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OmnipotentEntity wrote:
Because of the square-cube law, none of these skeletons could have possibly been viable humans. There's a reason why Robert Wadlow died young.
This is more than enough to disprove any purported evidence of giants.
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Every question is interesting.
With so much information these days, it is sometimes difficult to tell how trustworthy some claim is. No worries! Philosophy of science gives us some tools for evaluating information more accurately: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science
Everyone of us can very easily be mistaken, but luckily we have a checklist for that, so just see through the list whether you have succumbed to a cognitive bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Also recommended: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
This is tool-assisted thinking. Use all the tools to overcome human limitations. This way your model of reality becomes more accurate. After you have acquired a model of reality that explains many phenomena with good accuracy, you can easily see whether giants fit into reality or not.
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Keep in mind that evolution is not about getting more intelligent. Intelligence requires resources, so natural selection favors genes that don't waste energy for too much intelligence.
Here is a recent example of a species that has evolved to be less intelligent than its ancestors, entropy doing its job over generations: Blind cave fish evolved a shrunken brain to save energy.
It is clear that many people have misconceptions about evolution.
Don't worry, these things are nothing to lose your sleep over. Evolution does not disprove our unfalsifiable claims about God. However, rest assured that evolution is a fact. It is not a belief or an opinion. It can be discovered by anyone who looks. The more carefully we look, the better, right?
Even Bisqwit's area of expertise benefits from evolution: Evolutionary algorithms are now used to solve multi-dimensional problems more efficiently than software produced by human designers, and also to optimise the design of systems. (How could anyone deny this?)
Naturally, every evolution simulator works. (How could anyone deny this?)
It would be interesting to see an evolution simulator coded by Bisqwit. It ought to clear up some misconceptions. There are limitless ways for making one and I'm sure Bisqwit's program would have a very interesting approach as usual.
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nfq wrote:
It's not so uncommon among New Age people to believe in spiritual worlds and beings, while still being atheists, in the sense that they don't believe in "god/gods".
Yeah, it is funny. Pussycat and Bill Nye have noticed the same trend that you have. Some people seem to use nonsensical or irrelevant words like "The Universe" or "The Energy Vortex" in the exact same manner that some theists use the word "God". Those speech acts are not descriptive. They are expressive. The words do not describe anything. Instead, they express a feeling like OH! and WOW! So, the inner state of the speaker is expressed, but no other information is delivered. Those expressive speech acts are used in situations where the speaker has no resources to find more detailed explanations for important events in their lives.
1. Wow, the Universe helped me find my car keys!
2. Wow, God did it!
3. Wow, I am nicely aligned with the Energy Vortex to find my car keys!
These are expressive speech acts. They deliver no information other than the inner state of the people who found their car keys.
GOD!
THE UNIVERSE!
OH!
WOW!
*meow*
Expressive speech acts. Mostly irrelevant.
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Pussycat is getting dizzy. No worries!
Since there is literally an infinite amount of possible claims about stamps and gods, the burden of proof is on the fellow who makes the positive claim of the existence of any such thing. Sherlock doesn't go around looking evidence for an infinite amount of non-murders. He searches evidence for a finite amount of murders.
Watson: Hey, Sherlock! Let's find evidence for a non-murder!
Sherlock: Watty, plz.
Hold your fedoras tight, here comes Wittgenstein:
Russell said: There is no rhinoceros in this room!
Wittgenstein said: Russ, plz.
Atheist doesn't necessarily make any claim at all, so why would an atheist need to provide evidence? Evidence for what?
*meow*
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Thank you for your explanations, ars.
ars4326 wrote:
The Midianite women, along with Balaam, caused the children of Israel to trespass against God; which in turn, brought about a plague.
What was the plague like? What caused it exactly?
ars4326 wrote:
To allow those Midianite women into the Israelite camp (which they, as Numbers 31 revealed, had already caused the Israelites to trespass against God) would be, essentially, permitting sin.
Sorry, if I misunderstand something, but isn't killing also sin? Doesn't God and The Moses Raiders already permit sin by killing children among other people? How does it make sense to sinfully kill the women in order to avoid sinfully loving them? Also, why didn't God just destroy the women? Was God not able to kill them himself? Makes so much sense that I am starting to believe in an omnipotent God. Oh, but maybe somebody can point out a useful mistranslation there somewhere? Or maybe somebody will invoke the ultimately incomprehensible nature of God as usual?
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Mitjitsu wrote:
Don't many of them still treat other aspects of life as if it were religion?
Yes. When they shit, they flush. Obviously religion. They use money. That's religion. They collect stamps. Religion. Everything can be described as if it was religion. Describing or defining something as religion does not make it religion.
"money" and "celebrity" have zero hits here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religionnfq wrote:
I am
In this game God can be skipped and the skip does not even require any OOB glitching. Descartes optimized the run in 1637, so any attempt that involves God will always be obsoleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sumRT-55J wrote:
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This is cool.
MUGG wrote:
Since DOS TASing is still so user unfriendly, I don't know if I will be able to run this.
Maybe somebody who has DOS TAS experience could help getting it started? It is unfortunate that so little DOS TASing has been done over the years. Ilari did great job with the emulator, but I guess there are not as many DOS enthusiasts around here as I imagined. And some DOS enthusiasts like me just don't have what it takes.
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This thread is a nice demonstration of how differently people can think. It is undoubtedly a richness for us all. Sure, it causes problems, because people don't have the same amount of knowledge about any topic or even the same methods for acquiring information and determining what to believe and what not to believe. That is why it is important that these discussions exist. We can all learn something here. I personally enjoy nfq's wild race of thought, even though I can't make much sense of it. Way to go nfq!
nfq wrote:
until the path of materialistic science was chosen
1. There is no materialistic science. There is just plain science. Science doesn't make any assumptions about material or immaterial whatsoever. We just make observations as well as we can whatever the result turns out to be. 2. No "path of science" was chosen by anyone. The path is what it is only because the stuff on that path turns out to work. We don't pray for electricity, because we can use verified working methods for producing it. The same applies to everything we do. Some stuff works, some stuff doesn't work. Now let's all deal with it and find the next new idea that works.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution
Funnily, nobody has been able to show even a single false statement from this wiki page, even though some people boldly claim that the theory is wrong.
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Thank you, Mothrayas. I'll bookmark your post.
An example of civilized debate here: #154 Debate - Matt Dillahunty vs Ray Comfort - Is There A God - 2014
This video is a good lesson on debate etiquette, even if the topic doesn't interest you at all. The debaters hold absolutely contradicting views (Christian Theist vs. Secular Atheist), but they manage to discuss in the most civilized and friendly manner.
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Bisqwit wrote:
I have eventually come into the conclusion that intelligence in a closed system cannot increase, and that it is a natural law much akin the law of entropy.
The point is: Earth is not a closed system. According to the basic understanding of physics, sun delivers energy into the system. It is the energy from the sun that ultimately drives the whole process of increasing complexity. Just like entropy can decrease locally, intelligence can increase locally.
So, yes, I agree that intelligence might ultimately only degrade in the universe, if we look at the universe as a closed system. To my understanding, that is exactly what cosmologists and physicists conclude based on the same mathematics that you use. However, there is no reason why intelligence could not increase locally.
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feos wrote:
Fuck off, you fail to answer posts directed to you to shut up your trolling mouth
For your information, I am actually severely autistic and somewhat handicapped, so it takes me considerable time and effort to read and answer all your questions. Also, I have gained new insights in this thread thanks to wise people like Nach and Bisqwit among many others. If I don't answer some question, it might mean that I have gained new insight and am processing it. I ask questions to learn new things and to reveal my own biases and misconceptions. I advice you do the same. For some questions I just simply haven't had the time to answer yet. Thank you for your understanding, feos. There's no hurry. This is also a public thread, so anyone can read it and comment any post they like.
I am not trying to mock anyone. The fact is this: Anyone who rejects the theory of evolution also rejects mathematics. This is not an opinion. Ask any mathematician, chemist, biologist or anyone who has even the most rudimentary understanding of evolution. Do yourself a favor and educate yourself. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of. Let's find out things together, shall we?
Edit: Also, no hard feelings. I think you are a great person, feos.
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TASeditor wrote:
Oh I get it, you're supposed to buy Sucky Mario Maker.
That's not all. In the Nintendystopia, you can't even try to complete the game as fast as possible unless you use the Nintendo Demos Archive System while playing the game.
It's like... If the inventor of chess would not have drowned in rice grains, he would be mass deleting chess videos right now.
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This representative of Nintendo is as uneducated as any creationist: "This includes videos featuring tool-assisted speedruns, which require making a copy of a game's ROM file, and running the copied ROM through an emulator."
Just like the origin of life does not necessarily require a creator, the origin of a TAS does not require a copy of a ROM. TASes can be made with a txt-editor and TASBot on a console. Yeah, let's ban notepad.exe and TASBot.
Pussycat likes this trope.
