Bill Nye The Idiot Guy

[seer]

It violates the rules of evidence. There is no substantive evidence of the existence of a deity.

Oh stop, I said rules of logic. Evidence is in the eye of the beholder - the rules of logic can not be otherwise.

[Teallaura]

It violates the rules of evidence. ....

There's a court for this? Otherwise, this is pure idiocy.

FYI: it is no violation of any evidentiary procedure in the US that I can think of - maybe you meant the former USSR?

[Sparko]

You did. You said that morality was just something a group came up with to help itself. Whenever I bring up an example of a group doing something good for itself that is morally reprehensible, you excuse it by saying they were not part of the group. So according to your own argument, if they do it to someone not part of the group then it is OK. If not, then your entire argument just went down the toilet. I have been trying to get you to admit that such things are NOT OK. You lost track of the debate again didn't you? oops.


I have not rambled. I have stuck to a single point of debate. You keep losing track of what you argued previously, like above.

[JimL]

Well no, that doesn't follow Jim, perhaps men, many men, need to believe in a just god to be good. That that gives a proper motivation.

Yes it does, rewards are a motivating factor for the otherwise immature, unprincipled, sociopaths of the world, which is good reason why we created gods as a psychological cudjel. But the point remains, that moral systems directing the behavior of the members of society works to the benefit of that society and so there is no need to assume them to be the arbitrary commands of a deity. If a deity didn't exist, we would still have developed moral systems of behavior for that purpose, the best interests of human society.

Of course as we have discussed in the past apart from God we can not even define good.

No, with god we can't define good, without god we can, and we do, it is that which is in the overall best interests of human beings living together in the world.

[Tassman]

Oh stop, I said rules of logic. Evidence is in the eye of the beholder - the rules of logic can not be otherwise.

Rules of logic based upon an untrue premise are meaningless. And the premise of the existence of a deity cannot be shown to be true.

[Tassman]

You did. You said that morality was just something a group came up with to help itself.

No, the rules of social behaviour, i.e. morality, are derivatives of self-preservation and procreation in every case and are a consequence of natural selection. They evolved to ensure the survival of the family and community and cooperation so that the human species survives.

I have not rambled. I have stuck to a single point of debate. You keep losing track of what you argued previously, like above.

[Tassman]

Yes it does, rewards are a motivating factor for the otherwise immature, unprincipled, sociopaths of the world, which is good reason why we created gods as a psychological cudjel. But the point remains, that moral systems directing the behavior of the members of society works to the benefit of that society and so there is no need to assume them to be the arbitrary commands of a deity. If a deity didn't exist, we would still have developed moral systems of behavior for that purpose, the best interests of human society.

Yes exactly. There's evidence that our Stone Age ancestors had codes of behaviour (i.e. morality) long before gods were invented. And, no doubt, the same applied a hundred thousand years ago, when at least six human species inhabited the earth of which Homo sapiens were but one. They all had ordered societies.

[Roy]

Yes exactly. There's evidence that our Stone Age ancestors had codes of behaviour (i.e. morality) long before gods were invented.

When were gods invented?

[Teallaura]

Rules of logic based upon an untrue premise are meaningless. And the premise of the existence of a deity cannot be shown to be true.

You do know that logic is used to derive a conclusion about an unknown, right? So this was your attempt at being sardonic since no one is actually stupid enough to try and really argue that you can only argue logically if all the points of argument are known to be true.

[Teallaura]

....If a deity didn't exist, we would still have developed moral systems of behavior for that purpose, the best interests of human society.

...

That conclusion cannot be proven - or even shown to be probably true. Humans both love and hate - nurture and kill. There's no way to know what a proto-society would have come up with - would they have extended trust outside their immediate clans? Would they have killed or banished young males before they reached age sufficient to challenge the alpha male? Would they have learned to work together or would they have learned to kill each other on sight.

Your assumption that God does not exist leads to the conclusion that they did learn to work together - but it hangs on an unproven assumption. There's no way to actually test the hypothesis - you'd have to have a universe in which God is proven conclusively not to exist to even run the experiment.

Your conclusion stated above is a statement of belief - nothing more.

[Jedidiah]

And the premise of the existence of a deity cannot be shown to be true.

Nor can it shown to be false.

[Tassman]

That conclusion cannot be proven - or even shown to be probably true. Humans both love and hate - nurture and kill. There's no way to know what a proto-society would have come up with - would they have extended trust outside their immediate clans? Would they have killed or banished young males before they reached age sufficient to challenge the alpha male? Would they have learned to work together or would they have learned to kill each other on sight.

Your assumption that God does not exist leads to the conclusion that they did learn to work together - but it hangs on an unproven assumption. There's no way to actually test the hypothesis - you'd have to have a universe in which God is proven conclusively not to exist to even run the experiment.

Your conclusion stated above is a statement of belief - nothing more.

The "conclusion that they did learn to work together" is shown by the fact that the various human species and other social primates established rules of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' behaviour, i.e. right and wrong. The question of right and wrong arises due to the fact that social species need to live together in order to survive. If they are to do so successfully they must agree on their rules of behaviour.

[Tassman]

Nor can it shown to be false.

Hence an argument may be logical but if its premise cannot be shown to be true then its conclusion cannot be shown to be true either.

[Teallaura]

The "conclusion that they did learn to work together" is shown by the fact that the various human species and other social primates established rules of 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' behaviour, i.e. right and wrong. The question of right and wrong arises due to the fact that social species need to live together in order to survive. If they are to do so successfully they must agree on their rules of behaviour.

Hangs on an UNPROVEN ASSUMPTION.

You don't bother to read before you write, do you? This point was already addressed.

FYI: A priori assumptions like this are logical fallacies. If you're going to go around telling people how to reason, you might wanna skip committing really silly fallacies in you own reasoning.

[Tassman]

Hangs on an UNPROVEN ASSUMPTION.

Nonsense! There is archaeological and paleontological evidence that early humans, including our own near relatives such as Homo erectus and Homo Neanderthals lived in community. This would have necessitated primitive forms of morality in the form of accepted and unacceptable group-behaviour, so as to maintain group cohesion. As well, we see the precursors of modern human morality in primate sociality today. No god's are necessary to lay down rules of behaviour, they develop instinctively in social species such as us.