Fossils are actually a big problem for the theory of evolution. A key requirement for evolution to take place at all is time, immense amounts of time. Nobody has ever made a fossil, especially by the mechanism of evolution which requires so much time. We know that today no fossils form because any living matter is attacked by microorganisms. To make a fossil requires sudden-death of a living creature, such as a dinosaur and immediate sterilization of the remains to kill ALL microorganisms. Only after that can slower mineralization processes begin to operate and make a fossil. There is simply no known process, whereby such a wide variety of organisms could be fossilized. If you are an evolutionist that says that fossils give evidence for your theory, then make a fossil, say of any fish, to show by the scientific experimental method how this might have happened.
(...a unique biochemistry that couldn't possibly have arisen through common descent...)
Why does it have to be common descent rather than a common functional design requirements? A sparrow, Cessna airplane and a Boeing 747 all have wings and tail as well as other necessities in order to fly, yet no one argues, common descent. The same is true of a stagecoach and a modern automobile in that they both have wheels and operate on roads.
The idea of common ancestry is an assumption (belief) in the same way that common functional design is an assumption, because nobody (except God) was there when it all began. The common functional design idea definitely holds true for ALL human creations, so why should it not hold true for the orders of magnitude more complex living world? If God (who was there) chooses to communicate a limited amount of information how he did it, we may believe, or not, the truth of such communication.
All human creations originate in human minds. So what is so unusual in claiming that natural creations originated in a mind; the supreme mind of God? I see no problem with believing that God made the first living cell and every other living creature and now our scientists get to figure out HOW it all works and use that knowledge for human betterment.
....Whereas in science things do get updated, changed, and altered...
The basic laws and workings of science have never changed and do not get updated. Nobody has altered the laws of electricity or the rules by which atoms operate. The basic laws of morality have not changed either. It has always been wrong and always will be, to behave in a manner detrimental to your fellow man.
Because both the fact that our understanding of the world we find ourselves in is very fragmentary and incomplete, it is natural that as our understanding grows, old, erroneous beliefs are cast aside.
When in a book like the Bible for example the statement: "Thus says the Lord..." occurs hundreds of times, we are, right from the beginning, left with the choice to either believe or not believe such a statement. We may accept or reject, but may not alter the truth.
...I mean, who would hire somebody with a Bsc in Creationism?...
Or who hire somebody with a degree in evolution? Both of these are belief systems. In both cases we must believe or disbelieve witnesses from the past in the same way that a jury must believe witnesses about a crime that took place in the past.
Neither of these degrees has anything in common with, for example, a degree in solid-state physics or medicine.
A good friend of mine has a machine into which she puts rocks which then go round and round and round and round and they've become very pretty rocks which she sells, well not for gold, but for dollars, which were made of gold at one time.
....Science should explain how things happen, religion should explain why things happen...
You are certainly right about that, but you left out the "when" part. Because no one has yet invented a time machine, it is not possible to know experimentally or observationally when some event happened. When it comes to events or processes of the past, we have to rely on the testimony of witnesses. The creationists and evolutionists BELIEVE a different set of witnesses. Therefore, both the "when" and the "why" questions are not answerable by science, but only by belief.
The study of origins has much in common with criminal forensics. In both cases there are witnesses, both physical and human, the testimony of which must be carefully analyzed. On the basis of such analysis the jury must decide whether to BELIEVE the witnesses for or against conviction.
Because most "why" questions are really a long chain of cause and effect, the immediate causes and effects can be and are well studied by science. As the chain stretches into the past, the causes are not easily established and again science depends on witnesses who must be either believed or disbelieved.
....DNA can be the result of nucleotide evolution once replication is achieved and nucleotides can, and are formed by randomly shaking stuff and energy.....
That is not only wishful thinking, but an outright lie, because it has never, ever, even once been observed to happen. Even inorganic processes and imagined goings on in the interior of stars and supernovae are subject to laws -- the laws of physics. All laws, human or otherwise are a product of mind. Minds are not machines that require laws, but are the only entities we know about that can make laws which govern machines.
(..lookup Miller-Urey..)
All that experiment showed is that a directed energy produces compounds that are very toxic to all life forms. You look up the meaning of "chirality" is it relates to compounds in living cells and the chemistry of life.
(...a mind is a process of information processing...)
That is a convenient definition you have made up for yourself. On a human level, a mind is always associated with a person. Look up the definition in the dictionary. A mind does not merely process information but is the originator of information, in fact the only way for information to originate that we know about.
(...but noise can evolve into something interesting given enough time and energy...)
Again, that as an assertion not grounded in observation. So far, for example, the SETI project has only observed noise, but no information bearing signal. If your assertion were correct, they should have a come across some information bearing signal by now.
....I have to ask you what's so different from physics to God?....
The difference is that we can observe the operation of the laws of physics and the universe they exist in. We cannot observe God in the same way. What we observe is that this universe and its laws had a definite beginning. What we you observe did not always exist. Time, space, matter/energy all came into existence together out of nothing. Scientists have labeled this event the "Big Bang" and tell us that it in turn arose from what they label a singularity which in turn came out of nothing at nowhere.
(...Unacceptable to anyone whose main motivation to find an explanation for the universe is the complexity and/or orderness of it...)
No, it is unacceptable only to someone who is unwilling to think outside of the box of the input conveyed by their physical senses confined to the physical universe. How do you know for certain that the universe and everything in it, including you and me, it is not simply an artifact of the great cosmic mind we humans have labeled "God"?
(... Where the first DNA arose?...)
DNA is a four level code while codes your computer are two level, binary codes. We know that all computer codes come from a human mind. Nobody has ever observed codes or other information arising solely from the interaction of matter and energy. The arrangement of letters on a page into a story or play is not controlled by the chemistry of ink on paper, but ultimately by the mind of the author.
Because we presently live in physical bodies, the senses of which also limit us to physical dimensions, expressions of mind must necessarily take on physical form. There is no reason why a pure mind cannot exist outside of and totally independent of the physical reality we are presently limited to. At this time, we are not equipped to perceive or in anyway sense anything that is not part of this physical universe. Therefore, we have no way of assigning probabilities to the existence of things or entities outside of what our senses can communicate to us. You confidently assert that there is no God, but you are doing this by faith in the same way that someone like me who says there is a God. In both cases are such assertions or belief based on faith.
....The idea that a God Mind "just is" is unacceptable...
To whom? You? That maybe, but there are millions of people to whom that idea is perfectly acceptable and highly cherished.
(.... Natural laws have no enforcer...)
They most certainly do because the enforcement is built into the law itself. Take the law of sowing and reaping for example. When you put carrot seeds into the ground you get carrots, because that is what is built into the carrot seeds, to grow carrots. When you jump off of a high building, it is not the action of gravity that does you harm, but the law of inertia when your body comes to a sudden stop as it hits the ground.
(...The other problem is that of the disembodied mind, there is no such thing...)
There is a whole body of law that deals with what is called "intellectual property". Why is it called that? Is it not in all cases a product disembodied from a human mind and re-embodied on a sheet of paper, computer disk or other physical carrier? What about the DNA codes in every cell of your body? Where did that intellectual property first arise?
In the end though it comes down to the fact that a person believes what he or she chooses to believe. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of God.
We do know that on a human level, human laws arise in human minds, of people we call politicians or legislators. Can you think of any human laws that did NOT arise in the human mind? Is it therefore so unreasonable to assume (believe) that natural laws might also be the product of a higher, eternal mind?
So is 2 + 2 = 4 a human creation that would not be true if there were no humans? If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to observe it, does the tree fall?
I do not think that mathematics is a human creation, but exists quite independently of us. The laws of physics can exist quite independently and apart from humans, but physical flesh and blood humans would not exist if the laws of physics were not what they "happen" to be.
Do you believe in the law of cause and effect? If you do, you cannot also believe that the universe is eternal and has no cause. That is what scientists believed before Einstein came along. Subsequent scientists building on his ideas and physical observations have come to the conclusion that the universe had a definite beginning. That means whoever or whatever caused this beginning must of necessity exist outside of the dimensions of our universe. Postulating other universes similar or dissimilar to our own does not change this. There are some who believe that life was seeded here on earth by aliens of far away and longer go, sort of like Star Wars. The problem is not solved here however, because the same question of where the aliens come from must still be answered.
Therefore, if you believe in the law of cause and effect, you must also believe that there is a first cause that got it all started. The biblical concept of a transcendent eternally self existent God is not something that can be grasped or even imagined by a finite created human mind. It can only be apprehended by faith exercised in the human heart.
Anything that has happened in the past, all history, has to be believed, because it cannot be proven unless someone invents a time machine. In history and courts of law we believe witnesses -- or not. There are no absolute proofs. The humans who wrote down the Bible for us claim to be witnesses who have seen and experienced what they write about. They cannot be proved right or wrong, only believed or disbelieved. Whether someone believes the testimony of a witness or not, does not affect the testimony, which simply is what it is.
....if I find I don't need it later, I could spend it then....
Except that the dollar you saved 10 years ago will only buy you half as much or some other fraction than what it did back then. The house my parents paid $15,000 for in San Francisco, now sells for between 1 million and 2 million dollars.
Saving money by putting it into the bank or a mattress no longer works, because the commodity we call money is arbitrarily defined and as such it is intrinsically worthless. The only thing you can do is to invest in a commodity that does have an intrinsic value. If the item of intrinsic value is something you need anyway, so much the better. The most readily available investment that meets these criteria is still real estate. People who do not live in their mother's basement need to pay money for an independent place to live. If you still have a job, eat beans for a while and scrape together enough money for, say a duplex, one part for yourself to live in and the other to rent out. Pay it off as quickly as you possibly can and then save the profits from the rental part until you can repeat the process. After 10-15 years, take advantage of the ups and downs of the real estate market in your area and sell your holdings.
After that, you can buy a nice house outright, and live debt-free ever after. Keep in mind, that money you don't have to pay in rent to the landlord or the mortgage company is in effect tax-free income for you to spend or invest as you wish. If you do become unemployed in the future, you would be able to hang in there for quite a while if you don't have a big pile of debt.
Well there is another albatross that manufacturers of computers other than Apple have around their necks. Because Apple is not subject to the legal whims of a convicted monopolist, they can put exactly the software features into their products they deem will give their customers the best experience. With Apple products, the distinction between hardware and software is nonexistent for all practical purposes. This is not and cannot be the case for anyone who buys the most important part of their product from a third party over which they have no control. It is the software that is at the heart of almost every modern high-tech product. The basic hardware components in a Macintosh computer of no different than in a Dell, HP or other manufacturers computers. Any good product is much more than the sum of its individual parts.
....Well they've got the Apple pricing figured out....
Except for the fact that it comes saddled with VISTA, rather than a decent, reliable operating system such as OSX. Even if they put Linux on it, they would have a better computer. Apple is still the only computer maker that understands the value of integrated hardware and software design. No piecemeal computer kit thrown together by others will ever quite match the integrated holistic approach of Apple products.
....the government can't set fair rules to govern such usage....
That is the whole problem, the rules are NOT fair. How is an insurance company different from a casino or the lottery? Answer: they have bribed elected government officials to force people to come into their casino and play the game. Just like a casino has, the insurance companies have calculated the odds in their favor and always win. Maybe, the government should institute a nonprofit insurance casino, where ALL of the money gambled its paid out again to those forced to play the game.
All insurance, is now, has always been and always will be nothing more than gambling, really no different than what you do in a casino or on a horse track. The insurance companies are simply betting odds of someone getting into a wreck, their house burning down, or some other calamity happening. The insurance companies always win, just like any other gambling outfit. The differences is that the other gambling outfits have not yet figured out how to force people into the game. Insurance companies have basically succeeded in forcing everyone to enter their casino and play a game of chance while they always have the winning odds. They have done this by bribing elected officials at all levels of government, to compel as many people as possible to come into the insurance casino and play.
This government enforced gambling system is not limited to driving and automobiles either. It also comes into play with our government instituted a system of liability and lawsuits. Almost every area of life and business is affected by these costs.
.... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable...
Of course most people nowadays believe in the theory of evolution which teaches that all life, including humans, evolved out of the primordial slime millions of years ago. Only a personal Creator God is capable of bestowing certain inalienable rights to human beings. How can primordial slime, or warm nutrient laden pools and the subsequent impersonal "natural selection" mechanism impart any right whatsoever to any human being? Only another PERSON, not some object or process, can give or take away human rights. Only I as a PERSON, can give you rights concerning my property or objects of mine. The objects or property do not have the power to grant rights to anyone.
All the signers of the Constitution believed in a personal God, to whom they themselves, as well as all humans are ultimately accountable. They knew that it is the first and primary responsibility, yes indeed the reason why governments exist, to PROTECT (not give or take) these God-given rights. Today, to the extent that people both in and out of government no longer believe in their heart, that they are responsible to a supreme God, to that extent they take it upon themselves to lord it over other people. They have taken the position of rulers and manipulators of the public, rather than public servants.
... if the US-GOV was a company it would be insolvent....
Here is a question for you: if you could print money without going to prison for it, could you not also spend however much you wanted to fulfill all your wishes that money could fulfill? You could also make all sorts of "friends" on whom you could lavish all sorts of goodies you got for "free".
If you were an intelligent person of integrity, you would not do this, because you know that the arbitrary medium of exchange we call money would eventually become worthless. The problem is that those now in government not only the United States government, have lost or are ignoring their intelligence and/or integrity. This is simply part of human nature. There are many, if not most, who know what is right and good for themselves and others, yet refuse to implement it in their own lives. They also know what it is highly detrimental to others and yet continue doing that as well. All of this is a manifestation of human selfishness, the extreme of which culminates in a sick form of greed.
....Centralized updates, optionally automatic, aren't really available anywhere else....
I guess the biggest reason it is possible to have such a system, is because Linux itself is "free" as well as almost all software that runs under it.
One reason why Linux is not making much headway on the desktop, is because there are a number of mutually incompatible flavors. The user has to know which flavor is on the machine and then connect to the proper repository. Another reason is that hardware manufacturers are reluctant to put all their hardware eggs into the Linux basket because they have no official central place, such as Microsoft, to get software support. End users who install Linux also don't get a single entity to squawk to, but have to find the right complaint Department for their particular distribution. Also, most people instinctively know that it is not cool to look a gift horse in the mouth. That makes people more reluctant to complain to and be angry at whoever gave them the software free for nothing. Getting something for nothing can and does have frustrations all of its own.
Apple users of course can vent their computer frustrations directly to Apple or one of their geniuses in a nearby Apple store.
Linux is sort like one of these bicycles that comes in a compact box. It may be a great bicycle at a low price, but the user first has to get some tools and assemble the thing, inflate the tires, mount wheels, attach chain and whatever else is necessary before he/she can ride it. Windows and OSX computers are like the bicycles available at K-mart, ready to ride out the door.
....I hate using OS X -- I inevitably end up with some ten or twenty programs I must check for updates, manually....
Of course, everything in engineering is some sort of a compromise, so nothing man-made, including computers and their operating systems will be perfect. Since OSX and Linux share the underlying *NIX architecture, it should not be too difficult to implement the strengths of each on both of them. Personally, I do not update most of my software, unless there is a really compelling reason to do so. While Apple has the update mechanism of their own software worked out rather well, this is like you correctly say not the case with most third-party programs.
For purposes of trying out new software, I usually create a special account for that purpose and then install all trial software in that account only, leaving the system entirely untouched. This of course does not work with programs that have the system's application folder hardcoded into the installer and do not allow the installation anywhere else. After having tested one or more programs in such an account, I copy any program I wish to keep to the public folder of my normal account. After that, the entire test account is deleted. I cannot see how this procedure could be applied easily under Linux.
...What makes, eg. bidding/negotiations some form of "evil plans"? Such methods certainly require secrecy on the part of BOTH parties....
Requirement of secrecy in such negotiations is based on the assumption that in such a world there would still be competition such as is with us in our world. In a world where there is only cooperation, but no competition, secrecy would be unnecessary, in fact detrimental.
Centuries before Jesus Christ walked on this earth, the prophet Isaiah wrote:
Isaiah 11:6 Also the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the cub lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
According to this prophecy, the competitive system of eat or be eaten will be done away with at some point in the future. In our present world animals have to kill other animals in order to live. This will no longer be the case for the days that the Prophet is writing about. Everybody will be a vegetarian and the competitive struggle for existence will cease. Nature has not always been what we observe today and it will not be in the future. Poverty, want and deprivation will no longer exist on the renewed earth.
So what? People have been burning wood in their campfires, fireplaces and wood stoves for ages. Last time I looked, wood is essentially a hydrocarbon. All the carbon containing fuel, whether from the forest or from some place underground, is essentially stored solar energy. In the case of wood it was stored a relatively short time ago, while with the other so-called fossil fuels the storage took place a very long time ago. At some point, near the beginning, all carbon already burned and all that is still left underground that could be burned, must have been in the atmosphere. There is quite a bit of evidence that the Earth was much warmer back in those days when these fossils fuels were made. Life was abundant back then in places that are today searing, sterile deserts or frozen Arctic tundra. What would be so bad if the earth gradually returned to such earlier conditions where such places where lush and fruitful?
....Now they just want to put a GPS in every car and tax you by mile...
It seems that periodically reading the odometer and applying a formula that includes the weight of the vehicle ought to be a way to make a simple and fair tax for vehicles which use an alternate fuel. The present gasoline tax has worked well for years. Why come up with a complicated system using GPS, while all cars already have an odometer. The fuel tax is about the only tax where a taxpayer still gets value for his money.
.....The only solution is to shoot people with antennae....
The solution is to allow nobody anywhere at anytime to have any secrets of any kind whatsoever. Jesus Christ speaks of the time in the future of the world when all secrets will be known by everyone.
Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:2 -- For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor anything hidden that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. And that which you have spoken in the ear in secret rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
In today's world, where people have selfish ideas and motives, security and secrecy are necessary evils. In a world where everybody knows what everybody else is thinking at all times and all places, anybody with evil plans would find it hard to carry them out. Someday, our world will become such a place where it will be next to impossible for anybody to do any harm to anyone else without everybody immediately knowing such an intent.
Slashdot Mirror
...If a fossil is ever discovered...
Fossils are actually a big problem for the theory of evolution. A key requirement for evolution to take place at all is time, immense amounts of time. Nobody has ever made a fossil, especially by the mechanism of evolution which requires so much time. We know that today no fossils form because any living matter is attacked by microorganisms. To make a fossil requires sudden-death of a living creature, such as a dinosaur and immediate sterilization of the remains to kill ALL microorganisms. Only after that can slower mineralization processes begin to operate and make a fossil. There is simply no known process, whereby such a wide variety of organisms could be fossilized. If you are an evolutionist that says that fossils give evidence for your theory, then make a fossil, say of any fish, to show by the scientific experimental method how this might have happened.
(...a unique biochemistry that couldn't possibly have arisen through common descent...)
Why does it have to be common descent rather than a common functional design requirements? A sparrow, Cessna airplane and a Boeing 747 all have wings and tail as well as other necessities in order to fly, yet no one argues, common descent. The same is true of a stagecoach and a modern automobile in that they both have wheels and operate on roads.
The idea of common ancestry is an assumption (belief) in the same way that common functional design is an assumption, because nobody (except God) was there when it all began. The common functional design idea definitely holds true for ALL human creations, so why should it not hold true for the orders of magnitude more complex living world? If God (who was there) chooses to communicate a limited amount of information how he did it, we may believe, or not, the truth of such communication.
All human creations originate in human minds. So what is so unusual in claiming that natural creations originated in a mind; the supreme mind of God? I see no problem with believing that God made the first living cell and every other living creature and now our scientists get to figure out HOW it all works and use that knowledge for human betterment.
....Whereas in science things do get updated, changed, and altered...
The basic laws and workings of science have never changed and do not get updated. Nobody has altered the laws of electricity or the rules by which atoms operate. The basic laws of morality have not changed either. It has always been wrong and always will be, to behave in a manner detrimental to your fellow man.
Because both the fact that our understanding of the world we find ourselves in is very fragmentary and incomplete, it is natural that as our understanding grows, old, erroneous beliefs are cast aside.
When in a book like the Bible for example the statement: "Thus says the Lord..." occurs hundreds of times, we are, right from the beginning, left with the choice to either believe or not believe such a statement. We may accept or reject, but may not alter the truth.
...I mean, who would hire somebody with a Bsc in Creationism?...
Or who hire somebody with a degree in evolution? Both of these are belief systems. In both cases we must believe or disbelieve witnesses from the past in the same way that a jury must believe witnesses about a crime that took place in the past.
Neither of these degrees has anything in common with, for example, a degree in solid-state physics or medicine.
...I turn rocks into gold!!...
A good friend of mine has a machine into which she puts rocks which then go round and round and round and round and they've become very pretty rocks which she sells, well not for gold, but for dollars, which were made of gold at one time.
...Science is falsifiable. It produces specific predictions...
By that definition, evolution is not science either. It has never predicted anything and never will.
....Science should explain how things happen, religion should explain why things happen...
You are certainly right about that, but you left out the "when" part. Because no one has yet invented a time machine, it is not possible to know experimentally or observationally when some event happened. When it comes to events or processes of the past, we have to rely on the testimony of witnesses. The creationists and evolutionists BELIEVE a different set of witnesses. Therefore, both the "when" and the "why" questions are not answerable by science, but only by belief.
The study of origins has much in common with criminal forensics. In both cases there are witnesses, both physical and human, the testimony of which must be carefully analyzed. On the basis of such analysis the jury must decide whether to BELIEVE the witnesses for or against conviction.
Because most "why" questions are really a long chain of cause and effect, the immediate causes and effects can be and are well studied by science. As the chain stretches into the past, the causes are not easily established and again science depends on witnesses who must be either believed or disbelieved.
....DNA can be the result of nucleotide evolution once replication is achieved and nucleotides can, and are formed by randomly shaking stuff and energy. ....
That is not only wishful thinking, but an outright lie, because it has never, ever, even once been observed to happen. Even inorganic processes and imagined goings on in the interior of stars and supernovae are subject to laws -- the laws of physics. All laws, human or otherwise are a product of mind. Minds are not machines that require laws, but are the only entities we know about that can make laws which govern machines.
(..lookup Miller-Urey..)
All that experiment showed is that a directed energy produces compounds that are very toxic to all life forms. You look up the meaning of "chirality" is it relates to compounds in living cells and the chemistry of life.
(...a mind is a process of information processing...)
That is a convenient definition you have made up for yourself. On a human level, a mind is always associated with a person. Look up the definition in the dictionary. A mind does not merely process information but is the originator of information, in fact the only way for information to originate that we know about.
(...but noise can evolve into something interesting given enough time and energy...)
Again, that as an assertion not grounded in observation. So far, for example, the SETI project has only observed noise, but no information bearing signal. If your assertion were correct, they should have a come across some information bearing signal by now.
....I have to ask you what's so different from physics to God?....
The difference is that we can observe the operation of the laws of physics and the universe they exist in. We cannot observe God in the same way. What we observe is that this universe and its laws had a definite beginning. What we you observe did not always exist. Time, space, matter/energy all came into existence together out of nothing. Scientists have labeled this event the "Big Bang" and tell us that it in turn arose from what they label a singularity which in turn came out of nothing at nowhere.
(...Unacceptable to anyone whose main motivation to find an explanation for the universe is the complexity and/or orderness of it...)
No, it is unacceptable only to someone who is unwilling to think outside of the box of the input conveyed by their physical senses confined to the physical universe. How do you know for certain that the universe and everything in it, including you and me, it is not simply an artifact of the great cosmic mind we humans have labeled "God"?
(... Where the first DNA arose?...)
DNA is a four level code while codes your computer are two level, binary codes. We know that all computer codes come from a human mind. Nobody has ever observed codes or other information arising solely from the interaction of matter and energy. The arrangement of letters on a page into a story or play is not controlled by the chemistry of ink on paper, but ultimately by the mind of the author.
Because we presently live in physical bodies, the senses of which also limit us to physical dimensions, expressions of mind must necessarily take on physical form. There is no reason why a pure mind cannot exist outside of and totally independent of the physical reality we are presently limited to. At this time, we are not equipped to perceive or in anyway sense anything that is not part of this physical universe. Therefore, we have no way of assigning probabilities to the existence of things or entities outside of what our senses can communicate to us. You confidently assert that there is no God, but you are doing this by faith in the same way that someone like me who says there is a God. In both cases are such assertions or belief based on faith.
....The idea that a God Mind "just is" is unacceptable...
To whom? You? That maybe, but there are millions of people to whom that idea is perfectly acceptable and highly cherished.
(.... Natural laws have no enforcer ...)
They most certainly do because the enforcement is built into the law itself. Take the law of sowing and reaping for example. When you put carrot seeds into the ground you get carrots, because that is what is built into the carrot seeds, to grow carrots. When you jump off of a high building, it is not the action of gravity that does you harm, but the law of inertia when your body comes to a sudden stop as it hits the ground.
(...The other problem is that of the disembodied mind, there is no such thing...)
There is a whole body of law that deals with what is called "intellectual property". Why is it called that? Is it not in all cases a product disembodied from a human mind and re-embodied on a sheet of paper, computer disk or other physical carrier? What about the DNA codes in every cell of your body? Where did that intellectual property first arise?
In the end though it comes down to the fact that a person believes what he or she chooses to believe. There is no way to prove or disprove the existence of God.
....using an already present set of laws......
We do know that on a human level, human laws arise in human minds, of people we call politicians or legislators. Can you think of any human laws that did NOT arise in the human mind? Is it therefore so unreasonable to assume (believe) that natural laws might also be the product of a higher, eternal mind?
....And before that we created mathematics!.....
So is 2 + 2 = 4 a human creation that would not be true if there were no humans? If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to observe it, does the tree fall?
I do not think that mathematics is a human creation, but exists quite independently of us. The laws of physics can exist quite independently and apart from humans, but physical flesh and blood humans would not exist if the laws of physics were not what they "happen" to be.
....Who created and finely tuned God?....
Do you believe in the law of cause and effect? If you do, you cannot also believe that the universe is eternal and has no cause. That is what scientists believed before Einstein came along. Subsequent scientists building on his ideas and physical observations have come to the conclusion that the universe had a definite beginning. That means whoever or whatever caused this beginning must of necessity exist outside of the dimensions of our universe. Postulating other universes similar or dissimilar to our own does not change this. There are some who believe that life was seeded here on earth by aliens of far away and longer go, sort of like Star Wars. The problem is not solved here however, because the same question of where the aliens come from must still be answered.
Therefore, if you believe in the law of cause and effect, you must also believe that there is a first cause that got it all started. The biblical concept of a transcendent eternally self existent God is not something that can be grasped or even imagined by a finite created human mind. It can only be apprehended by faith exercised in the human heart.
Anything that has happened in the past, all history, has to be believed, because it cannot be proven unless someone invents a time machine. In history and courts of law we believe witnesses -- or not. There are no absolute proofs. The humans who wrote down the Bible for us claim to be witnesses who have seen and experienced what they write about. They cannot be proved right or wrong, only believed or disbelieved. Whether someone believes the testimony of a witness or not, does not affect the testimony, which simply is what it is.
....if I find I don't need it later, I could spend it then....
Except that the dollar you saved 10 years ago will only buy you half as much or some other fraction than what it did back then. The house my parents paid $15,000 for in San Francisco, now sells for between 1 million and 2 million dollars.
Saving money by putting it into the bank or a mattress no longer works, because the commodity we call money is arbitrarily defined and as such it is intrinsically worthless. The only thing you can do is to invest in a commodity that does have an intrinsic value. If the item of intrinsic value is something you need anyway, so much the better. The most readily available investment that meets these criteria is still real estate. People who do not live in their mother's basement need to pay money for an independent place to live. If you still have a job, eat beans for a while and scrape together enough money for, say a duplex, one part for yourself to live in and the other to rent out. Pay it off as quickly as you possibly can and then save the profits from the rental part until you can repeat the process. After 10-15 years, take advantage of the ups and downs of the real estate market in your area and sell your holdings.
After that, you can buy a nice house outright, and live debt-free ever after. Keep in mind, that money you don't have to pay in rent to the landlord or the mortgage company is in effect tax-free income for you to spend or invest as you wish. If you do become unemployed in the future, you would be able to hang in there for quite a while if you don't have a big pile of debt.
...Microsoft disallows manufacturers....
Well there is another albatross that manufacturers of computers other than Apple have around their necks. Because Apple is not subject to the legal whims of a convicted monopolist, they can put exactly the software features into their products they deem will give their customers the best experience. With Apple products, the distinction between hardware and software is nonexistent for all practical purposes. This is not and cannot be the case for anyone who buys the most important part of their product from a third party over which they have no control. It is the software that is at the heart of almost every modern high-tech product. The basic hardware components in a Macintosh computer of no different than in a Dell, HP or other manufacturers computers. Any good product is much more than the sum of its individual parts.
....Well they've got the Apple pricing figured out....
Except for the fact that it comes saddled with VISTA, rather than a decent, reliable operating system such as OSX. Even if they put Linux on it, they would have a better computer. Apple is still the only computer maker that understands the value of integrated hardware and software design. No piecemeal computer kit thrown together by others will ever quite match the integrated holistic approach of Apple products.
....the government can't set fair rules to govern such usage....
That is the whole problem, the rules are NOT fair. How is an insurance company different from a casino or the lottery? Answer: they have bribed elected government officials to force people to come into their casino and play the game. Just like a casino has, the insurance companies have calculated the odds in their favor and always win. Maybe, the government should institute a nonprofit insurance casino, where ALL of the money gambled its paid out again to those forced to play the game.
....to FORCE YOU to buy insurance on your car...
All insurance, is now, has always been and always will be nothing more than gambling, really no different than what you do in a casino or on a horse track. The insurance companies are simply betting odds of someone getting into a wreck, their house burning down, or some other calamity happening. The insurance companies always win, just like any other gambling outfit. The differences is that the other gambling outfits have not yet figured out how to force people into the game. Insurance companies have basically succeeded in forcing everyone to enter their casino and play a game of chance while they always have the winning odds. They have done this by bribing elected officials at all levels of government, to compel as many people as possible to come into the insurance casino and play.
This government enforced gambling system is not limited to driving and automobiles either. It also comes into play with our government instituted a system of liability and lawsuits. Almost every area of life and business is affected by these costs.
.... that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable...
Of course most people nowadays believe in the theory of evolution which teaches that all life, including humans, evolved out of the primordial slime millions of years ago. Only a personal Creator God is capable of bestowing certain inalienable rights to human beings. How can primordial slime, or warm nutrient laden pools and the subsequent impersonal "natural selection" mechanism impart any right whatsoever to any human being? Only another PERSON, not some object or process, can give or take away human rights. Only I as a PERSON, can give you rights concerning my property or objects of mine. The objects or property do not have the power to grant rights to anyone.
All the signers of the Constitution believed in a personal God, to whom they themselves, as well as all humans are ultimately accountable. They knew that it is the first and primary responsibility, yes indeed the reason why governments exist, to PROTECT (not give or take) these God-given rights. Today, to the extent that people both in and out of government no longer believe in their heart, that they are responsible to a supreme God, to that extent they take it upon themselves to lord it over other people. They have taken the position of rulers and manipulators of the public, rather than public servants.
... if the US-GOV was a company it would be insolvent....
Here is a question for you: if you could print money without going to prison for it, could you not also spend however much you wanted to fulfill all your wishes that money could fulfill? You could also make all sorts of "friends" on whom you could lavish all sorts of goodies you got for "free".
If you were an intelligent person of integrity, you would not do this, because you know that the arbitrary medium of exchange we call money would eventually become worthless. The problem is that those now in government not only the United States government, have lost or are ignoring their intelligence and/or integrity. This is simply part of human nature. There are many, if not most, who know what is right and good for themselves and others, yet refuse to implement it in their own lives. They also know what it is highly detrimental to others and yet continue doing that as well. All of this is a manifestation of human selfishness, the extreme of which culminates in a sick form of greed.
....Centralized updates, optionally automatic, aren't really available anywhere else....
I guess the biggest reason it is possible to have such a system, is because Linux itself is "free" as well as almost all software that runs under it.
One reason why Linux is not making much headway on the desktop, is because there are a number of mutually incompatible flavors. The user has to know which flavor is on the machine and then connect to the proper repository. Another reason is that hardware manufacturers are reluctant to put all their hardware eggs into the Linux basket because they have no official central place, such as Microsoft, to get software support. End users who install Linux also don't get a single entity to squawk to, but have to find the right complaint Department for their particular distribution. Also, most people instinctively know that it is not cool to look a gift horse in the mouth. That makes people more reluctant to complain to and be angry at whoever gave them the software free for nothing. Getting something for nothing can and does have frustrations all of its own.
Apple users of course can vent their computer frustrations directly to Apple or one of their geniuses in a nearby Apple store.
Linux is sort like one of these bicycles that comes in a compact box. It may be a great bicycle at a low price, but the user first has to get some tools and assemble the thing, inflate the tires, mount wheels, attach chain and whatever else is necessary before he/she can ride it. Windows and OSX computers are like the bicycles available at K-mart, ready to ride out the door.
....I hate using OS X -- I inevitably end up with some ten or twenty programs I must check for updates, manually....
Of course, everything in engineering is some sort of a compromise, so nothing man-made, including computers and their operating systems will be perfect. Since OSX and Linux share the underlying *NIX architecture, it should not be too difficult to implement the strengths of each on both of them. Personally, I do not update most of my software, unless there is a really compelling reason to do so. While Apple has the update mechanism of their own software worked out rather well, this is like you correctly say not the case with most third-party programs.
For purposes of trying out new software, I usually create a special account for that purpose and then install all trial software in that account only, leaving the system entirely untouched. This of course does not work with programs that have the system's application folder hardcoded into the installer and do not allow the installation anywhere else. After having tested one or more programs in such an account, I copy any program I wish to keep to the public folder of my normal account. After that, the entire test account is deleted. I cannot see how this procedure could be applied easily under Linux.
...What makes, eg. bidding/negotiations some form of "evil plans"? Such methods certainly require secrecy on the part of BOTH parties....
Requirement of secrecy in such negotiations is based on the assumption that in such a world there would still be competition such as is with us in our world. In a world where there is only cooperation, but no competition, secrecy would be unnecessary, in fact detrimental.
Centuries before Jesus Christ walked on this earth, the prophet Isaiah wrote:
Isaiah 11:6 Also the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the cub lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 And the suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.
According to this prophecy, the competitive system of eat or be eaten will be done away with at some point in the future. In our present world animals have to kill other animals in order to live. This will no longer be the case for the days that the Prophet is writing about. Everybody will be a vegetarian and the competitive struggle for existence will cease. Nature has not always been what we observe today and it will not be in the future. Poverty, want and deprivation will no longer exist on the renewed earth.
....Burning hydro-carbons is NOT CLEAN....
So what? People have been burning wood in their campfires, fireplaces and wood stoves for ages. Last time I looked, wood is essentially a hydrocarbon. All the carbon containing fuel, whether from the forest or from some place underground, is essentially stored solar energy. In the case of wood it was stored a relatively short time ago, while with the other so-called fossil fuels the storage took place a very long time ago. At some point, near the beginning, all carbon already burned and all that is still left underground that could be burned, must have been in the atmosphere. There is quite a bit of evidence that the Earth was much warmer back in those days when these fossils fuels were made. Life was abundant back then in places that are today searing, sterile deserts or frozen Arctic tundra. What would be so bad if the earth gradually returned to such earlier conditions where such places where lush and fruitful?
....Now they just want to put a GPS in every car and tax you by mile...
It seems that periodically reading the odometer and applying a formula that includes the weight of the vehicle ought to be a way to make a simple and fair tax for vehicles which use an alternate fuel. The present gasoline tax has worked well for years. Why come up with a complicated system using GPS, while all cars already have an odometer. The fuel tax is about the only tax where a taxpayer still gets value for his money.
.....The only solution is to shoot people with antennae....
The solution is to allow nobody anywhere at anytime to have any secrets of any kind whatsoever. Jesus Christ speaks of the time in the future of the world when all secrets will be known by everyone.
Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:2 -- For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, nor anything hidden that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatever you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light. And that which you have spoken in the ear in secret rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
In today's world, where people have selfish ideas and motives, security and secrecy are necessary evils. In a world where everybody knows what everybody else is thinking at all times and all places, anybody with evil plans would find it hard to carry them out. Someday, our world will become such a place where it will be next to impossible for anybody to do any harm to anyone else without everybody immediately knowing such an intent.