ant wrote: Stop being infantile assholes.
If you really want an echo chamber just say so. I'd respect that cowardly request more than I would this childish nonsense.

Yeah, it was addressed to you. Go back and read the thread about the Dawkins video where he discusses our concept of the "first" humans. That's the kind of bullshit I want to avoid if I'm going to participate in a discussion of this book. Simple as that. I've seen too many discussions go down in burning flames due to just that kind of bullcrap.

Actually, I would welcome anyone to the discussion as long as they're actually reading the book and addressing the ideas as presented in the book. That's all I ask. This was merely a preemptive shot across the bow.

Anyway, I probably overstated my case. THE MAGIC OF REALITY looks fairly tame.

geo wrote:

ant wrote: Stop being infantile assholes.
If you really want an echo chamber just say so. I'd respect that cowardly request more than I would this childish nonsense.

Yeah, it was addressed to you. Go back and read the thread about the Dawkins video where he discusses our concept of the "first" humans. That's the kind of bullshit I want to avoid if I'm going to participate in a discussion of this book. Simple as that. I've seen too many discussions go down in burning flames due to just that kind of bullcrap.

Actually, I would welcome anyone to the discussion as long as they're actually reading the book and addressing the ideas as presented in the book. That's all I ask. This was merely a preemptive shot across the bow.

Anyway, I probably overstated my case. THE MAGIC OF REALITY looks fairly tame.

Yeah, let's tamely indoctrinate someone.
That will be the goal for today.

Evolution is a historical interpretation based on evidence that leads to reasonable conclusions that are beyond a reasonable doubt.
No one said in the thread you mentioned that the first human was Adam, and after that, Eve.
What was mentioned was the incompleteness of the fossil record as it pertains to homo sapiens, and as a result, we do not have a clear and uncontested record of a homo sapien once being a fish. That's all that was stated.
It wasn't a religious assertion. It wasn't an attempt to blast Dawkins' ancestors out of salty waters.
It was a statement of fact that tied some people's underwear into knots.

As for the title of THE MAGIC OF REALITY . . .

I've read enough Dawkins to know how he's probably asserting that the world is awesome and magical as it really is. We don't have to resort to make believe supernatural explanations to see that. Indeed, the supernatural explanations are a poor substitute for the real thing. For example, look at the evidence for Pangaea, the recognition and later the scientific evidence for tectonic plates. Amazing story.

So when I say it's perfectly okay to indoctrinate children, I only mean it's okay to indoctrinate children into a more honest and truthful view of the world based on science. Indoctrinating children into the Pat Robertson or Billy Graham mode of ignorance is always morally wrong. Dawkins is convinced that through science is how we discover what's really true about the world. Thus, it's his moral imperative to share this view with children.

ant wrote: Yeah, let's tamely indoctrinate someone.
That will be the goal for today.

Evolution is a historical interpretation based on evidence that leads to reasonable conclusions that are beyond a reasonable doubt.
No one said in the thread you mentioned that the first human was Adam, and after that, Eve.
What was mentioned was the incompleteness of the fossil record as it pertains to homo sapiens, and as a result, we do not have a clear and uncontested record of a homo sapien once being a fish. That's all that was stated.
It wasn't a religious assertion. It wasn't an attempt to blast Dawkins' ancestors out of salty waters.
It was a statement of fact that tied some people's underwear into knots.

You state your position well here and I congratulate you for that. But in the previous thread, your position was anything but clear. In that thread, your tone was hostile and condescending without making a coherent argument. I would suggest you think about what you're trying to say before posting it. I believe part of the problem is that you post from your iPhone, so you you send off a sort of knee-jerk response without giving yourself time to think it through. We all do that to some extent, but posting from an iPhone is probably never going to be ideal in that respect.

I only mean it's okay to indoctrinate children into a more honest and truthful view of the world based on science. Indoctrinating children into the Pat Robertson or Billy Graham mode of ignorance is always morally wrong. Dawkins is convinced that through science is how we discover what's really true about the world. Thus, it's his moral imperative to share this view with children.

You're talking about the extreme here.
Who here has made the claim that children in school should also be exposed to Pat Robertson or Billy Graham?
You aren't really being a champion against that type of indoctrination here.

What's really true about the natural world? Yes. We have many WORKING HYPOTHESIS in action about the natural world, don't we?
Would you like to define "working hypothesis" for us here before or after you speak of truth?
That would be intellectually honest of you and a teacher.

Would you also like to share with us that science exists within history, and if history is the best prognosticator we know of, history tells us that science too is an evolutionary process. It has changed much and is constantly experiencing change, up to and including the present. It is a difficult thing to establish Truth with a cap "T" in that context.
We just don't cheer science on against its enemies and orgasmically scream - "WE KNOW TRUTH AND YOU DON'T"

You state your position well here and I congratulate you for that. But in the previous thread, your position was anything but clear. In that thread, your tone was hostile and condescending without making a coherent argument.

The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

ant wrote:

You state your position well here and I congratulate you for that. But in the previous thread, your position was anything but clear. In that thread, your tone was hostile and condescending without making a coherent argument.

The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

Yes, I can appreciate that it gets intense around here sometimes. We should all try to step back, take a deep breath. Let's all focus always on communicating clearly and putting forward a rational argument, stop yanking each other's chains. All of us.

ant wrote: Most of you here are really nothing but infants who are interested in nothing more than point scoring.
You aren't really bridge builders. You're more Exclusionists than you are knowledge loving individuals.
We need more bridge builders who reach out to the diversity that makes each person who they are.

Stop being infantile assholes.
If you really want an echo chamber just say so. I'd respect that cowardly request more than I would this childish nonsense.

You're lashing out again because you've been backed into a corner.

Soooooo… do you agree that every religion is making false claims or not? That's all Dawkins and other atheists are saying, perhaps in a way you find harsh and uncomfortable.

You can call people names and duck the question because it would be politically incorrect to say so, and because you'd like to be nice to religious people.

But then who is the "knowledge loving individual"?

You also say you accept evolution, except for the part about evolving from the sea. Again, that is an uncontroversial and rather integral part of what scientists know about evolution. But we still can't pin down your objection. Because we don't know the exact year and don't have an unbroken series of fossils? Then what is it that you accept about evolution -- that we evolved from ancestors either from the sea or exclusively on land? No scientist believes the latter, not even religious people who say they accept evolution.

ant wrote: The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

Are you saying that you take a hostile tone and are eager to jump down peoples' throats only because everyone else is doing it? I would dispute that most people here are as you describe them, but it concerns me if you don't even realize that you can come across as the biggest offender. Take it easy, several deep breaths; the world doesn't hang in the balance.

First sentence: "Reality is everything that exists." But what about things that no longer exist? Does the past exist? What about the future? The problem of the nature of time opens deep problems regarding reality and existence. Is existence a property of the present moment, or is the connection between the past and the future somehow existent? How does time relate to existence? Is there anything real outside time? What about mathematical relations such as pi or phi? Do they exist? Are numbers real? Are they inside or outside time? Does eternity exist? Are laws of physics and morality as eternal as laws of logic? What about negation? Is a statement that something is not true a statement about reality? So does reality include the infinite set of the conceptual negation of all false statements? Is reality objective or subjective? Is reality constructed by the intentional relation between our thought and the things we think about?