NationStates Jolt Archive

I can't be bothered to read 17 pages so I shall say just this.

One person.

There seems to be some truth to that... let's take Neo_Cannen for example... (Sorry, Neo, to use your name in vain... but you are unfortunately the perfect example). Profound believer (at least, claims to be... on the internet, how can you tell?), and yet, by own admission, has never actually READ the bible...


Please take that back. I have not read the ENTIRE Bible. Large parts of it yes but not everything. In my opinion however it is not nessecary to read everything to understand what it is talking about fully.

I can't be bothered to read 17 pages so I shall say just this.

One person.

One person did not make all 17 pages, what are you trying to say?

That well known atheist, said that he believed the universe was created by a deity. He has not become a christian and doesn't believe in life after death. Do any christians want to explain dementia to me?

One person did not make all 17 pages, what are you trying to say?
That all this fuss is over some idiot changing his view

Ehhh

Here's a few of the 50, some with more publications in scientific journals than others, but all legidimate scientists.

http://www.uchsc.edu/physiology/joint/becv.htm

Lists no publications having to do with evolutionary biology/intelligent design/etc. - and thus backs up my point.

http://landholders.tripod.com/id115.htm

Nothing even related to Intelligent Design here.

Biography—Jeremy L. Walter
... Jeremy L. Walter, Ph.D., PE. Mechanical Engineering (USA). Biography. Dr
Walter is Head of the Power Conversion Systems Department ...

www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/j_walter.asp - 13k[/quote]

No publications [/quote]

Yes, an ME really has intimate knowledge of biology.

http://www.christiananswers.net/creation/people/bergman-j.html

No journal publications listed.

http://www.lehigh.edu/~inbios/behe.html

Notice how most of these publications are not respected, peer-reviewed journals. Only the top one really is, and it has nothing to do with intelligent design (go figure).

http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/kramer.html

And again, no publications related to intelligent design.

http://origins.swau.edu/who/giem/default.html
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/j_sarfati.asp
http://chaos.fullerton.edu/Wanser.html
http://www.begellhouse.com/authors/557e69be60084ebc.html
http://www.me.psu.edu/cimbala/
http://www.chem.uci.edu/~wevans/decsam.html
http://www.globalflood.org/biography.html
http://www.grisda.org/bclausen/prof.htm
http://www.jackcuozzo.com/
http://www.icr.org/creationscientists/snelling.html

I'll look at the rest of these later, but I supsect they are much the same.

You are making the mistake of equating good scientist to "has a degree in something." You are also making the mistake of equating personal belief to scientific viewpoint - which most of these guys don't even appear to do.

There seems to be some truth to that... let's take Neo_Cannen for example... (Sorry, Neo, to use your name in vain... but you are unfortunately the perfect example). Profound believer (at least, claims to be... on the internet, how can you tell?), and yet, by own admission, has never actually READ the bible...

Some people seem to look deeper into the text and find something valid, some look deeper into the text, and come up empty handed.

Most, it seems, never even look into the text to start with.

Just for the record, I have a minor in religion and have studied the Bible for as long as I can remember. There are parts of it that I admittedly don't understand. I have found ample evidence in archeological findings to support the historisity of the Bible. I have found that the deeper you dig into it, the more internally consistent it becomes, including legidimate studies into the early manuscripts and their linguistics, though some on this site have chosen grossly inaccurate possible translations for some passages, that fail to look at the most likely reasonable translation and prefer the most disturbing no matter how much grasping at straws they have to do to get there.

I have also read on and studied both creationist and evolutionary science. I am dumbfounded that people claim so strongly that there is no evidence for intelligent design. They sound more like a faith based, narrow minded "religionists", than scientists willing to actually look at information and consider theories and evidence with scientific curiosity. Instead, they dogmatically preach that there is no "credible evidence" for ID without even looking at the evidence. They are almost more religious about it than those of us who believe in God.

That all this fuss is over some idiot changing his view

Ehhh

One idiot who prior to recently many of you would have held up as an example of a credible scientist who supported evolution. You would of then gone on to expostulate about his work and conclude by saying something to the effect of "He supports it so it must be good". Darwin was also 1 person. Remember this.

I have also read on and studied both creationist and evolutionary science. I am dumbfounded that people claim so strongly that there is no evidence for intelligent design. They sound more like a faith based, narrow minded "religionists", than scientists willing to actually look at information and consider theories and evidence with scientific curiosity. Instead, they dogmatically preach that there is no "credible evidence" for ID without even looking at the evidence. They are almost more religious about it than those of us who believe in God.

I *have* looked into the positions of both creationists and ID. The "evidence" for Creationism requires ignoring half the available evidence and making wildly idiotic assumptions. The rest of what they call "evidence" is really just "Look, we found a little problem with evolution, therefore we must be completley right!!"

ID is a cop-out, plain and simple. They choose something, like the eye, and say "Look, we can't figure out how this could have possibly evolved, therefore God did it." They also come from the (false) premise that biology is very fragile, when it is in fact extremely complex and robust.

One idiot who prior to recently many of you would have held up as an example of a credible scientist who supported evolution. You would of then gone on to expostulate about his work and conclude by saying something to the effect of "He supports it so it must be good". Darwin was also 1 person. Remember this.

No one has said he isn't a "credible" scientist.

If you notice, he has not claimed "Science proves God!!!" like the author of this thread. What he has claimed is that his study of science has led *him* to *believe* that there is a Creator.

Lists no publications having to do with evolutionary biology/intelligent design/etc. - and thus backs up my point.



Nothing even related to Intelligent Design here.



www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/j_walter.asp - 13k

No publications [/quote]

Yes, an ME really has intimate knowledge of biology.



No journal publications listed.



Notice how most of these publications are not respected, peer-reviewed journals. Only the top one really is, and it has nothing to do with intelligent design (go figure).



And again, no publications related to intelligent design.



I'll look at the rest of these later, but I supsect they are much the same.

You are making the mistake of equating good scientist to "has a degree in something." You are also making the mistake of equating personal belief to scientific viewpoint - which most of these guys don't even appear to do.[/QUOTE]

You're original statement was to indicate that none of them had been published in reputable journals. Many of them have. Maybe not on the subject of ID. But let me ask you a question, would you consider a journal reputable if it did. The point is, there is a HUGE!!! bias in the scientific community against ID, as stated, an almost religious one. As a result, getting published in a "reputable" journal on a subject of this nature, no matter how valid your findings, is nearly impossible.

My reason for giving you the list was not to indicate that "science" has accepted ID into its mainstream, but rather to indicate that reputable scientists have that have been published in the mainstream also have published research that the mainstream completely choses to ignore simply because they don't believe in the possibility of ID. And again, rather than consider the evidence and read the information, you dismiss it out of hand as disreputable without even considering or reading it with an open mind. And still you claim scientific objectivity. :confused: :confused: :confused: Are you afraid to look at any of the findings that support ID?

One of the world's most famous and intelligant atheists now believes in God. Take that you non-believers! :p Anyways considering science and how it was always anti-god do you guys think that Science will ironicly be responsible for reviving the belief in a God?
1. the opinion of one atheist is insignificant.
2. he actually doesn't believe in the christian god. and in a livejournal community i'm on someone posted a complete denial of recent news stories by the man himself.
3. science and the supernatural do not relate to each other. saying that the world is too complex and that scientists have not figured everything out, therefore god must have done it is extremely lazy.

Atheism is no more a religion than disbeleif in dragons is a religion.
Very well put.

One idiot who prior to recently many of you would have held up as an example of a credible scientist who supported evolution. You would of then gone on to expostulate about his work and conclude by saying something to the effect of "He supports it so it must be good". Darwin was also 1 person. Remember this.
he still supports evolution.

evolution and god are not exclusive, only an idiot would say that they are.

also: darwin was a christian. evolution was an explanation of god's creation for him. remember this.

I *have* looked into the positions of both creationists and ID. The "evidence" for Creationism requires ignoring half the available evidence and making wildly idiotic assumptions. The rest of what they call "evidence" is really just "Look, we found a little problem with evolution, therefore we must be completley right!!"

ID is a cop-out, plain and simple. They choose something, like the eye, and say "Look, we can't figure out how this could have possibly evolved, therefore God did it." They also come from the (false) premise that biology is very fragile, when it is in fact extremely complex and robust.

I would challenge you to look at Ph. D. Ford's arguement in the book I mentioned earlier. Just one simple 3 page article. Look at the information write out the equation and tell me where its flaw is.

I have also read on and studied both creationist and evolutionary science. I am dumbfounded that people claim so strongly that there is no evidence for intelligent design. They sound more like a faith based, narrow minded "religionists", than scientists willing to actually look at information and consider theories and evidence with scientific curiosity. Instead, they dogmatically preach that there is no "credible evidence" for ID without even looking at the evidence. They are almost more religious about it than those of us who believe in God.
intelligent design at its best is no more than takign current scientific theories and saying that they happened because god did it.

at worst, it's young earth creationism.

there is a broad spectrum of intelligent design. furthermore, there is no evidence for it. just as there is no evidence that there is no creator. there is evidence that the universe could be a natural phenomenon. this neither rules out nor includes a creator deity.

the study of science is the study of the natural world. if i'm not mistaken, god is generally attributed to be in the supernatural world. i.e. outside the realm of science and empirical human experience.

intelligent design at its best is no more than takign current scientific theories and saying that they happened because god did it.

at worst, it's young earth creationism.

there is a broad spectrum of intelligent design. furthermore, there is no evidence for it. just as there is no evidence that there is no creator. there is evidence that the universe could be a natural phenomenon. this neither rules out nor includes a creator deity.

the study of science is the study of the natural world. if i'm not mistaken, god is generally attributed to be in the supernatural world. i.e. outside the realm of science and empirical human experience.

I would flip your best and worst, but you are right about the spectrum. There is evidence for it in a similar way there is evidence of evolution. They are competing theories which science can never prove one war or the other. We chose to believe in one or the other on the basis of our interpretation of the evidence.

As for God being in the supernatural, I'd say He is capable of working out side the known laws of nature, emphasis on the word "known". But, I believe he also works within and manipulates the laws of nature at His own bidding. This is a belief based on personal experience, but certain does not carry a heavy weight of scientific evidence, so I won't claim I can prove it. That doesn't necessarily make it untrue, I just can't "prove" that it is.

You're original statement was to indicate that none of them had been published in reputable journals.

And I meant if they were actively pursuing this subject. Most of those you posted are not, and the rest have not seemed to publish in peer-reviewed journals.

Many of them have. Maybe not on the subject of ID. But let me ask you a question, would you consider a journal reputable if it did.

I can list reputable, peer-reviewed, scientific journals in the area of biology. If it is good science, it is likely to get published. If it is not, well, it won't.

The point is, there is a HUGE!!! bias in the scientific community against ID, as stated, an almost religious one. As a result, getting published in a "reputable" journal on a subject of this nature, no matter how valid your findings, is nearly impossible.

Maybe that would be because ID does not, in any way, follow the scientific method. Complaining about this is like saying "There is a HUGE!!! bias in the mathematics community against stating that 2+3 = 49, an almost religious one. As a result, getting published in a "reputable" journal on a subject of this nature, no matter how valid your findings, is nearly impossible."

My reason for giving you the list was not to indicate that "science" has accepted ID into its mainstream, but rather to indicate that reputable scientists have that have been published in the mainstream also have published research that the mainstream completely choses to ignore simply because they don't believe in the possibility of ID.

You assume that this is why it is not published. In actuality, it is not published because it is *bad science*.

And again, rather than consider the evidence and read the information, you dismiss it out of hand as disreputable without even considering or reading it with an open mind. And still you claim scientific objectivity. :confused: :confused: :confused: Are you afraid to look at any of the findings that support ID?

Actually, as I have said before, I *have* looked at the "evidence." However, scientifically, you can't really find evidence for "we can never understand how this happened, so God must've done it." That is exactly what led people to believe that thunder and lightning was some big guy in the sky rumbling around and throwing big lightning bolts at people.

I would challenge you to look at Ph. D. Ford's arguement in the book I mentioned earlier. Just one simple 3 page article. Look at the information write out the equation and tell me where its flaw is.

I don't have the money to buy a book right now.

Why don't you explain it to me?

I would flip your best and worst, but you are right about the spectrum. There is evidence for it in a similar way there is evidence of evolution. They are competing theories which science can never prove one war or the other. We chose to believe in one or the other on the basis of our interpretation of the evidence.
by definition of a scientific theory, intelligent design is not a theory. a theory can be proven or disproven. furthremore, intelligent design (at the more scientific end of the spectrum) is simply "oh yes, all those theories, god started them." that's not a theory in itself. even if we figured out the entire universe down to the smallest detail, it is still possible that there is a god that exists outside of it. and of course, it's always possible that there isn't one. at all.

scientific discoveries cannot tell us about things that are supernatural.

As for God being in the supernatural, I'd say He is capable of working out side the known laws of nature, emphasis on the word "known". But, I believe he also works within and manipulates the laws of nature at His own bidding. This is a belief based on personal experience, but certain does not carry a heavy weight of scientific evidence, so I won't claim I can prove it. That doesn't necessarily make it untrue, I just can't "prove" that it is.
the point is that even if every phenomenon is shown to have a natural cause, that might mean that god is not necessary for the world. however, it does not mean that one does or does not exist.

as i said earlier. attributing everything that scientists haven't yet discovered to god is pure laziness. we would never have gotten anywhere technologically or as a society if we had stopped looking for answers and settled on a god to explain everything for us.

All the atheists keep repeating "THere is no evidence for God!!!1!!!" Well, I ask you, what evidence do you EXPECT? "Oh, look, there's a giant guy in the sky! Wow! Maybe there is a God." ...Actually, even if you did see something like that, you'd attribute it to hallucination. Why should God leave evidence? He created everything, so if he left evidence that he did it, he wouldn't be a very good Divine Creater, now would he? How would we know what the evidence was even if we saw it? Also, I remind you, there is no proof that God DOESN'T exist, either. So until someone proves he does not exist, I will continue to not believe that he doesn't.

All the atheists keep repeating "THere is no evidence for God!!!1!!!" Well, I ask you, what evidence do you EXPECT? "Oh, look, there's a giant guy in the sky! Wow! Maybe there is a God." ...Actually, even if you did see something like that, you'd attribute it to hallucination. Why should God leave evidence? He created everything, so if he left evidence that he did it, he wouldn't be a very good Divine Creater, now would he? How would we know what the evidence was even if we saw it? Also, I remind you, there is no proof that God DOESN'T exist, either. So until someone proves he does not exist, I will continue to not believe that he doesn't.
Alright then. I have a large invisible bunny that follows me around and gives me advice. Can't prove I don't so by default you have to believe it. Do you? Hmm? You have to, it's your logic system.

You want to have faith, gravy. Have at it. Kneel, pray, burn sage-whatever. Just don't lay it on us all the damn time. Stop comming to the door, stop telling us you're gonna "Pray on us," stop telling us all about it and how we're going to hell. Keep it to your damn self. I don't mean don't wear cross' or praise Jesus when he helps you beat those people who didn't love Jesus enough in a sporting event-thats fine, but don't start with us and we won't with you. Give it a whirl and you'll find that we'll go about our lives not giving a rats ass what sort of invisible things you want to believe in.

All the atheists keep repeating "THere is no evidence for God!!!1!!!" Well, I ask you, what evidence do you EXPECT? "Oh, look, there's a giant guy in the sky! Wow! Maybe there is a God." ...Actually, even if you did see something like that, you'd attribute it to hallucination. Why should God leave evidence? He created everything, so if he left evidence that he did it, he wouldn't be a very good Divine Creater, now would he? How would we know what the evidence was even if we saw it? Also, I remind you, there is no proof that God DOESN'T exist, either. So until someone proves he does not exist, I will continue to not believe that he doesn't.

No one is asking you to believe that there is no God, least of all me (since I do believe in a God).

However, you have hit the nail on the head here. The idea of God (whether one exists or not) is outside the realm of science. The question is completely irrelevant to science. Anyone who tries to make it relevant is doing science backwards, begining from the conclusion and trying to find evidence to back themselves up.

If a scientist (like me) believes in God, fine - it matters not to the practice of science unless one interjects their religion into science (creating bad sience). If a scientiest is an atheist, fine - it matters not to the practice of science unless one interjects their religious beliefs into science (creating bad sience).

Alright then. I have a large invisible bunny that follows me around and gives me advice. Can't prove I don't so by default you have to believe it. Do you? Hmm? You have to, it's your logic system.

You want to have faith, gravy. Have at it. Kneel, pray, burn sage-whatever. Just don't lay it on us all the damn time. Stop comming to the door, stop telling us you're gonna "Pray on us," stop telling us all about it and how we're going to hell. Keep it to your damn self. I don't mean don't wear cross' or praise Jesus when he helps you beat those people who didn't love Jesus enough in a sporting event-thats fine, but don't start with us and we won't with you. Give it a whirl and you'll find that we'll go about our lives not giving a rats ass what sort of invisible things you want to believe in.

Yes, but Christianity has some historical evidence, a book compiled over 1,500 years, and has been tested for 2000 years.

And I don't "Lay it on" all the time. Mostly I keep to myself. Perhaps some people do not give a "rat's ass about what sort of invisible things I believe in." That's fine. But when they start trying to force their nonbelief down other's throats, that's when I get angry.

If people don't care about what others believe in, why do they care if the Ten Commandments are in some courthouse somewhere? Why do they care if our currency has the word "God" on it? Why do they care if the Pledge of Allegiance mentions God? Why do they care if people pray in schools? Why do they care if it is called a Christmas break? If they don't want Christians going around shoving their religion down others throats, why can they do the same?

If people don't care about what others believe in, why do they care if the Ten Commandments are in some courthouse somewhere?

A *government official*, especially a *judge* should not be demonstrating his own prejudices by sneaking a monument into the courthouse in the middle of the night and then refusing to include other religions in the monument when a compromise is suggested. This sends a clear message: this judge places his own personal version of religion over his job - interpreting the laws of this country.

Why do they care if our currency has the word "God" on it?

Most don't, although those that do care for the same reason as the pledge below.

Why do they care if the Pledge of Allegiance mentions God?

Because the "under God" was *specifically* added to *discriminate* against atheists.

Why do they care if people pray in schools?

No one cares if students pray in schools. However, administrators are not allowed to lead prayers, as this would be a government establishment of religion - and would be essentially forced upon the students.

Why do they care if it is called a Christmas break?

Maybe because not everyone celebrates Christmas? I don't know - I've never met anyone who really cares about this one, as Christmas has been largely secularized anyways.

If they don't want Christians going around shoving their religion down others throats, why can they do the same?

How is saying "The government shouldn't place your particular version of Christianity above all other religioins," considered shoving anything down someone's throats. You *cannot* force your religion upon others. Specifically adding to a pledge that has been around nearly a century because you don't like the "damn atheist commies," is forcing your religion upon them. Having teachers lead prayers is forcing your religion upon students.

*No one* is asking you to stop practicing your personal religion in your own space. They simply don't want you butting it into *theirs*.

I never understood why science and religion couldn't work together. What is it that scientists find so offensive about God? And for that matter, why do so many religious people claim that science is all 'smoke and mirrors?' You're both as bad as each other!

Also, I remind you, there is no proof that God DOESN'T exist, either. So until someone proves he does not exist, I will continue to not believe that he doesn't.
ok...

there's no reason to believe a god does exist, let along that this god is a he.

I never understood why science and religion couldn't work together. What is it that scientists find so offensive about God?

God, as an unfalsifiable hypothesis, is anathema to the methodology of science. This, is of course, not to say that God is anathema to scientists.

How is prayer in school a government forced religion? The students didn't have to pray if they didn't want to. It exposed them to the fact that there WAS a religion, the same way the rest of the education system exposed Christian students to the fact that they didn't have to believe in Christianity.

The 10 Commandments. Except for the 1st one, they are all just COMMON SENSE. Don't kill. Don't steal. et cetera. What is wrong with that?

And Christmas is never referred to in school in my area. Even though Jesus the Christ is the reason for the entire season...I agree with you, Christmas has been largely secularized anyways.

I never understood why science and religion couldn't work together. What is it that scientists find so offensive about God?
some non-scientists have issues with the existence of god... it's individuals, not the profession in general where there is a problem.

as far as strict science goes, the study of science is neutral on the subject.

And for that matter, why do so many religious people claim that science is all 'smoke and mirrors?' You're both as bad as each other!
i think you'll find more religious people attacking scientific evidence than vice versa. they also seem more likely to put the two (science and religion) into an either/or thing. it also seems that more religious people demonize science than the other way.

I never understood why science and religion couldn't work together. What is it that scientists find so offensive about God? And for that matter, why do so many religious people claim that science is all 'smoke and mirrors?' You're both as bad as each other!

The idea of an all-powerful God is completely outside the realm of science. It is not like science is trying to "oppose" religion (only religion is really doing much of that), it is more that religion is completely irrelevant to science (unless we are talking about anthropology/sociology/etc.)

One idiot who prior to recently many of you would have held up as an example of a credible scientist who supported evolution. You would of then gone on to expostulate about his work and conclude by saying something to the effect of "He supports it so it must be good". Darwin was also 1 person. Remember this.


Flew isn't a scientist, he's a philosopher.

How is prayer in school a government forced religion? The students didn't have to pray if they didn't want to.

Have you ever been in school? If the teacher is having the students do something, there is *****HUGE***** pressure to go along with it. The teacher, as an authority figure of the government, has no business whatsoever espousing a particular religion within school. It would be *exactly* like a priest getting up and saying "everyone here must vote for the following people. I cannot force you to do it, but it is the right thing to do. Don't think about it, don't look into the issues - just vote for these people."

It exposed them to the fact that there WAS a religion, the same way the rest of the education system exposed Christian students to the fact that they didn't have to believe in Christianity.

Every human being knows that religion exists. However, preaching is not the job of a public school system. As I have said, *students* can pray whenever they want - even in groups if it is not disrupting class. However, an authority figure cannot pressure them to pray.

The 10 Commandments. Except for the 1st one, they are all just COMMON SENSE. Don't kill. Don't steal. et cetera. What is wrong with that?

You mean except for the first 4 - which are all religious in nature. And guess what? - Just about every religion in the world follows the other 6. When the judge in question was asked to include other religions in the monument, he adamantly refused. This demonstrated very clearly that he was attempting to establish Christianity as the preferred religion - something a judge, who should be impartial, has no business doing. There is also the fact that he *illegally snuck the monument in in the middle of the night* because he *knew* that he was breaking the law.

How is prayer in school a government forced religion? The students didn't have to pray if they didn't want to. It exposed them to the fact that there WAS a religion, the same way the rest of the education system exposed Christian students to the fact that they didn't have to believe in Christianity.
1. it takes time out of class for a religious activity that caters to one religion. unless you're going to go through muslim, hundhu et c prayers as a class, then don't bother with the christian one.
2. generally, if the class is praying and one person isn't, that one person stands out. peer pressure leads to a student being forced to do something they don't agree with.
3. my highschool had at least two prayer groups. they met before or after school and there was one at lunch... if people wanted to pray in school, they could. the teachers did not however, conduct prayer in class.

The 10 Commandments. Except for the 1st one, they are all just COMMON SENSE. Don't kill. Don't steal. et cetera. What is wrong with that?
as george carlin pointed out, the 10 commandments could easily be reduced to two.
let's see, thou shalt have no other gods before me, thou shalt remember the sabbath day and keep it holy, thou shalt not covet (nothing wrong with wanting something someone else has. you can buy your own...) honour thy father and thy mother (some parents suck. are you supposed to respect child abusers for instance?) there are a number of stupid and discriminatory commandments in there. (not to mention that coveting property in some interpretations includes women as property)

And Christmas is never referred to in school in my area. Even though Jesus the Christ is the reason for the entire season...I agree with you, Christmas has been largely secularized anyways.
actually, the fact that the days are going to start to get longer is the reason for the season. the christians piggy backed on a pagan holiday. hence the tree, presents, yule logs et c. what the hell do any of those things have to do with jesus? (same thing happened with easter, by the way... i mean eggs and bunnies are fertility symbols...)
and if you're going to make it all about christmas, then you have to make it all about chaunnakah, ramadan dwalii and winter solstice... it's not fair that one religion is represented and all the others are excluded.

I agree that it took intelligence to create life at the very least. How could a random occurance come up with something so advanced that "intelligent" humans can't even reproduce it?

evolution sure as hell isn't random.. read a book called "the blind watchmaker" from richard dawkins and maybe you'll get it..

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0393315703/qid=1102984700/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/002-5404194-2605625?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I agree that it took intelligence to create life at the very least. How could a random occurance come up with something so advanced that "intelligent" humans can't even reproduce it?

evolution sure as hell isn't random.. read a book called "the blind watchmaker" from richard dawkins and maybe you'll get it..

What seems to be happening here is that Sarvikuono is bracketting the primal creation of life into evolution, while Sumamba Buwhan is bracketting it out as separate from that process... evolution will tell us how life progresses from one form to another, but it remains strangely silent when it comes to explaining its actual origin, no?

Evolution may not be random (at a macro scale), but the creation of life may well have been.

Take electricity, take some matter.. shake and disturb.. WHOoA life! they made it in lab already.. like quite a few years ago actually..

Take electricity, take some matter.. shake and disturb.. WHOoA life! they made it in lab already.. like quite a few years ago actually..

amino acids != life

the thing is that people who wish to belive in creation shut their eyes when they read news like this.. it's very, very sad :rolleyes:

"I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins," he said. "It could be a person in the sense of a being that has intelligence and a purpose, I suppose."

Ummmm, I'm seeing a big blow to Christianity here too. Didn't you?

the thing is that people who wish to belive in creation shut their eyes when they read news like this.. it's very, very sad :rolleyes:

I'm assuming that comment was directed at me... whether it was or not is irrelevant: are you claiming that the Miller-Urey produced life?

Please take that back. I have not read the ENTIRE Bible. Large parts of it yes but not everything. In my opinion however it is not nessecary to read everything to understand what it is talking about fully.

I merely pointed out that you haven't "Read" the bible.

I am sorry if this offends you.

But, to me, picking a couple of pages out of Macbeth does not make me an expert on the play, on it's motivations, it's sub-plots, and undercurrents.

It MIGHT give me the ability to quote a few Macbeth quotes, but I would have no grasp of the concepts.

You have read bits of the bible, perhaps... but, unless you have started at one cover, and crossed every word to the other cover, I don't see how you can claim to have read it.... much less to have understood it.

Just for the record, I have a minor in religion and have studied the Bible for as long as I can remember. There are parts of it that I admittedly don't understand. I have found ample evidence in archeological findings to support the historisity of the Bible. I have found that the deeper you dig into it, the more internally consistent it becomes, including legidimate studies into the early manuscripts and their linguistics, though some on this site have chosen grossly inaccurate possible translations for some passages, that fail to look at the most likely reasonable translation and prefer the most disturbing no matter how much grasping at straws they have to do to get there.

I have also read on and studied both creationist and evolutionary science. I am dumbfounded that people claim so strongly that there is no evidence for intelligent design. They sound more like a faith based, narrow minded "religionists", than scientists willing to actually look at information and consider theories and evidence with scientific curiosity. Instead, they dogmatically preach that there is no "credible evidence" for ID without even looking at the evidence. They are almost more religious about it than those of us who believe in God.

Nice try... attempt to paint with the same brush, all those who do not follow dogma, as equivalent with those who blindly follow dogma.

I also have read and studied both evolutionary science and creationist 'science'... and I wouldn't dare to have the gall to suggest that creationism uses 'scientific principles'.

See, you can call it 'science', but unless you use the scientific method, all you are doing is attempting to pervert science INTO emulating religion.

Which, unfortunately, obviously explains how you can believe that Intelligent Design has scientific credulity.

Also - I'm sorry, but, just because archeology says, "OOh, look, we found a king of Egypt", and just because the bible says "Egypt had kings", that does not mean that Archeology is verifying the historicity of the bible.

Unless, of course, you believe that all the spiritualistic stuff in scripture is just flavour text, and that the IMPORTANT stuff is how big tents were, and who was king of where...

with all of our human intelligence we cant even create the simplest life form let alone create something that can evolve.

Yes we can. People are, at this very moment, creating artificial viruses out of bits of proteins and stuff. ie taking a load of dead stuff and making some alive stuff. Here is an article about if from November 2003. http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-11-13-new-life-usat_x.htm

A year is a long time in genomics. We might well be doing better by today.

I merely pointed out that you haven't "Read" the bible.

I am sorry if this offends you.

But, to me, picking a couple of pages out of Macbeth does not make me an expert on the play, on it's motivations, it's sub-plots, and undercurrents.

It MIGHT give me the ability to quote a few Macbeth quotes, but I would have no grasp of the concepts.

You have read bits of the bible, perhaps... but, unless you have started at one cover, and crossed every word to the other cover, I don't see how you can claim to have read it.... much less to have understood it.
i am, frankly, astounded at the number of Christians who admit they have not read the Bible cover to cover. this is the book they supposedly base all their knowledge of God, morality, and the meaning of life upon, and they don't even bother to read the whole thing through?! hell, i've read the Bible better than that!!

i am, frankly, astounded at the number of Christians who admit they have not read the Bible cover to cover. this is the book they supposedly base all their knowledge of God, morality, and the meaning of life upon, and they don't even bother to read the whole thing through?! hell, i've read the Bible better than that!!
At least their being honest

At least their being honest
um, somehow that's not a comfort. an honest psycho is still a psycho, and anybody who bases their life off a book they haven't read is flat out nuts in my book.

i am, frankly, astounded at the number of Christians who admit they have not read the Bible cover to cover. this is the book they supposedly base all their knowledge of God, morality, and the meaning of life upon, and they don't even bother to read the whole thing through?! hell, i've read the Bible better than that!!

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me all that much.

Far too many people in today's society (and, I'm sure it has always been this way, too) are willing to do as they are told.

They WANT to be told what to do, which is why something like religion is so popular... you are TOLD what to do, you don't have to make your OWN moral choices, and you always have someone to blame (him downstairs), and someone to run to (him upstairs).

So - since I view religion largely as a construct to enable people to function without thinking, it is no surprise to me that MOST religious individuals lack more than a passing acquaintance with their scripture.

(Although, you notice, many of them have reams of links to sites where people explain to them WHY they should believe what they should believe... it's just easier to be told than to look for yourself).

um, somehow that's not a comfort. an honest psycho is still a psycho, and anybody who bases their life off a book they haven't read is flat out nuts in my book.

Well, that gave me a giggle, anyway.

:)

um, somehow that's not a comfort. an honest psycho is still a psycho, and anybody who bases their life off a book they haven't read is flat out nuts in my book.
Oh I agree just trying to find the “bright side of life”

Lol (now that gave ME a giggle … love the life of Brian)

Oh I agree just trying to find the “bright side of life”

Lol (now that gave ME a giggle … love the life of Brian)

"Crucifixion's a doddle"

:)

Yes we can.


Not yet, anyhow.

People are, at this very moment, creating artificial viruses out of bits of proteins and stuff. ie taking a load of dead stuff and making some alive stuff.


...except for the fact that virii aren't classified as living organisms.

Here is an article about if from November 2003. http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/2003-11-13-new-life-usat_x.htm

Which itself doesn't claim the creation of anything living: the closest it comes is when it describes the creation of the virii as an "important technical bridge towards the creation of such life."

A year is a long time in genomics. We might well be doing better by today.

Indeed, but that is no reason to make rash and inaccurate claims.

"Crucifixion's a doddle"

:)
CENTURION: Quiet! Silly person. Guards! Search the house.
[clomp clomp clomp...]
You know the penalty laid down by Roman law for harbouring a known
criminal?
MATTHIAS: No.
CENTURION: Crucifixion.
MATTHIAS: Oh.
CENTURION: Nasty, eh?
MATTHIAS: Hm. Could be worse.
CENTURION: What do you mean, 'could be worse'?
MATTHIAS: Well, you could be stabbed.
CENTURION: Stabbed? Takes a second. Crucifixion lasts hours! It's a slow,
horrible death!
MATTHIAS: Well, at least it gets you out in the open air.
CENTURION: You're weird.

Science SUCKS!!!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist. :) Just wanted to see what peoples' reactions would be.

Science SUCKS!!!!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist. :) Just wanted to see what peoples' reactions would be.
Well YOU SUCK :p :eek: :D :p

Anyways considering science and how it was always anti-god

Thats a load of crap! Durring the 1600's, the Enlightenment, who do you think the vast majority of scientists were? Catholoic Priests! The greatest scientific minds were all doing their research for the church (Galileo dosen't count, he was really just an intellectual bully and plagerist, as anyone who knows more than the barest facts will admit). Even now, a lot of scientists are 'evolutionairy creationists', those who, like me, think that "god', or some other more powerful entity, was responsable for the origins and course of evolution. This assertion is pure BS.

how can that be a blow to atheism?
i mean really i dont give a shit about who believes in god and who dont, let them make that up for them selves.
i would still be an atheist even is the whole world would convert,
and on the other hand i wouldnt care if the pope became an atheist

I think everyone should just relax....just live your life to the full, doing what you love to do (and hopefully not hurting anyone else) because you MAY only get on life....so enjoy it!!

Thats a load of crap! Durring the 1600's, the Enlightenment, who do you think the vast majority of scientists were? Catholoic Priests! The greatest scientific minds were all doing their research for the church (Galileo dosen't count, he was really just an intellectual bully and plagerist, as anyone who knows more than the barest facts will admit). Even now, a lot of scientists are 'evolutionairy creationists', those who, like me, think that "god', or some other more powerful entity, was responsable for the origins and course of evolution. This assertion is pure BS.
But there really is no “Science” to the creationist part of them … they can work on evolution itself but the creation part is very unscientific (note it does not use the scientific method therefore can not be science)
Creationists can Believe in evolution and even work on evolutionary theory but their work has nothing to do with creationism

Ok I don’t know if this is coming out right so yeah…

Thats a load of crap! Durring the 1600's, the Enlightenment, who do you think the vast majority of scientists were? Catholoic Priests!

Care to give me a list of a handful of these Enlightenment scientists that were also Catholic Priests?

But there really is no “Science” to the creationist part of them … they can work on evolution itself but the creation part is very unscientific (note it does not use the scientific method therefore can not be science)
Creationists can Believe in evolution and even work on evolutionary theory but their work has nothing to do with creationism

Ok I don’t know if this is coming out right so yeah…

I think I see where you are going...

Creationism isn't science - it is purely belief.

Evolution is a scientific principle... and, if you use that principle, creationism or non-creationism are irrelevent to 'evolution'.

Creationist Evolutionists are merely pairing a scientific system with a different 'belief' about the prime originator.

I think I see where you are going...

Creationism isn't science - it is purely belief.

Evolution is a scientific principle... and, if you use that principle, creationism or non-creationism are irrelevent to 'evolution'.

Creationist Evolutionists are merely pairing a scientific system with a different 'belief' about the prime originator.
THANK YOU :) what he says (cold medicines are kicking my ass)

To be honest, it doesn't surprise me all that much.

Far too many people in today's society (and, I'm sure it has always been this way, too) are willing to do as they are told.

They WANT to be told what to do, which is why something like religion is so popular... you are TOLD what to do, you don't have to make your OWN moral choices, and you always have someone to blame (him downstairs), and someone to run to (him upstairs).

So - since I view religion largely as a construct to enable people to function without thinking, it is no surprise to me that MOST religious individuals lack more than a passing acquaintance with their scripture.

(Although, you notice, many of them have reams of links to sites where people explain to them WHY they should believe what they should believe... it's just easier to be told than to look for yourself).

Hmm. This just might explain my frequent urges to yell "haven't you read your own damned holy scriptures?" at a large number of street proselytizers followed by an only slighty less powerful urge to start conducting a bible study class right there on the spot in spite of the fact that I am not a Christian.

For some odd reason I figured that worshipers of a religion would at least read the book that they claim is infallible and go about spouting all the time in an attempt to get others to believe in said book.
:confused:

Well YOU SUCK :p :eek: :D :p

Well, I've been told worse. :p

I agree that religion is a plague upon this earth

Just because organized religion has done some bad things, weel ,okay, a lot of bad things, does not mean that we should get rid of spirituallity, which has done a lot more good for people than it has done bad. This thread is not about organized relgion being the origins of the universe, it is about some un-defined higher power, a spiritual presence. Why can't some of you narrow-minded believers in the religion called science see that maybe the two can go hand-in-hand and lead us all to a better understanding of ourselves and our world?

Nice try... attempt to paint with the same brush, all those who do not follow dogma, as equivalent with those who blindly follow dogma.

I also have read and studied both evolutionary science and creationist 'science'... and I wouldn't dare to have the gall to suggest that creationism uses 'scientific principles'.

See, you can call it 'science', but unless you use the scientific method, all you are doing is attempting to pervert science INTO emulating religion.

Which, unfortunately, obviously explains how you can believe that Intelligent Design has scientific credulity.

Also - I'm sorry, but, just because archeology says, "OOh, look, we found a king of Egypt", and just because the bible says "Egypt had kings", that does not mean that Archeology is verifying the historicity of the bible.

Unless, of course, you believe that all the spiritualistic stuff in scripture is just flavour text, and that the IMPORTANT stuff is how big tents were, and who was king of where...

I'll grant you that not all who claim to be "creation scientists" use scientific method, but many do and to say otherwise is as disparaging and as a "believer" condemning all believe differently from himself.

You really need to do a little reading on the subject of archeology if you believe its only significant findings relative to biblical history consist of "Egypt had kings". You are correct that the historicity of the Bible does not = spirituality, but there are places the two dovetail.

As for ID, it is a theory, just like big bang, evolution, relativity. Yes, it doesn't have as much research as the latter, but that is because it is both newer, in the scientific community, and scientists are already researching its anti-thesis with religous fervor.

Just because you aren't interested in persuing research in that vein, doesn't make it invalid.

If there is no reason, life has no meaning and therefore, Hitler would have been just as wonderful a world leader as Ghandi. You could only say they had different ideas, neither better or worse, valuable or not, than the other. I'm very glad I don't live in a world/universe that is devoid of reason/meaning.
That's simply not true. There are standards of judging decency and goodness that are not based on a god. For instance, some types of buddhism are atheist, but they prize compassion, brotherhood, and kindness. The "secular humanists" that fundamentalist preachers like to rail against also value justice, kindness, and compassion. God isn't necessary for goodness. Purpose and meaning can be found in one's self.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976One of the world's most famous and intelligant atheists now believes in God. Take that you non-believers! :p Anyways considering science and how it was always anti-god do you guys think that Science will ironicly be responsible for reviving the belief in a God?
One old man throwing up his hands and saying "well, I can't figure out how it all started, must be a giant invisible man in the sky" isn't very convincing to me.

I think I see where you are going...

Creationism isn't science - it is purely belief.

Evolution is a scientific principle... and, if you use that principle, creationism or non-creationism are irrelevent to 'evolution'.

Creationist Evolutionists are merely pairing a scientific system with a different 'belief' about the prime originator.


Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet. Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...

~cough~


Thats a load of crap! Durring the 1600's, the Enlightenment, who do you think the vast majority of scientists were? Catholoic Priests!
Care to give me a list of a handful of these Enlightenment scientists that were also Catholic Priests?

Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet. Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...

No, it's obvious that you don't know what a "scientific theory" is. Why don't you go look it up.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=scientific+theory+definition&btnG=Google+Search

~cough~

*Hands BWO a cough drop*

Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet. Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...
All I got to say is at least they are looking for the cause rather then just writing it off.
We have never argued that it is not a LAW rather a theory

But just because it is not complete yet is no reason to throw it in the trash, it is constantly changing and coming to simulate real life closer and closer every time new evidence shows up.

That's simply not true. There are standards of judging decency and goodness that are not based on a god. For instance, some types of buddhism are atheist, but they prize compassion, brotherhood, and kindness. The "secular humanists" that fundamentalist preachers like to rail against also value justice, kindness, and compassion. God isn't necessary for goodness. Purpose and meaning can be found in one's self.

The problem is, that "purpose and meaning" "found in one's self", is entirely subjective. Since it is subjective by definition its only meaning is that of human creation. Therefore its meaning has no more or less value than an alternate meaning. Say that of an anarchist that desires to destroy the world. Yes, there is a sembalence of meaning, but nothing that carries the weight of objectivity.

Copernicus (not actually an Enlightenment Scientist, but rather instrumental in getting the whole thing started) was a Catholic priest. There may have been others (and I'm failing to recall them) but he is the most famous.

No, it's obvious that you don't know what a "scientific theory" is. Why don't you go look it up.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=scientific+theory+definition&btnG=Google+Search

So when was the last time evolution was treated by science as a falsifable theory? According to Darwin, his theory has already been falsified. Granted that isn't necessarily grounds from a scientific perspective to dump the theory.

Is ID falsifiable? If it can be shown that existance came about some other way to a certainity, ID would be falsified. Making it a valid theory.

All I got to say is at least they are looking for the cause rather then just writing it off.
We have never argued that it is not a LAW rather a theory

But just because it is not complete yet is no reason to throw it in the trash, it is constantly changing and coming to simulate real life closer and closer every time new evidence shows up.

It has far more holes as a theory than it did when Darwin conceived of it, so I'm not sure how it has gotten closer and closer to real life.

Copernicus (not actually an Enlightenment Scientist, but rather instrumental in getting the whole thing started) was a Catholic priest. There may have been others (and I'm failing to recall them) but he is the most famous.

Think "father of genetics"...

"Peas" is another hint...

I'll grant you that not all who claim to be "creation scientists" use scientific method, but many do and to say otherwise is as disparaging and as a "believer" condemning all believe differently from himself.

You really need to do a little reading on the subject of archeology if you believe its only significant findings relative to biblical history consist of "Egypt had kings". You are correct that the historicity of the Bible does not = spirituality, but there are places the two dovetail.

As for ID, it is a theory, just like big bang, evolution, relativity. Yes, it doesn't have as much research as the latter, but that is because it is both newer, in the scientific community, and scientists are already researching its anti-thesis with religous fervor.

Just because you aren't interested in persuing research in that vein, doesn't make it invalid.

You do keep leaping to conclusions, don't you.

Just because I disagree with you, just because I think that (for the large part) archeology ascribed to biblical historicity is either irrelevent, or erroneous - that doesn't mean I haven't studied the matter in some depth.

Perhaps, in greater depth than you... you don't know... but you assume.

With out God, what is the purpose for staying in line and why is it more valid than not staying in line. Everything would then be relative and subjective wouldn't it?

The purpose of not killing, raping, etc other around you would be to life in peace and with a qualtiy of life that is higher then that of the state of nature.

The idea is to use your reason to releize that working together is much safer and profitable to all without the need for some higher being to keep you in line.

It truely scares me what some people would do if they didn't have "God" stopping them, but quite frankly I don't beleive in him. I was raised Roman Catholic, went to chruch almost daily, went to relgious classes on the weekends and in summer, but I've ended up being atheist in the end and I follow a LOT more of Christian "guidelines/rules" then most of the Christians do just because they happen to semi-parralle with my own beleifs.

Forming a society/group raises our quality of life, have some kind of social contract with other humans allows us to be able to trust, cooperate, and not live in constant fear because if we can not keep the socal contract we get tossed in jail in order to keep that sence of security.

Trust religion to decide faith is a absolute fact while a theory is somthing a scientist thought up of one night while he was drunk :rolleyes:

Do these people even know the definition of the word theory?

"somthing that can be proven or disproven"

For example evolution can be proven using factual information we have gathered over time, however if it gets disproven with enough evidence then the theory will be droped and replaced with a better one. A theory will remain strong as long as it is never disproven and if it is proven wrong our understanding of the world is made learner and fitter by throwing away the old for the new understanding of any given subject.

God however 'cannot' be proven to exist and 'cannot' be disproven, so it is not a theory but somthing that resides on a little thing called FAITH! Some people seem to fail to understand this however, some people want their faith taught in science like a fact or theory!

Heres a tip learn the difference, come up with some facts then show your views to the scientific community. If your just going to throw faith around like facts then no one is 'ever' going to take you to seriously except your own kind.

Think "father of genetics"...

Of Course! Gregor Mendel was a monk (also a priest).

Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet. Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...

Being theoretical has no effect on whether evolution is considered a 'principle', although, perhaps, I would say "mechanism" to be more accurate.

Please, feel free to show me the 'many holes' you have discovered?

Think "father of genetics"...

"Peas" is another hint...

OK, so we have two... one of whom pre-dates the Enlightenment period, and the other who post-dates it.

Did the cough drop help, BWO? ;)

(Check page 22 if you don't understand)

Did the cough drop help, BWO? ;)

(Check page 22 if you don't understand)

Yeah, I saw it, but I'm still waiting for an example of a single Catholic Priest who was also a Scientist during the Enlightenment period - I'm not denying that there were some, or indeed many, but it seems to me that the Enlightenment, as a product of Protestant questioning of the Roman Catholic church, seemed to produce notable scientists who were much more likely to be Protestants.

The article doesn't prove anything. He simply changed his beliefs based on that he can't explain whether or not a God exists. There will always be question into the validity of god. Then there's the idea of which religion/non-religion is correct? I can see 'Right-wing America' is obviously one of the bible-toting fanatics, way own in some hick/red state who is oblivious to any type of reason, so I'll just do my thing and leave.

While science has never proven that a god does NOT exist, religion can not prove one does exist. Factual or scientific eveidence can only take one so far, soon they reach the edge of their own reason and must take a leap of faith. The bible, I believe, is wrong. For example, the idea that all people are derived from the genes of two people (Adam and Eve) is absolute bullshit. Do you have any idea how fucked up the world would be if people were having sex and pro-creating with their brothers and sisters? [It was rhetorical, don't answer it.] There is a high chance that the children would be physically disabled and/or handicapped. Same thing with Noah's ark, animals wouldn't be able to repopulate thier species if only two of each were saved.

Nextly, the bible contardicts itself in Matt 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38, and John 19:19 all have different wording for the inscription on the cross.

And does anyone find it slightly corrupt at how religion was used in the past (in the Middle Ages) how the church SOLD favours to get people into heaven. (they were called indulginces) or how the new testament was released at a point where people were questioning god and were fearing another plague (the Greco-Latin was out in 1551 AD, if I'm correct).

The thing that upsets me the most about religion is that people are using it as a scapegoat for defense in crimes. The woman in the US who quoted the bible as the reason she cut of her baby's arms, the suicide bombings in the Middle East. All of the Major wars in the Medieval era were a result of clashing religions (especially with the Calvinists). In my opinion, religion has done much less good for humanity than good. So I'll leave you with this question from Friedrich Nietzsche.
Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?

You do keep leaping to conclusions, don't you.

Just because I disagree with you, just because I think that (for the large part) archeology ascribed to biblical historicity is either irrelevent, or erroneous - that doesn't mean I haven't studied the matter in some depth.

Perhaps, in greater depth than you... you don't know... but you assume.


I was mearly commenting on the porousness of the statement about the connection between biblical historicity and archeology being summed up a "Egypt had kings". Also, I made an if then statement which by definition says I don't know what you have or have not studied. If you believe "egypt had kings" is the total connection between the bible and archeology, then you need to do additional study. There is clear, factual evidence beyond that statement from the Quraman/Masuretic scrolls, to Tel Hazor and numorous other digs from modern Iraq, to Isreal, Turkey and Egypt.

Rev. Nicholas Callan invented the induction coil:
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/callan.html
Rev. James B Macelwane SJ was a pioneer in the study of earthquakes:
http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mendel/macelwane.htm
Rev. Joseph Murgas made important advances that lead to radio:
http://205.160.127.253/Murgas/radio.htm

All Catholic Priests.

I was mearly commenting on the porousness of the statement about the connection between biblical historicity and archeology being summed up a "Egypt had kings". Also, I made an if then statement which by definition says I don't know what you have or have not studied. If you believe "egypt had kings" is the total connection between the bible and archeology, then you need to do additional study. There is clear, factual evidence beyond that statement from the Quraman/Masuretic scrolls, to Tel Hazor and numorous other digs from modern Iraq, to Isreal, Turkey and Egypt.

But what exactly do you think those sources TELL?

Sure, Qumran scrolls describe (possibly) Essene sect daily activities... well, I don't think anyone ever doubted that there were Essenes.

Sure, remains of the city of Babylon are unearthed... but, again, whoever doubted that there was a city of Babylon?

What none of the archeology reveals is the 'spiritual' claim of the bible... there is no evidence of the life of Moses, for example... and certainly no evidence that he ever communed with a living god.

There is no evidence of a biblical eden, although there is evidence of the geography described... but, again, where is the 'living god'?

So, ultimately, all the archeology produces that supports biblical claims... can be brought down to base terms... Egypt had Kings... trivialising it? Yes, but that is about the extent of biblical, verifiable historicity.

None of whom were during the Enlightenment. Sorry, I didn't make that clear.

Rev. Nicholas Callan invented the induction coil:
http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/callan.html


Born 1799.

Rev. James B Macelwane SJ was a pioneer in the study of earthquakes:
http://astro4.ast.vill.edu/mendel/macelwane.htm

Born 1883.

Rev. Joseph Murgas made important advances that lead to radio:
http://205.160.127.253/Murgas/radio.htm

Born 1864.

All Catholic Priests.

Indeed, but all of them post-date the Age of Enlightenment, and so are irrelevant to the question I asked.

Do these people even know the definition of the word theory?

"somthing that can be proven or disproven"



Actually, you should consider taking/retaking scientific theory. A theory can only be falsified, never proven. A theory is accepted when it gains enough evidence to be believed by science to be true. Note the word "believed". It is also always subject to change, theoretically (though evolution appear immune to this), whenever new information refutes the original theory.

Religion, believes things to be factual, but proof doesn't really exist in absolute terms, at least as far as humanity is concerned.

None of whom were during the Enlightenment. Sorry, I didn't make that clear.

I made the response above before I saw this post: I'm not denying that there were Catholic Priests who were scientists, nor that some were active during the Age of Enlightenment, but I'm still to be provided with even a minor scientist that fits the criteria of being both (1) Catholic Priest and (2) active during the Enlightenment.

Being theoretical has no effect on whether evolution is considered a 'principle', although, perhaps, I would say "mechanism" to be more accurate.

Please, feel free to show me the 'many holes' you have discovered?

Please re-read your copy of Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it hardly seems surprising that someone who has spent his whole life studying religion might decide he believes a tiny bit of it. It obviously fascinates him since he's put so much effort into it.
It doesn't really seem to mean a whole lot.

So when was the last time evolution was treated by science as a falsifable theory? According to Darwin, his theory has already been falsified. Granted that isn't necessarily grounds from a scientific perspective to dump the theory.

Is ID falsifiable? If it can be shown that existance came about some other way to a certainity, ID would be falsified. Making it a valid theory.

wait, what? What the hell are you talking about?

ID? You can't prove that there is a god, and you can't prove that there isn't a god. The only way I can see how god cannot exist is if you create certain situations where both cases can't be satisfied, and therefore, the entire thing is false. For instance, if one of the conditions for god is all-powerful, then you can say "can god create a planet so big that he cannot lift." Or if you say something like "can god create someone so powerful, that this someone can beat up god to a pulp."

And what is this "darwin has been falsified" and "darwin can't be falsified" that you're talking about in the first two lines. Coherent thoughts would be nice.

Please re-read your copy of Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe.

why don't you show it to us, since it's so awesome.

Do you want my 42 cents? Well, personally, I believe in God. You know why?

The eye. The wonderous masterpiece that is the eye. It disproves evolution. You know why? How can you have something like the eye formed with evolution, when it only works when it only works when EVERY single neuron, every dendrite needs to form at EXACTLY the right place, and if 1 little neuron is even a millimeter off where it is supposted to be, BAM, no vision.

How can you say we've evolved? If we've evolved, how come monkey's haven't evolved? How come we see no other species "adapting". They don't adapt, they die.

These are my beliefs, but I'm only a kid, so please don't be too harsh on me ;)

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it hardly seems surprising that someone who has spent his whole life studying religion might decide he believes a tiny bit of it. It obviously fascinates him since he's put so much effort into it.
It doesn't really seem to mean a whole lot.


Would we be surprised if a World War II historian after years of quiet study and anti-Nazi political writings started spouting off theories of the superiority of the Aryan master race?

But what exactly do you think those sources TELL?

Sure, Qumran scrolls describe (possibly) Essene sect daily activities... well, I don't think anyone ever doubted that there were Essenes.

Sure, remains of the city of Babylon are unearthed... but, again, whoever doubted that there was a city of Babylon?

What none of the archeology reveals is the 'spiritual' claim of the bible... there is no evidence of the life of Moses, for example... and certainly no evidence that he ever communed with a living god.

There is no evidence of a biblical eden, although there is evidence of the geography described... but, again, where is the 'living god'?

So, ultimately, all the archeology produces that supports biblical claims... can be brought down to base terms... Egypt had Kings... trivialising it? Yes, but that is about the extent of biblical, verifiable historicity.

Actually the Qumran scrolls verify that the books of Daniel and Isaiah predate Christ and predict His life with striking clarity both in terms of date and content. You could theorize they just got lucky. In any case, the supernatural aspects of God can't even be proven if God shows up in person. They are and always will be a matter of faith.

Research on ID will show how God created, but it can show that what exists did not come to be on the basis of simple randomness in the universe.

Please re-read your copy of Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe.

Which sounds, to me, like a cop-out way of saying "I personally couldn't think of anything wrong with it".

or maybe "Why would I expose one of these 'holes', which would probably then be quickly disproved?"

Or maybe I underestimate you?

i am, frankly, astounded at the number of Christians who admit they have not read the Bible cover to cover. this is the book they supposedly base all their knowledge of God, morality, and the meaning of life upon, and they don't even bother to read the whole thing through?! hell, i've read the Bible better than that!!
especially neo cannen and people who do similar things (i.e., preach how everyone else should live based on the bible's teachings...) i wonder if neo cannen skipped over the bit where jesus taught to love your neighbour and not judge other people?

why don't you show it to us, since it's so awesome.


Largely because I'm not a molecular biologist and would hate to misrepresent Ph.D. Behe's findings. You'll never believe me to be credible, but if you look at his research and discussion of how it pertains to Darwin's own statements about irreducibly complex systems being all that is necessary to falsify his theory you'll have your answers to all of the above.

Here is one example of an Enlightenment scientist and Catholic Priest - Nicolaus Steno, Bishop and geologist.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14286a.htm


Well, so far we have one scientist and priest to use as evidence in support of FGS's claim, and I had to provide that myself... I think it would be fair to say that I remain unconvinced.

Do you want my 42 cents? Well, personally, I believe in God. You know why?

The eye. The wonderous masterpiece that is the eye. It disproves evolution. You know why? How can you have something like the eye formed with evolution, when it only works when it only works when EVERY single neuron, every dendrite needs to form at EXACTLY the right place, and if 1 little neuron is even a millimeter off where it is supposted to be, BAM, no vision.

How can you say we've evolved? If we've evolved, how come monkey's haven't evolved? How come we see no other species "adapting". They don't adapt, they die.

These are my beliefs, but I'm only a kid, so please don't be too harsh on me ;)

No, our eye is F'd up. If it was perfect, people wouldn't be far or near-sighted. You wouldn't need glasses or contact lenses. There are also blood vessels in the front of our eyes that clouds things up. Next comes irregularities in our eyes that produce spots, or how it can hurt. If we are being produced in god's image, then god must not be perfect if he has such a faulty eye.

Oh, and here's an article which explains the evolutionary process for the eye.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html and
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_time.html

Do you want my 42 cents? Well, personally, I believe in God. You know why?

The eye. The wonderous masterpiece that is the eye. It disproves evolution. You know why? How can you have something like the eye formed with evolution, when it only works when it only works when EVERY single neuron, every dendrite needs to form at EXACTLY the right place, and if 1 little neuron is even a millimeter off where it is supposted to be, BAM, no vision.

How can you say we've evolved? If we've evolved, how come monkey's haven't evolved? How come we see no other species "adapting". They don't adapt, they die.

These are my beliefs, but I'm only a kid, so please don't be too harsh on me ;)

Oh dear.

I'm glad you said you are only a kid.

Other animals DO and HAVE evolved.... the 'monkeys' you referred to are the evolutionary descendents of much earlier creatures, as were we.

You are confusing the human 'sapiency' with evolution... this is not the 'pinnacle' of evolution, it is just where we are IN evolution.

A chimpanzee has evolved under slightly different circumstances, and has not evolved in quite the same path as us... but who is to say, given a few more millions of years, that the Chimpanzee will not have evolved to a 'manlike' creature (if evolution favours it)? Or cats, or frogs, or roaches...?

Etienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, French Logician:
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/condillac.htm

Would we be surprised if a World War II historian after years of quiet study and anti-Nazi political writings started spouting off theories of the superiority of the Aryan master race?

Well, I'd be a lot less surprised for someone like that to have a change of heart than a random person. Besides, from what I know, Anthony Flew hasn't been studying anti-religious writings, but actually religious writings themselves, and besides, Christianity doesn't have near the negative connotations Nazism does.

The eye. The wonderous masterpiece that is the eye. It disproves evolution. You know why? How can you have something like the eye formed with evolution, when it only works when it only works when EVERY single neuron, every dendrite needs to form at EXACTLY the right place, and if 1 little neuron is even a millimeter off where it is supposted to be, BAM, no vision.

I think they've found fish with light sensitive patches they think are the precursor to the eye.

I did a quick google, and here's the first link I found.

link (http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_stages.html)

Actually the Qumran scrolls verify that the books of Daniel and Isaiah predate Christ and predict His life with striking clarity both in terms of date and content. You could theorize they just got lucky. In any case, the supernatural aspects of God can't even be proven if God shows up in person. They are and always will be a matter of faith.
so you know, there was a babylonian (well, zoroastrian) figure whose life is the exact same as jesus' except that he was supposed to have existed 500 years before jesus. they're the same right down to the shepherds visiting and for some time, the romans gave them the same birthday (jan 6) of course later on they reassigned jesus' birth to the same day of horus' birth... so it's quite possible that they found a description of mithras, and it's also quite possible that jesus didn't exist.

Research on ID will show how God created, but it can show that what exists did not come to be on the basis of simple randomness in the universe.
how so? if it's the exact same as current cosmological theories except with god behind it...

personally, i'm studying astrophysics and i can see where this would happen naturally. i'm betting that you haven't done much study in that field.

Or maybe I underestimate you?

Perhaps. Though I confess, my grasp of molecular biology is inferior to that of Ph.D. Behe, which is why I referred you to the source.

Etienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, French Logician:
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/condillac.htm

Hmm. Interesting, I don't think I have encountered him before - however he wasn't a scientist, was he?

Well, I'd be a lot less surprised for someone like that to have a change of heart than a random person. Besides, from what I know, Anthony Flew hasn't been studying anti-religious writings, but actually religious writings themselves, and besides, Christianity doesn't have near the negative connotations Nazism does.
anthony flew isn't even a christian now. he's got more of a hands off deity.

if you read the article posted at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that he even insults the christian and muslim gods. (though they're the same being... but whatever)

Actually the Qumran scrolls verify that the books of Daniel and Isaiah predate Christ and predict His life with striking clarity both in terms of date and content. You could theorize they just got lucky. In any case, the supernatural aspects of God can't even be proven if God shows up in person. They are and always will be a matter of faith.

Research on ID will show how God created, but it can show that what exists did not come to be on the basis of simple randomness in the universe.

Which is exactly my point.... you CAN verify the historicity of a person or place, maybe, but you cannot verify the historicity of 'the bible'.

Perhaps Daniel and Isaiah do predate christ (the evidence I have seen suggests that Daniel was certainly written ABOUT 500 bc) - but they do not predict the life of christ with any real significance... and why?

Well, because we have NO EVIDENCE of any aspect of Jesus's life - except for one collection of books (the Bible), and POSSIBLY a criminal record that might have referred to the biblical Jesus.

And, since MUCH of Jesus' recorded ministry seems to have been stolen directly from pre-christian-era Buddhists (even down to a 'rough draft' of the Beatitudes), predating Jesus by about 600 years - who is to say that the 'recorded' life of Jesus isn't similarly 'ripped-off' from the earlier scriptures of Daniel and Isaiah?

Finally - your last assumption is also wrong... how will ID PROVE that life COULDN'T result from randomness and circumstance?

Oh dear.

I'm glad you said you are only a kid.

Other animals DO and HAVE evolved.... the 'monkeys' you referred to are the evolutionary descendents of much earlier creatures, as were we.

You are confusing the human 'sapiency' with evolution... this is not the 'pinnacle' of evolution, it is just where we are IN evolution.

A chimpanzee has evolved under slightly different circumstances, and has not evolved in quite the same path as us... but who is to say, given a few more millions of years, that the Chimpanzee will not have evolved to a 'manlike' creature (if evolution favours it)? Or cats, or frogs, or roaches...?

If we come from the same source, why aren't there current living bridges between the species?

For some odd reason I figured that worshipers of a religion would at least read the book that they claim is infallible and go about spouting all the time in an attempt to get others to believe in said book.
:confused:

Maybe it would be because actually studying it leads to the realization that, while God may be infallible, the Bible most definitely is not. People don't want to think that, since they've been brought up to believe it for years.

Like I have said before, those who will not study and question their faith are very weak in faith. Unfortunately, this describes many (maybe even the majority) of Christians (and other religions).

anthony flew isn't even a christian now. he's got more of a hands off deity.

if you read the article posted at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that he even insults the christian and muslim gods. (though they're the same being... but whatever)

More of an Aristotelian uncaused cause, rather than the Christian God: he goes into greater detail in the interview with Habermas that I have linked to several times:

http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/index.cfm

Largely because I'm not a molecular biologist and would hate to misrepresent Ph.D. Behe's findings. You'll never believe me to be credible, but if you look at his research and discussion of how it pertains to Darwin's own statements about irreducibly complex systems being all that is necessary to falsify his theory you'll have your answers to all of the above.

I have read about him, and his reasoning is off. I'm studying to be a molecular biologist/computer scientist trying to get into the genetics field. His reasoning is off. He assumes that it's irreducible because you need all parts in order for something to work efficiently, that if you take one part away, the entire system fails. This is not how life works. We aren't perfect, and the parts that we have are not perfect. It's hard to explain, but this site can do it pretty well.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
It talks about behe's black box. The problem with behe is that he's thinking in only black and white. Life isn't that simple, and he fails to consider that there could be various shades of grey inbetween.

Which is exactly my point.... you CAN verify the historicity of a person or place, maybe, but you cannot verify the historicity of 'the bible'.

Perhaps Daniel and Isaiah do predate christ (the evidence I have seen suggests that Daniel was certainly written ABOUT 500 bc) - but they do not predict the life of christ with any real significance... and why?

Well, because we have NO EVIDENCE of any aspect of Jesus's life - except for one collection of books (the Bible), and POSSIBLY a criminal record that might have referred to the biblical Jesus.

And, since MUCH of Jesus' recorded ministry seems to have been stolen directly from pre-christian-era Buddhists (even down to a 'rough draft' of the Beatitudes), predating Jesus by about 600 years - who is to say that the 'recorded' life of Jesus isn't similarly 'ripped-off' from the earlier scriptures of Daniel and Isaiah?

Finally - your last assumption is also wrong... how will ID PROVE that life COULDN'T result from randomness and circumstance?

Actually, in addition to the criminal record you mention, you are forgetting the writings of Heroditus. So make that 2 extra biblical sources.

I would consider a Logician a scientist, in the broader fields of Mathematics. In fact, the study of the nature of Boolean statements (logic) is instrumental to understanding of the Scientific Method. I would also consider his economic writings as qualifying him as an early scientist in that field. Positive (as opposed to normative) economics is now a very scientific study

If we come from the same source, why aren't there current living bridges between the species?

I thought you said you had researched this?

I assume, what you mean is: you liked the creationist sop, and thus found yourself desperately wanting to prove 'them pesky atheists' wrong - so you read a book by a guy who said he could discredit evolution.

And that was about the extent of your research...

Or do I misjudge you again?

I'll grant you that not all who claim to be "creation scientists" use scientific method, but many do and to say otherwise is as disparaging and as a "believer" condemning all believe differently from himself.

Actually, *none* of those who claim to be creation scientists use the scientific method. They begin with an unchangeable conclusion, and dig for evidence that they think will back it up, which goes against the very basic principles of the scientific method.

As for ID, it is a theory, just like big bang, evolution, relativity.

Wrong. The other theories have scientific observations from which the theories came. ID is "we give up, we don't know how this could've happened, so I guess God did it."

Yes, it doesn't have as much research as the latter, but that is because it is both newer, in the scientific community, and scientists are already researching its anti-thesis with religous fervor.

It is *impossible* to reseach "God did it."

Just because you aren't interested in persuing research in that vein, doesn't make it invalid.

It *is* invalid science, regardless of who wants to "study" it.

Actually, in addition to the criminal record you mention, you are forgetting the writings of Heroditus. So make that 2 extra biblical sources.

Herodotus's histories? The ones written sometime around 430BC? Obviously I have missed the point if these are being claimed as evidence for the life of Jesus...

Copernicus (not actually an Enlightenment Scientist, but rather instrumental in getting the whole thing started) was a Catholic priest. There may have been others (and I'm failing to recall them) but he is the most famous.

Of course, the Copernican theory was *banned* by the Church as *heresy*.

Actually, in addition to the criminal record you mention, you are forgetting the writings of Heroditus. So make that 2 extra biblical sources.

And, what exactly do you think Heroditus proves to us about the life of Jesus??? What with him living approximately 500 years BEFORE Jesus?

Please explain?

So when was the last time evolution was treated by science as a falsifable theory?

It has always been treated as such.


Is ID falsifiable? If it can be shown that existance came about some other way to a certainity, ID would be falsified. Making it a valid theory.

In order to be a theory, there must be testable hypotheses. "God did it" is not a testable hypothesis.

Herodotus's histories? The ones written sometime around 430BC? Obviously I have missed the point if these are being claimed as evidence for the life of Jesus...

Rats, beat me to it.

:)

anthony flew isn't even a christian now. he's got more of a hands off deity.

if you read the article posted at the beginning of this thread, you'll see that he even insults the christian and muslim gods. (though they're the same being... but whatever)

I'm not claiming he is, and I did read the article. I was just responding to someone else's comment. My original comment was that it wasn't surprising someone who spent so much time studying religion would start to believe a tiny bit of it since it must fascinate him (why else would he study something he doesn't believe).

As for ID, it is a theory, just like big bang, evolution, relativity. Yes, it doesn't have as much research as the latter, but that is because it is both newer, in the scientific community, and scientists are already researching its anti-thesis with religous fervor.

Just because you aren't interested in persuing research in that vein, doesn't make it invalid.
no. it is not a scientific theory. as i have already explained to you, and as others have explained to you. a scientific theory could conceivably be disproven. how does one set about disproving the existence of a god?

intelligent design is just current scientific theories about life, the universe and everything that add god into the picture. it is not a theory of its own.

I have read about him, and his reasoning is off. I'm studying to be a molecular biologist/computer scientist trying to get into the genetics field. His reasoning is off. He assumes that it's irreducible because you need all parts in order for something to work efficiently, that if you take one part away, the entire system fails. This is not how life works. We aren't perfect, and the parts that we have are not perfect. It's hard to explain, but this site can do it pretty well.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe/review.html
It talks about behe's black box. The problem with behe is that he's thinking in only black and white. Life isn't that simple, and he fails to consider that there could be various shades of grey inbetween.

Nice dodge. The reality is you are going to chose to believe what your religon teaches. Try actually reading him as a source and draw your conclusions for yourself. I have actually read some of Darwin and Dawkins and more recent journal articles. Try reading a little of both sides before drawing conclusions. Afterall, it is good scientific practice to examine all the evidence isn't it?

Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet.

Notice the term "yet," whereas Creationists and ID say "We can't explain that. We never will. God did it."

Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...

You have *no* concept *whatsoever* of science.

I would consider a Logician a scientist, in the broader fields of Mathematics.

Interesting. I wouldn't: logic and mathematics are axiomatic systems, and as such there is no need for recourse to actual empirical experimentation or investigation of the world. Certainly if we adopt the current paradigmatic definition of science we see that they fall outside the scientific ambit on this account.


In fact, the study of the nature of Boolean statements (logic) is instrumental to understanding of the Scientific Method.


Possibly, but it is clearly possible to do science without using Boolean logic: the fact that he predates Boole also argues against this position. We don't claim that Aristotle was one of the godfathers of science for his work on logic, but instead for his method of actually looking at the world and recording what he observed (or received second hand).*

I would also consider his economic writings as qualifying him as an early scientist in that field. Positive (as opposed to normative) economics is now a very scientific study

I think we are probably both in a position of knowing very little about the actual content of his works on economics (but you could very well know much more than you are letting on) - and I would also be reluctant to consider economics as a science: if anything I would be more inclined to treat it as a branch of sociology than of science.


_______
* obviously he was grossly in error in some fundamentals, but it is the principle of empirical investigation that is important here.


EDIT: replaced the phrase "science and mathematics" with "logic and mathematics" in the first sentence, which was just a dumb typing error.

no. it is not a scientific theory. as i have already explained to you, and as others have explained to you. a scientific theory could conceivably be disproven. how does one set about disproving the existence of a god?

intelligent design is just current scientific theories about life, the universe and everything that add god into the picture. it is not a theory of its own.

Again, I didn't say you could prove the existance of God. I said there was evidence to support intelligent design as opposed to random evolution.

Just a note, Evolution is not a principle, it is a theory. A theory with many holes in it no less. Yet it is accepted as fact. Any time something conflicts with it as a theory the scientists who seem to believe in it religously, simply say, we can't explain that yet. Just like creationists who can't explain all the details of ID.

Again, competing theories...
intelligent design is not a theory! stop claiming that it is! gah!

furthremore, evolution is the theory that life has changed or evolved since it started on earth. now. considering this new information, i'm going to ask you when the last time a sabretoothed tiger roamed the earth... because they did exist. as did giant armadillos and dinosaurs... you don't see them around now do you?

Again, I didn't say you could prove the existance of God. I said there was evidence to support intelligent design as opposed to random evolution.
and again, the point of my post was to tell you that by definition of a theory, intelligent design fails to qualify as one.

originally posted by: Dempublicents:
Of course, the Copernican theory was *banned* by the Church as *heresy*.
Not exactly. Although the Pope did call Copernican theory a heresy, no pope ever made it Dogma that the theory was heresy. This means, in the Catholic view, that although the Pope may have been mistaken, the Church was not mistaken on this issue because it never took a side (by declaring something Dogma). This is consistent with what Catholics mean by "Infallabilitly of the Pope" because this term means that the Pope cannot enact Dogma that is false, although he can believe many false things and be an evil man himself.

intelligent design is not a theory! stop claiming that it is! gah!

furthremore, evolution is the theory that life has changed or evolved since it started on earth. now. considering this new information, i'm going to ask you when the last time a sabretoothed tiger roamed the earth... because they did exist. as did giant armadillos and dinosaurs... you don't see them around now do you?


Evolution, doesn't however explain the origin of life itself, and as such is not neccessarilly incompatible with the (currently) unfalsifiable hypothesis of an intelligent creator providing the spark of life to the first organism.

Rats, beat me to it.

:)


Okay, now I have to go re-ready my archeology textbooks. Doesn't seem to jive...

Do you want my 42 cents? Well, personally, I believe in God. You know why?

I believe in God too, but I don't need uneducated drivel to do it.

The eye. The wonderous masterpiece that is the eye. It disproves evolution. You know why? How can you have something like the eye formed with evolution, when it only works when it only works when EVERY single neuron, every dendrite needs to form at EXACTLY the right place, and if 1 little neuron is even a millimeter off where it is supposted to be, BAM, no vision.

Your metabolism only works when everything is in order. What is your point? The eye is very wonderful, and there are many types of eyes in the world, but it in no way "disproves" evolution.

How can you say we've evolved? If we've evolved, how come monkey's haven't evolved? How come we see no other species "adapting". They don't adapt, they die.

Monkeys have evolved.
We do see other specise adapting.

These are my beliefs, but I'm only a kid, so please don't be too harsh on me ;)

How old are you? 4? Grade school science would dispel this drivel.

Is ID falsifiable? If it can be shown that existance came about some other way to a certainity, ID would be falsified. Making it a valid theory.
not it wouldn't.

one coudl still claim that god made it appear natural, and was the driving force behind evolution and whatnot.

thus, intelligent design is not a theory.

Nice dodge. The reality is you are going to chose to believe what your religon teaches. Try actually reading him as a source and draw your conclusions for yourself. I have actually read some of Darwin and Dawkins and more recent journal articles. Try reading a little of both sides before drawing conclusions. Afterall, it is good scientific practice to examine all the evidence isn't it?

I never read him as a source, but I have read one of his articles.

What you need to do is take a couple biology, chemistry, physics, and anthropology courses. Seriously, when the majority of scientists say ID is false, you can't go up to them and say that they're all wrong.

Nice dodge. The reality is you are going to chose to believe what your religon teaches. Try actually reading him as a source and draw your conclusions for yourself. I have actually read some of Darwin and Dawkins and more recent journal articles. Try reading a little of both sides before drawing conclusions. Afterall, it is good scientific practice to examine all the evidence isn't it?

How is questioning Behe's concept a matter of religion? I can see how you could NOT QUESTION it because of religion, i.e. it fits right in with your image of ID rather than evolution.

The problem with Behe is that he makes an unfounded claim as his basis argument. He implies that a cell has to come together all in one place, all at one time, in order for evolution to be a provable construct.

He conveniently ignores how very similar organelles are to non-cellular microbes, and utterly ignores the fact that a 'cell' is, effectively a symbiosis of microbial level constructs.

Thus, the cell doesn't HAVE TO BE FORMED all in one go... it's components can evolve over hundreds of millions of years.... what happens 'all in one go' is the coalescence of those sub-entities.

Evolution, doesn't however explain the origin of life itself, and as such is not neccessarilly incompatible with the (currently) unfalsifiable hypothesis of an intelligent creator providing the spark of life to the first organism.
that's because that's not the point of evolution.

there is a different theory that explains how life got started (well, a number of them specifically for earth) it's called abiogenesis. it is not the same theory as evolution, it is simply life from non-life. evolution takes over from there.

I think they've found fish with light sensitive patches they think are the precursor to the eye.

I did a quick google, and here's the first link I found.

link (http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/eye_stages.html)

There are bacteria with light-sensitive structures as well.

Perhaps. Though I confess, my grasp of molecular biology is inferior to that of Ph.D. Behe, which is why I referred you to the source.

Considering that my education in molecular biology is likely more up-to-date, mine probably isn't. But then again, I still don't have the money to go out and buy books right now, so it'll have to wait.

I now concur with Body Without Organs: Etienne Bonnot, Abbe De Condillac was not a scientist. He was an important thinker in two fields that are now (but not then) proof based, like science; but unlike science, these fields rely more on human thought than on observation of the physical (kind of antithetical to Condillac's writings, isn't it).

that's because that's not the point of evolution.

there is a different theory that explains how life got started (well, a number of them specifically for earth) it's called abiogenesis. it is not the same theory as evolution, it is simply life from non-life. evolution takes over from there.


Indeed, which makes the apparent discussion (evolution vs. non-interventionist intelligent designer) going on here somewhat moot.

If we come from the same source, why aren't there current living bridges between the species?

If you really want to argue against something, shouldn't you at least *try* to understand the principles?

Nice dodge. The reality is you are going to chose to believe what your religon teaches. Try actually reading him as a source and draw your conclusions for yourself. I have actually read some of Darwin and Dawkins and more recent journal articles. Try reading a little of both sides before drawing conclusions. Afterall, it is good scientific practice to examine all the evidence isn't it?

Considering that your questions demonstrate that you have *no* understanding of evolutionary theory, i doubt this very seriously.

Not exactly. Although the Pope did call Copernican theory a heresy, no pope ever made it Dogma that the theory was heresy. This means, in the Catholic view, that although the Pope may have been mistaken, the Church was not mistaken on this issue because it never took a side (by declaring something Dogma). This is consistent with what Catholics mean by "Infallabilitly of the Pope" because this term means that the Pope cannot enact Dogma that is false, although he can believe many false things and be an evil man himself.

Someone has never read about Galileo...

Evolution, doesn't however explain the origin of life itself, and as such is not neccessarilly incompatible with the (currently) unfalsifiable hypothesis of an intelligent creator providing the spark of life to the first organism.


((Which has absolutely nothing to do with Creationism or ID but is absolutely true.))

Originally Posted by Personal responsibilit
If we come from the same source, why aren't there current living bridges between the species?

There aren't "current living bridges" because bridges between two species are merely less evolved forms of both of those species. Both species evolved from the species that links them, and then dominated that species in the environment where they evolved. So for these bridges between species to still be around would be more disproof of evolution than proof of it, unless this "bridge" species was stronger in one of its original environments but weaker in others where seperate species evolved from it.
However, there are living "bridge" species in the sense that there are species now that will evolve into seperate species in the future.

If we come from the same source, why aren't there current living bridges between the species?
because their niche was occupied by another species that was better able to preform the same tasks. i.e. the new species that arose...

((Which has absolutely nothing to do with Creationism or ID but is absolutely true.))

(((But has everything to do with the Aristotelian prime mover that Flew seems to be describing - "A super-intelligence is the only good explanation for the origin of life and the complexity of nature, Flew said in a telephone interview from England.")))

Actually, in addition to the criminal record you mention, you are forgetting the writings of Heroditus. So make that 2 extra biblical sources.
1. do you know how many jesuses there were at that time? it was one of those popular names for hebrews at the time.

2. was heroditus the one who made a passing refrence to the followers of christ, without mentioning whether there was an actual guy behind the movement, or... oh, no, it was josephus who had the forged add-in mention about jesus...

The way I see the argument is (in very brief)
The Bible etc. all contradict themselves (too many examples have been given already) too much to be the word of god. more they are the works of men.
The scientific explanation of big bang theory asks us to belive that there was a state of nothing, no time, no space, no nothing. Then out of this not even zero bang!

Doesn't any else think that both of these are flawed.

1. do you know how many jesuses there were at that time? it was one of those popular names for hebrews at the time.

2. was heroditus the one who made a passing refrence to the followers of christ, without mentioning whether there was an actual guy behind the movement, or... oh, no, it was josephus who had the forged add-in mention about jesus...

I DID wonder if, perhaps, he meant Josephus... but then I figured, didn't Jospehus live a century after Jesus... so how would that be any more relevent than Heroditus....?

You cant proff GOD! And plz dont try to do so, it makes you look foolish
:rolleyes: Belive me :)

Harry "the Bastard" (English is not my native language)

your point being that I don't understand how life is merely chemical reations? that is true which is why I aske dyou to explain. which youc an't because there is no explanation as science doesnt have one.

Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen.

Chance reactions can create complex organic molecules under the right circumstances. Complex organic molecules become organized through cycles of reaction. Proto-organisms can be described as sets of cyclical reactions.

Single-celled organisms are pockets of chemicals surrounded by a permeable compound.

More complex interactions of substances can create reactions to stimuli; for example in a retina light reacts with substances to produce electrical signals, a feedback system (admittedly a complex one) in the brain deals with it, and produces more signals causing chemical changes in muscles or other compounds, which results in movement.

Slow change over billions of years, by evolution, means that very complex systems can arise, involving large numbers of symbiotic single-celled organisms.

Hey presto, life. Spectacularly unlikely, but even if the odds are 10^20 against, there are enough stars, and therefore planets, in the universe for it to happen AT LEAST once.

I DID wonder if, perhaps, he meant Josephus... but then I figured, didn't Jospehus live a century after Jesus... so how would that be any more relevent than Heroditus....?
well, then when you add in the fact that they've determined that the mention of jesus in josephus' writings is a much later forgery... it's as much proof of jesus' existence as that james ossuary a while back.

I DID wonder if, perhaps, he meant Josephus... but then I figured, didn't Jospehus live a century after Jesus... so how would that be any more relevent than Heroditus....?

Yes, that is my mistake. Isn't there some argument about that dating?

The way I see the argument is (in very brief)
The Bible etc. all contradict themselves (too many examples have been given already) too much to be the word of god. more they are the works of men.
The scientific explanation of big bang theory asks us to belive that there was a state of nothing, no time, no space, no nothing. Then out of this not even zero bang!

Doesn't any else think that both of these are flawed.

It's a common misconception that the big bang assumes there was nothing before the bang. Actually, the big bang theory has nothing to say at all about what was there before. A number of different theories exist (a popular one is that the universe is going through a cycle of bangs and crunches), but I don't think any is accepted yet by the majority of physicists, because there's just not enough evidence to come to conclusions yet.

So really, the big bang doesn't claim to explain where the universe came from at all.

You cant proff GOD! And plz dont try to do so, it makes you look foolish
:rolleyes: Belive me :)

Harry "the Bastard" (English is not my native language)

I can prove god.

God is intangible... so, he has no mass.

God is omnipresent... so, he is everywhere.

Take a cup of water, god (being omnipresent) MUST be in the water.

Weigh a filter paper.

Pour your water through a funnel, with the filter, into another cup.

Let the filter paper dry - this removes the water.

What is left must, therefore, be filtered 'god'.

And, if you weigh the paper, you'll find it weighs the same as it did before...

so, the residue has no weight.... thus no mass... thus intangible...

Therefore, due to the (lack of) difference in mass, I have proved the existence of god!!!


YAY ME!

Originally posted by Dempublicents:
Someone has never read about Galileo...

It's not that I haven't read about Galileo. Although the Pope declared Galileo a heretic (as did Martin Luther), this was more because Galileo tried to make a personal interpretation of the Bible passages that seem to disagree with his discoveries. The Church was (and still is) against personal interpretation of the Bible. When Galileo tried to explain what the Bible was saying when it made scientific errors, he was stepping into the realm of theology, where he did not belong. (The Bible is not a scientific document, and the Church has always believed this. To quote St. Augustine: "One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon.")
So, although many people do not know that part of the history, Galileo was taking Science into the realm of Religion at least as much as the Pope was taking Religion into Science. These are both fundamentally flawed because Religion is non-falsifiable and non-scientific.
http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0005.html

Again, I didn't say you could prove the existance of God. I said there was evidence to support intelligent design as opposed to random evolution.

The argument for Design is bollocks. Any omnipotent being designing, say, a human eye, which is the example used by proponents of the Design argument, would surely come up with something more effective!

Say, shouldn't we able to see in the infra-red? Night vision would make humans much more effective. The resolution on a human eye is crap as well, why don't we have the resolution of an eagle's eye?

...not to mention how galileo also published a book that made an idiot support geocentrism, saying the same things the pope says and someone much more clever go on about heliocentrism and completely annihilate the pope's views. i'm sure that was part of it.

Originally posted by Dakini:
...not to mention how galileo also published a book that made an idiot support geocentrism, saying the same things the pope says and someone much more clever go on about heliocentrism and completely annihilate the pope's views. i'm sure that was part of it.

Well yes. Although Galileo was scientifically correct, this wasn't the kindest or most constructive way of expressing this.

Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen.

Chance reactions can create complex organic molecules under the right circumstances. Complex organic molecules become organized through cycles of reaction. Proto-organisms can be described as sets of cyclical reactions.

Single-celled organisms are pockets of chemicals surrounded by a permeable compound.

More complex interactions of substances can create reactions to stimuli; for example in a retina light reacts with substances to produce electrical signals, a feedback system (admittedly a complex one) in the brain deals with it, and produces more signals causing chemical changes in muscles or other compounds, which results in movement.

Slow change over billions of years, by evolution, means that very complex systems can arise, involving large numbers of symbiotic single-celled organisms.

Hey presto, life. Spectacularly unlikely, but even if the odds are 10^20 against, there are enough stars, and therefore planets, in the universe for it to happen AT LEAST once.

Just not enough carbon here to explain it as it would require 10^451 carbon atoms to explain even the simplist sea sludge, single cell, single chromisome life form, happening on the basis randomness. If the whole planet was made of carbon there would only be 10^50 carbon atoms. Small problem like 10^401 small :rolleyes:

...
God is intangible... so, he has no mass.
...
Pour your water through a funnel, with the filter, into another cup.
Let the filter paper dry - this removes the water.
What is left must, therefore, be filtered 'god'.


Explain to me again about this filter paper that lets some tangible things through, but stops intangible ones, wopuld you?

The argument for Design is bollocks. Any omnipotent being designing, say, a human eye, which is the example used by proponents of the Design argument, would surely come up with something more effective!

Say, shouldn't we able to see in the infra-red? Night vision would make humans much more effective. The resolution on a human eye is crap as well, why don't we have the resolution of an eagle's eye?


Who said ID suggest omnipotence? God and ID though linked are not the same idea.

Explain to me again about this filter paper that lets some tangible things through, but stops intangible ones, wopuld you?

You people, always trying to pick holes in logical arguments.

Obviously god does not pass through permeable surfaces... have you any idea how big he is?

Explain to me again about this filter paper that lets some tangible things through, but stops intangible ones, wopuld you?


I gotta say I'm with you on this one. Even if this was a spiritual truth, that "what is left" is immeasurable.

You people, always trying to pick holes in logical arguments.

Obviously god does not pass through permeable surfaces... have you any idea how big he is?

Well, obviously, if filter paper stops tangible objects, but can't stop intangible ones, what we want is anti-filter paper. Perhaps you had it upside down?

Well yes. Although Galileo was scientifically correct, this wasn't the kindest or most constructive way of expressing this.
well, the thing was that he wasn't rich. the best way to get more funding for his work was to create a sensation.

much like how nasa creates a sensation by deceiding to send people to mars rather than spend money on more worthwhile endeavours. not that having people walk around and plant an american flag on mars isn't exciting, but who cares? it's not going to accomplish much, it would be better if they kept maintaining hubble...

Kind of like Erasmus naming his book "Julius II: Excluded from Heaven"

It's a common misconception that the big bang assumes there was nothing before the bang. Actually, the big bang theory has nothing to say at all about what was there before. A number of different theories exist (a popular one is that the universe is going through a cycle of bangs and crunches), but I don't think any is accepted yet by the majority of physicists, because there's just not enough evidence to come to conclusions yet.

So really, the big bang doesn't claim to explain where the universe came from at all.


Sorry

Doesn't this mean that science has no clue? so in other words the god bothers ... COULD BE RIGHT! quick get me a bible,koran,talmud.......

Sorry

Doesn't this mean that science has no clue? so in other words the god bothers ... COULD BE RIGHT! quick get me a bible,koran,talmud.......

Well... if you find the existence of a omnipotent, omniscient creator to be a plausible theory, that lines up well with what you know about the universe, feel free to believe it.

Really, no religion I know of offers an explanation of where everything started either. The Bible starts off with a void and God's spirit(or breath in some translations) hovering over the waters... No one ever explains where God came from, what exactly these waters are, and where they came from. So, Christianity at least, doesn't offer any real explanation of where it all started.

Just not enough carbon here to explain it as it would require 10^451 carbon atoms to explain even the simplist sea sludge, single cell, single chromisome life form, happening on the basis randomness. If the whole planet was made of carbon there would only be 10^50 carbon atoms. Small problem like 10^401 small :rolleyes:Could you please clarify what you mean by this?

If the entire planet were made of carbon, this would not be too little, it would be too much! And the interesting reactions only really occur at an interface (between aqueous solutions of pre-organic molecules and mineral-rich rock, being mixed by atmopshere-induced flow, turblance, mixing and foaming) where a lot of small, unguided and yet prolificchemistry experiments can occur given enough time, a million billion or so perhaps churning something out that is interesting, one in every million of those perhaps producing something that is self-sustaining and one in every million of those producing something that chances to produce the right kind of thing, with the right kind of mistakes at the right time, to perpetuate itself and become the precursor of at least part of the biomass now present on this planet...

It needed to happen just once. It probably happened a lot more. There's plenty of scientific debate about that...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976

One of the world's most famous and intelligant atheists now believes in God. Take that you non-believers! :p Anyways considering science and how it was always anti-god do you guys think that Science will ironicly be responsible for reviving the belief in a God?

Or, as he really told his closest friendsticle: "Fuck! I've been preaching atheism my whole life and now I'm nearing death and haven't been able to prove it. I better start believing just in case....."

I mean, really - the argument is that he hasn't been able to figure out how evolution works back to the very beginning, so he is now willing to accept the possibility of a "minimal god" that might have been the root triggerm but he still refuses to believe in the afterlife. So what does this prove? That we don't know everything yet?


Gosh - THAT's news....


I mean - is that the test that we use to validate the existance of God? Simply that because we AREN'T Gods who can figure out how to create a universe that this implies that there must be a single God that did so? Frankly, that thinking fails pretty much every basic rule of logic that exists.

I didn't use to believe in God. And then one day, I had the most fantastic sex in my life, and I had a deeply religious experience while in the throes of orgasm.

I'm convinced there was something there that day more than just the three of us.

I fail to see how this is a blow to atheism at all.
At least, not to those who must hold on tight to their ever precious, but fragile beliefs anyway.

http://images.ucomics.com/comics/tt/2004/tt041206.gif :D

Just not enough carbon here to explain it as it would require 10^451 carbon atoms to explain even the simplist sea sludge, single cell, single chromisome life form, happening on the basis randomness. If the whole planet was made of carbon there would only be 10^50 carbon atoms. Small problem like 10^401 small :rolleyes:

I am sort of curious as to where these numbers come from. Are you assuming that all combinations have to be existant at once, and that all are equally probable maybe? If so, those aren't reasonable assumptions since there was a heck of a lot of time.

Besides, life presumably started with something much simpler than a single cell, just some amino acids at first probably. Once you've got a bunch of those floating around (and we know those can form spontaneously from experiment), your odds of producing something useful go way up.

I didn't use to believe in God. And then one day, I had the most fantastic sex in my life, and I had a deeply religious experience while in the throes of orgasm.

I'm convinced there was something there that day more than just the three of us.

If you're a cat person, it was probably Bast, goddess of cats and pleasure and all around sweet gal.

It's not that I haven't read about Galileo. Although the Pope declared Galileo a heretic (as did Martin Luther), this was more because Galileo tried to make a personal interpretation of the Bible passages that seem to disagree with his discoveries.

It was also because Galileo's discoveries directly contradicted Church stances - ie. geocentrism and the idea that everything in the heavens was perfect (hence there could be no craters on the moon). There was also the fact that he talked about other bodies having satellites - that was a real kicker.

The Church was (and still is) against personal interpretation of the Bible.

Which would be why most Catholics know nothing about their church's history, about scripture, or even about their own church's policies.

When Galileo tried to explain what the Bible was saying when it made scientific errors, he was stepping into the realm of theology, where he did not belong. (The Bible is not a scientific document, and the Church has always believed this.

If the church had always believed this, they wouldn't have freaked out every time a scientific advancement threatened one or two obscure verses.

To quote St. Augustine: "One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon.")

Ah, "St." Augustine, arguably the worst thing to ever happen in theology.

A PHILOSOPHER states that DNA is too complex for it to have arisen naturally. Real convincing. Mutation and natural selection are more than enough to explain complexity. Please explain how on Earth (or outside it…) a Venus Fly trap's mechanism could have evolved.

Please explain how on Earth (or outside it…) a Venus Fly trap's mechanism could have evolved.

I suggest Google when you're wondering about these things, but as a public service, here's a link to one possible explanation. Link. (http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/icdmyst/ICDmyst.html#venus)

A PHILOSOPHER states that DNA is too complex for it to have arisen naturally. Real convincing. Mutation and natural selection are more than enough to explain complexity.


Has anyone mentioned yet that Francis Crick himself wasn't convinced that DNA did in fact originate on Earth? - he seemed to favour a kind of directed panspermia, whereby extra-terrestrials seeded the planet with it instead...

Please explain how on Earth (or outside it…) a Venus Fly trap's mechanism could have evolved.

It isn't that hard to think about, even without a large background in botany. Here's an idea:

A plant evolved a sticky substance to catch prey in for nutrients.

A mutation led to a "sticky leaf" with both a top and bottom (probably with the top getting bigger and bigger in successive generations). This new organism was better able to catch prey, so it outcompeted the old plant.

Mutations led to spines on the leaf, which would make it harder for prey to get away, thus making it easier for the organism to survive.

Further mutations led to the top leaf being pulled down by the prey landing there. This mechanism also helped the organism hold its prey, and was thus selected for. Over time, mutations led to the mechanism working faster (to catch fast prey).

Has anyone mentioned yet that Francis Crick himself wasn't convinced that DNA did in fact originate on Earth? - he seemed to favour a kind of directed panspermia, whereby extra-terrestrials seeded the planet with it instead...
well, there are meteorites that have amino acids and various other organic compunds.

Has anyone mentioned yet that Francis Crick himself wasn't convinced that DNA did in fact originate on Earth? - he seemed to favour a kind of directed panspermia, whereby extra-terrestrials seeded the planet with it instead...

Of course that sort of thing just pushes the question of life's origin back onto how the extra-terrestrials came into being... I don't think many reputable scientists currently believe in Directed panspermia, though theories that life may have arrived here accidentally on a meteor (a sort of accidental panspermia) aren't completely out there.

well, there are meteorites that have amino acids and various other organic compunds.

But no actual lifeforms. Go figure.

But no actual lifeforms. Go figure.
Yeah, because we all know how easy it is for life to survive in a highly radioactive environment with an ambient temperature slightly higher than absolute zero.

But no actual lifeforms. Go figure.

Why would there need to be lfeforms on a space-rock?

Surely, the Creationistic and Intelligent Design arguments HINGE on the fact that the elements of life MUST have been created by 'god', because there is no other way for them to have got here?

Well, a meteorite bringing organic materials (if not actually a lifeform) provides the building blocks of life, from which more complex forms could be constructed by simple chemistry, leading to basic lifeforms - and from basic lifeforms to complex lifeforms.

Ultimately, then - it doesn't MATTER if there are 'lifeforms' dropping in through the atmosphere... as long as biological material is arriving from space, there is always a flaw in the "God must have done it, it can't happen by itself" argument.

Yeah, because we all know how easy it is for life to survive in a highly radioactive environment with an ambient temperature slightly higher than absolute zero.

Yes, but continuing discovery of extremophilic organisms on Earth suggests that although it may not be easy it may very well be possible.

Yeah, because we all know how easy it is for life to survive in a highly radioactive environment with an ambient temperature slightly higher than absolute zero.

By an evolutionists logic, life can exist anywhere as it can evolve to suit its surrondings. Spiders are resistant to ionising radation so thats a start.

Of course that sort of thing just pushes the question of life's origin back onto how the extra-terrestrials came into being... I don't think many reputable scientists currently believe in Directed panspermia, though theories that life may have arrived here accidentally on a meteor (a sort of accidental panspermia) aren't completely out there.

Indeed, but the theory of panspermia does provide a possibility of explaining the origin of life on Earth if the window of suitable conditions prior to formation of the first organisms here appears to be excessively short - thus such statistical arguments as we saw outlined in a confused manner earlier lose their potency.

By an evolutionists logic, life can exist anywhere as it can evolve to suit its surrondings. Spiders are resistant to ionising radation so thats a start.Spiders are pretty advanced creatures to also survive the vacuum of space. Instead of that, look at standard extremophiles, perhaps. There were cultures of bacteria on MIR... Well, actually the inside was well mouldy, by the end, but I once theorised (completly hypothetically) that such organisms that drifted into the airlocks and survived the short cycle to vacuum and back might well develop some trick of survival that allowed some to drift onto the outer surface and thrive (rather than just lie dormant), and who knows, with enough time and 'volume of suitable niche', whether some bacteria could find themselves well developed...

However, comparing that with the chances of something surviving (sufficiently intact) a huge enough metorite hit, such that they then also hitch a ride (within the ejecta) and survive the trans-orbital trajectory, the countless time across space until their ride happens to come across a suitable planet like Earth and then survive the re-entry...

The words "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one, they said" are rather optomistic. The trouble being that there are very few "half measures" in such a trip, not being aided by the deliberate conveyance of a handy human-survivival (and hence quite comfy) tin-can into orbit. Maybe the whole trip has happened one, two, perhaps a million times in the history of the universe, but the possibility of it impacting Earth (Weak Anthropic Principle aside, of course) is remote.

However (oops, I keep saying that), there's an awful lot of detected Carbon-chemistry gone on in nebulae, so the simplest of molecules are already prolific in space and could well fall to Earth in sufficient numbers (favourably hitched to meteorites ot drifting down as 'dust') to help out in the blind race for Life. It's theorised (or was, may have been disproven since I heard of it) that an apparent bias in circular polarisation of light is what 'selected' for a bias in proportions between left-handed and right-handed molecules that exists in all life on Earth, given how the ET sugars/etc would have been the basis of early Earth bio-chemistry.

And just because we don't know, doesn't mean we can't make intelligent (and the occasional off-the-wall) guesses about it.

A PHILOSOPHER states that DNA is too complex for it to have arisen naturally. Real convincing. Mutation and natural selection are more than enough to explain complexity.

Perhaps, but what about the underlying physics that dictate chemistry and the other parameters of life needs to exist?

Such as the speed of light, if it was twice what it is ( 186,282 mps) stars would have to be much larger to be able to hold together since the equation E=MC2 would be producing much more energy during Fusion in the heart of the star, these larger stars would still burn up faster and go through the main sequence in a relitively short time...say 100 million years...about the time it took for bacteria to develope in Earth.

Oh and that same Philosopher was a stanch advocate for evolution since the 1950s I beleve....He certainly was given credibility back then.

Respectfully

AAhhzz

Indeed, but the theory of panspermia does provide a possibility of explaining the origin of life on Earth if the window of suitable conditions prior to formation of the first organisms here appears to be excessively short - thus such statistical arguments as we saw outlined in a confused manner earlier lose their potency.

My apologies if I am rehashing something that has already been gone over. For further consideration of the arguements of abiogenesis and panspermia, it might do well to consider the Miller-Urey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment) experiments, paying attention to the notes made in the "Conclusion" section of the article.

Also, one might be better directed to read an article from Secular Web (http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369) with specific attention paid to the 12/2004 update near the bottom, to better understand Antony Flew's current stance.

World shattering for atheists? Not really. And does this thus imply that science "justifies" the existence of a God? Not hardly. Logic is not a science, only a discipline. The grounds for Flew's beliefs is based on adherence to that discipline, not any scientific evidence one way or another.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2004/137.html

Anthony Flew says, "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still an atheist."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976

One of the world's most famous and intelligant atheists now believes in God. Take that you non-believers! :p Anyways considering science and how it was always anti-god do you guys think that Science will ironicly be responsible for reviving the belief in a God?

Debating the existence of God with someone who can't spell "existence" or "intelligent" is like wrestling a pig in Jello - no-one's going to win and you're both going to look as stupid as the pig.

You make it sound as though the ground just started crapping out humans for no reason. It took millions of years of evolution to get where we are today. Besides that, argument from "oh everything is so complex and pretty" proves nothing, because beauty and complexity are subjective.


LOL......."You make it sound as though the ground just started crapping out humans for no reason." That made me laugh, and you dont know how much I needed to today. Also liked your comment that just because someone believes in something has no bearing on its validity. :)

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2004/137.html

Anthony Flew says, "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still an atheist."

Ahem.

Debating the existence of God with someone who can't spell "existence" or "intelligent" is like wrestling a pig in Jello - no-one's going to win and you're both going to look as stupid as the pig.
He also mis-spelled 'ironically' too, BTW.

http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2004/137.html

Anthony Flew says, "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm still an atheist."

The article you cite is dated 2001. The one I link is the more updated version.

Once upon a time, a rumor hit the internet that Flew had converted to Christianity. The myth appeared in 2001 and popped up again in 2003. On each occasion, Flew refuted the claim personally, standing by his response to its first occasion with his own reply for publication at the Secular Web (Antony Flew, "Sorry to Disappoint, but I'm Still an Atheist!" 2001). So I was quite skeptical the third time around. But this time, things have indeed changed somewhat from where Flew stood in his 2001 article. Antony and I exchanged letters on the issue recently, and what I report here about his current views comes from him directly.

Debating the existence of God with someone who can't spell "existence" or "intelligent" is like wrestling a pig in Jello - no-one's going to win and you're both going to look as stupid as the pig.

Ad hominems don't enhance any particular point.

Here's an update on the so-called "god particle."

Flat truth is I'm having a really hard time converting people to a faith that's based on a sub-atomic Almighty. Usually the conversations go something like this:

Potential convert: "And what if I don't convert? I'll suffer the wrath of the tiny little god?"
Deacon Poland: "He might be small, but he's compact."
Potential convert: "Right, and your mother's just big-boned."

And then they close the door.

More to come!

Could you please clarify what you mean by this?

If the entire planet were made of carbon, this would not be too little, it would be too much! And the interesting reactions only really occur at an interface (between aqueous solutions of pre-organic molecules and mineral-rich rock, being mixed by atmopshere-induced flow, turblance, mixing and foaming) where a lot of small, unguided and yet prolificchemistry experiments can occur given enough time, a million billion or so perhaps churning something out that is interesting, one in every million of those perhaps producing something that is self-sustaining and one in every million of those producing something that chances to produce the right kind of thing, with the right kind of mistakes at the right time, to perpetuate itself and become the precursor of at least part of the biomass now present on this planet...

It needed to happen just once. It probably happened a lot more. There's plenty of scientific debate about that...

10 to the 50th power is not anywhere close to the quantity of 10 to the 451st power. It would require 10 to the 451st power Carbon atoms to create the simplest life form on earth by a process of random combination.

10 to the 50th power is not anywhere close to the quantity of 10 to the 451st power. It would require 10 to the 451st power Carbon atoms to create the simplest life form on earth by a process of random combination.

How did you get this number?

...btw, it's NOT random. Carbon forms into more complex molecules by itself - Amino Acids have "spontaneously" formed in the Miller-Urey experiment for example. An atom does not have an equal chance of bonding or not bonding with another.

Also - the simplest life-form currently on earth has still had several billion years to evolve. The simplest life-form currently in existence on earth is WAY more complicated than what the hypothetical first cell (or, rather, first set of self-replicating macromolecules) would be.

Anyhow, how did you get that number? How are you calculating that probability?

10 to the 50th power is not anywhere close to the quantity of 10 to the 451st power. It would require 10 to the 451st power Carbon atoms to create the simplest life form on earth by a process of random combination.Apart from Reasonabilitynessesesesesses's reply, I would also like to know where you're getting your figure?

If you're basing it upon something similar to the sum of the carbon atoms that are needed to make (one example each) of /all/ organic molecules up to and including the complexity of DNA[1] then I think you'll find that you're on a hiding to nothing... It doesn't work like that.

[1] However you define complexity in such a multi-branched and intertwined chemical sequence, but maybe the list would (with huge gaps, look something like: CH4, CH3OH, CH2(OH)2... CH3NOH... ... C2H6, C2H5OH... C2H4, C2H3OH... C2H3NOH... ... C2H2 (ethyne, a lot of fun), C2HOH... C2 (can't remember the name, but has a very unstable quadruple bond and virtually impossible to make :)) ... ... ... C6H14 ... C6H12 (hexene, three possible varieties) ... C6H12 (benzene) ... ... ... C12H22O11 (sucrose, I think, and of course any other structures with the same proportions) ... C5H10O5 (ribose, in a pentose form, plus variants) ... ... ... etc, etc, etc... CxHyOzKw[...] (your DNA).

(NB, E&OE in the above attempt at a list... :)

Originally Posted by Personal responsibilit:
10 to the 50th power is not anywhere close to the quantity of 10 to the 451st power. It would require 10 to the 451st power Carbon atoms to create the simplest life form on earth by a process of random combination.

That's absurd. The observable universe is estimated to contain 10 the 88th power elementary particles (photons). Source (http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/section/Stuff_about_Space/The_Rest_of_the_Universe/982241844.htm)
Thus you are claiming that the simplest life form on earth is composed of at least 10 to the 363rd power universes (if carbon atoms were elementary particles, which they are not).