I think what you are trying to say here is that the 'majority' perception is what dictates the 'minority' perspective to be 'insane', thereby defining 'insanity' as something that is 'relative' to something else. This is quite incorrect on a couple levels. The first being that it doesn't matter whom you ask, whether majority or minority, everyone believes that everyone who 'doesn't' share their perspective is insane (perhaps not using the exact terminology, but definitely implying it). However, simply viewing someone as insane does not mean that they 'are' insane.

Secondly, BetterHuman.org defines insanity as:

"One whose knowledge is founded upon incorrect information and who therefore cannot accurately perceive reality, rendering them largely incapable of manifesting rational thoughts or actions".

By this definition, it doesn't matter who holds the majority or minority perspective; if one does not perceive reality for what it is, then to some degree they are insane, no less insane than believing a magic bunny rules the universe.

Also worth mentioning is that there are a vast majority of people that subscribe to an ethereal perspective, meaning that it is actually the 'majority' of people that are insane.

> Your paper lacks the logic to prove your thesis.

My friend, you haven't read my book so how can you possibly make that assumption? Not to mention that it is 'your' perspective which is entirely founded upon blind 'faith'; the very antithesis of logic. Though I cannot absolutely and conclusively 'prove' the validity of the atheistic perspective, the major difference between your beliefs and ours is that we do not propose our perspective to be anything more than a theory. So (while we are so carefully scrutinizing the application of logic), would you care to be the first to 'logically' describe your ethereal perspective as a theory?

> With this in mind, has the use of the word logic been shrouded to mean that because more people believe in something then it must be logical and thus right.

Again my friend, running with assumptions. The majority does 'not' subscribe to evolution or logic, in fact, quite the opposite holds true; the 'majority' believes in ethereal creatures. There is virtually no credibility added from 'strength in numbers'. There was a time when everyone believed the world was flat, but did that make it flat?

> And that through a logical method of deductive reasoning you have come up with your view that there is no God and that you before you started your search you had an unbiased view. Because if you did not, then you're whole process would be tainted and in its self would be illogical.

Good point, but in my defense, I actually started on the opposite side of the coin. I used to be a full-blown ethereal addict, and in trying to 'prove' my beliefs in the ethereal, I inadvertently cornered myself by logic and ended up 'disproving' my beliefs. My ego took a pounding.

I would also like to disagree that the whole process would be rendered 'illogical' if there was bias, simply because bias does nothing to invalidate supportive evidence. The only negative role that bias can play would be in its selective presentation and/or dismissal of counter-evidence. As well, bias is virtually impossible to escape.

> I to would ask has your book been submitted to any scientific study to prove its observations to have substantial bases of truth.

You have it backwards; Meme is actually a 'product' of much scientific study, with very few additions that I added to fill in known gaps, such as gravity and magnetism. All material is presented for what it is: theory; and most of it is quite substantiated by a myriad of easily-locatable scientific documentation.

> The morals and values, which we live by today, have only been passed down from generation to generation. These you would say have been refined but this still doesn't make them absolute in any way.

They are absolute, though cultural interpretation of these influences can vary widely. Take 'stealing' for example, everyone on the planet instinctually knows it is wrong, but the global punishments for said act range from a slap on the wrist, to a death sentence. The lack of consistency in level of punishment, however, doesn't change the ubiquitous and 'absolute' instinctual knowledge that it is wrong.

> If there is no Creator who made us and laws that we live by, all our morals and ideas of how we view right or wrong are simply subjective—what we ourselves decide

Again, this is not true. We have a basic set of built-in instinctual morals that Mother Nature provides us that cannot be altered (stealing is wrong, altruism is right, senseless killing is bad, love is good, etc.) The enactments/punishments of these instincts are subjective, but the underlying moral fiber is always the same. For example, there's no person in the world that likes to have their possessions stolen, nor would anyone want to suffer because nobody would help them, nor would they like to be killed, etc. Because of humankind's ability to 'empathize' (feel another's emotions), we are able to understand when our actions impart 'pain' upon another. We feel their pain, and this is the reason we wish to instinctually pursue 'right' from 'wrong' since we don't want to feel this pain, even if it's mostly suffered by another.

As a side note, you should also know that even 'your' religious morality is defined upon these very instinctual moral foundations. Yes, your religion is but another example of a cultural 'interpretation' of the innate morality we are given by Mother Nature.

> We can see this in sex before marriage, having children out of marriage lawlessness and relative morality.

Why is sex before marriage wrong? Why is having children out of wedlock wrong? Marriage is nothing more than a piece of paper. There are many unmarried people that are more in love and more responsible as parents than a lot of married people. Marriage does absolutely 'nothing' to increase the caliber of a relationship, of a family environment, or to purify sexual acts. My friend, your antiquated perception of marriage is quite unjustified in today's modern world, and unjustly oppressive to those that decide not to pursue the tradition of marriage.

> We can see further change through abortions

How is someone else's abortion your business?

> and the increase of homosexual rights for example.

How are homosexual rights your business? Can you explain to me how granting homosexuals equal rights (e.g. gay marriage) in any way affects your life?

> Evolution is a blind concept built on chance random events, with no purpose other than, supposedly, to benefit the propagation of one's genes. It does not know the end from the beginning. It incorporates the ideas of survival of the fittest, and the weak dying out or being exterminated to make way for the strong to survive.

What you are describing above 'only' applies to simpler lifeforms. Our huge brains have afforded us unique talents that increase our social complexity such that the above simplistic model cannot fully encompass all the parameters that compose 'human' natural selection criteria. Though it is much too broad of a topic here, Meme, covers a great deal of this anthropological/psychological evolution model; please give it a read.

> They suggest that, since mankind now knows his true origins as a product of chance in an impersonal universe, we can guide our own evolution.

I totally agree with this, and we are already currently doing this, as we always have been. We are not under the direction of some master plan, and so we are subject to 'ourselves' in how we evolve. This is the very reason that the G.O.D. instinct even evolved in the first place, because of eons of humankind's persistent misguided belief in the ethereal. Absolutely, we do form our own evolutionary path.

> And man is of sufficiently high moral character, they say, to set the rules by which we measure compassion, love, altruism, ethics. But what is moral character anyway? And why is one person's opinion of what is right or good any more right or relevant than another's?

Historically, it has always been 'might is right', meaning that whoever was in power was the 'interpreter' of this instinctual morality, and they defined the lines and consequences of right and wrong. Ultimately though, we all agree on what is 'fundamentally' right or wrong, we just can't perpetually agree on where the lines are in terms of definition/punishment/reward for those instinctual motivations.

A good example of a 'cloudy' moral interpretation lies in the 'abortion' issue. It is very difficult to draw a line of 'when life begins' that has a consensus among most people. Some choose conception, some choose second trimester, some require birth before calling it life. With all this subjective interpretation, it becomes difficult to define the lines of morality that surround it. However, I don't think there's a single person alive that believes abortion isn't 'unfortunate' under any circumstance, and this discomfort is produced by the immutable and ubiquitous instinctual morals that we evolved to 'protect' another. This isn't learned, we are born with this protection instinct, and you can witness the influence of this instinct in virtually every type of animal when they protect their young from harm. Nobody had to teach them a thing.

> The Quran came from Mohammed. The Book of Mormon came from Joseph Smith. But the Bible is unique among the many sacred books in the world. One person did not write it. Rather, the Old and New Testaments were written by 40 different authors, located in Asia, Africa and Europe, over a 1600-year time span.

The above overlooks the fact that 'science' has millions of contributors from over a 'much' greater timespan than your religion has even existed. Why doesn't 'science' register in your 'credibility' exposition above?

> Archaeology cannot prove that the Bible is God's written Word to us. However, archaeology can (and does) substantiate the Bible's historical accuracy.

Forgive me for removing a great amount of your text, but it all boiled down to support of the above statement, which even if true, does nothing for adding credibility to the existence of ethereal beings. As I've stated quite a few times before, my friend, please understand that a high degree of historical accuracy in your religious text does 'not' in any way prove there are magical creatures in the sky.

> Homosexuality, like all other types of fornication, has no place in the family of God. ... This life style is unacceptance from a biblical point of view, which, comes from its "absolutes".

What exactly guarantees that your Bible is correct in defining homosexuality as immoral? Is it because your Bible tells you so? This makes as little sense as stating that everything in my book, Meme, is absolute fact, if Meme says it is so.

> From a Christian viewpoint we are to love the person but not approve of what they do. Is this oppression?

Yes it is. 'Oppression' is a very broad term, but in this context, you are unjustly socially oppressing their right to freedom of sexual expression. This 'passive' oppression manifests in many obscure but injurious ways (e.g. homosexual hate crimes, banning gay marriages, etc.) so don't for a second believe that your 'opinion' of their lifestyle being unacceptable is in any way harmless.

> You say that people who believe in God must be illogical; on what grounds do you judge them?

The grounds that there are no magical creatures in the sky. Believing in something that doesn't exist is inarguably illogical. The fact that they don't need concrete proof of their ethereal entity and rely instead entirely upon 'faith' to justify their beliefs, is also, illogical.

> Would you say that Isaac Newton is a logical person or illogical? He believes in God so that would make him what ...?

Excellent point my friend, and I'm quite amazed that you're the first to really tackle the religious-scientist angle. Between you and I, our conversations thus far have been mostly geared at the application of logic 'against' the existence of ethereal beings. Though Newton excelled in applying logic in mathematics and physics, it's doubtful that he spent much effort applying this same logic 'against' his ethereal perspective. Also, there was virtually no concept of the 'theory of evolution' in his time and so it would've been difficult for him to confront his beliefs with a viable alternative. His understanding of his own discoveries was merely that he was exposing the inner-workings of his ethereal universe. He thought he was looking into the mind of his god.

Was he illogical, well, no, he just didn't have enough information to be able to see the shortcomings of his perspective, much like people logically used to believe the world was flat, until more information became available. Newton applied logic correctly using the limited information granted him. To be absolutely clear: it's not having an incorrect perspective that makes one illogical, it's hanging on to a incorrect perspective by rejecting credible information to the contrary that's illogical. This is not to be confused with being 'insane', for if you believe in ethereal creatures, whether you are aware of the theory of evolution or not, you are still insane.

> Your reply to instinctual morality is again unproven as there is no morality in evolution as there is no need for it.

My friend, you fail to understand how instinctual morality plays a very vital role in social evolution. If nature's motive was, as you implied, 'only the fittest shall survive', then our species would have the social structure more akin to lonely individualistic bears, than to the intimate and very socially active humans we see today. Our moral instincts have provided the foundation for social harmony for eons.

One can easily witness these same moral instincts at work by observing chimpanzees cooperating with each other to achieve common goals. Sure they are selfish at times, but quite social and altruistic at others. This social harmony allows them to band together, allowing all of them to benefit from a 'strength in numbers' advantage to natural selection. If it was truly 'every chimp for themselves', then there'd be no sharing, no altruism, no love, and only one survivor. Instinctual morality is one of the 'most' important survival instincts we have, and we couldn't survive without it.

> The term Instinctual is to broad and cant work, one tribe of people in one part of the world would have vastly different instinctual morality to those on the other side of the world.

Incorrect, we all have the same instinctual moral foundation. Stealing is wrong no matter who you ask or where they're from; no human anywhere wants to be hurt, killed, or enslaved by another, altruism exists ubiquitously, etc. Again, interpretations of these instincts are often culturally skewed, but you'll never see a culture that forbids helping another, or generally promotes stealing, or purposeless killing, etc.

> Neanderthalensis man pithecanthropus Ramapithecus Australopithecus Africanus Hesperopithecus Sinanthropus (Pekin man) Eoanthropus (Piltdown man) Homo habilis (debunked)

> These are all debunked evolutionary missing links (above), which show our development as to date there is still no clear evidence that shows our evolution from ape to man.

There have been many unfortunate attempts at fraud in the evolutionary-science circles, but these shysters shouldn't be taken as representative of the whole of scientific men and women that pursue this noble discipline. It would be just as much a crime to allow their crimes against anthropology to reduce the credibility of all the others' work.

As for 'clear evidence' of a common ancestor, the first thing I'd like to point out is that we didn't evolve from modern apes, no, instead we share a common 'ancestor' with modern apes (that is, we have the same great-great-great-great-great-great-great etc grandparents as them). It is very easy to determine virtually the 'exact' point in history that our lineage separated from our cousin ape species. This is done by comparing our DNA to theirs, calculating the percentage of congruency, and extrapolating back the amount of time necessary to accumulate said amount of changes. We are very closely related to chimpanzees. Would you believe that our DNA is ~97% the same as theirs?

That aside, your understanding of anthropology is quite outdated. There is much recent 'missing link' evidence that is surfacing daily, so I would encourage you to search the Internet for 'missing link Ethiopia' to see what I am talking about.

> One of the fundamental problems facing life scientists is the extraordinary variety and complexity of life on Earth-there is just too much to comprehend especially in the Plant Kingdom. After all the recent study on: plants, flower, and ferns. There is no definite connection from one to the other, as one would expect in a "supposed evolutionary tree." The evidence suggests that all plant life is unique and all had separate parents to begin with.

The above is absolutely incorrect. There is a high degree of DNA congruency between any and all plants. One of the most notable shared attributes for most plants would be chlorophyll (the 'green' in plants). Also, all plants are formed from a type of cell called a 'Eukaryote', as are all animals, including ourselves. Meme explains this in very great detail.

> Modern textbook tell that human embryos have gills like fish (pharyngeal clefts), which in evolutionary terms tells us our close relation to fish (evolutionary progress). But this to has been debunked as these glands turn in to our thymus glands.

Mother Nature is the great re-inventor. Not that I subscribe to the interpretation of embryonic thymus glands to be primordial gills, it is however a common tactic of evolution to 'change' a biological trait to instead perform another function. An example would be how the gills of ancient fish slowly changed over time to become the 'ears' of land-animals that evolved from these fish, or how fish 'scales' evolved to become hair 'follicles'; and don't forget about our 'tailbone' remnant that we still bear today, reminding us of the full tail our ancestors had in our ancient tree-climbing days.

> Throwing energy at amino acids will not create delicate chain molecules, just as putting dynamite under a pile of bricks won't make a house'.

Correct, we are not going to emulate the process of life's beginnings in a laboratory because it takes an incomprehensible amount of time for these types of chemical reactions to begin the chain reaction we know as life. Any attempt to 'force' the evolution of life from base chemicals merely demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the mechanics of evolution. A 'much' better analogy would be to put a large number of slightly magnetic (yet separated) pieces into a box, and then shake the box for hundreds of thousands of years until some of them end up connected in a meaningful pattern. This is a much more accurate analogy than your instantaneous manifestation of complicated structures from pure chaos.

Many people frequently make the mistake of assuming that life evolved in massive steps, but this couldn't be further from the truth; all evolutionary steps are quite miniscule. What makes this path so hard to perceive is the phenomenal (and I mean quite incomprehensible) amount of time required for these changes to occur. It can take upwards of 'millions' of years to even begin to 'see' evolutionary advances at a macro level.

> You see before blindly following others and their views on evolution one to needs to see how credible and true it is. Evolution has such a long way to be a credible avenue for our existence. Logically speaking evolution doesn't work.

In your own words...You see, before blindly following others and their views on religion, one needs to see how credible and true it is. Religion needs concrete evidence before it can be a credible avenue for our existence. Logically speaking, there are no ethereal creatures.

> Evolution would state that we progressed through many types of "ape man" our levels of skills would of course naturally follow this slow progress taking millions of years. Early man has said to live in caves, use stone tools and paint on cave walls ect. But is this view of mans evolution credible, is there evidence to show that early man was more advanced then what we thought and if so what evidence has been found

My friend, I cannot imagine how you are so removed from what is being discovered in the real world. From television programs, to museum exhibits, to news stories, and especially all the information that is easily available on the Internet. All you have to do is step back for a minute from your agenda of persistent denial, and actually take the time to read/watch/visit the 'thousands' of resources that can feed your mind with all this information. You frequently bring up the topic of 'logic', well, does it seem logical to 'not' expose yourself to the possibility that the evidence you claim doesn't exist, is actually out there? They're not going to call you personally to let you know, it's up to you to get out there and find out for yourself.

One of the worst assumptions that many people (religious or not) tend to make is that they will be somehow 'notified' if their assumptions are proven untrue. This is absolutely not the case, in fact, there are still people on the planet that insist the world is flat (seriously). Education is a proactive pursuit, not a passive one. Every single year that passes produces a mountain of information and it's practically guaranteed that at least some of it pertains directly to your perceptions of the world. Don't ever assume that what you learned even last year, will always remain true.

> Fifty years ago, the then Director of the Baghdad Museum, Wilhelm Konig, reported the discovery of an electric battery 2,000 years old. You had not heard about this sensational discovery? We can tell you why. It did not fit in with the established viewpoint, and most archaeologists did not want to know about it. They hoped it would go away.

I'm not sure why you feel a 2000 year old simple battery is in any way beyond the capacity of human serendipity. I'm sure looking at today's modern battery would make it seem too complex for our recent ancestors to assemble, but that fails in understanding the very basic chemistry that goes into a battery. For certain, the inventor did not understand the physics, or infinite possibilities of this battery assemblage, but people do tend to invent the most unlikely of things without intending to. Quite likely the original inventor was experimenting and just randomly put together a rather plain battery (they're simpler to create than you might be aware of, just iron, copper, and probably used grape juice as an electrolyte) and by tasting it, discovered a little 1 volt 'shock'. Further experimentation probably led to the discovered final model of your aforementioned battery which theoretically could have been used to electroplate metals together. A very simple invention well ahead of its time, but still found a purpose even in those days

> For example the June 1851 edition of Scientific American reported that a beautiful metallic vase had been blasted out of solid rock in Dorchester, Massachusetts. The vase was adorned with six flowers and was inlaid with silver, but the rock was considered to be millions of years old.

Found in 15 feet of sedimentary 'pudding' rock, your aforementioned 'pot' was guessed to be 100,000 years old, though estimates were quite subjective given the dating technologies of the time. Unfortunately (conveniently?) the pot has since disappeared so its true age will never be verified with modern age-testing techniques.

> The author draws attention to the Atoka Pillar at the Kutb Minar in Delhi, India. It is a 10-metre high iron pillar weighing six tonnes, and has been standing there since AD 413 at the latest, yet it shows only the minuets trace of rusting. It has taken modern technology a long time to come up with stainless steel.

You should be aware that stainless steel is nothing more than iron mixed with a little chromium. Not much magic in that.

> In reality, there is plenty of evidence to show that people in the 'Stone Age' were highly intelligent, with an advanced culture. Their stone plates, bowls and vases were skilfully made and the artistic designs on them reveal a sophisticated art form. Robert Silver berg wrote, 'The cave paintings are upsetting to those who prefer to think of Quaternary man as little more than an ape' (Man Before Adam, p. 191). How then is it possible for so called early man to be so clever and advanced?

Why is this amazing? I don't believe that cave paintings or pottery were beyond the intellectual capacity of early man. It seems perhaps that some people think 20,000+ years of evolution is much more significant that it really is. To put it into context, it may help to understand that we diverged from chimpanzees around 5 million years ago (250 times as long ago). When those paintings and potteries were manufactured, it was 'much' more recent and we were 'considerably' more evolved so these products were 'well' within our abilities at the time they were created. It is, however, a serious error to compare the intellectual capacity of humans 2000 years ago, to that of 'early man' (20,000 years or more ago). You will never find a 20,000 year old battery, of this I'm sure.

The intellectual evolution that has occurred during the past 20,000 years, however, is significant enough, and continues to exponentially accelerate. Even since 2000 years ago, there has been a strong trend towards intellectualist natural selectivity due to the continuously increasing complexity of our social structures. Take even the past 100 years for example, and you will witness the emergence of a flood of technologies (nuclear physics, space transport, medicines, etc.) that is unparalleled by any other time in history.

We are learning at a phenomenal rate, but that doesn't mean we were just cavepeople a mere 2000 years ago. In fact, the Egyptians were building pyramids 5000 years ago, so it's important to recognize the capacity for intelligence was there for quite some time, even if we didn't have all the information necessary to feed it. It should come as no surprise that things like simple 'batteries' or 'alloys' pop up in our long history of great intellectual capacity.

> The bible has clear answers are you up for it logically speaking of course?

There will always be mysteries to solve my friend. The worst thing we can do is to cover up those mysteries with an easy default mythological answer, which really isn't an answer at all, but only a diversion to an end of questioning. It's important to realize that some mysteries will remain unsolvable, and that you must learn to live without some answers. Mystery will always form the better part of reality; and the lack of accepting unsolvable mystery is nothing short of an obstinate ego reaction.

True reality may seem frightening and confusing, but better to face this disorientation head on than to deny and shrink-wrap an ethereal veil over it, for by doing so you severely wound yourself intellectually, and open yourself up to manipulation. Don't hide in your cocoon of blind faith; come join us in reality. Conquering fear of reality is the greatest challenge anyone can face, and surmounting this challenge is the greatest reward possible.

My brother, please be safe and enjoy life.

Much respect,

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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#193 - Elusive evil - May 06, 2006, 12:12 PM

{All letters from this contributor: 11.153, 12.162, 12.169, 15.193}

Mr. Helmroot wrote back:

> The religious and the atheists get their morality from the same place: life experience.