What is love?

[plumjam]

What on earth are materialist/atheist agendas?

So let me get this straight. Theists can and do have theist agendas. Whereas you seem to believe that materialists/atheists are somehow immune from having materialist/atheist agendas?
How does that work?

Does that apply to animals like intestinal tapeworms? Blue-bottle jellyfish? Cockroaches? If not, which ones have souls?

You could ask God tonight in your prayers.
My guess would be that they all do. I mean why should you have a soul but not them?
(There are certain teachings that say some life forms such as insect colonies have group souls.. but we'd be getting a bit obscure there)

 

[JoeEllison]

Anyway, irrationality - defined as forms of thought/behaviour that do not fit into the evolutionary/deterministic/materialistic world view - has literally no possible origin.

What is the source of your "definition", and the supporting evidence behind it? You're done before you even start, aren't you?

 

[plumjam]

What is the source of your "definition", and the supporting evidence behind it? You're done before you even start, aren't you?

The things I mentioned are ALL irrationalities, seen from the perspective of belief in evolution/determinism/materialism. They are inexplicable, should have no origin, and even if they do somehow originate should be thenceforward selected out of existence.
If you don't like the word 'irrational' you could substitute it for 'anomalous' if you like.
Or, more accurately, 'impossibilities'.

 

[Robert Oz]

I always thought that love was the secret ingredient in really nice food.

 

[JoeEllison]

The things I mentioned are ALL irrationalities, seen from the perspective of belief in evolution/determinism/materialism. They are inexplicable, should have no origin, and even if they do somehow originate should be thenceforward selected out of existence.
If you don't like the word 'irrational' you could substitute it for 'anomalous' if you like.
Or, more accurately, 'impossibilities'.

You've presented a non-argument by assertion, that pretty much proves that you don't have any argument at all. You've presented ZERO evidence that certain irrationalities cannot have an evolutionary foundation. You just keep repeating it over and over again, in contrast to actual scientists, who have presented MOUNTAINS of evidence for pretty much all the behaviors that you would dishonestly claim have no evolutionary source, as having evolutionary sources.

That includes YOUR irrational beliefs, by the way... even you cannot escape your genetic programming.

 

[KingMerv00]

Some pretty poor replies , which is not surprising, as materialism struggles to accommodate the myriad forms of love.

Food for thought here, offered to my fellow forumites in a spirit of ....well, y,know :
http://discoursesbymeherbaba.org/v1-156.php

You win. Who would know more about love than Ron Jeremy?

 

[JoeEllison]

You win. Who would know more about love than Ron Jeremy?

[qimg]http://discoursesbymeherbaba.org/images/BabaSketched.jpg[/qimg]

That's unfair... even porn stars are smarter than the idiot that plumjam thinks is "food for thought". Why is he feeding his brain the equivalent of poo-flavored cotton candy?

 

[KingMerv00]

That's unfair... even porn stars are smarter than the idiot that plumjam thinks is "food for thought". Why is he feeding his brain the equivalent of poo-flavored cotton candy?

Nothing against The Hedgehog. Every time I've heard Ron Jeremy speak, he comes across as a smart guy. He even has a master's degree in Special Education.

 

[plumjam]

You win. Who would know more about love than Ron Jeremy?

[qimg]http://discoursesbymeherbaba.org/images/BabaSketched.jpg[/qimg]

Luckily for Ron Jeremy, Frank Zappa, and the rest of us, Meher Baba loves saint and sinner alike.
Sunni Man too.

ETA: Even you, Joe. Don't fight it )

 

[Robin]

You're a clever boy. I shouldn't have to explain everything to you.

Yes, uncommonly clever, but so far you haven't explained anything.

Anyway, irrationality - defined as forms of thought/behaviour that do not fit into the evolutionary/deterministic/materialistic world view

Ah, assuming your conclusion, a good start. I can see this is really going to be a killer argument

... - has literally no possible origin.

Yet we are completely surrounded by it. By this definition irrationality would include things like art, music, humour, sport, ..etc.. in fact anything that goes beyond simple survival and procreation.

Going on to argument from ignorance - you cannot see how this happened therefore it must have been done by a superintelligent being.

What you are essentially saying is that a blind, mindless process like natural selection ought to have some built in mechanism to prevent it's adaptations having any effect whatsoever beyond pure survival. For some reason.

Take one of your examples - sport. You are telling me you really cannot see any possible origin for contests of physical prowess in behaviours that might have had survival advantages? Really?

Even if you think really hard?

Yeah, another killer.

I am still waiting for the first. Working on it are you?

Sucks, huh?

Oh yes, your argument really does suck, I agree with you there.

Time for your excuse.

Still waiting for something that needs an excuse.

Tell me what do you think of renowned Theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga's argument that an evolutionary/deterministic/materialistic world view implies that human beings ought to be irrational? He is an idiot, right? You must be much smarter than him.

 

[KingMerv00]

Luckily for Ron Jeremy, Frank Zappa, and the rest of us, Meher Baba loves saint and sinner alike.
Sunni Man too.

ETA: Even you, Joe. Don't fight it )

I'm sure Mr. Jeremy would consider loving Meher Baba too...for a price.

 

[plumjam]

You've presented a non-argument by assertion, that pretty much proves that you don't have any argument at all. You've presented ZERO evidence that certain irrationalities cannot have an evolutionary foundation. You just keep repeating it over and over again, in contrast to actual scientists, who have presented MOUNTAINS of evidence for pretty much all the behaviors that you would dishonestly claim have no evolutionary source, as having evolutionary sources.

That includes YOUR irrational beliefs, by the way... even you cannot escape your genetic programming.

How interesting. On this forum I keep hearing about these fabled MOUNTAINS of evidence to back up the dogma. Rarely do you get to see any.

Where are the MOUNTAINS of evidence for evolutionist explanations of the origination of:
humour, music, poetry, sport, literature, art, plays, soap operas, homosexuality, celibacy, religion, prayer, meditation, chess, computer games, photography, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoos, political satire, ventriloquists, landscape gardening, camping, dressage, ... I could go on all night listing them.
Surely then, there should be a HIMALAYAN RANGE of evidence to explain how all this stuff originated from the evolutionist paradigm.
Haven't seen even any hills yet.

Carry on believing though. It's probably some kind of comfort to you.

 

[plumjam]

Yes, uncommonly clever, but so far you haven't explained anything.

Ah, assuming your conclusion, a good start. I can see this is really going to be a killer argument

Going on to argument from ignorance - you cannot see how this happened therefore it must have been done by a superintelligent being.

What you are essentially saying is that a blind, mindless process like natural selection ought to have some built in mechanism to prevent it's adaptations having any effect whatsoever beyond pure survival. For some reason.

Take one of your examples - sport. You are telling me you really cannot see any possible origin for contests of physical prowess in behaviours that might have had survival advantages? Really?

Even if you think really hard?

I am still waiting for the first. Working on it are you?

Oh yes, your argument really does suck, I agree with you there.

Still waiting for something that needs an excuse.

Tell me what do you think of renowned Theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga's argument that an evolutionary/deterministic/materialistic world view implies that human beings ought to be irrational? He is an idiot, right? You must be much smarter than him.

Facetiousness, too, is inexplicable within the evolutionist paradigm. The more irrational behaviour you exhibit the more you're helping my argument. Cheers

 

[JoeEllison]

How interesting. On this forum I keep hearing about these fabled MOUNTAINS of evidence to back up the dogma. Rarely do you get to see any.

Where are the MOUNTAINS of evidence for evolutionist explanations of the origination of:
humour, music, poetry, sport, literature, art, plays, soap operas, homosexuality, celibacy, religion, prayer, meditation, chess, computer games, photography, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoos, political satire, ventriloquists, landscape gardening, camping, dressage, ... I could go on all night listing them.
Surely then, there should be a HIMALAYAN RANGE of evidence to explain how all this stuff originated from the evolutionist paradigm.
Haven't seen even any hills yet.

Carry on believing though. It's probably some kind of comfort to you.

Here's a peer-reviewed journal: http://www.epjournal.net/

Here's a list of books.

Here's a few more links to get you started:

http://www2.asanet.org/sectionevol/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Main_Page

Come back when you've at least skimmed through it, and then I can give you a list of a couple of books I own.

 

[Robin]

Where are the MOUNTAINS of evidence for evolutionist explanations of the origination of:
humour, music, poetry, sport, literature, art, plays, soap operas, homosexuality, celibacy, religion, prayer, meditation, chess, computer games, photography, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoos, political satire, ventriloquists, landscape gardening, camping, dressage, ... I could go on all night listing them.

Yes, synchronised swimming and Days of Our Lives absolutely cry out "superintelligent origin".

 

[JoeEllison]

Facetiousness, too, is inexplicable within the evolutionist paradigm.

No, it isn't. You're just making yourself look bad now. Deception in all of its forms play a HUGE part in evolution... or, did you think animals have camouflage because they think it makes their butts look smaller?

 

[Gate2501]

I come to this thread hoping to see a discussion about the 1993 eurodance hit "What is Love" and all that I see is Plumjam fighting about materialism again!

FOR SHAME.

 

[Robin]

Facetiousness, too, is inexplicable within the evolutionist paradigm. The more irrational behaviour you exhibit the more you're helping my argument. Cheers

So no answers to my questions then. You can't think of any survival advantages contests of physical prowess might have had in our evolutionary ancestors? None at all?

All you have is that facetiousness somehow cries out "superintelligent origin" to you. Is that really the best you have?

 

[Robin]

... chess, computer games, photography, astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, zoos

I especially like this - mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy as examples of irrationality.

Or do you get it both ways? Rationality and irrationality disprove materialism.

 

[Robin]

Also don't forget Wookies coming from the planet Endor - that makes no sense at all - nothing about this thread makes sense, so there must be a God.