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Ready, Steady, Evolve
Stront writes "New Scientist is reporting that plants and animals can 'bottle up' evolution until they need it. A certain protein 'hides away' mutated genes acting like a genetic valet, however in extreme environments, such as high temperature or noxious chemicals, the cleaning process breaks down and the mutations are released all at once. This goes some way to explaining examples that are considered to defy standard evolutionary theory, such as the Bombardier Beetle."
Doesn't this kind of go against the theory of natural selection? I mean, if the mutated gene is hidden, then there really isn't a difference between the inferior and superior versions, so the gene pool won't be improved.
Have you been stalked by Seth today?
According to evolutionary "thinking" there must have been thousands of generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces. Eventually. we are assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development of the inhibitor?
Never trust any arguement that has to resort to putting thinking in quotes! Especially if the word 'god' is on the same page!
You can't "defy" a theory. That's why it's called a theory. Theorys "evolve" (heh) until they finally fit all the available facts, and then we can be fairly sure that that is what is really happening.
This mechanism is so subtle, it is surely proof of an intelligent designer. That being the case, there is no need for evolution at all, so the mechanism itself clearly doesn't exist...
Damn, I appear to be trapped in a maze of circular logic.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This is ludicrous. Bottle up? This goes nowhere toward explaining troublesome spots for evolution. The bombardier beetle clearly had an excellent designer.
a link to the freakin article?
Is there a link to the direct article? It's not on the homepage.
It's a bit difficult to comment on a story, when the story requires subscription to the print edition of a magazine to view it! That, or wait a week until the story is released to the masses.
This certain protein and hidden mutation is also created because of evolution, and it is as we now know a cruicidal thing in all life to survive a longer time.
A simple proof of evolution is to look at genetic programming (for example here, here and here).
Just look at the classic example of ants collection food. It is beautifully described in John R. Koza's great books (1, 2 and 3) on the subject.
Just imagine adding a fermone layer to freeciv and let the random search for a superior player begin.
Only if you're a creationist.
debunkingOf course, the mutations are also released when your Pokemon hits a certain level (depending on the Pokemon), or is exposed one of several rare stones, or even becomes extremely attached to its trainer.
Shredder has many vials of a substance called "Mutagen" that can also release these mutations.
If you want to be seen, stand up. If you want to be heard, speak up. If you want to be respected, sit down and shut up.
Yes bob, today I mutated my genes in a way that makes me incompatable with the human species. However, don't you fret, because as luck has it there is a woman close by that happened to have the exact same mutation and is in a breeding age, plus is single and attracted to me. Now lets all throw up our computers and flowcharts and they will land as a super powerful cluster that defies any computing power known to this date!
All these examples where the standard theory failed showed the basic flaws of the evolution theory. Now they bring up a extremely complicated theory to get the "standard theory" right. Ironically it contradicts itself the evolutionary theory by such plants and animals with "hidden genes" are more prone to get gene-defect diseases like cancer etc. So that's basically a huge evolutionary drawback which should have eliminated by evolution.
Sorry pals. The standard evolution theory by Darwin is basically flawed. I'm not one of these air-heads who doubt carbon dating etc. But we have record in all older human of a superior alien power interfering which life on this planet. Why should this be in fact wrong ? The acients surely saw something and misinterpreted it, without having much knowledge about the world. However humans are not cracked up such much as they seem to be so it's very unlikely that this is all made up.
You guy defending the evolution theory so keenly are in fact a new kind of religious zealot - you just replaced the trinity with natural sciences.
I wonder when the first fires will burn and the whitchhunts start.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
How do creationists explain the existence of fossils which carbon dating show to be older than the supposed age of the Earth? Were these placed by [Gg]od also, to trick us? Is carbon dating a joke? How do they explain it?
(I don't usually get in these debates with creationists because my blatent atheism often offends them.)
The whole concept of emergent behaviour.
Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio makes for a good introduction on that subject...
There's no great mystery; all of the chemicals are common, other beetles exist that excrete them separately; and the temperatures and pressures are not really that great (only just above boiling). So what?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!""Rock and roll your balls."
Ignoring all the people who want to get into a creationist vs. evolution debate, I find this very interesting. (For the record, I'm a Christian who is interested in science.)
I've always been curious about evolution, but have found a problem in it that I havn't been able to get around.
We can see natural selection at work withen a species before our eyes in a matter of generations, but have yet to see any dramatic jump that evolutionary theory supports.
Could this be the answer? Could these stored up Genes have enough in side of them to not only modify a breed of species, but create an entirly new one? I'd love to see more research on this.
If so, we have discovered the final missing link in evolutionary theory.
The Internet is generally stupid
Do any of us read anything not online anymore? Next slashdot poll: How many (print) magazine subscriptions in your home?
To date, there has been no observed beneficial mutation. Clearly then, organisms that receive a mutation are less likely to survive than (already healthy) organisms that don't, so perhaps this is just a mechanism to protect the organism against mutations.
And I think the protein breaksdown under the conditions stated simply because not many creatures have evolved to live in volcanos or toxic waste dumps.
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to we
Here is a link to the talkorigins.org discussion on the bombardier beetle.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html
Two points here:
Even if the destruction of the proteins that help restrict gene mutations were all destroyed. Is it really possible for a mutated gene or even one million randomly mutated genes to have the scientific precision to create the kind of defensive system that the Bombardier Beetle has? I seriously doubt it. It looks more to me that a scientist of sorts has created this insect.
Second point: Isn't it strange that in a world governed by evolution that the fauna here actually have developed proteins to restrict the mutation of genes? It would seem that evolutionary process would revel in the mutation of genes since it advances life?
Sometimes it feels like evolutionists are the Emporer and His New Clothes.
This type of topic on Slashdot always creates lots of posts bashing Creationists. Because of this, I would like to give you a rational, logical expanation about the beliefs of Creationists, to dispel the ignorance displayed here on Slashdot.
What is a Creationist?
A Creationist believes that living things were designed and created by God, rather than a process such as evolution.
So God is a designer and creator?
Yes, this is fundamental to the beliefs of Creationists.
What is God? An old man with a big white beard?
That's just silly. God is everywhere, he is a spirit. You can't see him.
You said God was a designer and creator. Why?
Sorry?
What's he do it for?
Erm. What? Oh I know this one! You mustn't question the doings of God, they are unexplainable by mere mortals?
So this invisible and unexplainable thing you call God created all living creatures, but you can't explain why?
You must have faith.
And you think that's a more sensible explanation of life on Earth than evoluton?
I've got my faith. I don't have to question it.
So what about the fossil record? Did God create that?
[Hands on ears] La la la la la la la la...
I've sifted through their site and been unable to turn up anything. If the article isn't online... is it really all that fruitful for us to discuss the plausibility of a theory we can't get more than a 2 line explanation of?
Where's the beef?
I claim this frosty post on behalf of Tux and all his friends at the South Pole. Please mod me up, pleeeeeeease! Won't you do it for the penguins? Please, think of the penguins and mod this up! NOW!
I'd recommend the creationists and those who have their reservations about evolutionary theory as it stands to read the editorial in that issue of new scientist...you might have to wait a week though
I'm not entirely convinced that the Bombadier Beetle is a good argument against evolution, even before this theory.
There are many organisms that use what would be lethal chemicals to disorient, disable and/or kill their prey and/or predators. If you think of the squillions of beetles in the world (and there really are billions and billions of them), then look at the amount of time they've existed (a very very long time), is it really that surprising that such a feature could evolve?
Something as advantageous as being able to secrete chemicals that predators don't like gives you such a massive advantage over your defenseless peers that natural selection is going to promote that feature very aggressively, then one beetle arrives that has slightly too powerful secretion methods that squirt the chemical rather than simple secreting it onto their exoskeleton. Now you have an even bigger advantage, you can deter your predator before it has you in it's mouth. Again, natural selection is going to promote that quite aggressively because you're less likely to be injured and unable to reproduce further.
I admit that the leap from there to squirting two different chemicals so they meet at a precise point and react is a little greater, but it only has to happen by random chance once, after that natural selection (less other random chances of death) will take care of making it the predominant feature.
Given the incredible amount of specialisation nature displays elsewhere, the bombadier beetle doesn't seem to be too out of the ordinary. I would suggest that something like bioluminesence is equally impressive/unlikely.
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
The story deals with what happens to the human race when those genes come out for the first time since we took over from the Neandertals. (Probably not the best summary, but God it's early.)
Not a bad book -- I wasn't too compelled by the first half, but now that I'm on the downhill stretch I'm more and more engrossed. A neat idea, and one that looks like it may have some basis in fact. (Scary thought, given the human race's reaction in the book to what happens...)
Carousel is a lie!
All I can say is if the defense mechanism of the beetle was created by an intelligent designer, with blueprints and all, like Slartibartfast or something, S/he/it must be having a ball. "Ok, we/I create these things that eat beetles, but on the other hand lets make the beetle so it squirts hot crap in the predators face so it really has to work for it's dinner!! Won't that be a rip!!! Hehehe. Then let's make these humans have to toil away for their food also, and blame all their troubles on, hmmm, SIN! Yeah, that's the ticket, they used to live a life of eternal luxery in a fantastic garden but because of this 'sin' thing the now have to slave away to get food, shelter and clothing. Then we'll make those who beleive that stuff work against those who are trying to alleviate suffering, yeah, this'll keep those 'humans' hopelessly confused, just the way I designed it!!"
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You might want to check this for an alternate viewpoint.. I quote:
Much creationist literature gives an inaccurate account of the process. Based on an admittedly sloppy translation of a 1961 article by Schildknecht and Holoubek [Kofahl, 1981], Duane Gish claimed that hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinones would explode spontaneously if mixed without a chemical inhibitor, and that the beetle starts with a mix of all three and adds an anti-inhibitor when he wants the explosion. [Weber, 1981] In fact, the two do not explode when mixed, as others have demonstrated. [Dawkins, 1987, p. 86-87] (Schildknecht did propose a physical inhibitor which kept the mixture from degrading in undisected beetles; in fact, the degradation he saw was probably simply a result of exposure to the air.) Gish still used the mistaken scenario after being corrected by Kofahl in 1978. [Weber, 1981] The same mistake is also repeated in books by Hitching in 1981, Huse in 1983 and 1993, and twice in a creationist magazine in 1990 [Anon, 1990a,b].
You're confusing two different meanings of the word theory. One meaning is of hypothesis or conjecture, as in a suggested explanation yet to be proven right or wrong.
Another meaning is of governing principles as in "theory of operation". I have a book at home call "Loudspeakers: Theory and Design". The author does not offer hypotheses about how speakers work; he has no doubt as to whether they work and how they work. He's not writing conjecture - he's writing science and engineering - the general body of rules governing the operation of loudspeakers, which the author collectively refers to as their "theory of operation". This second sense of the word can be defied.
In the days of Darwin, the word "theory" in "Theory of Evolution" probably may have refered to the first sense of the word, as a hypothetical explanation of the origin of all species, including ours. But talk to a biologist or naturalist today and he'll tell you they have no doubt but that evolution is a fact; how it works, its principles of operation, is something they're still exploring and trying to explain.
This confusion between the meanings is something the Bible-thumbers love to exploit (I'm not lumping you in with them, though). They jump up and down and shout about how evolution is just a "theory" and that their half-baked Creation Science theories deserve equal consideration in the schools. Don't buy it. Evolution is a fact. We're sure of the big picture; it's just some of the details that we haven't worked out yet.
--Jim
I want FPS bots like on CT, or other fps games to start using AI/Genetic programmed bots that 'grow' and get better, but dont act unrealisticly, and aim like the terminator.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
In the description of the bombadier beetle, they make a huge deal about each muscle, and valve that has to be there to have this happen. If you think about it, how many muscles, and valves and widgets do we have inside just so we can rip a good fart? Really, that's not a troll, it's a serious question. They say it like the beetle has to think about throwing switch A, and mixing chem B, when it probably thinks about it as much as you do when you cut the cheese.
The body of problems we don't understand is essentially infinite, so they will keep trotting out this old warhorse indefinitely.
This is the argument they used to use to explain why the sun rises in the morning, why rain falls, and why we get sick with colds. These days they're a bit more thanks to science, and so they jump up and down with glee when they find a weird beetle or some such. But their argument is still the same: "I don't understand something, therefore God exists".
In related news, Ga. school board OKs teaching creationism
;-P
*Weeps*
Is there any way we could just put all of the fundamentalist christians and all of the the fundamentalist muslims in the same room and have all of their mental jibber jabber jibber jabber annhilate each other in a terrible puff of holy smoke?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's stories like these that show the common ignorance of evolution theory.
a> Evolution occurs when a gene exists, and defines the makeup of an animal, and the gene leads to the animal 1> dieing before it has a chance to bread 2> being superior to others in its species thus allowing those animals with this gene to bread more than those without it. Evolution occurs when conditions change that favor the subset of the species that has the gene and kills of the those that don't. For example, a gene or combination of genese allows a dog to get bigger and stronger. The temperature gets really really hot and all the big dogs die from overheating and frying their brain. The species has evolved into a smaller species of dog due to outside conditions. If genese hide (bigger dog genes), then evolution isn't a factor.
The beatle example.... Just because an animal is complex doesn't indicate it was designed. Imagine you had a deck of cards with a billion cards in it. One card has the old maid on it. For eternity, you pull cards once per hour. One day, 42,000 years later, after pulling 365 million cards, you pull the old maid. Some guy walks by and says, you must have looked through the deck because it is rare to pull that card. That's like in the beatle story, "that beatle must have been designed, "cause an inhibiter and a dangerous chemical comming to be at the same time is rare." (Remember, the world is 5 million years old and beatles have a short lifetime [guessing a month]). It has had 60000000 tries to mutate random mutations, good and bad. The shorter the lifespan of animal, the quicker you will see mutations. Viruses mutate quickly. Bugs not as fast, but pretty quick. Look at all the species that no longer react to insectiside. Humans, with 100 year lifespans evolve much slower. (Evolution comes as a result of random mutations. Note, most mutations are bad. Sometimes they are good)
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
"This goes some way to explaining examples that are considered to defy standard evolutionary theory, such as the Bombardier Beetle."
OK, I'll bite. Time to feed the Trolls...
The bombardier beetle never defied standard evolutionary theory. It may have defied belief, but that's a different matter entirely. If anything, the bombardier beetle, and countless other amazing species, show the awesome power of something as simple as random mutation and selection.
I am a Karma Library.
however in extreme environments, such as day before the deadline, the manager process breaks down and all the kludges are released all at once.
If you doubt the theory of evolution just take at your friends (I am addressing geeks on this one). Their bodies are already adapting to their environment:
- the most highly tuned muscles in their bodies are their hands/fingers (how many geeks have "hardbodies"?)
- most wear glasses (what is there to see more than 18 inches away?)
- they do not use vocal speech effectively (excluding expletvies that are equally applied to machines and other humans)
- have you seen the children of real geeks!
Wait! you complain - I know some exceptions to these observations. Of course you do - they are by definition not real geeks, or will be culled from the herd over time.
I can't wait to see what people look like 1000 years from now - extra fingers?, permanent near sightedness?, no legs?
KK4SFV
If the intelligence is already built in, i.e., algorithms are already in place, where is the evolution? These mutations are all previously encoded.. nothing then is random here. To me, evolution is like the marketplace. Someone *creates* a product from the spirit of their mind. Suddenly, this idea/product stimulates other peoples mind to create a very similar product but of slightly different encodings. Now suddenly we have all these similar but differnt products. I mean, don't these scientists really see this? Evolution is just a description for a post creation effect. Sheesh. Let's see, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics was proven mutable, the speed of light is not constant, can't we now just think different? ;-)
jimijon.com
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
Yeah. Creationists are always quick to point out
what they percive as "intelligent design".
On the other hand, they completely ignore that nature is far more abundant with "unintelligent design" - especially at the molecular level.
Intelligent design would be to use the same enzyme in all animals. Today, you have the same enzymes, but they have differences, not in function, but in all kinds of non-important ways.
Strangely (for the creationist), these differences are larger between, say a human and a bacteria than between two different types of bacteria.
Oh, and that beetle example is bulls**t. Read some non-biased information somewhere
instead of that pseudoscientific creationist crap.
(someone linked to a faq at talk.origins, probably a good place to start.)
The linked article quote Duane Gish, one of the premier proponents of Creationism. Before anyone puts too much stock in what he has to say, it should be noted that Gish has a record of misrepresenting facts.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
You've probably elevated yet another bit of creationist propaganda to the top of google. Of course, most of the Google results for "bombardier beetle" appear to be creationist tripe... I imagine those guys have never read the story of the Babel fish, or they'd stop looking so hard for "proof".
Ho ho.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Why couldn't the beetle have started out by just squirting a drop of some chemical when it got upset? Maybe that was enough to give it an edge. Then, perhaps it evolved to squirt its drop of stuff at things, instead of in the general vicinity (like a skunk). Then, perhaps over time other chemicals got added to increase the nastiness of the squirt, including reactants, inhibitors, etc. Perhaps at first this was all much more simple, with just a pressure-sealed orifice that squirted out when the pressure built up enough inside, and the whole "trap door" thing came later as greater pressure wound up creating better squirts and enhanced survivability.
In my opinion, it's WAY easier to come up with a viable evolution story for this beetle than to go off the deep and and talk about some kind omnipotent, omniscient being that specifically and deliberately thinks to himself (Hmm, how about if I create a beetle that squirts super-hot exhaust out of its ass-end at attackers? That'd be good for a laugh..."). I mean, come on, like this omnipotent being wouldn't have something better to do? What about all the critters living down at the bottom of the ocean? Like those worms that feed off super-heated vents in the darkest depths? What the hell would they be designed for? Or the insects that live in your eyebrows? Intelligent design? It's amazing that people assert that the argument from design makes more sense than evolution - I think it makes absolutely no sense at all!
Please Rate my comment (and help support Fre
I'm surprised no one has pointed out the main fault in the argument the Creationists (especially ones using 'complexity' arguments) - they fail to understand time. They're claiming "thousands" of generations is not enough time for 'random' mutations (with selection) to create this mechanism. First, thousands is a number that is entirely incomprehensible to the human mind and second, if beetles have been around *at least* since the dinosaurs, then the number is more like tens or hundreds of millions of generations. I think it points to natural selection as a strong argument for the paucity of differentiation of species rather than, as they argue, the incredible 'abundance'.
creationists like to cite the b-beetle because there is no obvious predecessor. that is, it is hard for evoloutionist to cite a evolutionary parent for the defense system of the b-beetle. perhaps this can be understood in terms of an example to the contrary. the human eye is pretty cool. it is a complex array of very specialized systems. so, God must have created it? well, the evolutionist would just point out that there are many eyes in the animal kingdom that increase in complexity. thus, one can comprehend how the eye may have evolved. the origin of the defense mechanism of the b-beetle, on the other hand, is harder to understand, simply because we do not have a clear predecessor. the predecessor likely died out. so the creationist makes their argument on a lack of data...
If the creationists have troubles accepting something as simple as a bombardier beetle evolving naturally, they surely must understand that I have even more problems accepting something as complex as 'God'. At least until I hear some reasonable theory of where this God came from, and what was there before...
... as a force.
I would say that evolution is not a force. It is simply the result of phenomenons. Saying that evolution would draw towards stronger/better beings and weed out the weaker/lesser beings is in my opinion untrue.
If a being replicates it replicates and by genetics its genes are carried on.
If something is not replicated, no matter how strong or good we might think it is. Its genes will not carry on.
Could Marvel have been right all along!? One bite from a radio-active spider or an accidental explosion in a chemical plant and I can have super powers?
For your fear of evolution, I suggest Darwin's book, The Voyage of the Beagle. You can find it in wiretap if not your local library.
As for the sanity argument, you're both right and wrong. I've decided myself that I must assume my own sanity for anything else to follow. If I don't, I can't do anything at all. I don't pretend to be able to prove my sanity, and indeed, I sometimes question it.
There is a fantastic angle to one's sanity that you should consider. Read Go"del, Escher, Bach by Dounglas Hofstadter. Page 191-192 even, the argument between Prudence and Imprudence. They discuss something much simpler than evolution; propositional calculus (aka. basic logic): the theory that given "if P then Q" AND "P" always means Q. Imprudence ends with "You want a proof. I guess that means you want to be more convinced that the Propositional Calculus is consistent than you are convinced of your own sanity...."
What is a Evolutionist?
A Evolutionist believes that living things were created by chance, rather than an intelligent creator such as God.
So evolution is a designer and creator?
Yes, this is fundamental to the beliefs of Evolutionists.
What is Evolution? A random sequence of low probabilities scattered over a long period of time to make them seem plausible?
That's just silly. Evolution is everywhere, it is a process. You can't see it.
You said Evolution was a designer and creator. Why?
Sorry?
What's it do it for?
Erm. What? Oh I know this one! You mustn't question the doings of Science, they are unexplainable by mere mortals?
So this invisible and unexplainable thing you call Evolution created all living creatures, but you can't explain why?
You must have faith.
And you think that's a more sensible explanation of life on Earth than creation?
I've got my faith. I don't have to question it.
HURR HURR TEH STOPID EVOLUDDOIFHISTSTS THINK TAHT THAYU NOW WAHT GOD SI THENKING!!!!1`1`!one
I MA SO GALAD TAHT YUO CANE STRATEN TISH AL OUT FOR US!!11`1`111`one!!!!1111
...the problem I see with these sort of discussions is that people think that if you don't believe in Evolution, you must be a creationist.
I personally think that Evolution is a load of twaddle, and don't have too much time for creation theory. I prefer to think of the universe as the spewings of the giant heavenly space tuna. And do you know what the funny thing is? My theory stands up just as well as the other two.
Find funky gifts
Too bad Gould didn't live just a few more months to see this. I haven't read the article, but the idea would certainly seem to support Punctured Equilibrium. I would hope that he at least had access to some of the data before publishing.
You are incorrect about the standard atheist argument: "I don't understand something, and I will TRY to understand it. Furthermore I will do myself and humanity a grave disservice but ascribing what I don't understand to an unknown god and failing to try to understand."
And it's been a theory for a good twenty years at least in evolutionary biology. It explains why we find a lot of fossils of different species, but very few fossils that qualify as a "missing link" between species. This just gives a reasonable explanation for the mechanism which produces punctuated equilibrium.
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
Try it the way it would have statistically happened.
1. Draw card.
2. Check Card
3. Reinsert card.
4. Shuffle Deck.
5. Go to 1
Now, what are your odds of drawing the right card?
The DNA of rocks and chemicals ISN'T stored away...!?!
crazy dynamite monkey
All living systems that employ diploidy (having a pair of chromosomes, and therefore a pair of alleles for each gene) apply dominance relation changes to do this trick.
--- Sigmentation Fault - Comments Dumped
What are the chances this may actually get modded higher than a 1.... nil. Unfortunate.
Awesome!
So, does this mean that as I've never realised that I had the ability to mutate, that I can use 22 years worth of stored up mutateability to grow an extra arm or something!? Brilliant! I will be able to type quicker.
If your existence came into being based on totally random events, then your brain also was the result of a random event.
...a brain capable of thought...
Yes, it was. You're doing well...
How then, can you possibly trust in your own thinking...
Because my imperfect brain, with its chemical and electrical interactions, has created a stored pattern of electrical impulses that causes a chemical reaction due to an external or internal trigger. It makes me believe its own delusions. My reality is not your reality.
You can't have any faith in your own intelligence if that intelligence was brought about by completely random events.
See above. I don't need to "have faith" in my intelligence, as I know full well that what I know as "inteligence" and "creativity" are simply a product of a chain reaction caused by various triggers. It all makes sense to me, though, as the outcomes themselves are triggers which....so on and so forth. Essentially, my brain doesn't need to justify anything to itself.
What is thought? Now you're getting down to the crux of it. A Creationist will tell you that thought is a product of a soul. I will tell you that thought is simply a product of a trigger and a feedback loop, which causes eletrical and chemical changes, which feed back into the loop.
I realise that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm a Christian therefore I believe in God not evolution" crap are actually simple drones of the right. Think for yourself, will ya?
I've got a fever and the only prescription is more COBOL.
Firstly, without reading the article, I took this post to mean that that the potenial to mutate can be supressed, not the actual expression of mutated genes. This would be a clever system, when a species becomes well suited to its environment it can put its evolutionary system on hold.
Secondly, the beetles defense system isn't all that complicated compared to a human brain, so why it seems to be a focal point for creationists to dismantle the theory of evolution is beyond me.
Last, I am no scientist, but could the fact that this system is potentially lethal to the beetle actually have made it quicker to evolve? If a beetle has it wrong, it dies pretty quick, thus more beetles who have a non-lethal arrangement live. This could be just a fluke that these beetles came to such a complex self defense mechanism, maybe if it happened again they would have grown big wings with eyes like butterflies.
Alan.
I would mod it to +3 funny!
I've always wanted to believe that a true scientist does not care what the truth is just so long as he knows that he's got it. Find the answer, deal with the ramifications later. I've also liked to believe that any intellegent person will evaluate an idea on its own merits rather than pick from whatever popular ideas are currently available.
Enter evolutionary theory. It seems that to show any skeptisism is to be labled a creationist. Who decided that those were the only options? Regardless of the validity of any other ideas out there, modern evolutionary theory does have trouble neatly explaining some observations. As a result, the theory is continually becoing more complex (There is really not sufficient room to go into detail so I apologize). At some point, skeptisism is appropriate.
Years ago, people widely believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and anyone who didn't think so was automatically labled a heretic. Rather than concede that the Earth was moving, planets were plotted as moving in epicyclic patterns. This was a real mess to explain in the context of known physics. As far as I know, Gallileo was not an atheist yet I believe he was excommunicated for suggesting that the Earth moved.
Now it's the opposite problem. To challenge evolutionary theory is to be labled a creationist, even though evolutionary theory is looking more and more like planets moving in epicycles everyday.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
It wasn't and isn't taught in the public schools, or by the "liberal" media. This subject has been surveyed numerous times, and the result is always the same: public school teachers barely touch the subject because they'd lose their jobs if they did. American students on the whole don't know the theory, and those that do have learned it by researching it for themselves. In a typical public school classroom evolution might be mentioned a time or two with none of the details spell out, and none of the evidence presented.
Your own post demonstrates this: "Someone PLEASE point me to some genuine, hard proof that evolution is reality because I assure you that I have never seen any".
There are endless books on the subject, and evidence that spans nearly every scientific discipline.
Note to /. - Please check with real scientists before making big fuss over New Scientist articles ;)
;^P )
:)
:D
Here's why:
They don't always get it right. They also do not cover these subjects in detail. They just take the tastiest bits from a given research-project and make a big noise.
I've noticed that the bigger the letters on the front of the magazine are, the shorter the main-article usually is (:o
(Why am I suddenly reminded of slashd...eh..nevermind
Although I must say that I haven't read the article yet. I'll buy a copy of the magazine and have a peep
(I need a good laugh now and then)
There was another New Scientist article ('life on venus') reported here on slashdot. Read the top-comments. (the +1> comments that is)Ok, ok, I'll assume the article/research is fairly accurate in its findings...now what?
let's get to the really interesting bit
The thing that scares me is this:
What if scientists can figure out how to 'trigger' this sudden evolution? We won't need genetic manipulation anymore...we'll just stress out some plants and animals...sit back and let evolution do the rest. The next step up is of course applying this to human beings...uh...waitholdonaminute...
<pictures cubicle-farms>
stress-testing?
<holds up bottle of blueberry flavour pepsi>
noxious chemicals?
<holds up newspaper article on global warming>
high temperatures?
<runs away screaming>
Hi kettle, my you're looking rather black today.
you are as much a follower as the people you are accusing of being followers.
For the questions that CAN be addressed by science, at least science can provide emperical evidence. Where is yours? Anything sort of "proof" to push a certain reality beyond simple self delusion?
Most of us have thought for ourselves; hopefully by reading some material from both sides of this argument and deciding based on the evidence presented whether they too believe in the theory of evolution or not.
The thing that draws most scientifically minded people to evolution is the scientific observations presented to back it up, and the difficulty in refuting it for the most part. Christianity on the other hand, while having the difficult to refute part down REALLY solidly, has only a series of assumptions based on "faith" for its defense. No offense to anyone's religion, but religion not only is not equal to science, but it doesn't even WANT to be like science. You're not SUPPOSED to test your God. You're just supposed to believe. Nothing wrong with that, but when you start putting up faith in the face of scientific data, it's a bit silly.
Your philosophical argument about thought is very interesting, but I don't need faith in my own intelligence either. I believe what I see with my own eyes; i.e. thinking for myself.
If your existence came into being based on totally random events, then your brain also was the result of a random event.
One line of thinking is to believe that God set it all up: the Big Bang, evolution, killer asteroids all to get to this point. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, there's no reason to believe God couldn't have figured out exactly the starting conditions to create humans. And in so doing, God not only demonstrates that ability, but also gives us li'l children of his a world with all sorts of clues about how it works and how it came to be how it is. And now our task, should we choose to accept it, is to create a universe where we have defeated the Four Horsemen and our own flaws because it's the Right Thing To Do.
To me, God starting with the Big Bang and getting to here is a lot more impressive than doing a little sculpting in 4004 B.C.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
In an ironic twist, just as we are starting to understand the mechanisms of evolution, CNN.com reports that Cobb county, Georgia's second largest school district, has passed a resolution allowing the teaching of alternate views of the origins of life (aka creationism).
According to Michael Gray, a Cobb high school junior "I had to do a term paper about evolution and there were just things that I could disprove or have alternate reasons for." This is exciting news. This junior in high school can disprove parts of the theory of evolution. Next, we'll have grade schoolers disproving the laws of physics.
I read the article about the bombardier beetle and it made me wonder:
...and to the ecosystem in which it lived? If so, why design a defense against predators when one could just as easily design predators that would not want to sup on our poor beetle?
If this little fellow was the product of intelligent design, would not that same intelligent design extend to the other creatures around it?
Or did the "designer" just want to sit back and guffaw at the pain and suffering inflicted on one of his creations by another?
-Eldurbarn
Let me preface this by saying that I do believe in God (after thinking everything through and deciding for myself)
:) ). This was all because I felt a bond to my common man, not because I feared reprisal in the afterlife. How were my morals any less real than the morals of those who 'do right' because their God tells them to? Belief in God in no way equates or even implies morality or ethics. Look at the Sept. 11th hijackers. They most likely believed very strongly in God. You could argue that they didn't follow God's teachings, but the point is that they believed they were.
Just because evolution was taught as truth in high school and college, and it allows you to live your life any way that you want without concern for life after death or accountability to a higher power doesn't mean that you should buy it.
It upsets me that so many people who believe in God imply that simply because someone does not believe in God they cannot have any true morals or ethics. I did not believe in God through most of high school and college, yet (I believe) I was a very moral person. I did not drink, did not do drugs, worked hard, tried not to lie (though I was somewhat less successful in that regard
I realize that this is going to get modded down, but it frustrates me that so many people who pull this "I'm an intellectual therefore I believe in evolution not God" crap are actually simple drones of the left. Think for yourself, will ya?
(Note, I have moderator access, but I think responding is much better to this than modding down)
I am sure there are just as many drones on the right who simply believe in God because it is easier. Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this? Is it because they know after reading the Bible that nothing else can possibly be correct? They may say that to themselves, but I doubt it is the truth. I find it much more likely that the Bible is what they were brought up with, and it is simply easier to follow what they already know as opposed to working to figure out what they can truly put their faith in.
I find it perplexing that many people take the time to diligently study the religion they were brought up to know, yet few take even scant moments to study the countless other religions in this world. Well, no, it doesn't really perplex me. It saddens me.
--David
So it's political eh? Sounds like someone shouldn't be casting any stones when asserting that someone else isn't thinking.
Couldn't this all be explained more easily (and accurately) if we just said "God makes them evolve when He wants."?
How can you trust eyes (created through a series of random events) to see anything correctly? How do you trust your brain's (again, created through a series of random events) interpretation of what your eyes see? The ridiculousness goes on and on.
"Herbivores eat well cause their food never, ever runs."
Worker bees die after they sting... perhaps the bombardier beetle lived in colonies as a 'soldier' before they could survive after using the 'weapon'.
...and its rewritten almost constantly. You have faithfully presupposed evolution just like some Christian has faithfully presupposed that God created everything, so I wouldn't spend too much time on your intellectual superiority rant.
Most people (Christians included) have little problem with suggesting evolution is the path by which the world, as we know it, was created. THe problem is that drones like you derive your worldview from something that was intended to be scientific only in nature.
You can only describe / postulate on things as you sense them. If our senses are all wrong then we can't decribe the environment accurately, but we can still describe our perception of it.
I've always read Genesis with an eye towards the original audience. How would YOU describe the creation of the universe to an aboriginal tribe cut off from the modern world and all its scientific understanding?
It seams to me that Genesis really answers the what, not the how. Even the timeline is fuzzy (what is a day to God? How do you measure the length of a day before there was a sun?).
science is a religion
Here's why your ability to debate philosophical subjects is pathetic: you do not have the ability to separate the philosophy from its abuses. The whole of Christianity (or any other religion) cannot be proven...THAT idea is actually a tenet of Christianity (it wouldn't be a religion if that wasn't the case) and that's why you cannot intellectually come to God. However, when a Christian has faith, he has faith that what he believes in is truth. If it's truth, then it should be able to walk hand in hand with what we find to be fact. Evolution is not currently in this realm, but if you really analyze the Bible (and Genesis in particular) you'll find that evolution fits in quite nicely with the creation account in Genesis chapter 1.
Some Christians do feel "guilty" if they question their faith but honestly, they are wrong. There's an entire realm of theological study called apologetics that deals precisely with the attempting to verify and justify Christianity.
If you are truly interested in understanding Christianity as a philosophy (so that you will not make other foolish assertions in the future), I suggest going HERE and listen to the radio archives from the show "Let My People Think" by Ravi Zacharias. You might also read Christian Apologetics by Norman Geisler.
Everyone, please read this article at Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense . It states 15 common statements/questions that creationists pose to try and discount evolution, and answers them all quite nicely.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Did you know you have a blind spot in each eye, where your brain just magically fills in what it thinks should be there? The blind spot is big enough to drive a car through, which is why somebody with an eyepatch is not supposed to drive a car.
Morphing Software
You cannot interpret these finding with the flawed but common view that evolutionary processes "know" where they are going. The cellular process that is trying to protect the mechanisms from going off the track due to mutations does not "know" it is sequestering ammunition for future beneficial mutations. When the population of organisms is then environmentally challenged by some stress, the biological processes go off in all directions, and some combinations of what used to be unproductive or unusable side reactions turn out to contribute to the cell's survival. These traits survive in the population.
It's hard to write about biological systems without anthropomorphizing them - I'm fighting it as I type this. It's how we make natural processes accessible to our understanding of relationships. But you have to be careful not to project desires and motives onto what are after all chemical reactions.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
This Bombardier Beatle "problem" linked to fromt he article is ludicrous. For those who cant stand reading the whole thing, the gist of it s this beatle mixes two extremely volitile chemicals, along with an inhibitor, in its body. When threatened, the beatle shoots them out, sans inhibitor, to create an explosion designed to twart off its puruser. The article then goes on how this is "impossible" to explain using standard evolution.
Bzzt, wrong. How do you know the "inhibitor" didn't dveelop first? Evolution is a complex process, with millions of tiny steps. The "inhibitor" could have developed beforehand, for some other purpose we do not now know about, and which may not even exist in the insect anymore. Only the pre-existance of this inhibitor allowed the other mechanism to evolve. Hence, natural selection.
The rest of the article just goes on and on using this flawed arguement to jump to incredible conclusions, such as "But what would be the motivation for such disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? Everything in evolution is supposed to make perfect sense and have a logical purpose, or else it would never develop". This is totally wrong, anyone who knows anything about evolution and natural selection knows it is not always totally logical. If it were, then why do humans still have the remains of a tail after X million years? Surely the *logical* solution would be to reject it. However, until that mutation develops, and people gain an advantage from it (I don't see how a person with that little bit less of bone would have any advantage, sexually or otherwise), there will be no changes.
From what I can see, although the first article s interesting, it certainly doesn't "defy" any theory, and the second link is just ridiculous.
I noticed from the article on beetles (http://www.aboundingjoy.com/beetle.htm) that Dr. Gish had some trouble with his argument based on a single word being translated wrong from the original German source. This is no doubt why so many Creationists and others who base all their opinions, world views, and scientific beliefs on the bible are so fluent in Aramaic... :-?
Since evolution doesn't have a designer, how is evolution supposed to "know" what is going to be useful later? There could be billions of possible mutations. How is it supposed to test what is a useful mutation and what is not? And how is it supposed to "know" when to activate the mutation?
Sounds like a few people here on /. Write one mistake and they'll gut you, well unless you're Commander Burrito or something, then its common place.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
It upsets me that so many people who believe in God imply that simply because someone does not believe in God they cannot have any true morals or ethics. I did not believe in God through most of high school and college, yet (I believe) I was a very moral person. I did not drink, did not do drugs, worked hard, tried not to lie (though I was somewhat less successful in that regard :) ). This was all because I felt a bond to my common man, not because I feared reprisal in the afterlife. How were my morals any less real than the morals of those who 'do right' because their God tells them to? Belief in God in no way equates or even implies morality or ethics. Look at the Sept. 11th hijackers. They most likely believed very strongly in God. You could argue that they didn't follow God's teachings, but the point is that they believed they were.
I think you are missing the point of the people who assert a lack of morality by those who are not theists (maybe they are doing a poor job in describing it to you). When one says "I have morality", a valid question is "where did you get it?". The theist says, "It was given to me by someone of superior understanding". The non-theist or atheist however, can only say, "morality is determined by man".
As a result, if your view of morality is in conflict with the view of society as a whole, then you are always wrong and there's no way to argue that you are correct. If rape and murder were legalized tomorrow, the atheist has no recourse by which to claim that rape and murder are immoral.
The idea that you don't "smoke/drink/do drugs/rape/murder/pillage/steal" is irrelevant to the atheist, because those things are only wrong if society has deemed them wrong. If society determines what is moral and what is not moral, then morality is dynamic. If morality is dynamic, by what morality do you choose to live by...and why? What's the utility in being moral other than to avoid punishment?
I heard an interesting quote regarding this issue: "Some say love thy neighbor, others say eat thy neighbor. Which do you prefer?"
Science and creationism are both incorrect. Science is a process that attempts to slowly get closer to the truth, but any GOOD scientist knows that his understanding is incomplete, and will proudly tell you that what he knows is not totally correct: look to Sir Isaac Newton for example. Newton was a genius. His works stood as (and for a lot of terrestrial activities STILL stand) a workable explanation of the cosmos for centuries. He was WRONG. Einstein showed that he was wrong. Does that make Einstein right? Probably not, science will probably deepen our understanding over time, and we will see where Einstein was wrong. Does this make them anything less than the genuises they were? No it does not: they pushed the evelope and enlarged our nderstanding of the cosmos. Creationists on the other hand, claim to be RIGHT. They do not have a process to deepen understanding, but instead look for flaws in science to bolster their claims to "the truth." Their "science" is to resist the advancement of understanding by ascribing the very things we don't understand to some mysterious "higher power." I think I will stick to the path of deeper understanding with the full knowledge that I will never truly understand instead of choosing not to try to understand simply because it is elusive.
How can you trust eyes (created through a series of random events) to see anything correctly? How do you trust your brain's (again, created through a series of random events) interpretation of what your eyes see?
Well, you shouldn't. Anyone who says their eyes are 100% "truth" is wrong.
That said, we can get by because we can. Our eyes are honest enough for day to day use only because if they weren't we would all be dead. That said, don't trust your eyes if they tell you a surface is hot or cold -- you might get burned. You'll be much better off trusting your sense of touch, even though it isn't anywhere near as sensitive as a cat's whiskers (and come to think of it, their eyes are better than ours, too!)...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
It's pretty damn obvious, other plants and animals do it all the time, it's called "I'm poisonous! Don't eat me!" and works very well as a method of helping the species as a whole propogate, so i see no problem with the beetle accumulating one of the chemicals.
Once that's been accomplished, then random mutation can cause it to start producing the other chemical and storing it as well. So what happens when some animal catches the beetle and eats it, crushing the body and allowing the chemicals to mix? "This is great! Now not only am I poisonous, I _explode_ if you eat me!"
So you've now got the two chemicals stored away safely in your body, and a very clear evolutionary advantage for doing so. "Of course, it would be really great if i could actually scare away or injure my attacker without blowing myself up in the process."
So now starts the evolutionary search for a way to safely mix the and eject the chemicals without killing itself in the process. The mixing chamber may have been an intermediate step that was originally used during death throes to insure a proper mix of the chemicals for a final suicide explosion, rather than depending on the chemicals getting mixed up while the animal chewed the beetle up.
It is a difficult process to evolve i'm sure, just not as impossible as creationists make it out to seem. As a rule them seem to have difficulty understanding the benefits of intermediate stages.
Note that there are probably thousands (or tens of thousands?) of posinous plants and animals, but only the one Bombardier Beetle. Anyone know if there are any creatures that have reached the intermediate stage and just explode what they're killed? Finding such a species would pretty much be the death knell to this case for the creationists, unfortuantly finding the right combiantion of chemicals may be so rare that the Bombardier Beetle is the only one currently alive that has accomplished it.
(And yes, i'm anthropomorphizing quite a bit, but that doesn't affect the basic validity of the idea)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
its rewritten almost constantly.
Yeah, thats how science works. You observe something, postulate a theory, and then observe to see if the theory fits the observations. If it doesn't you change the theory and observe some more. Eventually you arrive at a workable model. Evolution is not yet at the point where a complete model exists, but then we havn't completed a unified field theory, and gravity is still just a theory, too.
i would've thought that more important than explaining bombardier beetles' butts would be its relevance to the theories of stephen jay gould and richard c lewontin. sadly, mr gould is no longer among us.
if you want to read more about their theories start here.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
You apparently have failed to understand the critical mind.
Perhaps you should go re-read the Golden Rule and come back to me and say I'd accept rape and murder if society legalized it. It has nothing to do with what laws are on the books. Common ethics have nothing to do with God, or Law, though Law attempts to mirror common ethics most of the time.
It's also interesting to me that you believe that somehow the idea that someone does not practice vice X (smoke/drink/etc) is irrelevant. That's silly.
Morality is dynamic. In certain societies, stoning is a moral punishment. Even in your religion. If morality was never-changing, how can you accept adulterors without stoning them to death?
At least I am proud enough of my reasoned beliefs to put my name to them, while you are a coward.
And Evolutionism was her method.
> How can you trust eyes (created through a series
> of random events) to see anything correctly?
Someone's seen Dark Star!
Doolittle: Now listen,listen here's the big question,how do you know that the evidence that your sensory apparatus reveals to you is correct? What I'm getting at is this: the only experience that is directly available to you is you sensory data,and this sensory data is merely a stream of electrical impulses that stimulates your computing center.
Bomb: In other words,all that I really know about the outside world is relayed to me through my electrical connections.
Doolittle: Exactly!
Bomb: Why,that would mean that I really don't know what the outside universe is like at all for certain.
Doolittle: That's it! That's it!
-- Rick
Sigh. The whole 'created through a series of random events' paraphrase is a typical creationist half characterization. You can trust your eyes because if you couldn't, your ancestors (possibly at fish level) would long ago have starved from lack of food as they couldn't locate the stuff. Without sound logic, you couldn't trust the plan you'd made to kill that animal/neighbouring tribe, now would you?
Evolution is not random change, but random change combined with struggle for survival. The latter is the half you're purposefully ignoring and that's the one that annihilates your argument.
The whole of Christianity (or any other religion) cannot be proven...THAT idea is actually a tenet of Christianity (it wouldn't be a religion if that wasn't the case)
I think you're misunderstanding the role of faith in religion here. It's not a tenet of Christianity that it cannot be proven true -- if tomorrow we were to uncover the fact that the decimal expression of pi turns out to be an encryption of the Bible, for instance, Christianity would do just fine.
Most religions simply say that shared, physical proof (or scientific proof) that their religion is true isn't necessary to justify belief. They usually go on to say that this is because they have an internal form of subjective, nonphysical proof (spirituality) which justifies belief. Some religions believe that this spiritual truth trumps mere physical truth, while others (like the apologetics you mention) believe that the two should be in accord.
It's important to keep this in mind, I think, because when you're discussing science and the world with someone who believes that they have access to a separate, higher truth standard that trumps physical reality, you really need to probe how well they're aware of this. Some people aren't, and will find the idea odious upon reflection. Some people will find it right and comforting. Unless you can agree on a standard for truth, there's no point in arguing with someone.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I find it hard to believe that any evolutinist would be shaken in the least bit or be sheepish about this argument in the least bit. So much of evolution is fundamentally based on allowing for flukes that are extremely rare, yet extremely useful. If by some slim chance a beetle is born with this highly unlikely combination, that beetle would kick some serious ass and mate, and thus the progression.
Sure it is an unlikely fluke to happen, but so much about every species consists of unlikely flukes. I'm sure every species has a lot of traits which if not developed at the same time would either not make sense or be lethal. To say the inhibitor, for example, could not develop first, simply because it doesn't make sense, is stupid. If it isn't lethal or otherwise impacts selection, then it is a moot trait and would be ignored. Lethal dominant traits are rapidly filtered out, and Lethal recessive traits will persist pretty much indefinitely under nature.
There are many different ways the beetle could arrive at it's final form. Could have all happened spontaneously, it is a valid chance. It could have the inhibitor first for no good reason. If the energy required to produce the inhibitor is low enough to not impact selection, there is no reason why the inhibitor could exist before anything else. Same goes for the delivery system. And as others point out, it could be a gradual progression in amounts, or utilized in different ways before the agent could be released (blowing up and hurting predators helps the species survive, altruism is not too uncommon, especially among insect species).
I don't see why some people think religion and evolution are exclusive propositions. Why wouldn't God start off with a very basic setup and put in rules to let it change and let it go to see what happens, or even shape and work through the system to arrive at the desired vision. The bible may say a week is the period of creation, but also says that time in God's terms and people's terms is entirely different, so perhaps Creationists are more blasphemous for having the audacity to think they are on a level with God in terms of their interaction with time?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If morality is dynamic, by what morality do you choose to live by...and why?
What colour pants did you choose to wear this morning...and why? What breakfast cereal do you prefer...and why? Who is your favourite author...and why?
Do you see how this works yet? Your assertion that morality is dynamic is indeed the case. Only 50 years ago it was morally acceptable to segragate people according to the colour of their skin. However society determined that it was morally wrong, and hence we no longer do that.
What's the utility in being moral other than to avoid punishment?
It is exactly the same for a theist; they live their lives according to a moral code in order to avoid punishment in the afterlife E.g. eternal damnation to hell.
By the way, most atheists are perfectly aware that many of modern societies morals originate from church prescribed morals. Hence it can be argued that a thiest and an atheist do in fact share their morals.
Wow, you sure are good at making 50,000 assumptions based on one sentence. Too bad I wasn't discussing philosophy - we were talking about science. You ARE supposed to just believe in the existence of God. I was not using this statement to say that all Christians are completely blind to the facts. Your philosophy seems reasonable; however, you're not taking your religion and using it as if it's a hammer with which to smash science fact, either.
I attended a Jesuit high school. I was a Catholic for 20 years. Despite the fact that the Jesuits' instruction always encouraged us to think critically and believe what we logically observe to be true, they, like all Catholics, pushed the Catholic church's idea of the "Infallibility of the Pope". This is the idea that the definite statements of the Pope can not be refuted by the Cardinals. Not a bad idea, really, but the belief behind it is that the church speaks for God, and the head of the church CAN NOT be wrong or else God is wrong. At least, that was my interpretation.
I stopped attending church when my Archbishop circulated a letter (an encyclical) to the parishes explaining the Church's stance on a handful of issues: homosexuality, abortion, and women in the priesthood. It was made known that these stances were the official church stance, that they were not to be argued with, and that anyone who attempted to debate these issues with the church in any way could never hold any office with the church. I have no idea whether this letter came from a higher office - perhaps it was just my Archbishop, which would be even more disturbing - now the Archbishop speaks for Church law as well! So, in conclusion - the Catholic Church, my former church, DOES NOT WANT YOUR PHILOSOPHY, no matter what you and the apologetics have to say about it. Admittedly, the issues in question are all subjective, but so is the lion's share of Theology.
I studied Catholic Theology for four years. It was NOT scientific, though it was very well thought out - a lot of thought has gone into it for TWO THOUSAND years in fact, but this does not change the fact that the material is all subjective and open to continued debate. (Except for "reserved" subjects such as the Immaculate Conception and Women in the Priesthood).
My "pathetic" assertion that in the end, you're not really supposed to test God is based on twenty solid years as a Catholic. What I know about Protestant denominations (I have Protestant friends) and the history of the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation suggests that the philosophy of debate, but not TOO much applies to most of them as well. I won't even talk about the fundamentalists - they don't want to talk about your "facts" at all!
Once again, my simple statement was based on what I see as the VAST majority of Christian philosophy. Yours is based on a small group I've never heard of. Are you still going to tell me that I know nothing about this subject?
Have a look at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html
"A fundamental tenet of creationism is that all life looks designed, and a commonly cited example of this design is the bombardier beetle. Supporting such a claim requires an examination of the bombardier beetle and of what "design" really means. Upon examination of these issues, however, the bombardier beetle shows evidence of evolution and seriously challenges the concept of design."
> How can you trust eyes (created through a series of random events) to see anything correctly?
Who sez they do?
> How do you trust your brain's (again, created through a series of random events) interpretation of what your eyes see?
Maybe you've noticed that the brain doesn't always interpret the retinal image correctly?
> The ridiculousness goes on and on.
You certainly got that part right!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I searched all over New Scientist and could not find an article that mentioned the genetic Valet. I really need that article for a paper I'm writing for my Human Genetics class.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Most Christians (the majority of religious people in America) have not read the Torah, Koran or Bhagavad Gita. Why is this?
Because, in order for a religion to survive, all other religions must be wrong. As a proper Christian (or pick your religion) you should not be learning about other religions that are "obviously wrong". That way the religion grows stronger, not weaker by losing followers to other religions or diluting their theology. I'm not saying this is right, but that's the way any large group of people works.
I do believe religion is important (whichever one you pick) for providing support and guidance in your life. The journey is up to you, but religion can provide the tools to help you succeed. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that anyone should give up their free will in order to blindly follow some mass of people. Religion provides tools, it's up to you to pick the right ones.
The chemicals used by the bobardier beetle are not explosive when mixed. Even if they claim they meant unstable so what, many chemicals are unstable when manufactured outside the human body, but are held stable in the specific conditions under which they are created.
How do they know the beetle never misses, have they watched every one that has ever existed each time it has defended itself?
Attacking flaws in the creation argument is also perfectly acceptable - if their argument is flawed then their so-called science is not correct.
It is simply their lack of imagination that prevents them from imagining a path of mutations that could through natural selection result in the bombardier beetle.
It is an old argument (surprise, surprise the creationists keep bringing up the same ones every time) and it has been shot down repeatedly.
Because God isn't an idiot.
As a Christian who isn't an ignorant Fundie, here is how my worldview works:
1.God is Perfect,
2.God created the Universe,
3.God would not create shoddy piece of crap with holes in it
4. It follows that everything in the Universe will fit together with every other thing in the Universe in some way that makes sense. It may not be readily discernible to us right now, but it is possible for us to discern it.
5. Our purpose in the Universe is to discern as much about it as possible before we die so as to become closer to by increasing our knowledge and understanding of His Creation.
That's where I stand.
God just wouldn't make a Universe with big holes that REQUIRE the existence of God.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
That's one of a million problems I have talking with creationists.
'The water went so deep that it covered the tops of the mountains'
Explain that one for me. Everest is 29000 feet tall. NO WAY IN HECK.
How did Noah GET to ANY other part of the world to gather up the different species and then how did he MOVE them to the ark?
What about shit? They were on this dinghy for 40 days with THOUSANDS of species of THOUSANDS of animals and each and every one of them had to eat and defecate EVERY single day?
-
End of rant.
Basically it comes down to you forcing me and my family to accept the bible as the literal truth, which I will never do. And me trying to get you to understand that given billions of years Evolution is not only possible but probable.
A step-by-step evolution of the bombardier system is really not that hard to envision. The scenario below shows a possible step-by-step evolution of the bombardier beetle mechanism from a primitive arthropod.
1.Quinones are produced by epidermal cells for tanning the cuticle. This exists commonly in arthropods. [Dettner, 1987]
2.Some of the quinones don't get used up, but sit on the epidermis, making the arthropod distasteful. (Quinones are used as defensive secretions in a variety of modern arthropods, from beetles to millipedes. [Eisner, 1970])
3.Small invaginations develop in the epidermis between sclerites (plates of cuticle). By wiggling, the insect can squeeze more quinones onto its surface when they're needed.
4.The invaginations deepen. Muscles are moved around slightly, allowing them to help expel the quinones from some of them. (Many ants have glands similar to this near the end of their abdomen. [Holldobler & Wilson, 1990, pp. 233-237])
5.Some invaginations (now reservoirs) become so deep that the others are inconsequential by comparison. Those gradually revert to the original epidermis.
6.In various insects, different defensive chemicals besides quinones appear. (See Eisner, 1970, for a review.) This helps those insects defend against predators which have evolved resistance to quinones. One of the new defensive chemicals is hydroquinone.
7.Cells that secrete the hydroquinones develop in multiple layers over part of the reservoir, allowing more hydroquinones to be produced. Channels between cells allow hydroquinones from all layers to reach the reservoir.
8.The channels become a duct, specialized for transporting the chemicals. The secretory cells withdraw from the reservoir surface, ultimately becoming a separate organ. This stage -- secretory glands connected by ducts to reservoirs -- exists in many beetles. The particular configuration of glands and reservoirs that bombardier beetles have is common to the other beetles in their suborder. [Forsyth, 1970]
9.Muscles adapt which close off the reservoir, thus preventing the chemicals from leaking out when they're not needed.
10.Hydrogen peroxide, which is a common by-product of cellular metabolism, becomes mixed with the hydroquinones. The two react slowly, so a mixture of quinones and hydroquinones gets used for defense.
11.Cells secreting a small amount of catalases and peroxidases appear along the output passage of the reservoir, outside the valve which closes it off from the outside. These ensure that more quinones appear in the defensive secretions. Catalases exist in almost all cells, and peroxidases are also common in plants, animals, and bacteria, so those chemicals needn't be developed from scratch but merely concentrated in one location.
12.More catalases and peroxidases are produced, so the discharge is warmer and is expelled faster by the oxygen generated by the reaction.
13.The walls of that part of the output passage become firmer, allowing them to better withstand the heat and pressure generated by the reaction.
14.Still more catalases and peroxidases are produced, and the walls toughen and shape into a reaction chamber. Gradually they become the mechanism of today's bombardier beetles.
15.The tip of the beetle's abdomen becomes somewhat elongated and more flexible, allowing the beetle to aim its discharge in various directions.
While I've never seen Dark Star, the same theory is the basis for 'The Matrix.' The AI have the ability to alter our perceptions by altering our brain's interpretations of the electrical impulses.
"Herbivores eat well cause their food never, ever runs."
In people we might call this a cancer risk, rather than furthering their chances down the road.
Contextual example: P53 is the most commonly mutated gene in cancer cells
So if GM foods start creating themselves then what's all the fuss about GM foods right now? ;)
they need to realize that after they die, they will simply be eaten by something else... perhaps the evolutionary Bombardier Beetle!
Those who believe that all morals flow from a god in truth have no morals. The threat of eternal retribution controls their base impulses, which is pure self-interest, not morality.
...and that's dandy. Just don't derive your worldview from it.
Please be more careful in future. Also, don't believe anything about biology that you read on Slashdot.
and now were supposed to believe that you came up with the entire theory of religion on your own, right...
:)
or then again, maybe you're not really thinking for yourself
Let's say there was a designer. First off there is no way we can consider this designer perfect - there are design flaws in everything around us. Yes they work, but then so do the things we humans design, but mistakes get made. Furthermore each thing clearly carries elements of other things, often design ideas that should have been discarded. For one thing this means whatever built the world around us did it exactly the way we do it, i.e. build the best thing you can right now and work from there.
And if that is the case then it really makes no difference whether it was some being or what we call evolution, a blind process that builds from what came before. Simplicity means we discard the idea of a being and go with evolution.
Those who believe that all morals flow from a god in truth have no morals. The threat of eternal retribution controls their base impulses, which is pure self-interest, not morality.
For the most part, everything you said is wrong. I don't know how religious you actually are, but it doesn't sound like you know very much about religion. Most religions do not say that there will be "enternal retribution" for violators. What they do say is that it is better to follow some set of guidlines (for your own sake). Is it possible to be religious but break most of the rules. What they teach is that if you break the rules you will suffer. The suffering is not caused by God, but by your own actions.
The Edge.org has an excellent set of articles written by several of the leading evolutionists. They end up covering most of the major theories currently active in the field. Its well worth the read if you have any interest in the genetics and evolution. Here's the link:
The Third Culture
At least I am proud enough of my reasoned beliefs to put my name to them, while you are a coward.
Slashdot smack? I've now seen it all.
If morality was never-changing, how can you accept adulterors without stoning them to death?
Adultery is still immoral is it not? The method of punishment has nothing to do with morality.
It's also interesting to me that you believe that somehow the idea that someone does not practice vice X (smoke/drink/etc) is irrelevant.
And I don't understand the critical mind? The idea that someone does not practice a vice does not necessarily mean they believe it to be immoral. I have friends who do not drink carbonated beverages. They do it for fitness reasons. I have friends who do not drink alcoholic beverages. They are Christian, yet will be the first to tell you that drinking is not morally prohibited. My original point is valid.
Perhaps you should go re-read the Golden Rule and come back to me and say I'd accept rape and murder if society legalized it. It has nothing to do with what laws are on the books. Common ethics have nothing to do with God, or Law, though Law attempts to mirror common ethics most of the time.
Then from where do "common ethics" originate? One day, it will be viewed as acceptable to have sex with children. Most, right now, will tell you that a sexual act with a child is reprehensible...maybe even more so than murder. The atheist will have no logic by which to reason that anything is immoral if a society deems that action acceptable. The atheist is at the philosophical mercy of the masses (the very same masses who cannot figure out how to vote).
This is logical since the organism that can change fastest wins.
///Magnus
So store up potential until you need it.
This isn't sensational, it has to be.
And I didn't give a shit.
(Summary of parent post, moderators. Read 'em and weep.)
Only 50 years ago it was morally acceptable to segragate people according to the colour of their skin. However society determined that it was morally wrong, and hence we no longer do that.
You have to remember, most people are moronic lemmings. Many (all?) intelligent people of the time knew that it was morally wrong. Unfortunately intelligent people are in the minority so "society" doesn't always do the morally correct thing.
Only 50 years ago it was morally acceptable to segragate people according to the colour of their skin. However society determined that it was morally wrong, and hence we no longer do that.
By what grounds would you protest if society were to swing back the other way and segregation were once again acceptable?
There's a guy running around Slashdot with a signature that has Reverend Lovejoy from the Simpsons saying that something isn't immoral if the government says its okay to do. It's supposed to be absurd and therefore humorous, but you're telling me that you prescribe to that mindset. Astonishing.
"Morality", "Being a moral person", describes a condition where a self-conscious entity (such as yourself) selects and/or derives (from whatever source: Holy scripture, science, peyote-induced shamanic dream, chicken-gut augurie, etc) a series of (usually interconnected) "morals", and then proceeds to guage all their actions by these morals.
It is possible to subsitute the word 'axiom' for the word 'moral' here. Let's talk systematic logic. Any logical system is entirely based on it's axioms, which must be derived. Usually from earlier axioms, sometimes from proofs (which are based on axioms). The ultimate boil-down answer to the source of axioms is 'well, it seems to work so until someone demonstrates that this axiom is unsound we'll accept it'.
Even so with morals. A great many societies have accepted the 'Let's have no killing of other people within your own tribe' axiom (no murder), and it has worked very well for them. Some societies have accepted the 'Let's have no killing of anyone at all' axiom, and it has tended to work out very badly for them (New Zealand provides some particularly good examples of this). Some societies have accepted a 'stimulants are bad' axiom, and other have accepted a 'used correctly, stimulants are a good thing, and if you use them dis-respectuflly we'll geld you' axiom. Both seem to work out, for different values of 'work out'.
What I'm trying to illustrate is that morality is not absolute, it is axiomatic. If you state that one of your accepted axioms is that stimulants, depressants and hallucinogens are bad, then the total abstinence from these substances can be called 'moral behaviour', but the arrogant assumption inherent in the flat statement "I am a moral person because I don't drink or do drugs" is just so terribly imprecise and uneducated that I couldn't let it pass.
~cHrisI'm amused by all the comments boiling this down to a simple creation versus evolution debate (and I appreciate the folks who see it as something more than that). The biggest fault of the evolutionary theory (in my opinion, at least) is that it makes the a priori assumption of naturalism. The argument can be made that anything outside of nature is not science, but I think that's a tenuous argument. After all, science is about knowledge (check a dictionary for the root if you don't believe me). At least, it used to be. It lately seems to be more of a defense of naturalism than anything else.
... looking for patters that intimate that something was intentional.
Anyone who's looked at the intelligent design movement at all seriously will tell you that it's far more than a bunch of six-day literal creationists banded together. Jews, Christians (old-earth and young-earth, to be sure), agnostics, alien benefactors, whatever. The big difference is that they throw out the assumption of naturalism.
William Dembski, for example, uses an information theory approach, comparing some aspects of biology to other disciplines like cryptography and SETI
Besides, if evolution is so perfectly true, what's the worry? They should be able to triumph in any of the arguments that might occur in schools, right? Right?
So someone who disagrees with you on evolution is actually automatically a simple drone for the right in your opinion, and you are concerned **THEY** are not thinking for themselves??
My question isn't creationism vs evolution but why creationists can only see God working like some Las Vegas magician causing things to pop out of thin air. Why can't they believe that evolution is God's mechanism for creation? Creation didn't stop 7000 yrs or so ago (when bible literalists believe the world was made) but is an ongoing process.
Hundreds of years ago these same people would've been saying that "There's no proof that planets orbit the sun" or that "The surface of the earth isn't slowly moving". As more scientific knowledge comes in they are forced to drop dearly held beliefs and move on to new ones. Eternal "truths" don't work very well when they are based on the current temporal world. Instead of tying their faiths to the physical world they should focus on the philosophical and spiritual worlds where they should've been all along.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I'm trying to get up to speed on the creation / evolution debate. For now I'm just defining evolution as "a process that occurs over time, which adds complexity to life". Now, even given that these changes could happen all of a sudden -- which appears to be evolutionist's current stance as to why there is lack of evidence of intermediate forms -- how do evolutionists explain the "polystrate" fossils and petrified trees found all over the world?
The trees and animals could not have been sticking out of the ground for thousands (millions?) of years waiting for the next local flood, could they? Surely even they had petrified while sticking out of the ground they would be stepped on, broken, bumped, destroyed by storms, etc. In fact, if evolutionists believe that the bones and trees were preserved between the formation of different layers, then why don't we find lots of bone pieces, tree branches, etc. scattered all over the bottom of each new geologic layer?
How CAN godless people have morals? I mean come on, who is going to kick their ass for all eternity if not their god? I mean if you fall off your moral high chair who is going to make sure you get back, or should have never gotten off in the first place! God that's who!
Basically it comes down to you forcing me and my family to accept the bible as the literal truth, which I will never do. And me trying to get you to understand that given billions of years Evolution is not only possible but probable.
Funny use of words. I already am pretty sure, as far as the evidence is concered, that evolution is both possible and probable.
That is a conclusion based on logic, despite trying to be 'forced' to belive that it's true (I went to a public High School!).
I don't think I, or anyone else in this thread has tried to force you into beliveing that the bible as a literal truth. You can form your own conclusions.
The Internet is generally stupid
The catolic church did murder in the medieval times and it was all right. The United States goverment do murder people (death penalty) and it is all right. what is moral and what is not is just a matter of culture and culture changes. The highjackers of 9/11 murdered thousands of people, and I have no doubt that they think that this move were rigth thing to do. Shure in my opinion all those are incredliby wrong and moraly inaceptable, and I am an atheist. I do not fear that a god will punish me if I kill a person, but I do believe it is wrong.
Just because I don't believe there is a "god" watching over me this does not mean that all those things my parents, my family, my teachers and my friends have tought me are sudenly invalid. Religions do impose a moral, but it is not the only way. If this were so people who are jews or budist should have a diferent law then cristians or muslins? After all the laws reflect, or at least should reflect the morals of a culture.
And you ask what is the utility of morals beside avoid being punished? Why do you think the world is not a chaotic place? If there were no morals, people would kill each other because they steped on your feet. Every society have a moral, and it is dinamic, the hole point is that it changes slowly, in terms of generations. Your morals are diferent from those of you father and even more then of your grandfather. why do you think it was all right to have slaves before and now it is a crime? If morals weren't dinamic, we would still be slavaring people and buring witches in public places (maybe live in CNN).
People are moral not to avoid punishment, but because they do believe that folowing those rules they are doing the right thing. And if the olnly reason a person don't kill others is because you believe there is a "supreme being" that will punish you if he did, I do hope never to meet with that person, because when he or she overcome the fear of this "punishment", then he or she would most likely become a serial killer.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
My "pathetic" assertion that in the end, you're not really supposed to test God is based on twenty solid years as a Catholic.
This is justification of my assertion that you are not separating the philosophy from its abuses. I apologize for the harshness of my original statement and the analysis of your ability to reason.
Too bad I wasn't discussing philosophy - we were talking about science.
Then why construct such a long winded reply? You were talking very much about philosophy.
Even if we think something is shoddy and crap, it's still perfect in God's eye, which ties into your number 4.
Or alternatively, someone's read any one of the hundreds of philosophical texts that have existed for a very long time that this movie is based on.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
The `standard' theory of evolution identifies natural selection as the primary mechanism for selective filtering of genes into successive generations. Other mechanisms are recognized; they are considered to be of lesser impact.
There is a large a body of evidence, however, indicating that other mechanisms might play a more prominent role than thought previously, if only under certain circumstances.
See this retrospective on one of the most visible debates about Darwinian gradualism (and puntucated equilibrium).
Curious that creationists and other pseudo-science-mongers jumped upon this 25 years ago--as some jumped on the article in question here--as a surrender by science of evolution to the `wisdom' of creation.
Of course, it's obvious to any real scientist--anyone who can read and think for that matter--that this is the essence of science: continual observation, debate and reassessment of data, hypotheses, and theories.
It would be interesting to see if old copies of Genenis use if it is ambiguous in the original text, i.e. absolute references to days vs. ordered references to days.
science is a religion
I'm doing the traditional /. thing and not actually reading the article, but I assume it's the old news on heat-shock and chaperone proteins being shown to be a general case.
This isn't "saving up" mutations. This is a system for supressing aberrant mutations breaking down in stressful environments. The True Believers out there would like to phrase this to illustrate the cleverness of natural selection, but this is the failure of a beneficial system leading to a honking buttload of mutants appearing. Nothing more. Yes, throwing a bunch of random solutions at the problem may find an answer and allow a population to continue living in a stressful environment, but it's a bit assuming to try to say the system has evolved to break down in this manner (though it is a rather elegant failure mode).
As for the bombardier beetle...
Hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, when mixed, turn brown over the course of a couple minutes and won't taste very good. Various beetles besides the Bombardier Beetle use the chemicals, uncatalyzed, merely for the foul taste. Evolution can work in as many steps as it likes increasing the foulness of the taste without any delightful imagery of exploding beetles occurring to anyone.
Of course the page linked to is slow to abandon such delightful imagery so, while it is kind enough to mention that nothing very exciting happens unless you add a catalyst, it likes to give the impression that without that catalyst (or "anti-inhibitor", if you please) the beetles would die a horrible death in the manner of a piece of popcorn, though not quite as tasty.
Let me let you in on another "secret". There can be huge ranges of activity in classes of closely related proteins. This is especially true of the enzymes responsible for catalyzing naturally occuring reactions between simple chemicals. This is a bit of a problem for the Creationist because their idea of the beetles stumbling across a highly efficient enzyme and blowing themselves to bits for generations is very useful. Having them stumble across a weak version that merely made them taste a little worse than their competitors when an attacker mixed the chemicals together is hardly an exciting idea. Nor is it exciting for this weak enzyme to follow the same path of increasing the foulness of the taste that the parahydroxybenzene glands went through.
Of course, once this enzyme reaches a certain level it does get to be dangerous to the beetles. Chance encounters with learning predators that may have only have caused injury become fatal due to the beetles' own defense mechanism (though, because the added foulness of taste deters predation, this is still beneficial to the species, though not to the individual). Any solution is beneficial, as the alternative is death. The apparent winner is to excrete the chemicals, which isn't surprising as some of the other Brachinus species do this without the fun of superheating. Coevolution of improvements to the catalyst and to the ejection system gives us what we have today.
Unfortunately, answering one set of Creationists' call to provide an explanation is met with catcalls of "just-so-story!" from another set. It's really best to ignore them as a group... which, hey, is what I'll be doing.
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
What is asserted by thinking (emphasis on THINKING) Christians is not that an atheist or agnostic cannot be moral. That would be downright silly. Instead, I tend to think that when an atheist or agnostic behaves morally, he cannot articulate a consistent reason for doing so. It seems to me -- having been a teenage agnostic -- that agnosticism and atheism both fail to provide a stable base for more thinking. (Oddly enough, true atheists often do better since they tend to be humanists.)
The problem is that, when we get to the tough moral decisions, non-theists are left without a guiding principle by which to make decisions. So, pragmatism becomes their only principle. This pragmatism is then "blessed" using utilitarian ethics: 'the greatest good for the greatest number.' However, from a Christian perspective this ethic fails on a number of points.
One notable example of the failure of non-theistic ethics would be the question of abortion. While I am not a rabid anti-abortion advocate (I feel strongly that Christians should stay out of politics) it seems to me faintly absurd to argue that the fetus is not a human, then, suddenly for no apparently reason it is. The arguments usually skip careful reasoning about the nature of human life and jumps straight to practical questions - "How much good will it do the baby to live if it is born to a single mother who hates it yada yada blah blah?" This jump is made because non-theistic ethics has no basis to deal with intrinsic human value.
The Christian ethic is very different (although many Christians have not thought it through very carefully.) The ultimate end is the glory of God. God has chosen to be glorified by creating the present reality of the kingdom of God, that was innaugurated in Jesus Christ. In this present kingdom, the church is called to act in Jesus stead until his return, and to that end we, through God and through christ, attempt to do good. The good we do is not the kingdom, but it is our response to the kingdom. The nature of the kingdom is that there is no death, no suffering, even for the smallest and weekest (Isaiah says "even the lions will eat grass in that day.") So, our response tries to reduce suffering even among the smallest and weakest.
In the case of abortion, this plays out as a particular concern for the powerless - since we are commanded to have a particular concern for the powerless. So, we are more concerned with the one life (of the baby) being snuffed out than we are with the practical questions that fire the whole liberal view of it. Certainly, we value the life of the baby more than we value the mother's right to be "empowered" vis a vis the gender wars. Why? Because we regard (or should) money and temporal matters as of trivial importance compared to a single life. (Go back and read some of the early abortion debate - feminism is the root of the issue.)
Anyway, I suspect I've rambled. But my point is that while a non-theist may be very ethical, I don't think he has a consistent basis to do so. And this lack o consistency will inevitably come out at the edges.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Well, Volskwagen also evolved his original Beetle to the New Beetle in barely 50 years! The Nature required thousand of years to incorporate proper chemical/explosive stocking in a little bug while Volks even found a way to get all that packed in a useful little car. Hum...did Volks was inspired by the Nature to create their products ? ...
1-0 Earth
The thing that really got me riled up though, is that he assumes that if you are taught and accept evolution in school, you can't be religious. Personally, I think we've got a 12 billion year old universe and evolved from monkeys. I also believe that this is because God is patient and brought us into existance in a slow, elegant way.
Anyway, I just wanted to say good job with your response and there are plenty of folks out here who feel the same thing. I'm curious about your feelings with regards to evolution though.
How many generations of any creature have you monitored? 10? 20? Try hundreds of generations a year for millions of years (insects). Plus you'd have to monitor all of the population, not just one lineage. Even more complex organisms (people, horses, etc) can change over millions of generations, or even faster when subject to critical pressures (ice ages, droughts, disease outbursts). Sudden changes can also occur when species close enough to breed mix (dogs and wolves). Even people can be selectively "culled" by extreme pressures. Some think that polynesians tend to be fat since their ancestors who gained weight easily tended to survive the long risky trans-oceanic trips to new islands (studies of shipwrecked sailors from the air of sail tend to support this theory).
Some processes are too subtle for the limited human lifespan to observe directly. If you need to see something occur during your lifetime then you probably wouldn't believe in plate tectonics if it weren't for the extremely sensitive measuring devices that can show spreading of 1cm/yr of the Atlantic mid oceanic rift. Similar measurement of evolution is limited by the technical challenges (try monitoring every member of that species on earth for a few thousand years).
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
of evolution...
Whenever I start to feel bottled in and no way to escape my bowels start to burn. Unfortunately, it means I have to rush to the bathroom as my ass is nowhere near as mobile as the beetle.
I say, soon as I get this perfected everyone watch out.
Your argument is rather stupid frankly. How something came about has nothing to do with it's functionality. How can you trust any machine then, since it was created by human beings which are flawed creatures? There are plenty of examples of things being created randomly yet working well and reliably, i point you to the volumes of research on genetic algorithms.(which to me are excellent examples of how evolution works) Genetic algortithms often write code which is far superior to human code, yet come about through randomness. I would also point out that networks use probability functions in many of thier algorithms, yet they work fine. If i choose to make a sandwich, by using two different methods one in which I carefully arrange the ingredients, the other where I randomly pile then together, it still doesn't change what the eventual outcome will be a sandwich. It's just that one method takes a lot longer than the other.
-Mishra
Ummm, they probably read most of it when they read the old testament in their Christian Bible. The basis of all of these faiths is the same. That was actually the reason for Price of Egypt. It could be marketed to Christian, Jewish, and Islamic people all at the same time. Kev
Took the words right out of my mouth. Something to add is that faith is required of being a Chrisitan. If there was not an alternative to Christianity, people would call themselves Christian, and think themselves to be a Chrisitan not because they have faith, but because there is no alternative.
5. Our purpose in the Universe is to discern as much about it as possible before we die so as to become closer to by increasing our knowledge and understanding of His Creation. Isn't this what got us into trouble in the first place? Ate the apple, gained knowledge, got busted. Built a tower to get closer to god, got busted. If I had my bible with me (don't usually bring it to work with me), I would also find several quotes that tell you specifically not to question how god put everything together.. that's the whole point of faith, to take his word for it.
You should read Descartes. You're halfway there to deduce "cogito ergo sum" on your own.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
The fact is, as Christians, morality is not what earns our salvation. Salvation is a free gift from God. All men have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If our sins are what determine whether we are saved, then none would be saved. True morality only comes when you receive Jesus as Lord and Savior. Once we have received salvation we do good works because of the love God has shown us, and because of his Spirit living in us.
Confess and repent of your sins. Turn away from your idolatrous ways. Ask Jesus into your heart as Lord & Savior and you will be saved!
Why not? As far as I can see, Evolution has some evidence to support its hypothosis, while creationism has no evidence to support its hypothosis. Both of them are theories, therefore I choose to use the overall weight of supporting evidence in favour of evolution, and I base my world view on that.
Then you admit to not understanding neither science nor philosophy.
I do not read the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita because the Bible claims to be truth and I believe what the Bible says. The Bible teaches that there is one way to the Father, and that is through his son Jesus Christ. (John 14:6) It would be going against what I believe to be truth to read these other texts in search of 'some other truth'.
I fully respect your beliefs since they seem to make you happy, but I have a question. Would it be wrong then to read the Quran, the Rig Veda, etc not in search of a truth to replace what you believe, but rather to get an idea of where a Muslim or Hindu etc is coming from?
,
faeryman
By what grounds would you protest if society were to swing back the other way and segregation were once again acceptable?
My own belief that we are all human and deserve equal treatment. What would you base your protests on? I seem to remember "Love thy neighbour" is in there, but then so is slavary, and society does not accept slavery as morally acceptable, either. Would you fail to object because the Bible does not explicitly define a moral code against segragation?
What evolution still fails to account for is the huge string of coincidences required for life as we know it to have happened. I won't bother going into it, because I'm sure I'll just be modded down as a troll within five minutes anyway. So, go on, have fun. I'll just be sitting here, laughing my ass off at you all.
i disagree, theres no reason to say that utilitarian ethics lead to "this lack o consistency will inevitably come out at the edges". im an atheist whos pro-life because for me, "greater good for the greatest number" includes fetuses. note that the people who "skip careful reasoning about the nature of human life and jump straight to practical questions" are typically all on the pro-choice side.
No, I absolutely don't have any personal issues with this. In fact I have read some of the Koran, and what's interesting about it, is how much it stands in contradiction to the teachings of Jesus, and yet how much it claims to believe in Jesus as a prophet of God. Jesus came to fulfill the OT law, and then Mohammed comes along and claims that we need MORE law in order to be righteous. Salvation can not be attained by any amount of religiosity, no matter what religion. It can only be had by receiving it as a free gift from God.
How CAN godless people have morals?
I do believe in a God, but I do not believe in karma or hell. Instead, I feel I want to live in harmony with everything around me. That is what drives me to be nice to my fellow humans. It's what drives me to be moral. I don't need the fear of punishment. And many people I know are the same way. Maybe some people need that fear of punishment, but do not assume everyone is like you. There are people who do not need that fear.
I too have struggled against those pointed-headed purveyors of immorality, SCEINTISTS!
While many are familar with thier athiest theory of godless "evilution", others, including many of my fellow creationists!, have fallen prey to their more insidious "theory"(and it is JUST a THOERY!)...
the "Theory" of Gravity.
More like the "Theory of Gravi-Sodom and Gomorrah."
As you all know, the Earth represents our morality. God holds us down to the earth just as he holds us accountable for our actions. Many scientists do not dispute this FACT.
But some(meaning "most" or "all") sceintists don't believe in morality. They think that things "fall" ON THIER OWNwithout an intervention from God.
This THEORY is being tauight in public schools to our impressisonable young people. Thanks to these godless "Gravilutionists", they are being tuaght that God's moral laws just aren't the same everywhere in the universe. They're being taught that morality is "different" on Mars or Venus... and that it SIMPLY DOESN'T EXIST IN OUTER SPACE.
Our children, our future, our most improtant resource, are being told that "Murder isn't okay here, but it is elsehwere!"
This is just part of the gravilutionist conspiracy to take us off God's paradise and into the realm of Satan.
Like my fellow Christians in the Scientific Creationism community, I have attempted to publish papers on this subject, but the scientific establishment has STOPPED me at every turn. They are obviously AFRIAD of what I have to say.
I am not some "crankpot". I hold a doctorate from the highly respected University of Ediacara, but the scientists ignore my obvious qualifications.
But just as sceintists laughed at Galileo, laughed at Newton, laughed at Einstein and laughed at Duane Gish, so they laugh at me. But history will prove me right, just as it proved those brave men correct.
And don't even get me started on the THEORY of "Electromagnetism". THat's just a THEORY too, you know.
I find it interesting, reading these comments. I think a slashdot poll would give me some understanding of where people stand. Here is the poll I would suggest:
We evolved from a random chance under natural laws (No God).
God started the evolutionary process and created the natural laws.
God helped the evolutionary process along the way at various points in time.
God step by step was involved in the evolutionary process.
God created it all without evolution.
It is CowboyNeal's fault.
youre totally wrong.
by taking a stand on the word "theory", you show that you dont really understand the facts behind evolution. dont you see any problem in simply dismissing the view of all of the experts in the field because you think its just a "theory"?
heres my opinion: since the bible is a creation of man, the writers chose the morality that fit their culture and put it into writing. it can become outdated. on the other hand, the utilitarian morality of the atheist evolves with the times -- the ideal morality is then defined by the ideal society.
Every so often, a biological/evolutionary/ecological topic comes up on Slashdot. Now, folks here are mostly engineers of one sort or another, not biologists, and it shows.
:-) As someone who has way more than dabbled in both fields, I can say that a hard engineering mindset does not lend itself to understanding the biological sciences in general, and ecology/evolution in particular.
I have an MS in ecology and population genetics, but have also made my living in the CS field for years (to pay the mortgage, you understand
Evolution (and I've taught college courses on the subject) is not engineering. To understand it, you need to understand ecology, genetics, biochemistry, lots of general biology, etc., etc. There are few topics with more misunderstandings, by people who think they understand it all, and don't. Including some people in the field, har har.
Finally, regarding the Creationists and the "irreducible complexity" thing. As the Theory of Evolution got traction in the intellectual world, the Creationists always pointed out something we didn't understand as proof of a Creator. As more and more became understood, they retreated to the next thing. This was called the "God of the gaps" approach - if we don't understand NOW what's going on, it must be GOD!
That's how I feel about "irreducible complexity". It will be found to be reducible. Well, maybe, mabye not. Where is it written that talking monkeys should necessarily come to understand the Cosmos in all its glory? That's what we are, boys and girls. For all our wonderful accumulated knowledge, there's an infinite ocean of subtlety out there... there's no guarantee that it's all accessible to our brand of cognition or any other computation either.
We return you now to your regularly scheduled trollfest...
I seem to remember "Love thy neighbour" is in there, but then so is slavary, and society does not accept slavery as morally acceptable, either.
Tell me, where does the Bible promote slavery? The Bible dealt with slavery. In fact, the Bible suggests we are all slaves to our own human nature and to sin. If the Bible was so accepting of slavery, why do African Americans cling to Christianity at such a large rate? Why did they do so even while they were slaves?
Would you fail to object because the Bible does not explicitly define a moral code against segragation?
"love they neighbor as thyself"
Some societies have accepted the 'Let's have no killing of anyone at all' axiom, and it has tended to work out very badly for them (New Zealand provides some particularly good examples of this).
Can you provide some more information on this? I have no idea what you are talking about. What is New Zealand's policy and how has it hurt them?
+&x
That's exactly what he said. The threat of suffering in the afterlife influences their actions, rather than compassion or empathy for other people.
But neither your philosophical texts nor The Matrix had talking bombs nor aliens made of beach balls with rubber feet.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
some people bashed /. for posting this, but i think it comes at a perfect time. first, because of the recent ruling in georgia, and second, because it's always good to have a refresher of what evolution IS. lots of good posts clearing up the myth that it is just random deformed offspring superceding their parents.
i also want to point out to any highschool kids that even HS texts can get it wrong. i recall in highschool learning that man evolved from chimps, which is totally wrong! now today i know that the book MEANT to say man and chimps shared a common ancestor which was chimp-and-human-like, and we diverged 5 million years ago. just wanted to point out that even with a century old science, textbooks can still blow it! check out this page for more fun fuckups in school texts.
Science Hobbyist Misconceptions
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
You know, that's a good well thought out post. The only problem is that I don't completelly agree. I've had to stop and really think about it. Have you ever heard of Ayn Rand. I'm not a big fan of her philosophy, but there is one really good point in it.
First off, she presents her philosophy as a new morality. Anyway, it is based on the indivdual. The fact that the individual, all individuals, are the basis for all morality. Basically, the individual has the right to be him or herself. By implication, the individual has the responsibility to let individuals be themselves, blah, blah.
This is nothing new, but it does enable you to build a pretty hefty and valid morality that is defined by the context of life here on earth, we do not have to mention god.
WRONG
In fact, Christianity believes that only through salvation can you not "suffer in the afterlife". Christianity teaches that the only way to achieve salvation is belief in Jesus, not by avoiding getting X number of demerits or doing Y good deeds. Therefore, your assertion that Christians have no real empathy for other people is totally unfounded and ignorant.
You don't give atheists enough credit.
Who cares if a fetus is a baby? I mean, people
have always killed or "exposed" (left to die)
children they couldn't care for. Nobody wants to
do it, but people always have.
We're just organisms, and organisms all die sooner
or later. What's the big deal if some of us die
before ever getting to breathe? It's not like
there's any shortage of babies in the world.
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
I just saw Susan Lindquist (as far as I know, the woman who came up with this whole idea) give a talk on Hsp90 (the protein in question) yesterday. Since NewScientist isn't exactly forthcoming with the article, here are a few alternate resources.
4-star general in a one-man army.
You don't have a problem with stoning? Burying someone up to their neck and then throwing rocks at their head until they die? I guess you think that would be a lot of fun, assuming of course that the person deserved that kind of punishment. Our Christian ancestors didn't have a problem with it. Check your bible.
I do have a problem with it - I think it's cruel, and immoral , regardless of the stonee's offense. I think most people, Christian or otherwise, agree with that statement.
Morality does change. The alternative is that either most every sane compassionate person today is wrong about stoning being immoral, or (gasp) the Bible is wrong about stoning being an appropriate punishment.
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You better back off, or I'll uncork some evolution on your ass!
Hey buddy, Christianity isn't 100% proven either. In fact, the only proof you've got is the Bible, and all it does is assert the correctness of itself. That's what's called "begging the question". And if you're going to get all semantical on the "theory" of evolution, I'll have to ask you to look up "faith" and how it's compared to "proof".
Science is the quest for knowledge. Religion is the opposite. Did you know that people used to think that the weather was caused by gods? That sounds pretty crazy now that we discovered pressure systems and cold fronts, doesn't it?
So there's this big question we all have: where did we come from? Science tries to figure it out using all the available data. You try to think of a plausible theory to explain all of the data and then see if you can use it to predict things. If the prediction is right, you make a little check mark on a clipboard. If the prediction is wrong, or new data shows up to invalidate your theory, you change the theory.
With religion, you're supposed to continue to have faith despite being proven wrong. Religion is intellectually bankrupt. You ask why we're here and religion says, "Because of God. Go pray and stop asking questions." Why do you want to take the easy way out? That kind of reason barely even works on little kids; even they know that "because I said so" is not a good reason. And even if you play along with the whole God created Man thing, you're in for it when you ask where God came from. Because, it turns out, He's always been here. Well, golly, I guess I'll just stop trying to figure stuff out and let others just tell me what to think.
If you want to talk morality, maybe you should read some Nietzsche. And I can tell you that my morals are just fine without an invisible superhero friend in the sky.
> Or alternatively, someone's read any one of the
> hundreds of philosophical texts that have
> existed for a very long time that this movie is
> based.
The argument has been done to death, and it's about as silly as the presentation in Dark Star. How can we trust eyes that aren't "designed"? The aswers fall along these lines: They work most of the time, but we're right to question something only one/a few people sees because we realize they don't work reliably *all the time*.
Also, the whole argument of evolution says that the eyes DIDN'T come about through a series of purely random events anyway. They were shaped by natural selection. What works is more likely to survive.
-- Rick
Almost 500 posts in response to a non-existent (?!) article!
Never before in history have so many said so much about so little.
And anyone that takes the bible literally has a serious problem. Having looked at that website and come to the conclusion that many creationists are complete lunatics I went to the source and looked for some of my own answers.
day 1- Let there be Light-- HAHhahabwahaha Do you realize that God did not create the SUN until the 4th day. The bible says that the earth was created first and that the sun and all the other heavenly bodies were created on the 4th day. Which I must point out was approximately 3 days after the creation of the EARTH. Without a sun the EARTH's surface temperature would be ABSOLUTE ZERO something like -450 degrees fahrenheit. How in GOD'S name could GOD have created the PLANTS on the 3rd day if the SUN was not around to heat up the planet.
I am truly sorry that you have allowed John Morris to have any sway over your belief system. He is a total con artist making a living off of the good-natured people that believe in Christ.
These are just some fairly common arguments made against the notion that natural selection alone is sufficient to explain observations regarding evolution. I fully expected them to be challenged.
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My opinion is as follows; I agree with the premise of natural selection, I even see it as a necessary factor. However, I do not believe that it is sufficient to explain all observed data.
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I wish I had time to go into greater detail but, such as life.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
The relevant passages are not to question that he did put everything together.
My belief is that after our first mistake of eatting of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Man that sentence uses "of" a lot) we can never go back to the blissful ignorant innocence of our childhood as a species. So we have to go forward and learn as much as possible.
The Tower Of Babel was more related (in my opinion) to humans trying to invade Gods realm before they had acquired enough knowledge to be ready. To me it is a goad to learn more so that we will be worthy to sit with God (This is a situation entirely different from individual salvation and the heaven/hell issue).
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
Well, wasn't that a smooth trick the authors of the Bible pulled? "Hey, guys, ummm, you have to do all this stuff because, ummm, God said so. And if you ask why, He'll punish you because He is all glorious and stuff."
I clicked on this thread, expecting to see discussion about this "burst of evolution" article, only to find just another creationist vs. evolutionist free-for-all. There's not even a link to the original article on New Scientist, just a link to a page that seems designed specifically to set off the ol' flame wars. Does the poster even care about the article he's posting, or just getting another flamefest started?
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Religion is only part of the equation for a "good person." In many religions, zealotism breeds people who are immutable to outside suggest, and often hostile towards those who do not share their beliefs. In other cases, indeed in many cases, they simply view themselves are "better people".
This is not to say that relgion does no enhance life. I see many religious people who do good things for the world/community based on their beliefs.
I've also seen many non-religious people who also do a lot of good, not out of any believe in heaven or an afterlife, but simply because they believe in doing good. The contrast to this is ina a few people I know, we can take a few friends of mine.
Friend 1: Found little point in life, was quite constantly depressed. Verged on very drastic negetive consequence. She became "Christian" (though many other religions are good as well, I won't say Christian is the best) and was embraced by her church, found love and certain amount of peace in herself. She seems a lot happier lately
Friend 2: Was raised as an athiest, by athiests. She has not only no religion, but also background reason for life, or a strong basis for doing anything. She seems wholly unsatisfied at most times, and care little for many of her actions. This isn't to say that she's done strong harm to anyone else, but she lacks a fundamental goal in life, doesn't believe in having children (world sucks too much to raise them in), and often enough has a "what's the point attitude."
Friend 3: Has no real religion. Was raised by a supportive and loving family. Believes she has a future, and wants to propogate children. She often helps others, and is a caring, giving individual.
I've met a lot of other people who are quote religios" but do wholly bad things. They tend to have a good regard for their church circle but little for those outside.
My point. Relgion doesn't always define a meaning in life, but it often helps. The fundamental teachings and upbringing behind it are what is essential. If a church is teaching you how to be a good person, and not teaching you intolerance of others, then the church is doing a good job. If your parents raise you with the same values, then your parents are doing a similarly good job.
Often, it's the basic teachings (play nice, be a good boy Vs care for others, be a good Christian/other) that are important.
I have no name for my believes. I disagree with a large part taught by my family's religion, but agree with many of the basic tenets of goodness towards others. I also believe in evolution, but also in a higher power, and yet don't find a conflict. I'm definately not a bible banger, but I'm happy in my own purpose in life, which is what I think really counts.
Contradictions and agreements are welcome, but remember to think before you post - phorm
"The problem is that, when we get to the tough moral decisions, non-theists are left without a guiding principle by which to make decisions."
I am an atheist. My guiding principle is simple. I treat others how I would like to be treated. There is still room for compassion and politeness.
In case you need a reference: the law of Moses says stoning's just groovy: Deuteronomy 21:21
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace55.html
The theory came out in the 1930's, and was put forth by Otto Schindewolf and Richard Goldschmidt. It was originally called the "hopeful monster" theory.
...and the difference between "hypothesis", "theory" and "law" is mainly who you knew in the world of academia in the 1800's and 1900's. We have plenty of theories that have been proven more rigorously than laws, and vice versa, etc. We've found exceptions to lots of scientific law over 50 years old, thanks to technological advancements. The nomenclature of theory vs. law has held little to no relationship in terms of scientific rigour for longer than any of us have been here (unless you happen to be like 140 years old, in which case, GO YOU :) !!)Creationists and Anti-Evolutionists like to harp on the fact that Evolution is often referred to as a theory. Regardless of whether creationism or evolution is correct, this holds about as much significance as saying, "Evolution is spelled with an 'E', therefore my kids shouldn't have to learn it.*"
*That goes for Economics and English as well!!
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
Wish I knew what that "tidbit" was. I'm not dumping natural selection. I believe it is a necessary part of evolution, I'm just not sure that it is sufficient to describe all observed data. For the record, they lost me at something called "catastrophe theory". This was the notion that evolution would accelerate given sudden cataclismic (sp?) changes to the environment (I oversimplify, but I have limited time). Since natural selection is just that, a selection process, an explanation should be provided as to how exactly that works. Maybe this stored gene thing is the answer but I'll reserve opinion until the data has been better evaluated.
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OTOH, I think there are four flavors of creationist theory out there right now (literal, day-age, gap, and I forget the other one). Therefore, there is no reason to think they have any special handle on what's going on either.
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My suggestion is as follows; Look beyond natural selection, maybe there is something there.
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A goal is a dream with a deadline
Some time ago Richard Dawkins got in some sort of debate with a creationist on the probabilities of one of Shakespeare's plays spontaneously writing itself from an alphabet soup. The creationist did a computer model that showed it would take trillions of years for the book to spontaneously self-create. Dawkins shot the argument down by applying selection pressures to the text. With selection pressures applied, the creation time was just a few hundred iterations. The point here is, you HAVE to have continual selection pressures on mutations or you are simply dealing with random permutations. Any mutations that are "hidden" from selection pressure by not being expressed will NOT follow an evolutionary development, but will, instead, simply follow random probabilities. So, in the theory presented by this article, the creationist wins his argument because Dawkins can't apply selection pressures to the mutations until, say, 2/3rds of the book is ALREADY complete. Sorry, guys. This is just a re-worked Punctuated Equilibrium and it will be abandoned for the same reasons.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
This is justification of my assertion that you are not separating the philosophy from its abuses.
You are absolutely right. Indeed I was not separating them. Unfortunately, those who follow blindly seem to greatly outnumber those who use reason and logic to discover what it is that they really believe.
Then why construct such a long winded reply? You were talking very much about philosophy.
I suppose we were. I'm glad we could agree on some things.
THe problem is that drones like you derive your worldview from something that was intended to be scientific only in nature.
Are you saying it's better to "derive your worlview" from something non-scientific with little or no evidence to support it?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Yeah but prove it. Just because it's spelt with a big E doesn't mean it's been proven. You can site 100s of books that claim to prove it, and then site 100s more that disprove it. It's called a Theory because it's beyond our ability to prove. (Unless you can go travel back to the beginning of time and watch it happen, in which case GO YOU!)
I won't tell you what to believe, but the original poster has a valid point. The Theory is treated as fact by... everyone, but how many have actually investigated it enought to prove it to themselves?
In case you need a reference: the law of Moses says stoning's just groovy: Deuteronomy 21:21
A swing and a miss. I don't think you get it. Stick to the philosophy of morality. What makes stoning immoral?
The point is that the method of punishment becomes irrelevant. What's different from stoning and the electric chair? How about stoning and the gas chamber? If you are against the death penalty, that's one thing, but then you are saying that the punishment of death is immoral/wrong/whatever. It is irrelevant to the act of stoning. If you think it's inhumane, that's a relative statement. Some don't think it is inhumane. By what reason can you say they are wrong if you don't hold to some theistic source of morality?
The arguments and explanations of kldavis4 are all examples of "circular logic", capped with a self righteous call to "Jaysus!".
I have problems with erronous statements of "facts" when what is actually being said is more akin to "personal belief".
You're welcome to the latter and quite wrong is the former.
The assumption that everyone outside of the "sect" is an "idolator" is absurd, and unwelcome.
In short, keep the evangelism to more appropriate venue, YOUR SELF RIGHTEOUS RANTS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!
Religions can be flexible too. I think it was 1998 that the Catholic church pardoned Galileo and officially acknowledged that the earth was round.
It's been a while since I've studied this, but isn't that primarily a mainstream Protestant view? There are certainly many Christians who believe that good deeds are in fact relevant to one's eternal fate. That's why I buy indulgences directly from the Vatican.
Anyway, I think the salvation through faith thing is even worse than an arbitrary code of morals handed down by God. Why not just send all the Pepsi-drinkers to hell and reserve heaven for Coke-drinkers?
Why is it so hard for anyone to imagine that God created life to be capable of evolution? I mean, it's not like the bible says "Then God created the bombardier beetle, fully capable of farting acid."
c-hack.com |
Who cares if benedict is a person? I mean, he's going to die sooner or later. What's the big deal if he dies before he gets laid? It's not like there's any shortage of slashdot users in the world.
The reality is that whether evolution is or is not true is irrelevant to the most important message in the Bible. God loves you, and wants you to be reconciled to Him, and he sent His son to die so that could be accomplished. You can choose to reject that sacrifice or not, but you can't ignore it.
Hello? It is a theory. Nothing more nothing less. It is an explanation for a set of observations. It is not set in stone.
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion, ass. Disagree if you want, but don't tell him what he can and can't say.
"If random variation is always so good, then why didn't super frogs result from these mutations instead of deformed frogs?)"
Tsk, what a cheap rhetorical tactic.
Evolution does *not* say that random variation is always good. Shame on you!
That's the whole point. It's *random* and there will be *many* mutations which do nothing or are harmful. The harmful ones will quickly die out and thus not hurt the species. The do nothing mutations may or may not survive over time.
I do not read the Koran or the Bhagavad Gita because the Bible claims to be truth and I believe what the Bible says. The Bible teaches that there is one way to the Father, and that is through his son Jesus Christ. (John 14:6) It would be going against what I believe to be truth to read these other texts in search of 'some other truth'.
So, if you had read the Koran first, and it said it was the truth, would you have believed it and never read the Bible?
If you say yes, does that mean all the books are the same, and whichever one you read first trumps the others? If so, how does that mesh with your belief that only believers in the Bible will receive salvation - does God accept or reject people based on which book they read first?
If you say no, what is it about the Bible that makes you believe that it is true, and how do you know that same "something" isn't in the Koran if you've never read it?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Genesis 7 'take with you SEVEN pairs of each kind of ritually clean animal, but only one pair of each kind of unclean animal. Take also seven pairs of each kind of bird.'
clean: cattle, sheep, goats, deer, wild sheep, wild goats,or antelopes--any animals that have divided hoofsAND thatalso chew cud.
unclean: all other animals. specifically camels, rabbits, or rock-badgers. PIGS.
- clean and unclean are from leviticus. Look it up yourself. Although HOW DID NOAH KNOW what was clean and unclean because LEVITICUS was not written yet.
Anybody got a calculator. 14 X 7 for the ritually clean animals = 98 . EACH cow would need 1/2 ton of hay to survive a 40 day sojourn on the high seas. That's 7 TONS of hay. Sheep,and other smaller animals would need less per animal but there are SO many more of them of them it would be wise to assum at least 15 tons of hay for the CLEAN animals.
As for the HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of other types of animals that would have been on this dinghy from heck, lets say another 100 tons of food for the 40 day journey on the open ocean.
- Can anyone say LOGISTICS?
Birds and lots of them. SEVEN pairs of each type of bird is to be housed on the ARK. Lets say 30,000 indivual birds total. 30,000 divided by 14 birds per species gives us about 2143 different species. There are many more species but lets not fret over them. 30,000 would be quite a bundle to handle. Did they build cages for these birds? How did they feed them? What about the mounds of bird shit? How did they protect the birds from the cats?
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^^Estimate for amount of hay to keep one cow alive is from a show on PBS called Frontier House - montana 1873 . 1 cow requires one ton of hay to survive a montana winter. So I just divided that amount in half.
~
I have no doubt that there was a flood. No doubt that it was a big one. BUT I will never believe that there was a flood that covered the ENTIRE earth to a level that was SEVEN meters above the highest mountain. NO WAY. Melt all the ice and wring all the water from the clouds and you would not get anywhere near even 1000 feet above the present sea level. Let alone 5000, 10,000, or the incredible altitude of 29,000 feet.
Once again John Morris is jim Bakker all over again. A con man preying on good people's faith in human nature.
How can you put trust in someone who tells "science" tales after having read someone else who translated from a german third ? To me it looks like they just try to grab what they can and turn it into an evolutionist flaw, i.e. a creationist "evidence".
> How is it that now an adverse environment is somehow able to make genes suddenly express themselves?
By stressing the system.
If a species is facing extinction due to gross environmental changes, there are all kinds of stresses (greater disease, starvation, difficulty finding mates, etc.)
Since there is no way to know what kind of environmental change is going to happen, there is no way to tell _what_ mutations will be "beneficial" of course.
So it makes sense for a species to have a means of changing drastically, in a variety of ways. And it also makes sense to suppress such a change so long as the environment doesn't much change.
The problem with evolution is not in the actual mechanics of it. There is sufficient evidence that given the right pressures, life evolves. The problem is that it doesn't have any explanation for the origins of life. There are plenty of theories, but none has been sufficiently proven and anybody who says otherwise is a science zealot.
You know, the religion of evolution just gets more and more complex, demonstrating to me that it is inherently flawed.
I'm not saying believe in creationism, but I for one am getting sick of "scientists" who constantly backpedal and have to change things they stated as inarguable facts just a decade or two earlier.
It seems like it gets more and more ridiculous and frankly, it's pretty clear to me at this point that these hypothesis are not being made based solely upon what's observed, but being made based upon what's observed in order to fit in to the assumption that darwinian evolution is true.
That isn't pure science, it's evolutionary fundamentalism, where observations are colored by a faith like conviction that darwinian evolution is true. This isn't helping anyone, least of all evolutionists.
An animal doesn't just one day decide "today, I'm going to evolve." One post talks about how the Bombadier Beetle could have evolved, but describes the process as if the beetle is making the decisons--"today I'm going to make these vaginations deeper, tomorrow I make this special chemical."
Nathan
I'm still waiting for my likadick to evolve.
With a little love and a little determination the professor said he will come around.
If that doesn't work I'll have to beat him.
(Incidentally, one of the hallmarks of the critical-theory-inspired American intellectual Left is to question all of these. America is just another country, other people's customs are just as valid as ours, we can social-engineer ourselves a better life, etc. Small wonder the conservatives "men are fools but the race is wise" get so angry about this)
Okay, that's the setup. Now here's the part where we make a lot of people Very Angry.
This childhood indoctrination is a good thing. All religions (and every society's unwritten philosophy) basically teach kids to Be Good, Respect Elders, Share Toys, Wipe your Nose, Be A Good Boy and Let Daddy Sleep Just 10 More Minutes, etc. These are good lessons, and are best pounded into tender young skulls. If you ask kids to derive their own moral rules, you'll get a nasty brand of selfish utilitarianism, or at best, a complicated, manipulative game-theory view of how to get what one wants. We get a lot of this in adults as it is, because Being Good is often personally counterproductive. Any kind of community spirit is best taught young, where it becomes an unchallenged axiom.
(gasp)
Any takers?
I am a christian, and believe that God created earth, but have considered thers veiws objectivly and made a conscious choice.
But i also beleive in evolution, in that species evolve and adapt to their enviroment over time, punctuated or otherwise.
For me the biggest question in evolution is the first lifeform. I find it hard to believe that chemicals just combined into living cells, even with the intermediate step of proteins.
Also IMHO the story of creation in genesis is an anology, the fossil record could be interpreted, by a creationist anyways, as that God was expirementing with different types of life and decided that the current setup was the best.
When one says "I have morality", a valid question is "where did you get it?". The theist says, "It was given to me by someone of superior understanding".
:)
Any discussion of morality tends to be very vague and messy, but for once a piece of it has just snapped into crystal clear focus because of your excellent answer "It was given to me by someone of superior understanding".
I pretty sure I'm reading it the exact opposite of how you meant it however
Where do our morals come from? I realized your answer was right - they were given to us by people of superior understanding - because to a large extent we form them as children. We get them from our parents, and from society at large. Our understanding of morality IS dynamic and changing because each generation builds upon and hopefully supercedes the understanding of our ancestors. Someone may have a new insight or superior understanding, and it may spread.
If rape and murder were legalized tomorrow, the atheist has no recourse by which to claim that rape and murder are immoral.
I reject that claim with this simple moral:
Might does not make right, nor do superior numbers.
Neither superior strength nor superior numbers implies superior understanding.
I think it is fairly obvious that at times some people influence others through means other than knowledge and understanding. They can do it through fear, hatred, patriotism, religion, lies, ignorance, the suppression of knowledge and understanding, or a million other means. They even can do it with the purest of intentions and loyaly, faith, admiration, even love.
Superior influence does not imply superior understanding.
This can lead to the tyrrany of the majority. The burning of witches. The extermination of jews. The lynching of blacks.
What's the utility in being moral other than to avoid punishment?
I find great utility in living in a society without theft, were disputes are not resolved through violence, where people are free to live as they wish so long as they harm no one.
That which benefits everyone benefits me.
I obviously do not live in the described ideal society, but neither is my behavior ideal. Society influences my behavior, and my behavior influences society. To the extent I can, I do so towards that ideal.
You don't quite say it directly, but many of your statements appear to express a prejudice that atheists are not / can not be moral. I understand you may be explaining a position you do not hold, but it does lead to a good point...
Prejudice is immoral, born of inadaquate understanding.
I am an atheist, and I defy you to find fault with any of the nuggets of morality I have placed in bold.
I presume you intended "It was given to me by someone of superior understanding" to mean that your morals come from God. (That was interesting, I typed 'god', and without thinking went back and changed it to 'God'. Pause. Think. Why? Because *I* write 'god', but I was saying where I think *you* belive they come from, and I think you believe they come from a capital 'G', grin)
I would dispute that interpretation. Unless you're going to claim that you've been hearing the voice of God, I'd say they come from people telling you what god says is moral and from books telling you what god says is moral. Well, all of the recent books have been re-written, revised, and translated many times by many people. In order to get back to God as the original source you'd have to go back to some ancient text and claim it did not derive from man. Yet this fails as well. Even if we accept that the ancient texts do indeed derive from God, I'm pretty sure the ancient texts of ANY religion would severly clash with your current morals. Those texts advocate anything from treating women as cattle to chopping off body parts and pre-teen marriages.
At it's best, religion can promote greater understanding, but in the main it relies on blind faith, obedience, rejection of reason, a rejection of understanding of other religions, and a concentration of influence in the people instilling these traits. And at it's worst religion has been responsible for some of the most immoral acts in history. The Inquisition, the World Trade Center, and the Crusades (don't forget the Children's Crusade), merely highlights contuinous evils in the name of religion.
P.S.
I'd also like to point of one of the most severely flawed pieces of "popular morality", the golden rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
A polar bear would no more wish you to place him on a tropical beach than you would wish the polar bear to place you in the arctic ocean.
A better revision would be:
Do unto others as others would reasonably have you do unto them.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It only links to the front page. I cannot find the fricken article, even typed "evolution" into the finder. Who the hell reviews those dumbass submissions? Give them content lessons with a cluebar!
Idiots!
Also, the whole argument of evolution says that the eyes DIDN'T come about through a series of purely random events anyway. They were shaped by natural selection. What works is more likely to survive.
Err not exactly. Shaped implies direction, it implies choice, it implies decisions. IF evolution resulted in eyes, it is from random events. Anthropomorphizing is not an accurate way to describe it.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
There's not a single evolutionist scientist anywhere who has been able to show how life spontaneously generates from inanimate chemicals--not a single instance where even in controlled experiments where the dice are loaded in ways never found in nature has this ever occurred. To me the entire notion is a scientific throwback almost akin to the dark ages when such things as spontaneous generation were routinely believed factual.
The theory of evolution is nothing less than the belief that life spontaneously generates from non-life. I find it amazing that such things are believed in, but hardly surprising--after all it was once taught in the world's most prestigious universities that the world was flat. JUst because we live today does not mean that popular science is any more accurate or truthful than the flat worlders.
Everything ascribed to evolution screams "intelligence." Evolutionists play word games and call this intelligence "nature" and ascribe its intelligent results to "Darwinism"--without, it seems, even looking with any depth at the implications. The blind are often blind because they choose it, not because they are. When evolutionists stop acting like priests in the temple and start acting like objective scientists who make deductions based on the data, I might start listening to them.
The poster mentioned:
"Most people (Christians included) have little problem with suggesting evolution is the path by which the world, as we know it, was created."
The theory of evolution doesn't cover how the world was created, it simply covers how species evolve from other species.
There has to be at least one species already there before the theory of evolution has anything at all to say.
So as long as you believe in God, you can treat people appallingly and still go to heaven? That explains a lot.
Ooooh, man. I just realised that I exists!!! :)
What a beutafully thing, it is a lot less boring if there was nothing.
Man, I think I am just going to bolter me through life like a stone rolling down a hill - love you guys. The worlds is fucking beatufull (damn, that word is impossible to spell
this is an interesting article that may be relevant to the discussion at hand..g -rst080102.php
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-08/uo
to quote:
Scientists in the past decade have discovered that remnants of ancient germ line infections called human endogenous retroviruses make up a substantial part of the human genome. Once thought to be merely "junk" DNA and inactive, many of these elements, in fact, perform functions in human cells.
I have also found the Bible to be remarkably consistent. There is somewhat of a circular aspect to it, I agree, but what do you expect for something that claims to be the very Word of the creator of the universe. God himself says "I am that I am"!
"The theist says, "It was given to me by someone of superior understanding". The non-theist or atheist however, can only say, "morality is determined by man"."
No, the non-theist says that his/her morality stems from the exact same place as the theist, but the theist has deluded him/herself into thinking that there is an invisible bein of superior understanding handing out morality checks.
"As a result, if your view of morality is in conflict with the view of society as a whole, then you are always wrong and there's no way to argue that you are correct."
Sure there is: Logic and Reason. Voltaire never resorted to saying he was right because God says so & countless other humanist, most of whom were/are unpopular in their time, have made arguments for morality without resorting to claiming they had an invisible friend to back them up.
Guys...
Don't give us believers a bad name, okay? This creation science stuff is just embarrassing.
This is God's universe, He can do whatever He wants with it.
That includes building a mechanism whereby critters can change and evolve. A lot of folks get indignant because they don't want to be related to monkeys. Hey, God loves monkeys too. "Not a sparrow falls", eh?
To the Bible: remember the audience. The ancient Hebrews didn't know jack about DNA, they couldn't handle an explanation of evolution. You can.
God gave you a brain, He expects you to use it. Most reasonable Christians today see Adam's naming of the beasts as a symbolic mandate for science to understand God's own world as best we can.
There shouldn't be any conflict between religion and science, anyway. Religion explains Why We're Here, science explains How We Got Here. In the past the Church has ignored this, and suffered for it.
So get with the program: Try to understand the world God put you in; accept that God made you out of an ape, not clay, and that this is a PROVISIONAL promotion if you're not careful; admit that you ARE a monkey's nephew, if not uncle; and don't waste people's goodwill towards Christians on this stupid argument.
So because the bombardier beetle is hard to explain, the creationsists think that we should instead accept that a omniscient, omnipotent creator-being made the universe and the Earth, and populated it with designed animals, and also with humans who were designed to fail to live up to the standards set by the creator-being. But this creator-being requires his creations to repent of their designed-in flaws before they can dwell in paradise in the afterlife with the creator-being. So the creator-being assumed human form and sacrificed himself to himself, to pay off the "debt" that was owed to himself. This is the alternative we are to accept because evolution allegedly hasn't explained the bombardier beetle's defense mechanism.
Let me tell you something: evolutionary biologists are not the ones who have some explaining to do! Why did the creator-being make creatures that have to eat each other to survive in the first place? If predation had not been established by the creator-being, there'd be no need for elaborate defense mechanisms by the bombardier beetle or any other creature. But creationsists have no explanation for this, except to say "God moves in mysterious ways."
If this is what it comes to, it is more parsimonious to simply assume that evolution works in mysterious ways. If we are to be satisfied with the "mysterious ways" conclusion (I can' call it an explanation), then there is no need to invoke the extraneous creator-being to do so.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Sounds like SOMEONE is making excuses for their own behavior, or lack thereof.
How so? In fact, go back, why should I have to? Believing evolution based on only some evidence is no worse than believing creationism, which has no evidence. Lets see; some versus none. Hmmm...
The point is, I have to base my worldview on something, and I have chosen evolution simply because the weight of the evidence is in its favour. However I have never claimed that evolution is irefutable. Its like the flame experiment; I don't know for certain that holding my hand in the flame will hurt, but the evidence I have collected from previous experiences tell me that it is likely.
Or should I ignore just ignore evidence now?
Thats why I have NEVER heard of him. Is he as famous as John Morris?
^
What about if we just spend ten minutes reading the first 5 pages of the bible? Would that satisfy most creationists?
Where does creationism END? God created everything. Or would we be forced to listen to lectures about how god watches over and controls every living creature including us on the planet and even the universe?
Where does creationism end? Would it just be in the science class? Wouldn't you also have to move into History class? Or Sociology class?
At what point does a creationist allow 'the bible' study class to end and real science to begin? Couldn't we just end every experiment with the phrase 'And that's the way its supposed to be, because that's the way God wanted it'. Give me an 'A' teacher or I am going to complain to the priest, vicar, or whatever whoever runs your church?
Yow. Here's Cola libre:x .php
http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/copyleft/
http://www.opencola.com/products/3_softdrink/inde
Get it while it's there. OpenCola is getting out of soft drinks in favor of software.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
Call me a heretic but...
Who is to say that God didn't create the mechanism of evolution? It goes along with my belief that God wouldn't create a creature that couldn't adapt.
Also, the idea that form follows function fits nicely into the idea of niche.
A definition of niche from AP Dictionary:
the unique position occupied by a particular species, conceived both in terms of the actual physical area that it inhabits and the function that it performs within the community.
It is plain to see that life adapts. To suggest otherwise would be to deny the very truth. The finches on Galapagos are one of the first and most pristine examples of both adaptation and niches.
Furthermore, I believe that many, including myself, study science because it is the search for truth and meaning in the physical world. As such, you could consider it a religion of sorts. As for me, such a scientific search for the truth is merely a parallel path to the search for God, like orthodox christianity, because truth is what God is all about.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
What makes stoning immoral?
You are killing another human being. It denies us our ability to be "higher beings" and is illogical from the point of view of the survival of the species.
Or, if you prefer, "Thou shalt not kill"
Death is part of life. Just like the fact that you can't be good if there's not a way to be bad, life doesn't mean much if there's no death.
It's interesting to see how the 'evolutionists' believe that they completely understand the 'creationists' and that the 'creationists' couldn't possibly understand the 'evolutionists', because 'creationists' are percieved as ignorant and stupid.
Mind you, labeling 'creationist' and 'evolutionist' is a really trying to divide the world into only two catagories, without any posibility that you could be something other than either a scientist or a bible-thumper.
The problem with your position relative to the Creationist, and his position relative yours, is that neither of you can prove the negative concerning the other's opinion. Therefore, both opinions are necessarily constrained to the area of faith as opposed to scientifically verifiable fact.
Of the two doctrines, I tend to to think evolution is the more dangerous because it pretends to be something it is not--it pretends to be science when in fact it is naught but a philosophy. Creationism on the other hand makes no bones about the fact it thinks the earth and the systems upon it are but the artifacts of intelligent creation, and therefore is clear in its interpretation of the data, at least from a completely objective and scientific point of view.
That's the central problem with attempting to divine evolution from the "fossil record"--as a record it is open to divergent forms of interpretation. Evolutionists would be wise to recall that when relying on such things to illustrate their opinions. A true scientist knows the difference between belief and verifiable fact--a poor one does not. I think that's true on both sides of the issue.
Wow, that's great. Here, read this:
What? You don't believe me? But it says right there that you should.
My point, in case you missed it, is that you can't use the Bible as evidence of the Bible's validity. That's called circular reasoning and makes you look silly as well.
Further to this apparent stupidity is the fact that extreme cases of webbed feet are often associated with skin 'disorders' that result in extremely dry skin that needs to be bathed in water almost continuously.
I'm told that extreme cases actually include (atrophied?) gills.
If, on the other hand, she had been born near the ocean (her father was from Trinidad - an island nation), and had had the skin condition often associated with webbed digits, she might have been forced to spend most of her time at the beach / in the ocean (shades of mermaids???).
In Japan where some villages make good money diving for oysters / pearls, her webbed feet might have given her an edge over other divers (especially so gills, if they had any functionality at all). Although such a person might be initially shunned as 'different', the boon of being able to thrive in the water might have made her rich in a pearl-diving village and thus made her a 'good catch'. Thus, what was a severe problem in Edmonton could be a boon had her family moved to the ocean to care for her special needs.
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In the bombadier beetle, the combustion chamber might have come about slowly... First would be the noxious gasses... not unlike ink in squid -- it would disuade a predator on it's own. Early versions might have had one chamber which needed to be reloaded on a continuous basis along with the catalyst separately added. The original version might have done external mixing A hardened area around the mixing space would have been an advantage that would evolve over time. -- or it might have started as the venom bay for a stinger.
The catalyst would have been most useful -- but not entirely necesssary. An inhibitor would save resources by removing the requirement to continusously produce the 'unstable' compounds.
It would also be worth pointing out that the description of the compounds as "explosive" is inaccurate. The author even acknowledges so (almost at the end of his very long article). The compounds simply degrade over time. It's the addition of the catalyst that makes the mixture explosive.
BTW: in a pre-inhibitor state, the two chambers (besides being a side effect of biological symetry) would have allowed one chamber to hold a charge while the other discharged and refilled on a rotating basis.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I believe this has something to do with punctuated equilibrium. I think the latest "trend" in evolutionary theory is that evolution isn't gradual, but occurs in what appears to be bursts. Such bursts are thought to occur as a result of dramatic changes in the environment. Perhaps drastic changes cause "pent up evoluiton" to break out for some members of the species, and survival of the fittest takes it from there. Anyway, that's how I would make sense of this, but I'm no scientist.
I'm not too sure about creationist claims that a "devine creator" makes more sense than evolutionary theory. It's like neural networks. You can describe how neural networks work, but when they do amazing things (like learn to fly) you really can't explain what the heck happened. That doesn't mean you just witnessed devine creation either...
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Open Source Shirts
Jesus H Christ, read the fucking thing, because it directly refutes everything you've said in this entire sub-thread.
JUST READ IT!
where does the Bible promote slavery?
Apart from the fact that you're being inane now, you're actually agreeing with me. I pointed out, several posts back, that as society originally gained its morals from the church, societies morals are church morals, and therefore both theists and atheists share the same morals anyway. If you argue that an atheist can have no morals, then you're effectively saying that society as a whole has no morals, and the church has been inefective in providing a moral framework in the first place. Q.E.D.
Do you remember the drivel coming out of these people's mouth a few years back that they are being treated like 2nd CLASS citizens in the USA?
HAHAHHAHAH+AAHHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahbwuhahah ahahahahahah
2nd class citizen? You mean you could not vote? You mean you had to sit in the back of the bus? You mean you had to use the 'creationist restroom'? You mean you had to sit at the 'creationist tables' in a restaurant?
~
YOu people are seriouly deluded. So screwed up that it is sad? Admittedly the atheists have had entirely too much sway with out school systems and government lately but the creationists really make me laugh.
~^
How about I try to get prayer back into the schools? Would that take the pressure off of your seriously overworked brains?
The point that is being missed in these discussions is the size of the beetle population. Any one who works with genetic algorithms knows that the larger the population size you start with the more likely you are to reach a given evoultionary point in a given time. Thus if the population size is large enough then the simulatanoues evolution of all three chemical is very probable. Also it is equally likely that the inhibiter evolved first and liad dormant....it neither hurt nor helped the evolutionary line. Thus by not harming the line it is improbable that this same set of gene sequences would re-mutate....These now brings the siumultatneous mutation down to two gene sequences...which if the population size is large enough is not only likely, but probable.
what?
What is New Zealand's policy and how has it hurt them?
I suspect that he was referring to the Maori (prolly horribly mis spelled) people who lived there before Europeans came over to settle.
I don't know much about them at all, but if they had such a philosophy, then it would make kicking their asses and taking all their stuff much easier.
beneficial.
The fact that I have brown hair, and you have black hair, and that a friend has red hair are not necessarily reproductively beneficial, they're still mutations, passed from parent to offspring.
My personal opinion on the origin of the species is that evolution worked HAND IN HAND with creation. The reason for my belief is that there really are evidences of evolution in nature (age of dinosaurs, adaptation, survival of the fittest etc) yet aside from these there exist irrefutable proof of God's existence (the beginning of everything, missing links, miracles, etc)
Despite all these, a lot of questions still remain and we probably will never know the answer. However, we can always ask, like we always have....
Take off every 'sig'!
All your 'sig' are belong to us!
By forming my own conclusions would I not be sentencing myself to an afterlife of HELL and DAMNATION? Yes I can choose to believe in evolution, BUT by doing do I guarantee that my soul with never go to heaven. Instead I will be forced to listen to Hip-Hoprapcrap and Brittany albums for the rest of time.
im an atheist whos pro-life because for me, "greater good for the greatest number" includes fetuses.
Oh wow. I really hope you follow this and respond.
I have just got to know how you can rationalize this. I can't see any possible way that forcing an unwanted child to be born and raised provides any good to anybody with the possible exception of the child if he manages to have a happy life and causes no harm to others. The fact that every new body on the planet makes it just a little bit worse for everybody else (not counting any good things they might do during their life) due to scarcity of resources, overcrowding etc.
Seriously, I can see the "god told me it was bad argument". I can see the "well all human life is precious because....well just because" argument.
The greatest good for the greatest number argument clearly goes directly against your stated position.
Please explain how this is reasonable.
Two things, really....
1000 years from now? hmmm, I wonder what people 1000 years ago looked like. Oh yeah, there are paintings, etc. from 1002. And they looked pretty much like us!
And also, the geeks are hardly going to be the driving force in evolution, since they would first have to find someone to mate with them. An unlikely occurrence, don't you think?
Realize that, from my perspective, a moral system rises or falls on its tendency to advance the kingdom of God. Although objectivism may (emphasis on may) offer a basis for the affirmation of individual importance (not relative to that of other individuals) it fails to glorify God since it elevates these individuals to His level.
Guess I'm just picky :)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
evolution itself was part the universal design of things. i am not going to say a peep about where the universe came from or why it is the way it is but however it got here it does show unmistakeable signs that by its very design life will exist. the way solar systems form and the chemicals that make up all life being natural products of physical events in the universe. would it be a stretch to say that evolution does happen but certain traits of life are preprogrammed into the way the chemicals that comprise life react?
i think this idea of stored up evolution just points more in that direction. the importance of which being that there are other worlds in the universe like ours, and more importantly on those worlds are lifeforms very similar to our own. i bet all of our higher level classifications could still fit all the life we might find on an alien plannet. and i bet "humans" (or at least other intelegent life in the same family) do exist elsewhere, why? because it is by design.
i think the evolutionists will eventually find that evolution is a function of mutation, but that these mutations, although determined largly by probability, are not totally random.
(* Programming itself implies, no, requires a programmer. So I ask you, who did the genetic programming? *)
While genetic programming does *not* provide a complete, perfect simulation of the first living thing clear up to humans (or whatever you consider the pennicle), it does show that selection alone can increase complexity. The *resulting* complexity was *not* put in by a human programmer.
This is something that creationists have denied is possible. IOW, "only an intelligent creater can create or increase complexity".
Yes, human programmers "primed the pump" if you will in these experiments, but selection alone *increases* complexity. Agreed, it did not go from point A to point Z, but maybe from say H to L.
IMO, genetic algorithms may not "prove" evolution in it's entirety, but do knock some important bricks out of the creationists wall. It shows that at least some of their traditional but heavily used arguments are weak or broke.
Survivle and/or reproductive selection alone *can* increase complexity. This is what GP and GA have shown.
(I hope this does not degenerate into a debate about the definition of "complexity".)
Table-ized A.I.
I have also found the Bible to be remarkably consistent. There is somewhat of a circular aspect to it, I agree, but what do you expect for something that claims to be the very Word of the creator of the universe. God himself says "I am that I am"!
By the way, since pi is a supposedly infinite string of numbers, somewhere in there you will find the Bible.
Obviously, you make a good point here, although infinite and non-repeating are not the same things.
This does bring up an interesting question, though: what other forms could a scientifically grounded proof of Christianity (or Islam, or any other religion) take? Fulfilled "prophecy" doesn't cut the mustard, since it may be self-fulfilled.
It seems to me that the only way would be to find some sort of message encoded in one of the fundamental constants of the universe, but are there any other ways?
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I'm ashamed to admit it, but sometimes I'm too lazy on Saturday morning, and I don't have cable...
The Monkeys on Typwriters is a poor analogy for evolution for at least two reasons:
1. There is no feedback mechanism. If a monkey comes close, it is not rewarded nor has more children then a monkey that keeps missing.
2. It assumes just *one* "proper" solution. The jillions of life-forms all about us show that there are multiple "solutions" to life. There may likely also be multiple solutions to "intelligent life".
Table-ized A.I.
I can't say I'm surprised with the way the comments turned out on this story. There are a lot of smart people who post here, that's why I visit so often. I enjoy the insights into other areas of life and science that I don't know that much about. I've learned a lot about the world around me, and the computers in my home. Really, it's a very impressive thing that's going on here.
A problem that I've observed is that a lot of people seem convinced that the body of scientific knowledge, as it stands, is irrefutable. Along with that, religion seems to be widely derided as a crutch and/or a dangerous thing.
I personally don't think science is a bunch of bunk, I believe we have a good grasp of the world, and most of my family makes a living off of it. But I also believe that we don't know 1% of everything there is to know. By the same token, I realize that some people do use religion as a crutch, and that religious sentiments have lead to many wars and deaths - but also that it has probably saved and bettered more lives than it has ended. I also think it should be noted that many people use religion to improve themselves, and not to think for them.
Where am I going with this? I just wanted to say, after all those disclaimers, that I wish that more respect was given to religious sentiment here. I got "you believe in God?! (snicker)" from several posts at higher ratings than I would have expected. There are intelligent people who believe in God and science both, and have good points to make. I think many are intimidated by the atmosphere here, and subsequently don't post. The rest may not get modded up to more than 2, but they're out there.
That all said, I've tried not to imply any disrespect with my post, just to make a point. Thanks for reading.
Yeah, I have a webcomic...
how do evolutionists explain the "polystrate" fossils and petrified trees found all over the world?
Read the ploystrate fossil FAQ
This goes some way to explaining examples that are considered to defy standard evolutionary theory, such as the Bombardier Beetle."
Yet another example that defies evolutionary theory, Cmdr Taco
I am far more interested in the analyzing the geosocial implications of people who say "Ready, Steady" instead of "Read, Set" (or vice versa).
[o]_O
Good response. Incidentally, has the Pope not also endorsed evolution as the official doctrine of the Catholic church, albeit with the caveat that God still endows humans with an individual soul?
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
The problem with adultery is that it destroys the lives of generations of people on all sides. I see that right now since my sister is going through a divorce because her husband committed adultery. She was even willing to take him back, but he preferred to live in sin.
I also object to your use of the term "higher beings" in justifying the emotional destruction of so many people. And according to logic, "survival of the species" would seem to indicate that adulterers who cause such pain to so many people SHOULD receive their just punishment.
(the possible apocryphal Haldane quote)
Does this explain the Troll Gene?
Table-ized A.I.
That's not Biblical. That's certainly church-ical, though. Sheep want 1 shepherd. They don't want other sheep to lead. But the Bible itself has the Lamentations as basically a huge guide on how to shake your fist at God. Obviously, knowing that an unexamined faith is weak, the Bible wants to promote a stronger, examined faith. But the byproduct, of course, is that some who question their faith will abandon it. That's NOT what a church trying to expand its membership and win converts wants. But I suspect God would just want tested, strong believers. Hence the difference between the Bible and the church.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
The point is, I have to base my worldview on something, and I have chosen evolution simply because the weight of the evidence is in its favour.
Christians don't base their worldview on creationism. That's why it's quite silly for you to actually base your worldview on evolution. I still don't think you understand the philosophical aspects of the discussion. Maybe we are just firing past each other, but there's definitely a disconnect here.
You've created a nice little trap that serves only to troll (actually it just makes you look foolish). If a Christian treats people well, it must be that they are motivated to avoid some eternal torture. Now you say well if they don't, it doesn't make sense that they could achieve salvation. You will never accept any idea that a Christian could be treating others well because he or she enjoys doing that action and that's why you will never be confused as being reasonable.
There is no mythical quota of goodness like you seem to assert. It shows your ignorance of religion and the Bible. The idea is that, due to our human nature (which is faulty), it is impossible to be sinless. Do you honestly know any person who is sinless? God cannot tolerate sin in any form or fashion, therefore we are all damned as a result. However, he presented himself as the ultimate sacrifice for all sin and, as a result, all one must do is believe in him to achieve salvation.
However, true belief becomes a domino effect, because if you believe that he is truly who he says he is, you will want to follow his commandments as well. Christianity teaches that even Christians continue to live with sin in their life. It cannot be avoided.
When you present the question as you did, it seems that you get enjoyment from treating people in an appalling fashion. Do you? Are you saying that, without some form of punishment being in place, you have no desire to treat people well?
There appear to be many design mistakes in current humans. These include:
1. Testicles that need to be on the outside of the body to be cooled. Other animals have solved this with different chemistry.
2. Urine tube passes through the middle of the prostrate instead of around it. This blocks the flow of urine if the prostrate swells.
3. Improper regulation of weight when food is plentiful.
4. The blood vessles in the eye are on top of the retina rather than behind it, limiting our vision and requiring "muscle wiggle". Octopuss eyes did it right.
5. We don't really need seperate toes and toenails. (This is not the same as not needing seperate toe bones.)
If the creator is perfect, he must have been drinking a little too much sacramental whine when making us.
Table-ized A.I.
It's actually "Thou shalt not murder" but that's beside the point. You have said, "well all killing is immoral". Then the argument is no longer that stoning is immoral, it's that all capital punishment is immoral, which changes the argument from my point of view entirely.
God is an invention of Man.
So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery.
The deep mystery is the nature of Man.
- - Nanrei Kobori, Abbott of the Temple of the Shining Dragon, Kyoto.
Thank you, oh prolific trolls for giving me something to think about.
"One touch of Darwin makes the whole world kin." George Bernard Shaw
Enterprise encounters a race of hostile humanoids who have evolved explosive farts.
Don't laugh it off, it would make a great show IMO. Sure, some would cringe, but they are probably not the kind of people who watch Trek anyhow.
Give "strange new lifeforms" a more literal interpretation for once.
Table-ized A.I.
Let's take the general theory of relativity for example. It makes a consistent, mathematical model of the environment we live in. This model can make predictions about our environment. Because of this, experiments can be devised which can test these predictions and if a number of experiments have the same result, we will have a good idea of the accuracy of this model.
Now, with evolution, only some predictions are made. These predictions are not the same as in the former case because they are not set in stone as it were. Rather, they're more like expectations and, if these expectations aren't consistent with experimentation, the theory itself is modified somewhat so that the expectations are met. Now people often argue that theories can change over time. But in this case, we have a very flexible theory that I would argue could never be proven correct or incorrect to the extent that the general theory of relativity has been, unless we manage to make a time machine to actually observe the history of this planet. Since evolution is never directly observed (certainly not the evolution prior to the present), the debate over its truth will never die unless all people begin trusting the 'best guess' history told by the dominant scientific community over the 'best guess' history told by religion. And if you believe people in the scientific community are any less biased than religious people, you are sorely mistaken.
I wonder of these bugs are related to the bugs on StarShip Troopers ??
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
Okay. I just want to know something. Do you, on any level, realize how silly this whole God thing is? Here, read this.
Allow me to belabor the point: The Old Testament of the Bible is a collection of myths and metaphorical stories that ancient people told each other before they had exciting things like "writing" or "TV" or "a working understanding of physics and biology". After generations of retelling (during which they were undoubtably altered) these stories were written down and subjected to editing, mistranslating, and even politically motivated wholesale cuts. Did you ever wonder why the "Literal Word of God" has a fucking census in the middle of it? Who really cares how many goats Eliab sacrificed this one time?
The New Testament is a collection of memoirs and letters by some guys who used to hang around with a fellow who said he was the son of God. I know that sounds like a big deal, but he wasn't the first and he was not the last.
So what I don't get is why you have this absolute faith in book that is, at best, only interesting to historians of early Middle Eastern civilization. I don't want to hear that it's "because the Bible tells me so." I can write an internally consistent account of an invisible pink unicorn by tomorrow. I don't want to hear that it's because there are other Christians; there are plenty of Muslims, too, so you'd better have a good reason for rejecting all the other popular religions in favor of Christianity. And if you're one of those people who've felt God speak to them, well, that's never happened to me, and I'd like to know how that's different from just being another crazy with a chemical imbalance.
I promise I'm almost done. You have an invisible friend. It's cute, but I grew out of that phase.
Or maybe he's just pointing out that he doesn't need excuses since he doesn't believe in your silly fairy-tale morality. "Alcohol and drugs make the baby Jesus cry."
The New Scientist article is (presumably, I haven't read it) referring to the observation that when a stress-related protein called Hsp-90 (Heat-shock protein #90) is turned off or otherwise knocked out of whack, "cryptic" genetic variation is made non-cryptic. Hsp-90 basically buffers the development of an organism, making sure that, say, a fruit fly can function as a fruit fly even if there are a bunch of small errors (caused by genetics or the environment) in the development process. So if Hsp-90 functions, a fly can have a large number of mutations in various proteins, but those proteins will still function as normal. That is, you can have a large amount of DNA sequence variation that doesn't actually cause any outward ("phenotypic") change in the functioning of the organism.
So the basic idea is that, as long as Hsp-90 is working, the organism can build up genetic variation without paying any cost in the face of natural selection. If Hsp-90 gets shut down or loses effectiveness, all that genetic variation then leads to phenotypic variation. Since the circumstances under which Hsp-90 fails are also likely to be circumstances under which the organism needs to be able to respond rapidly to selection (because Hsp-90 only fails under extreme conditions), all this genetic variation gets converted to phenotypic variation exactly when it's needed.
That's the idea, anyway. At this point, the evidence is pretty good that removing Hsp-90 really does convert "cryptic" genetic variation into non-cryptic variation. The argument that this is actually adaptive (i.e. that Hsp-90 and similar proteins have been specifically selected to shut down when the organism needs to respond to selection) is not supported at all.
This is not the same as punctuated equilibrium, contrary to someone's assertion above. It could be seen as a possible mechanism for PE, but it was never proposed by the originators of the PE idea. In fact, the basic idea harkens back to work by CH Waddington 40-50 years ago.
"The non-theist or atheist however, can only say, "morality is determined by man"."
I disagree. As a non-theist, I find most of Morality to be simple logic. Morality is universally obvious, much like 1+1 = 2 is. It's that obvious, at least for me. Much like our understanding of mathematics, our understanding of morality has improved over the ages. For people who lag behind in the brains department, I sure am glad there's the authoritarian organization called the Church.
YAY! GO YOU!
Consider in this moral setting the question of abortion, which causes more human suffering? The death of a blastocyst of some level of development, or an unwanted child? Hmm, because we know unwanted children always get the best of care, and they always come out perfectly healthy, both physically and emotionally. They never get abused. Oh no.
Hmph protecting the helpless,Tell me, what would you do in the following situation, which is intimately related to abortion. Your best friend is dying, and he is in horrible agony, you have the power to kill him, and its what he wants, what do you do? The moral answer is that you end his suffering, not that god says no so you get to be in agony. Abortion is moral because it heads off the same kind of problem in the most painless way possible. You allow it because of the suffering otherwise caused to mother and the baby.
And ethics? ethics is at best tangentially related to morality. Ethical concerns are those related to money. Rules like: Don't screw around with your secretary. Why? because its threatening to your pocketbook, it also has the potential in certain situations to cause moral complications, but primarily that's all the reason anyone should need.
I think that any mention to Creationism in a discussion about Evolution here should be modded as a trool. We have wasted enough time and /. have wasted enough space and bandwidth to this particular form of ignorance.
Just a term of comparison, think about someone posting claims that the Earth is flat to any discussion about space missions. I believe the same moderation should apply to other supertitions.
> Shaped implies direction, it implies choice, it
> implies decisions.
No it doesn't. Stalagmites and stalagtites are also shaped by natural forces. How you get "decision" or "choice" out of that, I don't know.
-- Rick
What you say speaks really close to home for me. When I attended high school, we were taught some very non-fundamentalist theology. We were also taught to use our brains to decide what the truth about religion is for ourselves. The number of my peers who abandoned Christianity as a result of this is astounding.
I never understand the bile spewed over this debate. Someone/something 'designed' the Bombardier Beetle by making the particles, atoms, molecules, DNA which 'evolved' into the Bombardier Beetle.
Saying it 'evolved' is not saying it wasn't designed, because evolution is God's way of designing life. There is no schism between "intelligent design' and 'evolution', not even 'creationism' for that matter (though these people make me shudder).
If you believe in God, then DNA and evolution is how God 'designed' life. Look for yourself. Grab a microscope, go to school and use the lab. God put his 'designs' right in front of your eyes.
It takes incredible arrogance to try to tell God how he made life. Don't put limits on what God can/could do by imagining ridiculous alternative ways that God 'created' or 'designed' everything when the evidence is right in front of you.
Intelligent Design = Evolution
All you're arguing about is what tools he used to make it.
While there may be many bible thumping nerds... I'm not one of them, nor do I appreciate being shown some religious fanatics dumb ass web page. That bit about 'evolutionary 'thinking'' really turned my stomach, not only that nerds would comment on this article, but that there are still idiot creationists out there that try and use science as a means of debunking science.
Perhaps this concept of JITE (just in time evolution) could be used to explain this article:
9 99 92844
.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns
Then again, its kind of hard for me to tell since The ORIGINAL ARTICLE is for SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Slash-DUH
Ef eu cn red ths thn yu cnt spl vry wl.
Okay. I just want to know something. Do you, on any level, realize how silly this whole God thing is? Here, read this [theonion.com].
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1 Cor. 1:18 (NIV)
What you believe is the most important thing in your life at this time. I understand you don't know God, but he wants to know you. If you really care about understanding what I have to say, just ask this: "God I don't know if you are real, but if you are, show me in a real way who you are." If you ask this with a sincere heart, I guarantee he will answer you.
The men who flew airplanes full of people into buildings in NYC and DC last year were theists. Their arguments were utterly indistinguishable from yours, and they were utterly convinced that they were headed straight for Paradise.
On the other hand, I'd prefer that people's ethics be shaped by their vision of a world that they would want their children to live in: a world where their children would be treated fairly and with respect and dignity.
Perhaps the source of one's moral decisions is less significant than the consequences, eh?
I can take this one. It comes down to a definition of the word force.
Natural selection is not a "force" in the same way that gravity is. It is an abstraction we use so that we can write mathamatical equations and sentences that humans can get their brains around. [Gravity is also an abstraction, but less dramatically.]
Discussions of evolution often get muddied, because people use different types of discriptions at different scales. The audience doesn't always know what scale is being used.
Nature is a reinforcement loop. We often describe this reinforcement as an active process. We use verbs to describe things hapenning and visions of forces interacting. We do this because it helps humans build an image in their heads. When we change scale and start to talk about individual events, we have to stop using descriptive images and equations and settle down to gritty statistics.
For any individual, there is no shaping. There is nothing which ensures that a more fit individual is not going to be hit by a bus. The feedback loop works on distributions of statistics. [Fewer people who looked both ways died in the presence of busses. No buses no difference.]
The truely problematic statement is the last one "What works is more likely to survive." This is not strictly true. Better would be "What has survived is more likely to have worked."
Think about the evolution of microcomputer architecture. The micro-channel architecture. The alpha processor. MIPS vs ARM. BeOS. Are these "better?" Well, did they survive?
When you change scale you can confuse cause, effect and a descriptive abstraction. That was the point jgerman was trying to pick on. It's a sore point in evolution circles because the abstraction is pretty and the day to day grit is litteraly murder.
Corned beef on rye anyone?
This is not a political statement. This is not legal advice. It's a frick'n Slasdot post. However: I'm Running For
"This brings up a fundamental question (which is the one I am asking you): Where do evolutionary theorists say life started?"
It's not a "fundamental question" for evolutionary biology, the theory of evolution begins with the first species & explains how other species evolve from that species. How that first species got there is a question for a different area of research & theory (abiogenesis).
It is interesting how often folks confuse evolution with cosmology or abiogenesis, obviously schools are not doing a good enough job of explaining the differences.
Seriously, that's why this site has such a bad stigma. How the fuck are stories still getting posted without links to the actual articles. I mean c'mon, with the exception of book reviews and JonKatz rants, this site is basically link propogation. And as I'm typing this I notice I don't even get a copy of the story above the typing space. What the hell? And why the hell do I need to know the username associated with an email I used to register to get back into an old account. The one I want to get open was registered with a now defunct email address. So it's locked permanently. Why doesn't it retire old usernames or at least send the username and password for the email I specify? Goddamnit that's stupid. And finally, why is the interface so clunky, ugly, and confusing? You have to scroll to the bottom to perform a search. You have to click on "older stuff" to view stories that aren't front page. In fact that whole list of links on the left looks like a big mess. Why is their "advertising" and "supporters"? Why isn't "hall of fame" spelled out? God this site is stupid.
> I think I understand GAs at least as well as you do, thanks.
Uhh, the point was that GAs do not explain Evolution, they merely use some of the features of evolution, and show that those features work as expected.
Now how much time have you spent working with real genetics? How many years investigating how actual organisms act in the field and/or lab?
it is = it's
If you argue that an atheist can have no morals, then you're effectively saying that society as a whole has no morals, and the church has been inefective in providing a moral framework in the first place.
Western society was born of Christian ideals, yet it has gradually moved away from that in many respects. Abortion is an excellent example of this taking place.
I also did not say that an atheist cannot conduct themselves morally. The problem is that when society adjusts its moral position, the atheist must follow suit as well. The atheist has ceded all means of morally reasoning that one action is superior to another action. If all actions are then morally equal, how can we point out any deficiencies??
The point I'm making is that any dynamic means of determining morality is philosophically flawed. It must be absolute. There are plenty of things that fall outside of moral action that one might consider moral action (drinking alcohol is an example of this) but that's a perception problem, not a moral problem.
How you get "decision" or "choice" out of that, I don't know.
Very easily, you contrasted shaping against being created by randomness. Thus direction and choice.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
No, the reason evolution is such a hot-button issue is because it conflicts with the Christian explanation of human origin. (Or, to be more specific, it conflicts with a literal interpretation of that origin.)
It's not science that's on trial here. Most Christians believe in and even support the scientific method in areas where it does not actively conflict with their doctrine.
I sympathize with Christians who feel that they must make a choice between their religion and science, but I wish they'd find the strength of character to admit to themselves and to others what they're doing: denying the most workable, parsimonious scientific theory we have for explaining our origins because they're afraid it's true.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
And you're explanation is?
Most of my favorite right-wingers believe in evolution. Not all of us are raging Christian loonies, you know.
In fact, evolution is as big a threat to liberalism and socialism as it is to Christianity, being as the left is simply an unconscious internalization of basic Christian dogmas, in secularized form.
Including me.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
I belive in evolution, but I also belive in divine intervention. Perhaps (insert name(s) of your favorite diety or dieties here) layed out some cirumstances under which life could evolve, and then just gave it a little nudge occasionally to keep things on track. Maybe this was in the form of actually causing genetic mutations, or perhaps it came in the form of climatic changes.
You can choose to belive what you want, that is your choice, but never force the illusion on yourself that you have only two choices.
I agree, but what do you expect for something that claims to be the very Word of the creator of the universe
Something a little more clearly understandable.
God himself says "I am that I am"!
But then, so does Popeye.
Yeah, okay, sure. If facing the facts causes too much cognitive dissonance, just repeat those feel-good lines until it goes away.
About a year ago, some Jeezer stopped me on the street with his healing gospel. He had all his lines memorized, so my arguments fell upon deaf ears. So I decided to let him enlighten me with the glory of God. He called upon the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to show me the Way. I'm still waiting for it.
God knows that my heart is as sincere as it's going to get and he still hasn't shown up. He knows that I'm not going to accept any sign that can be explained by natural means. Yes, I recognize the wonder of the universe and my existence. But I don't need to worship an invisible, omnipotent, egotistical sadist just to be happy and amazed by all that surrounds me. Through patient application of the scientific method, I understand how I fit in with the rest of the universe. I'm made from the same elements as everything and I share a common ancestor with every living thing on Earth (which is just a huge rock flying through space and taking us with it). Why do I need to imagine something that I can't perceive just to enjoy the ride?
I know how my little monkey brain works. I introduce chemicals into my body and I feel euphoria. Sometimes the chemicals in my head do something special by themselves and I transcend existence. It's magnificent, but it's all in my noggin. I know it would be totally cool if God did exist, but wanting it doesn't make it true.
I'm happy enough with this life. I don't need to believe that there's something better waiting. Especially when there is no proof of an afterlife. If I believed that the CIA was trying to beam instructions into my brain you'd think I was a lunatic. But you believe something that can never be demonstrated and you're enlightened? Fuck that. Fuck God, fuck faith. Faith is something that makes con-men rich. Faith misleads. Faith is when you want to believe but have nothing else. Faith is a character on Buffy. Faith is the last refuge of the lost. If you don't have proof, I don't want to hear it. Why should I have faith in God and not Dr. Oyibo, who is evidently able to transfer the sum of THIRTY ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS out of Nigeria, as soon as I fax him a copy of my passport and Social Security card?
So, pray for me. All of you. Pray that Jesus saves me. But as far as I'm concerened, he's in the mythology section, between Indra and Kokopelli.
"[One in 10^190] is the chance against happening to hit upon haemoglobin by luck.....l ution .htm
Check it out at:
www.theory-of-evolution.org/Introduction/evo
Oh come ON... don't tell me I was the only person who saw this article and immediately thought of the speech given by Patrick Stewart's Xavier at the opening of X-Men: "Every so often, evolution takes a giant leap forward" or something like that... :)
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Our understanding of morality IS dynamic and changing because each generation builds upon and hopefully supercedes the understanding of our ancestors.
...in the main it relies on blind faith, obedience, rejection of reason, ...
I think it would be more accurate to say that generational application of the principles of morality is dynamic and not morality itself.
I obviously do not live in the described ideal society, but neither is my behavior ideal. Society influences my behavior, and my behavior influences society. To the extent I can, I do so towards that ideal.
Here is something to think about:
At what point can we justify acing against an absolute code of morality? For example, when can we say it is right to steal?
When one attempts to justify actions contrary to an absolute righteous moral code, there are presumptions unique to the context no? Take for example Robin Hood. The presumption of justification is that we are aware of all the facts surrounding the case and capable of making accurate judgments regarding the impacts of our decided actions. However, what happens if there is imperfect understanding on our part or the part of a secondary/tertiary/... observer?
How do you think a Christian with very strong faith in God might answer the question?
Prejudice is immoral, born of inadaquate understanding.
Not necessarily. We all conceive with prejudice. That does not mean our conclusions are normally inadequately informed or immoral.
(That was interesting, I typed 'god', and without thinking went back and changed it to 'God'. Pause. Think. Why? Because *I* write 'god', but I was saying where I think *you* belive they come from, and I think you believe they come from a capital 'G', grin)
In the context of your usage, "God" is a proper noun; therefore, the rules of grammar demand the word be capitalized. Why do you instinctively not capitalize it?
At it's best, religion can promote greater understanding, but
Here you indict yourself of the same prejudice you accused the parent poster of. While you correctly pointed out that one does not have to believe in God to be moral, you go on to imply that belief in God generates more immorality than otherwise. But this is obviously error. You fail to give merit to the immeasurable contributions to society given by not only religious organizations, but their followers as well. In addition, you ignore that the most immoral acts in history have been committed by specifically atheistic secular authorities in far greater number than those done in the name of God. Not so incidentally, the worst of these attempt to motivate conflict amongst and between uneducated religious in order to achieve their own selfish desires.
To the contrary, religion appeals to common sense in part because it holds to moral principles that contain value proven over time.
I'd also like to point of one of the most severely flawed pieces of "popular morality", the golden rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
A polar bear would no more wish you to place him on a tropical beach than you would wish the polar bear to place you in the arctic ocean.
The golden rule is essentially a summary of a set of Christian moral commands. When groups of people attempt to live according to the entire code of morality, they don't find themselves in conflict. This could be said of most any religion based on God since for the most part, they teach the same morality. Most problems arise between groups who hold fundamentally different beliefs, or between people who mis-understand or distort their faith.
A better revision would be:
Do unto others as others would reasonably have you do unto them.
So if the norm of a particular culture accepts that it is OK to engage in selfish pursuits as it is expected that others will naturally attempt to exploit you, would you consider it OK to continue the cycle? There are entire governments, cultures, and organizations that act according to your revisionist rule, and I for one would not wish to participate in or be subject to them.
Very few animals are going to die of high blood pressure before they read breeding age.
/.) leads to lower general health, which leads to worse DNA repair, which leads to more mutations, which leads to greater variation, which leads to a greater chance of a new pattern emerging that can survive in the aftermath of the environmental change.
Even the many stress related diseases that kill humans don't generally turn deadly until the late 30s-40s.
By which time (in the natural course of things) we would already be done reproducing anyway.
In any event, in context, environmental stress (I mean like asteroid strikes, not like your boss maybe catching you reading
& Yeah, of course gross environmental 'stress' does tend to kill off most animals prematurely, that is one reason why we have mass extinctions when the environment changes dramatically.
Evolution happens to the ones that survive the stress...
There weren't any bombadier beetles before the 1950's. Its all a big scam as part of the giant conspiracy.
We all know from previous articles that there was no moon before this time, its just a giant hologram or cardboard cutout.
"Dinosaurs" are most likely the buried remains from secret dodgy genetic experiments. The same experiments that were being conducted by governments throughout the world to make bombadier (and similar) beetles.
If it can't be explained rationally, it must have been created by a secret government agency.
Think about it.. Fire ants running around being pyromaniacs.. assasin bugs in the frontline, killing off any leaders before they get a chance.. "Ghost" moths, spying on everyone before the revolution. Lightning bugs causing untold electrical damage to golfers everywhere.
;)
When are you all going to realise whats going on out there huh?!
Well you seem to have it all figured out don't you?
I will pray for you Nightpaw. It is apparent to me that God is dealing with you based on what you have said so far, and I have got to give thanks to Him for that.
Father God, I pray that Nightpaw's eyes would be opened to who you are, and that anybody else reading this would be blessed with a revelation of your awesome and loving nature.
The objective of modding down as trolls all Creationist comments is twofold:
a) Let people exachange ideas freely without have to deal with/respond to crackpot pseudo-scientific garbage.
b) Make all Creationist folk see the Slashdot users as a hopelessly intolerant scientific-minded group, so the Creationists will find other sites to drop their nonsense.
Yes, I believe it may even work.
Who is to say what will come of any particular life? Does a baby have to be wanted by its biological mother to enjoy life? to contribute to society? Is a life only to be valued IAW its utilitarian return? If you view people primarily as resource consumers, and not as individuals with the capacity to love and be loved, then your perspective is rather limited and dim.
For all you know, that aborted fetus could have one day figured out how to power the city of New York for an entire year on one jar of peanut butter. But why should God give that kind of blessing to people that reject life given to them?
thats easy -- i include fetuses in the set of people in society. thus the rationalization. new people on the planet also dont make it worse for everybody else, they make it better. if we didnt have the people behind our huge economy, we would still be spending most of our time trying to get food.
Who is to say what will come of any particular life? Does a baby have to be wanted by its biological mother to enjoy life? to contribute to society? Is a life only to be valued IAW its utilitarian return? If you view people primarily as resource consumers, and not as individuals with the capacity to love and be loved, then your perspective is rather limited and dim.
;-). And the last point in that paragraph. I don't.
My point in this wasn't to debate the pros and cons of abortion per se. Just that I don't see how the greatest good for the greatest number argument applies to this. To answer your questions in order:
Nobody,No,No,Assuming you're not trying to trick me with an unknown acronym No
This still doesn't in any way demonstrate that it provides the greatest good to everybody to have another unwanted child in the world.
Sure they might make some world changing discovery, but they might also rob and kill you.
Of course, nobody can say beforehand, but the latter is statistically much more likely.
If you are just absolutely opposed to it, then I don't think you can probably fairly address the question I raised.
Do unto others as others would reasonably have you do unto them.
And the correct version of it is the one given by Hillel (75BC - 15AD, give or take a few years): "Do not do to others what is hateful to yourself."
Phrasing it as a negative makes it possible and moral.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
thats easy -- i include fetuses in the set of people in society. thus the rationalization.
I still don't see how this works. It isn't necessarily a good thing for that particular person to exist either for them, or for anybody else.
It could well be, but not necessarily.
new people on the planet also don't make it worse for everybody else, they make it better. if we didnt have the people behind our huge economy, we would still be spending most of our time trying to get food.
Only up to a point. Will you agree to this, even if you don't think we've passed this point yet?
I should think that this is pretty clear. The extreme case would be if there are so many people that everyone has to hold their arms in the air just so we can fit.
I think we passed this point some time ago. the food issue is moot with far fewer people than we have now. Technology has made it so fewer people have to farm than ever and we have more people than ever.
Continual growth doesn't work forever, and we will hit the limit, so we do need to start thinking now about how to function with static or negative population growth.
Also I don't think people are "designed" to live in conditions as crowded as in the major cities. Just look at how people regularly ignore rapes and murders right in front of them.
Anyhow, even if it doesn't make it worse for everybody to have even more people, it certainly doesn't make it better.
It should be noted that the link provided for info about the bombardier beetle points to creationist propoganda, containing many non-facts (such as that the two chemicals produced will EXPLODE without an inhibitor).
For a more factual account of the beetle, try, http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/bombardier.html.
Forget the fern, the amoeba has over 3000.
And the correct version of it is the one given by Hillel (75BC - 15AD, give or take a few years): "Do not do to others what is hateful to yourself."
Interesting variation, but it suffers the idential flaw. It assumes that everyone is identical and wants to be treated the same way. Some people enjoy being whipped.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Christians don't base their worldview on creationism.
By definition, the belief in creationism is a logical necessity of being a christian. You picked a worldview and then went shopping for science. The parent poster went shopping for science and then picked a worldview.
Descartes proof required god. Not much of a proof.
"That's how I feel about "irreducible complexity". It will be found to be reducible. Well, maybe, mabye not. Where is it written that talking monkeys should necessarily come to understand the Cosmos in all its glory?"
Actually, Evolution is reducible to a process that could be replicated on a universal computer (a turing machine), and our minds, made of neural nets, can mimic a turing machine program. Therefore, theoretically, given enough time, yes any mind capable of running a turing machine can also run evolution and a good deal more.
-Ben
Well... WRT evolution, there are actually three basic world-views:
- It was organised accidentally (evolution)
- It organised itself (Gaia/pantheist)
- It was externally organised (creation)
Within those, there are divergent views (e.g. punk-eek vs gradualism, old-earth vs young-earth). I'm pleased to say (born stirrer that I am) that there are many observations for which all extant theories are unmistakeably inadequate (-: yes, including all of the tinfoil-hat ones that I know ofVery true, and amazingly opaque to most people.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The choice to make is not between science and religion, but between dogma and data. Evolution, ironically, is the dogma in this case. I can show you many data which completely cross evolution as an idea IF you don't start with materialist assumptions that would prohibit you from accepting the data as they stand. As soon as you reinterpret the data, you have left the realm of science and entered the realm of philosophy, and it doesn't matter whether that philosophy is Atheism, Gaianism or Christianity, it is still philosophy.
I can also show you data that scare both long-age gradualist Atheists and young-earth creationist Christians. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
The following text was pasted in to bypass slashdot's braindead lameness filtering, but hey, it's informative as well: Talk.Origins is very hard to target-a fact that may be so by design. For example, if a person disagrees with TO on the 'fact of evolution', these people will employ a definition of evolution ["Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time"] that makes it impossible to disagree and, if one does argue, then that person comes across as being uninformed or irrational or fanatical. This might be acceptable if only it remained right there. But it doesn't! That statement about evolution (which happens to be accurate, i.e., genetic characteristics of populations do vary over time) is subsequently modified / extended throughout TO's many articles and feedback responses so that not only is the person to accept the (empirically corroborated) fact of change, but also that this change is the sole causing agent for the diversity and complexity within an organism (internal organs, cellular structures, etc.) as well as outside of the organism including Earth's entire flora and fauna. The metaphysical extrapolation of the data that is required to accomplish this feat is somehow missed by TO-either by ignorance or by design. What's more, if we are to remain exclusively within the natural (material) realm then the term 'evolution' must somehow be further extended to include life from non-life, i.e., the emergence of life itself must also be accounted for by the ever-stretching definition of evolution. There's more. The origin of the basic materials that make up all objects (living or not) must also somehow be accounted for so yet other forms of evolution enter the scene-chemical, stellar and planetary. In fact, the universe itself must also be accounted for by evolution. Thus, whether they hypothesize a Big Bang, a quantum fluctuation, aliens from another dimension or some other natural explanation, the universe began and has 'evolved' to what it is today. Few would argue with the notion that 'things change.' But to take the step from 'things change' to 'and therefore, that's how it all got here' is a leap of blind, irrational faith that would send even the most fanatical snake worshipper reeling. The bottom line to all this is that the fundamental concept of evolution is clearly a manifestation of a metaphysical-not a scientific-worldview and, just as with any other religion, the facts must continually be interpreted and adjusted to fit with this belief. We return you to our regularly scheduled program.
No it doesn't. It bullshits its way around the issues, step by step. And I quote:
Said invaginations, as well as collecting poisons, would also collect pollution. This would have multiple effects, including blocking of any putative ducts (insect suffers infection, and/or pollution encourages parasites, and/or dilutes/osmoses out the poisons), increasing the risk of epidermal rupture, increases the risk of adhesion or impalement causing direct damage, makes the insect easier for a predator to hold.
Yeah? How? It's all very well having a slowmo movie in your head of that happening, but what prompted it? What caused them to get deeper and not shallower? What drove the `deeper is good' message into the genes? What decided that deeper `was' good?
Oh, yes, `appear'... again, out of thin air? How many different possible chemicals can a mutation produce without killing or impairing the insect? Wouldn't a mutation be far more likely to smash the existing mechanism than to refine it, or add a whole new mechanism to make a different chemical without touching the existing mechanism?
So... which came first, did the unnecessary channels soak up valuable resources for aeons, or did cells produce poisons first but no way of safely transporting them?
What here distinguishes between common design principles and gradual development?
Here we go `appearing' again. How? Did the beetle wave a wand? Stop in at a GE lab and ask for a batch of those new catalase cells, please?
...and up to this point, the unfortunate beetle just goes `pop' when it lights the blue touch paper, and spreads itself all over the landscape? In an earlier stage, it might have got away with burning it's own backside off.
No, they didn't. The entire page is just a flight of fantasy! Nowhere is any driving mechanism explored, nowhere is any reason given for any of these things.
Only when wearing your heirarchy-coloured glasses. Anyone taking an unprejudiced look would see a matrix of features, rather than a heirarchy.
Classic example: microbats have a completely different vision system (eyes, brain, the whole nine yards) to macrobats, yet share identical wing structure. Macrobats have a vision system like that of rats, or us. An evolutionist is forced to cry `parallel evolution' (i.e. the miracle of furry flight squared) but really the evidence says that there are overlapping features, incompatible with a heirarchical development schema.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That link? You must be joking.
By definition, the belief in creationism is a logical necessity of being a christian.
The only thing a Christian is logically expected to believe is that all was created by God. Not how he did it. The definition of creationism the parent poster was using was one that was exclusive of any evolutionary science.
I think it would be more accurate to say that generational application of the principles of morality is dynamic and not morality itself.
:) The person doing this could be secular-based or religious-based. The problem is that religion is a great tool for manipulating people to behave irrationally or immorally (of course they are told that it is the moral thing to do).
;)
an absolute code of morality
To say that there is an absolute code of morality, ideal, unchaging, is to say claim a morality seperate from any person or group of people.
I submit that morality is entirely meaningless outside the context of an interaction between people. There is no morality or immorality in the absence of a person, or even for a single person in isolation.
Morality is also a function of the people involved. It is not immoral to whip someone who enjoys being whipped. It is immoral to place a claustophoic person in an elevator. The concept of theft is meaningless in a society with no concept of private property (yes, they exist). The term "person" should be read broadly enough that to some extent it can include an animal. In the case of an isolated person and an animal there can be be morality, yet it is grossly different. Cruelty would still be immoral, but little else is has any meaning.
And here is a deep one - can an action truely be immoral if the person doing it has literaly no concept of it being immoral? Since so many concepts have pretty much already been shared and spread globally it is difficult to come up with suitable examples other than small children. When a toddler "steals" a hundred dollar bill, is it immoral?
For example, when can we say it is right to steal?
If you find yourself in an isolated group of people ALL of whom continously steal indisciminantly, then "theft" ceases to be meaningful. You may not know which 5 people stole your food, but you have contributed it to the group (unwillingly, yet still contributed). It would be perfectly moral to survive and function in the group by "stealing" food from someone else. If the person you took it from wasn't the person who stole from you, it is quite possible that they will get food from the person who did steal from you.
I'd certainly don't claim it would be a good social system, it would be a disaster. I was merely saying that being moral does not imply you have to starve to death if you found yourself in that society. I was giving an exaple where "stealing" would be moral (meaning not immoral).
When one attempts to justify actions contrary to an absolute righteous moral code
what happens if there is imperfect understanding
Do you claim that your "absolute righteous moral code" is somehow immune to difficulties caused by imperfect understanding?
Why do you instinctively not capitalize it[god]?
Because I rarely use it as a proper noun. I often use it as a generic noun (this god, that god). If you try to say it's all the same god (you just thought that, didn't you?) that is just a monotheistic assumption. The greeks had many gods. Saying it is a proper noun also assumes that "god" is necessarily personified. Some religious beliefs take god as some ultimate force in the universe without personifying it, it would be no more capilalized than "wind" is. Or I use it as a pure abstract (covers the above plus much more, such as the universe itself).
To capitalize "god" when talking genericly about religion is an error of false assumptions. That may be why it stuck out in my mind when I went back to change it.
In the context of your usage, "God" is a proper noun
Yes, in that particular case there was enough context to indicate his specific diety, and that he personified it, proper noun was correct.
>At it's best, religion can promote greater understanding, but
Here you indict yourself of the same prejudice
Prejudice? Care to be more specific, or was that just a generic attack because you didn't like my critique on religion?
I said that religions have good effects and bad effects. I observed that they rely on faith, they expect you to follow their rules, they reject rational argument where they conflict with religous beliefs, they reject other religions, and they have concentrated influence. I implied that those things have the potential to actually impede morality.
imply that belief in God generates more immorality than otherwise.
Not exactly. I don't think "belief in God" causes any problems. I said religion. All major religions are a package-deal of all sorts of beliefs. Some are good "it's a bad idea to kill people", some are bad "people of another religion are evil and going to hell, so it's good to kill them", and some are just silly (how many angels can dance on the head of a pin). A big problem is that religions don't take kindly to discarding the harmfull or silly bits.
But this is obviously error.
I dissagree so it obviously isn't obvious. We don't have another earth without religions to make a comparison, so it's kind of hard to prove things would be better or worse. We are left with a pair of differing oppinions.
You fail to give merit to the immeasurable contributions to society given by not only religious organizations, but their followers as well.
To assume I ignored those people's immeasurable contributions to society is to assume they would have sat on their thumbs without religion.
Not so incidentally, the worst of these attempt to motivate conflict amongst and between uneducated religious in order to achieve their own selfish desires.
This was actually one of my points
To the contrary, religion appeals to common sense
Religions contain large portions that flat out violate common sense. They insist to their followers that it's all true, believe it all. They teach people how to believe things that are blatantly false, to reject/ignore anything to the contrary.
it holds to moral principles that contain value proven over time.
Yes, religions certainly do contain / promote positive things. Are you saying that the time proven principles cannot exist outside of religion? I think it's silly to tell people not to steal because the'll burn in hell and get jabbed by devils with pitchforks for eternity.
I'm saying you CAN have all the positive things that religions promote. You just accept them and promote tham because they ARE good and positive, not because God Says So.
It's fine to believe in god, but anyone who tells you What God Wants is manipulating you. That manipulation may be used to to do good things - "don't kill people", but it can be abused - "kill the sinners".
the golden rule is essentially a summary of a set of Christian moral commands. When groups of people attempt to live according to the entire code of morality, they don't find themselves in conflict.
LOL, do you have any clue what you just said? Essentially: If everyone lived by the entirety of my religious code then everything would be perfect. The obvious collary is that all confict is caused by all the damned (pun intended) people who don't follow my religion.
This could be said of most any religion
Heheh, that rescues the previous statement from being a complete disaster
any religion based on God
Ah, I assume you are using the interpertation that Christian God is the same god as Jewish God is the same as Protestant God. I'll even give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are also including Islamic Allah(Y?/N?). Just for fun lets take Satan worshipers. They worship God (capital G proper noun). Now you want to claim their God isn't your God? So you want to pick and choose which religions are to your liking?
since for the most part, they teach the same morality
Then what's wrong with cutting morality free of the religion? It's all pretty much the same, but you can't have it without religion? And atheists can't have it?
Most problems arise between groups who hold fundamentally different beliefs
And religion generally makes for a bloody mess (figuratinve and literal) resolving those differences. You can't pick and choose the best of each because everything Comes From God. Atheists are free to gain morals from all religions.
people who mis-understand or distort their faith.
Those are differences in religious beliefs, no more or less valid than any other differences in religions. Those terms merely express a bias in favor of one side over the other. How many splits or changes has your religion had in the last 1500 years?
Do unto others as others would reasonably have you do unto them.
So if the norm of a particular culture accepts that it is OK to engage in selfish pursuits as it is expected that others will naturally attempt to exploit
While they would reasonably have me exploit them, they would also reasonably have me co-operate with them, which they would preffer. Either choice would be moral. Remember, morality also mean FAIRNESS, and subjecting yourself to one-way exploitation is both unfair and stupid.
I for one would not wish to participate in or be subject to them.
Neither would I. The system you made up is a bad one. That has nothing to do with my "revisionist" rule though. My rule describes what to do in any situation.
The un-revised rule is bad for two reasons. #1 in the situation you described it would probably leave you dead. #2 the unrevised rule is IMMORAL. Why? Because it implies I should want the same things you want. Guess what! I don't want to be a clone of you. Maybe I don't want a 9-5 job. Maybe I don't want a house with a white picket fence and 2.6 kids and a dog. Maybe I want to join the circus, or live alone in the woods. You should treat people the way they want to be treated. I think you missed that point.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The former encourages people to do things to someone else "for their own good." This is the root of much of the evil in the world (the path to hell being paved with good intentions). The latter encourages people to leave each other alone. Personally, I'll take the latter.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
The latter encourages people to leave each other alone.
:)
Yes, that is definitely a good thing, chuckle.
It still leaves open doing things that would hurt other people, so long as it's something that doesn't bother you.
So lets try the negation of the version I made up...
Do not do unto others as they would not want you to do unto them.
With an optional "reasonably" after "they". In the negated version the "reasonably" is less necessary than before, though I can still think of exceptional cases where dropping it leads to a problem. Obviously a criminal would not want a policeman to arrest him, but that is unreasonable
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I can show you many data which completely cross evolution as an idea IF you don't start with materialist assumptions
If you have to discard materialism, it's not science.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
If I saw a giant vision of Thor or Osiris in the sky, I'd be more likely to think someone was trying to trick people into believing in Norse or Egyptian mythology than I would be to fall down in worship. And Revelations, I think, is too vague to be proven by coming to pass. There are too many possible interpretations. (What does it mean, for example, to say "the moon became as blood"? It turned red? I saw one of those last weekend, at moonrise.)
If the Rapture happened, I'd find that worth investigating, but it would depend on the evidence. Do we have people on camera disappearing? How many? Did they know each other? Hoaxes aren't anything new.
Ultimately, I think events just aren't strong enough for me. They can almost always be faked. Even if astronomers saw John 3:16 spelled out in clouds on Jupiter, I'd still need something that couldn't be faked, even by people smarter than we are. I'd need that message in one of the fundamental constants of the universe. Maybe not everyone would, but I would.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
What irony, something braindead posted to bypass something braindead.
For example, if a person disagrees with TO on the 'fact of evolution', these people will employ a definition of evolution ["Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time"] that makes it impossible to disagree and, if one does argue, then that person comes across as being uninformed or irrational or fanatical.
That IS the definition of evolution, no matter how much you want to extend it to anything and everything under the sun.
What's more, if we are to remain exclusively within the natural (material) realm then the term 'evolution' must somehow be further extended to include life from non-life, i.e., the emergence of life itself must also be accounted for by the ever-stretching definition of evolution. There's more. The origin of the basic materials that make up all objects (living or not) must also somehow be accounted for so yet other forms of evolution enter the scene-chemical, stellar and planetary. In fact, the universe itself must also be accounted for by evolution.
This is completely idiotic. That would be like saying that quantum mechanics has to explain ballroom dancing because they are both natural phenomena. Evolution is a biological observation, nothing more. The various theories about evolution are attempts to explain the apparent diversity and progression of biological organisms, nothing more. Abiogenesis, stellar formation, and the beginning of the universe are completely independent of evolution. There is no reason for evolution to have to explain those things because evolution is still valid no matter what explanation for those things is correct.
But to take the step from 'things change' to 'and therefore, that's how it all got here' is a leap of blind, irrational faith that would send even the most fanatical snake worshipper reeling.
Yes it is, fortunately no one is making it. Rather what they are doing is going from "things change" to "this may be how and why things change" and that is not a blind leap of faith because it is based on evidence and there are competing theories, such as natural selection vs. punctuated equilibrium.
The bottom line to all this is that the fundamental concept of evolution is clearly a manifestation of a metaphysical-not a scientific-worldview
Yes, but it is a worldview that you are injecting in there as a straw man, not something inherent in the theories of evolution.
Yeah? How? It's all very well having a slowmo movie in your head of that happening, but what prompted it? What caused them to get deeper and not shallower? What drove the `deeper is good' message into the genes? What decided that deeper `was' good?
A mutation doesn't have to be "good" to stick around, it just has to be neutral. It could even be slightly harmful, as long as it wasn't harmful enough to cause it to be selected out before a mutation that was beneficial but dependent on the harmful mutation came up. Whether or not that specific mutation actually is neutral or better is a different question, and as I am not a biologist, it is a question I cannot answer.
For the entire post you seem to believe that mutations need a reason (other than the physical reason for the change in the DNA, such as radiation or whatever) to occur. I don't know how you got this ludicrous idea, but a simple examination of it shows it is obviously false. You also don't seem to understand that the proposed chain of mutations is only one of the many chains of mutations that would have been happening in the beetle population. In short, you have completely failed to understand evolution, and I don't blame you for not believing in it.
I'm a New Zealander, and the Maori (your spelling is fine) were about as warlike as they come pre-European arrival. They didn't have their butts kicked too seriously by the Europeans (and did some some seriously butt kicking themselves in places like Gate Pa (link).
The original poster may be refering to an event like Pirihaka, where a tribe of Christian Maori adopted a theory of non-violent resistance (similar to Gandhi's) in 1881. However, the colonial authorities brutally destroyed the community.
Warning: Some ideologies on the Net are smaller than they appear.
Assuming you're not trying to trick me with an unknown acronym No ;-).
IAW = In Accordance With
Sure they might make some world changing discovery, but they might also rob and kill you. Of course, nobody can say beforehand, but the latter is statistically much more likely.
I would question the statistics that lead you to this conclusion. What I believe likely is that you exist in an evironment that is essentially un-Christian in nature and thus your opinions have been formed. For example, it would be difficult to grow up in south Africa and come to conclusions about humsn nature different from your own. However, I have seen Christianity work, and for most of us who are a part of it, such a negativistic approach to life is prejudiced in unlikely realities.
There is not much point in arging about what the effects of a life may or may not be. Even if one could make statisticly accurate predictions regarding the probable outcome, such discussion is based only upon a utilitarian approach to the value of life. Essentially, we would be taking upon ourselves judgement that is better left to God. Abortion is an extremely prejudicial act.
My opposition to abortion is based both in utilitarian and Christian arguement. I do not make stong distictions between them as Christianity and the Church are given to serve humanity. The Christian concept of justice demands that blessing be withheld from those who tolerate wickedness. Those who practice evil are destroyed. God has manifest himself troughout history in such deterministic fashion.
Animals on the Ark
General Flood FAQ
General literal creation answers.
Specific answer to your question.
Might I suggest that a solid, rational approach to Chrisitanity might well let you find both the Truth therein as well as acknowledgement that we must *think*, and are in fact, "to think God's thoughts after Him." (I will also submit this is far different than "testing" God, which is wrong.)
:-) If that's a bit too ambitious for you, try Jonathan Edwards, or any of several excellent current writers at sites like antithesis.com (Warning, requires IE - yuk), or Credenda-Agenda. You may not like these(or even agree with them), but you can't argue they're not thoughtful and well-reasoned. These sites drive some of my Baptist friends to absolute distraction...
I'd suggest starting with John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, the clarity of which should more than make up for any wooly thinking your upbringing might have left you with...
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
This is true, and my claim is that Christian morality is necessarily absolute for all of humanity. Why?
I submit that morality is entirely meaningless outside the context of an interaction between people. There is no morality or immorality in the absence of a person, or even for a single person in isolation.
Morality is also a function of the people involved. It is not immoral to whip someone who enjoys being whipped.
How many people do you know enjoy being whipped? I realize your statement is purely hypothetical; however, if you want to claim that whipping someone is moral, then you would have to completely isolate the case. Not only would the receiver need to enjoy it, but the giver would need to enjoy doing it. In addition, there should be no chance of such actions spilling out into a context where whipping is deemed unacceptable.
And here is a deep one - can an action truely be immoral if the person doing it has literaly no concept of it being immoral? Since so many concepts have pretty much already been shared and spread globally it is difficult to come up with suitable examples other than small children. When a toddler "steals" a hundred dollar bill, is it immoral?
Absolutely. If one does not understand that what he or she does is wrong, the fact of its wrongness remains. The consequences of the sin propagate regardless. Only culpability is mitigated. The need for correction remains.
If you find yourself in an isolated group of people ALL of whom continously steal indisciminantly, then "theft" ceases to be meaningful. You may not know which 5 people stole your food, but you have contributed it to the group (unwillingly, yet still contributed). It would be perfectly moral to survive and function in the group by "stealing" food from someone else. If the person you took it from wasn't the person who stole from you, it is quite possible that they will get food from the person who did steal from you. I'd certainly don't claim it would be a good social system, it would be a disaster.
By definition morality is concerned with the principles of right conduct. Therefore returning evil with evil would be considered immoral even if it could be justified. BTW, most of the bolded statements you made previously I would consider axiomatic truths rather than moral principles.
I was merely saying that being moral does not imply you have to starve to death if you found yourself in that society. I was giving an exaple where "stealing" would be moral (meaning not immoral).
There are many potential problems in going along with the norm of sinful culture. If one were to continue the cycle, they could never break it. Generations of experience can be improved upon through education and good example.
Do you claim that your "absolute righteous moral code" is somehow immune to difficulties caused by imperfect understanding?
Absolutely not. Human nature would make such difficulties inevitable with any code of behavior. This says about human fallibility but little about the morality of the code itself.
Because I rarely use it as a proper noun. [snip] The greeks had many gods. [snip]
Would it be more accurate to say that you have a general grammatical weakness in recognizing and thus capitalizing proper nouns?
Prejudice? Care to be more specific, or was that just a generic attack because you didn't like my critique on religion? I said that religions have good effects and bad effects.
It was clear from the context that you did not hold religion in high regard. I deemed that position objectionable due to the fact that it could only be held in ignorance of the bigger picture.
I observed that they rely on faith,
The Christian concept of faith is not meant to be divorced from reason. It is not blind faith that we have. Christian faith is based on experience. This experience most often is not our own, but some are incapable of learning otherwise...
they expect you to follow their rules,
And following religious rules is bad because?
they reject rational argument where they conflict with religous beliefs,
Careful. Such criticism is valid only against certain practitioners of religion and not religion itself. None of the major religions promote irrational argument.
they reject other religions,
I suspect this too is most often a byproduct of the layperson, and not religious teaching. The Christian Church teaches that we should learn about other religions; thus we should not reject them, but neither are we encouraged to practice them.
All major religions are a package-deal of all sorts of beliefs. some are bad "people of another religion are evil and going to hell, so it's good to kill them"
What religion teaches this? What is the source of your knowledge?
and some are just silly (how many angels can dance on the head of a pin)
The subject debate has been shown to be a fictitious account originated by yet another anti-religion propagandist.
A big problem is that religions don't take kindly to discarding the harmfull or silly bits.
This is a broad and unsupported accusation; are you fond of making enemies?
I dissagree so it obviously isn't obvious. We don't have another earth without religions to make a comparison, so it's kind of hard to prove things would be better or worse. We are left with a pair of differing oppinions.
As I pointed out, this is untrue. We have within human history plenty of examples that effectively illustrate the defectiveness of societies that operate divorced from religious influence.
This was actually one of my points
Historical record indicates that secular authorities have committed the vast majority of such offenses. Of these most have been specifically anti-religious. Normally those who commit offenses in the name of religion are not "religious based"; rather they operate in opposition to the principles of their faith.
The problem is that religion is a great tool for manipulating people to behave irrationally or immorally (of course they are told that it is the moral thing to do).
Religion has proven to be a rather poor tool for manipulation into immorality. To the contrary, it is often attacked by the wicked because they recognize it as a highly effective inhibitor to the fulfillment of their own selfish desires.
Religions contain large portions that flat out violate common sense. [snip] They teach people how to believe things that are blatantly false, to reject/ignore anything to the contrary.
Another broad and unsupported statement; provide examples. Yes, religions certainly do contain / promote positive things. Are you saying that the time proven principles cannot exist outside of religion? I think it's silly to tell people not to steal because the'll burn in hell and get jabbed by devils with pitchforks for eternity. I'm saying you CAN have all the positive things that religions promote. You just accept them and promote tham because they ARE good and positive, not because God Says So. It's fine to believe in god, but anyone who tells you What God Wants is manipulating you. That manipulation may be used to to do good things - "don't kill people", but it can be abused - "kill the sinners".
LOL, do you have any clue what you just said? Essentially: If everyone lived by the entirety of my religious code then everything would be perfect.
I never said that things would be perfect, only that they would be able to avoid conflict.
The obvious collary is that all confict is caused by all the damned (pun intended) people who don't follow my religion.
You're extrapolating that which was never intended. The purpose of my statement was only to clarify the context of validity of the golden rule. The supposition that "all conflict is caused by all the damned (other people)" is ridiculous.
Just for fun lets take Satan worshipers. They worship God (capital G proper noun). Now you want to claim their God isn't your God? So you want to pick and choose which religions are to your liking?
The devil is not a god, and certainly would never teach a moral code of conduct anywhere near that of God. Then what's wrong with cutting morality free of the religion? It's all pretty much the same, but you can't have it without religion? And atheists can't have it?
You seem to be intent on cutting religion out of society. Are you aware that history is replete with the failure of utopian experiments in which society was designed based in 'well intentioned humanism'? Do you think that man can create a system that effectively counters human nature any better then God does? Those who do not learn the lessons of the past are condemned to repeat them. Faith is more than just belief.
You can't pick and choose the best of each because everything Comes From God. Atheists are free to gain morals from all religions.
Christians already have the means to adapt their faith in the Church. It is the Church's responsibility to 'keep up with the times', we trust that the people who devote their lives to the service of God and thus man are well capable of defining morality. Trust is another aspect of faith. While they would reasonably have me exploit them, they would also reasonably have me co-operate with them, which they would preffer. Either choice would be moral. Remember, morality also mean FAIRNESS, and subjecting yourself to one-way exploitation is both unfair and stupid.
Morality is not the same as fairness. Theft committed for any reason is still theft; it is taking that which does not belong to you. Inevitably it will only serve to worsen the condition of those who act within such a system.
Neither would I. The system you made up is a bad one. That has nothing to do with my "revisionist" rule though. My rule describes what to do in any situation.
Nevertheless, such systems exist all over the place, particularly in 'inner city America'. They are perpetually destructive. And following your rule would do nothing to prevent their growth.
The fact of the matter is that no one rule can be effective (yours included) if it is not sufficiently qualified. This was my point. You divorced the Golden Rule from its Christian context. That ultimately is what caused you to find it objectionable. You don't want a 9-5 job? Fine. Believe in repaying evil with evil? Believe vigilante justice is moral? Oops, I see problems on the horizon.
Your posts have been informative, I didn't realise that was the case; it certainly didn't come across that way when I was taught RE at school.
However, the point that you can go to heaven even if you ignore the commandments does explain to me how so many atrocities have been committed in the name of the various religons by people who would then still expect to be "saved".
my claim is that Christian morality is necessarily absolute for all of humanity.
:)
Because we were not created soulless animals, nor were we created for life in a bottle.
Even if that weren't a circular argument, it still wouldn't be valid. You prove that your Christian moral code is perfect and universal by assuming Christain religious beliefs. Even if we accepted the listed assumption as true, there are other religions with the same assumptions that do not have an idential moral code. That does not demonstrate any "absolute morality". It's just re-assuming your own religion as the absolute.
How many people do you know enjoy being whipped? I realize your statement is purely hypothetical;
At least one, and far from a pure hypothetical. Besides, that was just a vidid example that not everyone should be treated as identical.
>can an action truely be immoral if the person doing it has literaly no concept of it being immoral?
Absolutely
What the heck, I'll use a religious counter. Before eating of the tree of knowledge Adam and Eve only knew "do not eat of this tree". They were incapable of any other sin because they lacked knowledge.
going along with the norm of sinful culture... could never break it.
False. You can still try to improve it. You are also assuming that any society that does not match your precise code must be bad. As I mentioned there are societies where all objects are owned communally by everyone/noone. "Theft" would be completely meaningless. There are also societies known as "gift cultures" with very different codes.
>"absolute righteous moral code" is somehow immune to difficulties caused by imperfect understanding?
Absolutely not.
Glad we agree. I was responding to your comment "When one attempts to justify actions contrary to an absolute righteous moral code... what happens if there is imperfect understanding on our part or the part of a secondary/tertiary/... observer?
Would it be more accurate to say that you have a general grammatical weakness in recognizing and thus capitalizing proper nouns?
I noticed my sentence was not phrased as "my" statement, it was phrased as someone else's statement. The "change" was a half second mentally jumping from me speaking, to me speaking as someone else. If it was simply me speaking it would have been structured such that lowercase would have been correct.
>Care to be more specific, or was that just a generic attack because you didn't like my critique on religion?
I deemed that position objectionable
Therefor you called me a bigot. Ok, thanx for clearing that up.
The Christian concept of faith is not meant to be divorced from reason.
My observation is that it often is. If your faith and reason come in conflict do you dismiss that portion of your faith? Or is it "impossible" for faith and reason to conflict? (Impling that the reason could only be in error if that happens.)
And following religious rules is bad because?
Because not all religious rules are good. Simple proof: There are many religions. Some of their rules conflict - severely. Simply claiming your religion is uniquely correct is circular.
None of the major religions promote irrational argument.
I submit that creationists (for one) have promoted severely flawed and irrational arguments.
>they reject other religions
I suspect this too is most often a byproduct of the layperson
However you wish to justify it within your own religion, I submit is is common across religions in general.
>"people of another religion are evil and going to hell, so it's good to kill them"
What religion teaches this?
It was merely a graphic example of a bad beleif, but most religions have been guilty of that one at some point or another. Or have you forgotten about the Crusades? Choose any belief you dislike from any religion you dislike to proove my point. Not everything religions teach is good.
shown to be a fictitious account originated by yet another anti-religion propagandist
Angels dancing on a pin was a throw-away-example. Every religion has beleifs that would be considered silly by people of some other religions. Examples later.
>religions don't take kindly to discarding the harmfull or silly bits.
This is a broad and unsupported accusation
I'd submit that there are plenty support. There have been numerous wars prompted wholely or in part by religious differences.
Historical record indicates that secular authorities have committed the vast majority of such offenses.
Even if we assumed it is always secularly based, it still supports my point that religion results in influence that can impair morality.
Normally those who commit offenses in the name of religion are not "religious based"; rather they operate in opposition to the principles of their faith.
You can't say they are going against their religion merely because you don't like their beliefs. Which goes right back into the previous item, religious people you dissagree with using religion to influence people.
Religion has proven to be a rather poor tool for manipulation into immorality.
You reject my examples of the Crusades, Inquisition, Witch burning, and the 9/11 attack? Oh yeah, I forgot, those were all people being "false" to their beliefs. (Laughing hystericly) Those people were quite earnest in ther religious beliefs, no matter how much you dissagree with them.
[religion] is often attacked by the wicked
Ah, I'm "wicked". Cool. Can't wait to tell my friends
Another broad and unsupported statement; provide examples.
You don't think other religions are filled with silly beliefs? How about Greek mythology? Or OT III from scientology. 75 million years ago the president of the Galactic Federation solved his overpopulation problem by murdering billions, freezing them, shiping them to earth, dumping them in volcanoes, setting off an H-bomb in each volcano. Then brainwashed them. Now they infest us and their brainwashing controls us.
I never said that things would be perfect, only that they would be able to avoid conflict.
If you wipe out all other religions (which IS what you suggest entails) it will avoid a lot of conflict. That also applies to religions you dislike.
The devil is not a god
He's not Your God, but he certainly is so to Satan worshipers. Capital G proper noun God. Any arguement to the contrary is no more than chanting "I'm special, my religion is special".
and certainly would never teach a moral code of conduct anywhere near that of [my]God.
In your oppinion. I'm certain Satan worshipers would dissagree with you.
You seem to be intent on cutting religion out of society.
In case you forgot, I was intent on disputing the claim that Atheists cannot be moral.
Do you think that man can create a system that effectively counters human nature any better then God does?
No, I think religions are systems created by man. Unless you want to claim that Satan worshiping is not a religion, or you want to claim that Satan worshiping is not flawed, then you must admit that religions contain flaws.
I'm saying that religions get in the way of improving the system. You are ready to jump on flaws in other religions, but refuse the possibility that your own is less than perfect. An atheist recognises that all systems are flawed, and therefor has no irrational impediment to improvement.
Christians already have the means to adapt their faith in the Church. It is the Church's responsibility to 'keep up with the times'
To toss your words back at you, each time that is an example of "people who mis-understand or distort their faith".
They are perpetually destructive. And following your rule would do nothing to prevent their growth.
Then you clearly still do not understand it. My rule never forces you to do anything your rule considers immoral. N-E-V-E-R. You can certainly work to change the situation. In some cases my rule opens options that I do not consider immoral, in other cases it blocks actions I do consider immoral. I am not you, and what I want people to "do unto me" is NOT the same as what you want people to "do unto you". Just because your religion tells you to fast on some holy day (example of a silly beleif) and that's fine unto you does not make it ok for you to force that unto me.
Believe in repaying evil with evil? Believe vigilante justice is moral?
I never said either of those things, as much as you would like to paint me that way.
Setting aside those examples of bad situations, a system can be DIFFERENT without it being evil. That is a concept religions often screw up on.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
I would question the statistics that lead you to this conclusion.
OK, how often is there a world changing discovery?
Once every 10 years is a very generous guess.
How often is there a murder or a robbery? Or to make it even more honest, throw out multiple offenses and just look at the number of people who have committed these acts. Narrowing it even more, just look at murderers.
I think you will find that the latter number blows away the first one. Now, I'm not claiming that a decision to not have an abortion causes all of these murders. In fact, I'm not even pointing out one single case where this has been determined to be true. This is totally irrelevant to my point though. The original assertion that I was addressing was that banning abortion provides the most good to the most people. In order to prove that point, you would need to demonstrate that it is false.
What I believe likely is that you exist in an evironment that is essentially un-Christian in nature and thus your opinions have been formed
I live in America. I have seen some people who are Christians who are very nice people. I have also seen the worst scum around hiding behind a claim of Christianity which seems to blind other Christians to their atrocities.
However, I have seen Christianity work,
Have you seen the times where it doesn't? I suspect you don't really see these. Or rather, that you thank god for the good things that come about from it, yet absolutely forget to mention him when it fucks up lives, cultures, and the world. Of course, that's just free will.
such a negativistic approach to life is prejudiced in unlikely realities.
Not at all. Disliking Christianity isn't negative. It's self preservation based on the history of your religion. Your approach seems much more based in "unlikely realities". If you really can't see the dichotomy between thanking god for the good and ignoring his contributions to the bad, then that is living in unreality.
There is not much point in arging about what the effects of a life may or may not be.
That's kind of my point. The original poster argued that every potential life will have a net positive affect. My point is that this isn't true.
Even if one could make statisticly accurate predictions regarding the probable outcome, such discussion is based only upon a utilitarian approach to the value of life.
Not really. It is letting people make their own decisions about the evolution of their own life.
Essentially, we would be taking upon ourselves judgement that is better left to God. Abortion is an extremely prejudicial act.
Again, not true. It is the mature, rational decision that this is not the time and place to bring a child into the world. ("this" being the person in questions place in the world at the time). You are saying that it is universally better to pop out kids whenever it happens rather than making a mature decision about when and even if you should bring a child into the world. Please don't bother with the old tired abstinence approach to this. Sex has many benefits for mental and physical health and well being completely seperate from reproductive purposes.
I think it is better to decide when you are emotionally and financially prepared to have a child.
You seem to think it is better for an emotionally and financially unprepared person to have that kid right now rather than waitinguntil they are ready.
Christianity and the Church are given to serve humanity.
Christianity itself might have the potential of doing good for humanity, but so many who claim to be christians are so much worse than non-religious people at walking the walk. The overwhelming prevalence of this is, of course, based solely on my own observations, so feel free to discount this point.
The church though. You have got to be kidding me. The church exists for the sole purpose of expanding its own power structure. The church has nothing to do with christianity. Please point me to where Jesus said,
"Build unto me a power structure that acquires immense wealth and power. Let it torture and murder those who go against this power structure even if they are acting in accordance to my teachings. Destroy all knowledge of older times since we can't have people being exposed to any knowledge contrary to those of my words which you choose to let people see. (The bible in it's present form is just a collection of stories. Many relevant stories were edited out hundreds of years after the fact since they went against the power of the church) Let my people go out and smite the heathen...or if they can't be bothered to get all the way there let them murder and rob any major Christian cities along the way. Yeah, I say let them go forth across the world and enslave torture and murder anybody they want to for just by claiming belief in me they are holy and all others are scum."
This *is* the history of the church.
The Christian concept of justice demands that blessing be withheld from those who tolerate wickedness. Those who practice evil are destroyed. God has manifest himself troughout history in such deterministic fashion.
In fact god has manifest himself throughout history by destroying the good and the evil completely blindly. In fact, if you actually look around you today and look at history, if you believe in any sort of manifestation of god, he is quite squarely in favor of evil since evil is way ahead in the game in this world. Sure, it'll all be squared in the next. Whether this is true or not, I defy you to come up with a better system to keep oppressors in power.
I think it was around chapter 6 of "A River out of Eden" that Richard Dawkins provided a kickass model for the gradual evolution of wasp-mimicking flowers, which everyone said were as big a problem as bombadier beetles seem to be. I wonder if it's not the same thing here.
Also, these little buggies produce a lot of young, all the time (relative to, say, vertebrates) . With that many potential mutations, in that many generations, don't the odds for evolution seem a little les ridiculous?
I realize that this is supposed to be a joke, but there is an important point to be made here.
Your theory is unscientific (though not necessarily wrong in a philosophical sense) BECAUSE it can't be proven wrong. There is no experiment that can show it to be true or untrue. Thus, your theory is unscientific and not worth consideration. That is, unless you can show that the universe is covered in Great Green Snot.
This goes for all allegedly scientific theories. In order for the theory to be taken seriously, it has to be useful, that is, it has to make accurate predictions about the universe. The Great Green Arkleseizure (and God for that matter) are not a part of the Universe, thus are not within the purview of science. Thus, scientists are not inherently anti-God, they just don't have anything useful to say about Him (strictly as scientists, that is).
But you did try to refute it by asserting that they would be a drain on resources in an overcrowded world. And my point was that you were making predictions about the future state of society that might or might not occur. If I want to prove that banning abortion provides the most good to the most amount of people all I have to do is show that the person is likely to make a net contribution to society.
One doesn't have to be a Nobel prize winning scientist, the guy who collects our garbage serves good enough utilitarian purpose. Even criminals can be used productively.
However, even this approach misses the mark because there is much more to life than that which we assign to it. The ultimate judge of the value of any particular life is the person who lives it. People who start life up for adoption or live in a state funded institution normally have nowhere to go but up. Even so, it does not mean that they can't enjoy life. People should give God a chance.
I live in America. I have seen some people who are Christians who are very nice people. I have also seen the worst scum around hiding behind a claim of Christianity which seems to blind other Christians to their atrocities.
This is one of the reasons I continue to discuss things with you. You are at least rational enough to recognize that it is not religion itself that causes problems, but *people* who claim to be acting IAW their religion.
Have you seen the times where it doesn't? I suspect you don't really see these.
You're right I haven't.
Or rather, that you thank god for the good things that come about from it, yet absolutely forget to mention him when it fucks up lives, cultures, and the world. Of course, that's just free will.
You're assigning blame to God for things better assigned to the devil, or individuals themselves. Free will and life after death go a long way towards explaining why God allows evil to act in the world, but there are more reasons than these.
Not at all. Disliking Christianity isn't negative. It's self preservation based on the history of your religion. Your approach seems much more based in "unlikely realities". If you really can't see the dichotomy between thanking god for the good and ignoring his contributions to the bad, then that is living in unreality.
First, you are focusing only on the bad. However, the contributions far outweigh the harm done. Second, all religious and all secular institutions have 'bad' in their history. But what has been the cause, and what institutions have the best records? Third, I don't think I am unrealistic in my belief that it is people who love themselves and who love sin and not God that's the problem.
The original poster argued that every potential life will have a net positive affect. My point is that this isn't true.
My point is that it is your nature to see things mainly in the negative that gives you this perspective. Realize that negativism is degenerative and self-fulfilling. If you see something you don't like then do something about it, don't blame God. Get out and do something you like instead of watching that crap on TV, don't get caught up in unproductive speculative gossip. Go to church, find new friends, do anything to get you out of that situation.
It is letting people make their own decisions about the evolution of their own life.
Quite the opposite, it's making decisions about someone else's life presumptively.
Again, not true. It is the mature, rational decision that this is not the time and place to bring a child into the world.
The time for that decision is before having sex. If someone isn't ready to have children, they shouldn't have sex. If they do anyway, they can give the child up, but they should never kill it.
Christianity itself might have the potential of doing good for humanity, but so many who claim to be christians are so much worse than non-religious people at walking the walk. The overwhelming prevalence of this is, of course, based solely on my own observations, so feel free to discount this point.
It's irrelevant. If someone tells a person not to steal and they steal anyway, it makes no sense to blame the person who told them not to. People who put their Christianity on display and then do bad things serve the devil, I don't care who they claim to be. Worse than non-religious people at walking the walk? The record proves otherwise. All I have to do is turn on the TV and I can see the immoral crap promoted and done by non religious sources. The churches effectively counter these influences.
The church though. You have got to be kidding me. The church exists for the sole purpose of expanding its own power structure. The church has nothing to do with christianity.
You must be talking about hollywood churches and TV evangelists. These are not "the church". The major churches are strictly non-profit organizations. That's probably one reason why we don't see them represented on network TV very much.
Yeah, I say let them go forth across the world and enslave torture and murder anybody they want to for just by claiming belief in me they are holy and all others are scum." This *is* the history of the church.
These things blemish the church of the past, but they are not "the history of the church". I should point out that all governments and human institutions have these marks on their record. But considering how old, large, and resilient the church is, it is amazing how little can be said against it in comparison to other organizations.
In fact god has manifest himself throughout history by destroying the good and the evil completely blindly. People do this, not God. In fact, if you actually look around you today and look at history, if you believe in any sort of manifestation of god, he is quite squarely in favor of evil since evil is way ahead in the game in this world.
My perspective is different. That evil which does exist exists because people ignore God, not because of God.
Sure, it'll all be squared in the next. Whether this is true or not, I defy you to come up with a better system to keep oppressors in power.
The oppressors themselves design systems to keep oppressors in power. Oppressors are simply people who act under the influence of evil. Jesus told us that the ruler of this world is the devil. People fall under his rule when they reject God. You are partially right, things won't be 'squared' exactly; people will find themselves at one end of two extremes depending mostly on how they lived this life.
There is NO SUCH THING as "Proof" in science, or real life for that matter. Proofs only exist in mathematics where everyone agrees on the postulates. This is not the case any where else. We can only say what is likely or impossible.
Prove the Earth existed before you were born.
But you did try to refute it by asserting that they would be a drain on resources in an overcrowded world. And my point was that you were making predictions about the future state of society that might or might not occur. If I want to prove that banning abortion provides the most good to the most amount of people all I have to do is show that the person is likely to make a net contribution to society.
;-) I still do it, but it's magicaly not a sin anymore.
;-) different views on what is good and bad, doesn't mean that I'm the negative one. Nor does it mean that you are.
I wasn't making predictions, I was making a statement about the present state of the world which in my opinion has already occurred.
Well, showing that someone is likely to make a net positive contribution to society is harder than what I was looking for, but if you can do either, then full speed ahead.
Even criminals can be used productively.
I hope that was just a very unfortunate choice of phrasing. If not, I think your startements about my supposed utilitarization of life pale in comparison. I don't see any people as things to be used. I just feel it is important to assess all the facts before deciding to create another one.
The ultimate judge of the value of any particular life is the person who lives it.
Certainly.
People who start life up for adoption or live in a state funded institution normally have nowhere to go but up. Even so, it does not mean that they can't enjoy life.
Sure.
People should give God a chance.
Arrggghh Must control flame fingers...
This is such a criminally evil attitude. "I can't afford a child, I'm emotionally bankrupt, addicted to crack, and have never spent more than 5 minutes around a child without wanting to strangle them. I got raped and got pregnant. I could do the responsible thing and terminate the pregnancy... no, wait... I'll just have the kid and let god figure it out."
This is the attitude of a child, not an adult. Ignore the consequences of your actions and expect daddy to clean up after you.
This is one of the reasons I continue to discuss things with you. You are at least rational enough to recognize that it is not religion itself that causes problems, but *people* who claim to be acting IAW their religion
Well, I don't 100% agree with you on this. I think it will be a great day for humanity when we finally grow out of religion. I think it's Bertrand Russel who I'm about to misquote, "Religion is the primary enemy of moral progress in the world".
Obviously, it's a quote, not a proof of anything, but I think it makes a lot of sense.
The old testament was written by a bunch of desert nomads thousands of years ago, and the new testament was written by people not much more civilized. The major religions have taken these as the absolute word of god which has put a major hurdle in any changes or improvements since.
The day religion (in any form, I'm not picking on yours particularly) dies off the face of the earth will be the day that humanity enters it's adult hood. We will have to look at our actions in the face and own up to the responsibility for them now , in this lifetime without having the ultimate copout, "well god can always make it right later".
Now, I do agree that a Christian acting in accordance with Jesus's teachings is, in general, going to be nicer to live around than someone who claims to be one but clearly isn't through their actions. Even better though in my opinion would be someone who is a good person because they feel that it is the right thing to do rather than because some old Hebrew wind demon threatens to spank them. This is the way most people seem to be initially exposed to god, so please don't take that as an attack or me stating what your motivations are.
You're right I haven't.
Come on now. The Crusades, selling keys to heaven, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, The Salem witch trials, The KKK, Aryan Nations, The enslavement, murder, and torture of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the tacit support of the holocaust, godhatesfags.com, murdering doctors, hiding away relevant scriptures in the vatican vaults which are contemporary with the current text of the bible etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.
These are all cases where Christianity went wrong. Sure, it's easy for you to say, well they weren't Christians because they did ( or didn't do ) 'X'.
But your missing the point. Most of those things were done by the Church, the sole source of Christian teachings for many centuries. The bible doesn't even really count since almost nobody could read it even if they could get ahold of a copy. The other things in my (very brief) list were still done by ( in the following, feel free to prepend "people who claim to be" to "Christian") Christians, in the name of god, with backup pulled right from the bible for their actions. Now just because you can pull other quotes that contradict theirs, doesn't necessarily make you right and them wrong within that context. That is what I was saying much earlier about the problems with inconsistencies in the bible.
You're assigning blame to God for things better assigned to the devil, or individuals themselves. Free will and life after death go a long way towards explaining why God allows evil to act in the world, but there are more reasons than these.
Blame the devil?!? God made him and he made him precisely what he is. Now correct me if I'm wrong ( I picked up this from watching "Dogma", so I could be completely off), but isn't it true that angels do not have free will? They were created as servants and we were given free will? That blows away your "blame the devil" argument if true. Regardless, it is irrelevant to the fact that *god created all evil.* The most free will can do is let us pick whether or not to do something. The evil action itself was still created solely by god.
First, you are focusing only on the bad.
Not really. I am pointing it out. You seem to be focusing on the good to the exclusion of the bad. In fact you claimed to not even see it (or agreed with my guess to that affect to be completely honest). Which of these is more dangerous?
However, the contributions far outweigh the harm done.
That is going to take more than an unsubstantiated statement for me to swallow. The harm done is totally irreparable. The cultures and knowledge destroyed will never be recovered. Thousands and thousands of years of records, history, stories, and knowledge from all over the world burned. Gone forever. Can you really put a value on this? Can you honestly claim that the church's contributions to society outweigh this act alone ignoring all of the others? I'm sorry, but I don't see it.
Second, all religious and all secular institutions have 'bad' in their history. But what has been the cause, and what institutions have the best records?
Probably true. Absolutes are dangerous, but I certainly can't think of any.
The Catholic Church has the worst record I would say. A lot of evidence exists to bear this out. Other branches of christianity are pretty bad too, but they don't have the membership or the age of Catholicism to be able to compare.
The best? Well, Tibetan Buddhism seems like a likely candidate. but if you're going to claim Christianity is even in the running, that will take a lot of evidence.
Third, I don't think I am unrealistic in my belief that it is people who love themselves and who love sin and not God that's the problem.
I love myself, I love to sin in some people's definition of sin although I can't engage in my favorite sin anymore since I'm recently married
I don't love god. I don't even believe he exists.
Are you claiming that I'm part of "the problem"?
I know you don't know me well enough to point out examples or anything like that, but I think this attitude is extremely misguided. Now, it might not be true in your particular case, but there are a *lot* of people out there who wouldn't give me the time of day if they knew I wasn't a Christian, yet will send scum like Jerry Falwell amd Jim Baker etc. their last dollar that they should have spent on money for their children because they claim to be and tell a good story. This is again a very serious danger of religion. Not that those fools (the particular ones mailing checks, not Christians in general) wouldn't necessarily fall for something else that came along, but it's an inherent danger of any such power structure. Ignoring that because this is the "right one" isn't a very good idea
My point is that it is your nature to see things mainly in the negative that gives you this perspective.
No, it isn't. I am a very positive person. I am not idiotically optimistic either though. I tend to take a very realistic viewpoint. I certainly don't think having a kid I'm not ready for and expecting god to take care of everything is either positive or realistic.
Realize that negativism is degenerative and self-fulfilling.
I am well aware of this. Probably much more so than you are even. At one point (more of a line segment actually), I was about the most negative hate filled person you've probably ever met. I eventually came to the conclusion that this wasn't doing shit for me and I dropped all of that baggage. Now this doesn't mean that I can no longer recognize bad things for what they are. It also doesn't mean that I have to like everything. I think it actually gives me a much better perspective to recognize evil behind a pretty mask than most people who haven't been where I have.
If you see something you don't like then do something about it,
I do whenever possible. That's part of why I'm still in this discussion. Just because we seem to have slightly
don't blame God.
That's really too funny. Again, I don't at all in any way blame god for anything. I don't give him credit for anything either. I take complete responsibility for my own life and actions. Now, if I did believe in him, I would most certainly blame him for a lot of screwed up things in the world. I wouldn't waste my time walking around blaming him though which is a very important distinction. This world is totally inconsistent with a god who is omniscient, omnipotent, and good.
Pick any two and it could work. All three, not possible not even for god.
Get out and do something you like instead of watching that crap on TV
I do, all the time. I watch very little TV and the only reason that that's "very little" rather than "one half-hour a week" (South Park) is that I'm currently on the road for my job in a hotel and I can't do half of the things I normally do out here. I've made quite a few friends, so my TV watching is tapering off.
don't get caught up in unproductive speculative gossip
This has never held any interest for me.
Go to church,
No thank you. I'd much rather watch crap on TV
find new friends,
I have lots of good friends, most of them back home, but I'm doing quite well in that respect out here as well thank you very much.
do anything to get you out of that situation.
I'm not in any such situation. Just because I don't have any love for your god doesn't make me a bad hateful person. Similarly, just because you do doesn't mean you are not. There are too many examples to even start on this.
Quite the opposite, it's making decisions about someone else's life presumptively.
OK, then you are making decisions presumptively about *two* people's lives. And you're making this decision without the perspective of the one who is directly involved.
The time for that decision is before having sex. If someone isn't ready to have children, they shouldn't have sex. If they do anyway, they can give the child up, but they should never kill it.
Hmmm... I see you ignored my comment on this already so I'll repeat it:
Please don't bother with the old tired abstinence approach to this. Sex has many benefits for mental and physical health and well being completely seperate from reproductive purposes.
Sex is a natural, beautiful thing. People have always had it and will always continue to have it.
It is healthy, and it is good for you.
Telling people, "don't do that" is stupid. I'm not saying you're stupid for thinking that it's the right thing to do. I'm saying expecting it to work when it never has throughout all of human history is very stupid. You're not actually against birth control are you? Reducing sex to a mechanical act of reproduction lowers us to the level of animals when we are supposed to have risen above that.
Waiting until marriage is not realistic either. For some very few people this might actually work, but to try and force this is not only stupid, but very evil. People are getting married much later in life than they once did and this is a very good thing. They are much better equipped for it when they have gone out and lived their lives, learned what they are all about, loved and lost and gained the strength to love again, made mistakes and learned from them than they are when they are 18.
To enter into a life long commitment when you have never experienced physical intimacy and the emotional whirlwind this creates is not, in general, a very bright idea. To expect it to last when both of you have sooo much personal growth to go through (even more than those who have been around a bit) is crazy. If it works for you, congratulations, but you are in a very very small minority.
Worse than non-religious people at walking the walk? The record proves otherwise.
You say this, but I think we must be looking at different records.
All I have to do is turn on the TV and I can see the immoral crap promoted and done by non religious sources.
There is moral and there is moral though, isn't there.
All I have to do is turn on the TV and I can see the immoral crap promoted and done by religious sources.
Let's see televangelists, People getting blown to pieces rather than loving each other. What's that you say? Those are from the non-religious? Look at it again my friend, the religious right is so concerned with censoring god's own freaking creation (the human form) that having boobs on TV is illegal, yet explosions murders, beatings, and so many other things are let through. Do you see the blatant stupidity and hypocrisy of these sickos?
Physical expression of love is *worse* than brutal murder to these people. Even the human form that god himself created according to these people is worse to look at than a human head being blown apart?!? I mean seriously, I don't like banning anything, but given the choice between the two it's pretty obvious to anybody who isn't trying to make people ashamed of their own freaking bodies.
The churches effectively counter these influences.
In the interest of promoting their own power. And they're quite selective about which immoral influences they are most concerned about. Of course there's nothing immoral about claiming god is broke and needs your cash, now is there?
You must be talking about hollywood churches and TV evangelists.
Nope I was speaking about The Catholic Church. I was under the impression that "The Church" generally referred to this one.
The major churches are strictly non-profit organizations.
Bwahahahahah LOL ROFLMAO
Dude, you're killing me.
Do you have any clue whatsoever how freaking rich the Catholic Church is? Richer than most countries. They make a very healthy profit.
Where did it come from? Some from tithing, but a lot and I mean *a lot* of it came from plundering temples and churches of other religions, the crusades, murder, torture, and enslavemant.
What you meant to say was that they have non-profit status which means they don't get taxed, so they can pick and choose which segments of society they want to contribute back to. Now, smaller local churches are a different story and I'm not talking about them. I'm sure there are good and bad ones and I'm not qualified to discuss any of them in particular.
These things blemish the church of the past, but they are not "the history of the church".
These things are what got them where they are and they were SOP for the majority of the Church's history. There are good things scattered among them, but really, look it up. Do some research. You will be surprised.
. I should point out that all governments and human institutions have these marks on their record. But considering how old, large, and resilient the church is, it is amazing how little can be said against it in comparison to other organizations.
All organizations etc., that I know of have black marks, but none of them have continued to propogate their evil ways for as long as the church.
There isn't anything other thing in the history of the world that I've ever heard of that is even in the same ballpark as the Catholic church.
Forgive me, but you must have a serious case of doublethink if you can even make a statement like that.
My perspective is different. That evil which does exist exists because people ignore God, not because of God.
If he created everything, where did the evil come from then?
The oppressors themselves design systems to keep oppressors in power.
No, I was speaking of the system where by if you're "good" in this life you are rewarded if you are "bad" you will be punished. If you are "good" you will turn your cheek to what the bad people want to do to you.
This was designed by god.
The fact that this is also the perfect system if you happen to be an evil bastard was what I was pointing out. Of course after they're dead they'll get theirs. Somehow that just doesn't give me a warm feeling.
Well, I do appreciate the time you've spent on this discussion and I understand if you don't have yet more time to spend on it, but at least say bye before you finish up if you don't mind.
Take care
My belief is that after our first mistake of eatting of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Man that sentence uses "of" a lot) we can never go back to the blissful ignorant innocence of our childhood as a species.
What I don't really understand (well, I can see some of the argument but not the logic) is how the action that allowed for the rise of sentience and a knowledge of good and evil (the beginning of morality) can be considered a "mistake" or "original sin". Who thinks that being an ignorantly blissful child is a superior mode of existence?
+&x
I'm very much not sure about this, but I believe the Pope suggested that it might be a possibility. I do remember that Italian headlines exaggerated things a bit as they said, "Pope says we come from monkeys!" Gotta love 'em.
Plain, ordinary degeneration falls under that definition. What you're saying is that if a colony of rats take up residence on a toxic waste dump, and they start to be born with defective or missing limbs, patchy hair, blindness etc, this is evolution; this is progress.
And before we start writing off the example against, say, the fossil record... you'd need to explain how `changes' like Trilobite -> Crinoid represent progress, since Trilobites generally precede Crinoids (generally precede most things) in the fossil record. Trilobites are extremely complicated and well-developed animals, yet they appear right near the start of `progress'. You coud argue that Trilobites degenerated, but you would still have to show how they arose in the first place, and why other species did not degenerate.
Um, no?
Ballroom dancing is not a prerequisite of quantum mechanics, nor vice versa. Actually, we might be close to the key to your abberration: ballroom dancing is not natural. Ballroom dancing is highly stylised and artificial. If you can regard it as natural, it seems certain that you will have mistaken other artifacts as natural too.
Mr Montag, are you having a lend of me? Where has biology observed evolution? Can you name any situation in which genuine developmental improvement has been witnessed, let alone witnessed to be a result of evolutionary processes?
Wrong, and I quote:
No, it isn't. It's based almost entirely on surmise, and what evidence is available for its support is invariably better explained by a competing perspective. Not only that, but you started off with `things change' as an axiom, and it's a pretty useless axiom unless it carries the riders `by themselves' plus `and become increasingly complex'. IRL, they degrade and degenerate. That is an observation, not an inference.
Er, what? Because they compete, one of them must be factual? Come off the grass!
Snake worshipper theology competes with Sun worshipper theology, therefore at least one of these cults must be right? Wanna buy a bridge?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
They certainly do. Every mutation has a price. If a mutation is to survive, it must propagate. Propagation implies competing with nearly identical organisms that don't have the mutation. What that boils down to is that for every mutated survivor, a non-mutated creature must die - unless you postulate unlimited resources, which we don't have and have never had. What motivation does nature have to pay this price? Is not the tendency of mechanistic nature toward survival? And if so, why? If nature is truly impartial, an organism has no more motivation to live than to die.
On top of this, the vast majority of mutations are highly destructive, so they kill off the organism (in some situations, the entire species), and there is no principle to counteract this destruction in mechanistic science.
Finally, unlike in frauds like Mr Dawkins' weasel, selectivity is very weak, and the natural tendency observed in biology is for novelties to become de-selected again rather than to propagate.
Selectivity, as you are so careful to point out, has no real idea of what to select for. Naturalism's watchmaker isn't just blind, he's deaf and has no sense of touch, and no brains. Good luck keeping the time.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go around the sun. If we went
around the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.
-- Sherlock Holmes, "A Study in Scarlet"
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