When people use a word like Christianity, most often instead of objectively and logically judging them from the definition or reference meaning of the word they falsely judge them from the crowd that proclaims to be Christian yet don’t fit the description. Its as if they were so brain damaged that they would accept a drunken homeless bum on the street for the CEO of Microsoft simply because he has a cardboard sign that says “Microsoft CEO, down on luck, need help…†But, no, they would throw rocks at him and not allow that to bias them towards any thought of the actual CEO of Microsoft!!
IOW, I dont think its impossible to remove all bias.
To all those that do this, if there were an emoticon that flipped the bird and flung monkey poo, this would be the place I would put it.
Why not bother to look it up or do some research on what it really is instead of just taking a bunch of hypocritical contradicting nut bags for their word “I’m a F-n Christianâ€, JUST CUZ they SAID So! I swear, Atheism is a cult of people that do this, it’s the craziest and laziest “I just don’t want to be like my parents†childish unsupported teenage dumbass “I know it all†position ever.
What could any religion have to do with any God/Intelligent singularity if he did exist; all religions are about people agreeing on some text written by some other guys that did the same, or interpreted from some seriously superstitious and simple people through a severely flawed and over translated text that doesn’t fair well with time? Why would God use such a limited medium as text if he was actually intelligent? Do we not feel things in our hearts that are beyond words and are more real and true to each of us then anything else we know?
Am I the only one that feels this? Am I the F…n nut bag?!!
How logically can there not be an intelligent singularity, what logic or real world example do we have to suggest anything otherwise?
How does intelligence derive from non intelligence, what natural law or proof do we have for this, how does it not contradict other known axioms that say the opposite?
Can an illegitimate mute teacher teach a child to speak and read?
Finally…
Does God have to be the humanized hateful vengeful baby burning idiot most religious texts paint him as?
We don’t know, but that doesn’t mean it’s logically impossible. Before the chemical composition for water was discovered, you might have asked us how water comes from non-water. Yet now we know it is possible. Perhaps the same will happen with intelligence someday. Surely it will be very difficult, and I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime, but why would you rule out the possibility?
But here’s a deeper problem, and the reason I bothered to post a reply here. How does intelligence derive from intelligence any easier than it derives from non-intelligence? The only example we have of intelligence is human intelligence, and so far human intelligence has proved unable to design other intelligent beings. So how does godly intelligent-design explain human intelligence, when the only intelligence we are aware of cannot design intelligent beings?
In fact, it may even be paradoxical for an intelligent being to be solely responsible for the design of another intelligent being. For suppose agent G tries to design intelligent agent P. G must understand his own thought processes so well that he maintains a model of intelligence in his own mind. He has a model of mind within his mind. But within this model of mind there must also be the capacity to have a model of mind, and so on, causing an infinite regression.
People operate on a certain level, and that level may exist independantly of their ‘conclusions’. An atheist who really doesn’t know that much about religion or philosophy is just as psychologically certain as one who does, oftentimes. Why? Because they only engage those Christians they feel superior to. Religious people, and people discussing wholly other issues do the same thing. That’s why when you run into somebody doing what you’ve pointed out, kingdaddy, I think the best response is not to lower down to meet them at their level, but invite them to come to yours. When someone says “Christianity is…” they have someone in mind. It might be Aquinas, it might be their Sunday School teacher, it might be their nosy neighbor.
To answer your final question kingdaddy, about God being a barbarous baby-burner,
Rather than lower down and meet you at your level, I would invite you to rise to mine. Many Christian authors have had much to say about how the God of the Bible appears, especially the Old Testament, and I don’t think a refined view takes God to be the way you describe Him at all.
Having been a buddhist for most of my adult life, I’ve pretty much discounted the notion of a theistic god for years. When I read or hear any Christian, Judaic or Muslim ideas that seem sound, I’ve found that I can substitute the idea of emptiness (or all-inclusiveness if you prefer) in place of God and it still make good sense to me. Though I would not consider that a manifestation of any type of god, anthropomorphic or otherwise, in my experience it represents some form of divinity, if only for me personally.
Yes, actually it does mean at the least that it is illogical according to the logic we can compare it to, lower orders do not give birth to higher orders in anything we can observe, in fact its quite the opposite. Try and work out the logic of something from nothing without changing the rules of logic, see how that goes for ya.
Can one program a computer that knows more about programming then the programmer?
There is no logical flaw with the idea that the original source was always here without beginning and must be intelligent, none. The problem is the idea of something from nothing; things don’t evolve intelligence from non-intelligence as that would be something from nothing. Are you suggesting that this is not disputed in science and considered a flaw or problem in evolution, cuz it is by many and I don’t mean fundamentalist ID nuts either.
And an infinite being would have a problem with this because?
I guess I am crazy, this seems pedestrian to the most casual observer.
There quite plainly can “not be an intelligent singularity” in the universe. What aspect of the universe do you believe logically necessitates such a singularity?
The absolute absense of evidence for such an intelligent singularity should be fairly instructive in this case. What other “real word” example could be given as evidence against the existence of something that really doesn’t exist?
There is no law or proof that indicates intelligence can derive from non-intelligence (why should we expect there to be?), nor are there any “known axioms that say the opposite”. The way you’ve framed the question demonstrates that you are mistakenly looking for answers in the realm of the absolute rather than in the realm of the empirical (how like a theist!), hence your confusion.
Firstly, intelligence clearly does dervive from non-intelligence and we see it happen every day. There is nothing mystical or inexplicable about the growth of an “intelligent” human being from a “non-intelligent” zygote. We can follow neurological development from conception through to birth; then from birth through to childhood and adolescence; from here onto to adulthood; then to old age (where intelligence declines) and then finally to death (where intelligence ceases altogether). I have never seen a theologian invoke the necessity of a deity to explain this development (and eventual decline) of intelligence in the life of an individual, so I can only presume that you will accept that intelligence can - in this context at least - clearly emerge from “non-intelligent” beginnings?
Secondly, intelligence isn’t a biological dichotemy: it isn’t something that an organism either “has” or “doesn’t have”. Throughout nature - and throughout the history of nature - there are gradiations in intelligence: we accept that we are more “intelligent” than the rest of the apes, who are in turn more “intelligent” than cats, who are more “intelligent” than fish, who are more “intelligent” than amoeba. Similarly, many of the cognitive functions we associate with intelligence in our own species are also present in other species: from self-awareness (dolphins), to the ability to use tools (chimpanzees), to the ability to communicate with one another (bees), to the capacity for “moral” conduct in a social context (most of the higher primates), to the capacity for monogomous love (many bird species), to the ability to infer future consequences from present actions (mice), to the capacity for “cognitive decoupling” and mental abstraction (gorillas in captivity), to the ability to lovingly rear young (most bird and mammal species) and so on, most of the qualities we tend to think of as “unique” to human intelligence are actually demonstrably abundant in the animal kingdom. As Schopenhauer put it, we are seperated from the animals only by degrees of cognitive function, not modes of cognitive function: we are, remember, mere animals ourselves.
Finally - and this is the point I imagine that you were really trying to convey here - intelligence can and has derived from “non-intelligence” via the conduit of natural selection, just as life itself emerged from non-life via the same mechanism. Neurology is still a nascent subject which makes speculations on the precise origins of the human intellect difficult (it’s difficult to apprehend the origins of something we haven’t yet properly defined), but I can confidently say that there is no aspect of human nature that cannot be explained in naturalistic terms. Rather than tip-toeing around the subject, why not be more blunt with me here: what are your qualms with the theory of the naturalistic origins of intelligence in the animal kingdom?
Are you suggesting that intelligence must be taught and learned? If not, what is your point exactly?
Given the nature of the universe, a vengeful God - or, at best, a coldly indifferent God - seems much more likely than an omnibenevolent God with a direct interest in the wellbeing of humans.
What is this business of ‘orders’? My example of water coming from hydrogen and oxygen does not seem to bother you, so apparently water, hydrogen and oxygen are all in the same order. But then you also apparently hold that intelligence is in some higher order that can’t come from the lower order of ‘matter formed by the evolutionary process’. Why does water belong to the same order as its constituents, but intelligence is all special? There is no logic in that.
I maintain that your boxing up of the world into ‘orders’ is arbitrary, and the world need not (and does not) follow your arbitrary rules. Under the right conditions, complex and beautiful things with many unexpected properties can arise from very simple structures and interactions. (see the water example below). There are no ‘order’ limitations on how complex things can become or how surprising the emergent properties can be – even intelligence.
I didn’t say that something came from nothing.
Intelligence emerges from the amazingly complex biological computer of the brain, similar to the way that the sloshy slippery stuff we call ‘water’ emerges from the assemblage of a legion of H20 molecules interacting in amazingly complex ways.
In terms of its properties, water is more than the sum of its parts: for instance, individual water molecules are not slippery and do not exhibit turbulence like water does. Yet in terms of its origins, water is nothing more than the sum of its parts: if you want to make water, all you have to do is bring together a bunch of water molecules.
I (and most scientists) hypothesize that intelligence is the same sort of thing. It is an emergent property of the brain, like slipperiness is an emergent property of water. The activity of the brain is intelligent activity, just like the behavior of water is slippery behavior. Intelligence is a property of the brain that makes it more than the sum of its parts, like slipperiness makes water more than the sum of its parts.
Surely you agree that when slipperiness arises from assembling water molecules, there is nothing illogical happening; similarly there is nothing wrong with intelligence arising from the brain.
Probably not. But this analogy is far removed from how the evolution of intelligence would have worked. Nature is not an intelligent programmer, but a blind idiot that tries many many things until she happens on something that sorta “works” (in the sense of giving reproductive advantage to a species). Intelligence is one of Nature’s brilliant blunders that she discovered while undergoing the algorithmic process of evolution by natural selection.
You may be surprised to hear evolution referred to as an algorithm. But that is what it is; for more information I recommend Daniel Dennett’s book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”.
In fact, in recent decades a type of computer algorithm called a genetic algorithm has been developed which imitates nature’s algorithmic process of evolution. Genetic algorithms have been used to create computer programs which are better ‘designed’ than any human design could have been. Google genetic algorithm and evolutionary computation, you won’t be disappointed.
We see nature as adapted to human inhabitation. But that is only because nature, by evolution and natural selection, has adapted humans to inhabit nature successfully. This was Darwin’s insight. It is astonishing, it is revolutionary, it turns the world upside-down, but it is in no way illogical.
Water is made of molecules that are made of atoms that are made of particles that are made of quarks, then strings, then an energy source to vibrate the string. I’m alluding to ultimate sources and absolutes, your stopping somewhere in the middle and claiming it as an example of how something came from something in the middle of something else, WTF?
Water is incapable if intelligence, soo once again I cannot understand your off topic examples, what the hell does water have to do with intelligence? Can’t you make a better case with some pertinent examples?
Bullshit, intelligence comes from observing something smarter then your self, where do you think we got our engineering skills, osmosis? Enough with the water thing, JESUS CHRIST!
Yet you cant see the obvious logical flaw here?
How does Nature get the template for any mutation, how can it decide to mutate and why would it? Why survive, why the fittest unless there was a plan or Purpose.
I’m quite well studied on evolution, no need to suggest anything, why not try some personal observance yourself instead of just believing in what someone else wrote. I think they call that Faith, don’t they?
Thanks for helping prove my point, damn you don’t even know what your writing or its meaning in the context of what I’m saying.
His point is that “lower orders” (hydrogen and oxygen atoms) can give rise to “higher orders” (H=O=H: water). There is nothing “water” like about either hydrogen or oxygen, but putting them together can create what you might call a “higher-order”. The same argument could be made with, say, carbon atoms and the creation of a diamond. You can reduce that to the level of “quarks” and “strings” if you like, but his point remains.
Also, this question might be worth asking. Which is of the “higher-order”: a drop of water or an intricately patterned snow-flake?
His point is that “intelligence”, like water, can be quantified in a materialist reductivist sense. Intelligence can arise from non-intelligent matter (the structure and chemistry of the brain) in the same way that water can arise from “non-water” (hydrogen and oxygen). Systems often produce results that are more than the sum of their parts (results that none of the constituent parts are capable of producing independently), but that is not to say that systems cannot best be understood when we do reduce them to their material parts and adduce the manner in which these parts co-operate. We can best understand the mind when we realise that it is nothing other than a chemical process occurring in a neural framework: intelligence derived from non-intelligent matter. What part of this statement would you take issue with?
No you’re not and the questions you’ve just asked demonstrate as much.
If you were well studied on evolution you would understand that there is not and need not be a “template” for mutation to occur. Genetic mutation is not something that nature “decides” to do, it is a mere consequence of the laws of chemistry (put enough molecules in close proximity and you want always get the molecules you want to bond to bond properly) and occurs in every generation. You have dozens of mutations in your genome right now:
As for asking “why” the fittest survive, you again betray your ignorance of evolutionary theory. Natural selection is not a natural law, it is a consequence of natural laws. Everything on the planet - from animals, to molucules, to mountains, to clouds - only exists because it is fit to exist. On the smallest level, take the atom. The biggest atoms we have been able to synthetically create only exist for a few thousands of a second before disintegrating - why? Because their structure is not “fit” for prolonged existence: the laws of the universe do not permit it. That’s why Californium does not exist in nature, that’s why there are no mountains taller than Everest and that’s why dinosaurs don’t exist anymore. It really is a very simple concept, so I’m not sure where your confusion comes from here?
In any case, I’m going to go the same path as aporia and recommend a book for you to read: “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins. If this doesn’t set you straight, then try “The Blind Watchmaker” by the same author. If you are genuinely interested in learning about evolutionary theory, then I’m afraid it is going to take some effort on your part - there’s only so much myself and others will be willing or able to teach you. If you’re happy living in willful ignorance then feel free to suggest (again) that you don’t need to read books or believe in what “someone else wrote” (people who have studied and “observed” the subject matter for decades, mind). If that’s the case, though, then stop pretending you are any sort of authority on the subject. Like most people who question the theory of evolution, your ignorance of even its fundmental tennets is blindingly obvious.
Is this observation based on your assumptions or actual personal confirmed facts? It comes across to me as being so vague that it would seem you don’t even know what you’re talking about. Can you give an example, if indeed you are basing the observation on confirmed facts? I’m not trying to be difficult, I would just appreciate some clarification of your argument.
Pardon, but did you just insult the integrity of ILP.com? Regardless, such an emoticon would be an interesting sight… I almost want to agree with Phaedrus…
Hmmm… I would appreciate some more clarification on this as well… Afterall, there is a difference between what Christianity tries to be (or what was meant to be), and what Christianity is today.
Wow… Is this the source of the animosity of your post? I have a couple comments about it, even though I’m not an atheist… First, atheism is not a cult. If you knew what a cult was, you surely would not have applied the label here. There are very specific attributes to what determines the difference between a cult and a religion. Atheism is neither. Second, the part about rebelling against parents is a bit much to accept. Do you have any corroborating evidence to support that “observation” or is that again based on your assumptions? I ask this because my personal experiences regarding my own beliefs and those of my parents are far from being sourced by a internal desire to rebel based on hate for them. When I became agnostic, I did so on personal terms, going through a very hard-hitting nihilism of sorts and then making several breakthroughs. In the course of my transformation from accepting the validity of religious belief to not accepting it, at no time were the opinions of my parents on aspects of belief a factor in my decision-making. I would not be surprised if this is the case for a great deal of agnostics and atheists all over the world. Furthermore, from what I understand, atheism does not claim to “know it all” like a religious person does. Atheists understand that their knowledge of the universe is capped by the boundaries of science. They accept their level of ignorance, the religious person does not. The religious person will forego the boundaries of science and put a label on that which they do not yet understand (as knowledge of it has yet to be discovered). So I would appreciate it if you would kindly explain your position with a bit more clarity, and do your research.
These are some fantastic questions that I would love to hear answered by a theologian.
That has yet to be determined… is it your observation that you are a “f-n nut bag”?
Are you basically asking, “what evidence is there to suggest the non-existence of an intelligent designer of the universe”? Well… I can’t give you an answer regarding the existence of a designer… but I can confirm that if there is one, it is stupid… real stupid. Want to know more?
Good question. I don’t have the answer for that because I simply do not have the required knowledge.
It wouldn’t surprise me… If Helen Keller can get on her feet, why not?
Another good question for a theologian. Why did biblical writers make him out as so? Why not a she? Why not simply a divine entity with no anthropological attributes at all? All good questions.
Ucc here gives a wonderful example of an unprovoked attack on atheism. A faith-based ignorance, if you will… Rather than accepting the factual validity of science, which atheists rely on and base their understanding of the universe on, Ucc here insists that the Christian perspective is superior. By using cheap shots like “don’t stoop down to ‘their level’”, Ucc manages to place his opinion and perception of reality at a higher ground than the already established reality that atheism is based on. But why make such a brash and silly attack? Well, I don’t presume to understand the motivations of Ucc, but it is certain that Ucc appears to be the kind of Christian that cherry picks through his bible rather than evaluating the whole book. Sure, he and other “Christian authors” can claim that the conclusions about the personality of the Hebrew God are whacked, but is he or they the people who put the book together… wrote it, even?
When I look at Christianity, I find that the bad outweighs the good. Why is that? If it’s supposed to be so great, how come such horror and repugnance has come from it? My view is not based on singling out a person or group, although I may occasionally question why that person or group came to the reasoning that it did.
That eternal question for a theologian… How did a religion of love and peace become the foundation of torture and murder during the Inquisition? The possible answer you may find is that the Inquisition was not a distortion of Christianity, but a literal expression of it.
Sage – Ucci’s point was relatively fair and egalitarian. I think you may have misread it, since it clearly cuts both ways and furthermore is an appeal to real discussion as opposed to flinging insults and dogma at each other (which is usually how an atheist/theist, heterodox/orthodox, ect. style discussion goes)
Oh no, I didn’t misread it. I can appreciate the fact that Ucc has it right when he explains that a complete atheist is not going to be able to comprehend the kind of understanding that a complete theologian has of many long years invested in the study of a religion. I don’t dispute that. I agree with it (which perhaps would have made my initial comments more well received if I said that first). However, what I don’t agree with was Ucc’s blatant disregard for the fact that scientific or philosophical knowledge and theological knowledge are two different kinds of schools of thought and since neither can adequately be measured in each other’s spectrum of perception; neither then are superior or inferior to each other when standing side to side. They are simply as they are. This is the point I was trying to make.
Ucc seems to believe that theological knowledge is by default superior to scientific knowledge at all times when in fact the only time that such knowledge is superior is when science reaches its boundaries in explaining how the universe works; only then does the hypothetical data of theology take over. This goes for scientific knowledge as well… it is superior when theological knowledge meddles with science, trying to act like it.
I hope that clarifies some things. Of course, if science and religion truly are incompatible… where does that leave us?
A refined view of the Old Testament eh…? Sounds like you mean to put it through a seive and remove all the rough husks 'till it comes out like pure white flour. Sort of like David Irving taking a refined view of the holocaust.
And this is supposed to be the superior christian perspective is it?
Damn, that wasn’t very smart, you stepped into your own trap and showed that you didn’t comprehend my meaning of template before you put your foot in your mouth,
What governs the Laws of chemistry? What governs any Law? Can chaos or accident govern anything consistently? No, its you that haven’t thought too deeply about the problems with ultimate origins concerning evolution.
Look up the word “Law†and see if it can work without intelligence. Maybe you shouldn’t just believe every thing you read without thinking it through. Do you think books are the source of knowledge?