13,000 Year old temple,

[BorderReiver]

This is absoultely NOT a dig at Firecrest.

Right, got that out of the way

I just wanted to point out an interesting choice of phrase in that (erudite and interesting) post

"refuse to believe"

I don't think that people "refuse to believe" something. They simply don't believe it or are not convinced one way or the other and reserve the right to question and challenge.

To my mind using phrases like "refuse to believe" implies some willful and deliberate awkwardness. It could equally be applied as "refuse to believe in God" or "refuse to believe that Marmite is nice". Its emotive and I suspect why sometimes these types of debates become heated. I suspect that rarely do people "refuse to believe" they just plain don't. In the same way that people aren't Climate Change "deniers" (a phrase associated with holocaust deniers - at least in my mind) they simply aren't convinced.

Now this may be seen as a failure on their part to comprehend. I believe the onus is on the person advancing the argument to convince and persuade. If they fail to convince, it is a failure on their part, not on the part of the person who was, and remains, unconvinced.

Again, for the record, I could have picked phrases frequently used by any number of contributors and I used this one for illustrative purposes only - no dig implict or explicit!

Red

I agree with Red.

You either believe or you don't.

"Refuse to believe" is "ok, the evidence is overwhelming but I'm NOT going to believe it!!"

 

[HillBill]

Page 65 hold the answer

That does not go back beyond primate (ape) though.

What comes before it?. 65 million years is only about 2 % of history. Where are the stages through the other 98%?

 

[British Red]

I agree with Tadpole, I once met a man (online!) who "didnt want" to believe in evolution and argued against it for the simple reason that he found a universe void of a creator "terrifying" and he was scared he would lose the will to live if creation was self regulating and evolution correct.

Now again, I find that quite insightful. A person has a coping mechanism, that they like. To them it makes sense of the universe and makes it a nicer place to be.

Why try to destroy it? Surely if this belief, delusional, true insight, religion, faith or whatever you wish to call it makes them happy, it is their absolute right to hold it?

What is not their absolute right is to impose their view on other people. Persuade, convince, cajole? Sure.

Impose? No.

I return to my central tenet that no-one holds a monoply on truth.

I venture to suggest that those who adhere to the theory of evolution have not, in person, performed the research to know it to be irrefutably true. They have, second hand at best, heard of fossils, theories etc. and choose to believe they are not fabrication or falsification. Such things have of course been fabricated and believed to be true. Piltdown Man is an example. Clearly only those fakes that have been subsequently exposed are known as fakes. Others may still exist but are believed true. Without personal examination of the evidence one cannot, at a personal level absolutely know these things to be facts.

This is of course equally true of religious doctrine.

Do I argue that evolution is wrong? No.

Do I arge that divine creation is wrong? No

Do I argue that the world was created by the Infinite Improbability Drive and it will be demolished by a Vogon constructor fleet? No

What I do ague is that a person has the absolute right to believe what makes them happy.

I further argue that no-one has the right to impose their beliefs on others or to ridicule or belittle others for believing something different or indeed for arguing that their own beliefs are correct. Not religion, not science.

Freedom of thought and belief is surely a fundamental right if we have any rights at all.

An' it harm no-one - do as you will

Red

 

[firecrest]

Actually Red...no we don't have any rights. Rights are a peacetime convenience. An agreement created by men not gods. Im sorely tempted to post a rant by george carlin here, unfortunately it isnt family friendly
If we have rights where do they come from and how do they exist?

 

[firecrest]

HillBill, Im guessing your gripe is not with evolution then, but abiogeneis?
if you dont think bacteria and other such microorganisms evolved from simpler organic building blocks, and those organic building blocks from the inorganic, then what do you think is a better answer? Not that it follows that one should accept a theory because they cannot think of another more reasonable one, but im curious if you do have another opinion on the matter

 

[British Red]

Well, that's why I said "if we have any rights at all".

Some would argue that a mark of civilisation is the rights its population grant to one another.

As a matter of interest, where did you observe a Hoatzin ? I would love to see such a bird, but sadly I never have.

Red

 

[firecrest]

I never have but you know that bus that just went around the corner? do you think it dissapeared into thin air watching film footage of a hoatzin (david attenbourough Life Of Birds) is enough to convince me they are real and do indeed have claws, It would be plain silly to only believe that which I can see with my very own eyes when photographic media is unlikely to be manipulated to keep me living in a Trueman Show world. interestingly, the faithful never request such hard evidence of God as they do of science to expect to see god with their own eyes, infact its seen as a lack of the right fibre to not believe because you never saw.

 

[British Red]

Perhaps,

But I find the idea of disproving someones belief in a being they have never seen described in a book by someone else by describing a being you have never seen described in a book by someone else ....ironic?

Red

 

[HillBill]

HillBill, Im guessing your gripe is not with evolution then, but abiogeneis?
if you dont think bacteria and other such microorganisms evolved from simpler organic building blocks, and those organic building blocks from the inorganic, then what do you think is a better answer? Not that it follows that one should accept a theory because they cannot think of another more reasonable one, but im curious if you do have another opinion on the matter

I do not unfortunately. If i did it would be an answer that was as well informed as i could possibly make it, but it would not be better or worse than the one already proposed. It would be just as unprovable and based on just as much assumption. I would hold my own version with the same skeptism as i do the bacteria from nothing one.

abiogeneis..... I have never heard the word to be honest. But, yes my problem is not with evoloution. only the first hurdle we have to get over to be able to use the theory.I really would like for that hurdle to be leapt and for it to go in Darwins favour. That and dating methods

 

[firecrest]

No not ironic at all. I can go out and find fossils, I can study the anatomical differences between animals myself, I can look through my telescope and create my own maps of the stars and my research will concur with those that have gone before me and studied the same subjects. This is because a fact is not a personal issue, a fact is either true or false. You may have a right to an opinion but you do not have a right to your own facts. it is a fact the Hoaztin exists, reglardless of whether one individual has seen it or not. It is NOT a fact that Yaweh exists because some people claim to believe he does. This does not mean yaweh doesnt exist, but it also doesnt mean that fairies, elves, thor, zeus and toth dont exist either.
However the existance of Hoaztins is more substancial than the intangible, and so your arguement is a strawman aguement. Infact its worse than a stawman, it is BEARD fallacy!!

the arguement of the beard goes like this
If two opposite opinions are part of the same spectrum and one can travel between to the two extremes with a series of small , seemingly logical steps, then it also goes to follow that all clean shaven men have big bushy beards because their is a spectrum of smaller step beards inbetween! So no, no irony when I claim the hoaztin which I have personally never seen is the same as believing in the intangible which i have personally never seen.

 

[firecrest]

I do not unfortunately. If i did it would be an answer that was as well informed as i could possibly make it, but it would not be better or worse than the one already proposed. It would be just as unprovable and based on just as much assumption. I would hold my own version with the same skeptism as i do the bacteria from nothing one.

abiogeneis..... I have never heard the word to be honest. But, yes my problem is not with evoloution. only the first hurdle we have to get over to be able to use the theory.I really would like for that hurdle to be leapt and for it to go in Darwins favour. That and dating methods

Abiogenesis is the study of the origin of life, not of evolution thereafter.

 

[British Red]

I disagree and I believe I can prove your position to be illogical.

Hoaxes have been perpetated. This is a matter of record.

Therefore you cannot KNOW with absolute cetainty that a Hoatzin exists unless you have personally seen one.

You may believe that it exists because it comes from a trusted source (David Attenborough). However, by logic, you must acknowledge, that it is theoretically possible, however unlikely, that a hoax has been perpetated. Therefore you have faith in a source, or sources, that they are not perpetrating a hoax on you.

Now the person who believes in God, has heard that God exists, believes it to be so, because they have been told that he does from a source they have faith in.

Absolutely no difference - you just have faith in different sources,

Where is the proof that cannot be faked? We have all seen film of aliens, Shrek and all sorts of other non existant creatures. Scientifically we know that film is not evidence. So you have no proof. Merely faith,

Red

(Your turn)

 

[HillBill]

Abiogenesis is the study of the origin of life, not of evolution thereafter.

Thanks. I have read up on it out of curiosity some time ago. Didn't remember the name of the discipline though. The primordial soup theory.

Even though i don't disagree with Darwin there are still huge gaps in the records, and evoloution as a whole is not complete. For it to be seriously considered in my eyes at least. The origins have to be established and some of the gaps at least part filled.

I do not believe it is possible to do though. But i am prepared to be proved wrong

 

[HillBill]

. It is NOT a fact that Yaweh exists because some people claim to believe he does. This does not mean yaweh doesnt exist,

This is my argument about the origins

 

[locum76]

Has anyone mentioned mitochondrial eve yet?

 

[BorderReiver]

I disagree and I believe I can prove your position to be illogical.

Hoaxes have been perpetated. This is a matter of record.

Therefore you cannot KNOW with absolute cetainty that a Hoatzin exists unless you have personally seen one.

You may believe that it exists because it comes from a trusted source (David Attenborough). However, by logic, you must acknowledge, that it is theoretically possible, however unlikely, that a hoax has been perpetated. Therefore you have faith in a source, or sources, that they are not perpetrating a hoax on you.

Now the person who believes in God, has heard that God exists, believes it to be so, because they have been told that he does from a source they have faith in.

Absolutely no difference - you just have faith in different sources,

Where is the proof that cannot be faked? We have all seen film of aliens, Shrek and all sorts of other non existant creatures. Scientifically we know that film is not evidence. So you have no proof. Merely faith,

Red

(Your turn)

Your analogy does not work Red. It is physically possible to verify the existence of the bird but not the non corporeal being.

 

[HillBill]

Has anyone mentioned mitochondrial eve yet?

It is an interesting topic. Eve not being the first woman alive? But the unknown first woman whose bloodline everyone carries. Though there were lots of other women before and since who dont carry the same dna. All the people alive today came from 1 woman?

 

[British Red]

Aaah the stunning evidence that all people on the planet are indeed descended from a single female?


The idea that the population could have fallen so low, or that one mutation could have been so spectacularly advantageous that all human life descends from a single female are...technically speaking.....hokum. And indeed at odds with other theories that state that a certain size of gene pool is necessary for a species to survive and thrive.


The idea of all life originating from a single woman was laughed at by "science", until of course science proved that it happened,

Oops.

 

[British Red]

Your analogy does not work Red. It is physically possible to verify the existence of the bird but not the non corporeal being.

Sorry BR, it works exactly at this point in time and concerning those two individuals.

Neither know, both accept the existence of another being they have no personal knowledge of.

Until such verfication takes place, both beliefs are acts of faith - no more, no less.

 

[firecrest]

]I disagree and I believe I can prove your position to be illogical.
By your own logic you cannot prove anything.


Hoaxes have been perpetated. This is a matter of record.
It is not logical to sugest that because a hoax has been perpetrated in the past that all evidence may be a hoax and must be treated as such. this is a fallicious arguement that comes under many names and you'd be chucked out of any debating society by imagining this to be a sophisticated style of debate.

Therefore you cannot KNOW with absolute cetainty that a Hoatzin exists unless you have personally seen one.

You are again treating the evidence as one long continious spectrum. The evidence that shows that a living creature exists is a different evidence entirely from that which needs to be studied to call into question evolution or god. again you are using fallicious arguement tatics to ignore the basic difference between evidences. seriously you need to actually look up fallicious argueing and see that your styles of debate are listed right there.

You may believe that it exists because it comes from a trusted source (David Attenborough). However, by logic, you must acknowledge, that it is theoretically possible, however unlikely, that a hoax has been perpetated. Therefore you have faith in a source, or sources, that they are not perpetrating a hoax on you.

You are trying to force some kind of admittance that one must have faith to `believe` in something and therfore all faith precedes logic, therefor all logic is faith and all faith is logic. but again as pointed out, you are putting aside types of evidence and attempting to generalise into one big catagory. We can take this arguement to even more extreme conclusions and say that not only can you not trust something is real if you havent seen it with your own eyes but that you cannot trust something is real even if you do see it with yor own eyes. What you see is merely an internalised sensory reconsctruction of the world around you. Oh you only percieve yourself to exist too. you might not. you see how silly this is getting?


Now the person who believes in God, has heard that God exists, believes it to be so, because they have been told that he does from a source they have faith in.
I agree, but again, its chalk and cheese. I have faith that a living creature exists because I have seen film evidence and stuffed birds. I can also hop on a plane and go see the bird in south america or a zoo. I cannot go and see the intangible in a zoo.

Basically, faith a Hoatzin exists is faith that a physical thing exists which I can lay eyes on if I get close enough. But faith in god requires faith that something beyond which a person can percieve through their senses exists, and that which will never be revealed through their senses only when they are dead, which they must believe a life beyond exists despite nobody ever coming back. chalk and cheese.

Absolutely no difference - you just have faith in different sources,
Yes big big difference. sorry.

Where is the proof that cannot be faked? We have all seen film of aliens, Shrek and all sorts of other non existant creatures. Scientifically we know that film is not evidence. So you have no proof. Merely faith,

All A`s are B`s. All Bs are C`s. therefor all C`s are A`s.

Correct? no. and for the same reason no Arguement of Fallacy can be correct by the same equation.
Ie
All footage of shrek is footage of something that is fictional. Shrek is on film footage. Therefor all film footage is fictional.

I think ill try that one in court next time Im caught on cctv doing something I shouldnt.

Red

(Your turn)

I tell you what, you fly me to south america and Ill bring one back for you. Now you bring back god for me, and Ill agree we are arguing about the same thing here.