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The Strong Horse

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  • #31
    Originally posted by seer View Post
    So what ISIL is doing may be a good evolutionary strategy.
    Why?

    What ISIL is doing might be the will of God. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is good if it is the will of God, right seer?

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by seer View Post
      Yes, so survival of the group is all that matters in the end. So what ISIL is doing may be a good evolutionary strategy. Nothing wrong with that - right.
      Why do you keep trying to drag evolution into this? Evolution is a description of what happens to populations, not a driver or strategy that gets applies.

      Are you being this stupid on purpose?

      Comment


      • #33
        Edited by a Moderator
        Moderated By: Littlejoe

        Edited out because of OP's request. Please do not post in the thread per OP's request

        ***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
        Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publicly complain or whine, please take it to the Padded Room unless told otherwise.

        Last edited by Littlejoe; 09-06-2014, 06:41 PM.

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        • #34
          Originally posted by seer View Post
          “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse” Osama bin Laden

          ISIS is gaining converts from the Middle East to India, to Central Europe to Britain to Western Europe. They seek a world wide caliphate and there is no guarantee that we will stop them. They may in fact win and take the world. Not only are they more aggressive and determined, in Europe the Muslims are reproducing at higher rates than the white Europeans. Is this not the evolutionary process in action? Or rather how is it any different in kind to this:



          http://www.slate.com/articles/health...ggression.html
          No it is not the evolutionary process. What you are describing are simply little more then snap shots of events in millions of years of evolution. I have no reason to believe that individual conflicts within a species represents anything significant in this long history. The dominant nature of evolution is adaptation to changing environments by different competing populations. Conflicts may be seen within species at many levels down to microbial life forms, and just the individual events themselves do not influence evolution. The patterns of events such as these may over time be factors in evolution, but since you reject evolution it would be difficult for me to expect you to comprehend the larger picture that demonstrates evolution taking place. The most common scenario by far is populations fail and disappear due changes in the environment, and other populations well adapted flourish as the environments change.

          One of the best examples in the modern world are the changes in the various canine species, sub species and varieties. Wolves and Coyotes their ancestors dogs and coywolves show the differences in survival in a rapidly changing environment dominated by humans. At present the varieties of dogs are flourishing and wolves are vanishing limited to certain areas not dominantly habituated by humans. The future existence of wolves will likely be dependent on human efforts to create preserves where they can survive. They are for all purposes almost naturally extinct now. Other related species are surviving and sometimes flourishing, because they can adapt to human dominated environments. Coyotes and the stealthy cousins Coywolves, are persisting and in some places flourishing in human environments. The Coywolves are an interesting subspecies that is replacing the world of the wolf and thriving in densely populated large cities and surrounding suburban areas by being stealthy and blending into urban parks and small tracts of woodland. They are so stealthy that unless scientists make a special effort to find them humans are basically oblivious to their presence. When sighted they appear to be a mixed bred dog smaller then a wolf and larger then a coyote. One variety of Coywolf, the Carolina Red wolf is endangered, because it exists in a wilderness and rural Eastern Carolina environment where they are a threat to livestock, and being killed because they resemble coyotes.
          Last edited by shunyadragon; 09-04-2014, 03:32 PM.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by seer View Post
            So the only moral consideration, in the end, is survival - survival = good, not surviving = bad.
            I really fail to understand the point that you keep trying to make. Science doesn't deal with what is moral or immoral. Instead it deals with what is. You appear to seek to discredit evolution on that basis. That is, quite frankly, dumb.

            When an earthquake at sea caused by a shift in the continental plates takes place resulting in a tsunami like the one that wracked the Indian Ocean the day after Christmas in 2004, would you discuss the moral actions of the event? Would you attempt to invalidate plate tectonics because it is used to explain the actions that resulted in a quarter million deaths?

            Or when a psychopath walks into a building and starts randomly shooting people do you declare that psychiatry in invalid because it attempts to explain his actions? And what if they find a medical reason like some sort of tumor. will you want folks to abandon medicine because it explained why someone did what they did?

            I guess my overall question is just what are you seeking to prove here?

            I'm always still in trouble again

            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
              If you wish to adopt that moral position that's your choice. Evolution doesn't say anything about morality. Morals are an agreed upon set of rules that a society tries to live by. What is considered moral has varied tremendously over time and with different cultures.
              Exactly. Newton's Laws of Gravity say (roughly speaking) that things will fall down. But if someone chooses to push someone off a cliff or down a flight of stairs does that make gravity immoral. Should we now condemn gravity?

              I'm always still in trouble again

              "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
              "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
              "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Method View Post
                When ISIS uses a bomb to kill people, is that chemistry in action?
                Originally posted by seer View Post
                And what is your point? Is not survival the bottom line?
                Using the "logic" that you appear to be advocating, that we should therefore condemn, abandon and ignore chemistry as immoral.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

                  I guess my overall question is just what are you seeking to prove here?
                  AFAICT it's another Jorge-esque attack on ToE by trying to associate evolution with some perceived bad or evil event. The logic of such tactics is nonexistent but that has never stopped Creationists from poo-flinging.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                    I guess my overall question is just what are you seeking to prove here?
                    That in a godless universe the only thing that matters is survival (of the individual or group). The means are irrelevant. And there is nothing moral or immoral about the process no matter how brutal. It is no more moral or immoral than what the northern chimpanzees did to the southern chimpanzees. As a matter of fact what northern chimpanzees did was very successful - in the sense of what finally matters, survival of the individual or group. That is no more moral or immoral that what ISIS is trying to do.
                    Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by seer View Post
                      That in a godless universe the only thing that matters is survival (of the individual or group). The means are irrelevant.
                      At least half a dozen people have given you reasons why that's not true.

                      And there is nothing moral or immoral about the process no matter how brutal.
                      Science still has nothing to say about morality.

                      It is no more moral or immoral than what the northern chimpanzees did to the southern chimpanzees. As a matter of fact what northern chimpanzees did was very successful - in the sense of what finally matters, survival of the individual or group. That is no more moral or immoral that what ISIS is trying to do.
                      Morality is a human social construct. Like beauty, what passes as moral or immoral is in the eye (or mind) of the beholder.

                      How is what ISIS is trying to do any different in a "with-God" universe? Except that God is allowing it to happen?

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by seer View Post
                        That in a godless universe the only thing that matters is survival (of the individual or group). The means are irrelevant. And there is nothing moral or immoral about the process no matter how brutal. It is no more moral or immoral than what the northern chimpanzees did to the southern chimpanzees. As a matter of fact what northern chimpanzees did was very successful - in the sense of what finally matters, survival of the individual or group. That is no more moral or immoral that what ISIS is trying to do.
                        Actually the natural world around us remains the matter of fact nature of 'life as it is.' It would be difficult to use this for evidence of a godless universe nor one created by God. Science simply describes things 'as they are.' If anything explaining this apparently violent, bloody, cold, indifferent, cruel world would be more problematic from the perspective of the Theist.
                        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                        go with the flow the river knows . . .

                        Frank

                        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post

                          Morality is a human social construct. Like beauty, what passes as moral or immoral is in the eye (or mind) of the beholder.
                          Then your opinion of ISIS' acts is no more valid than theirs. The only thing that matters is who wins, it's all, Red of Tooth and Claw

                          How is what ISIS is trying to do any different in a "with-God" universe? Except that God is allowing it to happen?
                          In my world there are things that are unnatural to the human being, that violates the purpose which we were created for. In your world it is all natural, no act, in the end, is objectively more moral or immoral. And in my world there is final justice. In your world there is no justice - a Hitler has the same end as a Mother Teresa. In my world human beings have inherent worth, in your world human beings have no more inherent world than a housefly.
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by seer View Post
                            Then your opinion of ISIS' acts is no more valid than theirs. The only thing that matters is who wins, it's all, Red of Tooth and Claw
                            Of course ISIS thinks what it's doing is right and moral. Most of Western civilization disagrees. Morality is still a social construct that varies between different societies no matter how much you scream "only my religion-based opinion is right!!"

                            In my world there are things that are unnatural to the human being, that violates the purpose which we were created for. In your world it is all natural, no act, in the end, is objectively more moral or immoral. And in my world there is final justice. In your world there is no justice - a Hitler has the same end as a Mother Teresa. In my world human beings have inherent worth, in your world human beings have no more inherent world than a housefly.
                            You aren't in a position to judge my world. All your blustering is merely a reflection of that ignorance, ignorance you seem rather proud of.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by seer View Post
                              That in a godless universe the only thing that matters is survival (of the individual or group). The means are irrelevant. And there is nothing moral or immoral about the process no matter how brutal. It is no more moral or immoral than what the northern chimpanzees did to the southern chimpanzees. As a matter of fact what northern chimpanzees did was very successful - in the sense of what finally matters, survival of the individual or group. That is no more moral or immoral that what ISIS is trying to do.
                              Look seer, as yet another person who utterly dislikes the idea of evolution, you repeatedly show that you have little more than dirt to throw, as opposed to offering sensible arguments against a scientific theory.

                              We can all throw dirt. It's quite easy.

                              In a God ordained universe, ISIS and its brutality is God's will, right? Otherwise, it wouldn't happen.

                              (There is little point in trying to paint atheists as lacking morality or a basis for morality when we continually expose the immoral behaviours of anti-evolutionists in how they argue against the theory, while the anti-evolutionists themselves are oblivious to their own lousy behaviour. The irony of this is massive. Exactly who lacks the morality here as well as the moral and ethical discernment?

                              IOW, why don't you, Jorge and C123 see if you can do better than just throw mud all the time.)
                              Last edited by rwatts; 09-04-2014, 03:49 PM.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by seer View Post
                                That in a godless universe the only thing that matters is survival (of the individual or group).
                                Obviously, that is false. Whether the Seattle Mariners get into the post-season certainly matters to me. My family and friends very much matter to me. Discovering new and wonderful things matters to me. All of this without the need for a deity.

                                And there is nothing moral or immoral about the process no matter how brutal.
                                Since when does morality require a deity?

                                Comment

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