24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Basically, we pick a subject, ideally where we disagree at least some, and exchange a series of 'letter', ie write posts where we link to the other posts.
We can try it and see how it goes. But note that I'm not looking for another avenue to "dialogue" unless there is a payoff by way of a much greater audience reach. My plate is already full with "letters" among those who disagree with me online (and I realize you and I will not likely be disagreeing the same way). For time management purposes I try to limit my involvement in "back and forths" to a minimum. My main goal in "substacking" is to build an audience of like-minded people. I also want to find potential buyers/readers of my books and build an author following at my blog and Facebook page. What is your experience with letter exchanges in terms of building subscribers? Just curious. Also, I'm game to try out a topic and see what happens. Do you have a topic in mind? Thanks!
Keeping in mind that my first post was in late April, and that I so far have only 36 subscribers, I would say that it is the most effective thing I have done so far.
However I, too, would only want to do it if we felt there was a topic that, by dialoge, we could cover much better than either of us could do alone.
What kind of books do you sell?
I would have to read more of your stuff to pick up a topic.
36 subscribers is great! After over a year I have only 22. I write exclusively on the topic of evolution and creation (as well as intelligent design). My latest book is on Amazon, entitled "Without Excuse: Evidence for Creation by God." I'm always looking for feedback, as well as a good review on Amazon. I like the topic you suggested. I think it might be fun to see how we each answer the question. I'm sure I will learn something.
My understanding is yes nothing is intrinsically good. Nature is indifferent and evolution is the play out of nature. I’m not sure I completely understand your question but in as much as I do, this is my answer. Consider when a person gives a homeless person some spare change, we might call this good. But there is a likely evolutionary answer. It made sense when living in groups of 10-70 to share extra food because when you did, you would likely get the same when you were out of food. Us doing it today to people we know we will likely never see again can be viewed as good, or a kind of vestigial misfiring of our old evolved behaviour.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I owe Jon a letter exchange on this question, so I will be brief here. Your thoughts reflect a reasonable sentiment for someone convinced that evolution explains everything of humanity, but it does not conform to what we see in nature. The idea that humans learned this advantage but other animals did not seems go against an evolutionary explanation. In reality, evolution has no goal or forward-looking feature to its operation, and this is evident in every other plant and animal (except trivial examples of altruism here and there). To envision that random genetic mutations and natural selection (the only tools nature has to work with) can impart some kind of recognition of a "good" behavior for a future benefit is foreign to the theory and not supported by the evidence on earth. Yours is the typical "evolution is the explanation, so here is one way it might have happened" argument. Yours is not a scientific argument (in my opinion).
I don’t say we learned this advantage and other animals do not. Chimpanzees share. Many animals do. There is no foresight to evolution, just what works given the available dna, external pressure, and a good dose of luck. This is not my idea either, but Richard Dawkins. Do you know of the laryngeal nerve and it’s flawed design? The fact that flight evolved independently a dozen or so times and vision, over 40? I am a sort of mystic in some of my interpretations but I have another example i used in another chat. Hold on
I base most of my life choices on evolutionary biology, Richard Dawkins has some great books. The Ancestors Tale, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Greatest Show on earth etc.
One example: 200 000 years ago humans lived primarily feast or famine right. Catch a deer a week or so and a few berries and roots in between. So Today I intermittent fast and eat once a day. Been doing it for 3 years. What i find is i have more energy and sharper mental acuity the farther I am from my last meal. And if you think about it when is it most important to catch that next deer? When your starving. So our bodies evolved to fire on all cylinders in this crucial time. Eating 3 meals a day plus the preservative poison we all consume also sedates our brains and overall function. It isn’t natural. We could evolve out of it but there is no real pressure anymore for us to do so.
This is fantastic and actually my wheel house unlike the gun debate. Let’s begin. I love Dawkins on Evolutionary Biology period. His anti religion stuff is paranoid and boring but his evolutionary studies are generally great. I don’t believe in social darwinism and i disagree with Dawkins on certain things. We will definitely honour the letter exchange here. I prefer comments like this.
I will do my best to defend my opinions on the matter to anyone who wishes to challenge them. I also possess an open mind and know i may be wrong. If we are all in good faith. Let the games begin!
Not sure I follow you. Are you suggesting a letter exchange on evolution? If so, what would your stated aim be? IE What would be the question? If you like you could respond with a letter to my methodological naturalism post above.
This is just dumb but hilarious. My good friend can’t hear the name Richard Dawkins without stating that he has sex with his wife through the fly hole in his pajamas. 😂😂😂
Good one Von. I've said for a long time that Romans 1:21-22 have become our Nation's national motto.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
Excellent take. Thank you!
You and I write kind of similar stuff. It would be interesting to see if we could get into a letter exchange.
Sure! I'm new to this, what is a letter exchange? :)
See here: https://dadexplains.substack.com/p/what-is-marriage-5a
Basically, we pick a subject, ideally where we disagree at least some, and exchange a series of 'letter', ie write posts where we link to the other posts.
We can try it and see how it goes. But note that I'm not looking for another avenue to "dialogue" unless there is a payoff by way of a much greater audience reach. My plate is already full with "letters" among those who disagree with me online (and I realize you and I will not likely be disagreeing the same way). For time management purposes I try to limit my involvement in "back and forths" to a minimum. My main goal in "substacking" is to build an audience of like-minded people. I also want to find potential buyers/readers of my books and build an author following at my blog and Facebook page. What is your experience with letter exchanges in terms of building subscribers? Just curious. Also, I'm game to try out a topic and see what happens. Do you have a topic in mind? Thanks!
Keeping in mind that my first post was in late April, and that I so far have only 36 subscribers, I would say that it is the most effective thing I have done so far.
However I, too, would only want to do it if we felt there was a topic that, by dialoge, we could cover much better than either of us could do alone.
What kind of books do you sell?
I would have to read more of your stuff to pick up a topic.
36 subscribers is great! After over a year I have only 22. I write exclusively on the topic of evolution and creation (as well as intelligent design). My latest book is on Amazon, entitled "Without Excuse: Evidence for Creation by God." I'm always looking for feedback, as well as a good review on Amazon. I like the topic you suggested. I think it might be fun to see how we each answer the question. I'm sure I will learn something.
A topic that just occured to me was, "What is the best way to attack evolution in our modern age?"
My understanding is yes nothing is intrinsically good. Nature is indifferent and evolution is the play out of nature. I’m not sure I completely understand your question but in as much as I do, this is my answer. Consider when a person gives a homeless person some spare change, we might call this good. But there is a likely evolutionary answer. It made sense when living in groups of 10-70 to share extra food because when you did, you would likely get the same when you were out of food. Us doing it today to people we know we will likely never see again can be viewed as good, or a kind of vestigial misfiring of our old evolved behaviour.
I will be responding to this, right now planning on a whole post, but might just end up a note here. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you for the thoughtful comment. I owe Jon a letter exchange on this question, so I will be brief here. Your thoughts reflect a reasonable sentiment for someone convinced that evolution explains everything of humanity, but it does not conform to what we see in nature. The idea that humans learned this advantage but other animals did not seems go against an evolutionary explanation. In reality, evolution has no goal or forward-looking feature to its operation, and this is evident in every other plant and animal (except trivial examples of altruism here and there). To envision that random genetic mutations and natural selection (the only tools nature has to work with) can impart some kind of recognition of a "good" behavior for a future benefit is foreign to the theory and not supported by the evidence on earth. Yours is the typical "evolution is the explanation, so here is one way it might have happened" argument. Yours is not a scientific argument (in my opinion).
I'm assuming you mean 'Von' here :)
Ha ha, yes, sorry. I've got a lot going on here this week. I'm trying to squeeze things in where I can. Sorry for the typo!
I don’t say we learned this advantage and other animals do not. Chimpanzees share. Many animals do. There is no foresight to evolution, just what works given the available dna, external pressure, and a good dose of luck. This is not my idea either, but Richard Dawkins. Do you know of the laryngeal nerve and it’s flawed design? The fact that flight evolved independently a dozen or so times and vision, over 40? I am a sort of mystic in some of my interpretations but I have another example i used in another chat. Hold on
I base most of my life choices on evolutionary biology, Richard Dawkins has some great books. The Ancestors Tale, Climbing Mount Improbable, The Greatest Show on earth etc.
One example: 200 000 years ago humans lived primarily feast or famine right. Catch a deer a week or so and a few berries and roots in between. So Today I intermittent fast and eat once a day. Been doing it for 3 years. What i find is i have more energy and sharper mental acuity the farther I am from my last meal. And if you think about it when is it most important to catch that next deer? When your starving. So our bodies evolved to fire on all cylinders in this crucial time. Eating 3 meals a day plus the preservative poison we all consume also sedates our brains and overall function. It isn’t natural. We could evolve out of it but there is no real pressure anymore for us to do so.
Also do some of you not believe in evolution? Do you propose something else? Fascinating
See here for a start:
https://vonwriting.substack.com/p/methodological-naturalism
This is fantastic and actually my wheel house unlike the gun debate. Let’s begin. I love Dawkins on Evolutionary Biology period. His anti religion stuff is paranoid and boring but his evolutionary studies are generally great. I don’t believe in social darwinism and i disagree with Dawkins on certain things. We will definitely honour the letter exchange here. I prefer comments like this.
I will do my best to defend my opinions on the matter to anyone who wishes to challenge them. I also possess an open mind and know i may be wrong. If we are all in good faith. Let the games begin!
Not sure I follow you. Are you suggesting a letter exchange on evolution? If so, what would your stated aim be? IE What would be the question? If you like you could respond with a letter to my methodological naturalism post above.
Ok. I will do that on here. Give me a little time. You guys are great.
Well, OK. I will reply with a post, probably. I would advise CR to do so too... much better for our substacks, and easier to read.
No letter exchange for now if that’s alright
This is just dumb but hilarious. My good friend can’t hear the name Richard Dawkins without stating that he has sex with his wife through the fly hole in his pajamas. 😂😂😂