I didn't opine about that. Haven't I already answered this line of questioning, another possible scenario is one who has a bad life and sacrifices it to do a good deed the reward an end to the suffering.
Yes I noticed. Hence my question. In other words your concept of "reward" is so nebulous as to be meaningless. I suppose it's one way of sustaining your position.
If you feel the only rewards can be along the lines of wealth then I suppose there can be selfless acts in your view.
not if their god tells them to be clean and helpful and generally abide the golden rule. then again, that mentality always is running in the background of every theist's brain. but the interesting point is, what do atheists consider "useful"? how do they evaluate usefulness? if by its instantaneous value then drugs (cocaine and heroin) are of the utmost usefulness and value. if it's by their value across time, then everything is eventually absolutely useless. science and scientific products included. therefore my original statement "everybody is selfish" is right. this second statement was to show that there is no real selflessness(unless you include stupidity).
um, duh? it always amazed me how you'd reply to my posts within 2 hours of me posting them, when it takes me several hours in multiple stages to put a decent revised post together. and yet, you're the one who's saying he doesn't have time? sorry, but the facts don't give you the benefit of the doubt. you, serious? are you serious? as in that and nothing, and since even that is nothing.. you can do the math.
How could you possibly know how much time I actually require in a day? scifes. You lost. Give it up. Why wouldn't I be? You know, I'm beginning to see why Dwy takes a much harsher stance to near-belligerent inquiry much faster. Perhaps this is a trait I should adopt. Oh no! More ignorant assertion! Whatever will I do??
simple, the frequency of your posts. the debate thread was barely reopened when you posted your reply. i barely posted my second post when you replied. i barely posted my comment here when you replied. and the time of the posts is there for everyone to check. while determining a members posting habit is generally hard to coin, your case is a no brainer. i already mentioned this, and if you were a bit smarter you wouldn't have replied to my post in a bit more than an hour. so simply, when you said you claimed the formal debate because you didn't have time to reply, you were lying. it's that simple. the fact that you're here bickering with me about secondary things like my personal insults, how busy you are, and sarcasm, instead of the main issue at hand, which everybody here is engaging but you, is nothing but more evidence. the fact that i replied to all their rebuttals, and they didn't present any more countering arguments, and how i'm currently in control of the intellectual aspects of this thread, show the predicament you're in. now you're begging me to stop? to let you go? let me get this straight, what did i lose, and what do you want me to give up? i lost a formal debate, because i violated a rule independent of the debate subject. if the debate wasn't formal, i wouldn't have lost. what you want me to give up, is my challenging argument, which you didn't fully answer, because i was kicked out of its thread for arriving late? how do you connect the "you lost" and "give up", when what i lost and what you're asking me to give up are two completely different things?? searching for retreating tactics now are we? you can continue our original debate and show everybody that the real reason why you left is because you knew you won. that is, by explaining how the scientific method isn't useless when you believe those who strictly adhere to it will face eternal torture.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Scifes: it takes time to knock down almost any poster. I wasn't sure I'd have time for it. In the end, I decided I did. I decided to make time for you. Now, however, I'm regretting being so generous at all.
There are no deleted posts after #41. I could see them if there were any. But you can tell because there is no discontinuity in the numbering.
What does that have to do with anything? The existence of a few dishonest scientists/researchers has no more bearing on the usefulness of the scientific method than does the existence of few dishonest auto mechanics on the usefulness of getting your car serviced.
i agree. i was thinking this might not have been the best place to make my post and thought about deleting it. on the other hand a federal inquiry seems to show this is not "some small problem".
though the uselessness discussed here is that of a minus screw to a mechanic who believes the important screws are all positive.
Many theists see the wonder of the cosmos itself as the most compelling evidence of God's existence. The appearance of design (bacterial flagellum and the DNA machine for example) is, for some, a final clinching "proof" that the universe could not have possibly unfolded the way it did by chance alone. To argue that the scientific method is useless with respect to answering what you consider to be the most important question of all is to deny that all the amazing things that we have discovered about physical reality by following it's principles have any bearing on the question of God's existence; that the wonder of the cosmos isn't any kind of evidence at all.
i wonder if some of the "health related issues" have anything to do with this: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2724638&postcount=72
That wasn't what I was arguing. Clearly many people who already believe in God feel that the picture of reality that we have now (the striking detail of which has emerged as a result of the application of the scientific method) serves to reaffirm that belief.