And that there just kinda sums up how ridiculous the situation is, that an evolution thread is seen as a religion thread. It should be possible to discuss it without any religious connotations.
I totally agree with you. And just to clarify I have now crossed out that sentence in my first post since I changed my mind on that about 15 pages ago when it got clear that the thread wasn't mainly anti-religious as these things might turn out but a proper discussion about scientific theories.
mitchell271 said:
Quaxar said:
I'm interested in what this "atheist channel" is because from that description it could be more than one. And even more if I assume you are ignorant about the actual purpose of the channel. Not saying you are but if you were the possibilities of what channel you talk about would rise.
There's a lot of dumb channels on youtube. 9/11 conspiracies, spirit pseudo-science, ghosthunters, Ray Comfort, ... I'm always curious about finding new ones to watch.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAtheistExperience
There it is if you want it. They do debates among other things but it seems to be that the majority of their material is equal rights for atheism (e.g. if there's a manger outside a city hall then also putting up a giant atom) and getting religion out of the classroom. Some of it is anti-theism though so be forewarned.
Uh, I know those guys pretty well and they are in no way religion-bashing.
You realize that this is made in Austin, TX, one of the big creationist and fundamentalist areas in the US? Hell, this is exactly the area where they try to force religious views into science and politics. Also, Austin/Texas as a whole has TWO 24h channels JUST for religious stuff and even more programs spilling out from there to more stations while the Atheist Experience on the other hand is one 1-1,5h show per week.
And I don't see what the problem is with having civilised discussions with Christians, 95% of the time if anyone snaps it's the callers who get their religious texts handed to them by a former minister student. Yes, some of them are anti-theists but they have arguments for their stance and I don't see why you'd have issues with equal rights for atheists... after all, this is an area where friends and family will cut all ties with you for turning atheist and even a lot of companies discriminate against non-Christians.
*You can't see oxygen, but you CAN verify its presence. You can't see evolution happening, but you can observe its results. You can't see gravity but you can pretty accurately and reliably predict its affects.
You can't see god and you CAN'T verify his presence either. He has no verifiable properties, nor means of measurement.
They are fundamentally different things, faith and science, as is Creationism and Evolution.
See and if I WAS a creationist (and i'm not) you left yourself wide open with that;
You can't SEE god but you can walk on the earth he created, eat the fruits of his labours etc. If the earth exists because god created it, then there is your measurement right there. You're either floating in a featureless void or god exists. So you can verify his existence by breathing the air he created, eating the animals he put there for you and walking on the ground he made.
So the evidence for both sides is equally flimsy is what you've proven there. Which is the point I was trying to make at the beginning before the evolutionists got all embarrassed and had to prove how closed-minded they could be. And you know what? Success.
I give up. "You can lead a person to knowledge but you can't make them think." I have failed completely in that endeavor so hat's off to you all.
"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"The Bible says so."
"How does the bible saying so make it true?"
"Because God himself arbitrated it."
Rinse and repeat.
Heck, let's take that even further:
"Prove that god exists."
"You are standing within his creation *gestures to the world around*"
"Prove that god created the world"
"How else other then a intelligent design, could such complexity be created"
"By immeasurable scales and forces of time, energy and movement, how does complexity prove gods handiwork?"
...
Yeah I don't know where to take this reasoning. Eventually every argument directed at Faith boils down to God is unknowable and all powerful, therefore he did it. The only physically quantifiable source of his existence are Religious Texts and, besides the internal contradictions observable within those texts, virtually every major event that counts as "proof of god" can be disproved by scientific evidence and testing.
The Irony of your final remark is not lost on anyone debating with you I'm sure.
Look. Here is an analogy so you can visualise how I, and others, see this topic:
The universe is a puzzle. For ease of visualisation, let's call it a jigsaw. This jigsaw is not like other jigsaws in that we can't truly know what the final image is until the last piece is in place. What's more, the jigsaw does not get easier the further you progress, it actually gets harder.
Religion saw this puzzle first. They used the power of observation to put the simplest and most basic pieces together, giving them a really rough outline of this immense puzzle. They then, in all their excitement, guessed as to what the final image was. From this point on they started directing their solution towards this suspected finished image. Eventually their guess started to show signs of fallibility. This resulted in schisms among the problem solvers, creating a variety of alternative outcomes as to what the final image was. The problem still being that they are still guessing based off of very little.
Eventually things got so muddled and confused that they started to jam pieces in spots they didn't fit in and even threw away pieces that appeared to not fit anywhere. Long before they even finished a fraction of the puzzle, they started joining their "established" sections together and then decided to paint their vision of the finished image over the gaps. Then proceeded to frame the image and claim it was finished and that no one should touch it... or look too closely... or pretty much inquire about anything related to it other then to talk about the finished image and how amazing it is.
Of course you had multiple finished images all saying they were the "true" finished image and shit just got confusing and nasty as a result.
Then some young buck named science looked at this finished image a bit closer then religion would have wanted and saw all the flaws. The pieces that don't fit, the pieces that were missing (discarded) and the fact that a big gaping hole in the puzzle was just painted over.
Science though thatt was odd and decided to reconstruct the identifiable pieces in his own time. He was methodical, only taking small leaps of guess work to help focus his efforts, sometimes getting the run of himself and trying to solve pieces beyond his current comprehension, but always corrected himself when pieces stopped fitting. Eventually he had surpassed religion with a more complete image, though still far from being truly complete. From this point on his guesswork was more clever and calculated, basing his next actions off of observable patterns in the image. Even large gaps between chunks of finished segments were starting to show form trough these patterns. His guesswork started to become more detailed and defined, capable of predicting where the next piece would sit with frightening accuracy.
This is where science is now. The puzzle is far from complete and progress is slow... but it is certain. He acknowledges that the puzzle is not complete and that his guess work might not be accurate, so is willing to go back on segments he once though were correct if the patterns start to fall apart. But fortunately due to his methodical nature, this mistakes are few and when they do appear the damage is only minute, only requiring the reshuffling of minor pieces.
People are now interested in this Science guys attempt at the puzzle, not just because the image is coming out differently from all the past assumed outcomes, but that he willingly allows people to look at the image, question his reasoning and even help out if they want to. Science involves the admirers... he doesn't expect anything of them other then to respect the process of solving the puzzle and not to get too excited about the outcome as that can lead to misdirection.
Finally, Science also doesn't punish people for prodding at his logic, since to Science it's a win-win. Either he's right and the true image keeps taking shape over time, or he's wrong, changes his approach and the true image takes shape over time. At this point he knows enough to see what is working, the patterns all add up and fit nicely, the only pieces that he questions are the newest placed pieces, since they are still placed on hunches and assumptions based off of patterns, but he is not afraid to dismantle segments who's patterns are just falling apart.
Religion gave up on the goal of solving the puzzle, discarded the pieces that didn't fit his assumptions, jammed others into places they didn't fit and then painted the final image of what they envisioned long ago. They then framed it and put it up on the wall and said, "This is the answer to the puzzle!".
Science, young and ambitious, disagreed and started from scratch, this time without fooling himself into imagining what it would be, but rather let it organically show itself as he pieced it together. He developed processes and studied patterns all in the aim of finishing the puzzle, not achieving a desired result.
Religion started it but was too arrogant to see past his own vision. Science is now taking the helm and is determined to see the true finished puzzle. That is his only goal and he does it slowly and methodically.
You sir(and many others)have made it impossible to post without feeling redundant!That analogy is so condescending-I am ashamed to not have thought of it myself!Do you find it ironic that some people will only understand science when you explain it using a completely made-up story that has some real parts to it?
My friend,a satanist,tells me to just ignore uneducated people and take advantage of them.
Thanks for the recognition. I was afraid that analogy would fade away unnoticed /vanity
To be honest, my goal isn't to look down on their viewpoints, but considering how fundamentalist Faith based viewpoints stem from indoctrination and pressure from childhood (I recommend watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Eam-z1bwrk) means you are trying to target logic and reasoning's that stemmed from those early impressionable days. The only way to approach these topics is to drastically simplify it (which has a catch, since simplifying the complex leads to logical gaps, which causes a retort to turn around and become fuel to the fire).
Also to embed you type youtube=*insert the garbled code after watch?v=* within the square bracket parenthesis
So for example, the video I linked would be youtube=8Eam-z1bwrk then close the whole thing within the "[]" parenthesis. So you get this:
Finally... I wouldn't agree with your friends opinion, nor his life choice (or at least, how he identifies himself).
The video was nonsense.Yet because there are some facts in it,it is swallowed whole.
You disagree with what life choice?
Satanism?Why?Based on your posts,I know you won't mind explaining.
I'm atheist-but I think there is a god-like-thing.
Stoicism/piety and all that jazz.
Well I see your point about that video. Aside from the shameless extra credits rip off, the guy is just going full blown soap box, regurgitating shit he heard haphazardly. But rather then taking his ramblings with a pinch of salt a lot of the comments are claiming "life changing experiences". I tried watching a few minutes but felt seething anger rise as I started hearing about conspiracies, supernatural entities and fucking lost civilisations. It reminds me of that "Zeitgeist" series of films. Interesting facts framing total bullshit topped off with idealism and pure fantasy. Wonderful nonsense, but nonsense none the less.
I denounced my faith years ago as it did it not satisfy my curiosity. I was Catholic, in a Catholic community, in a Catholic state. The Arrogance and sheer rejection of scrutiny offended me, especially after all the crap involving paedophile priests and all the lives they ruined in their wake.
I didn't convert to another faith because I hate the concept of blind faith. I have seen and currently still see the impact of indoctrination (the only way to make someone believe in something intangible and unknowable in this day and age of information is to either subvert their thoughts or subjugate them with fear... Catholicism and many World religions do this). It stunts intellectual development and retards our development as a species.
Currently the means to which people have tried to make me believe in a God or Gods is to tell me we don't know how the universe works. I say we know quite a bit and still have not seen proof of an intelligent or benevolent power. But besides that, the rationale of people arguing this point is that the absence of knowledge proves god (since god is unknowable) or that the fact we exist in such a complex universe proves god (Intelligent Design). These are unsubstantial fillers to blank spots in science, not solid evidence as to the existence of a God.
Now again, I don't know your friend, but claiming to be Satanic can only mean a few things.
1, He is young and immature, feeling this counter culture to mass religion is cooler and edgy (not saying he is, but it is possible... there were a lot of "Satanists" around my age in school).
2, He really believes that Satan is a deity and follows the principles set forward by texts and worships him in some way or form. (The principles are not inherently evil, despite what Christians would claim).
or
3, he does not believe satan is real, but subscribes to the philosophies and practices of Satanism. In essence he is agnostic, or atheistic, and follows this organisation for the sense of community.
Ultimately there seems to be a rebellious aspect to Satanism. Either it's to shocking and edgy, or to directly oppose the oppressive teachings of other faiths, or it's a symbolic rejection of mass religion and only half heartedly pursued.
None of these are particularly encouraging reasons for me. The first one is obviously childish and immature. The 2nd is no better then following a mass faith which I already reject, and finally the last one is counter intuitive... Atheists and Agnostics can't distinguish themselves as such within an established faith based system.
It also doesn't help that Satan is only a bogeyman conjured up to make people follow the principles of a faith more closely, for fear of eternal reprisals. In that sense, even God seems like a better alternative. Satan is fiction within fiction...
Finally your friends "opinion" on how to deal with ignorants is no better then mass faith. Mass faith prospers off of the ignorance of the many... and your friend encourages that. Being an Atheist who prefers knowledge over blind belief I think it would be more prudent to support those who have been starved of knowledge and filled with fantasy, and give them intellectual nourishment to abolish the fiction.
But I'm not arrogant either. I won't force people to change as that just creates tension and conflict. The beauty if science is that all knowledge is recorded and easily traced, so anyone who suddenly finds themselves questioning their faith, may find fulfilment in knowledge. I also don't think personal faith conflicts with Scientific pursuits, only mass organised religion seems to be actively (even deliberately) resisting scientific progress. The more secular our societies become, separating faith from politics and education, the more everyone can get along. Meanwhile the more these factors mingle together the more conflicts of interest pop up.
Oh, and I think you would be classified as Agnostic. Agnostics believe that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena. Essentially, there COULD be a god, or there might not be, we simply don't know.
Only complete rejection of the concept of god and equivalent beliefs are Atheistic.
Vigormortis said:
FriedRicer said:
The video was nonsense.Yet because there are some facts in it,it is swallowed whole.
You disagree with what life choice?
Satanism?Why?Based on your posts,I know you won't mind explaining.
I'm atheist-but I think there is a god-like-thing.
Stoicism/piety and all that jazz.
Nonsense? That video was one of the most rational, level-headed, and informative videos I've ever seen on Youtube.
There was virtually no word that man spoke that didn't ring true in one form or another. He may have taken a few 'examples' to a level one might consider approaching extreme, but all-in-all, he made a lot of sense.
In fact, I think it bares reposting the video for more people to see:
Also, the sentence: "I'm atheist-but I think there is a god-like-thing.", is the very definition oxymoronical. You are not an atheist if you believe there is or are a deity or deities. That makes you a theist.
If they're not detrimental, why wouldn't they? Hell, only certain detriments impact the chance of propagating, so even they don't open a question here.
Seriously, I'm confused by this question. How does heredity not answer this by default?
This has already been explained better in previous posts.
I don't know how to explain it any better, though I'll try and give an example.
If there were 100 couples, 1 with a mutation that isn't beneficial yet, but may be in the future.
If each couple gave birth to 3 offspring we now have 297 entities without the mutation and 3 with. With each new generation the number without the mutation grows faster than those with the mutation. Sure it's still there but it's prominence within the species diminishes with each new generation.
You still seem to misunderstand something. Or I do of course.
"Beneficial in the future" isn't a viable option. Either it is an advantage or a disadvantage in the current environment or it is useless but not harmful. It doesn't matter if in 50 generations that change might provide useful until that point is reached and the surviving members with the trait begin to have an advantage.
Take different eye colours, they don't have particular advantages for survival but they also don't hinder with anything unless females culturally decide to prefer one eye colour over the rest.
If there simplys is no need or pressure towards a certain colour a possible mutation from hazel to green has neither advantage nor disadvantage from it and thus the same chances at mating as the others with hazel eyes. Over time the trait might mix with the other or it might get extinct because early in the smaller population with this different colour gets killed off for unrelated reasons.
Another possibility is blue eyes which is an recessive trait so it can mix in without getting noticed until an individual experiences a failure in the dominant allele and the recessive one can get into action.
And even bad mutations can stay present in a population, just look at how haemophilia works.
Your example with the 100 couples is the same misargument Kent Hovind uses when he says that the moon recedes from the earth by 3cm per year and then goes and counts back 3cm/year times 4,5 billion years until the moon is partly inside the earth. You can't just always assume a steady rate.
From an empirical standpoint, I agree that anyone who disputes evolution (barring intelligent design, which is a different area altogether), has to be pretty insane/fundamentalist/stupid/whatever ugly word you want to use. From a skeptical perspective (which is what I usually go by, in this case, that neither rational nor empirical evidence has any value), I have no idea. I can't know that humans even exist, so what's the point of arguing about whether they evolved from something or not?
"People", heh. Lesson number one of your coming into being as a normal, non-brainwashed person: do not generalize to f*****g everyone, what is limited to the USA only.
"People", heh. Lesson number one of your coming into being as a normal, non-brainwashed person: do not generalize to f*****g everyone, what is limited to the USA only.
Lesson number two: check your data before making claims.
Public Acceptance of Evolution
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2009/3/13/16/acceptance-of-evolution-by-country-17573-1236974861-5.jpg
If you were taught all of your life by people you have every reason to trust then I'm sure you would ignore some stranger telling you everything they taught you was a lie and that they are right, you have to consider a different perspective
"People", heh. Lesson number one of your coming into being as a normal, non-brainwashed person: do not generalize to f*****g everyone, what is limited to the USA only.
Lesson number two: check your data before making claims.
Public Acceptance of Evolution
http://s3-ak.buzzfed.com/static/imagebuzz/terminal01/2009/3/13/16/acceptance-of-evolution-by-country-17573-1236974861-5.jpg
Can I ask for the source of the graph, is it wiki? Anyways wow, my country is even below US, I'm kinda ashamed. Weirdly antievolutionary movement got adopted into Islam in the last decade even though Islam doesn't have fundamental incompatibility with evolution (well except the general problematics that arise from godlike being creating a batch of living organisms). Their general strategy is pamphlets, street exhibitions and internet propaganda. The weird thing is they either have direct relations with the movement in US or they are taking after them, because every argument they come up with is a derivation of the evangelical antievolutionaries. One of the forerunners is Adnan Oktar who blends his ridicule with popularism. Almost every video of his is shared by immense amount of people as mockery, but that only further butters his bread. Get a bite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFshyFDB8cA
Edit: Got it. https://athena.cci.utk.edu/content/relatedmedia/2009/03/03/Science_evolution_2006.pdf
And that there just kinda sums up how ridiculous the situation is, that an evolution thread is seen as a religion thread. It should be possible to discuss it without any religious connotations.
Can I ask for the source of the graph, is it wiki? Anyways wow, my country is even below US, I'm kinda ashamed. Weirdly antievolutionary movement got adopted into Islam in the last decade even though Islam doesn't have fundamental incompatibility with evolution (well except the general problematics that arise from godlike being creating a batch of living organisms). Their general strategy is pamphlets, street exhibitions and internet propaganda. The weird thing is they either have direct relations with the movement in US or they are taking after them, because every argument they come up with is a derivation of the evangelical antievolutionaries. One of the forerunners is Adnan Oktar who blends his ridicule with popularism. Almost every video of his is shared by immense amount of people as mockery, but that only further butters his bread. Get a bite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFshyFDB8cA
Of course you can. Always happy to <url=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5788/765.summary>source my claims. Unfortunately you do have to be logged in to access the full study text but at <url=http://www.sciencemag.org/content/313/5788/765.figures-only>figures only you can see that this study is the origin for the graph.
It is on Wiki too somewhere if I remember correctly but then again what isn't these days...
I wouldn't be surprised that every argument was the same, it is the same debate and people like to use what works, at least on a scientific layman level. They also have the advantage of a language with far less speakers so a smaller opposition in a way.
EDIT: Concerning your post below me with the exhibition, I suppose you don't happen to have any English sources for that? Because I can say with certainty approaching 1 that a Turkish site will not get us very far due to a huge language barrier.
And that there just kinda sums up how ridiculous the situation is, that an evolution thread is seen as a religion thread. It should be possible to discuss it without any religious connotations.
Yes, the subject is "evolution". If you look through the thread there have been people argung from religion but there have also been those at least claiming to be non-religious while still doubting the theory and both have been adressed mainly on concern of scientific falsehood.
I'm not claiming that religion is not a big reason for a lot of people to be against the concept of evolution but there are more than enough religious people who have no problem with the science and it is also entirely possible to be simply misinformed due to bad education in school or false sources and this is the stuff random people and professional biologists alike are trying to clarify in this thread.
Simply because people drag religion into a topic doesn't make it religious per se. Even if I can cite the bible in favor of flat-earth geocentrism it doesn't make astronomy a religious topic.
Also this year we have seen a first. There has been an anti evolutionist conference and exhibition in a university propagated by a biologist! It stirred up contraversy in mainstream media and scientific community.
http://forum.vatan.tc/marmara-universitesi-fosil-sergisi-ve-anti-evrim-konferansi-t58294.0.html
Yes, you do. Why wouldn't you? If it's proven wrong then it's proven wrong whether you did it the easy or hard way.
It's not a very good use of time to search through crap from people who have shown they make weak, biased, and poorly researched papers just in case they might have said something useful. It'd be like giving a monkey a typewriter and searching pages of gibberish in case there's a brilliant novel in there.
I'm not sure I get the logic behind what you said in your first sentence. The Young Earth movement is based exclusively in evolution itself. Someone sees a problem with evolution and points it out, and the belief in a Young Earth comes in to save the day. The main arguments for a Young Earth are NOT based in nature itself. So if you attack the arguments for a Young Earth that are based on nature then the Young Earthers are just going to run back to "but look at this problem with evolution!" arguments. So attacking the weakest link in the chain doesn't work at all because you are leaving the foundation for their belief (aka misunderstanding the theory or evidence) completely untouched.
And I don't know if you've ever read any of the "weak, biased, and poorly researched papers" yourself but they are very well researched and informative, even if they are completely wrong. Creationists are not idiots who are lower than other humans (I prefer to think of them like conspiracy theorists myself - occasionally pointing something meaningful out but making up things most of the time). And everyone is bias, so why does that matter at all? It's whose bias that's backed by more fact that matters.
The stronger the evidence for something, the more likely chance that there will be a vocal group somewhere that disagrees. I'd also like to argue the point about religion, not all creationists are religious, and most religious people are more than happy to accept evolution
I'm sorry, but that's utter nonsense. While Lysenko's theories were in general pretty rubbish (although apparently they did occasionally meet with success) his concepts were not expanded on a grand enough scale to completely destroy Soviet agriculture.
The Soviet Union was the world's leading producer of cereal and was as highly mechanized as most other first world countries. Some of the main causes of poor agricultural output can be attributed to the bad series of droughts which occurred almost every 5 years over a period of 90 years. Not only that, but the collective farming system in general was a major problem. The USSR tended to focus on producing crops (other than cereal) such as cotton, flax and forage, which are non-consumable and relatively low in value, which in turn meant that the Soviet Union ended up importing vast amounts of food.
Ah, okay. That makes a LOT more sense then. The original post was confusing as he referred to "that video", and the only video present was the one I reposted.
From an empirical standpoint, I agree that anyone who disputes evolution (barring intelligent design, which is a different area altogether), has to be pretty insane/fundamentalist/stupid/whatever ugly word you want to use. From a skeptical perspective (which is what I usually go by, in this case, that neither rational nor empirical evidence has any value), I have no idea. I can't know that humans even exist, so what's the point of arguing about whether they evolved from something or not?
"Barring Intelligent Design"? Hate to break it to you, but Intelligent Design is quite literally Creationism using different wording to hide its religious affiliation, as was famously demonstrated in Kitzmiller v. Dover. The single most damning piece of evidence (though far from the only piece) was the sloppy edit of the creationist text "Of Pandas and People", as the changes made were almost exclusively changing instances of "creationist" into "Design proponents", "God" to "an intelligent designer" and similar terms, though they did make some rather critical errors in this transition, leaving a few instances partially changed into "cdesign proponentists". It's a rather well-known trojan horse, truth be told.
Unfortunately, a LOT of people (my own parents included, not that I haven't tried to correct their terminology) seem to be under the impression that "Intelligent Design" means "God guided the process of evolution", which is actually Theistic Evolution.
If you were taught all of your life by people you have every reason to trust then I'm sure you would ignore some stranger telling you everything they taught you was a lie and that they are right, you have to consider a different perspective
True. That perspective is to examine the evidence. The evidence, again, is overwhelmingly in support of evolution. This isn't a question of two groups of equal authority saying different things, like two different groups of art critics--one of us is demonstrably right, and that necessarily makes the other demonstrably wrong. If the right one isn't what you grew up with, frankly suck it up and get over it. Reality does not care what you are comfortable with, and rejecting a demonstrably true idea because it makes you feel uncomfortable is childish.
AMMO Kid said:
And I don't know if you've ever read any of the "weak, biased, and poorly researched papers" yourself but they are very well researched and informative, even if they are completely wrong.
I have. They are weak, biased, and poorly researched. Most of them contain lies and mined quotes. You CAN learn from them, but only in the sense that they teach you how not to approach a scientific argument. They ignore huge swaths of data and fabricate data where it suits them. There was an entire journal devoted to this exact topic.
Creationists are not idiots who are lower than other humans
True enough. They also aren't scientists, however--or at least, are not engaged in science when they spew their nonsense (which is what it is). They may be extremely intelligent in other areas, but they are universally (in my experience, which is a great deal) uninformed, misinformed, and unwilling to listen to counter-arguments or to bother to examine the actual data.
And everyone is bias, so why does that matter at all? It's whose bias that's backed by more fact that matters.
The mere presence of a bias isn't sufficient justification for dismissing an argument, no. Lord knows paleontology includes a huge number of biases (bonus points for whoever can name the field that addresses this). That said, Creationism doesn't even attempt to correct for those biases. The entire field takes the view that proper science is done by reaching the conclusion first, and finding supporting evidence after that.
Li Mu said:
I'm sorry, but that's utter nonsense. While Lysenko's theories were in general pretty rubbish (although apparently they did occasionally meet with success) his concepts were not expanded on a grand enough scale to completely destroy Soviet agriculture.
I intended my statement to mean it was a contributing factor. I may have unintentionally exaggerated the role it played, but it's also nonsense to argue (as you appear to be doing) that it didn't play any role.
I'm sorry, are you saying that not all people who believe that the universe is created by a supernatural being believe in a god of any kind?
And because I just happened to stumble across this comic again and I think a good humorous analogy is always relevant:
<spoiler=warning: really long image>http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20120814.gif
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