Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Log in or create an account to join the discussions on the Atheist Republic forums.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
Donating = Loving
Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
FREE E-BOOKS
Get the book "Why There Is No God" and one more book for FREE!
Sign up below for the Atheist Republic Newsletter to get the books.
Record Your Message!
Record your voice here for it to be aired on the Atheist Republic Voicemails Podcast.
Send us your views and opinions, your personal stories, messages of support, comments on recent news, or any comments you would like to share about your part of the world.
Note : By clicking record you are allowing us to broadcast your message on any of our platforms.
Affiliate Disclaimer
Links to atheist related books, shirts and movies and other atheism related products are affiliate links.
All proceeds will go to keeping the Atheist Republic website up and running; providing resources, advocacy, community tools and encouragement to atheists all over the world.
I'm not gonna answer. This isn't a conversation about the origins of life.
This is a quite common mistake creationists make, when they reverse engineer evolution and deduce that animals could not function if some of their attributes were missing. Anyone with a passing understanding of evolutionary facts knows that the functions different parts of animals fulfil change over time. Most usually creationist use this argument to try and claim irreducible complexity disproves evolution, because of any part of a particular species did not work as we see it, then the whole would not function, but of course this again ignores the fact that the functions of both the whole and the parts change over time as they evolve.
I also still don't know why if you are genuinely interested in scientific facts you ask your questions in a non-scientific forum. Though from past experience I suspect I know why.
Change in function is precisely why things fall apart. Take the perception of pain. There is a balance to it which requires both the brain and receptors to function and understand each other. In the OP I showed how losing sensitivity can leave you prone to injury. However, the reverse is also true, if you increase sensitivity (hyperalgesia), an individual will avoid the slightest and most inconsequential of touches. Some women can have sexual pain disorders, in which they might have sexual desires, but intercourse is unusually painful.
In other words, less sensitivity to pain, and you're injury prone. More sensitivity to pain, and sexual reproduction can become hindered. I don't see much room for change overtime without running into problems.
Ya but breezy you are now jumping back to pre metazoa era... like with your bone vs muscle thread,
Muscle came first then bone, we were under water and didn't need "bones like we know today"
"Change in function is precisely why things fall apart."
Take a look around, the evolved diversity of living things we see directly contradicts that claim.
"In other words, less sensitivity to pain, and you're injury prone. More sensitivity to pain, and sexual reproduction can become hindered. I don't see much room for change overtime without running into problems."
Voila, right on cue you prove my point by trying to reverse engineer a process you don't understand, by taking away something and assuming that we couldn't function as we now do, but as I just told you the functions would have been different as we evolved, gradually over time. Evolution simply doesn't work the way you perceive it. The functions change very gradually over immense time periods, thus we would once have been unable to function without our appendix, but now it is a vestigial organ. Whales have vestigial hind-legs that performed a function when they lived on land millions of years ago, but now no longer perform the same function and are vestigial since whales are marine mammals.
Edit: Incidentally human babies born without the ability to experience pain tend not to live long, and while we were evolving would have been at far greater risks than they might be in a post industrialised society with modern medical care,, so do you think it is an accident that the genes that cause this tend not to be passed on? Think about how the extremes you have described would slowly have been eradicated from the human gene pool by natural selection, and how a person with way too high or low a pain threshold would be much less fit for their environment, so survival of the fittest, and natural selection at work.
Compare that to the absurd idea we were all created "equally" by an intelligent designer, and ask why such variations ever occur, and be honest by using only facts you can verify instead of appeals to superstition, or unevidenced supernatural claims.
I do think about how the extremes would slowly have been eradicated. That is why I question how it could have originated. If you say babies born without these receptors don't live very long, then how did our ancestors manage to live before it evolved?
"how did our ancestors manage to live before it evolved?"
As I have said already...
You're trying to reverse engineer a process you don't understand, by taking away something and assuming that we couldn't function as we now do, but as I have already told you several times the functions would have been different as we evolved, gradually over time. Evolution simply doesn't work the way you perceive it. If we the species we evolved from didn't have those attributes then they clearly didn't need them to survive, that's axiomatic or we wouldn't be here.
Try this site, it seems to have a great deal of information that isn't too technical for the lay person.
http://www.socrethics.com/Folder2/Biology.htm
Right, but organisms aren't isolated within themselves. They all must interact with the environment. If you think an animal can live just fine without some form of touch perception, then it is because it has some way to compensate for it. In the OP I gave vision as an example. So how do you suppose our ancestors compensated for the lack of sensation prior to its evolution?
"how do you suppose our ancestors compensated for the lack of sensation prior to its evolution?"
You're trying to reverse engineer a process you don't understand, by taking away something and assuming that we couldn't function as we now do, but as I have already told you several times the functions would have been different as we evolved, gradually over time. Evolution simply doesn't work the way you perceive it. If we the species we evolved from didn't have those attributes then they clearly didn't need them to survive, that's axiomatic or we wouldn't be here.
The answer won't change no matter how many different ways you ask the same question. If you want more scientific detail then you're in the wrong place, as you have been told before. I don't go to a car mechanics forum to seek medical advice, so why do you insist on asking for scientific expertise in an atheist forum?
Well if you're commenting I have to assume you are somewhat knowledgeable. Why would you go on threads just to complain about how little you know lol. I'll break it down:
1. "You're trying to reverse engineer a process you don't understand, by taking away something and assuming that we couldn't function as we now do"
I'm taking what we do understand (the consequences of changing sensory functions) then asking how they evolved in spite of the negative consequences of change. That's factual and demonstrable. The assumption lies with your claim that our ancestors were exempt from these problems, despite lacking these functions. That doesn't need to be an assumption though, I'm sure you can provide evidence.
2. "as I have already told you several times the functions would have been different as we evolved, gradually over time."
Look, you don't have any evidence, what you have are hypotheticals and speculations. Even fossils rarely preserve soft tissues, which means you have no insight into the evolution of nerves, and even if you did you definitely have no insight into their function. I'm sure there are plenty of human evolution timelines out there. Can you find one and show me at what point the functions were different and how they gradually changed and evolved? Can you name the species even?
Struck a nerve did I? I see you're done with the pretence of repeating your asinine question, and have now resorted to type and are trying to deny the scientific fact of species evolution. You are funny...now can you give us all a detailed scientific analysis with proper evidence of how your magic sky fairy created the light from distant solar systems en route a few thousand years ago?
I'm happy to go with scientific fact on this one same as all the other scientific facts, you're the one cherry picking the ones you deny based on them contradicting your archaic superstition.
Could you please give a detailed scientific explanation of how Jesus allegedly resurrected Lazarus after he;d been dead long enough to stink?
Classic Sheldon: Changing the conversation, just to call me dishonest when I keep it focused.
I didn't change anything, I focused on your dishonest trolling, as I always do. Which is what this attention seeking act of yours is about after all.
You never answer questions of course, more of your "honest" approach to debate no doubt. However here they are again, so others can watch you evade them...
can you give us all a detailed scientific analysis with proper evidence of how your magic sky fairy created the light from distant solar systems en route a few thousand years ago?
Could you please give a detailed scientific explanation of how Jesus allegedly resurrected Lazarus after he;d been dead long enough to stink?
I'll make you a deal. I'm going to meditate on your questions for the following weeks. The moment I become enlightened, and the connection between them and the OP becomes clear. I'll give you my answer.
I really don't care mate, you're the one who favours archaic superstition over scientific facts, not me. If you think refusing to answer my question is impressive or compelling then that doesn't raise your stock as far as I can see, it just shows what has been obvious for a while, that you have no interest in honest debate, discussion, or the truth, only in preserving your blind adherence to an asinine creationist myth derived from the bronze age.
You might meditate on that, but somehow I doubt you will. I've pointed out previously you not only cherry which scientific facts you will accept, you don't have a problem with scientific theories that explain gravity or germ theory for example, but you also cherry pick the bible, ignoring immoral texts that endorse slavery for instance while trying to pretend it prohibits the very thing it endorses with words games.
Oddly enough you used the same tactic to avoid an honest discussion on that topic as well, this absurd "it's not part of my OP". It reminds me of one of my grandchildren covering their face and thinking I can't see them as a result.
When you address my OP, I will address your response. When you don't address my OP, I won't address your response. Its that simple. I do whatever you do. So if I'm dishonest for not answering your questions, then you're dishonest for not answering mine.
I don't understand how computers work. It doesn't make sense to me that electricity can be harnessed to do complicated things such as that. Even after reading about it extensively from experts in the field of computer science it seems unbelievable to me. Where is memory stored? how do multiple programs run at the same time? I don't like the idea that switches that only have two positions can possibly, if the right combination of ones and zeros is present, can display an image on the screen. I read in a book once that computers work on magic. I'm going to go with that. It makes more sense than all that complicated stuff that I don't understand.
Believe me! Computers run on magic! Everything else is a lie. I read it in a book once. And I have a fuzzy feeling about it. You should believe what I believe... Not what the experts say. It's just too complicated. Trust me on this one. It's been revealed to me by myself somewhere in my brain and I've been told by many people around me and I read it on a book... and I have a fuzzy feeling... It's magic.
"Believe me! Computers run on magic! Everything else is a lie. I read it in a book once. And I have a fuzzy feeling about it. You should believe what I believe... Not what the experts say. It's just too complicated. Trust me on this one. It's been revealed to me by myself somewhere in my brain and I've been told by many people around me and I read it on a book... and I have a fuzzy feeling... It's magic."
Brilliant, I just spilled my tea. seriously kudos, that's hilarious I wish I'd thought of it.
I'm glad you liked it. I thought it summed things up very well. John didn't find it funny though... Oh well, can't win them all.
He must have a sense of humour though, if he thinks creationism is true.
Its ironic to make fun of the very thing that describes you. If you were knowledgeable about "computers" then why write this post instead of teaching us about them? I assume its because you also don't know how they work. We're equally ignorant I suppose, only that you think your ignorance is justified and mine isn't.
Your analogy made 2 mistakes:
1. I have not mentioned religion or the Bible here. So to bring them up and then call it magic is by definition a straw-man. You can't address the OP. So instead you bring up something irrelevant and call it magic. It allows you to dismiss my position, and feel better about yours.
2. My OP isn't even about what I do or don't understand. Its about apparent obstacles and conflicts in the narrative. Its about people claiming we can walk from California to Hawaii, and me asking about the ocean that's in between. Its about people drawing a line between A and F and then me asking about B, C, D, and E.
1) you're a christian
2) you're on an atheist website
3) you pose questions to atheists about problems you have with science that contradicts your holy book
Whether you mentioned religion or the bible or not, which is more likely:
1) that you accept evolution and study it and have a genuine interest in finding answers on a non scientific website
2) or that you reject evolution because of your religion and its holy book and you post questions about evolution because you see it as synonymous with atheism and you want to debate with a shifted burden of proof of your claims.
And...Magic and miracle are indistinguishable.
And... The validity of evolution is irrelevant to the question of the existence of a god.
And... I don't comment because for someone who makes an argument from incredulity about a complicated field of science to a group of non scientists and who thinks that it contradicts their religious beliefs, is not going to accept anything that anyone says about it.
And... Your ocean analogy is perfect. It describes how you don't understand that boats and airplanes exists to get us across. That you think the claim is that we can walk there. But of course, that's not the claim.
I don't mind grinding gears in a debate room, but I've had this argument many times and it gets tiresome.
How about a third option? The one that can at least be deduced logically from the OP?
3) I'm skeptical of evolution, because there are functional obstacles in its narrative that don't seem to be accounted for by the theory.
John, you wrote, “I'm skeptical of evolution, because there are functional obstacles in its narrative that don't seem to be accounted for by the theory.”
You’re skeptical of evolution. Are you skeptical about what is taught by your religion? If so, are you going to the same lengths to ferret out those wrinkles? If you are not doing so, why? If you are not skeptical about the teachings of your religion, why not?
You say there are functional obstacles in the narrative of evolution. Are you limiting yourself to examine what you consider these obstacles to your posts here at AR? If so, do you consider that limiting given there are no evolutionary biologists replying here? If not, what other activities are you engaged in for your examination?
You say these obstacles do not ‘seem’ to be accounted for. Has your search for this accounting been thoroughly exhausted? Is this a new search for you? If not found here, will you look elsewhere? For how long will you engage in this search?
Of course I'm skeptical of things taught by my religion. That's why I'm not Catholic or Methodist, or Mormon, or Lutheran. I also don't know anyone's qualifications on here. Perhaps you can give me a list of them since you seem to know? I'll try to base future OP and comments according to those qualifications.
But then again:
"We encourage discussion about any and all topics as long as it abides by our forum guidelines. You can ask questions, request input, present a challenging topic for debate or share an idea." -Atheist Republic
Out of eleven questions, you answered one, sort of. Thx.
You're welcome. I typically don't answer irrelevant questions. But I was feeling generous.
Ok, ouch. You still do not display the fortitude to respond to simple questions from other folks. Instead, you continue to drape that refusal with the cloak of ‘irrelevancy’. I think, John, this is slippery. I think you fear the answers might just damage your ability to ‘win’.
You asked questions aimed at me rather than the OP. Why shouldn't I assume you are fishing for ad hominems? You didn't help your case by accusing me of cloaking, of fearing the answer, and not having fortitude to respond.
Well, a good starting point to figure that out would be to calculate what percentage of my posts have consisted of ad hominems. Of course, intimating that the purpose of my questions is to launch an ad hominem is, in itself, an ad hominem.
Pages