| Srezic |
Well, I have a couple things to say about the whole religion/life stuff. And other comments I have about questions asked:
First off, I am atheist. I agree with Greg that nothing happens after death. The molecules just go back into the air and the earth, etc....
Second, not to be offensive, but I see religion as a way in history of keeping people under control. Just as an example, if you look at the structure of the christian church throughout history, their views on what was right and wrong changed constantly to keep the people in order. Government and religion were interconnected. And it is still somewhat that way even in this timeperiod (abortion morality).
Anyway, off the religion topic. On to life...
The true meaning of life is to make those who come after you, and those who 'live' with you, better people. If there was no purpose to life, we would still be cavemen, or possibly be extinct.
Now, about death: Death can easily be explained by science. As Greg said, The Entropy(organization) of a system (no matter how big or small) will decrease over time. The definition of entropy (dictionary.com): The tendency for all matter and energy in the universe to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity. So basically, over time, the human body loses its acute organization that it has at birth. Once the entropy is lowered enough, the system (human body) cannot function correctly anymore. For example, say a machine was run on a large bottle of marbles. And in the bottle, each row of marbles was the same color. Now, for the machine to run precisely, the marbles each needed to be in a row of their same color. But, say every 6 months or so, the jar was given a good shake. After the first couple years, the machine could still run, but its preciseness would be off because a few of the marbles were out of their color-layer. Now, say after 50 years, the whole jar would be a mess of different colored marbles, and the machine would hardly work as well as when it was first made. This is an example that somewhat relates to life and death. Life = high organization. Death = point where disorganization stops the system from functioning completely. And since pretty much every part of our body needs to function correctly for us to live, if one part goes out, we're in trouble. (Sorry for confusing example, it was a great one given by a physics professor of mine last semester, so it was still fresh in my mind =P).
Also, 1 thing about the dinosaurs before I quit.
While this doesn't exactly relate to the dinosaurs, it relates to extinction. I saw an interesting thing on the discovery channel which talked about somethign called "Super Volcanoes." I wont go into detail because It would take up pages of info. But basically, giant pools of magma form underground (some as large as 50-75 kilometers in diameter). And after long long time period (every 600,000 years or so), the thing erupts, and causes an eruption so violent, that ashes would be spread around the world (in extremely thick layers[2-6 feet deep in places]). One of these Super Volcanoes exists in Yellowstone Park in the US (thats why it is so hot, and has the geisers and such.) On the show, it showed that approximately 70,000 years ago (i believe) a super volcano went off in southeast asia (in phillipines somewhere). And it dwindled human(whatever we were then) existance, down to a population of only a few thousand. They did this with some kinda DNA testing i didn't understand. But it seemed valid =P. Also, a thing to note, is that the Yellowstone Super Volcano is thought to go off eveyr 600,000 years, and the last time it erupted is believed to be approximately 600,000 years ago. Something to think about =P. Death & Extinction is just a way for the earth to restart life. The species going extinct is getting the low end of the deal of course, but if it means better life for a new species to come, it sounds good to me. Since when you die, your molecules and such go back into the earth and the atmosphere, you are letting yourself be used for future generations (your molecules could make up thousands of different babies (of all types). Its just the life cycle.
The thing everyone has trouble explaining, is the 'soul' people have in them(if it even exists). I dont know what to even say for that. There is no explaining why we have control, and awareness of life. We will never know.
Also responding to Shamez's post about aliens. I agree there are other forms of life in the universe (impossible word to comprehend =P). But the possibility of contact with those other civilizations is pretty much 0%. It takes light from stars sometimes billions of years to reach the earth at the fastest possible speed (some stars light is JUST starting to shine on us that was created when the universe began (at big bang)).
Though, 99% of the universe is still a mystery. We may have found MANY MANY things, but whenever we find something new, 20+ new questions emerge. 1 major thing that is unexplained in the universe is Dark Matter. Dark Matter takes up 75% of the mass of the universe, yet we cannot prove it exists, except for the fact that visible matter is only 25% of the total estimated universe mass. Its just a mystery, like everything else. And we gotta just deal with it, and let the scientists go to work on finding answers to our so many WHY questions. I live with it, and though death may be a hard thing to deal with, there is no way to stop it, so it has to come.
Sorry for the extremely long post. Just wanted to give my views on all this stuff.
By the way, if any of you are interested in the Super Volcanoes thing, I think you should be able to search discovery channel website, or google or something. Just search "Super Volcano Yellowstone" and it should give you info.
Hope you had fun reading my rant. Now it is time for bed, cuz I got school tomorrow. |
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