Darfasti

Damn I’m glad I read this when I did. It’s on in 10 minutes where I am.
Darwin’s Dagger

Comedy Central runs the previous night’s episode at 8:30 PM (EDT) the next day, so anyone who missed it can catch it again tonight.
Reed Braden

I saw the Colbert Report and the guest was a guy who made art out of Legos. Are you sure you read this right?
TXatheist

Me too, but I’ll catch it tonight at 7:30 CST
Joseph R.

The Michael Shermer interview can be found on the Colbert Report show’s link that Hemant has provided, under “MOST RECENT VIDEOS.”
Darwin’s Dagger

I saw the Colbert Report and the guest was a guy who made art out of Legos. Are you sure you read this right?

Again, that was the 8:30 rerun of the previous night’s episode. The Shermer interview was part of the 11:30 original broadcast that will be repeated tonight (8/22/07) at 8:30.
Karen

He did about as well as anyone can do going up against Stephen Colbert. I would say he got to talk more than many guests do, so that was good. They didn’t get into religion at all, they talked about things like 9/11 deniers, UFOs, etc.
Andrew

Yeah, he did really well. Stephen was really grasping for funny for awhile then he just gave up and let Shermer talk. Wait! Wait! Lol…
Dan

OK all you Skeptics answer this:

“It’s a proven fact that with ALL people, across all genders and races, the consequences / telltales of when a person lies, are that;

They experience sweaty palms.

They experience induced swallowing.

Their heart rate increases.

Their faces turn red.

They avoid eye contact.

They speak more quickly, etc. etc. (The same old, same old with everyone human being on the planet. Except of course for sociopaths and those who have perfected evil deception.

O.k., … so these are physical reactions (that cross all humanity), that occur when people lie, keeping in mind that none of them are at all based upon comfort, self esteem, or integrity,

So, … If man just evolved, apart from God, in a world where lying cannot be considered as something wrong, … What on earth are these characteristics that are connected to lying, all about ? HUH ? … Is evolution really your friend or what ? Did evolution curse you with characteristics that POINT to you as being a LIAR ? ? ?

(Here’s a hint, Lying is a spiritual event. It’s not merely a physical action. Lying is an offense against God. When His creations lie, He is ashamed of His creation and simply separates Himself. Therefore He has constructed us with built in sensors that perhaps we just might someday, in our blind little, self seeking minds, finally get the big picture.)”
Raghu Mani

Dan said,

So, … If man just evolved, apart from God, in a world where lying cannot be considered as something wrong, … What on earth are these characteristics that are connected to lying, all about ? HUH ? … Is evolution really your friend or what ? Did evolution curse you with characteristics that POINT to you as being a LIAR ? ? ?

Don’t you ever get tired of building strawmen? Evolution is not about every man for himself. Sometimes cooperation is useful for the survival of a species and there are lots of species that are social in which each individual depends on others to survive. Some kind of moral sense, some kind of virtue is hardwired into such species – including ourselves.

What is commonly described as “virtue” is a combination of traits that have evolved in all social animals and one of the most important of these traits is empathy. You have the ability to put yourself in someone’s shoes and feel what they feel – which is precisely why you feel bad when you lie to someone. Without the ability to empathize, you will not be able to function in society – you would have no desire to cooperate with others. Any social species in which individuals do not have the desire to cooperate will go extinct fairly soon.

Our ability to empathize is not perfect. There are in every society a small number of habitual liars who will lie brazenly all the time and all of us are capable of lying convincingly at times – though we tend to be truthful most of the time. This precisely what is predicted by evolutionary theory. If you want to read more about this, I can recommend an excellent book by Matt Ridley called The Origins of Virtue.

Let me turn the question around and ask you something. If god instilled truthfulness in every one, how would you explain sociopaths who are completely incapable of any empathy whatsoever and can lie (and do worse things) without feeling anything at all. Believe me, such people exist.
Darfasti

Most of those are symptoms of anxiety. In the wild, these are defense mechanisms. When being attacked by a predator, your heart rate will increase to increase circulation through out your body, so that you may be ready to fight or run away. The sweat is to cool your body down while you heart is doing this. The face will flush because of increased blood in your cheeks, so that if you get cut in the face, it will bleed more to make it appear as if you are more injured than you are.

The fact that those happen to you when you lie is just an unintended consequence. It’s just a byproduct of your anxiety. And it’s not even universal (Lie detectors aren’t effective 100% of the time, leading to it not being admissable in court.).

The other two things you mentioned, the speaking more quickly and the avoidance of eye contact, is just psychological, and is far from universal. The avoidance of eye contact is just a sign that you feel you are being dishonest. And speaking more quickly is just your anxiety again.

And I say again, these symptoms are not at all universal. Just turn on the television, and you’ll see hundreds of liars (called actors) continuously lie with NONE of these symptoms.

And that’s not even getting into the fact that your entire argument is flawed from the start. Just because we don’t know something, doesn’t automatically mean God did it. It just means we don’t know yet.

Next time, try doing some actual research before you outright reject an idea.
Polly

@Dan,

Why are some people so eager to attack evolution? What’s the fascination with finding arguments against it? If evolution were overturned tomorrow, I myself still wouldn’t find xianity credible in the least.
Many xians are OK with evolution; you can still believe in god and Jesus and take the 6 days as non literal. There are far, FAR worse problems with the bible than the creation story’s conflict with evolution.

Do you go around trying to fix people’s cars or perform open heart surgery? No, because you are not a mechanic or a cardiac surgeon (I presume for purpose of example). If you have a problem with Biology, become a biologist, do some real research and publish EVIDENCE of your theories in peer-reviewed science journals. Don’t just try to take the easy way out looking for a “magic-bullet” argument.
If you think all that is too much, then consider that the people you think are lying to children or have been fooled themselves are the ones who have gone through the whole rigorous process of getting their PhDs and conducting research. Maybe they know something about life-science that you don’t?

Btw – trying to insert god as an explanation for something we dont, YET, understand is popularly called “God of the Gaps.” It’s a logical fallacy called “Argument from Ignorance.” By this reasoning, one could have postulated that god was directly causing every thunderstorm and earthquake, before those phenomena were understood.
TXatheist

Oh boy Dan is back to antagonize 🙁
Dan

Polly said “If you have a problem with Biology, become a biologist, do some real research and publish EVIDENCE of your theories in peer-reviewed science journals….Maybe they know something about life-science that you don’t?”

Is your presupposition that my ignorance invalidates any of my arguments? I could presuppose that your ignorance of God negates your ability to rightly judge his existence, thereby forcing you to arrive at erring conclusions about evolution.

The fact is there is no evidence of evolution at all. Micro-evolution sure we can all agree to that but Macro-evolution never, no way, not one shred of evidence is available. Yet, the schools portray it as fact and that is truly lying to the children and have been fooled themselves. If anyone has evidence of evolution then go to intelligent design versus evolution.com to collect $10,000.
Claire

Is your presupposition that my ignorance invalidates any of my arguments? I could presuppose that your ignorance of God negates your ability to rightly judge his existence, thereby forcing you to arrive at erring conclusions about evolution.

Yes, your ignorance does invalidate your arguments. You ignore the evidence and claim there is none.

However, ignorance of ‘god’ does not invalidate anyone’s argument. You can’t have evidence of something that does not exist, you can only have faith, with which there can be no argument. Something that is based on faith instead of evidence has no place in science, so a person can be completely and totally ignorant of all things religious and do excellent scientific work.

Ignoramuses should stick to religion and leave the science to the scientists.

Or wait – are you another troll? I’ve learned to ignore the other one – will the sensible folk tell me if I should be ignoring this one, too?
Polly

@Dan:

For further information about evolution, I highly recommend the Talkorigins Website. You’re being misinformed. There is plenty of fossil and molecular biology evidence in support of evolution and (just in case) there’s a section showing the pretty irrefutable evidence for an old earth. It’s a balanced site and it’s NOT devoted to undermining god-belief.

Your specific argument about evolution was already quite readily refuted by others. I don’t feel the need to reiterate those points.

I could presuppose that your ignorance of God negates your ability to rightly judge his existence, thereby forcing you to arrive at erring conclusions about evolution.

Which god are you talking about? If it’s the xian one, I can assure you, I know as much as any lay believer can and much more than the average. In fact it was a study of the Bible that led to my long overdue rejection of it as the word of a god.

Are there any other scientific theories you have a problem with or just evolution? Why are there no papers showing research into other theoris of biodiversity? Any other theory is expected to have more than just conjecture behind it.
Why must there be an exception for your pet theory, where every other theory must go through a rigorous process of scrutiny and, yes, even attack, before it’s accepted?

And where do you draw the line between micro- and macro-evolution? Evolution could be said to be a series of “micro” changes that accumulate over time.
HappyNat

(Here’s a hint, Lying is a spiritual event. It’s not merely a physical action. Lying is an offense against God. When His creations lie, He is ashamed of His creation and simply separates Himself. Therefore He has constructed us with built in sensors that perhaps we just might someday, in our blind little, self seeking minds, finally get the big picture.)”

lol and lol again.
Darfasti

The fact is there is no evidence of evolution at all. Micro-evolution sure we can all agree to that but Macro-evolution never, no way, not one shred of evidence is available. Yet, the schools portray it as fact and that is truly lying to the children and have been fooled themselves. If anyone has evidence of evolution then go to intelligent design versus evolution.com to collect $10,000.

All Macro-evolution is, is a whole bunch of little micro-evolutions put together. In fact, in science, there no “Macro-Evolution” or “Micro-Evolution”, just “Evolution.” That term was coined entirely by creationists.
Dan

“Evolution could be said to be a series of “micro” changes that accumulate over time.” Your right it COULD BE but that isn’t the case there is no proof of this at all. Do you have any proof? There is not one fossil evidence of this at all, ever. So how can you conclude this, based on what proof? It is a good theory but it is wrong, plain and simple.

You see your presuppositions will not allow you to examine without bias the evidence that I present to you for God’s existence.

Your presupposition is that there is no God; therefore, no matter what I might present to you to show His existence, you must interpret it in a manner consistent with your presupposition: namely, that there is no God. If I were to have a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you’d say it was a special effect. If I had a thousand eye-witnesses
saying they saw Him, you’d say it was mass-hysteria. If I had Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament, you’d say they were forged, dated incorrectly, or not real prophecies. So, I cannot prove anything to you since your presupposition won’t allow it. It is limited.

Your presupposition cannot allow you to rightly determine God’s existence from evidence — providing that there were factual proofs of His existence. Don’t you see? If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.

I must ask you, what kind of evidence would you accept that would prove God’s existence? I must see what your presuppositions are and work either with them or against them.
Darfasti

Okay, I’m bowing out of this discussion. I’m too busy laughing at the sheer irony of that last post by Dan.

Quick, someone submit it to Fundies say the Darnedest Things!

Seriously, funniest thing I’ve seen all day.
Siamang

Hey everyone! Dan is back!
Claire

Is he always this amusing? That is indeed the funniest thing that I have seen in a good long while!

I there a comparable saying to “the pot calling the kettle black” when the pot is guilty of being what he only thinks the kettle is?
Richard Wade

What is this site becoming, Troll Central? Between Dan and olvie it’s starting to look like a Brothers Grimm tale.
Colin

All right, I’ll feed the troll 🙂

“I must ask you, what kind of evidence would you accept that would prove God’s existence?”

Either a god exists or it does not. If it does not, there is no evidence that could prove its existence. If a god does exist, then this god either has an effect on the universe or it does not. If it does not have an effect on the universe, then all religious beliefs & practices are mistaken. If a god does have an effect on the universe, this effect can be measured. Since this effect can be measured, it can be studied by the scientific community.

Therefore, I personally would be convinced by a reputable, peer-reviewed, repeatable study that shows evidence of a god’s effect on the natural world. I don’t mean a philosophical “god of the gaps” argument — i.e., it’s insufficient to say “scientists don’t understand X, therefore a god must exist”. I want a positive claim about some aspect of a god’s effect on the universe.
biologist.nick

A very common misconception is that new species evolve from to different species mating, like an owl and a dog to form the new species owl dog. As neat as that would be, that’s not quite how it works. The arrival of a new species isn’t instantaneous.
Prentend you have blank fish. They live in a pond, and say some are swimming on one side, and some the other, and a big something falls in the middle and completely blocks them off from one another, or the lake lowers and there was a tall land bridge in the middle. Either way, the fish are separated, both still blank. The fish on the left side develop a mutation where they eventually evolve into “red fish”. Halfway there…
MEANWHILE ON THE OTHER SIDE. First you should know that the mutations are completely random. Saying that, let’s say that the fish in the second side of the pool are never introduced to the “RED” Gene, they will never be red. Maybe these fish become blue, the same way as the other fish became red. So the second side went from the first “blank fish”, to the”blue fish.”
After so long the fish will lose the ability to breed with fish on the other side, even if they are reunited. So now you have “Red Fish” and “Blue Fish”, two species of fish.

There are other ways it happens, and my example was very simple, but when this happens over million and millions of years, you get a lot of variety. Mutations aren’t the only way for genetic variation, but anything more would be to complicated to get into, unless someone wants to hear it.

A species micro evolving into two seperate ways, again and again is macro evolution. It is a biology phrase, not made by creationist, but Darfasti was right that Macro Is jsut a lot of Micros.
Polly

@Dan,

If I DID have incontrovertible proof, your presupposition would force you to interpret the facts consistently with your presupposition and you would not be able to see the proof.

If you had incontrovertible proof I’d certainly reconsider. In fact, it would be much easier than that to shake my atheism; the hyperbole of “incontrovertible” is unnecessary. Instead of hypothetical scenarios, just present some nonhypothetical, real-life evidence.

Getting back to my point about why you feel the need to attack evolution, it’s obvious you haven’t checked out the talkorigins site. You probably think it’s deceptive. There are prominent Christians who accept an old earth and some form of evolution: You can check out

Hugh Ross – an astronomer who reconciles an old earth with the bible and accepts a watered down version of evolution called “progressive creation”
Francis Colins – of Human Genome fame. He accepts both, an old earth and evolution but believes in the xian god.

I don’t agree with these guys, but they are at least recognizing and dealing with the fact of evolution as best they can under the burden of ancient dogma imposed by their xian belief system.

Why am I going to this trouble? Because I’ve been on both sides of this issue and it’s clear to me that you are being fed lies. It’s one thing to say that you don’t think there’s enough evidence or that it’s subject to interpretation, but to say that there’s NO evidence for evolution, is just flat out incorrect.
Dan

“A couple of points here:

1. Complex life forms have been with us from the beginning, as evidenced by the geologic strata. They did not evolve from anything. They were created complex.

2. Even the “simplest” life forms — the prokaryotic bacteria — are extraordinarily complex. They are certainly far more complex than any chance could produce, no matter how much time or how many elements were available.

Your point is mistaken in one area, however. Even according to evolutionary ideas, there is no reason the “simplest” life forms could not exist on a continuing basis although a portion of them might have mutated into other forms. I’m not sure their argument is entirely logical, however…. They say that mutations and environmental pressures worked together to produce changes from one sort of organism to another. But, you are right — we still have those bacteria and such around. So we must presume that through the billions of years evolution postulates that these bacteria did NOT have the combination of mutations and environmental pressures to become something else — while their ‘sister’ populations did. So for one group of organisms we seem to have an incredibly stable genome and environment for millions and billions of years while an identical population was subject to all kinds of mutations and pressures which ended up producing life as we see it today. So, although evolutionists will say that it is perfectly logical that original, or close to original, life forms should still exist today, I’m afraid the logic of it misses me, too.” (Helen Fryman)
Dan

“Even if evolution were true (it isn’t – but just for the sake of argument, let’s assume it is), does that mean there is no God? How do you know God didn’t use it to get us here? (I am not teaching that evolution is true, nor that God used it, which is called theistic evolution; I am simply reasoning with you.) If you believe in evolution, does that mean you aren’t a sinner? God won’t accept the excuse that you believed in evolution and not Him.
Have you examined evolution to see if it is true? Evolution is not all that you are led to believe. There are all kinds of problems in the fossil record. New theories are being raised all the time to account for why there aren’t any undisputed transitional forms found between any species of any kind, anywhere, anytime in all the fossil record. But you wouldn’t know these things because you haven’t studied. You need to know the facts about evolution, and you need to know the facts about Jesus.” (carm.org)
Dan

I have been to talk origins quite often actually and it all comes down to presupposition again. They start with the presupposition that there is no God and write all the research based on that. I can easily give you counters for any argument they may have, simply.

grisda.org is a great resource for any information.

What is important is not to just “talk” about it but what is the ‘truth” so I suggest you go to a website that talks about the truth instead of just talk like:

trueorigin.org
TXatheist

There is no such thing as micro and macro evolution. Those are words creationists came up with because long term evolution can’t be physically observed. No one lives for a million years to watch those changes. Stop feeding the scientifically illiterate troll.
TXatheist

They won’t give you the 10k ever…. look at how they justify it. You are a liar or god is a liar and the bible says god can’t lie so you lose the 10k.

http://www.tenthousanddollaroffer.com/results.html

Perhaps you said that you have kept the first of the Ten Commandments, but the Bible says, “There is none that seeks after God” (Romans 3:11, italics added). So no one has kept that Commandment. Not one. So one of you is lying—either you or God, and the Scriptures say that it’s “impossible” for God to lie (see Hebrews 6:18). So, now you have broken the Ninth Commandment by lying about keeping the First Commandment. So you have missed out on the $10,000 (sorry about that), but please stay with this—for a free gift.

God has been a witness to everything you have coveted, every lie you have told, and everything you have stolen. The Bible says “All liars will have their part in the lake of fire” (Revelation 21:8), and that no covetous person or thief will inherit the Kingdom of God. Think of all the secret sins that you thought no one saw. He even sees your thought-life. Will you be innocent or guilty on the Day of Judgment? Listen to your conscience. According to the Bible, you will be guilty, and therefore end up in Hell. But that’s not God’s will — Jesus suffered and died on the cross, taking the punishment for your sins: “God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Then He rose from the dead and defeated death. If you repent and trust Him, God will save you from your sins. He will forgive you and grant you the gift of eternal life: “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Don’t miss out on the greatest of all gifts. Pray something like this: “Dear God, please forgive me for sinning against You. I trust alone in Jesus Christ for my eternal salvation. I will read the Bible daily and obey what I read. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.” Read John 14:21. Go to: http://www.livingwaters.com and click on “Save Yourself Some Pain.”
Darfasti

Dan, a quick question for you.

Why, if evolution never happened and all evidence of it is false, do the majority of scientists believe it’s happened and still happening? Science is the search for greater understanding of the world around us. If a person did find evidence that evolution is false, scientists would actually be happy, since they now have greater understanding.

I’m curious as to your answer.
cautious

Why the heck is Dan’s comment at 11.17am an exact copy of this page?

I mean, seriously, writing something original isn’t that difficult. …is it?
Siamang

Dan,

I’d call you gullible, but the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary.

You are being lied to by creationists. It’s all a hoax.

Creationism is one, big gigantic hoax cooked up by liars, frauds, charlatans and con-artists. They’ve got you believing in it, but I wouldn’t be so proud of that, if I were you.

Hook, line and sinker, Dan. Hook, line and sinker.
Polly

@Siamang:

Next time I’ll check my spelling before posting at DaylightAtheism. 😉
Siamang

Polly,

Did something happen at DA I’m missing?
Polly

@siamang:
I misspelled exactly the word “gullible” just today. But, now I see there are two variants. So, I wasn’t wrong after all; I thought I was.
Siamang

Hmm… and to think, neither of them are in the dictionary.

Wierd.
Richard Wade

Siamang, what dictionary are you using? “Gullible” is in mine, and “wierd” is not. …Or am I not getting some joke?
Polly

I get it, now. But, I was slow. Oy vey, it’s been a long day.
Dan

txatheist, to my amusement, wrote “because long term evolution can’t be physically observed.”

OK let’s just say you were right here, look at what you just said. According to TXatheist there is “NO PROOF” of evolution at all so why are you teaching it in school? I rest my case.

Thanks TXatheist maybe you can convince your friends here the same thing. You cannot prove your claim of evolution, period. P.S. thanks for the witness (Ray’s 10k offer) lol, here is another one Evolution?

Darfasti inserted the fallacy “why do the majority of scientists believe it’s happened and still happening?”

Let me get this strait, because a majority populous believes in something, it makes it true? I guess Christianity is provable by the same fallacy then, right?

cautious said “Why the heck is Dan’s comment at 11.17am an exact copy of this page?”

Look, I used quotes and gave you her name for a reference what more can I do to give her the credit. Give me a break.

Siamang said “Creationism is one, big gigantic hoax cooked up by liars, frauds, charlatans and con-artists.”

Do you have proof of this claim?

Aparently Siamang is gullible twice (“You can’t pay attention to rumors like this,” said Pilla. “Just because you hear something on the internet doesn’t mean it’s true. You’d be surprised how many people forget that.”)
Siamang

Ha-haa!

For more laffs, check out the newest post on Ebay atheist!

http://www.otmatheist.com/
Darfasti

Darfasti inserted the fallacy “why do the majority of scientists believe it’s happened and still happening?”

Let me get this strait, because a majority populous believes in something, it makes it true? I guess Christianity is provable by the same fallacy then, right?

Nice way to evade the question.

Oh, and your analogy would be a little more fitting if I was actually using the question to try to prove the theory of evolution to be correct.

I’m not.

I was simply curious as to your answer.
Matt

Dunno how long it will be there, but…

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9ngu8w4TXYI

-Matt
biologist.nick

1. Complex life forms have been with us from the beginning, as evidenced by the geologic strata. They did not evolve from anything. They were created complex.

I LOL’ed

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