JackC

That's a pretty loose definition of evidence. By that token, tomatos are evidence of Ragu sauce. There is no logic or evidence in saying "look at that tree, isn't it pretty; therefore god exists".

What exactly is the difference? As far as I know evidence is evidence.

Please, please, for the love of God, stop getting your science from creationist websites.

I'm not American so I only have a limited amount of information to go on, but yeah, it seems to me that they do. Basically, to be electable in the US you need to be christian. I doubt a muslim or an atheist would stand much of a chance.

Well, it depends on what you classify as crazy but since judaism does have certain beliefs and rituals to consider and that over 75% of the population of Israel is jewish, and the state of Israel has a duty to protect and serve the interests of it's people, it would be a reasonable to say that your statement isn't completely correct.

Who cares? If they want to waste their time with this pointless crap, let them. With 7 billion people on the planet and probably just as many dead, they'll be busy for a long time.

Greanleaf is not without his critics. One such criticism states: And all of the New Testament reports of Jesus' resurrection (except for Paul's own account of his vision) are legally objectionable as hearsay. The gospels are entirely hearsay. Acts is all hearsay. It does not matter who Mark's source was (Peter?), we are not getting it from the source. At best, it is second-hand hearsay. The legal definition of hearsay is quite clear in that it is objectionable since it is not based on the witnesses own knowledge but based on someone elses testimony. The simple fact that no original copies of the Bible exist is sufficient to define the Bible in it's entirety as hearsay before you get onto any other criticisms. You may not like that and will be willing to accept the Bible as evidence anyway, but that does not change the fact that it is hearsay and is therefore not evidence.

Atheism is not a religion. Why is that so difficult for so many people to comprehend? I think it was a deliberate ploy to provoke just such a response. Either that or Mockingbird loves irony.

The only time politicians bothers to listen anyone is when they get voted out. New Labour are the absolute fucking worst at not listening.

If you really mean that, why object to me saying the Bible was written after the fact and not by eye witnesses when you know I am correct? If you hold the Bible to as high a standard as you think, what happens when you hold the Koran to the same standards? What about the Hindu Vedas? Homer's Iliad and Odyssey? What is it about the Bible that makes it valid when these others are not? Nothing, that's what.

I think Christians hold the Bible to unreasonably low standards. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and the Bible falls well short. I'm sorry if you took offence but you are trying to mislead people. You objected to my points that the Bible was written after the fact and not by eye witnesses then proceed to state that it was actually written after the fact and not by eye witnesses. I don't know how you cannot see that.

Mockingbird, 40-65 years after the fact (some are thought to have taken longer) is the same as not written at the time. Consulted with eye witnesses means not an eye witness and that is hearsay. You object to my points, then agree with them. You really need to start using the accepted definitions of words. If you keep changing what a word means as you have done here, you end up disagreeing with yourself and quite honestly, no one can make that look smart.

This is incorrect. The accounts presented in the Bible are generally considered to have been written several decades after the fact. In some cases, hundreds of years after the fact so there is no way the author could have witnessed the event. But since no original examples of the text exist, we must assume that they are faithful reproductions of the original. Further than that, all extant copies are translations of the originals, so we have to assume that they are faithful translations. So we have: 1) not written at the time 2) not written by an eye witness 3) no original copies exist 4) all extant copies are translations This is not evidence, it's hearsay and conjecture. Neither of those things would get you convicted of so much as a parking ticket.

Sure we do. JRich's hobbies include guns and UK bashing.

Why?

External to the entity displaying free will. Random, as in not predictably ordered. Appears to satisfy as in qualitively resembles... Look, if I have to define every word for you this is going to be a looong conversation. I don't really have the time or the inclination to do that, it's not like we're going to get anywhere with this discussion. Not really, you could (in principle) write a computer program that fakes (appears to display) free will. That isn't abstract free will since the program would have to conform to certain known rules, but it would have the appearence of free will and that would be good enough to satisfy phenomenological free will. If you could fake phenomenological free will, there would always be doubt in the existence of abstract free will, since it could have been faked. I think there is evidence of phenomenological free will. For example this paper points to a significant value in believing that free will exists. But if you really want to go there, you can't conclusively prove anything at all, ever, which is probably what you are trying to beat me over the head with. I don't think they do, at least unless you define free will as having to be only those decisions made by a concious internal dialogue. I've explained my thought on this already, at length. Why did the universe's total energy have to increase imediately after the big bang? There's no evidence to suggest anything of the sort and what has it got to do with the uncertainty principle holding (or not) at t=0? I don't have the time to get into a discussion on both free will and big bang cosmology. There are numerous publications on both topics, you'd get better results reading them that trying to nail me to the wall in here.

That completely depends on your definition of free will. You could define the abstract notion of free will as: free will exists if decisions are made (in response to external input) that are neither externally determined nor random and are not consequences of the laws of physics. Then there is the phenomenon of free will which could be defined as: free will is displayed if the decision making appears to satisfy the abstract definition of free will. In the phenomenological sense, free will is observable by simply looking out of the window. In the abstract sense, free will is much harder to pin down. Now if you could model the phenomenological free will, you'd never be able to satisfactorily prove the existence of the abstract free will. In philosophy, views on free will are lumped into three camps. 1) Libertarian. Adherants to the abstract definition. 2) Compatibilist. Believers in the phenomenological definition as dictated by the laws of physics. 3) Determinist. Believe that the decision making processes is governed strictly by physical laws. The religious maybe find themselves in camp number 1, I suppose I'd be in camp number 2 and I'm guessing you're in camp number 3.

Could you explian why not? Sorry Marg, I don't understand. As simple or ambiguous as what? As I see it, the experiment is thought to show that the point at which a concious decision is deemed to have been made, is preceeded by subconcious brain activity some 10 seconds before hand. The authors cite a ~60% success rate for this prediction. This perhaps shows that what people beleive is concious decision is in fact an illusion and that a subconcious one preceeds it. That's fine but I wonder if simply pushing a button for no apparent reason is something that can in all cases examined, be an activity that will always be performed by the concious mind. In the duration of my life I must have pressed literally millions of buttons, I can press a button without thinking about it. If a particular song comes on my iPod that I don't want to listen to, I can hit skip before I've even conciously registered that it's playing. My concious mind then plays catch up by deciphering what I've just done and registering that it happened. In fact we know that repetition of a particular process will allow the subconcious mind to take over the motor functions associated with that process, thereby allowing the concious mind to tackle more demanding processes. Button pushing may well fit that profile. Neither is there any evidence to suggest that the decision made by the subject was anything other than the subject's decision (either subconcious or concious). There is no evidence of an external stimulus that dictates what decision will be made. So in order for this experiment to cast doubt on the existence of free will, you need to define free will as strictly only those decisions made by the concious mind. Then anything you do without actually having that internal dialogue associated with concious brian activity would have to be predetermined. I think that misses the point of what free will is. I may have automatically skipped that track on my iPod, but I still think it was my decision to do it. A better test for concious decision making would be whack-a-mole where the subject is presented with some information (a mole poking it's head up), a decision which hole the mole appears in, and then an action to whack it. This would not lead to a 10 second gap between making and registering a decision. At best, I think all this experiment does is highlight the importance of the subconcious mind in certain types of decision making process, not that free will is in doubt. I'm no neuroscientist so maybe I've missed the point in which case please feel free to explain my error.

Yes, a huge improvement and very much appreciated. Thanks indeed.

You'd be supprised how many people here know quite a bit about the scientific merit of ID. If you want to learn more, you could try reading the book published by the National Academy of Sciences on Science and Creationism. The conclusion of which states: Creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science. Or you could try the Royal Society's comments on evolution, creationism and intelligent design. Part of which includes: Its [IDs] supporters make only selective reference to the overwhelming scientific evidence that supports evolution, and treats gaps in current knowledge which, as in all areas of science, certainly exist as if they were evidence for a designer'. In this respect, intelligent design has far more in common with a religious belief in creationism than it has with science, which is based on evidence acquired through experiment and observation. The theory of evolution is supported by the weight of scientific evidence; the theory of intelligent design is not." Every legitimate scientific institution is unanimous in that ID has no scientific merit whatsoever.

I also use ad blockers so I don't get any ads anywhere. But the new .css files make my browser hang so surfing here a now major PITA. It's a pity I didn't keep one of the old dz.com .css files, I could have configured my browser to use that instead of the new one and I'd have the old dz.com back.

Switch to user mode to stop the .css file loading. Opera will then work as normal but the DZ.com page formatting wont load.

Yes and it's very annoying. In opera, there is a button to stop the websites .css style sheet from loading. That gets the speed back but doesn't get rid of "My Stuff". When was the last time anybody actually used the links in "My Stuff" anyway? I never use them.

I agree. Definitely not an improvement.

It would be worth it.