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Do you believe in God?
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Scaff
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I think its almost certainly the case given the response I have quoted.
Evolution doesn't, and never has, nor ever claimed to explain where life came from. That's Autobiogenysis, and its important to keep the two separate.
You're certainly not. Some mix them up because they simply don't know, some do so deliberately as a strawman attempt to discredit Evolutionary theory.
Danoff
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Yes.
I mean... it's pretty safe to say that life exists... There is a level of this conversation where we call into question existence, but I don't think that's the one we're having. Evolution is the result of a process called natural selection. Natural selection is a model of behavior of life, so it's inherent in evolution and natural selection (the process the effects evolution) that life exists. Natural selection doesn't exist without creatures to perform it.
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- TexRex72
About as useful as "Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...? Bueller...?"
Edit: And yes, he asked fourteen times before deviating to respond to Simone Adamley's comment regarding Bueller's absence.
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Studied this topic a few years back doing my combined degree in philosophy and psychology which i'm on my last year. Don't want to go into it to much you end up in circles. All i'll is i was a atheist now agnostic.
We simply don't and may never be able to know 100% that there is a God. We don't have the intellect at current, maybe we will in the future maybe we won't.
We simply don't and may never be able to know 100% that there is a God. We don't have the intellect at current, maybe we will in the future maybe we won't.
Scaff
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Would you really like the logical fallacies from the voice over listed?
Presenting this as, well whatever you are presenting it as, it's neither new nor shocking.
It's quote mining in extreme in the voice over, add in a bit of appeal to authority and a dash of 'if not that, then this'.
A trait the film that's taken from is well known for, particularly it's utterly dishonest approach to interviewees and the quote mining from the interviews.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed
Maybe you would like to explain some of those issues, and for balance a video of two people in the film who (with tickets) attempted to attend a showing.
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There is enough unknown that I think siding wholly one way or the other is irresponsible. Should I be greeted by a specific supreme being whose existence I cannot accept at this time, I've got plausible deniability on my side.
Edit: I don't mean to say that completely denying the existence of the aforementioned supreme being is irresponsible because it's up there (over there, out there, in there, under there...whatever) just waiting for you, but that you may, for whatever reason, be performing a disservice by not being open to the possibilities. It's probably more irresponsible to blindly believe and to act accordingly by putting your future in the hands of a fictional character, and acting accordingly (such as financial planning by way of prayer or supernatural healthcare).
Edit: I don't mean to say that completely denying the existence of the aforementioned supreme being is irresponsible because it's up there (over there, out there, in there, under there...whatever) just waiting for you, but that you may, for whatever reason, be performing a disservice by not being open to the possibilities. It's probably more irresponsible to blindly believe and to act accordingly by putting your future in the hands of a fictional character, and acting accordingly (such as financial planning by way of prayer or supernatural healthcare).
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Danoff
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Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god, not a belief in a lack of god. Agnosticism is a belief in an inability to know whether there is a god. Agnosticism is more of a religion than atheism.
I do think it's irresponsible to blindly believe either way. That's why I accept only what I have a reason to, and no more.
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It would help if Jesus would come back like the book says...
I doubt he'll come back, I also don't believe Noha lived to be over 600 while everyone else in the book lived normal lifespans.
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- Neomone
Kind of. Evolution doesn't attempt to explain how life started, it merely describes the most logical ways that match the evidence that we have that life changes it's characteristics over time, especially in response to factors in it's surroundings.
Depends. What are you trying to get people to take away from this?
Dotini
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http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/02/an-ancient-virus-may-be-the-source-of-human-consciousness/
Ancient virus source of consciousness?
Very good! So at 3:54 Dawkins says he believes in intelligent design. Ancient Aliens, no ****.
Ancient virus source of consciousness?
Very good! So at 3:54 Dawkins says he believes in intelligent design. Ancient Aliens, no ****.
Scaff
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Nope.
He was asked if he could envisage any situation in which Intelligent Design could be possible.
An advanced alien species could be one, but we would need to see evidence was his answer. The requirement of evidence removes belief. However don't let the fact that I've already pointed out the degree of quote mining and bias in the film this was taken from (along with sources that include Dawkins) get in the way of that confirmation bias.
Dotini
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Below is a handy-dandy list of pre-flood characters in the Bible story of Genesis (which is of course based on older Mesopotamian texts).
Theses anomalous ages may potentially be accounted for by the explanation that these patriarchs were an advanced alien species which mated with humans. Odds are, it's all hooey. But it's possible, according to Dawkins, though he won't put a number on the exact odds or likelihood.
Patriarch Age Bible reference
1 Adam 930 Genesis 5:4
2 Seth 912 Genesis 5:8
3 Enosh 905 Genesis 5:11
4 Cainan 910 Genesis 5:14
5 Mahalalel 895 Genesis 5:17
6 Jared 962 Genesis 5:20
7 Enoch 365 (translated) Genesis 5:23
8 Methuselah 969 Genesis 5:27
9 Lamech 777 Genesis 5:31
10 Noah 950 Genesis 9:29
11 Shem 600 Genesis 11:10–11
12 Arphaxad 438 Genesis 11:12–13
13 Shelah 433 Genesis 11:14–15
14 Eber 464 Genesis 11:16–17
15 Peleg 239 Genesis 11:18–19
16 Reu 239 Genesis 11:20–21
17 Serug 230 Genesis 11:22–23
18 Nahor 148 Genesis 11:24–25
19 Terah 205 Genesis 11:32
20 Abram (Abraham) 175 Genesis 25:7
21 Isaac 180 Genesis 35:28–29
22 Jacob (Israel)
Table 1. Ages of the Patriarchs from Adam to Jacob
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- TexRex72
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How about believing that the planet's pre-flood population was over 10 trillion?
I find it bizarre that someone promoting the validity of The Bible and such would offer that up of their own volition. Not a great selling point, in my opinion.
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Scaff
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Which is not the same as the OT characters bring aliens who then mated with humans.
It's a strawman positioned out of something that wasn't said.
So no he didn't say it, didn't entertain it as a possibility, and what we actually have is you confirmation bias for all things alien shining through again.
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That's not really how reproduction works. You notice that if you have sex with a horse, you don't end up with a centaur baby? That's because genetics is super specific about exactly what needs to be there in order to form another human being.
If an alien somehow managed to look something like a human and couple with a real human, the result would not be a human child. Chances are high that it wouldn't be anything, but if you somehow get a viable foetus out of that it's an alien/human hybrid. And given the length of time, at this point pretty much everyone can trace their ancestry to the "alien" which means that the only thing that has actually happened here is that Earth isn't humanity's home planet. We're all aliens.
Of course, that's all dribble that makes the Bible look like sound and coherent reasoning. There's nothing to suggest anything like it unless you have a hard-on for aliens, and the idea of them getting jiggy with humans twiddles your nubbin. It's one thing to propose an odd theory that might explain some anomalous observations. It's another to propose an odd theory that ignores basic reproduction in order to justify some weirdness in a two thousand year old story book because ALIENS.
Dotini
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Sorry, but I definitely don't agree with or even understand your point.
If Dawkins agreed advanced aliens could have practiced intelligent design upon humanity, which you yourself conceded he did, then how is that different in principle to certain OT characters being non-humans who mated with humans?
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- TexRex72
He, Dawkins, never said anything involving reproduction across species, and he, Scaff, never said he, Dawkins, did. What he, Scaff, said was that he, Dawkins, entertained the possibility of an alien species, having undergone Darwinian evolution on another planet and "intelligently designing" life on our own that would eventually, after undergoing a similar evolutionary process (because there was no mention of life as we know it being intelligently designed--he, Dawkins, was referring to the foundational establishment of life that we are so ignorant of), lead to our present state.
This possibility was merely entertained, much as those possibilities entertained in countless science fiction stories, and to go beyond that point would require evidence that he, Dawkins, said potentially exists but has not been discovered. Of course this discovery is no more likely than the events it would be evidence of actually taking place.
The situation proffered was akin to us, humans, creating a simple form of life, traveling to and terraforming Mars to support this simple form of life, and then leaving for that life to evolve.
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Dotini
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Okay, so your specific objection (and Scaff's) is that reproduction across species is not the same as intelligent design?
Well, okay. We can say that the genetics of humans could have been altered by breeding with non-humans.
And okay, we can say that the genetics of humans could have been altered by intelligent design by non-humans.
Not exactly the very same thing, but the same general effect, the same general concept, the same general idea.
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Again, there was no mention of humans being involved in the process whose possibility was entertained. The topic was the foundation of life--L-I-F-E. We haven't discovered any evidence that provides a reasonable explanation as to how life was established on Earth.
Since apparently this was missed:
Dotini
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I had no idea the topic was the foundation of life. I deny ever mentioning or intentionally making a remark about the foundation of life, which is as you say a question. My comments were restricted to the story in Genesis (really Enoch and earlier Mesopotamian texts) referring to the Men of Renown, the Giants, the Watchers, the Nephilim as the elites were variously known, altering the genetics of the humans native to the area. See post #20928.
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