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BetterHuman.org Weblog |
Welcome to the BetterHuman.org Weblog. Please read this very important excerpt from my book, Meme, as it also applies to the contents of this weblog. If you'd like to be notified of weblog updates, or wish to contact us directly with compliments, criticisms, or especially corrections, please visit our Contact Us page, where you'll also see a list of frequently-asked questions. If you are looking for specific keywords in this weblog, be sure to use your browser's 'find' function. Also, I'll apologize in advance if some weblog entries seem abrupt, but in the interest of conciseness I've often been forced to remove large portions of submitter's emails, and this will occasionally make my response appear inordinately potent.
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Topics on this page:
#148 - Hiding from the fear and pain of reality - Feb 05, 2006, 07:54 PM
#149 - Picking on the little guy - Feb 05, 2006, 08:13 PM
#150 - BetterHuman.org's chosen weblog format - Feb 10, 2006, 04:36 PM
#151 - Picking on the little guy, again - Feb 10, 2006, 04:46 PM
#152 - BetterHuman.org is not always welcome - Feb 19, 2006, 12:18 PM
#153 - Logic versus fear - Feb 19, 2006, 12:33 PM
#154 - Is Islam akin to Intelligent Design? - Feb 19, 2006, 12:49 PM
#155 - Keeping the magic out of the G.O.D. - Feb 19, 2006, 01:13 PM
#156 - Can we be taken literally? - Feb 19, 2006, 01:38 PM
#157 - The missing link - Feb 19, 2006, 01:57 PM
#158 - The 'unknowable' known physics - Feb 19, 2006, 02:43 PM
Click here to see next weblog page...
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#147 - Can we choose not to be in reality? - February 05, 2006, 07:45 PM |
Mr. Flatpics wrote:
> For some months I have been reading your Weblogs. I admire your 'controlled' answers, even to the more 'colorful' attacks.
Thank you for the compliment. I think it is becoming a matured skill for me now, having been through the ringer so many times, but sometimes I still need a moment to step back before I begin typing.
> Although I have been baptised, my parents have never 'forced' me into a religious life. Going to church was sporadic (Christmas). As a student I joined a christian student organisation, mainly because my sister and my brother were members. This 'mild exposure' fortunately did not lead to addiction. Actually, maybe in hindsight, I think I never have thought that 'God, Angels, Eternal life, singing praise, praying etc.' were more that strange fantasies and weird rituals.
You were very lucky, and perhaps too clever to easily succumb to the wily charms of religion.
> Growing older, I am 62 now, I grew increasingly more amazed watching people performing religious rituals. For a time I thought them to be harmless, but the destructive potential of religion is easily to observe in the last decades (millenia ?).
Agreed. Despite the non-stop advancement of humanity in the sciences, a large population segment of our societies still remain far behind in education. As well, society's misguided and inappropriate 'tolerance' towards faith-based religions has only served to exacerbate the problem. It is unfortunate that when the notion of oppressing religion is considered, it is perceived as a 'violation of freedom', instead of it being seen for what it truly is, 'education'.
> My wish for our new millenium was: The complete disappearance of religion. But my guess is: this may take another millenium !
I hope and want to believe otherwise.
> I appreciate your efforts with BETTER-HUMAN in this respect.
Thanks for the kind words. I hope you find it within yourself to also help promote a non-fantasy reality perspective to those within your range of influence. Change happens at the individual-level.
> Getting people forgetting the religious lure: - You are special, The supreme being Loves you, All suffering will, in the end, be replaced by eternal bliss and happiness
> - and replacing this with -
> Your great-grandfather was a newt, you are on your own, and when you die, you will rot and stink - might be a hard sell.
Very true, especially when described as above as if there was more than one option. No reasonable person would trade their precious 'immortality' in exchange for the raw and frightening reality. The problem is that religious people believe they have a 'choice' whether or not to 'be' in reality. To analogize, imagine that Claudio was given a red hat, and was told that it was blue. Having never seen the colors red or blue before, Claudio simply accepted that his hat must be blue. Years later, someone approaches Claudio and tells him that his hat is not blue, but that it is red. Claudio laughs absurdly at the person and continues on professing the 'blue'ness of his hat.
You see, no matter what Claudio 'believes', he is still wearing a red hat, likewise, people that believe they are going to receive immortality, are still going to die in reality like the rest of us. I know I mentioned it much earlier in the weblog, but I'll step back and say that the notion of trying to 'sell' reality to people doesn't make any more sense than trying to sell them their own skin, for every single living thing in the universe is already a full-blown member of reality, whether they 'choose' to believe it or not. A lifetime of delusion will in no way prevent our inevitable and permanent true death.
> PS. English is not my native language, so forgive any spelling errors.
Have no fear, my friend, I have many contributors from around the globe that also learned English as a second language. This brings up a good point that many prior contributors tend to have some degree of illiteracy in English. Though this may in some cases be indicative of poor education, it also can indicate that the contributor is not writing in their mother tongue. I'm simply identifying this point to make readers aware that illiteracy is not always an indicator of poor education.
Kind regards,
Sean Sinjin
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#148 - Hiding from the fear and pain of reality - February 05, 2006, 07:54 PM |
Mr. Loophost wrote back:
> The main prophecy I highlighted was the one regarding, what we call as Christians the "end times" prophecy. God always reveals His plans to us through His servants the prophets. Just like the "end times" He too has given sign posts to warn us.
> The signposts regarding the end briefly stated here are;(1) a one-world ruler will rise up from a group of nations, this group of nations is said to be the European Economic Community. (2) Another key event will be that everyone will have to receive some sort of identification mark to be to sell or buy goods. (3) One of the last key events will be attack on Israel by a number of other countries.
Addressing your first point, it's a natural evolution of global societies to create larger unions, both economically and culturally. This 'signpost' is quite self-fulfilling. If it isn't the European nations, it will be some other countries in the future, so this prediction isn't anything that could be construed as 'prophetic', but rather inevitable. Perhaps the leader of the United Nations is this one-world ruler you mention?
Your second point that vaguely describes an identification mark could refer to anything, from money, to credit cards, to retinal scans, to your ideas of chip implants. People have 'always' had some kind of identification. This 'prophecy' is nothing more than recognition of how technology evolves toward the most efficient form of identifying people. What I'm not quite sure of is how this is supposed to pretense the end of the world. I'd also like to see your religious resource that declares this prophecy (specifically where it mentions microchips). This prophecy seems to have been fulfilled from the start.
Your third item is moot, as at any given time throughout history, many countries were, and are still, under attack (which includes terrorism). It makes no sense to single out Israel as unique in this context as if this was an uncommon or 'prophetic' occurrence.
So, in the light of a current and plausible fulfillment of each of these prophecies, am I now to assume that the 'end times' have commenced? How will the 'end times' unfold exactly?
What I'm trying to help you see here is that these and all said 'prophecies' are always so vague that they are easily and readily fulfilled by 'some' current event. Anybody that wants to fulfill a prophecy can interpret any world event in any way they need to in order to complete their agenda. The depiction of simple and obvious predictions, as 'prophetic', is the attempt to make something seem 'magical', when there's nothing really out of the ordinary, or beyond common sense.
This tactic is very similar to how the ancient scam of Astrology works. Astrologers make up vague predictions that virtually everyone can affiliate with, such as 'you will fall in love today', or 'your lucky number is 4'. These predictions, once planted in someone's head, will fulfill themselves, simply due to the power of suggestion. This person will 'seek' to fall in love, or will pay inordinate attention to the number of times that '4' appears in their day (which is no different than any other day, they just happen to be paying attention to it this day).
> You may still regard this evidence, as being flimsy, but if you like others were to watch the world events and then line them up with the Bible. Then you will be able to see for your self.
Again, if you were to pick 'any' point in history between the time of the 'prophecies', and now, there would 'always' be some event somewhere that could be interpreted as 'exactly' fulfilling these prophecies. That means your prophecies have been fulfilled from day one, and every single day thereafter, and will probably be fulfilled every day forth with other events that vaguely resemble these prophetic descriptions. Despite this constant matching of events to prophecies, however, I have not heard of any repercussions that could be construed as the 'end days'. How many times do these prophecies have to be fulfilled before they are fulfilled?
> From a Christian perspective we believe that God created all animals including the dinosaurs at the time of creation. We believe and accept that man and dinosaurs would of lived side by side along with all the other animals.
This, of course, is quite incorrect. Dinosaurs were long extinct by the time humans evolved to be recognizably human. You can choose to deny this, my friend, but your choice would be motivated simply by your ego/fear-based desire to deny it, and not for logical reasons. You refuse to be corrected, even in the face of volumes of unquestionable evidence, and your resistance to accepting truth is a very human trait called 'cognitive dissonance', the domicile of 'faith'. It would bring you great pain and fear to accept contradictory information to what you want to believe, and so you perpetually hide yourself within the fantasy world of your religion. Like a heroin addict, you don't 'want' to see reality, you'd rather just stay 'high', and nothing rational can ever come from that. This is truly not meant to be insulting or derogatory, it is just the literal definition of your affliction, you are an ethereal-junkie.
> I would also like to point out to you that there is a written description of dinosaurs, which can be found in the book of Job 40:15-24. If you're willing to look at it you will find the description very fitting of a dinosaur.
"Look at the behemoth, which I made along with you and which feeds on grass like an ox. What strength he has in his loins, what power in the muscles of his belly! His tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are close-knit. His bones are like tubes of bronze, his limbs like rods of iron. He ranks first among the works of God, yet his Maker can approach him with his sword. The hills bring him their produce, and all the animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants he lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal him in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround him. When the river rages, he is not alarmed; he is secure, though the Jordan should surge against his mouth. Can anyone capture him by the eyes, or trap him and pierce his nose?"
The first and glaring point I'll make is that this was an observation of a 'live' animal, which makes it absolutely impossible to have been a dinosaur, as they were all extinct during any imaginable period in which this passage could have been written. As for what animal it could be, my research has repeatedly surfaced interpretations of either a hippopotamus or elephant, for which either animal would be a fine fit. Please notice how loose 'interpretation' has once again lent itself to agenda fulfillment.
> In Job 41:1-34 it also gives another account of a dinosaur.
"Can you pull in Leviathan with a hook, and tie down his tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through his nose, or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he multiply supplications to you, will he speak to you with tender words? Will he make a pact with you, that you to take him as your slave for life? His snorting throws out flashes of light, his eyes are like the rays of dawn. Out of his mouth flames go, sparks of fire shoot forth! Smoke streams from his nostrils as from a boiling pot over burning rushes. His breath sets coals ablaze and a flame darts from his mouth. There is not the likes of him on earth, a creature without fear. He looks on every haughty being, he is king over all the sons of pride."
Ah, the dragon legend lives on. Again, the most glaring point is that these observations were of a living creature, immediately discounting any possibility of it being a dinosaur reference. Another quite obvious point is that dinosaurs did not project 'fire' from their nostrils, or mouths, or anywhere. No biological lifeform has ever possessed the natural ability to internally create and/or expel fire.
What you are reading above is a fairy-tale (almost too literally). Dragons have existed in folklore for millennia, and their persistence is due to the congruency of all human minds in what is considered to be terrifying (and possibly from discoveries of dinosaur bones). Virtually everyone will agree that the dragon's 'form' is about as terrifying as can be imagined, and in the days of knights and noblemen, it was common practice to tell fantastical tales of defeating a dragon in battle with merely a sword. Why would someone tell such a fantastical and ridiculous story?__for the same reasons Glack did, to feed the almighty ego.
> It stated that in the Turkmenian plateau human footprints were found along side dinosaur's footprints.
This is either a fabrication, prank, or misinterpretation; no exceptions. You cannot preclude tens of thousands of scientists' research that conclusively separate the human species timeline from the dinosaurs, with this solitary and obviously inaccurate example, simply because it serves your ethereal-addiction agenda.
> Another article written in a news paper states that over the past 100 years, there have been many reports of sightings, in a remote area of central Africa, of a swamp-dwelling animal known to local villagers as 'mokele-mbembe' — the 'blocker-of-rivers'. It is described as living mainly in the water, its size somewhere between that of a hippopotamus and an elephant, but with a squat body and a long neck that enables it to pluck leaves and fruit from plants near the water's edge.
This may very well be your 'behemoth' then; but that doesn't make it a dinosaur, it just means it might be an animal we haven't yet classified.
65 million years ago, a very significant meteor hit Earth, wiping virtually all life off the planet, including all of the large dinosaurs. There were very few surviving creatures, but those that did survive tended to be very small and warm-blooded, and could tough it through long periods of lean resources. It is from this select group of survivors that all life on our planet today descends from, including us. No large creatures alive today are descendents of large dinosaurs from back then.
> I know that through the eyes of evolution, the earth must be about 4 billion year-old age. The earth must be this old so that man can make the theory of evolution seem more credible.
The calculated age of the Earth has absolutely nothing to do with the need to justify evolution. There are a number of chemical, cosmological, and physics-based techniques that can quite accurately quantify the age of rocks, of planets, of stars, etc, without bias. You may be interested in educating yourself in these very interesting fields such that you can understand how it is possible for the age of things to be determined.
> The Bible's states that there was only 7 days of creation, this cant be possible the evolutionist would shout. These days as mentioned in the Bible were in fact a normal 24hour day.
If that is so, then your Bible has been irrevocably proven incorrect in this aspect. You may choose to still 'believe' in the Bible's version, but I would fail to understand why; unless of course acknowledging it is wrong would bring you great pain and fear. In that case, you are allowing your emotions to usurp your common sense. Many people have a difficult time separating emotions from logic. Emotions are instinctually driven and have served us for millennia in our prehistoric evolution, but rarely do their motivations have a foundation in pure logic. Becoming a strong-minded sentient human being requires the maturity to recognize when your emotions are encumbering your ability to apply common sense, and also means learning to override their instinctual ambitions for more productive and logical recourses. Don't be held prisoner to your ego and fears. Control them, don't let them control you by keeping you in this shell of a perspective.
> I though your statement here would be a good one to close on "BetterHuman.org's approach to the elimination of mythology will extend only to education and legal oppression". Your view here can be applied to the Christian movement who is also "out there" promoting their own cause. They are highlighting the fact that there is a God and they are also revealing to the community the erroneous views and beliefs held by the evolutionists. It would seem that the battles lines have been drawn in the sand regarding these two opposing groups.
With my statement, I was trying to highlight the differences between BetterHuman.org and other competing philosophies. What we will 'not' employ are fabricated fear-coercion tactics (such as 'going to hell'), or nonsensical guilt trips (such as homosexuality is 'evil'), and we also refuse to mislead with seductive fantasy (such as 'immortality', or ethereal protection). These dishonest and lewd psychological manipulation tactics are so immoral, perverse, and insanity-promoting, that it would be unconscionable for us, or any organization, to consider utilizing.
Also my friend, we are not 'drawing a line in the sand', any more than teachers compete with their students. If you do not want to learn about reality, and wish to instead remain immersed in your fantasy world of denial and false hope, then there's nothing we can do about that. We have no ability to stop you. What we 'will' do, however, is provide reality education to those that have not yet succumbed to the religious meme-virus. We are focusing on those that have the strength of mind to question their faiths, and whom seek the truth; and you have most unfortunately, but neatly, precluded yourself from that arrangement.
What you may never understand is that you are 'also' a member of reality; you just 'choose' not to believe so. Any battle that you perceive between your mythology-based 'faith' perception, and the one-and-only reality, is completely misguided because you are already 'in' the inescapable reality. You will not have to defend your delusional perspective to us simply because we do not seek to engage with you or any religious person, for your kind have already succeeded in and closed this debate before we can even begin. I wish we could help you, my brother, but you've already won this ideological 'battle' in your mind long ago, and we have forever lost you to the world of fantasy. So, enjoy your spoils of ethereal-addiction; we have other, less terrified people to try to protect from this most sinister of mental illnesses.
Life's too short to fix everything.
Take care,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 6.73, 6.80, 7.86, 7.94, 8.103, 8.116, 9.124, 9.129, 10.139, 11.148, 11.157, 12.168, 13.172, 14.188, 15.192, 20.288}
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#149 - Picking on the little guy - February 05, 2006, 08:13 PM |
Mr. Gladyoke wrote back:
> faith makes all things possible.
Can you support this statement? It seems rather vague, and isolated from credibility when you state it alone like this. What exactly is made possible?
> religion is not the placebo it is the main cause of the pain, i.e., suffering consciousness, which can only be encountered and never avoided through the construction of more false religion.
Forgive me my friend, but the above doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's too abstract and presumptive to allow me to see your point. Can you elaborate on these thoughts? The best I can ascertain is that your perception of religions in general, in their current incarnations, are a major source of life's 'pain' for their followers, and also perhaps you are suggesting that there might be another option (a purely spiritual perspective?) that hasn't been blasphemed into the religions we see today. If this was your meaning, then at least I can offer you congratulations on seeing through to the tyranny and falsehood of religion, however, you still cling onto the notion of something ethereal in this universe. It is this crucial leap of 'faith' that I would also like to extinguish, for your clinging to the notion of the supernatural can only be a manifestation of your fear/denial of death. Religions are merely the syringe, the 'supernatural' itself is the drug. Shedding the skin of religion does nothing to add credibility to the notion of ethereal beings.
> morons don't comprehend and they don't suffer. stupidity shields them from the vicious truths of the universe,
The word 'moron' is quite derogatory, antagonistic, and unnecessary in the context that you applied it here. I don't understand why one would need to publicly convey a message like this (you knew this would end up on the weblog), other than to express a 'bullying' mentality. What can possibly be gained by trouncing on those that are blind to what's around them? Not everyone is granted fantastic intelligence, so does it make sense to berate those less fortunate? (or to enslave their minds with fantasy, or bodies with employment?) What makes your statement so particularly absurd is that 'you' are 'also' seriously misled with 'your' beliefs in mythology. In the end, you are unwittingly insulting and diminishing yourself.
> remember, he demanded that his own son expiate our sins.
...according to your religious folklore. Please understand that this declaration has no more credibility than stating that Santa's reindeer can fly.
> again, you are determined to replace god. i will continue to worship god
My friend, I do not wish to, nor can I, replace your god, because there simply is nothing there to replace. I am merely exposing what is already true, reality is devoid of the supernatural, no matter how badly you want to believe otherwise. Feel free to continue your ethereal addiction, for I have learned long ago that your affliction is quite incurable, and our energies here at BetterHuman.org will be better spent on those that seek the truth, rather than those that choose to hide from it.
With respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 9.125, 9.130, 10.140, 10.146, 11.149, 11.151}
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#150 - BetterHuman.org's chosen weblog format - February 10, 2006, 04:36 PM |
Mr. Joinpeel wrote:
> Like the website--or at least the mission. Never read /Meme,/ but I'm with you as far as stamping out religion and promoting a biological model of self-apprehension.
It's always great to hear from like-minded friends.
> I think the blog needs work. The first thing is simple: The posts should be listed in the revers chronilogical order. It makes no sense to the user to read a blog from the very first post, now several months old and only getting older.
I'll have to disagree with this point, for a couple reasons. First, this isn't a typical weblog in that it doesn't generally contain 'dated' material. What I mean by this is that despite the entries having 'dates', the material never really gets 'old'. At any time now and into the future, the entries at the beginning of the weblog will always be as equally valid as when they were written. The nature of the material is 'timeless' because religion isn't going anywhere soon. Second, a lot of the newer material builds upon the older material, and if someone were to read it in reverse chronological order, they would often be confused or missing key information, so some of the entries wouldn't make sense to them. It is, and always has been my desire to have people read these entries from the beginning.
> And most users aren't inclined to click through, ten at a time, to the most recent. That's just backwards.
Agreed, and I will endeavor to correct this in the near future by including a quick jump at the top of the weblog pages. Hope this will satisfy this shortcoming.
> The second thing: if you look at any blog, the posts are each presented in their entirety, or in an abbreviated form. Listing just the headlines makes things more difficult, as the user must pick one, and then if he wants to read more, he must click his 'back' button, and then click another.
I'm not sure what the shortcoming is. The way you describe the 'normal' blog format, it seems that ours complies by showing the entirety of an entry, and numerous entries back to back such that if a person wishes to keep reading, they merely keep scrolling. At the top of the page, ours also has the added benefit of a quick link to each article. It's also not required for a user to necessarily click the back button since the articles are sequentially formatted; and if they want to choose a different article, well, how could it be any easier than how I've laid it out? It's hard for me to see this as in any way inconvenient, plus I haven't had a single complaint about the format thus far. Perhaps your lack of familiarity with our format will take some getting used to?
> It doesn't sound like much work, but it's enough to deter some from continuing.
I'm not sure if you speak for others because, again, I haven't had a single complaint about the weblog format.
> Also, I'd guess that the fact that no other blogs use this format is an indicator that it isn't a good format.
I think you'll find that conformity is not a virtue of our philosophies. I get the impression that you are unaccustomed to being subtly coerced into reading weblog articles in chronological order. Please trust and understand that this is by design, as it lends to greater overall comprehension of the presented material.
> You'd be better off using one of the many decent free blog apps out there than going with what you've got now.
It was my firm desire to not contribute to the advertising engines of another organization. Not that I am offended, but I put a lot of work into the BetterHuman.org weblog just so I do retain precise control of presentation and ownership. What you see is exactly what I want to portray, and how I wish it to be portrayed.
> One last thing: the "No reproduction without written consent" warning is anachronistic. One of the main attractions of blogging is that is enables the momentum of infectious ideas--"memes"--as no medium ever has. In other words, you /want/ people to reproduce your work (with attribution of course).
Again, my friend, I'll disagree. Primarily this warning is put in place such that we won't be plagiarized. As well, it is also very easy for those with an ulterior agenda to take fragments of our content and present them out of context to give it different meaning. A good example of this happened to Albert Einstein when he was quoted as saying 'God doesn't play dice'. This quote has leapt out of a very innocuous passage and into infamy by the persistent perception by the ethereally-addicted that this is evidence Einstein himself believed in God, which is entirely incorrect. As much as possible, we wish to be the sole purveyors of our mantra, in context, to prevent this exact type of misappropriation of information.
> Putting that warning at the top of your blog can only discourage others from linking to or quoting your work
I don't see how this prevents people from linking to our site, in fact we encourage it. As well, there are already many examples of passages being quoted from BetterHuman.org on the Internet in various blogs. I am not opposed to this, even if it is a critical assessment of said passage, as long as the true meaning of our words is not distorted.
> Just some constructive criticism.
Always welcome, and I hope our chosen depiction is more palatable to you after this correspondence.
Kind regards,
Sean Sinjin
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#151 - Picking on the little guy, again - February 10, 2006, 04:46 PM |
Mr. Gladyoke wrote back:
> sorry for being honest, re: the universe, the morons who are currently engulfing the world and threaten to extinguish civilization, and how i respond to you.
Again, my friend, quite disappointing to see your usage of the word 'moron'. Please do not try to hide your diminutive motives behind the pious notion of honesty, for this only tarnishes its purity with your ego-premised desire to oppress those you perceive to be of lesser value to you. Honesty in no way vindicates disrespect. Can you not find a way to be honest and respectful at the same time? A perpetually public forum is never the place to emblazon with insults, especially toward these innocent victims of circumstance. You may claim these words to be in the spirit of light jest, or even a harmless derision, but cold, hard text is an untamed beast when it comes to interpretation (as any religion can demonstrate) and those timid souls that would otherwise be open to communing with us, may feel spurned by your words and instead rise up for their rightful share of respect. Let's not beat them down, let's help them up instead.
Hatred begets hatred.
With respect,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 9.125, 9.130, 10.140, 10.146, 11.149, 11.151}
#152 - BetterHuman.org is not always welcome - February 19, 2006, 12:18 PM
Mr. Tipspin wrote:
> I wish you weren't one of the sponsors on my website. Actually because you are, I'm buying my domain name so that you will not be able to post your advertising on my site.
I'm very sorry you feel this way. Of course you must realize that I have very little control where the advertising for BetterHuman.org appears and the fact that it undesirably ends up on your site is entirely innocent on my part, for I gather you are utilizing free web space for your site and one of the caveats of that is you must accept sponsored advertising. I sincerely mean no disrespect to you. You are, however, taking the correct approach to taking control of your website and what appears on it.
> It's so sad that you are trying to rid the world of the most beautiful thing, it's just that you don't know what you're talking about.
Well my friend, we here at BetterHuman.org have been debating this exact topic now for almost a year with many, many people like yourself, and I feel that we've made significant progress in terms of flushing out all the factors that each side clings to, and to measure and validate each of those factors with great precision. Your sweeping conclusion above, though very emotionally charged, is not of much value to either of us because it's simply blind prejudice toward our work. In order to make such a judgment, you would need to understand us, and the only way to do that is to read our weblog to discover the myriad of conversations between us and the religious right. You will learn much about religion, science, and yourself, I promise.
> If there is even one proof for how we have gotten here, on earth, if you can prove that through mere science, then you will be the first in the world to be able to do that. Ever tried?
Actually, yes. I have written a book called, Meme, and it accomplishes exactly what you ask above. Meme, is a compilation of many scientific theories that explain in great detail, the path that the universe took from its beginnings, to today, and on in to the future. It also explains the beginning, evolution, and role of life in our universe. Meme also strongly demonstrates why there aren't any gods, and why humans invented the concept of gods to help us evolve to where we are today.
> Did you know that the Torah talks about science, and that it all coincides with the big bang theory. Did you knwo that the Torah writes about the world being round 3000 years ago, when we in the western world only found that out recently.....learn!
I'm sure you're also aware that the Torah describes the Earth being created in 6 days, which is easily disproved. You see, your religious text is largely a book of fables and mythology that describe gods no different than the Greek gods, or ancient Egyptians' gods, or rock or tree gods. The fact that your book has a small degree of accuracy (e.g. round world) does not in any way vindicate its professing the existence of your ethereal entities. My friend, you ask me to 'learn', but what you don't know is that I have already been exactly where you are, and I found my way out of the lies of religion and have freed myself from ethereal addiction.
You suffer from the most sinister of mental illnesses on Earth, no less ill than if you wholeheartedly believed in the Tooth Fairy. Please, I ask you to read the BetterHuman.org weblog so that you might begin to understand that it is indeed you that is trapped in a windowless shell of perspective, and that 'enough' of the answers are out there, if you'd only find the courage to discover them.
With much respect,
Sean Sinjin
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#153 - Logic versus fear - February 19, 2006, 12:33 PM |
Mr. Helmroot wrote:
> I agree we can only prove there's no god in the same way anyone would prove there's no tooth fairy. A good way to put it might be that we can prove there's no reason to believe in god.
There may not be any 'logical' reasons to believe in ethereal beings, but there are many 'emotional' reasons to want to do so. Fear of death is by far the most powerful driving force that propels theism (to borrow your term, though I prefer to generally stick with the term 'religion' since 'theism' and 'atheism' are very likely to be confused for each other by our less literate readers).
> Sometimes people tell me that since you can't know either way, you're risking eternal damnation by not believing.
These same people don't realize that a belief in the ethereal means they are risking wasting their entire lives in the pursuit of false fantasy.
> The fact that people created (the idea of) god in our own image doesn't prove that there is no god. It is, however, one more reason that belief in god is baseless.
It does seem highly unlikely that we'd just happen to represent the image of God, but this concept does fall well in line with their beliefs.
> ...belief in the scientific process rather than prayer, for example gets us what? Medicine, space travel, political liberation, etc. ... The Bible teaches genocide, extreme sexism and racism and values ignorance above learning.
Well said.
In regard to a statement from a prior weblog contributor:
> "Christianity does not teach you to hate a homosexual it simply states that homosexuality is wrong just like it states that stealing is wrong."
You wrote:
> You let them get away with THAT?! The Bible says to kill homosexuals (Lev 20:13). Christians obviously don't like to acknowledge that....It's one more reason the Bible has no place as a moral guide.
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" [Leviticus 20:13]
The ironic thing about this unbelievably ignorant passage founded from fear, is that it actually only serves to 'increase' the degree of homosexuality in the Christian subset of humanity. Instead of accepting the homosexual paradigm and letting them enjoy life free from oppression and punishment, homosexuals are instead coerced into leading superficially 'normal' lives with wives they are not attracted to, ultimately producing children. There is a genetic causation to homosexuality and by re-circulating this genetic pretence back into the gene pool, homosexuality as a whole becomes much more prolific. This is almost as ironic as how religion has usurped our instinctual need for power (which primarily serves to propel one to alpha male status for reproduction purposes) by providing channels in the pursuit of the ultimate power (a spiritual leader) for which some religions require abstinence. It seems almost every attempt of religion to vilify or oppress that which is natural, ends up backfiring tenfold.
> Einstein was an atheist, Einstein wrote, "But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion." Einstein was wrong. The nature of religion squashes truth and understanding
I believe Einstein was speaking more metaphorically when he used the term 'religion' here. It would probably be contextually accurate to replace 'religion' with 'human spirit'. I really don't think that he believed our motivation to pursue the truth was a religiously-founded aspiration.
> Einstein's weakness of mind surfaced elsewhere. He denied some of his own calculations because he didn't like the conclusion. Often people get to a certain point of comfort and want to cling to that comfort, even at the expense of intellectual integrity. Einstein did that once or twice.
Einstein had an intuition the likes of which humankind can only hope to witness again. Far be it for us to have the privilege of judging him.
> I read a book about intelligent design. The scientist explained the workings of many features of the universe and the development of life and concluded that the probability of that happening by chance was too low to consider.
The often very subjective and misguided 'probabilities' more often demonstrate the author's lack of understanding of the process of evolution. They liken the odds of these complex structures forming to be the equivalent of throwing a bunch of car parts onto the ground which just happen to fall together to create a fully functioning car. This is a very inaccurate analogy. Everything that evolved in nature has a long path of evolutionary baby-steps it took to get to where it is. The fact that we can't discern this path, does 'not' mean there wasn't one.
> If everything improbable requires an intelligent design, then the god, being the most improbable, also requires a creator.
My friend, I see you trying to repeatedly use 'logic' to defeat the very illogical concept of ethereal entities. Unfortunately, your arguments only have meaning to someone that is already logically-oriented. I believe there is no 'logic'-based recourse to this 'faith' dilemma. The solution begins when we appeal to an ethereal addict's heart and fears, not their minds. They are simply afraid to die, and no amount of rationalizing will alleviate that fear.
Thank you for your contribution. Apologies that I was unable to address the entirety of your lengthy letter.
Kind regards,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 11.153, 12.162, 12.169, 15.193}
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#154 - Is Islam akin to Intelligent Design? - February 19, 2006, 12:49 PM |
Mr. Blarenet wrote back:
> HELLO, I am still praying for you that ALLAH god of all humanity,may help you in finding the reality. IT will be helpful to you in this connection to visit the site www.irfi.org (Islamic Research Foundation International) in which you can find answers to allyour questions,
I have visited the site you indicate and indeed I have found it most enlightening and educational. A very modern day perspective on Islam. From the information that I've read, it seems that you yourself haven't read the very articles you are asking me to read. This article for example, demonstrates how religiously-founded oppression of science in the Muslim world has effectively allowed other countries to dominate the sciences while the Muslim world fell behind. It also demonstrates the fallout of the scientific education in how it challenges the Muslim faith, citing examples of children that stop praying after learning some basic physics. I don't see this as in any way contributing to your position that Islam and science are compatible. The best compatibility this article purports between them would be that Islam simply provides an unqualified 'why' to the 'how' provided by science.
The articles, one and two, demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge of the meaning of 'science' and rather was discussing (preaching, actually) the notion of 'learning', but using the word 'science' in its place. These articles proclaim that 'science' (but really meaning 'learning') is endorsed by Islam. Accepting and supporting 'learning', however, does nothing to promote a congruency between Islam and the ramifications of 'science'-based knowledge when science contradicts the notion of an ethereal being.
The articles, one, two, and three, are very interesting in that they demonstrate an underlying philosophy very akin to the misguided concept of 'Intelligent Design' in which evolution is perceived as a viable theory, but the causative agent still always boils down to a mystery ethereal intelligence that is never explained. That aside, it seems that a lot of fundamental principles of the Islamic perspective are much more aligned with science's interpretation of reality, but this alone does not in any way add credibility to the existence of any ethereal being.
My friend, it appears your attempt to strengthen your position has backfired by the words of your very own reference material. I have read nothing demonstrating evidence that your Allah exists, only blind faith.
Thank you for your contribution,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 8.104, 9.119, 11.154, 12.170}
#155 - Keeping the magic out of the G.O.D. - February 19, 2006, 01:13 PM
Ms. Closegroup wrote:
> Discovered your website this morning and found it to be most interesting.
Thank you.
> There was a instance in life when I was very happy with a friend of mine, we were sat in a park, late at night I looked up at the stars and focused on the seven sisters, i immediately felt a great fear and pain, I could not rest, two weeks later my friend died he was only 23years old.
I'm very sorry about that. Please understand though, that the 'great fear' you were experiencing had absolutely nothing to do with the impending death of your friend. If your friend hadn't died, then your 'fear' experience would have been assigned to the very 'next' bad thing that happened to you. Life is filled with bad experiences so please don't give an innocuous emotional event any more meaning than it's due.
> Whilst reading the section about gravity, a memory came to mind of myself about 3 or 4 years old watching bubbles in the bath, how they joined together and some burst. I remembered the feeling, the knowledge. When we are born we have deep knowledge bult-in it is all there.
I believe you are referring to the instincts, and yes, we are born with innate 'physics' instincts in that we are born with some spatial intelligence to be able to recognize up from down for example, or depth perception. We instinctually 'understand' these things and they feel natural. To see a rock levitating in thin air, for example, would seriously agitate these instincts, causing great fear.
> But, influences of parents, school, pressures put on us to learn this or that, actually closes the gap from us knowing who we really are. G.O.D is within and I have looked for it outside of myself. I have realised that the experiences I have had are coming from me and not something alien to myself.
My friend, there's two points that I wish to address here. First, the manner in which you are describing the G.O.D. suggests something ethereal, which is beyond the definition that I have employed in my work. The G.O.D. is nothing more than you; just the idealized, logical you. Second, the G.O.D. does not give you psychic powers that can reveal the future. The G.O.D. can only help you to make logical decisions and help you define yourself. There is nothing magical about the G.O.D. Again, you are connecting events (e.g. your 'fear' event to your friend's death) that are 'completely' unrelated.
> What do I do with this knowledge, how will it affect me?
All the knowledge you possess is all that the G.O.D. possesses. It cannot provide you with answers that you do not have yourself; it can only help you to find those answers.
Please, if you have any further questions about the G.O.D., I would love to answer them.
With respect,
Sean Sinjin
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#156 - Can we be taken literally? - February 19, 2006, 01:38 PM |
Mr. Leafstand wrote back:
> Hi Sean. I'm glad to hear that you don't subscribe to "facts" and to confirm we share the opinion that there's no such thing. The caveat that "my opinion is..." works for me, but my original point was that I don't think it goes without saying for the weblog. I, personally, think that some of the statements hold themselves as being indisputable because of the wording, and you should be careful to include your caveat in some statements, like the "free will" one. I know that this waters down the impact, and of course I have no vested interest in seeing you do this, it's entirely your call. Just wanted to make you aware of it so you can make a deliberate rather than default decision about it.
I have made this foreword disclaimer more visible at the top of each weblog page now, but ultimately you are correct; my wording is entirely a reflection of the 'impact' that I wish to make. I fear an entirely accurate wording would not only detract from and complicate the message that I am portraying, but it also would transmit like a legal contract, rather than truly projecting the message I'm trying to send. There is a lot of communication going on behind the actual words that would be lost with a diminished presentation.
In regard to my statement:
"...are there not an infinite number of heights in a room, starting at the floor, going to the ceiling, and everything in between, and yet there are no heights beyond or below simply because they are no longer in the room? Infinite resolution does not need to imply infinite endpoints."
You wrote:
> I think this logic is flawed, and I'll try to explain why... what you're describing with the room height is a distance, which is defined by 2 points: the floor and the ceiling. Any distance, by its nature, has to have 2 limits: a start and an end (I know you know this but bear with me...). The topic under discussion is the scale of the universe, not a measure of its size.
I believe the logic holds true since my endpoints could also refer to your minimum and maximum scale. There's no reason to assume that an infinite number of resolutions implies a lack of minimum and maximum resolutions. In both scenarios (one with min/max, and one without) it is possible to have an infinite number of resolutions, so the presence of infinite resolutions alone cannot absolutely imply one scenario or the other.
> I really can't see how the biggest and smallest scales can be finite. They have to be zero and infinity.
I believe the coordinates of where things can be located in bether can be of infinite resolution, but the properties of bether limit the size of the smallest possible construct, which I theorize to be an arc in bether, and can be described entirely, without error (given the proper mathematical tools); hence the smallest scale necessary to measure the radius of these arcs defines the lower end of the measuring scale. Despite perhaps the ability to imagine infinitely smaller scales (which could be used to accurately measure distances between particles), the purpose of defining the lower end of 'size' resolution is to prevent the notion of infinite universes existing within particles themselves, because bether is defined as collapsing into super-particle material at this point. As well, the macro end of the scale is limited by the size of the universe, and is hence finite.
Always great to discuss the unknowable,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 1.5, 8.115, 9.123, 9.128, 10.138, 11.156}
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#157 - The missing link - February 19, 2006, 01:57 PM |
Mr. Loophost wrote back:
> Hiding from reality isn't the main question here, but finding the truth in matter of our beginnings and existence is what really counts.
My friend, these two points go hand in hand. Your driving purpose to condemn evolution is 'completely' founded in the challenges it presents to your ethereal addiction. As we'll see in the rest of this letter, if you were truly interested in discovering the truth, you wouldn't be so primarily focused on the weaknesses of evolution, and you might also be willing to profess the weaknesses in your own ethereal perspective. Lacking this objectivity exposes that you are merely fulfilling your agenda of maintaining the 'high' from your virtual narcotic of fantasy. You have no sincere interest in seeking the truth about our beginnings, whatever that may be.
> A prominent Christian stated that Christians shouldn't be pushing creation or intelligent design in schools but should push rather that the truth should be told about our beginnings.
I'm not sure if I can make sense out of the above. Creationism, Intelligent Design, evolution, etc. are 'all' attempting to define and claim that 'truth' of our beginnings. Who defines the 'truth' you speak of?
> For a person who holds strongly to the belief of evolution, you must be very content to accept whole-heartedly all the evidences, which have been put forward by scientists over the years.
I'll disagree. Science, much like any perspective, is mottled with interpretive errors, meaning that it is just as flawed as the humans that represent it. It's probably much more accurate to follow a 'consensus' of scientific interpretation, as in whatever interpretation 'most' scientists would subscribe to, should typically have a higher accuracy. What this means is that there will always be a handful of misguided scientists who attempt to add information that is erroneous and therefore it makes no sense to attempt to include 'all' the information presented by all scientists, for this leads to many contradictions that cannot be reconciled. It is not a secret that science can only present theories simply because there is no such thing as a fact.
One sticking point with your opposition to the validity of a scientific perspective is that it hinges on your incorrect assumption that science purports itself as fact. You, and most other religious people, spend a great deal of time trying to 'expose' the already very exposed flaws in the scientific perspective. Science in no way attempts to disguise these shortcomings because there is nothing to be gained from doing so. Your goal is to discredit science based upon its shortcomings, hoping that these flaws can destroy its underlying infrastructure, ultimately freeing you to indulge wholeheartedly in your ethereal addiction without reconsideration.
So, what you are attempting to accomplish, that being a confession of science that it can't provide all the answers, has 'already' been accomplished from day one of the very origins of the concept of science. Science is all theory. Case closed. One question I have yet 'once' to have answered by a religious person is whether they are prepared to consider their ethereal entity to be a 'theory'. Would you care to be the first one?
> Do you accept all the evolution facts which have been put forward with out question as being described as similar to blind faith?
No, by definition, there's no blind faith in science. There may be many people that blindly subscribe to a scientific perspective, but that's not a mandatory doctrine of science, that is that individual's personal choice, and definitely not recommended. That aside, everything science purports is 'constantly' being challenged by many, many people. That is the nature of science. I don't think you'll ever read the statement, "The 'fact' of evolution", anywhere, and that is simply because there is no such thing as a fact. It will always be the "Theory of evolution".
There may be many mistakes, misinterpretations, and even agenda (such is the human animal), but even with these shortcomings, evolution is 'much' more accurate and empirically supported than your proclaimed 'fact' of magical creatures in the sky. Could you imagine the dichotomy if you were to place all the diverse scientific texts ever produced into a colossal mountainous pile, and then lay your one religious book beside it? How could you face that mountain and say, it's all wrong, and then turn to this little centuries-old book and say it has all the answers?
> Do you accept evolution just because it tries to support the idea that there is no God?
Interesting question. My answer would be the same as yours if I had asked you if you believe in God because it denies the existence of evolution.
> Do you accept all the scientific errors that go along with evolution as well?
Of course. We are still developing the tools necessary to provide a complete understanding of our evolution. Do you accept all the hypocrisy, inaccuracy, falsehoods, and ulterior agenda of your religious text?
> "But the fossil records have missing links. Where we should find countless transitional fossils, we find none". That's devastating for evolutionary theory.
Some of the reasons we don't have complete fossil records are simply due to access, money, time, and motivation. 1) Access means we have to know where to look, and have the means to get at the fossils (assuming of course that they survived hundreds of millions of years without being destroyed), most of which would be very deep underground, which leads us to 2) money: who's going to pay to dig up the entire world through solid rock looking for complete fossil chains? Also, we haven't even been looking for that much 3) time so we've probably just scratched the surface on what lies beneath our soils. What we would need to complete the evolutionary picture are thousands of 4) motivated paleontologists that are inclined to chronicle these fossils that have been dug up from thousands of feet deep, all over the world, paid with trillions of dollars donated to this research. Only then will we have the missing pieces that you claim do not exist. So you see, it's a work in progress.
Please read this prior article: 6.81.
> It's also not commonly taught in schools. The lack of transitional fossils fits perfectly, however, with the idea that an intelligent designer, whom Christians call "God," created all creatures essentially in the form we see them today.
The one perpetual failing of an ethereal perspective is that it always claims to have a 'complete' picture, (a strong reflection of humankind's need for total understanding, or rather, an inability to accept a lack of complete understanding). Allow me to ask you, does your faith know all? If so, does it seem reasonable to you that we could know everything? But, if your faith doesn't know all, then what isn't currently explained by your faith?
> (Darwin wrote in) Origin of the Species: "...why if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms?
Darwin was still unfolding the complexities of evolution himself at the time. Please remember that he was one of the first people to even consider the concept, much less develop it. The concept being so new, it would be difficult for him to understand that any given environment defines 'plateaus' that the food chain defines itself upon. There is only so much food available and so only a certain amount of life can exist. For each unique environment on the Earth (the ocean, shoreline, mountains, etc.), there are unique advantages granted to specific size, strength, intelligence, etc. that 'fit' the environment like a slot.
To explain, let's say we have a type of rabbit species that evolved on the plains and now they are spreading into the mountains. The advantages their genome enjoyed on the plains, now seem incompatible with their new environment. Their camouflage may not work any more so the slower ones die off, the food might not be as plentiful so the less energy-conservative rabbits die off, etc. However, thanks to the infamous reproductive capabilities of rabbits, the offspring keep up with the mortality rate, and eventually over a great many years, 'mountain' rabbits evolve to become the norm. These rabbits now have multi-colored fur to match the terrain, they move less so they conserve more energy, and every generation improves this 'mountain' orientation even further. Any rabbits that are born with variations that move 'away' from the ideal 'mountain' form, will find themselves eaten or starving in short order.
What you are seeing here is that the rabbits that are best-fit for the mountain environment keep surviving, and the random mutations that produce less than best-fit rabbits, are quickly erased from the gene-pool. These 'mountain' rabbits filled an environmental 'slot' that balances against food resources and predator defenses. To address your point about 'transitional forms: it is this 'slotting' of an environment that keeps a 'species' within a limited range of genetic diversity. There will not be room for larger 'mountain' rabbits, or slower ones, or any other conceivable 'transition' version of the rabbit to coexist in parallel, simply because the environment severely punishes this diversity. Only the best-fit can survive, and the best-fit is defined by the environment. It is only when some of these 'mountain' rabbits spread to the forest on the other side that they now can again transitionally 'evolve' and stabilize into a 'slot' in that new environment.
> Yet schools teach Darwinian macroevolution not as a half-baked theory lacking proof, but by force-feeding it to children as unquestionable fact. Meanwhile, intelligent design, which is entirely supported by the evidence, is forbidden in schools.
And rightly so. Please read the myriad of Intelligent Design articles in my weblog to understand why Intelligent Design is justifiably resisted like religion needs to be.
> Everywhere we find life, we find it came from life. Nowhere have scientists ever found life spontaneously springing from nonliving matter. Yet Darwinian evolution teaches that inanimate chemicals and passing time miraculously created living organisms. Mankind has never documented such nonsense.
My book, Meme, explains in very great detail the entire process of life evolving from basic elements. There are many complementary theories out there that when pieced together, form a very complete picture of the beginning of life. Your assumption that we don't know how it happened, is incorrect.
> Never has any portion of the evolutionary theory that mud gradually morphed into men been tested and proven.
It didn't happen like that at all. Again, please read Meme to learn this very elaborate process.
> Darwinian worshippers are too terrified to put evolution's theory alongside intelligent design and let people judge, which is more plausible.
Even your church itself denounces Intelligent Design. Are you a heretic to your own faith? I would be more inclined to believe that evolutionists are exhausted from hearing Intelligent Design advocates trying to rationalize the irrational. Trust me, the only reason that Intelligent Design even exists is so that ethereal addicts can validate their 'high' and yet still allow themselves to absorb the impossible-to-deny plausibility of evolutionary theory.
> The evidence overwhelmingly supports intelligent design...
There's no 'science' to Intelligent Design. The entire cornerstone of Intelligent Design rests upon science's current inability to explain certain things. From these perceived failures in science, ethereal addicts have too hastily asserted an ethereal explanation, without even considering the option that our scientific tools are too premature yet to give an answer. Religious people always want answers 'now', even when the real answers may be beyond our current technological capacity.
> Why such resistance in light of the facts?
There is no such thing as a fact. Also, no offence my friend, but your usage of the word 'fact' is quite hypocritical in light of your facts being based upon interpretation.
> Evolutionary fundamentalists, who pattern their atheism after Darwin's, realize that to discard their belief in an unintentional cause and a purposelessness to life is to admit God exists, which is frightening for unbelievers.
You assume too much. This is the same as if I could absolutely prove to you that there wasn't a god, then you'd be forced to admit that the Tooth Fairy exists. Doesn't make sense does it? Well that's what you're implying to me above. If evolution is wrong, well, it doesn't necessarily mean that the only other solution 'must' be mythological creatures in the sky.
> The creation spoken of in the Bible comports perfectly with real life evidence and science. There are no missing links.
Such is the nature of religion. It 'shrinkwraps' reality perfectly at all times, simply because fantasy explanations are tolerated without question. There are no missing links because the holes in reality are pasted over with your 'god'. Your 'totality' is an illusion based on denial.
> Children should be taught the arguments for and against the theories of evolution and intelligent design. Let both sides make their best case, compare the evidence and let scientific method do its work.
Would you allow children to inject heroin into their veins, and then let them decide for themselves if they want it again? The aforementioned is also the scientific method approach, but I think you'll agree that raw scientific method precludes morality as a mitigating factor in experimentation.
> If life accidentally just "happened" and we're merely evolved apes, where do the concepts of right and wrong come from?
I would strongly encourage you to read the entirety of my weblog, for a number of your questions I have already answered in great detail, including the topic of 'instinctual morality' above.
> There is no fossil evidence to support evolution.
How can you possibly justify this statement? My friend, please visit a local museum, or a library, or take an evolution course at your local university, to discover just how erroneous and badly informed the above statement is.
> However, in over one hundred and fifty years of a massive global search by scientists that has catalogued over one hundred million fossil specimens in museums and laboratories, they have failed to discover a single "missing link" fossil. If the evolutionists were intellectually honest, they would have abandoned evolution long ago.
You seem quite focused on this 'missing link'. I'm not sure if you even understand what this is supposed to mean, but there are many utilizations of this term. One likely one is that we were never able to find a link between the Neanderthals and humans. This was premised upon a long-standing scientific (and ultimately incorrect) theory that the Neanderthals were our ancestors. DNA tests very recently revealed that they were in fact a 'branch' of hominids, our cousins per se, and not our ancestors (very similar to the example above of the 'mountain' and 'forest' rabbits that lived simultaneously but separately). There never was a 'missing link' to tie us to Neanderthals because they were always a completely separate lineage, that unfortunately for them, Mother Nature didn't need any more.
> He expressed his fears about his possible error in the following comments: "I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a fantasy...I...am ready to cry with vexation at my blindness and presumption."
What a courageous person Darwin was. Imagine standing in the face of all that was believed by humankind, and trying to not only discover the truth, but try to help others see it as well, 'including' himself. His intuition was very powerful, but the complexities of evolution would humble any human.
> Darwin had built his theory on imagined intermediate forms, but none of these forms had materialized during his lifetime. For the theory of evolution to be proven true, he needed to find these missing link fossils.
Those fossils exist, but separated by millions of years of sedimentary rock accumulation, and hence, quite difficult to gain access to. Not to mention that over millions of years, environments on Earth change quite radically, much more radically than a species can evolve, so species had a tendency to move around, evolve, move again, evolve, etc. This means that if you were to continue digging straight down, you wouldn't see the same species' fossils over and over, less and less evolved each time, simply because they didn't stay put.
> To date, though every species discovered in the fossil record appears perfectly formed. Palaeontologists have never discovered a fossil showing a partially formed species or a partially formed organ.
My friend, no offence, but you have a very poor understanding of the process of evolution. Most larger lifeforms have the same common ancestor. We humans, for example, are related to chimpanzees, and elephants, and squirrels, and bears, etc. It just depends how far back you have to go into our evolutionary tree to find the point in time at which we separated from any given species (which can actually be measured by comparing the DNA of any two creatures). Our very ultimate and extremely ancient ancestor, which I call the G-Freak (genetic freak) was theoretically a very tiny lizard-like creature that had the entire complement of organs and body parts that we do today. Every G-Freak descendent also has these organs and body parts, but their size and shape were the main evolutionary differences. You see, organs just didn't spontaneously appear, they were always carried along in all the branches of the evolutionary chain since the time of the G-Freak. Again, my book, Meme, describes this process in very great detail.
> If the universe came from a big bang, then matter should be evenly distributed.
Based upon what? If you throw an egg on the floor, does it explode into a perfect circle?
> It should be added that the visible galaxies do not contain enough mass to explain the existence and distribution of these structures. But the big bang model was not discarded.
Why should it be discarded? Theories are meant to be tested, broken, and then reformulated for more accuracy. Such is the scientific method. I fear that what you are proposing is that our first guess didn't match the results, so stop trying, close your eyes, and take another 'hit' of the virtual narcotic of faith.
Your next extremely lengthy section continues to focus on disproving the Big Bang theory, which I am open to the possibility of, but in context to your faith perspective, fail to see how that contributes to the existence of an ethereal being? If the Big Bang theory ends up flat, is God supposedly proven? Again, that's the same as saying if I could disprove your god, then that proves the Tooth Fairy.
> molluscs (500 million years), and the tuatara lizard (200 million years). This poses a conundrum for evolution: 'Why have these life-forms stayed the same for all that time?'
Again, refer to the 'mountain' rabbit example above to understand how the environment defines 'plateaus' that a species evolves into.
The subsequent extremely long section attempts to prove with many examples of hearsay and misinterpretation that dinosaurs still roam the Earth. I'm sure you can produce yet another thousand reports of great creatures spotted in the Amazon, or fresh dinosaur bones found in colder climates. Your motivation to provide this evidence is to vindicate the statements in the Bible that describe witness accounts of great living creatures. As transparent as your agenda is, you should recognize that it is very easy to find eyewitness accounts of virtually anything, from UFO's, to Martians, to walking on water. People 'love' to exaggerate, and even lie.
Pounding me with story after story of 'credible' eyewitness accounts, is the same 'attrition' tactic that religions use to pound mythology into the minds of their followers. Humans tend to be incredulous to most information because of our minds inability to defeat cognitive dissonance, but through persistent brainwashing, this information eventually becomes accepted, and once it's in the mind, it's difficult to remove because of that very same 'cognitive dissonance' mechanism. I think you will find that even if you present another thousand eyewitness accounts of dinosaurs, the answer from me will still be the same, your 'evidence' is either misinterpretation or lies.
Your next extremely long section dealt with the biblical passages that seem to describe a dinosaur sighting. You attempt to prove that it couldn't be an elephant, or hippo. So, please feel free to believe it was a dinosaur.
> the Lord Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul regarded Genesis—that is, they quoted it as being truth, not symbolic myth or parable. It was plainly not the author's intention to convey allegorical poetry, fantasy, or myth.
So, you're telling me that the interpretation of Genesis is to be taken literally, and that in six days the Earth was created? When you state something like this, I'm imagining you standing in front of the aforementioned colossal mountain of scientific texts, screaming, 'you're all wrong, and I'm right'
> the earth's magnetic field was caused by a decaying electric current in the earth's metallic core. Barnes calculated that the current could not have been decaying for more than 10,000 years, or else its original strength would have been large enough to melt the earth. So the earth must be younger than that.
This is an excellent example of agenda-driven misinterpretation. Not only does the magnetic orientation of the poles literally 'switch' from N-S to S-N, and vice-versa, every few thousands of years due to magma flow reversals under the Earth's crust, there are millions of examples of Earthbound evidence that are 'much' older than 10,000 years, rendering the above statement quite preposterous. What you have done here my friend, is bought into pseudo-science, which is nothing more than religion in a new coat. Ethereal junkies perpetually dilute and pollute the essence of science by leveraging its nomenclature and dispassionate disposition to portray an authenticity and credibility difficult to distinguish from 'real' science. The ethereal meme-virus is adapting to a more scientific environment.
> Now, as discussed in, Dr John Baumgardner proposes that the plunging of tectonic plates was a cause of the Genesis Flood.
I thought the Bible said it was 40 days and 40 nights of rain? How does one determine when the Bible is literal versus metaphorical?
> Evolutionary theories are not able to explain properly how the magnetism could sustain itself for billions of years.
That's because evolutionary theory does not try to explain magnetism. This is the same as asking a dentist the best way to perform brain surgery; not his specialty.
> You see I am not hiding from the truth of reality as you put it but in fact are quite the opposite.
Oh yes you are my friend, and you've built up a huge fortress of impenetrable intelligent-design pseudo-science defenses. True science balances and weighs the validity of all scientific information presented, which you have not done. The narrow range of factoids you present are solely to facilitate your ethereal addiction, and agenda driven 'science' is just as blind as contemporary religion. Ultimately, your very elaborate dissertation doesn't even matter since even if proven factual, 'none' of it proves the existence of an ethereal entity. Simply 'disproving' a gamut of scientific theories, does not 'prove' anything else.
I would like to ask you one more time, in the full light of everything that you've used to disprove many aspects of scientific theories, are you now willing to consider your god a theory, or does all your 'evidence' that science is incorrect add up to the undeniable 'fact' that your god absolutely exists?
Sincerely, thanks again for a very detailed letter. If you wish to avoid having so much of your future letters discarded (I'm sorry if this seemed callous in light of how much material you sent in, but weblog space is at a premium), please read the entirety of the weblog to discover my responses to similar previous submissions.
Please take care,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 6.73, 6.80, 7.86, 7.94, 8.103, 8.116, 9.124, 9.129, 10.139, 11.148, 11.157, 12.168, 13.172, 14.188, 15.192, 20.288}
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#158 - The 'unknowable' known physics - February 19, 2006, 02:43 PM |
Mr. Buckrine wrote back:
> I was a little bit surprised of your ideas and claims of a not existing randomness.
It is a difficult abstract topic.
In regard to my statement:
"There is absolutely nothing random about quantum particles' properties or energies. Although we do not have a sufficient theoretical model by which to accurately calculate or predict these properties, make no mistake, randomness is an impossible state to achieve in our universe, simply because every single point in the universe is connected to each other. Everything in the universe has a cause and effect, a balancing of forces, a prescribed entropy, etc."
You wrote:
> How do you know this?
I don't 'know' anything. This is my best interpretation of observations. Some scientists 'interpret' quantum observations as seemingly random, but I don't believe there's any reason to default to a 'random' origin when it's quite likely that we just don't understand the underlying causative forces for said 'random' observations. I'm also heavily leveraging the stability of super-symmetry (in which randomness is never observed) and reducing that down to the quantum level. If there truly was randomness, it would manifest itself in larger, more visible and quantifiable ways on a macro-level.
> You contradict known physics with speculation formulated as known fact.
I only contradict some speculative interpretations of physics. There are no facts in science. Also, I do not claim anything as fact (please read this foreword excerpt). My presentation style is more a reflection of my strength of conviction to a particular point, rather than as an assertion of my point's irrefutability. I chose not to litter my work here with arbitrary accuracy measurements for each point I try to make, as they would always be subject to interpretation anyway.
> If you can substantiate what you are saying with references to anything that explains and shows it to be thru or at least probably thru, I would consider this in a totally different way than with the skepticism I have now.
If a scientist states that they are observing random quantum behavior, does that mean the behavior was random? No, it means the opinion of the scientist is such that he believes it could be random, but his only justification for that belief would be his inability to explain the causative forces behind the observations. To me, that's about as accurate as saying that an ethereal entity caused the random observations. I would rather choose to believe that the homogeneous consistency of non-randomness observed in all other scales of nature, applies retroactively back into quantum mechanics. At least, this makes sense to me.
> Are you sure you aren't producing myths about the impossibilities of random in nature, or are their any valid research made to prove this?
Again, I never truly intend anything I say as fact. Now, your usage of the word 'myth' here suggests that my theories affront you due to their incongruency with your particular understanding of physics. Of course, science being at such an immature state of evolution makes it impossible to 'conclusively' hold a position either way on the subject of 'randomness' and so the point you make of demonstrating 'valid research to prove' is rather moot, especially in the light that your position suffers the same weaknesses of credibility. Could it not be said that 'you' are merely 'exacerbating' the myths that you've bought into? I suppose the strongest argument I could make that you may respect would be that even Einstein himself did not believe randomness existed ("God does not play dice"). Though, his intuition on this matter may be wrong as well.
> Even in a random influenced world, everything has a cause and effect.
Ah, and this is where we differ in our definition of 'randomness'. The whole significance of the term 'random' is that it implies there 'isn't' a cause, just an 'effect', and that is the entire difference between random and non-random. Again, there are no observations in nature that are without some 'cause' as this would violate the universal law of energy conservation. There may be observations, especially at the quantum level, that do not 'appear' to have a cause, but that's due to our limited understanding of all the parameters involved in this category of physics, not due to a true randomness.
> If there were no randomness I can not see how universe would have evolved beyond a, in a sense, frozen state immediately after Big Bang.
In my book, Meme, I describe in great detail a version of the Big Bang that heavily leverages my theory of bether. It's too much material for the weblog so I would encourage you to give it a read.
> There would be a perfect spread of energy and there wouldn't be a single spot were things could become somewhat different from other spots,
You assume that the Big Bang was a spherical event. Why do you make this assumption?
> Everything would be the same and perhaps there would only be pure energy everywhere spread in a perfect and even way or perhaps there would be particles sprung out from such a mist of enregy spread in the same way!? No
We have very different perspectives on the nature of the universe and as such I am unable to discuss your points as they only pertain to your understanding.
> It seems to me that it is you who grasp for a convenient explanation to what is not comprehended or known!
Well, there's one of two choices, randomness exists, or randomness does not exist. My intuition points toward no randomness. If that is to be interpreted as 'convenient', then you must be implying that I have an agenda. Perhaps you could enlighten me as to what that could be?
> I base my statements on physics
I also base my statements on physics, logic, and intuition. There is no 'randomness' to my preference.
> it is not a lack of finer grained understanding of particles and their behavior that lead me to believe there is random in nature. It is theoretically explained and also possible to falsify in experiments!
It may be possible to demonstrate apparent randomness in experiments, which can be interpreted both as genuinely producing randomness, 'or' the possibility that not all parameters are being accommodated in producing the results. Are you suggesting that you can 'prove' that we have all the parameters that define an event?
> It seems that random have its place in nature and is not at all strange or as you put it - not makes any sense. At least that is how I see it. Of course I could be dead wrong but if you want to explain your view in a way I could seriously consider it would be better with theoretically explained and, or repeatable observable phenomenon.
My friend, you seem to be much more secure in your position than I. Perhaps you can proffer evidence that proves all parameters are being accommodated in these 'random' experiments? Or are you simply satisfied accepting the judgment of those scientists that claim to have considered every conceivable factor?
> It should in other words be different from nonsense produced by fantasy, myth and wishful thinking. I'm sure you would not get down to the level of dribbling about ethereal intelligence and such but you have yet to produce a single intelligent theory or some observable stuff to substantiate your claim about no randomness and how we will eventually get the answer to this. This doesn't even seem to be in line with ordinary science and its methodology, which isn't of much use to (try to) prove or find the lack of a phenomenon (for example to prove that god doesn't exist).
I'm very sorry to disappoint you with what you perceive as inadequate substance to my 'no randomness' theory, but when debating things that aren't provable to any nominal degree of satisfaction, there must be some mutual tolerance to agree to disagree. I suppose I will fail many people in many ways when I attempt to convey these ideas. What you're failing to see is that there is precisely just as much 'evidence' to support my interpretation as there is to support yours. Either interpretation (random 'or' not all parameters considered) is equally valid for the witnessing of an 'apparently' random act. In order for your scenario to hold true, and mine to be 'mythology', you would have to prove that your 'random' event considers every possible parameter, which is impossible to achieve, much less prove. Seems your position can also be considered a 'myth'.
> It is the first moments of the birth of universe that lays the way of the evolvement of universe. Right after the Big Bang there would only be energy and in a fraction of time simple particles would have come to existence. .. it is a question of what would happen if there were no randomness and vice versa. As I earlier explained there wouldn't be any H or He-atoms. Not even proton or neutrons.
Again, this is entirely based upon your perceived 'spherical' version of the Big Bang, which I don't believe is justified empirically given that the universe is in no way symmetrically organized. In my book, Meme, I have a much different theoretical causation to the Big Bang that explains all we see today.
> According to the physicists, theories and calculations breaks when trying to model and simulate the earliest of moments, closest to Big Bang in time. The easy explanation they give is that time-space itself seemed to not exist (yet). It is not hard to understand that this is a complication. What is a reality without time and room, even a theoretical one? It is not comprehendible for the physicists of today. Wonder what you say about this.
Time is the rate of change that occurs in bether. Varying regions of bether are under different pressures and the rate of time is affected by this pressure, much like the pitch of a guitar string is affected by its tension. Please read my excerpt for bether.
> I noticed you said pre-Big Bang, such as there were time before these earliest moments of universe!? Don't mean to pick on your choice of words (as being Swedish, English is not what I'm best at, so I'm in no position for criticizing anyone). It is perfectly all right since you can use everyday expressions in a perhaps not absolutely correct way and still be absolutely clear of what's meant, such as you do here.
I have chosen the appropriate words to describe my intent, because I do indicate that there was a pre-Big Bang, the purpose of which is explained in great detail in my book, Meme. It is too much material to cover here.
Sorry for the frequent 'Meme' referrals but many of your questions require a great deal of information in order to answer appropriately, which is why I wrote the book in the first place. I hope you find it worth your time to explore Meme.
Sincerely,
Sean Sinjin
{All letters from this contributor: 8.109, 11.158}