Discussion thread for dandan/Inferno debate

[Inferno]

To answer your question if you use the same criteria for Christianity you use for them false religions then it proves Jesus rose from the dead like his followers preached about after it happened,you see people don't die for lies or made up myths,they die for what they believe is true.

I absolutely agree, you are 100% right. I wish I could just leave that one comment there.

Would you die for atheism if a Muslim threatened you?

No, I'd rather live. I only have one life, only one chance at happiness. If someone threatens my life, I do what they ask me to or I try to overpower them, whichever works. I will not cling to something just to make a point.

 

[tuxbox]

No, I'd rather live. I only have one life, only one chance at happiness. If someone threatens my life, I do what they ask me to or I try to overpower them, whichever works. I will not cling to something just to make a point.

What if a Muslim said convert to Islam or die? I think I would rather die than to live in a totalitarian society, but that's just me.

 

[tuxbox]

To answer your question if you use the same criteria for Christianity you use for them false religions then it proves Jesus rose from the dead like his followers preached about after it happened,you see people don't die for lies or made up myths...

People die for lies all the time!

 

[Gnug215]

It is funny that you use god's nobody believes in anymore but they do believe in Jesus today.It is also funny to think jews would borrow from false religions and make it up Jesus rose from the dead,go out preaching and be killed for it,all because they made it up from past false god's? What you're trying to push is the fairy-tale.Yes we know about the miracles Jesus did.

Oh dear, not Lee Strobel's "die for a lie" argument.

What a fantastic argument! I mean, no one would die for a lie, right? That's logic right there! No one can deny that. Any religion where someone would die for a lie must be true. A holy book with such stories in it must have some merit. So the sources about the stories about those that died for a lie must be proof that said holy book is true, right? Of course! And as Lee Strobel said, it's only the Bible that has stories about disciples of a religion that died for a lie!

So what's the source that shows the Bible to be true in this regard?

... oh, the Bible.

This is where I'd usually say: "See the problem here?" But I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume that you won't see the problem.

So let me flesh is out for you a bit more.

The sources, i.e. the gospels, were written well after the (supposed) events. And knowing what we do about how these things work, it's safe to say that some things may have been embellished, if not to say made up entirely.
So the life of Jesus, his miracles, can have been made up. His death and resurrection can have been made up. The acts of the disciples could have been made up. The fact that the disciples died for their religious preaching could have been made up.

Any number of things can have happened, but you've decided to believe what someone wrote 2000 years ago, about something they heard from others, about some guy who supposedly did all kinds of cool stuff, not for a moment entertaining the fact that someone COULD actually have lied when writing these things, or that they could have been writing these false things fully BELIEVING them to be true because of religious fervor.

Religious and cult leaders make people believe all kinds of crap all the time, and people are often willing to die for it because they believe in it, not necessarily because it's true.

 

[Inferno]

No, I'd rather live. I only have one life, only one chance at happiness. If someone threatens my life, I do what they ask me to or I try to overpower them, whichever works. I will not cling to something just to make a point.

What if a Muslim said convert to Islam or die? I think I would rather die than to live in a totalitarian society, but that's just me.

Well, that's you then. I have one life and I intend to live it until external sources cut an end to it. I'd take an intolerant society over death any time of the day. Plus, staying alive means I can fight back in secret.

 

[tuxbox]

Well, that's you then. I have one life and I intend to live it until external sources cut an end to it. I'd take an intolerant society over death any time of the day. Plus, staying alive means I can fight back in secret.

I guess I have lived a pretty good life and I'm not scared to die (as I'm sure you are not as well), but I would not give those assholes the satisfaction of faking a conversion to their stupid and hateful religion. I also could not stand by and watch them treat women like shit, stone people to death, decapitate so called infidels and all the other atrocities that they commit on a daily basis.

 

[abelcainsbrother]

It is funny that you use god's nobody believes in anymore but they do believe in Jesus today.It is also funny to think jews would borrow from false religions and make it up Jesus rose from the dead,go out preaching and be killed for it,all because they made it up from past false god's? What you're trying to push is the fairy-tale.Yes we know about the miracles Jesus did.

Oh dear, not Lee Strobel's "die for a lie" argument.

What a fantastic argument! I mean, no one would die for a lie, right? That's logic right there! No one can deny that. Any religion where someone would die for a lie must be true. A holy book with such stories in it must have some merit. So the sources about the stories about those that died for a lie must be proof that said holy book is true, right? Of course! And as Lee Strobel said, it's only the Bible that has stories about disciples of a religion that died for a lie!

So what's the source that shows the Bible to be true in this regard?

... oh, the Bible.

This is where I'd usually say: "See the problem here?" But I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume that you won't see the problem.

So let me flesh is out for you a bit more.

The sources, i.e. the gospels, were written well after the (supposed) events. And knowing what we do about how these things work, it's safe to say that some things may have been embellished, if not to say made up entirely.
So the life of Jesus, his miracles, can have been made up. His death and resurrection can have been made up. The acts of the disciples could have been made up. The fact that the disciples died for their religious preaching could have been made up.

Any number of things can have happened, but you've decided to believe what someone wrote 2000 years ago, about something they heard from others, about some guy who supposedly did all kinds of cool stuff, not for a moment entertaining the fact that someone COULD actually have lied when writing these things, or that they could have been writing these false things fully BELIEVING them to be true because of religious fervor.

Religious and cult leaders make people believe all kinds of crap all the time, and people are often willing to die for it because they believe in it, not necessarily because it's true.

You wrote all of that for nothing because people do not die for made up fairy-tales like the apostles that nobody could stop from preaching Jesus rose from the dead.You're not thinking logically or with reason to believe they were willing to die and did for preaching Jesus and how he rose from the dead.If they were lying they would not die and endure the persecution they went through for a lie because people die for what they believe is true and they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead,it was true and has been since then.Sure people die for lies like Muslim terrorists but they believe it is true and so are willing to die,its the same thing with other cults.

 

[tuxbox]

You wrote all of that for nothing because people do not die for made up fairy-tales like the apostles that nobody could stop from preaching Jesus rose from the dead.You're not thinking logically or with reason to believe they were willing to die and did for preaching Jesus and how he rose from the dead.If they were lying they would not die and endure the persecution they went through for a lie because people die for what they believe is true and they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead,it was true and has been since then.Sure people die for lies like Muslim terrorists but they believe it is true and so are willing to die,its the same thing with other cults.

People die for 72 virgins all the time.

 

[abelcainsbrother]

You wrote all of that for nothing because people do not die for made up fairy-tales like the apostles that nobody could stop from preaching Jesus rose from the dead.You're not thinking logically or with reason to believe they were willing to die and did for preaching Jesus and how he rose from the dead.If they were lying they would not die and endure the persecution they went through for a lie because people die for what they believe is true and they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead,it was true and has been since then.Sure people die for lies like Muslim terrorists but they believe it is true and so are willing to die,its the same thing with other cults.

People die for 72 virgins all the time.

Yeah but notice the leaders do not die instead they indoctrinate others,it is totally different with Christianity.

 

[ldmitruk]

You wrote all of that for nothing because people do not die for made up fairy-tales like the apostles that nobody could stop from preaching Jesus rose from the dead.You're not thinking logically or with reason to believe they were willing to die and did for preaching Jesus and how he rose from the dead.If they were lying they would not die and endure the persecution they went through for a lie because people die for what they believe is true and they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead,it was true and has been since then.Sure people die for lies like Muslim terrorists but they believe it is true and so are willing to die,its the same thing with other cults.

People die for 72 virgins all the time.

Yeah but notice the leaders do not die instead they indoctrinate others,it is totally different with Christianity.[/quote]


With Christianity people are indoctrinated with the bible not the koran by their pastors, priests, cardinals etc. And just like leaders of other cults they have also sent their followers off to die for them and their lies, the crusades come to mind as a good example. Lets face it Abel, you're the one who's not thinking logically.

 

[Visaki]

Yeah but notice the leaders do not die instead they indoctrinate others,it is totally different with Christianity.

Today on "Guess the logical fallacy":

 

[Isotelus]

Soooo hi! :? I realize it's been months since the debate ended, but life happened to a large extent, and as many of you may have noticed I haven't even been online in months. Seeing as this all happened so long ago, I'm going to keep this fairly quick.

Both participants were very cordial, which being familiar with some debates in the past here, is very welcome indeed (especially when considering Aron's latest challenger). It's not easy for me to be unbiased in this, but I tried, especially in the cases where some arguments seen in separate threads were introduced again in the debate.
A big thing for me was how accurately the participants arguments reflected those of the papers and articles cited. I read these papers myself; in some cases a number of times over. In comparing what was said here and what was in the papers, Inferno reigned supreme on this account. I applaud dandan's um, attempt, to get to the bottom of things, but in the end Inferno understood what was being said and was able to articulate it in his own words. I was not impressed by dandan's insistence that Inferno supply an explanation and a model for discordance, etc. One, in some cases the model is clearly in the paper. Two, Inferno supplied his explanations multiple times. Whether or not those explanations were accurate (turns out they were), I did not see dandan address them in a satisfactory manner. There was alot of repeating going on, with little progress. For these reasons, as well as for the sake of expediency; Inferno won this debate.

There is one thing however that I would like to expand upon, because I think this might be the root of the issue of dandan's misunderstanding of the papers cited (yes, in spite of his concluding post), as well as the overarching topic of the debate, and that's chocolates and candy. Inferno (and Aronra before him) explained how classifying chocolate bars, cars, etc., is different from classifying living organisms, and as a result why the former is not a good analogy for the latter. But that explanation didn't seem to get through. Dandan made these statements:

you can organize all living things in a big tree, or organize them all in many small trees, you can do the same with robost, cars, computers and chocolates.

The fact that unrelated kinds have traits in common doesn’t automatically imply that they share a common ancestor; we know this because we do see unrelated chocolates, computers and robots that have characteristics in common.

Correct. And that's why we don't classify living things simply based solely on similar traits. That, I believe, is where everything stalled.

Yup, that's not actually how modern phyologenetics works, and you can't effectively argue against phylogenetics using an example that in a sense isn't phylogenetics. So what is it then. Inferno touched on it by mentioning Linnaean taxonomy, showing that grouping things that have similar traits is arbitrary and doesn't reflect true ancestry, but let's really bring this to into the light.

It's phenetics; classification based on overall morphological similarity. This was big in the 60's and 70's, and using those techniques you can come up with all sorts of the trees for chocolate bars and cars, and yes, organisms. More closely related organisms will tend to have more traits in common: using similarities you can show that sharks and dolphins are closely related...wait…that's not right. And there's the problem with phenetics; it can't deal with convergence, or ancestry. Cladistics can. How? To help with this jumble of related but different means of determining relationships, think of cladistics as a subset of phylogeny, or a means of inferring phylogeny, with phenetics being a precursor. There are aspects of phenetics in phylogenetics, yes, but phenetics itself does not exist currently as a separate discipline in biology because its application is limited and in some cases obsolete. And here we come to perhaps the most important difference; the take-home message if you will. Today relationships are most often determined through the selection of characters (heritable traits), which can be morphological, physiological, genetic, etc., and assignment of character states for the included organisms in the study; e.g. presence or absence of x. This would not and cannot work for created objects like candy bars and cars.
In addition to convergence, parameters like time and mosaic evolution can be taken into consideration. Another biggy: modern phylogenetics implements parsimony; that's how these particular methods take a bunch of possible trees and narrow them down to one with the fewest steps. All of these features serve to establish a branching pattern based not on arbitrary and simple similar appearance, but on a comparison of a particular dissemination of character states across lineages and species. These relationships between taxa are characterized by nodes at the base of each branch in the tree and defined by shared-derived traits (synapomorphies). This effectively tracks change in the separate groups. In a phylogenetic tree you might see morphologically dissimilar organisms being closely related, as well as unrelated but morphologically similar organisms. Why is this happening? It's because the phylogenetic method as described above, particularly in regards to synapomorphies, teases something out of the fray: common ancestry.

So we had dandan claiming that the same way we would make trees for chocolate and candy is the same way we make trees for living things. As explained above, this is not the case. Dandan effectively started off the debate with an incorrect understanding of how all the papers cited in the debate (and all those not included, for that matter) actually do phylogenetics.

He was asking for the model, when he actually needed the method.


Yikes. So, I hope this made some sense. While the debate is old, the topic is certainly still relevant for the forum.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

For these reasons, as well as for the sake of expediency; Inferno won this debate.

[sarcasm]BOO! Dandan was robbed![/sarcasm]

 

[SpecialFrog]

For these reasons, as well as for the sake of expediency; Inferno won this debate.

[sarcasm]BOO! Dandan was robbed![/sarcasm]

Possibly, but of what and by whom?

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

[sarcasm]BOO! Dandan was robbed![/sarcasm]

Possibly, but of what and by whom?

Chocolates and candies by Inferno, and Isotelus! :lol:

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Dustnite]