The Official Perfection KOs Creationism Thread!

[wit>trope]

I'd like to correct a factual error by TLC.

TLC said no Christian should support Pascal's wager since if it were true that would mean that the demons would be going to heaven. That's just not true, and this is from someone who is no big fan of Pascal's wager (nor a big critic).

First the demons issue was not one of faith. All the angels, including those who were to fall and be known as fallen angels or demons knew that God existed. They didn't need any element of faith because they knew this with a natural knowledge i.e. they were directly aware of God's existence -- I'm speaking of all this within the Christian framework of course since it was a consistency of the Christian framework that TLC criticized.

What made some angels fall is that they made a wrong decision, did something bad. Now if these angels were rational a la Pascal's wager, then they would have not done this bad thing TLC supposedly would reason since they would have known it would have been to their disadvantage due to punishment of hell. Here's the thing. THEY DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE PUNISHMENT OF HELL. It was a SURPRISE! At least that's the theory of St. Anselm of Canterbury which I won't relate in full here -- I'd only invite you to learn about it and study it. Since St. Anselm is the standard bearer of what made those angels fall, being that AFAIK there is no other Christian theologian who proposes an alternative of similar sophistication, TLC's argument just fails big time.

 

[The Last Conformist]

I'd like to correct a factual error by TLC.

TLC said no Christian should support Pascal's wager since if it were true that would mean that the demons would be going to heaven. That's just not true

Yes it is. Pascal's wager hinges on the assumption that if you believe in God, no matter why, you're going to heaven.

 

[wit>trope]

Yes it is. Pascal's wager hinges on the assumption that if you believe in God, no matter why, you're going to heaven.

ROTFL!

I would wager that you CHANGED your argument after I completely demolished it so as to make it respectable. BUT, if this WAS actually your original point, then it would be a fair one. However I don't think Pascal assumes quite that; I think he's including also various religious activies and moral activities (like going to church, not having sex with a different woman each night and so forth -- it's basically an EXPECTED VALUE argument)

 

[The Last Conformist]

Well, I do not know exactly what Pascal meant when he first formulated the wager, but "Pascal's wager" as normally used in discourse is as I described.

 

[wit>trope]

The reason why I don't like Pascal's wager THAT much btw is because I think true and deep happiness is found only when one is no longer primarily seeking it. So it's a Catch 22 ... if you seek heaven (heaven meaning supreme happiness) primarily to be happy, you will never find it (never arrive there) ... so you have to find something else of value that when you find it will be the ground of your happiness and which you will love not for what it can do for you in terms of happiness, but for what it is by its own right. IMHO

 

[Sophie 378]

All others have their milk-machines DOWN on their stomachs while humans have them UP on their chest.
Any suggestions huh???
This can't be explained by a "chance" - no reason or use for such a shift.
It's even easier to feed the animal-way while standing on two feet!!!
Still...
Convinced?
Apes may be close to humans but are they ALIENS to be so different from any other mammal?
Cool isn't it?!

Just wondering - has anyone heard of the aquatic ape theory? Elaine Morgan has written three brilliant books all explaining this - The Scars of Evolution, The Aquatic Ape and The Descent of Woman. The AAT explains practically everything that the savanna theories of human evolution can't, including breasts. Most people who say evolution can't be true because what they've heard doesn't explain X or Y haven't heard of this. It suggests a semi-aquatic period during I think it was the Miocene on the Danakil horst. Many groups of forest apes across Africa were forced onto the plains by the drought (was it the miocene or pliocene that was the drought?), but some went to the beach. There they found shelter from predators (run into sea), easier food (small, slow things compared to gazelles etc to eat), shelter (caves - plenty at beaches, really few in plaines), and a place to cool off.
This lead eventually to bipedalism (can breathe while crossing deeper water), loss of fur (just gets in the way when wet) except from scalp, subcutaneous fat (better insulator than wet fur, also works a bit for air), breasts being raised (subcutaneous fat makes them pendulous), development of the msucles for closing the nostrils (don't want to breathe the sea), the voluntary-controlled breathing leading to speach, the change in blood pressure associated with head-out immersion, the ability to take a sudden deep breath and hold it, salty tears and sweat, ventral sex organs, larger penises (for the macho amoung you), labia and buttocks for padding when sitting on sand and stones rather than climbing in trees, the increase in size - all of which attributes we share with other organisms that have had another semi-aquatic period (elephants, rhinos).
Sorry if this counts as threadjacking... but civ2, as far as I know monkeys have nipples on the chest as well, I don't see your point.

 

[The Last Conformist]

The Aquatic Ape Theory debunked

 

[carlosMM]

AAT explains practically everything that the savanna theories of human evolution can't, including breasts.

but I can easily expalin breast-placed nipples without water!

Close your eyes. Imagine a woman carrying a baby, sucking on her nipple. Now shift that nipple down into the position it has on e.g. cows.

Where is the kid now?
Can it be carried effectively?
Can the woman avoid bouncing it with ehr knee with every step?

(hint: nope)


and even earlier in evolution: imagine a woman sitting on the ground or on a tree limb (think gorilla or chimp) and a baby trying to get at nipples near her crotch. Now she suddenly jumps up and....... drops the baby! It would be VERY hard, once you have humanoid primate proportions to effectly suckle a kid if the nippled were far down, and that's true without any water involved!

 

[Sophie 378]

Thanks, TLC. Will go away and read that and not make any more answers until I've chased up all the references ... but just one curiosity - which of the AAT things can also be explained by more probable other causes?
[QHOTE=Sophie]civ2, as far as I know monkeys have nipples on the chest as well, I don't see your point.[/QUOTE]

 

[The Last Conformist]

Thanks, TLC. Will go away and read that and not make any more answers until I've chased up all the references ... but just one curiosity - which of the AAT things can also be explained by more probable other causes?

Well, many of the AAT "explanations" just plain don't make sense. Some are easily explained by the fact that the Pliocene and Pleistocene African savannahs weren't the tree-less steppes that AATists tend to imagine, but offered considerable shade in the form of trees and woodland. Some of the allegedly aquatic adaptions are better explained as adaptions to endurance running.

 

[carlosMM]

but just one curiosity - which of the AAT things can also be explained by more probable other causes?

see post above

 

[civ2]

sophie and carlito
MONKEYS!!!
But where THOSE got the feature HUH???
You didn't answer the question A BIT.
I said if we ignore monkeys and try to find out where THEY got breasts - we won't find ANYTHING!!!

carlito is a baby DROPPED by that chimp!
Moderator Action: Trolling & Flaming - warned.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[carlosMM]

sophie and carlito
MONKEYS!!!
But where THOSE got the feature HUH???
You didn't answer the question A BIT.
I said if we ignore monkeys and try to find out where THEY got breasts - we won't find ANYTHING!!!

carlito is a baby DROPPED by that chimp!

ah, your favorite idea of arguing: instead of thinking for youself you just push the question back....

where did monkey get breast? same as all mammals - from the first ever mammal that had them. And where did that mammal get breasts? From skin glands that produced milk (they were just 'collected' into a tight spot for the first time).

you are so clueless wrt evolution it would be comical if it wasn't so sad

 

[Perfection]

Carlos, just as a quick aside, do you have any good links for the semi-knowledgable layman (me), on hominid evolution. I am rather curious on the explinations of human hairloss.

 

[tR1cKy]

carlito is a baby DROPPED by that chimp!

As an old Latin adagio says: "Laughter is abundant in foolish mouths"

 

[carlosMM]

Carlos, just as a quick aside, do you have any good links for the semi-knowledgable layman (me), on hominid evolution. I am rather curious on the explinations of human hairloss.

sorry, no!

anthropology, IMO, tries to read too much (general trends etc) into too few remains, so i hardly bother much with it.

human hair loss follows a trends in primtes (check chimps and grillas - 'naked' breasts). One good reasn to lose hair is extended running around in hot sun - no, don't bring me monkeys as counterexamples - they stay in the shade or trees or are semi-shaded by tall grass usually!

Losing hair is nice for animals too large to use grass as cover (elephants, rhinos, and, guess who, bipedal humans!).
Losing hair is nice for those who exercise in the heat constantly.
Humans are adapted to jog (not run!) after prey for, if they have to, days. That is the hunting method with which we can get at antelopes and otehr flighty animals - keep them on the run for extended time until their hearts give up! And now imagine doing that wiht a lot of warm hair cover....

see two reasons to reduce body hair (but NOT on the top of the head, where it keeps you from heat stroke)?

EDIT: found this on the site you post, TLC, about AAT
[Seriously, sweating through eccrine glands is why !Kung hunters could run down much faster apocrine-sweating animals like giraffes. We just keep going and going, while the giraffe doesn't, because our eccrine glands can keep going and going, while their apocrine glands work rather nicely for about 20 minutes and then need a lengthy rest and recharge period. Hare and tortoise stuff.[/quote]

 

[The Last Conformist]

sophie and carlito
MONKEYS!!!
But where THOSE got the feature HUH???
You didn't answer the question A BIT.
I said if we ignore monkeys and try to find out where THEY got breasts - we won't find ANYTHING!!!

carlito is a baby DROPPED by that chimp!

I can't make out what, if anything, you're trying to say here. Would it kill you to express yourself comprehensibly?

 

[carlosMM]

I can't make out what, if anything, you're trying to say here. Would it kill you to express yourself comprehensibly?

he seems to think a cow's udder is different from human breasts, just because humans lack a large bag to keep the milk and add some fat

anthropocentric, that says it all

 

[civ2]

Going back through evolution:
Human (UP)
Ape (UP)
Monkey (UP)
Primitive primate X (UP-DOWN)
Primitive mammal like rat (DOWN)

Now prove X ever existed!
Or name it if you can.
Where did monkeys get the placement they have?
That's the main question - not about humans.
NEW features may develop (though the idea sometimes gets into nonsense) but old ones change very rarely.

 

[civ2]

carlito
I think it's not different itself - the place is different and hard to explain by "evolution".
But you of course are SO wise - then why don't you explain it NOW?