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@User_2006
From the get-go, deism isn't a bad idea. At the point that a human asks, "where does everything come from," it probably has at least basic tools and commodities, since people struggling to stay alive don't spend too much time with metaphysical questions. It has affected changes in the world, and it has seen a few other things do so as well. It created a spear, the river creates a smooth stone, a bird creates a nest. It isn't a bad idea to assume that something created everything. Religions generally have a human god or gods, but there are some that have animals as well/instead, and you'll often see rivers and oceans personified in some way.
The clincher would be evidence of intelligent design. It's been fairly well accepted in most cultures for centuries that rivers don't intelligently create smooth stones, and in fact aren't intelligent at all. There is no purpose or intelligent design behind the smooth stone, instead, it is merely the result of mechanical processes like erosion.
A bird's nest is obviously built for a reason, and has a form of intelligent design. It is structured in a way to hold a bird's eggs and young safely above the ground out of the reach of most predators.
When you look at life, it appears to be intelligently designed. The sun is warm and gives light for plants and animals to stay alive. It isn't too close or too far away. The soil has an ideal amount of certain minerals to sustain life. However, evolution suggests that life necessarily adapted to fit the circumstances, and it would be impossible to see life that isn't well-suited to its environment.
Each of those possibilities seem equally likely to me. I am willing to accept that the universe was created by a hands-off god doesn't care enough about human death or misery to stop it, or has some reason to allow it to happen. I haven't seen this god though, or heard from it. Since the existence of such a god doesn't affect my life as opposed to an atheist model of existence, I'm going to go on as if it doesn't exist.
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@BrotherDThomas
K_Michael could have picked one of the 5 states surrounding him and gave an erroneous answer.
First of all, it's "given," not "gave."
Second of all, your God has told you "Thou shalt not bear false witness...." Exodus 20:16. So why are you encouraging me to lie?
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@OntologicalSpider
The Chinese box suggests a one-to-one table for every possible input, having an action for everything, but no true knowledge. Neural networks such as AlphaGo don't work this way, but instead develop complex patterns in their responses to stimuli.
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@BrotherDThomas
I'm not embarrassed to say what state I'm from. It's personal.
Are you too embarrassed to tell me your social security number? If not, PM me it right now. See? Embarrassment has nothing to do with it.
Emphasis on your word TRUTH, where you admit that Jesus created the world!
You have no conception of the hypothetical.
a novel idea would be to actually include the chapter and verse within the bible next time, get it?
You haven't cited a single scripture in this thread. I have.
Unless you make a really good point the next time you tag me, I won't respond. Goodbye.
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Why shouldn't books be rated for the depiction of graphic, unsettling, or mature content in a similar way to movies?
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@BrotherDThomas
God, at least according to some, created everything you or I sees. Therefore, every observation I make about the world is part of God's truth.
You can see this demonstrated by Elijah. Rather than repeatedly say "read the scriptures," regardless of his opposition, he proposed an experiment in which he tested the gods of the "wicked priests" against his own capital G God. If the experimental result that Elijah received was good evidence in favor of God, it is not because it is in favor of God, but merely because it happened. If Elijah's test had failed, that would be evidence against God.
Furthermore, stop insulting my English until you can point out EXACTLY what's wrong with it, grammatically.
Listen, I realize you're new on this forum, where you want to make a substantial entry to wow the membership, but remember at all costs, I am the last one you want to start making alleged points with because I will easily tie you up, ship you Fed Ex ground delivery to Podunk Utah with ease, understood? Good.
If you think I'm doing anything to "wow," you're sadly mistaken. I am an established member of the community, so my joining this thread means nothing.
Your arguments would "tie up" a lot better if they changed.
I live a state over from Utah, so not the sickest insult, nor is it true. You could not do so "with ease," as you say. Shipping persons is both illegal and fairly difficult on a practical basis.
Let's stay grounded in the Truth, shall we?
Good.
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@BrotherDThomas
For one who harps on about your opponents being bible ignorant, you seem to have a distinct lack of any scriptures backing up what you say.
"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you..." St. Matthew 5:44 KJV.
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@n8nrgmi
You (and humanity as a whole) have a very poor understanding of every "living thing in the history of the universe." If we can can presume that life has developed anywhere else, there's a fairly good chance that they are more technologically advanced than humans. The Sun of our Solar System is a third-generation star, around 4.5 billion years old. About a billion years after that, the first forms of life developed on Earth. It took most of the remaining 3.5 billion years to get to the point of civilization, and space travel only in the last 60 years.
If a planet could have developed life around first-generation stars 1 billion years after the Big Bang, and it took the same approximate time for that race to develop civilization, then that civilization has approximately 9 billion years headstart against humanity. The average citizen of such a society could be more powerful than Trump, and their government leaders as they might exist would definitely trump Trump.
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@BrotherDThomas
So are all experimental results that contradict your belief false? If so, why would God feed you lies through your eyes and ears, but reveal the "truth" through a single book? If not God, then who has the power to contradict him?
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@zedvictor4
Occam...….The simplest solution is most likely the right one..... So magic then?
The fact that your explanation is only one word doesn't make it the simplest explanation.
The concept behind the word "life" is huge. There are millions of distinct species just on Earth, with trillions of tiny variations. Far from simple.
The concept behind the phrase "organisms that breathe using lungs" is much simpler. Sorta. See, you have to define organism, and lungs, and breathing, and every single new concept you use in that explanation must also be explained. These are known as steps of inference.
Magic feels like a simple explanation because it crosses the inferential difference by using the concepts in your head about magic. If I say, "because evolution," or "because God" it's also a one-word explanation. But if you'd never heard of God, or never heard of evolution, then those words don't feel like explanations by themselves. You haven't actually crossed the inferential gap by saying "because magic." It doesn't actually explain anything, it just puts a label on a question without answering it.
Same guy on Occam's Razor
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@RoderickSpode
There's a web serial with a similar concept, you might find it interesting.
Theoretically, in the case of a simulation focused around Earth, there would be no reason to render the entire universe in any greater fidelity than human instruments can observe. Before such instruments as x-ray telescopes and the like, you would need only render planets and stars as pinpricks of light. Quantum mechanics would also be unnecessary since the results on a macroscopic scale would be indistinguishable from Newtonian mechanics for the majority of human history. More accurate and diversified instruments constantly observing things on a tiny scale as well as in more depth outside our solar system would be making the simulation ever more costly to run.
In other words, the endeavor of science is to bankrupt God. Poetic, really.
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@User_2006
The nice thing about debating skilled opponents is you learn more, faster. The metric for the scoreboard means that you lose less points by being defeated by Oromagi than by another lower level debater. The reverse is also true. If you do defeat a high level opponent, you will get a much higher score and they will lose more points.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
*Disclaimer: I don't know for sure if that's how scores are calculated, but my experience has been that your relative ranking with your opponent, as well as the relative margins of voted points, will affect your points fairly drastically. Anyone with more knowledge should definitely correct me if I'm wrong.
I had a debate with Oromagi a long while ago. It was the only debate I've ever felt handily trumped in, and after I conceded I altered my debate strategy to involve more research. I was 15 myself at the time, so still older than you. You will have plenty of room to improve in the future.
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@RationalMadman
Name: K Michael
Religious label: Atheist
Motive: "Sheer, ABSOLUTE BOREDOM"
In your opinion, if God/s is/are real, is/are he/she/it/they good, evil, neutral or a complex combination?
If a god/God of any kind is real, they have a lot to answer for. I'm not saying that they're inherently evil or whatever, but the Abrahamic God definitely is imo. You can't be omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and still allow the atrocities of humanity to happen.
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Yes
Yes2
Yes. I think encouraging organized debates is good. You're limited to what you can put into text, so milk it for all it's worth.
No
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@User_2006
I use an ad blocker, so no idea.
What's interesting is that ads are one of the things that DArt has always been very reluctant about, probably as a result of DDO's overuse of ads.
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For the site developers or anyone who is really smart:
What is the method behind what debates show up on the quality debates sidebar? Are they chosen by a person, an algorithm, or what?
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@User_2006
I would say the largest contribution is the lack of moderators. Their system is also pretty buggy. Several times I was unable to finish the debate because it got stuck on "hasn't updated yet." My cell provider wasn't listed, so I couldn't verify in order to vote. There's the infamous capitalization after commas. These little things likely meant that quality debaters went elsewhere, and the trolls that had bad grammar and spelling anyways stuck around.
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@User_2006
I've considered starting fresh as well, but at this point, I'm at #21 and I've sunk too much cost in it.
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Participants:
1. Speedrace
2. RationalMadman*
3.K_Michael
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
My goal is 8 people but we could maybe make 5 or so work.
*maybe
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@truthbomb
There is a huge difference between the title claim, "Race is a social construct" and your first sentence, "race is becoming more and more of a social construct."
The first implies that race is completely made up, similarly to other social constructs like awkwardness, while the second implies that it used to be, and still somewhat is, something else entirely.
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Okay, signup list.
If anyone's interested in judging, organizing, or competing in this challenge, please tag me here. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or tag me here.
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Yes to 3, ambivalent on the others. They don't affect me nearly as much.
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Sports are nice in that they create structured cooperation and teamwork, which is more preparation for life than many classes. That said, sports are not the most efficient way to do it, and art should be funded to a much greater extent than they are. It would also help if teachers were paid more.
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@RationalMadman
@Vader
@Ramshutu
@oromagi
@Speedrace
I'm tagging all of you because you originally signed up for the first one. Don't feel obligated or pressured to join if you don't have time or don't feel like it. That said, you are all established, creative, and engaged in the DArt community, so it would be great if you joined.
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was the first one. It more or less failed due to lack of participation. This was nearly a year ago so I thought it would be fun to try it again. Bsh1 is banned but I would be willing to organize/judge or participate, depending on if anyone else would like to try their hand at organizing it.
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@User_2006
The phrasing "present self" implies a required change to something besides your present self in order to belong. It doesn't imply a change to the society.
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@User_2006
Homosexuals in the early 20th century. As a high profile example, Alan Turing was punished for being himself. When you say "your present self doesn't belong here," it suggests that you need to change so that you belong in the society. I believe that this is flatly false. Society in this case needs to change, not Alan Turing.
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@User_2006
"If you are punished for being yourself, then your present self doesn't belong here."
I disagree with this. What's your reasoning?
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@DrSpy
I explained in more detail in the comments of the debate to Oromagi.
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I'm getting tired of debate topics not matching the title of the debate.
As an example,
The title is "It is Impossible to Ban Experimenting on/of Animals"
but the claim by the Instigator is that "animal experimentation is essential to progress as a society."
these to sentences do not have the same meeting, and it is really annoying for the title to say one thing, and then have the opponent try to debate a different thing entirely.
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@zedvictor4
That's kinda my point. Converted isn't only used in the context of religion. It has a connotation of most often being used for that, but it could also be used for a host of other things.
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@Dr.Franklin
I have converted to Android (from Apple) Er go, Android is not a software program, but a religion.You only say" I have converted to x" when talking about religion
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@Discipulus_Didicit
He's already back.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I agree.
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@Tradesecret
No, and I don't plan to just to settle a debate. However, I do still hold that trade is by itself more than sufficient to motivate exploration.
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@Tradesecret
Many lands would probably remain unexplored. After all most of the exploration that took place was done as a way to evangelise others.
I disagree. While missionary work inevitably followed wherever Europeans went, it was not the primary motivation. Columbus sailed west, not to provide a quicker route for missionaries, but to prove that the Earth was round and establish a faster trade route to the West Indies. He wanted spices, not converts.
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@zedvictor4
Islam and Judaism were both around for a lot longer than Christianity. I'm suggesting that Christianity never managed to take off. I said in the first post that it would be because the Romans managed to eliminate them, but it could simply be that it never really caught on.
I've always defined Catholicism as a subset of Christianity, just like Protestantism. Even if you disagree with that, it is A FACT that Catholicism developed from early Christianity in the Roman Empire.
"They all originate from and maintain the same basic foundation."
I'm not suggesting eliminating the foundation, only preventing the growth of a branch.
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@Deb-8-a-bull
Yeah, to be realistic, it isn't that simple; you can't just wipe out a religion. But for the sake of the question, what would the world look like if you could?
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Suppose that when the Romans started persecuting the Christians, they actually managed to eliminate every single Christian and their ideology. How would history evolve from there?
A few things off the top of my head.
The schism between East and West Roman Empire would not have occurred, or at least, not for the same reason.
Europe would be primarily a polytheistic culture adopting new gods to its panteon as it encountered other religions.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
As a rather high profile example, The Great Gatsby's copyright was renewed by a family member of the author in 1953, 13 years after the author's death.
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I understand honoring the full term of any existing copyrights, but should anyone besides the author or artist be able to continue to profit like that?
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Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophy of the art produced during that era.
Work produced more recently is either postmodern or contemporary. It's confusing.
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@crossed
Technically speaking, neither of those are accurate either. The brain does respond to electrical impulses, but the actual processes are largely chemical with electrical byproducts.
It would do you well to at least attempt to understand science properly. You would not listen to an ignorant critic of religion, would you? It makes no sense to censure something you haven't even tried to properly understand.
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