Hi, I'm Mick

[Babel]

Why don't you try and explain it without the salad?

Quite simply, what does something being natural have anything to do with how one should behave?

Or why it's unnatural even if it happens in nature. Or aren't we part of nature, making all our actions natural by definition?

I can quickly address this.

We can't equivocate on the meanings here. Clubfoot is a natural occurrence, some natural defect of a sort. It is natural in the sense that it isn't manmade or artificial, that it happens to be an organic defect or occurrence. However, in another sense, in the sense of Aristotle's philosophy, clubfoot is unnatural; it is disordered. By this we mean that it doesn't conform to the way a human ought to be, according to his form and the finality of his foot. This is what allows for us to call it a defect in the first place. We err when we conflate the two senses.

and does having a clubfoot makes it so that society dictates how these people SHOULD behave?

[pErvinalia]

This is all nonsense anyway. There is no "finality of form" in the natural world. All forms are constantly changing.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Yup.

Moving on...

I guess this means we don't get any evidence for god(s).

Right after you post reasons to think that there is no evidence for God.

I think there is no evidence for god because I have never seen any. Care to enlighten me?

I've never seen aliens. Does this fact allow me to infer that there are none?

I didn't infer that there was no evidence. I just think that there is none. Put another way, I consider its possibility of existence to be extremely tiny. Surely, if there were compelling evidence for the existence of a god (or gods) that would stand up to robust scrutiny, the theist community would be eager to present it at any possible opportunity. That they don't, speaks volumes. All we have are endless appeals to the emotions, pathetic attempts to undermine Darwin's theories and subjective personal testimonies.

As for aliens, we can extrapolate on our knowledge of the emergence of life on Earth to infer that there is a fair chance of something similar happening on a similar planet elsewhere. Thus, given the huge number of stars and planets out there, I consider the possibility of them existing (somewhere) to be orders of magnitude higher than the chance of a theist ever showing proof for god!

[Mick]

What's your opinion on cybernetic augmentation, Mick, and transhumanism?

Hi, Vaz. It is just like RS in here, with all of these members. We just need Thommo here to agree with everything you say and then this place will be indistinguishable from RS.

I've not looked into those things deeply enough to comment, Vaz. What sort of things are involved?

[Mick]

This is all nonsense anyway. There is no "finality of form" in the natural world. All forms are constantly changing.

Easy there, Heraclitus.

Why think as you do?

Edit: I somehow sent this as a PM first.

[macdoc]

Study some science first Mick come back when you get past the skydaddy shite.
You get no traction here....just heaps of ridicule.

[tattuchu]

Hi, Vaz. It is just like RS in here, with all of these members. We just need Thommo here to agree with everything you say and then this place will be indistinguishable from RS.

I'm not sure what you're expecting here We're generally a lot more laid back than RS, but this is after all an atheist forum

[Mick]

Study some science first Mick come back when you get past the skydaddy shite.
You get no traction here....just heaps of ridicule.

Study some philosophy first, macdoc.

[macdoc]

I have a degree in philosphy Mick....do you?

Bullshit doesn't cut it here.

Want to understand something useful start with Alfred North Whitehead....

Take the biblical crap and go bother the nuns

[Mick]

I have a degree in philosphy Mick....do you?

Bullshit doesn't cut it here.

Want to understand something useful start with Alfred North Whitehead....

Take the biblical crap and go bother the nuns

Yes, I do.

You should ask for your money back.

Nowhere did I refer to the Bible; and so I am left wondering what you're taking about.

[Svartalf]

If not from the bible, where do you infer the existence of a theological being from?

[macdoc]

Nowhere did I refer to the Bible; and so I am left wondering what you're taking about.
Mick

well then your philo shite is about as good as your catholicism t'would appear.

Did you not get enough money under the pillow from the tooth fairy Mick...shortchanged on your degree I guess. Let me guess seminary ?

Get a life....like really...

[Tero]

Sorry Mick, we are simple atheist folk here. We don't have the imagination for this magical stuff. We can just about "get" Harry Potter.

[VazScep]

Hi, Vaz. It is just like RS in here, with all of these members.

You aware of the history? There is a common membership because most of these posters (myself included) were originally members of a forum hosted on Richard Dawkins' site. Dawkins very abruptly shut the whole thing down as part of what became a colossal clusterfuck that has left a lot of internet atheists (TM) still very pissed off at the guy.

There was a panic trying to establish a new forum for the refugees. As might be expected in the chaos of such social upheaval, they ended up with two new forums: rationalia and rationalskepticism. Rationalia is the sillier of the two, and hence would have been my preference, but it just doesn't have as much traffic.

We just need Thommo here to agree with everything you say and then this place will be indistinguishable from RS.

I thought my interactions with Thommo were largely based on very technical banter with which you either agree or you are just wrong. I think we tend to politely ignore each other outside of that. If I'm collecting sycophants, I'm not trolling hard enough. And by "trolling", I mean the original and dignified usenet version, not the fucking meaningless bullshit term it has become today.

I've not looked into those things deeply enough to comment, Vaz. What sort of things are involved?

It exists entirely in the imaginations of sci-fi nerds, which makes it difficult to encapsulate. You probably couldn't go too wrong starting with the very excellent novels of Greg Egan, such as Permutation City.

For the etymology: the "trans" in "transhumanism" implies transcending humanity. For example, it might consist of someone deciding to hack off their arm to replace it with something more useful to them, such as an egg whisk, with the amputee regarding their doctor's opinions on self-mutilation to be grossly out-dated, and garnered in a time before the moderns discovered the exquisite culinary science of omelette making. What do you say to such people? There's shit loads of them on the website lesswrong.

[Agi Hammerthief]

Nowhere did I refer to the Bible; and so I am left wondering what you're taking about.

I did not study biology, but just by looking at shit I can hazard a pretty good guess about which animal it came from.