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khalid

khalid

Unelected Mod
14,071
6,775
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
If I decided to be an atheist tomorrow I would still argue exactly the same stuff against the atheists because they aren't attacking Christianity sensibly and they aren't going to get converts that way. To a Christian you look like a fool, before you pat yourself on the back, listen. You look like a fool because you aren't actually attacking their faith at all, you are just trotting out stuff you were programmed to use that they already have convinced themselves you are misinformed about. If you put some effort in you would actually convert people. There is something better than just being smug on the internet. Think about how awesome it would be to be smug on the internet AND convert someone from Christianity.
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You act like arguments based on reason are worthless and if we would "only read it" we would learn something.

The problem with this is, many of us became atheists from using our reason. I wasn't "born" an atheist. I was "born" a catholic. Two of my aunts were nuns, my grandmother prayed for hours on the rosary every morning. Went to church 6 days a week. I went to sunday school for years. Dude, I read the Bible constantly as a kid and the more conflicted my faith became, the more I read it. I had ZERO idea that atheism was even a fucking thing until I was in 7th grade. I was absolutely tormented at wondering why I didn't believe, why it seemed so patently obvious that the Bible was filled with contradiction after contradiction, and yet everyone else (that I knew) believed. Many people, many of the people you are currently arguing with, had the same journey. It was the very arguments of reason (in particular, the book, Atheism: The case against God) that laid out many of the rational arguments against God, all of which have never been refuted sufficiently to convince me. So lets be clear, I don't expect to convert you, but I knew that from the start. However, I like to hope that some other readers see that it is perfectly normal to be able to mock religions and that logic and science are on the side of skepticism.


You say I "cherry pick" from the Bible, but if it is the word of God, shouldn't they be immune to cherrypicking? As for me cherry picking, so do you. I can easily find verses outlawing homosexuals. However, you can also find many verses saying its fine and we should love everyone. I can find more verses about stoning them, you can find "he who is without sin, cast the first stone". On and on. That is why it is useless as a moral guide. If the Bible actually laid out constant moral guides, then the Church wouldn't constantly be forced to update their interpretations and "cherrypicking" to support current social norms.

Also, you act like I'm a bigot and hate religious people. No, I hate the close-minded anti-science views of many of them. However, many of the finest people in my life happened to be religious. My grandmother, my aunts. When I visited Rome while I was in the military, the first thing I did was go to the Vatican and collect abunch of things for my grandmother, who never in her lifetime had a chance to go. Sadly, she died the day my ship got back to the states.
 
Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,722
9,087
But how can you look at how insensibly human beings are designed and come to the conclusion there must have been someone creating us? That doesn't speak so highly of your creator
 
A

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,763
khalid_sl said:
You act like arguments based on reason are worthless and if we would "only read it" we would learn something.

The problem with this is, many of us became atheists from using our reason. I wasn't "born" an atheist. I was "born" a catholic. Two of my aunts were nuns, my grandmother prayed for hours on the rosary every morning. Went to church 6 days a week. I went to sunday school for years. Dude, I read the Bible constantly as a kid and the more conflicted my faith became, the more I read it. I had ZERO idea that atheism was even a fucking thing until I was in 7th grade. I was absolutely tormented at wondering why I didn't believe, why it seemed so patently obvious that the Bible was filled with contradiction after contradiction, and yet everyone else (that I knew) believed. Many people, many of the people you are currently arguing with, had the same journey. It was the very arguments of reason (in particular, the book, Atheism: The case against God) that laid out many of the rational arguments against God, all of which have never been refuted sufficiently to convince me. So lets be clear, I don't expect to convert you, but I knew that from the start. However, I like to hope that some other readers see that it is perfectly normal to be able to mock religions and that logic and science are on the side of skepticism.


You say I "cherry pick" from the Bible, but if it is the word of God, shouldn't they be immune to cherrypicking? As for me cherry picking, so do you. I can easily find verses outlawing homosexuals. However, you can also find many verses saying its fine and we should love everyone. I can find more verses about stoning them, you can find "he who is without sin, cast the first stone". On and on. That is why it is useless as a moral guide. If the Bible actually laid out constant moral guides, then the Church wouldn't constantly be forced to update their interpretations and "cherrypicking" to support current social norms.

Also, you act like I'm a bigot and hate religious people. No, I hate the close-minded anti-science views of many of them. However, many of the finest people in my life happened to be religious. My grandmother, my aunts. When I visited Rome while I was in the military, the first thing I did was go to the Vatican and collect abunch of things for my grandmother, who never in her lifetime had a chance to go. Sadly, she died the day my ship got back to the states.
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You need to learn about context. I am trying not to sound condescending when I say that and it's hard so I am saying right now that I am not trying to be. You really don't sound like you get that though. There is a natural flow to the Bible. There is a progression involved that ultimately really ends up with do whatever the hell you want. There are sins still and you are always going to sin. You need to be trying not to but you will fail and that is why you need God. Doesn't make the things not sins. That's the point of it all. There isn't any condemnation or fear involved. All that is Old Testament where it belongs in the timeline. What do you mean about the Bible being immune to cherry picking? That is kind of a ridiculous statement. You think that anything we can understand can't be dissected and split up to make it say one thing or another? The difference is that the cherry picking is obvious. Where was the verse from? What were the verses before and after? Etc etc ...

I don't think you are a bigot at all. I merely keep saying that because all Christians are the ones accused of bigotry because they say this or that isn't OK in the Bible. Homosexuality is a sin in the Bible so I must be a bigot for pointing that out. I hate tomatoes. That is number one on my list and probably the last thing on my list but you could make a poll "a_skeleton_03 is a Christian, is he a bigot?" and people that had never read a post of mine would vote yes. They automatically assume and not erroneously based on some Christian they know. What they don't understand is that the majority (not all) of people are bigoted towards one group or another. It's in our nature and in nature all around us. It's a useful tool for safety. The rabbit is bigoted towards the lions and tells all his friends to hate the lions so they will all avoid it and be safe. We humans are the only ones that take it past the point of safety.
 
A

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,763
Jive Turkey_sl said:
But how can you look at how insensibly human beings are designed and come to the conclusion there must have been someone creating us? That doesn't speak so highly of your creator
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You say insensibly designed and I say that we don't understand it, yet. Several organs we thought were worthless we now understand.

Now take the inverse. How did just us and only us evolve so much higher than any other species and the only planet to do so? How did we with how stupidly our bodies are designed to survive if we had to do it by tooth and nail. You take your standard human body and put it into ancient times and try to come up with a computer model of us surviving, it would never happen. The animals out there are beyond our capabilities but our brains keep them at bay .... now. No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
 
Sebudai

Sebudai

Ssraeszha Raider
12,022
22,504
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
You say insensibly designed and I say that we don't understand it, yet. Several organs we thought were worthless we now understand.

Now take the inverse. How did just us and only us evolve so much higher than any other species and the only planet to do so? How did we with how stupidly our bodies are designed to survive if we had to do it by tooth and nail. You take your standard human body and put it into ancient times and try to come up with a computer model of us surviving, it would never happen. The animals out there are beyond our capabilities but our brains keep them at bay .... now. No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
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wat
 
iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
3Uckkkk.jpg
 
Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,722
9,087
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
You say insensibly designed and I say that we don't understand it, yet. Several organs we thought were worthless we now understand.

Now take the inverse. How did just us and only us evolve so much higher than any other species and the only planet to do so? How did we with how stupidly our bodies are designed to survive if we had to do it by tooth and nail. You take your standard human body and put it into ancient times and try to come up with a computer model of us surviving, it would never happen. The animals out there are beyond our capabilities but our brains keep them at bay .... now. No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
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What does it mean to say we've evolved "so much higher" than any other species? Brain size? Sure. But that's pretty much it. Pick any other skill set, save for endurance, and we'll get our asses kicked by several other species. Do you mean reproductive success? Insects have us beat over 100000 fold. They're the true success story of our planet. You need only look at our spines, our knee joints, our laryngeal nerve, our birth canal etc to see how haphazardly we're put together. Even cancer is a result of one of the body's natural mechanisms completely breaking down. No creator would design these things this way unless he was inept. And did the same god create a fish that will swim up the end of your dick if you pee in the wrong tropical body of water? Charming
 
Ridas

Ridas

Pay to play forum
2,878
4,143
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
You say insensibly designed and I say that we don't understand it, yet. Several organs we thought were worthless we now understand.

Now take the inverse. How did just us and only us evolve so much higher than any other species and the only planet to do so? How did we with how stupidly our bodies are designed to survive if we had to do it by tooth and nail. You take your standard human body and put it into ancient times and try to come up with a computer model of us surviving, it would never happen. The animals out there are beyond our capabilities but our brains keep them at bay .... now. No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
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rrr_img_73566.jpg
 
Phazael

Phazael

Confirmed Beta Shitlord, Fat Bastard
<Aristocrat╭ರ_•́>
14,664
31,522
It was on topic until you and a_skeleton_03 got into a cripple fight over who rapes more people.
 
khalid

khalid

Unelected Mod
14,071
6,775
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
Now take the inverse. How did just us and only us evolve so much higher than any other species and the only planet to do so? How did we with how stupidly our bodies are designed to survive if we had to do it by tooth and nail. You take your standard human body and put it into ancient times and try to come up with a computer model of us surviving, it would never happen. The animals out there are beyond our capabilities but our brains keep them at bay .... now. No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
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You accuse me of never having read the Bible, but then have a paragraph so ignorant on evolution it is clear you have never read a book on evolution at all.

Simply for starters, primates survive in the wild just fine, in fact chimpanzees are apex predator omnivores. Don't see how you think primitive humans would have had a harder time. Taking "your standard human body" and put it in the wild, yes, we would do just fine. That "standard human body" comes with a brain and hands that are capable of advanced tool use. You would quickly have these humans making spears and slings which would make them the apex predators in any environment in the world they were dropped. So being shocked or thinking it is impossible that humans could have evolved from the common ancestors of chimpanzees is just mistaken.

As for how stupidly our bodies are designed, our bodies are designed with all kinds of flaws. Vestigial tails that disappear. Eyes with blind spots. Unable to create our own vitamin C (though many other animals can). The unreasonably narrow birth canal for the size of our heads. Many of these flaws we can directly trace to evolution and how they came about.


You maybe don't feel like it would be possible to go from ape ancestors to humans. Now you keep skirting with creationism, how old do you think the world is? Well, this is a timeline from wikipedia on evolution:
In its 4.6 billion years circling the sun, the Earth has harbored an increasing diversity of life forms...

for the last 3.6 billion years, simple cells (prokaryotes);
for the last 3.4 billion years, cyanobacteria performing photosynthesis;
for the last 2 billion years, complex cells (eukaryotes);
for the last 1 billion years, multicellular life;
for the last 600 million years, simple animals;
for the last 550 million years, bilaterians, water life forms with a front and a back;
for the last 500 million years, fish and proto-amphibians;
for the last 475 million years, land plants;
for the last 400 million years, insects and seeds;
for the last 360 million years, amphibians;
for the last 300 million years, reptiles;
for the last 200 million years, mammals;
for the last 150 million years, birds;
for the last 130 million years, flowers;
for the last 60 million years, the primates,
for the last 20 million years, the family Hominidae (great apes);
for the last 2.5 million years, the genus Homo (human predecessors);
for the last 200,000 years, anatomically modern humans.

This kind of time is hard to put your head around, but even with as close as we are to the ape ancestors, it still took that long through gradual changes to get us here today. Yet the signs of it happening are all throughout our genome and the fossil records. This isn't stuff in some book that is to doubt. This is basic science and the broad outlines we have known since Darwin.
 
Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,722
9,087
a_skeleton_03_sl said:
No way we could have survived long enough to evolve to that point. Cat people or reptilians should have evolved way before primates, just on suitability to survive.
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How did I miss this?? Jesus.

"No way could we have...". Where is your proof of this? This is nothing but an unfounded hunch. And you don't understand evolution if you think cat people is a reasonable expectation. First off, evolution isn't working toward an end game. It isn't working toward anything. If there are no specific pressures on a species, it won't evolve or might even lose some of it's adaptations it needed previously. "Should have evolved way before primates", based on what? Evolved to what? They're on their own evolutionary paths. They ARE evolving. Do you think every other species on Earth stopped evolving because they haven't achieved some Star Trek humanoid form yet??? You're demonstrating pure ignorance right now
 
Jive Turkey

Jive Turkey

Karen
6,722
9,087
khalid_sl said:
You accuse me of never having read the Bible, but then have a paragraph so ignorant on evolution it is clear you have never read a book on evolution at all.

Simply for starters, primates survive in the wild just fine, in fact chimpanzees are apex predator omnivores. Don't see how you think primitive humans would have had a harder time. Taking "your standard human body" and put it in the wild, yes, we would do just fine. That "standard human body" comes with a brain and hands that are capable of advanced tool use. You would quickly have these humans making spears and slings which would make them the apex predators in any environment in the world they were dropped. So being shocked or thinking it is impossible that humans could have evolved from the common ancestors of chimpanzees is just mistaken.

As for how stupidly our bodies are designed, our bodies are designed with all kinds of flaws. Vestigial tails that disappear. Eyes with blind spots. Unable to create our own vitamin C (though many other animals can). The unreasonably narrow birth canal for the size of our heads. Many of these flaws we can directly trace to evolution and how they came about.


You maybe don't feel like it would be possible to go from ape ancestors to humans. Now you keep skirting with creationism, how old do you think the world is? Well, this is a timeline from wikipedia on evolution:
In its 4.6 billion years circling the sun, the Earth has harbored an increasing diversity of life forms...

for the last 3.6 billion years, simple cells (prokaryotes);
for the last 3.4 billion years, cyanobacteria performing photosynthesis;
for the last 2 billion years, complex cells (eukaryotes);
for the last 1 billion years, multicellular life;
for the last 600 million years, simple animals;
for the last 550 million years, bilaterians, water life forms with a front and a back;
for the last 500 million years, fish and proto-amphibians;
for the last 475 million years, land plants;
for the last 400 million years, insects and seeds;
for the last 360 million years, amphibians;
for the last 300 million years, reptiles;
for the last 200 million years, mammals;
for the last 150 million years, birds;
for the last 130 million years, flowers;
for the last 60 million years, the primates,
for the last 20 million years, the family Hominidae (great apes);
for the last 2.5 million years, the genus Homo (human predecessors);
for the last 200,000 years, anatomically modern humans.

This kind of time is hard to put your head around, but even with as close as we are to the ape ancestors, it still took that long through gradual changes to get us here today. Yet the signs of it happening are all throughout our genome and the fossil records. This isn't stuff in some book that is to doubt. This is basic science and the broad outlines we have known since Darwin.
Click to expand...
People tend to underestimate how massive a number a billion is. We aren't designed to think about time scales like that, so people ignorantly claim there isn't enough time for <insert ignorance here>. To put it in perspective, the number of SECONDS in an average human life is something like 2.4 billion.... seconds. That seems so fucked up, but it just shows how ill equipped we are to wrap our heads around such massive numbers
 
iannis

iannis

Musty Nester
31,351
17,656
That's the thing really. If you proceed from the assumption that the world is only 8,000 years old or whatever it is then it is absurd to think any of this could have happened.

If you had a time machine and picked a plot of land you could to 10,000 year jumps on that land and not notice any great differences. And then on one of those jumps all of a sudden proto-trees happen, but then you're back to 10,000 year monotony.

Men change this. BUT. The jury is still out on whether or not you could entirely miss our civilizations in 10,000 year jumps. You might notice a tribe of suspiciously ape like creatures wandering across your plot one jump. Then you'll notice that they've started to pursue organized agriculture on your next jump. And then on your next jump you notice that your entire plot has been paved over with asphault, and there's rusting metal everywhere, but there's no sign of the ape. And then on your next two jumps it's back to how it basically was five jumps ago.
 
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