UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

[TheSaxRunner05]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

My religion says all religious claims are false.

[Mollocephalus]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

Reuben, i think you didn't make yourself clear in your posts. I'll try to reply without going into religious details. If your argument is that thinking a creator lies behind all things is a natural argument because it comes from observation, i'd argue that is only true if you consider a superficial, primitive observation. The same kind of observation which makes us feel the earth is flat and the sun revolves around us. That's why the concept of deity was bound to happen in the human history, and that's also why, as a general rule, as time progresses it's being left behind. There is nothing much else to add. All the evidence we have, the things we discovered about the inner workings of universe, energy and matter do not count as observation?

[benguino]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

Exactly, even though they are superficial and primitive observations, they are observations nonetheless. Thus, the general idea of a creator is not something that was arbitrarily made up. Thus, you can't compare it to the FSM because the FSM is something that is arbitrarily made up. Now, this is no way, proves creationism, but it does serve as a rebuttal to the FSM argument.

Also, just because I am refuting the FSM argument, that doesn't necessarily mean that I believe in creationism, so I would respect it if the discussion in this thread doesn't act as if I did.

[Mollocephalus]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

I don't see where exactly it refutes the FSM argument. Every culture created their own deities based on their observations, on their background, on the difficulties they had to face, on the unanswered questions they had, et cetera. FSM was only created to make it more obvious that every imaginary being you can think of shares the same possibility of existing.

[Nullifidian]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

Thus, you can't compare it to the FSM because the FSM is something that is arbitrarily made up. Now, this is no way, proves creationism, but it does serve as a rebuttal to the FSM argument.

HOW DOES IT REFUTE THE FSM?!

Ok ok.. replace the flying spaghetti monster with another name like Allah. How does it refute Allah? or Zeus, how does it refute Zeus?

You are not explaining WHY it refutes the flying spaghetti monster. You're only saying "fsm is arbitrary because I say it is arbitrary but creationism isn't arbitrary because I say it isn't arbitrary therefore fsm is refuted". You are making NO argument at all.

[Pseudo Enigma]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

taking this too seriously

calm down

[Nullifidian]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

calm down

I'm not even pissed off or anything but it just baffles me he's making the same leap of logic again and somehow thinks that refutes anything even though he has been told already that his argument doesn't hold. He's just repeating the same shit again.

[Reincarnate]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

Alright, I can't help it anymore.

Exactly, even though they are superficial and primitive observations, they are observations nonetheless. Thus, the general idea of a creator is not something that was arbitrarily made up. Thus, you can't compare it to the FSM because the FSM is something that is arbitrarily made up. Now, this is no way, proves creationism, but it does serve as a rebuttal to the FSM argument.

Also, just because I am refuting the FSM argument, that doesn't necessarily mean that I believe in creationism, so I would respect it if the discussion in this thread doesn't act as if I did.

Just because you have an observation of something doesn't mean you nontrivially increase the probability of some other claim being true. You're going from "We have evidence that complexity comes from intelligent designers like humans" to "That therefore means it's not trivial to assume a creative, intelligent God."

Seeing complexity in nature is an observation. You use experimentation to test hypotheses to see if you can make theoretical frameworks that can retroactively explain as well as predict such observations.

To date, we have tested these theories and found that we do not need intelligent design to explain complexity. It is strange to posit a creative God as somehow being in control of something that did not need him to begin with.

I present to you, the creative God:

Furthermore, from http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/Dragon.htm

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?

The two concepts become indistinguishable from each other, and likewise for any other arbitrary claim. That's why we have Occam's Razor to keep things limited to the minimum number of inputs necessary to explain something and to cut away all that contributes no explanatory utility until shown otherwise.

And perhaps more importantly:

Gratifyingly, some dragon-size footprints in the flour are now reported. But they're never made when a skeptic is looking. An alternative explanation presents itself. On close examination it seems clear that the footprints could have been faked. Another dragon enthusiast shows up with a burnt finger and attributes it to a rare physical manifestation of the dragon's fiery breath. But again, other possibilities exist. We understand that there are other ways to burn fingers besides the breath of invisible dragons. Such "evidence" -- no matter how important the dragon advocates consider it -- is far from compelling.

You could just as easily argue that the existence of dragon-sized footprints gives you a non-trivial, non-arbitrary probability of believing in incorporeal, invisible dragons -- but you'd be silly to think this when MUCH stronger explanations exist for this.

If you wish to boil it down to probability, though? I'll even concede the point to you: Sure, it could be a touch above totally arbitrary. But something that is insanely close to 0 probability is still not really worth considering. Usually people mis-estimate probability when they have an incomplete understanding of the "numerator in question," here. You naturally understand, intuitively, the numerator for the dragon case. Even fewer people understand it for the complexity of the universe.

Tying this back to the FSM, here, the point here is the problem of unfalsifiability. If you have no good evidence that something exists, then it's just as good as any other such explanation that fills the gap. If you with to refute one such possibility, you have to refute them all -- otherwise you are making the claim that you have a compelling reason for saying otherwise (which you do not have, here). If you wish to say that something exists, the onus (the burden of truth) is on the one making the claim -- otherwise we run into logically-inconsistent territory when it comes to establishing the truth value of a claim.

Also I don't understand your prime number analogy because P(odd prime) = 1 as primes go to infinity (purely selecting primes).

[adlp]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

hey guys i'm off to church see yall in a couple hours~

[choof]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

have fun dude church was always fun when I was a kid

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

i should have made the sacrifice and posted gay porn

[Reincarnate]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

it's not too late disclaimer: don't actually do it

[korny]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

have fun dude church was always fun when I was a kid

Try going to Mormon church

[choof]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

the only time I've been in a mormon church was to play basketball

[benguino]

Re: UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

"fsm is arbitrary because I say it is arbitrary but creationism isn't arbitrary because I say it isn't arbitrary therefore fsm is refuted". You are making NO argument at all.

I didn't just say they were arbitary or not, I explained as well. And assuming I explained them, how is that not an argument? You are claiming that believing in some greater deity in general is just as ridiculous as believing in a FSM. What makes believing in the FSM ridiculous? The fact that it was arbitrarily made up. But there exists motivation for believing in a greater deity; so it's not arbitrary. The reasoning behind this motivation may be dumb, primitive, etc as many of you have said but that's not the point. If you want to argue that the reasoning is dumb, primitive, etc; then you should go ahead and attack those points directly instead of trying to tie it in with a broken analogy. Anyways, back on track, believing in the FSM is ridiculous because it's arbitrary. Believing in the existence of a higher deity is not arbitrary. Thus, the claim "Believing in a higher deity is just as ridiculous as believing in the FSM" doesn't work that well because they are ridiculous for different reasons.

@Reincarnate: Those are all excellent points that can be used to refute creationism without the need of having to incorporate the FSM. I'm too lazy to argue your points right now though.