why does sklansky spend so much time on the philos section?and other?s

[siegfriedandroy]

question one: why does sklansky spend so much time here? if he is so certain that god doesnt exist, why does he care to spend so many of his waking hours in this part of his wonderful forum? why doesnt he spend more time on the nolimit section instead, so that donks like me can profit more easily? if everything is meaningless and w/o purpose, then why expend such great effort seeking 'truth' that doesnt actually exist?

question 2: what is sklansky's favorite hemingway book? i read 'old man and the sea' in 9th grade, and some other title i cant remember, but that's the extent of my heminway experience. i do remember seeing some dooshbag kid outside a bar one night reading 'old man', trying to be cool and to pass for an 'intellectual'. i am pretty sure, though, that he was no Sklansky!

3) how much money has sklansky made at poker in his lifetime?

question 4) what are some of the flaws that you agnostic's see with pascal's wager. wasnt he one of the great scientists of the past millenium?

5) daniel n. and david s. agree to play a game of strip poker, to be observed by carmen e. who does carmen e. want to win?

question 6: why do many atheists on this forum despise the ID movement and argue vehemently that it should not be taught in school. assuming it's not legitimate science, so what? if you are an atheist, why the hell would you care whether or not the 'true' scientific theory of origins is taught to your kids. why the hell would it matter? many 'evolutionists' seem to elevate their ideas to such exalted heights and defend it as if disbelief in the theory would lead to eternal suffering of your soul in gehenna. to me it seems irrational for them to care so passionately abou this issue. if i was an atheist, i really wouldnt give a sh*t about what my kids believed about origins.

7) does sklansky ever play online? if so, where, and what is his screen name?

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question one: why does sklansky spend so much time here? if he is so certain that god doesnt exist, why does he care to spend so many of his waking hours in this part of his wonderful forum? why doesnt he spend more time on the nolimit section instead, so that donks like me can profit more easily? if everything is meaningless and w/o purpose, then why expend such great effort seeking 'truth' that doesnt actually exist?

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He's done his share of poker teaching, and there are so many posters who can supply new readers with information. This whole reasoning out that God doesn't exist problem is very complex, so it may interest him, since he's a bright guy. and maybe not knowing 100% that God doesn't exist is too risky considering the consequences.


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5) daniel n. and david s. agree to play a game of strip poker, to be observed by carmen e. who does carmen e. want to win?

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DN & DS convince CE to also play. It's televised. Everyone wins, unless CE wins. Then we lose.


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question 6: why do many atheists on this forum despise the ID movement and argue vehemently that it should not be taught in school. assuming it's not legitimate science, so what? if you are an atheist, why the hell would you care whether or not the 'true' scientific theory of origins is taught to your kids. why the hell would it matter? many 'evolutionists' seem to elevate their ideas to such exalted heights and defend it as if disbelief in the theory would lead to eternal suffering of your soul in gehenna. to me it seems irrational for them to care so passionately abou this issue. if i was an atheist, i really wouldnt give a sh*t about what my kids believed about origins.

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You're saying if someone was atheist, then they shouldn't care whether or not their child is taught incorrect information?

[siegfriedandroy]

i guess im saying there's no rational reason to care, at least none that i can think of. i guess there's no reason not to care either, though. either way is w/o meaning, just like everything else in such a god forsaken philosophy. however, most atheists (in my experience at least) do seem to care very much that the 'truth' (evolution, for instance) be known. but in my view, there is no real reason for 'truth' to be taught, pursued, believed, etc. in an atheistic perspective. certainly no reason to argue on a web forum about it. it seems most atheists have no solid or legitimate reason to argue evolution (or anything else related to philosophy, etc) except to serve themselves, through receiving pleasure, etc out of such debate and dialogue. no inherent reason to seek or teach the 'truth' though. but inevitably they do seem to search for truth, etc (ala sklansky), despite having no real incentive or reason to do so. to me it just all boils down to hollow and empty philosophy. utter meaninglessness...

question 8: if an atheist, why not commit suicide? why value life at all? of course you could respond simply and say, 'why commit suicide?' that's fine. either way. but most atheists do not commit suicide? why not? it seems they all place substantial value on human life. if they did not, there seems to be no reason not to commit suicide, especially if done painlessly. this is especially true if the person is one who suffers greatly (and i believe we all suffer to some extent). why not avoid it? even if you consider yourself 'happy' and espouse some ridiculous moral view like the happiness principle (leibniz i believe), why live and be happy as opposed to dying and feeling nothing? is it better to be 'happy' than to feel nothing? i am a christian and would never encourage someone to kill themself. yet if i was an atheist, then id have no reason to value human life, and killing myself would not be irrational. yet most atheists do not kill themselves. why not? i believe that even atheists are aware of an ultimate reality. i believe deep inside that even sklansky knows it is wrong to kill unjustly, no matter how deeply he buries such truth. enough for now.

[Lestat]

You have so many holes in your logic, there's no one place to even begin.

What makes you think an athiest is incapable of enjoying life?

By your own logic a theist should be more willing to die, since his beliefs tell him he will go to a more perfect place.

[siegfriedandroy]

Lestat, I do not believe I have many holes in my logic. You however, are blatantly incorrect i claiming that I said, "an atheist is incapable of enjoying life." i said nothing of the sort. perhaps you should read more carefully. what are my other 'holes'?

as for your comment that a theist should be more willing to commit suicide, that is also bulls*it. If God tells us that life is sacred, and commands that we should not kill, then it is right and reasonable to obey. In an atheistic world, though, there is nothing wrong with committing suicide. Please answer this: is it 'irrational' for an atheist to painlessly commit suicide?

[Lestat]

<font color="red"> Please answer this: is it 'irrational' for an atheist to painlessly commit suicide? </font>

No it is not irrational. But why would an athiest want to commit suicide? What does a non-belief in God have to do with wanting to die? That's silly.

As to life having no purpose if you don't believe in God. What is meaningless about the desire to perpetuate one's own species? All animals instinctively do this. Why should man get no satisfaction for making the next generation of humans better off?

You are looking at this from a very myopic viewpoint. So you believe in God and think everyone else should just want to kill themselves because they don't?

You are also injecting the supposition that athiests view life as meaningless. You can't do that. That's one of the many holes in your argument.

I'm not Sklansky, but the odds of him replying seem small, so I'll put in my two cents.

1) why does sklansky spend so much time here?
He doesn't spend that much time on here. As to why, it's an interesting subject, and fun to play around with. I think he's looking to create moments of truth, where posters will discover something about themselves they didn't know before. He seems to be a genuine teacher who likes it when people think about things that matter.

2) How much money has sklansky made at poker in his lifetime?
My guess is about 300K.

5) daniel n. and david s. agree to play a game of strip poker, to be observed by carmen e. who does carmen e. want to win?
Unless she likes feminine males, I'd say Daniel all the way.

6) why do many atheists on this forum despise the ID movement and argue vehemently that it should not be taught in school.
Because it's wrong by every reasonable and common sense standard. Read a book on evolution and the fossil record (and I'm not talking Lucy). It's simply stunning and ovewhelming both in number and diversity. Read about the phylogenic tree. Look at the structure of cells. No one who has done these things doubts the fact that organisms have evolved from single cells to what they are today.
God is a seperate issue.

7) does sklansky ever play online? if so, where, and what is his screen name?
"Doy... wait, don't you have to win a contest or something if you want to ask questions?

[Jeff V]

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Read a book on evolution and the fossil record (and I'm not talking Lucy). It's simply stunning and ovewhelming both in number and diversity. Read about the phylogenic tree. Look at the structure of cells. No one who has done these things doubts the fact that organisms have evolved from single cells to what they are today.
God is a seperate issue.


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Very very untrue. What about the pre-cambrian explosion in the fossil record? How about the concept of irreducible complexity? Darwin had absolutely no idea about the complexity of the cell when he came up "The Origin of Species".

It's interesting how the more technologically advanced we get the more complex things are. ie. the universe, bio-chemistry, physics etc. This in itself points to an inteligent designer.

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Very very untrue. What about the pre-cambrian explosion in the fossil record? How about the concept of irreducible complexity?

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Wow. I would wager my life that you've never read about the phylogenic tree. Or explored the fossil record very much.

The two ideas you quoted, pre cambrian explosion and irreducible complexity are common fallacies repeated in the non educated religious community. They have been thoroughly debunked, in fact anyone who's ever studied evolution wouldn't even mention them. At least you didn't mention the 2nd law of thermodynamics - that's refreshing.

Anyway it's late here so I'll start a thread about this tomorrow (or you can) rather than hijack.

As for this:

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It's interesting how the more technologically advanced we get the more complex things are. ie. the universe, bio-chemistry, physics etc. This in itself points to an inteligent designer.

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Nope, it points to an unintelligent or naive observer. Kind of like once believing the sun was a light moved across the sky by God. Now we know it's a massive ball of gas undergoing nuclear fusion that the earth orbits around. If anything, this points away from a credible 'God did it' hypothesis. See why?

[siegfriedandroy]

why is it 'uneducated' to refer to the cambrian explosion? also, the fossil record was glaring problem in darwin's day. thus darwin predicted that the record would vindicate him over the course of a couple hundred years. it never has. where are the thousands of intermediate fossil forms (links between species) that Darwin predicted. name 10 of them for me. they simply do not exist, and Darwin's prediction has failed. archeopteryx doesn't count- if you dont know why, ill explain.

please dispense with the typical ad hominems about how guys like jeff v. are not educated. the ad hominem is a favorite tool of those who think like you. it's tiresome. you know little about that you attempt to pontificate about. do you understand what im saying in #6 yet? im sure sklansky does (and he usually does reply to my threads, fwiw).