On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:41:43 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> For no particular reason, I ran across this and just had to laugh, too.
> 
> http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Abstinence.jpg

LOL, good one...

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In article <47631fe8@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> On Wed, 12 Dec 2007 20:38:37 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 
> > In article <475f8973$1@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> >> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:20:00 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> >> 
> >> > So, the questions really are: 1. Does it have to be human readable?
> >> 
> >> That would be a "watch" by definition.  The usage that I have seen thi
s
> >> is in the context of the book "The Invisible Watchmaker", and the
> >> premise (at least from the debates I've had with people who have read
> >> it; I have not) seems to be flawed as the idea is that a watch has to
> >> imply a watchmaker because a watch must be made by a maker.  Therefore
,
> >> there must be a watchmaker or there'd be no watch.
> >> 
> > Actually, it just implies that a maker can sometimes come up with thing
s
> > that "personally" benefit him/her/it-self, which wouldn't otherwise
> > result. The reason I said "human readable" is precisely because of that
> > basic conceit, that because its useful to them in some fashion, and its
> > too complicated for them to bother (not attempt, just bother) to figure
> > out, this implies that a maker had to do it. My point was that you coul
d
> > decide that some flower, which had the odd tendency of gripping your
> > wrist, would look nice to wear, and never realize that it was so synced
> > to the 24 hour cycle of the planet that it also did something that made
> > it 100% like a watch. Or maybe there could be a leech that when through
> > clear 24 hour cycles, which only appear in its *chemistry*, in which
> > case you would still be wearing a good watch, you just wouldn't be able
> > to read it at all. And so on. The initial presumption is that you would
> > *recognize* it as a watch in the first place. I.e., that it would
> > display the information in a way that the moron looking for a watch
> > would "recognize" as watch like.
> 
> My understanding of the book is that it is dealing specifically with a 
> mechanical or electronic watch, not with something watch-like or that 
> keeps time....
> 
True. But that just discredits the point they try to make anyway, since 
they imply that something that "looks" designed had to have a designer, 
and everything *looks* designed to them, even the stuff that isn't. So, 
its hardly acceptable, as a defense of there view, to suggest that, 
"Well, ok, you could evolve something that 'acted' like a watch, but I 
meant an actual watch!". Its one of those goal post moving, deny your 
own supposed point, hand wave, then insist you where victorious anyway, 
type defenses you get from their side. One is almost amazed that they 
don't try to pull something truly crazy, and argue about the Pluto, then 
insists later that they where actually talking about a tuna fish 
sandwich, and you just somehow failed to see the obvious connection. lol

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void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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In article <4763246d@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
> > One should add Hypocracy to the claim, since he not
> > only thinks he knows better than we do about it all, he can't grasp the
> > fact that claiming such makes him the same as the people he previously
> > agreed where dangerous, delusional and unChristian, for making the same
> > exact claims.
> 
> Hypocrisy:  The assuming of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, 
> with dissimulation of real character or inclinations, esp. in respect of
 
> religious life or beliefs; hence in general sense, dissimulation, 
> pretence, sham. Also, an instance of this.
> 
> I don't think that's the word you're looking for.  The phrase "Cognitive
 
> Dissonance" comes to mind, though, as a possible alternative.
> 
No, it does fit. He claimed that televangelist and others are *not* the 
sort of Christian he is, because they spend a lot of time *claiming* to 
have a superior morality and vision of the truths of the world than 
everyone else, and he personally knew they where wrong, but then went on 
to use the same claims of moral superiority and greater vision of the 
truths of the world to condemn the rest of us for not admitting to the 
obvious genius and understanding "he" had about such things.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> "Well, ok, you could evolve something that 'acted' like a watch, but I 
> meant an actual watch!".

Plus, nobody really argues that watches don't evolve. What people argue 
is that the jump from "it's as complicated as a watch, and watches don't 
evolve naturally, hence it couldn't evolve naturally" isn't a valid jump 
of logic. Watches don't evolve not because they're complicated, but 
because they're not alive.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:07:30 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> True. But that just discredits the point they try to make anyway, since
> they imply that something that "looks" designed had to have a designer,
> and everything *looks* designed to them, even the stuff that isn't. 

Uh huh, that's my point about that argument - and that was before 
watching the simulation video that Darren referenced.

> So,
> its hardly acceptable, as a defense of there view, to suggest that,
> "Well, ok, you could evolve something that 'acted' like a watch, but I
> meant an actual watch!". Its one of those goal post moving, deny your
> own supposed point, hand wave, then insist you where victorious anyway,
> type defenses you get from their side. One is almost amazed that they
> don't try to pull something truly crazy, and argue about the Pluto, then
> insists later that they where actually talking about a tuna fish
> sandwich, and you just somehow failed to see the obvious connection. lol

It's one of the ways of "winning" an argument, at least to that sort of 
twisted logic.

Jim

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On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 19:10:32 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> In article <4763246d@news.povray.org>, nos### [at] nospamcom says...
>> > One should add Hypocracy to the claim, since he not only thinks he
>> > knows better than we do about it all, he can't grasp the fact that
>> > claiming such makes him the same as the people he previously agreed
>> > where dangerous, delusional and unChristian, for making the same
>> > exact claims.
>> 
>> Hypocrisy:  The assuming of a false appearance of virtue or goodness,
>> with dissimulation of real character or inclinations, esp. in respect
>> of religious life or beliefs; hence in general sense, dissimulation,
>> pretence, sham. Also, an instance of this.
>> 
>> I don't think that's the word you're looking for.  The phrase
>> "Cognitive Dissonance" comes to mind, though, as a possible
>> alternative.
>> 
> No, it does fit. He claimed that televangelist and others are *not* the
> sort of Christian he is, because they spend a lot of time *claiming* to
> have a superior morality and vision of the truths of the world than
> everyone else, and he personally knew they where wrong, but then went on
> to use the same claims of moral superiority and greater vision of the
> truths of the world to condemn the rest of us for not admitting to the
> obvious genius and understanding "he" had about such things.

I don't know, it doesn't seem like as good a fit to me as it seems to to 
you....

But the problem with the televangelist types is not that they claim to be 
superior or have all the information; it's that they want all of your 
money - and that's the only thing they're interested in, is convincing 
people who can't afford it to part with their money by giving it to them.

Jim

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"Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
news:4760d1d4$1@news.povray.org...
> Nekar Xenos wrote:
>> "Darren New" <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote in message 
>> news:476031bb@news.povray.org...
>>> Nekar Xenos wrote:
>>>> Who has the right to define what is evil?
>>> Those who have eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
>>>
>> Wrong. They have knowledge of good and evil. The Creator of the tree of 
>> knowledge of good and evil is the one who defines good and evil.
>
> So, when God told Moses to commit genocide, killing everyone in an entire 
> city except the virgin girls, which he should rape, that was by definition 
> good?
>

In that age every society/race/group had to fight to survive. A lot like the 
Darwinists'"Survival of the fittest". It was not just the jews that 
destroyed whole cities, lots of other groups did exactly the same thing.

God never told anyone to rape - your imagination is running away with you.

>
>>> And this is not evil? To drag off two thirds of the human population and 
>>> burn them forever? Damn, I must have missed my bit of original sin.
>>>
>> Would you let someone live in your house that you know has bad intentions 
>> toward you?
>
> If I was omnipotent and all-loving, sure. Why not?  Why wouldn't you, 
> other than fear?  Are you saying God doesn't *like* people who don't 
> worship him?
>
God doesn't want anyone to perish, he has an open invitation to everyone.


-- 
-Nekar Xenos-

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Nekar Xenos wrote:
>> So, when God told Moses to commit genocide, killing everyone in an entire 
>> city except the virgin girls, which he should rape, that was by definition 
>> good?

> In that age every society/race/group had to fight to survive. A lot like the 
> Darwinists'"Survival of the fittest". It was not just the jews that 
> destroyed whole cities, lots of other groups did exactly the same thing.

So I take that to mean your answer is "Yes, God told Moses to commit 
genocide, and it was good."

> God never told anyone to rape - your imagination is running away with you.

Numbers 31:18 - Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept 
with a man.  Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep 
them for yourselves.

Duteronomy 20:10 or so - When the LORD your God hands it over to you, 
kill every man in the town.  But you may keep for yourselves all the 
women, children, livestock, and other plunder.  You may enjoy the spoils 
of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.

Exodus 21:7 - When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be 
freed at the end of six years as the men are.

Zecharaih 14 -  Lo, a day shall come for the Lord when the spoils shall 
be divided in your midst.  And I will gather all the nations against 
Jerusalem for battle: the city shall be taken, houses plundered, women 
ravished;

>>>> And this is not evil? To drag off two thirds of the human population and 
>>>> burn them forever? Damn, I must have missed my bit of original sin.
>>>>
>>> Would you let someone live in your house that you know has bad intentions 
>>> toward you?
>> If I was omnipotent and all-loving, sure. Why not?  Why wouldn't you, 
>> other than fear?  Are you saying God doesn't *like* people who don't 
>> worship him?
>>
> God doesn't want anyone to perish, he has an open invitation to everyone.

Yet only under his terms. Doesn't sound too generous. You're changing 
your story again, btw.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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In article <476422c9$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
> Nekar Xenos wrote:
> >> So, when God told Moses to commit genocide, killing everyone in an ent
ire 
> >> city except the virgin girls, which he should rape, that was by defini
tion 
> >> good?
> 
> > In that age every society/race/group had to fight to survive. A lot lik
e the 
> > Darwinists'"Survival of the fittest". It was not just the jews that 
> > destroyed whole cities, lots of other groups did exactly the same thing
.
> 
> So I take that to mean your answer is "Yes, God told Moses to commit 
> genocide, and it was good."
> 
You missed, or just failed to point out, that there is a difference 
between, "survival of the fittest", and, "survival of the ones that kill 
everyone else off."

So, for the edification of Nekar Xenos, Dawinian survival 101, using 
wooden blocks, since that seems to be about the education some people 
are able to rise to when learning anything about the subject.

1. Take a board, make a lot of different shaped holes in it.
2. Take a bunch of wooden blocks, and hack them up into different 
shapes.
3. Try to fit the pegs into the holes.
4. The ones that ***survive*** are the ones that best ***fit*** the 
holes.

This is evolution. Not survival via eliminations of all competitors, but 
fitting the hole better than something else does. Extinction happens 
because the hole changes. The hole's can change because a) someone comes 
along with pegs that fit the holes better, so there is no place for the 
"existing" pegs to go or b) something changes the shape of the holes 
themselves. There is also a c), but its is basically past of a), in that 
obviously, if you made pegs out of something that tended to "eat" the 
original pegs, that is going to change the state of the environment just 
the same as changing the shape of the hole itself. Why? Because, in the 
real world, other species define *part* of that shape. In other words, 
the "hole" you are trying to fill is defined by a) how much room you 
need, b) how much and what types of food you can live off of, and c) 
what might eat you. Cdesign Proponesists, and the like confuse C) with 
the **entire** principle, then claim that it is what Darwin was talking 
about. In reality, he was looking at finches on islands that where cut 
off from predators, so unless you can, in some bizarre fashion, claim 
that the plants where eating the birds, or they where eating each other, 
***his*** version of survival of the fittest was based solely on 
category (a) and (b), neither of which implies species killing each 
other to take over their niches.

In other words, your definition of Darwinism is bullshit based on what 
some morons want it to mean, not what was ever written. Worse, most of 
the time, when ever you have one of these people explain to you what 
they think Darwin said, they end up quoting Lemarkian evolution, a 
theory that was also being presented at the time. Lemark believed that 
a) species evolved to higher states of perfection, and that b) one 
species could not coexist with another, but instead entirely replaced it 
predecessor. Darwin said, species change to fit their environment, and 
extinction only happened *if* one of them found itself unable to compete 
for the same limited resources. This neither requires, nor implies that 
two similar species cannot exist at the same time, so long as "both" of 
them adapt to favor foods, conditions or unique circumstances, which 
they other can't handles as effectively. I.e., they would continue to 
compete, but exist in parallel, with neither "winning", at least until 
some other major environmental change or other factor upset things to 
the point where one of them *couldn't* survive, like if a plant one 
needed to live, but the other didn't, died off in some sort of blight, 
or the like.

Tell you what, Xenos. Go learn what Darwin did say, and what evolution 
does claim, then come back and discuss the entirely human, and/or 
Lemarkian, bullshit of, "Me got bigger rock, because me superer, you 
lose! Unless me drop on own toe.", thinking that was practiced by 
Biblical tribes.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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And lo on Fri, 14 Dec 2007 23:36:16 -0000, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>  
did spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>>> You have a model of the universe in your head, and in that model, you  
>>> have a model of yourself. That is your soul. It's what makes you  
>>> self-aware, and it's what makes you know the difference between good  
>>> and evil.
>>  But if you have a universe-modal aren't you by definition a part of  
>> that model and therefore conscious of your presence in that model?
>
> Well, yes. That's precisely what we're talking about at this very  
> moment, isn't it?

You seemed to be implying the possibilty of a universe-model without  
self-conciousness that was all.

>> Take that squirrel who worked out how to get to the food table through  
>> the ramps jumps and swinging things, could he have done that without a  
>> universe-model and more importantly an awareness of himself. Do  
>> squirrels thus have souls?
>
> Possibly. They're clearly self-aware.
>
>>> You're self-aware because you can run simulations on yourself to  
>>> determine what would happen were you to do something. You don't need  
>>> to step off the edge to know you'd bounce painfully on the way down.
>>  But that's experience, almost Pavlovian;
>
> Not necessarily. It starts out that way, but you don't *ever* need to  
> fall out of a tree so that when you see someone else do it,you go  
> "that's gotta hurt."

But do we see the same behaviour in the unsouled animals, one cat falls  
 from a tree hurts itself and starts miawing does the other cat jump off  
too?

>> What you seem to be saying is that self-conciousness equals soul,  
>> therefore dolphins and elephants that preen themselves before mirrors  
>> are ensouled. Wow that should annoy the 'humans are the best'  
>> fundamentalists :-)
>
> Yep. You didn't ask me if it was the same soul the preachers talk about.  
> You just wondered if there is such a thing as a soul.

Well I didn't, but I think preachers have got Soul™ as their own personal  
domain so talking about soul as self-conciousness and thus the extension  
as above would tick them off.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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