Fetus in fetu

[vector2]

---

Members do not see this ad.

You're actually touching on an old Catholic vs Protestant, Faith vs Works theological argument which is interesting. Don't twist it though, I put a disclaimer in my argument addressing people like your father-in-law, which you ignored, and instead used a much more real and objective example of President Biden purporting to be Catholic and then advocating for legislation that is antipathy of Catholic teachings. It is fair to question whether or not someone truly believes what they say when they only go to church a few times in a year without subjectively leaning upon my own prejudice. So please, stop quoting 84% as a number that represents Judeo-Christian fidelity, it doesn't have any more meaning than my arbitrary 70%. I understand why you are so wary of having your own beliefs categorized because you are trying very hard, and stretching very much, to shove my arguments to fit into a box to be summarily dismissed as a logical fallacy.

I'm not shoving your argument into a box, but rather you (unwittingly) jumped headfirst into a huge No True Scotsman pool. And indeed, you are leaning very heavily on your biases and prejudices when you boldly imply that "this one is a Catholic (or more generally, Christian) because he shares exactly a, b, c beliefs and behaviors with me whereas this one isn't a Catholic or Christian because we diverge on x, y, and z." Seriously, consider for a moment that you, random internet poster, are going on about how President Biden is only pretending to be a Catholic, meanwhile, the literal freakin' Pope has blessed his ability to receive communion.

But ignoring this fact for a second, the underlying point that's truly significant is that most religions don't have extensive hard and fast rules (beyond acceptance of the most core of core tenets) about what makes you a member and what doesn't. After all, they're in the business of growing their subscriber base whenever possible. There is no absolute church attendance requirement in broader Christianity, nor is there any other totally arbitrary TexBlazer2106 litmus test where you get to say that someone who sincerely professes Christianity isn't actually a Christian. And that further leads to the point that nope, you don't just get to handwave away the "86% of Judeo-Christians do not seriously considering changing their religion throughout their lives" statement just because you want to No True Scotsman them out of all of Christendom by pointing to imagined deficits in their faith.

You want to know why I think Saudi Arabia or Thailand is a bad comparison to us in America? Look at history, SA and Thailand have geographical features that keep them mostly isolated and insular from the outer world for hundreds of years and haven't experienced large influxes of alternative cultures. America is completely different in which the current culture has evolved over a period of 250 years with multiple different cultural influences and large reorganizations in a relatively short amount of time. How can you say Americans on average experience the same intense cultural and environmental pressure as in SA/T? They almost certainly haven't had the same historical and geographical backgrounds. Indeed, that uniqueness would suggest that if there are similar patterns, such as a strong presence of theism over multiple generations, then "similar cultural pressures" are probably not the reason as they are dissimilar.

I'm pretty sure you just made my argument for me. My thesis all along has been that "environmental and cultural influence from family and society primarily propagates religious beliefs," and, as you point out, both KSA and Thailand have features that kept them isolated, insular, and more homogenous. Which in turn strengthened the effect that said influence had. Sounds like you don't actually disagree with my thesis when you're not being led astray by your biases about belief in the US.

That being said, the US does experience quite similar cultural and environmental pressures. A kid in KSA, Thailand, and the US still grows up with parents who want them to believe what they believe, right? The kids in all three countries grow up with teachers, clergy, and politicians who all want them to believe what they believe, right? Didn't you mention at some point the predominance of Christian values in this country? And of course, there's still a huge stigma against atheism and non-belief in all three countries. The vast, vast majority of immigrants to the US over the last 250 years have been Christians of some flavor, so indeed, the Christian predominance and propagation speaks more to similarities than dissimilarities in the comparison here. Your argument about "different cultural influences" would maybe hold some water if at some point in US history there were a much larger group of non-Christians who comprised the population.

I agree with you that America is becoming more secular and that trend has accelerated over the last two decades. For example, Figure 1 in the article you quoted from PRRI showed that among whites secularism has increased from 16% to 26% in 15 years. Have their been any large changes among trends of white families during that timespan? Overall 2 parent families have declined 20% in the last 50 years but from my knowledge that's been largely driven by large losses in minority groups (specifically African Americans). In your opinion what's driving this trend and how does that impact your theories?

I think the main thing driving the increased trend in secularism is that more people are realizing that typical religious orthodoxy and its prescriptive approach are ill-equipped to deal with society's (and the average person's) increasingly complex ethical quandaries, combined with the fact that there are many alternatives where people can seek out a sense of community or belonging without church being the only place to fill that need.

I also think while most monotheistic faiths (compared to say 400 years ago) have evolved (or devolved, if you like) into increasingly more abstract belief systems given how much we've learned about the natural world, they are frankly still too magical. Many nowadays desire some vague form of "spirituality" free of the baggage of having to accept the veracity of claims about virgin births and wafers/wine etc.

Wait slavery's historical complex social integration can't be explained away as an adaptation humanity has used to justify subjugating their fellow man? And the reason that it can't is because of the different varieties across different cultures? Have you not been arguing that the better moral values that humanity should live by are evident by natural selection and any overlap between that study and religious tenets are merely humanity's fearful attempts to explain unknown phenomenon by supernatural means? I'll let you correct the details but the reversal in stances is noted.

I can't really understand what non-sequitur you're trying to insert here.

You tried to dismiss the institution of slavery as something trivially utilitarian and temporary, whereas, in reality, for 99.999% of recorded human history it was arguably as integrated into every aspect of human society as religion was. And now we've discarded it.

That makes for a pretty compelling and obvious comparison for why your "religion has been around a long time ergo there's some validity" implication is so problematic from an argumentum ad antiquitatem standpoint, but I guess you've been defending this fallacious line of thinking so long there's no hope of letting it go.

Did you just dismiss Aquinas and Co. with a book written by a guy named George H. Smith whose biggest accolade is being a part of a libertarian and liberal think-tanks? Are you being serious? I looked the book up and scanned a brief review of it and it doesn't seem like the guy even shares your definitions of an atheist and agnostic. I don't think this teetering discussion could bear such a heavy turn, but I will say that the teleological argument can't be disproved today, your rebuttal of "god of the gaps" is much more compelling and just as easily un-provable (except for the mathematics of the question that would describe such possibilities of such things happening spontaneously as so infinitesimally small as to be impossible). It really doesn't matter for the purposes of the conversation, I'm just not going to let your comment pass through unaddressed.

The teleological argument "can't be disproved today"? Thanks for that remarkable insight! Guess what, though? You can't definitively disprove solipsism, luminiferous aether, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster either.

And lol, did you just open your defense of the teleological argument by first pointing to how many accolades a critic has? I didn't say the guy originated the refutation of the teleological argument (which is in fact so simplistic and poorly thought out that even Hume pointed out its obvious errors in the 1700s), but rather I mentioned that I think his book contained discussions of all three topics that were brought up. I do think it's telling though that the first place your mind went was an appeal to authority fallacy (bow down before the great Aquinas) followed by an ad hominem against Smith. That tends to be part of the package when someone has a preconceived notion that the world must be designed and then has to work backward to justify that notion.

But if bonafides are a requirement for you before considering the actual merits, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker is essentially one big detailed refutation of the teleological argument.

You've asked multiple times for the answers to the following,

They don't make sense to me to ask these questions after my recent answers.

"find the assertion that complex morals / ethics / social behaviors arose in man...because [Judeo-Christian God]" to be axiomatically true?"
- No I don't find them to be self-evident because they depend, to a degree, on divine revelation.

I would argue that your answer isn't really a "no" if man obtaining his ethical foundation from divine revelation is more of a faith proposition for you rather than something empirically demonstrable

"Are you axiomatically closed to empiric and/or scientific theories from evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology which try to elucidate how complex behavior can arise through natural selection?"
- I don't understand your use of the word "axiomatically" here? Do I find it self evident to be closed to studies of biology or psychology to understand how complex behaviors can arise by natural selection, isn't a real question. I'll answer what I'm assuming you are saying which is that no I'm not closed to such study. Such study is described by Aquinas as one of the influences of the theory of naturalism today. If you're trying to make it at odds for theology, which it is not.

Of course it's at odds with theology. Since presumably you wouldn't be in agreement if an evolutionary psychologist told you that the development of the cerebral cortex allowed for an imagination capable of creating abstract fictions like tribes, nations, money, corporations, or God. And those fictions, in turn, allowed for large numbers of humans to cooperate and thus become more successful from a natural selection standpoint.

So if I'm reading you right, you're not closed to scientific theories stating that man evolved from apes, and you're not closed to theories about the naturalistic origin of human behavior......but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?

To continue that last vein though, the eye co-evolved over many different species in an evolutionary sprint. Nature quickly found out in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. This phenomenon is known as the cambrian explosion. There should have been a similar phenomenon with abstract thought with the neanderthals or others specifically playing the foil as evolution advanced cohesively. Even apex predators are ruled by the limits of the ecosystems in which they inhabit with others. Humanity does not have that, there is no other species truly in our ecosystem and that phenomenon should not have happened in natural evolution.

Firstly, Neanderthals were capable of abstract thought and likely did play as a sort of foil during their co-evolution with sapiens. In fact, in some folks Neanderthal DNA comprises 1-4% of the genome.

Secondly, your assertion that 2 million years of evolution leading to our current position on earth "should not have happened in natural evolution" is not one based on any evidence.

 

[TexBlazer2106]

Christianity is not a meritocracy and I apologize if I misrepresented that. You are right that no one can pass judgement on another. It is even difficult to label someone as a "good Christian" on the basis of their endorsed views and I recognize your confusion on my commentary of the PRRI evidence. However, For Christians, and in particular Catholics, holding one another accountable and questioning their actions against, at least basic tenets, are integral to Christian Faith. So while its difficult to exclude someone by a set of criteria, its much easier to judge their actions as not in accordance with Christian/Catholic doctrine. So (and don't think I didn't notice your ad hominem comment against me while vilifying me for the exact same thing later) for President Biden's actions, I can see they are antagonistic to important Catholic doctrine, see that he continues to support those actions without typical remorse when confronted with evidence of sin (you may not see these actions as sinful, but even an impartial observer would agree these are opposed to Catholic doctrine) and question that person's faith.

What I am doing with your referenced data set is slightly different. I observe the poor service attendance, "Most Americans say they seldom (28%) or never (29%) attended religious services," see that almost 60% practically never attend a service and speculate that there is a normative curve in that group below which people would deny their religious institution if pressed on the matter. And you don't get to hold up this 84% of Americans as some sort of standard that can't be "hand waved" away. its a weak study with only 6k participants, hardly something to be touting around as a standard.

I'm pretty sure you just made my argument for me. My thesis all along has been that "environmental and cultural influence from family and society primarily propagates religious beliefs," and, as you point out, both KSA and Thailand have features that kept them isolated, insular, and more homogenous. Which in turn strengthened the effect that said influence had. Sounds like you don't actually disagree with my thesis when you're not being led astray by your biases about belief in the US.

That being said, the US does experience quite similar cultural and environmental pressures. A kid in KSA, Thailand, and the US still grows up with parents who want them to believe what they believe, right? The kids in all three countries grow up with teachers, clergy, and politicians who all want them to believe what they believe, right? Didn't you mention at some point the predominance of Christian values in this country? And of course, there's still a huge stigma against atheism and non-belief in all three countries. The vast, vast majority of immigrants to the US over the last 250 years have been Christians of some flavor, so indeed, the Christian predominance and propagation speaks more to similarities than dissimilarities in the comparison here. Your argument about "different cultural influences" would maybe hold some water if at some point in US history there were a much larger group of non-Christians who comprised the population.

I've never denied that environmental and cultural influences contribute to a society's inertia or and individual's belief, only that it's the primary reason for religious beliefs today. This may seem to be a small distinction but the connotation of your arguments suggest to me that you believe large groups of religious people are merely fearful and ignorant. If that's truly your belief then I'm going to continue to push back hard on this small point because of its importance.

For your argument, however, you cannot hold that the US and KSA/Th are similar at all. Two are homogenous and the other heterogenous across most demographics. The argument you should be making is that the US and KSA/Th are dissimilar enough so that for the last 200 years the cultural influences have waned enough to erode the normal convictions and beliefs that Christians hold, making them more susceptible to secularism. Its a much more convincing argument and may have some truth to it. However, to devalue religious practice and relegate them to a vestigial part of society that the US is currently coming out of much like a chrysalis. The point you have to make is that America's slide into secularism is objectively positive using a naturalistic/materialistic ethical framework that can be replicated from one generation to the next with the rigidity to resist fads and the ability to adapt to new moral quandaries as you put it. This is a tricky thing with these moralistic systems as they can appeal to an individual or group during a specific zeitgeist but crumble when the times change or a movement derails it.

I asked this many posts ago, but how does a moral system based on naturalistic/materialistic means cope with issues such as abortion, homosexuality, or transgenderism? Are you going to have a unique perspective, a predictable one based on current media biases, relatable to a heterogenous population?

The teleological argument "can't be disproved today"? Thanks for that remarkable insight! Guess what, though? You can't definitively disprove solipsism, luminiferous aether, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster either.

And lol, did you just open your defense of the teleological argument by first pointing to how many accolades a critic has? I didn't say the guy originated the refutation of the teleological argument (which is in fact so simplistic and poorly thought out that even Hume pointed out its obvious errors in the 1700s), but rather I mentioned that I think his book contained discussions of all three topics that were brought up. I do think it's telling though that the first place your mind went was an appeal to authority fallacy (bow down before the great Aquinas) followed by an ad hominem against Smith. That tends to be part of the package when someone has a preconceived notion that the world must be designed and then has to work backward to justify that notion.

But if bonafides are a requirement for you before considering the actual merits, Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker is essentially one big detailed refutation of the teleological argument.

You understand that an ad hominem attack entails attack on a person's character correct? Questioning the validity of the argument based on a perceived lack of accolades is allowable. Even if he was merely detailing previously well known arguments, surely a review posted on "the secular web" would be magnanimous but it isn't. The review itself specifically questioned his use of the terms atheist and agnostic which you detailed earlier. Your Hume video was a conversational dialogue that seemed to be cut short, was it supposed to represent a strong argument? Again though you attempt to shove my argument in a box to be dismissed. After accusing me of an ad hominem attack, which would have followed an ad hominem attack on me earlier in your response.

The teleological argument's greatest attribute above some sort of chance formational forces that created an inhabitable planet after the big bang followed by formation of organic building blocks that were then imbued with agency to reproduce and procreate. Darwinian evolution is a great fine tuning mechanism but it can't even fully explain the progression of micro-organisms to complex mammalian constructs with complete fidelity today.

I would argue that your answer isn't really a "no" if man obtaining his ethical foundation from divine revelation is more of a faith proposition for you rather than something empirically demonstrable

You read about the moralistic argument, no? A definable ethical foundation for which humanity flourishes the most certainly exist because it was placed there by a supernatural force. It cannot be defined by purely social-ethical evolution. Your bold claim that kindness somehow derives from hunter-gatherer team-ups is but one example of an illogical conclusions by which you presuppose a result (such as I believe kindness is good and essential to human flourishing) and find pieces to shove together and declare a puzzle solved (I'm sure you can place a name to the fallacy in your debate book).

Of course it's at odds with theology. Since presumably you wouldn't be in agreement if an evolutionary psychologist told you that the development of the cerebral cortex allowed for an imagination capable of creating abstract fictions like tribes, nations, money, corporations, or God. And those fictions, in turn, allowed for large numbers of humans to cooperate and thus become more successful from a natural selection standpoint.

So if I'm reading you right, you're not closed to scientific theories stating that man evolved from apes, and you're not closed to theories about the naturalistic origin of human behavior......but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?

I mean this is the spidermen pointing at each other paradox (is that one in your debate book?) where advancing scientific theories are, in many ways, more supportive of an intelligent design from discoveries regarding the James Webb telescope where they've found evidence that matter, energy, space and time had a beginning in the big bang. So I point my finger at you and say "if I'm reading you right, you're not closed to scientific theories stating that man evolved from apes, and you're not closed to theories about the (super)naturalistic origin of human behavior......but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram remove divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?"

What does Neaderthal DNA have to do with anything? Are you suggesting that humans with 4% Neaderthal DNA are different species than ones with 1%? No other mouse-trap in evolutionary history has evolved isolated in one species. Instead of one foil disappearing, multiple foils should exist today. What is there to suggest that my argument is not valid. Does it violate any neo-Darwinian principal?

 

[TexBlazer2106]

We've covered a lot of what's in the Dawkins v Lennox debate.

 

[vector2]

Christianity is not a meritocracy and I apologize if I misrepresented that. You are right that no one can pass judgement on another. It is even difficult to label someone as a "good Christian" on the basis of their endorsed views and I recognize your confusion on my commentary of the PRRI evidence. However, For Christians, and in particular Catholics, holding one another accountable and questioning their actions against, at least basic tenets, are integral to Christian Faith. So while its difficult to exclude someone by a set of criteria, its much easier to judge their actions as not in accordance with Christian/Catholic doctrine. So (and don't think I didn't notice your ad hominem comment against me while vilifying me for the exact same thing later) for President Biden's actions, I can see they are antagonistic to important Catholic doctrine, see that he continues to support those actions without typical remorse when confronted with evidence of sin (you may not see these actions as sinful, but even an impartial observer would agree these are opposed to Catholic doctrine) and question that person's faith.

What I am doing with your referenced data set is slightly different. I observe the poor service attendance, "Most Americans say they seldom (28%) or never (29%) attended religious services," see that almost 60% practically never attend a service and speculate that there is a normative curve in that group below which people would deny their religious institution if pressed on the matter. And you don't get to hold up this 84% of Americans as some sort of standard that can't be "hand waved" away. its a weak study with only 6k participants, hardly something to be touting around as a standard.

If you want to “judge their actions as not in accordance with some particular doctrine” while not making a broader, sweeping judgment on whether someone is actually a theist or Christian or Catholic or whatever….then great. Go ahead and judge some individual actions or beliefs. I mean, the fact that you say Biden (who is on the record as personally against abortion but not willing to impose his faith beliefs on others) isn’t a Catholic while the Pope says he is demonstrates how absurdly squishy, variable, and subjective this whole religious categorization business is. However, you went well beyond just judging the individual actions’ consistency and went on to imply that entire groups of people’s professed faiths could, indeed, be excluded.

Recall, you wrote:

It is fair to question whether or not someone truly believes what they say when they only go to church a few times in a year…..​

You are essentially saying Biden isn’t a Catholic because he won’t use his political bully pulpit to oppose abortion. You are essentially saying that Americans (like those in the survey) who rarely attend services are not Christians. And you’re doing so based on nothing more than your biases. Not to mention, that latter implication is particularly ridiculous because attendance of services, to my understanding, is something that has much higher emphasis in Catholicism as compared to the other Protestant faiths to which most Americans ascribe. There is no codified doctrinal proclamation that a person who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior ceases to be a Christian because of his church attendance record. Ergo, you still don’t get to handwave away the data showing that “86% of Judeo-Christians do not seriously consider changing their religion throughout their lives.” Sorry.

BTW, calling some data “weak” just because you disagree with it isn’t really a compelling criticism. Furthermore, you pointing out that a particular survey has 6000 participants probably doesn’t accomplish what you think it does when you consider that most data in this category probably has an order of magnitude fewer participants. Regardless, like I said before about your inane nitpicking, feel free to present some countervailing data that actually supports your hypothesis.

I've never denied that environmental and cultural influences contribute to a society's inertia or and individual's belief, only that it's the primary reason for religious beliefs today. This may seem to be a small distinction but the connotation of your arguments suggest to me that you believe large groups of religious people are merely fearful and ignorant. If that's truly your belief then I'm going to continue to push back hard on this small point because of its importance.

For your argument, however, you cannot hold that the US and KSA/Th are similar at all. Two are homogenous and the other heterogenous across most demographics. The argument you should be making is that the US and KSA/Th are dissimilar enough so that for the last 200 years the cultural influences have waned enough to erode the normal convictions and beliefs that Christians hold, making them more susceptible to secularism. Its a much more convincing argument and may have some truth to it. However, to devalue religious practice and relegate them to a vestigial part of society that the US is currently coming out of much like a chrysalis. The point you have to make is that America's slide into secularism is objectively positive using a naturalistic/materialistic ethical framework that can be replicated from one generation to the next with the rigidity to resist fads and the ability to adapt to new moral quandaries as you put it. This is a tricky thing with these moralistic systems as they can appeal to an individual or group during a specific zeitgeist but crumble when the times change or a movement derails it.

I suspect that the “fear and ignorance” part provokes a defensive visceral reaction in you that makes it hard to approach the matter objectively. But try for a moment to take the 30,000 ft view. No matter who we are or what beliefs our parents have, we all are born with a degree of fear and ignorance. We are creatures who crave satisfying explanations for all phenomena. If you look at an old atheist and theist, both are fearful and ignorant when it comes to many of the same things. Both of them are most likely fearful of dying. And both of them, despite their individual theories, are ultimately ignorant as to what’s really going to happen after they die.

While I do think fear and ignorance are contributors (both here, and really, to many different kinds of beliefs), I don’t think they’re the primary contributors to my thesis. The primary one is what I stated before, i.e. that young, impressionable people simply adopt the same beliefs and practices as their elders and authority figures. Again, let me state the part you didn’t specifically respond to: “A kid in KSA, Thailand, and the US still grows up with parents who want them to believe what they believe, right? The kids in all three countries grow up with teachers, clergy, and politicians who all want them to believe what they believe, right?”

Do you really want to dispute any of that?

Ultimately the base religion propagating conditions in the three countries are very similar and that supports the crux of my thesis, but where they diverge is that, indeed, there is more freedom and/or diversity in the US so that the small percentage of adults who choose to leave their childhood faith can go down a different path. The divergence, though, is still consistent with the idea that childhood/young adult indoctrination + subsequent inertia is the reason for most religious belief in all three countries. The inertia is just harder to break in Thailand and KSA due to homogeneity and very intense sociocultural pressure.

Also, I don’t have to make any point about America’s shift to secularism at all, nor do I have to prove that it’s “objectively positive” either, whatever that means lol. And wrt belief systems having appeal during a specific “zeitgeist” and then crumbling, being a progressive and all I consider that to be a net positive. And not one that religions are immune from either (which is no surprise because I think it’s just as true that religions bend to the “zeitgeist” and cultural relativism, not vice versa). Heck, just ten years ago the leader of your church said “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

I asked this many posts ago, but how does a moral system based on naturalistic/materialistic means cope with issues such as abortion, homosexuality, or transgenderism? Are you going to have a unique perspective, a predictable one based on current media biases, relatable to a heterogenous population?

I think it’s better to admit we don’t have all the answers to tough questions rather than pretending a really old book or a guy in a big hat picked by other guys in big hats can simply reveal them to us.

You understand that an ad hominem attack entails attack on a person's character correct? Questioning the validity of the argument based on a perceived lack of accolades is allowable. Even if he was merely detailing previously well known arguments, surely a review posted on "the secular web" would be magnanimous but it isn't. The review itself specifically questioned his use of the terms atheist and agnostic which you detailed earlier. Your Hume video was a conversational dialogue that seemed to be cut short, was it supposed to represent a strong argument? Again though you attempt to shove my argument in a box to be dismissed. After accusing me of an ad hominem attack, which would have followed an ad hominem attack on me earlier in your response.

The teleological argument's greatest attribute above some sort of chance formational forces that created an inhabitable planet after the big bang followed by formation of organic building blocks that were then imbued with agency to reproduce and procreate. Darwinian evolution is a great fine tuning mechanism but it can't even fully explain the progression of micro-organisms to complex mammalian constructs with complete fidelity today.

More precisely, an ad hominem is “a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.” In this case, the attribute of Smith you were attacking was his perceived lack of decoration with accolades.

Regardless of definitions, do you see the main thing lacking there? It was You. Actually. Arguing. On. The. Merits.

Again, though, I don’t think you understand what “chance” means in the context of evolution or natural selection, and you seem like you’d be wont to use one of those flawed analogies about monkeys at a typewriter or a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a 747.

I implore you to read Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker. There are some things in there which I’m sure would pain you to read, but so much of it is dedicated to just the pure science that anyone with any curiosity about the natural world would find it a pleasure.

You read about the moralistic argument, no? A definable ethical foundation for which humanity flourishes the most certainly exist because it was placed there by a supernatural force. It cannot be defined by purely social-ethical evolution. Your bold claim that kindness somehow derives from hunter-gatherer team-ups is but one example of an illogical conclusions by which you presuppose a result (such as I believe kindness is good and essential to human flourishing) and find pieces to shove together and declare a puzzle solved (I'm sure you can place a name to the fallacy in your debate book).

Heh, that quip about the debate book is funny. But still doesn’t change the fact that you’re using a bunch of logical fallacies in your arguments, does it? And I didn’t boldly claim anything, no matter how badly you’d like to misrepresent that I make as many definitive statements as you (indeed, only one of us is proclaiming Biden a heretic to Catholicism while the Pope gives him communion).

Anyway, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding not only of evolution, but also of science in general. As a refresher to you, I guess I have to point out that evolutionary biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, etc, don’t start with conclusions. They start with making observations, asking questions about natural phenomena, and then forming hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested through experiments or observations to gather empirical data and evidence. The data is then analyzed, and conclusions are drawn based on the evidence obtained.

It’s empirically true that hominids and early humans started out in small groups and then started to organize into larger groups. It’s empirically true that larger groups are advantageous from a survival standpoint (imagine one guy bringing down a mammoth). But it’s also empirically true that organization into ever-larger groups requires complex behavior that allows for cooperation, and for members of the group to tolerate many types of interpersonal dynamics. To grossly oversimplify, just like we kept the wolves who were “tame” and they eventually became our dogs, we kept the humans who were “kind” (i.e. could cooperate without disrupting or harming the group). This is the selective pressure of natural selection.

To be sure, this is "just" a scientific theory. I nor any other scientists are making any bold, unchanging, definitive proclamations. It’s a theory based on the sum of the observable evidence, both in humans and apes, and it is updated as new evidence comes to light. For instance, reciprocal altruism is probably contributory to the evolution of kindness. Kindness can be fostered through reciprocal relationships, where individuals help each other with the expectation of receiving help in return. And over time, this mutually beneficial cooperation can lead to the evolution of kindness and pro-social behaviors. This is a potentially valid explanation not because I, vector2, declare it so, but because the bulk of the archaeological, anthropological, and neuroscience studies show that this behavior is both ingrained and beneficial.



OTOH, what should we make of the moralistic argument? Hell, can we even really call it an “argument?” Cause it looks like a lot like:

1. An ethical framework where humanity flourishes the most (what does that even mean?) exists.
2. ??????
3. PROFIT Therefore God exists
​

When we get down to brass tacks, I bet you accept the scientific process outlined above 999 times /1000 when it comes to topics or fields in science you’re not so strongly biased about. If you read an article about the evolution of complex behavior like appetite/hunger/binging having origins in the feast or famine conditions faced by prehistoric man, you probably wouldn't even bat an eye. But I understand it’s hard to swallow when that very same scientific process potentially leads to there being naturalistic explanations for phenomena which you are desperate to believe have supernatural origins.

I mean this is the spidermen pointing at each other paradox (is that one in your debate book?) where advancing scientific theories are, in many ways, more supportive of an intelligent design from discoveries regarding the James Webb telescope where they've found evidence that matter, energy, space and time had a beginning in the big bang. So I point my finger at you and say "if I'm reading you right, you're not closed to scientific theories stating that man evolved from apes, and you're not closed to theories about the (super)naturalistic origin of human behavior......but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram remove divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?"

Again just a gross, gross misunderstanding of science here. One of the quotes from that Lerner article is especially telling: “If the physical universe of matter, energy, space and time had a beginning – as observational astronomy and theoretical physics suggest – it’s hard to envision a physical cause for such an event.”

Yes, just so “hard” to envision how something could happen. So, so hard. As if lack of a sufficient explanation is somehow proof that an equally unexplainable phenomenon is the explanation. I guess I should reach into my trusty debate book again and point out to you that this a logical fallacy known as an argument from incredulity. **See the excerpt in the edit for a better explanation from Dawkins for how the fallacy relates to evolution

Sure, you can try to point your finger back at me, spiderman, but keep in mind that the statement you’re trying to throw back into my face is totally nonsensical. To be explicit, “.....but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram remove divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?” is utterly incapable of being parsed.

Science is going to “artificially remove divine revelation” from one of its theories? Are you being serious here? Or did I miss the article in Nature showing Moses actually convening with the bush and coming down the mountain with the tablet?

What does Neaderthal DNA have to do with anything? Are you suggesting that humans with 4% Neaderthal DNA are different species than ones with 1%? No other mouse-trap in evolutionary history has evolved isolated in one species. Instead of one foil disappearing, multiple foils should exist today. What is there to suggest that my argument is not valid. Does it violate any neo-Darwinian principal?

I beg you, read some books by actual scientists and not ID zealots intent on stoking your confirmation bias.




E:

And one more about complexity

In Evolution's Witness, Ivan Schwab explains how one of the most complex organs in our body, our eyes, evolved. Often touted by Intelligent Designers as 'irreducibly complex', eyes are highly intricate machines that require a number of parts working together to function. But not even the labyrinthine structures in the eye present an insurmountable barrier to evolution.

Our ability to see began to evolve long before animals radiated. Visual pigments, like retinal, are found in all animal lineages, and were first harnessed by prokaryotes to respond to changes in light more than 2.5 billion years ago. But the first complex eyes can be found about 540 million years ago, during a time of rapid diversification colloquially referred to as the Cambrian Explosion. It all began when comb jellies, sponges and jellyfish, along with clonal bacteria, were the first to group photoreceptive cells and create light-sensitive 'eyespots'. These primitive visual centers could detect light intensity, but lacked the ability to define objects. That's not to say, though, that eyespots aren't important - eyespots are such an asset that they arose independently in at least 40 different lineages. But it was the other invertebrate lineages that would take the simple eyespot and turn it into something incredible.

According to Schwab, the transition from eyespot to eye is quite small. "Once an eyespot is established, the ability to recognize spatial characteristics - our eye definition - takes one of two mechanisms: invagination (a pit) or evagination (a bulge)." Those pits or bulges can then be focused with any clear material forming a lens (different lineages use a wide variety of molecules for their lenses). Add more pigments or more cells, and the vision becomes sharper. Each alteration is just a slight change from the one before, a minor improvement well within bounds of evolution's toolkit, but over time these small adjustments led to intricate complexity.

In the Cambrian, eyes were all the rage. Arthropods were visual trendsetters, creating compound eyes by using the latter approach, that of bulging, then combining many little bulges together. One of the era's top predators, Anomalocaris, had over 16,000 lenses! So many creatures arose with eyes during the Cambrian that Andrew Parker, a visiting member of the Zoology Department at the University of Oxford, believes that the development of vision was the driver behind the evolutionary explosion. His 'Light-Switch' hypothesis postulates that vision opened the doors for animal innovation, allowing rapid diversification in modes and mechanisms for a wide set of ecological traits. Even if eyes didn't spur the Cambrian explosion, their development certainly irrevocably altered the course of evolution.

Our eyes, as well as those of octopuses and fish, took a different approach than those of the arthropods, putting photo receptors into a pit, thus creating what is referred to as a camera-style eye. In the fossil record, eyes seem to emerge from eyeless predecessors rapidly, in less than 5 million years. But is it really possible that an eye like ours arose so suddenly? Yes, say biologists Dan-E. Nilsson and Susanne Pelger. They calculated a pessimistic guess as to how long it would take for small changes - just 1% improvements in length, depth, etc per generation - to turn a flat eyespot into an eye like our own. Their conclusion? It would only take about 400,000 years - a geological instant.

Evolution: The Rise of Complexity

blogs.scientificamerican.com

 

[TexBlazer2106]

If you want to “judge their actions as not in accordance with some particular doctrine” while not making a broader, sweeping judgment on whether someone is actually a theist or Christian or Catholic or whatever….then great. Go ahead and judge some individual actions or beliefs. I mean, the fact that you say Biden (who is on the record as personally against abortion but not willing to impose his faith beliefs on others) isn’t a Catholic while the Pope says he is demonstrates how absurdly squishy, variable, and subjective this whole religious categorization business is. However, you went well beyond just judging the individual actions’ consistency and went on to imply that entire groups of people’s professed faiths could, indeed, be excluded.

Recall, you wrote:


It is fair to question whether or not someone truly believes what they say when they only go to church a few times in a year…..
You are essentially saying Biden isn’t a Catholic because he won’t use his political bully pulpit to oppose abortion. You are essentially saying that Americans (like those in the survey) who rarely attend services are not Christians. And you’re doing so based on nothing more than your biases. Not to mention, that latter implication is particularly ridiculous because attendance of services, to my understanding, is something that has much higher emphasis in Catholicism as compared to the other Protestant faiths to which most Americans ascribe. There is no codified doctrinal proclamation that a person who has accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior ceases to be a Christian because of his church attendance record. Ergo, you still don’t get to handwave away the data showing that “86% of Judeo-Christians do not seriously consider changing their religion throughout their lives.” Sorry.

BTW, calling some data “weak” just because you disagree with it isn’t really a compelling criticism. Furthermore, you pointing out that a particular survey has 6000 participants probably doesn’t accomplish what you think it does when you consider that most data in this category probably has an order of magnitude fewer participants. Regardless, like I said before about your inane nitpicking, feel free to present some countervailing data that actually supports your hypothesis.

If President Biden is truly directing his administration's goals then he is doing much more than "refusing to impose his faith beliefs on others," he is actively attempting to codify a law that makes all forms of abortion permissible. This is obvious. The bolded part in your response helps me understand that you don't really understand Catholicism. I don't know for sure, but using the phrase, "accepted Jesus as their [personal] Lord and Savior" is a Protestant mantra and reflects an inadequate understanding of New Testament teaching that you lose when you reject the first 1500 years of Christianity. And yes, yes, yes, I will question your true beliefs if you tell me you are Christian and that God is one of the most important things in your life and you give one hour of your time to go to church (an integral part of any Christian community) per two years. And yes I do think there is some potential that Christianity in America is a weak one. <- pay attention to Nabeel Qureshi here as he's an Islamic convert to Christianity.

The number you are trying to say is 84% from the PRRI article. I think the study is under-powered, do you not?

While I do think fear and ignorance are contributors (both here, and really, to many different kinds of beliefs), I don’t think they’re the primary contributors to my thesis. The primary one is what I stated before, i.e. that young, impressionable people simply adopt the same beliefs and practices as their elders and authority figures. Again, let me state the part you didn’t specifically respond to: “A kid in KSA, Thailand, and the US still grows up with parents who want them to believe what they believe, right? The kids in all three countries grow up with teachers, clergy, and politicians who all want them to believe what they believe, right?”

Do you really want to dispute any of that?

I completely agree with the fear part for any individual who is holds a different belief than their close community they've grown up with. It happens with theists and atheist alike. I think its a weak argument to try and tie it to Christianity specifically which is what I perceived you were doing. And yes I'm going to dispute that a kid in KSA/Thailand has a different set of cultural exposures and pressures primarily based on their geographic locations than a kid in the US. You understand trying to say a child has parents somehow validates an equivalency in forces. *googles fallacies* This reeks of a fallacy of composition where you presume a part of the whole (children in KSA/Thailand/US have parents) to be representative of the whole (KSA/Thailand/US must have similar societal pressures after all they all have parents and therefore similar persuasions of teachers, clergy, and politicians <-large stretch)

More precisely, an ad hominem is “a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.” In this case, the attribute of Smith you were attacking was his perceived lack of decoration with accolades.

Regardless of definitions, do you see the main thing lacking there? It was You. Actually. Arguing. On. The. Merits.

Ha, "more precisely, an ad hominem attacks, wait for it, some other non-defined attribute that I choose to use," and no, I didn't dismiss him out of hand. I looked up some reviews and synopsis of the book and wrote what I did. You posited it as a definitive response to my statement of belief and have done a great job spinning the argument down to arguing about this random guy.

I implore you to read Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker. There are some things in there which I’m sure would pain you to read, but so much of it is dedicated to just the pure science that anyone with any curiosity about the natural world would find it a pleasure.

I'll probably get around to reading it one day, I get a much more rounded view of philosophies from online debates. Reading synopsis' of the book it seems like its just a way to explain how evolution works which I understand and appreciate the mechanism behind. If it explains how organic matter forms (yay urea!) and protein building blocks started moving with agency to procreate then I'll definitely move it up the reading list.

Anyway, you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding not only of evolution, but also of science in general. As a refresher to you, I guess I have to point out that evolutionary biologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, etc, don’t start with conclusions. They start with making observations, asking questions about natural phenomena, and then forming hypotheses. These hypotheses are tested through experiments or observations to gather empirical data and evidence. The data is then analyzed, and conclusions are drawn based on the evidence obtained.

It’s empirically true that hominids and early humans started out in small groups and then started to organize into larger groups. It’s empirically true that larger groups are advantageous from a survival standpoint (imagine one guy bringing down a mammoth). But it’s also empirically true that organization into ever-larger groups requires complex behavior that allows for cooperation, and for members of the group to tolerate many types of interpersonal dynamics. To grossly oversimplify, just like we kept the wolves who were “tame” and they eventually became our dogs, we kept the humans who were “kind” (i.e. could cooperate without disrupting or harming the group). This is the selective pressure of natural selection.

To be sure, this is "just" a scientific theory. I nor any other scientists are making any bold, unchanging, definitive proclamations. It’s a theory based on the sum of the observable evidence, both in humans and apes, and it is updated as new evidence comes to light. For instance, reciprocal altruism is probably contributory to the evolution of kindness. Kindness can be fostered through reciprocal relationships, where individuals help each other with the expectation of receiving help in return. And over time, this mutually beneficial cooperation can lead to the evolution of kindness and pro-social behaviors. This is a potentially valid explanation not because I, vector2, declare it so, but because the bulk of the archaeological, anthropological, and neuroscience studies show that this behavior is both ingrained and beneficial.

An ad hominem fallacy directed at my "misunderstanding of science." You follow it up with a hasty generalization fallacy in which you attempt to connect hunter-gatherer groups participating in mutually beneficial pacts, great explanation of the pressure of natural selection. Then you attempt to link it to a lasting idea of altruism (reciprocal altruism is an oxymoron) by stating that the mutually beneficial pacts are a natural precursor to reciprocal altruism and the logical stem in societal evolution. The problem is obviously that while pacts confer a societal advantage, altruism does not and in many ways has a negative societal effect as it preferentially supports weaker members of groups. The evolution of kindness from mutually beneficial pacts would therefore not be explained by social evolution as any examples of kindness would be selected out. This is simple, so what "bulk of the archaeological, anthropological, and neuroscience studies show that this behavior is both ingrained and beneficial" are you referencing?

Now I con understand how you want this to be true because it was part of your opening argument (your theory isn't completely refuted by it being identified as a fallacy, that would be the fallacy fallacy on my part)

Since we can't use societal evolution to explain why such things as altruism exist in such prominence in disparate cultures today (as they would have been selected against and discarded) the moral argument suggests that a force outside of merely societal evolution. An alternative to the moral argument would be some sort of "transcendence" of a pure neo-darwinian model of evolution. If you have alternatives I'd like to hear them. Structuring your argument with an appeal to motive ad hominem fallacy is a poor argument (I've identified multiple ad hominem fallacies in your arguments).

Again just a gross, gross misunderstanding of science here. One of the quotes from that Lerner article is especially telling: “If the physical universe of matter, energy, space and time had a beginning – as observational astronomy and theoretical physics suggest – it’s hard to envision a physical cause for such an event.”

Yes, just so “hard” to envision how something could happen. So, so hard. As if lack of a sufficient explanation is somehow proof that an equally unexplainable phenomenon is the explanation. I guess I should reach into my trusty debate book again and point out to you that this a logical fallacy known as an argument from incredulity.

Sure, you can try to point your finger back at me, spiderman, but keep in mind that the statement you’re trying to throw back into my face is totally nonsensical. To be explicit, “.....but your stipulation is that those scientific theories have to artificially cram remove divine revelation somewhere in there to be complete?” is utterly incapable of being parsed.

Science is going to “artificially remove divine revelation” from one of its theories? Are you being serious here? Or did I miss the article in Nature showing Moses actually convening with the bush and coming down the mountain with the tablet?

First, its an article by Stephen Meyer. Secondly, I understand your concern for an appeal to common sense, however understand the implication by building upon Einstein's Special Relativity and the relationship between space and time, for when you extrapolate the expanding universe back you understand that time has a beginning, that our universe is finite. What is the alternative theory to the birth of the universe, if any? Do you see how this supports Aquinas' First Mover theory and also rejects Dawkins' "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation" denial of a supernatural guiding force?

And yes, I understand that the scientific community has changed in the last couple of centuries and now axiomatically (to borrow your term) rejects any supernatural influences in the world at all. This is illustrated clearly when Meyer published a paper in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The editor of the journal got eviscerated for it and ended up being dismissed by the Smithsonian. The response by the community represented here and consisting mostly of ad hominem attacks (see the trend here) and the admission that science today is in a way that I wasn't familiar with. It axiomatically rejects the any potential of Intelligent Design, supernatural force, or anything not testable (an incredibly nebulous term IMO because I'm positive computer models would be portrayed as a testing apparatus, rightfully so, but at what fidelity? Are all variables completely accounted for?).

So I'll ask you a question, "are you axiomatically closed to the possibility of belief in a supernatural force or influence as today's science is?"

I beg you, read some books by actual scientists and not ID zealots intent on stoking your confirmation bias.

See above question, bolded is an appeal to motive ad hominem.

 

[vector2]

If President Biden is truly directing his administration's goals then he is doing much more than "refusing to impose his faith beliefs on others," he is actively attempting to codify a law that makes all forms of abortion permissible. This is obvious. The bolded part in your response helps me understand that you don't really understand Catholicism. I don't know for sure, but using the phrase, "accepted Jesus as their [personal] Lord and Savior" is a Protestant mantra and reflects an inadequate understanding of New Testament teaching that you lose when you reject the first 1500 years of Christianity. And yes, yes, yes, I will question your true beliefs if you tell me you are Christian and that God is one of the most important things in your life and you give one hour of your time to go to church (an integral part of any Christian community) per two years. And yes I do think there is some potential that Christianity in America is a weak one. <- pay attention to Nabeel Qureshi here as he's an Islamic convert to Christianity.

The number you are trying to say is 84% from the PRRI article. I think the study is under-powered, do you not?

Thanks for making it glaringly obvious that you were at best being inadvertently misleading and at worst outright deceptive with your prior statements about how Christianity is "not a meritocracy" and "that no one can pass judgement on another" and how it's "difficult to label someone as a good Christian on the basis of their endorsed views." Obviously that was mostly all a song and dance which we can dispel with given your current post and the revelation of your grossly subjective true feelings. And thanks for letting us know that you are definitely No True Scotsman’ing religious affiliation as to artificially prop up your flawed critique.

You want to proclaim that Biden (who is personally against abortion, and whose ultimate intention with any law is leaving the choice up to the individual, not the state) is not a Catholic by TexBlazer2106's litmus test? Great. The pope disagrees with you. And even if he didn't, the variation in individual Catholic belief is so great that there's no objective criteria which makes you right.

And you want to imply that 140 million American Protestants are essentially fake or weak Christians due to their rejection of pre-Lutheran doctrine, their belief that they can have a personal relationship with Christ, and the notion that most Protestant denominations have no strict church attendance requirement? Uh, I guess that's your prerogative too. And at least it lets us know how extremist your views are.

Ultimately, you’ve nitpicked, evaded, and failed to present any evidence of your own that the data showing “Only 16% of [Judeo-Christian] Americans say they are thinking about leaving their current religious tradition or denomination” isn’t substantively true, so you’re left with the alternative of simply trying to No True Scotman anyone who doesn’t meet your arbitrary litmus test out of Christendom entirely. At this point it’s just utterly transparent and sad, and I think we all know that if you did have any evidence that large swaths of Americans were leaving Christianity and then returning to it as adults after considered study, or if a large number of adult Americans were de novo converting to it as opposed to away from it… then you would’ve presented it already.

And as far as the survey being underpowered, no, I don’t think it is. But feel free to explain from a sampling science or statistical standpoint (and not just your offhand opinion) why it is. Hell, they even have all their raw data here at your disposal.

I completely agree with the fear part for any individual who is holds a different belief than their close community they've grown up with. It happens with theists and atheist alike. I think its a weak argument to try and tie it to Christianity specifically which is what I perceived you were doing. And yes I'm going to dispute that a kid in KSA/Thailand has a different set of cultural exposures and pressures primarily based on their geographic locations than a kid in the US. You understand trying to say a child has parents somehow validates an equivalency in forces. *googles fallacies* This reeks of a fallacy of composition where you presume a part of the whole (children in KSA/Thailand/US have parents) to be representative of the whole (KSA/Thailand/US must have similar societal pressures after all they all have parents and therefore similar persuasions of teachers, clergy, and politicians <-large stretch)

I tied fear and ignorance as being (in part) motivators for many types of beliefs, including religious belief. And that includes Christianity. I didn’t say it was specific to only Christianity.

And I honestly don’t know what in the world you’re saying here with whatever gobbledygook you pieced together in an attempt to pull off some “gotcha.” Looks like you combined two sentences of mine which were definitely separate and then imagined I wanted one idea to follow from the other to create your “fallacy?”

Really, this is getting super tedious, and I’m not particularly interested in arguing this point with someone who is so overwhelmingly obtuse that he can’t even acknowledge that children trust their parents and other authority figures so much that the religious indoctrination rate, in three wildly different countries, ranges from 80+% all the way to near 100%.

Just like you haven’t successfully argued the inaccuracy of 84% of Judeo-Christian Americans not wanting to leave their faith, we’re still left wanting for a reason more parsimonious than simple indoctrination that explains why 88% of unstudied American 11-12th graders share some or all of the same religious beliefs as their parents.

Ha, "more precisely, an ad hominem attacks, wait for it, some other non-defined attribute that I choose to use," and no, I didn't dismiss him out of hand. I looked up some reviews and synopsis of the book and wrote what I did. You posited it as a definitive response to my statement of belief and have done a great job spinning the argument down to arguing about this random guy.

Right, and nowhere in there was there a response to the merits of what Smith actually wrote wrt refuting the unmoved mover, the teleological argument, or CS Lewis' take on morality. All there was was a pithy couple lines about how much of a letdown his “biggest accolade” was. Granted, it’s not like you called him a dingus or something and then moved on, but you certainly used an ad hominem. Likewise, re: the Hume video, there wasn’t actually a rebuttal from you to the substance of anything said, but rather just your complaining about it being a conversational dialogue (I guess you haven’t read many Greeks before). That wasn’t an ad hominem, but it was certainly another example of you not actually rebutting the argument you’re presented with.

I'll probably get around to reading it one day, I get a much more rounded view of philosophies from online debates. Reading synopsis' of the book it seems like its just a way to explain how evolution works which I understand and appreciate the mechanism behind. If it explains how organic matter forms (yay urea!) and protein building blocks started moving with agency to procreate then I'll definitely move it up the reading list.

You’ve written many things which argue against the bolded.

Also, evolution is a very comprehensive theory even in the absence of a totally complete theory of abiogenesis.

An ad hominem fallacy directed at my "misunderstanding of science." You follow it up with a hasty generalization fallacy in which you attempt to connect hunter-gatherer groups participating in mutually beneficial pacts, great explanation of the pressure of natural selection. Then you attempt to link it to a lasting idea of altruism (reciprocal altruism is an oxymoron) by stating that the mutually beneficial pacts are a natural precursor to reciprocal altruism and the logical stem in societal evolution. This is simple, so what "bulk of the archaeological, anthropological, and neuroscience studies show that this behavior is both ingrained and beneficial" are you referencing?

Now I con understand how you want this to be true because it was part of your opening argument (your theory isn't completely refuted by it being identified as a fallacy, that would be the fallacy fallacy on my part)

Since we can't use societal evolution to explain why such things as altruism exist in such prominence in disparate cultures today (as they would have been selected against and discarded) the moral argument suggests that a force outside of merely societal evolution. An alternative to the moral argument would be some sort of "transcendence" of a pure neo-darwinian model of evolution. If you have alternatives I'd like to hear them. Structuring your argument with an appeal to motive ad hominem fallacy is a poor argument (I've identified multiple ad hominem fallacies in your arguments).

Um, nice try, but my pointing to you having a misunderstanding of science isn’t an ad hominem. Stating you have a misunderstanding of science is simply an observation. If I called you a bloody idiot because of your misunderstanding, now that would be an ad hominem. Also partner, please slow down on your machine gun googling of fallacies because you’re mistakenly attributing them to me almost as fast as you can google them.

Did you miss some words and/or punctuation in this thought here? : “You follow it up with a hasty generalization fallacy in which you attempt to connect hunter-gatherer groups participating in mutually beneficial pacts, great explanation of the pressure of natural selection.” Cause it doesn’t make any sense.

And it’s incredibly frustrating arguing with you because here, like many times before, you don’t actually follow the point I made sequentially and then respond to it in kind. I wrote out a complete thought which outlined the empiric observations that prehistoric organization into larger groups conferred a survival advantage, that larger groups require complex behavior that allows for cooperation, and that members of the group need to tolerate many types of interpersonal dynamics for the organization to operate successfully. There is natural selection pressure in that dynamic. There is no hasty generalization in what I wrote there.

Further, I wasn’t linking anything to the idea of “true” altruism. Indeed, the folks who study the concept of reciprocal altruism know it sounds like an oxymoron. But since you don’t know what it is, let me help:

Reciprocal altruism is a concept in evolutionary biology and behavioral ecology that refers to a form of altruistic behavior in which individuals provide benefits to others with the expectation of receiving benefits in return at some point in the future. It is a type of cooperation where individuals help each other, even when there is no immediate or direct benefit, with the understanding that their altruistic actions will be reciprocated later on.

The idea of reciprocal altruism was popularized by the biologist Robert Trivers in the early 1970s. Trivers proposed that reciprocal altruism could evolve in certain social animals, especially those with repeated interactions and the ability to remember past interactions. For reciprocal altruism to be stable and evolutionarily advantageous, certain conditions need to be met:

Iterated Interactions: Reciprocal altruism requires individuals to interact with each other multiple times over an extended period. This repeated interaction allows for the potential to return favors and maintain a balance of giving and receiving.

Benefits Outweigh Costs: Altruistic acts come with costs to the giver (e.g., time, energy, resources). For reciprocal altruism to persist, the benefits received from others must, on average, be greater than the costs incurred in providing help.

Memory and Recognition: Individuals need to remember past interactions and be able to recognize and distinguish between cooperators and non-cooperators. This way, they can selectively reciprocate altruistic actions and avoid helping individuals who do not reciprocate.

Ability to Punish or Withdraw Cooperation: In some cases, individuals may withhold cooperation or "punish" non-cooperators by refusing to help them. This selective cooperation encourages others to reciprocate and discourages free-riders who take advantage of altruistic behavior without giving back.

Reciprocal altruism is often observed in social animals with complex cognitive abilities, such as certain primates, dolphins, and some bird species. Examples of reciprocal altruism can be seen in various cooperative behaviors, like grooming, food sharing, and defending against predators.

It's important to note that reciprocal altruism is different from "true" altruism, where individuals provide help without any expectation of receiving anything in return. In the case of reciprocal altruism, there is a mutual exchange of benefits, which can lead to the evolution and maintenance of cooperative behaviors in certain social settings.
​

Reciprocal altruism is beneficial from a natural selection standpoint, it applies to human social dynamics, it explains cooperation in non-family relationships, it's complex enough that it goes hand in hand with the development of complex cognitive abilities, its existence is inferred from a bunch of prehistoric anthropological evidence, and its existence is empirically demonstrable in both modern primates and non-primates.

There are plenty of ways in which "kindness" and other cooperative behavior would've been selected for, not against.

The problem is obviously that while pacts confer a societal advantage, altruism does not and in many ways has a negative societal effect as it preferentially supports weaker members of groups. The evolution of kindness from mutually beneficial pacts would therefore not be explained by social evolution as any examples of kindness would be selected out.

It really is amazing how confidently you wrote this without a shred of evidence of it actually being true.

First, its an article by Stephen Meyer. Secondly, I understand your concern for an appeal to common sense, however understand the implication by building upon Einstein's Special Relativity and the relationship between space and time, for when you extrapolate the expanding universe back you understand that time has a beginning, that our universe is finite. What is the alternative theory to the birth of the universe, if any? Do you see how this supports Aquinas' First Mover theory and also rejects Dawkins' "postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation" denial of a supernatural guiding force?

Aaaannnnd, we’re back to the argument from incredulity. It’s so, so hard to come up with theories about what came before the Big Bang so….let’s just say it’s something supernatural and move on? Nah. This has nothing to do with common sense. It has to do with the fact that simply inventing a convenient [non-explanatory] explanation because you don’t have one isn’t a great way to operate.

Beyond the fact that the concept of “before” might not even be intelligible from a physics standpoint, there are many problems with a first mover theory.

1. If I ask you what caused the universe and you say X, what do you say when I ask what caused X? If everything requires a cause, then you’re stuck with an infinite regress problem. If you say X doesn’t require a cause and is eternal, then there’s no reason the universe couldn’t have just been big crunching and big banging for an eternal amount of time.

2. If you say X is God, then that theory still doesn't provide a satisfactory explanation of the nature of this first mover. It just shifts the question of causation from the universe to an undefined and unexplained entity.

3. What does Occam’s razor say about calling X = God? Introducing a complex and unverifiable entity like a first mover adds unnecessary complexity to our understanding of the universe, especially when naturalistic explanations may suffice.

4. A corollary to number 2 is which god(s) are we actually talking about? Even if one presupposes the origin is supernatural, are we talking Yahweh? Why not Atum-Ra or Zeus or Brahma?
​

And yes, I understand that the scientific community has changed in the last couple of centuries and now axiomatically (to borrow your term) rejects any supernatural influences in the world at all. This is illustrated clearly when Meyer published a paper in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The editor of the journal got eviscerated for it and ended up being dismissed by the Smithsonian. The response by the community represented here and consisting mostly of ad hominem attacks (see the trend here) and the admission that science today is in a way that I wasn't familiar with. It axiomatically rejects the any potential of Intelligent Design, supernatural force, or anything not testable (an incredibly nebulous term IMO because I'm positive computer models would be portrayed as a testing apparatus, rightfully so, but at what fidelity? Are all variables completely accounted for?).

So I'll ask you a question, "are you axiomatically closed to the possibility of belief in a supernatural force or influence as today's science is?"

Let’s see if you can change your lens for a hot second.

What if I asked you: are you axiomatically closed to the possibility of belief in Xenu? You’re only supposed to learn about Xenu once you’ve undergone extensive training and achieved a specific level of spiritual advancement within the Church of Scientology, but generally it goes:

Xenu was a powerful ruler of a Galactic Confederacy, which consisted of numerous planets, around 75 million years ago.

To deal with overpopulation, Xenu devised a plan to gather billions of beings from different planets, including Earth, under the pretense of income tax inspections, mental health screenings, and other false pretenses.

These beings were then transported to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack" or "Teegeeackee") using spacecraft resembling DC-8 airplanes.

Once on Earth, the beings were placed around volcanoes and hydrogen bombs were detonated, killing all of them.

Xenu's plan was to capture the souls of these beings, called "thetans," after their bodies were destroyed. The thetans were then brainwashed with various images and false beliefs to prevent them from realizing their true nature.

According to Scientology, thetans are the spiritual essence of individuals and are believed to be immortal, having lived through countless lifetimes.

The remnants of these thetans, according to the story, continue to influence and affect humanity to this day, causing spiritual and psychological issues that can be addressed through Scientology's spiritual practices.
​

Do you see the problem with your rephrasing of my question? Imagine for a moment if science operated while being eminently open to all hypotheses that aren’t empirically testable. Are you, me, and all the scientists on earth biased because we don’t think it’s worthwhile investigating whether “thetans” are really the immortal, spiritual essence of all individuals? How do we know thetans aren't what's responsible for the evolution of "kindness" in hominids?

Should scientists spend more time investigating whether the non-empirically verifiable claims of Mormons are true? How bout astrology claims? What supernatural forces and untestable hypotheses should we be incorporating into the field of medicine? AFAIK, there's no evidence New Age Crystal Healing isn't a cure for 3V CAD.

As I said earlier in the thread, “we're both atheists, I just subscribe to the one fewer religion than you.” And If you truly seek an in depth history and explanation for why rejection of supernatural hypotheses is reasonable, let me suggest this book by Carl Sagan.

To be clear, neither I nor science are axiomatically closed to intelligent design. A designer could’ve explicitly signed their work and made the concept empirically verifiable. But they didn’t. It’s a bad, pseudoscientific theory. And you’d see why if you actually started from the ground up and did some reading about evolution instead of simply reading the synopses of books you’ve already prejudged to be in violation of your core religious beliefs.

Also, I’m not axiomatically closed to the idea of divine revelation or supernatural phenomena. I actually think it would be frickin’ rad if there was crazy Greek mythology stuff going on or dudes walking around turning water into wine or a TikTok of some guy actually getting "Commandments 11-20: Updated for the 21st century" from God, himself (or herself? itself?). But I’m just not into the “believe this thing without a shred of proof” schtick (not to mention, people nowadays who say God literally speaks to them usually earn a trip to the psych ward).

See above question, bolded is an appeal to motive ad hominem.

Sorry, but given the overwhelming lack of evidence and lack of uptake in the broader scientific community, calling a diehard proponent of intelligent design a zealot is almost more a general observation than an attack. Nevertheless, feel free to notice that I actually responded point by point to all the ID topics you brought up rather than simply bemoaning Meyer's perceived lack of accolades and penchant for pseudoscience.