NationStates Jolt Archive

Actually, Evolution is not so logical as people like to think. Look at the world today. EVERYTHING is degenerating, breaking down. I would also like to ask a question. How many observed mutations in favor of evolution have actually created a NEW element, a new gene? This would be necessary for species to become more complex. Unless something new has been created during this mutation, all you have done is use pre-existing building blocks to make this "evolution." In fact, natural selection seems to agree with many Creationist's interpretation of the origin. God made every type of animal, probably dog-kind, cat-kind, cow-kind, etc. Contained in every animal would be the genes necessary for adaptation. Natural selection then breeds animals in certain areas for certain traits, and different traits in different areas.

what do you mean everything is degenerating?

And new elements are created quite often. Can be from anything from incorrect copying to radiation exposure leading to creating a new gene.

((This is a long read, if you have time to read it go ahead. And I have chosen both.))

Cut: A bunch of bull demonstrating that whoever wrote this knows only enough about science to be wrong about it and only enough about their religion to erroneously think that everyone believes the same thing just because one person said it was so

Yeah, except most everything in that, especially about those of us who accept creation and evolution, was WRONG. (in caps to emphasize.)

Well, I am going to go now, but I would like to leave a final word.
Jeldred, I know that you will not be convinced by me or by anyone else in this forum, which is why I have decided to not participate anymore. However, you mention that you don't understand how so many people cling to these beliefs. Shouldn't this tell you something? Shouldn't the fact that Christians are the most abundant religion in the world, by far, say something. If these stories are so absurd, why do so many believe them? I would suggest that you do a serious study on the beliefs of Christianity and also the theory of Evolution. Look at both sides unbiased. I won't convince you, but maybe an open-minded approach to all this will help you put it in perspective.
Just saying. God Bless. I'm praying.

In response to several posts at once:

"And while some interpretations do allow statements in the Bible to show the world to be spherical, there are some statements that require that a person on a high mountain can see all the world."
"All the world" at the time of the Bible was, in fact, Europe and parts of Asia. To a person then, North America, much of Asia, Australia, Parts of Africa, were beyond Unknown, to them, they probably didn't exist. The Bible was written to all times, not just ours.

"Further, how could an infinitely powerful, infinitely good Supreme Being condemn other, lesser creatures to eternal punishment."
How can we be condemned? Well, we are subservient, and we did wrong. We sinned against Him, and continue to do so. He is not "infinitely good" he is more like infinitely just. His Justice is eternal, He knows what is always right, and always will.

"Any Supreme Being would be so far above and beyond any of us that to try to stick it down to the somewhat unimaginative stories concocted by, to be blunt, pig-ignorant desert yokels some 3,000 years ago seems a trifle daft to me."
That is the point exactly! He didn't use the kings, and since the Bible is a work of prose, not of fiction, why does it need to be imaginative? History isn't imaginative, it's true. They weren't really pig-ignorant either, if you look thru the Bible, some quite important people were important in the faith (Governers, Paul, etc), but those who were, showed that God loved us all. At the time, the higher people would have you believe that they were superior, God needed someone who would be able to go to all people on their level.

"And new elements are created quite often."
If, by elements, you mean atomic structures, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. There are no more, no less. If you mean by genes, again, you are wrong. The whole "new genes thru radiation" thing is wrong. When a gene comes into contact with radiation, it is ripped asunder. Torn. Not created.

Actually, Evolution is not so logical as people like to think. Look at the world today. EVERYTHING is degenerating, breaking down. I would also like to ask a question. How many observed mutations in favor of evolution have actually created a NEW element, a new gene? This would be necessary for species to become more complex. Unless something new has been created during this mutation, all you have done is use pre-existing building blocks to make this "evolution." In fact, natural selection seems to agree with many Creationist's interpretation of the origin. God made every type of animal, probably dog-kind, cat-kind, cow-kind, etc. Contained in every animal would be the genes necessary for adaptation. Natural selection then breeds animals in certain areas for certain traits, and different traits in different areas.
I have, as have other people in this thread. I have an unnerving feeling that you are going to cite the second law of thermodynamics next...

San haiti said:

"probably wont happen. The universe is thought at the moment to not have enough mass in it to start a contraction to an eventual big crunch. Besides if your model did go on for ever, the laws of entropy would need rather a lot of work."

Actually, life is a bend of the entropy laws. According to the law of entropy, life is not possible. But somehow the cell has the power to fight the natural tendency of matter to reach a state of less energy. This happens at the expense of energy, using gradients and entropy itself to fight entropy. Why? Who knows? Maybe only God, if it exists.

So I don't see why the universe cannot contract after expanding. We never saw it. Maybe the universe is part of a bigger system. A parallel universe that contracts while this one expands and expands while this one contracts. No one knows.


As for the bible: I don't understand how people can believe in a work made by men. Men that liked to control people. Men that liked power.

It's like in a thousand years, if Bush started world war 3 and only republicans lived, everyone would follow him, brainwashed from birth, like North Koreans. And then a book saying how Georgios Bushamoth saved humanity, etc. And how god created capitalism.

If you, bible quoters, raised you eyes from the bible and looked at the world you live in, you would see that people are easily misleaded. Beliefs are the bullets of the wicked.


Just look at North Korea. Most North Koreans think that their dictator, Kim Jong Il, is divine. DIVINE. Why? Because they are brainwashed with propaganda from an early age. They hear nothing else except good things about their leader. Any information from the outside world is heavily censored. The only foreign books available are programation books and shit like that, that won't pollute people's minds and that allow North Korea to evolve technologically (for military, basically).

I saw a documentary, completely impartial, about the country. There wasn't a single adjective in the descriptions of things. And all you see is gray. The documentary was in colour but the country is gray. All the buildings are gray, people wear almost no colour, the streets are gray. There is not a laugh heard, there is no joy, no life. It's disgusting.

The tourist guides (amazingly, tourism is allowed) take the documentary crew to these special colourful palaces made for tourists, where little girls dance in this perfect, flawless synchrony, product of rigid training.
They also take the crew to museums. They showed one dedicated to Kim Jong Il, full of propaganda, and how he came from the heavens, etc, and one about North Korean history, with a huge area dedicated to the wars against N. Korea's enemies, which proudly exhibits remainings of american planes, etc.
And in the background, always following the documentary crew and the guide, there are two or three government officials always hearing what is being said and examining what is being filmed.

The crew also travelled without guides and showed the misery, injustice, poverty and hunger that goes outside of the capital. Some people even resort to caniballism to calm their hunger. Well, they eat dead people, they don't kill to eat. And there was a story of a group that mutilated themselves just to eat.


So, people in North Korea, the ones that aren't starving to death, think that Kim Jon Il is a god. They truly believe it, since it has been "shown" to them since birth. Does this mean that Lil' Kim is a god?

I guess not. Although these people believe it.
Just like some of you believe in the bible. Just because you were raised as christians, believing that the bible is true, etc, it doesn't mean you are right. The bible was written by men. NORMAL men. Not divine, not enlightened.

Research more about the doings of the church throughout centuries, about the inquisition, about the censorship and the book burning. They used to burn anything that could have taken credibility away from the bible. Like the nazis and the burning of books.
Just so they could remain powerful.
And who knows what knowledges those books possessed? Great parts of the history of humanity have probably vanished in the fires of truly evil men. Men of God...

fuck

Well, I am going to go now, but I would like to leave a final word.
Jeldred, I know that you will not be convinced by me or by anyone else in this forum, which is why I have decided to not participate anymore. However, you mention that you don't understand how so many people cling to these beliefs. Shouldn't this tell you something? Shouldn't the fact that Christians are the most abundant religion in the world, by far, say something. If these stories are so absurd, why do so many believe them? I would suggest that you do a serious study on the beliefs of Christianity and also the theory of Evolution. Look at both sides unbiased. I won't convince you, but maybe an open-minded approach to all this will help you put it in perspective.
Just saying. God Bless. I'm praying.

Well, thanks for your participation, but the number of people believing in various versions of Christianity to various degrees of literality doesn't really mean much to me, I'm afraid -- especially when you correlate the spread of committed Christianity with access to high-quality education. I'm not trying to be offensive here but, in general, you get deeper faith in religion where educational provision is most restricted. This is not to say that all religious people are stupid, or even just uneducated -- but it is indisputably the case that ignorance and religion go hand in hand the world over.

People the world over have believed absurd stories for thousands of years. For over 95% of human existence, practically all human beings would have believed -- if they thought about it much at all -- that the earth was flat. They were all of them, to a man, woman and child, flat wrong. Truth is not democratic, and isn't based on a majority decision.

I have a pretty fair grounding in the main tenets of Christianity, and probably a better knowledge of the history of the religion than most. I'm slightly surprised that so few Christians here seem to know very much about where their religion came from, or even what their stories say. I've also got a reasonably good layman's grasp of the basics of mythology. My understanding of the theory of evolution is far from perfect but I get the basics: time and chance.

I can appreciate the difference between faith and science, too. Faith involves believing something for no rational reason -- an idea I really don't get -- and science involves working out explanations for things based on the available evidence. It is unbiased, and open to all, and does not demand blind faith before you start. It is international, and contains its own error-correcting mechanism. One earlier poster thought to criticise science for constantly changing its mind over the date of the earth -- failing to grasp that this is science's strength: the ability to change with new information, to correct, to adjust as our knowledge increases, and not sit shut inside some rigid, unchanging, ossifying tower whose day has long passed.

Thanks for the prayer. I can only take it in the spirit that it's offered. I can't reciprocate but I can suggest a good book: The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan.

Alpawn... Hahaha.. wrote:

"If, by elements, you mean atomic structures, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. There are no more, no less. If you mean by genes, again, you are wrong. The whole "new genes thru radiation" thing is wrong. When a gene comes into contact with radiation, it is ripped asunder. Torn. Not created."


This comment just shows your utter ignorance.

Did you know that the sun gives out light and heat by transforming hydrogen into helium? Well that's a new atomic structure to me.

As for that ignorant gene related comment: At least know the subjects you are talking about before you use science to support your magical theories. Even google will help you learn more about it.



And thanks to Guvegrra and Jeldred. At least some people think instead of just accepting or denying ideas against all logic and empirical AND scientifical observation.

In response to several posts at once:

"And while some interpretations do allow statements in the Bible to show the world to be spherical, there are some statements that require that a person on a high mountain can see all the world."
"All the world" at the time of the Bible was, in fact, Europe and parts of Asia. To a person then, North America, much of Asia, Australia, Parts of Africa, were beyond Unknown, to them, they probably didn't exist. The Bible was written to all times, not just ours.

But not, apparently, for anyone in North America (and, surely, South America), much of Asia, Australia etc etc etc. But it would still have to be a bloody big mountain which would let you see the whole Roman Empire, let alone the Persian Empire and parts beyond.

"Further, how could an infinitely powerful, infinitely good Supreme Being condemn other, lesser creatures to eternal punishment."
How can we be condemned? Well, we are subservient, and we did wrong. We sinned against Him, and continue to do so. He is not "infinitely good" he is more like infinitely just. His Justice is eternal, He knows what is always right, and always will.

Well, if he's not infinitely good -- screw him. Like I said before, I demand more from my supreme beings.

"Any Supreme Being would be so far above and beyond any of us that to try to stick it down to the somewhat unimaginative stories concocted by, to be blunt, pig-ignorant desert yokels some 3,000 years ago seems a trifle daft to me."
That is the point exactly! He didn't use the kings, and since the Bible is a work of prose, not of fiction, why does it need to be imaginative? History isn't imaginative, it's true. They weren't really pig-ignorant either, if you look thru the Bible, some quite important people were important in the faith (Governers, Paul, etc), but those who were, showed that God loved us all. At the time, the higher people would have you believe that they were superior, God needed someone who would be able to go to all people on their level.

Being important is not the same thing as not being ignorant. And prose just means "not in verse": practically all fiction, with the honourable exception of Dr Seuss and his kind, is prose. And much of history is imaginative, since we do not have perfect records, and what we do have is often -- ususally -- slanted by the original author and/or his interpreter(s). The Bible is mostly mythologised and/or extremely slanted history.

"And new elements are created quite often."
If, by elements, you mean atomic structures, I'm afraid you're sadly mistaken. There are no more, no less. If you mean by genes, again, you are wrong. The whole "new genes thru radiation" thing is wrong. When a gene comes into contact with radiation, it is ripped asunder. Torn. Not created.

Genes are not "ripped asunder" by radiation, unless you're talking about nuclear bomb levels. Changes can be caused by radiation as atoms are knocked away and the chemistry is altered. Further, not all mutation is caused by radiation: most of it is just simple error on the part of the enzymes doing the replication.

I can appreciate the difference between faith and science, too. Faith involves believing something for no rational reason -- an idea I really don't get -- and science involves working out explanations for things based on the available evidence. It is unbiased, and open to all, and does not demand blind faith before you start. It is international, and contains its own error-correcting mechanism. One earlier poster thought to criticise science for constantly changing its mind over the date of the earth -- failing to grasp that this is science's strength: the ability to change with new information, to correct, to adjust as our knowledge increases, and not sit shut inside some rigid, unchanging, ossifying tower whose day has long passed.


Oh my god? Does that mean that... SCIENCE EVOLVES?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

hahaha.

Carl Sagan is the bomb. And have you heard about the Gaia Theory, Jeldred? Sagan's wife, Lynn Margulis, the proposer of the now greatly accepted endosymbiotic hypothesis is a proponent of that theory. It's very interesting.

And it's far more credible than the "bearded geezer in the sky" story.

May Gaia spare us, hehe.

Oh my god? Does that mean that... SCIENCE EVOLVES?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

hahaha.

Carl Sagan is the bomb. And have you heard about the Gaia Theory, Jeldred? Sagan's wife, Lynn Margulis, the proposer of the now greatly accepted endosymbiotic hypothesis is a proponent of that theory. It's very interesting.

And it's far more credible than the "bearded geezer in the sky" story.

May Gaia spare us, hehe.

I know a bit about Lovelock's "Daisyworld" and biofeedback and the like, but I didn't know Margulis was working on it. I'll need to dig around.

this. thread. is. getting. long. and. tedious. i. need. to. break. a. little. from. the. thread....feel. very. free. to. telegram. or email. or. msn. me. if. you're. really. really. wanting. to. continue. this.

What about it? Frankly, I don't believe that we as humans have it at all and we all live in one big determinist world. :)

Well, I am going to go now, but I would like to leave a final word.
Jeldred, I know that you will not be convinced by me or by anyone else in this forum, which is why I have decided to not participate anymore. However, you mention that you don't understand how so many people cling to these beliefs. Shouldn't this tell you something? Shouldn't the fact that Christians are the most abundant religion in the world, by far, say something. If these stories are so absurd, why do so many believe them? I would suggest that you do a serious study on the beliefs of Christianity and also the theory of Evolution. Look at both sides unbiased. I won't convince you, but maybe an open-minded approach to all this will help you put it in perspective.
Just saying. God Bless. I'm praying.

The overwhelming majority of Christians do not believe in creation or a literal interpretation of the Bible, including all mainstream sects except for Southern Baptist and Pentacostal.

Don't try to claim majority status when you do not have it. All bar one of the plaintiffs in the Scopes "Monkey" Trial were Ministers of Religion. It is only a few vocal Christian minorities, mostly US-based, who still believe in Creationism, and they are split amongst the various variants of Creationism.

Ok. Cyclic universe - nothing 'before' the original Big Bang. Now, pay attention.

1. Big Bang (singularity of a black hole, collapsing due to lack of gravity due to a lack of any other matter)

2. Growing universe (black holes form as giant stars collapse)

3. Build up of black holes (once created, black holes cannot be destroyed)

4 All matter ends up in black holes (left with a single singularity)

5. Singulatiry explodes (due to lack of gravity due to lack of other any other matter) Second Big Bang.

6. Repeat.

Now, this isn't the only theory, but it is the one I adhere to. It leaves room for God (something had to start the cycle). It explains why humans will never be able to prove or disprove God... we cannot base anything on the happens that occur outside our universe (ie, before or after the Big Bang that started *our* universe). It's supported by current science.

Now, for the mechanics. You *can* ignore this long segment, but only if you don't plan on *refuting* my system. You can't say 'but gravity always exists' unless you read this section, ok?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gravity is essentially the attraction between object A and object B. In a vacume (ie, vast tracts of space), no gravity can act on object A unless there is an object B. If you have an entire universe filled with nothing (giant vacume), and then you put a plastic block into it, there would be no gravity acting on it. The block would stay the same.

However, if you took a black hole, which can only exist due to the gravity that holds it together, and put it into a vacume, logic dictates it would expand (Big Bang phenomenae).

Now, objects that go into a black hole do not remain as they are. They are crushed down, not only into their component atoms, but into their component sub-atomic particles. Essentially, as small as it is physically possible to be. Thus, when the black hole collapses, the particles then released will not be recognisable as whatever they were before entering the black hole.

Black holes, when they meet, join to form a bigger black hole. They cannot be destroyed by anything that physics can currently imagine. Thus, black holes will simply accumulate until there is nothing left for them to engulf.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, if anyone wants to discuss this further, you can email me at sharnofshade at hotmail dot com. Adding me to MSN will only work if I recognise you from here (since occasionally random people add me... if I don't know you, you risk getting blocked and ignored... emailing me before adding me tends to help).

I won't discuss it further here, because it's off topic. I also want all the pro-creationists to realise I'm not saying that God has no part to play in the world... I'm just saying that I believe that God and science can interact. And, unfortunately, I do not believe that the bible is unquestionably true (due to human flaws, not because I don't believe in God). I'm always willing to discuss that too.

And now, back to the discussion :D

What about it? Frankly, I don't believe that we as humans have it at all and we all live in one big determinist world. :)

1) determinisme does not exclude free will at all

2) it can be argued that we are more free in a deterministic world than in an indeterministic world.

My problem with the theory that God was the initiator of the big bang is that to me that simply suggests god = the current theory of big bang initiation e.g. dimensions crashing into each other (sorry if that is an incorrect interpretation of string theory, time is short so no time to properly research it). This to Me is as logical or illogical worshipping the sun as a God. besides, what was God doing when there wasn't anything, before the big bang. He must have been seriously bored. Then again if before the big bang time didn't exist... (this is not My area so i'll shut up)

*Right I'm sorry if someone has already made this point but I got upto message #285 and thought I'd have my say. I will go back and read all the other messages just so I don't seem ill informed.*

The difference between creationism and evolutionism clearly to Me stems from the fact creationism is all about humans (it being supposed that a god of humans created all this, obviously) where as evolutionism takes its basis in isolation to this one arrogant species. I don't pretend to have the ultimate defination to what is life, to Me its a bunch of complex chemical reactions which just happen to be self perpetuating due to conditions brought about by chance. In the end, it is those who believe in creationism's disbelief in chance over purpose (or vice versa applying to evolutionists, just to stay balanced :)) that will keep the debate unresolved.

San haiti said:

"probably wont happen. The universe is thought at the moment to not have enough mass in it to start a contraction to an eventual big crunch. Besides if your model did go on for ever, the laws of entropy would need rather a lot of work."

Actually, life is a bend of the entropy laws. According to the law of entropy, life is not possible. But somehow the cell has the power to fight the natural tendency of matter to reach a state of less energy. This happens at the expense of energy, using gradients and entropy itself to fight entropy. Why? Who knows? Maybe only God, if it exists.


Noooo! not the old 2nd law of theromodynamics argument again! Try actually reading it and if you still think it contradicts life, post again.

I Totally disagree. God was still A HUMAN, things hurt him. If they did not then why did Jesus cry? The bible says that he could have called angels from heaven to rescue him. But he didn't. Do you that it says that blood and water ran out of his side? Do you know that they have proven that the only reason for that to happen was his heart had to be broken. I mean his heart to be in literally two pieces.

So what if he didn't hurt. HE STILL DIED SO THAT I MAY HAVE LIFE AFTER DEATH AND HAVE REAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GOD THAT CREATED ME AND THE HEAVENS AND THE STARS - AND ALL THAT JAZZ!

Re: The blood and water.... Who on earth told you that? A 'broken' heart? You mean punctured? Let's use a little analytic reasoning here, and a little science, and stop 'just making stuff up'. Broken hearts, indeed. How old are you, four?

1) The story is doubtless influenced by the fact that they were trying to prove that Jesus was dead. (The resurrection kind of falls down if he was still alive, surely). The Romans and Greeks believed that bile entering the heart was the cause of (and, therefore, the damning evidence for) death. They wanted to prove Jesus dead, so the story picks up a 'blood and water' reference.

or

2) The blood is liberated from the blood-stream (since there is a piercing wound), and the 'water' is liberated from the lymphatic system... or from the bladder (we don't know exactly where the spear was supposed to have hit). Or - far more likely, the water was liberated from either the stomach or the lungs.

3) The blood and water described could be a reference to the effects of severe shock... in this instance, the symptoms would match a toxic shock... maybe the crucified Jesus was given poison in the form of bitter 'vinegar'.

By the way... the verse you refer to isn't even recognised by all Christians - since it does not 'fit' grammatically with the rest of John's testament, and was probably added after the rest of the text.

probably wont happen. The universe is thought at the moment to not have enough mass in it to start a contraction to an eventual big crunch. Besides if your model did go on for ever, the laws of entropy would need rather a lot of work.

This is scary... people just 'making up' scientific evidence to back up their claims!

The universe must have enough mass in it to eventually contract, because it is where the mass IS. The mass is inside the universe, yes? So, the centre of the mass is inside the universe, yes? Nothing outside the universe, right?

So - there's nothing 'OUT there' to pull matter further out... the only reason mass is still expanding is because of the inertia and interactive forces. Since ALL of the mass is inside, it will eventually slow, and fall back toward that 'collective centre'.

And - if you cared to use a little investigation, or even put a little scientific thought into it... you would see that the universe crashing back inwards is inevitable - in terms of entropy - as the "available energy diminishes" that propels the universes' boundaries outwards.

This is scary... people just 'making up' scientific evidence to back up their claims!

The universe must have enough mass in it to eventually contract, because it is where the mass IS. The mass is inside the universe, yes? So, the centre of the mass is inside the universe, yes? Nothing outside the universe, right?

So - there's nothing 'OUT there' to pull matter further out... the only reason mass is still expanding is because of the inertia and interactive forces. Since ALL of the mass is inside, it will eventually slow, and fall back toward that 'collective centre'.

And - if you cared to use a little investigation, or even put a little scientific thought into it... you would see that the universe crashing back inwards is inevitable - in terms of entropy - as the "available energy diminishes" that propels the universes' boundaries outwards.

I dont make up scientific evidence. There is disagreement, but current thought is that the universe will expand for ever and suffer eventual heat death.

The thing about gravity is that is that it (sorry if i get patronizing here but i think this is necessary) the force falls off as an inverse square over distance, which means if you double your distance from the center of mass of an object, its gravitaional attraction quarters.

So if the universe is expanding fast enough the force of gravity might not be enough to slow it all down as it is decreasing all the time, therefore the expansion continues forever.

Just another point to the above quote from Grave. You are forgetting God's attributes. He is just, which means that there must be a consequence for sin. If you break a law in today's society, there is a consequence. God wouldn't be God if he allowed us to sin without consequence. That said, don't misunderstand me and say that God punishes us for every little mistake we make. There are natural consequences put in place simply by the physical laws of this world.

First, you say god is just. You have no evidence that there is a god, or that he is just, aside from one (usually mis-translated) book which is cobbled together from the rambling of hundreds of religious wackos (as they were considered by the people in their own times...), and which has been added to and subtracted from, for anywhere between 0 and 3000 years. Even in the time of the King James translation, text was still being added and subtracted, and that version has little similarity to today's "modern" bibles.

Now - if you could show me a couple of other books, you know - scientific treatises (which the romans, greeks and egyptians were writing at that point), or philosophical works (which the greeks especially were fond of, at that point), or even legal texts (which the romans and egyptians kept meticulous records of) - which support any of your speculation... offer any evidence of the existence of god, the 'bible' miracles, the 'cruci-FICTION', etc... I might be more inclined to place any store at all in your dusty old 'story'.

And, anyway, god doesn't have to punish us for our sin, even if he does exist... even if he is just. You said yourself, there are 'natural' consequences for 'sin'. By that token, any punishment a god imparted would be a) unnecessary, b) redundant and c) nothing more than vengeance.

God is not like humans. God needs neither time nor place to exist. God created the time, genders and universe for humans. Because, unlike the God, humans are weak creatures those are born, live and die through a period of time. We are all tied up with time but God is not. Because God itself created the time for us. It is wrong to see the God as one of us. God has no beginnig and the end. God, like the angels God created, does not have a gender, so it is wrong to call God as "he". These kind of things are for us;the human beings. So the terms like "before the God" or "who created God" are wrong. Creation and time are for humans. Jesus was a human,too. He was a male and a weak human like us. Only difference is that he was supported by the God in his mission and as a miracle he was born without a father. That's all. He was not the God itself. Because he died and we know that God is immortal. Death is created for human beings. There is no, but only one God. We believe in God's all prophets who tried to wake up the human beings from their sleep of hatret, greed, selfishness and all of the bad things. Conclusion: Do not think and judge the God as a human being because that is not true. Humas are like thisty fishes...They swim in a sweet lake and still look for some water to drink....I believe there is an evolution but not in the sense that human arised from apes. In fact I believe just the opposite...At he beginning humans were like the angels, by the passing time we became wild animals...

I dont make up scientific evidence. There is disagreement, but current thought is that the universe will expand for ever and suffer eventual heat death.

The thing about gravity is that is that it (sorry if i get patronizing here but i think this is necessary) the force falls off as an inverse square over distance, which means if you double your distance from the center of mass of an object, its gravitaional attraction quarters.

So if the universe is expanding fast enough the force of gravity might not be enough to slow it all down as it is decreasing all the time, therefore the expansion continues forever.

There is disagreement. This is true. One faction advocates continued expansion, and the other faction points out how ridiculous that is, given that there are no EXTERNAL forces to promote it.

Try getting patronising as much as you like, you could only patronise me if I were to prove intellectually inferior to you, which, it seems, is unlikely, since you are misapplying a basic law of physics. Yes - the inverse square law applies, but you are missing the two main points. ONE) the mass isn't all ACTUALLY at the centre, that's just where the 'centre of mass', as we call it, is found. The bodies affecting each other gravitationally are ALL spreading out, so they are not ALL getting twice as far away from each other all the time. TWO) With no external forces (at all), even with the long-protacted continuation of expansion, EVENTUALLY all the mass will have stopped expanding (this will happen at different rates in different areas, of course, as areas of greater mass will slow down more matter when they decelerate). Once all the mass has stopped expanding, the only force remaining on that mass (even though it will be greatly attenuated) will be a very, very weak gravitational force from the centre of mass. And, eventually, that very, very weak attraction will be enough to move even that far-flung mass back toward the centre.

If you take just one grain of sand at each journey, eventually, you could move Miami to Moscow. People think in such short-terms...

God is not like humans. God needs neither time nor place to exist. God created the time, genders and universe for humans. Because, unlike the God, humans are weak creatures those are born, live and die through a period of time. We are all tied up with time but God is not. Because God itself created the time for us. It is wrong to see the God as one of us. God has no beginnig and the end. God, like the angels God created, does not have a gender, so it is wrong to call God as "he". These kind of things are for us;the human beings. So the terms like "before the God" or "who created God" are wrong. Creation and time are for humans. Jesus was a human,too. He was a male and a weak human like us. Only difference is that he was supported by the God in his mission and as a miracle he was born without a father. That's all. He was not the God itself. Because he died and we know that God is immortal. Death is created for human beings. There is no, but only one God. We believe in God's all prophets who tried to wake up the human beings from their sleep of hatret, greed, selfishness and all of the bad things. Conclusion: Do not think and judge the God as a human being because that is not true. Humas are like thisty fishes...They swim in a sweet lake and still look for some water to drink....I believe there is an evolution but not in the sense that human arised from apes. In fact I believe just the opposite...At he beginning humans were like the angels, by the passing time we became wild animals...

Speculation. Opinion. Metaphor. Madness. Pick your own definition...

No evidence, though.

Evidence is on the mirror my friend....Just look at your own eyes....and think..

God is not like humans. God needs neither time nor place to exist. God created the time, genders and universe for humans. Because, unlike the God, humans are weak creatures those are born, live and die through a period of time. We are all tied up with time but God is not. Because God itself created the time for us. It is wrong to see the God as one of us. God has no beginnig and the end. God, like the angels God created, does not have a gender, so it is wrong to call God as "he". These kind of things are for us;the human beings. So the terms like "before the God" or "who created God" are wrong. Creation and time are for humans. Jesus was a human,too. He was a male and a weak human like us. Only difference is that he was supported by the God in his mission and as a miracle he was born without a father. That's all. He was not the God itself. Because he died and we know that God is immortal. Death is created for human beings. There is no, but only one God. We believe in God's all prophets who tried to wake up the human beings from their sleep of hatret, greed, selfishness and all of the bad things. Conclusion: Do not think and judge the God as a human being because that is not true. Humas are like thisty fishes...They swim in a sweet lake and still look for some water to drink....I believe there is an evolution but not in the sense that human arised from apes. In fact I believe just the opposite...At he beginning humans were like the angels, by the passing time we became wild animals...

Do you have any reason to believe all this, or are you just winging it?

Edit for clarity: You say "we believe": are you a member of some sect or other, or are you just making this up as you go along?

When you look at the mirror, if you can not see the God in your own eyes, believe me no single word can make you see it....We are all unique notes in an eternal harmony....

Evidence is on the mirror my friend....Just look at your own eyes....and think..

Uhuh, and flying monkeys come out of my ass.

I want you to think about one thing: I was naughty - so he killed his son. You were naughty - so he killed his son.

This is the point: for sin to be forgiven there had to be a sacrifice. Before the new convenant (also know as new testament) the sacrifice was a perfect lamb. After that, Jesus became the sacrifice so that you and me can have a relationship with Him. That is afterall why he created Adam and Eve becuase he wanted someone to love Him by their choice.

I still mess up everyday almost but God loves me so I am still alive. Before Jesus died on the cross the only people that could have a relationship with God were priests, now (thanks to the death of Jesus) I can talk with him personally. SO you see he didn't kill his son becuase the world was naughty - Jesus died so that I could live eternally.

I apologize if this offendes anyone, I just had to say something. If you want, you can email me at JemperLynn@cs.com.

For sin to be forgiven there has to be a sacrifice? Why? Why is your god bound to the beliefs of blood-worshipping desert nomads from two thousand years earlier? This is my point... this god is only appeased by blood. Blood from a lamb having it's throat slit on a rock, blood from a man's son after his blood-thirsty god demanded he sacrifice him, blood from a prophet nailed to a tree...

The only thing worse than creationists trying (and failing) to use science, because it will never bend to their whim - is christians who don't know their own bible. The only people that could have a relationship with god were priests.... do you want me to show you people who 'had a relationship' with god but were not priests? There are many? Or are you shame-facedly regretting your ill chosen words already.

And, re: living eternally.... show me where the bible says YOU, specifically, will live forever. Even better, show me the slightest scrap of evidence that ANYONE ever has, or ever will. I don't believe your book - show me evidence.

(Here would be a good argument to see go down - E = Evolutionist, C = Creationist)

C: Something can't come from nothing. What happened existed before the Big Bang?
E: Aside from the fact that Evolution does not necessarily automatically mean the Big Bang theory is what started it all, if you knew more about the Big Bang theory, you'd know that the universe is expanding/collapsing and numerous Big Bangs have and will happen.
C: What? Are you saying there is nothing after death and life has no meaning?
E: Who said we have to have a meaning to exist?
C: Wh..bu...
E: ...
C: Creationism is how it started.
E: What came before God?
C: Huh?
E: What came before God?
C: I don't understand; what do you mean?
E: If time and matter can't be infinite, how come God can?
C: Bu...Wh...huh? The Bible...and...
E: ...
C: ...

we dont have to have a meaning to exist, we can be purposeless meaningless buffoons, which i rather not be, cos i desire to have a purpose in life, not to wander around aimlessly.
What came before God?
nothing
why can God be there beyond the constraints of time?
bcos he is God
we discredit him by limiting him to what he has created
if God created time, would he be constraint by it
i belief that God is omnipotent(allpowerful) and therefore belief that he isnt held back by time

When you look at the mirror, if you can not see the God in your own eyes, believe me no single word can make you see it....We are all unique notes in an eternal harmony....

That's real pretty.... did you make it up?

It's rubbish, of course, but it IS very pretty.

Of course no 'one word' can make a believer of me... there is no word that could. Now - if you had some evidence, on the other hand.

I bet 'christianity' rues the day the word 'evidence' was first uttered. Since that day they will never be able to carry out the kind of brain-washing they love so much.

Uhuh, and flying monkeys come out of my ass.

I might have phrased it a little more delicately, but you make a very good point.

That's real pretty.... did you make it up?

It's rubbish, of course, but it IS very pretty.

Of course no 'one word' can make a believer of me... there is no word that could. Now - if you had some evidence, on the other hand.

I bet 'christianity' rues the day the word 'evidence' was first uttered. Since that day they will never be able to carry out the kind of brain-washing they love so much.

i belief out of my own choice, not because im brainwashed

Forget about corrupted Christian ideology and look for the truth yourself...How can God have a child !! God has no gender unlike humans. If God wishes something, it just give and order it to exist. How and why does God call the angels from the heavens for help !! God needs no help. God needs nobody, neither angels nor soldiers.

There is disagreement. This is true. One faction advocates continued expansion, and the other faction points out how ridiculous that is, given that there are no EXTERNAL forces to promote it.

Do you really think one side would advocate continual expansion if it could be defeated with a single application of one of the most basic laws of physics? No external forces are necessary.


Try getting patronising as much as you like, you could only patronise me if I were to prove intellectually inferior to you, which, it seems, is unlikely, since you are misapplying a basic law of physics. Yes - the inverse square law applies, but you are missing the two main points. ONE) the mass isn't all ACTUALLY at the centre, that's just where the 'centre of mass', as we call it, is found. The bodies affecting each other gravitationally are ALL spreading out, so they are not ALL getting twice as far away from each other all the time. TWO) With no external forces (at all), even with the long-protacted continuation of expansion, EVENTUALLY all the mass will have stopped expanding (this will happen at different rates in different areas, of course, as areas of greater mass will slow down more matter when they decelerate). Once all the mass has stopped expanding, the only force remaining on that mass (even though it will be greatly attenuated) will be a very, very weak gravitational force from the centre of mass. And, eventually, that very, very weak attraction will be enough to move even that far-flung mass back toward the centre.

If you take just one grain of sand at each journey, eventually, you could move Miami to Moscow. People think in such short-terms...

Not the best analogy, maybe it would be more accurate if the grains of sand where getting smaller each time you put one down, then, even if you did carry on putting them down, you would never get there, even though you where getting closer each time you put one down.

edit:typos

For sin to be forgiven there has to be a sacrifice? Why? Why is your god bound to the beliefs of blood-worshipping desert nomads from two thousand years earlier? This is my point... this god is only appeased by blood. Blood from a lamb having it's throat slit on a rock, blood from a man's son after his blood-thirsty god demanded he sacrifice him, blood from a prophet nailed to a tree...

The only thing worse than creationists trying (and failing) to use science, because it will never bend to their whim - is christians who don't know their own bible. The only people that could have a relationship with god were priests.... do you want me to show you people who 'had a relationship' with god but were not priests? There are many? Or are you shame-facedly regretting your ill chosen words already.

And, re: living eternally.... show me where the bible says YOU, specifically, will live forever. Even better, show me the slightest scrap of evidence that ANYONE ever has, or ever will. I don't believe your book - show me evidence.
unless you can say you are without sin, then dont discredit the need to be redeemed.
how can something be redeemed by something just as sinful, thats why blood is needed, cos blood means life,
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[1] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
there is no You here but i think its pretty clear.

we dont have to have a meaning to exist, we can be purposeless meaningless buffoons, which i rather not be, cos i desire to have a purpose in life, not to wander around aimlessly.
What came before God?
nothing
why can God be there beyond the constraints of time?
bcos he is God
we discredit him by limiting him to what he has created
if God created time, would he be constraint by it
i belief that God is omnipotent(allpowerful) and therefore belief that he isnt held back by time

I think it sad that you have no OTHER reason to exist than your cult. There are many people who find meaning in life, without conforming to theological babblings.

I DO discredit him! Well said, you seem to have the point. Science doesn't need god, I don't need god, there isn't even any evidence FOR god... he is discreditted. Finally, a christian admits it...

You believe that god is omnipotent. Yet, you have no evidence. Belief is the enemy of evidence, and religion would be torn apart if evidence ever did turn up. (Whereas, science would turn round and say "Crikey... evidence of god... this is gonna screw up Heisenbergs uncertainty principle.... anyway..."

we dont have to have a meaning to exist, we can be purposeless meaningless buffoons, which i rather not be, cos i desire to have a purpose in life, not to wander around aimlessly.
What came before God?
nothing
why can God be there beyond the constraints of time?
bcos he is God
we discredit him by limiting him to what he has created
if God created time, would he be constraint by it
i belief that God is omnipotent(allpowerful) and therefore belief that he isnt held back by time

So God transcends time. OK. That means that he knows everything that will happen in the future (although this goes with being omniscient, too). Which means that, at the moment of Creation, he knew exactly how everything would pan out everywhere. Which means that a) we have no free will, and b) every act, good or evil, is pre-scripted by God. Despite this, in his infinite justice, he's going to punish some (most?) of us for helplessly following the rails he set down for us at the moment of creation. Nice.

i belief out of my own choice, not because im brainwashed

No - you are a pawn. Unless, of course you grew up in TOTAL isolation, and ALL BY YOURSELF (that means, with NO external help) became enlightened as to the reality of god. Which, let's face it, you didn't. You met people who were christians, you read books about christianity... maybe your family are christian. And, after you had seen enough about this intriguing little clique, you decided they were right. Sure, that final decision was 'you', but all the rest of it was the company you kept, the social 'conditioning' you recieved... maybe they didn't interfere with your private parts while they read scripture to you (as some cults have), or starve you for a week, and deprive you of sleep (as some cults have) - but you are a victim of your society.

It is a great fun to talk to you friends but I have to leave now. Take care...do not stop thinking.

Forget about corrupted Christian ideology and look for the truth yourself...How can God have a child !! God has no gender unlike humans. If God wishes something, it just give and order it to exist. How and why does God call the angels from the heavens for help !! God needs no help. God needs nobody, neither angels nor soldiers.

Then why -- according to your previous post above -- did he make them in the first place?

I'll repeat my earlier question: are you a member of a sect, or are you just making this up as you go along? Your beliefs as expressed bear some similarities to some of the Gnostic doctrines, although you also seem to believe in the physical reality of Jesus. Just curious.

I think it sad that you have no OTHER reason to exist than your cult. There are many people who find meaning in life, without conforming to theological babblings.

I DO discredit him! Well said, you seem to have the point. Science doesn't need god, I don't need god, there isn't even any evidence FOR god... he is discreditted. Finally, a christian admits it...

You believe that god is omnipotent. Yet, you have no evidence. Belief is the enemy of evidence, and religion would be torn apart if evidence ever did turn up. (Whereas, science would turn round and say "Crikey... evidence of god... this is gonna screw up Heisenbergs uncertainty principle.... anyway..."
there is evidence, just whether you choose to accept it or not.
no amount of persuasion can deter you if you choose not to accept it.
yes, you may discredit him, that doesnt mean he doesnt exist.
God doesnt need ppl to believe him to exist

Do you really think one side would advocate continual expansion if it could be defeated with a single application of one of the most basic laws of physics? No external forces are necessary.



Not the best analogy, maybe it would be more accurate if the grains of sand where getting smaller each time you put one down, then, even if you did carry on putting them down, you would never get there, even though you where getting closer each time you put one down.

edit:typos

Re: one side advocating... a single application of Occams Razor discredits Christianity and all other organised religions... And yet, they keep on banging on about it, with no evidence, and blissful ignorance of the futility of their argument.

The analogy was designed to illustrate that some things may take a long time, but given eternity, there is no reason why they shouldn't happen. The analogy was flawed, you are correct, because it implies two points... an origin and an end point. This was deliberate (to try to simplify) - because the universe could be described as having a single origin-and-end point.

No - you are a pawn. Unless, of course you grew up in TOTAL isolation, and ALL BY YOURSELF (that means, with NO external help) became enlightened as to the reality of god. Which, let's face it, you didn't. You met people who were christians, you read books about christianity... maybe your family are christian. And, after you had seen enough about this intriguing little clique, you decided they were right. Sure, that final decision was 'you', but all the rest of it was the company you kept, the social 'conditioning' you recieved... maybe they didn't interfere with your private parts while they read scripture to you (as some cults have), or starve you for a week, and deprive you of sleep (as some cults have) - but you are a victim of your society.
i didnt decide they were rite. b4 that i tot that they were just talking crap
i encountered God for myself.
so yes, i became enlightened as to the reality of God
and if i choose to be his pawn, so be it.
its better than being a pawn of the world.

there is evidence, just whether you choose to accept it or not.
no amount of persuasion can deter you if you choose not to accept it.
yes, you may discredit him, that doesnt mean he doesnt exist.
God doesnt need ppl to believe him to exist

Evidence such as?

Someone missed the sarcasm...

:D

So God transcends time. OK. That means that he knows everything that will happen in the future (although this goes with being omniscient, too). Which means that, at the moment of Creation, he knew exactly how everything would pan out everywhere. Which means that a) we have no free will, and b) every act, good or evil, is pre-scripted by God. Despite this, in his infinite justice, he's going to punish some (most?) of us for helplessly following the rails he set down for us at the moment of creation. Nice.
we have free will.
he lets us choose, but he noes wad our choice will be.
but he still lets us choose.
if he didnt, why do you think God would allow so many ppl to choose hell?
he lets us choose, even though he noes we will choose the wrong choice

i didnt decide they were rite. b4 that i tot that they were just talking crap
i encountered God for myself.
so yes, i became enlightened as to the reality of God
and if i choose to be his pawn, so be it.
its better than being a pawn of the world.

But -- according to you -- God is omnipotent and transcends time. Therefore nothing happens without his willing it in the first place (i.e. at the moment of Creation, or indeed for an infinitely long time beforehand). Therefore there is no difference between being "a pawn of God" and "a pawn of the world", since your God is making all the moves anyway. Are you a Calvinist, by any chance?

Evidence such as?
all of creation
the human body
the universe

it is evidence of the creator, or you could try to explain it away
which is exactly my point abt accepting the evidence

Re: one side advocating... a single application of Occams Razor discredits Christianity and all other organised religions... And yet, they keep on banging on about it, with no evidence, and blissful ignorance of the futility of their argument.

Crap, Science is not religion. Scientists pay attention to evidence, especially if it dismisses their claims so simply.

EDIT: also occams razor is not a law, it can never be used to prove anything. It merely states that the simplest explanation tends to be the truth.


The analogy was designed to illustrate that some things may take a long time, but given eternity, there is no reason why they shouldn't happen. The analogy was flawed, you are correct, because it implies two points... an origin and an end point. This was deliberate (to try to simplify) - because the universe could be described as having a single origin-and-end point.

Actually i rather like the analogy, say maimi is our current state, moscow is the moment when some mass at the edge of the universe stop receding and moves towards the centre. Then start building a bridge between them but construction gets slower and slower due to the fact that mass on the edge of the universe is moving further away and is less affected by gravitional pull. The constuction will eventually get so slow it will look like its stopped.

But -- according to you -- God is omipotent and transcends time. Therefore nothing happens without his willing it in the first place (i.e. at the moment of Creation, or indeed for an infinitely long time beforehand). Therefore there is no difference between being "a pawn of God" and "a pawn of the world", since your God is making all the moves anyway. Are you a Calvinist, by any chance?
nope im not.
yes, nothing happens without him willing it
but he willed that we be given free will.
which means he gives a choice.
whos pawn we want to be
to go to heaven or hell
he lets us make those moves

all of creation
the human body
the universe

it is evidence of the creator, or you could try to explain it away
which is exactly my point abt accepting the evidence

I fail to see how those are prove of God.
And that's not because I 'refuse to accept the proof'.

we have free will.
he lets us choose, but he noes wad our choice will be.
but he still lets us choose.
if he didnt, why do you think God would allow so many ppl to choose hell?
he lets us choose, even though he noes we will choose the wrong choice

But if he knows what our choice will be in advance, then we don't actually have a choice. It's like a magician saying, "Pick a card -- any card", knowing full well that he's going to force you to take the 3 of clubs. "Your card is the 3 of clubs! It's the Lake of Eternal Fire for you!"

Last words...God created all of the things; from a single molecule to the universe itself; as a sign of its power. God created all of these things (angels, humans, oceans, stars, cells, miracles, etc etc) as a signal for human beings to realize and think about its unlimited power. Do not stop thinking.

unless you can say you are without sin, then dont discredit the need to be redeemed.
how can something be redeemed by something just as sinful, thats why blood is needed, cos blood means life,
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[1] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
there is no You here but i think its pretty clear.

I can say "I am without sin". You cannot prove I have sinned.

Blood doesn't 'mean' life. Blood isn't a symbol, it's a combination of chemicals. It doesn't mystically 'make you alive', it carries oxygen and other nutrients. That's all it does. (Well, it carries platelets and antibodies and stuff too...but, my point is it is a messenger, not a miracle)

The early Hebrews made blood sacrifices because everyone else around there did. The christians like blood sacrifice because it gives their myth some form of authenticity, another one of those markers they borrowed from the pre-existing hebrew traditions.

But if he knows what our choice will be in advance, then we don't actually have a choice. It's like a magician saying, "Pick a card -- any card", knowing full well that he's going to force you to take the 3 of clubs. "Your card is the 3 of clubs! It's the Lake of Eternal Fire for you!"
the thing is he doesnt force us to take the card
we can take wadever card we choose
we just deal with the consequences

I can say "I am without sin". You cannot prove I have sinned.

Blood doesn't 'mean' life. Blood isn't a symbol, it's a combination of chemicals. It doesn't mystically 'make you alive', it carries oxygen and other nutrients. That's all it does. (Well, it carries platelets and antibodies and stuff too...but, my point is it is a messenger, not a miracle)

The early Hebrews made blood sacrifices because everyone else around there did. The christians like blood sacrifice because it gives their myth some form of authenticity, another one of those markers they borrowed from the pre-existing hebrew traditions.
you have no sin? well then i think we have different views on wad sin is

ya, blood may be a compostion of chemicals, but wad makes the difference between you, who i believe have blood in ur veins, and a dead corpse, who has none. blood may not be the miracle, but it represents life, which is the miracle

Crap, Science is not religion. Scientists pay attention to evidence, especially if it dismisses their claims so simply.

EDIT: also occams razor is not a law, it can never be used to prove anything. It merely states that the simplest explanation tends to be the truth.



Actually i rather like the analogy, say maimi is our current state, moscow is the moment when some mass at the edge of the universe stop receding and moves towards the centre. Then start building a bridge between them but construction gets slower and slower due to the fact that mass on the edge of the universe is moving further away and is less affected by gravitional pull. The constuction will eventually get so slow it will look like its stopped.

Not sure what you mean... I didn't say science WAS a religion... the other chap said that one group of scientists wouldn't argue with another group of scientists, if there were a straightforward 'proof' that one side was patently untrue.... (paraphrasing). I pointed out that christian 'scientists' have spent the last however long doing just that.

And, I know Occam's Razor isn't a 'law', it is a principle, a basic logical tool. The Aristotelian principle on which Occam depended does just what I said it does, it discredits the organised religions. The tools of logic EXCEPT religion, and yet the argument continues. That's my point.

Re: The Bridge to Moscow. Yes. It would slow, but it would get there eventually, if you could wait long enough. (And, in the case of the universe - where we would actually carry our sand from Miami TO Miami... eventually, you would end up carrying back the first grain of sand you took away).

...but you should at first get rid of that corrupted Christian ideology...neither in Jerusalem nor in any church....look for God neither in skies nor in heavens. God is in your heart. Jesus and all other prophets are human beings like all of us...they were born, they lived and died.....some married, some had children....that is because they were human beings...but God itself...God does not need anything. Neither our prayers nor our hatret...neither gender nor a son...If someone say that Jesus is his son, then that shows that he does not believe in that single ONE God. That is why Christianity is corrupted. That is why todays Christians lost their belief in God...the God(s) that is cretaed by the Church. People try to understand why there is big difference between the ideas of the modern science and the christianity, and they can not find a satisfying answer...if a tree loses its roots, then you can not expect fruit from it....

the thing is he doesnt force us to take the card
we can take wadever card we choose
we just deal with the consequences

But since he knows in advance what my choice will be -- since he knew what my choice would be right from the moment of creation -- then it's not really my choice, is it? If he didn't want me to choose that card, he would have made the universe differently. I can't help taking the card he knows I'm going to take, because that's the way the universe was created. I'm just following the script he laid down at the start of time. Foreknowledge = predestination; if I can't surprise God, if I can't make a choice that he didn't know from the very start of time that I was going to make, then I have no free will and every single thing I or anybody else does is predetermined.

you have no sin? well then i think we have different views on wad sin is

ya, blood may be a compostion of chemicals, but wad makes the difference between you, who i believe have blood in ur veins, and a dead corpse, who has none. blood may not be the miracle, but it represents life, which is the miracle

Really? What are my sins?

You cannot prove my sin, any more than you can prove your 'god'.

So... plants aren't alive then? No blood. And amoebas? And insects? And Virii?
But, a sausage might be alive then, I guess, because it has blood in it?
And, actually, corpses more often than not still have their blood. And what is a 'dead' corpse anyway.... as opposed to a 'live' corpse?

And, sorry, but blood doesn't 'represent' anything. It is blood. Sure, if i were to make a movie, I could use the sight of blood to 'represent' a violent act I didn't want to show on camera... but this isn't a film, this is real life, and the blood is the gloopy red stuff in you that flows round and round.

What about artificial blood? It can sustain life (for short periods at the moment, but it does sustain it).... and what about transplants? If I get some of your blood transplanted into me, do I get part of your 'life'?

Blood isn't a metaphor, it's a medium.
Life isn't a miracle, it's a coincidence.

Nobody is borned with a sin. That is one of the biggest lies of corrupted christianty and the Church. Every human being is born without sin. Infact, when humans are born, they are like the angels...they have no sins. As they grow up and begin to think and move independently, they have the ability and autonomoy to do bad things...so all the ceremonies conducted with holly (!) water when we are introduced to christianity are all lies. Another big lie is the "confessions" in churches. If somebody makes some bad things,he does not need any christian religion man to get rid of his sins. While sitting in a cafe, walking among a sea shore, bathing, even in the toilet, you can talk with God and tell him by heart that you will not do the same bad thing again. That is enough. You don't need anybody. You do not need an negotiator between you and the God.

...but you should at first get rid of that corrupted Christian ideology...neither in Jerusalem nor in any church....look for God neither in skies nor in heavens. God is in your heart. Jesus and all other prophets are human beings like all of us...they were born, they lived and died.....some married, some had children....that is because they were human beings...but God itself...God does not need anything. Neither our prayers nor our hatret...neither gender nor a son...If someone say that Jesus is his son, then that shows that he does not believe in that single ONE God. That is why Christianity is corrupted. That is why todays Christians lost their belief in God...the God(s) that is cretaed by the Church. People try to understand why there is big difference between the ideas of the modern science and the christianity, and they can not find a satisfying answer...if a tree loses its roots, then you can not expect fruit from it....

You still haven't answered my question. I'm leaning further towards the "making it up as you go along" theory. Nothing wrong with that -- it's where all the other religions come from, after all. Who knows, maybe in a few centuries people will be killing each other in an argument about what you meant. Not likely, but you can always hope.

Not sure what you mean... I didn't say science WAS a religion... the other chap said that one group of scientists wouldn't argue with another group of scientists, if there were a straightforward 'proof' that one side was patently untrue.... (paraphrasing). I pointed out that christian 'scientists' have spent the last however long doing just that.

And, I know Occam's Razor isn't a 'law', it is a principle, a basic logical tool. The Aristotelian principle on which Occam depended does just what I said it does, it discredits the organised religions. The tools of logic EXCEPT religion, and yet the argument continues. That's my point.

Re: The Bridge to Moscow. Yes. It would slow, but it would get there eventually, if you could wait long enough. (And, in the case of the universe - where we would actually carry our sand from Miami TO Miami... eventually, you would end up carrying back the first grain of sand you took away).

I think i'm going to give up on this now. I dont knwo how to explain it anymore simply. Just a few final words, christian "scientists" are just that: "scientists" note the quote marks, i dont think any of them are accredited to a university or good college. So comapring physicists who dont accept the big crunch to them is stupid.

The bridge would slow down to a point where it wouldnt even seem it was moving. look at the series 1, 1/2, 1/4 ,1/8, 1/16 and the sum being the length of the bridge. 0 is miami, 3 is moscow. The sum tends toward the limit of 2. Just because you're moving, doesnt mean you'll eventually get there

okay this just got too ridculous to carry on. BTW how much maths or physics have you studied?

Really? What are my sins?

You cannot prove my sin, any more than you can prove your 'god'.

So... plants aren't alive then? No blood. And amoebas? And insects? And Virii?
But, a sausage might be alive then, I guess, because it has blood in it?
And, actually, corpses more often than not still have their blood. And what is a 'dead' corpse anyway.... as opposed to a 'live' corpse?

And, sorry, but blood doesn't 'represent' anything. It is blood. Sure, if i were to make a movie, I could use the sight of blood to 'represent' a violent act I didn't want to show on camera... but this isn't a film, this is real life, and the blood is the gloopy red stuff in you that flows round and round.

What about artificial blood? It can sustain life (for short periods at the moment, but it does sustain it).... and what about transplants? If I get some of your blood transplanted into me, do I get part of your 'life'?

Blood isn't a metaphor, it's a medium.
Life isn't a miracle, it's a coincidence.
the thing is i dont need to prove my God.
have you lied before? that is a sin.
if you tell me that you havent lied, then i think ur lying
are you a plant? or an amoeba
do you have the intellectual capacity of one and therefore have no choice?
yes, they corpses and sausages still have blood in them but are they alive?
is the blood still circulating?

if you choose to believe that life is a coincidence,
then im sad for you cos its a bad coincidence,
however i believe that life has to be more sacred than bad family planning

the thing is he doesnt force us to take the card
we can take wadever card we choose
we just deal with the consequences

Then I want to be Jesus.

What, I can't be Jesus? Why? Oh - because someone else was 'destined' to take that role...

If he knows you are going to sin, and he knows you'll neither repent nore be saved (depending which cult you sign on to), then he must know you are going to hell, too... So, in allowing a hell to exist (which many of these christians seem to believe), he is actually condemning you to an eternity of suffering for making your own choice.

"You can either do as I order you, like the good little automatons I made you to be... (of your own free will), or you can roast in the eternal microwave for the rest of forever (of your own free will)".

Then I want to be Jesus.

What, I can't be Jesus? Why? Oh - because someone else was 'destined' to take that role...

If he knows you are going to sin, and he knows you'll neither repent nore be saved (depending which cult you sign on to), then he must know you are going to hell, too... So, in allowing a hell to exist (which many of these christians seem to believe), he is actually condemning you to an eternity of suffering for making your own choice.

"You can either do as I order you, like the good little automatons I made you to be... (of your own free will), or you can roast in the eternal microwave for the rest of forever (of your own free will)".
WHy cant you be Jesus? cos ur not the Son of God.
yup, ur condemned for ur own choice. choices lead to consequences

"Do this or die" is not a choice.
Well, it is, but you know what I mean.

"Do this or die" is not a choice.
Well, it is, but you know what I mean.
no i dont see wad you mean
many ppl have chosen death
so the choice is there

WHy cant you be Jesus? cos ur not the Son of God.
yup, ur condemned for ur own choice. choices lead to consequences

But, I repeat, if God knew from the moment of creation that I was going to make such-and-such a choice, then -- obviously -- that choice was built into the universe at the creation. By God. Therefore, it cannot be "my choice".

Absolute foreknowledge = absolute predestination. I don't think I can make it any clearer than that. A God who knows all things from the start of time, who made the universe knowing that all these things would come to pass in just such a way, is therefore the sole cause of all things. Therefore, in your cosmology, we have no free will.

No I don't see what you mean.
Many people have chosen death.
So the choice is there.

To be able to choose death over a command, you'd have to be very comitted to not doing what the command is. Therefor, you do not have a choice whether to obey the command or not.

I think i'm going to give up on this now. I dont knwo how to explain it anymore simply. Just a few final words, christian "scientists" are just that: "scientists" note the quote marks, i dont think any of them are accredited to a university or good college. So comapring physicists who dont accept the big crunch to them is stupid.

The bridge would slow down to a point where it wouldnt even seem it was moving. look at the series 1, 1/2, 1/4 ,1/8, 1/16 and the sum being the length of the bridge. 0 is miami, 3 is moscow. The sum tends toward the limit of 2. Just because you're moving, doesnt mean you'll eventually get there

okay this just got too ridculous to carry on. BTW how much maths or physics have you studied?

Not stupid... an example of how some people will not give up an article of faith, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. An extreme example, because the big crunch debate isn't nearly so polarised - but the extremity of the example better shows how hard it is for people to give-up belief.

Re: the math... first, I already pointed out that the inverse square law isn't the entirety of the equation... not all of the matter is accelerating away from all of the other matter, and certainly not at any proportional rate. Second, even if that were true, you have been utterly confused by my bridge to Moscow... like I said, it would be more accurate if the bridge went from Miami TO Miami, because the universe will fall back on it's origin. Surely you can see that the tendency for the matter to slow down (and never 'get there' as you said..) actually FAVOURS it's potential to fall back in?

It got too ridiculous to carry on a long time ago, about the second page of the first thread, where people claimed to have evidence for Creationism. They didn't - the thread continues.

Oh, nice, by the way... you don't take to my explanation of a physical phenomenon, so you try to suggest I have no education. As with so many others on this thread, your mouth is writing cheques which you have no means of honouring.

(That means you make big claims but have no evidence). Are you a Creationist?

Christian Scientists is the ultimate oxymoron. No, wait, that's creation scientists...

Creationism Is Bullshit

But, I repeat, if God knew from the moment of creation that I was going to make such-and-such a choice, then -- obviously -- that choice was built into the universe at the creation. By God. Therefore, it cannot be "my choice".

Absolute foreknowledge = absolute predestination. I don't think I can make it any clearer than that. A God who knows all things from the start of time, who made the universe knowing that all these things would come to pass in just such a way, is therefore the sole cause of all things. Therefore, in your cosmology, we have no free will.
the way i see it, its still ur choice. why? cos ur choice is still urs. just because i noe that someone will do something does not make me responsible for his action.
it was Gods will to give man free will.
that means that while some will make the rite choices, others will make the wrong choices. and there are consequences.
yes God noes the choices we make. he doesnt like the idea of some of us burning in hell in the end. but its his will to allow us to choose him.
if we had no free will, then i dont see why we would burn in hell cos we'd all wont make wrong choices and therefore wont burn in hell

When you use an atomic bomb, you know that thousands of people will die. That is science. When you say; "Do not use that bomb, otherwise many people will die.", that does not necessarily means that "you know and you determine the outcomes of using that bomb." Destiny, fate...those are the same things like in this example....God knows all the outcomes of the human behaviors and warns humans about their dangerous and bad bahaviors. Humans are not robots, we have all free wills. The point is that God advises us how to use our free will to reach happines. And God warns us about the outcomes of our possible bad behaviors. God's science is unlimited and God knows exactly what will happen to us if we perform any specific bad action.

the thing is i dont need to prove my God.
have you lied before? that is a sin.
if you tell me that you havent lied, then i think ur lying
are you a plant? or an amoeba
do you have the intellectual capacity of one and therefore have no choice?
yes, they corpses and sausages still have blood in them but are they alive?
is the blood still circulating?

if you choose to believe that life is a coincidence,
then im sad for you cos its a bad coincidence,
however i believe that life has to be more sacred than bad family planning

If I tell you I haven't lied, you'll think I'm lying? What kind of logic is THAT? Actually, I made a moral choice (not a religious one, however) as a very young child... I saw other people lying, then forgetting their lies, or getting caught out in them. I decided not to lie. Consequently, I actually do always tell the truth (this still allows me to use metaphors and similies - they are representational). So - bad choice, I'm afraid.

And even if I was lying about not lying (which I'm not, incidentally), you would still have no proof.

No I'm not a plant, or an amoeba. I have blood. Now, you are saying blood is choice? I make choices because I have blood? A mosquito that has just fed is capable of making moral jusgements, maybe?

No, Corpses and sausages are not alive. (This is like Biology 101 for the special class....) But, they do have blood in, which you said was the 'life'.
Score one for my team there, I think.

"If I choose to believe... a bad coincidence"... you think your life is a bad coincidence? I quite like my life actually... in my case, the millions of years of coincidence, coupled with a scoincidence a few years ago (which was actually a result of GOOD family planning, by the way) have created a very satisfied entity. I am sympathetic about your 'bad coincidence' though.
Or am I misreading that reply?

When you use an atomic bomb, you know that thousands of people will die. That is science. When you say; "Do not use that bomb, otherwise many people will die.", that does not necessarily means that "you know and you determine the outcomes of using that bomb." Destiny, fate...those are the same things like in this example....God knows all the outcomes of the human behaviors and warns humans about their dangerous and bad bahaviors. Humans are not robots, we have all free wills. The point is that God advises us how to use our free will to reach happines. And God warns us about the outcomes of our possible bad behaviors. God's science is unlimited and God knows exactly what will happen to us if we perform any specific bad action.

but 'God' doesn't exist!!!!!

weak defense

the way i see it, its still ur choice. why? cos ur choice is still urs. just because i noe that someone will do something does not make me responsible for his action.
it was Gods will to give man free will.
that means that while some will make the rite choices, others will make the wrong choices. and there are consequences.
yes God noes the choices we make. he doesnt like the idea of some of us burning in hell in the end. but its his will to allow us to choose him.
if we had no free will, then i dont see why we would burn in hell cos we'd all wont make wrong choices and therefore wont burn in hell

So - we have free will. And if we sin we go to hell. That's our free choice. And who decides what a sin is? Oh - the same guy who send us to hell. So, if I do something he doesn't like he'll punish me for it eternally...

Think I'm finally getting this free will thing.

Oh, no, wait. If I live in a town of homosexuals (allowing for the fact that most people don't know enough about christian mythology to place any OTHER significance on the act), then god will blast the 'hell' out of my town with fire and brimstone... oh, not free choice then. What about the flood? Can't have it both ways, either we have free-will, or we don't. That's not free-will, that's a 'dusty hand reaching down through the centuries to spank us' if we offend his twisted point of view.

weak defense

Actually, "God doesn't exist" would be a pretty good defence, because there would be no divine judgement if true.

Also - the statement "God doesn't exist" has at least as much evidence as the assertion that he does exist, and has the backing of millions of years of circumstantial evidence - and the advantage that you can embrace a 'non-god' lifestyle without the need to be brainwashed first.

the way i see it, its still ur choice. why? cos ur choice is still urs. just because i noe that someone will do something does not make me responsible for his action.
it was Gods will to give man free will.
that means that while some will make the rite choices, others will make the wrong choices. and there are consequences.

OK. Look at it this way. According to you, God made the universe. Not only did he make the universe, he made it knowing exactly what everyone would do at any given time. Therefore, when he made the universe, he knew that Hitler would come along and make the choices he made. He knew that Ted Bundy would come along and make the choices he made. So he made a universe that would produce Hitler, knowing in advance that he'd be an evil little nazi; and he made a universe that would produce Ted Bundy ,knowing in advance that he'd be a psychotic killer. If God hadn't wanted Hitler or Bundy to do the things they would do, he would have made the universe in a different way.

yes God noes the choices we make. he doesnt like the idea of some of us burning in hell in the end. but its his will to allow us to choose him.
if we had no free will, then i dont see why we would burn in hell cos we'd all wont make wrong choices and therefore wont burn in hell

This is my point. If there is a God who is all-powerful and transcends time, then we cannot have free will. If we don't have free will, then punishing some and rewarding others for doing what they were pre-programmed to do is utterly unjust. Therefore, a God who is simultaneously infinitely powerful AND infinitely just is an impossibility. You can have one or the other, but not both.

sorry, I have leave qucikly...do stop thinking

OK. Look at it this way. According to you, God made the universe. Not only did he make the universe, he made it knowing exactly what everyone would do at any given time. Therefore, when he made the universe, he knew that Hitler would come along and make the choices he made. He knew that Ted Bundy would come along and make the choices he made. So he made a universe that would produce Hitler, knowing in advance that he'd be an evil little nazi; and he made a universe that would produce Ted Bundy ,knowing in advance that he'd be a psychotic killer. If God hadn't wanted Hitler or Bundy to do the things they would do, he would have made the universe in a different way.



This is my point. If there is a God who is all-powerful and transcends time, then we cannot have free will. If we don't have free will, then punishing some and rewarding others for doing what they were pre-programmed to do is utterly unjust. Therefore, a God who is simultaneously infinitely powerful AND infinitely just is an impossibility. You can have one or the other, but not both.
he wouldnt have made the universe in a different way cos he wanted to give man free will.
if a person chooses to be murderer, a rapist, a serial killer, that is his choice. its not the choice that God wants him to make, but God doesnt change things cause he wants to allow man to choose.

we are not preprogrammed to pick the choices that we choose. we are just allowed to choose.
and so we choose. just because he knows the choices we make doesnt discredit our ability to choose.

i dont see how God cant be infinitely powerful and just at the same time.
if he is God, then he is perfect.
his justice makes him use his power to ensure justice,
his power ensures that justice is kept

So - we have free will. And if we sin we go to hell. That's our free choice. And who decides what a sin is? Oh - the same guy who send us to hell. So, if I do something he doesn't like he'll punish me for it eternally...

Think I'm finally getting this free will thing.

Oh, no, wait. If I live in a town of homosexuals (allowing for the fact that most people don't know enough about christian mythology to place any OTHER significance on the act), then god will blast the 'hell' out of my town with fire and brimstone... oh, not free choice then. What about the flood? Can't have it both ways, either we have free-will, or we don't. That's not free-will, that's a 'dusty hand reaching down through the centuries to spank us' if we offend his twisted point of view.
you can always move out of that town.
its either he spank us and we change, or he kill us
take ur pick

Not stupid... an example of how some people will not give up an article of faith, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. An extreme example, because the big crunch debate isn't nearly so polarised - but the extremity of the example better shows how hard it is for people to give-up belief.
Yes it is very stupid. Obviously gravity is a very fundamental law. If an argument can be refuted by it. The argument would be dropped right away by the scientist who put it forward. Scientists do not rely or faith.


Re: the math... first, I already pointed out that the inverse square law isn't the entirety of the equation... not all of the matter is accelerating away from all of the other matter, and certainly not at any proportional rate. Second, even if that were true, you have been utterly confused by my bridge to Moscow... like I said, it would be more accurate if the bridge went from Miami TO Miami, because the universe will fall back on it's origin. Surely you can see that the tendency for the matter to slow down (and never 'get there' as you said..) actually FAVOURS it's potential to fall back in?

It got too ridiculous to carry on a long time ago, about the second page of the first thread, where people claimed to have evidence for Creationism. They didn't - the thread continues.

Every point IS accelerating away from every other point. Think of the outside of a balloon. When it is blown up, every point diverges away from every other point. Obviously some points diverge more slowly but it does happen.

Miami is our current state, moscow is the point at which some matter changes direction and falls toward the centre of mass.


Oh, nice, by the way... you don't take to my explanation of a physical phenomenon, so you try to suggest I have no education. As with so many others on this thread, your mouth is writing cheques which you have no means of honouring.

(That means you make big claims but have no evidence). Are you a Creationist?

Well do you have an education? Haaving no education isnt the same as begin stupid. Merely if you have been told about the phenomena at hand you have a better chance of understanding it, did you read the bit about the geometric series from my last post? Clear example of how you can keep progressing but never get there. No i'm not a creationist.

A large part of the problem with those who try to explain creation is that they ignore what the Bible actually says about creation. (I don’t mean in English but rather in the original Hebrew). The description of creation in the bible is simple but accurate according to the fossil record. When the bible says “day” in English (in the Genesis account) it is because we have no word in English that corresponds exactly to the Hebrew word, which simply means a time period with a definite beginning and ending. This and some other poor assumptions on the part of the majority of well meaning but misinformed creationists has caused scientists to reject the bibles account of creation. However, it is still as accurate a description as would be understood by people living with a very basic knowledge of science (such as a group of escaped slaves living in the dessert 4000+ years ago).

The greatest proof of creation is not to be found in the bible but rather in nature itself.
Many people think that life started with simple chemicals mixing in a soup until they combined to form the first single celled organism. This idea is based on two assumptions. 1) At some time in earths history the correct conditions existed for the mixing of chemicals that could form life and 2) that one celled organisms are extremely simple. The first assumption is understandable, after all we don’t know exactly what the make up of our planet was in the distant past. However, there are several chemical impossibilities that present themselves in this scenario. I can’t mention them all in this blog but take the oxygen crisis for example. All biological life needs oxygen, but oxygen tends to break down chemical compounds. If sufficient oxygen existed to sustain life then there would also be enough to break down the original simple chemicals that are said to have formed the precursors to life thus rendering them useless.
The second point, (that one celled organisms are extremely simple) is completely due to a lack of basic biologic knowledge. Even the simplest life form known to humans is millions of times more advanced and complicated that the computer you are using to read this blog. As of yet we cant design anything that even approaches the perfection of a “simple” one celled organism let alone something like a human brain.

Evolution creates life?
Have you ever noticed that evolutionists use the word evolution as if it were a person, at times even attributing intelligence to it? This is because deep down they realize that if you discount an intelligent creator than you have no scientific basis for the existence of life. Many people use evolution as a god, after all such a theory requires faith to believe in. This creates an unscientific and dogmatic mentality where every discovery “proves” evolution. However no actual proof exists for evolution (ask to see a study) and it of course cant be observed in its natural environment. Evolution is just a way to deny the existence of God, after all creation requires a creator. With evolution you can “escape” all accountability to a higher power.

Well that’s all the time I have now.

he wouldnt have made the universe in a different way cos he wanted to give man free will.
if a person chooses to be murderer, a rapist, a serial killer, that is his choice. its not the choice that God wants him to make, but God doesnt change things cause he wants to allow man to choose.

But since God knew -- at the very moment of Creation -- that that person would be a murderer or a rapist or a serial killer, then where's the choice? According to you, God not only started the universe, he knew exactly how the whole thing would turn out. So he not only started it off, he pre-determined exactly how everything would turn out. In short, he made not just a three-dimensional universe but a four-dimensional one: he made the present and the future, as well as the past. Therefore, under this model, any "free will" we might think we have is an illusion.

Let's try it this way. You are God. You make the universe. At the moment of creation, one of the infinity of things you know is that I will type the word "shignipple" at this precise moment in this particular forum. You made the universe in such a way as to bring about the typing of this word. If you didn't want me to type it, you could have altered the way the universe was created to avoid me, this forum, this moment, that word, anything. But you didn't. Although it felt to me as if the letters I typed were my own choice, since you knew at the dawn of time that I would type them, I couldn't do anything else. God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

we are not preprogrammed to pick the choices that we choose. we are just allowed to choose.
and so we choose. just because he knows the choices we make doesnt discredit our ability to choose.

If you believe that God created the universe with those choices hard-wired in from day one, then I'm afradi that we ARE pre-programmed.

i dont see how God cant be infinitely powerful and just at the same time.
if he is God, then he is perfect.
his justice makes him use his power to ensure justice,
his power ensures that justice is kept

If he can prevent injustice, but doesn't -- he's not infinitely just. If he wants to stop injustice, but can't -- he's not infinitely powerful. That's before we get to the idea of predestination and a God who tortures some of his creations for doing what they were pre-programmed to do.

That's it from me for now. I can't make any of the above any clearer. If you can't grasp the basic logic, then I can't make you. I have to say you seem to be remarkably certain about what God did, does, and wants. Does He have free will?

Stick a fork in me, I'm done.

Not stupid... an example of how some people will not give up an article of faith, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. An extreme example, because the big crunch debate isn't nearly so polarised - but the extremity of the example better shows how hard it is for people to give-up belief.

Re: the math... first, I already pointed out that the inverse square law isn't the entirety of the equation... not all of the matter is accelerating away from all of the other matter, and certainly not at any proportional rate. Second, even if that were true, you have been utterly confused by my bridge to Moscow... like I said, it would be more accurate if the bridge went from Miami TO Miami, because the universe will fall back on it's origin. Surely you can see that the tendency for the matter to slow down (and never 'get there' as you said..) actually FAVOURS it's potential to fall back in?

It got too ridiculous to carry on a long time ago, about the second page of the first thread, where people claimed to have evidence for Creationism. They didn't - the thread continues.

Oh, nice, by the way... you don't take to my explanation of a physical phenomenon, so you try to suggest I have no education. As with so many others on this thread, your mouth is writing cheques which you have no means of honouring.

(That means you make big claims but have no evidence). Are you a Creationist?

one more post
Others, meanwhile, attacked a different aspect of the problem. As the universe expands, the combined gravity from all the matter within it tends to slow that expansion, much as the earth's gravity tries to pull a rising rocket back to the ground. If the pull is strong enough, the expansion will stop and reverse itself; if not, the cosmos will go on getting bigger, literally forever. Which is it? One way to find out is to weigh the cosmos—to add up all the stars and all the galaxies, calculate their gravity and compare that with the expansion rate of the universe. If the cosmos is moving at escape velocity, no Big Crunch.


http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html

Yes it is very stupid. Obviously gravity is a very fundamental law. If an argument can be refuted by it. The argument would be dropped right away by the scientist who put it forward. Scientists do not rely or faith.



Not usually arguing from this side... gravity isn't actually a Law. Gravity isnt even a theory. Gravity is a force. An argument MAY be possible to 'refute' the current model, in which case 'gravity' as we know it will become a historical joke - just as the early models of the atomic structure did.

And, ashamed though it makes me, I'm afraid you'll find a number of people who call themselves 'scientists' do rely on faith.

Example: one of my physical chemistry lecturers at university, who tried to claim that a certain 'bonding mechanism' PROVED that Quantum Theory was true. She sincerely believed that she could PROVE a theory, with a theory.



Every point IS accelerating away from every other point. Think of the outside of a balloon. When it is blown up, every point diverges away from every other point. Obviously some points diverge more slowly but it does happen.

Miami is our current state, moscow is the point at which some matter changes direction and falls toward the centre of mass.



Every point is not accelerating away from EVERY other point. This is, after all, a universe governed by entropy. Many objects are, you will have to admit, actually moving toward each other. Maybe if you read the whole paragraph I posted...

Thankyou for explaining MY analogy to ME. Otherwise there could have been some confusion, no?



Well do you have an education? Having no education isnt the same as begin stupid. Merely if you have been told about the phenomena at hand you have a better chance of understanding it, did you read the bit about the geometric series from my last post? Clear example of how you can keep progressing but never get there. No i'm not a creationist.

Yes. I have 'some' education. You do seem to imply that the only way an argument can be valid is with 'education' - you don't agree with a point? Okay, where are your credentials... that's the impression you gave.

And, mathematically, while it is true that your series would never actually 'equal' the end-point, it will progress infinitesimally closer indefinitely, until it is indistinguishable from the other result - given sufficient time. And we have all the time in the universe. As I said - irrelevent, anyway, as other internal factors are at work, and no external ones.

Yes. I have 'some' education. You do seem to imply that the only way an argument can be valid is with 'education' - you don't agree with a point? Okay, where are your credentials... that's the impression you gave.

And, mathematically, while it is true that your series would never actually 'equal' the end-point, it will progress infinitesimally closer indefinitely, until it is indistinguishable from the other result - given sufficient time. And we have all the time in the universe. As I said - irrelevent, anyway, as other internal factors are at work, and no external ones.

Okay i have a degree in maths with physics. Not that you'll beleive someone typing it on the internet who you've never met.

What if the point it converges to is less than the value needed to attain complete deceleration?

did you read any of the article i posted?

there is evidence, just whether you choose to accept it or not.
no amount of persuasion can deter you if you choose not to accept it.
yes, you may discredit him, that doesnt mean he doesnt exist.
God doesnt need ppl to believe him to exist

Will you be awfully offended if I told you that I know of no evidence for God (but that there is also no evidence there is no God) and that you can believe what you want to believe (including or excluding Evolution).
It does indeed appear that no amount of persuasion can make anyone believe/disbelieve in Evolution (and/or God) if you choose not to accept the relevant point of view.
You may suggest that He does exist, that doesn't mean He has to (yet of course you may be right).
A non-existant God is purely the construct of the people who believe in Him. Or perhaps Terry Pratchett's book "Small Gods" (not to be confused with "Good Omens", though that's an interesting read too) is right?

God may or may not be the person who set forth the process of Evolution (with or without the earlier intervention in the creation of the Universe). I truly believe that this discussion has had its course changed from its original aims.

The whole point of the subject is whether we arrived at our current position as humans with a penchent for posting on the Jolt/NationStates forum due to gradual selective pressures upon the genomes of pre-human creatures (way back to self-replicating molecules, if you feel so inclined, and with or without an intiial nudge or continual guidence by a supreme being) or did we just suddenly get formed out of nothing (and this alternative pretty much requiring there be a God of some kind, or some really off-the-wall science we're totally ignorant of as of this time).

If there's a God, then either can be true. If there's no God then the latter cannot (except for the caveat) be true, but it may also be that Science has not so far realised the fatal flaws in the theories surrounding natural selection and that there's something else entirely going on.

I believe in evolution over pure creation (because the latter gives rise to Last-Tuesdayism, and there's really no sense in that) and I'm undecided about the existence of God, but because of the extreme and (if you'll excuse me) blind nature of the pro-God camp on here at the moment I'm likely to look like an atheist purely because of my inadvertantly assumed role as... ahem... Devil's Advocate.

one more post

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010625/story.html

That's the story about the constantly expanding universe, right?

The one that spends half it's length trying to explain why the 'believe' in Dark Matter, and making assumptions about black holes and stuff.

It's pulp. It's kindergarten science. Sure, some of the scientists involved make big money, and are really, really clever - but for me, the whole Dark Matter thing is to un-Occam. Science is supposed be based on the evidence - and I think we still have too little evidence for the whole Dark Matter thing... and don't even get me started on Super Massive Blackholes...

That's the story about the constantly expanding universe, right?

The one that spends half it's length trying to explain why the 'believe' in Dark Matter, and making assumptions about black holes and stuff.

It's pulp. It's kindergarten science. Sure, some of the scientists involved make big money, and are really, really clever - but for me, the whole Dark Matter thing is to un-Occam. Science is supposed be based on the evidence - and I think we still have too little evidence for the whole Dark Matter thing... and don't even get me started on Super Massive Blackholes...

any source you would accept then?

edit: its not just about the constantly expending universe, it covers both possibilities.

Okay i have a degree in maths with physics. Not that you'll beleive someone typing it on the internet who you've never met.

What if the point it converges to is less than the value needed to attain complete deceleration?

did you read any of the article i posted?

Sure I believe you. As far as I can tell, you would have no reason to lie.

Inverse-square-law, shminverse-square-law. My argument was that this isn't a straight forward point mass situation. Our fulcrum is neither central, nor static. Our moment is not applied consistently.

I will grant that the "less than complete deceleration" model is POSSIBLE, but I find the statistics of all the required matter being equidistantly spaced, and suffering equal forces, to be a vanishingly small probability.

Sure I believe you. As far as I can tell, you would have no reason to lie.

Inverse-square-law, shminverse-square-law. My argument was that this isn't a straight forward point mass situation. Our fulcrum is neither central, nor static. Our moment is not applied consistently.

I will grant that the "less than complete deceleration" model is POSSIBLE, but I find the statistics of all the required matter being equidistantly spaced, and suffering equal forces, to be a vanishingly small probability.

matter doesnt have to be equally spaced and subject to equal forces for the constantly expanding universe to work.

any source you would accept then?

edit: its not just about the constantly expending universe, it covers both possibilities.

At the moment, there is no difference between Dark Matter and God. Both are theories - which do a good job of explaining, but have no concrete evidence, both have adherents, and many accept either as having merit. If someone brought me a box of Dark Matter, I might be convinced. Same as if they brought me a box of God.

Time magazine is certainly not going to be my first choice of science-fact material, but no matter the weight of the magazine, book or journal - the evidence remains circumstatial at best, and even the originators of the Dark Matter theory (I seem to recall) explained that they came up with that model just because they couldn't think of any other.

And, while the article mentioned both 'models' they leaned heavily towrds the expansion one, and I seem to remember that they based most of the argument on Dark Matter.

matter doesnt have to be equally spaced and subject to equal forces for the constantly expanding universe to work.

No - but it does have to be 'similar' to that model. If sufficient of the mass is located close enough together to form a second 'centre' the whole mathematical basis of the point-of-mass becomes statistically skewed.

Most of the evidence for a belief in the constant expansion model seems to be based around extreme bodies, which distorts the whole model of universal transition anyway, since the majority of mass is (likely) not located at the extremity.

The greatest proof of creation is not to be found in the bible but rather in nature itself.
Many people think that life started with simple chemicals mixing in a soup until they combined to form the first single celled organism. This idea is based on two assumptions. 1) At some time in earths history the correct conditions existed for the mixing of chemicals that could form life and 2) that one celled organisms are extremely simple. The first assumption is understandable, after all we don’t know exactly what the make up of our planet was in the distant past. However, there are several chemical impossibilities that present themselves in this scenario. I can’t mention them all in this blog but take the oxygen crisis for example. All biological life needs oxygen, but oxygen tends to break down chemical compounds. If sufficient oxygen existed to sustain life then there would also be enough to break down the original simple chemicals that are said to have formed the precursors to life thus rendering them useless.

Not all forms of life need oxygen. 'Animal' life takes in oxygen, whereas plant life has a net production of oxygen (which is where all the oxygen comes from that the animals enjoy). Other forms of life (described as 'primative', when viewed from our eyes) reduce sulphurous compounds to generate their energy requirements, as opposed to the whole C+O2=>CO2 thing that we do.

The second point, (that one celled organisms are extremely simple) is completely due to a lack of basic biologic knowledge. Even the simplest life form known to humans is millions of times more advanced and complicated that the computer you are using to read this blog. As of yet we cant design anything that even approaches the perfection of a “simple” one celled organism let alone something like a human brain./QUOTE]

In today's world, niches have been filled by all kinds of creatures, from the smallest bacteria to the largest cetacions (and, if you want to mention them, there are a whole load of viruses out there, and they aren't even 'alive' in the normal biological sense). In the first days of self-replicating molecules, it was the norm that short strands of organic polymers floated around in their environment. Due to the way adaptation occurs, the ones that prevailed developed cell membranes, got complex, got together in colonies, specialised and joined as multi-cellular creatures, developed things like bones and teeth and stinging cells and eyes (BTW, no-one has yet tried the old "the eye proves there's no evolution" argument, hopefully because nobody here is unaware of the refutations) and muscular tissue and nerves and whatever is needed to work as such a creature.

There might still be 'naked' self-replicating molecules outside of labs, but they'd be pretty hard to spot. The trouble is that all the rest of the biomass (macro stuff like us and penguins and elephants and beetles and the microscopic things such as bacteria and blood-parasites, etc) swamp the environment, most of the accesible parts of which are vastly different from the environment that those original molecules thrived in.

[QUOTE=The Royal Revoys]Evolution creates life?
Have you ever noticed that evolutionists use the word evolution as if it were a person, at times even attributing intelligence to it?

That's a mistake. Evolution should be a description of what has happened. We have become human, there was no 'decision' by the physical processes (give or take God's guiding hand and/or accurate placement of variables when He set up the original environment, should that even be a factor) that we would be the outcome or even dominant state of play at this time, given the original decisions.

Unfortunately, all of us tend to anthropomorphically personify processes. For example, "the computer didn't like what I was typing and decided to crash" is human shorthand fo "because of a minor miscoding by the developer of the application I was using and a series of further decisions made during the installation of said application upon the lectronic device, a particular set of microscopic transistors took on a particular pattern of states which was incompatible with that anticipated by subsequently processed coded instructions, and the resulting situation did not provide for the stable and continuing operation of the device as a whole when compared with the personal expectation of the operator".

This is because deep down they realize that if you discount an intelligent creator than you have no scientific basis for the existence of life. Many people use evolution as a god, after all such a theory requires faith to believe in. This creates an unscientific and dogmatic mentality where every discovery “proves” evolution. However no actual proof exists for evolution (ask to see a study) and it of course cant be observed in its natural environment. Evolution is just a way to deny the existence of God, after all creation requires a creator. With evolution you can “escape” all accountability to a higher power.

It's not like that in my mind. And let me point out that with a 'higher power' you can "escape" all need to understand why the Universe is why it is. Does understanding about the cosmic background radiation in any way assist you in your life as a whole? No, it probably doesn't make your journey to the shops any easier, and you're not going to lose your job (unless you're an astronomer, for example) if you dismiss it as irrelevant. Even the scientificly-minded can do that, except when called upon to deal with the phenomenon directly for some reason. If you deny that it exists despite the proof existing, though, it's a little silly. And putting the existence of life down to the beardy guy when there's some fairly consistent ideas about how it might have formed isn't going to harm anyone, and would help in the church, but don't try to pretend that any answer is /the/ answer if the primary reason is a book of dubious origins and a 'feeling', when the alternate answers have a reasonable (if not incontrovertable) volume of supporting arguments in favour of them.

Well that’s all the time I have now.
I know what you mean... :)

Most of the evidence for a belief in the constant expansion model seems to be based around extreme bodies, which distorts the whole model of universal transition anyway, since the majority of mass is (likely) not located at the extremity.

Maybe you don't consider this to be the same, but if you throw a ball up from the ground at certain velocities, before it gets far the force of gravity will have slowed it down and brought it to a stop and then bring it back towards the Earth. For a small lob upwards you can discount the fact that it is marginally further from the Earth at the top (and therefore decelerating at a marginally slower rate than at first). For a really large lob, such that it could reach the height of low-Earth orbit it would be noticably (though not significantly) less affected by gravity near its apex and have been reached that point only because the deceleration drops off accordingly through all prior altitudes reached (otherwise under constant deceleration, it wouldn't even have gotten that far, being stopped earlier).

Essentially the sum of all the instantaneous decelerations during its upward travel is indicative of the total velocity that it started with. When dealing with a near-ground situation you can essentially ignore the miniscule change and multiply the height by the force of gravity to produce a figure that has (effectively) a direct relation to the initial upwards component of velocity. The LEO example has integration and/or differentiation in it (it's been a while since I worked it out, so sue me... : ) and gives you a progression not unlike 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8, though with different values. That progression tends to 2 as you use an infinite number of terms, your actual progression tends to a different value. If you throw at a veolicty below that of that value, you will never reach infinity because you will already have lost all of the velocity before you get there (and, indeed, you will spend more 'instantaneous' time at greater decelerations, but that's dy/dx for you), but throwing at greater than the defined velocity means that you will still have some upwards velocity left (and you spent /less/ time at each 'instaneous' point of deceleration). That's essentially what Escape Velocity is all about (though rockets are also assisted by being given lateral velocity by the sin of the Earth and steering of the rocket to take advantage of this such that when they 'fall' they fall with enough 'sideways' force to effectively keep falling past the Earth, and that is an orbit).

The question is whether the energy imparted to the total mass of the Universe immediately after the Big Bang (or whatever) was great enough to make the net effect of dispersing all matter quicker away from the 'centre' of the Universe than the deceleration (complicated by the fact that each bit of the dispersing matter no longer exerted a central point force on the rest of itself, and that there is no obvious 'centre' to the Universe because space itself also explanded) would overcome.

Then there's the whole 'expansion' phase that the early Universe supposedly enjoyed, but that's getting too high-level in astronomy for my tastes.

I used to believe (and 'believe' is the word) that it would be so elegant if the energy used to chuck the mass of the universe outwards was balanced exactly between the "not quite enough to keep it explanding" and "just enough to stop it coming back in on itself" point. Of course, that point exists as a singularity in the equation, effectively unattainable. It's like trying to roll a perfect frinctionless ball up a mound, with no air resistence or other lateral resistences to movement, so that it stops on the top, 'flat' bit. When 'on' the top flat highest pinicle part, you have no forces to stop you from rolling further onto the bit that goes down again, no matter how slow you go. If you provide an infinitesimally small quantity /less/ original speed to the ball it will find itself stopped on an infinitesimally small but existing backward lope that brings it back to you. This is not a direct analogy with the expansion of the Universe, but it demonstrates the problem with my original way of thinking.

Anyway. Ho, hum, time for bed.

A large part of the problem with those who try to explain creation is that they ignore what the Bible actually says about creation. (I don’t mean in English but rather in the original Hebrew). The description of creation in the bible is simple but accurate according to the fossil record. When the bible says “day” in English (in the Genesis account) it is because we have no word in English that corresponds exactly to the Hebrew word, which simply means a time period with a definite beginning and ending. This and some other poor assumptions on the part of the majority of well meaning but misinformed creationists has caused scientists to reject the bibles account of creation. However, it is still as accurate a description as would be understood by people living with a very basic knowledge of science (such as a group of escaped slaves living in the dessert 4000+ years ago).



The big problem science has with the bible account is that Creationists take it literally. They really do believe that god shaped man from the dust, and that it was night and then morning = one 'day'. As you say - Hebrew gives a "period of time", which is described in terms of a day, but look at the artistry of the Hebrew langauge... the whole language is a catalogue of metaphor and simile.

Who are the supposed 'escaped slaves' you describe, from 4000 years ago? I hope you don't mean those early Hebrews? 4000 years ago, the Hebrews had no written histories or any other written document - they got that technology from the Babylonians - at which time, it would appear, they lifted huge tracts of Babylonian myth to create their own Creation myth.

Look at the stories of Gilgamesh - written maybe a thousand years before those desert dwellers began to write stories, featuring accounts of temptation and resultant loss of immortality, due to the interference of a serpent, and a flood myth that the Bible copies almost word for word.



The greatest proof of creation is not to be found in the bible but rather in nature itself.
Many people think that life started with simple chemicals mixing in a soup until they combined to form the first single celled organism. This idea is based on two assumptions. 1) At some time in earths history the correct conditions existed for the mixing of chemicals that could form life and 2) that one celled organisms are extremely simple. The first assumption is understandable, after all we don’t know exactly what the make up of our planet was in the distant past. However, there are several chemical impossibilities that present themselves in this scenario. I can’t mention them all in this blog but take the oxygen crisis for example. All biological life needs oxygen, but oxygen tends to break down chemical compounds. If sufficient oxygen existed to sustain life then there would also be enough to break down the original simple chemicals that are said to have formed the precursors to life thus rendering them useless.


If you don't know any biology, I'd advise you not to get involved in the biology side of the argument... what are anaerobic bacteria????

And, on chemistry - what about Water? Oxygen doesn't break down water - well, there will be slow reaction, but we are talking measurable response). Many chemicals need oxygen in order to form. Radical oxygen is destructive - and if our ozone layer was lower, maybe we wouldn't be here now. Maybe.

You also seem to have ignored plants. Plants need much less oxygen than people, and other animals... you know why??? It's because they MAKE oxygen. Think about that. Not all life arrived at the same time - no matter what the dusty old book says.


The second point, (that one celled organisms are extremely simple) is completely due to a lack of basic biologic knowledge. Even the simplest life form known to humans is millions of times more advanced and complicated that the computer you are using to read this blog. As of yet we cant design anything that even approaches the perfection of a “simple” one celled organism let alone something like a human brain.


Missing two important factors here. 1) You CAN define life, below even the single-celled level. There is debate, but even a virus CAN be considered as alive - as it no doubt should. A virus is a fairly simple organism, basically a protein that replicates itself through reaction with other proteins. The fact that there even has been debate about whether a virus is alive, indicates how basic a structure it is. 2) Take a look at a cell in a human body. See all the little 'dots' that are the power-packs and machinery of the cell? We call them organelles, but they are basically just microbes. Virii and Bacteria that have become accumulated for the better survival of the cell, and each other.

Good try, but unfortunately, the science of cells actually SUPPORTS the idea of evolution... we are the end result of symbiotic survival-of-the-fittest.



Evolution creates life?
Have you ever noticed that evolutionists use the word evolution as if it were a person, at times even attributing intelligence to it? This is because deep down they realize that if you discount an intelligent creator than you have no scientific basis for the existence of life. Many people use evolution as a god, after all such a theory requires faith to believe in. This creates an unscientific and dogmatic mentality where every discovery “proves” evolution. However no actual proof exists for evolution (ask to see a study) and it of course cant be observed in its natural environment. Evolution is just a way to deny the existence of God, after all creation requires a creator. With evolution you can “escape” all accountability to a higher power.



No - I've never noticed evolutionists using the word evolution as if it were a person. I have seen them using evolution as a way to describe the process of species survival, and I have seen people assume that they mean in some kind of anthropomorphic fashion.

If you really do not believe that there is ANY evidence for evolution, you are either choosing not to see any evidence, don't know what 'evidence' is, or do not know much.

Look at Pepper Moths.

Look at the strep virus.

Go on, do a google search. Surprise, and maybe inform, yourself.

Maybe you don't consider this to be the same, but if you throw a ball up from the ground at certain velocities........

....... that there is no obvious 'centre' to the Universe because space itself also explanded) would overcome.


Not meaning to be rude here- trimmed for space. I know about ballistics, and differentiation: onto the second half...



I used to believe (and 'believe' is the word) that it would be so elegant if the energy used to chuck the mass of the universe outwards was balanced exactly between the "not quite enough to keep it explanding" and "just enough to stop it coming back in on itself" point. Of course, that point exists as a singularity in the equation, effectively unattainable. It's like trying to roll a perfect frinctionless ball up a mound, with no air resistence or other lateral resistences to movement, so that it stops on the top, 'flat' bit. When 'on' the top flat highest pinicle part, you have no forces to stop you from rolling further onto the bit that goes down again, no matter how slow you go. If you provide an infinitesimally small quantity /less/ original speed to the ball it will find itself stopped on an infinitesimally small but existing backward lope that brings it back to you. This is not a direct analogy with the expansion of the Universe, but it demonstrates the problem with my original way of thinking.



I 'accepted', as a child, the image of a universe as shown in books. Galaxies look kind of like fried eggs or fireworks, and stick a load of them together - there's your universe.

As I matured, I began to question this model. It didn't make any sense. How could planets move, but 'everything' be stationary. This sent me spiralling upwards to universe scale, and something of a rethink. I looked at evidence, and decided that, since astronomical bodies seem to be moving away from us, maybe the universe was expanding. I also looked at orbitting bodies, and how they eventually collide with their origin point, and decided maybe the whole universe was eventually going to 'crash' back to where it started.

Since then, I have looked for ways to refine my theory either way. Dark Matter - if proved to exist, may bias my decision in one favour. Super Massive Blackholes - if proved to be real, may bias my decision.

Otherwise, given that all the mass is inside, and all the 'forces' are inside, and all the energy is 'inside' - and given that 'space' outside of the universe has no force to exert on the centre of the reaction - it seems logical to me that, eventually, the creation that spiralled out, is just going to spiral back.

Not meaning to be rude here- trimmed for space. I know about ballistics, and differentiation: onto the second half...
Yeah, sorry, I get an idea in my head for a reply and sometimes run with it, even if the running ends up making a patronising point somewhat divergent from my original, then after an edit or two it can (as in this case) miss the mark I was originally making. Apologies for sounding patronising, I missed the tone (and indeed nature) of the missive I was aiming for.

I 'accepted', as a child, the image of a universe as shown in books. Galaxies look kind of like fried eggs or fireworks, and stick a load of them together - there's your universe.

As I matured, I began to question this model. It didn't make any sense. How could planets move, but 'everything' be stationary. This sent me spiralling upwards to universe scale, and something of a rethink. I looked at evidence, and decided that, since astronomical bodies seem to be moving away from us, maybe the universe was expanding. I also looked at orbitting bodies, and how they eventually collide with their origin point, and decided maybe the whole universe was eventually going to 'crash' back to where it started.
I think the idea is (though I haven't the maths skills to prove that this is the right way to look at it) that each 'group' of bodies (i.e. any set of 'items' that affect each other gravitationally but not aren't touching) can be considered to be an isolated system. That probe and the Eros asteroid had an orbital relationship that can be expressed (almost entirely, at least in reasonable time-scales) as a two-body system, the Moon round the Earth likewise, the planets round the Sun is a bit more complicated with the multiplicity of bodies but largely managable with the Sun being the major mass-container, the Centauri system is more complex but largely works "in and of itself", the Milky Way is modellable as a disk of 'stuff' (where the 'stuff' is solar systems, but can be averaged out as point entities or even smeared out as a 'fluid' disk round the gravitational centre of mass) and even galactic clusters work in a semi-managable way, apparently.

In all these cases, all other matter in the universe is also pulling on the system and thus pulls that body in some way, but the system itself is effectively in free-fall. Only the proximity of any other body (of like scale or significant gravitational influence) causes significant problems, when the closeness gives a significant gravity gradient across the system to bend the rubber sheet that is gravity enough to distort the layout of the system. Still, each body within the system is 'free-falling' at all times.

In the expanding Universe, whether it is all destined to fall back together or has energy enough to continue forever, the more significant attractions between neighbouring clumps of matter (at whatever scale) that would otherwise be diverging can cause interactions on a local scale whereby systems of an intermediate order of a magnitude are momentarily defined (on the appropriate astronomical time-scales) and then broken by a combination of merging and the 'spillage' of sub-systems that attain enough energy to escape the combined system-pair.

(I often think of it in terms of Conway's Game Of Life. There are some bunches of cells, e.g. three in a row or a square of four, that can sustain a state or a series of states indefinitely, whilst standing still or translating themselves across the field of play on a regular and definable manner. This occurs as long as there is no convergence between this bunch and another bunch. As soon as there is a two-cell gap between that and another set, however, the dynamics of the pattern can be changed according to the manner in which they meet. The flaw here is that there is /no/ action at a distance, and larger stable groups are no more influential or less influenced, save by size and 'style' of the colliding perimiter, than small stable groups are upon an encounter with another group.)

Anyway, in this way the total mass of the universe can be diverging yet still exhibit the localised convergance that was necessary to form our solar system and all other bodies/entities that exist at greater and lesser scales of mass, distance and time.

I would hazard a guess that the doppler shift differences within a galaxy (caused by the advancing/retreating arms of a spiral, for example) are several orders of magnitude less significant the shift differences between galaxies (representing the motions within the cluster) and in turn much less significant than the shift differences between clusters, hyperclusters and whatever else there is, and all in increasing degrees. In this way not only is way the 'average'/smeared measurement of a system's motion greater by degrees the more the scale is, but even a majority of 'hyper fast' systems in a remote galaxy have their progress in our direction (w.r.t to the galaxy) utterly negated and more by the retreat of the galaxy itself. That's speculation, though, and the the 0.9c jets of matter from the poles of black holes/quasars are an obvious exception.

Basically, the idea is that all things in space can be expanding forever, all those balls travelling 'outwards' having attained the universal escape velocity, yet during their trip outwards the indivudal 'units' of matter (at whatever scale you wish to look at) are fee to find themselves passing past, colliding with or essentially passing 'through' their counter-part cousins on the eternal trip outwards, and in all kinds of directions. It may also be that, in the stampede of matter outwards, there will be transferal of momentum that ends up forcing some matter to glob in a 'near central' location whilst companion matter is given an additional boost (which could also happen in an otherwise 'closed' universe, bringing up serious questions about whether a universe could be 'closed' but 'leaky', I suppose).

That's the idea, I believe. I am in no way an expert and have derived a lot of the above from speculatory thought-experiments of my own. Yes, I do tend to think about a lot of rubbish, but hopefully some gems of truth exist within it.


Since then, I have looked for ways to refine my theory either way. Dark Matter - if proved to exist, may bias my decision in one favour. Super Massive Blackholes - if proved to be real, may bias my decision.

Otherwise, given that all the mass is inside, and all the 'forces' are inside, and all the energy is 'inside' - and given that 'space' outside of the universe has no force to exert on the centre of the reaction - it seems logical to me that, eventually, the creation that spiralled out, is just going to spiral back.
That's a possibility. I can't recall which result 'they' currently say is the likely one, given the measured values. I think that (even with such dark matter estimates as they have derived from observations of "strangely more massive than they should be" galaxies and those that appear to have a stabalising 'halo' of dark matter surrounding them) they're still not getting enough matter in the universe to halt the eternal expansion. I'm not particularly up-to-date as to the current state of play w.r.t. WIMPs and MACHOs, but I think that the supermassive black holes are already within the remit of regular (i.e. 'light') matter and we're looking at some sort of exotic particle (gravitationally active but not electromagneticly) to give the pull the universe needs to come back together again.

BTW, rearding a previous post, black holes have long been thought to evaporate (you may have recently heard about Hawking's rethink about whether information leaks back into the universe as well as matter) so that raises another issue. All the regular (and even glactic-sized) black holes that are left when all normal matter should have been swallowed will still be leaking matter back into the universe, and presumably at least some of it is therefore sitting in the universe (probably heading towards yet another black hole, from which it will eventually be expelled) during the era that we think of as universal heat-death.

I can't even imagine whether this will mean the continual (but slower) accumulation of increasingly isolated matter clumps creating more and more and smaller black holes (and eventually just small, dead particles leftover from all the other thigns that have gone on) or if the matter/energy duality will mean that the Universe will approach infinite size with virtually all matter decayed to its energy form, spread out more or less evenly at extremely low levels at too low a net quanta to allow the spontaeous generation of particles and permeating as intangible and non-interactive waveforms across the vast expanses.

Doesn't sound like a very romantic, end does it? When you look at it that way, the attraction of the infinitely oscillating universe is obvious. :)

Yeah, sorry, I get an idea in my head for a reply and sometimes run with it,

First... Let me just say how much I have actually been enjoying this discussion. I have been involved in several of these threads, and have met responses ranging from "hands-over-ears-I-can't-hear-you" to some incredibly rude vitriol. It's nice to debate a point, rather than feel like there are shots being fired, or bodies being counted.

Second... Jumping straight to the other end of this post... the simple-harmonic-motion model of the universe is much more attractive - cosmetically - than the leaky space, unexplainable darkness, etc. models. That's why I like it, but that's not why I arrived at it. I arrived at it because it seems to be in the nature of the universe to seek equilibrium, systems seem to be governed by a 'law of efficiency'. And, if that puts me at loggerheads with other scientists, so be it.

Third... The ideas of free-fall and escape velocity for universal matter, are kind of given. But, I don't quite see it that way. If space exerts no forces of it's own... the free-fall is more akin to loose strings - bodies may be lightyears apart, and their fields of influence attenuated, but they are still the ONLY game out there. So what if their attraction is weak, eventually, even a constantly decreasing pull, acting on a body that is getting further away, will have enough of an effect on the other body to make a difference - because there is 'nothing else' to stop it from happening.

Space is just the distance. It's not a medium.

Similarly, 'escape velocity' implies there is somewhere to go...

Fourth: Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dark Matter is a convention used to explain the huge shortfall calculation throws up when science tries to emasure the universal mass. It is further explained by Hawkings' argument that there are parallel realities that 'leak' gravity into ours. Now - I think Hawking is brilliant, but that doesn't make him right.

For me "Science" will not allow acceptance of splashy gravity or mystic heaviness, just because no other models fit the profile.

Fifth: Black holes, leaking data. I thought the initial wager foolhardy, and based on a series of assumptions. I think the revocation just as foolhardy.
I don't accept the premise of 'information' being lost in a black hole - and I think the whole thing hinges on Hawking's willingness to accept a parallel reality.

I have my own opinions about black holes, which may not gel with hawking, but which gel in a very agreeable fashion with the oscillating universe.

Sixth: I do not concede a 'leaky universe' any more than you appear to. If the universe is not a closed system, then what is?

Seventh: I appear to have completely killed your post in my reply. Did read it (obviously), but I also talk too much.

i'm back - in full force, with a firmer stance that life was created through God's plan, and evolution through chance is absolutely impossible.

evolution is NOT science. neither is creation. why? because THEY WERE NOT OBSERVED. sure, people claim we can still see minor evolution happening around, but does that mean that life came around through evolution? no. no observations, no hypothesis, no experimentation, no results, no analysis, no repetitions, no theory, no law, no science.

please, i beg you, show me fossils of dinosaurs growing feathers so they could fly like birds. currently, once we see a fossil, we can actually immediately identify whether it was a bird, complete with wings and feathers, and a dinosaur, a scaly reptile. there's no "in-between" thing. i want to see growing species. i want to see half apes, half humans. we see species endangered, but we never see large-scale species popping out. those that do were created from scientific labs and do not represent what happens in the natural world.

evolution claims that organisms survive changes. it lives because it is well adapted. does adaptation mean evolution? no...peppered moths in manchester used to be white-dominated. after the industrial revolution the black peppered moths were more adapted to the dull environment, and so the white peppered moths died off...so? the black peppered moths were still peppered moths, not giant salted moths with huge claws and big bottoms.

why does this organism survive?
it survives because it is well adapted.
why is it well adapted?
so that it can survive.
...........................
LOGICAL FALLACY

evolution can only occur through gene mutations. changes in physical conditions, for example, a volcano erupting, asteroids crashing, canNOT bring about genetic mutations. many genetic mutations brought about by the highly sophisticated humans have proved to be disastrous - we still don't know whether GM foods will harm us or not. if even we cannot set out genetic mutations correct, how does chance do it?

we can keep zapping organisms with genetic mutations, but never will new species arrive - they will become contaminated and die.

up to date, diseases can be passed genetically, but i don't see how my dad having gigantic muscles will allow me to have even larger muscles, let alone deviate myself from Homo sapiens

so no. evolution leaks like a millenium-old tank.

This in reply to Grave_n_idle, BTW

Going straight to the (near) last point, I must say I've had fun /thinking/ about these things (less fun trying to articulate myself accurately and concisely, I'm aware of my shortcomings in that respect). I also see nothing 'wrong' with what you say and find myself merely presenting the alternatives rather than being forced deal with the kind of basic misconceptions of logic that I perceived earlier in this thread (in dealing with the original subject matter).

Neither do I want to spoil it all by attempting (or even appear to be attempting) to counter-argue your other valid points, nor do I think I have a right to.

(The main issue that I feel I did not previously manage to justify was my dealing with systems as all but isolated. There was no intention to represent them as totally closed to all external gravitational influences, just distanced such that all the little influences from 'elsewhere' hadn't noticably added up (yet) relative to an acceptible scale of error expected in observing the system(s) involved over the sample period. Please excuse the simplification.)

Anyway, I think we're generally in agreement over the possibilities and needn't schism over the differences. I'm willing to bet from your contributions that you have at least (and probably more) relevant education in the subject, but perhaps I get in the habit of oozing apparent authority... :)

As a student of Stephen Hawking (well I read his books) The big bang is everything in the universe in one big black hole (a singularity). This black hole was created by the entire content of the previous universe collapsed together.

God is not a neccesity.

but has he any proof other than mathematical?

i'm back - in full force, with a firmer stance that life was created through God's plan, and evolution through chance is absolutely impossible.

evolution is NOT science. neither is creation. why? because THEY WERE NOT OBSERVED. sure, people claim we can still see minor evolution happening around, but does that mean that life came around through evolution? no. no observations, no hypothesis, no experimentation, no results, no analysis, no repetitions, no theory, no law, no science.

please, i beg you, show me fossils of dinosaurs growing feathers so they could fly like birds. currently, once we see a fossil, we can actually immediately identify whether it was a bird, complete with wings and feathers, and a dinosaur, a scaly reptile. there's no "in-between" thing. i want to see growing species. i want to see half apes, half humans. we see species endangered, but we never see large-scale species popping out. those that do were created from scientific labs and do not represent what happens in the natural world.

There are many "in-between" fossils. However, because it's all a process of gradual change over successive generations, you won't get "haf A, half B" fossils, and demanding them merely shows that you haven't grasped what goes on. Imagine evolution as a morphing animation from one thing into another -- say a lungfish into a frog. The fossil record would consist of a handful of frames from that animation: and you want to see a frame where the thing is half lungfish, half frog? The very central frame? Even if you were lucky enough to find a fossil of that one specific frame, at that point it won't look much like a lungfish or much like a frog. And since in evolution, the progression is not one of smooth, graduated change, but one of punctuated equilibrium, you're demanding the impossible.

Even so, though, what are the various hominid skeletons -- Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis and so on -- but snapshots of the evolutionary process that took us from a common primate ancestor to modern humans?

evolution claims that organisms survive changes. it lives because it is well adapted. does adaptation mean evolution? no...peppered moths in manchester used to be white-dominated. after the industrial revolution the black peppered moths were more adapted to the dull environment, and so the white peppered moths died off...so? the black peppered moths were still peppered moths, not giant salted moths with huge claws and big bottoms.

A century or so is not long enough for major change. Evolution needs lots of time. Fortunately, life on earth has been around for 3.5 billion years at least.

why does this organism survive?
it survives because it is well adapted.
why is it well adapted?
so that it can survive.
...........................
LOGICAL FALLACY

No it's not. Life is a dynamic system.

evolution can only occur through gene mutations. changes in physical conditions, for example, a volcano erupting, asteroids crashing, canNOT bring about genetic mutations. many genetic mutations brought about by the highly sophisticated humans have proved to be disastrous - we still don't know whether GM foods will harm us or not. if even we cannot set out genetic mutations correct, how does chance do it?

Every generation puts up new mutations. If the mutation is beneficial, then there is a chance it will be positively selected for. When these mutations -- every generation, remember -- coincides with a major shift in the environment, the term "beneficial" can change too. That's why these periods are the prime times for speciation (that, and the major die-offs opening up previosuly occupied environmental niches).

we can keep zapping organisms with genetic mutations, but never will new species arrive - they will become contaminated and die.

I think I provided you with a link showing the development of a new species of fruit fly, which you objected to because it was "artificial". Have you changed your mind here?

up to date, diseases can be passed genetically, but i don't see how my dad having gigantic muscles will allow me to have even larger muscles, let alone deviate myself from Homo sapiens

so no. evolution leaks like a millenium-old tank.

If your dad has a gene which allows him to have larger muscles, and those larger muscles help him to produce more offspring than other people, then there will be more people wandering around with the gene for bigger muscles. If there is an environmental shift which suddenly favours people with bigger muscles, then those descendants of your dad who have that gene will be better suited to survive than people without the big-muscle gene. These small-muscled people will die and the earth will be inherited by those descendants of your dad with the big-muscle gene, who will obviously be interbreeding with each other more (through lack of choice, as much as anything else), helping to fix the characteristic in the population. Your dad's mutation probably won't do much for you: like I said above, evolution needs time.

There are unanswered issues with evolution. There are unanswered issues with all scientific theories. Gradually, these issues are answered and the theories are refined. That's how it goes. Insisting on a supernatural explanation for everything we currently don't understand is just turning your deity into a god of the gaps. Not a good long-term prospect for any belief-system, since the environment is subject to sudden change.

evolution can only occur through gene mutations. changes in physical conditions, for example, a volcano erupting, asteroids crashing, canNOT bring about genetic mutations. many genetic mutations brought about by the highly sophisticated humans have proved to be disastrous - we still don't know whether GM foods will harm us or not. if even we cannot set out genetic mutations correct, how does chance do it?
Chance is chance. We are ourselves. With GM we are trying to make things be something predetermined. The process of evolution 'occurs' and something not predetermined (but usually not too difficult to predict, given an appropriate level of knowlege) will result.

It is not predestined that subteranian fish lose their eyes (what if an eye-losing mutation does not propogate through the population, for some reason?) but in a random walk situation where "eye losing" is possible (and associated with both a marginal increase in energy needs efficiency and loss of a vulnerable spot in the body's against infection) eyes can be lost and the benefits /should/ be obvious.

The main issues we have with GM crops is the question of whether the primary/trait changes (weed-killer resistance) or secondary/marker changes (used to isolate the properly engineered stock in the laboratory) are something that might be adversly incorporated into later generations of crop/weed hybrids and find themselves exhibited in unusual (and perhaps unforseen) circumstances.

Further concerns are that that (for example) the weed-killer resistance trait in the crop will mean increased application of that week-killer with all the associated health issues (never mind the effects upon wildlife) that this entails.

Depending on your opinion, one reason for the scare about GM is because we do not know (for certain) what we are going to get. Pandora's Box, etc. Evolution does not worry about such things. Evolution causes Sabre-Toothed Tigers to be come into being through selection on a precursor predator species, but neither was that its aim nor was it an issue that it had produced massive predatory animals with impressive (if not always totally practical) dental displays.


And asteroids can allow the evolutionary flow to occur (though unless radioactive or whatever cannot indeed directly add to the overall background rate of minor mutations that alway occurs). Small furry animals whose existence has basically been to end up making a final, wet squeak in the mouth of a reptilian predator (but otherwise have managed to breed quickly enough to keep a stable population) may find themselves unaffected by the primary and secondary effects of the distant-enough strike whilst in their burrows, whilst above them their past enemies succumb even to the dampened out-edge of the shockwaves by dint of being in the open. With their predators gone, the larger versions of the furry animals, and those others less predisposed towards living in burrows, now do not have their existences threatened by the predators. A population may still exist that has a tendency to inhabit burrows, but now an offshoot population may walk freely above ground and develop whatever random traits their population acquires free of the need to remain small and burro-sized with digging claws. They probably find themselves (re-)developing better vision and once separate colonies live above and below ground there may no longer be a mating process between the populations (long before they 'look' substantially different) and random mutations occur to each population's reproductive processes such that while most of each population is compatible with the prospective mates within their own 'tribe', enough minor differences build up without cross-distribution of the appropriate genes so that they have acquired signifacantly incompatible reproductive systems even before their external changes exclude them from the 'partner of choice' category in the opposite sex of the other population.

New species. An asteroid helped, but nothing predestined it. If nobody developed useful above-the-ground traits then they might not have, but the existence of the two similar yet divergant populations gives big hints what might have happened.

we can keep zapping organisms with genetic mutations, but never will new species arrive - they will become contaminated and die.
Depends on what we do. If we zap them with a fully thethal dose of radiation, definitely. Give them a little bit and some with more susceptibility to radiation poisoning will die quicker and some with less susceptibility will survive longer. You will also get miniscule chances that the radiation will affect the genes that affect genetic compatibility with their fellow creatures.

Even without this, however, if you divide a single, fully breeding population into two and raise the two halves seperately, little random changes will occur in each populations, but very few in both, and will have no way to propogate through to the other. Those changes will accumulate and you'll get divergant populations.

Zapping the creatures with radiation may select for creatures with elevated radiation tolerance (not that this stops the occasional random mutation occuring by one means or another, of course) and/or cause a number of minor and non-calamitous differences in the particulars of the reproductive process (in among all those other differences you're instigating, from those with insignificant effect to the truly life-threatening/anti-reproduction).

Or, in other words, Radiation does not equate with Death, and neither does any other process that causes incorrect DNA replication/maintenance. It's all around us and we survive and we occasionally have problems and we occasionally have non-problem changes and if we;re really lucky we might get a hint of a positive change... but most of these we don't even know about.

please, i beg you, show me fossils of dinosaurs growing feathers so they could fly like birds. currently, once we see a fossil, we can actually immediately identify whether it was a bird, complete with wings and feathers, and a dinosaur, a scaly reptile. there's no "in-between" thing. i want to see growing species. i want to see half apes, half humans.

ask and ye shall recieve.

Sinosauropteryx - http://www.peabody.yale.edu/exhibits/cfd/CFDsino.html
had a down-like feathery covering that can be seen in the fossils we have, but is obviously much closer to dinosaurs than to modern birds. it didn't have wings, for example. but it did have teeth.

Caudipteryx - http://www.peabody.yale.edu/exhibits/cfd/CFDcaud.html
had feathers more like modern birds, though not as fully developed to allow for flight. still didn't have wings, still had teeth, still a dinosuar.

Confuciusornis - http://www.peabody.yale.edu/exhibits/cfd/CFDconfu.html
could actually fly. but it still had claws at the end of its hands/wings, just like its ancestors and is still just as much like dinosaurs as it is like modern birds.

and these are just the chinese finds. there are more, such as the famous archaeopteryx.
All About Archaeopteryx (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html)

the ape/human family is just as good. we most certainly don't have every intermediate species that existed, but we have plenty (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html). something i find rather telling is that creationist 'experts' who claim that each of those fossils can clearly and easily be placed as fully human or fully ape disagree with each other as to which ones can be classified as what.

perhaps you would care to try your hand at it? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html

the whole idea behind evolution is rediculous. you guys just believe whatever someone with a title tells you, but guess what? they just believe it because someone with a title told them.... have fun being a drone to the man.

Apologies if this point has been raised before, but I haven't heard a satisfactory refutation of the following:
evolution, if it does exist, does not disprove the existence of a creator, as evolution itself displays design. While it may rule out the suggestion that all current species were created at some point and have not changed, the very process of evolution relies on the fact that beneficial mutations are retained in the gene pattern and not lost. Otherwise evolution would not be possible. This has not been explained satisfactorily to me so far to disprove a creator - it more points towards one that created the process of evolution to work positively in his creation.
That was horrendously put, as was my spelling, but would appreciate a little feedback nonetheless guys.
Cheers

Apologies if this point has been raised before, but I haven't heard a satisfactory refutation of the following:
evolution, if it does exist, does not disprove the existence of a creator, as evolution itself displays design. While it may rule out the suggestion that all current species were created at some point and have not changed, the very process of evolution relies on the fact that beneficial mutations are retained in the gene pattern and not lost. Otherwise evolution would not be possible. This has not been explained satisfactorily to me so far to disprove a creator - it more points towards one that created the process of evolution to work positively in his creation.
That was horrendously put, as was my spelling, but would appreciate a little feedback nonetheless guys.
Cheers

Beneficial mutations are retained through survival of the fittest, if the mutation gives a significant advantage to the person who carries that mutation, then it will be passed on to the next generation and become more widely spread.

Apologies if this point has been raised before, but I haven't heard a satisfactory refutation of the following:
evolution, if it does exist, does not disprove the existence of a creator, as evolution itself displays design. While it may rule out the suggestion that all current species were created at some point and have not changed, the very process of evolution relies on the fact that beneficial mutations are retained in the gene pattern and not lost. Otherwise evolution would not be possible. This has not been explained satisfactorily to me so far to disprove a creator - it more points towards one that created the process of evolution to work positively in his creation.
That was horrendously put, as was my spelling, but would appreciate a little feedback nonetheless guys.
Cheers

Good genes are retained simply because they are in the organism that is most likely to survive. It's like if you have the choice of putting a wad of cash in in a steel safe or wooden box- the wad of cash in the steel safe is more likely to still be there.

Evolution doesn't and can't disprove any theory of divine creation, but pure Biblical Creation as shown by religious fundamentalists is disproved by it, since they maintain that all organism have undergone no change ever. The world may have been created in a way that makes evolution happen, but if it didn't happen, we wouldn't be here bitching about why it didn't. There's also another possibility: What if the world was created 10,000 years ago or whatever with everything put in place as if evolution had been going on for 3.9 billion years? That way, everyone's happy. Evolution is still valid and going on, the world was still created in six days. Of course, the idea of God is untestable and unneccessary for science, but it's an interesting notion.

Beneficial mutations are retained through survival of the fittest, if the mutation gives a significant advantage to the person who carries that mutation, then it will be passed on to the next generation and become more widely spread.

sorry, was probably my explaination that meant you misunderstood, but what I was suggesting is that evolution as a system of continuing ... evolution for want of a better word (improvement?), only works because mutations are retained genetically. Otherwise, while mutation would still occur and ensure a larger likelihood of survival for the benficiary, it would not be passed on to the offspring and as such an overall improvement of the species could not occur. It is only with a system that takes each new variety (a) and improves it (a2) by retaining its more useful features, and again (a3) etc, that we would ever see evidence of evolution. Does this make it any clearer for you?

sorry, was probably my explaination that meant you misunderstood, but what I was suggesting is that evolution as a system of continuing ... evolution for want of a better word (improvement?), only works because mutations are retained genetically. Otherwise, while mutation would still occur and ensure a larger likelihood of survival for the benficiary, it would not be passed on to the offspring and as such an overall improvement of the species could not occur. It is only with a system that takes each new variety (a) and improves it (a2) by retaining its more useful features, and again (a3) etc, that we would ever see evidence of evolution. Does this make it any clearer for you?
No, not at all.

There are many "in-between" fossils. However, because it's all a process of gradual change over successive generations, you won't get "haf A, half B" fossils, and demanding them merely shows that you haven't grasped what goes on. Imagine evolution as a morphing animation from one thing into another -- say a lungfish into a frog. The fossil record would consist of a handful of frames from that animation: and you want to see a frame where the thing is half lungfish, half frog? The very central frame? Even if you were lucky enough to find a fossil of that one specific frame, at that point it won't look much like a lungfish or much like a frog. And since in evolution, the progression is not one of smooth, graduated change, but one of punctuated equilibrium, you're demanding the impossible.

let's just say not central frame. let's say 25% frame or 75% frame. or 50.387834% frame or 98.3239874%. there are no such frames you can show me.

Even so, though, what are the various hominid skeletons -- Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Homo Erectus, Homo Habilis and so on -- but snapshots of the evolutionary process that took us from a common primate ancestor to modern humans?

show me a fossil and i can classify it whether that was an ape or a human. they're not too difficult to distinguish.

A century or so is not long enough for major change. Evolution needs lots of time. Fortunately, life on earth has been around for 3.5 billion years at least.

the streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch in time is the only logical explanation which allows evolution to happen, isn't it? suppose one day we found out that the earth is actually 12,000 years old. does that mean evolution immediately collapses? WHOOPIE!


No it's not. Life is a dynamic system.

yes, coming to that, if life is constantly changing, how do we determine when one species is stable enough to be given with a species' name? it's like, this generation of Homo sapiens is not the same as the next generation, so the next generation of Homo sapiens shall be called Homo sapiens II? if life was dynamic, classfication is impossible.

Every generation puts up new mutations. If the mutation is beneficial, then there is a chance it will be positively selected for. When these mutations -- every generation, remember -- coincides with a major shift in the environment, the term "beneficial" can change too. That's why these periods are the prime times for speciation (that, and the major die-offs opening up previosuly occupied environmental niches).
but WHY do these mutations occur? yeah, sure, talk about mutations, but you have to explain how why these mutations came about.


I think I provided you with a link showing the development of a new species of fruit fly, which you objected to because it was "artificial". Have you changed your mind here?

let's say, the species involved was because of a highly sophisticated, carefully monitored scientific experiment in a very controlled lab. what are the chances of that ever occurring in the natural world? plus, even if we give it a new name, is the new thing still a fruit fly? did it have an extra sting like a bee? can it carry malaria like mosquitoes? NO! it's still a fruit fly!

if we are leaving the dynamics of life to chances in the natural world, why are we so determined to live? why do we try to protect the environment? why do we even have hope?

evolution offers nothing but a bleak, hopeless outlook of life.

if we are leaving the dynamics of life to chances in the natural world, why are we so determined to live? why do we try to protect the environment? why do we even have hope?

evolution offers nothing but a bleak, hopeless outlook of life.

evolution doesn't exist to give you a philosophical reason to get up in the morning. its a process not a belief system. gravity doesn't give you a purpose either and i don't see you complaining about that.

btw, did you see my links on the transitional series between dinosaurs and birds and apes and humans?

evolution doesn't exist to give you a philosophical reason to get up in the morning. its a process not a belief system. gravity doesn't give you a purpose either and i don't see you complaining about that.

btw, did you see my links on the transitional series between dinosaurs and birds and apes and humans?

but creation is different. creation gives us a hopeful outlook of life. creation tells us that gravity was put there for a purpose. much more solid and believeable...

i think...which of the 40+ pages was that...? no, i'm kidding. yes, you mean the china ones? pss...just between the two of us (not very possible, is it?) a lot of the fossils found in china are actually fakes - poor local chinese peasants are so desperate for money, and yet so smart, to merge the fossils of a lizard and a bird to create images to sell to "stupid" western scientists to "prove" evolution...

i'm back - in full force, with a firmer stance that life was created through God's plan, and evolution through chance is absolutely impossible.

evolution is NOT science. neither is creation. why? because THEY WERE NOT OBSERVED. sure, people claim we can still see minor evolution happening around, but does that mean that life came around through evolution? no. no observations, no hypothesis, no experimentation, no results, no analysis, no repetitions, no theory, no law, no science.

please, i beg you, show me fossils of dinosaurs growing feathers so they could fly like birds. currently, once we see a fossil, we can actually immediately identify whether it was a bird, complete with wings and feathers, and a dinosaur, a scaly reptile. there's no "in-between" thing. i want to see growing species. i want to see half apes, half humans. we see species endangered, but we never see large-scale species popping out. those that do were created from scientific labs and do not represent what happens in the natural world.

evolution claims that organisms survive changes. it lives because it is well adapted. does adaptation mean evolution? no...peppered moths in manchester used to be white-dominated. after the industrial revolution the black peppered moths were more adapted to the dull environment, and so the white peppered moths died off...so? the black peppered moths were still peppered moths, not giant salted moths with huge claws and big bottoms.

why does this organism survive?
it survives because it is well adapted.
why is it well adapted?
so that it can survive.
...........................
LOGICAL FALLACY

evolution can only occur through gene mutations. changes in physical conditions, for example, a volcano erupting, asteroids crashing, canNOT bring about genetic mutations. many genetic mutations brought about by the highly sophisticated humans have proved to be disastrous - we still don't know whether GM foods will harm us or not. if even we cannot set out genetic mutations correct, how does chance do it?

we can keep zapping organisms with genetic mutations, but never will new species arrive - they will become contaminated and die.

up to date, diseases can be passed genetically, but i don't see how my dad having gigantic muscles will allow me to have even larger muscles, let alone deviate myself from Homo sapiens

so no. evolution leaks like a millenium-old tank.

First. Evoltution is not SCIENCE, but it is Scientific. It uses the scientific method of drawing conclusions from observation - and, say what you like, evolution has been 'observed'. Line-breeding in dogs is an evolution - okay, it was forced by humans, but humans are just onother stimulus to the dog.

The Pepper Moths are an example of evolution. This ridiculous idea of Creationists that it's only Evolution if a fish turns into a banana, is just too ludicrous to keep having to argue. I have had the decency to sit and read the bible, and several creationist books and christian essayist's works. The least that christians could do is try to open their closed little minds, and maybe read some of the WEALTH of evidence that is out there.

Look up Necrotising Streptococcal Fasciitis (sp?)... there's evidence of an evolution in progress, a radical change in a DNA structure - and it's only over the last couple of years.

Second: You don't need feathers to fly. Look at bats. Feathers are basically evolved hair, to make a better flight surface - so maybe you are looking in the wrong places for your evidence. 'Birds' could evolve flight, then evolve feathers. Maybe you could find evidence if you can find avians with more 'hair-like' feathers. But, you wouldn't believe it even if you saw it, would you?

Third: If you want to see half-apes/half-humans, I'd advise you to visit Bible Belt America... But, what would be the survivability of half-men apes, once a more dominant form arrived? Look at the way humans conflict now. Prove to me that people lived in Hiroshima by looking at the fossil record.

Fourth: Why is it well adapted, So it can survive... no - it is well adapted BECAUSE it survived. And why did it survive... come on, even a creationist should be able to work this one out....

First. Evoltution is not SCIENCE, but it is Scientific. It uses the scientific method of drawing conclusions from observation - and, say what you like, evolution has been 'observed'. Line-breeding in dogs is an evolution - okay, it was forced by humans, but humans are just onother stimulus to the dog.

The Pepper Moths are an example of evolution. This ridiculous idea of Creationists that it's only Evolution if a fish turns into a banana, is just too ludicrous to keep having to argue. I have had the decency to sit and read the bible, and several creationist books and christian essayist's works. The least that christians could do is try to open their closed little minds, and maybe read some of the WEALTH of evidence that is out there.

Look up Necrotising Streptococcal Fasciitis (sp?)... there's evidence of an evolution in progress, a radical change in a DNA structure - and it's only over the last couple of years.

Second: You don't need feathers to fly. Look at bats. Feathers are basically evolved hair, to make a better flight surface - so maybe you are looking in the wrong places for your evidence. 'Birds' could evolve flight, then evolve feathers. Maybe you could find evidence if you can find avians with more 'hair-like' feathers. But, you wouldn't believe it even if you saw it, would you?

Third: If you want to see half-apes/half-humans, I'd advise you to visit Bible Belt America... But, what would be the survivability of half-men apes, once a more dominant form arrived? Look at the way humans conflict now. Prove to me that people lived in Hiroshima by looking at the fossil record.

Fourth: Why is it well adapted, So it can survive... no - it is well adapted BECAUSE it survived. And why did it survive... come on, even a creationist should be able to work this one out....

1. As long as you don't classify it as Science. science is a very strict term.

line-breeding in dogs. still dogs, eh? not a dog with an additional cat's tail and hippo teeth.

peppered moths is NOT an example of evolution. they adapted, but they are still moths, not butterflies.

if you can't satisfy me with my simple questions, when i start looking for more sophisticated evidence, everything will just collapse.

feathers are evolved hair!? ok...i'm not going to argue specifics with you here, because they never make sense.

let's just say not central frame. let's say 25% frame or 75% frame. or 50.387834% frame or 98.3239874%. there are no such frames you can show me.


Ambulocetus. Now will you shut up?


show me a fossil and i can classify it whether that was an ape or a human. they're not too difficult to distinguish.


Ardipithecus Ramidus: ape or human? It's a hominid, probably a tree-dweller - but you already know that - being such an evolution expert...

Orrorin tugenensis?

And, what about Ardipithicus Kadabba?

What about Kenyanthropus platyops?

Homo Ergaster?

Homo heidelbergensis?

They're not too difficult to place, are they? Well, which is which?

And, honestly - I would appreciate hearing your views on which species are apes, and why.

(It's about this time the Creationists usually go running to some creationist website, to look for a geneology of human evolution - which they claim doesn't exist - so they can find out where their puppet-masters tell them to place each fossil.)


the streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetch in time is the only logical explanation which allows evolution to happen, isn't it? suppose one day we found out that the earth is actually 12,000 years old. does that mean evolution immediately collapses? WHOOPIE!


It would mean that evolutionists had misread the time frame. So - the hundred million year theory would be abandoned, yes, of course.

Can you say the same for Creationism. Radioactive decay shows the world to be at least factors of millions of years old. Will the Creationists now admit the world didn't start 6000 years ago? (Answer: It's been proved, and stil they argue). What abaout the fact that the Bible doesn't say 6 days? (It might in your 'translation', but the Hebrew just says periods-of-time, and they wrote it, so they should know).


yes, coming to that, if life is constantly changing, how do we determine when one species is stable enough to be given with a species' name? it's like, this generation of Homo sapiens is not the same as the next generation, so the next generation of Homo sapiens shall be called Homo sapiens II? if life was dynamic, classfication is impossible.

but WHY do these mutations occur? yeah, sure, talk about mutations, but you have to explain how why these mutations came about.


You give a species it's own name when it becomes apparent it has enough distinguishing characteristics that it is redundant referring to it as a variant sub-species any more. See - we CHANGE our theories in the light of evidence.

Homo sapiens sapiens, actually. And, if the next generation provided enough of a consistent diversity to be classified seperately from this generation, yes - it would be a new species (but that would take a lot of diversity for ONE generation - so a new sub-species is more likely).


let's say, the species involved was because of a highly sophisticated, carefully monitored scientific experiment in a very controlled lab. what are the chances of that ever occurring in the natural world? plus, even if we give it a new name, is the new thing still a fruit fly? did it have an extra sting like a bee? can it carry malaria like mosquitoes? NO! it's still a fruit fly!

'Fish to bananas' science. The fruit fly doesn't need to acquire a sting to be a new species. But, if it did, wouldn't you say that should be given a new species name? Most likely, fruit-fly evolution would lead to a slightly different fruit-fly. Maybe a faster one. Bigger changes take a lot longer to produce - and that is why we look to microbes for much of our evidence. They don't NEED to wait 20years for a next generation. Hell, most of them don't need to wait 20 seconds.

1. As long as you don't classify it as Science. science is a very strict term.

Actually, you're wrong (again). Science is a very general term... all it really requires is "Systemised knowledge, drawn from observation, study and experimentation". So - evolution isn't "Science", but it is a theory OF science, that is supported BY science, and that is a tool WITHIN science.

Again: evolution is NOT science - but it is "scientific"


line-breeding in dogs. still dogs, eh? not a dog with an additional cat's tail and hippo teeth.



If you don't understand what evolution means - stop arguing against it.


peppered moths is NOT an example of evolution. they adapted, but they are still moths, not butterflies.


They adapted. Well done. You know what evolution is? Basically, it's adaptation. It's survival of the fittest. It's passing-on adaptions to the next generation.

The peppered moths didn't wake up one morning and say "Hey - lets all wear black today". There are no records of a big finger pointing out of the clouds and saying "Pow!!! No more white moths... be black... NOW!". There WAS a recorded and drastic change in the environment, and the whiter moths failed to survive, while the blacker moths DID survive, and passed on this survival trait to their descendents. That is evolution.


if you can't satisfy me with my simple questions, when i start looking for more sophisticated evidence, everything will just collapse.


I can't satisfy your simple question. GOD, stepping down from his big chair, and explaining it to you with diagrams, couldn't satisfy your simple questions.
You have made a decision to believe, and you are not about to let it be swayed by the facts.


feathers are evolved hair!? ok...i'm not going to argue specifics with you here, because they never make sense.

No - they don't. To you.

My theory is a combination; God created the singularity that caused the Big Bang and has guided the universe from that time, via evolution.

"la chiquenaude initiale", the initial finger snap this was called by René Descartes in the first half of the 18th century. He formulated it that way in order to avoid being persecuted as an atheist, because actually that's probably what he really was. Could we maybe finally at the beginning of the 21st make do with this last bit of self-protective hypocrisy together with the fear of persecution?

if we are leaving the dynamics of life to chances in the natural world, why are we so determined to live? why do we try to protect the environment? why do we even have hope?

evolution offers nothing but a bleak, hopeless outlook of life.

If we are leaving the dynamics of life to chance in the natural world...

That means there is no big fat ghost guy, going to come floating down out of the clouds to make all the naughty germs and owies go away.

When humans have decided they've done enough damage to the environment, that it's no longer COMMERCIALLY viable to continue - then our societies will start to repair some of the damage they have done. And the reason they'll do this, is because it will be killing people.

Science will have to step in to mop up the damage that the abuse of science has done - because we can't rely on a winged-cleanup-squad to come dropping out of the ether.

I am sorry that evolution makes you feel bleak and hopeless. I guess that is why you oppose it, despite the huge volumes of evidence to the contrary.
Doesn't make me feel hopeless though. Maybe I have a life worth living, rather than having to bolster my existence with a dependence on old fairy-tales.

If we are leaving the dynamics of life to chance in the natural world...

That means there is no big fat ghost guy, going to come floating down out of the clouds to make all the naughty germs and owies go away.

When humans have decided they've done enough damage to the environment, that it's no longer COMMERCIALLY viable to continue - then our societies will start to repair some of the damage they have done. And the reason they'll do this, is because it will be killing people.

Science will have to step in to mop up the damage that the abuse of science has done - because we can't rely on a winged-cleanup-squad to come dropping out of the ether.

I am sorry that evolution makes you feel bleak and hopeless. I guess that is why you oppose it, despite the huge volumes of evidence to the contrary.
Doesn't make me feel hopeless though. Maybe I have a life worth living, rather than having to bolster my existence with a dependence on old fairy-tales.

but evolution leaves things to chance, which means no goal, no method, no set environment...what kinda hope does that allow me?

creation is different, because if this was all planned, then we would all have a goal to reach. no plan, no goal, no hope.

do you think the human race as a whole will ever grow out of greed, selfishness and hate? i don't think so.

i oppose evolution not only because of this, but also because its many chinks in its armour.

the whole idea behind evolution is rediculous. you guys just believe whatever someone with a title tells you, but guess what? they just believe it because someone with a title told them.... have fun being a drone to the man.

Let me paraphrase:
"The whole idea behind religion is rediculous {sic}. you guys just believe whatever someone with an ordination tells you, but guess what? they just believe it because someone with an ordination told them.... have fun being a drone to the church."

No, not my actual opinion, but you've got to admit that it is at least as valid. I would argue more so, given that "what the guy with the ordination tells you" is that a single book is the Truth and that you must accept it, whereas "what the guy with the title (scientific qualifications, I assume you mean) tells you" is that this theory appears to be the best one at present, and here is some supporting proof but there may be other explanations.


(We've been here before, haven't we?)

but evolution leaves things to chance, which means no goal, no method, no set environment...what kinda hope does that allow me?

creation is different, because if this was all planned, then we would all have a goal to reach. no plan, no goal, no hope.

do you think the human race as a whole will ever grow out of greed, selfishness and hate? i don't think so.

i oppose evolution not only because of this, but also because its many chinks in its armour.

1) Evolution leaves things to chance. The fittest will survive. Right now - our biggest threat is ourselves, and what we are doing to our environment. If we wish to survive, we must be fittest for the purpose. Humanity needs to strive to reach it's potential, we all need to learn to agree, not to quarrel.

In order to survive, humanity is going to have to transcend it's base nature.

I don't see what could be a brighter or more hopeful future.

2) Yes. I do think that humanity AS A WHOLE will grow out of greed, selfishness and hate. Many individuals have. There will always be a recidivist element, anachronisms of more brutal culture, but it is my hope that we can learn to lessen the impact those people have, rather than making them into our political and religious leaders.

3) You admit that you oppose evolution (at least partly) because you cannot face the image of a world of reality. I have yet to see a 'chink in the armour' of evolution that didn't turn out to be a lack of understanding.

Show me chinks.

And, while we are at it... do you want me to repost those human/ape crossovers that you were going to find it so "easy" to seperate?

And you never did reply to the Ambulocetus.

Let me paraphrase:
"The whole idea behind religion is rediculous {sic}. you guys just believe whatever someone with an ordination tells you, but guess what? they just believe it because someone with an ordination told them.... have fun being a drone to the church."

No, not my actual opinion, but you've got to admit that it is at least as valid. I would argue more so, given that "what the guy with the ordination tells you" is that a single book is the Truth and that you must accept it, whereas "what the guy with the title (scientific qualifications, I assume you mean) tells you" is that this theory appears to be the best one at present, and here is some supporting proof but there may be other explanations.


(We've been here before, haven't we?)

Yes. over and over and over....

*thud of head hitting table*

but evolution leaves things to chance, which means no goal, no method, no set environment...what kinda hope does that allow me?

creation is different, because if this was all planned, then we would all have a goal to reach. no plan, no goal, no hope.

do you think the human race as a whole will ever grow out of greed, selfishness and hate? i don't think so.

i oppose evolution not only because of this, but also because its many chinks in its armour.


Which is worst?


"We were created be chance."


"We are God's plaything. Dance, puppets, dance! Mwahahaha!"

Dragons Bay, how about you make your goal "To be a good person because I want to be a good person" eh? No God required for that. I'm not saying you're not, just that 'goals' in life don't need to be *given* to you - they can come from yourself if you're willing to accept that the world will continue on regardless of what you do.

Evolution doesn't have 'chinks in its armour'. Not once has anything come up in this debate that throws any doubt at all on evolution.

You really need to learn that your lack of understanding doesn't make it wrong - it just means to need to look into it more. And no, not an insult. You said you'd look into evolution, but you're still at the 'they become dogs... without hippo's teeth or a cat's tail' stage. That shows, to anyone who knows anything about evolution, that you simply don't understand the basic principle.

How about you make your goal "To be a good person" eh? No God required for that. I'm not saying you're not, just that 'goals' in life don't need to be *given* to you - they can come from yourself if you're willing to accept that the world will continue on regardless of what you do.

Evolution doesn't have 'chinks in its armour'. Not once has anything come up in this debate that throws any doubt at all on evolution.

You really need to learn that your lack of understanding doesn't make it wrong - it just means to need to look into it more. And no, not an insult. You said you'd look into evolution, but you're still at the 'they become dogs... without hippo's teeth or a cat's tail' stage. That shows, to anyone who knows anything about evolution, that you simply don't understand the basic principle.

Like I said... Creationists cling to evolution as "fish to bananas".

Basically, they're waiting for Miracles.... "and evolution is proved because I turned water into wine"...

Creationists take to science like a brick to water...

1) Evolution leaves things to chance. The fittest will survive. Right now - our biggest threat is ourselves, and what we are doing to our environment. If we wish to survive, we must be fittest for the purpose. Humanity needs to strive to reach it's potential, we all need to learn to agree, not to quarrel.

In order to survive, humanity is going to have to transcend it's base nature.

I don't see what could be a brighter or more hopeful future.

2) Yes. I do think that humanity AS A WHOLE will grow out of greed, selfishness and hate. Many individuals have. There will always be a recidivist element, anachronisms of more brutal culture, but it is my hope that we can learn to lessen the impact those people have, rather than making them into our political and religious leaders.

3) You admit that you oppose evolution (at least partly) because you cannot face the image of a world of reality. I have yet to see a 'chink in the armour' of evolution that didn't turn out to be a lack of understanding.

Show me chinks.

And, while we are at it... do you want me to repost those human/ape crossovers that you were going to find it so "easy" to seperate?

And you never did reply to the Ambulocetus.

1. ah...good...at least we can agree on protecting the environment, creationist or evolutionist. :D

3. "chink in the armour" was posted some time ago...including genetic mutations cannot come by physical changes in the environment and genetic mutations happen quite quickly. HOW and WHY these mutations occur is fundamental in evolution.

*snort* more chinese-made fossils? some have admitted sewing a human skull and a monkey skull together, you know. the chinese are very good at this. ;)

show me a fossil and i can classify it whether that was an ape or a human. they're not too difficult to distinguish.



Ardipithecus Ramidus: ape or human? It's a hominid, probably a tree-dweller - but you already know that - being such an evolution expert...

Orrorin tugenensis?

And, what about Ardipithicus Kadabba?

What about Kenyanthropus platyops?

Homo Ergaster?

Homo heidelbergensis?

They're not too difficult to place, are they? Well, which is which?

And, honestly - I would appreciate hearing your views on which species are apes, and why.

(It's about this time the Creationists usually go running to some creationist website, to look for a geneology of human evolution - which they claim doesn't exist - so they can find out where their puppet-masters tell them to place each fossil.)

Still waiting...

3. "chink in the armour" was posted some time ago...including genetic mutations cannot come by physical changes in the environment and genetic mutations happen quite quickly. HOW and WHY these mutations occur is fundamental in evolution.

Ok, what about radiation? Ever heard that X-Rays are bad for you? That's because it causes mutations when cells replicate.

They often occure during replication of cells (considering the vast amounts of DNA that needs to be replicated, this isn't surprising). Now, if just one of the cells that happens to mutate is a gamede (egg or sperm), that mutation is passed on to the offspring.

Chink? I think not. Lack of information perhaps?

1. ah...good...at least we can agree on protecting the environment, creationist or evolutionist. :D

3. "chink in the armour" was posted some time ago...including genetic mutations cannot come by physical changes in the environment and genetic mutations happen quite quickly. HOW and WHY these mutations occur is fundamental in evolution.

*snort* more chinese-made fossils? some have admitted sewing a human skull and a monkey skull together, you know. the chinese are very good at this. ;)


So what, any fossil you can identify, you're going to call fake?

1. ah...good...at least we can agree on protecting the environment, creationist or evolutionist. :D

3. "chink in the armour" was posted some time ago...including genetic mutations cannot come by physical changes in the environment and genetic mutations happen quite quickly. HOW and WHY these mutations occur is fundamental in evolution.

*snort* more chinese-made fossils? some have admitted sewing a human skull and a monkey skull together, you know. the chinese are very good at this. ;)

1) At least we agree on protecting the environment.

B) I still have seen no chinks, in this thread or the one that spawned it.
Genetic mutations do not "come about" due to physical changes? Are you crazy? What is background radiation, if not a physical aspect of the environment?

And, while cold - for example - may not CAUSE a genetic change, it will foster certain changes. For example, the temperature drops, and a few of a species have divergent genes... they have a mutated 'longer coat'... which gene pool is more likely to survive? And if it stays cold for a real long time, how many of the non-mutants are LIKELY to survive? Evolution.

Erm... that is how and why.... sorry, anything else?

iii) What IS it with you and chinese fossils? Do you not like Chinese people or something? Or is that just a quick side-step so you don't have to address any fossils found in China...?

Okay.... let's assume the ridiculous assumption that China mass produces ALL of it's fossils. What about the list I posted?

Ororrin tugensis was identified from remains first found in Kenya.

Kenyanthropus platyops was also first found in Kenya.

Homo ergaster is a predominantly 'African' fossil.

Homo antecessor was found in a Spanish cave site...

Sahelanthropus tchadensis was first discover in Chad.

In fact, I can't think of a single hominid classification that is found entirely in China... or even one that is found predominantly in China.

Okay - what about Austalopithecus aethiopicus? If you ever wanted a transitional fossil, that's the one.

???

some have admitted sewing a human skull and a monkey skull together, you know. the chinese are very good at this.

Um... sewing.... wouldn't fool anyone for more than a couple of minutes...

What, you seriously think scientists wouldn't notice *stitches*? I must say I'd love to see an unbiased source about these fakes (especially if it included reports of *any* scientists being fooled by them).

Anyway, if they're fake, science moves on. We evolutionists aren't *afraid* of being wrong - if we are, we find out why, and say "Well, this is the way it seems to be". Creationists, on the other hand, seem determined that everything is currently still the way it was thousands of years ago. Nevermind the evidence against, and nevermind the illogicalness of such a claim...

And you know why, when it comes to the hominid fossils, Creationists always fail to deliver??

Because they are absolute proof that humans are not the beautiful, unique butterflies that the murder-manual tells them we are.

You wanted evidence, Dragon. I gave it to you. Admit you were wrong, or think of a single defence.

"but... but... the bible says" is not a defence.

"but it's dark out, and there are wolves" is not a defence.

Which is worst?


"We were created be chance."


"We are God's plaything. Dance, puppets, dance! Mwahahaha!"

don't forget, God is perfect. i'd rather be under God's domination and protection than face this dangerous world alone...especially with so many wackos around this forum....................

don't forget, God is perfect. i'd rather be under God's domination and protection than face this dangerous world alone...especially with so many wackos around this forum....................


You know, I hear steel cages are quite popular these days. All that domination and protection...it's enough to get someone kinky all bothered ;)

ok. now. seriously.

it's like 5 evolutionists to 1 creationist. if you guys keep posting like that i'll never be able to reply them all...

so please, either discuss among yourselves and post ONE post, or please allow me to ignore some of them (which i think is utterly rude, but i don't think i have a choice...)

SO SORRY!

god is a psychological entity created to keep people afraid, in line, and or content. wow, the rains are bad, lets pray to god. if i act bad, god will punish me, better act good. my friend died, better pray that shes in heaven.

Oh, go ahead and ignore me. I really have nothing much to add. I just throw in some feces from time to time.

No, seriously, I meant all that in pure honesty :p

Dragons Bay, how about you make your goal "To be a good person because I want to be a good person" eh? No God required for that. I'm not saying you're not, just that 'goals' in life don't need to be *given* to you - they can come from yourself if you're willing to accept that the world will continue on regardless of what you do.

Evolution doesn't have 'chinks in its armour'. Not once has anything come up in this debate that throws any doubt at all on evolution.

You really need to learn that your lack of understanding doesn't make it wrong - it just means to need to look into it more. And no, not an insult. You said you'd look into evolution, but you're still at the 'they become dogs... without hippo's teeth or a cat's tail' stage. That shows, to anyone who knows anything about evolution, that you simply don't understand the basic principle.

suppose, say, humans were created. if we keep looking at ourselves we will never find out what our purpose is. we have to go back to God, our creator, to understand our goal. somebody shoves you a telephone, but you've never seen it or used it before. you must consult a manual. in man's case our manual is the bible, the writer God. evolution doesn't allow that kind of firm, confident point of view because there is no starting, no end, no goal, no method...

i understand your point, and i have to admit, i haven't started looking into evolution yet, like not seriously. please don't take my words too literally. those are simply analogies - and they always break down.

still, if evolution happened gradually, there MUST BE SOME EVIDENCE OF STAGES INTO IT. if you keep dissing what i say about half this half that and never giving me evidence of stages, what can i say?

Ok, what about radiation? Ever heard that X-Rays are bad for you? That's because it causes mutations when cells replicate.

They often occure during replication of cells (considering the vast amounts of DNA that needs to be replicated, this isn't surprising). Now, if just one of the cells that happens to mutate is a gamede (egg or sperm), that mutation is passed on to the offspring.

Chink? I think not. Lack of information perhaps?

yes! which kind of a genetic mutation to human beings have you heard of is beneficial? if bad genetic mutations can only occur in the sophisticated, controlled lab, what are the chances that good genetic mutations can happen in the wild? good genes that are passed on are still the same type of genes - they don't mutate into another kind of genes capable of making new limbs.

suppose, say, humans were created. if we keep looking at ourselves we will never find out what our purpose is. we have to go back to God, our creator, to understand our goal. somebody shoves you a telephone, but you've never seen it or used it before. you must consult a manual. in man's case our manual is the bible, the writer God. evolution doesn't allow that kind of firm, confident point of view because there is no starting, no end, no goal, no method...

i understand your point, and i have to admit, i haven't started looking into evolution yet, like not seriously. please don't take my words too literally. those are simply analogies - and they always break down.

still, if evolution happened gradually, there MUST BE SOME EVIDENCE OF STAGES INTO IT. if you keep dissing what i say about half this half that and never giving me evidence of stages, what can i say?

Then look at my last few posts. You explain away Ambulocetus and Austalopithecus aethiopicus. Both are obvious transitions.

I posted you a list of remains that you were going to 'easily' divide into either man or ape, and you have failed to do it. The way I figure it, I have shown you a dozen stages, and you haven't responded to one of them yet.

suppose, say, humans were created. if we keep looking at ourselves we will never find out what our purpose is. we have to go back to God, our creator, to understand our goal. somebody shoves you a telephone, but you've never seen it or used it before. you must consult a manual. in man's case our manual is the bible, the writer God. evolution doesn't allow that kind of firm, confident point of view because there is no starting, no end, no goal, no method...

i understand your point, and i have to admit, i haven't started looking into evolution yet, like not seriously. please don't take my words too literally. those are simply analogies - and they always break down.

still, if evolution happened gradually, there MUST BE SOME EVIDENCE OF STAGES INTO IT. if you keep dissing what i say about half this half that and never giving me evidence of stages, what can i say?

1) you pretend there is a purpose, you derive that from yourself, you think therei s a need for a purpose, you then fall udner psychological entity god - contentment

2) there is evidence, 300 years ago we were shorter, we grow bigger, we technically evolved. millions of years ago beavers were the size of houses, now dogs, ok there is some evolution going on there somewhere

yes! which kind of a genetic mutation to human beings have you heard of is beneficial? if bad genetic mutations can only occur in the sophisticated, controlled lab, what are the chances that good genetic mutations can happen in the wild? good genes that are passed on are still the same type of genes - they don't mutate into another kind of genes capable of making new limbs.

Are you aware the most mutations are neither good nor bad?

Also:

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB101.html

yes! which kind of a genetic mutation to human beings have you heard of is beneficial? if bad genetic mutations can only occur in the sophisticated, controlled lab, what are the chances that good genetic mutations can happen in the wild? good genes that are passed on are still the same type of genes - they don't mutate into another kind of genes capable of making new limbs.
1) the problem all creationists seem to have is the probability problem, that is, they assume if the probability is really high it wont happen. OF COURSE IT WILL HAPPEN, THERE WOULDNT BE A PROBABILITY FACTOR IF IT COULDNT HAPPEN

2) and yes they do, gens will mutate into genes capable of making new limbs: like legs growing out of a fly's head instead of antenna

yes! which kind of a genetic mutation to human beings have you heard of is beneficial? if bad genetic mutations can only occur in the sophisticated, controlled lab, what are the chances that good genetic mutations can happen in the wild? good genes that are passed on are still the same type of genes - they don't mutate into another kind of genes capable of making new limbs.

The Native Americans of some tribes have yellow irises. Since all Native Americans are of pretty much identical root-stock, this must be a mutation.

What effect has this had, apart from cosmetic? It seems likely that a race probably wouldn't breed JUST for pretty eyes, so it must serve some purpose?

It appears to give them better distance vision. They appear to be able to resolve detail from a greater range - probably because the light colouring of the iris let's through more light.

Good Mutation, in humans. Next!

Oh - and there are a couple of genes in the common fruit-fly that, if alternated, change on of it's antennae into a leg. So - a mutation capable of producing new limbs. Next!

1) the problem all creationists seem to have is the probability problem, that is, they assume if the probability is really high it wont happen. OF COURSE IT WILL HAPPEN, THERE WOULDNT BE A PROBABILITY FACTOR IF IT COULDNT HAPPEN

2) and yes they do, gens will mutate into genes capable of making new limbs: like legs growing out of a fly's head instead of antenna

damn. beat me to it....

2) and yes they do, gens will mutate into genes capable of making new limbs: like legs growing out of a fly's head instead of antenna

I'd just like to point out to people who aren't aware: Yes, flies sometimes grow legs instead of antenna. That's not just a random example - I've *seen* the flies during a Genetics study I did.

Now Dragons Bay, you should go and look at a picture of the colours of light that make up white light. Then, try and pick the *exact* point that red light becomes yellow light. Then you'll understand why we can't show you a 'point' where evolution occurs. It's a flow from one thing to another. We end up with one species on one side, one species on the other, and a whole slew of similar things that fit in the middle somewhere.

Don't think of evolution as "One species becoming another one in one step" becuase that's not how it works. It's lots and lots of *small* changes, which, together, amount to a large change, eventually.

I'd just like to point out to people who aren't aware: Yes, flies sometimes grow legs instead of antenna. That's not just a random example - I've *seen* the flies during a Genetics study I did.

Now Dragons Bay, you should go and look at a picture of the colours of light that make up white light. Then, try and pick the *exact* point that red light becomes yellow light. Then you'll understand why we can't show you a 'point' where evolution occurs. It's a flow from one thing to another. We end up with one species on one side, one species on the other, and a whole slew of similar things that fit in the middle somewhere.

Don't think of evolution as "One species becoming another one in one step" becuase that's not how it works. It's lots and lots of *small* changes, which, together, amount to a large change, eventually.
creationists watch to much pokemon and digimon

My homoerectus is evolving into a homosapien! Alright!

1) the problem all creationists seem to have is the probability problem, that is, they assume if the probability is really high it wont happen. OF COURSE IT WILL HAPPEN, THERE WOULDNT BE A PROBABILITY FACTOR IF IT COULDNT HAPPEN

2) and yes they do, gens will mutate into genes capable of making new limbs: like legs growing out of a fly's head instead of antenna

1. is that why evolutionists have to claim that earth is billions of years old? my, my, manipulation...

alas, some facts debate such a long existence of the earth. for example, 5 foot long stalactites (the columns of rock hanging from the ceiling) were found in the basement of the lincoln memorial, and the memorial was there for how long?

2. that. is. disgusting.

Yep. Disgusting indeed. But it shows how mutations can cause new limbs... that *is* what you asked for.

1) you pretend there is a purpose, you derive that from yourself, you think there is a need for a purpose, you then fall udner psychological entity god - contentment

2) there is evidence, 300 years ago we were shorter, we grow bigger, we technically evolved. millions of years ago beavers were the size of houses, now dogs, ok there is some evolution going on there somewhere

you live life without a purpose???? DON'T! ANYTHING WOULD DO!

yes, 300 years ago they were called Homo sapiens. 300 years later we're still called Homo sapiens.

1. is that why evolutionists have to claim that earth is billions of years old? my, my, manipulation...

alas, some facts debate such a long existence of the earth. for example, 5 foot long stalactites (the columns of rock hanging from the ceiling) were found in the basement of the lincoln memorial, and the memorial was there for how long?

2. that. is. disgusting.
1) that is the best you got? stalactite rebuttle? no seriously thats the best you have? time to go think up some new material, miss the earth is only 6,000 years old. im sure we have fossils older than that since radiowhatever dating is reliable to 10,000 years at LEAST

2) so?

Yep. Disgusting indeed. But it shows how mutations can cause new limbs... that *is* what you asked for.
yup...i know...it's disgusting, but it's still a fly.

you live life without a purpose???? DON'T! ANYTHING WOULD DO!

yes, 300 years ago they were called Homo sapiens. 300 years later we're still called Homo sapiens.
you want me to go quote what the word evolution means? ill do it, ill quote it right out of the dictionary

creationists dotn even know what they are arguing against, thats why they think evolution happens in an instant and only applies to one species changing into another

yup...i know...it's disgusting, but it's still a fly.
and humans can have extra fingers and toes, next lame reason please

if we are leaving the dynamics of life to chances in the natural world, why are we so determined to live? why do we try to protect the environment? why do we even have hope?

evolution offers nothing but a bleak, hopeless outlook of life.

Each creature is (individually) determined to live. This is obvious under either creationist or evolutionary viewpoints. (The former because you wouldn't design your creations to just give up, the latter because tendencies to not live don't get passed on as much, among many other possible reasons for both).

We are also a social animal. Caring for and protecting the environment is but one aspect of (some people's) conviction that in order for our race and life on the planet to continue we must activly do some things (in the most extreme circumstances self-sacrificing, but always for the good of the many, or at least 'a' many). We are blessed by the ability to see the big picture. We are also cursed by the ability to inadvertantly /change/ the big picture.

In the 'natural' scheme of things pandas might naturally die out at some point in the future, that's the evolutionary pruining process, and as evolution isn't sentient there'd be no-one to care. We, however, may well have contributed to their decline in many different ways and as such our highly-developed social aspects (in the form of a 'concience') drive those of our race with the time ability and inclination to do what we can to hold back the artificial end of the panda. This could be by donating some small change to an appropriate charity fund or running a breeding sanctury.

Technically, our intervention could keep a 'naturally doomed' stock of creatures living (for better or worse, except that evolution doesn't make such judgements), but there's many more circumstances where our (usually unintentional/unthinking) intervention can basically be blamed for causing a population crisis. Dodos would be quite happily live and breeding (and their wings might be getting even more insignificant) if 'we' hadn't sailed up with an appetite for flightless pigeon. Fish stocks have been hit pretty hard (and some humans have the nerve to blame the natural predators that co-evolved with the fish for eons) and there's all kinds of nasty things floating around in the biosphere that really don't help as well. Makes you think. :)

1. is that why evolutionists have to claim that earth is billions of years old? my, my, manipulation...

alas, some facts debate such a long existence of the earth. for example, 5 foot long stalactites (the columns of rock hanging from the ceiling) were found in the basement of the lincoln memorial, and the memorial was there for how long?

2. that. is. disgusting.

Evolutionist claim that the earth is millions of years old, because there are millions of years of accumulated evidence.

Radioactive decay being the most obvious example.

I had not heard about 5 foot long stalactites in the basement of the Lincoln memorial - I will look it up, and then come back and explain it to you.

1) that is the best you got? stalactite rebuttle? no seriously thats the best you have? time to go think up some new material, miss the earth is only 6,000 years old. im sure we have fossils older than that since radiowhatever dating is reliable to 10,000 years at LEAST



yes, but reliable on what? on experiments that are prone to faults and gigantic errors?

the stalactite example has been observed by the naked eye and recorded on camera. as anyone observed the fossil alive, dead, then fossilised 10,000 years ago? no.

and humans can have extra fingers and toes, next lame reason please
but they're still humans. evolution is not occurred.

it would be very beneficial for humans to have three hands. so why do we classify tri-armed people to be riddled with genetic DISEASE? why do these tri-armed people die so early compared to the average bi-armed man?

yes, but reliable on what? on experiments that are prone to faults and gigantic errors?

the stalactite example has been observed by the naked eye and recorded on camera. as anyone observed the fossil alive, dead, then fossilised 10,000 years ago? no.


Demands for absolute proof are ridiculous. To rebut this, prove beyond ANY doubt that you exist.

yes, 300 years ago they were called Homo sapiens. 300 years later we're still called Homo sapiens.
Um... yes. But that's because it's not a long enough time span. The point is that we *are* different now to how we were then. Heck, we probably could *easily* be considered a different sub-species now.

And I guess some people just don't need 'purpose' to come from outside. If I were faced with a telephone, and had never seen it before, I wouldn't do anything with it - chances are I wouldn't need it. Life, however, is something you can muddle through simply, if you're willing to accept that you can't be right 100% of the time. If I do something wrong once, I know that the next time something like that happens, I'll react differently. If it never happens? Well, it was still a lesson.

I don't believe anyone is judging me, so it doesn't matter if I get minor things wrong. I know the consequences of most social tabboos (murder, rape, etc). I know enough cause and effect to not drink or do drugs or have random wild sex.

But I do things because *I've* decided to do them. Not because I feel that it fits in with a divine goal or purpose.

yes, but reliable on what? on experiments that are prone to faults and gigantic errors?

the stalactite example has been observed by the naked eye and recorded on camera. as anyone observed the fossil alive, dead, then fossilised 10,000 years ago? no.

Dragon - Having researched the matter... I can explain to you why there are stalactites under the Lincoln Memorial.

The Memorial was opened to the public 79 years ago, correct?

The stalactites are approximately 1.5 metres long, correct?

What you failed to mention is that the stalactites are limestone deposites. Limestone deposits form extraordinarily quickly, especially with an ample supply of water. Growing only 2cm per year is not that impressive for limestone stalactites, I'm afraid.

Any intention of ever responding to that whole list of transitions I offered you?

here's the hard question. you claim that ancient species pass on their goody genes and eliminate all the baddie genes. but one organism can't have perfect genes - they must have a weakness. what happened to all those weak genes? were they eliminated? corrected to create the perfect organism? hm...

anyway, why did the first organisms need to reproduce at all? why do they have to die? why do the simplest form of organisms reproduce by themselves while more sophisticated creatures have to reproduce between a male and female? why are there sexes? why are there two sexes? what is the cut-off between singled-sexed organisms and double-sexed organisms?

etc.

Dragon - Having researched the matter... I can explain to you why there are stalactites under the Lincoln Memorial.

The Memorial was opened to the public 79 years ago, correct?

The stalactites are approximately 1.5 metres long, correct?

What you failed to mention is that the stalactites are limestone deposites. Limestone deposits form extraordinarily quickly, especially with an ample supply of water. Growing only 2cm per year is not that impressive for limestone stalactites, I'm afraid.

Any intention of ever responding to that whole list of transitions I offered you?

yes, so how could the stalactites (will never be able to spell this word without looking) in the caves be millions of years old?

as long as your posts are really short like this one and i don't have to scroll up to far...page number?

here's the hard question. you claim that ancient species pass on their goody genes and eliminate all the baddie genes. but one organism can't have perfect genes - they must have a weakness. what happened to all those weak genes? were they eliminated? corrected to create the perfect organism? hm...

Showing your conceit in thinking humans are a perfect organism, there...

And read this carefully: MOST MUTATIONS ARE NEITHER 'GOOD' NOR 'BAD.'

anyway, why did the first organisms need to reproduce at all? why do they have to die? why do the simplest form of organisms reproduce by themselves while more sophisticated creatures have to reproduce between a male and female? why are there sexes? why are there two sexes? what is the cut-off between singled-sexed organisms and double-sexed organisms?

How about you do some research rather than asking us to do it for you? http://www.talkorigins.org. It's all there.

And we've answer the gender question to you before, earlier in this same thread.

of course, evolution also supports the very, very dangerous idea of racism. if the strongest were to survive and the weakest to die, why do we have to cure diseases? look for the cure to diseases? provide aid to flood and famine victims? they all were chosen by nature to die. surely there must be enough individuals in the entire human race to survive without a major disease and escape a major catastrophe to reproduce to continue the race.

Limestone = soft

The stalactites in caves are formed from *harder* rocks - thus, take longer to form.

I really hope you understand how stalactites are formed, otherwise we can't really explain it to you.

Another thing you may want to look up before using it as 'proof'.

Showing your conceit in thinking humans are a perfect organism, there...

And read this carefully: MOST MUTATIONS ARE NEITHER 'GOOD' NOR 'BAD.'



How about you do some research rather than asking us to do it for you? http://www.talkorigins.org. It's all there.

And we've answer the gender question to you before, earlier in this same thread.

really? could you repeat it pretty please? i'm NOT going to scroll up or page ups no more. so. annoying.

We cure diseases because we have the science available that allows us to do so, and because we have decided as a society that we shouldn't let people suffer. Anyway, just try telling someone who has a dying family member "Oh sorry, even though we *could* cure them, we don't want to because it's against evolution" or "Well, we *could* look for a cure, but that would be against evolution".

However, the issue of whether or not evolution has moral impacts does not affect whether or not it is true.

yes, so how could the stalactites (will never be able to spell this word without looking) in the caves be millions of years old?

as long as your posts are really short like this one and i don't have to scroll up to far...page number?

Because not all caves are entirely limestone.
Because not all stalactites are entirely limestone.
Because stalactites rely on water - and in most cave systems the water is provided by a small amount of leaching and evaporation.

Under the Lincoln memorial, they punctured the marble to provide support, so water easily pools below the monument and leaches into the very 'roof' of the basement. This adds to the high limestone 'concentration' to give excellent conditions for rapid growth of stalactites.

of course, evolution also supports the very, very dangerous idea of racism. if the strongest were to survive and the weakest to die, why do we have to cure diseases? look for the cure to diseases? provide aid to flood and famine victims? they all were chosen by nature to die. surely there must be enough individuals in the entire human race to survive without a major disease and escape a major catastrophe to reproduce to continue the race.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA005.html

Evolution is not the 'survival of the strongest and death of the weakest,' it's that those most suited to their environoment are more likely to pass on their genes.

but evolution leaves things to chance, which means no goal, no method, no set environment...what kinda hope does that allow me?

creation is different, because if this was all planned, then we would all have a goal to reach. no plan, no goal, no hope.

do you think the human race as a whole will ever grow out of greed, selfishness and hate? i don't think so.

i oppose evolution not only because of this, but also because its many chinks in its armour.

Isn't it exciting (assuming you aren't religiously against such things) watching betting in a casino, a horse race, anything that has (at least in part) an element of chance unfolding? It's even more exciting if you are involved. Bet it all on black? There's a /chance/ you'll win big. (There's a /chance/ you'll not.) You can hope you win. In the game of evolution you can hope for even better humans. Ones that don't destroy the environment, ones that do so many exciting things... And even if you aren't there to see it, oh to be part of the game, to contribute.

Pure creationism... This is all we're meant to be. Isn't it depressing. Let's muddle along and wait for the day of judgement. And unlike man-led days of judgement (thermonuclear war, anyone? sitting idle while an asteroid hits us in the planetary nadgers?) it is utterly predestined and non-put-offable. It will happen. Those in heaven are going to have a nice eternity, but did you even choose the right religion to get there by? (And if you manage to sneak in, can you handle being amongst loads of Russian Othrodox people?)

The human race can grow out of greed and oppression and violence and anything, as long as there is selective pressures to do so. Can. Not will. I tend to think there will always be /some/ fraction of humanity retaining bad traits, because where there's a 99.9% honest population the 0.1% population that are con-men will thrive, but in a 99.9% con-man population 0.1% good people will actually have it easier (because everyone expects everyone to be double-crossing sons-of-whatever and the naturally good people cannot be accounted for).

That's my view. Take it as you will.

Limestone = soft

The stalactites in caves are formed from *harder* rocks - thus, take longer to form.

I really hope you understand how stalactites are formed, otherwise we can't really explain it to you.

Another thing you may want to look up before using it as 'proof'.

let's say the Bible is true and the global flood DID occur. wouldn't the gigantic rush of water alter a lot of things in the caves?

ok now, call me slipping off, but if the Bible is true about the global flood, won't a lot of the original evidence for creation been altered?

Creationism, and indeed the belief in a "god" is unsubstantiated nonsense. IT MAKES NO SENSE. I am absolutely convinced that the existence of a "god" is impossible. There cannot be creation or the supernatural. Evolution, not only is rational, it is actually supported by FACT as opposed to superstitious false mumbo-jumbo (the bible)

[url] it's that those most suited to their environoment are more likely to pass on their genes.

which is survival of the strongest and the extinction of the weakest.....what's the difference in the statements except wording?

Creationism, and indeed the belief in a "god" is unsubstantiated nonsense. IT MAKES NO SENSE. I am absolutely convinced that the existence of a "god" is impossible. There cannot be creation or the supernatural. Evolution, not only is rational, it is actually supported by FACT as opposed to superstitious false mumbo-jumbo (the bible)

good for you.....

which is survival of the strongest and the extinction of the weakest.....what's the difference in the statements except wording?

No, it's not. If the environment favours the 'weakest' [as in areas where Malaria is common where the 'weaker' people with sickle-cell anaemia are more likely to survive], the 'weakest' will survive and the 'strongest' will die.

as long as your posts are really short like this one and i don't have to scroll up to far...page number?

Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Orrorin tugenensis
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Kenyanthropus platyops
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus garhi
Australopithecus aethiopicus
Australopithecus robustus
Australopithecus boisei
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo ergaster
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
Homo sapiens sapiens

And also, ambulocetus - why is this not clearly a transition?

From what I recall, the *real* flood was just high enough and long enough to force people to seek high ground, and then leave a thick layer of mud behind (it's the uniform layer of mud that supports the flood theory).

But here's the thing:

a) the flood isn't originally from the bible. It showed up in holy books from before the bible. The bible just adopted it. And changed the original name of the god worshipped to read 'God'. So no evidence for you Christians, I'm afraid.

b) hard rock wouldn't be completely eroded even by a few *months* underwater. See, even if caves were completely submerged, there wouldn't be much movement of water; thus, little friction; thus, not much erosion.

And yes, perhaps the flood got rid of evidence that supports creationism... but there's still lots of evidence for evolution, reagardless.

here, requote from my friend who wants her opinion heard:

why is it only humans search for religion and never other animals?

which came first, plants or animals, and why are the basic cell structure of a plant and an animal so different, and why did they deviate at all?

IMO evolution sounds more logical that Creationism. Yet I'd like to discover that 'missing link' . . .


However let me throw some more fuel to the Evolutionary fire - what do you all think of genetic engineering to 'evolve' the human race in strength and intelligence?

I'm not talking about strengh and intelligence in terms of bulging muscles or telekenetic powers - I'm thinking something a bit more subtle, something along the lines of Coordinators from Gundam SEED (that is if anybody else knows that anime's plot)

How do you *know* animals don't have religion. Don't assume things.

Plants hit on a way to get energy from sunlight (photokineses), animals relied on absorbing other organisms.

Those two major differences (major for single-celled organisms) lead to the large difference is more complicated forms.

From what I recall, the *real* flood was just high enough and long enough to force people to seek high ground, and then leave a thick layer of mud behind (it's the uniform layer of mud that supports the flood theory).

But here's the thing:

a) the flood isn't originally from the bible. It showed up in holy books from before the bible. The bible just adopted it. And changed the original name of the god worshipped to read 'God'. So no evidence for you Christians, I'm afraid.

b) hard rock wouldn't be completely eroded even by a few *months* underwater. See, even if caves were completely submerged, there wouldn't be much movement of water; thus, little friction; thus, not much erosion.

And yes, perhaps the flood got rid of evidence that supports creationism... but there's still lots of evidence for evolution, reagardless.

a) what makes you think that the other stories did not copy their story from the Bible, or that they wrote it from real-life experience?

b) if the flood was as high as Mount Everest what happens underwater, we don't know...

which came first, plants or animals, and why are the basic cell structure of a plant and an animal so different, and why did they deviate at all?

It's called 'speciation.' Both types of cell had a common ancestor, both developed in different directions, probably due to isolation.

let's say the Bible is true and the global flood DID occur. wouldn't the gigantic rush of water alter a lot of things in the caves?

ok now, call me slipping off, but if the Bible is true about the global flood, won't a lot of the original evidence for creation been altered?

If there had been a flood, it MAY have affected the envirnoment in the caves, but probably not by much - since most of our cave structures are the products of erosion anyways - and would likely have already been full of water when your 'flood' took place.

Why would there have been a gigantic rush? The bible doesn't say gigantic rush? Are Creationists trying to use science now to fill in the gaps in the bible?

Oh - and a lot of evidence has been altered. Fossilised, for example. Over hundreds of millions of years.

And water doesn't affect the decay constant of radioactives.

a) what makes you think that the other stories did not copy their story from the Bible, or that they wrote it from real-life experience?

b) if the flood was as high as Mount Everest what happens underwater, we don't know...

a) Because the other texts are older.
b) yes we do... knowledge of physics helps here. And it *wasn't* as high as Everest... like I said, the mud layer used to support the theory suggests it was only a few miles of water.

How do you *know* animals don't have religion. Don't assume things.

Plants hit on a way to get energy from sunlight (photokineses), animals relied on absorbing other organisms.

Those two major differences (major for single-celled organisms) lead to the large difference is more complicated forms.

but why did plants and animals deviate? isn't it just so good for all organisms to evolve to absorbing sunlight? why sunlight? why not salt water? cosmic dust?

b) if the flood was as high as Mount Everest what happens underwater, we don't know...

We know damn well it's wouldn't lay down the geological column in reverse order of mass, though. Buoyancy says the most complex and therefore heaviest things should be at the bottom, but we actually fid the lightest, simplest things there...

but why did plants and animals deviate? isn't it just so good for all organisms to evolve to absorbing sunlight? why sunlight? why not salt water? cosmic dust?

At a pinch, because photosynthesis can't produce enough energy for a highly active organism and is useless at night, and because getting significant energy from salt water would involve nuclear fission?

If there had been a flood, it MAY have affected the envirnoment in the caves, but probably not by much - since most of our cave structures are the products of erosion anyways - and would likely have already been full of water when your 'flood' took place.

Why would there have been a gigantic rush? The bible doesn't say gigantic rush? Are Creationists trying to use science now to fill in the gaps in the bible?

Oh - and a lot of evidence has been altered. Fossilised, for example. Over hundreds of millions of years.

And water doesn't affect the decay constant of radioactives.

no. the flood that took 40 days and nights with the skies opening and the ground opening took trickles...OF COURSE IT WAS A GIGANTIC RUSH! A FLOOD THAT FLOODS THE WORLD! have you seen a flood? does the water trickle down the streets?

may not, but what about the UV rays that began to shine onto Earth after the flood?

but why did plants and animals deviate? isn't it just so good for all organisms to evolve to absorbing sunlight? why sunlight? why not salt water? cosmic dust?

Dreaded chance again, I'm afraid. Some cells (early plants) absorbed other single cells that were busy absorbing energy from the sun, and instead of digesting them (due to genetic abnormality, probably), they started a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship.

Not all cells mutated in such a way that they could absorb sunlight.

Salt destroys the pH balance in cells, so they cannot live of salt.

Cosmic dust would be too rare to sustain life for long (otherwise something probably *would* have evolved to live off it)

no. the flood that took 40 days and nights with the skies opening and the ground opening took trickles...OF COURSE IT WAS A GIGANTIC RUSH! A FLOOD THAT FLOODS THE WORLD! have you seen a flood? does the water trickle down the streets?

may not, but what about the UV rays that began to shine onto Earth after the flood?

Um... hyperbole, I'm afraid, seems most likely.

Unless you want to claim that the only physical evidence *for* the flood is actually *not* for the flood... leaving you with no evidence at all for the flood.

Mud layer = thin. Not 40 days and 40 night. Maybe a week or two.

but why did plants and animals deviate? isn't it just so good for all organisms to evolve to absorbing sunlight? why sunlight? why not salt water? cosmic dust?

Because if everything 'ate' sunlight, who would get all the food? Whoever was tallest. They would shade out the smaller 'things'. The smaller things would thus die, unless they could eat something else. If some of them could eat the tall 'things' they would multiply until all the 'tall things' were gone, unless, some of the 'things' that ate the 'tall things' could eat the other 'things'.... evolution. You made my case for me.

I'm not sure if my post got noticed back there on the bottom on the page so I'll re-post it - somebody has to know what I'm talking about here



IMO evolution sounds more logical that Creationism. Yet I'd like to discover that 'missing link' . . .


However let me throw some more fuel to the Evolutionary fire - what do you all think of genetic engineering to 'evolve' the human race in strength and intelligence?

I'm not talking about strengh and intelligence in terms of bulging muscles or telekenetic powers - I'm thinking something a bit more subtle, something along the lines of Coordinators from Gundam SEED (that is if anybody else knows that anime's plot)

At a pinch, because photosynthesis can't produce enough energy for a highly active organism and is useless at night, and because getting significant energy from salt water would involve nuclear fission?

so shouldn't we just find gigantic plants instead of animals at all? or the 100%-efficient plant? no....

I'm not sure if my post got noticed back there on the bottom on the page so I'll re-post it - somebody has to know what I'm talking about here...

I think it'd be safer to take that to another thread.

Currently, we're still trying to explain evolution in terms that can be understood to people without scientific background, in this one.

I'll be happy to reply in another thread though.

so shouldn't we just find gigantic plants instead of animals at all? or the 100%-efficient plant? no....

We DO find gigantic plants, you know...You do know the largest organism in existence is a fungus, right?

Because if everything 'ate' sunlight, who would get all the food? Whoever was tallest. They would shade out the smaller 'things'. The smaller things would thus die, unless they could eat something else. If some of them could eat the tall 'things' they would multiply until all the 'tall things' were gone, unless, some of the 'things' that ate the 'tall things' could eat the other 'things'.... evolution. You made my case for me.
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?! *no idea*

no. the flood that took 40 days and nights with the skies opening and the ground opening took trickles...OF COURSE IT WAS A GIGANTIC RUSH! A FLOOD THAT FLOODS THE WORLD! have you seen a flood? does the water trickle down the streets?

may not, but what about the UV rays that began to shine onto Earth after the flood?

UV radiation doesn't affect the radioactive decay of isotopes. This is the problem I have had before with Creationists... different types of radiation. One is a 'radiated' electromagnetic particle from a light source, the other is the 'radiated' particles (Alpha, Beta or Gamma) of a larger particle in fission.

And re: the bible. god said he was going to kill the animals - not destroy, reshape, erode or cook the earth. Or was he lying?

kakakakakaka...well...it's time for dinner...so...don't post too much...wait for me... :P

but please, allow me to thank all of you for providing me with this wonderful opportunity to debate. really means something in this bored, bored summer. :D

We DO find gigantic plants, you know...You do know the largest organism in existence is a fungus, right?

Opinions differ: some say a fungus, some say a vegetative grass...

But as you say - one of those two is the largest organism known, with the other in second place.

(...Humans canhave extra fingers and toes...)
but they're still humans. evolution is not occurred.

it would be very beneficial for humans to have three hands. so why do we classify tri-armed people to be riddled with genetic DISEASE? why do these tri-armed people die so early compared to the average bi-armed man?

Several reasons:
o Three hands is a /very/ rare trait arising from a fairly precise set of mutations
o Normally a foetus with three-handed mutations almost certainly has other (probably detrimental) mutations that also affect their development.
o Three hands confers only /marginal/ advantage (if any) to survivial, though at least you're not going to be locked away as a freak or burnt at the stake as a devil any more. Well, probably not.
o Three hands does not make for a very attractive sexual mate.
o The three-handedness of any two individuals may be caused by subtely different mechanisms, there's no guarantee they will produce similar offspring to either of them, never mind that they live with the condition.

Admitedly you might find a male and female 'sufferer' at an age of sexual maturity, and (in this day and age) the doctors could fly them to meet each other, regrdless of their original locations, they could possibly fall in love and they could have children. But there's no guarantee the child would be similarly afflicted, and with only 50-odd years timespan in which it might have been possible for two afflicted indivudals to have survived to adulthood (within a decade or two of each other) without dying from natural or unnatural causes, finding themselves in the same place at the same time and also feeling amorous (without that ever-niggling feeling at the back of their minds that some doctor or other is probably overstepping the normal limits of curiosity and is actively pressuring them to produce children, whether or not this is actually the case) I think it's a very unlikely scenario. And if it has happened we're only going to have a remote possibility of a second generation tridexter (who has then to find another tridexter).

Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Kenyanthropus platyops, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo georgicus, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens sapiens

And also, ambulocetus - why is this not clearly a transition?

Any time you're ready Dragon: here (again) is the list of transitions...

You ask for evidence.... and yet you won't touch it, when it appears.

Typical Creationist.

I don't see how a third hand/arm could possibly be a positive mutation (and, in fact, as someone already mentioned, it would probably have to be brought about by *many*, very specific changes; or else happen gradually, in which case it would be selected against due to the general populations squimishness).

The human body is largely symetrical... a third arm would throw that out of whack (probably at the expense of various organs), probably not be fully functional (if it happened in a single step anyway, due to the large number of mutations involved).

so shouldn't we just find gigantic plants instead of animals at all? or the 100%-efficient plant? no....

No ecosystem can survive where only a single niche has been filled. The recycling of matter from plants to animals back to plants (in atmosphere, ground, water, etc) is the basis for the success of a system. (Edit: 'a' basis, that is, it's not the only cycle and something completely...erm....alien might have developed on another world.)

If there are no predators, there's overcrowding of the 'prey'. If the predators eat all their prey, they die (or the population evolves to eat other prey).

It's a dynamic equilibrium (i.e. ever-shifting balance, with the possibility of some parts falling off) but at any particular time we're seeing the 'currently stable' state of plant, animal, microbe, virus, etc populations. (Except that humans currently having such global and far-reaching effects and have been keeping records/examing evidence that allows us to actually watch drastic changes occur in front of our very eyes.

I aint red this whole thread...but iv got a few quotes (im a christian
->creationist)

"The chance of life forming from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40, 000 noughts after it. -Sir Frederick Hoyle
- please note, a number with 40,000 noughts after it, not 40,000.

"If Darwin had herd of DNA then the origin of species wud never hav bin written."

noahs ark - he wudnt hav taken one of every BREED on fanimal on there, just of each species, and probably also a couple of different breeds. it is possible for change within a species, i.e. dogs can be collies, dashunds, bulldogs, poodles etc, but a dog will not evolve into a cat for example! tis crayzee!

also, the world has not bin created over bilions n trillions of years or however many they reckon it is...the flood (when noah had his ark)covered every mountain, so that it moved all the sediments and stuff, and wudv left random fish on tops of mountains if they died, etc! how else wud they hav got there?!!?!?

and as for proof God exists - take a look at the world!! how can anyone even think that it cudv all come form nothing. u cant make something from nothing! everything has to come from somewhere (cept God cus hes God and has always bin there - no i dont understand that either). but, look at us humans, how majorly complex are we, even somethign as simpleas making a cake has to have a designer, and someone hu puits all the ingredients together to make it - so how much greeater a creator must we hav had. face it - WE DID NOT COME FROM SLIME!!!!

and bangs, bombs and explosions do not cause something better than was there before. an explosion in a matchstick factory wud not leave u with a gigantic matchstick model wud it? no. if i sed thatd happened ud all say im crayzee!! think about it...this world cud not hav bin made in an explosion. (and if u still think thats wot happened - where did the gases and stars come from, and wot made them,etc etc....

miriam xxx

"The chance of life forming from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40, 000 noughts after it. -Sir Frederick Hoyle
- please note, a number with 40,000 noughts after it, not 40,000.

Appealing to authority is useless. Appealing to Hoyle's authority is significantly worse than useless. Explain the calculation or don't bother bringing it up.

"If Darwin had herd of DNA then the origin of species wud never hav bin written."

Wow, you haven't even attributed that to anyone.

noahs ark - he wudnt hav taken one of every BREED on fanimal on there, just of each species, and probably also a couple of different breeds.

That doesn't help at all. What about the parasites? What about the 500,000 [known] species of beetles?

it is possible for change within a species, i.e. dogs can be collies, dashunds, bulldogs, poodles etc, but a dog will not evolve into a cat for example! tis crayzee!

Nobody has ever claimed a dog would evolve into a cat. That would be crazy. They have claimed dogs and cats share a common ancestor.

also, the world has not bin created over bilions n trillions of years or however many they reckon it is...the flood (when noah had his ark)covered every mountain, so that it moved all the sediments and stuff, and wudv left random fish on tops of mountains if they died, etc! how else wud they hav got there?!!?!?

Plate tectonics. The mountains weren't always that high.

and as for proof God exists - take a look at the world!! how can anyone even think that it cudv all come form nothing. u cant make something from nothing! everything has to come from somewhere (cept God cus hes God and has always bin there - no i dont understand that either). but, look at us humans, how majorly complex are we, even somethign as simpleas making a cake has to have a designer, and someone hu puits all the ingredients together to make it - so how much greeater a creator must we hav had. face it - WE DID NOT COME FROM SLIME!!!!

Allcaps don't help. Neither does circular logic. Neither does assuming evolution and abiogenesis are the same thing.

and bangs, bombs and explosions do not cause something better than was there before. an explosion in a matchstick factory wud not leave u with a gigantic matchstick model wud it? no. if i sed thatd happened ud all say im crayzee!! think about it...this world cud not hav bin made in an explosion. (and if u still think thats wot happened - where did the gases and stars come from, and wot made them,etc etc....

Seriously, you think the Big Bang was a chemical explosion?

Wow... couldn't you have got a grown-up to help you? It took me half the time, just trying to work out WHAT this said...

I aint red this whole thread...but iv got a few quotes (im a christian
->creationist)

"The chance of life forming from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40, 000 noughts after it. -Sir Frederick Hoyle
- please note, a number with 40,000 noughts after it, not 40,000.



The statistics are irrelevent, because it HAS happened. If the odds are a billion to one, it's the one time that matters, the other 999,999,999 times are probability - but that time is REALITY.

Also - looking at how difficult it is for a planet to be 'designed' just right for life: The odds are vanishingly small that there is life on any other world. But - looking at how many worlds there are, the odds are vanishingly small that there isn't life on any other world. Statistics are JUST numbers.


noahs ark - he wudnt hav taken one of every BREED on fanimal on there, just of each species...


What about beetles. There are more species of beetles than there are species of all other 'animals'.


also, the world has not bin created over bilions n trillions of years or however many they reckon it is...the flood...


Even if the flood were true - a flood doesn't mean the world isn't millions of years older.

And, I'm of the opinion that fish on top of mountains are the exception rather than the norm - but the processes of interactions between plates can account for the elevation of previously low ground.


and as for proof God exists - take a look at the world...


Have an original thought, rather than just vomiting back up sunday school tracts.

Humans are not actually any more complex than DNA, there's just a lot of it... and DNA is just a protein. And a protein can be formed by simple chemical reactions. Reactions you can do in a cup. Doesn't sound like you really need a god for that. "Well done, god of the Cup World".

And, if god has always been there, why hasn't everything else. You can't PROVE that the universe wasn't always there.


and bangs, bombs and explosions do not cause something better than was there before...



Actually, if the 'explosion' were all force, and no destruction - yes, there is a statistical probability that the result would be a life-sized model of the Taj Mahal. The chances are very small - but it IS possible.

Leave the Big Bang out of it. Evolution doesn't "Believe" in the Big Bang (although some evolutionists do), it's just another one of the arguments christians train their drones with.

I aint red this whole thread...but iv got a few quotes (im a christian
->creationist)
You really should red {sic} this whole thread. A lot of what you say has been responded to (you may disagree with the responses, but it would save time argue those details rather than go over the same things again and again. However...

"The chance of life forming from inanimate matter is 1 to a number with 40, 000 noughts after it. -Sir Frederick Hoyle
- please note, a number with 40,000 noughts after it, not 40,000.
Whether that is accurate or not is irrelevant. On this planet we 'beat the odds'. On another planet it did not occur, but there's no-one there to say "of course we don't exist, we're improbable".

"If Darwin had herd of DNA then the origin of species wud never hav bin written."
Who wrote that? (They have attrocious spelling.)
And if they had had the scientific abilities in those days to understand DNA then Darwin would have had other things to think about.

noahs ark - he wudnt hav taken one of every BREED on fanimal on there, just of each species, and probably also a couple of different breeds. it is possible for change within a species, i.e. dogs can be collies, dashunds, bulldogs, poodles etc, but a dog will not evolve into a cat for example! tis crayzee!
Dealt with. There are still too many species for an ark.
Nobody realistically suggests that dogs become cats. The ancestor of all species that are 'cats' (lion, tiger, ocelot, puma, jaguar, manul, cougar, margay, house, bobcat, lynx, wild, etc) that also happens to be the ancestor of all species that are 'dogs' (wolves, hyenas, foxes, coyotes, hyena, jackals, dingo, etc) was probably not particularly 'cat'-like or 'dog'-like, but some descendants took a chance route of that led them into the cat family while others drifted into the dog family.

also, the world has not bin created over bilions n trillions of years or however many they reckon it is...the flood (when noah had his ark)covered every mountain, so that it moved all the sediments and stuff, and wudv left random fish on tops of mountains if they died, etc! how else wud they hav got there?!!?!?
Flood dealt with /very/ recently. Not enough water, no proof we ever had a (global) flood, though a neo-prehistoric event may have affected a small area of the world where early people were living and got ingrained into the myths that were eventually incorporated into the Old Testament.
Plate techtonics (a measurable phenomenon) shows how mountains can form from what was ancient seabed.

and as for proof God exists - take a look at the world!! how can anyone even think that it cudv all come form nothing. u cant make something from nothing! everything has to come from somewhere (cept God cus hes God and has always bin there - no i dont understand that either). but, look at us humans, how majorly complex are we, even somethign as simpleas making a cake has to have a designer, and someone hu puits all the ingredients together to make it - so how much greeater a creator must we hav had. face it - WE DID NOT COME FROM SLIME!!!!
Arguments about the big-bang aside (which has no direct bearing on Evolution save for being the possible ultimate source of the raw materials to create the solar system, planet and such), self replicating molecules have already been discussed. Please direct your arguments against the improbibility of it all to specific points, to save us all time.
I (as agnostic) actually think that any Creator that did exist can only be greater by having created the primordial soup (or indeed snapping his fingers and initiating the big bang) in such a way that it gave us, His intended end result. A Creator that snaps his fingers and creates just the end result has no imagination, and perhaps that is why he spent some time providing all those little clues that are there to pursuade us that we happen to be part of a long chance process.
Or there is no Creator and it happened through testable physical and chemical processes anyway. That's a belief issue and beyond argument by either side of the discussion.

and bangs, bombs and explosions do not cause something better than was there before. an explosion in a matchstick factory wud not leave u with a gigantic matchstick model wud it? no. if i sed thatd happened ud all say im crayzee!! think about it...this world cud not hav bin made in an explosion. (and if u still think thats wot happened - where did the gases and stars come from, and wot made them,etc etc....
You're confusing the Big Bang with an explosion, the high-speed chemical oxidation of structures releasing energy and reducing the structures to ash and vapour. The Big Bang was the sudden distribution of basic building blocks throughout the Universe so that they can clump together and form the Universe we can (partly) see at night and the world we stand on and the molecules that started life off. If it happened like that (and there's very good evidence) then it happened. If it hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here for you to say "told you so" to us.

Dealt with. There are still too many species for an ark.
Nobody realistically suggests that dogs become cats. The ancestor of all species that are 'cats' (lion, tiger, ocelot, puma, jaguar, manul, cougar, margay, house, bobcat, lynx, wild, etc) that also happens to be the ancestor of all species that are 'dogs' (wolves, hyenas, foxes, coyotes, hyena, jackals, dingo, etc) was probably not particularly 'cat'-like or 'dog'-like, but some descendants took a chance route of that led them into the cat family while others drifted into the dog family.


Most likely common ancestor, I seem to recall, would have been 'miacis', which was bigger by far than modern dogs or cats, and is probably also the ancestor of the bears.



Flood dealt with /very/ recently. Not enough water, no proof we ever had a (global) flood, though a neo-prehistoric event may have affected a small area of the world where early people were living and got ingrained into the myths that were eventually incorporated into the Old Testament.

Most likey the flooding of the Euphrates - that would have spread over several miles of the rather flat-landscape. As documented by the Babylonians thousands of years before the bible was even written.

I think it'd be safer to take that to another thread.

Currently, we're still trying to explain evolution in terms that can be understood to people without scientific background, in this one.

I'll be happy to reply in another thread though.

*fumes*

the evolution of life is NOT science!

*fumes*

the evolution of life is NOT science!

I dont think you get to decide what people study.

The Scientific Method is as follows:

1. Observations are made
2. Hypotheses are created
3. Experiments are conducted
4. Results are collected
5. Results are analysed and reported.
6. Report is scrutinised.
7. Experiment is repeated.
8. Theories are written.
9. Law are established.

neither evolution nor creation passes as science, because it can't even go through the first stage.

The Scientific Method is as follows:

1. Observations are made
2. Hypotheses are created
3. Experiments are conducted
4. Results are collected
5. Results are analysed and reported.
6. Report is scrutinised.
7. Experiment is repeated.
8. Theories are written.
9. Law are established.

neither evolution nor creation passes as science, because it can't even go through the first stage.

Pardon? Even read the origin of species? Darwin seems to make quite a few observations in that book.

The Scientific Method is as follows:

1. Observations are made
2. Hypotheses are created
3. Experiments are conducted
4. Results are collected
5. Results are analysed and reported.
6. Report is scrutinised.
7. Experiment is repeated.
8. Theories are written.
9. Law are established.

neither evolution nor creation passes as science, because it can't even go through the first stage.

We observe that there are fossils in rocks. These rocks can be dated, by a variety of intermeshing and mutually supportive techniques, as several million up to 3-odd billion years old.

See if you can take it from there.

The Scientific Method is as follows:

1. Observations are made
Darwin's Finches, fossils, etc
2. Hypotheses are created
Erasmus, his Son, others
3. Experiments are conducted
Whassisname with the peas. Mendeleev? More recently drosphilia experiments (even ignoring the GM-based ones). Other examples abound.
4. Results are collected
Mendeleev (if 'twas he) again. The 'drosphiliaphiliacs' publish research. Etc.
5. Results are analysed and reported.
As point 4, published.
6. Report is scrutinised.
Peer review accordingly.
7. Experiment is repeated.
We took part in some pea-strain experiments at school, our results were looking promising when I left, results of earlier-initiated experiments had come out quite well.
8. Theories are written.
Copiously.
9. Law are established.
The theories are established, you remember the symmantic arguments about that... :)
neither evolution nor creation passes as science, because it can't even go through the first stage.
I believe (oops, using the 'b' word) that evolution has fulfilled that test.


For Pure Creationism I perceive can see the following:
1)Read the Bible, observe the world,
2)Some stick to the basic "The Bible is correct" blurb, others say "The Bible means this", others say "The real world exhibits properties consistent with the Bible", each with all the attendant counter-arguments.
3)This one is difficult for the Creationists, except for the third hypothesis type (assuming they stick to good science).
4)Acceptable results in favour of creationism are hard to come by, however there may be something they can dig up.
5)It would be a slur to suggest that some people are 'creative' about interpreting their results, so I won't.
6)Depends who you ask.
7)As required.
8)Etc
9)The trouble is that Creationists generally (though not always) start with this step.

It was Gregor Mendel w/the peas, just to clear up your confusion

It was Gregor Mendel w/the peas, just to clear up your confusion

Dat's der bunny. Thanks, I knew it didn't sound right. I had several names floating round, none quite right...

Mendeleev: Responsible for the Periodic Table
Mendelssohn: Philosopher
Mira Mendelson: Prokofiev's mistress, wasn't she? Not typical monk material...
Josef Mengele: <shudder>
Peter Mandelson: British MP (Labour)

i think...which of the 40+ pages was that...? no, i'm kidding. yes, you mean the china ones? pss...just between the two of us (not very possible, is it?) a lot of the fossils found in china are actually fakes - poor local chinese peasants are so desperate for money, and yet so smart, to merge the fossils of a lizard and a bird to create images to sell to "stupid" western scientists to "prove" evolution...

actually, these ones are were all found by paleontologists (or at least one of the specimens of each was, because we have multiples) at one excavation site. and while there was a bit of a scandal when national geographic published a story that included stuff on a couple of fossils that turned out to be not exactly on the up and up, that was entirely because national geographic didn't wait for the find to go through peer-review. but even then, those fossils turned out to be composites made by putting two different feathered dinosaur fossils together. seriously, you cannot create a fake fossil that would stand up to any scrutiny at all anymore.

besides, we have evidence of dinosaurs with feathers from other places around the world as well. and what about all those sort of human, sort of other ape fossils i also linked to?

We know damn well it's wouldn't lay down the geological column in reverse order of mass, though. Buoyancy says the most complex and therefore heaviest things should be at the bottom, but we actually fid the lightest, simplest things there...

no, fossils were layed down in their current order because some things were able to outrun the flood waters longer than others. hence the lightning fast oak trees that always outrun the slow and docile velociraptors.

We DO find gigantic plants, you know...You do know the largest organism in existence is a fungus, right?
Not to nitpick, but fungi aren't plants.

Creationism..... aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahaha.... do you people believe in real magic too? Evolution is the only probable idea that has ever been proposed because there is actually evidence to support it and the big bang and all of that, so to me it seems like a no brainer, believe what can be proven, or believe what I can read out of an ancient book that contains nothing but motivational garbage that isn't meant to be taken literally anyway.

Unless you've been alive and conscious throughout all of everything, you just don't know. Accept it, deal with it, and get over it.

Unless you've been alive and conscious throughout all of everything, you just don't know. Accept it, deal with it, and get over it.
Yes, of course. That is why I automatically believe that a big man in the clouds made the universe yesterday. It’s the only realistic explanation.

*fumes*

the evolution of life is NOT science!

Yes, but because some people here have no scientific background, they cannot grasp our answers to their 'proof' against evolution.

For example, the thing with limstone vs. cave structures... That was incredibly simple to answer - but the answer only makes sense if you understand a) how those structures form (geology)
b) the force behind erosion (physics/geology)
c) the structural differences between limestone and other mineral deposits (chemistry)

Similarly, there are people here who have no background in genetics. That makes it almost impossible to explain even the basics of evolution (especially at the start of this thread, when the creationists kept trying to throw in hilariously misguided comments about genetics). Genetics *is* science. It's taught as science, studied as science, and passed all the required critieria to be considered a science. It's also something that you need to understand before you can discuss evolution with any hope of fully understanding it.

So yes, I'm sorry if you thought I *was* saying evolution was scientific. Even though people here have all explained why evolution *can* be considered a science, that wasn't *my* original intention.

*fumes*

the evolution of life is NOT science!

Correct. It's an observable FACT that science is attempting to determine the processes behind.

*fumes*

the evolution of life is NOT science!

Spot on.

But studying evolution is scientific
and the theory of evolution is a scientific theory
the evidence for it is scientific evidence - it has been collected by observation and experiment.
It broadly falls within the context of biology, which is A science...

sorry, what was the point again?

Oh - and, since scientists are always open to new possibility (even if they disclude it again)....

Creationists don't want Evolution.... right?
Creationists don't want Plate Techtonics.... right?

Okay - we'll take them!!!

(They are now officially in the science camp - hands off).

(You can come play with them too, if you learn some science first...)

Oh, look... I'm quoting myself... and I'm the only one here....

Hey DRAGONS-BAY.... remember those transitions you were going to 'easily' identify for us?????



Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Orrorin tugenensis, Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus afarensis, Kenyanthropus platyops, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus garhi, Australopithecus aethiopicus, Australopithecus robustus, Australopithecus boisei, Homo habilis, Homo georgicus, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens sapiens

And also, ambulocetus - why is this not clearly a transition?

Any time you're ready Dragon: here (again) is the list of transitions...

You ask for evidence.... and yet you won't touch it, when it appears.

Typical Creationist.

Maybe if you hunt down pictures of them, he'll be inclined to answer?

Or maybe you should just repeatedly post that quote until he gets a chance to respond? Hmm, decisions decisions.

no....i've been out all day, and now i'm dead tired and sleepy...no energy left for intellectual debate...so please forgive...maybe tomorrow...

Lets face it Creationism argument dosn't have two legs to stand on!

Maybe if you hunt down pictures of them, he'll be inclined to answer?

Or maybe you should just repeatedly post that quote until he gets a chance to respond? Hmm, decisions decisions.

I do apologise if I've offended you somehow?

Dragon asked for intermediary fossils, because they apparently don't exist.

I produced a small list , which I posted, then reposted when the thread had progressed a couple more pages. I reposted it when Dragon said that he/she hadn't had a chance to see it, because they don't scroll up, or back-page.

21 hours later (-ish) I reposted it because the claim to be able to easily place all fossils as either ape or man was still sitting idle.

If Dragon is truly the expert he/she claims - they know all about the fossils I am calling transitions here - they don't need me to post pictures. If he/she is not the expert they claim, perhaps they should think twice about making claims they have no back-up for.

And - while I am at it: Dragon makes claims about stalactites, without any back-up - no pictures, nothing. Dragon makes claims about the flood, no pictures, nothing. Those of us that oppose Creationism have (usually) made enough of an effort to research the matter that we can offer a rebuttal - but Dragon hasn't made that effort. That's not MY fault.

Dragon should find evidence to back up his/her claims.

And there was no need for sarcasm.

Lets face it Creationism argument dosn't have two legs to stand on!

Maybe it will evolve them?

Maybe if you hunt down pictures of them, he'll be inclined to answer?

Or maybe you should just repeatedly post that quote until he gets a chance to respond? Hmm, decisions decisions.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/toumai.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/lukeino.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/ara-vp-1-129.html
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/ardipithecusramidus.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4247/ramidus.htm
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/kp29283.html
http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/anamensis.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/lucy.html
http://www.geocities.com/palaeoanthropology/Aafarensis.html
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/australopithecusafarensis.htm
http://gatito.valdosta.edu/fossil_pages/fossils_ter/p21.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/platyops.html
http://park.org/Canada/Museum/man/africanus.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/taung.html
http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/garhi.html
http://www.vaishnava.com/anthrobaby/agarhi.htm
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/aeth.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/sk48.html
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/WT15k.html
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homohabilis.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/d2700.html
http://www.geocities.com/palaeoanthropology/Aboisei.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/wt15000.html
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/erg.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/grandolina.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/petralona1.html
http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/mauer1.html
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/neand.htm
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/cromagnon.html

Oooh, no. It wasn't sarcasm, and I'm not annoyed at you :p.

I was pointing out that every time you post the list, other people jump in, the list ends up back a page, and Dragons Bay doesn't respond. Plus, I figured it'd be easier for him to answer (or realise it's *not* easy to classify them) with pictures.

Sorry for the mix up (damn internet... I need body language in order to not offend people :rolleyes:)

Hopefully you aren't annoyed at me now :D

hi. just to clear up several things:

1. me no expert. me never claimed me is expert.

2. me here to have fun. if you were expecting something more, me's sorry me given you false hopes.

3. me lives in china, half a day before you. when me goes to bed you people start posting like crazy. normally me's not inclined to browse back and search for posts.

3. me tired and sleepy...zzzz....

Oooh, no. It wasn't sarcasm, and I'm not annoyed at you :p.

I was pointing out that every time you post the list, other people jump in, the list ends up back a page, and Dragons Bay doesn't respond. Plus, I figured it'd be easier for him to answer (or realise it's *not* easy to classify them) with pictures.

Sorry for the mix up (damn internet... I need body language in order to not offend people :rolleyes:)

Hopefully you aren't annoyed at me now :D

Okay - not mad. It kind of came off as sarcasm - but - like you say, it's real easy to send confusing messages without the added context of body language.

I have had far less civilised encounters than the evolution/creation ones recently (there's a socialism thread out there where some anarchist has spent four pages using almost every swear-word you can think of, on me).

By comparison, this thread is 'gloves on', and we're all happy, Creationist and Scientist alike.

hi. just to clear up several things:

1. me no expert. me never claimed me is expert.

2. me here to have fun. if you were expecting something more, me's sorry me given you false hopes.

3. me lives in china, half a day before you. when me goes to bed you people start posting like crazy. normally me's not inclined to browse back and search for posts.

3. me tired and sleepy...zzzz....

The problem is, you've set yourself up as an expert. You oppose those who have a scientific interest (some of whom, you may have noticed, are pretty well versed in their field), you claim there is no scientific evidence, you question the validity of the science. You even said it's not "That Hard to Distinguish" between those different ape/man transitions.

I disagree - the science is (usually) good, there certainly IS evidence (although you may chose to ignore it). It IS hard to distinguish the hominid line. It is only recently that the ramapithicus jumped lines from the hominid to the more general hominoid, with the discovery of more evidence.

And - we are all here, I would guess, to have fun. But this is also a serious issue. Where I live now, some schools refuse to teach evolution, because it is against god. An entire generation of brain-washed drones is a terrifying thought, for me - and it would be the same if only one theory (any theory) were taught. Give them the information and let them make their own decisions, I reckon - but there are SERIOUSLY people out there who want to take away that choice.

I'm not arguing with you - I am arguing with Creationism. If we want to teach theories of creation based on the amount of verifiable evidence, we could spend the first thirty minutes of the school-year teaching Genesis, and the rest of an entire year teaching Darwin...

it's not enough to sit in a lab or in front of a computer to work life out.

yesterday i was out in a country park, and was very very very lucky to catch a gigantic, poisonous, beautiful spider spinning a web in the most systematic way. it struck me so hard that no way all spiders could learn to do this by chance - they seemed designed, or programmed. completely awed me.

details confuse you and give you the illusion that you are right. actually, the way to solve matters is to look at it simply. just seeing the spider spinning its web was enough to convince me that life happened by chance is simply impossible.

don't come in here and start arguing laboratory science with me. go out to a park, or beach, observe how systematic the world's life is. a constantly dynamic universe will not allow stable systems to form.

it's not enough to sit in a lab or in front of a computer to work life out.

yesterday i was out in a country park, and was very very very lucky to catch a gigantic, poisonous, beautiful spider spinning a web in the most systematic way. it struck me so hard that no way all spiders could learn to do this by chance - they seemed designed, or programmed. completely awed me.

details confuse you and give you the illusion that you are right. actually, the way to solve matters is to look at it simply. just seeing the spider spinning its web was enough to convince me that life happened by chance is simply impossible.

don't come in here and start arguing laboratory science with me. go out to a park, or beach, observe how systematic the world's life is. a constantly dynamic universe will not allow stable systems to form.

So does my cat when she hits at the door to go outside every night at midnight and 4 AM, but she's not programmed either.

If you cannot handle the fact that spinneretts produce webbing and the web is an instinct that was beneficial for survival, you may want to re-evaluate your ability to judge on the issue.

Of course it does- the dynamics of the universe as you call it is simply the order of the universe on a small scale.