ScienceWhopper:Natural History According to Jeffrey Holland

[_harmony]

keithb,

I agree with your comments so far, but would appreciate it if you could leave the FSM out of this. FSM is a deity that stands far above most and deserves our respect. Grouping His Noodleness with the likes of Unicorns and such shows a real lack of understanding on your part. The man-made religion that has grown up around this modern deity is as logical and internally consistent as it is possible for a religion to be.

Pastafarians everywhere might well take offense (however slight) at your apparent disrespect. However, since Pastafarians generally act more Christlike than most Christians, they would never attack or scorn you for your disbelief, so you might never know that you had offended them.

Just a small request on behalf of Pastafarians everywhere. (You might be surprised at how many who leave the Church spend some time as Pastafarians.)

Thanks for your consideration.

Please carry on.

RAmen.

Pass the parmesan.

[_DrW]

keithb,

I agree with your comments so far, but would appreciate it if you could leave the FSM out of this. FSM is a deity that stands far above most and deserves our respect. Grouping His Noodleness with the likes of Unicorns and such shows a real lack of understanding on your part. The man-made religion that has grown up around this modern deity is as logical and internally consistent as it is possible for a religion to be.

Pastafarians everywhere might well take offense (however slight) at your apparent disrespect. However, since Pastafarians generally act more Christlike than most Christians, they would never attack or scorn you for your disbelief, so you might never know that you had offended them.

Just a small request on behalf of Pastafarians everywhere. (You might be surprised at how many who leave the Church spend some time as Pastafarians.)

Thanks for your consideration.

Please carry on.

RAmen.

Pass the parmesan.

So happy that you understand. May He touch you with his noodley appendage.

(And FrankTalk dares to claim that we scientistic (DCP's word) secularists have no appreciation or respect for religion.)

[_Tarski]

What bothers me is that not only are you exercising faith to believe this against mountains and mountains of cross correlated, mutually supportive independent evidence but there is no good spiritual reason for it.

Faith in the flood never fed a hungry child, never promoted forgiveness, never caused more love and compassion in the world and it certainly never promoted educational values.

It is spiritually vacuous, unnecessary, nonsense.

A group of people got together and decided that they would explain aspect of nature using a set of agreed upon processes and assumptions. They then looked around the world and using these guides came up with a story which describes the past. I on the other hand include processes in the set they don't. I also come up with a story. As far as I am concerned they have equal weight. And in some light my story is far superior. But I accept this is a personal choice. It seems you have made your choice as well.

A. You missed my entire point (spiritual value). Weird!

B. One story is self consistent and consistent with evidence. The other story is not --except in an extended second level fantasy where it is imagined that there is evidence for the nuttiness after all-- but evidence is just made up or misinterpreted as we find on creationist websites. Or like we see coming from you. Frankly, FrankTalk, your stuff is really bad.



.....
FrankTalk meeting God:

FrankTalk: Hi God
God: Hi FrankTalk. How was your life?
FrankTalk: Pretty good. I think I did well believing stuff.
God: Like what?
FrankTalk: Oh, I believed in the global flood and Noah's ark and all that.
God: Oh, yes that is important for you to believe. If you didn't believe that, what kind of person would you be? Go ahead into heaven my son. You deserve it.

[_DrW]

FrankTalk meeting God:

FrankTalk: Hi God
God: Hi FrankTalk. How was your life?
FrankTalk: Pretty good. I think I did well believing stuff.
God: Like what?
FrankTalk: Oh, I believed in the global flood and Noah's ark and all that.
God: Oh, yes that is important for you to believe. If you didn't believe that, what kind of person would you be? Go ahead into heaven my son. You deserve it.

Would be really funny but for the simple fact that so many believe it is really true.

[_Buffalo]

Religion necessitates the viewpoint that god rewards the credulous. It's difficult to see what value such a quality holds in heaven, though.

[_SteelHead]

A belief in a universal flood becomes integral to the veracity of the Book of Mormon. No flood..... No tower of Babel then no brother of Jared.

Problem is in Ether we read that this land was preserved making the mental gymnastics for a limited geography monumental. Or if you don't accept limited geography then the population rates become nigh on impossible.

I decided you either believe on faith or you don't, but trying to prove or disprove based on science... Only disproves.

So you have to be willing to subjugate rational to faith. Which I am no longer doing.

One more edit..... On your evolution set size you are forgetting fitness. You can prune out whole branches of the problem space once you throw in fitness. Mutations that do not increase survivability quickly prune themselves out reducing the solution set size.

[_Sethbag]

A group of people got together and decided that they would explain aspect of nature using a set of agreed upon processes and assumptions. They then looked around the world and using these guides came up with a story which describes the past.

You talk about the convergence of science upon a method of ascertaining facts and truths about the universe as if it were some Nicean Council, smoky-room cabal or something. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The methods of modern science are the way they are today not because they were arbitrarily decided upon. They are the way they are today because they work.

]I on the other hand include processes in the set they don't.

The problem with this is that there is no good reason to believe that the additional processes you include actually work. That is, there's no good reason to believe that the "truths" and "facts" your method produces are in fact true, or factual. And there is very, very good evidence that in fact, they don't.

I also come up with a story. As far as I am concerned they have equal weight. And in some light my story is far superior. But I accept this is a personal choice. It seems you have made your choice as well.

Do you acknowledge that as far as the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were concerned, the instant after impact they were gonna be in Paradise, teaching 72 virgins how to endure bad sex? Does it matter what you think? Do you imagine that you get to have your own reality just because you prefer it? Or imagine it?

You get to have your own beliefs, and your own wishes, and dreams, and imaginations. What you don't get to have is your own reality. Your epistemology isn't going to lead you to a more accurate apprehension of reality. If you understand that, and accept that, then there's really nothing else for us to talk about in a thread like this.

Do you care more for real truth than you care about having made the right decision to join the LDS Church? by the way, I don't ask that question flippantly. It's an extremely serious question, with extremely serious consequences. Pretty much every one of my fellow apostates on this board can testify to that. Been there, done that, have the scars to prove it.

[_keithb]

keithb,

I agree with your comments so far, but would appreciate it if you could leave the FSM out of this. FSM is a deity that stands far above most and deserves our respect. Grouping His Noodleness with the likes of Unicorns and such shows a real lack of understanding on your part. The man-made religion that has grown up around this modern deity is as logical and internally consistent as it is possible for a religion to be.

Pastafarians everywhere might well take offense (however slight) at your apparent disrespect. However, since Pastafarians generally act more Christlike than most Christians, they would never attack or scorn you for your disbelief, so you might never know that you had offended them.

Just a small request on behalf of Pastafarians everywhere. (You might be surprised at how many who leave the Church spend some time as Pastafarians.)

Thanks for your consideration.

Please carry on.

RAmen.

LOLZ!!!

[_Hoops]

It's calculated based on the generations given in the Old Testament. But you knew that.

So when you say, "The Bible says..." or "scripture says..." or something like that, you're just lying again. Because you really don't know the biblical record do you.

[_Hoops]

Be careful, Buff. The last thing you want is to become another target of Hoops' bottomless well of incredibly creative and diverse insults.

Let's all watch while schmope eagerly accepts buff's gentle pat on the head.