INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned via Warnings
Is there a purpose to everything?
What if something doesn't reach its purpose?
I want to know how this will go.
What if something doesn't reach its purpose?
I want to know how this will go.
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Purpose, I just blew my mind thinking about these 2 Questions
- Thread starter INSANE CARZY GUY
- Start date
- Status
1) No
2) Yes
2) Yes
Aristotle gives a good account of this. He basically argues that goodness comes from fulfilling your purpose. For example, having kids is good, becuase it is part of the purpose. Virtues are good, so exhbiting them is moving towards goodness.
For Aristotle, the failure to be good, or fulfill your purpose, is to be evil. Someone who only indulges in sensual pleasures, is failing to fulfill his purpose because he is failing to employ his intellectual capacities to act like a mature human, and instead he acts like an animal.
Most people who don't believe in purposes are usually relativists. You don't need God though to have purposes though.
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
Sorry, to break your bubble but, how do you know that aristotle is right?
Anyway I believe the universe to have no point, at least for us. In my opinion, we're just ultra-complex self-replicating chemistry. We're just at the lucky end of a very long stick. If something doesn't reach it's purpose, then nothing happens, because it doesn't have a purpose, in my view.
Does a rock have a purpose? Do we have a greater purpose other than replicating ourselves? Probably not. And replicating ourselves doesn't really serve any greater purpose.
I never said I knew Aristotle was right, just explaining the answers he gives to those questions.
The second two paragraphs of your argument require far more justification than what you've given, and it's just too much to cover with posts on an online forums so I'm not going to bother trying to counter them.
INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned via Warnings
In our philosophy class we are talking about Aristotle partly why I brought it up. If our only purpose is to replicate ourselfs then why can we do far more than that? How come we feel good about doing other things, because we shouldn't if we are only meant to make more.
But you need more proof and you can't really say someone's views are wrong or right most of the time, which is kindof funny in a way because we listen to ourselfs and believe they are always right.
But you need more proof and you can't really say someone's views are wrong or right most of the time, which is kindof funny in a way because we listen to ourselfs and believe they are always right.
I didn't say our only purpose is to replicate, I said that pro-creation is good, because it is part of our purpose.
Also Eor, I'll answer your question at the same time as Insane Carzy Guy's-
The no purpose theory is on the same line as the no reality, no morality and even no existence theories. The problem is, we have a set actuallities, and our potentiality is limited. What I mean is that we are limited to certain things, we can only pursue certain avenues, because of the reality of our limitations. Our design, whether created or evolved, pushes towards certain goals.
As Aristotle said, all things move towards God. To remove purpose is to remove the concepts of means and ends, which we know clearly exist. For example, animals are a means to their ecosystem, which are means to the greater end of nature. Either us humans are too, or nature is a means to our end. Essentailly, everything is a mean to and end until we come to God, or the Singularity if you're atheist, which is a self-necessary end in itself.
These original causes are the only things without a purpose, for anything that was caused has a reason for its existence.
Take a fridge for example, it was created with the purpose of preserving food and drink. It's design allows it do so, but is limited to the potentiality only, this means is meant to for this and only this, and it is evident when one analyses it. Humans are no different, our potentiality is limited, we were evolved or created with a purpose in mind. We also have intrinstic ideas of what is natural and what is not.
It's a difficult point to explain, and I know that wasn't the best explanation, but hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say. The point is, it is no more logical to assume we have no purpose when it's clear we intrinsically move towards certain goods, and live in a world with hiierarchal systems such as ecosystems etc.
INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned via Warnings
I would also like to throw out there if you think about everything not haveing purpose like rocks in space I could say that they were there to make them wonder about and lead you closer the way you are meant to go. I'm not determineist but things can and will help lead you a way. Things give value to other things if you take out one thing and say it has no purpose you broke the chain and everything looks like it has no purpose.
I can't focus now i'm not feeling super peachy.
I can't focus now i'm not feeling super peachy.
Well if you look at the human body we can see reasons for things and so forth, and is mainly evolutionary, which would mean our main goal is to spread our genes, and survive long enough to do so. Ecosystems are just organisms interacting with it's environment and other members of this environment. There's not a purpose to it, it just is. While some species are obviously dependent on others (pretty much all of them), it's not a reason to say they have a purpose in the ecosystem. They just do what they do, and other animals learn to live off of what they do. If anything it would create an artificial purpose.
To Insane Crazy Guy: that would be implying that the universe exists for our benefit, which is pretty silly for multiple reasons, but if you want to debate on that then say so because it'd be a sidetrack
To Insane Crazy Guy: that would be implying that the universe exists for our benefit, which is pretty silly for multiple reasons, but if you want to debate on that then say so because it'd be a sidetrack
In a purely evolutionist sense, everything still a purpose, it just that everything is a mean to the final end of evolution, because this alleged singularity is a self-necessary end itself.
Pretty much everything that was caused into existence has a reason for existence, giving it a purpose. God, or for atheists, the singularity, are self-necessary ends in themselves, they are the only things without a purpose.
I'd also argue that humans have a different purpose than that of animals. The fact that we posses a more complex essence and display traits no other animals have (I'm not talking about elevated intelligence, deeper communication, technology etc.), and the fact that we 'evolved' traits which make no evolutionary sense whatsoever suggests we have a different purpose. The reality is, our actuallity, our potentiality and our limitations are different, and it these factors that determine something's purpose.
The difference between atheism and theism is that theists belief that nature is a mean to the ends of humans, whereas atheists believe it is the other way around.
INSANE CARZY GUY
Banned via Warnings
No, the universe isn't like that. I was simply throwing out ideas. Sorry I shouldn't post when I'm not feeling good. I think wrong sometimes.
The purpose of life(from what you said) is to live and multiple like a hunter is to hunt, or a hole is meant to be dug. Maybe even a hammer is meant to create or destroy they are the MAIN reasons behind them but they could have side tasks that promotes them like to learn/build/create can help people live longer in other way it isn't the main goal but it leads to it, we find new ways to bring about our purpose. But what if somehow we found a flawless way to life forever and create more people forever are purpose has been meet perfectly correct?
Shouldn't we just loop forever? I think people will still try to learn/build/create even if it doesn't help and they are fully aware of it, why would they? I think they have helped create their own purpose. Who knows maybe one day when they perfect(or seen fit I don't believe in perfect) that they will move on to something else because people get bored of one single thing so they do something new to them. Of course if they did they forever they might become tried of living because if you lived forever and did everything there is nothing else important to you.
The purpose of life(from what you said) is to live and multiple like a hunter is to hunt, or a hole is meant to be dug. Maybe even a hammer is meant to create or destroy they are the MAIN reasons behind them but they could have side tasks that promotes them like to learn/build/create can help people live longer in other way it isn't the main goal but it leads to it, we find new ways to bring about our purpose. But what if somehow we found a flawless way to life forever and create more people forever are purpose has been meet perfectly correct?
Shouldn't we just loop forever? I think people will still try to learn/build/create even if it doesn't help and they are fully aware of it, why would they? I think they have helped create their own purpose. Who knows maybe one day when they perfect(or seen fit I don't believe in perfect) that they will move on to something else because people get bored of one single thing so they do something new to them. Of course if they did they forever they might become tried of living because if you lived forever and did everything there is nothing else important to you.
I don't understand what you're saying. I never said humans had one singular purpose such a pro-creation, that's just one mean to and end. Aristotle says that everything moves towards God, because on the chain of means and ends, eventually it will end with God, or just the singularity if you're an atheist, because they are self-necessary ends in themselves.
What? Evolution isn't things going towards a high point. It's just genetic adaption to keep on living.
There's a reason why they exist in the same reason a ball bounces off a wall. Because someone threw it against it.
I'd like to know what traits we evolved that have no evolutionary reason.
Nah, the difference between atheism and theism is belief in a God. Outside of that it's up to the individual.
But means and ends still exist. Humans procreate for the sake of evolution. For evolutionists, evolution is how the world functions, and everything functions in compliance with that. The only things which don't serve a purpose are evolution and the singularity.
But the ball was thrown for a purpose. The only reason why balls were invented was to fulfill a certain purpose. There is a purpose for why something is caused, and the resulting actuallity has a purpsoe to fulfill.
Here's a quote from a previous thread-
Right, but as result of that you generally get the conflicting beliefs I mentioned.
You really need to brush up on scientific facts before you make claims like this.
We don't procreate for the sake of evolution, we spread our genes for the simple sake of spreading our genes. Evolution is simply the random mutations that just happen to happen. There isn't any higher purpose. All organisms follow that, but organisms only involve when they need to. Look at the crocodile. It's been pretty much the same for over 200 million years. Because they get along just fine the way things are.
Evolution serves a purpose, in that it lets organisms adapt to environments and spread their genes. You keep on going back to the singularity as if atheists view it as a sort of God. It's just an event. It has no more purpose then gravity has a purpose. It exists. Why does it exist? Because spacetime is curved. Why are there weak nuclear forces? Because of particles that spin. Why do they spin? Because they do (not that there might be a reason for them to have spin, but either we don't know it yet or we do and I'm just unaware of it)
Let's take away the ball thing. If there's a purpose to our life, it's probably an evolutionary purpose to keep on breeding. Why do we keep on breeding? Because we want to spread on our genes. Why? Because it ensures the spread of our species. Why do we want to spread our species? Because if we didn't we wouldn't be here. That is it. Species that have some want to spread their genes are the ones that exist because without it species would die out. If that wasn't so then there wouldn't be anyone around to sit down and ponder if we have a purpose.
Religion does make sense for the purpose of evolution.
Firstly, we're social creatures. Religion helps people connect to one another. Not to other religions, but like all social animals we have distinct groups, and it helps foster a bond to that group.
That's why it was kept, but it doesn't explain why it happened. That's actually very easy. We're bred to see patterns. It's an evolutionary trait. If we see some movement in some long grass, we can remember that some nasty animal with big teeth can cause that movement, and therefore be less likely to go into that grass and get eaten. If we eat rotten meat, we get sick. By using patterns we connect rotten meat to getting sick.
Religion and science are both just that taken to new levels. Humans noticed the sun rose every day. They noticed that they were alive, and that some people died. They noticed that the seasons changed, that animals did certain things, and so forth. Why was that? Religion gave a good answer to those patterns. Everything seemed to die in the winter, so the winter was bad. The sun was when we were active, sun is good. Darkness is bad because we can't see. We have a sense of continuity and of symbolic communication (which are found in other animals). While we don't have a great understanding of paleolithic religion from what we do know they seem to be largely based on animals. Then would then develop into shamanism, ancestor cults, and so forth. This type of stuff would again come from superstition and pattern seeking behaviors. Say someone makes a charm for aesthetic reasons, maybe something involving a fish or crops, and the next day it rains. Pattern seeking behavior, the charm made the rain fall. This is seen even today, where bowlers and baseball players have complex rituals that they do to hope to ward off "bad luck". Because they did it once beforehand, had a good game, then didn't do it again and had a bad game. Pattern seeking, whatever they did/didn't do influenced their game.
You then mention murder and so forth. Thing is, animals do murder eachother. A lot. Lions have a thing where they try to bang mrs. lion, but we won't because she has to watch after her cubs. So the male lion will murder the cubs so he can bang the missess. Chimpanzees sometimes eat their babies, and share it amongst the rest of their group. Wolves fight each other, and sometimes kill each other. Ants have full blown wars, and so some types of chimps and other primates. Not war in the sense of our war, but war in the sense of murdering every single person on the other side.
If you want an evolutionary reason for murder, then it'd be pretty simple. Evolution isn't just about advancement of the species, its about advancement of your own genes. If someone is taking your food and might cause you to starve and therefore not spread your genes, you might kill this person. But that's rejecting the fact that humans have advanced social constructs. We have positions and so forth. Why does anyone murder anyone? Generally it's because they don't like that person for some reason. And the reason can generally go back to social standings. Someone who somehow embarrasses you, or causes you pain, or something similar. Then there are psychopaths and so forth, but I figure you weren't talking about mental illnesses and so forth. But if you want an evolutionary reason for that, outside of the crazy people who do it because satan told them to and so forth, is power/control. We're social animals, we have strong social bonds, and we want to be at the top, and therefore some of us might just end up killing people to feel more powerful then they are.
To your mention about growth rates: we're overpopulated. We're overpopulating the planet, and to stabilize and not grow ourselves to death we need to drop our birth rates. Besides that, people don't really need to have kids anymore. Back beforehand, people needed to have kids because they needed the extra help with jobs, or to make sure their tribe continues, or just because they didn't have condoms. Now people (in the developed countries, that is) only really have kids if they want to. And if we want to (which almost everyone does), we can control it. We can actually plan how many kids we have. Our biological desire to spread our genes comes up in the biological desire to have sex, since up until about 100 years ago (while there were birth control methods in antiquity, they were generally used for the upper class, not the regular people).
Except most atheists don't believe in a distinction between man and nature, or any concept of purpose. We exist because we do. What our genes might tell us to do would be the closest thing to a purpose we'd have.
My statement was a bit misleading. We don't procreate for evolution, but we procreate because of evolutionary or darwinistic principles, such as continuation of species, survival of the fittest etc.
Spacetime being curved is not fact, it's just a theory, which was probably made to accommodate Big Bang. It sounds all well and good, but spacetime being curved doesn't change the fact that you have a succession of dependant entities with no apparent self-necessary original cause. It's like having a succession of chicken eggs with no chicken, just because spacetime is curved doesn't change the fact you still needed to chicken.
Maybe for an atheist that is all it is. For theists, our purpose relates to God. Our purpose clearly extends beyond procreation, otherwise we'd just have the same essence of animals, but instead, we have deeper faculties, concepts of wisdom, virtue, God etc.
This just explains that religion was a result of the inductive logc of humans, it doesn't explain why this development was of evolutionary benefit. Also, in analysing the animal kingdom, it's evident that religion wasn't needed for 'connecting with each other'. If anything, religion has caused more disharmony than harmony.
Religion still contradicts evolutionary principles, that's why evolutionists don't like religion, and why religion is not really evident in other species. Religion doesn't teach the survival of the fittest, and it teaches we have purposes other than procreation. Religious differences have sparked wide-scale conflicts all over the world.
But if religion is good, why then do people want it removed? What evolutionary sense does it make to have people with different opinions? All this does is just cause conflict. Wouldn't what is most evlutionarily benefital be to have everyone united in having the optimal mentality?
In an evolutionary sense, it would have just been better to not evolve religious capacities, but to just evolve the understanding of evolution and that our purpose was simply to spread our genes.
I'm aware that killing occurs in the natural kingdom. However, killing in the animal kingdom is part of the natural process. Non-eating related killings are mostly territorial, comeptitive, or out of selfish desire. What is not evidenced in nature is sadistic murder. Animals can only do what is natural for them, but humans can be otherwise than their own nature. Humans can do things which are completely unnatural, you cannot argue that ****** children is natural. It's not what we are meant to do, it is not human.
Just as we are the only creatures that can exhibit virtue, we are the only ones who can exhibit black-hearted evil. Let me ask you this, which do you think is worse- a lion killing the cubs, or a father torturing and killing all of his children?
Also, you've still failed to explain to me why humans 'evolved' the capacity to ignore ecosystems, then as a result disrupt and even destroy other ones. What's the evolutionary purpose of that? It would have made far more sense for us to remain in a ecosystem.
No we're not overpopulated. Take Australia for example, it's a big country yet people only live on the coasts, there is plenty of room in the centre. Or Egypt, where most or the population is centred around Cairo. It's not that we're overpopulated, it's that the system we've created doesn't allow us to take advantage of those spaces.
I also disagree with contraception and things of that sort, but that's a moral argument and not for this debate.
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
How do you know that those traits make no evolutionary sense at all? They could, maybe we just don't realise it. They could be a by-product of something else. At this point we don't know, so the argument from ignorance that is Intelligent Design is just a logical fallacy. It follow this simple style: I don't know how this trait came about, therefore goddidit. That is all an Intelligent Design argument is!
An argument from ignorance is not a sound or even valid argument. It is null.
I'll elaborate on my original point. I believe that we have no real purpose other than to procreate. This is because there is no evidence that suggests this. We may have features that allow us to do other things, but that in itself is no reason to suggest that we have a higher purpose.
Also, just because we have evolved to procreate, doesn't mean that we can't evolve our brains to allow us to invent things. These things could be used for contraception, because it seems that some people don't want kids. There is no real urge to procreate like there is for sex, it's just that sex used to mean procreation. That's what evolution got wrong. Remember evolution has NO foresight. We did not evolve methods of contraception, we invented them!
And then how do you know that other animals don't experience regret or morality? Many animals such as chimpanzees have some sort of moral conscience. In fact Pirañas don't kill each other when in a feeding frenzy. This is because they have evolved a primitive sense of morality.
And also serial killing occurs in animals, dolphins do it.
That paragraph about Aristotle seemed like unsubstantiated fluff, with little grounding in reality.
Well now you're taking a single point of my post and trying to tie it to causality.
True, it's not proven. But that's because physics doesn't work with proofs. They work with experiments. There's no way to prove a theory, only to make sure that it's not wrong. If you want evidence for the proof of it you can read about the experiment done here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Stanley_Eddington#Relativity). Or if you want more in depth stuff, go here (http://relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2006-3/). To reject that spactime is curved is to reject both Einstien's contributions to science but also the last eighty years of physics.
I'm not going to get into a causality debate again, at least not here. We can go back to our old thread for that.
It's not needed to be of an evolutionary benefit, it's a social construct. I was explaining how it came about from other things that did help us. And like I said it did help bring people together in a community.
While it's true that animals don't have religion, they also don't have language. Would this mean that language isn't needed for connecting with each other, and therefore you'd argue that language doesn't have an evolutionary advantage?
Thank you for generalizing all evolutionists. As you're apparently not aware, I'm Buddhist. Suck on that one
Religion has sparked conflict. So has the fact that we develop into tribes and clans and civilizations. Just because something also hurts us doesn't mean that it has no benefit. Like I mentioned before, look at civilizations. We form into civilizations to benefit ourselves, but when we run into another civilization it's generally bloody.
Seriously, this stuff is incredibly easy. Just think to yourself, "would humans succeed if we all had the same opinion?" If the answer is no, then there's your answer. If we all had the same opinion then there wouldn't be advancement, nor would there be conflict and social hierarchies. Again, evolution is just certain traits. It's not every little thing about our bodies or minds. Things happen as a result of evolution, but if it doesn't lead to that person not breeding as much as others then it won't die out. And even if it was all that it would mean is that we're not adapting to something. Not everything successfully adapts.
That'd be a pretty crazy mutation that'd have someone born with the scientific and genetic knowledge of mutation already imprinted in their brain. Even if that happened what benefit would that person have over other people?
Eh? ****** children is 'normal'. **** is 'normal' in that humans have been doing it for thousands of years. It's a good way for certain people to spread genes. We have sex for pleasure, which is different then most animals. We're also the only animal that has sex for pleasure that has such a large time for us to mature. For a long time in human history girls as young as 10-13 were fine for marriage and sex, and so someone ****** a girl that young would just be like someone ****** an adult. Even today there are countries where the age of consent is nine. It's human because it's always been a part of human culture.
We're also the only species that are even capable of comprehending the concept of good or evil. If there were other animals near our intelligence and with culture then we could say whether or not humans are truly special. But do you think morality could exist before language? Before people could grasp the concept of abstract thinking? We're the only species capable of doing this on a general basis.
Obviously the father, both because humans have greater capacities for suffering then a lion, plus the fact that a lion isn't capable of comprehending any sort of concept outside of a sort of instinct.
In the long run, yeah. But that's not how evolution works. If we stayed in a single ecosystem then we'd have much more limited resources and area for us to live in. Instead we can expand across the entire world and use whatever we want.
That's pretty silly. The middle of Australia is a desert. There's almost no water there and the soil sucks. For anyone who wants to live in a society that's not like the indigenous people then they pretty much have to live on the coast. Same with Egypt: it's a desert. Humans need water to live. Deserts don't have water.
But overpopulation isn't just living space. It's the effects we have on our natural environment and resources available. Fresh water supplies are dropping rapidly, we're running out of fossil fuels, as well as the pollution, destruction of the rain forest, and global warming thing.
No, it's not that I don't know where the trait comes from, it's that I know it contradicts principles which evolutionists argue all living creatures live by.
So then why have we do we have them? If you're an evolutionist, then you would believe that every trait we have was evolved for a certain purpose, like how Giraffes have developed long necks to reach tall trees.
I'm not claiming I know what the purpose is, but your thinking is contradicting evolutionary logic. The whole idea behind evolution is that things adapt, so what would be the point of evolving certain intellectual capacities if we're not meant to use them?
In other words, what would be the point of evolving the idea that we have a purpose outside of procreation if we really don't?
How is it that you can know that procreating is part of our purpose but nothing else? What criteria are you using to determine what our purpose/s is/are?
But if you're an evolutionist then you believe that we could only invent technology because we evolved the potential to do so.
The reality is, everything humans do and think that is against evolution and its principles was apparently a result of this evolution, which is kinda a contradiction, considering that evolution is meant to only develop useful adaptions.
No one's denying animals experience emotions. There is a difference between morality, self-evaluation, pursuit of virtue, and a natural instinct which is in place for the greater good of the species eg. mothers caring for their cubs.
Yes I know this. Young seals in certain places do this too, but it is for development of hunting skills. If an animal participates in 'serial killing' it's ually either part or the cyle of that ecosystem, or the victim has violated a rule of the killer, such as a lion killing a hiyena trespassing in its territory.
Well of course I'm simlifying thousands of words into a paragraph. You don't have to agree with him, but the fact that you disrespect Arsitotle so casually just adds to the evidence that you've already given in other threads that you don't really have any respect or knowledge of philosophy.
Someone is still yet to explain to me the evolutionary benefit of ignoring ecosystems, resulting in the disruption and destruction of other ones.
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
Why can't we have an infinitely old cycle of universes? That is self-nessecary. That didn't begin.
Only a theory? ONLY A THEORY? Oh dear. Please, research the term Scientific Theory. It'll explain a lot.
Actually you know what? I'll explain the term Scientific Theory. A scientific theory is a explanation for a whole number of facts. It explains the relationships between them and is supposed to contradict none of the facts, at least where it applies. It is well supported and generally accepted. It's false-fiable, and must make predictions.It's not something you can just think up overnight, that is an idea! I'd rather you didn't make this sort of mistake again, it makes you look like you aren't familiar with science.
Also, the curvature of space-time has been observed. Have you heard of this thing called gravitational lensing? It's where the gravity of an object eg. the sun, warps space-time and bends light. This has been observed and is one of the central tenants of general relativity.
It isn't possible for inductive logic to evolve? I would imagine so, it'd help out for doing a lot of things. The idea doesn't have to evolve, only the capacity to create that idea. Then once a guy has the idea, you have the idea being brought into existence. Would you say that we evolved to build cars?
No, Just No. You must have a really low opinion of us evolutionists. Do you actually think that Richard Dawkins believes in social darwinism? I dislike religion because it has caused wars and violence and bloodshed, sexism, racism, discrimination, the denial of science and generally a whole lot of things that were unpleasant.
Environmental factors perhaps? Our DNA doesn't control everything. Also, our DNA is not the entirely same. And then would it be beneficial to have everyone thinking the same way? I'm not actually sure about that
We can evolve knowledge now? Sweet. I'm going to pass on the general relativity gene to my children! It'll help them learn physics in high school.
No seriously, the evolution of religious capacities is an interesting one. Richard Dawkins seems to explain it well in his book "The God Delusion".
Basically we evolved the tendency to view the everything around us including prey, predators, large rocks etc. to have a purpose. This is because it's easier to view everything that way. It means less time is required to think about what something can or will do. Rocks "want" to fall, etc. This logic applies to us and Hey Presto, you have the belief that we have a purpose. What gave us this purpose they might have asked? now you have a god.
Oh really? I want evidence, I think you have just made a massive assertion without any sort of evidence at all. Animals have killed sadistically or at least show characteristics of it. What about playing with seals before you're about to eat them? Throwing them around and then trying to catch them again, Killer Whales do this all the time!
Why? Would it benefit us if we can control the ecosystem to our advantage? YES! It makes perfect sense! Would it benefit us if we could ignore ecosystems when we wish? YES! If it is beneficial, we can evolve it.
Yeah, the centre of Australia is DESERT or at least close to! How many people do you think you can support on a DESERT? I hate it when people who say that Australia is NOT overpopulated or that we have plenty of room! My country's environment is extremely fragile, and already, we have too many people here. Cities are becoming too crowded, farmland is losing productivity because of the drought, there are massive salinity problems, wind and water erosion is becoming a problem. If this gets worse we'll be a net importer of food, that means that country is overpopulated (more people then it can sustain).
It's kinda like saying that we should build cities in Siberia, or Antarctica. Look at all the room! There's barley a soul in Antarctica!
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
Uh no. Sorry, most traits, do, some are useless, relics from our past, strange random mutations that never got fixed etc.
We are, and don't you think we're doing a good job of it. All those stone tools, farms, hospitals and factories. This is what our brains brought us DOMINANCE! If it weren't for that, we'd be out of place apes.
Maybe it's a by-product of another trait? I don't know. Not everything has evolved deliberately. A whole number of features could have come about as a by-prodcut of some other trait.
Well, a purpose, you know, what we're here for or something... I don't know actually. I don't think we have a purpose because there is no evidence for one.
Indeed, we evolved the potential to invent stuff. It was very handy and it still is.
I think we need to perform a good cost-benefit analysis. We get, modern medicine, sanitation, farms, easy food, fertilisers for losing, a couple of massive wars, contraception, abortion etc. Basically due to our capacity to invent stuff and organise ourselves, we have expanded from a world-wide population of less then 1000000 to 6 Billion and counting. If that's not an evolutionary success I don't know what is.
Okay, so then what's the main difference between a Piraña's morality and our morality?
Well some of the observations are pretty profound, I just think that Aristotle is overrated. Arthur Schopenhauer I respect.
Been there done that...
Most people in these debates have read my arguments in other posts about God and the infinite regress of time etc. It's just too much to explain in this topic.
Eor admitted in another thread that it wasn't irrefutable fact, just a theory. He even admitted that Hawkins himself conceded that there are complications with his theory.
It's not neccessarily the curvature of time that I'm against, it's the fact that it's used to justify the premise that you can have an infinite succession of dependant entities (eggs), without having an original self-neccesary entity to create them (the chicken). But again, all this was debated in other threads so I'll leave it at that.
I don't think you understood my point. Eor was arguing that religion was evolutionarily beneficial. My point was that he just gave an explanation of how religion came about (inductive logic), but didn't really explain how it was beneficial in an evolutionary sense
Firstly, not all religions deny science. The Catholic Church has embraced science and medicine to verify certain miracles.
Secondly, I think you missed the point of the argument. Religion teaches principles that are contrary to evolution, such as having a purpose other than procreation. What I'm saying is that it makes no sense why we would evolve the ability to have ideas which actually hinder evolution principles. In an evolutionary sense, it would have made more sense for us to not have these ideas, or at least not have spiritual capacaties, so then we'd all be evolutionists.
Thirdly, Richard Dawkins is widely considered a joke in the academic community, by both theists and athiests alike.
Again, if you're an evolutionist, then you believe humans are very intelligent animals. It's evident that we have evolved intellectual traits, what doesn't make sense is why they hinder evolutionary principles. Considering that evolution only provides useful adaptions, it was perfectly possible that evolution could have only developed useful intellectual traits, such as understanding what evolution and our purpose is. It never would have needed to develop spiritual capacities and other things that hinder our supposed natural goals, but t's evident that these 'hindrances' exist.
Well if you're an evolutionist, you would have to believe that we're only this intelligent because our minds evolved.
Firstly, you have grossly straw-manned the premises for why people (at least intelligent people) believe in God, again because of your lack of knowledge in philosophy. I don't believe in God because I believe I have a purpose, or because it is comforting, I believe in a God because logically I have deduced that given we understand the essence of natural entities, a natural entity could not have been responsible for the creation of the world.
How do you explain a a traditional deist's belief in God? There is no spiritual or emotional attachment there, it is purely philosophical.
Secondly, how is this anymore valid than Aristotle's? Both are just theories, yet you disrespect Aristotle, then apply Dawkins as if it were fact, when he is probably the most non-respected philosopher in the industry alongside Peter Singer.
Playing with your food is different to sadistically murdering multiple people for sexual gratification.
This is a most curious statement. The fact evolution would allow us to evolve to this point, and no other animal, would suggest that nature is a means to the ends of humans, a theory often attributed to theists. The evolutionists who believe there is no real distinction between humans and animals are the atheists, who believe that humans are a means to the end of nature. Allowing us to destory other ecosystems for own ends contradicts the theory that we are only a means to the end of nature.
Again, this is a result of the system we have developed. It's not as if people have never lived in the desert before.
[/QUOTE]
Actually I'm just going to post this, since it seems to be a common misunderstanding. A lot of what I'm about to say is from the website "talkorigins.net", which is a great scientific website for information about this.
You seem to be saying that Evolution is something that it's not. The most basic defintion of biological evolution is "a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations". That's it. You seem to be working off the idea that evolution is either "the doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower" or "the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny", which again is not what evolution is.
Evolution isn't progress. It's nothing more then populations adapting to their environment. At the same time, organisms are not passive to their environment, as each species modifies it's environment. At the lowest level, they just take nutrients and add waste, like a plant. This waste is sometimes useful for other organisms, like us (as oxygen is the waste created by plants). Other organisms do larger things, like beavers who build dams to create a suitable pond to sustain them and raise their young.
For evolution to happen, there has to be mechanisms to cause it. The mechanisms of evolution are mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, recombination and gene flow. Natural selection, the most common one, is simple. Some species with mutations (which are just changes in genes) have traits over other ones. These last longer and breed more. As their children have these genetic traits, they'll last longer and breed more. These traits don't have to be directly linked to anything incredibly beneficial. For example, hair color. Blondes are attractive to most people. If more blondes breed, then there will be more blonde children (assuming they mate with other blondes since the blonde traitr is recessive). Don't get too caught up in the hair color thing, because that was just suppose to be an example of how it could work, not how it did.
For a better example of natural selection: moths. Dark colored moths have a higher reproductive rate then light colored moths because light colored moths are easier to see and are eaten more often. As time went on the alleles responsible for light colored moths disappeared from the gene pool.
For the next part I need to define the terms I'm about to use: altruism and selfishness. I don't mean them in the moral sense, but in the biological sense. selfish behaviors are ones that one's own inclusive fitness is maximized. Altruistic behavior is one where ones own inclusive fitness is minimized for the benefit of another. Altruism is not a trait that can last, as those who are more selfish will breed more. A lot of behaviors that seem altruistic, such as forming communities or pacts, are in reality selfish. For example, Vampire bats will sometimes regurgitate blood into another bat who didn't find a meal. These bats then form partners. If a bat is given blood, but then won't give blood back to the other bat when the bat is in need, he'll leave and find a new partner. This altruistic behavior is reciprocal altruism, in that it's done to another in the hope that this other will help the first organism if it's in need. Helping say, your children, is another way to get your genes to spread. As your kids have your genes, if they grow up and can reproduce your genes will spread further.
People generally say "survival of the fittest", but that's misleading. Survival is only one part of it, and is generally the least important. For example, in polygynous species, a number of males survive to reproductive age, but only a few ever mate. Males may differ little in their ability to survive, but greatly in their ability to attract mates -- the difference in reproductive success stems mainly from the latter consideration. Also, the word fit is often confused with physically fit. Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variants in a gene pool. Fit does not necessarily mean biggest, fastest or strongest.
Again, evolution is not a progress. It's not the process where species evolve from lower life forms to more complex life forms, then to the pinnacle of it (generally considered to be humans). . Every living species is as fully modern as we are with its own unique evolutionary history. No extant species are "lower life forms," atavistic stepping stones paving the road to humanity.
You also seem to imply that if we did evolve from evolution that our morals would have to be evolutionary. But let's go with the philosophical route, because despite what you may thing I'm not anti-philosophy, I'm just not a favor of using philosophy over what we can observe. David Hume proved a long time ago that just because something "is" does not mean it "ought to be".
Evolution doesn't remove purpose from life. It removes a need for a purposeful design in life, but not for any sort of actual purpose for it. Is there a universal purpose to life in general? There's only one answer to that from science: insufficient information.
For the philosophy, not everything is metaphysical, despite it maybe claiming so. If a religious text says "the world is flat because God made it flat", then that's not a metaphysical claim. We can observe in the world is flat or not. Since it's not, then it's not a metaphysical claim. If it was flat then the only part that would be metaphysical would be the claim that "God made it flat". If we then find out scientific reasons for why the world is flat, then it can still be metaphysical to say "God made those reasons", but that'd be about it.
For other reasons for the evolution of religion, I'm going to directly quote some.
" * A fear of death has obvious survival advantages and is probably as old as emotions. When intellect evolved to the point that imagination became possible, we could start thinking about alternatives.
* Humans and other primates live in dominance hierarchies. A social structure with "higher" and "lower" beings is part of our genes. We can always point to other animals as lower beings, but sometimes a higher being requires something unobvious.
* With the origin of symbolic thinking (which language requires), the abstract higher beings could be thought of in more specific terms.
* With language, gods could be talked about. From there, religion developed via cultural evolution.
* Fear of the unknown gives further reason for believing in gods. Dealings with a god, such as sacrificial offering or intercessory prayer, allow one the impression of some influence over events that are beyond one's control. "
You seem to be saying that Evolution is something that it's not. The most basic defintion of biological evolution is "a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations". That's it. You seem to be working off the idea that evolution is either "the doctrine according to which higher forms of life have gradually arisen out of lower" or "the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny", which again is not what evolution is.
Evolution isn't progress. It's nothing more then populations adapting to their environment. At the same time, organisms are not passive to their environment, as each species modifies it's environment. At the lowest level, they just take nutrients and add waste, like a plant. This waste is sometimes useful for other organisms, like us (as oxygen is the waste created by plants). Other organisms do larger things, like beavers who build dams to create a suitable pond to sustain them and raise their young.
For evolution to happen, there has to be mechanisms to cause it. The mechanisms of evolution are mutation, natural selection, genetic drift, recombination and gene flow. Natural selection, the most common one, is simple. Some species with mutations (which are just changes in genes) have traits over other ones. These last longer and breed more. As their children have these genetic traits, they'll last longer and breed more. These traits don't have to be directly linked to anything incredibly beneficial. For example, hair color. Blondes are attractive to most people. If more blondes breed, then there will be more blonde children (assuming they mate with other blondes since the blonde traitr is recessive). Don't get too caught up in the hair color thing, because that was just suppose to be an example of how it could work, not how it did.
For a better example of natural selection: moths. Dark colored moths have a higher reproductive rate then light colored moths because light colored moths are easier to see and are eaten more often. As time went on the alleles responsible for light colored moths disappeared from the gene pool.
For the next part I need to define the terms I'm about to use: altruism and selfishness. I don't mean them in the moral sense, but in the biological sense. selfish behaviors are ones that one's own inclusive fitness is maximized. Altruistic behavior is one where ones own inclusive fitness is minimized for the benefit of another. Altruism is not a trait that can last, as those who are more selfish will breed more. A lot of behaviors that seem altruistic, such as forming communities or pacts, are in reality selfish. For example, Vampire bats will sometimes regurgitate blood into another bat who didn't find a meal. These bats then form partners. If a bat is given blood, but then won't give blood back to the other bat when the bat is in need, he'll leave and find a new partner. This altruistic behavior is reciprocal altruism, in that it's done to another in the hope that this other will help the first organism if it's in need. Helping say, your children, is another way to get your genes to spread. As your kids have your genes, if they grow up and can reproduce your genes will spread further.
People generally say "survival of the fittest", but that's misleading. Survival is only one part of it, and is generally the least important. For example, in polygynous species, a number of males survive to reproductive age, but only a few ever mate. Males may differ little in their ability to survive, but greatly in their ability to attract mates -- the difference in reproductive success stems mainly from the latter consideration. Also, the word fit is often confused with physically fit. Fitness, in an evolutionary sense, is the average reproductive output of a class of genetic variants in a gene pool. Fit does not necessarily mean biggest, fastest or strongest.
Again, evolution is not a progress. It's not the process where species evolve from lower life forms to more complex life forms, then to the pinnacle of it (generally considered to be humans). . Every living species is as fully modern as we are with its own unique evolutionary history. No extant species are "lower life forms," atavistic stepping stones paving the road to humanity.
You also seem to imply that if we did evolve from evolution that our morals would have to be evolutionary. But let's go with the philosophical route, because despite what you may thing I'm not anti-philosophy, I'm just not a favor of using philosophy over what we can observe. David Hume proved a long time ago that just because something "is" does not mean it "ought to be".
Evolution doesn't remove purpose from life. It removes a need for a purposeful design in life, but not for any sort of actual purpose for it. Is there a universal purpose to life in general? There's only one answer to that from science: insufficient information.
For the philosophy, not everything is metaphysical, despite it maybe claiming so. If a religious text says "the world is flat because God made it flat", then that's not a metaphysical claim. We can observe in the world is flat or not. Since it's not, then it's not a metaphysical claim. If it was flat then the only part that would be metaphysical would be the claim that "God made it flat". If we then find out scientific reasons for why the world is flat, then it can still be metaphysical to say "God made those reasons", but that'd be about it.
For other reasons for the evolution of religion, I'm going to directly quote some.
" * A fear of death has obvious survival advantages and is probably as old as emotions. When intellect evolved to the point that imagination became possible, we could start thinking about alternatives.
* Humans and other primates live in dominance hierarchies. A social structure with "higher" and "lower" beings is part of our genes. We can always point to other animals as lower beings, but sometimes a higher being requires something unobvious.
* With the origin of symbolic thinking (which language requires), the abstract higher beings could be thought of in more specific terms.
* With language, gods could be talked about. From there, religion developed via cultural evolution.
* Fear of the unknown gives further reason for believing in gods. Dealings with a god, such as sacrificial offering or intercessory prayer, allow one the impression of some influence over events that are beyond one's control. "
Sorry Eor the reason why I didn't respond to your last post was because I didn't see it.
I'm not going to write too much against your newest one, because I'm getting to the point where I'm just repeating everything, and soon it just becomes pointless banter, but I will say a few things-
The same goes for your argument here. In evolving 'intellect', evolution didn't have to give us a free-thinking mind, open to incorrect ideas and lifestyles, that corrupt both humanity and nature. We only needed to evolve the correct intellectual adaptions, not both correct and incorrect.
Now I'm guessing you may argue that this was impossible, and that it was impossible to evolve intellect without free-thinking, resulting in ideas that corrupt humanity and nature. The thing is, if it was impossibleto develop the 'perfectly adapted' intellect, then evolution wouldn't have given us intellects, because in doing so it has done more harm than good. In an evolutionary sense, it has given more complications than adaptions. We would have just been better off without it.
By the way why have people stopped debating me in the abortion thread?
I'm not going to write too much against your newest one, because I'm getting to the point where I'm just repeating everything, and soon it just becomes pointless banter, but I will say a few things-
I think I understand more about evoltuion than you give me credit for. I understand that it's merely the adaption to an environement, rather than progress. I'm aware of basic things such as convergent and divergent theories, and things like dominant and recessive genes. I don't really see how all this was relevant though.
But isn't the whole idea behind evolution is that it evolves the 'ought to be'?. It just seems to me that every other animal is perfectly adapted to its environment, they never seem to evolve bad adaptions.
This is similar to how theists defend the problem of evil. They say that suffering is required for wisdom and goodness. In response, you can say that may be true for the way the world is now, but God could have easily made a world where suffering wasn't necessary for goodness and wisdom.
The same goes for your argument here. In evolving 'intellect', evolution didn't have to give us a free-thinking mind, open to incorrect ideas and lifestyles, that corrupt both humanity and nature. We only needed to evolve the correct intellectual adaptions, not both correct and incorrect.
Now I'm guessing you may argue that this was impossible, and that it was impossible to evolve intellect without free-thinking, resulting in ideas that corrupt humanity and nature. The thing is, if it was impossibleto develop the 'perfectly adapted' intellect, then evolution wouldn't have given us intellects, because in doing so it has done more harm than good. In an evolutionary sense, it has given more complications than adaptions. We would have just been better off without it.
By the way why have people stopped debating me in the abortion thread?
It was because I didn't think you understood it and that you viewed it as progress. If you did view it as progress, then I wanted to show why it wasn't.
No, evolution just evolves something that will reproduce more. Any concept of "ought to be" would imply progress. It doesn't even lead for species to be more adapted to their environment.
I also think you should define what "perfectly adapted to it's environment" actually means. Do you mean that animals are perfectly harmonious in their environments? If you just mean that they're capable of surviving just fine in their environment, well then yeah. If they couldn't then they wouldn't be alive right now. Also you can't really separate humanity from environment, which would show that a lot of species aren't perfectly adapted to their environment, because we keep on murdering all of them.
Well the difference is that one is based off the idea of an all powerful, all knowing and all loving God (outside of those concepts then the problem of evil doesn't really exist), and the other one is based off of mutations that lead to people breeding more. One is design and the other is a natural process with no concept of progress or design.
Again, evolution is not progress, which is something that you say you know but you're directly stating here. When we get mutations, we don't keep them off the basis that they can evolve more. You also keep on saying "evolution wouldn't give us", but evolution is not a natural force. It's a term to describe genetic change. If something makes us breed more, we'll keep it, whether or not it's beneficial in the long run, becaus that's the only way traits are passed on. If someone has a trait where they die at the age of 20, but every time they get someone pregnant the person has ten kids (and assuming that women can give birth to ten kids), then that person will spread his genes because he can breed much faster then everyone else, even if he dies before everyone else. That might not be true in the modern sense with concepts such as birth control and cultural sexuality and so forth, but it'd be true before such times.
Intellect has given us obvious advantages. Such as making tools, developing abstract ideas that allow us to think about things even when we don't see or observe them, and allowing us to understand cause and effect. By being able to think about things in the abstract, which intelligence gives us, we can then form language, since language is just abstract ideas that are used to represent something. By having language, we can pass on knowledge and what we know to other people, and we can communicate better. If someone, through cause and effect, finds a good way to make a tool, he can share this with other people without having to physically show them. if someone finds a good hunting ground, shelter, or water source, he can tell people. This is what caused humans with higher brain power to last longer. The fact that our higher intelligence also causes us to murder each other and so forth doesn't matter, because even with all of that they'd still breed faster then those who didn't, and therefore would replace them.
I didn't want to respond since Lordofthemorning posted in response, and if two debaters were going to debate it'd be best for us to debate in the actual debate hall instead of clogging up debate here.
I figure that this might be a good point to say what my feelings on this topic is. I'm pretty much a metaphysical naturalist. I'm an agnostic atheist, in that I don't believe in a God, but I also accept that it's fully possible there is one. However, if such a God does exist, then either he doesn't interact with our world, or he does through natural means. If there is a purpose to life then it's not divinely inspired, and if it was divenly inspired then we should probably either know it, or else it'd be impossible to know, simply based off the fact that if we have a divine purpose then we should probably be given understanding of that purpose so we can complete it. Personally I believe we're just a pretty intelligent social species that lives on a pretty average rock orbiting a pretty average star in a pretty average solar system in a pretty average galaxy. I don't think there's anything special about us at all in the macro sense, unless in the micro sense of the earth. But any sense of divine would generally have to be about the universe, not directed around a single planet in the quadrillions upon quadrillions of planets that exist in the solar system. The idea that humans have a central position or are cosmologically imporant goes against almost all of science ever since people realized that the earth wasn't at the center of the universe. So if we have a purpose, it's not something we can know, and not something that should really be bothered about unless some direct evidence comes out for it. For this I'm going to use a common parable, a man shot with a poison arrow. Should this man sit down and ponder who shot him, where the person came from, why he was shot, and so on? If he does the man will die before he could answer any of these questions. Instead the guy should get an antidote to his arrow. I focus more on what to do now, along with morality and so forth, then bothering why it came to being. I'll argue about it based off how it's not contradictory with evolution and a natural world, but I honestly don't find the arguments about why it came to being very important. Fun, maybe, but not very relevant.
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
Okay, that's fine I suppose that'd be off-topic then.
Yeah, science isn't perfect. It's a changing process adapting to new observations, experimental results etc. in an attempt to find truth.
Well, then again, did you evolve the idea to go on to smashboards? Was it passed down from your parents in their DNA? I think not.
My point is that ideas do not evolve as part of our DNA, instead they adopt a life of their own and become memes. They don't have to be beneficial to the species that carries them if they're to be successful, instead they only have to be good at propagating themselves.
Think back to the DARK AGES... Oh and what about the crusades and all that Creationist garble that goes on in the Bible Belt. I would think that you hate that sort of rubbish too right?
Ah yeah, but what if they're part of another trait? Such as the ability to invent. Remember, genes don't always have only one effect, it could be an effect of a gene that gives us the ability to invent, or comprehend what is around us. Honestly I don't think anyone knows for sure. However to say that "because we don't know evolutionary origin of religion, god must have made us" is an argument from ignorance. It is a logical fallacy.
Source please?
For the most part they don't. From a worldwide population from less than 1 million to 6 Billion is a pretty good success story. Sure we could do better, but evolution isn't perfect and it has no foresight and only works in the short term.
Yeah, but evolution is not perfect. And besides what if this trait came bundled with another trait that had positives that outweighed the negatives?
Yeah, okay...
Any evidence to speak of? I mean for the creator of the universe to lack any sort of evidence at all is pretty poor. And we don't know what occurred before the big-bang, so that argument is null and void as well. We don't know if there was anything before that, or whether causality breaks down without time (therefore a causal origin to the universe isn't possible), or anything much really. Honestly, we just don't know!
I don't know and I don't claim to know. I honestly don't have a clue. You probably should ask a psychologist or something.
As if disrespect Aristotle was some blasphemy... Seriously, I think that Aristotle had poor information to go on. You can have the finest mind in the universe, but without the correct information you get rubbish out the other end.
Evolution would allow? Okay, evolution allows anything that is successful or beneficial. It doesn't have a purpose, it doesn't have an agenda. If the ability to ignore ecosystems when it would be advantageous to is of benefit to the person carrying that gene or genes, then it would spread.
Nice Straw-man! I believe that humans are just there; we happened to be on the lucky end of a very long stick.
Evolution only produces traits that are beneficial to that individual, either directly or indirectly, it has nothing to do with the health of nature. As long as where having kids, evolution is happy. That is the attitude that evolution takes.
Okay, how many people do you think you could sustain in a DESERT?! Please tell me. I really want to know. I know that people live in deserts, BUT, the number of people that need to move into a desert to solve this problem would be huge. A desert can't sustain that number of people. Please, learn a little about geography, before you say something like this.
Ok now there's just too much writing for me to try and refute.
I think there's nothing more we can really gain from the argument.
Bob Jane if anything I'm just having to repeat myself with you. Things like when you asked about the distinction between the morality of a piranha and a humans I had already explained more than once before. I'm not saying that it's because your intellectually inferior than me, it could be a number of reasons, the point is that for whatever the reason is, the debate between the two of us is not really going anywhere.
Eor, you obviously know what you're talking about and gave me a real challenge, this is probably the debate I learned from the most, and learning is what I'm here for. However, I felt that you started slipping the last two or three posts, and started giving me things I already had answers for and could have easily turned around against you. I think if this debate was just me countering your last 2-3 posts, I think I would have clearly won, but naturally all your posts before that had strong arguments so I applaud that. I also applaud that you respect philosophy.
I think there's nothing more we can really gain from the argument.
Bob Jane if anything I'm just having to repeat myself with you. Things like when you asked about the distinction between the morality of a piranha and a humans I had already explained more than once before. I'm not saying that it's because your intellectually inferior than me, it could be a number of reasons, the point is that for whatever the reason is, the debate between the two of us is not really going anywhere.
Eor, you obviously know what you're talking about and gave me a real challenge, this is probably the debate I learned from the most, and learning is what I'm here for. However, I felt that you started slipping the last two or three posts, and started giving me things I already had answers for and could have easily turned around against you. I think if this debate was just me countering your last 2-3 posts, I think I would have clearly won, but naturally all your posts before that had strong arguments so I applaud that. I also applaud that you respect philosophy.
As a question: where they things you had answered in responses to my posts, or to Bob jane's? Because honestly I didn't read your posts with Bob Jane, so if they're things you posted in response to me that you feel I was repeating please let me know
Riddle
Smash Lord
Don't make cocky, unsupported claims like this. If you feel like you can refute Eor's posts and become a clear victor in the debate then do it. Don't just say that you could. This comes off to me as arrogant and is something you probably shouldn't say to anyone. I have no problems with you actually out-debating Eor but don't make posts like this please.
I didn't mean it as cocky. The posts I was referring to weren't necessarily bad, but they were just slightly poor for his high standards.
If I was debating someone who was evidently a lesser debater than me, then I wouldn't make a comment like that. The reason why I made the comment is because I know Eor is not a lesser debater than me, and I felt those posts weren't a true reflection of his capability.
I was just more surprised than anything that he was giving me easier points to refute. Obviously I felt I was arguing the right things and he wasn't, but in a purely neutral debating sense, up until that point I thought he was winning (he probably still did win but just didn't do as well in his last posts).
It seems as if it's such a massive offence here when a PGer tries to give contructive criticism to a DHer.
PGers are here to prove they're at DH level, they're not here to learn to get to DH level. When debating a PGer, you're not supposed to immediately assume he is intellectually inferior to you, and that he has to learn to get to your level.
Riddle
Smash Lord
Why should it matter? Just telling him they aren't a true reflection of his capability won't help anything. Show him the weaknesses in his debate and I will not care at all.
Where was the constructive criticism? I sure didn't see any. You just told him his most recent posts were weak and didn't tell him how at all. Criticism actually has to help people to be constructive. For the record I would have responded the same if it was another PG'er you said that too. You were perfectly fine in your statement to Bob Jane though. If your statements were reversed I would have said the same thing but with Bob Jane's name instead of Eor.Dre said:
I would argue that its both. However, in no way am I stating that you somehow have inferior intelligence than me or Eor.Dre said:
I feel that your post seemed arrogant. Making unsupported statements that say that you were 'winning' a debate come off as arrogant to me. Feel free to disagree, however I think you could improve past the point were you already are (you are a good debater) if you just toned it down a little.
My first post was slightly harsh and I apologize.
I guess you have a point here, that I didn't really direct him. The problem was, it wasn't just one or two simple things, they were spread over a few long posts, so it was 'uneconomic' to point them all out.
I was more just pointing it out so if he wanted to he could analyse those posts and see where he could improve them, or if he felt they needed improving.
I understand that if a PGer is not good enough to make the DH, then he does need to learn. But it's not a teacher and student relationship though, PGers aren't necessarily inferior because they're PGers, they could be DH level, they just need to prove it, so a DHer shouldn't come to a PG debate thinking they're above the PGer debate-wise.
I can understand how you could interpret it as arrogant, but I tried to make it clear that I actually thought Eor was a better debater than me and that he won that debate. It would be arrogant if I considered myself better than Eor, but I don't.
No it's ok, you interpretted it as arrogance, so then it is understandable why you would respond in that manner.
Riddle
Smash Lord
I'm glad we could resolve this civilly, and I hope that you understand where I am coming from and can hopefully word your posts better in the future.
Yeah I might as well post and say that I wasn't annoyed at all by what Dre posted, I just wanted to know if the points he made that he felt I was ignoring were in his posts to me or not, because if they were then I'd double check to see what he meant, because while I didn't feel like I ignored any points if I had then I'd see what I missed so I wouldn't do it again
It wasn't really that you were avoiding problems I was giving you. It was more that some of your answers to my challenges were answers that actually benefitted me rather than you.
The thing is, you and most other people here will probably think I'm wrong, and that you were still right on those points. I'm just saying that those points I'm referring to weren't as convincing as the rest, and didn't really uphold the high standard you set in the debate..
Bob Jane T-Mart
Smash Ace
The feeling is mutual. It's just going around in circles. I keep having to tell you that evolution has no agenda, evolution isn't perfect, evolution evolve beneficial things, ideas aren't ingrained into our DNA etc. Then you have to keep telling me all this stuff.
I think you're a pretty smart guy, you know a lot about Philosophy (I can barely spell it right), far more than I do. However, some of your claims about evolution and geography seem to show a little lack of understanding.
Don't worry, you probably can easily brush up on these things, it's not hard. Especially for a guy as clever (I think) as you.
I think you're the only creationist (if that's the right word), I have to talk up to. Oh and by the way, do you accept evolution or not (god-guided, atheistic or whatever)? I'm just curious.
I appreciate the compliment, you were doing pretty well yourself. It's good to have some Australian representation in the PG and hopefulyl the DH in the future.
I'm uncertain about it to be honest. I don't accept it as scientific fact, but rather as a very plausible theory.
I think also that there are certain avenues of refutation that evolutionists haven't really considered such as the evidence of spiritual phenomena and the intelligent design of humans which alluded to in this debate.
And when I say 'considered', I mean actually inquire into at depth, not just discard all supernatural claims as mental dellusion.
What I don't like is how evolutionists argue it's scientific fact, which while I understand that's the belief in the scientific community, I feel there are still plausible arguments both for and against it that need to be considered.
I actually have a few questions (not arguments) about evolution-
1. The theory is everything evolved from the singulairty of course, so the environment evolved to the state it is now. What's the evidence for the environment evolving? I don't mean changing environments, I actually mean physical objects such as rocks etc. evolve, things that show non-living objects came from matter as well.
2. How did ecosystems evolve?
3. How did sexual reproduction evolve? And if asexual was already in existence, why did sexual reproduction evolve?
3. How did living organisms evolve from an environment of all non-living objects?
4. How did organisms survive before ecosystems, and their own personal adaptions weren't fully evolved to adapt to their environment?
Again, these points aren't an attempt to prove evolution wrong, I just want to further my knowledge of it.
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