Atheist knowledge

[dutchroll]

Well going all the way back to Gnu's original joke which started the thread, where the obnoxious smarmy little Christian girl asks why a horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff but do different poos: I'm sure most atheists would be quite aware that it's due to the evolution of substantially different digestive systems (in the case of cows vs deer which are both ruminants, it's simply dietary moisture content).

 

In fact it's a beautiful example of the parallel evolution of different digestive systems to cope with digesting the cellulose in grass and hay grazing animals.

 

The fundy religious answer is of course "that's just scientific mumbo jumbo - it's obvious God decided to make them poo like that".

 

 

[facthunter]

Handling bodily functions and sex is not religions strong point. Nev

 

 

[turboplanner]

Handling bodily functions and sex is not religions strong point. Nev

Atheists are different?

 

 

[dutchroll]

Probably not. Atheists come in all sorts of flavours when it comes to those topics too. It's just the preaching one thing and doing another which tends to be the difference. Now sure not all religious folk are like that, but it sometimes seems that the harder they preach, the more deviance from those preachings they practice. Thus when it makes the headlines, it gives the rest of the flock a bit of a bad name.

 

 

[facthunter]

From general observation I would think so. Nev

 

 

[Yenn]

I had to go back to post No 1.

 

We still don't know shit!

 

 

[Bikky]

In fact it's a beautiful example of the parallel evolution of different digestive systems to cope with digesting the cellulose in grass and hay grazing animals.

Sorry Dutch. I think your talking sh!t.

 

 

[dutchroll]

Sorry Dutch. I think your talking sh!t.

Yes.....yes I am! I do that a lot. Mrs Dutch rolls her eyes when I excitedly explain to people how our envirocycle works. Ruminant digestion or bacterial digestion in a concrete tank - I love talking sh*t.

 

 

[Bikky]

No problem. It's human nature. We have a talent for it. That's why alcohol and religion were invented. I prefer alcohol. I talk shit but I wake up sane. None the wiser, but but sane and atheist nonetheless.

 

 

[dutchroll]

And if you don't do it, you're not eating. And if you're not eating, you die. It's an important part of life.

 

 

[facthunter]

Alcohol has been around for a long time. If you are a bad drunk give your mates a break and abstain. If you can't go 3 days without it , it's got you, Otherwise a camp fire, some good company and it 's a good cure for the pain of the world at the time.. Nev

 

 

[facthunter]

Thanks. Nev

 

 

[bexrbetter]

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1676919019285573

[facthunter]

Sounds reasonable. Nev

 

 

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[eightyknots]

'sokay Nev, if we don't survive, something else will.

Vertebrate fish first appeared about 530 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived and evolved from 250 million years ago and lasted until about 63 million years ago - that's 187 MILLION years they lasted for.

 

When they bit the dust it allowed mammals, including our ancestors, to evolve. They didn't come down from the trees until 2 million years ago, and our own particular species has only been around for about 200,000 years.

 

We are literally a flash in the pan on geological timescales. We may continue to evolve and eventually leave the planet, we may disappear in an extinction event of our own making in the near future. Either way the Earth will survive and life with it, and when an ecological vacuum appears, something WILL evolve to fill it. Eventually, in 4 or 5 billion years, our sun will use all its fuel and become a red giant before collapsing into a white dwarf, effectively ending life on Earth.

 

 

 

"To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to "scientific method", ("scientific method", Oxford Dictionaries: British and World English, 2016).

 

Marty you have just made statements that are not based on empirical (verified by observation) or measurable evidence.

 

Vertebrate fish first appeared about 530 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived and evolved from 250 million years ago (where is the observable or measurable evidence for 250 million years?) and lasted until about 63 million years ago (who observed this?) - that's 187 MILLION years they lasted for.

 

When they bit the dust it allowed mammals, including our ancestors, to evolve. They didn't come down from the trees until 2 million years ago (where is the observable or measurable evidence for 2 million years?), and our own particular species has only been around for about 200,000 years (where is the observable or measurable evidence for 0.2 million years?).

 

We are literally a flash in the pan on geological timescales. We may continue to evolve and eventually leave the planet, we may disappear in an extinction event of our own making in the near future. Either way the Earth will survive and life with it, and when an ecological vacuum appears, something WILL evolve to fill it. Eventually, in 4 or 5 billion years, our sun will use all its fuel and become a red giant before collapsing into a white dwarf, effectively ending life on Earth.

 

We can only conclude that this is your belief system.

 

 

[octave]

Vertebrate fish first appeared about 530 million years ago. Dinosaurs lived and evolved from 250 million years ago (where is the observable or measurable evidence for 250 million years?)

 

(who observed this?)

 

"Observable" does not necessarily mean that something is directly observed by the human eye, for example many of the recently discovered planets around stars cannot be directly observed but through an understanding of gravity astrophysicist can deduce that there must be a certain amount of mass because of the wobble it imparts to the star. There are many processes that we can not directly observe but we can observe the effect and make future predictions.

 

"Measurable" - Radio carbon dating??????? - we understand the process by which carbon 14 decays and the speed at which it decays. We know the rate at which sediments are laid down and we know that certain fossils are found in certain sedimentary layers. The established paleontological history is not controversial amongst scientists, although it is perhaps amongst those who feel that if they could cast doubt on it , then suddenly people would become believers.

 

Has anyone seen god? anyone? any measurements?

 

 

[turboplanner]

"Observable" does not necessarily mean that something is directly observed by the human eye, for example many of the recently discovered planets around stars cannot be directly observed but through an understanding of gravity astrophysicist can deduce that there must be a certain amount of mass because of the wobble it imparts to the star. There are many processes that we can not directly observe but we can observe the effect and make future predictions.

"Measurable" - Radio carbon dating??????? - we understand the process by which carbon 14 decays and the speed at which it decays. We know the rate at which sediments are laid down and we know that certain fossils are found in certain sedimentary layers. The established paleontological history is not controversial amongst scientists, although it is perhaps amongst those who feel that if they could cast doubt on it , then suddenly people would become believers.

 

Has anyone seen god? anyone? any measurements?

Not directly by the human eye, but we can deduce he's there by the wobble of the atheist dung pile, and He's not controversial among believers.

 

 

[Pearo]

"Observable" does not necessarily mean that something is directly observed by the human eye

Why is this so hard for people to understand? I perform an expermeint and observe a results. I do it another 20 times and I see the same result. Someone else does the same experiemnt, gets the same result..

 

Its like the old electricity argument. Cant see it, but I can assure you that my indirect observations of the buttons I press on my keyboard and the letters that appear on the screen that its a fairly repeatable indirect observations. Its the same indirect observations that allows me as an electrical engineer to design the stuff that the modern day creationists use to shun guys like me!

 

 

[Bruce]

eightyknots, are you really a creationist? I dont want to scare you off, but I do want an explanation of the firmament... is it a hazard to Jabirus?

 

 

[Marty_d]

He's not controversial among believers.

Hahah!!! Joke of the thread.

 

Sunni vs shia, catholic vs protestant, mormon vs everyone, not to mention buddhist/hindu/scientologist/voodoo/animist and every other bugger out there. Yeah I think there's a bit of controversy among believers.

 

We can only conclude that this is your belief system.

We? We who? Sorry 80kts, I thought you were one person. But in any case, you and your friends would be wrong. Science is not a belief system, it's the opposite of a belief system, it requires no belief at all. Prove radio carbon dating wrong and it'll be a belief system. Find a Velociraptor femur fossil that dates less than 60 million years ago and it'll be a belief system.

 

 

[Bruce]

Proper Hari-Krishna black-belt types can actually levitate... but here's the best bit of fine print ever ... they can't do it in the presence of unbelievers.

 

 

[nomadpete]

Thank you, 80kts,

 

That should keep us going for another 3000 posts. For a while there this thread had slowed down a bit.

 

 

[Bikky]

If reality gives no comfort, invent a belief system based on a non-existent entity because it makes you feel comfortable to think that there is more to life than life. Who doesn't want an eternal daddy to look after us?

 

Next, try to get everyone around - especially kids, they're more impressionable - to to believe the same thing. There's safety in numbers and you can get constant reinforcement of your belief system.

 

Build monuments and churches. Print books and pamphlets. They will make everything more real.

 

Use twisted logic to convince and reinforce wherever possible. There must be a god because monkeys can't make watches by shaking the parts around in a bag.

 

Above all - assume and loudly proclaim, that because you believe in something intangible and implausible, so does everyone else. Look, I have a nose and so do you. Therefore, we are the same and you obviously believe in something too.

 

If you try hard enough, you can even deduce (using twisted logic) that not believing in something is actually a form of belief.

 

I love it!

 

 

[turboplanner]

If reality gives no comfort, invent a belief system based on a non-existent entity because it makes you feel comfortable to think that there is more to life than life. Who doesn't want an eternal daddy to look after us?Next, try to get everyone around - especially kids, they're more impressionable - to to believe the same thing. There's safety in numbers and you can get constant reinforcement of your belief system.

 

Build monuments and churches. Print books and pamphlets. They will make everything more real.

 

Use twisted logic to convince and reinforce wherever possible. There must be a god because monkeys can't make watches by shaking the parts around in a bag.

 

Above all - assume and loudly proclaim, that because you believe in something intangible and implausible, so does everyone else. Look, I have a nose and so do you. Therefore, we are the same and you obviously believe in something too.

 

If you try hard enough, you can even deduce (using twisted logic) that not believing in something is actually a form of belief.

 

I love it!

Yours was post 3399; most of the proclamations in this thread are from atheists.