The Athiest Thread

[damn-I-Suck]

@UnseenWombat.

About that "new direction" you're referring to in evolution.

What if.... (and this is a big what-if).....The next stage of evolution was human beings manipulating their own genetics to get a more desired result? I can just imagine rich parents telling their doctor "We want him to have blue eyes, and we want him smart!". This replaces natural selection for intelligent selection.

OR.........(and this is an even bigger what-if)... The next phase in evolution is artificial intelligence.. You know, computers who have free will and can think independently, or straight up robots like in TERMINATOR?

I have thought a lot about this, and I fear either of these fates.

 

[Lasercakes]

What if.... (and this is a big what-if).....The next stage of evolution was human beings manipulating their own genetics to get a more desired result? I can just imagine rich parents telling their doctor "We want him to have blue eyes, and we want him smart!". This replaces natural selection for intelligent selection.

What's wrong with that?

 

[MONEYMUFFINS]

There is plenty of historical evidence for the tenets of the Christian faith

OH, REALLY? PLEASE SHOW ME THE CONSENSUS ON ALL THESE GROUPS OF HISTORIANS AND SCIENTISTS CITING THAT THE RESURRECTION WAS AN HISTORICAL EVENT.

 

[MONEYMUFFINS]

YOU'VE HAD 16 PAGES TO CONVINCE ME. YOU CONTINUE TO BEAT AROUND THE BUSH. LET'S SEE WHAT THE MAJORITY OF EXPERTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS "REASONABLE" EVIDENCE.

 

[Wandrian]

Like a study that I cited earlier in this thread, turns out our body is only really about 1/10th actually ours. Scientists did an audit of cells in/on the human body and found that we have ten times more microbes/bacteria cells than actual human cells. But anyway, as far as the brain goes when a part of it is dead or damaged there's no evidence that information is retained through some "upload" to a spiritual plane. Stroke victims have to relearn speech and motor functions. The damaged tissue doesn't get repaired. New pathways are formed in other parts of the brain if the victim's lucky. If information was part of the soul and the person's still alive, then they would still have their soul and that information right ? If they still had their soul they should be able to identify loved ones but that's not the case.

Right, but all those other organisms like mitochondria are, at this stage in evolution, essentially part of the singular organism that is a person right? Maybe it's just my baseless opinion, but I think what constitutes a person is equal parts the sum of their parts(by all implications of the word; body, thoughts, symbiotic organisms, et cetera) and their whole. Even though it's just ego and failure of logic, I much prefer believing humans are special.

On the whole soul/afterlife part here? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure no credible religion has ever clarified what a soul specificly is and no one that believes in souls can generally agree with how they work either right? Sounds good to me at least.


@ Lasercakes: Well, it's kind of unfair. What gives someone that's inherited a metric fuckton of money more right to fuck around with genetics to be better physically than some starving teenager in India who's literally whoring herself out to feed her siblings? Why can't the poor get as many chances as the rich? Such as a thing as dIS is speaking of would be something very very much exclusive to top 0.001% of people that haven't really earned their keep by comparison(like actors, CEOs, and royalty).