Recent posts by Pleasedonot5 on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / Does God exists? and why?

Originally posted by KakkoiiBishounen:

Depends on how many people believe in the Big Bang. I don’t.

Actually, the amount of people who believe in a certain idea is not a determining factor in said idea’s validity. For example, if 9 (or even 10) out of every 10 people believed that orange unicorns created the universe in an event called “the anti-Big Bang” does that make the anti-Big Bang any more plausible? When the majority of the world’s population believed that the earth was flat, were they any more correct than flat-earthists are today?

Topic: Serious Discussion / People who do drugs.. Are they morally bad?

Ceasar,

Using certain drugs is morally bad because they harm your body. This could be anything from an immediate death by OD, or lung cancer in a few decades.

Is doing something to harm one’s own body necessarily morally bad?

Using certain drugs is morally bad because they cause you to lose control over yourself. This loss of control can cause you to do other things which are morally bad.

That’s a slippery slope fallacy. An example: “building technology could cause more tech advances which could create robots that could kill everybody, therefore tech innovation is bad!” when building technology will not necessarily cause everyone to be destroyed by robots.

Accordingly, doing drugs will not necessarily cause someone to do something morally bad, like stealing, harming, or killing. A lot of the time, getting drunk or getting high is privately practiced in the home for the purpose of simply having a good time.

Purchasing drugs can be morally bad because they are often sold by gangs, who can engage in violent turf wars. (…) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/29/chicago-homicide-rate-new-york_n_2378073.html

This makes more sense, if the person is aware of the fact that they are buying drugs which fund a malevolent organization. Being unaware of the dealer’s association with the gang, however, is not intrinsically morally wrong.

If a baby pushes a seemingly harmless red button that, everytime it is pushed, someone is harmed, does that make the baby immoral?

SELLING drugs can be morally bad because you are encouraging much of the above.

This argument relies on the validity of the premises which you addressed above, which are currently in question.

Being involved with drugs might be morally bad for some people because of the legal consequences themselves.

Laws are only a rough indicator of a society’s morality; in not all cases do the rules/laws determine what is morally correct. As an example, I run for my school’s track and cross country teams. In certain cases, one specific individual runs faster than he is supposed to on easy/recovery days and influences other newer runners to do the same, tiring everyone out for the workout the next day, which brings down the team. Being a senior member and the top of my team in performance, I’ve reminded this runner a few times of what he is supposed to be doing on designated easy days. When I do, it seems, he slows his pace and refrains from his fast-paced habits for a while, but eventually will start up again. One day he told on me for “scolding him” (which I did not do) and consequently the coach personally talked to me about my interactions with this runner. He told me that I was correct in what I was saying, but I should not tell the runner what to do; the coach went over appropriate paces for everyone at practice, but this did not influence the aforementioned runner’s hot-headedness.

Basically, although the “rules” as stated by my coach forbid me from telling other runners what to do, I know that I know more of what goes on in the distance runs more than my coach does at times, and will continue to remind others of the appropriate paces to run even if I have been told not to, as my actions help out everyone on the team. Even if I was threatened to be kicked off the team (which wouldn’t happen), I would still be doing the morally right thing — the other runner reporting that I’m scolding him would be in the moral wrong for hurting others’ chances at fame. In other cases, such as speaking out against the political corruption that goes on in Russia (especially in Chechnya), one may be arrested and taken from their family for “breaking the law” even though doing so may be fighting tyranny and be morally right.

In essence, morality often goes above the laws/rules as set by a governing body, even if there are possible negative consequences for breaking them.

Topic: Serious Discussion / my religious struggle..... help

The word “atheist” carries a very negative connotation to many Christians… It would be better to simply say that you don’t believe in God. But other than that, it’s best to be completley honest about your feelings to them — honesty is the best policy.

Topic: Serious Discussion / U.S. Presidential Election

@ColtArmy:

The president didn’t take responsibility for the Libya terrorist attack, he let his Secretary of State take the blame. Hillary Clinton took the heat to protect the president. The president did blame a video for 14 days after the terrorist attack. He didn’t come out and call it a terror attack until the state department came out with the correct information. The president and secretary of state made a video (at the cost to the taxpayer of $70,000) apologizing to the Taliban for the video. This was an embarrassment to our country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0wllKURCq8

Did you even watch the debate? These issues were explained and validated by the moderator. The President said, “it was a surprising and outrageous attack” later, “but there is no justification for this type of senseless violence” and most importantly, “no acts of terror will shake this great nation.” He identified the issue for what it was… an act of terror.
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http://www.youtube.com/politics?feature=etp-pv-ype-3bff3fd3f0

In the debate, Obama takes full responsibility for the low security forces present at the U.S. embassy in Libya when the ambassador was killed, when he said ultimately he’s the one in charge and the responsibility falls on him. Saying that he put the blame on Clinton is just intellectually dishonest and should not continue to be propegated.
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@jhco50:

I found the video Colt was talking about. You can see it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtNu6E7c4vA

Where do you even get that this was an apology?? Did either President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton say anything that resembled an apology? Obama said that the senseless violence was not justifiable, and Clinton emphasized that the U.S. did not endorse the anti-Muslim video. There was no sense of apology within the words spoken of the two individuals aforementioned, based on the sources provided.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@somebody613:

Well, then it occurs to me that you have the mindset that, “anything could happen at anytime.” While that might be true and the reality we’re living in could be a farce, that doesn’t mean that God probably did this “modding” that you speak of. You can’t disprove it, but you can’t prove it through observation either, so why act as if it happened like that?

You might as well believe in orange fairy unicorns that excrete pixie dust and rainbows — it’s the same concept.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@somebody613:

Then please go on to tell me about how the Earth is 6,000 years old and contradicts the radiometric dating of fossils and other materials….. I think you understand what I’m trying to say here.

While Genesis, taken literally, does not contradict evolution as a process, it does contradict evolutionary theory which goes back a few billion years.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@somebody613:

PL
PLEASE!
Just read where I said that I agree that evolution can be used to explain the END-RESULT – but it can as well be COMBINED with Biblical Creation.

Evolutionary theory and Biblical creation do not contradict only if you ignore (or take less literally) the first few chapters of Genesis.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@somebody613:

But your very first sentence is kinda stupid, cause my idea was “proving past assumptions with present facts”.

Is there any reason to suspect that similar life forms in similar environments wouldn’t act a similar way? How is looking at examples from the past few hundred years up until now “proving past assumptions with current facts”? I feel like you’re under the impression that the constants that we recognize today aren’t constant. Which, through observation since the invention of modern science, we have not discovered any change in the abovementioned, relevant constants.

I say that what evolution is supposed to be, is contrary to what we see today.
You say “how can that be!?”

No, I’m saying that what you’re saying is well-understood and doesn’t contradict the theory of evolution. You think that it does, but I have explained how you are mistaken.

Prey-predator balance is a “current fact”.
Dodo’s extinction is another fact, where the “current fact” assumption fails.

No, predator-prey balance is ever-changing. See, you’re only looking at one or two variables — like, the number of predators and the number of prey, but are refusing to accept that there are other variables at play here. Yes, with the two variables you have identified exclusively in play, we should always expect to see predators and prey with some sort of balance. However, you then introduce another variable into the scenario — invasive species — and you say, “oh well this is the way it’s supposed to be but it’s not like that!” No, it would only be like that if the two original variables are in play, and clearly they aren’t the only variables in play. Make sense?

I specifically used small-size environment idea, so you can’t knock it off by saying that the predators wouldn’t catch all the prey.
There are situations where this doesn’t apply so much.

I don’t think I said that in that context.

“Earth is a big place with many ecosystems” – “current fact” usage at work. :D

When, according to scientific/historical evidence, do you propose that Earth was not a big place with many ecosystems?

I explained how I see the dodo example ruining the whole assumed appearance of the modern ecosystem.

Earth isn’t just one ecosystem. We refer to Earth as the biosphere, made up of 8 or so different biomes, each composed of many ecosystems. What you may think “ruined” an ecosystem probably had a life form that benefited from the invasive species. It isn’t so much ecosystem-ruining as it is ecosystem-altering. Things change and life goes on.

“Human empathy” is yet another “current fact” usage.

Don’t understand your problem with facts…

Cause lions (and majority of other herd animals) do not help the POOR/WEAK of their own, they either send them off or EAT them…

Right, but well-functioning members of their society aren’t sent off or eaten, are they? There are more perks to grouping-up with members that can provide a good service to everyone, usually, than when one is a lone-wolf fighting for his/herself.
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@FlabbyWoofWoof:

The Hindus have far greater proof for their Gods

Really? I didn’t remember anyone had any scientific proof for any deities.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@ISWATLLAMA:

A lot of religious belief has not been disproven by scientific standards, Llama. God has not been disproven, for starters.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

Sooo, somebody613, did you choose to purposely ignore my post on page 11 because you don’t have an answer, or did you simply not see it?

Luna
My point exactly – I might not change my opinion, but I don’t hurl insults at those who EXPLAIN why they have the opposite one.
Trolling achieves nothing but angering EVERYONE…

Yet you constantly hurl insults at everyone who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with your questionable method of truth…

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

@Azolf:

There’s a saying, “There are no atheists in the trenches.” This isn’t true of course, but I will say this, the internet is a forum of mind; out here in cyberspace it’s all word, theory, and ego.

I do understand what you are saying here, but understand that atheists that otherwise would not believe in God, acting out of emotional desperation as a survival mechanism by praying, does not mean that they believe in God. Also, you are right that this is not true for everyone. Regrettably, it is apparently true for me. My brain primarily thinks with its logical side, but in times of severe emotional trauma or desperation, I have found myself praying to whatever higher power that might be out there. Now, what you are saying only reinforces this position. You’re basically saying that belief in God is a more emotional than logical phenomenon.

The educated atheist acknowledges Jesus’ impact on history, unbiasedly dismissing any claims of Deity. I respect this position. I am persuaded by the teachings of Jesus. Jesus, friend of prostitutes, drunkards, and societal rejects and minorities; Jesus, who spoke out against the corruption of established religion and refused to side with political agendas; Jesus, the man most Christians know nothing about because they lack the intellectual capacity, or the sincere will, to approach the most overlooked, relevant, and plausible part of the Bible… you know, that small section that describes the life of Jesus.

Jesus’s existence is plausible, not confirmed, however. There really isn’t sufficient historical evidence for me to believe that the Jesus that you are describing existed and did what he did. However, yes, the very idea of what Jesus did, undoubtedly has changed society.

There is no proof of God.
There is no proof of God.
There is no proof of God.
I believe in God.

That’s basically how it is. Many, unfortunately, are under the guise that there is scientific or philosophical proof of God when that clearly isn’t the case.

Though, hey, I read your above post in which you contribute in a Christian community for charity — keep doing what you are doing. You seem to be a very good person. For as long as you love and accept others (and accept scientific advancements, others to share in the same rights as you, etc. for that matter), it is not necessarily our place as atheists to take that comfort and happiness away from you.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Theories of creation can never be right.

Zombies, an elementary understanding of geology would allow you not to embarass yourself on this forum. You can dig through to the other side of the Earth? Seriously? Maybe you’re forgetting about the Earth’s mantle and core? Both are insanely hot and do not allow for life to exist. I think that you should acquaint yourself with certain areas of science (like by completing middle/secondary school) before you start spewing nonsense about geology. :P

I understand what you say, however, about your concern that fossils might have been mixed up. However, through methods of dating (radiometric dating of soil layers in closed systems), we can see that this is really not the case.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

@somebody613:

Sure, your advice to Zombie is NOT BIASED at all, no-no-no… :DDD

As if you both aren’t biased either. “Bias” has shit to do with the validity of my argument/advice. Obviously, we’re all biased (although I do have an open mind to religious ideas if they can be demonstrated true). But, does he still have a baseless presupposition that I’m pointing out? Yes. That’s what matters.

You (any you) can dismiss that too, but this is different from your mentioned “presupposition”, cause the latter is a personal conclusion based on personal experience/ideas, which in my/Jewish case isn’t so, or not that much so.

Sure, you can have personal experiences that justify your beliefs for yourself, but you do have to remember that they hold no weight in a public forum or in scientific debate. This is because you cannot reciprocate the results that you, yourself, have acheived to others. If I was in your position with an understanding of human psychology, after observing these “personal experiences” — and seeing how not everyone else does — I would question whether the experiences were legitimate or if they were the result of a psychological phenomenon, perhaps due to an emotional evocation during a religious ceremony or difficult time, etc.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

Pyro, that’s very false. For example, I was raised to believe in creation by my parents… I don’t anymore.

People’s mindsets do change after evidence is presented, otherwise we would all still believe that the world was flat. However, people caught up in thinking emotionally are usually blind to the logic of things that contradict their religion (I’m sure that you’re well aware of the emotion that certain theists bring to the table after they are shown logically incorrect). I am a first-hand witness to the amount of emotion that religion brings into people’s lives, and believe me, it’s strong. It’s very difficult to break through and requires time. Evid3nc3 on YouTube highlights deconversion from religion as a delicate, gradual process with many aspects to it very well. I really recommend his series on “Why I am no longer a Christian” which he has organized numerically.

After hitting puberty, my brain started thinking more with logic than emotion (and plus my emotions were secure and comfortable at that time), and that played a large part into my deconversion. There are still times of rough emotion (like up until recently when my long-term girlfriend broke up with me 2 months ago) though that really get me to “pray to a god that I don’t believe in.” That was a period of my life when I was thinking primarily with emotional desperation, when I actually almost believed in God or a higher power again. I look back and think that it was probably an evolutionary, psychological thing to help me mentally cope with my terrible situation. Because, do I really believe in a higher power? No. Now that the emotions are settled, my brain is able to think clearly and with logic once more.

That’s how I came to this revelation about thinking with emotion vs. thinking with logic. Now, the goal is to get individuals to think more with the logical part of their brains for them to understand science and where we as the non-religious are coming from, and for them to possibly change their scientifically illogical views.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Theories of creation can never be right.

Chris, read my post on how there is historical evidence that they diverged from ancient, pagan Caananite religions.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

@somebody613:

You’re AGAIN (like I said NOT to do) using CURRENT FACTS (aka working ecosystems like WE see them – the end result) to “prove” evolution.

You’d rather me use outdated facts?

that the moment you GET a NEW predator (which happens ALL the time, in ALL places), it has NO “wish” to stop eating its NEW prey, until the latter simply disappears.

Yes. An ecosystem can be destroyed or severely altered by the immigration of an invasive species. It’s not a domino effect though. Species change and adapt. That’s the thesis of evolution! How can what evolution predicts destroy evolution? It is because of this that I feel you clearly do not understand the concepts of invasive species and predation.

The prey can move to a different ecosystem, be completely wiped out (but still have the same species in different areas), adapt, or even become extinct. Life goes on and new predator/prey relationships are established at the end of the day.

Your mentioned “but they reproduce faster” is but an END result, which we see NOW.
But HOW DID IT GET TO THERE?

When a prey population flourishes, they tend to have more offspring until the population reaches its limit (carrying capacity). Have you ever heard of “boom-bust populations” or “logistic growth of populations”?

Like, we know that wolf-hare relations are so balanced that they even reproduce “prophetically”, whenever either side gets bigger, so does the other, IN ADVANCE.

Dunno what you mean by “IN ADVANCE” but it makes sense that as the prey population flourishes, the predator population will also flourish in time, bringing down the prey population, bringing down the predator population, etc. The predator’s population size (assuming they have only one prey) is largely dependent on the prey’s population (the availability of food being the limiting factor) in this scenario. It all has to do with the available food supply and thus the carrying capacities for the populations in their ecosystems.

Dodo, on the other hand, was an example of a new predator being introduced into a stable ecosystem – and RUINING it.
According to the very idea of evolution, this must be happening most some/a lot of the time – so how come we have BALANCED ecosystems, with prey ADJUSTED to the predators? predators adjusted to the prey.

Fundamental misunderstanding of predator-prey relationships and invasive species. Not all of the time are invasive species fatal for an ecosystem, nor does it happen to every ecosystem on the planet all of the time. Earth is a big place with many ecosystems, and again a large part of the theory of evolution is that things adapt.

You can say whatever you want, but to me, this is a LOGICAL proof that ecosystems COULDN’T “evolve” by themselves.

Don’t see how one strong “dodo” example in a single ecosystem rules out the theory of evolution. It’s very mind-boggling how you could even come to that conclusion. Something happened that was bad! That must be true for all cases! No, it doesn’t (what you’re doing is called a hasty generalization), and even if it did… the ecosystems adapt. Now the ecosystem is adapted to the dodo (or whatever) predator is there and the species there adjust accordingly. Shit happens, basically, but life goes on.

EDIT:

All those claims of “we have a non-religious morality” are FAKE, cause you don’t LIVE in a non-religious society to be able to COME UP with “non-religious morals”.

Evolution does actually provide a good understanding of how morality developed. Now, obviously, a population that kills their own all the time isn’t likely to survive and pass their “fighting” genes onto the next generation, so some empathy was required. Similarly to how lions live in prides, other animals live in herds, etc. Without some form of empathy, we probably wouldn’t be here right now, regardless of how true religion is or not.

Now, this does have its exceptions, but a majority of moral problems can be solved with the basic rules: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and, “do unto others as they would have you do unto them.” Human empathy, an evolved emotion of understanding pain and suffering (what makes us cringe or become angry/sad when we see an infant being struck by a third-party), is something that plays in large part in human morality to this day. Religion is not required for morality; the understanding of pain and suffering is.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Theories of creation can never be right.

@DrMartian:

That’s actually a false dichotomy. In fact, I think that (at least most) religions could have sprouted up because of similar voids to be filled. This includes creating comfort, community, and purpose… which are three very human desires that may be expressed through religion. Plenty of modern religions, though, like Judaism (and thus Christianity and Islam) for starters, are said (with historical evidence, albeit limited) to have developed from earlier pagan Caananite religions. Even a religion as prominent as Buddhism and its sects ultimately developed from an offshoot of Hinduism. So, the more modern religions have basically branched off from earlier major religions, regardless of whether they’re true or not. Think of it like a phylogenic tree or a cladogram if that makes it simpler. :)

This “divergence” makes for many homologous tales and myths in many religions, and the same human motivations in religion-creating could have contributed to the similarities in every religion as well.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

Technically, according to the evidence, we evolved from the great apes who evolved from monkey-like anscestors, so yes, it is correct to say we evolved from monkeys haha. Just not the modern ones — the ones everyone think of when someone says, “monkeys.”

Topic: Serious Discussion / Creation vs. Evolution

Originally posted by somebody613:

Blah-blah-blah.
I provided a clear point: A predator is normally eating the WHOLE prey it can get – and the balance is a CURRENT (end-result) fact, unexplainable though “evolutionary competing”.
This is obvious, when you for a moment stop taking evolution for granted and start using its own logic, just without backing it up by end-result facts.
Anyways, gotta go to sleep…

You’re not forgetting that the prey in this predator-prey relationship you describe still reproduce (most often at a much higher rate than the predator), right? Otherwise, I’m not really sure what you’re getting at. Are you able to explain it in further, clearer detail?
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@ZombiestookmyTV:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution

For basic knowledge on human evolution. In fact, the evidence of a gradual descent into Homo sapiens is pretty well understood, with well-documented fossilized evidence of Homo resemblence dating back as far as Australopithecus afarensis or if you’ve ever heard of “Lucy.”

There are two seperate areas regarding evolution though that many laypeople misunderstand. One is the process of evolution that occurs due to genetic variation (including through DNA mutation), isolation, speciation, and selection. The process has been observed and proven, and it continues to be observed to this day. The other is evolutionary theory in which the process of evolution is applied as an axiom (because it’s been proven) and we attempt to take a look back at historical evidence (fossils, DNA evidence, homologous structures) to reconstruct a solid pathway of how evolution is most likely to have occurred up until the present day. Evolutionary theory is constantly changing and is far from completed.

Don’t be afraid to ask if you need me to go into further detail, provide evidence for, or explain these two separate areas of the theory of evolution better/in simpler terms. Being open to learning about it and questioning it now would bring more respect than to deny it without even looking into it.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

@ZombiestookmyTV:

So you refuse to listen to my points because they contradict you? Doesn’t that say it all about how far your head is buried in the sand?

No, believing in God is not much different from believing that there are orange unicorns. They are both baseless claims. How can you even create or fathom a “God’s logic” if there’s no evidence for that either? My advice: take a step back. You are presupposing that God exists. Remove the baseless presupposition, and you have no more reason to believe in God than to believe in orange unicorns or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

People debate about the existence of God to remove all of the misconceptions that others have regarding the topic. Now, it is obvious that you dedicate a lot of your life to religion, am I correct? Since you base your life on it, shouldn’t you want to make sure that what you believe in is correct? You wouldn’t want to go around having the basis of your life to be serving orange unicorns without verifiable evidence that said unicorns exist, would you?

The very point of showing that one cannot prove or disprove God is to reveal how scientifically illogical it is to believe that God (especially a personal deity) exists. No, there is no verifiable evidence to suggest that a deity exists. So, I’ll ask again. Do you believe in orange unicorns? If not, why?

This forum is taking up my day.

Then leave if you don’t want to be here. No one is forcing you to stay.
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@somebody613:

The overall message of the video contradicted your points. What you appear to have done was cut the video up into very small points.. “like oh at 2:30 he said apple! irrelevantzorz lolz.” No, the point was that people (including me) transition from belief to belief all of the time, and that there is a middle ground to issues like this. Basically, the video addresses that not everyone has their head buried deep in the sand. I do recommend TheraminTrees on YouTube though. Great guy. Makes some great points in his videos about religion and science — you would probably be intrigued.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

@ZombiestookmyTV:

Did you purposely ignore my inquiry? I’ll repeat myself. Do you believe in orange unicorns?

Look at it from a different perspective..Why shouldn’t you believe tenco?

Look at it from a different perspective… Why should you believe, Zombies?

@somebody613:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H57Z0yE3Qgw

The video’s about 3:30 long. If you’ll watch, you’ll learn that what you say about the two extreme beliefs is a false dichotomy. You’ll also learn that when people debate about religion, they don’t always just “preach to the converted.”

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

Zombies, do you believe in orange unicorns?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Proof of God

@somebody613:

So, why believe in the untestable? You have absolutely no reason to believe in it. It’s like me believing in fairies because their existence is untestable (and fairy-believers have been around for a long time and survived hardships or something along those lines). Now, if you have your own personal experiences, then that’s different, but realize that not anyone else has access to those experiences so they hold no weight as proof to the rest of us.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Evolution vs Science

@somebody613:

2. The only directly observable facts are “bones lying in the ground”; then goes a pretty probable/provable (yet not 100%, see aliens above) assumption, that they belonged to some animals some time ago; then the assumptions get less reliable, when we come to actually dating the bones (technically, this is almost entirely guessing, cause we have no direct way to check dates of millions of years, or even assume they have any validity at all); then comes the assumption, that we can track the links between these bones (though they as well might just be deformed animals, due to some unknown disease, we can’t know that at all); etc.
Thus, what starts as solid evidence, drifts into guessing pretty soon – the result being waaay too vague for a “proof” of anything.

Did you even read my post on the previous page?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Jesus Christ, and the mental illnesses one might associate with him.

@ArreatsChozen:

8. Is often jealous or envious of others and believes others are considering the identical ideas about him or her.
Again, “I’m the only real religion! All others are just fakes!”

I don’t see how the explanation supports criterion eight. Can you please elaborate?