So, in your opinion, who are the atheists in THIS forum? Please name them.
Scientists do not base their work of "truth" but, rather, on the best information they have at this point.
Your representing them as calling that truth is misrepresenting them.
NO. It does not. The word brainwashed has a very specific meaning. Unless you are willing to also say that those who are "convinced" that Jesus is the Christ are also "brainwashed then you should use the word "convinced."
And please don't pretend that you did not realize that the word "brainwashed" carries a negative connotation.
Being disingenuous further damages your apologetic.
You are welcome.
That was my purpose in responding; that you would realize that use of such terms damages your argument.
iakov the fool
Iakov...sorry for the delay with the Holidays, five grandchildren, and busy with my job at GotQuestions.org, it has been busy...
So, in your opinion, who are the atheists in THIS forum? Please name them
No thanks, they identify themselves. Or have you not been reading the thread.
Scientists do not base their work on "truth" but, rather, on the best information they have at this point.
Your representing them as calling that truth is misrepresenting them.
Hold on Iak...
a) First off I did not say “ALL” scientists
b) As you say their work is not BASED on truth (the function of the scientific method is to explore and discover FACTS about physical reality)...it is to find truths. The problem in the case being discussed is that before there was anything that
could be interpreted as “evidence”, the conclusion was already accepted as obviously true. That only occurs as a “belief” or as the result of one’s programming.
c) In this case, I am referring to those individuals who interpret the evidence though the lens of the pre-conceived conclusion, using the “belief” to shape the interpretation of the data as opposed to letting the data determine the conclusion (this is backward science according to the correct application of the method). Another prime example is seen clearly in the facts of “speciation” as opposed to the man-made story they believe to be correct.
d) And YES some of them call this INTERPRETATION of this cladogram “truth”! Now please note that I did not say “all”. As you can see in some of the scientists I presented some are opened minded enough to question. SOME (not all) believe it is real, though not demonstrated to be true while the rest merely use these techniques as tools and ways of representing or organizing the data (which is what they actually are).
So in the case of THIS OP, this cladogram is using the data to REPRESENT (with the intent of indicating a truth value) the 150 year old pre-conceived, generationally indoctrinated, thus accepted “belief” that this alleged ancestor of the gaps actually exists.
The data (though it can be interpreted in this way through the pre-held belief) does not at all indicate this, and can be interpreted to only imply similarity of some of the form and functions of these various creatures (not at all a lineal relationship of one coming from or becoming the other). And as I pointed out before, yes
SOME YECs make the same logic error interpreting the evidence through THEIR pre-conceived lens (they likewise being brainwashed in the sense I used the term)
Brainwashed here just means being convinced.
NO. It does not. The word brainwashed has a very specific meaning. Unless you are willing to also say that those who are "convinced" that Jesus is the Christ are also "brainwashed then you should use the word "convinced."
Brainwashing: a method for systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs, any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially one based on repetition or confusion. Synonymous with: to be persuaded; conditioned; reeducated; propagandized, and so on.
Once upon a time there was a belief most doubted. It was that single celled creatures of old became multicelled creatures that became the earliest creatures we have discovered (such as Nautilus and Triops Cancriformis and so on. And that these later became fish which became amphibians which became reptiles which became birds and mammals and so on up to man. In this totally confabulated lineage assumption naturally they already assumed that some form of early monkeys became apes and some form of early ape-kind became humans.
At this time it was claimed that their interpretation of the fossil record demonstrated this and as time passed and more questions were posed other lines of evidence (mostly homological in nature) arose which were INTERPRETED under the assumption the preconceived "belief" was true. This has been reinforced over generations by the punishment reward system of education (spit back this or fail), which is "Outcome Based" (what to think taking precedence over how to think), the shaping of public opinion (using all the standard means of rhetoricians and propagandists including drill and repetition, associated positive and negative adjectives, euphemisms, contrived image imprinting, and selective coverage and selective exclusion and more) and hours every week of one's life being devoted to teaching the preconceived as established truth all the way through college to the legislative and judicial exclusion of teaching the controversy regarding those precopnceived conclusions.
I mentioned "speciation" as one example where the preconception dictates that this causes the transmutation mentioned (fish to amphibs, to reps to mammals from monkeys to apes to man and so on) when all that nature demonstrates to us (the actual evidence) and ALL that we have found in laboratory experiments is that it produces variety of the same kind. However, when one CLAIMS to base their conclusion on the observable evidence and that all and only evidence says their conclusion is in error yet they cannot cognize the need to change their thinking (letting the data SHAPE the hypothesis) and at least consider the alternative may ion fact be true, this IS indicative of being brainwashed.
As Goebbels said
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it...It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Now he was using his knowledge of this reliable fact to convince of a political/sociological purpose but this is not different then if we merely change the word "State" into "ruling pedegoguery" or legislatively approved "curriculum developers", The assumption rules the interpretation among most of all who were subject to the process. Once convinced they cannot see the forest from the trees.
Not some sci-fi chart ..
