[1271] I could do with your...assistance

[Kuraimizu]

Nov 8, 2013 0:50:53 GMT The Anarch said:

Nov 8, 2013 0:48:24 GMT Kuraimizu said:

So you are making the claim that a God of Order and Reason,
[Which I used in my statement] is as Corrupt as mortal greedy politicians?

Order and reason are not mutually exclusive with corrupt and greedy.

For what reason would a God be corrupt and greedy?

you can ask such questions proving you have free will and agency.
So the Gods haven't shackled you.

For what reason would a God be Greedy? they can make anything they want.
turn a planet into gold if it so pleased them.
What possible use would they have with anything you could possibly own,
That they couldn't just make?

For what reason would a God be Corrupt?
What possible reason could an all powerful being have
to be corrupt? What could possibly be the payoff large enough to tempt a God?

Stupid questions right? Especially since almost every religion says that we are children of God.
For what possible reason would a God screw over his own children that he claims to love
enough to offer paradise and forgiveness?

It's not God who's untrustworthy
It's the Humans who claim to lead the churches.
if a Church is corrupt it's the fault of the People in that church.
It's the Men who wrote the scriptures, and the Men who collect the money.

[GK Sierra]

Nov 7, 2013 23:46:54 GMT Kuraimizu said:

The Universe has Laws, I assume a God of Order and reason would follow any laws he himself has made.
Things can't just be magically there. However there is no rule against bringing it from another location,
or from making it on-site from available materials.

Break a twig from a tree, rearrange the Electrons, Neutrons, and protons, to make a Worm to feed a bird.
or perhaps a ring to gift to someone. maybe picking up a log and turning it into a computer.
Nothing was suddenly there, all that was done was recompiling some matter.

So in essence, you are saying that the answer to the question of fallibility (I.E. "Could Jesus microwave a hot-pocket for so long, he himself could not eat it?") is... yes.

I see. And have you communicated with this fellow? Have you ever witnessed him turning a log into a computer? Sounds like a skill that would come in handy. Perhaps he can turn a branch into a cellphone and give me a ring sometime. We'd do a brisk trade in lumber.

Nov 8, 2013 0:59:18 GMT Kuraimizu said:

It's not God who's untrustworthy
It's the Humans who claim to lead the churches.
if a Church is corrupt it's the fault of the People in that church.
It's the Men who wrote the scriptures, and the Men who collect the money.

I agree. So let's completely dismantle organized religion. Religions don't need political agitators and slush funds affecting public policy. If you want to have a [insert holy document here] study, or meet in a building you've leased/bought and paid taxes on, fine, it's a mostly free world, or at least it ought to be and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do that. But when the contents of the collection plate start turning up in senator's pockets and buying votes for a view of morality I don't endorse and that is actively hostile to me, that's when I take issue.

[Kuraimizu]

Nov 8, 2013 1:03:42 GMT GK Sierra said:

So in essence, you are saying that the answer to the question of fallibility (I.E. "Could Jesus microwave a hot-pocket for so long, he himself could not eat it?") is... yes.

I see. And have you communicated with this fellow? Have you ever witnessed him turning a log into a computer? Sounds like a skill that would come in handy. Perhaps he can turn a branch into a cellphone and give me a ring sometime. We'd do a brisk trade in lumber.

Well of course if you heat something up too much, it vaporizes. you can't eat it then now can you?
Which reminds me I would love to go for a dip in the sky of Jupiter perhaps find some elemental hydrogen near the core.
What do you think metallic hydrogen tastes like?

Why would a God make a cellphone? when he could just send an angel?

Nov 8, 2013 1:03:42 GMT GK Sierra said:

I agree. So let's completely dismantle organized religion. Religions don't need political agitators and slush funds affecting public policy. If you want to have a [insert holy document here] study, or meet in a building you've leased/bought and paid taxes on, fine, it's a mostly free world, or at least it ought to be and there's no reason you shouldn't be able to do that. But when the contents of the collection plate start turning up in senator's pockets and buying votes for a view of morality I don't endorse and that is actively hostile to me, that's when I take issue.

Not all churches are corrupt, there are a few who do much good.
And even the ones that are a bit greedy, Still do a fair amount of service
to the poor, homeless, and the needy.

And to those that believe, the churches provide a source of spiritual and Moral light.
if all the churches were closed and that light ceased to shine.
How quickly would the Cultures of man turn black?
if all the Hearts grew cold, and greed burned in it's place,
Do you really want to see a world gone dark?

[The Anarch]

Nov 8, 2013 0:59:18 GMT Kuraimizu said:

For what reason would a God be corrupt and greedy?

The questions you ask posit a being that created the universe but whose outlook and mentality could not only be understood by humans but is similar to that of humans as well. And yet many humans of equal power and intellect are so different from each other as to be alien to one another. I wouldn't say it's entirely out of the realm of possibility that any being capable of creating an entire universe would have human-style motivations and emotions and thoughts and desires, but I would definitely say that it's entirely likely that such a being may be so far outside our understanding that trying to even apply our simple little concepts of "order" and "reason" and "corruption" and "greed" to them is both futile and more than a tad anthropocentric. A supreme creator could break his own universal laws for any number of reasons, most of which we may only have the tiniest hope of understanding, and to which our own limited sense of morality probably cannot be strictly applied.

But the point was not to intimate that whatever god might be corrupt or greedy, it was to point out that just because someone - god or otherwise - makes a rule, that does not necessarily mean that they themselves are strictly bound by it.

But let's say that they are. After all, we don't know, maybe they would be. The problem with a human trying to figure out what a being as powerful as a god could or couldn't do within the laws of their own universe is also a rather futile thing, since we don't know all the rules of the universe. Science is all good and well and I'm very much a pro-science guy, but many of the problems with science tend to come from people thinking that it is the way things actually are rather than what it really is: the human understanding of the way things actually are. The laws of thermodynamics do seem pretty airtight, but all it'll take is one instance where something is created out of nothing and we'll have to go back to the drawing board. Since we don't know for certain that what we understand of the universe is strictly applicable to all parts of the universe at all times, we don't know what can and can't be possible for a god until we actually see said god in action. A creator god would (at least hopefully) know way more about the laws of the universe than we do and could (at least possibly) use its power in ways that seem to us to contradict physical law entirely without actually doing so.

[Kuraimizu]

Very Nice point of View, good argument.

I love questions that make us think.

[quinkgirl]

Hm... I read a fanfic that a human had the power of god (sort of. Close to) and he had to keep to herself on an abandoned island so that people wouldn't flock her. This nearly drover her mad...

[zimmyzims]

Nov 7, 2013 23:46:54 GMT Kuraimizu said:

Nov 7, 2013 18:11:56 GMT zimmyzims said:

However, how about answering my question?

personally I would have to say, some areas of creation seem lazy,
while other parts seem detailed and more planned.
Scheduled effort might be the best way of describing it.
After all you work your butt off for the important parts of your Career/Job,
enjoy some leisure, and Hobbies, And do some housekeeping, and yardwork.
the rest of the time you are napping sleeping or tending to family matters,
or spending time with the kids.

I would see God doing something similar, it's important to pay attention to the overall view,
Teach and Guide your children that are willing to listen, Give knowledge and understanding
to the curious ones, Let them be creative, and make mistakes. Tend the things that need some care
and for things that don't really matter all that much let nature take it's own course.

And yet the question was simply how come is playing a lazy God not playing God if God is a lazy God. And I still find this question unanswered.

[legion]

When God breaks the laws of the Universe, this is called a miracle; there's a part in the Old Testament where he agrees not do it too much (unless dire circumstances demand it), so that men would be in control of their life.

Also religion-bashing from people who believe in THE SINGULARITY, which is essentially an updated form of THE RAPTURE, is hilarious.

[GK Sierra]

Nov 8, 2013 11:05:57 GMT legion said:

Also religion-bashing from people who believe in THE SINGULARITY, which is essentially an updated form of THE RAPTURE, is hilarious.

At least it has a basis in observable data, however wrongly it's proponents might have extrapolated it. Belief in god is an entire other level of misinformed. People who tout the singularity are at worst cherry-picking and interpreting facts to support their biased conclusion. Most modern religions are based on a sacred document or text which was written by "revealed truth" and "divine revelation", a.k.a. an angel came to me in a dream a.k.a. I made it up.

The two situations are not even comparable. One is a far-fetched theory and the other is an iron-age superstition.

Also, please feel free to point out which of my statements about religion were unfair or undeserved and I will gladly recant.

Nov 8, 2013 1:22:12 GMT Kuraimizu said:

And to those that believe, the churches provide a source of spiritual and Moral light.
if all the churches were closed and that light ceased to shine.
How quickly would the Cultures of man turn black?
if all the Hearts grew cold, and greed burned in it's place,
Do you really want to see a world gone dark?

I doubt anything would change, actually, except the wording on our money and certain court proceedings. Look at the European countries where religion is dying out the fastest. Nobody is running through the streets and abandoning all pretense of civilization, in fact many of them are doing far better than more religious countries like the US. I am not implying any connection I am simply saying that there is no correlation between a country's increased religiousness and increased prosperity/happiness/morality.

People have long postulated that it is impossible to be altruistic without god despite a wealth of evidence that it "just ain't so" as Mark Twain liked to say.

[legion]

You spent the entire thread belittling religion, faith, believers, and generally behaving like the king of onager that I'd expect to find on reddit.

For one:

The phrase "playing god" was invented by small-minded people and clergy to muzzle man's potential.

This is nonsense; first because this sentence isn't attested at all before the late 19th century, and only starts to pick up in the 1940s, and second because it's almost exclusively used by science-fiction writers who put it in the mouth of strawmen. The "clergy" (which clergy?) has nothing to do with it.


No one is "persecuting" science, intelligent designers and creationists are losing all their battles and are more and more confined to fringe portions of the population, atheism and secularism get stronger everyday, gay marriage is getting legalised in an increasing number of places, while the religious rights of non-traditionally secular groups are getting increasingly suppressed (Europe has not yet banned circumcision and ritual slaughtering, but it's definitely taking that direction).

[thedoctor]

Nov 8, 2013 11:32:24 GMT GK Sierra said:

People have long postulated that it is impossible to be altruistic without god despite a wealth of evidence that it "just ain't so" as Mark Twain liked to say.

Do you know who started the movement to end slavery in the world? Who is currently at the forefront of the fight for human rights in third world countries? What group of people provided significant support for tsunami relief in the primarily Muslim country of Indonesia? Whose worldview claims that it's actually possible to create meaningful change in the world? The Christian church. I'm not saying we haven't screwed stuff up, and I'm not saying that it's "impossible to be altruistic without a god," but I promise you, the world would be a much darker place without religion in general, and the Christian church in particular. 

[Lightice]

Nov 8, 2013 11:05:57 GMT legion said:

Also religion-bashing from people who believe in THE SINGULARITY, which is essentially an updated form of THE RAPTURE, is hilarious.

I have to intervene with this particular statement, since it contains too many errors in too small space to ignore. Most religious people don't believe in the Rapture. Most atheists don't believe in the Singularity. Most people who believe in the Singularity don't believe that it's in any way like the Rapture. "The Rapture of the geeks" is nothing more than a popular simplification of a concept that is next to impossible to summarise accurately.

No one is "persecuting" science, intelligent designers and creationists are losing all their battles and are more and more confined to fringe portions of the population, atheism and secularism get stronger everyday, gay marriage is getting legalised in an increasing number of places, while the religious rights of non-traditionally secular groups are getting increasingly suppressed (Europe has not yet banned circumcision and ritual slaughtering, but it's definitely taking that direction).

Unfortunately there continues to be a constant anti-rationalist bias in the popular culture of our society, although it no longer takes the form of a monolithic religion, but a wide collection of political, cultural and religious coctail that continues to fail to understand the principles of scientific deduction and pulverise any rational arguments with single-minded determination to adhere to any easily understandable ideology rather than put their minds to coming to actual conclusions of their own. And religious persecution most certainly continues to exist, even in our oh so rational Western countries; see who are the most hated minority in the United States, for example. No, not the Muslims -- but atheists.

Now, I honestly am too lazy to comb this thread over to see where all this religious hullabaloo got started, but to me it looks like a bunch of people talking nonsense at brick walls at this point. I can't even tell how some of the arguments and counterarguments are supposed to relate to one another. This is less of a debate and more like stream of thought, as far as I can tell.

[thedoctor]

Nov 8, 2013 15:02:03 GMT Lightice said:

Unfortunately there continues to be a constant anti-rationalist bias in the popular culture of our society, although it no longer takes the form of a monolithic religion, but a wide collection of political, cultural and religious coctail that continues to fail to understand the principles of scientific deduction and pulverise any rational arguments with single-minded determination to adhere to any easily understandable ideology rather than put their minds to coming to actual conclusions of their own. And religious persecution most certainly continues to exist, even in our oh so rational Western countries; see who are the most hated minority in the United States, for example. No, not the Muslims -- but atheists.

Now, I honestly am too lazy to comb this thread over to see where all this religious hullabaloo got started, but to me it looks like a bunch of people talking nonsense at brick walls at this point. I can't even tell how some of the arguments and counterarguments are supposed to relate to one another. This is less of a debate and more like stream of thought, as far as I can tell.

Caveat: I agree wholeheartedly with the second paragraph above. I move that after someone responds to my comment (or whoever else is arguing this side of the point), we drop this issue; we've wandered far afield from the original topic, and religious debates tend to generate more heat than light on most forum boards.  I don't want to say STOP here, because that means I'd be asking for the last word, and that seems kind of unfair, but I'd say that it would be good to sort of drop the topic.  

That said, yes there is anti-rationalist bias in the culture of our society.  There has always been and there always will be this sort of tendency.  However, the worldview that produced, and ultimately enabled the current culture of scientific advancement was one formed by religion; people in the Renaissance and beginning of the Scientific Revolution believed that God was eminently rational, and thus the world he had made could be studied.  And a significant number of us still take this view: we look at the evidence and come "to actual conclusions of [our] own."  
In addition, I feel almost indignant that you complain about religious "persecution" in the United States.  There might be some sort of sentiment against atheism in certain parts of the country (though I'm skeptical that atheists are "the most hated minority in the United States"), but atheists do not experience serious persecution.  You know who does? Christians who live in the Arab world and in Communist China and North Korea.  Falun Gong minorities in the same country.  Ethnic minorities in places like Burma and sub-Saharan Africa. Religious groups in certain nations of the Former Soviet Union.  These people are routinely imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their beliefs.  Significant amounts of that persecution goes on in the name of atheist governments.  The reason that the United States doesn't have this problem (to a significant extent) is because we believe that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..." So please don't try to claim that persecution is only from religion. 

[Kuraimizu]

Nov 8, 2013 8:20:54 GMT zimmyzims said:

And yet the question was simply how come is playing a lazy God not playing God if God is a lazy God. And I still find this question unanswered.

There is no good answer to that question.
because the question can go for anything we can do
if God can also do it, are we playing god?
And what if there is something we can do that God can't
Is he still a God?

But plenty of other questions too.
What if God is playing Us.
are our actions determined by a roll of imaginary dice?
Are we NPCs in a larger game we can't fathom?
is everything a lie?

[Lightice]

Nov 8, 2013 15:42:14 GMT thedoctor said:

 However, the worldview that produced, and ultimately enabled the current culture of scientific advancement was one formed by religion; people in the Renaissance and beginning of the Scientific Revolution believed that God was eminently rational, and thus the world he had made could be studied.  And a significant number of us still take this view: we look at the evidence and come "to actual conclusions of [our] own."  

I'm afraid that this is just as simplified explanation as the one where wise rationalists throw the yoke of religion off their backs. The Renaissance was a symptom, not the cause, and it was at heart a reactionary movement. It was based on the idea that the era of ancient Rome had been a some sort of golden age and its adherents were bent on restoring it. They weren't interested in creating something new, but in reviving something old and reviling all things modern that weren't directly inspired by the ancient Greco-Roman culture. The rationalism side of things came as a counterreaction of the religious wars that engulfed Europe in this period; when the world seemed to have gone insane and the certainity of one true God was replaced by what appeared to be multiple versions of the deity in war with one another, things that made tangible sense became more popular. And as it happened, the aforementioned admiration of the ancient cultures did manage to get mixed up in this and produce some great thinkers. Everybody was still religious at this point, ofcourse. The whole concept of non-religious in the modern sense of the word was yet to be invented.

In addition, I feel almost indignant that you complain about religious "persecution" in the United States.  There might be some sort of sentiment against atheism in certain parts of the country (though I'm skeptical that atheists are "the most hated minority in the United States"), but atheists do not experience serious persecution.  You know who does? Christians who live in the Arab world and in Communist China and North Korea.  Falun Gong minorities in the same country.  Ethnic minorities in places like Burma and sub-Saharan Africa. Religious groups in certain nations of the Former Soviet Union.  These people are routinely imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their beliefs.  Significant amounts of that persecution goes on in the name of atheist governments.  The reason that the United States doesn't have this problem (to a significant extent) is because we believe that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..." So please don't try to claim that persecution is only from religion. 

It's simply in the statistics; atheists spur more negative feelings nationwide in the US than murderers if questionnaires are to be believed. And in a good part of the country being publically atheist is a good way to lose one's job and social safety network. Even violence isn't unheard of, unfortunately. But I don't recall claiming that all persecution would come from religion or that atheists would be the only people being persecuted. In many places that you mention, atheism earns a death sentence by law, though, but that minority is too small and silent to gain all that much attention compared to all the others, but that's hardly a point. I stated that there is persecution against atheists, which is the case, not that atheists are the only ones being persecuted.

You are unfortunately still making a case of good religion vs. bad atheism by insisting that religious values of the US protect even the bad atheist minority while bad atheist majority elsewhere persecutes innocent religious folk. It's hardly that simple anywhere. Although written in the form of religious rethoric, the US Declaration of Independence was written by Deists who believed in a non-interfering deity with little to no connection to the mortal world. They did not base their values on the Bible or any other religious text, but on their own ideas and values that had been influenced by everything from Athenean democracy to the tribal moots of the Navajo. The only form of government that any religious text from the Abrahamic family supports is theocratic oligarchy or monarchy. In turn, there isn't a single government that calls itself atheistic that I'm aware of that isn't trying to take the place of religion with its own objects of deification and worship.

What you consider to be a religious statement contains elements heavily associated with atheism, while what you consider to be atheist organisations contain strong religious undertones. Life isn't clear cut and nor are ideologies.

[GK Sierra]

Nov 8, 2013 14:47:42 GMT thedoctor said:

Nov 8, 2013 11:32:24 GMT GK Sierra said:

People have long postulated that it is impossible to be altruistic without god despite a wealth of evidence that it "just ain't so" as Mark Twain liked to say.

Do you know who started the movement to end slavery in the world? Who is currently at the forefront of the fight for human rights in third world countries? What group of people provided significant support for tsunami relief in the primarily Muslim country of Indonesia? Whose worldview claims that it's actually possible to create meaningful change in the world? The Christian church. I'm not saying we haven't screwed stuff up, and I'm not saying that it's "impossible to be altruistic without a god," but I promise you, the world would be a much darker place without religion in general, and the Christian church in particular. 

The same people who justified slavery as the curse of Ham. The same people who encouraged Ugandans to kill gay people as official policy. The same people who want to fight said Muslims at every opportunity.

Plenty of other worldviews allow you to create meaningful change in the world they don't require you to believe something that isn't true. If it were true that removing the church would make the world a darker place (and I do not believe that it is, personally), it would be a sad statement about people's inherent capacity for morality.

Nov 8, 2013 15:42:14 GMT thedoctor said:

That said, yes there is anti-rationalist bias in the culture of our society.  There has always been and there always will be this sort of tendency.  However, the worldview that produced, and ultimately enabled the current culture of scientific advancement was one formed by religion; people in the Renaissance and beginning of the Scientific Revolution believed that God was eminently rational, and thus the world he had made could be studied.  And a significant number of us still take this view: we look at the evidence and come "to actual conclusions of [our] own."  
In addition, I feel almost indignant that you complain about religious "persecution" in the United States.  There might be some sort of sentiment against atheism in certain parts of the country (though I'm skeptical that atheists are "the most hated minority in the United States"), but atheists do not experience serious persecution.  You know who does? Christians who live in the Arab world and in Communist China and North Korea.  Falun Gong minorities in the same country.  Ethnic minorities in places like Burma and sub-Saharan Africa. Religious groups in certain nations of the Former Soviet Union.  These people are routinely imprisoned, tortured, and killed for their beliefs.  Significant amounts of that persecution goes on in the name of atheist governments.  The reason that the United States doesn't have this problem (to a significant extent) is because we believe that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..." So please don't try to claim that persecution is only from religion. 

I agree that it's a toxic topic and I do not intend any ill will. I don't think religious people are stupid or evil, just mistaken in their convictions.

I would counter though, that new and better science had to drag religion kicking and screaming along behind it. The heliocentric model is just one prominent example. Plus, when the church is the most powerful organ of government with huge amounts of money and the ability to end anyone's life through excommunication or a declaration of heresy, it was impossible for anyone to pursue science outside the monastery system. Church-sanctioned scientists were the only kind who had their discoveries reported or taken seriously, and even then, the church often did not like the results. This is because science is based on questioning and willing to admit that previous theories were flawed based on new evidence. Religion is exactly the opposite.

I would also counter you assertion that atheists are not discriminated against. I have myself encountered job interviews (more than one, including my current employer) where the question of my faith was brought up. I do believe my honesty during the first such interview cost me the job. The "most hated minority" statistic is real, and has been verified by several different studies:

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=in-atheists-we-distrust

You're right, social inconveniences in 1st world countries are nothing compared to being a Christian missionary in a North Korean labor camp but the difference is that those people signed up for a rough ride when they agreed to try to advance a Christian agenda in a country that both outlaws it and is the most totalitarian in the world.

At any rate, kiss kiss, hug hug, I love you all- whether you're Jainist, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Pastafarian. As long as you're a good person it doesn't matter to me in the slightest what god or gods you may or may not pray to.

Nov 8, 2013 15:42:14 GMT thedoctor said:

The reason that the United States doesn't have this problem (to a significant extent) is because we believe that we "are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion-"

-Treaty of Tripoli, ratified June 7th, 1797, signed John Adams

"In God We Trust" was added to the money in the 50's during the red scare, as was the line "under god" in the pledge of allegiance.

America has always had a Protestant Christian culture. There's nothing wrong with that, in fact the work ethic espoused by that culture went a long way towards ensuring the success of the nation (their attitude on sexuality... not so much). However it would be a mistake to think that the "wall of separation between church and state" is just something that Ben Franklin wrote letters about. It is implicit in the 1st amendment.

[warrl]

Nov 8, 2013 15:02:03 GMT Lightice said:

Unfortunately there continues to be a constant anti-rationalist bias in the popular culture of our society, although it no longer takes the form of a monolithic religion, but a wide collection of political, cultural and religious coctail that continues to fail to understand the principles of scientific deduction and pulverise any rational arguments with single-minded determination to adhere to any easily understandable ideology rather than put their minds to coming to actual conclusions of their own.

Here's an example:

If a virus in the wild, in tricking a cedar tree's cells into making copies of the virus, randomly happens to incorporate a section of cedar-tree DNA into the offspring viruses, and then some of those offspring similarly randomly copy a portion of that DNA into, say, the reproductive machinery of a wheat plant, and thus that transgenic wheat plant becomes the progenitor of a new strain of wheat... that's okay.

(And by the way, EVERY plant, animal, and fungus has traces in its DNA of this sort of thing having happened several times.)

If viruses in the lab, carefully manipulated by humans, are caused to similarly copy a carefully-chosen section of DNA from a cedar tree into a wheat plant, the resulting transgenic wheat strain is absolutely irrevocably untrustworthy and unsafe; it must not be permitted into the food supply, or into the wild, until every possible side effect that anyone can imagine is definitively proven not to occur.

[snipertom]

I'm happy to live and let live.

I oppose extremism- in all forms- and the use of dubious reasoning and ethics to forward extremist as well as anti-education, anti-health, anti-intellectual and anti-scientific agendas. My ethical principles are informed by a combination of belief in human rights similar to that enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights and the intersection of virtue ethics and healthy psychology.

I'm not really an atheist, I'm a philosophical Buddhist, plus the above, and agnostic. But it's quite clear to me that people can be good or evil human beings regardless of whether they are atheist, monotheist, polytheist, animist, organised religion or anti-religion. That's not to say that all ethical systems are created equal; just look at Objectivism for a fatally flawed 'philosophy', or any extremist religion, or cults, or for that matter 'neo-Atheists' like Christopher Hitchens who justify Islamophobia and demonising otherwise ethical and moderate religious people on the basis that atheism means that they are being 'rational'.

People and organisations of all descriptions (religious, secular, otherwise) have been complicit in atrocities. I am anti-atrocity. I think that improving the openness and health of systems, organisations and individuals goes a long way. The new Pope is doing some great things to reform the Catholic Church for example. Let's not hate on each other.

[Señor Goose]

Nov 9, 2013 23:05:08 GMT warrl said:

Nov 8, 2013 15:02:03 GMT Lightice said:

Unfortunately there continues to be a constant anti-rationalist bias in the popular culture of our society, although it no longer takes the form of a monolithic religion, but a wide collection of political, cultural and religious coctail that continues to fail to understand the principles of scientific deduction and pulverise any rational arguments with single-minded determination to adhere to any easily understandable ideology rather than put their minds to coming to actual conclusions of their own.

Here's an example:

If a virus in the wild, in tricking a cedar tree's cells into making copies of the virus, randomly happens to incorporate a section of cedar-tree DNA into the offspring viruses, and then some of those offspring similarly randomly copy a portion of that DNA into, say, the reproductive machinery of a wheat plant, and thus that transgenic wheat plant becomes the progenitor of a new strain of wheat... that's okay.

(And by the way, EVERY plant, animal, and fungus has traces in its DNA of this sort of thing having happened several times.)

If viruses in the lab, carefully manipulated by humans, are caused to similarly copy a carefully-chosen section of DNA from a cedar tree into a wheat plant, the resulting transgenic wheat strain is absolutely irrevocably untrustworthy and unsafe; it must not be permitted into the food supply, or into the wild, until every possible side effect that anyone can imagine is definitively proven not to occur.

My God, you're being sarcastic right?

[sidhekin]

Yeah, 'cause no one can actually mean that, right?

[quinkgirl]

Nov 10, 2013 17:21:43 GMT sidhekin said:

Yeah, 'cause no one can actually mean that, right?

...This is sarcasm, right?
Great. Time to work with sarcasm again...

[Señor Goose]

This thread

[Daedalus]

Nov 10, 2013 17:14:47 GMT Señor Goose said:

Nov 9, 2013 23:05:08 GMT warrl said:

Here's an example:

If a virus in the wild, in tricking a cedar tree's cells into making copies of the virus, randomly happens to incorporate a section of cedar-tree DNA into the offspring viruses, and then some of those offspring similarly randomly copy a portion of that DNA into, say, the reproductive machinery of a wheat plant, and thus that transgenic wheat plant becomes the progenitor of a new strain of wheat... that's okay.

(And by the way, EVERY plant, animal, and fungus has traces in its DNA of this sort of thing having happened several times.)

If viruses in the lab, carefully manipulated by humans, are caused to similarly copy a carefully-chosen section of DNA from a cedar tree into a wheat plant, the resulting transgenic wheat strain is absolutely irrevocably untrustworthy and unsafe; it must not be permitted into the food supply, or into the wild, until every possible side effect that anyone can imagine is definitively proven not to occur.

My God, you're being sarcastic right?

I call Poe's Law on this.

Seriously, though, why do people have such a problem with GMOs? Other than cultural bias, I mean.


Jim North Avatar
Nov 7, 2013 18:23:36 GMT -7 Jim North said:
"The problem with a human trying to figure out what a being as powerful as a god could or couldn't do within the laws of their own universe is also a rather futile thing, since we don't know all the rules of the universe...The laws of thermodynamics do seem pretty airtight, but all it'll take is one instance where something is created out of nothing and we'll have to go back to the drawing board."


*cough* Quantum Mechanics *cough*

But yeah, that's why science is awesome: it's continually improving and exploring. There are precious few other other things that can claim that.

(Oh, and sorry about the textbox malfunction. Not sure how to fix that.)

[Señor Goose]

Nov 10, 2013 21:49:05 GMT Daedalus said:

Nov 10, 2013 17:14:47 GMT Señor Goose said:

My God, you're being sarcastic right?

I call Poe's Law on this.

Seriously, though, why do people have such a problem with GMOs? Other than cultural bias, I mean.

Frankenstein, Jurassic Park, Horror of the Mutated Blah Blah, it doesn't matter. People automatically assume that tampering with DNA causes all sorts of problems.

[Daedalus]

Nov 10, 2013 21:56:01 GMT Señor Goose said:

Nov 10, 2013 21:49:05 GMT Daedalus said:

I call Poe's Law on this.

Seriously, though, why do people have such a problem with GMOs? Other than cultural bias, I mean.

Frankenstein, Jurassic Park, Horror of the Mutated Blah Blah, it doesn't matter. People automatically assume that tampering with DNA causes all sorts of problems.

Well, to be fair, it does...for whatever you're tampering with. It's very hard to get a GMO to be viable. But once something survives, there's an extremely small chance of any of these doomsday events occurring. There's a much greater chance we'll mess up things with inorganic compounds (CFCs, I'm looking at you), but these are well-established in the public consciousness and thus not objectionable.

On the other hand, chemicals do not multiply themselves in the environment. There are huge potential problems with GMOs, but not likely ones. Meanwhile there are equally huge but likely benefits. Our expected return is much greater than zero.

Yes, I realize I'm arguing without anyone else involved.   /rant

[Señor Goose]

I heard about an OrGreenic Activist saying something like "If we switched to organic food we could feed over four billion people!" And that's great, but what about the other three billion people? In the 1950's and 60's, Norman Borlaug experimented with wheat, crossbreeding and perfecting different strains that were hardier, had more bountiful yields, grew faster, etc etc etc, and ended up getting hundreds of farms planted in Mexico, India, and Pakistan. It's estimated that his efforts have fed over a billion people.

The advances we've made in agritech have had staggeringly positive effects on our health as a race. Given that there are no confirmed negative health effects brought on by eating GM'd food, what's not to love?

[Gotolei]

Nov 10, 2013 22:35:16 GMT Señor Goose said:

I heard about an OrGreenic Activist saying something like "If we switched to organic food we could feed over four billion people!" And that's great, but what about the other three billion people? In the 1950's and 60's, Norman Borlaug experimented with wheat, crossbreeding and perfecting different strains that were hardier, had more bountiful yields, grew faster, etc etc etc, and ended up getting hundreds of farms planted in Mexico, India, and Pakistan. It's estimated that his efforts have fed over a billion people.

The advances we've made in agritech have had staggeringly positive effects on our health as a race. Given that there are no confirmed negative health effects brought on by eating GM'd food, what's not to love?

B-b-but there's no special "organic" sticker on them!
And they're actually affordable, we can't have that now.

/s

As long as it's tried, tested and proven to be done right I dunno what the problem is.

[Omnium]

Nov 10, 2013 21:49:05 GMT Daedalus said:

Seriously, though, why do people have such a problem with GMOs? Other than cultural bias, I mean

That's simple. This video explains it better than I can.

[Señor Goose]

Nov 10, 2013 22:49:01 GMT Omnium said:

Nov 10, 2013 21:49:05 GMT Daedalus said:

Seriously, though, why do people have such a problem with GMOs? Other than cultural bias, I mean

That's simple. This video explains it better than I can.

I liked this movie.

To be fair though, the idea of a round Earth goes back at least 2,500 years, and the idea that everybody in the middle ages 'forgot' the shape of the Earth is a myth.

[Daedalus]

Nov 11, 2013 0:03:03 GMT Señor Goose said:

Nov 10, 2013 22:49:01 GMT Omnium said:

That's simple. This video explains it better than I can.

I liked this movie.

To be fair though, the idea of a round Earth goes back at least 2,500 years, and the idea that everybody in the middle ages 'forgot' the shape of the Earth is a myth.

I was going to say that, but I got distracted and you beat me to it