Religious discussion thread

[shaolin kungfu]

A place to discuss religion and philosophy without hijacking threads.

[Serpent]

This thread will either get huge or deleted!

;)

[shaolin kungfu]

Probably.

[Shuul Vis]

Im going to hijack it and talk about kung fu!!!!!!!!!!

[shaolin kungfu]

Nooooooo.....

I actually think it'll get hijacked by someone talking about politics.

[Serpent]

I like bacon sammiches.

[joedoe]

Wanna place a bet which way it goes?

[Brad]

So, how 'bout them Raelians? ;)

[Serpent]

You know that site that themeecer told me to get the videos from?

It's www.drdino.com in case you didn't see it.

Anyway, check this out from their FAQ! I can't stop laughing!



How did Noah take care of all those animals on the Ark?

Answer:
It is reasonable to assume that the larger types of animals on the Ark were young animals because they would weigh less, eat less, and sleep more. Also, after the flood they would live longer to produce more offspring. No one knows for sure how many animals were on the ark. Limiting it down to two of each kind does not mean there were two of each species or variety that we have today. There seem to be about 8000 basic kinds of animal in the world. Also, many animals become dormant, lethargic or even hibernate during stormy weather.

Through the instructions that God gave or through the wisdom of Noah he was given the ability to provide a watering mechanism to disperse water to the animals throughout the ark and possibly even a food distribution system. In Genesis 1:29-30, the Bible teaches that before the flood all the animals were vegetarians so there was not a problem with, for example, the lion trying to eat the lamb. Some have suggested that there was a moon pool, a hole in the center of the floor, which would provide a place for fishing and, if necessary, a way to dispense animal waste from the ark.

The minor problems that the Bible believers cannot always answer are nothing compared to the problems and questions that the evolutionists cannot answer. Although I do not know exactly how Noah took care of all the animals on the ark, I am going to believe the Bible until it is proven wrong instead of doubt the Bible until it is proven right. For someone to reject the Bible and then accept the story that we all came from a rock is silly!


:D :D :D

[Brad]

You know, if we talk about Chung Moo Do the thread would technically be on topic for both the kungfu forum & the thread topic title ;)

[shaolin kungfu]

Thats possibly the weakest argument for believing the bible I've ever heard.

[Shuul Vis]

why dont you guys post on my topic? That way i can feel like i am important in some way. Then, when someone talks to me in real life without proper respect, i can bi!ch slap them and say "you troll!"

[shaolin kungfu]

Done! happy now?

[Shuul Vis]

yep

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Shuul Vis
why dont you guys post on my topic? That way i can feel like i am important in some way. Then, when someone talks to me in real life without proper respect, i can bi!ch slap them and say "you troll!"

You can do that anyway.

[shaolin kungfu]

That site meecer pointed out is hillarious. I'm suprised he gave it as a link to credible evidence for the existance of god.

[Serpent]

Exactly. That site on its own undermines any credibility he might have had.

[shaolin kungfu]

I wish he would reply to this. That would really get this thread goin.

[Serpent]

He doesn't have the gonads to actually enter into a conversation about it - he made that perfectly clear in the last thread. He thinks we should read all there is to read about the subject first, then he might be prepared to discuss it privately.

Not to confident in his convictions is he. Even though, according to him, his argument will beat anything we might have to say.

[Evad]

what hell is scientology anyway, I just saw a commercial about L. Ron Hubbard, anyone have any ideas, just wondering.....

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Evad
what hell is scientology anyway, I just saw a commercial about L. Ron Hubbard, anyone have any ideas, just wondering.....

You kidding? Major cult that targets rich and famous people to garner power. Heaps of Hollywood celebs are in it. Heavily into brain washing type stuff.

[Evad]

Oh I've heard of it, heard about it, seen the documentary specials, etc. But I never really paid any attention to it, I was just wondering if anyone had any real experience with it, with all the celeb news we've been blanketed with lately about world events etc. And I know that they're all in that scientology stuff, I was just seeking perspective.

Empty cup thing I guess, if I assume to know nothing then I should be open to the most information, then I'll be able to form an opinion for myself.

[themeecer]

Originally posted by Serpent
He doesn't have the gonads to actually enter into a conversation about it -

Ahem .. this from the person that is afraid to list his martial art because he doesn't want to be questioned about it. If I proved anything on this forum it is that I have a pair. I have put myself out plainly for your criticisms, I have hid nothing. I have told you I study SD; I have told you that I am a creationist. The reason I preferred taking the topic to PMs was to keep the boards on the topic of Kung Fu. Don't be telling me to grow some balls when you have none yourself. I'm going to bed, g'night.

[shaolin kungfu]

Meecer, whatever you do, don't engage people in an intellectual debate! They're only trying to convert you to satanism!:eek:

And seriously, rethink your sig. It's false.

[dezhen2001]

great religious discussion so far, ill just get back to drinking my tea :)

dawood

[chen zhen]

Are'nt trolls part of some religion..?











:D

[MasterKiller]

George Bush hates Mohammed.

[Ming Yue]

To Serp: the chum award for outstanding lack of subtlety in trolling.

click me (http://www.curious3d.com/bucket3.jpg)

:D

[Radhnoti]

For anyone interested in a critique of scientology, I'd suggest "Operation Clambake" at the net-address:
http://www.xenu.com/

Scientology makes you pay to take classes that helps you "evolve"...and the higher level the classes, the more expensive. The highest levels indicate that every soul on Earth was at one time part of a different galactic empire, where there was this galactic overlord who killed/tortured us as a "racial purging" kind of thing. To achieve true happiness, our souls have to find a way to deal with this trauma...and that's what the most advanced scientology classes deal with, I've heard. The lower level classes seem to be all about self-affirmation, which would probably be the "level" of the typical member.
I THINK I got all that right.

Not surprisingly to me, scientology's founder was a sci-fi writer. :)

[red5angel]

shaolin kungfu, why would you say the meecers sig is false?

[Chang Style Novice]

Hey, everybody! It's WIM DELVOYE! (http://www.broodthaersmp.be/wim.html)

[Chang Style Novice]

And nobody is belittling themeecer's religious beliefs. We are belittling his scientific beliefs.

[Surferdude]

So how bout them crusades??:D
They still goin on??:confused: :D :p :rolleyes:

[red5angel]

:rolleyes: because only christians ever did that....I sense another idiotic religious discussion coming on.

[Surferdude]

Isn;t there a religon where you have to chop your testicles off and put um in a jar???:confused: :eek: Serious. I saw somthin on it. on the internet:D :p

[quiet man]

Originally posted by Surferdude
Isn;t there a religon where you have to chop your testicles off and put um in a jar???:confused: :eek: Serious. I saw somthin on it. on the internet:D :p

Is it some kind of militant lesbian religion?

[Judge Pen]

All right. I was trying not to get sucked in to this, but anyway. . .

I'm not going to weigh in on the whole evolution vs. creationism argument because it's ultimately meaningless. Both sides, however, rely upon faith to support their beliefs. Faith in the Bible of faith in scientific methods to explain something that can't be proven. No one really knows what happened when the world was created. We can only provide our best "educated" guesses.

[MasterKiller]

No one really knows what happened when the world was created
You betray yourself their, JP. Created implies a creator.

[Surferdude]

Originally posted by quiet man


Is it some kind of militant lesbian religion?

I think it might be... Somewhere in Indonesia or latvia or somethin like that

[Former castleva]

"I'm not going to weigh in on the whole evolution vs. creationism argument because it's ultimately meaningless. Both sides, however, rely upon faith to support their beliefs. Faith in the Bible of faith in scientific methods to explain something that can't be proven. No one really knows what happened when the world was created. We can only provide our best "educated" guesses."

I´m suspecting this thread may get big and I try to keep this as my first/last post but I´d just like to correct this one a bit.
You say both sides rely on faith,I do not know how broad a consideration this is but that´s not entirely so.
There are 500 creation stories,then there is scientific method and assuming we´re talking evolutionary biology here (not all there is to it) the theory and fact of evolution which has stood the test of time and remains dominant,there´s no controversy over that.When someone comes up with a better theory and becomes world famous (notice that "just a theory" can´t exist.Theories don´t become laws.Theories are proven beyond reasonable doubt by definition) gets a Nobel prize etc. I´ll be there to shake a hand,I doubt that will happen anytime soon at least,considering that we´ve have been building on the foundation of modern biology for so long.
Anyway,what you say about nobody being there,that´s true while it does not mean it can´t and would not have been worked on.Since biological (not cosmic that astroscientists study) evolution is the case,it has little to say about the "creation" itself,what that ever means to one.To assume it is concerned with that is a common fallacy,if you´re concerned with that,cosmology would be a better pick of interest.Many,many people are still very ignorant of basic science (not actually referring to anyone in particular)

edit:
"My point is that the appearence of life, and the evolution of different species from a single cell formed in a primordial soup is only a best educated guess "

This is a very complex subject and being worked on,there are some good books around if you´re interested.
Besides this,the theory is pretty reasonable in the light of current models and experiments.Exact mechanisms are always the hardest thing to track down and "educated guess" refers to a hypothesis to be tested,with a reason for it´s being.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by MasterKiller

You betray yourself their, JP. Created implies a creator.

:D

I do believe it was created, but the manner it was created, a literal 6 days or by divine power to set certain forces in motion that ultimately ended up where we are now is, in my humble estimation, mostly irrelevant.

In the interest of my point being more "objective" let's say "no one was around when the universe came into being." How's that?

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Former castleva
[B
Anyway,what you say about nobody being there,that´s true while it does not mean it can´t and would not have been worked on.Since biological (not cosmic that astroscientists study) evolution is the case,it has little to say about the "creation" itself,what that ever means to one.To assume it is concerned with that is a common fallacy,if you´re concerned with that,cosmology would be a better pick of interest.Many,many people are still very ignorant of basic science (not actually referring to anyone in particular) [/B]

Sure evolution exists. No doubt about it. Adaptions occur in biological systems that either help or hurt the species. The ones that help advance themselves and live on. That's easy.

My point is that the appearence of life, and the evolution of different species from a single cell formed in a primordial soup is only a best educated guess (Irregardess if one believes that it was divinly inspired or a random biological occurance). All the evidence that science has to support its theories still rely, to some degree, on extrapolation. Whenever one connects two "dots" they have to assume that there is not another point between the two that won't change the plot of the line. That, in essence, is faith.

[Shaolin-Do]

Evolution of man...
Anyone kept up with National Geographic lately?
You know that we were missing 2 skulls in the evolution "series" if you will?
We are only missing one now, that when placed in order will fully show evolution from ****erectus to ****sapien. h o m o. Stupid censor.
So... I dunno. This is a thread Ill get into to much trouble in so Im leaving.
:)

[Xebsball]

i dont believe in any religion, not a single one, none at all
years and years... and where is my prize after years of religious belief? nowhere
all i got is grief from reality

i dont want to change my view of things (wich is what religions do), i want to change my reality itself (wich is what religions dont do)

[ewallace]

Well, you'd be good at saving yourself for marraige Xebs. :)

[chen zhen]

Isn;t there a religon where you have to chop your testicles off and put um in a jar??? Serious. I saw somthin on it. on the internet

That would be Catholicism.:cool::p

But seriously, maybe they should do it with the priests, to stop the child-molesting:rolleyes:

[Ming Yue]

While the essence of "faith" is there, I just dont think you can purely compare theosophical faith to an understanding of scientific fact or theory. Scientific theory, while it necessarily extrapolates available information, is usually based on physical evidence (especially when we're talking about evolution and even the formation of planets) and not historical allegory or cultural parable.

I'm not saying there is no truth in the bible, or no mistakes in science. The two are different, but not mutually exclusive.

[Chang Style Novice]

Exactly Ming Yue. Religion and science are different animals concerned with different things. Mixing them up results in sad, confused headcases.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Ming Yue

I'm not saying there is no truth in the bible, or no mistakes in science. The two are different, but not mutually exclusive.

This was my point. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive. It's human nature to try to understand our origins whether you explain it religiously or scientifically. I get tired of "religious" people or "scientific" people asserting that the two cannot coexist.

I just don't believe that either perspective will ever be proven in this reality.

[Evad]

concerning "faith" there is more than one definition of faith, and it does not necessarily have to be attached to religious context exclusively. Faith can be simple trust and assumption. For example, if you ever fly on an airplane, you don't really stop to worry about if the gas tanks are filled with enough fuel to get you where your going, you just have to have faith that someone did their job. Or if you are driving a car at 60 mph on a non-four lane hwy and an approaching car in the opposing lane is traveling at 60 mph, you have a closure rate of 120 mph and your gonna miss each other by a distance a few feet, you assume that that vehicle is not gonna vear into your lane and possibly kill you.

There's a little bit of faith in nearly everything we do, including MA, we have to place some faith on techniques and ourselves to be able to make those techniques effective.

Faith and trust go hand in hand and do not have to be limited to religious connotation. Basically, whatever floats your boat is what's true for you no matter what you place your faith in.

"For those who believe no explanation is necessary, for those who do not believe no explanation will do." - quote from somewhere I do not remember, but I thought it was cool.

I'm not advocating either side of the creation/evolution thing, I just think somewhere underneath all the controversy are common threads of belief that may or may not be true, and that could lead to even greater truth and discovery.

[Judge Pen]

How is this for a definition of faith:

Assurance of what we hope for and proof of what we cannot see.

Does this not apply to religious and non-religious beliefs?

[red5angel]

judge pen has it right, science is as much faith as any religion. At one time Copernicus knew how the planets rotated around the sun. Before him someone knew that the world was flat. Darwin knew that evolution must exist...

[Former castleva]

"judge pen has it right, science is as much faith as any religion. At one time Copernicus knew how the planets rotated around the sun. Before him someone knew that the world was flat. Darwin knew that evolution must exist..."

Quite a definition for science.Sometimes it kicks in when one is trying to infer it out of emotion.
I wonder if someone knew the world was flat and planets rotated like that,it sure was hard to tell those days.
What about "Darwin knew that..."...if we assume that you´re using ancient understanding of earth and planet as an analogy for this,I think you´re applying reverse gambler´s fallacy (I don´t know)I recommend "The Origin of Species" for those interested,most critics have not probably read it.It was published in 1859.
The book presents lots of experiments and data after data (actually the book was supposed to be bigger) and what they have to do with it´s general conclusion.It does not say "it must be so..." but rather lets one think and shows why it could indeed be so.The year is 2003.A lot has improved since those days,a lot has been added,the central arguments have been kept and verified by multiple fields of study.Things can be told and observed much better,the synthesis still has not changed essentially,only improved greatly.Even the central ideas concerning human origins first presented in the 19th century are enjoying popularity.

[Shuul Vis]

There is no Dana only Zuul..........

[Evad]

I agree, do you think that the old CMA masters, monks, taoists, etc had conversations similiar to these in some mystic brainstorming sessions? Or do you think they argued the point with just whoever was outside there belief's?

I'd like to think that as African Tiger pointed out, we're showing our scholarly side with some intelligent extrapolation, instead of juvenile points and counter points that lead nowhere. Soap operas are better off left to the television...

Great definition of faith JP. My point exactly.

[red5angel]

FC, read origin of species, thngs have changed a lot since Darwins time ;) he only had it part right.

FC - experiments and data can be as perceived and as contrived as anything else. Do some research into the "brain pun" to see what I mean. Science is not better offthen any other religion out there, it is just a matter of how you choose to percieve it.
Don't get me wrong, I choose to look through "science" colored glasses for my world view, but I am not so foolish as to believe it is only because that is the way I choose to percieve things. 1+1 doe snot always equal 2.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Former castleva
I recommend "The Origin of Species" for those interested,most critics have not probably read it.It was published in 1859.


I've read it, and I'm not really criticizing the theory of evolution or the data that supports it. You can believe in a creator and not disbelieve in the theory of evolution. The two, like faith and science, are not exclusive.

I've met several scientists who believed in both a divine creator and evolution. I've also met several atheists who would use scientific data to support their personal disbelief. You cannot use science to prove the existence of a creator anymore than you can use it to disprove a creator. Thus faith applies to explain ones beliefs regardless of their application of the scientific method.

[MasterKiller]

1+1 doe snot always equal 2.
In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood says when men add 1+1+1, they get 3; When women add 1+1+1, they get 1+1+1. Her point was that focus determines your reality.


I've met several scientists who believed in both a divine creator and evolution.
Einstein's "Universal Constant" was something he fabricated because he could not let himself believe there was no God.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Evad


Great definition of faith JP. My point exactly.

I can't take credit for that definition. I paraphrased Hebrews 11:1.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by MasterKiller

In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood says when men add 1+1+1, they get 3; When women add 1+1+1, they get 1+1+1. Her point was that focus determines your reality.

Good book, but the movie was not up to par.

[Chang Style Novice]

judge pen has it right, science is as much faith as any religion. At one time Copernicus knew how the planets rotated around the sun. Before him someone knew that the world was flat. Darwin knew that evolution must exist...

Not really true at all. Someone before Copernicus OBSERVED that the world was flat. Copernicus made more careful and detailed observations of the same data, and came to the conclusion that the planets orbit the sun. Darwin made careful observations of the data available to him (most notably the differently adapted fauna in the Galapogos (sp?) Islands and concluded that animals descended from common ancestors will adapt to their environment. Since then, many more people have observed this phenomenon in all life.

Careful observation IS science. It has nothing to do with faith.

[fa_jing]

Originally posted by MasterKiller


Einstein's "Universal Constant" was something he fabricated because he could not let himself believe there was no God.

Actually the opposite is true, he invented the "Universal Constant" because he favored a steady-state model of the Universe rather than the inflationary (Big Bang) model. He thought that the Big Bang model smacked of Creationism, which he was against. Although, he later felt that it was a blunder.

As for his religious beliefs or lack thereof, it's hotly debated but I suggest that anyone curious read his quotes at Einstein Quotes (http://www.sfheart.com/einstein.html)
and then decide how or if you want to label his beliefs.

[red5angel]

CSN, Religion can and has progressed just like science does.

[Chang Style Novice]

Sure, but why does religion change? It has more to do with culture clashes and changing social mores than observation of natural phenomena. As I said above - they're different critters without much in common.

[red5angel]

What's the real difference between changing with cultural changes and changing with observational changes? The source may be different but you can't "prove" anything with science that you can't "prove" with religion. you might precieve that science is more accurate or has more realistic answers because with a little experimentation you can get the answers you are looking for for the most part. WIth religion you just don't have to go through the motions of performing experimentation. You do a little reading a little thinking aand you come up with something. Eventually someone or something comes along and proves you wrong or adjust your view. As the way we percieve the world and the universe changes so to does science and religion adjust to those changes of perception. Science, is as much faith as religion.

[Xebsball]

Originally posted by ewallace
Well, you'd be good at saving yourself for marraige Xebs. :)

you do realised id kill both you and your family if we ever met, dont you?

[Former castleva]

"""FC, read origin of species, thngs have changed a lot since Darwins time he only had it part right."

Of course there are minor flaws here and there.That´s what I said,things change but the foundation remains.
Leading theorists of this field would seem to agree.Modern synthesis is still evolving,but anyway "part right" does not follow "part wrong",necessary fillings followed.I guess I should not need to tell this anyway...

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice


Not really true at all. Someone before Copernicus OBSERVED that the world was flat. Copernicus made more careful and detailed observations of the same data, and came to the conclusion that the planets orbit the sun. Darwin made careful observations of the data available to him (most notably the differently adapted fauna in the Galapogos (sp?) Islands and concluded that animals descended from common ancestors will adapt to their environment. Since then, many more people have observed this phenomenon in all life.

Careful observation IS science. It has nothing to do with faith.

The someone before Copernicus made observations and determined that the world was flat. He had faith in his observations and hence believed his theory.

Copernicus made more careful and detailed observations of the same data and reached a conclusion that the planets orbit the sun. He believed his conclusions because he also had faith in the accuracy of his data. They both had faith. Copernicus' faith was affirmed.

[Xebsball]

a lot of what religions support are created when people cant find real solutions to whats before them, or when their brains cant scientificly explain something -> so they create something magical/mysthical to fill in the gaps

OH! HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?
I DONT KNOW
SO IT MUST HAVE BEEN SOME GREATER FORCE
THE FORCE OF GOD!!
YAY!!

:rolleyes:

[red5angel]

so what you are saying Xebs is that religion is science in its most base form? You make an observation and determine the "facts" from that observation?

CSN - careful observation still relies on perception and faith.

[norther practitioner]

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?"

A. Einstein....


He had faith in his observations and hence believed his theory.

He had faith in his observations... he had not proved them....
Proof, theory, law, etc... these are different stages than faith. I had faith in my physics teacher, then at the end of the semester, she told us everything we learned was wrong.... or not quit right... But to my understanding of the situation at the time it seemed right. Your conciousness is all relative to the situation or thing in question. Which came first the chicken or the egg, neither.

Research into a theory can bring it so far to some that it seems to some that it is truth. Faith is for the things we can't research.

[Xebsball]

red,

im saying religion is unproven stuff used to fill in the gaps of what the humans cant explain with science

[norther practitioner]

careful observation still relies on perception and faith.

Observation does not rely on faith if one is perceptive.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by norther practitioner

Research into a theory can bring it so far to some that it seems to some that it is truth. Faith is for the things we can't research.

And here lies the heart of the debate. Some people refuse to accept that their belief is necessarily based on a leap of faith after all the research is concluded. To interpret the research is to have faith in the accuracy of the results.

Faith is a basic tenant to all religions, but you can have faith and not be religious.

The observation is not based on faith, but the conclusions one makes from the observations are based on faith.

[norther practitioner]

Faith is a basic tenant to all religions

Only when one needs to believe in something....
An example would be a god, or diety or something....
believing in the symbolism as opposed to the "TRUTHS" is not faith but understanding.

[Former castleva]

What Xebsball says reminds me very well of the common flight against reason.
Explaining something away with unprovable and unnecessary assumptions.It is true that one often does not know everything,there is however no reason to suggest that one should make things up to explain it.It would take just little reason to understand that what is not known presently,does not need irrational explanations.Fortunately there has been enough reason to actually study.When something can´t be explained at the time,made up explanations only hinder the progress.
In religious context,we used to have raingods as an example (and of course still have a thousand) but as far as my knowledge goes,we do not recognize raingod anymore,we can explain the mechanisms of rain pretty well.I suspect though that there will be gods of various kinds,maybe as long as mankind inhabits the earth,gods who promise us eternal lives and fun stuff like that.

[Chang Style Novice]

"WIth religion you just don't have to go through the motions of performing experimentation. You do a little reading a little thinking aand you come up with something. Eventually someone or something comes along and proves you wrong or adjust your view."

I'm confused. Without experimentation, how is your theory proven wrong?

Again, you are confusing the scientific method with theological ponderings. One exists in the realm of evidence, the other in the realm of pure belief. They are not even a little bit the same.

[Ming Yue]

science, in it's pure definition, is based on empirical evidence.
religion is not. they're related as the last few posts have described only by our humanity, by the process.

if I point a magnifying glass at some ants in the sun and they burn to death, I can conclude that the glass concentrates the heat of the sun enough to burn something. I have conducted an experiment and determined the outcome under certain circumstances.

if I read a book that tells me that if those ants did all the right things, they'll go to heaven, I can't be sure of that, ever. I can only have faith if I choose to do so without external supporting evidence.

religion attempts to give some meaning for human existence and behavioral guidelines that promise we will not really cease to exist after our bodies give out.

It's the fear of punishment if bad and the promise of reward if good.... doesn't seem so evolved, does it?

Einstein also said if that's all that keeps us in line, we're a pretty sad lot.

[red5angel]

Observation does not rely on faith if one is perceptive.

Np - this is not true although at first it may seem to be true. The faith is less obvious because you don't often use the term when talking about science. however when you make an observation you have to have faith that you are viewing it correctly and perceiving it correctly. We may both view a light in the sky. You may percieve it as being a star or a meteor or a comet. I may perceive it as being a UFO an alien visitors spaceship. In both cases without closer examination we both are faithful that our observation is true.

Not true CSN, evidence, is purely perceptual.

[Chang Style Novice]

Dude, if you want to say you don't trust anyone's senses - mine yours or whoever's, that's on you. But I'll bet you throw up a block or duck or something when a mouse hurls a brick at you, so that position is just rhetoric.

[red5angel]

What if a cat is not facing the mouse when he throws the duck or the brick? What if the cat does not understand what a brick or a duck, or throw is? What if there is a plexiglass sheet bewteen us?
I don't believe it's rhetoric but I find it funny that people will swear by science while denouncing religion. Now all science needs is one big book fo science and a place for all the scientist to go once a week to study ;)

[Chang Style Novice]

Look - all I'm really trying to say is that religion isn't suited to explaining how the phenomenological world operates. Nobody ever built a car or computer chip or whatever by studying Bible verses. The information isn't in there, it's out here.

[norther practitioner]

The observation is a light, the perception is that there is a light in the sky, the judgement would be a ufo or whatever.... you made that judgement off of your faith (going your direction of thinking).

[red5angel]

CSN, that's not necesarily true. Although the information may not be in a bible, it doesn't mean it can't be epxlained through religion. To me the difference might be scale. Religion doesn't bother to explain the world in too great a detail, it's not important to the overall way of thinking. The religion of science however is very involved with observing and defining those details. however there really isn't much difference in the overall picture bewteen "The tree evolved from single celled organisms according to my theory" and "God created so that we would have fruit." I can prove evolution through a complicated ritual where by I prove based on past theories that have also been "proven" that that tree evolved from single celled organisms. It's obvious to me that god created it to bear fruit because there it is, bearing fruit.

np - I made the judgement from faith not from a faith.

[Chang Style Novice]

Fine then. Point to a counter-example. Just one will suffice.

[red5angel]

counter example to what?

[Judge Pen]

Drats! Foild by the old "brick throwing mouse theory." I walk into that argument every time. :D

Seriously, you rational people out there, what do you think of Pascal's wager?

[MasterKiller]

however there really isn't much difference in the overall picture bewteen "The tree evolved from single celled organisms according to my theory" and "God created so that we would have fruit."
I would say there is a tremendous difference in perception between believing trees evolved from single-cell organisms and believing God created trees so we could eat fruit. One allows for chance and change, the other smacks of predetermination.

Seriously, you rational people out there, what do you think of Pascal's wager?
I think forcing yourself to believe something out of fear is the worst possible way to live your life. I also don't think the God of Moses would buy it--you either believe or don't.

[Chang Style Novice]

An example of religion - any religion - doing a better job of predicting the behavior of the phenomenological world than science.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by MasterKiller

I think forcing yourself to believe something out of fear is the worst possible way to live your life.

That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is from a perspective of pure reason. Cost/benefit analysis.

[red5angel]

MK -
One allows for chance and change, the other smacks of predetermination.

So?


CSN - I could but what purpose would it serve? It goes against what I am saying because it is all a matter of perception in my view. I could say that revelations told about the end of the world long before anyone knew it was going to happen. You might counter with the fact that there aren't any exact dates or even a rough time line to make sense of. We could go back and forth on that sort of thing and never really get anywhere.

[MasterKiller]

That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is from a perspective of pure reason. Cost/benefit analysis
I don't think the God of Moses would buy that excuse, either.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by MasterKiller

I don't think the God of Moses would buy that excuse, either.

Well to even discuss PW you must assume that your decision based upon reason (or fear) would satisfy "the God of Moses" or the God you are applying the reason to.

[MasterKiller]

So?
So....believing that chance and adaptation allowed something to live means you yourself are subject to those laws. If trees are predetermined, so are you, which means you are not responsible for your life. It may be comforting to think your life is planned out for you, all the way down to what fruits you can eat from trees, but it's nor practical or honest.

[Xebsball]

Religion is pseudo-science

Can someone prove that there is a god, and he is onipotent, and oni-this, oni-that?
Nope.

Can some high level theologist prove that there is a god?
Nope.

Can you prove that your religion is right and the other peoples religion is wrong?
Nope, becouse like i said -> pseudo-science.

Can some physics guy prove that some physics law works?
Yeah -> thats real science

This concludes my participation on the thread
Those who enjoy holding blind belief... stay blind, its not my problem anyway
I was brought up on religious background, and broke away from it, opened my eyes to the truth. I realise very few people can do this, most just stick to what their parents/whoever else put on their head and will take that as the ultimate truth for the rest of their lifes

[MasterKiller]

Well to even discuss PW you must assume that your decision based upon reason (or fear) would satisfy "the God of Moses" or the God you are applying the reason to.
Do you think HE would be satisfied with someone who claimed to believe in HIM, and lived according to HIS laws, even though, in their heart, they were existentialist? Aren't you supposed to feel Jesus in your heart, not just your mind? Choosing to believe in something is not the same thing as actually believing in it.


Can some physics guy prove that some physics law works?
Yeah -> thats real scienceOn a quantum level, all your physics don't work anymore. What is the real reality, then?

[red5angel]

but it's nor practical or honest

so you percieve, however that isn't necessarily the truth just because you feel it is or even observe it to be so. IF there were a being who created you and the rest of the universe you could be sure that it's motivation and way of thinking is most likely beyond what you could really comprehend. To presume that something isn't a certain way because you may not like it, isn't practical or honest either. not saying you do MK, but I have had more lengthy discussions with calvinists then I care to think about.

Xeb, can you prove a god does not exist? After that I would like to discuss with you a little problem I have under my chair...

[fa_jing]

Pascal's Wager = bizarre. Where in the Bible does it say, "Believe these things, for they might be true"
?

[ewallace]

I'd still welcome you into my house Xebs. After all, I hear Brazilians taste great on the barbie.

[fa_jing]

you better clarify that, EW. He's likely to read that a bit differently than you intended.

:)

[MasterKiller]

IF there were a being who created you and the rest of the universe you could be sure that it's motivation and way of thinking is most likely beyond what you could really comprehend. I agree.


To presume that something isn't a certain way because you may not like it, isn't practical or honest either. True, but disagreeing with something that doesn't feel true for you is the most natural thing in the world. My feeling is that perception and focus determine reality for the individual, and that there is no universal constant governing anything. What you feel and see makes it real for you, but not for me.

[red5angel]

My feeling is that perception and focus determine reality for the individual, and that there is no universal constant governing anything. What you feel and see makes it real for you, but not for me.

Brother! That is my discussion in a nutshell! where were you about three pages ago?!

[Chang Style Novice]

"What you feel and see makes it real for you, but not for me."

This sounds scarily close to "what you don't know can't hurt you," a theory easily disproven by whacking the non-believer in the head when his back is turned.

[Judge Pen]

Originally posted by MasterKiller

Do you think HE would be satisfied with someone who claimed to believe in HIM, and lived according to HIS laws, even though, in their heart, they were existentialist? Aren't you supposed to feel Jesus in your heart, not just your mind? Choosing to believe in something is not the same thing as actually believing in it.

On a quantum level, all your physics don't work anymore. What is the real reality, then?

No he wouldn't be satisfied, but I'm trying to approach the subject not from a religious faith based perspective but a rational perspective. PW is a flawed concept, but it is, if nothing else, a rational concept.

The mind, after all, can allow one to open their hearts.

[ewallace]

you better clarify that, EW. He's likely to read that a bit differently than you intended.
That means protein is protein. If he comes to my house to try to kill us and fails, I will feed on him for a week.

[red5angel]

actually what MK said is very Zen...of course thats religion though isn't it? I don't think it's is what you don't know...but the world is alot more subjective then I think people give it credit for. It's just that when the majority or a large group anyway, of individuals decides their perception is accurate it can be hard to argue against it.

[red5angel]

judge pen, I am not a christian and may be wrong here but I was under the impression that to believe in God wasn't enough to get into heaven? In this case wouldn't pascals wager be sort of superlative? If I choose to believe in god, just in case, then isn't my insincerity weighed against me as well?

[norther practitioner]

I'm just happy to live in an area of the world that we can have this debate...lol ;)
It is funny how much of this is simply comes down to personal differences in perception of meaning (words definitions included).

[Former castleva]

Pascal´s wager is a fallacy as far as I know,and I don´t think it is too far from "appeal to force",a fallacy which can be unfortunately found effective against someone open to it,like a child who does not know how logic works.PW can hardly remain powerful once you realize how many contradictory belief systems there actually are to start from.

[ZIM]

Lengthy thread, I'd say. When will it be deleted? ;)

WRT the waaaay-back evolution thing:
One of my science profs was giving a lecture regarding the origins of The Origin Of Species. He was saying that the captain of the HMS Beagle was a fundamentalist religious kind of guy and a nimrod, but the only other noble on the ship.

So Darwin took his meals with him and had to put up with a lot of religious claptrap from the captain. A Naturalist and a Religious nut would've had some weird arguments... [like whats going on now]

Anyhow, the point is that the theory was developed to p1ss off an old man. Turned out to be true, though. :p :p :p

On the opposite side of the fence: researchers using computer models have recently 'proven' evolution to their satisfaction, but they also have noted that religious thoughts/attitudes/whatever are good paths towards successful evolution. Hmmm...

[Former castleva]

"WRT the waaaay-back evolution thing:
One of my science profs was giving a lecture regarding the origins of The Origin Of Species. He was saying that the captain of the HMS Beagle was a fundamentalist religious kind of guy and a nimrod, but the only other noble on the ship. "

Ha! I think that´s true.
They really had hard time together,I can´t recall what was the captain´s name.
Anyway,Darwin had really hard time with this guy and I think they mostly ate silently.I do not know what religion has to do with that,Darwin was a xian when he left for the trip I think.
Unfortunately for the captain of The Beagle,he killed himself later...I guess traveling with Darwin can be frustrating.
The former captain had also committed suicide,and this was already giving the new captain some stress.

"On the opposite side of the fence: researchers using computer models have recently 'proven' evolution to their satisfaction, but they also have noted that religious thoughts/attitudes/whatever are good paths towards successful evolution. Hmmm..."

I think there´s a book called "Darwin´s cathedral" in which an evo.biologist deals with religion "like with any organism..." or something like that,how it could be found beneficial etc.
Safe to say,religion has adapted pretty well.
That´s all I could say,I don´t know what you mean exactly.

[Chang Style Novice]

From what I know about the subject, Charles Darwin's dad was also a naturalist, and junior was most notable for suggesting the mechanism of "survival of the fittest" for the engine driving evolution. The idea of evolution itself dated back considerably to when extinct species started to be recognized in the fossil record.

[Former castleva]

Erasmus Darwin,his grandfather was somewhat of a convinced "evolutionist" and a naturalist himself.
I think he had out his book "Zoonomia" and an evolutionary theory which resembles "survival of the fittest" etc.
"Survival of the fittest" itself is a word coming from the famous philosopher and agnostic Herbert Spencer,Darwin adopted the word to "The Origin of Species" but I would not consider it a mechanism itself,just the logical outcome of the central argument of natural selection.

[Chang Style Novice]

Fu(kin' Gouldite.:p Richard Dawkins 'n' me are gonna kick yer ass!

F'real, tho, thanks for the clarification.

[Former castleva]

:D :D :D

Too bad Gould died of cancer just last year,one of the most phenomenal popularizers of natural science lost.
No more wars.
Gould called Dawkins a "darwinian fundamentalist".

[rubthebuddha]

i'm surprised no one has brought up thomas acquinas' five ways yet, taken from summa theologica. here they are -- food for thought, or fuel for discussion:

(taken from the bottom of http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas1.html

"It must be said that God's existence can be proved in five ways. The first and most obvious way is based on the existence of motion. It is certain and in fact evident to our senses that some things in the world are moved. Everything that is moved, however, is moved by something else, for a thing cannot be moved unless that movement is potentially within it. A thing moves something else insofar as it actually exists, for to move something is simply to actualize what is potentially within that thing. Something can be led thus from potentiality to actuality only by something else which is already actualized. For example, a fire, which is actually hot, causes the change or motion whereby wood, which is potentially hot, becomes actually hot. Now it is impossible that something should be potentially and actually the same thing at the same time, although it could be potentially and actually different things. For example, what is actually hot cannot at the same moment be actually cold, although it can be actually hot and potentially cold. Therefore it is impossible that a thing could move itself, for that would involve simultaneously moving and being moved in the same respect. Thus whatever is moved must be moved by something, else, etc. This cannot go on to infinity, however, for if it did there would be no first mover and consequently no other movers, because these other movers are such only insofar as they are moved by a first mover. For example, a stick moves only because it is moved by the hand. Thus it is necessary to proceed back to some prime mover which is moved by nothing else, and this is what everyone means by "God."

The second way is based on the existence of efficient causality. We see in the world around us that there is an order of efficient causes. Nor is it ever found (in fact it is impossible) that something is its own efficient cause. If it were, it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Nevertheless, the order of efficient causes cannot proceed to infinity, for in any such order the first is cause of the middle (whether one or many) and the middle of the last. Without the cause, the effect does not follow. Thus, if the first cause did not exist, neither would the middle and last causes in the sequence. If, however, there were an infinite regression of efficient causes, there would be no first efficient cause and therefore no middle causes or final effects, which is obviously not the case. Thus it is necessary to posit some first efficient cause, which everyone calls "God."

The third way is based on possibility and necessity. We find that some things can either exist or not exist, for we find them springing up and then disappearing, thus sometimes existing and sometimes not. It is impossible, however, that everything should be such, for what can possibly not exist does not do so at some time. If it is possible for every particular thing not to exist, there must have been a time when nothing at all existed. If this were true, however, then nothing would exist now, for something that does not exist can begin to do so only through something that already exists. If, therefore, there had been a time when nothing existed, then nothing could ever have begun to exist, and thus there would be nothing now, which is clearly false. Therefore all beings cannot be merely possible. There must be one being which is necessary. Any necessary being, however, either has or does not have something else as the cause of its necessity. If the former, then there cannot be an infinite series of such causes, any more than there can be an infinite series of efficient causes, as we have seen. Thus we must to posit the existence of something which is necessary and owes its necessity to no cause outside itself. That is what everyone calls "God."

The fourth way is based on the gradations found in things. We find that things are more or less good, true, noble, etc.; yet when we apply terms like "more" and "less" to things we imply that they are closer to or ****her from some maximum. For example, a thing is said to be hotter than something else because it comes closer to that which is hottest. Therefore something exists which is truest, greatest, noblest, and consequently most fully in being; for, as Aristotle says, the truest things are most fully in being. That which is considered greatest in any genus is the cause of everything is that genus, just as fire, the hottest thing, is the cause of all hot things, as Aristotle says. Thus there is something which is the cause of being, goodness, and every other perfection in all things, and we call that something "God."

The fifth way is based on the governance of things. We see that some things lacking cognition, such as natural bodies, work toward an end, as is seen from the fact hat they always (or at least usually) act the same way and not accidentally, but by design. Things without knowledge tend toward a goal, however, only if they are guided in that direction by some knowing, understanding being, as is the case with an arrow and archer. Therefore, there is some intelligent being by whom all natural things are ordered to their end, and we call this being "God."

To the first argument, therefore, it must be said that, as Augustine remarks, "since God is the supreme good he would permit no evil in his works unless he were so omnipotent and good that he could produce good even out of evil."

To the second, it must be said that, since nature works according to a determined end through the direction of some superior agent, whatever is done by nature must be traced back to God as its first cause. in the same way, those things which are done intentionally must be traced back to a higher cause which is neither reason nor human will, for these can change and cease to exist and, as we have seen, all such things must be traced back to some first principle which is unchangeable and necessary, as has been shown."

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/aquinas1.html

[Chang Style Novice]

I'm not fully convinced by either of them that they have THE right answer. But they sure do write good science books just at my level.

And yeah, Gould was a tough loss. Still, I thought he was a goner like, 15 years ago when he got that other cancer. So that's 15 more good years of serious thinking he got done.

I looked at a few reviews of that Darwin's Cathedral book - seems like a pretty odd premise, but if I can find a library copy I'll read it.

[red5angel]

aquinas 5 ways are pretty archaic and real loose. Thats may have been why it wasn't brought up. It's interesting stuff but doesn't really hold any water.

[rubthebuddha]

acquinis' work is indeed archaic, but the point is about logic and how it is used to prove things that really can't be proved with evidence.

one can't point at a rock and accurately say that it's proof that god exists, but one can point at a rock and use logic to infer that god exists.

[Former castleva]

"I'm not fully convinced by either of them that they have THE right answer. But they sure do write good science books just at my level."

Well,I do not think the whole "who´s ultimately right?" question is even a valid one.They both have decent reasons and data to support their conclusions.Neither need either one be raised over another.

[Surferdude]

Evolution isn't real...Its spontanous reproduction!!!:D :p

[Chang Style Novice]

Castlevania

I prefer to think of it as "perhaps each one has a peice of the puzzle."

[rubthebuddha]

i'm not sure we're any more capable of understanding the nature of the universe than dogs are of understanding calculus. humans have touched on just a wee bit of how this universe works, and we're still stuck on our own planet and it's taken us many thousands of years just to get to our current level of understanding.

[dezhen2001]

interesting thread of musings guys - on this one my mouth is pretty much firmly closed :)

dawood

[Christopher M]

I'm sorry I missed the original thread that spawned this...

On the topic of Christianity and models of the creation of existance, it must be pointed out that it is a fallacy to characterize traditional Christianity (and contemporary Catholicism/Orthodox) as literal creationist. Probably under Platonic influence, traditional Christianity has always been emanationist. From a creationist perspective, there is an "architect" (demiurge) which forges what we know as reality. The classic myth of the Judaic god crafting the world, as if with his hands, over the course literally of a few days, is a good example of this. From the emanationist perspective, there is no architect (or, at least, the "creative God" isn't an architect - other things can certainly "forge" upon an existant creation). For an emanationist, creation is understood as outpourings from a source which neither diminishes nor changes that source - in easy language, this is called a 'property' of something. So by analogy, an emanationist god "creates" reality the way objects cast shadows. This viewpoint was important to the previously mentioned thought of Aquinas, from Plotinus via Pseudo-Dionysus. The literal creationism considered to be prevalent in Christianity is a [new] product of the Protestant movement. Protestant approaches to literal and authortarian scripture reading invokes the idea of creationism, while rejection of traditional sources as equally important in your faith allows the emanationist perspective (and others) to be rejected.

As an aside, since it's an issue that's been brought up here, this essentially the same process, and driving factors, behind the change of "religion is process" to "religion is absolute." Traditional Christians, by placing the on-going cultural transmission of the Church as the source of religious wisdom, rather than scripture alone and principally, created an environment whereby religion was percieved as a way of relating to the world; a way would would produce observations and behaviors which could be coherently discussed within the religious movement itself. Perhaps that's why we had people like Aquinas puttering away at this stuff, and why science had such a strong cultural connection to the [traditional] Christian church (as a pertinent example, Mendel). When you reject the idea of this religious culture and instead put primacy upon a literal text, "religion is process" becomes "religion is absolute." As another pertinent example, this way of thinking on a holistic level has perhaps been a large motivator towards creationist frustration towards evolution - when a viewpoint espouses an absolute stance, the idea of change (so central to evolution) becomes repugnant.

I bring this up because many of the comments in the "religion vs science" discussion have been of the form "Science is a progress, religion is absolute." This is simply to point out, and offer up a cultural context, that in fact this isn't the case. Many religions, and certainly traditional Christianity, espouse a progressive approach. One should be clear - this is not the progress of science though.

The emanationist perspective is an entirely different variable in any "creationist vs. evolutionist" debate. To the emanationist, any logical order in reality is not there because a divine hand put it there, but there because "what it is" to be reality is to be a progression of logical properties. If an evolutionists says, "Well, look, we went and checked reality out and found this logical order which describes how things came to be this way from a previous state", an emanationist could only reply "Yeah. Cool, huh?"

P.S. Concerning the evolution vs creation debate, consider Einstein's "God doesn't play dice with the universe." Now with the addition of emanationism, consider Sarfatti's "Gods load the dice first." (paraphrase)

[Christopher M]

Now... to turn it around...

There are also those who try to take an absolutist stance within science. Specialists shouldn't take advantage of non-specialists and make undue claims about their field of speciality. However, this approach to discourse is epidemic in modern science.

Consider the claims that have been made here about evolution - how it has been refined, sure, but unchallenged; that the scientific community agrees unanimously on it, due to the integrity of the scientific process which has given us this insight.

Well... hogwash! :p

It may not be in the popular lexicon, but there are popular theories within mainstream science (evolution, especially from the new work in molecular biochemistry and evolution) called neutralist theories, which hotly contest the very foundations of Darwinism. The most well-known of these is Kimura's. Googling for these will work, but you can start here (http://home.planet.nl/~gkorthof/kortho37.htm).

Aside from this purely scientific attack on Darwinism, there have been long-standing empirical (but not scientific) attacks against Darwinism which have never been answered. I'll give an example of one of the classical faults of Darwinian thought, but first we'll have to cover a super-quick "What is Darwinianism?" Ok. Population - made up of individuals. Individuals have babies - next generation of the population. Whoever has, proportionally, more babies, will more greatly contribute to the genetic profile of the population. Your babies carry on your traits. Therefore, those who have the most [viable] babies [grow to adulthood] will be the ones whose traits define that population. Two things interact to determine who does this: 1) limited resources required for leaving behind viable adult offspring (food, water, shelter), 2) different ability to compete for these resources, based upon traits, among individuals.

Just one more catch. In addition to all of this at play, traits undergo very small, very slow changes purely randomly. With this in mind, although these changes are random, those that happen to allow their bearer to leave behind viable offspring will be "selected for" - in other words, give it a few generations, and that one random mutation may now characterize the population! Very basic, but should be a good enough explanation...

Now, ask yourself this: given the above, how did the eyeball evolve? We know that those "small, slow" changes can't make an eyeball appear out of nowhere; at best they can do things like make small changes in the density of a lens, or something like that. So how did the eyeball evolve? Consider - a partly constructed eyeball isn't *sort of good*, it's just plain useless. Moreover, it's a just plain useless bunch of flesh which is biochemically costly for the organism to develop, and creates a weakness which can impair their ability to compete. In other words, a crappy pre-eyeball mush of flesh on your head would be selected against in a Darwinian model. Sure, a good eye would be great in an eyeless world. But it takes an awful lot of small, slow steps to get from useless mush to a good eye - and Darwinianism has a tough time explaining why that would happen.

[Serpent]

Wow, this sure took off!

Ming Yue - thanks for the award back on page 2. ;)

[Chang Style Novice]

"The most well-known of these is Kimura's. "

Judo legend...evolutionary theorist...is there anything this man CAN'T do?!!?;)

[Chang Style Novice]

"Consider - a partly constructed eyeball isn't *sort of good*, it's just plain useless. "

Untrue. Simply being light-sensitive is highly helpful to plants which use this trait to face their leaves to the sun and thereby increase rates of photosynthesis.

[Christopher M]

Yeah, but he wrestled it out of Helio.

You didn't know when people say "MMA is a scientific martial art?" that they really meant it, huh?

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
Untrue. Simply being light-sensitive is highly helpful to plants which use this trait to face their leaves to the sun and thereby increase rates of photosynthesis.

Forgive me, I wasn't talking about the step from nothing to photosensitivity. (Although, as an aside, if you consider the biochemical complexity involved, it's just as much an example; just harder to conceptualize unless you're a molecular biochemist) The evolution describing the step from bacterial processes such as photosensitivity to a full-blown eye is what I meant to allude to.

[Chang Style Novice]

But even so, there is utility at every step of the process. The fact that there are so many eyes of varying sensitivities and levels of development in nature right now demonstrates this. Some niches require very little out of eyesight.

[Surferdude]

So how bout that Buddism??:D :p

[Chang Style Novice]

Buddhism's got nothing on noodling for immense catfish, I'll tell you that.

[Surferdude]

:confused:

[Chang Style Novice]

Click my link right towards the end of the "animal styles" thread to get an answer to your question marks. It's a longish quicktime movie, though, so shoot me a pm if you're on dialup or something.

[Former castleva]

Ah,the age old eye argument.
I wonder how many times it will come up?
CSN has good points.Creation pseudoscientists,in love with distorting quotes,seem to like this one.Artificial selection of Darwin´s quotes makes it look like such and such an unlikely process.Should one quote the whole chapter on what he had to say,one can notice that the development of an eye is not that odd after all.
The first eye was probably some kind of a light sensitive nerve,marine species that Darwin in his time referred to and various modern species with rather "incomplete" eyes do not seem to bother.Besides,how "perfect" the human eye is? Not all that great,if you look at it,it could be said to have been a bit poorly constructed in terms of anatomy&function.But naturally enough,a lot of us ain´t perfect either,natural selection works with what resources it has.
It is somewhat of a common flaw of logic to pop up and go "but what good is half X...".You consider that,even a small advancement like that of an eye would definitely be an advantage,like a bird´s wing,it does not have and is not going to change over night.
I have not actually read that book,but Dawkins has an entire chapter dedicated to this subject in "Climbing Mount Improbable".

There´s really nothing wrong with being a bit critical about neo-darwinism as we know it,in fact I think that´s just good.
The field itself knows little about made-up controversy,but theories of mechanisms and models are naturally debated.

[Christopher M]

I don't believe there is utility at each step of the process.

Imagine (don't do this) smashing your lens up with a hammer. Now stick back in your eye (if you did this, you took it out first, right?). Ok, you got some crappy pseudo-eye action going on there. Now, reach in and do a centimeter adjustment on that mashed up lens. How much better at you? Are you better enough that it significantly improves your ability to compete for resources? Is this effect robust and reproducible enough that it would explain, in a Darwinian fashion, the millenia and multitude of such changes required to get to where we are now?

I feel like there is something wrong with your "niches" argument. I think what is sitting wrong with me is that perhaps you are conceptualizing the various phenotypes of eyes in the animal world as different steps along a certain ladder of progession. Of course, this just isn't the case. And it's certainly not the case from a Darwinian point of view, from which any sort of "ladder of progression" must be repugnant. There's no such thing as "like our eyes only not done yet." So we can't observe such a thing and make notes about it that support our argument. When I say this doesn't exist, I don't mean there's literally a possible object by this name that happens not to exist; I mean that that is an impossible concept: the eyes of say, a tadpole, aren't "bad human eyes", they're absolutely great tadpole eyes.

Expanding and elaborating on this... actually, I find the "niches" idea to be a further enrichment that enforces my original critique, rather than attacking it. Imagine if you're in one niche, say coastal oceanic waters. And for some reason (eg. environmental changes, resource constraints) you are being forced into another niche. Consider a coastal whale, perhaps, who may evolve into a quadripedal organism that can get out of the ocean and hunt the beaches. What genetic changes does he have to undergo? The problem is that, on the transition between "fins" and "feet" he has to pass through points where he has something which can not operate adequately enough as either that they must be selected against. This would grind the process to a halt; but of course we observe that it hasn't stopped.

I should be specific here: with the enrichment of the idea of "niches", we find that not only would there not be selective pressures for ineffective transition points in evolution, but there would simultaneously be (very strong) selective pressures against them, coming from the niche the organism is allready in.

The problem of having to maintain selection pressures for thousands of years over changes which actually impair organisms is the main and general point here.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Ah,the age old eye argument.
I wonder how many times it will come up?

Presumably, until someone can offer an answer.


Creation pseudoscientists,in love with distorting quotes,seem to like this one.Artificial selection of Darwin´s quotes makes it look like such and such an unlikely process.Should one quote the whole chapter on what he had to say,one can notice that the development of an eye is not that odd after all.

Are you referring to me here? :confused:


The first eye was probably some kind of a light sensitive nerve,marine species that Darwin in his time referred to and various modern species with rather "incomplete" eyes do not seem to bother.

You're straw manning here. The problem isn't with "the first eye" it's with the transition periods between eyes and immediately before the first eye and so on.


Besides,how "perfect" the human eye is?

I don't know what you could possible mean by "perfect" here, as it seems to me it's a meaningless word used in this (Darwinian) context.

Surely the human eye is perfect at being the human eye, just as the tadpole eye is perfect at being the tadpole eye; and they'd likely be quite poor at being each other.


It is somewhat of a common flaw of logic to pop up and go "but what good is half X...".You consider that,even a small advancement like that of an eye would definitely be an advantage

This is another straw man. The "what good is half" doesn't refer to "a half-functional eye." It refers to "half an eye", which it turns out, isn't functional at all, but has alot of costs associated with it.


There´s really nothing wrong with being a bit critical about neo-darwinism as we know it

When Kimura has done hypothesis testing between his model and neo-Darwinianism, and found the latter lacking, I think we've gone beyond "there's nothing wrong with being a bit critical."

[Chang Style Novice]

Chris, there are so many things wrong with that post I scarcely know where to begin!

"Imagine (don't do this) smashing your lens up with a hammer. Now stick back in your eye (if you did this, you took it out first, right?). Ok, you got some crappy pseudo-eye action going on there. "

Yeah, I guess, but what does this have to do with the kind of incremental improvement that might occur as natural selection finds utility in light-sensitive nerves? :confused:

"I think what is sitting wrong with me is that perhaps you are conceptualizing the various phenotypes of eyes in the animal world as different steps along a certain ladder of progession. "

No, they are different eyes that have developed for different niches. Evolution occurs when a population is forced into a new niche for whatever reason (puntuated equilibrium) and adapts to it. It practically goes without saying that species in certain niches have hardly changed at all in billions of years. This is especially true of certain reptiles and insects. It's not a ladder at all, but it is a partial record of the changes that make up the continuum of evolutionary change.

"Consider a coastal whale, perhaps, who may evolve into a quadripedal organism that can get out of the ocean and hunt the beaches. What genetic changes does he have to undergo? The problem is that, on the transition between "fins" and "feet" he has to pass through points where he has something which can not operate adequately enough as either that they must be selected against. "

This example is demonstrably fallacious, because we can see the transitional stage in modern seals, sea lions, walruses, etc. We can see further examples a little more footy and a little less finny with otters, minks, and so on. And other critters in other slightly different niches with slightly different adaptations. You can see the continuum of possibilities within them.

[Former castleva]

"Expanding and elaborating on this... actually, I find the "niches" idea to be a further enrichment that enforces my original critique, rather than attacking it. Imagine if you're in one niche, say coastal oceanic waters. And for some reason (eg. environmental changes, resource constraints) you are being forced into another niche. Consider a coastal whale, perhaps, who may evolve into a quadripedal organism that can get out of the ocean and hunt the beaches. What genetic changes does he have to undergo? The problem is that, on the transition between "fins" and "feet" he has to pass through points where he has something which can not operate adequately enough as either that they must be selected against. This would grind the process to a halt; but of course we observe that it hasn't stopped."

I´m not sure what you´re trying to say.You´re starting from the assumption that something must be selected against,I don´t really see how.


"I feel like there is something wrong with your "niches" argument. I think what is sitting wrong with me is that perhaps you are conceptualizing the various phenotypes of eyes in the animal world as different steps along a certain ladder of progession. Of course, this just isn't the case. And it's certainly not the case from a Darwinian point of view, from which any sort of "ladder of progression" must be repugnant. "

I was not referring to progress as you might put it.

"The problem of having to maintain selection pressures for thousands of years over changes which actually impair organisms is the main and general point here."

Selection pressure for impairment?

[Former castleva]

"You're straw manning here. The problem isn't with "the first eye" it's with the transition periods between eyes and immediately before the first eye and so on.

Presumably, until someone can offer an answer."

I commented on this already,to some degree at least.
I wonder what kind of an answer might be found satisfying?
Intermediate eye fossils perhaps?


"Are you referring to me here? "

Nope.Unless you happen to be one.


"This is another straw man. The "what good is half" doesn't refer to "a half-functional eye." It refers to "half an eye", which it turns out, isn't functional at all, but has alot of costs associated with it."

How about a protoeye?
Never seen it turn out that way yet.


"When Kimura has done hypothesis testing between his model and neo-Darwinianism, and found the latter lacking, I think we've gone beyond "there's nothing wrong with being a bit critical.""

I´ve never heard of the whole Kimura,really.An authority on the subject? I don´t know where the pain is located at,nobody´s asking anyone to surrender under one specific model of thought on the subject.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
Yeah, I guess, but what does this have to do with the kind of incremental improvement that might occur as natural selection finds utility in light-sensitive nerves? :confused:

I'm assuming here that readers aren't familiar with eye physiology, let alone eye evolution so I'm trying to use pretty straight-forward examples. You're right that that makes them pretty silly. If I'd written instead about the biochemical makeup of the eye, instead of being silly, it would be (at least to most) completely incomprehensible. I'll have to go for silly on this one.

The basic idea is that if you take complex structures like the eye (and if you get into membrane biochemistry and stuff [re: photosensitive bacteria], essentially everything is sufficiently complex) it's simply unreasonable to concieve of the structure by thinking that small morphological/chemical changes would be correlated with small functional changes. This is almost, when you think about it, the very definition of complex. A complex structure works because of it's complexity: start hammering off supports of the Eiffel Tower and you won't get a slightly less good tower, you'll just get a pile of rubble. Think of how much of this kind of complexity exists in a living organism. You don't like the eye? That's perfectly fine; I used it only because it's the classic example. The essential problem is pervasive.


No, they are different eyes that have developed for different niches.

Right. Absolutely. This seems in conflict with your idea that we can go look at these eyes now and observe that even though they're a partly-developed human eye, they are still selected for positively.


This example is demonstrably fallacious, because we can see the transitional stage

Perhaps we're concieving of the single unit of mutational change active in Darwinian processes in very different orders of magnitude. Can you see various phylogenetic transitions between feet and fins? Yes, certainly. Do you think that the difference between those transitions and a whale's fin is a single "step" of mutation? (Being aware, of course, of the various, less evident, changes in muscularture, bone structure, and so on)

Perhaps I have not been clear. What I am saying is that, step one: you have to get in your mind a conception of what "one unit" of change is, in the Darwinian sense; one unit of random, mutational change. With that conception in mind, you have to realize that (according to Darwin), for evolution to occur, positive selection pressures must be in play for this single step, right here and right now. And the small step after it, and so on. When I say a "transition" I don't mean the difference between a whale and a seal. Surely, that is a very long time, and a very many steps away. Cut that the whale-seal difference in half, and ask if it would still be positively selected for. Cut it in half again. And again, and again, until you get to the single unit of evolutionary change. Then ask if each one of those would be positively selected for; not just at all, but enough to overpower the positive selection for staying in the present niche.

[Chang Style Novice]

I never EVER said that any eye was a partly developed human eye. I do not place humans at the apex of any evolutionary process. Now you're straw-manning.

Reread what I said about species that haven't changed in millions of years. Recall that these are often referred to as "living fossils." Then get back to me.

You seem stuck on the fallacy of "well, if humans came from apes, how come we still got apes?" This is fallacious because a part of a population can move into a new niche and evolve to fill it while the 'parent' population continues unchanged.

I really gotta go and have a life now. Nice yakking wit'cha.

[Serpent]

Why is it that whenever Chris enters a discussion, it becomes a battle of who got the best debating skills in high school and far removed from the topic at hand?

*sigh*

[Former castleva]

Anyways,should you happen to be interested,here´s an eyeful of an article if you´re still interested;
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2002/articles_2002_1.html

It might be the time for some natural history reading now.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
I´m not sure what you´re trying to say.You´re starting from the assumption that something must be selected against,I don´t really see how.

I'm saying that if you take a fish, and you do a very small unit of change on his fins (that makes them closer to feet), you will find yourself with a fish you not only still can't walk at all, but is much worse at swimming than the fish without this change. Surely such a change would be selected against.


Selection pressure for impairment?

I don't understand.


I wonder what kind of an answer might be found satisfying?

One that addressed the problems.

In case they might be interesting, I can briefly offer up some of the classic replies to this critique. Many of them orient around the idea of linked evolution. This can come in two forms. Morphologically, there is the suggestion that if you look at one change in an organism, you may find this problem, but if you look at the whole organism, you will find it is correlated with other changes which support the (now no longer) problematic area.

The other form is genetic, and uses the idea of genetic linkages to suggest that pressures effecting one section of the genome can have effects on other parts of the genome, and produce phenotypic change that isn't (currently) being selected for.

One can also make a meal of the "catarophist" line of arguments and suggest that, in fact, evolution happens very quickly, albeit sporadically, and that this would eliminate many of these problems.


How about a protoeye?

Perhaps what I am getting at is best described as "complexity", as previously mentioned. By "complex", I mean something whose function arises due to it's complex structure; "emergant property" is a similar concept. I offered up the example of the Eiffel Tower... the Eiffel Tower isn't one step on a progression: with less beams or beams moved, it wouldn't be slightly less functional - it would be completely less functional. Why? Because it's function comes from it's "complex structure." As above. I am saying a) these complex structures exist, b) they exist in living organisms, c) Darwinian theory cannot explain them.


Ive never heard of the whole Kimura,really.An authority on the subject?

Yes. Here (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521317932/qid=1057714541/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/103-9995595-5415858?v=glance&s=books) is his book. He has compared rate of evolution between active sites and non-active sites of proteins; for which neo-Darwinian theory and his theory offer conflicting predictions, and found they accord to his theory. The great wikipedia has an entry on this (http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution).

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
Reread what I said about species that haven't changed in millions of years. Recall that these are often referred to as "living fossils." Then get back to me.

As I said, I don't have any problem at all with that post. I find it conflicting with your previous post is all.


You seem stuck on the fallacy of "well, if humans came from apes, how come we still got apes?"

I agree that's a fallacy, but I'm not sure where I've suggested I hold it. Actually, I thought that was the fallacy you held. ;p

Take care.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Christopher M


I'm saying that if you take a fish, and you do a very small unit of change on his fins (that makes them closer to feet), you will find yourself with a fish you not only still can't walk at all, but is much worse at swimming than the fish without this change. Surely such a change would be selected against.


Not at all. A fish with slightly stronger fins than another fish could use those fins to drag himself slightly out of the water and back in again. He might have started by simply dragging himself along the bottom. There are bottom feeding fish that can sit on their fins while there are mid and high level fish that can't. Ever seen a mudskipper? All these things could give them an advantage in survival.

You're arguments go against all kinds of evidence that we can still see right around us today!

[Christopher M]

I think, once again, you and I are concieving of the unit of genetic change in terms of very different magnitudes.

From my point of view, the difference between a catfish and a whale isn't a single genetic step (by a very, very long shot) - even if you limit it to fin and associated structure.

It seems to me, you and CSN are arguing along the lines of: 'Sure, the whale's babies are all catfish, then the catfish has seal babies, then the seals have lizard babies.' If the size of genetic change was that large, you're right, there wouldn't be a problem.

But it's not. It's nowhere near that big.

So again, when I say a "transition" I don't mean the difference between a whale and a catfish. I mean something, very, very much smaller.

These aren't my arguments, BTW. They're the classical arguments raised by scientists against Darwinians. They're the arguments that troubled Darwin. If they sound silly to you, I assure you I am simply very poor at conveying them, and suggest you try to come to your own understanding of them, if it's a topic which interests you.

[Chang Style Novice]

I'm back (briefly)

Let's leave fins and egs out of the sea to land transition. What's the big diff between an eel and a snake? Or a land snake and a sea snake? There's lots of ways to skin a cat. Or whatever.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Christopher M
It seems to me, you and CSN are arguing along the lines of: 'Sure, the whale's babies are all catfish, then the catfish has seal babies, then the seals have lizard babies.' If the size of genetic change was that large, you're right, there wouldn't be a problem.

But it's not. It's nowhere near that big.


Get a grip! Where have I or CSN said, or even hinted at, that whales led straight to catfish or anything similar?!

I suggested two fish - one has developed slightly stronger fins than the other and realises that he can drag himself around a bit without relying on swimming alone. Perhaps his stonger fins initially only meant that he could grip the sea bed against a current for longer than another fish. These are tiny differences.

Where did you ever read that I meant a seal gave birth to a lizard?

[Former castleva]

"Yes. Here is his book. He has compared rate of evolution between active sites and non-active sites of proteins; for which neo-Darwinian theory and his theory offer conflicting predictions, and found they accord to his theory. The great wikipedia has an entry on this."

I see.Should this be remarkable,I´d expect it to be better presented though?
I have very little to say about these arguments at this point,I´d have to get the book and see for myself it seems.There seems to be some controversy around.
Well,thanks for telling about.
:cool:

"Not at all. A fish with slightly stronger fins than another fish could use those fins to drag himself slightly out of the water and back in again. He might have started by simply dragging himself along the bottom. There are bottom feeding fish that can sit on their fins while there are mid and high level fish that can't. Ever seen a mudskipper? All these things could give them an advantage in survival."

It is suggested that during the great transition,the possible lungfish,of course,while naturally not completely transformed,did still reach for water on land.

[Serpent]

Certainly. From stronger fins a fish developed the ability to cross short pieces of lands between water and therefore find new feeding grounds. Eventually some fish, having developed the ability to stay out of the water for longer may well have stayed out for good. Slowly their finds become stronger still and feet begin to develop.

Chris's suggestion that we might think that one day a fish gave birth to something with feet is ridiculous.

[Christopher M]

I'm sorry. I guess I didn't make clear the difference between replying to someone's specific remark, and summarizing their argument with gross exaggerationsof the points you find problem with, in order to draw attention to them. I thought that tactic would be expected and is commonplace, but it looks like I should have been more clear about my intentions.

[Former castleva]

"Certainly. From stronger fins a fish developed the ability to cross short pieces of lands between water and therefore find new feeding grounds. Eventually some fish, having developed the ability to stay out of the water for longer may well have stayed out for good. Slowly their finds become stronger still and feet begin to develop."

The details of this phenomena are still to be debated over for long.

I´ll be moving to sleep until I´ll say something fishy which would be fought over more than such mysteries.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
I see.Should this be remarkable,I´d expect it to be better presented though?

Of course, as well as his book, see

Kimura, M. 1989. The neutral theory of molecular evolution and the worldview of the neutralists. Genome 31: 24-31.

or for his related work

Kimura, M. 1955. Solution of a process of random genetic drift with a continuous model. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 41: 144-155.

Kimura, M. 1962. On the probability of fixation of mutant genes in populations. Genetics 47: 713-719.

Kimura, M. 1968a. Evolutionary rate at the molecular level. Nature 217: 624-626.

Kimura, M. 1968b. Genetic variability maintained in a finite population due to productions of neutral and nearly neutral isoalleles. Genetics Research. 11:247-269.

Kimura, M. 1969. The rate of molecular evolution considered from the standpoint of population genetics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 63: 1181-1188.

Kimura, M. 1977. Preponderance of synonymous changes as evidence for the neutral theory of molecular evolution. Nature 267: 275-276.

Kimura, M. 1980. A simple method for estimating evolutionary rate of base substitution through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. Journal of Molecular Evolution. 16: 111-120.

Kimura, M. 1981. Estimation of evolutionary distances between ****logous nucleotide sequences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 78: 454-458.

Kimura, M. and T. Ohta. 1969. The average number of generations until fixation of a mutant gene in a finite population. Genetics 61: 763-771.

Kimura, M. and T. Ohta. 1971. Protein polymorphism as a phase of molecular evolution. Nature 229: 467-469.

Kimura, M. and T. Ohta. 1972. On the stochastic model for estimation of mutational distance between ****logous proteins. Journal of Molecular Evolution 2:87-90.


There seems to be some controversy around.

Controvery in the sense that it challenges alot of people's sacred cows. Not, as you can tell from the citations above, controversy in the sense of poor science.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Christopher M
I'm sorry. I guess I didn't make clear the difference between replying to someone's specific remark, and summarizing their argument with gross exaggerationsof the points you find problem with, in order to draw attention to them. I thought that tactic would be expected and is commonplace, but it looks like I should have been more clear about my intentions.

Why would you summarise an argument for fish slowly developing stronger fins with the comment "all whale babies are catfish"?

[Christopher M]

As I tried to explain, my problem with your (and CSN's) position was that I felt you were both using a conception of "the unit of evolutionary change" as being much bigger than how I concieve it; thus, of course, much bigger than I think is reasonable.

When I made the claim that "intermediary forms" [a] can be selected against, you critiqued it by pointing out what you believed to be those "intermediary forms" [b] readily available for our observation.

My response was that the expressions I marked [a] and [b] above are, in fact, very different things. The "intermediary forms" [a] I am considering in my argument can be measured in a single steps of evolutionary change. The "intermediary forms" [b] in your argument can be measured in thousands, if not millions of steps of evolutionary change.

So again, the source of disagreement I identified was our differing conceptions of what constitutes a single step of evolutionary change. As a discussion tactic (which I assumed, inappropriately it now seems, was fair game) I expanded upon this point of disagreement to draw attention to it. In so doing, I hoped you would realize at least that we're talking about different things. Of course, it's absurd to imagine a fish giving birth to a seal. That is, exactly my point: the way you are concieving of genetic change is inappropriate. The presence of catfish, seals, lungfish, and the like are completely inappropriate for the considerations of the "intermediary changes" which I am discussing, which, by very definition, must occur over single generations and single mutations.

I hope this rephrasing is more clear as to my point. Sorry for the confusion.

[Chang Style Novice]

another fast hit and run

What I really don't understand about your position, Chris, is why you think even the tiny intermediary changes that take place in a single generation couldn't be usable or even beneficial. We have lots of examples of appendages (since we seem to be focussing on the fin to foot transition right now) that can do very efficient double duty for a variety of tasks. Alligators and crocs do very well on land and in water, for example, as do many species of snake (mentioned above), etc. etc. etc.

[Serpent]

Two fish are just the same. They're called Bob and Pete.

One day Bob realises that he can lean on his fins. Pete doesn't bother.

Over several generations, Bob's off spring have slowly developed stronger fins while copying dad's method of eating off the bottom while leaning on their fins, while Pete's have not.

Eventually, Bob's offspring crawl off to another water hole and find a new source of food. Pete's off spring stay and continue as they were. With the competition reduced, due to the departure of Bob's family, Pete's family can survive quite well.

Meanwhile, Bob's family are also doing well in their new pond.

Therefore, we have two different types of fish, eventually, from the one type of fish, with both the new fish and the original fish still around.

That's how I feel about it. I no longer have the time or inclination to debate it with you any more as you make my head hurt with your long posts!

Maybe CSN will continue to chat with you about it.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
What I really don't understand about your position, Chris, is why you think even the tiny intermediary changes that take place in a single generation couldn't be usable or even beneficial.

They can be. In fact, they often are.

Only sometimes, and enough times, in very crucial spaces, they're not. And this should be a problem.

Mostly I just want people to understand that Darwin isn't dogmatic truth. Any second-year biology student will learn about the "classic" models of non-Darwinian evolution, including ideas about sexual selection and genetic drift. Kimura's model will wait until fourth year, but it's just as crucial. They won't teach them to you, but there are some obvious "failings" in Darwin to explain the whole genetic picture, and some with very significant implications. Consider, for example, that human evolution is no longer Darwinian.

Darwinian principles are an exceedingly powerfull conceptual tool for understanding a vast variety of things. However, to tap into that power, you first have to actually understand what Darwin was saying, which includes understanding his conceptual failings.

In short, it's not even mildly controversial (among biologists, at least) to point out that Darwinian principles aren't the only evolutionary principles, and for a given specific question it is possible that they won't be in play at all. From this point of view, why is it even mildly surprising that they have conceptual holes?


Originally posted by Serpent
I no longer have the time or inclination to debate it with you any more as you make my head hurt with your long posts!

Well, when I try to write short posts, you criticise me for simplifying your argument. :D

I think you "commited" Lamarckianism in your post, BTW; one of the most common and seductive errors of the fledgling evolutionist.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by Christopher M

I think you "commited" Lamarckianism in your post, BTW; one of the most common and seductive errors of the fledgling evolutionist.

OK, I have to ask. What does this mean?

[Christopher M]

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarck

Lamarckism was an evolutionary theory more-or-less contemporary with Darwin. When most people first interpret Darwin, they actually tend to end up with Lamarck; it's an infamously common error among students. Once they've got the subtleties down, Lamarck remains seductive for some reason... plus there's a great statue of him in France.

[Serpent]

OK, from the site you posted above, Chris M:



Charles Darwin praised Lamarck in the third edition of The Origin of Species for supporting the concept of evolution and bringing it to the attention of others. Indeed, Darwin accepted the idea of use and disuse, and developed his theory of pangenesis partially to explain its apparent occurrence. Darwin and many contemporaries also believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, an idea that was much more plausible before the discovery of the cellular mechanisms for genetic transmission. (Darwin, incidentally, acknowledged his theory would remain somewhat incomplete if the mechanism for inheritance could not be discovered.)



So, I guess that places me somewhere between Lamarck and Darwin. Which is where science seems to be right now. I think it's entirely possible that evolution is the result of several things concurrently occurring - why does there have to be just one all-encompassing answer? That's such a human conceoption.

And it also brings me definitely to the end of any knowledge I have on the subject. So, in an effort not to rely on faith, I'll step aside from this argument now. At least I managed to get Chris M to explain himself a little more clearly!

As an aside - contrary to opinion - I'm not a totally scientific rationalist. I believe there is a lot of room for the unexplained to be attributed to something not covered by science. After all, I believe in qi, but let's not go there right now.

However, I also believe in evolution and am completely opposed to the common Creationist ideals. Anybody that takes the Bible literally is embarrassingly stupid in my opinion.

I certainly believe that there is more to this world than science can explain, but to put it down to an anthropomorphic god is ego-centric in the extreme on the part of humans. That kind of arrogance is outrageous.

After all, the dinosuars ruled the earth before us, so why isn't god a big holy dinosaur?

I'm out.



For now! ;)

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Serpent
"So, I guess that places me somewhere between Lamarck and Darwin. Which is where science seems to be right now."

Not at all. From the same site: "Lamarck developed a now discredited theory," "Modern science should not vilify Lamarck as it does," and "Lamarckian, which has become almost synonymous with 'false'."

If indeed you're confusing Darwin for Lamarck, you're at least both in good company and on the right track though. To be fair, Lamarck has his uses; for instance considering immunological elements inherited across the placenta, some forms of bacterial evolution, or in considering models of cultural evolution. ...just more stuff making the picture more complicated.

... not sure which of those later remarks were directed at me. You do know I'm neither a creationist nor a fundamentalist, right? And I'm probably both a scientist and a rationalist.

P.S. You believe in qi!? Hippy. :p

[Serpent]

Yeah, I'm a hippy. But I'm a hippy that can kick dserious arse! ;)

I was basing my previous comment on this part:



Indeed, Darwin accepted the idea of use and disuse, and developed his theory of pangenesis partially to explain its apparent occurrence. Darwin and many contemporaries also believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, an idea that was much more plausible before the discovery of the cellular mechanisms for genetic transmission.


It's a very muddy pool, however - complicated indeed.

I guess I have a mix of parts myself. I'm certainly neither creationist or fundamentalist either, but I would say I have traits of scientist, rationalist, spiritualist and hippy. I think the spiritual and the religious are poles apart btw.

Maybe I'm a Taoist Humanist Neo-Jedi. ;)

[rubthebuddha]

cm,

i've heard several times that darwin wasn't actually a fan of the term "evolution," because many took that term to imply that creatures evolved into BETTER things. such as man is better than chimpanzees, just because we've evolved "more." the same bit says that darwin preferred the term adaptation, and the best example i've heard one of these folks use is an elephant vs. a wooly mammoth. which one is better? hard to say until you qualify it. now, which one is better suited to live in africa? the elephant, as poor wooly would overheat and die, and the flipside is true for an elephant in arctic climes.

now my question -- have you heard of this?

[Christopher M]

Yeah, totally. That's one of the reasons that Darwinism specifically (contra other theories of evolution) was considered anti-humanistic. It denied humans any sort of special place in the world. Darwinian evolution is entirely not goal-directed, by any sense at all: every change is entirely random. Like you said, the only judgement you can make is to point out that each animal is best suited to being the animal that it is. Humans might be nifty, but we'd do really poorly in the life of a dolphin.

I guess you could try to make other standards of judgement... like, how long a species is around or how biodiverse it is. Various bacteria probably come out as the "perfect" species under all these sorts of standards, I think.

[Serpent]

Yeah. And these days humans are spreading like a virus, bending the environment to suit them rather than adapting to the environment. Won't be long before we've ruined our world and some radioactive cockroach will become the dominant species.

And they'll probably worship a cockroach god. ;)

[Former castleva]

"Yeah, totally. That's one of the reasons that Darwinism specifically (contra other theories of evolution) was considered anti-humanistic. It denied humans any sort of special place in the world. Darwinian evolution is entirely not goal-directed, by any sense at all: every change is entirely random. Like you said, the only judgement you can make is to point out that each animal is best suited to being the animal that it is. Humans might be nifty, but we'd do really poorly in the life of a dolphin."

Or that´s what they thought.I would actually consider it a good medicine to all the "cosmic arrogance" being brought.
Progress model has also been fought,as you say,it has never been there.

"i've heard several times that darwin wasn't actually a fan of the term "evolution," because many took that term to imply that creatures evolved into BETTER things. such as man is better than chimpanzees, just because we've evolved "more." the same bit says that darwin preferred the term adaptation, and the best example i've heard one of these folks use is an elephant vs. a wooly mammoth. which one is better? hard to say until you qualify it. now, which one is better suited to live in africa? the elephant, as poor wooly would overheat and die, and the flipside is true for an elephant in arctic climes.

now my question -- have you heard of this?"

I think that in "The Origin of Species",the word "evolve" is used only once,in the end of the book.
The word was intentionally avoided,but should not,deriving from greek and meaning "change",it should fit perfectly.

Should you let some steam out;
http://mchawking.imarc.net/songs/FtheCreationists.mp3

[rubthebuddha]

i thought so. i remember hearing that darwin's contemps initially wanted him to use the term evolution, much out of a h omo-centric attitude (earth revolves around humans ;)), and that darwin avoided this just because of that attitude. evolution as a term straight from webster does mean just change, but people always think of evolution as a refining process to make something appear to be better.

compare refining life to refining oil -- airplane fuel is no "better" than automotive fuel, or any other type of combustible. it's just been refined to work best within a certain environment. same as humans, and even unique races of humans. toss an irishman into south africa and see how well he gets along. it's all relative. put airplane fuel in your toyota and see how well the engine management software handles it.

[Former castleva]

"i thought so. i remember hearing that darwin's contemps initially wanted him to use the term evolution, much out of a h omo-centric attitude (earth revolves around humans ), and that darwin avoided this just because of that attitude. evolution as a term straight from webster does mean just change, but people always think of evolution as a refining process to make something appear to be better. "

Yeah.What it produces is variation.That´s a childish version of evolution which many people hold and then attack (progress) It starts from the assumption that nature "thinks" and "wishes" so to speak.Ants are a very good example,we think of them as lowly and simple,yet they have adapted with breathe taking talent,their history far outweighs any distant ancestor of man.And don´t even get me started on bacteria! ;)

[fa_jing]

I always had the same kind of objection as to the eye, except not to the eye. The example that struck me as a young lad, was the spinning Maple seed. For anyone that doesn't know, the seed of the Maple tree has a growth on the end of fibrous material that causes it to spin and glide like a helicopter as it falls, thus sending the seeds far away from the tree and from each other. This has the advantage of greater viability of the seeds and a greater chance of them becoming mature trees and reproducing. But, any intermediate form would offer no such advantage. It's almost as if the trees knew what the end result would be before the seeds began to evolve. OK, that's point #1.

Point #2: I do believe in change, look we have the same eyes as most mammals, 5 digits, if you ***** us, we bleed, there DO exist intermediate animals such as mudskippers and amphibians, etc. I have no doubt that we are closely related to apes and chimpanzees.

Point #3: At the heart of the evolution theory as espoused by many, is the contention that animate matter came from inanimate matter. Yet no scientist has created animate matter from inanimate matter in the lab, despite many attempts. Furthermore, I have read that the probability of all of the essential Amino Acids for life being formed in primordial Earth is so low, that some scientists believe that life did not begin on Earth, but must have come from outer space. This obviously raises it's own set of questions.

Personally, I think that there are some missing principles that can help to explain all of this, but the current theory of Evolution relying heavily on survival of the fittest, I feel is incomplete at best. JMO

[fa_jing]

PS The Hindus AFAIK believe that all matter is animate, and a book I read spoke of referred to an obscure experiment where a scientist supposedly created live, "wriggling" creatures out of crystal. Just illustrating that different religions have different takes on this issue.

[Chang Style Novice]

Yeah, it's the jump from no-life to life that's the REALLY big one to overcome. I took an astronomy class on the possibility of life on other planets once, and naturally we spent a fair amount of time discussing the likelihood that life could arise and therefore the circumstances of the one case where we know life did arise: ie, here.

My memory is a bit hazy, but the main thing is that in promordial soup you've got molecules that are polymers (aka chains or strings) of smaller molecules, and that fit with other complementary molecules. In other words, they look a bit like dna and can self replicate to a small degree. The next tricky part is getting them to actually form chains that are long, complex, and persistent enough to do a lot of self replicating. The model that's favored for that seems to be residue left in tide pools that dries up into a kind of goo (there's also some talk of clay-like deposits in think layers that can crystalize but later for that.) Of course, to have tides, you need a moon large enough to push and pull the ocean around. And the earth is the only planet in our solar system that has a moon big enough to do the job. Our instruments for detecting planets around distant stars have so far probably found gas giants, but gas giants don't have oceans to do the kind of job we're talking about, and we haven't yet found an earth-size planet out there becuase our instruments aren't sharp enough (or maybe there aren't any although I find that unlikely.) There's a loophole, though. What if you've got a moon with oceans orbiting a gas giant that causes tides on those oceans? We've actually seen this around Jupiter. The oceans of Io or whatever are frozen, but they are disrupted by tidal motion just the same.

Pretty neato, huh?

[MasterKiller]

Take the copy of 2010 back to the video store. You might want to return Old School: The Unrated Version while you are at it.

[Chang Style Novice]

2010 sucked ass. I don't know if Old School is any good, but some folks I know liked it.

Right now I'm not renting vids because a friend's been taping "The Wire" for me. Good stuff!

[fa_jing]

I'd like to see "Old School"

[fa_jing]

Oh, and I was thinking again about my point #1: maybe if we knew all of the wacked-out intermediate forms in between an ancient seed and a modern maple seed it would make more sense. A linear change from one to the other doesn't make sense, but I suppose that the helicopter type seed could have evolved from some other kind of intermediate form, that wasn't a "halfway-helicopter" but rather something else. It's obviously difficult to say, because we don't have any record of the intermediate forms in this particular case.

[Former castleva]

"Point #3: At the heart of the evolution theory as espoused by many, is the contention that animate matter came from inanimate matter. Yet no scientist has created animate matter from inanimate matter in the lab, despite many attempts. Furthermore, I have read that the probability of all of the essential Amino Acids for life being formed in primordial Earth is so low, that some scientists believe that life did not begin on Earth, but must have come from outer space. This obviously raises it's own set of questions."

Actually there have been certain experiments that provide insight.There are various hypotheses concerning this issue.
There´s nothing odd about extraterrestial influence,actually it may very well have been an essential part of it,early earth having taken an impact or two.Meteorites have prodived earth important "ingredients" needed for life to arise,namely carbon as an important point that there is not life,like us,without.Microbes may also have arrived.
It is also suspected that there might have been an attempt for life to begin on Mars.

"Point #2: I do believe in change, look we have the same eyes as most mammals, 5 digits, if you ***** us, we bleed, there DO exist intermediate animals such as mudskippers and amphibians, etc. I have no doubt that we are closely related to apes and chimpanzees. "

To not believe in change in the time of technology requires great ignorance.5 digits is a good example of connecting ****logous structures while I do not know what you exactly refer to with amphibians as an example,you could say that all life is "intermediate".


"Personally, I think that there are some missing principles that can help to explain all of this, but the current theory of Evolution relying heavily on survival of the fittest, I feel is incomplete at best. "

Relying on survival of the fittest,well OK.You might want to do some reading on the subject,since there are varying views.

[Chang Style Novice]

The big problem with saying life started on other planets and then migrated here is that it begs the larger question, "how did life get started in the first place?"

[ZIM]

These forums are great. You start a thread on science, you get religion, start one on religion you get science. Start one on kung fu, you get politics... :D

[MasterKiller]

To not believe in change in the time of technology requires great ignorance.

"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things."-- Buddha

Made sense 2,500 years ago, too.

[fa_jing]

Originally posted by Chang Style Novice
The big problem with saying life started on other planets and then migrated here is that it begs the larger question, "how did life get started in the first place?"

Hey let's divert into Existentialism! If at some point there was no life, and later there was, how is it that I exist, here and now? What is it about "me" that caused me to be included in this great history, at this particular time?

"The Anguish before the Here and Now"

heh hehe

Actually it's quite similar to mr. Aquinas' 5 points we were just reading...

is individuality an illusion?

nevermind ;)

[Former castleva]

You have a point for me around there MasterKiller?
Sure I´m aware that many things used to make sense 2500 years ago.

[MasterKiller]

You have a point for me around there MasterKiller? Uh...that change is the only constant, and that people understood that before this wonderous time of great technology.

Hey let's divert into Existentialism! If at some point there was no life, and later there was, how is it that I exist, here and now? What is it about "me" that caused me to be included in this great history, at this particular time?It's called "ice-skating." Whenever my mom and dad went "ice-skating" in their bedroom, I would get a new brother.

[Former castleva]

Sure MK.Sorry for appearing slow.

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by fa_jing
What is it about "me" that caused me to be included in this great history, at this particular time?

There's nothing about you that caused this; it was forced upon you by the desire of the Other. The desire of the Other causing your birth, the language of the Other forced upon you, inhabitaing and alienating you; and what 'you' are is that alienation. Haha, Lacan.


is individuality an illusion?

Hrmmm... seems to me that any sort of multiplicity is ultimately a metaphysical impossibility. I'm not sure what you mean by individuality, but assume it's necessarily a kind of multiplicity. Insofar as multiplicity is an "illusion" neccesarily generated by percieving (ie. organizing) unity along certain axes, it could be that existential individuality is a necessary condition arising from any unity that contains movement (ie. isn't non-existant).

... I know what you mean about the helicopter leaf; I think this thing is a conceptual problem; you can find it in a grain of sand or in a star. The ironic thing is that the only people who think "more than Darwin"/"more than natural selection" is unscientific or dubious are laymen. A wide variety of this "more" counts among the basics of modern evolutionary biology. BTW, have you heard of Goethian science? Your discussion of the plant reminded me of it. Could be an interesting read over Google... (too swamped now to find links)

[Kuen]

F**k the Creationists (http://mchawking.imarc.net/songs/FtheCreationists.mp3)

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Actually there have been certain experiments that provide insight.There are various hypotheses concerning this issue.

You sound here like the "qi is scienctific" crowd you debate with in the other forum. :p

[Former castleva]

Do we need this?
I did not make that up.Neither was I saying that we have it all down already.Period.

[Christopher M]

You're misread me, friend. I never suggested anything was made up.

[Former castleva]

I see. :confused: :)

[tnwingtsun]

“I believe in design because I believe in God, not in a God because I see design”



http://www.leaderu.com/focus/intdesign.html

[Chang Style Novice]

A Blind Watchmaker is just plain bullsh!t.

[tnwingtsun]

A message from heaven for all of you pagen heathenz.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030630.html?list=true

[TonyM.]

ROTFLMAO! A gas cloud steeple. What were the odds.

[Chang Style Novice]

That's actually a message from the cosmos to those who think creation is easily understood.

[MasterKiller]

Jesus is all over the place (http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/electronic-publications/stay-free/5/jesus.htm)

[rubthebuddha]

i guess the big question of the day -- why the **** would the divine savior show up as skillet burns on a ****ing tortilla?

maybe there's no better way to gain followers than to show up on the wrap for a freakin burrito, i don't know.

**** thing better be flour though, cause i won't tolerate any stinkin corn tortilla. hate them things.

[MasterKiller]

why the **** would the divine savior show up as skillet burns on a ****ing tortilla? HIS logic is beyond our comprehension. You just have to have faith that showing up on a tortilla serves a greater purpose.

[Former castleva]

He must be joking...
Anyway,is there a single pagan in the house?
I think the word has been abused to a good degree.

[MasterKiller]

I bet Jesus showed up HERE (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030710/sc_nm/space_planet_dc_2) about 12, 999, 995,000 years ago, just after God created the Universe. And to think, all this time, we thought Earth was where all that Bible stuff took place.

[Chang Style Novice]

That planet is a very poor nominee for current alien life, if you prefer science to religion as a predictor of such things. As you should.

[MasterKiller]

Sure, now, because Jesus took all of them to heaven about 12, 999, 993,000 years ago. Once the meek inhereited that place, it went downhill.

[MasterKiller]

Want proof of Jesus? Ask Deion Sanders! (http://espn.go.com/nfl/news/2003/0714/1580339.html)

[Chang Style Novice]

Sure it's hilarious - but is it a parody? (http://objective.jesussave.us/creationsciencefair.html)

[rubthebuddha]

on chang's link, there's one label near the top of the page that says it all:


Turn to OBJECTIVE for an objective Christian perspective :rolleyes:

[Ming Yue]

I can't believe that "The Thermodynamics of Hellfire" only got an honorable mention.

[norther practitioner]

Lisa presents Homer with a Perpetual Motion Machine
Homer yells, "In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"

sorry just a classic Simpsons' moment I needed to share.


by the way, those links are all pretty funny

[Former castleva]

Ha,haa,that site is funny,seen it before.

What really breaks your heart is that you cannot really say whether it should be parody or not,it is not far away from the "truth" that public schools (of America) are being fed with force right now.It may very well be a parody,but you can´t really say...

[Chang Style Novice]

Well, I finally found something that convinced me it IS in fact a parody. But FC is right, it's entirely too plausible.

[The Willow Sword]

1st Place: "My Uncle Is A Man Named Steve (Not A Monkey)"
Cassidy Turnbull (grade 5) presented her uncle, Steve. She also showed photographs of monkeys and invited fairgoers to note the differences between her uncle and the monkeys. She tried to feed her uncle bananas, but he declined to eat them. Cassidy has conclusively shown that her uncle is no monkey.

2nd Place: "Pine Cones Are Complicated"
David Block and Trevor Murry (grades 4) showed how specifically complicated pine cones are and how they reveal God's design in nature.

Honorable Mention:
"God Made Kitty" - Sally Reister (grade 3)
"The Bible Says Creation" - Aaron Kent (grade 5)
"Pokemon Prove Evolutionism Is False" - Paul Sanborn (grade 4)


i posted this from the site that CSN linked us to. i was on the floor, hahahahahaha

[The Willow Sword]

religious discussion
www.jesusdressup.com

[The Willow Sword]

:D

[themeecer]

Guys, all I am going to say is there will come a time when you look back on your words here with sorrow. You make a mockery of God now but someday you will be begging for forgiveness. I just hope that you do it on this side of the grave, while there is still time. If not, I'll shake the dust off my shoes and bid you adieu.

[Chang Style Novice]

EDIT -- DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC, DNFTEC

[themeecer]

Well dang it .. since you edited your comment I had to edit my response. What fun are you. :D

[shaolin kungfu]

Don't worry folks, I saw his response before he edited it. It's exactly what he said before.

Basically, "I can't tell you anything, you wouldn't believe me if i did, so i won't try. You should all be ashamed. God mentioned you in his book. Etc, etc, etc."

[themeecer]

Real mature shaolin kungfu. When someone deletes a post and you have immediately quoted the post, it is courteous to delete your reply as well. Nice going.

[Chang Style Novice]

Sigh - okay, since my reply has come to be a topic, I'll repost it.

Basically, I said that themeecer was avoiding any real debate, as he had ample opportunity to contribute before (I saw him lurking in the thread, even) and has still failed to back up his assertion that he understands evolutionary theory in the least, and is therefore unqualified to comment on its truth or falsehood. I said it meaner and ruder than that, though.

And once again: I don't begrudge anyone of any faith they may have. I just don't want religion confused with science.

[shaolin kungfu]

And he did the same thing he was doing before, and even didn't offer a real response. I fail to see how your post affected his, but I geuss it did.

Edit: now that i think about it, it did. He said he had schooling in biology. But then again, most of the post was about how we should repent before we die, and how he wasn't going to cast any more pearls. Nothing specific about why he did not believe evolution.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by themeecer
Guys, all I am going to say is there will come a time when you look back on your words here with sorrow. You make a mockery of God now but someday you will be begging for forgiveness. I just hope that you do it on this side of the grave, while there is still time. If not, I'll shake the dust off my shoes and bid you adieu.

You see, it's stuff like this that really p!sses me off.

You have your beliefs, meecer, that's fine. You can believe what you want. But don't you dare try to talk all superior and tell others that what they believe and do is wrong.

There are people that believe with all their being in gods other than yours and they're convinced that they're right too. You can't all be right... or can you?

What are you going to do if after this life of blinkered, blind faith that you've led you discover Ganesh, the Hindu god, at the pearly gates? By your very own standards it could happen - that god is just as real for some people as yours is for you.

You say people make a mockery of god? Well, your god maybe. It's quite possible that that very post of yours is making a mockery of their god.

Believe what you like, but don't try all that fire and fear sh!t on others just because it's got you brainwashed.

[themeecer]

The difference between my religion and almost all others is that in their "plan" you have to work your way to heaven. In mine it is impossible to work your way there, it is given as a gift. They try to work their way to God, in mine God comes to you.

And no, we can't all be right. Jesus himself said he was the only way to the father.

Brainwashed? Lol. I like that. I've been heart washed.

[shaolin kungfu]

So your saying christianity is lazy? :p

IMO, it's better to start with the assumption that we are imperfect, rather than the assumption that we are the best we can possibly be. It's more realistic, and gives us something to work for.

[Serpent]

Originally posted by themeecer
The difference between my religion and almost all others is that in their "plan" you have to work your way to heaven. In mine it is impossible to work your way there, it is given as a gift. They try to work their way to God, in mine God comes to you.


So what? What does that have to do with anything discussed here?



And no, we can't all be right. Jesus himself said he was the only way to the father.


To your "father", sure. That doesn't mean d!ck to people of other religions.



Brainwashed? Lol. I like that. I've been heart washed.

Good grief.

[themeecer]

So what? What does that have to do with anything discussed here?
Oh, I'm sorry. I thought the name of this thread was "Religious discussion." I must have misread it.

[Serpent]

meecer:

My post:



You have your beliefs, meecer, that's fine. You can believe what you want. But don't you dare try to talk all superior and tell others that what they believe and do is wrong.

There are people that believe with all their being in gods other than yours and they're convinced that they're right too. You can't all be right... or can you?

What are you going to do if after this life of blinkered, blind faith that you've led you discover Ganesh, the Hindu god, at the pearly gates? By your very own standards it could happen - that god is just as real for some people as yours is for you.

You say people make a mockery of god? Well, your god maybe. It's quite possible that that very post of yours is making a mockery of their god.

Believe what you like, but don't try all that fire and fear sh!t on others just because it's got you brainwashed.


Your post:



The difference between my religion and almost all others is that in their "plan" you have to work your way to heaven. In mine it is impossible to work your way there, it is given as a gift. They try to work their way to God, in mine God comes to you.

And no, we can't all be right. Jesus himself said he was the only way to the father.

Brainwashed? Lol. I like that. I've been heart washed.


Sure, the name of this thread is Religious Discussion. However, you posted the above in response to my post and it has no relevance whatsoever. If it was just a general post in the theme of the thread then fine, but you should qualify it as such. However, the fact that you referenced my post directly:



Brainwashed? Lol. I like that. I've been heart washed.


would seem to indicate otherwise.

Or are you just reading selectively again?

[themeecer]

Brother.

You said:

There are people that believe with all their being in gods other than yours and they're convinced that they're right too. You can't all be right... or can you?

I said:

The difference between my religion and almost all others is that in their "plan" you have to work your way to heaven. In mine it is impossible to work your way there, it is given as a gift. They try to work their way to God, in mine God comes to you.

And no, we can't all be right. Jesus himself said he was the only way to the father.

You mentioned other religions, I told you how we are different. You said you can't all be right, I said no. Seems very related to what you stated.

[Serpent]

I'm still having trouble seeing how it's related. Is this how you are suggesting that your religion is the "right" one? Is that the connection?

Either way, describing your religions "plan" is a moot point anyway, really. A lot of religions don't have a god per se, and they would still be offended by your suggestion that:



someday you will be begging for forgiveness. I just hope that you do it on this side of the grave, while there is still time. If not, I'll shake the dust off my shoes and bid you adieu.


While your religion might be just dandy for you, it doesn't suit others, whatever there "plans" may be. Trying to justify your religion as the only correct one against the beliefs of others is the utmost arrogance.

[themeecer]

Haha. Well then Jesus was arrogant, I was only quoting him.

And make up your mind, you were the one that first said "you can't all be right."

Edit: I'll come back to this later. Maybe after a night's sleep. I had a great workout today in private lessons and then again teaching class. Bed sounds really good. Let me rub on some dit dow on these forearms and kick back and relax.

[Serpent]

Actually I said, "You can't all be right... Or can you?"

Personally I think you can all be right and wrong at the same time, but that in itself is a huge discussion.

And as for Jesus, how do you know you were quoting him? He wrote nothing (allegedly) - it was all his disciples and apostles that wrote stuff (supposedly) which has since been systematically corrupted and *******ised to suit the church/government/whatever of the time.

Truth be told, Jesus was almost certainly just a dark skinned hippy with some pretty radical political ideas who has since been turned into a holy, white, blond messiah by generations of idiots. All that really started with Paul turning the cult of Christianity into a fairly major force and even he was busy some years after the supposed life of Christ ended. So don't go telling me that you're "quoting Jesus"! ;)

[themeecer]

One question at a time. Like I said .. I'm headed to bed now. If you want to talk about the "chances" that Christ said what is accounted in the modern bible and some other so called "big" claims check out the book The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. A fascinating read.

[joedoe]

Originally posted by Serpent
Actually I said, "You can't all be right... Or can you?"

Personally I think you can all be right and wrong at the same time, but that in itself is a huge discussion.

And as for Jesus, how do you know you were quoting him? He wrote nothing (allegedly) - it was all his disciples and apostles that wrote stuff (supposedly) which has since been systematically corrupted and *******ised to suit the church/government/whatever of the time.

Truth be told, Jesus was almost certainly just a dark skinned hippy with some pretty radical political ideas who has since been turned into a holy, white, blond messiah by generations of idiots. All that really started with Paul turning the cult of Christianity into a fairly major force and even he was busy some years after the supposed life of Christ ended. So don't go telling me that you're "quoting Jesus"! ;)

Not to mention the possible loss of meaning through translation ;)

[Serpent]

Don't start that again. Every time someone mentions something that might contra or challenge your beliefs you say, "Go read this book" or "that website".

No dice.

I could point you to a whole bunch of books for the case against Christ. But what's the point.

You claim that you were quoting Jesus. Not a chance. You simply cannot prove that. In fact, the evidence is heavily against it. Still, what do you care for actual evidence of anything?

Anyway, I thought you were going to bed? :p

[dezhen2001]

oh a christianity against the rest of the world debate - what fun :p I wont even bother discussing what Muslims think :D As we say "to you your beliefs and to me mine" :)

dawood

[Chang Style Novice]

Look! A Mohammedean! Let's get him!

Edit - I'm joking of course. And while I love the sentiment behind your adage there, I think it's worth pointing out that some segments of Islam are every bit the fervent prosteletyzers (and intolerant of non-Muslims) as the worst Christians.

[David Jamieson]

Edit - I'm joking of course. And while I love the sentiment behind your adage there, I think it's worth pointing out that some segments of Islam are every bit the fervent prosteletyzers (and intolerant of non-Muslims) as the worst Christians.

That could be said of every religion. In some way shape or form, some selff appointed representitive of each religion will attempt to prove that their way or perspective is the true one.

I find this to be a predominant feature of organized religion.

IE: exclusionary

It's funny, because none of them can prove a darn thing! It's faith based people! It's belief! It has little or nothing to do with the secular realities of day to day life.

Religion serves as a guide to those who do not understand how to walk through a mere existance and gives them a sense of purpose that they could not otherwise find.

The need to believe that everything will be alright and that there is some omnipitent figure overseeing your desitiny and life. It almost seems like a refusal to grow up and take responsibility for the entirity of your being.

The one thing religion offers that I personally see value in is the community of the church/coven/whatever.

It is this community that is the key to a better life and a worthwhile existance here on planet earth. The rest is bollocks as far as I'm concerned.

thank you for reading this rant

cheers

[MasterKiller]

The need to believe that everything will be alright and that there is some omnipitent figure overseeing your desitiny and life. It almost seems like a refusal to grow up and take responsibility for the entirity of your being. Of course, you are only referring to people who follow a religion that believes an omnipotent figure is controlling their affairs; there are other religions which do not accept this belief and lay the burden of accountability on the individual.

[David Jamieson]

Of course, you are only referring to people who follow a religion that believes an omnipotent figure is controlling their affairs; there are other religions which do not accept this belief and lay the burden of accountability on the individual.

the burden of accountability on the individual is found in philosophies and not in religions per se. So, if you are speaking of Buddhism for instance, I agree, but if you are talking about mainstream religions such as judeao-christian, islam, hinduism and other "god" based belief systems, then I don't know which one of these truly brings the "individual" to the forefront.

cheers

[dezhen2001]

CSN: true - but thats coz they are arseholes and dont read whats in Quran, instead follow cultural prejudice. Unfortunately i have seen it around me all the time from all walks of life :(

Kung Lek: as themeecer kinda hinted to... Judaism and Islam are a bit different to Christianity. In that its our individual choices and deeds that are every bit as important as our belief in God (Islam here not 100% on Judaism). ie. its our actions, but our actions based on BELIEF which count the most. Also those who DONT have that believe will be dealt with justly. Thats why giving charity and other things is so important (as an example of a deed) and in Islam is one of the 5 "pillars" :)

So thats pretty much the opposite of Christianity as themeecer described it.

dawood

[ewallace]

Religion serves as a guide to those who do not understand how to walk through a mere existance and gives them a sense of purpose that they could not otherwise find.

:rolleyes:
That ranks up there with the most ignorant statements I have read on this forum.

Actually that ranks up there with the most ignorant statements I have heard anywhere.

[David Jamieson]

ok ewallace, in your glorious and "not" ignorant wisdom, you tell me what religion provides?

Religion is at it's base a guide for living. It is an outline for how to walk through life in accordance with the accepted behaviours of a given society or culture.

Care to expand beyond "oooh that's ignorant" :rolleyes:

cheers

[ewallace]

Martial arts serves as a guide to those who would otherwise get their ass kicked and gives them a sense of security they could otherwise not find.

If you can't see the ignorance in the above statement I will explain further.

[David Jamieson]

apples and oranges ewallace.

martial arts and religion are not the same. Martial arts are tangible skills gained through work over time.

religion is not tangible, it is a belief system. It guides ones actions through it's tenets but requires no hard skill development or work, just the decision to believe.

you are failing to see the difference.

cheers

[ewallace]

It really had nothing to do with martial arts. It had to do with making a blanket statement about a group of people who have many differents methods and beliefs.

Your statement was a blanket statement about all followers of religion. I would be delighted to know how you stumbled upon the idea that everyone who follows a religion would not "understand" how to live their life without it. I am also curious how you know that everyone who follows a religion has a "sense of purpose that they could not otherwise find.".

Have you talked to them all?

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by themeecer
Haha. Well then Jesus was arrogant, I was only quoting him.

Well... you're quoting the Protestant interpretation of [a twice-translated second-hand account of] Jesus. Non-Protestant Christianity doesn't take that remark to be indicative of an exclusionary process against other religions.

[David Jamieson]

Your statement was a blanket statement about all followers of religion. I would be delighted to know how you stumbled upon the idea that everyone who follows a religion would not "understand" how to live their life without it. I am also curious how you know that everyone who follows a religion has a "sense of purpose that they could not otherwise find.".

Then explain what is the core purpose of religious doctrine and dogma which comprise the tenets of any given "religion"?

What is it in a persons life that leads them to think they have to believe in some higher power beyond the extension of themselves, the people around them and experience if it isn't an unsureness in ones self? If it is not an uncertainty in someones life then why be drawn to the doctrinal and dogmatic practices to bring meaning to your own life? I'm sure one could find it without a religion.

cheers

[Christopher M]

Originally posted by dezhen2001
Judaism and Islam are a bit different to Christianity. In that its our individual choices and deeds that are every bit as important as our belief in God

Again, you've got to distinguish between Protestantism and Orthodox/Catholicism. Protestantism is close to what you describe for Christianity (grace through faith and scripture), Orthodox/Catholicism is not (grace through faith and works).