Socialism and Communism always end in starvation and geocide. Always.
They don’t have to. Just because something has happened, doesn’t mean it has to happen every time.
I have no problem with voluntary communes that take care of one another socially, but it never works when scaled. Have you ever read the novel or seen the movie, “The Beach”?
Allow me to spoil it for you…
A group of individuals discover a portion of an Island and begin to build a society there. A tourist in a Thailand hotel is given a map by this crazy dude in the room next to him, who commits suicide (kind of like Karl Marx’s daughters did ; )
The tourist invites a French couple who are also vacationing to come on an adventure to this Island. When they get there, they find a community of others from all over the world creating a utopia (which literally means “no such place”). Things are going great, until they are not.
That is all I will say about it, but you are welcome to check it out and critique it if you would like ; )
Which libertarian philosophy are you referring to? There are many. I am a min-archist, not full-blown an-archest. Often when non-libertarians describe libertarianism, they are not talking about libertarianism, but rather libertinism (which is not what I believe in).
There is no such thing as a perfect system when fallen human nature is part of the equation.
To get us back on the topic at hand. Do atheists believe in fallen human nature? Are human beings good, bad, both, neither, or we just are?
Then explain EUs interest in collectively getting all of Europe within their palm then?
I only criticize “Corporate Religious Nepotism”. But thats because it is by default, corrupt. Whether its LEGO Mormon Mafia (Bricks & Minifigs). Or Orthodox Jews, using it to false flag antisemitism when people criticize bad things their environment do? Such as “Tyler Oliveira” vids on it
Government should have seperation of Religion and State and seperation of Communism and State.
What do you think is the cause of rationality, information, and ordered biological life?
I guess I’m not really sure what you mean.
Information just is. Rationality is a social construct. Life is the product of evolution.
Information is not a free‑floating thing. It’s a pattern that encodes meaning according to rules. Every known instance of information comes from intelligence. So saying “information just is” doesn’t explain its origin — it avoids the question.
If rationality is a social construct, then your own reasoning is a social construct, and you have no grounds to trust it. A claim that undermines the possibility of reasoning cannot be used to argue anything — including atheism.
Evolution describes how life changes over time, not how life, information, or rationality originate. My question was about the cause of rationality, information, and biological order — not the mechanism of biological change.
-
If non‑intelligent matter can produce order, information, and rational beings, then intelligence is unnecessary to explain these effects.
-
But in every known case, order, information, and rationality come from intelligence.
-
Therefore, it is less reasonable to attribute these effects to non‑intelligent matter than to an intelligent cause.
-
An intelligent cause capable of producing rational beings and biological order is what classical theism calls God.
So the existence of rational beings and ordered life is evidence for God.
If you disagree, then identify which premise is false or which inference is invalid. Otherwise, you’re not refuting the argument — you’re just rejecting the conclusion.
1 Like
I disagree, and I think that your definition of information doesn’t support your supposition that it always comes from intelligence. A DNA molecule, a crystal lattice, or a tree ring contains information regardless of whether anyone is there to read it, because they are ordered physical structures governed by the laws of chemistry and thermodynamics.
Why shouldn’t I trust my own reason simply because it is a social construct?
We trust plenty of social constructs—like language and mathematics—because they are highly refined, practical tools that allow us to successfully navigate reality and cooperate.
If a tool works consistently to explain and predict the world around us, its human origin doesn’t invalidate its utility. Why do you assume a tool must be supernatural to be trustworthy?
I agree.
This is an unfounded claim. You have offered no evidence of this. Furthermore, you are merely providing your conclusion as a premise; therefore, this is a tautology.
There are myriad examples of order and information in nature: a snowflake is ordered; the number of protons in an atom comprise information.
I will only grant you that rationality derives from intelligence because, as a social construct, it requires humans, who possess intelligence, to reproduce it.
You’re mixing two different meanings of “information.”
Crystals and tree rings contain physical patterns, but they do not encode meaning according to rules. That’s Shannon information, not semantic information.
Semantic information — the kind found in DNA, language, mathematics, and code — is rule‑governed, symbolic, and meaningful.
And every known instance of that kind of information comes from intelligence.
So appealing to crystals or tree rings doesn’t answer the question.
They’re not examples of semantic information, and they don’t explain the origin of the information in DNA or the rationality of the human mind.
If rationality is a social construct, then your trust in reason is also a social construct, and you have no non‑circular basis for believing that your reasoning tracks reality.
Appealing to “what works” doesn’t solve the problem — because the idea of something “working” is itself a rational judgment.
Mathematics and logic aren’t social constructs; they describe objective truths that would hold even if no humans existed. Their reliability shows that reality is rationally structured, not that rationality is a human invention.
So if reason is trustworthy, it’s because the universe is intelligible — and intelligibility points to an intelligent source, not to social convention.
You’re equivocating between two different meanings of “information.”
Snowflakes and proton counts are examples of physical order — patterns produced by physical laws. They are not semantic information, which is rule‑governed, symbolic, and meaningful.
My premise concerns semantic information — the kind found in DNA, language, mathematics, and code.
Every known instance of that kind of information comes from intelligence, and you haven’t provided a single counterexample.
Inductive generalization is evidence — it’s the same kind of evidence used in science and everyday reasoning.
Until you offer a counterexample of semantic information arising from non‑intelligence, the premise stands.
Calling the argument a “tautology” doesn’t address the structure.
If you think a premise is false or the inference invalid, identify which one.
Otherwise, you’re not refuting the argument — you’re just rejecting the conclusion.
You haven’t established that all information comes from intelligence at all. You’re just making the claim and expecting me to accept it, which I don’t. Not without you doing the work to prove it. The burden is on you to do that; just saying it’s the case doesn’t make it valid.
Furthermore, semantics is also a social construct.
DNA is not symbolic. And it doesn’t “come from intelligence”… unless you start with the assumption that god made it, which I don’t. So you have to do some work establishing these facts before I agree with what you’re saying.
Semantics, by the way, is also a social construct. Meaning is a social construct.
So you say this:
But then you say:
So, if mathematics is semantic information and it “arises from intelligence,” then it can’t also be “an objective truth that would hold if no humans existed.” You are trying to have your cake and eat it too.
You are reversing cause and effect.
The universe is not “intelligible” because an intelligence programmed it with a message. It is intelligible because our intelligence evolved to interpret the patterns around us in a particular way.
A map is intelligible, but that doesn’t mean that the landscape it represents was drawn by a mapmaker. The landscape just exists.
You still haven’t actually established that this is true. You’ve just made the claim and refused to support it with any evidence.
I on the other hand have shown that you are being duplicitous, trying to define things two different ways depending on how you need them defined in order for your argument to be cogent and outright assuming your conclusion in your premise.
Nonetheless, if DNA is semantic information, it certainly did not “arise from intelligence,” thereby refuting your argument.
I’m not just rejecting your conclusion. I have already identified exactly which premise is false and which inference is invalid.
You’re still equivocating between physical order and semantic information.
Snowflakes and proton counts are physical patterns. DNA, mathematics, and language are rule‑governed symbolic systems. Denying that DNA is symbolic contradicts standard molecular biology — codons, alphabet, syntax, and translation are not social constructs.
If you claim that semantics and meaning are social constructs, then your own arguments have no objective meaning and cannot be true or false. That position undermines your ability to argue for anything, including your own claims here.
You also haven’t shown which premise of my argument is false or which inference is invalid.
You keep asserting that the premise is “unfounded,” but you haven’t provided a single counterexample of semantic information arising from non‑intelligence. Inductive generalization is evidence — it’s the same kind used in science and everyday reasoning. Until you provide a counterexample, the premise stands.
You say you’ve identified which premise is false and which inference is invalid, but you haven’t.
You’ve made assertions, but you haven’t shown:
-
which premise is false, or
-
how the inference doesn’t follow.
Until you do that, you haven’t refuted the argument — you’ve only rejected the conclusion.
Dear Atheist,
Do you believe human beings evolved from apes? And if so, are the apes that we know today, a different breed of ape? And if so, do you believe it is okay for these two breeds of apes (evolved and lesser-evolved) to pro-create with one another?
Sincerely,
Curious
No, humans and apes share a common ancestor. We cannot procreate with apes because we are not closely related.
However, here’s a fun fact for you: early modern humans (homo sapiens) were contemporary with neanderthals. Not only did they interbreed but they also regularly ate each other.
For myself, the things I believe are things I don’t know. I believe some things because I’m convinced that they are true, but I don’t know that they are true—the Gospels, for example.
“supporting and respecting individual autonomy”: it’s interesting that you use the word autonomy. This morning I was praying with others outside the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic; all I do is pray, sometimes to talk to the others who are praying with me, and offer help to women. A man who often spends the whole time ridiculing us and sometimes has a sign that says, “Christians for abortion,” today repeatedly said that we were interfering with women’s autonomy. If we say, “Free help is available at the Women’s Center across the street,” the clinic escorts sometimes try to drown us out with noise. They claim to be pro-choice but don’t want their customers to know that they have another choice. In that situation, “autonomy” sounds to me like a pro-abortion buzz-word. The babies don’t get a choice, so I would say that autonomy changes its meaning depending on what’s being argued.
Relating that to what Cade wrote, who decides that autonomy is a fundamental good, and who decides which people are entitled to autonomy? If individuals or even masses of people say that women’s autonomy requires that they not even hear an alternative to flushing their tiny babies down the toilet, then what about those of us who say that unborn babies have a right to autonomy? That’s where we point to morality revealed by God, which is reflected in the Declaration of Independence: all of us our endowed by our Creator with an inalienable right to life. If rights such as life come from the state, if autonomy (but for whom?) is a fundamental human right, then what is there to say keep these rights from being taken away? One could say that the state has taken away unborn babies’ right to life, and it has taken away their legal right to life, but they still have a right that comes from God. And if there is no God, then Cade and I don’t see how there are any permanent rights to always be protected. (Right, Cade?)
I would disagree with the man who said that you were interfering with women’s autonomy by peacefully protesting or praying outside an abortion clinic. In my opinion you and the people in your group were not preventing women from making whatever choices they chose to make. However, if you decided to physically restrain or accost the women, for example, you’d have violated their individual autonomy.
My belief around personal autonomy centers around the belief that each person regardless of whether they’re a trillionaire or a homeless person or anyone in between should be afforded the same level of respect from others in relation to honoring a person’s right to personal space; autonomy, the opportunity to live without being raped, murdered or intentionally victimized by someone else, for example.
Universal questions any human could be asked: Would you desire to live your own life with the understanding that others should not be able to intentionally violate your personal autonomy, your freedom to live your life as you choose to live it for yourself?
Or…would you desire to live your life with the understanding that others should be free to violate your personal autonomy as they choose, including physical violence against you, up to and including your murder?
Their new version is that apes came from humans. Just as wrong and a lie used to deceive and control and ridicule.
Truth is humans are their own species. We can sweat, which makes us the ultimate predator. A gazelle or leopard can run away, but eventually overheat and need to rest, that’s when we catch up.
Humans are primates who share a common ancestor with other apes that exist today, no?
Yep, you have it right
That was a theory that scientists made up and people told it like it’s the scientific proof. Same with the everyone is out of africa theory. Robert Seper an anthropologist made great videos and books about it.
Same with the big bang theory now it’s a black hole theory. Or the climate change hoax with the treibhausgaseffect.