agree with that person to placate him.

Taking an opposing view and defending it with rational, evidence based arguments is a far truer sign of respect for another person. It says you believe that person is capable of reasoning like an adult instead of being irrational like an immature child.

Heraclitusstudent says

Reality says

The Western wastelands were simply ungovernable before the Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity.

You do know that Clovis converted to Christianity in 496 and what followed was 1000yrs of dark ages, right?

No. Clovis converted to Catholicism. There were quite few other branches of Christianity, such as Arianism, at that time. The conversion process for the society at large took a few centuries, both before and after Clovis. The Dark Ages ended a couple hundred years after Clovis, not 1000yrs. Trade and commerce started to thrive in Western Europe by the 8th century; big cities and market centers emerged in the 9th and 10th century.

bgamall4 says

Dan, the Old Testament kingdom was a physical kingdom and had a place in history for a time. But the Zionists, the founding Israel president being atheist, are wanting to extend that kingdom and do unauthorized things to the Arabs that have no sanction by God.

There was never an Israel. This is coming from the premier archaeologists in Israel, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/t440bxhn1qA

EDIT: (This is the real, unedited version, not the dumbed down, cut in half, decontroversialized History of Pawn Shops and Ancient Aliens Channel Version)

Israel was a creation of Yahweh priests under King Josiah who were trying to create a claim to the richer, more fertile lands north of the arid Jerusalem Highland area. "King" Josiah ruled a kingdom smaller than most Scottish highland clans, with far less people; Jerusalem was a "cow town", somewhere of the level of Buffalo Breath, WY in terms of power and influence in the Middle East at the time.

There is no evidence Jerusalem was ever a place of consequence before the 5th Century AD, other than a place to water camels on the way to more important areas. It was a pre-Casino Las Vegas at best, a watering hole in the desert on a trade route between more important and inhabited places.

The Hebrews were basically Scots Highlanders, an ignored and marginal semi-settled group famous only for occasional cattle raids.

thunderlips11 says

As you say, I never met an agnostic that defended Polytheistic Deities, or the idea that every rock and tree is a spirit. Only the approved Real Religions(tm) of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Norse Troth, Greek Gods, Aztec Feathered Serpents, none are taken seriously for a moment by so-called Agnostics.

Then you did not meet the particular Agnostics who leave room for ambiguity for those other deities. You may as well have said you never met a person who spoke Lapland dialect, Dodecanese dialect, or Chiachihuacan dialect.