Christmas Lecture 3: Climbing Mount Improbable 

Towards the truth?? Which is? Honest question because i have a feeling youre going to say the same as an atheist that i know Nothing, meaningless pointless directionless moraless, correct?

Just the truth of suffering and beauty - and our opportunity to make the best of it?

@@offshoretomorrow3346 sure i can take that for an answerphone but then why do you athiests/liberals/nihilsts/seculars harass people that want to make the most of their meaningless purposeless moraless pointless and directionless life, by being trans?

​@freeyourmind7538 Watch the video, it explains the facts of evolution quite well. What do you understand by the word truth? I have a feeling you're going to say it's something to do with a book full of stories about a supernatural being that lies, cheats and kills.

@@freeyourmind7538 All truth is independently verifiable. Contrary to popular belief and the common stereotype, not all atheists are “liberals”. I’m fiscally conservative, pro life, pro second amendment, pro constitution, pro family and believe there are only too g- n - ders. I voted for Trump, and I will again. I just don’t believe in magic as the reason for our existence. Think about this sentence: “Something that does not manifest is indistinguishable from something that does not exist.” Therefore why should anyone believe in that thing?

I remember when I attempted to take biology 11 twice in high school. Both times I said "this is too hard, I can't possibly get this," and dropped out. Then just a couple years later, after I graduated, I stumbled on a biology topic that fascinated me, so I started studying it voraciously, then went on to other subjects and before I knew it, I'd learned a thousand times more biology than I would have in school. It's amazing how much intellectual capacity you gain just from being excited about the topic instead of it being a chore.

@@Durzo1259 Very true. It was a chore to me because it was taught as all anatomy and physiology with no big ideas. You learned the parts of a flowering plant and the tedious steps of photosynthesis but nothing about why photosynthesis could have evolved. There was no big ideas like natural selection and the scientific process, it was just memorization of parts and processes. When Dawkins and others finally introduced the big ideas, biology got my attention.

He cowers in fear at the thought of debating William Lane Craig on the existence of god because he knows he will get exposed

If William Lane Craig is at the top of the mountain then it really will be improbable that Dawkins will climb it.

Agreed, I read several of his, I actually would recommend Climbing mount improbable, the same title as this lecture. That one was a real joy to read

Why "evolution of the eyes" happened?

@@datepalm465 One "purpose" for all life is to survive & procreate. Thus a built-in goal for every living being is to survive a long time & procreate. Survival is an "instinct" baked into our DNA. Survival is easier if we can sense (see, hear, etc.) the world around us -- this helps us to avoid predators/poisons, find food, find shelter, find mates, etc. Vision is the strongest sense almost every living multicellular being has. So eyes evolved multiple times, in multiple ways -- in very different creatures -- due to very strong evolutionary pressures.

@@keep-ukraine-free why to survive and procreate? Why is survival instinct baked into our DNA? Why was world waiting for it to happen?

Just fyi op. That's not evolution. Evolution occurs at a genetic level, the trait must be genetic or it cannot be passed on. If you lift weights your children don't then pop our with muscles....

I think for the origin of life, you can't employ natural selection. That's probably why we are seeing such intricacies like eyes pop up in existence fairly commonly. But for life we have so far a sample of 1. And we can't spring life into existence from chemicals (yet?).

No stick bugs were snapped in this presentation.

Many years ago, at a local home show, an exhibitor in pest control brought his hobby colony of giant African hissing cockroaches at his booth. They are huge, ugly and harmless. Asking if anyone would like to hold one, I quickly volunteered. Reaching into the cage full of bugs, one climbed aboard my hand and crawled up my arm to sit on my shoulder basking in the warm body. After the crowd gasped in horror, I explained there were South Carolina Palmetto bugs nearly that big in my house on the river. After his advertising lecture, I asked if I could borrow the bug for a while. He agreed if I'd pass out his business card. My bug and I strolled around the show for hours. Nicely warmed, I think he was asleep. Great fun!

The mount is so improbable because it is a lie

A valid point is, why the fear of consciousness being fundamental or it being causal to the universal intelligence in which humans share? It is a good not a bad thing. It will protect us from trans humanism and other atheistic horrors if we are perceived, which is the truth, (from higher age knowledge) as more than a biology that evolved from a different species of biology, making us ripe for experimentation as our true nature and purpose would not be understood . Our biology reduced to an evolved ape status and our consciousness, (the hard problem for philosophy) not being seen as fundamental, and it not being understood that mind likely emerges with quantum events are all bridges materialism cannot cross. If biology supposedly rules, sociobiology, wanting to extrapolate its field to being the nature of reality will, thankfully, not gain any traction at the cusp of a quantum age. Darwinism will be left in the dust where it belongs. Higher ages saw fourteen versions of the human in a universal cycle; all to a human prototype. We will be smart enough to escape the reductionism of Darwinism and the benightedness of its promoters and their nonsensical, speculative forays into a topic they are clueless about. They do not even know that language was a given, the original Indo-European language, Sanskrit being based on actual sounds. My advice go to higher age sources, do not rely or adopt the perspective of the so-called Enlighteners of this Material Age. They are clueless.

Not just AI, everything grows gradually. For example, the aforementioned 747 plane. The human engineers didn't make it straight away. It evolved from the most primitive wanna-be planes humans tried that held us barely a few seconds in the air. And even these primitive ones were mimicking those of the birds. We can say that many of our 'inventions' had a huge evolution and invention jumpstart, as we could mimic and copy the already 'perfect' ones found in nature.

@@maboleth Except my chances at the lottery 😔

@@maboleth Eventually evolving in to Hypersonic aircraft and Space planes.

From 747 to Dreamchaser.@@maboleth

89.2K at The moment

Won't it be available when you get home from work?

@@AndrewJens I checked it out. It's something I've already seen. Still, I should quit my job. Lol

I would not like to attend. It would leave me cold. Materialism (now called physicalism) as reality and fundamental to reality is a bleak prospect. Consciousness, more than likely fundamental and mind, more than likely emerging with quantum events being reduced to or originating in biology is bleak. There is ‘the hard problem of consciousness’ and mind not understood yet so it is more than likely that materialism and biological reductionism will run its course as we approach a quantum age. We are after all in a material age, just beginning to have some understanding of forces, electricities, electromagnetism, although no understanding of magnetism itself. Things will improve and we will leave Darwinism in the dust where it belongs.

@@ALavin-en1kr If you find such a perception of the universe "bleak", I'm guessing that you prefer a magical explanation about its existence, rather than actual knowledge and understanding. However the quantum possibilities that you invoke do not imply magic or a divine creator, or whatever it is that you need. They are just another realm to explore. The theory of evolution which you deny has proven itself time and again, and it can evolve just like any other scientific field to encompass our updated knowledge (perhaps even quantum physics one day). Magical explanations simply cannot compare - in reality they are no explanations at all. It is they that belong in the dust of our primitive past. In the end your argument is a sentimental - not a logical - one: you don't feel right with the "material" explanations ergo they can't be true. Unfortunately this sound more like wishful thinking, than an argument at all.

@@onetrueevan6992 Another realm to explore is good at least it will give us a break from the earthly with its five macro elements and materialism obsession with them, or more accurately with the first one: earth, as if some never look up and see the sky and space; the fifth element which is not void, as previously thought. So we get a break from a worm’s eye view and get a bird’s eye view for a change. Even if some do not care to think what may lie beyond space, as that is a bridge too far for them. The ether was declared defunct; non-existent now there is something called the L-field for life field which suspiciously sounds like another name for the ether. However, the ether is not defunct and inquiring minds think about what may be on the other side of it; what is it shielding? That is the way minds of explorers always worked, some in their armchairs and others by setting sail.

@@onetrueevan6992 I will try answering again and maybe my comment will appear under what I am responding to and not buried somewhere. I am not denying human evolution. A higher age perspective were fourteen versions of the human in a universal cycle, all from and to a human prototype. Hopefully, this comment will appear under what you wrote as the latest comment and not a comment from 6 months ago. This site needs to be better managed.

Playground taunting without substance.

Never mind the indigenous of Oz, the rest of us now have only 43% christians and they mostly keep it to themselves because they know they're the minority. Also we have a five times lower crime rate than the highly religious US, per each 1000 people. I wonder what sort of creator would make our earth full of volcanoes? Also who in their right mind would create the black widow spider which eats it's partner after mating? Seriously? 🇦🇺🦘

As an atheist, I've never been one for the problem of evil (no god would allow such suffering). Our brains are wired so that suffering tells us "this threatens my survival" and pleasure tells us "this helps my survival". Because of this in-built mechanism, our perception is biased to make aversion to suffering our highest priority, to the point of self-delusion where we believe it objectively shouldn't exist. In practicality, suffering and pleasure are what make us thrive as a species. I see no reason why a god should care whether too much suffering or pleasure happens, so long as his project (life) succeeds. So long as the human species grows and thrives as a whole, god could be as indifferent to individual suffering as we are to the the millions of cells that get damaged and die in our body daily. As long as the whole body thrives, the suffering and death of some of the cells is irrelevant.

@@Durzo1259 Thanks for the confused nonsense. You didn't adress the design or the indigenous people's ignorance of God. " Indifference " is just an anthropic projection of man's traits on their confabulated God. When the organic chemicals from the Late heavy Bombardment were diluted or consumed by dividing and growing cells they began to use their biochemical reactions to photosynthesise, use hydrothermal energy or predatory adaptations to get the chemicals and energy they needed. The axiom in physics that whatever could happen did happen with a certain frequency made the phenomena we see today.

@@Durzo1259 The story itself is so contradictory. On one hand you have the "loving god" supposedly protecting you if you follow him. That's until a gunmen goes into a church and shoots everybody up, along with myriad other ways you're not protected. Ask why a god doesn't interfere with some lowlife about to rape a child and they will probably tell you god gives everyone free will including the rapist. One would wonder why 42 children didn't have free will to give cheek to a bald man for a lesser crime than rape. Also the "loving" god demands the sacrifice of peoples first born babies. For a so-called true story just about everything proposed contradicts some other scenario. The indoctrinated don't see this of course. 🇦🇺🦘

That's not the God of Christianity though.

It is possible to be a ‘woke’ atheist, or rather one with humility towards the youth of today. And there are still great teachers, by the way.

What's your reasoning for the god design?

@@Dr.Ian-Plect 30 years of daily Bible study, and before that I studied biology for ten years. It made no sense to see the amazing science behind life and then doubt it was created. Just studying the cell alone is mind blowing, no way could that have happened by chance, just ONE CELL.

I'll debate you. But if you wish to prove supernatural, you cannot use science. It's not the right tool and theists abuse it. Lets start with just putting facts on the table. Bible study time. We're looking for a conceptual yet common template in the background. This is for inner, self-healing. I present, Moses from Exodus and Jason from Greek Argonautica. Just a few easy steps from a vast network of these. 1. Calling - Both saved as kids. 2. Cyclical pain - Harpies defile Phineas' food daily. Egypt has ten plagues. 3. Supernatural Aid - Jason taken to Mt Olympus to talk to Zeus and gains favors from Goddess Hera. Moses to Mt Horeb to talk to Yahweh and gets the magical staff. 4. Struggle to leave past - Jason and Island of Old Gods. Moses and Pharaoh. Both leave but are chased. 5. Crossing of the Threshold - Jason invokes a Gods help to sail through the clashing Rocks. Moses invokes Gods help to run through the Red Sea. Both barely get through. Etc. The Bible is framed on a common template which predates anything Jewish. Most carry the Ark. A few look inside. Only a few know the common template secret. They might as well worship Zeus and await the return of Jason. Or worship Krishna and await the return of Arjuna.

@@truthministry. A non-answer. You're clueless.

​@@Dr.Ian-Plect Whatever.

It took billions of years for cells to evolve. Multicellular life is relatively recent in the history of life on Earth

@@kennethmarshall306أين المراحل البينيه!!!!

new depths.

Just no! Wlc is a blabbering idiot who never answers anything constantly switching subjects deflecting.

🤢🤮

Copy paste 🤣

@@SHARON.I And... Its still relevant where i have posted it.

@@SHARON.I If William Lane Craig is at the top of the mountain then it really will be improbable that Dawkins will climb it.

Other than the trans thing sounds good. We need more Dawkins.

The thought of fresh faces reminds me of something I think should be used when you hear a creationist saying evolution can't be real because no one has ever seen it happening. It goes like this, if you look at a one week old baby for an hour, a day or a week you cannot see its face turning into the face of a sixty year old. However in sixty years time that baby will have the face of a sixty year old that will look nothing like the one week old face of sixty years ago. It is a gradual change that you can only see over a span of time that is longer than a day but is clearly happening even as you look at the baby's face and see no change.

Yes Dawkins likes fresh faced young kids very much, very much.