Maher to Stewart: ‘Drugs are good, religion is bad’ and Obama’s spirituality is ‘bullsh*t’

[LostOne4Ever]

137. Purpose is synonymous with goal

There is no goal. There is no purpose.

If a bunch of bacteria are dieing by the millions because of a antiseptic and a few of them live through it because they have a harder outer layer there is a purpose to the harder layer...survival of the fittest.

First off, that is not survival of the fittest. Fitness, in a biological sense, simply means those most likely to pass their genes on to the next generation. Secondly, that is not the purpose. They did not evolve that harder outer layer (I really don't think the term "harder applies here but lets roll with that) for the purpose of protecting themselves from the antiseptic. The cause of the "harder layer" trait coming into being is probably random genetic mutations. This mutation gave them an advantage when the antiseptic was applied and they survived to pass on their genes.

That is how evolution works.

For it to be the purpose of the shell it would require foreknowledge or forethought about the possibility antisceptic coming, and developed the "harder" outer layer specifically to protect against that. That is design. Evolution has no mind, no thought, and can not see ahead of time. It can not plan ahead, and it can not predict events in the future. It can not have goals.

Your explanation is teleological and not compatible with biological science.

But the reason your meteor hit the pride of lions in your example is because it came too close the the earth gravity, and the lyons happen to be in that place at the time...and the reason the lyons where there is probably because the hunting is good in those parts...nothing happens with no reason because all things are connected in our reality.
The error some make is that they believe that there is a god that makes all these decisions like killing the lyons with a meteor...a very low understanding of reality in my opnion...but never the less some of the religions use it to manipulate people with...and the anti theist love it, because it re enforces their own beliefe...that it is all bullshit and everything is really just an accident, and what we see is all there is...and that too is a low understanding IMO.

You are equivocating differing definitions of reason here. Reason can simply mean cause, or it can mean justification, or refer to a process of thinking. Evolution does not think. It does not have a goal or design.

Purpose means that you have a goal. You indirectly said it yourself in your explanation. You claimed the goal of a "harder" cell wall was to protect against antiseptics. Again, it was "caused" by a mutation and became prevalent because it provided the organism an advantage. It did not arise with the goal of protecting it from antiseptics.

The reason (cause) of the meteor hitting the earth is gravity and trajectory. It had no "reason" (thought process) to hit earth in that it did not think "I will hit the earth today." It had no goal to achieve. Lions have brains and are able to reason (thought process). They had a reason (both cause and thought process) to be there.

You say nothing happens without a reason. If by that you mean a cause, then what caused the initial cause? Its the turtles all the way down argument. If you mean thought process what thought process does a rock have? Either way, there will be things that happen without reason.

How does the belief that god caused something reinforce the belief that everything is just an accident? Seem like a contradictory statement. And not just anti-theists believe that all we see is all that there is. That is my position as an existential nihilist. What am I not understanding?

No I did not mean superiour...I meant multi cellular creatures with developed nervous systems and complex brain...that is what we generally know as "higher" life forms.

When getting my BS in Biology I have never come across that definition in any biology class. Certainly not in evolutionary biology studying Darwin and Lamark. Could you source this for me?

What makes being multi-cellular/having a nervous system/etc so special? More deserving of being called normal than your what I guess you would call "lower" lifeforms?

BTW: Starfish and jellyfish are "complex" multicellular organisms with a nervous system and they reproduce asexually.

But if you believe that we evolved from single cell life then we evolved with sexual reproduction just as most complex life forms do...and so that infers there was a reason in natural selection for that...that they did better because of it in some way and so evolved that way...
If the theory of evolution is real then there is reason for how we are...

Again, a shifting meaning of reason, purpose, etc. Natural selection had no purpose or reason (thinking) in choosing those traits. Its just the way the dice fell that gave those individuals with those traits an advantage.