I never said that we know exactly when. But I did say that 20,000 years is a meaningless number because nobody uses it. I've demonstrated my point. Your turn. Produce a scholar somewhere who traces some specific religion back to 20,000 years ago. I'll even give you a generous +- of 10,000 years. Go for it.

I don't give a ****...I was referencing when it was widely believed multicelled organisms arose and it's commonly referred to as "pond scum" as sort of a joke. Nobody thinks it is the specific pond scrum growing on a stock tank right now....it's a euphemism.

Ok...

You should. If you expect anyone to understand what you're talking about, you should use words that correctly communicate what you're talking about.

No. It's still not a euphemism. Maybe you should buy yourself a dictionary, too.

it's really not my job to ensure i cover off every assumption you could make with what I wrote. I wrote pond-scum, you translated that to primordial soup. How am I supposed to know you would make that leap.

In a related note, you should not take anything in the above sentence to mean the Millenium Falcon can make the Kessel run in under 8 parsecs.

I would think about common usage and context. That's how most language works.

Besides, even if we take an article like this:

http://phys.org/news174843609.html

And make the connection that "pond scum" was meant to refer to single-celled protozoa, it *STILL* doesn't match the description you gave:

Maybe it could have been interpreted as some sort of algae. Nope. Because those started to show up about 1 billion years ago.

Or maybe you can fact check yourself and discover that multicellular organisms arose during the Mesoproterozoic period, which is also more than 1 billion years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoproterozoic

Furthermore, upon a closer reading of the link that YOU gave:

http://faculty.fmcc.suny.edu/mcdarby...e-on-Earth.htm

I don't really see anything that supports your claim. Here's what it says:

Let's stop and think for a moment... "Complex multicellular life." By almost any measure of reasonable interpretation, that's not "pond scum." The time period being referenced in the Cambrian explosion, which is most assuredly NOT pointing to the "pond scum" from which you claim we came.

I see no reasonable way to interpret your statement as if you are factually correct. You screwed it up, and then tried to defend an indefensible position.

I will give you one out: Find me a reasonable reference to "pond scum" that refers specifically to "multicelled organisms" in the range of about 400 million years ago, and I'll give you the +- 100 million years you gave yourself.

Edit: Oh, and "simple plants" (your words)... also not "pond scum." I also think it would be wrong to say that we evolved from "simple plants."

dude....you have way too much time on your hands. My point, which stands no matter how much you blather about it or how you nitpick little details of what i wrote, is that WE WEREN'T CREATED OUT OF DIRT INSTANTLY BY GOD AND EVE WASN'T CREATED FROM ADAM'S RIB.

We EVOLVED starting with the first life on earth. A better way of saying it isn't that we went from single celled organisms in a straight line to us but rather we share common ancestry with them. That's it. Nitpick away it doesn't matter because I have neither the time, nor inclination to study and remember every little detail of biology books I read years ago. Evolution has science behind it, creationism has fantasy.

You could've just said: Yeah, I was just talking outta my ass.

right, because it makes so much difference to the argument whether it's 400M or 600M or 2B and whether it's pond scum or trilobites. That's the leg you can knock out from under the evolution argument compared to creationism.

Go buy a clue.

That took like 10-15 minutes. If you know what you're looking for, it's not hard.

Gee... I thought your point was something completely different. Perhaps something along the lines of

* My point was simply that they are both worship of a deity. Core beliefs of christianity are more defined but that's largely a function of it being 2k years old whereas most cults are much newer.

* If you could use your imagination for a bit, pretend the entire world is muslim. Now pretend someone writes the bible and starts christianity. By the stated definitions it would be considered a cult today. That's all I'm saying.

* My point was that the existence of whatever deity the cult worships is no less fantastical than that of organized religion.

* My point was what I originally stated, at it's source, any religion is indistinguishable from a cult.

FYP.

What are you arguing?

You seem to be under the absurd illusion that either Aaron or me take creationism over evolution.

I've already explained what I meant, why are you harping about it? Taken out of the context of the ongoing conversation about how I feel about religion being urged on children then yes, it's nonsensical, but clearly it wasn't meant outside that context.

You honestly don't think that the church markets itself?

I dont think you have explained what you meant, which is why I am asking for clarification.

Look, you clearly stated

I am guessing you are now changing this to

Can you confirm that I am understanding you correctly?

I think that you need to show why religion is a special case.

Its like your original argument was making out that children were innocent and unquestioningly trustful, and so need to be protected. That there was this thing called "trust" which could be abused. And this trust needed to be protected.

But now, by changing your original statement, you are pre-defining religion as evil and abusive, and so the argument seems meaningless and circular.


You seem to be saying

Your line of questioning is increasingly incomprehensible.

Only to you. Perhaps I'm coaching it in language that you simply can't comprehend in the context of religion. Imagine, comparing McDonalds and the church, how ridiculous! Not to me Aaron, I see almost the exact same behaviour, tricks and manipulations just with different skins. The church's level of branding is to be envied.

Actually the more I think about it, the more the majority of followers of religions and the majority of customers of McDonalds have in common.

Do you have children?

I welcome responses from others. I'll requote the passage that I'm supposed to be responding to here:

----

Why don't you explicitly list the "exact same behaviors" that you see. The label of "tricks and manipulations" is devoid of content and context.

Edit: Also, are you quite sure you know what "branding" means? I'm pretty sure that anyone in business will disagree with your assessment of the Catholic church's level of branding.

Please expand on this. I'm interested in being entertained by what you're going to come up with.

To reiterate the theme I've been developing itt... the reason that we disapprove of McDonald's 'indoctrinating' (or w/e) children is because McDonald's food is not healthy. It's not the message, it's the product. We generally would welcome or approve of an aggressive advertising campaign that was pitching the benefits of fruits & veg to kids.

Can we trace this back a bit to see what we're actually talking about?

Well that didn't work. I don't know what it is that MB is arguing. Is he actually claiming that a parent teaching their children that a certain religion is true is equivalent to Burger King advertizing their food to kids? Even ignoring the content, the methods and the actors are totally different.

And is he claiming that if BK violates the CTA they get charged with child abuse? If not, then this seems like a rather irrelevant tangent.

@MB, do you know of any case where a parent was charged with child abuse for teaching their religion to their child? Why do you think that most people and the law disagree with you?

This is irrelevant.
Are you going to answer the questions and points from my previous post?

What if the product is something the value of which is subjective (And in the case of religion, severely disputed), such as the belief that the Republicans are the best political party. Would you object to a parent trying to urge that belief on their child? What about if it was someone else's child? What if it were a teacher urging the truth of ID on school children in a religious 'academy'?

Is there any point at which you would feel that a child's lack of cognitive ability was being exploited in a way that you wouldn't approve of? (Obv I'm not including illegal acts).

Is there an issue over a narrow, or professionally restricted definition of the term 'child abuse' here, similar to the Psychiatric use of the word 'Delusion'?

My inability to articulate what I think is very frustrating, I have to resort to asking you 'is there any subjective belief I could be teaching my children (something legal) that you would consider inappropriate or unethical?'. Can I find something that we might share a sense of outrage about that I can use as a comparison?

That's why I asked Neeel if he has children. If he does, I was going to ask how he'd feel if I took them to one side and tried to convince them of the indisputable truth of something that he didn't agree with. Would he be ok with that? If not, why not?

Not if you're referring to the 'something' comment I made about exploitation, I've already tried to explain what I actually meant and in any case it's a red herring.

Perhaps that's because your outrage is emotional and not logical. That is, you feel a sense of outrage, but you can't articulate it because when you do you realize that it's not well-grounded in reason. But rather than altering your beliefs so that they are grounded in reason, you hold to the outrage.