Why We Believe in Gods

[_Some Schmo]

Without disagreement, religion has also been a power over others to manipulate and control. The appeal to fear is also “pervasive.” However, it’s a disconnect with reason in this sense. Since fear is an emotion, it can be played upon from a wide variety of angles (not religious exclusively). When people are often persuaded by fear, they are intimidated to act or believe irrationally. Adults frequently use fear as a motivator on their children. If it’s a bluff, children learn quickly and the parent looses respect. However, when fear threatens with death or God will punish you, it’s often difficult for people (or young people) to keep their rational faculties fully engaged. They tend to scum. They are afraid not to accept (believe) the threat (the religious dogma).

That’s more likely when such fears are reinforced on a regular basis. Being threatened by God is all the more fearful in that it’s an unseen, undocumented threat. Who is God? Well, God is real and HE will kill you if you don’t do as I say! That kind of rhetoric is threatening and fearful.

This is an excellent point. I sometimes forget the attractiveness of Pascal's Wager. God belief can be regarded as a sort of eternal insurance policy which can only be sold to those who are susceptible to the kind of guilt perpetuated by people with some kind of power agenda.

But it's cheap insurance, and it lacks integrity. Which is more moral? Being moral because you fear eternal consequences, or being moral because you think it's responsible to be moral/being moral for morality's sake?

And I've often wondered what kind of petty parent wants you to believe in him so much that he doesn't care if you're doing it because you really believe or doing it just for blind obedience. If there is that kind of god, he doesn't seem all that loving, just narcissistic.

Your point about fear (not to mention heredity) is well taken. Good stuff, Jak.

[_Kevin Graham]

I guess thie means JAK has no intention of supporting his "truths by assertions"?

By his own logic he must be a religious nut.

[_JohnStuartMill]

You have repeatedly argued that evolution -- not abiogenesis -- couldn't produce this or that characteristic.

More hyperbole? I'm fairly certain that every time I mentioned this, I merely questioned it, I didn't declare definitively that it couldn't b; only that science hasn't shown it to be so. I do question, not evolution, but the idea that unguided natural selection must explain the kind of diversity we see today.

Like I said, you disbelieve in evolution by natural selection.

And I'm not alone either. Remember that "Dissent from Darwinism" petition, that had 1600 signatures as of last August? Well, say what you want about these scientists, but the fact alone flies in the face of your initial claim that this "is about as well-grounded as science gets."

1600 scientists out of how many, Kevin?

You don't see hundreds of scientists skeptical of too many "well-grounded" theories of science. Well accepted and well grounded are two different things. I understand Natural Selection, and the orthodox position is that random mutations and NS are unguided purposeless mechanisms of evolution. That's where I have concerns. Why didn't random mutations produce eyes on the back of our heads? Don't they know what random means?

Eyes are too complex to have evolved with one mutation. I can't tell if you're intentionally setting up a strawman or if you're just ignorant of the biology's position on eye evolution.

The general idea is that mutations occur randomly and then ecological pressures via natural selection shapes the overall form of the species. I get that. But this is only sufficient when explaining why there exists green beetles as opposed to red beetles. Green beetles survived because they were camoflauged from birds. OK. So what about the rest of species? The same principle must apply.

Huh?

So likewise, the eyes on the back of our heads would only disappear if their presence threatened the survival of the species. So if mutations were truly random, we have to assume previous forms existed. So is there any fossil evidence to support it? Apparently not. So why is it accepted as scientific fact? Because its just too damn convenient for the already well-accepted model.

What are you even talking about? Seriously.

You've already admitted that evolutionary psychology isn't science, but it is really no diferent than guessing about the necessary conditions in ancient environments that would make the whole unguided NS model work.

Not really. We have a lot more information about the ancient ecosystems in general than we do about the social environment of our primitive ancestors.

The common denominator is that in both instances, naturalism is the assumed premise and thus the evidence is fabricated from thin air to make the predetermined conclusion make sense. All you're worried about is whether it makes a naturalistic "explanation" sound plausible. Since when in the hell did that constitute good science? So, the main difference has nothing to do with what's scientific and what's not, but rather what fits the expected model of naturalistic assumptions.

Naturalism doesn't really mean anything except "stuff we've seen before". It's not so insidious, really. If prayer actually made a predictable difference in well-designed experiments, then the effects of prayer would fall under naturalism as well.

I about fell out of my chair because now my tax dollars are involved in this propagation of pseudoscience.

Wait, you support teaching Intelligent Design in schools, don't you?

I happen to remember your insistence that fly wings did not evolve through natural selection.

I happen to remember nobody answering my question on that matter too. Their main response was to attack me for being too much like creationists. Gee, and you're actually trying to argue you guys aren't acting like a religion? Its always "us vs. them" isn't it?

Nice dodge. Just admit that you're an evolution-denying troglodyte, please, and spare us both the trouble.

It's a just-so story that is perfectly logical given what we already know about the natural world.

But that isn't enough to call it science, so why is it being presented as such? You think it is enough because it conforms to your perspective of reality, but ID conforms just as well to the perspectives of others. Neither constitute true science.

This is not what I said at all, and you know it.

Imagine that you come home to find that your favorite leather shoes have been mangled. You then remember that you mistakenly left the dog inside the house while you were gone. Would you develop a belief that the dog chewed up your shoes, or would that only be a silly "just-so" story? The fact is, it would be a just-so story, but it would also be pretty absurd to not believe it, given what you know about dogs.

Bad analogy because we can know via scientific methods what happened to the shoe.

Fine. Imagine that this was before DNA testing and crap. Would the Kevin Graham of 1750 decline to pass judgment on whether his dog mangled his shoes?

If science could substantiate the assumptions of evolutionary psychology, then it would do so. What you choose to believe about evolutionary psychology, the extent of NS caused diversity, etc, is not based on science or an analogy about a dog and a shoe. It is based on what you choose to believe based on your asumptions about reality. Again, these are religious conclusions dressed up in science.

You're right, I make the preposterous assumption that magic is not operating when nobody's looking.

Kevin, how many school boards are advocating giving equal time to the "theory" that space aliens planted cells on earth? Answer that question, and you'll answer your own.

You're shifting again. You initially said I castigated Dawkins for failing to criticize panspermia.

Uhh, no. I said you castigated Dawkins for not being skeptical of panspermia.

This is the basis of your entire rant about how I misrepresented him. But I pointed out that you have not shown that he has criticized panspermia. Instead of admitting your failure to do this, now you're diverting onto whatever the school boards want to reject. WTF?

My God you are stupid. The point is that Dawkins has been actively railing against ID and not panspermia because there is no threat that panspermia will be used by school boards who want to subvert science teaching with religion class.

The fact is Dawkins considers panspermia a legitimate scientific pursuit. He said very plainly that there might be some kind of "signature of a designer." If he is willing to accept that said evidence COULD be found within biological studies, then it is silly to suggest he doesn't consider it a legitimate scientific pursuit.

No. The realm of legitimate scientific pursuit is much smaller than the domain of what is logically possible. If you believe that Dawkins considers looking for evidence of designer as a legitimate scientific endeavor, then you believe that Dawkins would believe that Intelligent Design "research" is a legitimate scientific endeavor, and you'd be wrong.

Why do you use quotes when Dawkins never said this, Kevin? The fact is that Dawkins has never said this, because he doesn't believe it. He believes that even differences in relatively unimportant things like language can start wars:

So much for "I'm not going to trudge through the mental swamp of your prior posts." I barely remember saying this, but I do remember it was the day after having watched a the video he was in, called "Religion the Root of all Evil." He also goes on record saying,

"Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Kashmir dispute, no Indo/Pakistan partition, no Israel/Palestine wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no Northern Ireland 'troubles'. Imagine no Taliban blowing up ancient statues, lashing women for showing an inch of skin, or publicly beheading blasphemers and apostates. Imagine no persecutions of the Jews - no Jews to persecute indeed, for without religion they would long ago have intermarried with the surrounding populations."

What is he expecting us to imagine without religion if not a world without war? Are we really supposed to believe he was arguing that without religion, we'd have a world with secular wars and non-religious atrocities? Of course not. He wants us to imagine, or as he is doing, fantasizing a world in peace. Though he doesn't say this explicitly, he clearly implies it. He does at the very least state that the world would be free of a "major force for evil in the world."

Your poor reading comprehension does not make Richard Dawkins wrong.

If I had said this about atheism you'd be all up in arms accusing me of hate speech and bigotry. But we're not dealing with single standards are we?

No, I'd accuse you of stupidity.

Yours is a blatant misrepresentation, but I'm not going to be surprised when you fail to acknowledge it as such. Incidentally, we've been over this before, and you papered over that like it never happened, too.

Irony anyone? Talk about misrepresentation. Why would you say this and then provide the link that refutes your accusation? I acknolwedged what you said and responded, "And about Dawkins on language, I'll look up the reference later, but suffice it to say Dawkins frequently corrects himself in subsequent publications." I never did find the reference and it is possible that I confused him with Harris or Hitchens, but I have never argued the point since. This flies in the face of your claim that I "papered over it like it never happened." If I continued to argue the point, then you might have a case.

Generally, when someone points out that another person is clearly wrong about something, the person acknowledges and apologizes for his error. I guess this rule doesn't apply to Kevin Graham.

Dawkins has nowhere argued for this position.

And nowhere did I say he did. You can't be serious. I said, and I quote, "Dawkins apparently has done a great job in deluding so many people into thinking no real scientists believes in God, and therefore no intelligent people do either."

You're into mind-reading territory here, Kev.

Dawkins has gone on record attacking Gould for his argument that there is no conflict between science and religion, he has stated emphatically that ID proponents are "not genuine scientists," he has bent over backwards, even to the point of flat out lying, trying to prove Einsten was an atheist. He has alluded to the NAS survey where 90% of the "elite" scientists were atheists. And the result of all this? It is exactly as I said it was. He did a great job deluding people into thinking atheists are smarter than theists.

You're all over the place. "No real scientists believe in God" is an entirely different proposition from "atheists are smarter than theists". You need to keep your strawmen straight, idiot.

They were Christian governments, Kevin. Remember all that stuff about "the divine right of kings"?

And you think this somehow justifies your uneducated claim that "Christianity" had an army? If that was so, then shouldn't they have been serving the Pope and defending Rome?

I did not claim that "Christianity had an army". I claimed that armies were assembled to fight for Christianity, which is true. God, you're dumb.

You're dodging the question. Whether or not a war is practical is immaterial to whether it would be just.

Why would it be considered just?

For whatever insane reasons you have for believing that the Crusades were justified. Oh, they occupied the land 300 years ago, or some stupid crap.

Okay, you can start by "dismantling" the academic sources listed in this Wikipedia article. Have fun.

Well, is there something in that article that makes you think Christianity didn't give us modern science?

No, but there's nothing in that article that makes me think that Christianity didn't NOT give us modern science, so by your drooling evidentiary standards, Christianity must not have given us modern science.

Um, you don't get to simply assert this. You have to give evidence for it.

Unless of course I were to say, "Jews were forced to convert to Christianity." We could simply assert that, right?

What planet are you living on? All you had to do in the Inquisition to force a Jew to convert to Christianity was to splash some water on one.

So the Muslims were not the barbarians that you painted them as being.

This discussion has nothing to do with barbarian Muslims. It has to do with Christian basis for modern science. Stay focused. You're all over the place.

*PROJECTION ALERT*

The Muslims translated and were influenced by Aristotle, too

Of course they were. But that wasn't your point.

Oh, really? Why don't you tell me what my point actually was?

Nor is there anything in Islam.

Yes there was, I just told you. There is a reason why you see no anthropomorphic icons or art in the Muslim world. It was strictly prohibited then as it is now. Any depiction of man, even that of Muhammed, is considered a sin of idolatry. This is such common knowledge I find it amazing that you could sit there with a straight face and question whether Muslim text books were forbidden to depict the human anatomy.

There were Christians who took this view of iconography as well.

Otherwise, why would there by so many Muslim doctors?

This is a non sequitur.

No, it's not. Along with its implicit premises, it constitutes a valid deductive argument.

I never said there were no Muslim doctors. There were doctors before there were books. There is no reason to insist doctors could only exist if they had books with diagrams of the human anatomy.

There are Muslims in medical schools today, Kevin. Medical schools that use diagrams of human anatomy.

Da Vinci had to dissect cadavers surreptitiously, Kevin. He was able to do it in spite of Christian objections.

But he was able to do it. He wasn't killed for it. He wasn't even arrested for it. Sure, Christians thought he was being disrespectful of the dead, but he was still successful in doing what he needed to do, despite having pissed off some Christians (probably relatives of the deceased).

No, dissection was prohibited by the Church at the time. That's why the drawings produced from da Vinci's dissections weren't published until after his death.

On the other hand, Medical Science in Islam existed in a straight-jacket. It doesn't mean there wasn't progress. It just means progress was much slower because of the theological stipulations the Muslims doctors had to abide by.

And analogous restrictions were made by Christian clergy on European physicians.

God, you are dumb. That some of the ancient Greeks believed in natural rights does not imply that those natural rights would be the ones we recognize today, so pointing out that we have a different standard than the ancient Greeks does not constitute evidence against the idea that some of them believed in natural rights.

So they believed in natural rights. Is that really more significant than the fact that these rights were far different than those in we consider worth having? If the cavemen assumed everyone had the natural right to be raped, does that mean we have nothing to be thankful for with Christianity since technically, natural rights pre-existed it? Good grief.

You're missing the point, like always.

Where does the Bible prohibit rape, anyway?

Call for references.

You can't be serious. Islamic law continues to uphold the doctrine that atheists are worthy of death, as are apostates from the faith.

What are you even responding to?

Why what did he say? I'm not going to roll over at every appeal to authority you make, Kevin.

Then do your own homework for Gods sake. I told you a week ago I wouldn't be back in Brazil until July but you keep trying to drag me into discussions that require me to reference books I own, but have no access to. You're fond of wiki, so go hit up Christianity and then Christendom. Tell me if you can make out any differences between the two.

I get it, Kevin. Everything good in Europe came about Europe was Christian, everything bad came about because Europe wasn't really Christian.

So how do you explain the fact that only Jews and Christians were required to be "tolerated" under Islamic law. Atheists, pagans and polytheists were to be killed unless they converted to Islam. This was the norm. How do you explain the fact that Jews and Christians were not permitted to express any religious symbols in public, nor were they allowed to recognize or celebrate religious holidays. Their "rights" amounted to the right to be constantly humiliated in public so they would know they had been subdued by the true religion. The idea was that through time, people would convert to relieve themselves of this sociological and economical burden that was placed upon them. In what sense does this jive with classical liberalism?

I made a comparative statement, not an absolute one.

Grizzly Adams did have a beard, Kevin.

I guess this is your way of backing away from your ludicrous statement, "Christians in Spain forced Jews to convert to their religion." The inquisition only pertained to people who were already Christian.

And if you define Christian to include "Jews who were baptized against their will", then what do you have, Kevin? “F”'s sake.

This is so hysterically hypocritical that I'm not even going to bother. Literally everything that you accuse the Caliphate of doing has been done by Christians at one time or another, whether by the Church in the Old World or the conquistadores in the New.

This is a mere assertion that is not backed up with requisite evidence. Many false statements are made in this manner. I see this as no accident.

Go to an actual university if you want a thorough history lesson.

You're completely ignoring my quote, so I'll complete ignore your completely ignorant response to it.

You say the Muslims generally left minorities alone. As if minorities included just "any" minorities. Again, only Jews and Christians were required to receive the options of converstion, dhimmitude or death. Only ignorance could drive these kinds of statements anyway, because they depend on an absence of testimony from those who were oppressed. Why ignore what the oppressed had to say about the matter? The famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides said of the Islamic persecution of the Jews:

“You know, my brethren, that on account of our sins God has cast us into the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who persecute us severely, and who devise ways to harm us and to debase us.…No nation has ever done more harm to Israel. None has matched it in debasing and humiliating us. None has been able to reduce us as they have.…We have borne their imposed degradation, their lies, and absurdities, which are beyond human power to bear.”

So, you're going to balance that quote against what the Jews said about the Christians of the time, right? Cool, thanks.

Then your initial assertion that "The only reason his preservation was considered to be at risk in the first place is because the Arabs ransacked Alexandria" was incorrect, by your own admission. Hoisted, petard... you can fill in the blanks.

Yes, you're right of course. How dumb of me. I should have said they were at risk from fire and the Muslims. Gosh you're so smart.

Just admit that you were wrong, Kevin. Just this once. Do it for your buddy Jesus.

During Islam's Golden Age? Call for reference.

I already told you. The Pope declared that the Jews were to be left alone in ways the Muslims couldn't accept.

CFR.

They were allowed to practice their religion in public, which was a huge contrast with how they were restricted in Islamic societies.

CFR.

In fact, only in Rome were the Jews able to survive through the centuries as a protected minority.

CFR.

Why? Because the hand of the Church could reach anyone who would dare persecute them. Persecution of Jews was not tolerated by the Church

ROFL

Throughout the rest of Europe, the papal hand was limited in its reach, and the Kings trumped the Pope in authority every time. For instance, when the King of Spain was abusing the inquisition for his own purposes, the Pope told him to cut it out. The King said screw you Pope.

That the Pope participated in power struggles does not show that persecution of Jews was not permitted by the Church.

Further, the Popes declared that Christians could not testify against Jews in court because of the obvious bias. By contrast, and this remains true today in Islamic law, Jews were not allowed to testify against Muslims!

Err, if the rationale for the first prohibition was good, then presumably the second prohibition would be good, too.

Yes, Christianity existed as a very small Jewish cult until Constantine spread it around.

No, Constantine didn't "spread it around" at all.

Oh, Constantine didn't contribute to the spread of Christianity?

If he hadn't, Christianity would probably be as widespread as the Druze are today.

Christianity was already widespread.

As are the Druze today. But they're not very numerous.

Brazenly false. You ignore here the modern history of an entire hemisphere.

Actually I don't. You're out of your depth dude.

Oh, so the Christian Europeans never appropriated the Americas for their own civilization? I guess that explains why we're speaking Navajo right now.

[_EAllusion]

Unless things have changed drastically recently, The Dissent from Darwinism list the Discovery Institute puts out is not 1600 people. It's around 700 or so. It's not made up solely of scientists. But most are. Of the actual scientists on the list, only a tiny, tiny fraction actually have expertise in a field relevant to evolutionary biology.

Beyond that basic error in facts, there are several problems with what is being suggested.

First, the actual question is not something that would be generally disputed by informed people.

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

I'd agree with that.

There are more evolutionary processes than natural selection and mutation (such as genetic drift, sexual selection, and bottlenecking) that go into producing biodiversity via evolution. So agreeing with it isn't disagreeing with modern evolutionary biology or the more vague "neo/darwinism" that oft stands in for the content of modern evolutionary biology in antievolution circles. There are legitimate disputes within evolutionary biology over the extent to which natural selection is important for shaping the features of organisms, and it can be confusing to those who might want to say they aren't as selectionist as others are. And, of course, it's always good to encourage careful examination of evidence in any endeavor. There's no need to single out this one specific thing. Charles Darwin would sign onto the literal interpretation of the petition. That said, it's clear that the petition is meant to be evolutionary theory skeptics list and clearly has been treated as such by a majority of signatories.

Second, any suggestion that this makes up a statistically meaningful fraction of the relevant academic community would be wrong. In total numbers, this is an absolutely tiny amount of people, and if they represent the "dissent" out there, then it is minuscule. They weren't culled from a random sample, but rather from years of mining for them. The famous "Project Steve" counter-petition is meant to parody this and currently is rocking over a 1000 scientists in a field related to evolutionary biology just named Steve. That happens because the support is overwhelming. The basics of contemporary evolutionary theory is so well-supported and so essential to underlying biological theory that's it's bizarre to think of the field functioning outside of its light. Those that dissent, for whatever reason, aren't large in numbers and have little to no impact on the field.

Kevin made the argument that when there are hundreds of scientific dissenters from an idea, then we can't consider it to be extremely well-grounded. I think this severely misunderstands just how much dissent there is from any idea, no matter how ridiculously well-established. It is normal for scientific ideas to have a few scientist dissenters here and there. Germ theory of disease has the same problem, though those scientific dissenters tend to come from the new agey left. This is especially true when the idea is perceived as threatening to religious notions people have, as evolutionary theory is the single most famous example of. Evolutionary theory is well-grounded both in the sense of enjoying near total support in biology and in the sense of being well supported through a variety of strong evidence lines.

Does Kevin consider the idea that HIV causes AIDS well established? Would the existence of this counter-petition change his mind?

http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/group.htm

Oh, Kary Mullis, you loveable nutball.

[_EAllusion]

YThat's where I have concerns. Why didn't random mutations produce eyes on the back of our heads? Don't they know what random means?

I think your understanding of mutation is naïve. The evolution of eyes is a multi-step process. In some species, it is on the back of their heads, so to speak. Look around you. It depends on what makes sense for orienting a body-plan to light sources and what evolvable paths are logical given what has evolved before it. It's not as though one day *poof* eyes have evolved and they are just as randomly likely to appear on any spot on the body with each position being just as efficient in the struggle of life as the next. There's a whole bauplan that has evolved currently over time as eyes evolved that impact where they are going to be placed in each related species. I mean, what the hell?

Incidentally, look up the gene Pax6 and ectopic eyes. Science! It gives you the willies sometimes.

[_Kevin Graham]

Like I said, you disbelieve in evolution by natural selection.

Which is false since that isn't what I said. I don't think you fully understand what Natural Selection is. It essentially says that features will be weeded out in future generations of a given species, if they prove to be detrimental for their survival. What's to disagree with here? It is common sense. If all green beetles are eaten before they can reproduce, then future beetles wouldn't be green. Duh! I believe natural selection has orchestrated some diversity, I just don't believe it can adequately explain all diversity.

1600 scientists out of how many, Kevin?

Doesn't matter since my point, which you continue to miss, has nothing to do with comparing the two sides. It has to do with your initial statement to the effect that Evolution via ntural selection is as well grounded as a scientific principle can be. I'm just saying that clearly this isn't true, unless of course you can show us how an similar crowd of scientists disagree with, oh let's say gravity.

Eyes are too complex to have evolved with one mutation. I can't tell if you're intentionally setting up a strawman or if you're just ignorant of the biology's position on eye evolution

I'm not questioning the evolution of the eye. I'm asking you to explan why eyes evolved where they are and not elsewhere. According to the principles of random mutation and natural selection, we would expect that eyes had originally appeared "randomly" on the body and only through natural selection could we expect to find eyes located in other areas. But only if their positioning proved to be detrimental to their survival. Or forget eyes, and let's go back to the appearance of limbs. Why only two legs and two arns, distributed evenly? True random mutation would require that they first grown randomly on the body and that later on natural selection would determine the future state of the species. So how would having an arm on our backside prove detrimental to our survival? That is the only explanation evolution theory can provide as to why we no longer have arms on our backs.

Huh? What are you even talking about? Seriously.

Natural Selection! Again, the reason grass snakes are green has nothing to do with a designer trying to make them camoflauged. Right? It has to do with the notion that these snakes didn't evolve green by luck or by design. Evolution can't have a purpose. So instead, they randomly mutated to be various colors, and only the green ones survived because any other color would prove detrimental to their survival since they would stick out and predators would eat them all. That's how natural selection works. But it only works in some imagined cases, like green beetles and green snakes and cannot explain all diversity, such as the chameleon.

Naturalism doesn't really mean anything except "stuff we've seen before". It's not so insidious, really.

It is when you consider that "seeing stuff" is based strictly on one of the known senses. And evolution hasn't even been observed really, it has been assumed. I agree with it, and it is a brilliant theory with tremendous explanatory power, but let's not pretend we've actually seen it in action.

Wait, you support teaching Intelligent Design in schools, don't you?

Wait, no I don't. And guess what, neither do most creationists. They mostly argue that it should be mentioned as an alternative theory, not that the teachers should actually "teach" it as if it were scientifically proved.

Uhh, no. I said you castigated Dawkins for not being skeptical of panspermia.

Which misrepresents what I actually said. I used the word "attack" while you choose the word "skeptical" and then pretend it is a distinction without a difference. According to EA, being skeptical is far from attacking, and I would agree. So yes, you have misrepresented what I actually said with respect to Dawkins.

My God you are stupid. The point is that Dawkins has been actively railing against ID and not panspermia because there is no threat that panspermia will be used by school boards who want to subvert science teaching with religion class.

The point? No, you were responding to my statement so I will tell you what my point was. My point was exactly what I said it was: Dawkins does not attack panspermia the way he attacks ID. He concedes that bology might actually show the signature of a designer, but only in the context of pnspermia, not ID. Calling me stupid won't change the fact that you're still trying to salvage this crazy straw man. Can you or can you not show us where Dawkins has "attacked" panspermia as pseudoscience? No, didn't think so.

No. The realm of legitimate scientific pursuit is much smaller than the domain of what is logically possible.

Dawkins has said he is open to the idea that religion is a natural result of evolution, but it would be nothing more than relying on what's logically possible. In fact that is what evolutionary psychology is based upon, as well as Darwinian Fundamentalism.

Your poor reading comprehension does not make Richard Dawkins wrong.

And yet you cannot show where I have misread him. You just offer your own psychoanalysis and insist we should trust it. The fact is Riahcrd Dawkins has implied on numerous occasions that people who believe in God are not real scientists. He has even accused some scientists of lying about being theists, as if it were some kind of benefit to them if they were. He has himself lied about Einstein being an atheist. He asks us to imagine a world with none of the religious violence listed in his rant, and you're telling us he just wanted us to imagine a world of wars, just not the religious kind?

Generally, when someone points out that another person is clearly wrong about something, the person acknowledges and apologizes for his error. I guess this rule doesn't apply to Kevin Graham.

Is this what you have been reduced to? Snagging some minor point I made a while back, which I admitted could very well be wrong, and make a stink of the fact that I haven't made a public apology to Richard Dawkins? Good grief.

You're all over the place. "No real scientists believe in God" is an entirely different proposition from "atheists are smarter than theists". You need to keep your strawmen straight, idiot.

And they both hold true to Dawkins' intention. I don't think you know what a straw man really is.

For whatever insane reasons you have for believing that the Crusades were justified. Oh, they occupied the land 300 years ago, or some stupid s***..

The Crusades were justified because they essentially saved Christianity from destruction. Muslim raids had burned down one city after another with no unified effort to retaliate. Without the Crusades, we'd probably all be Muslims.

What planet are you living on? All you had to do in the Inquisition to force a Jew to convert to Christianity was to splash some water on one.

But the Church didn't do any of that during the inquisitions. The only time Jews were compelled to convert was during a brief stint in 722 when a Byzantine King was being an idiot. There may have been another exaple or two, but the Church has overwhelmingly rejected the idea of forced conversions.

Oh, really? Why don't you tell me what my point actually was?

I guess your point was that you knew how to mimick the usual stock responses as found in PC textbooks and taught by idiot UCLA professors like Khalid El Fadl. I say this because it certainly didn't address my point about the Christian influence on modern science. If I had a nickel every time someone told me how the Muslims salvaged Aristotle for us, I'd be a millionare. That you immediately said it, as if you had some kind of point, was pretty funny if not predictable.

There were Christians who took this view of iconography as well.

Sigh... get it in your head already. Medieval medical books published by Muslims did not contain any depictions of the human body. Those printed by Christians did.

There are Muslims in medical schools today, Kevin. Medical schools that use diagrams of human anatomy.

Again, a non sequitur. Sure, modern Muslims are educated in medical science, but today there is no such a thing as an Islamic state, let alone one responsible for producing medical books. You're hopping all over the historical landscape to avoif a valid point. We were talking about medieval Islam and its contributions to medical science. I made the point that Islam prohibited any diagrams of the human body, therefore medical science was hindered because of the religion.

No, dissection was prohibited by the Church at the time. That's why the drawings produced from da Vinci's dissections weren't published until after his death.

And yet nobody managed to imprison him despite his numerous dissections. That kinda throws cold water on your argument.

What are you even responding to?

Your "Call for references" that Islam puts atheists to death and always had. One would think that as an atheist, you'd be more sensitive to the mistreatment of this particular minority, but you're too busy trying to argue how Islam was akin to classical liberalism, and are now spreading this nonsense about how it tolerated all minorities. Again, the only minorities that could expect tolerance from Muslims were the Jews and Christians, and this is a very moot point.

I made a comparative statement, not an absolute one.

And I provided references that undermined it, while you're providing none.

And if you define Christian to include "Jews who were baptized against their will", then what do you have, Kevin? f***'s sake.

The Spanish Inquisition didn't force Jews to convert. You keep asserting this without backing it up. I don't know what kind of education you think you received on this subject, but you might want to think about getting your money back.

Go to an actual university if you want a thorough history lesson.

I've been to an actual University, but most of my education on this particular subject was from indepenent research. You probably read Karen Armstrong as your textbook. LOL.

CFR.

You're serious? I thought you said you received a University education on this subject? Oh wait, I guess that explains it.

The famous Jewish historian Cecil Roth once gve a speech in which he said:

"Only in Rome has the colony of Jews continued its existence since before the beginning of the Christian era, because of all the dynasties of Europe, the Papacy not only refused to persecute the Jews of Rome and Italy, but throughout the ages popes were protectors of the Jews.

"Some Jews have the feeling that the Papacy has a policy of persecuting Jews. But you must remember that English history is definitely anti-Catholic' and your views of Catholicism may have been colored by English history. We Jews who have suffered so much from prejudices, should rid our minds of prejudices and learn the facts. The truth is that the popes and the Catholic Church from the earliest days of the Church were never responsible for physical persecution of Jews and only Rome, among the capitals of the world, is free from having been a place of Jewish tragedy. For this we Jews must have gratitude" (Feb. 25th, 1927).

In 1272 Pope Gregory X made teh following declaration:

Even as it is not allowed to the Jews in their assemblies presumptuously to undertake for themselves more than that which is permitted them by law, even so they ought not to suffer any disadvantage in those [privileges] which have been granted them. [This sentence, first written by Gregory I in 598, embodies the attitude of the Church to the Jew.] Although they prefer to persist in their stubbornness rather than to recognize the words of their prophets and the mysteries of the Scriptures [which, according to the Church, foretold the coming of Jesus], and thus to arrive at a knowledge of Christian faith and salvation; nevertheless, inasmuch as they have made an appeal for our protection and help, we therefore admit their petition and offer them the shield of our protection through the clemency of Christian piety. In so doing we follow in the footsteps of our predecessors of blessed memory, the popes of Rome-Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, Innocent, and Honorius.

We decree moreover that no Christian shall compel them or any one of their group to come to baptism unwillingly. But if any one of them shall take refuge of his own accord with Christians, because of conviction, then, after his intention will have been manifest, he shall be made a Christian without any intrigue. For, indeed, that person who is known to have come to Christian baptism not freely, but unwillingly, is not believed to posses the Christian faith.

Moreover no Christian shall presume to seize, imprison, wound, torture, mutilate, kill or inflict violence on them; furthermore no one shall presume, except by judicial action of the authorities of the country, to change the good customs in the land where they live for the purpose of taking their money or goods from them or from others.

In addition, no one shall disturb them in any way during the celebration of their festivals, whether by day or by night, with clubs or stones or anything else. Also no one shall exact any compulsory service of them unless it be that which they have been accustomed to render in previous times.

Inasmuch as the Jews are not able to bear witness against the Christians, we decree furthermore that the testimony of Christians against Jews shall not be valid unless there is among these Christians some Jew who is there for the purpose of offering testimony.

In 1199 AD Pope Innocent III provided the Constitution for Jews:

Just as, therefore there ought not to be license for the Jews to presume to go beyond what is permitted them by law in their synagogues, so in those which have been conceded to them, they ought to suffer no prejudice. These men, therefore, since they wish rather to go on in their own hardness than to know the revelations of the prophets and the mysteries of the Law, and to come to a knowledge of the Christian faith, still, since they beseech the help of Our defense, We, out of the meekness proper to Christian piety, and keeping in the footprints of Our predecessors of happy memory, the Roman Pontiffs Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, and Celestine, admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection...Too, no Christian ought to presume, apart from the juridicial sentence of the territorial power, wickedly to injure their persons, or with violence to take away their property, or to change the good customs which they have had until now in whatever region they inhabit.

Besides, in the celebration of their own festivals, no one ought to disturb them in any way, with clubs or stones, nor ought any one try to require from them or to extort from them services they do not owe, except for those they have been accustomed from times past to perform.

In addition to these, We decree, blocking the wickedness and avarice of evil men, that no one ought to dare to mutilate or diminish a Jewish cemetery, nor, in order to get money, to exhume bodies once they have been buried.

If anyone, however shall attempt, the tenor of this decree once known, to go against it - may this be far from happening! - let him be punished by the vengeance of excommunication, unless he correct his presumption by making equivalent satisfaction.

Again, this was never granted to Jews under Islamic rule.

That the Pope participated in power struggles does not show that persecution of Jews was not permitted by the Church.

True, but their explicit statements declaring rights to Jews never to be had within Islamic societies, pretty much makes my case.

Err, if the rationale for the first prohibition was good, then presumably the second prohibition would be good, too.

But in Islam, Jews and Christians could not testify against Muslims. Hell, even Muslim women couldn't testify unless they had four other witnesses to support them. The same hold true today in Sharia law. The point is that Jews were granted rights never to be seen within Islamic societies.

Oh, Constantine didn't contribute to the spread of Christianity?

Christianity was already "around." He just made it the state religion.

As are the Druze today. But they're not very numerous.

Their numbers were significant enough to make the emperor declare it the state religion.

Oh, so the Christian Europeans never appropriated the Americas for their own civilization? I guess that explains why we're speaking Navajo right now.

"Christians" did all kinds of bad things, such as instituting slavery in the Americas. But the Christian Church fought tooth and nail against these things, every step of the way. Evil greedy bastards serving their respective Kings/Queens were the first people to land in the Americas, not missionaries and monks.




EA

Kevin made the argument that when there are hundreds of scientific dissenters from an idea, then we can't consider it to be extremely well-grounded.

I made no such argument. JSM's claim was that it was as well grounded as any other scientific principle. Well, gravity is pretty well grounded. Are there hundreds of physicists denying it exists? IF not, then there is no way to get around the fact that gravity is on firmer ground than the idea that NS explains all diverse lifeforms. This was my point, which seems to have gone over both of your heads.

I think your understanding of mutation is naïve. The evolution of eyes is a multi-step process.

When in the hell did I ever say otherwise?

In some species, it is on the back of their heads, so to speak. Look around you

But aren't mutations "random" in all species, or just some? Which is it? Yes I know spiders have dozens of eyes, but why don't we? Why only two? If they were truly random then we would expect them to have appeared randomly as they do in other species.

It's not as though one day *poof* eyes have evolved and they are just as randomly likely to appear on any spot on the body with each position being just as efficient in the struggle of life as the next. There's a whole bauplan that has evolved currently over time as eyes evolved that impact where they are going to be placed in each related species. I mean, what the hell?

What the hell exactly! Why the straw men? I never said or implied eyes came about in a "poof." I'm pointing out how random mutations should be random, or else we need to stop calling them that.

Species are shaped by "ecological pressures" right? This is the dogma, but nothing by way of scientific experiment has really substantiated it. Hell we cannot even substantiate speciation and yet it is at the heart of evolution!

We are assured by Dawkins that our genes communicate with the outside world through "complex" means, this is why some species adapt to their environments looking like leaves or blades of grass, right? Calling it complex isn't an explanation of how it is done. It appears to be an attempt to make a mystery sound scientific. Can't he give us a more scinetific explanation how our genes selfishly communicate with our outside environments and manipulate us into doing things necessary for our survival and their continued replication?

[_EAllusion]

Well, there's "gravity" in the sense that things fall down and there's gravity in the sense of the of gravitational theory meant to explain why things fall down. The latter is far more open to scientific dispute and uncertainty than evolutionary theory is.

And yeah, evolutionary theory is as well-grounded about as well as any scientific idea in the sense that the evidence for it is extremely strong and it is considered by the overwhelming majority of relevant scientists as a foundational idea to the functioning of its scientific field. If you wanted to quibble on semantics, JSM could modify his comment to something like this, "evolutionary theory is better grounded than germ theory of disease."

It essentially says that features will be weeded out in future generations of a given species, if they prove to be detrimental for their survival. What's to disagree with here?

That's not quite natural selection. It's more subtle than that. The extent that a given trait will influence the likelihood a organism will propagate through time will affect the prevalence of that trait in future generations is more accurate. It might seem obvious, but it didn't really take off until the mid 1800's.

I just don't believe it [natural selection] can adequately explain all diversity.

No one who has taken 7th grade biology should think that. There are more evolutionary processes than just that. Your problem runs a bit deeper than that. First, you seem to be much more skeptical of natural selection's capacity to shape traits than is warranted. See basically your entire posting history on the subject. That random eyeball comment was epic. Second, you seem to be using natural selection and mutation as a standin for all mindless processes which is really what you are skeptical of.

Based on what you are writing you clearly do disagree with evolution in the normative sense it is used in science. Evolution here used to refer to the basic idea that past and present biodiversity is the result of descent with modification overtime guided by natural processes of which natural selection is an important one.

Why only two legs and two arns, distributed evenly? True random mutation would require that they first grown randomly on the body and that later on natural selection would determine the future state of the species. So how would having an arm on our backside prove detrimental to our survival? That is the only explanation evolution theory can provide as to why we no longer have arms on our backs.

Jesus Kevin. The answer to your question here is that they are distributed evenly because of a broader developmental feature of "armed" species that results in bilaterally symmetrical body plans. So, to be crude, an instruction that says "build an arm" in that developmental context can affect each side of the body. Of course, this isn't true in species that have arms that haven't inherited bilateral bauplans like starfish. "True random mutation" doesn't require what you think it does and this stems from not really understanding the science you are critiquing at all.

[Guest]

What the hell exactly! Why the straw men? I never said or implied eyes came about in a "poof." I'm pointing out how random mutations should be random, or else we need to stop calling them that.

I think you don't really understand what "random mutation" entails. A mutation is just a chance change in traits of an organism. We're really interested in mutations to the genetic information as that's most of what's heritable. (The study of epigenetic heritability is relatively new). A variety of kinds of mutation can occur to our chromosomes. If you ever took biology, you might remember having to memorize the basic types of mutations (substitutions, transitions, frameshifts, duplications, translocations, etc).

It's worth noting that some kinds of mutations are more likely to occur than others. Even certain point mutations are just more likely to occur than others because of the underlying physical chemistry. Random doesn't mean "equiprobable" here. It just is a reflection of it happening by chance. And "chance" is just a reflection of uncertainty. Remember, this is all just biochemistry in the end.

A random mutation at this level doesn't translate to a random mutation in the sense of a complex trait showing up anywhere on a body equiprobably. That's really just an equivocation that rests on some real fundamental misunderstandings of biology. Your expectation is just weird.

The reason you see eyes appearing on heads (that is, with certain other head-like features) is primarily due to homology. If you designed an organism from scratch, you probably could get away with placing eyes in various areas far from the brain, mouth, and so forth, but the rudiments of eye formation in the body go way back and species that share common ancestry are going to inherit those basic instructions. Remember, form in evolution is just a some modified version of previous form. Asking why they aren't on ever the "back" of heads has an incorrect assumption. But when it comes to the species you are thinking of, the location of the eyes clearly is mediated by what makes the most sense in their ecological niche, which is why rodents have eyes more towards the sides of their head and ours look forward. You do see a rainbow of eye placements when it comes those subtle shifts. Hopefully it's obvious why some are more advantageous than others in different contexts.

The reason you aren't digging up fossils of hominids that are just as likely to be found with eye sockets on their knees and elbows is because eye development is much, much more ancient than that.

Again, "random mutation" doesn't mean equiprobable appearance of a trait anywhere. The reason it needs to be pointed out that eyes just didn't *poof* here and there is because that's what one would expect if one wondered why eyes weren't all over the place in the fossil record. They are to the extent they have independently evolved and as efficiency of placement in a body plan will allow.

Did you look up Pax6 and ectopic eyes? What did you learn?

Species are shaped by "ecological pressures" right? This is the dogma, but nothing by way of scientific experiment has really substantiated it. Hell we cannot even substantiate speciation and yet it is at the heart of evolution!

I'm not sure what you are claiming here. Speciation is well-established. So is the fact that species are shaped by ecological pressures. This would be the heart of modern evolutionary theory that was kicked off by Darwin and Wallace oh so long ago. And this is why one would say you are skeptical of modern evolutionary theory.

We are assured by Dawkins that our genes communicate with the outside world through "complex" means, this is why some species adapt to their environments looking like leaves or blades of grass, right? Calling it complex isn't an explanation of how it is done.

You really need to get off your Dawkins fixation. Dawkins here is just representative of biology departments of universities across the world. How genes interact with the environment to produce traits of course is complex and it is understood to greater and lesser extents depending on the traits you are talking about. If you are looking for those explanations, that's what having an education in the related sub disciplines of biology is all about. If you are wondering specifically about how natural selection mediates a stepwise transition of form A into form B (to the extent it does) that again is understood to greater and lesser extents depending on the traits we are talking about. Eye evolution specifically is fairly well understood at this point.

[_Kevin Graham]

And yeah, evolutionary theory is as well-grounded about as well as any scientific idea in the sense that the evidence for it is extremely strong and it is considered by the overwhelming majority of relevant scientists as a foundational idea to the functioning of its scientific field.

But evolution by natural selection was the original claim. Yes, selection exists, whether natural or artificial. Nobody has denied that. I just took exception with the notion that all diverse lifeforms can be explained accordingly. It isn't enough for me to be shown how a beetle is a certain color due to NS, and then to be expected to buy into the claim that this same process explains the diversity of features in millions of other lifeforms.

That's not quite natural selection. It's more subtle than that. The extent that a given trait will influence the likelihood a organism will propagate through time will affect the prevalence of that trait in future generations is more accurate. It might seem obvious, but it didn't really take off until the mid 1800's.

It is the same result, however you want to word it. But Natural selection adds nothing, it subtracts.

No one who has taken 7th grade biology should think that

Oh really? Then what's the point of the petition, which says essentially what I just said: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." Didn't these idiots pay attention in 7th grade biology?

There are more evolutionary processes than just that.

JSM only mentioned Natural Selection. I said Natural Selection alone can't explain everything. You're essentially agreeing with me here. Don't you get that yet? JSM doesn't seem to understand what natural selection really entails, if he thinks it could have played a role in abiogenesis.

Your problem runs a bit deeper than that. First, you seem to be much more skeptical of natural selection's capacity to shape traits than is warranted. See basically your entire posting history on the subject. That random eyeball comment was epic.

Well, you still haven't answered the concern. Do you have a response other than "you're just too stupid to understand it" or "you didn't pay attention in 7th grade biology"? Classic EA.

First you accuse me of denying an eyeball could evolve, then you accuse me of denying that it took place in more than one "instant poof." Jesus EA! When you brought up other species with multiple eyes on various parts of the body, you essentially reinforced my point. If mutations are truly random then we'd expect them to appear randomly on humans as they do in other lifeforms, so why don't they? That was my question. It doesn't have to be arms, it could be hair, teeth, etc.

Second, you seem to be using natural selection and mutation as a standin for all mindless processes which is really what you are skeptical of.

Well they have to be mindless, right?

Based on what you are writing you clearly do disagree with evolution in the normative sense it is used in science.

I'm skeptical of it as I am of most things. Didn't you just say you were also skeptical, or was that just a ploy to dismiss the significance of the petition?

I'm looking for the actual science behind it, but all I get are condescending put-downs and theoretical scenarios about how primitive environments must have had such and such effect on species over the course of millions of years. This s a classic example of inventng the evidence to fit a conclusion. Yes, I understand that it is impossible to go back in time and observe evolution in action, but that doesn't change the fact that it opens the door of reasonable doubt onto the theory.

I believe evolution is accepted because it is the best model for naturalistic explanations, but that really isn't saying much if we consider the classic examples of the scientific method. I will accept it until something better comes along, but I will remain skeptical of all the requisite details that cannot be established scientifically. Isn't that how science should be approached, or was questioning the longevity of it just too blasphemous for you?

Evolution here used to refer to the basic idea that past and present biodiversity is the result of descent with modification overtime guided by natural processes of which natural selection is an important one.

Well, duh. You're repeating Evolution 101 descriptions without actually showing the science behind it. I know what it says and what it tries to explain. I understand why green beetles survived and brown ones didn't. But the same model doesn't seem to work as well for more complex creatures such as chameleons. Or at least, you don't see step by step diagrams explaining the evolutionary processes by which genes communicate with the outside environment and then as if by magic, endowing the creature with the ability to completely alter its outside color for survival purposes. Or how the genes in primitive sea creatures communicated with the outside environment (water) and endowed these creatures with sonar capabilities. Would you like to take a stab at it?

The answer to your question here is that they are distributed evenly because of a broader developmental feature of "armed" species that results in bilaterally symmetrical body plans

Body plans? Where did these body plans come from? Genetic information doesn't pops out of nowhere, right? Natural selection actually reduces genetic information through time, so why do species get more and more complex through time?

So, to be crude, an instruction that says "build an arm" in that developmental context can affect each side of the body.

What wrote these instructions, and why?

Of course, this isn't true in species that have arms that haven't inherited bilateral bauplans like starfish. "True random mutation" doesn't require what you think it does and this stems from not really understanding the science you are critiquing at all

Then why don't you explain it in a scientific manner?

[_EAllusion]

Heh. Directed panspermia is an example intelligent design. You know when, um, intelligent design proponents go on about aliens possibly being the designer in question because all they are doing is detecting design? Yeah, directed panspermia would be an example of that. Saying Dawkins is Ok with DP but not ID, suggests that that by "ID" you really just mean "God." Which, of course, is what the vast majority of IDists do mean when they say "designer". It's a codeword; we get that. Still, DP technically is supposed to count. When pressed to come up with an example of ID that he thought was possibly detectable, he brought up panspermia. Of course, he's highly skeptical of that because he considers it a type of theory that he is highly skeptical of. Any suggestion that Dawkins isn't highly skeptical of directed panspermia as a viable explanation for anything fundamentally misunderstands him. The reason he doesn't spend his time attacking it is because virtually no one is advocating it and there isn't a massive social movement to insinuate it into our public institutions and culture.