Millennials and Gen Z - atheism really taking hold of the future (Mormons, agnostics)
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OK, calm down. Obviously atheism is related to an increment in the use of reason and available information. In addition, I believe the new generations are atheists because they are like their friends and they never had to attend church.
The conversation circled around the concept of passing memes. Proponents (Richard Dawkins) theorize that memes are like a viral phenomenon that may evolve by natural selection in a manner analogous to that of biological evolution. Within the context of this definition I mentioned the issue of a lower fertility rate indirectly causing less copies of the meme to spread. Memes may behave like genes, but ultimately are not genes.
Are you seriously suggesting that the development of memes being analogous to biological evolution (there is social, engineering and chemical evolution too, you know) has led you to believe that he sees it as being spread genetically? It is spread socially, surely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Julian658
A provocative post. Please expand your views a bit more. THANKS!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jacqueg
I've talked about it several damn times in this very thread. Not my problem if you don't read.
Why is atheism increasing? Hint - it has nothing to do with birth rates among atheists.
Exactly. I just wish i could put this down to wind - up (for religious apologists needle an atheist is the 2nd prize after losing the actual point) but this isn't even ignorance. It is Conservothink. "The answer to it is to outbreed them!"
Atheism/irreligion/Nones does not try to Outbreed the religious. We couldn't even if we did Fornicate in the streets. No the method is people giving up religion. This is (I believe) what Pew missed in supposing that Muslims would dominate. I don't know how much apostacy there is in islam, but I heard that Imams are worried about it. Certainly a few hints since Pew suggests that Christianity is losing ground. It's a rookie error for any kind of atheist to make to think that it's a matter of who can outbreed the Arabs. Good thing that Julian isn't one. Atheist I mean, not Arab.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-02-2019 at 07:54 PM..
Reason: I mean 'does not' of course.
Exactly. I just wish i could put this down to wind - up (for religious apologists needle an atheist is the 2nd prize after losing the actual point) but this isn't even ignorance. It is Conservothink. "The answer it to outbreed them!"
Atheism/irreligion/Nones does try to Outbreed the religious. We couldn't even if we did Fornicate in the streets. No the method is people giving up religion. This is (I believe) what Pew missed in supposing that Muslims would dominate. I don't know how much apostacy there is in islam, but I heard that Imams are worried about it. Certainly a few hints since Pew suggests that Christianity is losing ground. It's a rookie error for any kind of atheist to make to think that it's a matter of who can outbreed the Arabs. Goof thing that Julian isn't one. Atheist I mean, not Arab.
Yeah, I question his atheism sometimes myself.
But mostly, I question his reasoning skills. If atheism is increasing among younger generations, then that means that religious adherents must be decreasing. The numbers show that's true. Therefore, it simply CANNOT be true that parents reliably produce children who adhere to their parents' views. And why not? Because we can't change our genes significantly, but we can and do challenge the ideas that our parents try to pass on to us.
This is so simple to grasp that any 8th grader knows it, and most adults take it for granted. Yet Julian labors ponderously over it.
Ignorance about what? There is nothing to ignore. No God is the null hypothesis and the correct presumption until credible evidence is presented to make the claim of existence. You must be able to demonstrate it, or the default position dictates proper human operation and functioning.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
But you ignore the fact that our intelligence is of a totally alien character to everything else in our Reality. There is no conceivable route from the mindless processes that dominate the material "matter" of our Reality to the extraordinary phenomenon of our intelligence. It has to be endemic to the substrate of Reality itself and NOT tied to the material processes that dominate everything else.
Initially, Marc, Mystic can stop you dead and make you question. 'Gosh -yes - Human intelligence. There is nothing like that anywhere else..'
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
Or so it seems to you, based on methodology which has the unfortunate drawback of not working.
There is no conceivable route.....to you. We are still in the frontier stages of understanding our mental makeup. We have already learned a great deal more than was known previously, it seems to me that what is left to learn is greater than that which has been learned to date.
So, based on a mixture of your personal science and personal woo, the rest of us should cease examining the nature of sentience because you dreamed up the absolute final answer while in deep meditation?
No matter how you attempt to disguise it, yours is just one more sorry faith based claim. You are in the same boat as the others.
And this debate between 'human intelligence is just a step up from animal' and 'it is nothing like and must be divine' has been going on for a long time. Mystic seems to sideline any discussion, ignored the (repeated) point that (in his theory) animals should be as smart as human - unless intelligence is as evolutionary as life. And prefers to just post plonking faith claims.
Your supposition applies to something we need to find the existence of, but our Reality already exists so we simply need to understand it and characterize its status. THAT is what you ignore.
Reality exists, but your God clearly does not, as of yet. Because THAT is the claim you keep running from by failing to produce evidence in support. Oh yes, you can mis-identify reality as god and then claim god exists because god is reality. One might call that sophistry, but I call it stupidstry. So no, god is not reality, or anything else, until you produce that chronically missing credible evidence to demonstrate it and show it exists.
Of course I realize you had no evidence, have no evidence, will have no evidence, and are locked in your own emo-retardation that fuels your never ending stream of bullfeces. But it’s still fun!
But you ignore the fact that our intelligence is of a totally alien character to everything else in our Reality. There is no conceivable route from the mindless processes that dominate the material "matter" of our Reality to the extraordinary phenomenon of our intelligence. It has to be endemic to the substrate of Reality itself and NOT tied to the material processes that dominate everything else.
Where do you come up with this <<bleep>>? Our intelligence is normal, natural, unremarkable, and is simply another mundane fact of existence. It is a simple attribute of living things that exist long enough to evolve into its acquisition. It’s not extraordinary. It’s not miraculous. It’s completely expected and within the natural order of things. God, you don’t even worship God, you worship a human attribute that simply exists, and impute Godness to it. This is the silliest damned... you know, Ben the Baptist makes more sense than you. He worships a non-existent God construction, but at least it pretends to have miraculous magnificence. You worship a boring human attribute that isn’t even remotely foolproof at its current state of evolution.
You need to get out more. Metaphysically.
Last edited by mensaguy; 12-03-2019 at 06:08 AM..
Reason: language
Are you seriously suggesting that the development of memes being analogous to biological evolution (there is social, engineering and chemical evolution too, you know) has led you to believe that he sees it as being spread genetically? It is spread socially, surely.
I am not a biologist, but I was paraphrasing Richard Dawkins. I even posted a video of Dawkins explaining this. A meme is not a gene, that is a given. Do not take everything so literally.
Quote:
Exactly. I just wish i could put this down to wind - up (for religious apologists needle an atheist is the 2nd prize after losing the actual point) but this isn't even ignorance. It is Conservothink. "The answer it to outbreed them!"
Oh pallez Trans! That poster ran away with the tail between his legs when I asked him to stake his position. And he is a biologist! I give you some credit you seem to have some testosterone left to hold a discussion to the end.
Quote:
Atheism/irreligion/Nones does try to Outbreed the religious. We couldn't even if we did Fornicate in the streets. No the method is people giving up religion. This is (I believe) what Pew missed in supposing that Muslims would dominate. I don't know how much apostacy there is in islam, but I heard that Imams are worried about it. Certainly a few hints since Pew suggests that Christianity is losing ground. It's a rookie error for any kind of atheist to make to think that it's a matter of who can outbreed the Arabs. Goof thing that Julian isn't one. Atheist I mean, not Arab.
Some topics are incendiary Trans. So we must not talk about them. End of discussion!
I am not a biologist, but I was paraphrasing Richard Dawkins. I even posted a video of Dawkins explaining this. A meme is not a gene, that is a given. Do not take everything so literally.
Some topics are incendiary Trans. So we must not talk about them. End of discussion!
I'm right here.
I wonder why you think you have the power to stop an ongoing discussion.
But mostly, I question his reasoning skills. If atheism is increasing among younger generations, then that means that religious adherents must be decreasing. The numbers show that's true. Therefore, it simply CANNOT be true that parents reliably produce children who adhere to their parents' views. And why not? Because we can't change our genes significantly, but we can and do challenge the ideas that our parents try to pass on to us.
This is so simple to grasp that any 8th grader knows it, and most adults take it for granted. Yet Julian labors ponderously over it.
I'm afraid he struggles with all his thinking. There's a good brain there, mind, but it's the old problem - religion makes a smart person sound dumb. And Julian, though having given up religion as a belief, still bats for it like a Genesis -literalist for socio -political reasons rather than 'cultural' which is just a cover -up. And pretty clumsy as in his use of Dawkins liking Christmas carols (I'll take Bach myself) to try to validate his own religion - hugging. Dawkins likes a festival as much as I do. I remember a really excellent Diwalli and an even better Thadingyut. You can keep Songkran, frankly.
I am not a biologist, but I was paraphrasing Richard Dawkins. I even posted a video of Dawkins explaining this. A meme is not a gene, that is a given. Do not take everything so literally.
Julian-speak for claiming memes are genes, but he was shown that they are not, so he posted a video, so please don’t go back to his earlier post where he got them confused and thought that memes were spread through biological reproduction.
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Initially, Marc, Mystic can stop you dead and make you question. 'Gosh -yes - Human intelligence. There is nothing like that anywhere else..' 
