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Does this discussion belong in OS Talk or should it be moved to the Brother'Hood?

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After 10 pages, what's the point of moving it now?

Don't you love how these threads start out about one thing and then, you'll pardon the expression, Brad, EVOLVE into something else?

No, that hasn't been proven. These discussions are too complex to just haphazardly happen. Obviously the Intelligent Designer knew from jay's very first post where this would go.

Markle

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Does this discussion belong in OS Talk or should it be moved to the Brother'Hood?

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Maybe. But, jay started the thread in OSX Talk with the question about helping him understand the goal of thalo.net. Of course, the original goal was, in part, about OSX, so I can see the natural placement here. But, thalo.net is also about letting conversations flow naturally, whichever way they choose. So, the digression would be right in the spirit of thalo.net. Perhaps the whole topic would be better in the 'Hood. But maybe it is also a good thing to keep here as an acknowledgement to those coming from other forums that it is okay to move about drastically in a thread without the fear of the lock or banishment to some other location (although here no forum area is really looked down upon like some in other forum sites).

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Miths, I remember thinking about the Intelligent Design concept some 30 or so years ago. My conclusion was there was intelligence while examining natural phenomena, but the intelligence was that of the observer much like the archers, and bulls, and crabs seen in the zodiac pattern of stars. It is in the minds of those observing and thinking about the pattern. These objects do not actually exist in the stars. There are no archers permanently embossed on the heavens. It is human intelligence that put them there and it is human intelligence that sees them there. It is human intelligence that forces order upon natural phenomena and not the other way around. So, is there intelligence in natural phenomena? Yes. It is human intelligence. It is the effort to make sense of the world for ourselves. But, we are not God.

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I think that is a key point of the "Intelligent Design" model. We as humans are intelligent, we as humans design, therefore if we see complex, or simple, patterns in nature not put there by humans, something intelligent must have designed them. Perhaps it is because we as humans cannot fully grasp that the infinite nature of randomness can create patterns and order. Perhaps we as humans cannot fully understand that patterned complexity can come from unpatterned simplicity, especially if there is a driving force such as successful replication.

Maybe the acceptance of a god and afterlife is that a large majority of people just cannot grasp, or do not want to grasp, the idea that our physical presence is limiting and will end. Passing entirely from existence is a hard pill to swallow, since existence is all we know. Maybe it is comforting to believe that our loved ones who have past, and eventually our own selves, will live on in some eternal place, hopefully a paradise. The grasp for a "science' to confirm this likely underscores how important this need to believe is in many people.

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Thalo is wrong with his free-for-all idea of how a forum should operate. His reasoning, if I may be so bold, may be that he has had it with authoritarian rule on discussion forums so he rejects it and only other alternative he sees is a no-holds-barred free-for-all.

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Actually, what I've ALWAYS been about is demonstrating that what some hypersensitive people CALL a no-holds barred free-for-all brutal animal fight; and react to it as such, really isn't. The reality is, nobody goes home bleeding from any online encounter.

There is almost no combination of words that anyone can conceive, that is equivalent to a true physical, personal attack. And yet you'd never know it judging by some of the responses we've all seen. I'm not saying it ain't possible to be evil, and say some really sick shit, stuff that WOULD have to be moderated... I'm saying it's exceedingly rare. I'm saying the stuff that GETS moderated on other forums as if it were the crime of the century, AS IF it were physical violence, really isn't even close to that.

Fists on the home page doesn't mean words are fists. It's a way to GOOF on how seriously people take forum participation. Online fighting ain't like the sweet science. It's much, much safer.

I've always argued that it seldom gets ugly enough in a forum site to really do anyone any permanent injury. All I advocate is more of a grip on what really makes sense getting lit up about.

Freedom of expression in this medium I think hinges on being able to poke fun at some of the hyper-sensitivity and mind-control attempts we all have seen. Then you understand that playing nice and polite ain't all it's cracked up to be. Not if you have to swallow some squelching line of BS to do it. I don't believe in walking on eggshells in a place like this, because the only things that get broken are things that people CHOOSE to break themselves.

What I mean is, you have to really go the extra mile to read words on a computer screen and take them seriously enough if they make you so frustrated that you have to go punch a pillow. You lend creedence to them by entering a battle. If you get into it with a brother, what I say is, that obviously means the battle is WHY YOU ARE HERE. And then so be it. All I say is that there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of good shit comes out when people are laying in to it and THINK they are in a fight.

Nobody can write anything that has magic powers over you. That binds you to your chair and forces you to respond. People choose their battles, and people choose what they'll respond to. That's just the way it is. I will never buy anyone who tries to tell me that what they write is out of their control.

Brad, have you read works by the philosopher William Paley (1743-1805)? If you do tend to believe in a Designer you may want to familiarize yourself with his work. He is the person that first advanced this line of reasoning.

Sounds interesting, HH. I’ll have to check him out.

Also, you may want to check out David Hume's critique of the design argument in his work "Dialogues on Natural Religion"

That also sounds interesting. I’m in the midst now of inhaling some Hume in relation to conservatism. Apparently that guy thought about all kinds of stuff.

Markle said: When you see the things that go wrong, the design flaws, etc., the only conclusion you can come to (without tying yourselves up in theological knots) is that things either happened and evolved randomly, OR that the designer is incompetent.

Or that the designer allowed things to evolve randomly.

In any event, as long as we are a civil society, and not a theocratic one, specific religious beliefs have to be private, and not imposed by the state.

Whether stemming from religion or political correctness, laws are by definition the imposition of someone’s moral beliefs. You, Markle, just have a real hang-up when these moral have any religious parentage. Granted, I’ll be the first to say we should be careful about where we get our beliefs and how we they are imposed, but religion has no corner on the market in being overbearing. In Canada and England they have secular hate speech laws that quite obviously impose somebody’s pseudo-religious beliefs on the rest of us.

Darr said: Regardless of our psychological crutches, the intelligent design logic is exceedingly unsound. Although, it plays well with an audience that wants to believe.

The same could be said of many highly speculative scientific theories from the "many worlds" theories to other scientific theories with have little evidence to support them but nevertheless garner much interesting and seemingly only because they offer "hope" to do away with the need for a creator. I’m not really sure which way all this falls, but it’s shear hubris to suppose scientists are not also an audience that wants to believe one way or another.

So why do the religious want to use scientific principle to support their theory? Unquestioning faith works just fine for religion. Religion never needed scientific principle. Or, are they trying to use pseudo-scientific smoke and mirrors as confusion to support a wavering faith?

I think what bites you guys on the butt is that someone is trying to horn in on your territory. There are going to be lines of inquiry that are inherently more philosophically-oriented and not as rigorously scientific-method-oriented but this is to be expected if science is merely a part of something much larger which I’m pretty sure it is.

Markle said: A survey reported that 35% of Americans believe in evolution, 36% believe in biblical creation, and 29% say they don't know. In America! In the 21st Century!

If we’re doing surveys of supposed ignorance then let’s survey all those intellectual giants on the left and in Hollywood who think capitalism is ruining the world, that Cuba is a country America should strive to emulate, or that Arafat is more deserving of a peace prize then, say, Ronald Reagan.

And you might be surprised, Markle, at how many sincere religious people do not find a conflict between creation and evolution. These are the types of questions that are difficulty, maybe impossible, to answer. But just because we can’t answer them doesn’t mean science is free to fill in the blanks any more than Pat Robertson is free to do so. Well, they BOTH are free to do so but that doesn’t make either one of them right.

Wow, that sounds just like doctrine being handed down.

Get real. Intelligent design as science is utterly without merit. There is no scientific evidence supporting it. This not "doctrine". Its a simple statement of fact. Doctrine, my ass.

So, now you are Galileo? Don't you have that backwards? It wasn't that Galileo was upsetting the "status quo." It was that his scientific findings were challenging the story of creation and our place in the universe advanced by the piously religious. You know, just like evolution challenges the story of creation and upsets the religious cranks of today. Well then ---its time for new "scientific" findings. Presto! We have Intelligent design!

Talking about religious cranks, why are you guys always claiming to be the victim of some damn thing or another? Now you are the persecuted Galileo? What's with that crap? No matter how aggressively you guys inflict yourselves upon others you are always the victims merely trying to defend yourselves against a mean world. Doesn't that ever once ring in your ears as a kiddy tale. Ever?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: HH,

Intelligent design as science is utterly without merit. Discussing its merits within a scientific context makes no sense. It should be seen for what it is, a power play backed by a substantial PR campaign and funding.

Wow, that sounds just like doctrine being handed down. What’s the harm in this line of inquiry being investigated and taken seriously? If it leads to nothing then it leads to nothing, but some of you guys sound just like the guys who told Galileo what he could or could not think about lest it upset the status quo.

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Or that the designer allowed things to evolve randomly.

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"So, Mr. Spock, you reasoned logically that it was time for an emotional outburst?"

"Uh, well, Captain, I wouldn't put it in exactly those terms, but those are essentially the facts."

So the "Designer" abdicated his job and just let things flow. In which case there's no intelligence in the process and we're back to studying evolution after all.

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In Canada and England they have secular hate speech laws that quite obviously impose somebody’s pseudo-religious beliefs on the rest of us....
Wow, that sounds just like doctrine being handed down.

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"Pseudo-religious"??

Y'know, Brad, this repeated refrain of yours that resistance to this or that, like opposition to religious tyranny and theocracy, is the equivalent of the thing being resisted, and therefore is no better, just doesn't fly. I know this is the party line in right-wing circles to de-legitimize their critics, but it has never made a lick of sense. Resistance to tyranny is NOT an equivalent tyranny trying to prevail. The American revolution against British colonialism was not because we wanted to set up our own colonial scheme. Opposition to the Spanish Inquisition was not by people wanting to set up their own Inquisition. Opposition to something does not automatically become the thing being opposed.

Markle

Aw, thalo, poor baby. I hurt your feelings by disagreeing with you? Is that your problem, sweetheart? Is that why you wrote me such a long post, you dipshit. Why don't you fucking grow up and stop being such an asshole. Everything you said is crap just like it always is. Why is that? Why is it that nothing but crap ever comes from you? But, I don't care, baby. You're my bitch and you can write me all the long posts you want. I like printing them out and rubbing them on my balls.


Is that the sort of thing you are talking about, thalo? It didn't discuss the merit of your post, but nobody is actually being physically hurt. Just words on a page, just like you said. Nobody's feeling were hurt. Yours weren't. My feeling aren't hurt when I get posts like that either. So, what's the difference?

That misses the point. Who wants to participate in a forum where the "discussion" is like this and is just a waste of time? I don't believe in walking on eggshells either, and I don't. You know I don't. But, I'd rather see the toughness come as the result of adult discussion rather than childish nonsense like the paragraph above. It isn't a matter of being able to put up with that sort of "discussion" its a matter of not wanting to. If that was all that was going on at thalo.net then what's the reason for it to exist at all? There are plenty of unpleasant forums around. And if one is looking to waste time as unpleasantly as possible there is no need to come to thalo.net.

What's wrong with expecting adults to behave as adults? Not ordering them to behave that way, just expecting them to. Encouraging them to behave like children for entertainment purposes is manipulative. Letting people be who they really are means if they are adults involved in weighty discussion or just silliness, they must be allowed to stay adults and not be goaded into fight, fight, fight.

There's separation between what you preach and what you do. You never break down into childish behavior. You engage in spirited debate, but always on an adult level. Why do you want to encourage others to go ballistic? Having them break down while you keep your level demeanor gives you those "magic powers" over them that you talk about? What is it really? Do you miss Piggy?

The reality of thalo.net is that it has attracted a rather high level membership mainly due to its founding principles of noninterference. That's just the way it is. Describing this group as a no-holds-barred, wild-ass gang engaged in a melee is just false advertising. It just ain't us. It ain't you either. So, why don't we just be honest people about it?

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some of you guys sound just like the guys who told Galileo what he could or could not think about lest it upset the status quo.

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You're equating Galileo, who was a symbol of free inquiry and a victim of religious orthodoxy and narrow-mindedness, to those theocrats who want religious indoctrination in public schools??? And putting us in the role of those scowling church authorities who said that Galileo HAD to be wrong because the Bible said that the earth was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around the earth??

Come to think of it, I guess that's what these religious school boards will be demanding to teach next. "The notion that the earth is round and orbits around the sun is merely a theory. Many people believe that the earth is flat, and that the 5,000 year-old universe revolves around the earth."

Equal time for that one, too, Brad?

Markle

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you dipshit. Why don't you fucking grow up and stop being such an asshole. Everything you said is crap just like it always is. Why is that? Why is it that nothing but crap ever comes from you? But, I don't care, baby. You're my bitch and you can write me all the long posts you want. I like printing them out and rubbing them on my balls.

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I'd pay good money to see that! Or, on further consideration, maybe not.....

Man, there's nothing like a little humor to lighten up a heavy debate!!

Markle

Wow, that sounds just like doctrine being handed down.

Get real. Intelligent design as science is utterly without merit. There is no scientific evidence supporting it. This not "doctrine". Its a simple statement of fact. Doctrine, my ass.

So, now you are Galileo? Don't you have that backwards? It wasn't that Galileo was upsetting the "status quo." It was that his scientific findings were challenging the story of creation and our place in the universe advanced by the piously religious. You know, just like evolution challenges the story of creation and upsets the religious cranks of today. Well then ---its time for new "scientific" findings. Presto! We have Intelligent design!

Talking about religious cranks, why are you guys always claiming to be the victim of some damn thing or another? Now you are the persecuted Galileo? What's with that crap? No matter how aggressively you guys inflict yourselves upon others you are always the victims merely trying to defend yourselves against a mean world. Doesn't that ever once ring in your ears as a kiddy tale. Ever?

Man, there's nothing like a little humor to lighten up a heavy debate!!

It's not supposed to be funny. It's supposed to be insulting. I will admit though, it did make me laugh when I wrote it.

No fair using Star Trek, Markle. That’s WAY below the belt. You KNOW I practically live my life by that show.

So the "Designer" abdicated his job and just let things flow. In which case there's no intelligence in the process and we're back to studying evolution after all.

Could be. Or is more of the silent partner variety. Obviously if there is a designer He (or She) seems content to let the laws of physics govern 99.99999% of what goes on in the material world. Prayer and faith may act as means for tapping into an unseen power source to effect change, analogous to the way that radios tap into radio waves to produce sound. If this happens and to what extent it would change things is hard to reckon.

Y'know, Brad, this repeated refrain of yours that resistance to this or that, like opposition to religious tyranny and theocracy, is the equivalent of the thing being resisted, and therefore is no better, just doesn't fly.

Zealotry is zealotry. It’s doesn’t have to be of the religious kind to earn the adjective.

I know this is the party line in right-wing circles to de-legitimize their critics,

I devoutly wish to de-legitimize leftists. But to do that I don’t need to do much other than point out what they believe. They de-legitimize themselves. As for those intolerant of religion, same thing. I need only pretty much repeat back what they’ve been saying. If you don’t think you have a hair-trigger intolerance for religion then you sure fooled me.

Resistance to tyranny is NOT an equivalent tyranny trying to prevail.

That’s correct. So when are you going to move beyond this rather shallow and comical depiction of Mr. College-Schooled Atheist and get a bit deeper into the realities of religion and secularism. Both harbor dangers, but mainly it is the characteristics of human beings themselves that can make us dangerous. I think you’re just a wee bit too zeroed in on religion as the Big Problem thus you’re likely to not only create new problems but to miss or misdiagnose existing ones.

Get real. Intelligent design as science is utterly without merit. There is no scientific evidence supporting it.

Well, there is the very remarkable experience of two intelligent and aware minds communicating with each other in a universe whose existence we can’t explain but whose structure and inner workings are marvelously, perhaps miraculously, balanced in just such a way that life has evolved.

No evidence indeed. Again, I’ll be the first to admit that this line of inquiry, I.D., may or may not lend itself to the scientific method and if it does or does not then that definitely shapes what we can say about this whole line of investigation. But you do protest a bit too much, I think, HH. You’re a bit too willing to lop off this line of investigation for apparently no other reason that it might perhaps support religion and be inconvenient to the status quo, hence the Galileo analogy which I think is apt. It may hurt a little, but do you think that only people of Galileo’s age were prone to such errors?

No matter how aggressively you guys inflict yourselves upon others you are always the victims merely trying to defend yourselves against a mean world. Doesn't that ever once ring in your ears as a kiddy tale. Ever?

Simply screaming louder and more vociferously that I’m some kind of loon does not, I think, help your case any, and I do think it helps mine.

Simply screaming louder and more vociferously that I’m some kind of loon...

I never said you were a loon. As a matter of fact I'd like to hear more about the invisible beings that live in the sky and watch your every move.

Markle, its obvious that you do not have faith. I have faith in my belief that circling the sun, in the orbit of Pluto, there is a complete silver dinner setting for two. It is too far away to be detected by the most powerful telescopes and its mass is is nearly nonexistent. Even if there were a telescope powerful enough to detect it, you would see nothing. Mysteriously both light and all other electromagnetic waves pass through it. But, it's there and it's real.

My challenge to you is to prove me wrong. You can't, can you. Do you have any evidence, one single shred of evidence, there isn't a place setting for two in Pluto's orbit? Show me your evidence. You have none? I thought so! No one can have evidence it is not there. One cannot disprove the truth.

I'll go further than that. My impression is that you want to advance an opposing doctrine. Your religious-type reality doctrine says there is no dinner setting for two in Pluto's orbit. Fair enough, but verily I say unto you, why do you have the audacity to assume your doctrine is superior to mine? The best thing to do is to consider the merits of each of the two doctrines. Equal time and consideration for equal doctrines. That's fair. Seeing that you have no evidence for yours there is little doubt which of the two doctrines will prevail.

I'm glad we had this opportunity to work this out rather than have you victimize me by claiming I am merely a loon who foolishly believes in extraterrestrial dinner settings. Others I've told of my beliefs talked to me as though I were crazy. One signaled to a police officer. Having faith and sticking to one's beliefs is difficult in a world that insists on reality. These reality based people are afraid to think differently than their doctrine of reality commands of them. They are slaves. I am the constant victim of realists and their zealotry. But not one of them has ever proved me wrong. Not one. They want to pretend that I'm just a foolish man believing foolish things, but I know the truth. They are frightened by people like me. People of faith. They want to do all they can to hide from fact that there is a complete silver dinner setting for two circling the sun, and it's right in Pluto's orbit. But, I am strong and can hold up under the constant victimization by reality zealots. I have faith on my side. Their dinner settings are lifeless and drab and bound to the earth. What puzzles me is why they would want to go through life like that.

If you, in your dead cynicism, can produce proof, any evidence at all, that what I've said here is false then show it. Otherwise you must accept as your own these dinnerware facts. You cannot escape this simple truth. Put away your fear. Do not be a closed minded reality zealot. Accept the truth. At the very least you must carefully consider it. That's all I ask. Isn't that fair?

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I think you’re just a wee bit too zeroed in on religion as the Big Problem

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I haven't got the slightest problem with religion--as long as the government isn't trying to ram it down my throat. This is America. Why am I having to debate this?

Just because your friends on the far right don't believe in the separation of church and state, it's no reason why the rest of us have to accept that. Their values are closer to those of Iran and Saudi Arabia than they are to America.

Markle

You're right, HH. I have been much too arrogant and close-minded. I can't prove that there isn't a silver dinner set for two orbiting Pluto. To make up for that, I will launch a campaign to make the schools teach the theory of the dinner set for two along with other equally unprovable theories like the so-called laws of planetary motion.

But we can't allow the teaching of the theory of a dinner set for THREE orbiting Pluto. That's obviously absurd on its face, and there's only so much classroom time. Besides, the Twoists have the political clout that those dirty Threeists don't, so they get to say which theory gets to be taught alongside the liberal orthodoxy of politically correct astrophysics.

Yes, you're right. I have no right to stand in the way of teaching any approved belief that is just as good and valid as any other. The Twoists belief will be presented to the children by their mentors and authority figures along with the secular claptrap, so they can make up their own minds.

Markle

Just because your friends on the far right don't believe in the separation of church and state, it's no reason why the rest of us have to accept that. Their values are closer to those of Iran and Saudi Arabia than they are to America.

These neat, pre-packaged stereotypical images you have of religion in America, Markle, seem to excuse you from thinking or delving deeper into the subject. You even go so far as to equate religion in American with that of Saudi Arabia. That's, at best, a simplistic and comic book vision of this whole subject. How does one respond to that?

And then we have gool, ol' HH who's absolutely bubbling over with condescension while all the time say "Why, no, no. I never called you a loon":

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Markle, its obvious that you do not have faith. I have faith in my belief that circling the sun, in the orbit of Pluto, there is a complete silver dinner setting for two. It is too far away to be detected by the most powerful telescopes and its mass is is nearly nonexistent. Even if there were a telescope powerful enough to detect it, you would see nothing. Mysteriously both light and all other electromagnetic waves pass through it. But, it's there and it's real.

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Hey, I'm a big boy and can take the ribbing. But again, how does one respond to that? It's tough even for me to bounce intelligent comments off of such fluff. Try again.

HH said:

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My challenge to you is to prove me wrong.

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I have circled the sun in the orbit of pluto many times.

I can assure you there are no complete silver dinner settings for two.

There is no truth in this statement what so ever.

They never set a complete silver dinner setting for less than four.