Do you think less of theists intelligence?

Flip everything around for a second. From a theist's POV; believing that the universe has a creator doesn't seem so unintelligible, whereas believing that everything that's around us just happened by chance seems pretty unlikely.

The earth, the stars, and the moon....really...all by chance? Everything we know; laughter, joy, pain, sorrow, a bird's song, life itself....all just a big coincidence?

I (obviously) just can't see it all being the product of a mere coincidence.
It's been said before: "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist!" lol

But yeah, the masses in general are dumb...lol

 

The problem with "by chance" theory is not that it is so hard to grasp and appears counterintuitive to your stereotypical IQ under 75 trailer park dweller.

It is the fact that it was quantatively analyzed and proven to be utterly improbable to have happened in a time span so short as few billions of years, aside from inconsistencies with observed phenomena (see "Not by chance" by Spetner).

 

Since a rather substantial amount of evidence and scientific consensus supports evolution as a valid (not necessarily true) theory, you'll have to do better than assertions, no matter how many you make on what forums, or how self-confident and breezy your dismissal of evolution is, to persuade me and other reasonable people that evolution is not a "valid" scientific theory. Do you understand the concepts of validity and theory in science?

 

I must conclude that you have not followed the link and didn't read any of my posts where this subject was addressed (including what the definition of scientifically valid theory is).

BTW, if you insist that the theory is scientifically valid you are the one obliged to prove it rather than resort to handwaving technique.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=376886&page=9

 

Why are you forcing the issue of evolution in a thread that doesn't really have anything to do with it? Seems kind of dumb.

 

I think people use God to give these horribly random life-changing events in their lives meaning, because on the basic level of "why is life so unfair?" it would otherwise challenge their faith - not their specific religion, but their sense that there is a rightness to the universe, rather than ... well, it's described in my sig.

Really, this is older than religion, and the basis for it. Before God, we had good luck, bad luck, fortune and misfortune, and so on. I guess God is just a way of formalising and systematising good and bad fortune, a way of trying to explain why these things occur rather than just shivering in the dark hoping that they don't.

You can see this outside religion, actually; clearly even in my godless country there is still a market for fear and superstition, the shaman replaced with the journalist and the spirits they appealed to replaced with the symbolic "scientist" (who is usually, I'll point out, some graduate student quoted out of context, but hey) that lends the illusion of validity to whatever sells.

 

Wandered a bit from the point there, but I guess what I'm driving at is, the fear that everything that happens is all random is as natural as the fear of the dark. It wouldn't bother people so much if it wasn't very easy to evidence anecdotally. And it bypasses intelligence completely. There are people with room temperature IQs that don't think about evolution or creation enough to form a wrong theory about it, and I praise that far higher than anyone over the bellcurve who can't accept that he doesn't know and doesn't really need to.

 

I didn't "force" issue, rather replied to specific post.

 

Bohr and Einstein spent their entire lives arguing whether things are random or predetermined in nature, neither one being successful in proving a point, with Niels Bohr (a genuine advocate of randomness and, in my opinion, much more brilliant mind than Einstein) never being so arrogant as to claim that he really knew what was at the core of such randomness.

That someone as far from physics as Woody Allen makes up his own, rather shallow interpretation of Bohrs reasoning and puts it in a mouth of imaginary Los Alamos rocket scientist, and then the massess of enthusiastic Woody Allen worshipers take it for granted, well that doesn't quite mean that either Allen or the likeminded people got it right.


I, for one, have no idea about true Nature of Nature.

I do NOT know what is at the core of it and so far it has eluded minds far brighter than my own (read at least some essays of Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bohm, Feynmann and few other physicists before forming your own opinion on the subject).


Now I do watch Discovery channel (or similar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkZ8kOMWTdI ) , and frankly, I do NOT find life to be UNFAIR because the concept of FAIRNESS is meaningless from certain objective point of view.
Lions don't choose to be and aren't really UNFAIR or UNIMAGINABLY VIOLENT, they will simply starve to death if they don't hunt and eat their prey. God didn't punish this buffalo (what for?), it was just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, thus ending up as a food on that particular day and time of it's existence.
This much is obvious and beyond any doubt.

What I don't accept is when simple minded people, on the basis of shreds of knowledge and arbitrary interpretation of it, make far reaching affirmative claims unsupported by reason or fact.

What is more frightening than the destruction of the world?
Stupidity!

 

To be honest, you could have saved yourself and me a lot of bother if you'd just started and finished with that.

I think that's probably because, you know, it's intended for entertainment? But no, you're right, it's very very very stupid.

 

Well, I could claim that my posts are also, somewhat, intended for entertainment.

Now, if instead of being a great genius as I am and writing brilliant posts as I do , if instead I started to write incoherent, stupid posts and propagate inherently false and illogical ideas, would my doing so for entertainment purposes be grounds to discourage any reasonable person from concluding that it was plain stupid (and sharing their opinion too) ?

 

Whose?

I have no idea what you just said.

 

Mine

No surprise

 

K.

So basically you've proved yourself, if not wrong, then at least tedious.

 

What I proved myself is secondary to the fact that your statements are incoherent , lack ingenuity and any semblance of accuracy.

 

I won't think less of you for your belief in a god if you don't think less of me for my belief in the Almighty Flying Spaghetti Monster, pink unicorns, and the hulk.

 

I think less of overwhelming majority of people's intelligence, regardless of any other affiliations.

 

I read your posts an am not impressed. They're mostly based on probability theory, and the notion that Darwinists think everything happened by chance. But Darwin's contribution was the theory of natural selection, which is far from a random process. (See Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker). To be valid, a scientific theory needs to refutable and to account for all available empirical evidence. Evolution more than meets that test, as most scientists would agree. See Finding Darwin's God, by Kenneth Miller, for as much empirical support should be necessary. We have genetic evidence, paleontological evidence, comparative anatomy, biochmeical evidence, and studies of complex iteration. Your probabalistic arguments are more applicable to abiogenesis than the process of evolution itself. Evolution does not address the origin of life itself. A valid scientific theory is not necessarily true, but it does meet the tests of empirical support and refutability.

 

I look down on people that blindly follow a belief system without questioning it, whatever that is. theist or otherwise.

but if someone has logical arguments to their beleif, whatever that is, i can respect that.

 

Evidently and contrary to your claim you didn't read any of my posts.

Ok, I will copy paste relevant parts.
For starters, I will copy-paste the part that relates to refutation of the Darwin's theory (in the words of Spetner).

Below is the copy-paste.

P.S. I strongly reccomend that you do read it instead of claiming you have and posting another repetitive "this theory is scientifically valid because there is a mountain high paperstack of hearsay and wishful fantasy that I don't even comprehend but have unqestionable faith in" kind of reply, without providing any evidence or logical argument whatsoever to support your point of view.

or this:

or this: