Recent posts by HolyLasagna on Kongregate

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

They’re enforced from outside through nurture.

We do have a inner sense of right and wrong derived from our evolutionary history. A lot more things about our behavior are due to nature rather than nurture than one usually assumes – Sigmund Freud was the first one to realize this, even though his “science” was complete quackery. We now have amazing psychologists and biologists who study evolutionary psychology like Steven Pinker and Marc Hauser who advocate this idea.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should the Law have some control over what is done to one's own body?

they are still human in potentia

Exactly like every single ovule. Outlaw menstruation!

how a foetus (…) experience the world

Before the 3 month it doesn’t. That’s why a shitty small fetus is different from a developed human baby.

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

I really don’t get how someone could say their suffering is good… could you try to explain it again in more detail?

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

Her argument is that without a universal moral law, anything can be relativistically considered to be moral and society (we) would not be able to live. So we need a universal moral law – thus, God must exist. It’s a pretty stupid argument, yeah.

No matter the circumstance its always the same.

Relativism is the concept that points of view have no absolute truth or validity, having only relative, subjective value according to differences in perception and consideration. There is no universal truth – just whatever you make up.

The percentage of people who can actually enjoy the pain and humiliation they receive at such clubs is really really small even under the masochists who go there.

So those people are suffering, and that is bad. I don’t see your point.

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

At least thats what XxsamuroxX text implies.

She said the moral law would be impressed onto us, meaning God gave the absolute moral law to humanity. Some people break that moral law, such as Hitler and Mother Theresa.
Yes, they are both pretty nasty human beings.

make so that nothing is universally morally wrong or right

That would mean it’s completely relativistic, which is the opposite of a universal moral law.

human suffering being bad =/= SM clubs

People at SM clubs enjoy the pain, so they are not suffering.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should the Law have some control over what is done to one's own body?

So if I was to find, say, a person who had no family and friends and injected them with a deadly but painless poison while they slept – you would have no moral problem with that?

I doubt you could ever find a person with no family and friends – how would one go about finding one? It also doesn’t mean the person doesn’t have a job. He’d probably also be a full adult. Society spent 18 years worth of resources making him grow – we’d find better use for him by employing him.
If you are legally allowed to kill someone if they have no friends (or whatever), then they would suffer psychologically while still alive, just because they know they could be killed any day.

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

If Morals are not subject/relative and an inescapable Moral law was impressed on us then Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa must be equally good and evil, because their morality would be one and the same.

How does that even make sense? The universal moral law would make it so there are things that are universally wrong or universally right. It doesn’t make everybody equally good and evil, it just eliminates double standards. The problem is finding out what could be a good universal moral standard – and with science & philosophy, because religion is a shitty source of morality and knowledge. Next book I’m going to read after The Great Gatsby is “Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong” by Marc D. Hauser, and possibly “The Moral Landscape” by Sam Harris. We’re building our own morality based on axioms that we simply assume that are true (e.g. human suffering = bad). It has nothing to do with something universal outside the human culture – but it’s still universal in our society. It’s man-made, and it does not prove God exists in any way.
C. S. Lewis is not really a great philosopher.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

Wouldn’t you think the US government would be interested in denying global warming? They are the symbol of capitalism and modernity! It would be the worst possible propaganda.
I’d say claiming NASA is lying because of economic interest to be too much of a strech. I mean, the neoconservative group, rich and religious in nature, gives out copious amount of money to promote Creationism and undermine Evolution, and so far they haven’t been able to manipulate a single scientific institution…
What do you think?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

You are completely right, I apoligize. I misread your post and I thought you were denying global warming itself, which is not quite as crazy as a Moon Landing hoaxer, but close. I see, you are in doubt whether it’s caused by humans or by natural means.
I share your doubts. It is a very complicated think, it’s quite hard to say if it’s out fault or not – after all, the Earth has undergone some pretty serious climate changes before without any sort of human invervention. Still, what I’m seeing is that a lot of scientists (most of them, AFAIK) are saying that it’s probably due to us humans, and it’s actually a very plausible scenario. We can change the climate of an area by dozens of degrees, and we’ve done similar stuff all over the place. You’d think the whole climate system would be influenced by that just a little bit, wouldn’t you? So because of that I’m inclined to think it is our fault, and that we should do something about it! I mean, NASA isn’t stupid.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

That’s pretty much it, as far as I understand it. CO2 is a greenhouse gas that keeps heat from leaving Earth. It is also the primary reason that Venus is so mind-bogglingly hot, and hotter than Mercury. The big discussion among scientists is whether or not we are the ones that are causing the global warming, though they are leaning to the “Yes, we are” position.

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

just because you cannot see or feel God- doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist

The same argument applies for fairies and the Flying Spaggheti Monster.
P.S. We CAN feel radio transmissions with our instruments. We can feel everything with instruments, what we can’t detect (e.g. dark matter) is due to the fact that it BARELY INTERACTS WITH NORMAL MATTER. So it’s also not a good candidate for something that affects our lives.

This “group-mind-being” idea seems useless, redundant, and bogus. To me, at least.

Proof of nonexistence is not going to happen.

It is not true that it’s impossible to prove the nonexistence. If I make up a God that kills a person the second they say “Bananas!” no matter where they are, and we repeatedly say “Bananas!” and don’t die – that’s proof of his nonexistence. Otherwise, yes, you are correct. I find it worrying that I have to explain why I don’t believe in magical beings, let alone try to infer his nonexistence.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

@issendorf: What you quoted me saying shows you that I’m not an absolutist. I said you can doubt it if you have a very good reason – dd790 and most climate change deniers DO NOT. I said people should RECONSIDER their positions (not absolutely accept mine). You have to justify your beliefs.
I doubt NASA, World Meteorological Organization, IPCC, Nature, ONU, American Meteorological Society, IPCC, NOAA, GISS, Environmental Protection Agency, UNEP, IEA, NationalGeographic, American Society of Agronomy, UNFCCC, and 99% percent of articles are complete bogus. They could be wrong, as Newton was. But it’s not an amateur layman who is going to prove it wrong – most scientists believe it for a reason.

Climate change (specially caused by humans) is a very complicated subject. It’s not an exact science, which is why I don’t accept it completely (like, for example, evolution). But the data is there, and it tells us something. Hopefully we are interpreting it wrong, otherwise we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us.
^This is how you should deal with the subject, not “OMG THEY R ST00PID SCIENTISTS SUX xP CONSPIRACY!!” – this is not skepticism. It’s stupidity.

Climates have changed since the birth of the atmosphere.

A common skeptic argument is that climate has changed naturally in the past, long before SUVs and coal-fired power plants, so humans can’t be the cause of the current global warming. Peer-reviewed research shows this is not the case.

It’s important to know there are a number of different forces acting on the Earth’s climate. When the sun gets brighter, the planet receives more energy and warms. When volcanoes erupt, they emit particles into the atmosphere which reflect sunlight, and the planet cools. When there are more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the planet warms. It’s worth remembering that without some greenhouse gas, the Earth would be a ball of ice.

These forces are called “forcings” because they force changes in the global average temperature.
Looking at the past gives us insight into how our climate responds to such forcings. Using ice cores, for instance, we can work out past temperature changes, the level of solar activity, and the amount of greenhouse gases and volcanic dust in the atmosphere. Looking at many different periods and timescales including many thousands of years ago we’ve learned that when the Earth gains heat, glaciers and sea ice melt resulting in a positive feedbacks that amplify the warming. There are other positive feedbacks as well and this is why the planet has experienced such dramatic changes in temperature in the past.

In summary the past reveals our climate is highly sensitive to small changes in heat.

What does that mean for today? Over the past 150 years greenhouse gas levels have increased 40 percent mainly from burning of fossil fuels. This additional “forcing” is warming the planet more than it has in thousands of years. From Earth’s history, we know that positive feedbacks will amplify this additional warming.

The Earth’s climate has changed in the past and ice cores and other measures tell us why. Based on this knowledge, and other types of evidence we know the human emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the climate.

I guess all those years I spent on an honours degree for the very topic

Of course you did, sweetie. Am I to believe this after you said “I don’t have time to go searching for real data”? Really? It reminds me of a YouTube commenter that claimed to be an expert at everything, only in different videos. Well, show me the data, bud. I don’t care who you (claim that you) are.

someone on a forum thinks they know it all

I did not claim to have any ‘knowledge’ myself, I just quoted 98% of the scientists and 99.84% of the research. And yet I’m still not advocating for it completely. This is healthy skepticism. I just told you guys to, maybe, reconsider your positions and try to look deeper into the data. :)

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

• Scientific theories cannot be proven. Ever.
• Global warming (data) is not a theory. The anthropic model (mechanism) is.
• I never claimed anything was a fact nor unquestionable truth.
• I never claimed our current science could never be proven wrong – in fact, it was quite the opposite. If you want to doubt it, please come up with some ground-breaking research, or at least study the field in depth. Otherwise, follow the scientific consensus.
• “Nobody except somebody said X.” Ergo, somebody said X. It was precisely because of dd790’s post that I made mine.

Topic: Serious Discussion / The high divorce rate

Wow, I have never thought about it like that, Neil… that’s really some outside-the-box thinking! Loved your insight on the issue. (:

Topic: Serious Discussion / Global Climate Change - Get off our lazy butts!

There is a gigantic scientific consensus that not only global warming is happening, as it is most likely mainly due to our behavior. We have to face this problem.
I just don’t get why people keep doubting the scientific consensus without knowing jack-shit about the subject, nor have a very good reason to do so. Why is it that every single peer reviewed research tells us we are causing global warming, yet people just keep deying it? Seriously, the amount of evidence that people should at least reconsider their positions. It’s overwhelming.

Please guys, reconsider your positions. Look ONLY at the facts, and see what truth the facts bear out. Pretty please?

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

Vika, we can infer the non-existence of the Abrahamic God from the lack of evidence of Him. Usually they say, quoting Carl Sagan, that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is not true when the evidence should be all over the place. The God of the New Testament is one that answers to prayers (as has been show in Matthew, John, Mark, etc.), though when we do statistical analysis we find no evidence that prayers solves anything. I agree with you, all evidence points toward a universe without a supreme being, let alone a PERSONAL and ANTHROPOMORPHIC supreme being. Evolution and modern cosmology made God unnecessary and improbable.
With all this, I still think it would be too much of a stretch to say you’re a 7. A 6.9 (as Dawkins places himself) is good enough.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should we tolerate the intolerant?

No.

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

It is completely unscientific to claim that you know for certainty that there is no Abrahamic God. You also can’t say there are no fairies or a teapot orbiting Jupiter. Those are technicalities, and it is OK to say “Oh, there is no such thing as a God” in everyday speech. The important thing is not being a dogmatic person. Free thinkers have good reputation among because they follow the evidence wherever it may lead. Being a “7” means that you won’t get convinced otherwise even with copious amount of evidence – this is the case with too many theists.

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

God doesn’t exist.

God exists.

[citation needed]
You guys place 7 and 1 in the Dawkins Spectrum of Theistic Probability, which is not very honorable. I have yet to see a single atheist spokesperson that indentifies himself as a 7.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Stop watching porn the right now!!!

Not everything that happens to you will necessarily happen to us.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Should the Law have some control over what is done to one's own body?

I wonder how abortion hurts anyone, seeing as before the third month there is no possibility of suffering or awareness. Nobody but the parents is emotionally attached to the fetus, and they are the one that need the abortion to happen.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's the last book you've read?

Started “God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion” by Victor J. Stenger. Not sure what I will read next. Maybe “Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong” by Marc D. Hauser, or something from Plato so I can expand my general knowledge (because that won’t do shit for my intellect).

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

The Big Bang Theory does not explain the origin of the singularity, only the development of the Universe after it started inflating and expanding. Though, as Stephen Hawking has said in his hit book “A Brief History of Time”, the fact that the Universe is boundless and self-contained leaves no place or role for a God. The book “A Universe From Nothing”, by theoretical physicist Lawrence M. Krauss, explains how the Universe (time, space, and the laws of physics) could have popped up from nothing (nothing here meaning the absence of space-time, matter, etc.). He makes the point that the total energy of the Universe is zero, and “nothing” is unstable. Quantum mechanics allows this to happen.
Though one may argue that the mere fact that there was a potential for a Universe already makes it something. But then it’s just turtles all the way down, an infinite regression. Adding God to the equation solves nothing, since he, too, would need a creator. If you can assume God is timeless, always existed, or required no creator, than there is absolutely no reason you can’t say the same about the whatever-place that held the potential for A Universe From Nothing.

Either way, arguing that there must be a First Cause (which they call God) is kind of useless to the whole religion debate. It does not show that such a deity intervenes in the Universe, cares about us, or is even conscious as we picture it to be.

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

Keep in mind that your reasoning makes it so Santa Claus is a meta-entity. Not sure what that entails, though. Seems to me like a meaningless and irrelevant label.

Topic: Serious Discussion / What's the last book you've read?

I finished “A Universe From Nothing” (Lawrence M. Krauss) last week, and now I am reading “The Catcher in the Rye” (J. D. Salinger). Both are amazing books!