tiny2
August 3rd, 2016
Another one from 2006 today. New one next week, promise.
This month’s raffle prizewinner is Jared. He gets a signed print of his choice.
Latest book…
Random oldie…
January 3, 2014-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
How could you not love Mo? Loved his comment in first panel.
Yes, very!
Lee Child:
Loved his comment in first panel.
Of course he would say so. The other way aroiund he would be confessing incest….
Yeah! THat’s the best agrgument for evolutionI can think of-since a lot of theists already accept it. So if USING THE SAME MECHANISM OF DNA CHANGE can’t large amount of change happen over a LONGER PERIOD OF TIME.
I think the problem is that they can’t imagine the billions of years involved. A bacteria to an elephant is dificult to PICTURE; a lot of random changes.
Quote of Haldane in response to how can you go from a single cell to a person
“Madam, you did it yourself and it only took 9 months”
[May be apocryphal]
RA:
I think the problem is that they can’t imagine the billions of years involved.
That’s just it. Bible says earth was created ~6000 years ago.
So, there just isn’t enough time….
The suggestion of divine intervention
Is quite a bone of contention
Then there is evolution
won’t come to a conclusion
The difference is not worth a mention.
yes Mo you do
So is it impossible to be both a dog breeder and a christian?
A bacteria to an elephant is dificult to PICTURE
maybe, but Muslims seem to have no problem with the picture of Jews turning into pigs and apes
There is also the big problem -have the creationists actually understood the Bereshis myth correctly -or did it mean something else when first spoken and later written down?
So is it impossible to be both a dog breeder and a christian?
well they seem to be arguing that a dog is always a dog no matter how much the dogs change physiologically
so I guess they can be both
Muslims on the other hand cant because dogs are ‘unclean’
Young Earth Creationists flippantly claim that even billions of years isn’t enough time for evolution to current species, but the original and fundamental reason for young earth is to make CERTAIN there isn’t enough time. They certainly don’t present it that way, though.
so if young Earth creationists fantasize that the universe was created 6000 years ago
and old earth creationists think it was like reality except ‘godidit’
what do Middle Earth creationists think?
Re ‘6000 years’
the bible states somewhere- ‘a thousand years in gods view are but a watch in the night
a watch is a period of around 4 hours
therefore there are 6 of those per day of 24 hours
SO
if A ‘creation’ took 6 days
and B a ‘day’ for ‘god’ is 6000 years long
it follows that the bible says 42,000 years [as a minimum] not 6000
That Iluvatar, using the Music of the Ainur, created life.
“Middle Earth creationists” tell us that Sauron did it.
He gets blamed for everything.
No matter how many Wraiths and Orcs Gandalf kills, he’s the GoodGuy.
One problem with denying the process of evolutionary change in descendent organisms is that Lirrel Suzie does not look like Mummy Elsa. Not entirely. She has Daddy Bubba D.N.A. in her, too. Unca’ Bobby-Sue is frequently heard to remark that Lirrel Suzie has Bubba’s nose, or pithecine disposition, or beer-swillingness.
This blatantly obvious point seems to be missed by every theist parent on the planet.
Your children are not you. That is Evolution In Action.
Also, if there is no evolutionary process making descendent organisms different from ancestor organisms there must, by inevitability, be homosexual parents of every single homosexual person. Whether it is learned behaviour or genetic, the predisposition must come from Mummy Bubba and Daddy Suzy-Mae. Which has interesting implications.
Also, if evolution don’t happen then I can never sin. It’s not my fault that I do evil, naughty, bad stuff like drink Irish Coffees on the Sabbath instead of self-flagellating in a Nunnery. It’s genetic. Adam and his wardrobe-obsessed clone made me this way.
Yes, true, I do have “free will” but I also have an inbuilt, over-arching, over-riding, massively dominant predisposition to tell the priests where to stuff their deities.
It comes from not being able to evolve past the Original Sin.
Adam and Adam-clone were evil, disobedient and a bit rubbish so all of their children must be, too.
We can’t improve because evolutionary change is impossible.
So there is no real purpose to all them sermons exhorting us to be better, is there? So we may as well not bother with Church on Sundays, right?
So, I’m being a Good Citizen by avoiding them, yes?
The logically failing in the Me-Adam conjecture is, of course, that I am not of their genetic line. I am one of The Other People, the tribes owing no allegiance to the Jewish godling. That deity has no remit for jurisdiction over us.
Which sill implies we can’t sin but from a vastly different logical direction.
We’re the people Cain picked up a wife from … and we can evolve.
A little.
Buggrit, millennium hand-n-shrimp!
There should have been a “close-bold” after the first not. Not having one is naughty but not having an edit function is a knotty issue.
Pru Freeding, no matte how much I love her, isn’t perfect.
learned behaviour or genetic
You are overlooking the third mechanism – environmental stress influence on the developing embryo- which appears to be the primary factor in Trans*
the same is probably true in the case of homosexual nature
for example if the pregnant wife is beaten it would produce environmental stress on the first trimester embryo – therefore it follows that religions which have a book which states that its is the husband’s duty to beat the wife [ with a rod no larger diameter than the thumb] are also increasing the chance that their children are LGBT
On the subject of stupid and looking so, we have this little gem.
Is it likely that I did die in 2005 and this is my afterlife?
No, not the good, nice, happy one with minty ice creams …
On the subject of stupid and looking so, we have this little gem.
Is it likely that I did die in 2005 and this is my afterlife?
No, not the good, nice, happy one with minty ice creams …
A jest so good, I had to post it twice …
Is it likely that I did die in 2005 and this is my afterlife?
How would you set about determining if this is the ‘afterlife’
@tonyjazz Actually I understand the Anglican Church accepts evolution and the Catholic Church states it is not incompatible with faith. It is only the Fundamentalists and Muslims that have a problem with it but the latter also have a problem with touching dogs, which might make breeding them problematic.
‘Muslims that have a problem with it ‘
Is the fundamental principle and definition of islam, period
a problem with touching dogs, which might make breeding them problematic
Do dogs need human input in order to breed? I always thought they managed quite well on their own without need of human involvement in the activities required.
perhaps Mo saw a need to prohibit Muslims because of Arabian social customs
Anglican Church accepts evolution and the Catholic Church states it is not incompatible with faith.
How very generous of them.
MdM:
Fundamentalists and Muslims that have a problem with it but the latter also have a problem with touching dogs
You forgot to mention, they also a problem with the concept of earth being a sphere.
You forgot to mention, they also a problem with the concept of earth being a sphere.
so apparently do a vocal group of xians and similar reality challenged folk
‘World of batshit’ videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhibN89WJtI
the first will lead to the other 6
for a real example of Islamic fuckwittery – check out videos by Zakir Naik
How would I test whether this is an afterlife, a simulation, Quantum Immortality or the one and only “real life” that mice, microbes and molluscs get, Mr. Squirrel?
That’s an easy one: I just jump from a very high building onto exceedingly hard ground, head first.
If I survive, it’s an afterlife, a simulation or Q.I.
If not, it was real.
However, if it was real then I would not know it, would I? Nor would I know, for sure, that anyone else learned the truth of it.
If I jump, I only learn the result if it’s a fake life.
Interesting, isn’t it?
The only way to know is never to learn the answer.
The only way to win … 🙂
On the subject of Islamic fuckwittery, Pink Squirrel, I have, a long time ago, read the original News Report straight from the horse’s … mouth.
I have little need for more.
And, after things like Nice, I no longer find much humour in their idiotic little cult.
Nor am I entirely convinced that mocking the mentally afflicted who live by their petty cult’s dogma is either effective or ever successful in leading any of them Into The Light Of Reason, but, as it is often funny, I still see it as worth doing.
Until they find me and do much harm to me by way of high temperatures and objects both blunt and sharp.
Then I will, like the vast majority of the planet’s population, cook.
Unless, of course, this is Quantum Immortality.
Or my personal, non-pleasant afterlife.
Or a hollow simulation.
My dear friend, Pink Squirrel, I wish to deeply thank you for the link to “World Of Batshit”. That guy has a wonderful grasp of exactly how utterly insane, inane and ludicrous some of those bowl-stains really are and he is funny to boot.
I wish I had a tenth of his talents.
“It’s the galaxy we live in.“
If I survive, it’s an afterlife, a simulation or Q.I.
untestable assumption there – as it might be the case that those scenarios also result in extinguishing of consciousness
get, Ms. Squirrel?
That’s an easy one:
just to correct your accidental typo, Loner-too
Testing by suicide is even less reliable than it seems, firstly you might
somehow survive the fall [ as life of Brian showed]
so continuity there would not supply proof
nor would it distinguish ‘the afterlife’ from the other options you cite
so that’s the first
there are several possible states of existence [SOE] with condition A
‘actual life’
‘afterlife’
dreaming’
‘narcotic hallucination’
soul translocation- either by QI or reincarnation
and the test you cite might only result in transfer of consciousness from SOE A to SOE B
for example SOE A might be the ‘afterlife’ and by testing via suicide you trigger the mechanism by which reincarnation/QI transfer operates
so rather than starting alive and then becoming dead
you start up dead and then become alive
the possible permutations are so wide that there is no way to actually know what might happen if the SOE were tested
even then it is necessary to assume that there is only one actual outcome and/or that the outcome is not subject to ‘ chaotic sensitivity to initial conditions’
You’re a lady squirrel, Pink? Sorry. Not that it matters very much in an intellectual congress like this one where even species could be arbitrary.
It might matter, in some places and times, if you wanted to marry me but even then it would only be an issue were I not female, and were I human – I think it is okay for a lady Squirrel to marry a lady goat for example but it may be worth checking before doing it.
Still, I apologise if I offended.
You are right, my test is one of elimination only, in that it would under most circumstances eliminate the tester. It would tell any survivors [including the tester] very little.
Some ninety-odd thousand million human-like critters have allegedly already died and the question still arises so one more might not solve it.
Short of hacking the Matrix or finding the man behind the curtain the sanest response is to assume this is real and to act accordingly.
Assuming, of course, one wishes to be seen as “sane”.
Theists think they have found the man behind the curtain. I disagree. If there isn’t one, we may never know for sure. If there is, he’s an idiot, a sadist, massively mentally ill and a bit rubbish but we might someday find out.
I don’t particularly care, either way.
If he’s there, he has only one effect on my life, he riles up the woo-woos to harm and control me. That doesn’t seem like a particularly useful, kind, loving, merciful or wise thing for a cosmos-builder to do (though it may indeed be his form of TV) so, in the immortal words of the Eternal Poet, fuck him.
If he ever did anything nice I may give him grudging thanks but there never will be any gratitude for suffering.
The best thing we could do for a cosmos-creator would be to ignore the stupid bastard and get on with our lives the best way we can.
That would show our gratitude for them.
Bumping our heads on the floor, waving our bums in the air, pointing at a brick and bleating at a deity who even if there might not give a toss is wasting everything we are given by the universe.
And hurting another being is just sick. [Unless he likes it.]
Real, simulation, Q.I., it doesn’t matter, we should live as though there were never gods and as though we matter.
Products of evolution or created beings we are born with tools that can shape our cosmos.
We should use them.
To help one another.
We are better than gods. It is time we accepted this.
It is time we loved.
Yes indeed fuck ‘god ‘ existing or not the entity gives all the impression of being totally superfluous and irrelevant
it is not even needed for an ‘afterlife’ to exist
consciousness is just electricity so theoretically it must go somewhere although most likely it just dissipates
but it need only be a quantum/chaos mechanism – a sentient controlling mind is not needed
re It is time we loved.
yes indeed
we have to work on the basis that this is the only life, and given we have no way of knowing where if anywhere that we end up, even believers in ‘god’ should be seeing it that way
regardless of how long eternity in the afterlife is or what form if any it takes
we have a life here first and we can make it a precursor of the ‘heaven’ everyone would like to go to or we can make it a precursor of ‘hell’
I know which I prefer
and strangely enough [or not] all the believers seem to be doing their very best to make it hell leaving the atheists to do all the effort to improve things
ps I saw what you did there lol and
species ARE arbitrary.
agreed we have a scientific definition that works
but only because the dead ones cant breed anymore
otherwise life would manifest as a sort of multifaceted temporal ring species
]it could make time travel very interesting in either direction]
but ‘species’ is just a theoretical taxonomic concept of close similarity – they don’t really exist
Pink Squirrel, speciation is an interesting thing.
I have no descendants. I never will. I am not the kind of animal any human woman would choose as a mate. Does that mean I am not a member of the human species?
I can’t breed with humans, so am I human?
What is Man?
Is a lump of flesh that tortures and burns people “human”? Is a being without any superstition or religious impulse “human”? Are politicians human? Even just a littly bit?
Dogs are way more human than they are wolf but they are not human beings.
In the “enlightened” countries we consider that if it is, or resembles closely, a biped hominid then it has human rights. Mostly, that suits me fine as it includes me but occasionally I have these naughty thoughts …
nothing wrong with naughty thoughts unless you are subject to sharia ‘justice’
if not passing on genes denied human status then many would fail the criteria
All pre-adolescent children would classify as -non human
except in America where anything with the intellectual capacity of blastomic zygotes and/or placental stem cells is counted as a fully adult human
what is human and descendants is an important question
when [ if or never, if abrahamism has its way] we spread outwards to other solar systems
speciation will occur between disparate human population which will make out current differences seem like the trivia they are
star trek ‘aliens’ for example are probably more representative of the possible divergences between isolated human populations than of actual alien species
Pink Squirrel dogs, especially stray packs manage nicely to breed without human intervention. They even manage in spite of it.
There was a short S.F. tale (that phrase could start a sentence that ends with just about every subject or idea ever thought of) about a post-Terran galactic diaspora where every living planet was derived from Earth-life. The great flood of life eventually inhabited and used almost every world in the galaxy and everything was going just dandy until they met The Aliens.
Things that were so different from the Sons of Earth that they were terrifyingly alien.
It eventuated that the aliens were also post-human but they were Earth-life that had colonised the galaxy by way of another route.
Speciation did take place in the hominids a while back but Homo the Sap. seem to have eaten them all. All apart from bonobo and chimp.
loner-too, you wrote, “The best thing we could do for a cosmos-creator would be to ignore the stupid bastard and get on with our lives the best way we can.” Yes–and this also reminds me of Necessity (the 3rd in a series of books by Jo Walton), in which an alien species has a religion that centers on doing what they can to have the gods ignore them. (The gods see the aliens as a source of entertainment, and interfere in the aliens’ lives the way some humans poke at anthills.)
You also wrote, “It is time we loved.” Agreed. In my opinion, among those we should love are the religious. We need not like them, and we need to oppose them if, for example, they try to impose sharia law on us, but if, say, they are the victims of an earthquake, we should give them the aid they need. We won’t change the minds of all of them, but some may be inspired to follow our example.
Two cents’ worth, “We shall pray for you.”
How many thousands of times have you heard that from the voyeurs of disasters, car accidents, those struck by illness or human conflict? From the mighty leaders of church and state to the humblest of TV viewer and News program cue-card reader it is their only response.
Someone, ages ago, on this discussion said something like: “One hand open to help s worth far more than ten million closed in prayer” but that is a lesson theists will never learn.
You survive the cancer so the daddy in the sky did a miracle. It has nothing to do with trillions of relativistic electrons or the skilled surgeons nor even the massive pharmaceutical industry, no, it was the daddy setting aside his vast Plan and voiding the physical laws of the universe because someone prayed.
Us helping teaches them nothing.
They are incapable of learning for they already know everything they need.
All answers to all questions are in the book.
If you doubt the accuracy of that statement, just ask them.
For millennia theists have had the two examples , theists who control, kill, torture and generally wish to live in the dark and a few generous, usually smart, often iconoclastic, obstreperous and annoying people who try to make life better and, consistently theists pick the idiotic option and suffer.
While causing suffering for the rest us us whether we like it or not.
They do not learn. Ever.
They have had millennia to see the difference between theist priestly control and human freedom of thought and they consistently pick the control.
This does not bode well for your hope that our example might be contagious.
2c
‘a religion that centers on doing what they can to have the gods ignore them’
.
a marked contrast to our own situation in which whatever ‘god’ might exist it completely ignores us despite the best efforts of the believers to make it pay attention
tiny evolution versus big evolution
surely all evolution is ‘tiny’
rain is tiny too, but somehow produces mighty rivers
IF evolution is evil
THEN it behoves good xian and muslim parents to stop evolution getting at their descendants, and kill their children before breeding age
This will prevent evil satanic evolution afflicting truly devout xian and muslim families
Seems the Taliban took me literally and have made a head start with 70 + fellow muslims
keep it up
and soon there wont be any muslims left
only the dead and apostates
Mo asks ‘do we look stupid’
well-
a- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdpPtDeSm-I
and b- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSXs9ZGeNLI
give a clue of just how stupid Mo looks
loner-too, you wrote, “Us helping teaches them nothing.”
You might be surprised. For example, my siblings and I were brought up in a practising Roman Catholic family, and were sent to parochial schools for 10 years. Now, none of us are religious. Three out of four of us do not belong to any church; I am a member of a Unitarian Universalist church. (Many UUs are atheists.)
The human species may never be completely free of religion, but “it is time we loved” everyone, even the religious. We may persuade some to follow our thinking as well as our example. As for the rest, as long as they treat others (especially others who are not like them) kindly and fairly, I don’t care whether they’re religious or not. (I do care whether people are fundamentalists, because they don’t respect science, but that is a separate rant.)
I don’t have a citation handy, but I’ve heard that, at least in the USA, the number of people who say they have no religion has been rising in recent years. It looks like time is on our side.
been waiting for more replies but none in time allotted
what do Middle Earth creationists think?
August 3, at 8:16 pm
That Iluvatar, using the Music of the Ainur, created life.
August 3, at 8:29 pm
“Middle Earth creationists” tell us that Sauron did it.
The first schism in just 13 minutes – has to be a record !
It looks like time is on our side.
agreed assuming global warming side effects give us the time
for four reasons which are often mutually reinforcing [as I see it ]
1 global communication exposes the browser to new ideas – all of which have to mutually compete- and the more reasonable sounding ideas will be naturally selected for
for example those who are LGBT in hostile regions are exposed to better treatment in more liberal parts of the world – and will resent not having the same equalities
2 as the religions lose ground their backlash becomes increasingly more strident/violent – which further pushes away the more moderate
an effect [it has been cited to be ] seen in the muslim world where the excesses of da’esh and other fundies are turning many moderate muslims away from islam
3 the increase in the incremental removal of womens rights.
Historically the only nations to last a significant length of time have been those which share social power equally between the sexes
those which did not [eg Sparta] ultimately failed
4 technology
As the oil supply runs out, there will be less cash to pump into exporting wahabism
an effect which can never be too soon
and also
nations and societies can go one of two ways – they either embrace technological progress or they reject it .
those that embrace technology will increase their global dominance in an ever more technological world
or they will turn away from technological progress and quickly fall behind and be marginalised
this is inevitable as it is the forefront of technology which allows a given nation to be dominant
muhammed understood this – as he incorporated the lastest medical ideas of the Roman physican Galen into the qu’ran.
This had no impact in the medieval as at that time the leading technological ideas were found in the bible
Now however it does not.
so yes we can be optimistic that the blight of religion will wither and die and humanity turn away from the worship of hatred and death that Abrahamic religions espouse and delight in
I think I just found a semi-rational rationale for those all-over black tents and a damned good reason for avoiding bikinis.
Possibly also the one valid reason for learning Icelandic. It’s probably the last frontier without mozzies.
Too raw?
Of course, one could wear an all-over tent that was transparent but that would rile the fundies.
Something that is always worth doing just for the fun of it.
Though, should global warming be happening, even Iceland might be moz-compatible eventually.
Pink Squirrel, I have infinite faith in human nature.
As the oil runs out, the barbarians will use their stores of wizard weapons and the world will burn.
There will be no coming back from that.
I have had almost this exact conversation with believers before…
Wasn’t aware Islam had something against the Theory of Evolution. I think they more try to say that the Koran predicted the theory of evolution.