Deny Gods Existence
I dare you to watch this video and then deny god’s existence. I dare you.
Let me just go on the record as saying science rules but rules even more with the help of computer graphics.
I dare you to watch this video and then deny god’s existence. I dare you.
Let me just go on the record as saying science rules but rules even more with the help of computer graphics.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
i still don’t think god exists.
December 15th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
This animation -to me- highly “animalizes” the proceedings within a cell, even “humanizes” them: It seems as though those proteins are little creatures that form themselves, bond themselves, on purpose, thereby misguiding the viewers to believe that there is a real “purpose” involved in those reactions, even though they are purely biochemical. So, again, I am against the humanization of moleculus in popular videos… Even though, it’s cool to watch.
December 15th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
That is freaking awesome. But I don’t see what it has to do with God.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:35 am
for further discussion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
As I have already stated, the video depicts the single molecules as to behave somewhat “intentionally”. That’s why Steve alluded to “God”.
December 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
That’s ridiculous, but I guess it’s at least slightly more original than argument from design. We all know that there are swarms of solutes and catalysts floating around inside the cell, but some of them either haven’t been discovered yet or would have cluttered up the cartoon and made it unclear.
And, regardless, the fact that humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize molecules has no bearing on whether or not God exists.
December 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
“And, regardless, the fact that humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize molecules has no bearing on whether or not God exists.” Of course, the human tendency to antropomorhize has a lot to do with the debate on there being a “higher being” or not… Dawkins writes:
“Maybe the psychological reason for this amazing blindness has something to do with the fact that many people have not had their consciousness raised, as biologists have, by natural selection and its power to tame improbability. J. Anderson Thomson, from his perspective as an evolutionary psychiatrist, points me to an additional reason, the psychological bias that we all have towards personifying inanimate objects as agents. As Thomson says, we are more inclined to mistake a shadow for a burglar than a burglar for a shadow. A false positive might be a waste of time. A false negative could be fatal. In a letter to me, he suggested that, in our ancestral past, our greatest challenge in our environment came from each other. ‘The legacy of that is the default assumption, often fear, of human intention. We have a great deal of difficulty seeing anything other than human causation.’ We naturally generalized that to divine intention.” mmh, he unfortunately didn’t write anything about tree-sex in this passage, though….
December 16th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
sorry, that was a stupid totally unfunny side note, but it was a good quote beforehand.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Jeez boose will nothing satisfy you of god’s existence?
Millions upon millions of random shit has to go right in order for one cell to do a basic function and somehow this is more satisfying then god running the show.
If you ask me, neither explanation is that satisfying.
December 17th, 2007 at 3:48 am
I’m sorry, did you call that random shit? B/c i heard this little tidbit called evolution helped make that complicated machine. The whole blind watchmaker thing. Basically you’re putting forth an argument from design, but something I’ve never heard from a person that believes arguments from design is what would something have to be so that an argument from design wouldn’t work? Theists always say “look at the complexity. there must be a god.” But then they later say, “look at the simplicity and elegance. there must be a god.” You can’t have it both ways.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:09 am
My mistake. I totally forget the explanation of evolution is so much more satisfying to you then design. Apparently millions upon millions of collisions, mutations, and transformations over billions of years is more compelling to you then an entity with the power to design and modify over that same period of time. I know people find the design explanation more compelling.
Shucks, sometimes I look at the complexity and think God is a likely explanation. Sometimes I look at the complexity and think Evolution is a likely explanation. Other times I look at the simplicity and think God is a likely explanation while sometimes I think evolution is a likely explanation.\
Mostly I just think that all of our explanation have the indelible mark of humanity and in this regard can’t be taken as the absolute truth.
When talking about things that happened billions of years ago there really is just no knowing. Explanations of science and religion seems equally compelling when talking about never ever land. The reason to favor science over religion is because religion so desperately wants to tell you how to live your life based off of these explanations. Recently though, certain areas of science have began sullying science’s reputation of being neutral on moral arguments.
*cough* global warming *cough*
December 17th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
Don’t forget that unlike religion, science doesn’t claim to have absolute truth, it only has teh best theory to fit the data. If something more persuasive or with better evidence than evolution ever comes up (don’t hold your breath), science switches to that explanation immediately… religion doesn’t have that luxury.
December 17th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
“Mostly I just think that all of our explanation have the indelible mark of humanity and in this regard can’t be taken as the absolute truth.”
we aren’t gods, so nothing we think can be taken as absolute truth. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t generalize and say that you’re right when all of the evidence points your way.
“When talking about things that happened billions of years ago there really is just no knowing.”
There’s also no knowing what happened 5 minutes ago by your standards, since memories could be flawed. Yet you still say with certainty that you ate breakfast this morning.
“The reason to favor science over religion is because religion so desperately wants to tell you how to live your life based off of these explanations.”
Wrong. I’m ok with people telling me how to live my life as long as their reasoning makes sense. Religion just doesn’t make sense. It requires that I suppose a god exists without any evidence to back it up.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Steve - magical thinking, from gods to witchcraft to leprechauns to tree spirits, has a very poor track record. For this reason I find such arguments to be unpersuasive. Moreover, evolution is a logically congruent amalgamation of several necessary components that are either potentially disprovable or have been clearly demonstrated (for example, heritable traits being passed from parent to offspring). Unless someone has evidence against either one of the necessary components or the logic tying them together to form evolution, I have a hard time taking criticisms of evolution seriously.