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-- creation vs. evolution
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quote:

Originally posted by tathi hmmm was melech actually DJBARON? I never remembered melech getting involved in anything to do with religion, other than call islam evil, but DJBARON was a bastard creationist

I think that meelech did start a few threads proclaiming that Judaism was the only true faith. As for Baron, I'm not sure. They could have been the same person - they were just as crazy. I think that Barron might still be suspended though.

MisterOpus1 - I think it's a hit and run - there are four 'ban electro' threads in chillout at the moment, so no need to apologise for the 'talking out of your buttocks remark, it was entirely justified. He's completely ignored my, yours and DrUg_Tit0's responses, so there probably isn't much chance of getting a serious response.

Lastly - Orbax, you're a YEC right? Out of curiosity, do you think that someone can be an evolutionist and a Christian/Muslim/Jew? If not, then how do you feel about the Catholic Church throwing it's support behind evolution?

It's just something I'm interested in, as the majority of evolutionists are actually Christians, but then you have the creationists who seem to think that evolution and Christianity are somehow incompatible.

Im not a young earth person. If someone presses me Ill say "Jesus turned water into wine, and the Garden was full and bearing fruit when God created Man who was full grown, he can make things appear to have age" but I dont really care and I think that the age of the earth has no bearing whatsoever on any kind of deism, much less Christianity.

For the most part I abide by science's rulings on stuff. I dont really doubt the veracity of an old earth and universe. Saying God can create things with the appearance of age dodges the fact that to our knowledge everything is old.

My thoughts on evolution...hmmm.

Its hard. I dont think Homo Sapiens are the end product of a series of actions beginning with ooze. The human body is too perfect. It is unwittingly called a machine by so many people and books because when you get down to it, it is the most complex machine ever created. I loved Behe's Darwins Black Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution. Its just wild how we work.

Point being I think that DNA is the most amazing stuff ever. Micro evolution happens rapidly and correctly. The fact that we can change and adapt so easily is the greatest gift of all. I think humans ARE changing, and that pretty much all species in open systems are. Some relics of older ages exist like sea turtles and crocodiles and such, but even they have had to change to cope with food supplies and human infringement.

SO:

Do I think All creatures have a built in mechanism to change and adapt, sometimes with great physical changes? Yes. Absolutely.

Do I think that this can eventually make them change species or create new ones? No. I have yet to see answers to the challenges of irreducible complexity set out by behe and others.

The "missing link" is still huge, and the fact that earlier "man" types seem to be totally unrelated is disturbing to me in some way. I havent quite reached a conclusion on how exactly Man got to earth, or was created on it, or what.

I do believe that there are many devoted Creationists spanning all religions that have bowed down unquestioningly to the demands of science, yet still love and revere their God and try as best they can to live their life.

I dont think anyone is going to go to Hell over it if thats your question, although I do think it sets up a fundamental conflict in you to establish what has classically been seen as a diametric for your belief system.

Im all for someone who has done a balanced examination of both sides and reached a conclusion that they think suits their relationship to God/s the best.

Personally? Im still towards the middle, I think that there are still a great many unanswered questions, but I am still on the side of Mankind being created. It is in the same arena as why I believe in God. There is a fundamental part of me that sees life, and the body, and the amazing interaction of all living things, and knows homeostatic eco systems yet still says "this is just too amazing".

I understand the evolutionists side, and, like I said, I like educated people. But so far every person Ive dealt with in the world hasnt known enough to have a rational conversation with me and ends up saying "You have too many facts, I need to do research".

Research to justify the pre-existing belief. Thats my problem with it. People believe and then prove it. They never asked the all important QUESTION. They flipped a mental coin and went meandering down a path, and stopped at the first clearing with a stream and sat down and have been growing moss since.

So, all in all, I think people can justify just about anything to themselves, God sees our hearts and wont send you to Hell for being brainwashed in elementary school, ask forgiveness for your sins, try to do your best, and try to have a healthy relationship to your God.

A lot of stuff becomes rather inconsequential after that but stay with it, and realize there is always something new to learn and one of these days something might come along that will totally change everything youve ever known, and youll have to adapt

peace

I actually had a debate with my gf on that before I broke up with her. She kept on repeating the stuff from bible and rarely tried to counter my points. Especially the one with C14 dating.

Fundies are so amusing at debating.

Most people are totally uneducated in a wide variety of subjects, including what they believe to be their everlasting soul. I wouldnt necessarily chalk the cause of stupidity up to the subject someone has chosen to be blatantly ignorant in.

quote:

Originally posted by Orbax So, all in all, I think people can justify just about anything to themselves, God sees our hearts and wont send you to Hell for being brainwashed in elementary school, ask forgiveness for your sins, try to do your best, and try to have a healthy relationship to your God. A lot of stuff becomes rather inconsequential after that but stay with it, and realize there is always something new to learn and one of these days something might come along that will totally change everything youve ever known, and youll have to adapt peace

You must play a lot of Dungeon's and Dragon's dont ya?


Seriously though-

My beliefs mostly come from proof and one side is "slightly" winning.

lol what about DnD?

Warning: this is a long one.

quote:

Originally posted by Orbax My thoughts on evolution...hmmm. Its hard. I dont think Homo Sapiens are the end product of a series of actions beginning with ooze. The human body is too perfect. It is unwittingly called a machine by so many people and books because when you get down to it, it is the most complex machine ever created. I loved Behe's Darwins Black Box: The biochemical challenge to evolution. Its just wild how we work. Point being I think that DNA is the most amazing stuff ever. Micro evolution happens rapidly and correctly. The fact that we can change and adapt so easily is the greatest gift of all. I think humans ARE changing, and that pretty much all species in open systems are. Some relics of older ages exist like sea turtles and crocodiles and such, but even they have had to change to cope with food supplies and human infringement. I understand the evolutionists side, and, like I said, I like educated people. But so far every person Ive dealt with in the world hasnt known enough to have a rational conversation with me and ends up saying "You have too many facts, I need to do research". Research to justify the pre-existing belief. Thats my problem with it. People believe and then prove it. They never asked the all important QUESTION. They flipped a mental coin and went meandering down a path, and stopped at the first clearing with a stream and sat down and have been growing moss since.

Hmmm, I believe I understand what you are saying - that evolution is a standard that is taught in schools, and that individuals are just programmed to believe it without ever being skeptical of it. To that I think I might agree, but there's one caveat - the concept of evolution is quite simple, but the details are amazingly complex. It would literally take an entire semester, if not longer to scratch the surface of these details in a high school biology class. Consequently, high school biology books and classes just brush upon the concepts of those details.

But this certainly does not mean that those details are any less true, simply because the time constraints and cognitive requirements to understand the intricacies of evolution make it difficult for a full understanding of the matter. There is a monumental amount of evidence to support evolutionary pathways in a wide range of fields with include cell and molecular biology, genetics, geography and geology, comparitive biology, biochemistry, anthropology, horticulture, and of course, paleontology. Would it be realistic to touch upon each of these subjects to explain evolutionary theory in detail for a typical high school student? No way. That's what the specific courses taught at universities are for. But it is necessary to mention that the evidence at present from each of these fields give strong support towards an evolutionary pathway explaining life's many different organisms.

Is it necessary to involve other ideas of an explanation of life's organisms? Certainly, provided that there's positive evidence to support such ideas or assertions. This is where the problem of creationists in schools comes from. From the scientific method, high schoolers learn that a hypothesis is created based on previous observations, which may take a new direction on a given unexplained phenomena or event. But for any creationist assertion, there is nothing to support even this first step of creating a working hypothesis, because there are no previous supporting observations on which to go on. They are merely conclusions, 99% coming from the Christian interpretation of life's organisms, from which no real hypothesis can be created from.

But that certainly doesn't stop the creationists from creating a hypothesis regardless. The next problem, however, they simply cannot work around - testing that hypothesis. I have yet to see any creationist idea (ID included) go through the rigors of actual tests. It is this very reason why there have been no published creationist papers in any peer-reviewed science journal - they (creationists) simply have no means of testing their hypothesis'.

And if you think about it, how could they? The underlying difficulty with creationism is that conclusions have already been created for them, i.e. the outcome is a known (God has a hand in it all). This is in stark contrast to any true scientific inquiry, where no conclusions are known, but rather, conclusions are drawn upon evidence through observation and/or testing of hypothesis'. And those hypothesis' do not necessarily have to be shown to be true in order for a descent "conclusion" to be made (actually there are no conclusions, just theories based on observation/testing results); hypothesis shown to be false can give credence to sound theories as well. But in essence, without direct evidence from testing, retesting, and/or observation, you are left with an unanswered and shaky at best hypothesis, which is purely philosophical by nature (and personally I think that�s being rather rude to the philosophy field).

So when you say:

quote:

Research to justify the pre-existing belief. Thats my problem with it. People believe and then prove it.

And strangely, you are referring to evolutionists, this is exactly the problem with creationists. They do what they can to justify their pre-existing beliefs or conclusions, without ever allowing the process of observation/testing create those conclusions all on their own, which is the nature of science. What�s more, those pre-existing �beliefs� are merely just that � beliefs. It is quite difficult to prove such beliefs in the first place.

This poses yet another problem with creationism attempting to merge itself in science � their belief system in the supernatural or unexplained. In order for something to be tested or observed, a rigorous procedure must be adhered in order to rule out any bias or other influencing factors that may skew results. Unfortunately, since it has been shown to be quite impossible to directly observe or test supernatural events, supernatural phenomena, if it truly exists, can therefore not be directly tested. And if any event, supernatural or otherwise, cannot be directly tested or observed, it logically follows that that given event cannot be inserted in any logical way into the equation. Ironically, this is exactly what creationists propose � despite the fact that certain supernatural events cannot be observed, they should be inserted into the scientific process regardless.

How can this be explained in a logical manner? In short, it can�t. So why should we allow such unexplained, unobserved events be incorporated into scientific inquiry? IOW, why should it be necessary to incorporate unexplained phenomena in any science class, when the purpose of science that is being taught to the students is to explain only the observed or tested phenomena in the natural world? If one allows one part of unexplained/unobserved phenomena into the explained and observed, would the results be logical? Would they be explainable, given the fact that one inserted unexplained events within? Furthermore, where would it end with insertion of supernatural events? If you insert one supernatural event, why not another?

Clearly, the methodology would be quite tainted. And it simply is not science. So why would I want my kids to learn something that clearly is not science, in a science classroom?

Finally, I think it�s fair game to address the hidden notion behind the creationist movement and it�s politics. Although the vast majority of biological scientists support evolution (well over 99%), the creationist movement has taken a foothold onto the American public. This is quite unfortunate, though truly it shouldn�t be all that unexpected, considering how strong the fundamentalist Christian movement is within our country. It is the fundamentalists who�ve contributed heavily to the creationist movement, both financially and verbally. There is no doubt that it is a Christian notion which created and fully supports the creationist movement, which again taints the viewpoint of the movement. And anyone who believes that there is room for other religions to be involved in the creationism are going to eventually run into the wall of Christian fundamentalism and dogmatic beliefs sooner or later. So to have a religious movement willfully and spitefully clashing with natural observed and tested phenomenon is quite ridiculous, but to see almost � the American public support such ideas is nothing shy of embarrassing. However, given the financial and political strength of the fundamentalist right, it truly isn�t too terribly appalling. For creationists to continually distort, misunderstand, misrepresent, and flat out lie to support their dogmatic, unchanging viewpoints which flies in the face of logic, rationality, and true inquiry, is really nothing new when one considers the source.

Well, that�s my personal beef with creationists. I�m going to cut this short and give a follow-up on my opinion on Intelligent Design in another post. Sorry this was so damn long.

i guess you indirectly struck the heart of the matter for me. i agree God shouldnt be taught in a biology class. i DO think that, starting in highschool, a religoius studies section should be taught on all major religions. It would be a 4 year mandatory course explaining the tenents of each. With so much Love and Hate balanced around this issue, people need to understand what the REAL differences are between people. And to get speakers to come in and show that totally normal people can be Hindu or something...

A revamping of the education system needs to happen, but to completely leave out one of the largest facets of world affairs is ludicrous. People arent going to church any more because there is no fellowship, no community. Hell there isnt community anywhere in America these days. Point is, people arent learning anything about their own religions, you think theyll understand the half-baked counterpart from another?

If nothing else itll teach them some basic life principles to work off of, and if they feel a connection with something, good for them. Replace stupid crap like "Home Economics" where you learn how to write checks for 3 weeks with an intensive program.

So Recap:

Religion isnt a science and shouldnt be taught as such
Religion should be taught as a religion though, might help establish some tolerance.
Maybe just put the whole thing under Religious History and learn the roots and whats happened recently.
Also, evolution should be taught more in depth. Im getting really annoyed with the "fins eventually turned into wings" ideas.
Highschoolers arent stupid, the just have no responsibility to learn in the current system. Make graduating Highschool hard. Like a first year community college course. Prepare the little bastards for life.

quote:

And strangely, you are referring to evolutionists, this is exactly the problem with creationists.

I was actually referring to everyone hehe.

I am just so sick of people not knowing ANYTHING except who did the cover art for the latest 50cent album.

Smart educated people dont exist any more! its crazy!

I don't personally have a problem if there was a religious studies course in high school. I'm not sure if I'd agree for it to be mandatory, but it would certainly be an interesting course for kids, and would be the most appropriate place for teaching creationism.

quote:

A lot of stuff becomes rather inconsequential after that but stay with it, and realize there is always something new to learn and one of these days something might come along that will totally change everything youve ever known, and youll have to adapt peace

I honestly think you have a pretty descent healthy view on things, so I'll spare you the direct questions and make some generalities (besides, we've been down that road anyways). In particular, I want to talk about Behe and the ID movement.

When I first read "Darwin's Black Box", I too felt Behe had brought up some compelling questions about Intelligent Design. Furthermore, after reading Dembski's "No Free Lunch", and seeing Dembski's mathmatical probability skills in full view, I felt the ID movement posed some interesting questions. And just out of curiousity, I also followed up with Dembski's "The Design Inference : Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities", and Dembski and Behe's "Intelligent Design". You throw in Jonathon Wells' "Icons of Evolution" (not an ID book, but an anti-evolutionist nonetheless), and Michael Denton's "Nature's Destiny : How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe", you might think that I would have been so incredibly skeptical of any evolutionary idea, and that I was very near to being an ID believer from that point forward.

It should also be noted that this idea of Intelligent Design is nothing new, though it is the current foothold that modern day creationists are using to gain access into the science classroom. William Paley had a somewhat similar idea in the early 19th century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Paley

Strange how the same old creationist arguments continue to resurface. Anyway, back to my review�.

But there was something very troubling to me when reading these books that were skeptical of evolutionary theory. Actually, there was a handful of things that were nagging at me. The first thing that troubled me was that despite their arguments, which were all pretty compelling even to me (a B.S. in Biology back in '97), I did not find one bit of positive verifiable piece of evidence to support their ID assertions. It seemed that every anti-evolutionist book I kept reading had pretty much the same assertions - there are problems with evolution, there are gaps in the theory, etc. etc. And instead of demonstrating positive evidence to support their case of ID, all the authors deemed it appropriate to fill in those "gaps" with an ID whom was responsible for it all. This troubled me, because one of the first and foremost tenets of any scientific inquiry is to have supporting evidence to explain a given event or phenomenon. The absence of any such evidence to explain certain phenomena can not logically give credence to another explanation without showing supporting evidence for that alternative explanation (in this case, an Intelligent Designer started the whole process of life creation - which isin't evolution in the first place, and/or an IDer conveniently intervenes intermittently to help create new species or alter evolutionary pathways). It was frustrating to continually read each ID author, despite some of their impressive backgrounds (Behe a PhD in biochemistry, Dembski a PhD in mathmatics), fail to fully explain or demonstrate any positive evidence to support their assertions that an IDer is involved somehow. At the time I didn't quite know logical fallacies very well, but this type of reasoning fits perfectly into the logical fallacy of bifurcation, or false dichotomy:

http://www.infidels.org/news/atheis...tml#bifurcation

Furthermore, it left open the door for any being, either supernatural, cosmological, or otherwise, to be the inherent culprit of design. IOW, the nature of the designer was left unexplained, which further complicated my understanding. As a result, it became apparent that readers could easily fill in their given choice of a designer on their own. Dembski, a devout Christian, of course, filled in the unknown designer with his own Christian God, without ever showing any evidence to do so. I found this to be highly inappropriate, and it certainly was not science.

The second problem I had, specifically with Behe's �Darwin�s Black Box�, is that each and every proposed evolutionary pathway he has problems with and proposes ID involvement instead, has been shown to have some possible evolutionary pathways for their formation. But to understand fully what Behe is referring to when speaking of Irreducible Complexity, let�s look at his definition, according to his book:

quote:

By irreducible complexity I mean a single system which is composed of several interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional.

So the trick is to see whether or not successive modifications of a precursor system has produced positive results for an evolutionary pathway. And if you look at his argument carefully, you see that Behe is not offering a way to detect design, he is offering a way to falsify gradual Darwinian evolution, and by elimination, conclude design (which is a false dichotomy fallacy to begin with). But there is one big problem- his falsifier has been falsified. The conclusion that an "irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system" is simply wrong. There are at least three different ways that an IC system can be produced by a series of small modifications: 1) Improvements become necessities, 2) Loss of scaffolding 3) Duplication and divergence.

http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay...rreducible.html

And as H. Allen Orr states about this fatal logical flaw in Behe�s argument:

quote:

"Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required." "The point is there's no guarantee that improvements will remain mere improvements. Indeed because later changes build on previous ones, there's every reason to think that earlier refinements might become necessary. The transformation of air bladders into lungs that allowed animals to breathe atmospheric oxygen was initially just advantageous: such beasts could explore open niches-like dry land-that were unavailable to their lung-less peers. But as evolution built on this adaptation (modifying limbs for walking, for instance), we grew thoroughly terrestrial and lungs, consequently, are no longer luxuries-they are essential. The punch-line is, I think, obvious: although this process is thoroughly Darwinian, we are often left with a system that is irreducibly complex. I'm afraid there's no room for compromise here: Behe's key claim that all the components of an irreducibly complex system 'have to be there from the beginning' is dead wrong.

Unfortunately for Behe, precursor evolutionary pathways are well documented. Furthermore, possible evolutionary pathways can be demonstrated in his examples given that he claims have only arisen from Intelligent Design. Rather than explain each example in painstaking detail, I�ll direct you to some websites that show refutations of his examples:

1. His mousetrap analogy:

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mousetrap.html

2. Vertebrate Blood Clotting:

http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Darw...t/Clotting.html
http://www.bostonreview.net/br22.1/doolittle.html
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/ar..._10_31_2002.asp (fantastic debate between Miller and Behe)

3. Antibodies and the Immune System:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/icsic.html
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/Evolving_Immunity.html

4. Bombadier Beetles:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html

5. Bacterial Flagella:

http://www.health.adelaide.edu.au/P...ys/flagella.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200_1.html
http://www.talkreason.org/articles/flagellum.cfm

6. Cilia:

http://www.btinternet.com/~clare.stevens/behenot.htm

7. Metabolic Pathways:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...6&dopt=Abstract
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/e...n1/article.html


And an excellent review from a couple of biochemists:

http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/Behe.html
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/e...n1/article.html


And if you�re absolutely dying to know where to locate primary literature on these rebuttals, here�s an exhaustive list of literature on each topic:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/publish.html

After reading the criticisms, I started realizing that this idea of ID was, in essence, not unfamiliar at all with any other creationist idea � it has already drawn it�s own conclusions without any evidence to support those conclusions, and furthermore those conclusions and assertions are untested assertions to begin with. Behe also draws upon a number of other logical fallacies, including creating strawmen, ad hoc, shifting the goalposts, and of course, argument from incredulity � which is the ultimate take home message here. Behe simply fills in the gaps with an IDer (umm, God, in case you were wondering), when he simply fails to understand or refuse to accept possible evolutionary pathways developing complex designs.

But lastly, I think the ultimate underlying problem with Behe�s argument is that he simply wouldn�t have an argument to begin with if he simply understood evolutionary principles better. This is a pretty shocking statement to make, given the fact that Behe himself is a biochemist scientist. But his misunderstandings of evolution are evident throughout his book with all the logical fallacies thrown at evolutionary concepts, one after another. For Behe to be able to continue working as a scientist and to follow scientific principles via the scientific method, which ultimately contributed to his collegiate research position, but yet throw that basic scientific tenet for an untestable, and unproven idea like ID, which is in direct contrast to scientific methodology, is truly mind boggling. In closing, I�d like to post this thought from a buddy in another forum on the matter of Behe and ID:

quote:

But now I'll go ahead and state my own position: If all life descended from a common ancestor (or a few) by natural undirected processes, then the same sorts of natural undirected processes may have been how that common ancestor community got there. Behe is making the fact that our knowledge of abiogenesis may always be extremely tentative his a priori evidence that intelligent intervention was involved. He offers no example of a biological structure or organism arising solely through intelligent intervention, but he asserts that this is a scientific explanation. In fact it is neither. Intelligent design creationists cannot tell us why the universal application of natural law is an invalid assumption, but they accuse us of being overly credulous for accepting that assumption in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Why 'IC' or 'specified complexity' or any other attribute should automatically signify the inadequacy of natural laws and processes has never been explained. Why the inadequacy of methodological naturalism doesn't invalidate empirical evidential inquiry as a whole has never been explained. ID creationism is based on stretching metaphors, arguments from analogy, and explanatory filters rigged to arrive at the IDC-ordained conclusion. The attacks on Behe shine a harsh light on the scientific, philosophical, and logical shortcomings of intelligent design creationism. They have been successful in relegating IDC and God-of-the-gaps methodology to the status of smart-sounding but ultimately irrelevant creationist nonsense.

And finally, if there were an Intelligent Designer who�s created everything, this ID being has some explaining to do for some of the following �anomalies�:

http://www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm

And if this hasn�t gotten you excited enough, I�ll have another post on Dembski tomorrow!

another evolution thread?

Hehe, very thorough Opus. I liked it. That does help fill in some gaps in what I was thinking. All the arguments of mutations that arent really beneficial unless there is a system for its use aside, it just keeps string along one variable after another.

I guess my way of summing it up is "At what point do luck and chance become a miracle?"

It may seem that im going off topic here hehe, but its mainly that science isnt why I have chosen a faith, so Im not really debating on that front. I probably need to study more, but so far every time I find an answer to something, i find the argument to it, and then the argument to that.

This is partially the reason for me saying earlier that I think Homo Sapien is a transplant. Just seems like we are so detached from Earths way of working.

I dunno. Not to wax sentimental but the stuff that has driven me to my decision has been the human capacity for good and bad. To watch people get drawn together and feel things so deeply it causes physical pain... we are so connected to the world, and yet we have these ephemeral connections to something greater than us.

That classic little exchange of "can you see wind? No. Then how do you know it exists? I see its effects" is something that I will admit is totally subjective. I find life too boring when I go through it objectively sometimes I just want to look at the Northern Lights without figuring out magnetism and wavelength equations.


Im not chalking up a belief in God to "im too lazy to think hard about stuff and junk" but to the fact that sometimes when you are looking at a scale through a magnifying glass, youre missing the dragon outside of it.

Again, I admit its subjective interpretation of the world, but so far (again) science seems to dead end at some crucial points for me. Call me a mystic or a spiritualist or something (although most people who know me would laugh their asses off if you did ) but where some people see an interlocking set of rules and natural law and chance and variables, I see someone putting those pieces into place.

Sorry if this isnt hard enough for you guys to debate on, just throwing in some personal thought

Plus Alcohol. I think that right there is proof enough of God.

Christ - fantastic (not to mention massive) post MisterOpus. I'll have to save the page and read it all later.

A bit off topic, but I feel perfectly comfortable taking someone on when it comes to religion or belief in god, but when it comes to evolution, I have serious trouble, as creationists of the young earth variety - how can I put this? Well, they seem to be experts at misrepresentation and repeatedly produce up with what could only be called extremely bizarre arguments.

I've always wanted to really learn about evolution - and I mean actually get stuck into it, as it's fascinating subject. I suppose I should put a day aside to read the talk.origins archive. But yeah, great post.

I might just chime in on the religion course as issue well. I fully support them, but only if they're set up in a certain way.

In short, they would have to be comparative religion & philosophy classes. This would mean that they would touch on Christianity, Mormonism, Jehovahs Witnesses, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, Hinduism, Deism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Wicca & Paganism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Gnosticism, Traditional Satanism, Pantheism and so on. It would also need to include Secular Humanism, atheism and agnosticism.

Their primary function would be to educate people on what each major world religion believes, how old they are and whatnot - not to indoctrinate people. That means no evangelism, and no official or implied support of any particular religion or world view. Just explain what they are, what they believe - and why people follow them. This would hopefully help prevent stuff like the crap that went on after 9/11, where people murdered and beat up Sikhs in the streets because they thought they were fundamentalist Muslims. People might also learn that atheists don't hate everyone, and don't intend to eat people's children. There's a hell of a lot of intolerance, discrimination and ignorance out there when it comes to religion and philosophy, and in my mind - something needs to be done about it.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I HAD A HUGE POST AND HIT BACK AND IT WAS DELETED

*cries softly to self*

Shit.


alright basic points were (sigh):

My college had a course exactly like what I proposed and Arctic described. Took people a bit to get over it and then it was an incredible journey of learning with Tibetan monks and everything. Teaching that the philosophies underlying the religion doesnt imply acceptance. Was just a really cool experience.

Wouldve liked to see more evolution too. I had a physiological psychology course that got into it and it was fascinating.

I think the castigation of YECs and basically anyone is more due to the way the reached the conclusion, not the conclusion itself.

When a person studies for 5 years and makes a life choice its almost impossible to say they are wrong, or made a stupid choice.

However if you are doing it because your parents said so, it takes whatever implied research there was on their side and trashes it. Everyone needs to make their own choices, and blind faith has never been a good thing.

sigh...I had like 3 times that much and so much more eloquent...you get the idea though

quote:

Originally posted by Orbax I guess my way of summing it up is "At what point do luck and chance become a miracle?"

Man I hope I'm coherent on such little sleep... but anyway...

You know I respect your views on this Orbie, but I do take a little issue with such a question.

You ask when luck and chance become a miracle, but the fallacy of calculating a priori probabilities a posteriori has already been shown. That is to say, you cannot calculate the probability of something happening if it has already happened - there is simply no reliable way to do so.

To be clear, I am not expressing that we can't calculate the probability of an amino acid forming, or calculate any of the other probabilities having to do with the mechanisms of abiogenesis, evolution, whatever. We certainly can, and it is not very probable. But when we use words like "luck", it implies that we were expecting something to happen a priori, and that's the problem with this mode of thought.

If I tell you I'm going to flip a coin 10 times and ask you to guess exactly what will turn up and in what exact order, you'd probably get it wrong. The chances are only 1 in 1024 that you'd get it right. That is quite evident statistically and makes perfect logical sense.

But if, on the other hand, I flip the coin 10 times, record exactly which face was up each time, then later on showed you the record and said "Wow! What do you think the chances were of getting T H T H H T T T H T!? It's amazing!" then I think you'd be a bit skeptical. In fact, you'd most likely say to me, "Uh... so what?" Because we both know the truth - it happened, the probability was only 1 in 1024, but all of those 1024 possibilites were equally unique and one of them was guaranteed to happen. So it's really nothing special that one of them DID happen.

It doesn't prove anything to calculate a probability a posteriori (in hindsight). In fact, when something that occurred in the past is proven to have an extremely low probability of occurrence, it is far more likely that it happened by accident (i.e. by my just flipping the coin and seeing what happened) than intentionally (i.e. by my planning in advance how the coin was supposed to land).

Now here's the even trickier part. If we are to assume, or not even assume but just consider the possibility even for a moment, for the sake of argument, that the universe is infinite in some fashion - that is, infinite in space or in time or in any conceivable way, as long as there is something unbounded about it, then the world we live in was guaranteed to come to being. Because when you take something that is even remotely possible, something that has even the most miniscule, infinitessimal chance of happening that only a "miracle" could possibly bring into being, it is guaranteed to happen when subjected to an unbounded variable (space, time, whatever). As long as the probability of something is not precisely zero, then it absolutely must happen on an infinite axis. So if our universe is infinitely old (and indeed, it may be infinitely old, for even if "this" universe is finitely old, "the" universe may go through constant expansion/compression cycles), then the overall probability of us living the way we are now is exactly 100%.

And if your response to that is, well how come the universe didn't collapse in on itself if the probability of that was higher than zero? The answer is simple - we're again talking about an a priori probability, but the a posteriori probability of the universe turning out any differently from how it already is is exactly zero.

To make a long story short, the probability argument doesn't fly in any rational sense.

Now you can have faith if you like... that's fine. I have no problem with people believing that a Deity caused this universe, as long as those people don't mean to suggest that the sheer improbability of it coming about by chance somehow implies that there must have been external causation in the form of a deity.

That should just about wrap it up.

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Originally posted by Orbax My college had a course exactly like what I proposed and Arctic described. Took people a bit to get over it and then it was an incredible journey of learning with Tibetan monks and everything. Teaching that the philosophies underlying the religion doesnt imply acceptance. Was just a really cool experience.

Sounds amazing - when I get to uni I plan to do something like that. Even though I'm an atheist, I'm still fascinated by religion, especially Taoism, Confucianism, deism, Buddhism and so on.

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Wouldve liked to see more evolution too. I had a physiological psychology course that got into it and it was fascinating.

You'd probably need to take up biology if you want to learn about that, but if you're really interested, you can always have a look at the Talk.Origins Archive & http://evolution.berkeley.edu/.

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I think the castigation of YECs and basically anyone is more due to the way the reached the conclusion, not the conclusion itself. When a person studies for 5 years and makes a life choice its almost impossible to say they are wrong, or made a stupid choice.

I don't know, I think it does have a lot to do with the conclusion, as it really doesn't make any sense. Honestly, turn on the TV, and find a documentary or show related to science, preferably biology or astronomy. Most of it is going to depend on the idea that the universe is billions of years old, and that humans have been around for tens (hundreds even?) of thousands of years. I think it's both the conclusion and the way they've come to it. The two are directly related as well, because how they got there of course needs to be looked at when examining the validity of it.

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However if you are doing it because your parents said so, it takes whatever implied research there was on their side and trashes it. Everyone needs to make their own choices, and blind faith has never been a good thing.

Agreed. I'm looking into all the major world religions because I want to - I try to disregard what my parents think. They aren't religious either, but one is an objectivist, which is something that I vehemently disagree with - so nobody can really accuse me of just following in their footsteps. If you don't look at what you believe, then there's always the chance that you could be horribly wrong - which is never a good thing.

"An unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates

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sigh...I had like 3 times that much and so much more eloquent...you get the idea though

It's probably worth doing a copy-paste with long posts, because when you lose them it's, well, really fucking annoying.

oh hehe I wasnt saying anything about the probability of an acid or anything. It was a general "look at how tight this world and universe is" kind of thought. Its not even really something you can calculate to say what are the odds of everything the way it is right now being the way it is. Bad stuff included. Adds some spice to shit eh?

Just falls into the faith category in the end. hehe.

Well i dont think that this world is that tight We could do a lot better but then again we could do alot worse. This is one of my points when debating stuff like religion. If we really were created in gods image (i think it says something like that in the bible) and god is de facto perfect, then why are we not perfect.

Heres another one of my thoughts (when im in one of my why does all the bad shit happan to me mods). If there is a god, did he purposley create such a mess. Ifhe is all knowing an all powerfull he could have done a lot better. But in a perfect world would there be a need for god? Now people look up to higher deitys becouse they dont understand something, they need help or just dont like the fact that they are alone in this mess of a world we live in (probably other reasons to but i dont know but i do notunderstand the way religious people think ) But for example in a world where there would be no worry, no sadness and everybody drove ferraris, dated a hot blonde and listend to trance all the time would one really need to look up to god for answers? Whats the point of being a god if nobody belives in you?

Arctic: Yes, hehe, I admit that Young Earth is an odd phenomenon, and is one of the conclusions that, even after study, is kind of weird. Its mainly something to read up on and be like, whoa, thats an interesting thought. But nothing really serious. Kind of like reading about UFOs.

Mongoose:

Being created in Gods image was more to the tune of compassion, love, forgiveness, faithfulness, curiosity etc...

As to "why does bad stuff happen"...

At least in my view

There is a spiritual war being waged on earth. Ever since the Fall of man, and before that, Lucifers condemnation for challenging God, man has come to a spiritual crux whenever there is a decision to be made. He can choose to go with God, or against him (middle of the road AKA Lukewarm is hated by both sides). To answer why Bad stuff happens...basically there was a group of Angels watchdogging earth and mankind. They decided to take some power on and ended up introducing war, hate, greed, all the bad stuff.

The reason it continues to this day is Free Will. God wants to be loved, and making an automaton that HAS to love him and follow His Will is rather pointless to that aim. So hes made it so people can choose to reject him.

The whole BluePrint idea that God has your life planned out and pre destiny is Bollocks, because God is Good, and he wouldnt plan crap into your life to challenge you or any of that gibberish. Bad stuff happens because there are people in this world, and they can interact with you.

**

Well, the world WAS perfect in the Garden. No shame, hatred, mistrust. Just total acceptance of everything. Free food, water, shelter. The Weather always nice enough to walk around and sleep naked in...Those were times when God DID walk the earth with his people.

I am at an odd point in my life regarding this all though. After reading Zecharia Sitchin's life work, its just really odd. Everything is odd. I dont know if youve read his stuff, but ater you read about 3 or 4 of his books, it starts kind of clicking. At first it seems fantastic, but the records of the ancient peoples were so exact. Any technological being would seem God like, and the planet things he brings up.

in a nutshell:

The ancients talked about neptune and uranaus and stuff and we didnt even see them with the hubble until 1986. They knew that it was going to be liquid, when we speculated on frozen. They knew the color and that both planets had the same outer surface temperature. They just knew an incredible amount.

They also said there is another planet out there that comes into our solar system every 3600 years. Way long ago it collided with a planet and Earth was formed. The other part is the asteroid belt in our area.

We looked at pluto and calculated that there HAD to be another thing working on it. Then... we found a "mysterious celestial body that was moving towards earth" in the 90s with a telescope again.

Its all just kind of a mind-screw with how much these old civies knew, and how ACCURATE it all was. The veracity of their science and history makes you take another look at how they said they interacted with "gods" and stuff.

I dunno, its all very interesting, and I dont know what "angels" are any more or exactly what "God" is any more. Ive had this happen to me before too, i just need some good ol' thinking time and more research. Complicated issues at hand.

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Originally posted by Orbax in a nutshell: The ancients talked about neptune and uranaus and stuff and we didnt even see them with the hubble until 1986. They knew that it was going to be liquid, when we speculated on frozen. They knew the color and that both planets had the same outer surface temperature. They just knew an incredible amount.

Could you please elaborate on what ancients you have in mind? If you're reffering to ancient american cultures, they had a a few more planets in mind that don't seem to exist. Uranus and Neptune were discovered and seen in 1800s, and we had quite good pictures of them before the Hubble, that was launched in 1990 if I'm not mistaken.

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They also said there is another planet out there that comes into our solar system every 3600 years. Way long ago it collided with a planet and Earth was formed. The other part is the asteroid belt in our area.

I guess it is remotely possible that there is a gigantic earth-sized Kuiper belt object with a 3600 year rotation period, as that is currently impossible to disprove. But for the asteroid belt, the mass it contains is miniscule in comparison with other planets. It wouldn't be enough to make half of our moon, let alone a whole planet.

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We looked at pluto and calculated that there HAD to be another thing working on it. Then... we found a "mysterious celestial body that was moving towards earth" in the 90s with a telescope again.

Sources? What body? We found Pluto's moon Charon in 1978, and some rather large Kuiper belt objects in the 90's, but none of them are moving towards earth. Anything that's currently moving towards earth that we know of are a few medium-sized asteroids at best.

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Its all just kind of a mind-screw with how much these old civies knew, and how ACCURATE it all was. The veracity of their science and history makes you take another look at how they said they interacted with "gods" and stuff.

I won't a priori reject any possibility that those civilizations have indeed been on to something, but I feel that without proper research on those subjects, it's early to speculate whether their data is indeed correct, or whether it's just a few paragraphs which accidentally make sense and are taken out of their otherwise nonsensical prophecies.[/QUOTE]

Mainly dealing with Sumerians and Mesopotamians.

The planet stuff is from The 12th Planet, the first book of the Earth Chronicles.

"In 1978, astronomers at the US Naval Observatory in Washington determined that Pluto - being smaller than formerly believed - could not by itself account for perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune; they postulated the existence of yet another celestial body beyond Pluto. in 1982 NASA announced its conclusion that there indeed exists such a body; whether or not its another large planet, it planned to determine by deploying in a certain manner its two Pioneer spacecract that had been hurtling into space beyond Saturn. and at the close of 1983 astronomers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that IRAS, the infrared telescope mounted on a spacecraft...- had discovered beyong Pluto a very distant "mystery celestial body" about 4 times the size of earth and moving towards earth"

Also in 1983 rocks were found in Antarctica from Mars and our Moon. Which coincides with the satellites of Nibiru (Sumerian name for planet) colliding with Tiamat (pre earth planet).

The symbol for the planet was a Cross and the very name means "crossing".

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Originally posted by Orbax Mainly dealing with Sumerians and Mesopotamians. The planet stuff is from The 12th Planet, the first book of the Earth Chronicles. "In 1978, astronomers at the US Naval Observatory in Washington determined that Pluto - being smaller than formerly believed - could not by itself account for perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune; they postulated the existence of yet another celestial body beyond Pluto. in 1982 NASA announced its conclusion that there indeed exists such a body; whether or not its another large planet, it planned to determine by deploying in a certain manner its two Pioneer spacecract that had been hurtling into space beyond Saturn. and at the close of 1983 astronomers at the California Jet Propulsion Laboratory announced that IRAS, the infrared telescope mounted on a spacecraft...- had discovered beyong Pluto a very distant "mystery celestial body" about 4 times the size of earth and moving towards earth" Also in 1983 rocks were found in Antarctica from Mars and our Moon. Which coincides with the satellites of Nibiru (Sumerian name for planet) colliding with Tiamat (pre earth planet). The symbol for the planet was a Cross and the very name means "crossing".

Niburu, eh? Well, I hate to break it to you, but Nuburu was supposed to be a huge brown dwarf that was supposed to pass at a distance of about 20 million kilometers from Earth in may 2003. Needless to say, it didn't happen.

In reality, while it was first considered to be a possible large planet, even a brown dwarf, it is infact a very large asteroid called 2001 KX76. It is rather large in size, almost as big as Pluto, but it is definitely not on a collision course with Earth. The orbital fluctuations of Neptune and Pluto may indeed be caused by some yet unknown Kuiper belt objects, but that is yet unconfirmed.

Now, about Sumerians, they thought there are 12 planets, so I don't see how their predictions could be accurate. There are basically 8 major planets, and then there's Pluto that's infact just a huge Kuiper belt object. Aside from it, there are maybe tens of such yet undiscovered semi-planets spinning around the sun.

they counted the sun and the moon as celestial bodies. Thats why the book is called 12th planet. Because they had 11 sun moon, and everything up to pluto.

They werent saying that its on a collision with earth, the orbital takes inbetween mars and venus if I remember correctly.


Like I said, its all just a fun read. I mean, Zecharias point is that the Anunnaki (Nibirians) came to earth to harvest gold and other precious metals. They had a spaceport in mesopotamia and all the Ziggurats, pyramids, and temples of the old world were basically their places. He covers Egyptians, Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, even the Negroid Toltecs.

Said Man was created in the "Adam" project (adam means earthling in Sumerian) by the Anunnaki who cross bred the already existing ape female egg with Anunnaki sperm and inseminated it into their own women later to be known as Birth Mothers. This created a dark haired people. They were sterile however, but one of the Anunnaki decided to break the law and give them the ability to breed.

they were then cast out of E.DIN (Sumerian for the dwelling place of the enlightened ones) and began to spread.

Goes on to talk about how they introduced the self propogating grain strains onto earth and all this stuff.

Its actually really fascinating, and when you read it you arent thinking its crazy, because this is the guys life work and it is really solid. Fun as hell to read. Im not taking it as Gospel, but, man, lot of weird stuff goin on.

I just wantd to say hello.

So.

Hello

I have nothng to add and can't be arsed to read everything...oh wait I do have something to add:

Click Me to hear "God" sing (this is for you MisterOpus) hehe.

MrS

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Originally posted by Orbax they counted the sun and the moon as celestial bodies. Thats why the book is called 12th planet. Because they had 11 sun moon, and everything up to pluto. They werent saying that its on a collision with earth, the orbital takes inbetween mars and venus if I remember correctly. Like I said, its all just a fun read. I mean, Zecharias point is that the Anunnaki (Nibirians) came to earth to harvest gold and other precious metals. They had a spaceport in mesopotamia and all the Ziggurats, pyramids, and temples of the old world were basically their places. He covers Egyptians, Incas, Mayans, Aztecs, even the Negroid Toltecs. Said Man was created in the "Adam" project (adam means earthling in Sumerian) by the Anunnaki who cross bred the already existing ape female egg with Anunnaki sperm and inseminated it into their own women later to be known as Birth Mothers. This created a dark haired people. They were sterile however, but one of the Anunnaki decided to break the law and give them the ability to breed. they were then cast out of E.DIN (Sumerian for the dwelling place of the enlightened ones) and began to spread. Goes on to talk about how they introduced the self propogating grain strains onto earth and all this stuff. Its actually really fascinating, and when you read it you arent thinking its crazy, because this is the guys life work and it is really solid. Fun as hell to read. Im not taking it as Gospel, but, man, lot of weird stuff goin on.

Well, I do agree that those things are an interesting read. Unfortunately, their connection with reality is just about as close as that of ad&d stories and fairy tales.

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