Over the years, I've developed a rough classification system for creationist screeds. One of the most common is the 'deluded parrot', in which the writer just repeats the same tiresome old canards we've heard a thousand times before: "If man evolved from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?" is a common example. Then there are the 'malevolent vermin', which you don't see much of on the web — because they usually write profanity-laced threats to my personal email, and are quick to gloat over my prospective tenure in hell. The 'pious aunties' aren't quite so vicious, but they are shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover there are people who don't worship Jesus with every breath, and they write letters that tend to end with the standard phrase, "I will pray for you."
And then there are these precious few where you read them, and the text is incoherent and fractured, like the writer has stripped the gears of his brain and every once in a while some random thought goes spinning wildly, and everything is out of sync everywhere. These are people who make no sense. I was sent this classic example, a bizarre example where the author no doubt thinks he's making a profound point, but there has to be some really crazy logic at work here.
Evolution explains designer
Evolution versus creation is a false dichotomy. Evolution as a viable mechanism causing the ascent of man also explains the existence of the creator.
If man could evolve to his present status physically, culturally and technologically within the age of this planet (approximately 4.5 billion years), then obviously the technology required to build species entirely of one's own choosing could be developed within the age of the universe.
Considering the amount of time that has elapsed, which is endless, and the quantity of appropriate locations for life to evolve, also endless, a coincidence of impossible magnitude would be required for us to be the first intelligent designers.
The dichotomy is stubbornly maintained by those who fight for freedom from the morality of Christians. It is also stubbornly maintained by those who fight for freedom from the result of the immorality of the atheists, who believe they will have to answer to no one.
Uninterrupted evolution reaches a climax when an intelligent designer evolves. At that point the designer easily outpaces random natural selection because of the deliberate nature of intelligent design. The Christian has more confidence in evolution and technology than atheists have.
JIM GRIEB
Brutus, Mich.
So, can anyone translate this? Somehow, I think he's promoting Christianity, but how he got there from his starting point isn't clear. It's probably something quantum.
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Hmmmm... Has someone been slipping John Bostrom articles into the hymnals at fundamentalist churches?
I have long thought, from lifelong experience playing pencil-and-paper role playing games, hanging out with nerds, and evaluating the combination, that some people cannot tell speculative, fantastical science fiction from reality. This fellow appears to be such a sorry head case.
A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
Or something.
I don't find his letter incoherent, although he certainly could have written more clearly.
I believe he's saying it might have been the case that God evolved and created man.
Damn you, PZ! I had been thinking of blogging about that very piece, but after reading it a couple of times, I just couldn't come to grips with it. Finally I gave up and shrugged it off as "Not even wrong." But you've actually succeeded in dealing with it. I guess I haven't had enough experience with the dead who type.
I think he's saying the Christian God evolved somewhere out in space, based on the premise that the universe is eternal and had no beginning. If God evolved, why not skip that extra step and say we evolved? Don't ask me. Looks like special pleading.
Hey Conky, what is the secret word of the day?
The secret word of the day is "dichotomy."
He seems to be advocating that humans are now (or will soon be) so evolved that we can become our own gods.
Which is probably contrary to what he thinks he's saying.
Sounds like a rejected backstory for Stargate SG1 or something...
I do not think your letter means what you think it means...
It's pretty obvious, I think:
(1) Man is an intelligent designer.
(2) It's unlikely man was the first intelligent designer in the universe.
(3) There are other, older intelligent designers.
(4) The king of the designers (the "Big Dog") knocked up Mary, who gave birth to Jesus.
(5) Therefore Christianity is the one true religion...
The funniest thing about this rant - to me - is that the above passage is a textbook example of an argument for panspermia. The fact that he then assumes that this extra-terrestrial entity that supposedly created us is, in fact, the Christian God, is enough to make logic itself weep.
Let me put on my God-frother cap and see what I can do.
Eww. This thing makes me feel all funny in the head. See the sacrifices I make for you?
Well, FIRST, of course, there's God, cause HE got the whole shebang started. Obviously, no First Cause, no Universe, QED. So the writer of this little screed doesn't even have to state there is a God on account of it's so obvious, you see. We KNOW an intelligent God created the Universe because it's obvious from the way humans evolved, like little Intelligent Designer offspring.
AND of course those dirty atheists are totally immoral whereas Christians aren't, so since the morality has to come from somewhere, and it's not coming from the atheists, well of COURSE that means there's a God. And not just A God, THE God.
Who set all of evolution in motion, because every Intelligent Designer needs something to design with, and God chose evolution. Again, QED. Are you listening, Creationists?
Now, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but the time involved is endless, which is a miracle only GOD can make happen. Look, he's proved GOD again!
This is further proven by the fact that we all obviously have to answer to SOMEONE when we die.
And then God let evolution take its course without interrupting it until WE evolved, because now we get to be the Designers and carry on in Daddy's name. Or Daddy's gonna step back in and put the finishing touches on us. Or something. It all makes PERFECT SENSE and is UNDENIABLE if you know the undeniable TRUTH that GOD EXISTS!!1!!11!
ouchouchgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff!
*throws God-frother cap across room. Stomps on it a few times*
He's batshit insane, PZ. I know he's trying to use logic and reason, but his Intelligent Designer apparently put some of the parts in backwards when he was being assembled.
Sad what happens when someone tries to use reason to explain their dogma, isn't it?
It smacks of the nonsense peddled by physicist Frank Tipler.
I wonder if that's easier to get than tenure at Harvard...
Well it sounds like UFOlogy as religion, but I think it's actually an apologetic for Xianity. It's sort of, "well, if evolution is so powerful, why couldn't it make God? So there, you can't say that God doesn't exist."
The fact that it's pure Xian heresy (God as a mortal being) often doesn't get in the way of using such heresy to "bolster" Xianity.
The old "atheists just want to be amoral" crap shows up, unsurprisingly.
It's not incoherent because of the writing, but because his beliefs are incoherent. Acid or marijuana have given rise to endless such fantasies, but then so has innate muddled thinking.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I can translate that in two words: untreated schizophrenia. You should call that type the "Locked-Ward Screamer."
Wait, so let me get this straight.
Is he saying that eventually humans will evolve so much that they will have God-like power, and then will make another species, and that species will evolve to become God-like, and so on and so forth; and that it's unlikely that humans would be the first God-like species to come about?
Because that was all I could get out of that. Honestly, what a moron.
if god evolved like the rest of us, it logically follows that we have to worship him and chow down on Junior once a week
I see some sense here, actually. First, he notes that both natural selection and the human brain are (to use Eliezer Yudkowski's term) optimization processes, and that the human brain is a far more efficient optimization process than natural selection. He also notes that if the inefficient processes of natural selection could produce humans within the timespan of the universe, then a more efficient optimization process (such as a mind) could as well.
The failure comes when he assumes (not necessarily incorrectly, but without reason) that both the mind the product of the mind could come about in the time of the universe, which he incorrectly labels as "endless."
He does, however, come close to hitting on an idea that I can't remember the name of and can't find a reference to right now - the idea that it is far more likely that we are within a computer simulation of the universe rather than in an actual reality. (Suppose we as humans develop the technology to simulate a universe, and we simulate 1,000,000 universes. Then for all universes [including simulated ones], there's only a 1,000,000:1 chance that any particular one isn't a simulation.)
I think this statement:
is actually reasonably true, and those who have studied the Technological Singularity will see the parallel of a "climax" coming in the development of technology by human minds.
I think what he's advocating is ID with evolution. He's saying that there is some type of civilization with the technology to develop other "species of one's choosing". This is somehow true because we developed in 4ish billion years, then due to the age of the universe, something else would have developed that could create us. He's saying that evolution is being fought against by Christians because we atheists won't answer to this designer, and atheists are supporting evolution because, of course, evolution destroys christian morality. At the end he tries to say that a belief in a god shows that someone believes more in evolution/technology, but it doesn't quite follow from his argument.
So...the "aliens created us" argument.
Also: I do think the Christianity crap at the end was just tagged on though, and has no logical connection to the rest of his ideas. However, the rest actually does make some sense.
my prospective tenure in hell
I wonder if that's easier to get than tenure at Harvard...
Posted by: SC | June 13, 2008 4:06 PM
For sure, you just have to masturbate. Once.
I guess I can't think of why anyone would want to try and work out any meaning AT ALL in that mess. This presumes the writer has the capacity to string coherent thoughts together in a line - and do something coherent with them. This example does not exhibit that property.
Sometimes, it is just simpler to call the folks with the white coats.
#10 - Nice PB reference!
JC
So then he took the blue pill?
OT :) You probably already know but when folks become bored for whatever reason on threads at other blogs, they sign off by saying, "Forget this crap. I'm going to Pharyngula."
Isn't that just the sweetest thing?
OTOH: Some of us just don't bother to leave in the first place.
Looks like somebody played with the Thesaurus and lost.
Larger and more complex words do not make your writing more intelligent if you are woefully unable to wield them.
Better luck next time.
One word:
'shrooms
The funniest part for me is that he seems to think that technology is more tied to evolutionary theory, rather than accumulation of knowledge (and its ability to be destroyed).
Other than that, he seems to be saying that God evolved to become an intelligent designer because of the infinity of time, compared to us puny humans (Hulk SMASH!).
Just another Christian trying to squeeze his god into the confines of scientific knowledge. It's all they really know how to do....
Very weird letter there...I'm really not sure what to make of it.
As for the annoying, sanctimonious little "I'll pray for you" line, my favorite response is, "And I'll think for both of us."
Translation: god did it!
Here is my interpretation:
1) Write a lengthy, ambiguous screed with numerous fallacies about religion, evolution, and 'intelligent design
2) ?
3) Profit
For sure, you just have to masturbate. Once.
Ah, but how much do you have to publish about it?
Hmmm...a quick google for this guy's name brings up an identical letter published in the Alabama Press Register.
Clearly this was profound in the mind of the author. But no, I will not fall for your tricks and even try to extract coherent meaning.
It's like when I wake up at night and try to write down what I was dreaming. In the morning you try to read it, and in the rare case that it's even legible it flows something like this.
those who have studied the Technological Singularity will see the parallel of a "climax" coming in the development of technology by human minds. - Eric
Ah, the rapture of the nerds!
Not hard to translate at all. In fact, Michael Schermer imagines the exact same thing. See http://www.templeton.org/belief/ (and click on Schermer's answer). I know, I know -- the Templeton Foundation have a wacko reputation.
Kick all kinds of Creator God ass! I can't wait to get my hands on a Four armed, beer fetching, windows update testing and installing, grass mowing magical pig with marital aids stuck all over it looking like a telefunkin U47 species making machine.
I am so making a bunch of them to sell.
It's the turtle problem again, but you have to admit that in a reality where:
a) we humans are simply another evolving intelligence queued up to take our place in an infinitely long line of previously evolved intelligent designers, and
b) the Bible is a chronicle of our own designer's behavior,
...the non-omniscient, semi-potent, bloodthirsty, petty, manipulative deity described in the Old Testament starts to look more and more like Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Wow, the gaps must be getting rather small if he's trying to cram his god into the role of E.T.
Also, is he suggesting that Christ was a human-alien hybrid? It would certainly explain that story in the bible about Jesus melting through the hull of Pontius Pilate's space-craft by using his acid blood.
Etha (#34) noted,
AND he seems to have a logging implementation shop:
http://www.lhoti.com/board/showthread.php?t=1815
Man sure does love things that write on things.
Translation:
"Would you like fries with that?"
#37: Ah, the rapture of the nerds!
When the Rapture comes, I'm going to Pharyngula...
[Must put on t-shirt...]
Title: Science does support Deism.
Paragraph 1: Evolution = Creationism = God Exists.
Paragraph 2: Because man exists, obviously God had the tools to make man, given enough time.
Paragraph 3: Adding two infinite probabilities gives you a finite improbability.
Paragraph 4: Immoral atheists (obviously a redundant phrase) reject moral tyranny. Moral Christians (of course, is there any other kind?) reject immoral tyranny.
Paragraph 5: Amendment to paragraph 1. Evolution + Creationism = God Exists. The intelligent designer evolved with everyone else but happened to be way better at evolving (I read this and wondered if he meant that humans were the intelligent designers). Christians are the true scientists.
Signature: Cognitive Crapshoot.
If this is an infinite process, then there must be infinite Gods? Or we merge together with previous Gods to keep it monotheistic? Or the Old Gods die? Or this guy is insane? Wait, I know which it is.
So if I am reading this correctly(chuckle chuckle) God evolved and created us. Well then surely we can evolve into gods ourselves.
I for one am going to be a mighty and vengeful God. My creations will have no doubt about my existence because I will remind them of it daily!
Plagues and locusts! I want one vestal virgin weekly or I will put a plague on you village. If I am going to be a god there had better be virgins... never had a virgin, I think if I were a god I could arrange that.
SC@#15 SC
If the fundagelicals are to be believed, there's not much difference.
I got nowhere else to go!
Oh God, you've discovered my hometown paper. This has been going on in the letters for a week or two. Yesterday's creationist letters included this gem: "According to the laws of probability anything with a probability lower than one chance in 1 x 1050 is impossible."
A responsible newspaper would refuse to print that patently absurd claim. This is not a responsible newspaper.
Of course he failed to include an integral part of his address: "Asylum For the Religiously Insane"
I'm not sure this guy is necessarily advocating Christianity. Like someone else said, I think it's more of the "aliens created us argument". He seems to be saying that life as we know it was created by previously evolved, high-intelligence life forms many billions of years ago, and also seems to be implying that we are going to create our own universe or whatever soon. Very strange, indeed.
I can aaaalmost see him getting at the mysterious designers of the monolith in the "2001: Space Odyssey" series... aaaaaalmost.
BTW, 13.7 billion years != endless time *sigh*
My take: this dude has been watching way too much Babylon 5. Therefore, God is obviously a First One.
The question is, was God a Vorlon or a Shadow?
"It is also stubbornly maintained by those who fight for freedom from the result of the immorality of the atheists, who believe they will have to answer to no one."
I don't understand this... he wants the freedom to not be free by having to answer to someone?
Oops...wrt #34, I just realized that the article I found was the same article PZ got the letter from. Somehow I missed that and thought that Jim Grieb had sent this to PZ directly....
Actually, this guy is just promoting the theory of Panspermia, as espoused by Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe in their attempt to salvage the Steady State Theory of the universe. Please note that Panspermia is NOT the act of ejaculating all over the place, it is the theory that life on earth arose elsewhere in the universe and drifted to earth, thus having much, much longer than 4.5 billion years to evolve - an infinite amount of time in the Steady State Theory.
If you disregard the lines that he seems to be transcribing from the voices in his head, he is presenting an interesting premise: that god is an evolved creature. But since it is populations that evolve, and not individuals, he is thus promoting a pantheism as well as panspermia. A challenging and fun exercise that evolutionists (and anthropologists/paleontologists/biologists when they are wearing their adaptationist hats) is to deduce the environment in which a taxon evolved based on its morphology and behavior. We can only speculate on gods morphology, but we know a lot about his/her/its behavior. Anyone care to analyze the environment in which god evolved based on biblical revelation?
I believe he's saying it might have been the case that God evolved and created man
Which, in his mind, somehow disproves evolution.
Appropos of nothing, I just saw a bumper sticker that said "Darwin loves you".
I've seen all these creo types you list in the evo discussion forums on Topix. All varying degrees of the same mental illness imo.
I can see the basic receipe for the paper but I'm not sure of the actual point. It's rather like waking up from a dream breifly utterly convinced you can prove that 2+2 = 3. (been there done that, had a good laugh.)
Sift together the dry ingrediants of:
Belief the world is 4.5 billion years old
acceptance that evolution works
missunderstanding about the age of the universe as a whole
And set aside to settle.
Preheat oven to 450
Mix together the wet ingriedents
One part "why can't we all get along!"
one part indoctrination into thinking christianity is the only way to morality
Half a jigger of soured laws of probabilty (will be tempered with the miss understandning in the dry ingredients)
Whip till it holds stiff peaks, fold in dry ingrediants and pour into well greased spring form pan. Broil till outside is crispy and insides still stick to a toothpick.
So, can anyone translate this?
Sure, it's easy! It's Christian Panglossism!
"God made everything for the best in this best of all possible God-created worlds", is about what it adds up to.
#6: I think he's saying the Christian God evolved somewhere out in space, based on the premise that the universe is eternal and had no beginning.
#8: He seems to be advocating that humans are now (or will soon be) so evolved that we can become our own gods.
Sounds surprisingly similar to Mormon doctrine (though not exactly the same). The LDS Church, as I understand it, teaches that God has a physical body and that His throne exists in the physical universe near to a star or planet called Kolob, and that human beings can, after death, be exalted and become like God.
Who knows, they might be right. I'm fascinated with religious traditions different from my own.
I have overcome my embarrassment over an event in my life that may "explain" this. When I was 15, I dreamed god (its appearance was a little blurry but it did have a deep voice) came to me and explained that it only exists in the future after current life forms evolved to become god. Because it is god 'then' it is outside time, and is calling to each one of us. That's pretty clear, right?
disclaimer: even at 15, I knew this was unadulterated horse shit, but have often been tempted to bang it into a religion in a effort to rid myself of my day job.
There's the germ of a perfectly good idea here; evolution proceeds until it produces intelligent designers, who then operate far faster and more effectively than evolution, hence it's overwhelmingly likely that we are the product of intelligent design.
Of course, the premises are questionable, and the application of the conclusions to religion is broken, but there was the germ of an idea there. In fact, Terry Pratchett already wrote a novel about it decades ago.
Okay, this guy's explanation brought Joan Osbourne back in to my head singing....
What if God evolved like us?
Just from blob like one of us
Like a monkey on a branch
who became the god our lord
who made us up cause he was bored
or maybe drunk right off his gourd....
He appears to be saying that if time is infinite (which it isn't), then any life form could eventually develop god-like abilities in theory, and that if space is infinite as well (which it also isn't), then sooner or later, this will happen *somewhere*, with some life form (which also isn't necessarily true). He then asserts that therefore, humans could be "designed" insofar as that life on Earth might've been created by beings with god-like powers rather than arising naturally, and that therefore, evolution and creationism are not necessarily at odds (although this kind of creationism isn't the christian kind anymore).
Unfortunately, his argument is neither sound, nor are the premises upon which it rests valid.
Pratchett reference PZ?
He's saying "God" is a creature that evolved before our universe began (presumably in some other universe) and eventually gained the ability to create species/universes, and then created ours.
He believes in evolution, but believes that evolution (plus technological advancement) leads to an omnipotent or near-omnipotent being given enough time.
4 word tag line: God is an Alien.
That mostly made sense to me, actually, but it's a really dumb argument, full of gaping holes.
Unless I'm mistaken, he's basically saying that we were created by beings which were, themselves, products of evolution. Presumably, these "intelligent agents" used evolution to achieve their ends; otherwise we wouldn't know about it (but I may be giving him more credit than he deserves by projecting actual logic onto his hypothesis).
Probably the biggest problem with his "theory", of course, is good ol' Occam's razor. If you concede that evolution happens, why introduce an intelligent creator at all? He's introduced a whole creator species without regard for evidence or parsimony.
Another huge problem is that he seems to assume that the universe is infinitely old - plenty of time for something advanced enough to create us to develop. His whole argument falls apart pretty quickly when you consider that the universe appears to be only about three times as old as the Earth.
He then tries to tie this whole thing in with morality, but I see no actual logical progression to that point. Morality just materializes into the argument.
I know all those words, but they make no sense at all when arranged in that particular order.
I think he is saying we are all in the Matrix.
Seriously, Christians should not read anything about the Singularity.
That's pretty much the outline of Frank Tipler's theory, as "J" mentioned earlier in comment #14. You might find that interesting. (Not to mention useful, too, if you want to make some money off it!)
Stepping away from the usual congratulatory mode: hope PZ got permission for exposing Jim's full name. Not nice otherwise (speaking as one who had email reprinted on a climate change denier blog without permission).
"Strata". That was the Pratchett ref. Kin Arad has a simple theory: organisms arise, and change the universe to suit themselves, and die. And other organisms arise, and change the universe to suit themselves, and die. Life first originated about three milliseconds after the Big Bang. There was never any such thing as a "natural universe."
So you're saying is that we should become gods go then back in time and create ourselves? We have a lot to answer for if that is the case. :)
@#73: The letter, including the writer's name, was published in today's edition of the Mobile Press Register. PZ is merely bringing the link to our attention.
I think he just put the boot to bootstrap schemes.
Now we need the reboot.
... "Uninterrupted evolution reaches a climax when an intelligent designer evolves."
Sounds like the Singularity to me. God is what comes out the other side???
Jim`s right on 1 point I answer to no one . The pope can kiss my ring.
Wait...all you have to do is masturbate once to get tenure at Harvard? That explains a few things.
"Wait...all you have to do is masturbate once to get tenure at Harvard? That explains a few things." -PZ
It certainly explains why some harvard profs think of themselves as the second coming.
Oh dear... I guess the fact you have children might leave you being over qualified.
What none of you mentioned is that the intelligent designer who originated in this guys argument sometime in the course of evolution doesn't need to be any sort of a God and does not need to function by way of magic or any supernatural abilities.
So, the process might go something like
-- the Big Bang
-- energy and matter begin to cool and consolidate and make themselves into lumps
So far, all the physics and chemistry
-- life crops up, and begins to evolve
-- life evolves, and evolves, until something intelligent or otherwise capable enough begins to deliberately affect the evolution of other life around it, and presumably its own evolution also
None of this tells us anything about God. but, if we assume that the human species is intelligent, then what this fellow describes as in fact taken place.
I suppose this is the evolutionary or religious version of the "faraway expert" dynamic. An ordinary, moderately well spoken schmuck becomes increasingly interesting and authoritative the farther away from home he travels. Therefore, if we say yes there is an intelligent designer, it are us, then people just pooh-pooh you. But if you say there is an intelligent designer and he lives on the fourth planet of the sun Vega, everybody gets all excited. However, the guy from Vega is in reality not any smarter then P. Z. Myers (who is in fact frighteningly intelligent, however not to an unearthly degree).
Thanks by the way for the Pratchett recommendation.
OK, so
-God evolved
-a creature with no designer to answer to is immoral: "the immorality of the atheists, who believe they will have to answer to no one."
-presumably God(s) would not believe that they have to answer to anyone
Therefore
-God is immoral.
He got "turtles all the way down". The bootstrap theory, as mentioned earlier. Does not seem to realize that the first ID (in his universe anyway) came about spontaneously by evolution. or thinks an infinite regression is somehow OK. But I like his optimism about what we might be able to do in the future. Not an acceptable Christian God idea though. He fails.
It really is very simple.
If we can evolve from simpler forms, then so could something else. It could have evolved before us. It could have then designed itself (being super technological), and so it could have designed us. Basically, he is saying we were created by the Borg. I am sure many would want 7 of 9 as their Goddess.
There is just a slight problem. Or two.
If he is saying that something else could have evolved because we did, then he either doesn't need that something else to have helped us, or he needs something to have designed the designers.
I think he is trying to overcome that by saying that the universe before the existence of Earth had been around for ever, so anything could have evolved.
No, sorry, I have lost it.
bukkake?
I get what he's saying, but don't see how he reconciles his story line with Xtian mythology. Wasn't god supposed to have created the universe, and not the other way around? Or is this guy arguing that the Xtian god is an evolved being from a different universe, who in a multi-verse reality created this one? Wow. That's one tough hypothesis to test. I did read a short story about that very idea in Analog back in the early 80s, though. Anyone remember the author or title?
Chronic mental masturbation!!
What's strange about this ? Seems very likely that us or another species will end up doing this.
Alan Guth has shown how theoretically easy it would be to create a new universe. All that would be needed is to create a false vaccuum and the right conditions, and with inflation it would not require any additional energy. It would develop completely independently from ours, it would look to us like a black hole, but we could theoretically observe what is going inside if we had the right technology, by decoding the surface of its event horizon, like a gigantic hologram. It would be like a gigantic 4d movieplex, guaranteed to provide endless entertainment to the masses.
Ok, granted, it's all a bit science fictionish, but why reject it as a hypothesis ?
If universes can be formed naturally, then obviously, if a species understands how it works, it can create a technology to form a universe to verify all its theories, or for its own entertainment, or for whatever reasons.
Why wouldn't there be already millions of species around our own universe already doing this ?
The big bang happened a finite amount of time ago, but why do you assume that nothing happened before the big bang ? Why would that be a finite amount of time ?
Occam's razor just tells you that this is not useful to explain how universes are created. Parsimony isn't a form of evidence. If an intelligent evolved species created our universe and it's the truth, than how can you use occam's razor to say that it's not.
None of these arguments, neither yours nor his, tells you what the truth is.
If it's true, Science will find out. My guess is that we'll probably need to learn first how to make universes ourselves before we can determine if this one was created or naturally caused. But I have absolutely no idea which one it is.
Posted by: negentropyeater | June 13, 2008 6:47 PM
That would be fine if he were submitting it as a theoretical premise, but this guy put forth this idea as truth, saying that his explanation proves that there is an intelligent designer, and identifies that designer as the Christian God. He states that evolution and creationism are not conflicting concepts. And he winds up the whole thing by seriously asserting that Christians "have more confidence in evolution and technology than atheists," a soundly ludicrous claim that ignores the obvious examples of religious opposition to the Theory of Evolution.
If he were simply offering a theory, however ludicrous, it would remain in the realm of the benign. But he asserts his ideas as fact, and that is what the derision and ridicule are aimed towards.
His thought experiment is honestly one I've used myself against Christians in the sense "what if something like this happened and is why were are here? What would that do to your faith." I suppose if you assume the Christian God was the one performing the panspermia, problem solved, but there is NO reason, if you assert such a conjecture, that the original planter is the Abrahamic god. Furthermore, there would be no reason to assume benevolence, omniscience, and omnipotence. You would think such a God would necessarily be a scientist himself and would reward reason and logic and skepticism. I suppose it might be a benevolent "God" considering, as Sagan argued: to endure as a civilization without destroying yourselves for a long enough period of time for space travel, for example, almost certainly would require highly ethical behavior, or the population would kill itself off before such feats were possible. That certainly doesn't fit with the Old Testament god, slaughtering millions and endorsing slavery. Such a god would likely more closely resemsble the Spinoza god, being absorbed into the universe itself.
@#13
Thank you Dana, for that 5 minute mission... for boldly going where no sane (wo)man should go!
And in keeping with the Roddenberry theme, this quote seems quite appropriate:
"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes"
"If man could evolve to his present status physically, culturally and technologically within the age of this planet (approximately 4.5 billion years), then obviously the technology required to build species entirely of one's own choosing could be developed within the age of the universe."
Epic fail. Technology to build a species of your own choosing is definitely impossible. For example, I could choose to build a creature that can solve the Halting Problem for an arbitrary program in a finite time.
This rant is wrong before it even starts to be wrong.
Inky's Comment#45 is pretty much my take also. Grieb little missive is similar to a LSD tripper understanding completely the absolute truth that toilet paper is really the most elegant, invitingly shimmering brocade. Much ado about nothing in other words. Basically, Grieb is saying Christians can have their cake of faith while eating evolution.
Am I only understanding his letter because I've seen the "Simulation Argument" before and thus recognize a chain of reasoning that's 90% the same? This guy does give off a bit of a "crazy rant" vibe, his reference to the "immorality of atheists" is nonsense, and the idea that the Creator(s) evolved would be heresy to most Christians, but even the stupid parts of his letter don't seem to be very hard to comprehend.
If anyone wants to read ideas which are similarly off-the-wall but don't require whacko-to-English translation, you might start here:
http://www.simulation-argument.com/
It sounds like he's saying that because we've evolved in a relatively short time frame, that in an infinite time God could have evolved and therefore God created us. It's the ontological argument on hallucinogens!
PZ asked:
Translation, please.
Alright, I can do that:
God evolved, like man.
The universe is old enough that an alien technological civilization could have evolved long before life on Earth crawled out of the sea.
Not really endless, but the big bang was something like 13 billion years ago and Earth was mucked together about 4.5 billion years ago. There maybe civilization billions of years older than ours.
The universe is, like, really, really, BIG!
He's boggling over the Fermi Paradox without knowing what it is.
That translates as "I'm a twit who thinks atheists are immoral." But he doesn't think standard Christian morality is any good.
When we're smart enough to do genetic engineering, self-replicating systems, AI that can re-design itself etc. etc. then evolution by means of natural selection won't be fast enough for our tastes -- we'll become gods real quick.
He thinks Christians understand the singularity concept.
Found any transitional god fossils lately?
Seen a couple meself ,riding their mobility scooters, could`nt carbon date them tho.
RT NZ asked:
Do the pyramids in Egypt count?
Fools.
The answer is "Red".
Hmph.
Idiots.
I figured there might be some in Ken Hams creation museum.
The pyramids were built by aliens......everyone knows that
Red Aliens.
"I will pray for you."
I was in the hospital the other month and this guy came in and wanted to know what "parish" I was from. I told him I was "not interested". and so he goes "No, what church do you belong to? so ok I say "Believe me I am not interested in what you are selling". at which point he gooes "Okay, then we'll just do the prayer then" and he reaches up to make some sort of sign (guessing a cross) and I have to tell him to stop what he is doing and to leave immediately and that I don't want him ot pray for me...
seem to startle him a bit but he left without anymore annoyance.
But Aliens are green ???? wtf
No, PURPLE Drazi!
Thats ok Kev you will get that prayer whether you like or not ,cause these 1/2wits never take fuck off for an answer anyway . You could have asked for a side order of fries and a 6pack as well.
Well for me personally I am excited about Quantum Mechanics and figuring out how these dimensions work.
If we could tap something like that it would be awesome.
I think at this point it is pretty obvious to me that God exists though. I mean when quite a few Atheists that die see God then I have to believe that they did see him.
Confabulation just doesn't cut it when a person who doesn't know someone he saw when he was dead and he comes back to find out that it was his uncle that died before he was born. Confabulation is dealing with false memories. A false memory cannot be false when there was no memory to begin with and it is not false because he was actually a real living person.
It's like atheists are throwing up crap on a wall and trying to find something that sticks. I have been to the skeptics dictionary and that is what they do. No real science behind it, just throw something up because we can't possibly believe that there is something beyond this world.
I really feel that this web site alone has turned me into a gnostic theist. I am 100 percent sure at this point. It's not a question of that anymore. It is a question of how I can take that knowledge and improve lives with it.
BTW Kevin hope you are better now
Jonsi wrote:
I was thinking that slaughtering God was more likeCylons myself.
Brokensoldier #91,
I agree with you. I wasn't commenting on this piece of dreck by this Mr Grieb, who can't even explain clearly what he has in mind, but to some of the reactions of the commenters.
To tell you frankly, I blocked at "Evolution explains designer". The rest didn't seem worth reading. I focussed on the comments, it's usually more interesting.
Post-singularity beings? Sounds like SOMEBODY has been reading too much Charles Stross...
Kevin (#104), your story reminds me of one my dear old dad told of his time in the hospital in 1940's Wyoming when he was about 12. He was lying in bed when a man came in and asked if he was saved. In all innocence, he asked, "Saved from what?" The preacher flung hellfire and damnation at him for daring to ask such an impertinent question. So that trip to the hospital cured my old man of two things: a broken leg and religion.
Kenny wrote:
So, you've talked to a lot of dead atheists?
Hey Conky, what is the secret word of the day?
The secret word of the day is "dichotomy."
All the boys and girls forgot to scream! real loud!
If you ask me, all that the letter is missing is some panspermania and a demented talk.origins mathematician, and then we'd have some Xordaxians.
Kenny,
What have spoken to God since then ? I see, you are now absolutely convinced that PZ is God, isn't it. You tricky fellow. Don't abuse too much of reading Pharyngula.
Oh, look. The deluded narcissist is back.
So, why aren't you worshipping Yamraj?
PS: when quite a few Atheists that have a vivid dream in which they see God then I have to believe that they did have a vivid dream.
Naw. No way. The correct explanation for anything we don't understand is....entropy.
Yeah. That is the ticket. It has to do with entropy.
That's because the real secret word is obviously. As in,
See? It's obvious.
I have to wonder whether Kenny means gnostic as in the opposite of agnostic, or gnostic as in a heretic. I suspect the former, but it would be awfully funny if it were the latter....
I think this guy's got a little Uplift in his theism.
PZ is too diplomatic. I'm convinced that many or most creos that care enough to post on line are mentally ill. Some of them seem to be classic schizophrenics.
Being mentally ill helps when you have to be a reality denier and dispute undisputable facts.
There is a large pool to recruit from. Psychotics, mostly SZ comprise about 1% of the population. This is 3 million people with lots of time on their hands in the USA alone. And they have all been prosyletized by the fundies at one time or another. The fundies prey on the poor, not very bright, and mentally ill segments of the population as they are easily influenced, lost, and desperate.
"... and they write letters that tend to end with the standard phrase, 'I will pray for you.'"
Reminds me how the Brights organization sought suggestions for how to respond to someone saying that. My (non-winning) idea was "It's the least you could do, I suppose." I figured it was snappy and just a little insulting, which fits my style.
Re: Sibosop #67-
I am so going to steal your religion. I've tried to come up with my own and failed. I can write a decent short story, but religion-worthy fantasies take a level of imagination I just don't have the energy or will to muster.
See you in the future...and thanks for the gravy train, sucker! Free money, here I come!;)
*yawn*
*yawn*
Oh, man, Kenny, you still don't understand what "dimension" means.
Hint: "work" does not apply to "dimension".
Length, width, height and time are dimensions. Got it?
Hindu NDE complete with Yamraj, god of death.
Go cheney yourself, Kenny. Refusal to take evidence into account doesn't make it go away.
This proves you haven't understood the nature of evidence and proof, let alone the rest of science theory.
Oh god, the fuckwit is back.
go swallow some rubbing alcohol, Kenny.
How do you know that the person you speak of did not see the photo, and forgot about seeing it? In other words, they had a dream which included a forgotten memory?
I know that I have plenty of dead relatives whose faces I have only seen in photographs; if a memory was activated in a vivid dream, I might well not remember where I saw the face, only that the face is very familiar for some reason.
No. That too is a dream. In this case, a daydream, a fantasy, a fiction, a made-up story.
Kenny, you gabbling limpet!
But, Kenny, we have explained this to you several times: because we are vertebrates as opposed to cephalopods, our retinas react to a lack of oxygen the same way they react to light. We have given you the details on this several times.
I bet squid see profound, perfect darkness in their NDEs.
I mean when quite a few Atheists that die see God then I have to believe that they did see him.
OMG. Is this the NDE zombie argument that just won't die and keeps clawing its way out of the grave no matter how many times we shoot holes in it?
Dude, I've seen the tunnel and the light and heard the music about 10 times. Was it heaven? No, it was anoxia from too much (or some might say, just the right amount) of nitrous oxide. So here's a problem: if people "see heaven" when they are tripping, why do you treat that as any less "real" than if they see it when they're having a near death experience?
As I've said before - I once confabulated (under a nitrous trip) the whole tunnel and light thing and at the end of the tunnel I discovered that Amy Lee had joined Rammstein and they were playing a gig and it was awesome. Too bad it was just a confabulation so I can't give any details that aren't made up post event. By the way - before you keep flapping your ignorant blubbergob about NDEs study how confabulation works a little bit and get back to us, OK?
Atheists that have died and then have come back to report what they saw. Yes, they were dead. However, they are no longer atheists. How is this chemical reaction allowing you to meet relatives you don't know (which later on turn out real and not a false memory) and how does it account for light so bright that you would be consumed by it.
Even if I accepted near death experiences -- something universal despite your religion -- as being "God" or an afterlife (I don't, I find them interesting and vivid and real, but not compelling to be God), those experiences being equal across religions (Hindus, Buddhists, Norse Vikings, Atheists, Christians), they do not in any way imply the Christian God.
If you want to label the sum of all forces and energy and the complexity of nature and universal human experiences God, you'll find a lot of atheists drawn to that definition. But that is not the same thing as keeping your arms crossed for 98,000 years, then revealing yourself to a small tribe in Palestine while plaguing others who worship false gods (made up ones) only because you never revealed yourself to them in the first place, and then 2000, 10000, maybe 100,000 years into the future, the only way for salvation is to believe that you had a son, born of a virgin, and he died, and despite no oxygen in his brain, rose from the dead perfectly functional, and he could walk through walls and levitate into the sky.
Even if you present arguments for God, there is an even greater step to prove that God is the God of Christianity. And if, as the initial author of this post suggests, that that God is an evolved being (which must therefore be subject to the constraints of the physical universe, not outside it), and we are here via some sort of panspermia, why would it be the Christian god?
Wait, why was the guy's secret dead uncle still wearing his dead body like a suit? And if he wasn't wearing his suit, how could the guy recognize him in his mom's secret photo? Was it a like bathing suit or more like maybe a pinstriped three-piece suit? And which part of quantum mechanics is about dead secret uncles in suits, again?
Kenny's right, this is an exciting field of research!!!
oops. I meant:
*yawn*
I don`t know whats more disturbing , that Jim & Kenny get a vote or that they are allowed to breed
This was already answered in the post about cephalopod eyes.
Human vision cells and nerve cells work backwards from what you expect. They need energy to send a signal that it's dark, and use less energy to send a signal that it's light. As they start to lose energy because they are dying, the brain interprets the signal that results from the lowering energy as light.
That's all that it is.
PS: WHY DON'T YOU WORSHIP YAMRAJ?
I just figured it out!!!
We are the bootstrap. We evolved so that we could intelligently design the next phase of god's plan: silicon-based life.
When that has completed, time and space become less important, since machine-life would self-design (intelligently) and as it increased its clock speed and power, it would have the effect of stretching experiential time for the machine-messiahs. That way, the machine-messiahs could contemplate their navels (or their navel-equivalent) and solve complex problems (angels/pinhead ratio) that could not be solved by us meat precursors in universe-time.
So mote it be!
OMG they killed kenny!
WTF? I thought Kenny was banned?
You realize there isn't actually any light, right? No one else is seeing it. It's a perception of light, taking place in a dying brain. There isn't anything there to account for. And neither is there any reason to suppose that this perception of light would otherwise have to reflect a memory of what people had seen during their lives... although, if it did, I think pretty much everyone has indeed seen such a light. (Hint: The Sun.)
As far as the unknown relatives, I haven't seen that reported, and I don't buy it.
Wow, this stuff is coming in fast and furious! Even better than "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"!
You can just lump all the other cases together into "Brain Pollution," because the data-processing Adult brain is contaminated by nonsense absorbed by the Child brain from authority figures before its fact-checking filters were mature.
But, Kenny, we have explained this to you several times
I am wondering if "Kenny" is actually a software construct that some clever programmer is using to get a laugh out of us. Rob Pike once hooked a Markov-chain-based text generator (named Mark V Cheney) to USENET to emulate a crazy nationalist - and it worked remarkably well.
If you took a load of drooling bible-basher antievolution screed and used it as the source, you'd get some pretty risible results, I bet! And if you used NDE-related text, you'd have Kenny!
I read that in the thread. However, I don't believe that to be the same light.
Kenny is StupidSpurt! The eye travels to meet the light, and since the eyes are close, it has to be a different kind of light to which it's traveling!!!! That's it!!!
I wonder how many threads have already been hijacked by Kenny on NDEs. I can remember at least half a dozen, there are probably more.
As Kenny has absolutely nothing else to say but repeat the same old thing, maybe it would help to have a special NDE thread, just for that purpose, so that he could focus his energy only in one thread, and discuss about it with those who are interested.
However, it is brighter than the Sun in our own galaxy.
Kenny - is "heaven" full of angels that are "burning" then?? Sounds really awfully hot, with all that light.
Kenny:
Still waiting for Part One of your "too much proof to post".
When I was pregnant, a good friend of mine was *sure* I'd gone into labour. But I hadn't. If I had, it would be put down as extra-sensory perception. Since I didn't, it was just a vivid, free-floating worry. So you can chalk that up against Kenny's dead relative.
Also, once I dreamed, vividly, that my house was invaded by ninjas. The next day it wasn't invaded.
Now he's one down.
Can we say, "Confirmation bias," children?
Don't forget that Isaac Asimov once proved by the bible that Heaven is hotter than Hell. I forget the heaven-side fact, but the hell side of the equation was a lake of burning sulfur. Therefore, Hell could not be hotter than the evaporation point of sulfur.
Ah, here it is on Holysmoke.org, under "Things Creationists Hate:"
How come these people don't return blind Kenny?
*yawn*!
*yawn*!
*yawn*!*yawn*!*yawn*!
(little help here?)
*yawn*!*yawn*!
*yawn*!
*yawn*!
How do you know?
Marcus Ranum, up there, posted about seeing the bright light.
By the way, "anoxia" means "lack of oxygen" — the cells of the brain weren't getting enough oxygen, and were dying.
So there you go: At least one of us has seen that bright light.
I once nearly died. I didn't black out or see a light, but I did feel strangely calm.
Divers in particular have been noted to feel not just calm, but very, very happy when they don't have enough oxygen getting to the brain properly, and their brain cells start to die.
Look up "nitrogen narcosis". There's your feeling of love.
Why not? You obviously don't understand at all how the brain works under certain conditions. And that's all that's happening.
Yes, that's exactly what you're doing: You feel a void, and want there to be more to reality. You want there to be magic, and God, and good spirits that feel love for everyone.
And you're not the only one, of course. Many people feel this way. They have a void and want to fill it with this wonderful dream of how happy things happen when you die.
But that's all it is. Just a dream. A story that you, and everyone from whom you got all of these life-after-death ideas, has made up, and tell to each other, and to yourselves.
Kenny blathered:
How did Lewis Carroll make up a Bandersnatch and a Jabberwocky like that when he had never seen anything like it?
You should avoid superstition, it brings bad luck.
I had a dream that we were standing around Kenny who said that he was going to commit suicide in front of us, and then have his god make his soul come back to us and verify all this insane bullshit. So Kenny killed himself, and we waited and waited, shouting "Kenny are you there?" But there was no answer or bodily or ghostly movement, until finally we heard sirens and voices shouting, "Ok, nothing to see, so move along!" So we all left, leaving Kenny lying there dead with no place to go. Moral: be sure you have a place to go before you lose your place.
*yawn*
Dammit Sven, stop that! Don't you know yawning is contagious? You've got me doing it!
*yawn"
OK, so you had help.
A book? Oh lordy, get out the crayons.
Jeff, that was pretty funny.
All this yawning has made my suit tired and I'm going home. Have a weekend, people.
Obviously, when you've never experienced the process of dying before, ie the reduction of the levels of energy in the brain to such minimums, typically producing a very intense light, associated with a release of all the neurotransmitters such as pheromones, dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, typically producing a sensation of intense love, it must be quite surprising when you "come back".
Intense light + intense love, seems perfectly logical.
Kenny just won't let any other whackjob have the spotlight, will he?
I can picture him typing his responses excitedly, with a slight hint of the "German Unreal kid's" enthusiastic passive-aggressive storm of fervor. I then picture him reading each reply with scorn, denial and unrighteous anger, screaming at the top of his lungs about how stupid we all are for being so deluded. He's also probably in the same underwear from two days ago (not that I WANT to picture him in his underwear, it just makes for a more accurate and humorous mental image.)
Regardless, this is the last time I'll indulge Kenny by commenting about or to him and add him to my newly acquired killfile database.
I'm curious, which subject may that be ?
OK, Kenny. How's this - drop by some evening and I'll put on some Led Zeppelin and give you a big old bag of funny gas to breathe and you can see the light for yourself and you'll realizes that Jimmie Page really is an angel. And then you'll shut the fuck up about your NDEs. Deal?
Please fix the dungeon!
Please!!!
The reason I can't say is because I am doing it to make extra money on the side and if I tell people then what is the point of doing the Book and DVD (people who have the skills will go out and do what I am doing).
What, you think you're going to lose sales? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Kenny, you're not in sales, are you? First lesson: know your audience.
I agree that believers aren't necessarily stupid. And I've known some stupid atheists. Some of us believe, some of us don't. In my experience, belief/nonbelief is usually fixed in your early teens, based on how you were raised, and, who knows? maybe that God gene thing is in play. I doubt it. Some don't. There it is.
Others go through NDE conversion. Fine and well and whatever trips your trigger, makes you happy, and gets you through the day. If it works for you, great. But don't expect others to come around by logical argument, especially when what you're selling isn't logical. Just convincing. For you.
Bottom line, you're pissing up a rope trying to convince people of something they can only experience for themselves. And you're really wasting your time trying to argue belief using scientific words and references. I don't care if you cite 30 million NDE conversions with names and addresses. It doesn't convince me. I can live in a world of mysteries and not have to attribute them to an invisible sky fairy.
For invisible it is. You see God, but in your heart. You know God, yet you can't produce it. If you can drag a corpus into my view and convince me it's God, you'll have succeeded where none before you have.
When you can live your life safe in the knowledge that others don't see the world in the same way as you, you will have found peace.
Kenny writes:
I believe in what they say. If they said they saw a light that was bright and they were loved beyond anything and they can describe scenes while they have died and what is happening even with their eyes closed then I have to believe them.
Ok, seriously. What would you say if I told you that you could have exactly the same experience in under 5 minutes in relative safety and euphoric comfort? Sure, you'll lose a few neurons but you're obviously not using them.
I'm not just clowning around. When you consider that it's fairly easy to induce the kind of trance-states that give the lights and the music and the feeling of love - that ought to make you question it a little bit, huh? Why is it that you give more credence to someone who's flatlined on a machine and who's hallucinating as their brain shuts down, compared to someone who's doing the same thing under anaesthesia.
I know a guy who eats 'shrooms and sees jesus all the time. I interpret that as that he's a bible banger and when he's wasted he confabulates non-experiences that stem from the common activation pathways in his brain. Tell me, Kenny, do you think he's seeing jesus, or is he just a stoner (my vote: stoner). But if you think he's just a stoner can you explain why that's any different from a flatliner? If you don't think he's just a stoner then are you prepared to accept my holy vision of Amy Lee and Rammstein?
(At this point I should disclaim: I do not recommend abusing inhalants, blah, blah, blah. It's harmful, you may burn up your brain. I stopped doing it long ago, blah, blah, blah)
I wonder why Kenny's mind is so closed.
Please, I beg of you; bar the dungeon door!
How do you think memory works, Kenny? Do you think the hippocampus writes out every single detail of an event to the white matter like a laser to a CD, clear and unbiased in the least by emotional intensity? And do you think the memory just sits there taking up storage space until it needs to be retrieved, complete with a parity bit to ensure its full objective integrity upon retrieval?
Funny you should use the word "gnostic"--if you were at all familiar with how the gnostic association area of the cerebral cortex acts to integrate and interpret information, you'd realize that brain functioning couldn't be more unlike the way you apparently imagine memory to work if you'd tried.
(there are a ton of people on this website that relate their different stories. Are they all lying?)
I doubt very much they're lying. But I've talked to hippies who were at Woodstock and they're not lying either, but they saw things that just didn't happen and they remember them exactly as if they did.
You're clearly not familiar with Ockham's razor...
Say, I never did it (I was scared) but when we were kids some of the guys in school had some trick they'd do where you hyperventilated and then someone pressed on your chest or something, and you'd pass out and fall down. I wonder if those kids saw the tunnel and heard the singing, too?
They're sitting on a veritable goldmine, but they'll never realize it, just as long as you don't spill the beans? Have I got that right?
Good lord, Kenny, you really are going to try and sell this stuff? Well, Bog knows you won't be the first. In fact, the market's pretty brisk for this nonsense, more's the pity. If you want to get into this racket, here's some opposition research that you might want to check out. Read deeply. The guy's good, and will show you who the successful snake-oil salesmen are.
Good luck, and thanks for destroying America.
That is what I am saying. You just throw stuff on a wall and try to desperately find something that sticks. If you really think about this then you can basically dismiss whatever you want in life.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the least self-aware human in history.
Kenny:
And I don't think they have to be lying, either. I'm sure that in most cases, there is no attempt at deliberate intent to deceive. I'm sure that they are utterly convinced that they are telling the truth and nothing but the truth.
But that doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it a fact. It just means that that is how they interpret, subjectively, something that they experienced.
Conviction does not necessarily equal fact.
Heavens, man! Those other people with The Skillset could be eating your lunch right now, and here you are talking to us, instead of writing your masterpiece!
Better get off the blog and get cracking, Kenny--time's a'wastin!
Oh, gee. Another thread hijacked into a discussion of NDEs. I wonder why. Well, lookie, lookie. It's our old friend K.
Newer commenters might look to this as one of the reasons this blog has lost its collective patience.
Again, what you said does not make sense and it is just an excuse for not trying to bother to either do the research or just not believing.
No, it's not that I'm lazy; it's that you're utterly unconvincing.
People are seeing what is going on when they die.
Do you think there is an adult alive who has not seen a crash-cart/hospital death scene/paddle shock scene at some point in a movie or on TV?
Also, I want to point out if you really do studies on this you will see that other people have met people they did not know and they come back to find out that it was someone who died before they were born
Pretty flippin' convenient. I've studied Napoleon Bonaparte extensively - what do you think are the odds he (or Kusunoki Masahige) might be there to greet me, huh? Or maybe Jimi Hendrix... It just depends which nerves fire as the old mill shuts down.
It does blow a hole in my experience with Amy Lee and Rammstein, since they're all alive and well and performing separately. So I guess you've convinced me that I didn't see heaven. Rats.
See, here's what's going on Kenny - I'm offering a perfectly reasonable and very simple explanation for this phenomenon you're making a big deal out of. And you're not making any effort to argue why/how what you're talking about cannot be easily explained by my theory. Instead you're offering a much more complicated theory that brings in all kinds of nutso crazy stuff that is by definition impossible to substantiate.
I'll make you a deal. I'll read all that crap if you promise to give yourself a couple good anoxic trips, or maybe just die and haunt me from the grave. If you get to Heaven you can tell me what the shape of the scar on Napoleon's upper left arm was - and don't look it up before you go. Or maybe you can ask jesus when he's coming back and whether he plans to be on "Survivor." OK?
cicely writes:
But that doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it a fact.
Exactly. I was hanging out once with someone who was tripping on shrooms and she told me - quite seriously - that my nose had just fallen off. She wasn't lying. For her, it had and she was suprised to see it back on later.
I do not want to veer into postmodern "reality is just consensus + hallucination" BS; I think there is an objective reality. But everything about objective reality and experience is filtered through our brains (except, apparently, Kenny's) if the brain is anoxic, or has its neurotransmitters whacked with drugs (legal or otherwise) then its filtering of objective reality is not trustworthy.
What's laughable about your attitude, Kenny, is that being brain-addled (stoned, drunk, or under anaesthesia at a hospital) is a fairly common experience. Loads of people every single day experience some kind of trip/trauma/drinking binge and accept as a normal state of affairs that they may suffer confabulation, loss of memory, euphoria, etc. So, of all the people that trip, flip, flop, fly, or die every day some percentage come back claiming to have seen something that fits within your little pigeonhole.
So fucking what?
Anonymous @#50:
>...Yesterday's creationist letters included this gem: "According to the laws of probability anything with a probability lower than one chance in 1 x 1050 is impossible."
That is remarkably like Fairbanks' "330lbs is the most anything can weigh" argument: Make the statement loudly because it is absolutely essential to your argument, and then enforce it at gunpoint.
http://sorethumbsonline.com/d/20080606.html
I can't understand why someone would want to be ignorant on purpose. I really wonder if something like PRIDE is really the main factor here.
No, something like "mjr lives in Verizon country and only has dial-up" is what's going on, fucknuts.
People, you really should ignore Kenny. When I catch up with the thread and scour out his crap, it leaves a lot of comments dangling.
"and at the end of the tunnel I discovered that Amy Lee had joined Rammstein and they were playing a gig"
Whoo. Sounds like Hell. Good thing you turned away.
"I read that in the thread. However, I don't believe that to be the same light."
Ha ha ha! No, this is a different light! Like a really really REALLY bright light!
Woosh!
"People see a review of their life they see this light and it is a loving light. However, it is brighter than the Sun in our own galaxy. How do you make up a light like that when you have never seen anything like it?"
You just did.
#20, Eric, nails it:
To create a world is no different from simulating a world on a computer. If you believe it is possible to evolve thinking creatures from simple mathematical rules, the game is pretty much over: it's a virtual certainty that we are living in a world created by a researcher or video-game player.
George Bush is certainly evidence in favor of the video-game hypothesis: he gets to try being a fighter pilot, baseball team owner, and president of the USA. Although basically incompetent, he's playing on the easy setting, so gets to keep going. Damn, it sucks I'm an NPC in this world.
And don't get me started on quantum mechanics, the whole 'unresolved until observed' thing is a classic computer science technique called 'lazy evaluation.'
I fear the crazy guy is right, although I would ignore his deductions.
Kenny,
nobody here is suggesting that these millions os people are lying,
What you can't seem to understand, is the way science works.
It's as if medicine would have made any progress by simply asking people what they thought their illness was, and then guessing the answer.
That's exactly what you are assuming : let's ask the people what they think it means, "oh it's a bright light of love that is a sign of life after death" and then guess the explanation "oh it's quantum something extra dimensional something God".
Do you really have so little respect for science that you think it's just that, guess work ?
If there is something really strange happening with NDEs, something that completely puts into question our understanding of neurosciences, of consciousness, of quantum physics, there would be plenty of brilliant young researchers who would be eager to study it, to discover really fundamentally new things. This is what gets you into the pantheon of science, so for Godness why would you even think that they would resist it ?
I'll put up with a lot, Kenny, but not with being called a liberal. I'm a Goldwater conservative who left the Republican Party because the Current Occupant has surrounded himself with Scoop Jackson Democrats who call themselves "neoconservatives", yet are neither new nor conservative. He also has wrapped himself around radical anarchists from Newt Gingrich to Grover "shrink government down to the size that we can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub" Norquist.
Dammit, Kenny, it was a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower, who warned us about the rise of a military-industrial complex. But you so-called bible-believing Christians helped destroy the party by voting for government-hating loons like Ronald "government isn't the solution to the problem, government IS the problem" Reagan.
Liberals won't destroy America. America will die as did the Soviet Union. Some grant Ronald Reagan the wisdom of supporting the mujahedeen and forcing the Soviet Union to spend itself into bankruptcy in Afghanistan. Now, at the hands of the same mujahedeen, we are spending ourselves into bankruptcy. We fell right into Osama bin Laden's bloody trap, and are going to spend ourselves into the same oblivion.
America will fall at the hands of people like you and George Walker Bush. Thanks again.
"People, you really should ignore Kenny."
*sigh* I know. The trouble is that you can't possibly get everyone to do it. I think some people enjoy engaging him, and there's always gonna be someone new to come along who doesn't know. And once the derailment has started, it cannot be stopped.
I'm done with Kenny. From now on I'm ignoring.
I promiss.
D'oh! Sorry, PZ. If it'll help, delete my crap, too. All of it was direct responses to the poor boy. I'm new in town, but will be back. And if the poor boy shows up again, I'll shut up.
maybe we need some kind of reminder :
the first one who says :
or something like that, and like this, we can all resist the temptation.
R e C u R r I n G n I g H t M a R e G a B b L i N g L i M p E t R e C u R r I n G n I g H t M a R e G a B b L i N g L i M p E t R e C u R r I n G n I g H t M a R e G a B b L i N g L i M p E t R e C u R r I n G n I g H t M a R e G a B b L i N g L i M p E t R e C u R r I n G n I g H t M a R e G a B b L i N g L i M p E t
Thus spake negentropyeater:
Seconded. I still claim my 10 points, though.
I'm suddenly remembering all that mollusc data entry I did last year and wondering why limpets are such bad things. I mean, other than the fact that the ones in Idaho are all near microscopic.
Limpets aren't bad things. They are limpets!
What more needs to be said?
And yes, Emmet picks up a dime for his well-timed and correctly-formed exclamation.
If you continue to apply his 'logic' then the next logical step is that we will eventually evolve into intelligent designers ourselves, then we'll ALL be gods. So the Greeks may have been right with their multitude of gods! Why would we need to worship gods if we're going to evolve into one ourselves anyways?
If you take a look at the people around, i highly doubt we'll evolve into supreme beings from where we are. With logic like that who needs a god anyways?
*scuffs foot*
*looks abashed*
Sorry. I really thought that if I wrote in very simple, basic language with only a few syllables, like an elementary school teacher on Prozac, I might be able to get through with the basics of reason and parsimony.
Although I suspect that I would have ended up doing baby talk.
("No, bad Ken-Ken. No make up fairy tale to explain what happens. Best explanation is from good-good science. Good science is how things shown to work, with test and control.")
For more crazyness, please visit fstdt.com
Evolution versus creation is a false dichotomy.
This seems like a variant of an idea that an intelligent designer could have setup the initial conditions (e.g., the universal constants) leading to the emergence of the known universe (or multiverses), and then let these conditions run on their own. Perhaps (biological) evolution evolved in this universe (and not in other multiverses), in a similar vein as Cit+ E. coli evolving in 1/12 strains in the Lenski experiments. In that instance, the intelligent designer(s) could be viewed as the scientists who set up the initial conditions. So in this sense, it might be possible to see how creation (read as intelligent designer setting up initial conditions) might equate to evolution (read as Darwinian processes).
Premise: If man could evolve to his present status physically, culturally and technologically within the age of this planet (approximately 4.5 billion years), then obviously the technology required to build species entirely of one's own choosing could be developed within the age of the universe.
Premise 2: Uninterrupted evolution reaches a climax when an intelligent designer evolves. At that point the designer easily outpaces random natural selection because of the deliberate nature of intelligent design. The Christian has more confidence in evolution and technology than atheists have.
Taken together, the two premises above suggest that the author is suggesting that given enough time, it might be possible for humanity to create a (seemingly) supernatural entity perhaps via genetic and other forms of engineering. And then after that, one would have to consider something quantum (such as the nonlinearity of time) to explain how such a being could be god.
Considering the amount of time that has elapsed, which is endless, and the quantity of appropriate locations for life to evolve, also endless, a coincidence of impossible magnitude would be required for us to be the first intelligent designers.
This sounds like it could have something to do with the notion of multiverses.
The dichotomy is stubbornly maintained by those who fight for freedom from the morality of Christians. It is also stubbornly maintained by those who fight for freedom from the result of the immorality of the atheists, who believe they will have to answer to no one.
Well, this makes sense if we are to believe that god is a time travelling, supernatural entity not yet created by immoral atheists. Good thing the Bible indicates that the morality chip implanted in Godbot version #(?) was functioning somewhat erratically.
Plenty of time to figure out how to fix it for the next version.
But Kenny is sooooo much fun
@ Monado RE: Temperature of Heaven (#149)
I imagine they must have pizza quite often, then. When we toured a local pizzeria, we were told that the traditional, wood-fired, Neapolitan pizza oven cooks the pizza at approximately 500ºC. Those pizzas take just under 60 seconds to cook.
Yum!
Also: I do think the Christianity crap at the end was just tagged on though, and has no logical connection to the rest of his ideas. However, the rest actually does make some sense.
It has a logical connection. The reason he tagged it on there is because he thinks that people who don't buy into the Intelligent Design "Theory" don't buy into it because they are ignoring the evidence. He thinks people are ignoring the evidence because they don't want "the morality of Christians", and they don't want to answer to the Christian god.
That's what I get out of it anyway.
Okay, time to take some aspirins now!!
Wow.
I'm only up to comment #48 or so, and this is one of the funnier threads I have seen in a while.
I commend the author of the rant that begat these comments, albeit he knew not what he did, as it thusly created the symbolic space for this very reply. Oh, and thanks to PZ for putting it forth. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah - the realm of RuneScape has multiple Gods, so maybe I shall go play there a bit now.
Obviously it is intelligently designed gods all the way down.
As a sci-fi story, the idea that a being evolved that created us in a more god-like than natural way isn't bad, and I've heard the idea floated before (although more coherently) -- even with the addition that perhaps we're just a computer simulation (the rationale, if you can call it that, being that as long as the original creators made a lot of simulations then it's statistically likely). It's interesting but not worth spending much time on.
And if it happened, it's not unlikely that the creator would stick around with all his magical-seeming technology, become revered as a god, and then either die or leave when he noticed we were getting pretty good at the technology as well. The game might be up by then. You can see how this all makes sense, albeit not much.
But how it's an argument for Christianity is something of a mystery. The creator has no moral authority, and in fact isn't special in any way. Just some guy with eco-accelerator rockets. Might just as well worship me.
In my experience, this kind of Christian imagines that if they can convince an atheist that a being created the world then we'll immediately also accept that this same being has total moral authority and is the Christian god. The concepts are so linked in their heads it wouldn't occur to them to justify the link.
Wow. Really? That I want to see.
"It's probably something quantum."
I was feeling under the weather and generally quite down today until I read that. Thank you from the bottom of my heart :-)
I enjoy reading all the bashing, but let's not blame Kenny, or call his ilk stupid. They are uneducated. Possibly purposefully so. Our country has chosen to devalue education to an incredible extent. I'm a teacher in New York City. Public schools accept failing grades on state tests as passing by government order, ostensibly because rich people feel sorry for the poor people and their lack of achievement. Science, thanks to the pressures of religion and "morality," is one of the hardest-hit subjects. We all know this. We need to remember to get pissed off at the system, not the individual. When American youth are given science textbooks which barely make sense and taught to accomodate a "moral" curriculum by teachers frightened into adhering to the party line, are you surprised we get Kennys? And once you pass a certain age in brain development - it's really hard, really hard to encourage structured language and logic learning. You can do it in a one-on-one situation, like coaxing fire out of match. But you can't do it in a classroom with 50 kids in 45 minutes, at an average of less than a minute a student a day.
Sometimes I think public education has been cleverly evolved into this tool to sociologically keep the Teeming Masses in their place. In other words: Bush killed Kenny.
Posted by: Joseph | June 14, 2008 12:01 PM
Being deliberately ignorant is quite a justification for being called stupid. It is only those who can't change their situation that don't deserve that tag. You are definitely not the first to jump on here and suggest better treatment for the likes of Kenny, and just as the rest are told, he has already shown many times over that he does not deserve such consideration.
I don't know about you, but I have plenty of room for both, especially when this individual has repeatedly shown everyone that he is not open to suggestion, does not value fact-based evidence, and merely wants to spout his tired and insufficient canards as "proof" of his superstitious viewpoint. I prefer to get pissed at whomever and whatever deserves it at the time.
So it must not be Kenny's fault that he's completely closed off his brain? That is nonsense. If someone has the presence of mind to make arguments in the fashion that he has, then they definitely have the presence of mind to recognize right from wrong, true from false, and silly from serious - they simply choose not to do so.
So instead of trying to admonish someone for the way they have responded to such an individual on this site, I'd suggest that you go back and read some of the things that the person you are defending has both written and ignored. Maybe then you'll realize that when someone on this site starts receiving the kind of treatment Kenny has received, they simply deserve it - not solely because of their opinions, but because of their insistence on maintaining them even in the face of rational refutation.
His message is clear: God is an extraterrestrial.
What he is proposing is that we were created by aliens who also gave us the bible as a going away present. He makes more sense than most Christians.
Thank you, brokensoldier, for the admonishment not to admonish, which I considered encouragement not to encourage. For while in my several years lurking here I've seen many posts by Barbie's better half, I've yet to see ridicule convert one of these zombie soldiers, but there's plenty of evidence that they're gluttons for verbal punishment.
That's just my view. Perhaps you could give me examples of how ridicule either converts such posters or drives them off/prevents such postings.
Once, playing with ideas, I came up with the notion that a collection of intelligent beings, and cybernetic intelligences, might create 'God' and that this God might eventually transcend time and be able to reach back and adjust the 'Big Bang' to ensure that the universe would be hospitable to life. The root of the idea came from Olaf Stapledon. As said, this was just playing with ideas, not a serious proposal.
Joseph, the problem is, fundamentally, that **neither** discussion, fact, kind words, or ridicule will "convert" one of these zombie soldiers. Most of them have "chosen" to be lost, and on one hand, its hoped that fence sitters might see the ridicule and reconsider why such people are ridiculed, or, at best, one of these people may prove to actually be susceptible to being ridiculed, and opt to reexamine a position that no amount of attempt to educate, guide, hand hold, or encourage them to do *has* ever had an effect on.
But, in the end, its no more pertinent whether it "helps" them change their mind, when the blog is clearly not designed to praise such people, than it would be to tell a stand up comedian who specializes in similar material to, "change their jokes", because some half wit from the category of people *he* makes fun of decided to show up at the club and watch his show, never mind constantly try to interrupt it when ever they hear something they don't agree with.
Posted by: joseph | June 14, 2008 8:17 PM
I could care less about converting such posters. If they come on this site with ridiculous opinions and presume to posit those opinions as fact, I enjoy watching - and sometimes participating in - their ridicule. And I care even less about "driving them off" such postings, because their continuance of such nonsense provides me with much enjoyment when they are so soundly refuted. You seem to take issue with the fact that they are ridiculed, while I revel in that same fact. I would suggest that you find another site, because if you insist on treating such idiocy with some undeserved measure of respect, you will be sorely disappointed here.
On this site, if someone decides to offer ridiculous opinions in the face of contrary evidence, they are treated accordingly, and I quite enjoy that. If that bothers you, then goodbye. People who reject evidentiary argumentation on this site are ridiculed, while those who accept such argumentation, and subsequently alter their arguments, are accepted and treated as rightful contributors to the discourse on this site.
Your misplaced pity for such idiots only serves to show that you have not done the requisite research that would have let you know that such posters do not deserve the level of respect that you are arguing for them to receive. And if you have read over their posts, and are still insisting that they deserve such respect, then you are an idiot alongside them.
Thus spake Andrew:
Hey, you're right!
Our Andrew, which art in teh intertubes,
Hallowed by thy comments, ... (please don't smite me)
Thus spake joseph:
You might as well complain about the low nutritional value of a chew-toy. Everyone knows they're going to stick around and become unbearably tedious. To alleviate the boredom between the time they prove themselves impervious to reason and the time they get plonked, the denizens play tethertard. It turns up some hilarious gems: people here can really be quite creative with their invective.
So, you've kinda missed the point: Kenny wasn't ridiculed in an attempt to convert him or drive him off, both of those have long since failed, he was ridiculed as entertainment.
He appears to be saying that if time is infinite (which it isn't), then any life form could eventually develop god-like abilities in theory, and that if space is infinite as well (which it also isn't)
If you have any good evidence or argument for those assertions, publish, and expect to hear from the Nobel Committee some time soon!
That letter reminds me of an essay I wrote on a final exam in my undergrad philosophy class, in which I thought I proved that either God exists, or he doesn't.. and tha was somehow linked to the fact that I am actually there , writing my essay, and it all seemed very logical at the time, and I passed the exam :)...
How about this one:
Evolution by natural selection is intelligent:
Intelligence is defined as a property possessed by anything demonstrating intelligent behavior, because otherwise intelligence is not measurable. Solving a novel problem is defined as intelligent behavior Evolution by natural selection produces improved organisms. This solves the problem of maximizing copies of genes produced in whatever environment they occupy.
Even though there is no physical entity, there is a process that uses a trial and error method to maximize gene propagation, and has memory in the form of genes that exist.
The only places it falls apart that I can find is that
most definitions of intelligence include the ability to plan.
Hmm, perhaps not the best idea to post his name and location PZ.
A quick google search turns up his business phone and email.....
Ah, but this letter is from the intertubes already.
Kenny blathered:
"I really feel that this web site alone has turned me into a gnostic theist."
Wow. Conversion by spite. Never heard that before. Kenny, when you come here to feed your masochistic persecution complex please keep your comments brief.