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Jackie Blue:
You're ignoring societal evolution, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRLy7LqFN6E

supersheep:
See, I fail to see any difference between God and the flying pink unicorns - there is no scientific evidence for either of them. Why can you say that they don't exist, but when someone says God doesn't exist, they're laughably ignorant? Actually, maybe you are talking about a different concept of God than the one I am - I basically going for the omnipotent omniscient external being totally different from us, along the lines of what Aquinas describes.

The whole space and time thing is something that I don't know anywhere near enough physics to even begin to try and understand. But if you're talking about infinite numbers of universes, then yes, I agree with you.

Scandanavian War Machine:
that seems to be a seperate matter from what i was talking about, though. maybe i misunderstood him (very likely; he talks quite fast).

i whole-heartedly agree that our society and technology is advancing at a ridiculous, ever-increasing rate but spontaneous, individual mutation? again, i may have completely misunderstood that guy so please correct me if i'm way off.
 
i think i may have just lost my grasp on this conversation. my brain is rebelling; it won't let me think about this anymore. 

KvP:
Evolution isn't linear. There isn't a "goal", and there isn't a progression, as in, humanity isn't the sum total of evolution up to this point, all the things that came before us weren't trial runs and everything that will come after us won't necessarily be an improvement over what exists now. We were one organism amongst many millions who just happened to have evolved to have larger and more complex brains that give us an astounding advantage over all other life on Earth. One of the common misconceptions about Natural Selection is that only beneficial traits are passed on genetically. Any trait can be passed on so long as it doesn't directly interfere with the survival of the organism. And even then, things like autism and hemophilia continue to exist, because they don't outright kill you and in some cases they "skip generations". Talk of a "homo superior" or other such concept that we will eventually ascend to through evolution is science fiction, if not fantasy. We won't naturally shed all of our ugly habits over time.

As for cultural / scientific evolution, there is a threshold. It's intimidating to think about the rate of discovery over time, but the talk always assumes that trends will stay constant. My wager is that for the most part things will stay mostly the same for a long time. We have to remember that 50 years ago learned people honestly believed that by now we could be living on other planets, free of all communicable diseases and driving clean, flying cars, due to technological possibilities that seemed limitless. Chances are there will be gains, but they will be comparitively modest.

Jackie Blue:

--- Quote from: supersheep on 25 Jan 2008, 17:50 ---See, I fail to see any difference between God and the flying pink unicorns - there is no scientific evidence for either of them. Why can you say that they don't exist, but when someone says God doesn't exist, they're laughably ignorant?
--- End quote ---

If you will read the Dawkins review I linked earlier in the thread, you'll find the answer to that question.

Lacking evidence of something is not enough for me to say that I believe it doesn't exist.  I don't believe negatives.  Just because I don't believe in invisible unicorns doesn't mean I believe there are no such things.

Broadly speaking, I don't believe in much at all, including "tables", "Mogwai albums", "gravity", and "matter".


--- Quote ---Actually, maybe you are talking about a different concept of God than the one I am - I basically going for the omnipotent omniscient external being
--- End quote ---

Yes, again, refer to said article: "Dawkins seems to believe in God, if not having a white beard, at least as some sort of chap, however supersized."

Dawkins and many atheists are provably ignorant of theologians that define God in completely different terms entirely.

Again quoting the article, "reading Dawkins on God is like reading a book on evolutionary biology written by someone who has only read The Book of British Birds".

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