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So in the case of the mass shootingd in Las Vegas the shooter did not shoot randomly but picked his victim based on who he knew or could recognize from afar? Because we know he could not shoot everyone at once and once he starrwd shooting the people began to run in an unforseen to him pattern. Or did your God decide who was going to be shoot? How was attending an open air concert an agreement to be shot and killed?
There were reasons why each person was shot. Maybe the direction of the wind at that moment, or how the shooter happened to move his hand. The reasons may not be obvious to anyone, but there were reasons. Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in Australia, causing a slight change in the wind.
It is simple. When you engineer a virus, you do not engineer the whole thing, that is too complicated. So one takes a base and add the required genetic material, and that base is the big clue. We can be very confident the corona virus causing the pandemic is natural.
No you can't. Plenty of experts think it was modified in the lab. It is possible to cause a virus to evolve so it can infect humans. Gain of function.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
They are studied because they can cause a pandemic. People do not stop research because of that, the possibility of a pandemic is why viruses are studied. And it is because it has been studied, and that it is an evolved virus, that we could develop vaccines in a relative short time.
We would have had a major problem if this was a completely new and unknown virus.
Studying bat coronaviruses, just in case they ever acquire the ability to infect humans, would be one thing. Studying bat coronaviruses and modifying them so they can infect humans, would be something else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
So now you are talking about the escape theory. As I said, they are two different theories, yet you talk as if it was just one, probably because you get your arguments from the TV instead of credible sources.
And maybe it did escape. But viruses mutate and spread naturally, and there is a very good chance this is how it spread.
I don't get any arguments from TV, since I don't have a TV and haven't had one in 50 years. I only get arguments from credible sources.
Many qualified people now think it is very likely the virus was being studied in Wuhan, in a lab that specializes in horseshoe bat coronaviruses. That is where the pandemic started, and those bats do not live near Wuhan.
Gain of function research was being funded at that lab, through EcoHealth Alliance, which was funded partly by the US. Data was destroyed at the lab, apparently to prevent an investigation.
And on and on. You are interested in denying what seems pretty obvious, because it would reflect badly on our scientific establishment, and on Fauci.
Why was GoF research banned for a while in the US if experts didn't consider it too dangerous?
Good then you have no problems wirh me telling you that i believe you are totally wrong in your claim that nothing is random. But then i dont have ypur absolute certainty that i know all there is to learn on a subject and i would never change my mind. At least that is how you come accross.
So wje you declared rhat nothing in life is random it is simp!y your untested and unsupported opinion . LOL.
I just have a hard time underatanding how you can spend so much time studying topics when ig appears to me once you comd to a conclusion it is set on stone and would never change.
Like i say now i know for sure when tou clIm that something is as so that it is not open to debate,is unfoundedbelief and should be ignored by anyone wishing to knows what the poster means by thwir statement.
Sorry for wasting your time in asking you questions in order to attempf to have an intelligent discussion.
yes, asking someone who has posted what they mean by their statement, yes that is intelligent discussion.
however calling views which a person disagrees with as "untested, unfounded, unsupported, and should be ignored" is not intelligent discussion. Mocking, derision and sarcasm are also not intelligent discussion. I'm not saying you do those, i am commenting on behavior frequently seen on these threads. Discussing views and behaviors, not individual people posting.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 07-23-2021 at 10:32 AM..
I am done with you. Focusing on a sibgle word or phrase ib order ro diismiss a longer post is not discussion,intelligent or otherwise. And i dont think you are even interested in discussions or actually learning.
Unlike your other response this one fails to react to what i did write.I
You are interested in claiming that nothing is random but have no interest in discussion or even supporting YOUR claim. Fine i will not ask you about it again.
The word random refers to our inability to understand the cause and predict its occurrence, Bad. It does not mean it has no cause. Randomness is a function of our ability to predict, not an attribute of the universe itself.
Randomness is not easy to define. For something to be random, does that mean it happened for no reason at all? Well there had to be some kind of a reason that it happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
There were reasons why each person was shot. Maybe the direction of the wind at that moment, or how the shooter happened to move his hand. The reasons may not be obvious to anyone, but there were reasons. Maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in Australia, causing a slight change in the wind.
That's an interesting point, worth unpacking. I think it would be fair to say there would be a CAUSE for the random events in badlander's examples (e.g., the rifle of the shooter was pointed in that direction, victims were in wrong place at wrong time, the ground shifted or eroded or rock finally gave into freeze-thaw cycles and started the rockslide, and so on). But is that cause synonymous with the REASON.... as it seems to be used above?
I might agree that everything has a cause (i.e., precipitating events, conditions that allowed things to proceed)... but not necessarily a preordained purpose, if that's what we really mean by "reason." Would you buy that?
That's an interesting point, worth unpacking. I think it would be fair to say there would be a CAUSE for the random events in badlander's examples (e.g., the rifle of the shooter was pointed in that direction, victims were in wrong place at wrong time, the ground shifted or eroded or rock finally gave into freeze-thaw cycles and started the rockslide, and so on). But is that cause synonymous with the REASON.... as it seems to be used above?
I might agree that everything has a cause (i.e., precipitating events, conditions that allowed things to proceed)... but not necessarily a preordained purpose, if that's what we really mean by "reason."
That distinction between cause and reason (as in purpose) is and has been the defining difference between atheists and theists, Heel.
That's an interesting point, worth unpacking. I think it would be fair to say there would be a CAUSE for the random events in badlander's examples (e.g., the rifle of the shooter was pointed in that direction, victims were in wrong place at wrong time, the ground shifted or eroded or rock finally gave into freeze-thaw cycles and started the rockslide, and so on). But is that cause synonymous with the REASON.... as it seems to be used above?
I might agree that everything has a cause (i.e., precipitating events, conditions that allowed things to proceed)... but not necessarily a preordained purpose, if that's what we really mean by "reason." Would you buy that?
Exactly The wind might shifta bullets travel but air movenebt is not constant. Also thw crowd may be running however ib a crowd there will be moments of indesion by one that affects orhwrs to be fleeing ax the planned. And the shooters hand may have twitched, a bat flew accross his vision or he coughed. How are these not considered random unless some God designed them to each happen when they did?
And in a running paniced crowd a person tripping sounds likes it fufills the definition of a random act.I
And i never even claimed that a rockfall was a randon act but thatthe downward path for each bouncing ibdividual rock is not a patterned that could be predicted with total accuracy. There is randomness and disorder in a rockfall when looking at each rock. To claim otherwise is to be claiming to have a greater knowledge of thevevents than those who sudying them.
actually i enjoy reading the views expressed in posts by badlander, and the questions that are raised, which touch on significant principles and elements.
In reading these two posts shown here, for instance, i am struck by the contrast of the two statements in bold.
My question and observation is, these seem to be at odds with each other, how can "wanting to know if something is true" co-exist with "not wanting to be certain." A few posts have indicated being bothered by what is called "certainty." I am puzzled why the process of seeking to verify and validate, which can and does result in and lead to being certain, and goes hand in hand with "wanting to know what is true," would be seen as something negative or to steer clear of. these seem to me to be in diametric opposition, to "be interested in knowing if something is true or not" but also "not wanting to be certain."
I would be interested in hearing how that is reconciled.
Thank you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
It's absolutely impossible for a person to explored learn about everything themselves unless they have an extremely narrow field of interest. Was it not Newton who stated thate could see further because he stood in the shoulders of giants. If I want to learn about animal behaviour I just don't have the time accessories to study many individual species for 20 years each. But I can read about studies of crows, cototes, forillas, chimos, dolphins that others have studied and wrote about to learn about and compare the say intelligence of the different species
Maybe yours is the watchdog can make broad statements of the absolutes and refuse to discuss any thing that contradict your claims. That is not learning or exploring that is just having a dogma that you are always right. For example when you claimed there was never anything that was random and I brought up questions about radioactive decay or mutations in mouse versus you brushed them off by saying you were not interested in them. And yet you claim that nothing ican be random but you must have explored how radioactive decay works to make such a atatement.
Are you actually interested in if something is true of not or are you interested only in making broad general claims and never having to support such claims. If the later then that is not exploring not learning. Going back to your claim that nothing is ever random you shown that you had no interest in discussing things that might be random or explaining how you came to that ,inclusion but simply made a fouL decree and end of discussion because once you've made a claim that is the end of it as far as you seem concerned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by badlander
So in the case of the mass shootingd in Las Vegas the shooter did not shoot randomly but picked his victim based on who he knew or could recognize from afar? Because we know he could not shoot everyone at once and once he starrwd shooting the people began to run in an unforseen to him pattern. Or did your God decide who was going to be shoot? How was attending an open air concert an agreement to be shot and killed?
In nature a rock fall starts but with rocks falling and bouncing over a rough and ilregular surface you are totally certain that there is no randomnsss in which falling rock strikes which falling rock? If a massive rockfall could be repeated many times that eah individual rock would always end up in the exact same position?
I now an sort of understand now you can speak with such absolute certainy about everything. It is very amazing but one the other hand i dont think i wish to live with such certainty
I dont remember ever having been reincarnated so ill have to take your word about having a choice. If i had made a choice for this life that even though i could of made a worse one i could have made a better one too. It is not something i believe in but at the same time i would be foolish to argue against someone who has so much certainty on the subject.I
You should also correct scientists who claim that it is random of which individual atom decays during a time pediod or that even the moment that , atom decays is not random. It could totlly change the worlds knowledge on that subject.
I do appreciate your through response. I simply dont agree with all of it.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 07-23-2021 at 11:01 AM..
That distinction between cause and reason (as in purpose) is and has been the defining difference between atheists and theists, Heel.
Well, then I guess I must be right where I'm supposed to be!
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