Posts by Abaddon

17

Life on Mars

by Anti-Christ in

i don't know if this has been discussed before but what if we find life on mars?

what do you all think would happen to bible based religion if we discover life on mars?

and a question for bible believers what would change in your belief if there is such a discovery?

Abaddon

Well, as religous belief requires no proof and many forms of it exist in the face of contrary proof, I don't think much will change.

Some will have beliefs that already allow this possibility.

Some will allow their beliefs in a Creator to move to a Creator of life on many planets, even if they don't believe that now and would argue against it in the absense of proof.

Others will deny the evidence. Believe me, if people can ignore the evidence of evolution now and in the past, a few microbes on Mars are easily denied.

21

Islamic Sharia law, Gods law or just barbaric law

by barry in

jw
friends

i beleive with muslims voicing their opinions so openly its time for the average joe out there to be informed about sharia law.

the law they beleive has come from allah and is the most superiour law on the face of the earth today.this issue.

s. the link is http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons_why_sharia_is.html.

Abaddon

Merry

Barry seems to prefer being able to voice negative opinions unopposed, if his sudden silence is anything to go by.

How are you? I hope all is well with you.

I think we can dispense with Apologetics for Sharia Law; I am opposed to a law system that utilises capital punishment and institutionalises misogyny on grounds of human rights, and find it rather offensive that without any substansive proof what-so-ever human opinion and tradition are asserted to be "god's law".

Such arguments may placate you, but as a humanist why should I find them of any relevence? Your protestations as to how equal you may or may not feel don't change my opinion, any more than a slave telling me what a good master he had would convince me slavery was okay. The slave may feel better off, protected. But from my view point he's a slave and his argument doesn't change that.

Should I 'let' Northern Afican Muslims circumsize their daughters as they believe it is god's law? Should I 'let' people from the 'Children of God' cult have sex with children because they believe it is god's law? Should I 'let' fundamental Christians distort science to restrict school curricilums because they believe it is god's law?

If the answer to the above is 'no', as it obviously is, why should I 'let' Muslims enforce a law system that violates human rights just because they say it is god's law?

But you know yourself that a Muslim in one place can practice a form of Islam substansively different from another somewhere else. Whilst you know intellectually that it is a morass, a fog of human interpretation and cultural leanings (rather than monolithic observance of God's Law without variation) you quite literally avoid thinking about this.

Last time when we were discussing the veil I saw a similar tendancy. You simultaneously feel that the veil is god's law, but will not criticise other Muslim women who don't wear it. If I recall correctly you don't even get into the argument the veil is a cultural thing, despite the masses of evidence from the Muslim world and from areas where for centuries Muslim, Jewish and Christian women living side-by-side were veiled. You simply make apolgisms for following a traditional regional clothing code.

Since we last discussed things I spent a delightful week in Egypt. The people are friendly and kind, easy to talk to. And then a waiter runs off to show you a photo of his 14 year-old wife...

Of course, he's no more a pedophile than Jerry Lee Lewis, or other Americans marrying distastfully young girls when the law still allowed it. But it is a bit shocking.

You have the luxery of taking on what you like of a religion in an environment where there are no negative consqunces if you turn away and do your own thing.

To thus make apologisms for Sharia is a little too easy for you to make it palitable for me. To wear a veil when here is no Qu'ranic basis for it rather than showing someone can live a life as a unveiled female Muslim and thus maybe in your small way help Muslim women who don't have your freedom get closer to getting those freedoms is likewise somehow distasteful.

You strike me as a nice person, but I just can't agree with you actions and thoughts in this respect.

Muslims still have a right and a duty to live by the laws of their religion as best they can

But whose definiton of Islamic Law Merry? You keep hiding from the fact that there is no single indisputable definiton of this, and thus in your rush to have god as you'd like him do nothing more than worship man-made laws.

72

Are you an a-xenist?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?

do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?

do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.

Abaddon

Beautifully put point Paralipomenon.

Obviously Terry is perfectly entitled to an opinion. I can't help but think 'can't happen' is less supportable than 'might happen' and just re-stating an argument and taking no real effort to address the faults in that argument is not going to change that.

Terry, you seem to miss that a sentient observer capable of asking such a question might arise on other planets, and say exactly the same things. Might. To say it can't requires bigger leaps of faith than to say it might.

There probably will be solar systems with planets that can support forms of life that could achieve sentience and develop technology. Such planets are below the limits of observability in other solar systems at this time; we can only 'see' super gas giants today, and I am for the sack of argument excluding any possibility of gas giants developing life with intelligent technology-using societies. Soon we could well prove this point.

Humans exist is just because that's how things turned out. The dominant sentient species with a technological society could have been descendant of marmosets or sea otters, for example. The factors which lead to the development of human sentience could have happened in other species, as they are more to do with sexual selection than survival to be able to breed; it wasn't our environment or specific (as in no others possibly could) ancestery that made us smart, it was what the females found attractive that made us smart. That was just happen-chance; females liking big colourful tails is nothing to do (directly) with fitness to survive - it's a bloody liability - it didn't really help Peacocks become more intelligent. What females pre-humans liked, selected in a mate, made humans become intelligent.

So just as there could be a planet with a guy called Terry ("Slayer of Empires" in T'chakian) with hydrogen peroxide mixed with the water in his body and 7 tentacles saying there isn't any where else life could evolve, a 6' tall marmoset called Terry ("Gatherer of nuts" in Chk!-Chk!--Ch~~~llk!) could be telling his kid that whilst showing them the giant chimps (Pan Terrestalis, one of three species in the Genus Pongo, see P. paniscus and P.troglodytes) at the Zoo.

72

Are you an a-xenist?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?

do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?

do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.

Abaddon

Para

I'd noticed that as well and cut back a rather cutting paragraph in my last reply to him as I thought a bit of benefit of the doubt was easy enough to give.

However, it has to be said, for a professed atheist Terry seems to truely consider giving (it out) is better than receiving (it back); he tried to make out he said what I said which I don't think he really thought for a moment, and either engages in similar obfustication or total evasion than admit to a weakness or error in argument.

Come on Terry, you have brains, use 'em. This disingenuousness gets old very quickly and people DO notice it.

72

Are you an a-xenist?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?

do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?

do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.

Abaddon

A Dutch scientist (says German in link but a name like Joop Houtkooper is Dutch even if he works in Germany) has just announced he believes a re-analysis of Viking (1970's Mars mission by USA) data supports some Martian soil being of biological origin, one which would see Hydrogen Peroxide use with water in the cells of the organism to prevent freezing.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/08/23/mars.soil.life.reut/

72

Are you an a-xenist?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?

do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?

do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.

Abaddon

Terry

Are we to imagine you've said anything different than I said?

Yes "we" are.

You say that if the Earth were closer to or further from the Sun there could be no life.

I am saying our familiar forms of life could exist;

with a significant +/- to climate (c. synomonous with orbital distance as this is the largest driving factor in climate),
that life started with climate different from now (i.e. life could start at another orbital distance, as the same climate could result as a consequence of different atmospheric conditions or the same atmospheric conditions and a different orbit),
and that different life could exist at different orbits.

So yes, "one" can not only imagine but provide proof that I said something different to you.

But as I think you know this I am surprised you even ask.

42

I'm an atheist, so why does some religious music move me so much?

by nicolaou in

jw
friends

i often find myself playing george harrison's 'my sweet lord' while i'm at my pc and i can't help but resonate with his genuine, heartfelt devotion, his appeal to christ or krishna.

the way he opens and pours out his heart to his 'lord' is inspiring.

a while back, i went to a catholic church to see two friends renew their wedding vows.

Abaddon

AH, George Harrison, bless him.

He was enlightened.

As far as I have taken the trouble to inform myself, his religious beliefs were, to me, complete and utter bollocks.

But he got there. Here Comes the Sun is another example. The wonder, the joy, the benigness. Similar feelings to my Sweet Lord but approachable without any requirement of belief in anything other than sunny days are a goodness after the cold of winter, and isn't everything like that?

Music with lyrics can carry an emotional and intellectual impact from the lyrics.

So can the music alone.

Ask anyone with a degree in Music how to make people feel a certain way with music they'll tell you. They can tell me why a certain bit of Jackie's Strength make me want to cry from the music alone.

The desired destination of any reasonable atheist or theist is the same; a good life in peace with one's neighbours in a world where kindness and hope prevail. Is it any surprise the same emotions in music, whether lyrical or musical impact us the same way?

72

Are you an a-xenist?

by AuldSoul in

jw
friends

"xeno" is a common taxonomical designation for aliens (strangers) including extraterrestrials.. are you someone who lacks belief in intelligent extraterrestrial beings?

do you believe it is possible that such extraterrestrial beings exist?

do you think it is possible or likely that our planet has had interactions with extraterrestrials?.

Abaddon

Terry

Sorry old chap, you've fallen straight into anthropic thinking. Or putting the cart before the horse.

The Sci-Fi writer Douglas Adams likened this to a puddle, marvelling at how perfectly it fitted the hole it filled.

There is only one Earth with exactly what Earth has or had at a particular time in a particular way. That makes Earth a UNIQUE (unlike others) incubator. The fact that there are billions of similar (not identical) planets is not enough.

'Like' doesn't mean 'exactly the same'. A planet with similar composition, albedo, gravity and solar irradiance would probably be 'like' the Earth, just like I am 'like' my brother

If the Earth were closer or farther from our Sun there could be no life. Our placement is unique.

With respect, this is probably utter rubbish.

The Earth's climate (and conditions) could vary quite a bit before life-as-we-know-it was not possible; indeed life probably started when it WAS quite different from now. And there are strong reasons to believe life-as-we-speculate-it could form in vastly different conditions subject to its ability to pass on 'genetic' information with modification.

I don't see how anyone can claim that life evolved elsewhere without evidence.
You see, they can't

Yes they can. One can claim anything one likes. Whether it is a reasonable claim, one that is supported by evidence, is a different thing.

Your claim that life on Earth is unique and that there will be nothing like it elsewhere is not supported either way by the evidence (absence for evidence not being evidence for absence is a lot more palatable claim when we are talking about stuff billions of miles away we could not reasonably have evidence of yet), but is not supported by a better grasp of cosmology and biology, and an awareness of the danger of anthropic thinking.

While there is no evidence for life elsewhere, this is to be expected at this time, and cosmology and biology give reasonable certainty to claims life has probably developed elsewhere.

An organism living in the icy upper atmosphere of a gas giant, with ammonia taking the place of water in its biology, would gaze at hard rocky planets close to its sun and dismiss them as possible sites for life due to their searing heat and total absence of liquid ammonia!

To put it simply, just because we are here and can wonder at our existence and note how our environment is perfect for us does not mean other organisms with markedly different chemistry's and requirements for life do not wonder at their existence and note how their environment is perfect for them. Natural selection means we are 'perfectly' adapted for our environments, so of course it seems like they are perfect for us.

And don't make the mistake of thinking ven really smart physicists are good sources of answers for largely biological questions. Well, apart from Feynmann, but he's dead.

Paralipomenon

Overlooked? Mmmm.... or not noticed, like we don't notice ants even though we know they are there?

9

If you think it's "possible" for extraterrestrials...

by FreedomFrog in

jw
friends

why would you feel it's not probable for spirits or ghosts?.

my question came when i read this thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/140402/1.ashx.

i was reading the thread from auldsoul and i couldn't help but wonder this question.

Abaddon

Well, maybe it is because we know physical organisms exist and that some are intelligent.

Given our understanding of the Universe and biology, we can say that we are unlikely to be the only planet with life in the Univese and that it is also unlikely to be no other intelligent life in the Universe.

Spirits, ghosts etc have not been proved in the same way physical organisms can be proven to exist. Not once, not ever.

Therefore it is quite reasonable to scoff at the idea of ghosts as wild and unproven speculation and speculate to some extent reasonably about intelligent life on other planets.

21

Islamic Sharia law, Gods law or just barbaric law

by barry in

jw
friends

i beleive with muslims voicing their opinions so openly its time for the average joe out there to be informed about sharia law.

the law they beleive has come from allah and is the most superiour law on the face of the earth today.this issue.

s. the link is http://www.americanthinker.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons_why_sharia_is.html.

Abaddon

Barry

Wouldn't it be nice if we could have a discussion about the unspeakable without lowering ourselves to the same level?

I hope Merry posts here shes got some explaining to do, maybe she willl place a fatwa on me.

Yeah, nice one Barry, and I suppose someone saying you will take out a contract on anyone who disagrees with you makes their argument a good one?

So, let's see what we are going on about;

Traditional Islam has some horrible laws and can behave in a beastly manner towards people. Oh, hang on, I meant to say "Christianity'.

Well, no, I didn't, I'm just making an obvious point.

All the distaste and disgust about Islamic Law can be applied to the Bible for exactly the same reasons, although I don't remember Sharia Law specifying death as a punishment for not wearing a tasseled fringe...

Now, most Bible followers today would get stoned before they stoned someone.

But three or four generations ago Christian nations treated women like chattel, children as having no rights of their own, and viewed other religions as primitive savagery, and people of non-European races as inferior. Hell, the UK went to war with China to force China to allow the import of Opium!! A few more generations further back and we kept slaves and disemboweled or burnt people as punishments.

Many parts of the Islamic world are at a stage of social development our part of the world was back in the generations I'm talking about.

Mobile phones and cars and Nike do not change a culture over night.

Do you imagine a Victorian gentleman with slaves, a wife he could legally beat, and the habit of patronising a child brothel thought that he was evil and uncivilised? Of course not! He was a god-fearing respectable member of society!

Do you think a quick chat, and a Nokia and a Mercedes would convince him that slavery was wrong, that women should own their own property and vote, and that children should be protected?

No, of course not, his cultural prejudices would run far deeper than that.

And so it is today in some parts of the Islamic world; it's a few generations behind ours in its sociological development. Unlike the Christian world, no credible secularist movement has reached ascendancy - a few countries like Turkey and Tunisia are trying, and others lag far behind.

Just as it was in Victorian times, some people in the Islamic world do not subscribe to the more brutal beliefs and punishments their societies have. Just as in the Christian world they work from within to overcome it.

And not one word of the Bible has changed whilst the Christian world became secular. And not one word of the Qu'ran shall change when the Islamic world becomes secular.

Because it isn't about religion, it is all about culture; as volubly shown by seeing how Christianity is expressed differently by different cultures and how Islam also is expressed differently by different cultures - both today and over time.

You can view Islam as different in nature if you want, but I would be interested in seeing you dismiss the points of similarity with our own society in the past and the likely future trends for Islam our own society has already experienced.