Religion?

[Burlyman]

Evolution is impossible, not just highly unlikely.

how can I put this as gently as possible? You are a ★■◆● idiot. Evolution is not only NOT impossible, nor unlikely, it is demonstrable under lab conditions for rapidly reproducing species. Please, try to keep from giving religion a bad name. That assertion was flat out moronic. Yes, we humans evolved from certain great apes, who in turn were part of a provable genetic pathway that links back to a host of evolutionary predecessors. The proof is available for much of that pathway, for those with open minds, who do the work to read the scientific texts.

Spoken like a true monkey. O.K. slick, I'll just put you on the blacklist with roid and all the other descent retards who can't have a civil discussion. So you think a fish can walk on land and turn into a monkey? And you think I'm the idiot? It's "animals" like you that give the cult of monkeyism a bad name (apart from its ridiculous tenets). Have fun on your rotating ball while it hurtles through space.

[callmeslick]

you fool. You try to present it like these things happen spontaneously. Yes, I am pretty easily convinced, that, over the course of tens of thousands of years, aquatic creatures evolved to function on land. And, after a few tens of thousands more, have evolved further into a host of other forms. Because, I can see how evolution occurs, by observing rapidly reproducing life forms react to environmental pressure. To be on the blacklist of one so small-minded as to not at least consider the liklihood of such evolutionary developments is close to an honor, except for the fact that the world has far too many such idiots.

[Burlyman]

Whatever, monkey boy.

[Top Gun]

Never breed. Better yet, stop wasting the oxygen of those of us with functioning brain cells.

[callmeslick]

Whatever, [Deleted].

perhaps this sort of witty retort is what got prior 'discussions of different religions' locked??

[Vander]

I see your Permanent Waves and raise you Hemispheres.

[callmeslick]

[Tunnelcat]

Whatever, [Deleted].

perhaps this sort of witty retort is what got prior 'discussions of different religions' locked??

Well, it's headed there. I'm hoping for some more intelligent discussions first.

[callmeslick]

I'm waiting for the 'different religions' discussion altogether. We had more of that in the guessing phase. Once Bultyman weighed in, it was around some idiocy about modern knowledge supplanting religion somehow, another topic altogether.

[Krom]

I have a really old (like this was from the 90s) image macro for that particular derail:

[TigerRaptor]

This topic is so old, it's like a beating the spot where the dead horse use to be. But now there's a hole in the ground.

[Jeff250]

there is a huge body of work that goes far in explaining how large series' of electrical impulses and chemical reactions shape the neurological phenomenon we call 'experience'(with recall of experience being 'memory')

Yeah, but problems like understanding how memories of events are stored in the brain are, although difficult problems, the comparatively "easy" problems of consciousness. A hard problem of consciousness is in explaining how when people recall events they experience them. For instance, they might "see" the event reoccurring in their third eye. Another hard problem for that matter is how people even "see" through their first or second eyes for that matter--that viewscreen that we experience in front of us "displaying" what our eyes process that presumably other lenses in the world don't experience when they process visual data. Knowing how memories are stored in the brain goes as much to explaining why we experience consciousness as knowing how eyes or cameras work.

does NOT render the whole set of phenomena as 'unlikely' or 'unexplainable'.

I wouldn't normally argue that consciousness is "unlikely," but reading other people's posts on the DBB is about the strongest evidence for philosophical zombies that I've ever encountered.

[callmeslick]

given the level of complexity of the mammalian brain, that some things are FAR from 'understood' is pretty predictable. Give it time.

[Tunnelcat]

I can't elaborate right now, but I just had an experience that has me seriously considering the possibility that there IS an actual God and he just proved it to me in a profound way.

[Burlyman]

Told ya.

Whatever, [Deleted].

perhaps this sort of witty retort is what got prior 'discussions of different religions' locked??

Coming from the guy who warranted it in the first place. No, nobody was arguing in my old thread, they just didn't want me to talk about religion.

[callmeslick]

I wouldn't normally argue that consciousness is "unlikely," but reading other people's posts on the DBB is about the strongest evidence for philosophical zombies that I've ever encountered.

OK, you win that point!

[callmeslick]

No, nobody was arguing in my old thread, they just didn't want me to talk about religion.

and, you still really never did talk about different religions, did you? You confused Science(the diametric opposite) with Religion, but past that, when were you planning to actually discuss religion? Calling folks who accept plausible scientific evidence 'monkey boys' or the like isn't helpful, now is it?? You see, Science is about continual questioning and testing, even 'accepted' ideas, whereas Religion requires belief in that which can't be observed measurably, by definition. I know many Scientists with deep and well-reasoned faith in God(various God definitions). I just know none who would accept certain tenets that one narrow branch of one version of Abrahamic faith demands one believe to be true. And, there, I have an issue. If a relgion, no matter how long or faithfully I practiced, demanded I accept the proveably untrue as true, I would have to rethink my belief system......but YMMV.

[Burlyman]

I was planning on doing that in a different thread. I like the discussion in this thread, too. You describe what science is supposed to be, not how it actually is these days. Much of science is actually scientism. I called you a monkey because you called me an idiot, not because of your thoughts about scientific evidence.

Never breed. Better yet, stop wasting the oxygen of those of us with functioning brain cells.

You are a moron.

[Jeff250]

given the level of complexity of the mammalian brain, that some things are FAR from 'understood' is pretty predictable. Give it time.

You may of course be right--I would never go as far as to say that it's impossible. But it's one thing to say that one day we will fully understand how the brain makes people look, act, and behave like they are conscious. But you have to acknowledge that it's another thing to say that one day we will understand how the brain actually makes people experience consciousness. I would feel more confident about us some day understanding the latter if there had been any real progress toward it that wasn't really just progress toward the former.

[Jeff250]

I can't elaborate right now, but I just had an experience that has me seriously considering the possibility that there IS an actual God and he just proved it to me in a profound way.

I'd be interested in hearing about it if and when you are comfortable sharing it.

[Tunnelcat]

Not at the moment. All I can say is that sometimes things happen in life that seem random on the surface, but once you mull over and examine those things in your mind, you come to the conclusion that they definitely couldn't have been random and that some outside force intervened.