UK Bans Teaching Creationism in State-Funded Schools Read

[Reincarnate]

oh thank god I almost didn't make it

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by reuben_tate

A story for creationism is only arbitrary if you choose an arbitrary story. Consider all the possible stories one could possibly come up with. Each one probably has an extremely low probability of holding true especially if it's filled with arbitrarily chosen details (e.g. like our creator is a pink fluffy unicorn who stuffs its face with candy and poops out rainbows). But I'm not considering any one particular story. I'm considering the set of all possible stories for creationism because I don't care about the details.

Here is a terrible example: Suppose I ask you to think of a prime number and for you not to tell me. And I ask you, "is it odd?" Now did I choose to ask if it was odd arbitrarily? No, I chose that because I know that all but one of the prime numbers are odd. Now consider each prime number that is also odd. If I had asked you, "Is it 17?" or "Is it 23" those would seem like arbitrary choices but considering all the odd numbers as a whole is not. However, it may actually be the case that the number chosen was in fact 17 or 23.

Similarly, the story of the FSM is pretty arbitrary. However, the set of all possible stories for creationism isn't trivially arbitrary.

PS I'm done...I don't want to waste more of my day stuck in this thread.

If the initial premise of all those stories is arbitrary (i.e. universe needs a creator), the combination of all those stories doesn't magically turn into something not arbitrary or something likely.

You're right though, that is a terrible example.

It's funny how you complained about argument by analogy and then you use argument by analogy.

[reuben_tate]

Can we lock this thread before I change my mind?

Edit: my bad, there might be some people that actually want to talk about the OP. Carry on.

[Pseudo Enigma]

Originally Posted by dAnceguy117

but what is reality, and how did it begin riddle me that FOOL

is this the real life?

[igotrhythm]

Is this just fantasy?

[Nullifidian]

[qqwref]

Originally Posted by _.Spitfire._

Sick but yet they can teach evaluation Which has no scientific backing as well. They are both just theory s if you want to look at it from a "scientific" point of veiw.

I hope everyone who posts stuff like this is joking because

wow

[devonin]

Rubix, stay strong. I know you can do it.

[iCeCuBEz v2]

lol that this is even like........... a debate

what is there to even teach creationism.........

chapter 1: god did it
chapter 2: .......

[reuben_tate]

FSM did it.

[TheSaxRunner05]

My religion says all religious claims are false.

[Mollocephalus]

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?

[reuben_tate]

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]

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]

Originally Posted by reuben_tate

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]

Originally Posted by _.Spitfire._

taking this too seriously

calm down

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Pseudo Enigma

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]

Alright, I can't help it anymore.

Originally Posted by reuben_tate

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]

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

[choof]

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