What makes an atheist so scary

[ted]

Well... unless Apoptosis can, in fact, say the same for religious oriented people, that statement is quite true.

I think you are intelligent enough to understand which part of the statement I was referring to.

No need to twist this one and argue the point.

t.

[Apoptosis]

Okay, lets entertain the idea that Homosexuality was indeed heritable.

Now, lets entertain the fact that you believe in evolution and that these traits can only be passed on via mating.

We know you don't like Homosexuality... so there is something I dont understand here... Why are you so against them from marrying?

You realize, SUPPOSE that it is inheritable trait, once you stop them from marrying, or outlaw homosexuality, you are promoting them to get married to the opposite sex and reproduce, which LEADS to the propagation of these traits that you deem so Evil.

You are infact, promoting homosexuality by inhibiting them from having their relationships that wont produce offsprings.

So if you are anti-homosexuality, anti-gay marriage stance is against what you really want to achieve. Are you just not thinking?

[Matthitjah]

Grace to you,

It is a gradual process and many different types of eyes have appeared.

Please show me examples of the evolving eye in the fossil record.

Apoptosis,

I'm really not against the homosexual per se. I don't like his sin anymore than my own. It's killing him and to make an argument that he was born that way so it's all relative is balderdash and dangerous for his eternal soul

What I'm getting at is that you have made Evolution a god. Yet Evolution is an undecided Judge based upon your own statements.

On one hand his/her ruling is that only the strongest shall survive through the process of Natural Selection. Yet when those rules rub up against reality. We are then told the rules change for societal animals. Either Natural Selection is the rule or it is not.

You cannot claim as you have that the process has left us with the charecteristics that are best suited to carry on the species. Then also deny that Homosexuality is on the upswing. This Century has seen an uptick in the numbers of those claiming to be outright Gay or even Bi-Sexual. These Charecteristics are not conducive to re-production and by the process of Natural Selection should have been weeded out of the primordial garden years ago.

If Evolution has afforded us a sense of altruism? (according to your own posting) It necessarily means that it has a logical purpose and intent to it's processes. The one particular one being the propagation of the species. This cannot happen with Homosexuals in the mix.

I'm asking how the impartial Judge, Evolution, accounts for this error.

I would also like to proffer that this hands off process, this Scientific process is much easier to believe in simply because it doesn't call us to account for our actions and neither does it Judge us for our sins. It just simply writes us off to an unecessary turn on the freeway of living. Then it hangs a Louie and turns on towards perfection.

However I don't see mankind becoming more enlightened or even more perfect. With all of our progress we are just as sinful a creature as the day that we fell. Matter of fact more so. Simply because all of our inventions only magnify our lusts and the darkest desires of our hearts.

Explain it all away in some mythical process and shove the other stuff to the back of the mind where we don't have to deal with it.

Yet the Lord has said;

Heb

[Apoptosis]

Grace to you,

It is a gradual process and many different types of eyes have appeared.

Please show me examples of the evolving eye in the fossil record.

Eyes, being soft tissue, does not survive in fossil records, the animals with lower forms of eyes usually do not evolve a skull, theyre mostly worms and mollusks.

We cannot give you fossil evidence, but we can give you something better, living things right now with these kind of intermediary type of eyes that did not evolve because their enviroment never changed to cause them to go exstinct if their eyes did not evolve. In another word, there were no selective pressure for many of these animals to evolve the eye, so they didn't.

Apoptosis,

I'm really not against the homosexual per se. I don't like his sin anymore than my own. t's killing him and to make an argument that he was born that way so it's all relative is balderdash and dangerous for his eternal soul

Okay, I'll accept that you are more worried about their well being

What I'm getting at is that you have made Evolution a god. Yet Evolution is an undecided Judge based upon your own statements.

Evolution is not our god, he does not explain the universe, just what happened after the first replicating molecule came into being.

We would reject evolution the minute we find a bunch of dinosaurs and humans coexisting, with the wrong carbon dating, and in the wrong geological strata.

On one hand his/her ruling is that only the strongest shall survive through the process of natural selection. Yet when those rules rub up against reality. We are then told the rules change for societal animals. Either Natural Selection is the rule or it is not.

Natural selection applies to societal animals, when an animal evolved the ability to form social groups, the overall fitness of the animal both as individual and as a species is increased. Safety in numbers if you will for the simplest explaination.

You cannot claim as you have that the process has left us with the charecteristics that are best suited to carry on the race. Then also deny that Homosexuality is on the upswing. This Century has seen an uptick in the numbers of those clasiming to be outright Gay or even Bi-Sexual. These Charecteristics are not conducive to re-production and by the process of Natural Selection should have been weeded out of the primordial garden.

I had only played fancy ASSUMING if it was heritable, a hypothetical question. Youre taking the assumption as fact. Even if it was heritable, there would be explainations why its frequency is kept constant and was never selected out because homosexual trait tends to keep male groups and female groups together. Humans are very pack oriented animals, its not completely out of the question that slight homosexuality tendencies helped you to admire and obey the leader of the male or female pack. (this is a conjecture, you should not accept this statement from me since we do not even know if it is genetic related.)

Second is while it might be genetic, the homosexuality trait could arise by sponaneous mutation. This is the case for many genetic disease that doesn't seem to run in families. And since its sponaneous, selection is unable to act on it to change its frequency.

If Evolution has afforded us a sense of altruism? (according to your own posting) t necessarily means that it has a logical purpose and intent to it's processes. The one particular one being the propagation of the species. This cannot happen with Homosexuals in the mix.

I'm asking how the impartial Judge, Evolution, accounts for this error.

No, the fact that we develop altruism doesnt imply Evolution has a goal of some sort and is guided by something, this is the same road of mistake following the IC and Watchmaker arguement, you are presupposing that altruism must be a goal. Altruism is a character of all social animals but rarely a character of "antisocial" animals. Being social gives a selective pressure for altruistic actions because the group of animals you live with will generally return your altruistic actions, and even if you could not produce, your altruistic actions will benifit the group in the way to let them produce. Since you are also likely to be related to these group, by your own sacrifice, youre also making sure that your genes will be passed on indirectly.

I would also like to proffer that this hands off process, this Scientific process is much easier to believe in simply because it doesn't call us to account for our actions and neither does it Judge us for our sins. It just simply writes us off to an unecessary turn on the freeway of living. Then it hangs a Louie and turns on towards perfection.

I don't agree with that, I personally think without God you become responsible for what you do, you are responsible for your own future. Your achievements are yours, and so are your failures. You end up with more responsibility because you no longer could blame say the Devil, or works of "evil" man, or that you were not faithful enough.

However I don't see mankind becoming more enlightened or even more perfect. With all of our progress we are just as sinful a creature as the day that we fell. Matter of fact more so. Simply because all of our inventions only magnify our lusts and the darkest desires of our hearts.

I don't think thats true, I think the social injustices of the ancient world is dwindling. We no longer have slaves, and we view each individual equally, Womens are no longer mere objects, these are all social changes that indicating we are becomming more enlightened. We're no longer driven by paranoia and fear to conduct witch trials and not as easily swayed by false arguements to be manipulated for the wrongful actions.

I believe we have much less murder and killings compared to the ancient world, but we have no records, so thats just a hypothesis. But I do know we have less wars, you may disagree, but I think we tend to think there are more wars because information about it is so much accessable to us now. During the time of the Roman empire, and even the Pax Romana, there were countless border skirmishes that left towns burned and villages destroyed, at least we no longer have that.

Edited December 21, 2006 by Apoptosis

[billie]

Ap, there are slaves all over the world. Just because it isn't legal in this country, and the UN has declared it illegal, doesn't mean it doesn't go on in dozens of countries all over the world. You can't be that naive.

[ayin jade]

I believe we have much less murder and killings compared to the ancient world, but we have no records, so thats just a hypothesis.

Holocaust. Im pretty sure that is a so far unbeatable record for killings. If another time surpasses it, it will be withing the last few decades and not in the ancient world.

But I do know we have less wars, you may disagree, but I think we tend to think there are more wars because information about it is so much accessable to us now.

I disagree. The world is constantly fighting.

During the time of the Roman empire, and even the Pax Romana, there were countless border skirmishes that left towns burned and villages destroyed, at least we no longer have that.

Not in the roman empire perhaps, but Im sure the Israelis would disagree with you about border skirmishes. Im sure many places in Africa would also disagree with you on that. Lets see, where else are they having problems? Tibet, Pakistan, Serbia, South America, Fiji just had a coup too . Lots of places out there that have border skirmishes and towns being destroyed.

Proof? Look on the news.

[Apoptosis]

LOL!!! BillylovesDarin, He ran out of points, had to make one up.

Well of course Hitler would kill lots of people, he sure had a nice modernized army at his command.

Do you really think Ghenghis Khan would have killed less people if he had machineguns?

Or the Germanic tribes for that matter, or the Crusaders, or the English, or the French, or the Spaniards, or the Indian Princes. Guess what, these people stopped fighting eachother!!! Europe is pretty peaceful, you cant say that 500 years ago.

Okay, the borders of israel are pretty dangerous, and many of those other small countries too, but you know, Israel is pretty small, how long did you think the Roman borders were? And how oftend did you think they were raided? And did you really think these small backwaters of civilization werent fighting before this? Take any country and I can show you its past were a lot more bloody than the present.

Japan: Shogunate civil war, almost constant.

China: Change in dynasty, usually comes after a civil war.

India: Princes fight among themselves, almost constant.

I never said there were no conflicts, just less of them.

Edited December 21, 2006 by Apoptosis

[ayin jade]

You havent shown that. You have only postulated it. Then you qualified your statements. But still havent demonstrated that there is less conflict.

[ethical.atheist]

You havent shown that. You have only postulated it. Then you qualified your statements. But still havent demonstrated that there is less conflict.

It isn't really Apoptosis's job to educate you in world history.

I suggest you do your own research and try to dig up something to refute Apoptosis. I understand that this is a difficult suggestion, but when we are discussing something as broad as the history of the world, it is really the only feasible way to continue.

[ted]

All of this from my little statement concerning wars?

No need for arguments, really. The world still has it's conflicts. These things come and go. It was a pretty broad subject that didn't really call fot it being picked apart.

I can delete the comment if it means that much. Just let me know.

t.