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MojoJojo
07-20-2004, 05:00 AM
I believe in creation, because this world did not just happen.

Well....no one claims this world "just happened". It has taken billions upon billions of years.

One difficulty that I think "creationists" have in accepting the truality of evolution is a lack of ability to comprehend time and change. A hundred years is difficult enough to comprehend. A thousand years is nearly impossible. And that isn't even a blink of an eye. Neither is a million years.

Another source of my amusement is how creationists cannot accept that our world would be here due to evolution (despite the fact that we witness evolution - see story about baby with muscles a month or so back), yet they are willing to say that it makes PERFECT sense that there is some omnipotent being that can see all of us and made the world with pixie dust.

Um....yeah....that makes a lot more sense. What the hell was I thinking? ALLAPEANUTBUTTERSANDWICHES!

A_Guy
07-20-2004, 05:06 AM
(despite the fact that we witness evolution - see story about baby with muscles a month or so back)

Oh yeah!! :great: How could I forget that thread????

Here it is:

http://www.stripperweb.com/forum/index.php/stripperweb/off-topic/chat/t10450.html

montythegeek
07-20-2004, 05:19 AM
"truality" Mojo^3. LOL. Ever hear of "truth"?


Look at how something moving faster changes over time. Like language. Mojo may have saddled our progeny with the word "truality".

GoldCoastGirl
07-20-2004, 06:09 AM
Personally, whilst I believe in a God/Goddess/Great Spirit as beings that I created thru my belief in them (kinda Carl Jung - archetypes). I also like Quantum Physics (read a good 101 book when I younger) and that explains alot of my beliefs... magick is just energy like everything and everyone is.. we are just energy.

We are not separate from this world.. we are part of it. God does exist for those who believes he/it/she/them does.

I personally think Creation is a good myth/story that explains about a certain race of people but not all of us. Evolution is and will always be a theory - constantly evolving.

What I care about is the present and future. I take what I will from the past so I can apply it to the here and now or the future.

BTW... really enjoying this thread. I thought it would be worse than what it has turned out to be... not so emotionally charged. Alot of good discussion and some humour thrown in too! ;D

polecat
07-20-2004, 06:30 AM
Actually, properly translated Creation does not exclude Evolution... in fact, from the original Greek and Hebrew texts, Creation actually validates a great deal of Evolution theory.

For example, starting with Genesis, the 2nd passage in the King James translation:
"And the earth [was] without form, and void; and darkness [was] upon the face of the deep."
the word [was] is the hebrew word "hayah"- which doesn't mean [was], but instead: come about, come to pass, be brought about.

Only through concordance study with much reference back to the original Greek and Hebrew texts can someone studying theology truly get a grasp on the various Earth Ages described in prolific detail in the old testament.

Much along the lines of Evolution theory, the old testament in the book of Job also describes the bohemeths ("tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together") that roamed in that earth age prior to the evolution of man. That brought about void/darkness marks a new earth age, the evolution of mankind and the end of the bohemeth (along with the previous age that defines the wars on earth and in the heavens, etc.etc.).

Heck, most Sunday Schools don't even get the whole Adam and Eve part right, which in the original texts only document the speciality of their lineage as being the descendents from which would rise the second covenant (Christ). There was a plethora of people around (other races, other geneology lines, etc.etc.) but the symbolism between the two was special as the forefathers of the second covenant and a lineage that must include true knowlede of good from evil (hence the whole serpent and 'forbidden fruit' - which fruit is again cast as 'knowledge').

I'm no Bible thumper nor am I religious, but a deeper study of theology is quite fascinating as the King James translation, as amazing of an effort as it was, had it's work cut out for it trying to translate all this difficult, multi-meaning Greek and Hebrew into English... all within a single generation timespan. Theology I always found an interesting study, much like Greek Mythology... the only difference is, most people got the real meanings of Greek Mythology lol. It's a shame the texts used for actual worship by so many is actually the least understood by the masses that worship from it. Call it irony. :)

Jay Zeno
07-20-2004, 09:51 AM
Warning: Boring geek posting. Read on at your own risk of having three minutes of your life sucked away.



Evolution isn't a belief structure. It's a descriptor of events.

*******


Each sample, then, should represent a different stage of evolution/adaptation, and there ought to be "transition" types, not particularly of one species or another.

Well, that's exactly correct. Every life form is in transition. Humans are taller than they used to be. The same virus that made us sick last year has no effect now. But now it's evolved into something that does make us sick. Evolution.

When it comes to fossils, it's near-miraculous that they even exist at all, let alone in fair numbers. To have a bone decay and be replaced through mineral leaching that solidifies to rock is truly amazing. So to those who say "Fossils don't show...." ({{sigh}}) If the history of the world is a film, fossils are still frames of that film. And the film is hundreds of millions and billions of years old. If we have 50,000 fossils to look at, we have samples comprising about .00000001% of the history of life. So does the fossil record miss things? Of course. Can we still look at those still frames and try to decide what they mean? Of course. Does that mean we'll get the movie correct as we try to stitch it together? Probably not. But probably some parts will be OK.



The species that we know today are all stable, and no case has ever been observed of a species "adapting" itself to change its anatomy or physiology, which "adaptation" then resulted in more fitness" for the "struggle for existence," and was passed on by heredity, with the result of a new species.

Stable? If it wasn't for man's protection, the panda would die out. Its food is too specific and its digestion is too inefficient. Adapting itself? Coyotes have adapted to humans' intrusion by adapting eating habits. Giant tube worms have adapted to live in thermal vents. Does this guy think that using technical words make him scientific?



Nor are the extinct fossil plants and animals any simpler than present forms, although we are told the course of evolution was from simple to complex life-forms.

Look in the Triassic, and you'll see simpler dinosaur life forms than the Cretaceous. Look in the Cambrian, and you'll see simpler ocean forms than the Permian. Look at Paleocene mammals, and you'll see simpler forms than present day.



The lower forms, simpler--less fit?--have not died out, have not yielded to the principle of Darwinian evolution. They remain in the same form they have had for eons. Why do they never "evolve" into something "higher?"

Because they are suited for the environment. Sheesh - that's the whole point. However, there will be evolutionary branches that also will be suited for the environment, and they will thrive as well. Those that do not will not.



But if it is not utile, it is not Darwinian, for Darwinism says evolution is utilitarian.

A tactic of inaccurately defining something to suit his needs and then refuting it.

Evolution, as I said, is a descriptor. Darwin started the theory, but as most scientific knowledge goes, our understanding of it has developed far beyond what he dreamed.

In the same way, we can call astronomy "Copernican," since Copernicus said that the earth revolves around the sun. But Copernicus didn't know about nuclear fusion of stars, other galaxies, or quantum phenomena. But someone had to make that first leap in order for knowledge to advance.



The past history of the Earth is profoundly and deeply mysterious and not one in ten thousand of its secrets has been revealed.

Finally, something I agree with the guy about. However, I look forward to having more secrets revealed, one by one, even knowing that they all never will be revealed, and even correcting misunderstandings as we go. This guy has a belief structure that will allow one line of belief, regardless of emerging facts.

*******

As Madcap said, Darwin never said man evolved from apes. Darwin had one sentence that said that much light will be shed upon man and his evolution. That was it. (And indeed, much light has been shed on man's evolution.) Huxley was the one that argued apes.

*******

Mayans were pretty bright people, but spare me the human sacrifice, bloodletting through the genitals, and the very brutal things they engaged in.

The ancient Greeks could be pretty bright, too. Erastosthenes accurately measured the circumference of the earth through mathematics, even while most people believed the earth was flat.

*******


If some scientist finds a way to prove String Theory will our perceptions of reality change?

Or inflation theory? Or ekpyrotic theory?

The answer is no. Our perceptions are at our own level, not the quantum level. That's why some people can't believe in spirts, or ozone, or a history that involves millions or billions of years. They can't see it, can't perceive it, and to believe in it offends their sensibilities. That's all right. We can all still go on with productive lives.

*******


there are a lot of things, stonehenge, piramids, even glyphs that can only be seen from the air. theres even folk lore thats simular around the world. it just makes me go "hmmmmm"

A lot of that stuff has been replicated or debunked by creative people, all from this planet, who, indeed, want to know how they happened.

But anything's possible. A theory is in place - we came from other planets. Now that just needs to be supported through evidence that supports that theory over other evidence and other theories.

*******

Belief in God and acceptance of evolutionary processes are only mutually exclusive if you want them to be.

Casual Observer
07-20-2004, 12:53 PM
I'll just quickly say that Polecat's and JZ's posts are similar to my view and one exemplified by a devout Christian biology teacher in undergrad, who said thus:

"We have a responsibility as creatures of God to use the gift of science to understand and explain God's Creation, or more broadly, the universe."

Mutual exclusivity in this debate is simply stupid and frankly, arrogant.

Rhiannon
07-20-2004, 01:03 PM
BOOYAH....In da face :highfive:

:dance:


LMFAO You two are so crazy...

I believe in Creation. It's not right or wrong, it's what I believe. I see no point in debating about it. So, I'll leave it at that.

:sing:"You say Potato, I say 'Po-Tah-To' Let's call the whole thing off.. la la la" :sing:

Prina
07-20-2004, 01:21 PM
I'll just quickly say that Polecat's and JZ's posts are similar to my view and one exemplified by a devout Christian biology teacher in undergrad, who said thus:

"We have a responsibility as creatures of God to use the gift of science to understand and explain God's Creation, or more broadly, the universe."

Mutual exclusivity in this debate is simply stupid and frankly, arrogant.

Creationism or Evolution?
Big Dick or Small Dick?
Am I having an affair or not?
Nakie, topless, or gogo?
Bush or Kerry?
etc..etc...etc..
nothing is "simply stupid" or "frankly arrogant" on this site.
my two cents

Madcap
07-20-2004, 04:06 PM
17) The Syphalis virus exists, So someone on the ark had Syph! Virtuous people indeed! What about AIDS, or Ebola. Viruses need carriers, who carried them?


Arent there man-made viruses out there??
I have heard of viruses and diseases made by man. ?


Not exactly "made" by Humans, it's possible to genetically engineer a Virus or a Plague, but not to create one from scratch.

FBR
07-20-2004, 04:10 PM
Actually its comforting to think that I evolved from an gram of putrid pond scum rather than having been created by a Greater Being who loves me and wants me to be a good boy. Its helps me rationalize my sordid behavior with strippers ;D

FBR

AinNY
07-20-2004, 05:35 PM
Creationism or Evolution?
Big Dick or Small Dick?
Am I having an affair or not?
Nakie, topless, or gogo?
Bush or Kerry?
etc..etc...etc..
nothing is "simply stupid" or "frankly arrogant" on this site.
my two cents


You are cracking me up :great:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Silverback
07-20-2004, 07:44 PM
In case you wanna argue "OK with evolution, but someone was pushing the buttons and flipping the levers":



intelligent design
...the odds against DNA assembling by chance are 1040,000 to one [according to Fred Hoyle, Evolution from Space,1981]. This is true, but highly misleading. DNA did not assemble purely by chance. It assembled by a combination of chance and the laws of physics. Without the laws of physics as we know them, life on earth as we know it would not have evolved in the short span of six billion years. The nuclear force was needed to bind protons and neutrons in the nuclei of atoms; electromagnetism was needed to keep atoms and molecules together; and gravity was needed to keep the resulting ingredients for life stuck to the surface of the earth.
--Victor J. Stenger*

To explain the origin of the DNA/protein machine by invoking a supernatural Designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the Designer. You have to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there', or "Life was always there', and be done with it. --Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker : Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design p. 141

... rarity by itself shouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. When one is dealt a bridge hand of thirteen cards, the probability of being dealt that particular hand is less than one in 600 billion. Still, it would be absurd for someone to be dealt a hand, examine it carefully, calculate that the probability of getting it is less than one in 600 billion, and then conclude that he must not have been dealt that very hand because it is so very improbable. --John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory [of natural selection] would absolutely break down. --Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

Intelligent design (ID) refers to the theory that intelligent causes are responsible for the origin of the universe and of life in all its diversity.* Advocates of ID maintain that their theory is scientific and provides empirical proof for the existence of God or superintelligent aliens. They believe that design is empirically detectable in nature and in living systems. They claim that intelligent design should be taught in the science classroom because it is an alternative to the scientific theory of natural selection.

The arguments of the ID advocates may seem like a rehash of the creationist arguments, but the defenders of ID claim that they do not reject evolution simply because it does not fit with their understanding of the Bible. However, they present natural selection as implying the universe could not have been designed or created, which is nonsense. To deny that God has the power to create living things using natural selection is to assert something unknowable. It is also inconsistent with the belief in an omnipotent Creator.

One of the early-birds defending ID was UC Berkeley law professor Philip E. Johnson, who seems to have completely misunderstood Darwin's theory of natural selection as implying (1) God doesn't exist, (2) natural selection could only have happened randomly and by chance, and (3) whatever happens randomly and by chance cannot be designed by God. None of these beliefs is essential to natural selection. There is no inconsistency in believing in God the Creator of the universe and in natural selection. Natural selection could have been designed by God. Or, natural selection could have occurred even if God did not exist. Thus, the first of several fallacies committed by ID defenders is the false dilemma. The choice is not either natural selection or design by God or some other superintelligent creatures. God could have designed the universe to produce life by random events following laws of nature. God could have created superintelligent aliens who are experimenting with natural selection. Superintelligent aliens could have evolved by natural selection and then introduced the process on our planet. There may be another scientific theory that explains living beings and their eco-systems better than natural selection (or intelligent design). The possibilities may not be endless but they are certainly greater than the two considered by ID defenders.

Two scientists often cited by defenders of ID are Michael Behe, author of Darwin's Black Box (The Free Press, 1996), and William Dembski, author of Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Dembski and Behe are fellows of the Discovery Institute, a Seattle research institute funded largely by Christian foundations. Their arguments are attractive because they are couched in scientific terms and backed by scientific competence. However, their arguments are identical in function to the creationists: rather than provide positive evidence for their own position, they mainly try to find weaknesses in natural selection. As already noted, however, even if their arguments are successful against natural selection, that would not increase the probability of ID.

Behe is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Lehigh University. Behe's argument is not essentially about whether evolution occurred, but how it had to have occurred. He claims that he wants to see "real laboratory research on the question of intelligent design."* Such a desire belies his indifference to the science/metaphysics distinction. There is no lab experiment relevant to determining whether God exists.

In any case, Behe claims that biochemistry reveals a cellular world of such precisely tailored molecules and such staggering complexity that it is not only inexplicable by gradual evolution, but that it can only be plausibly explained by assuming an intelligent designer, i.e., God. Some systems, he thinks, can't be produced by natural selection because "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional (39)." He says that a mousetrap is an example of an irreducibly complex system, i.e., all the parts must be there in order for the mousetrap to function. In short, Behe has old wine in a new skin: the argument from design wrapped in biochemistry. His argument is no more scientific than any other variant of the argument from design. In fact, most scientists, including scientists who are Christians, think Behe should cease patting himself on the back. As with all other such arguments, Behe's begs the question. He must assume design in order to prove a designer. The general consensus seems to be that Behe is a good scientist and writer, but a mediocre metaphysician.

His argument hinges upon the notion of "irreducibly complex systems," systems that could not function if they were missing just one of their many parts. "Irreducibly complex systems ... cannot evolve in a Darwinian fashion," he says, because natural selection works on small mutations in just one component at a time. He then leaps to the conclusion that intelligent design must be responsible for these irreducibly complex systems. Biology professor (and Christian) Kenneth Miller responds:

The multiple parts of complex, interlocking biological systems do not evolve as individual parts, despite Behe's claim that they must. They evolve together, as systems that are gradually expanded, enlarged, and adapted to new purposes. As Richard Dawkins successfully argued in The Blind Watchmaker, natural selection can act on these evolving systems at every step of their transformation.*

Professor Bartelt writes

if we assume that Behe is correct, and that humans can discern design, then I submit that they can also discern poor design (we sue companies for this all the time!). In Darwin's Black Box, Behe refers to design as the "purposeful arrangement of parts." What about when the "parts" aren't purposeful, by any standard engineering criteria? When confronted with the "All-Thumbs Designer" - whoever designed the spine, the birth canal, the prostate gland, the back of the throat, etc, Behe and the ID people retreat into theology.* [I.e., God can do whatever He wants, or, We're not competent to judge intelligence by God's standards, etc.]

H. Allen Orr writes:

Behe's colossal mistake is that, in rejecting these possibilities, he concludes that no Darwinian solution remains. But one does. It is this: An irreducibly complex system can be built gradually by adding parts that, while initially just advantageous, become-because of later changes-essential. The logic is very simple. Some part (A) initially does some job (and not very well, perhaps). Another part (B) later gets added because it helps A. This new part isn't essential, it merely improves things. But later on, A (or something else) may change in such a way that B now becomes indispensable. This process continues as further parts get folded into the system. And at the end of the day, many parts may all be required.*

Finally, Behe's argument assumes that natural selection will never be able to account for anything it cannot account for now. This begs the question. In fact, some of the things that Behe and other ID defenders have claimed could not be explained by natural selection have in fact been explained by natural selection.

Dembski

William Dembski (Intelligent Design: The Bridge between Science and Theology, 1998) is a professor at Baylor University. Dembski claims that he can prove that life and the universe could not have happened by chance and by natural processes; therefore, they must be the result of intelligent design by God. He also claims that "the conceptual soundness of a scientific theory cannot be maintained apart from Christ (209)," a claim which belies his metaphysical bias.

According to physicist Vic Stenger in "The Emperor's New Designer Clothes," Dembski uses math and logic to derive what he calls the law of conservation of information. "He argues that the information contained in living structures cannot be generated by any combination of chance and natural processes....Dembski's law of conservation of information is nothing more than "conservation of entropy," a special case of the second law [of thermodynamics] that applies when no dissipative processes such as friction are present." However, the fact is that "entropy is created naturally a thousand times a day by every person on Earth. Each time any friction is generated, information is lost."

pseudoscience

ID isn't a scientific theory and it isn't an alternative to natural selection or any other scientific theory. The universe would appear the same to us whether it was designed by God or not. Empirical theories are about how the world appears to us and have no business positing why the world appears this way, or that it is probably designed because of how unlikely it is that this or that happened by chance. That is the business of metaphysics. ID is not a scientific theory, but a metaphysical theory. The fact that it has empirical content doesn't make it any more scientific than, say, Spinoza's metaphysics or so-called creation science.

ID is a pseudoscience because it claims to be scientific but is in fact metaphysical. It is based on several philosophical confusions, not the least of which is the notion that the empirical is necessarily scientific. This is false, if by 'empirical' one means originating in or based on observation or experience. Empirical theories can be scientific or non-scientific. Freud's theory of the Oedipus complex is empirical but it is not scientific. Jung's theory of the collective unconscious is empirical but it is not scientific. Biblical creationism is empirical but it is not scientific. Poetry can be empirical but not scientific.

On the other hand, if by 'empirical' one means capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment then ID is not empirical. Neither the whole of Nature nor an individual eco-system can be proved or disproved by any set of observations to be intelligently or unintelligently designed. A design theory and a natural law theory that makes no reference to design can account for Nature as a whole and for individual eco-systems.

Science does have some metaphysical assumptions, not the least of which is that the universe follows laws. But Science leaves open the question of whether those laws were designed. That is a metaphysical question. Believing the universe or some part of it was designed or not does not help understand how it works. If I ever answer an empirical question with the answer "because God [or superintelligent aliens, otherwise undetectable] made it that way" then I have left the realm of science and entered the realm of metaphysics. Of course scientists have metaphysical beliefs but those beliefs are irrelevant to strictly scientific explanations. Science is open to both theists and atheists alike.

If we grant that the universe is possibly or even probably the result of intelligent design, what is the next step? For example, assume a particular eco-system is the creation of an intelligent designer. Unless this intelligent designer is one of us, i.e., human, and unless we have some experience with the creations of this and similar designers, how could we proceed to study this system? If all we know is that it is the result of ID, but that the designer is of a different order of being than we are, how would we proceed to study this system? Wouldn't we be limited in always responding in the same way to any question we asked about the system's relation to its designer? It is this way because of ID. Furthermore, wouldn't we have to assume that since God, the intelligent designer, designed everything, even us, that no matter what happens, it is always a sign of and due to intelligent design. The theory explains everything but illuminates nothing.

The ID proponents are fighting a battle that was lost in the 17th century: the battle for understanding Nature in terms of final causes and efficient causes. Prior to the 17th century, there was no essential conflict between a mechanistic view of Nature and a teleological view, between a naturalistic and a supernaturalistic view of Nature. With the notable exception of Leibniz and his intellectual descendents, just about everyone else gave up the idea of scientific explanations needing to include theological ones. Scientific progress became possible in part because scientists attempted to describe the workings of natural phenomena without reference to their creation, design or ultimate purpose. God may well have created the universe and the laws of nature, but created Nature is a machine, mechanically changing and comprehensible as such. God became an unnecessary hypothesis.

Silverback
07-20-2004, 07:58 PM
[Creationism or Evolution?
Big Dick or Small Dick?
Am I having an affair or not?
Nakie, topless, or gogo?
Bush or Kerry?
etc..etc...etc..
nothing is "simply stupid" or "frankly arrogant" on this site.
my two cents



Well, maybe we evolved big dicks so we can have affairs while naked and vote for Bush out of stupid arrogance. ;D

RYAN
07-20-2004, 07:58 PM
This is a very interesting topic to debate. I am on the fence becasue I tend to think that life is a test in part of a bigger puzzle. There is too much with regards to ghosts and preminition, deja vu, dreams, ect. to feel like there is not more dimentions and more sides to it. Just a bunch of amimals living together on a planet in the middle of space seems strange to me. I feel we are in a test, or a holding period, or a number of other things. The whole evolution theory is missing so many pieces and cannot explain common occurances and gaps in species. They only know a few pieces of a very complex and mysterious past. Maybe we aren't supposed to know our past or our future.... Maybe it's all just a test, practice...

Madcap
07-20-2004, 08:23 PM
There is too much with regards to ghosts and preminition, deja vu, dreams, ect. to feel like there is not more dimentions and more sides to it.


This is, most of that is claims made by people with nothing hard backing it up. It all requires that you take someone's word on it, so i never even think of it. I can go to the natural history Museum and SEE 320 million year old fossils that are reliably dated within to a few million years. And since i understand the methods of dating, i trust them.

I don't hold anything against people who believe in Ghosts, Magic, ESP or whatever, but i need a little more than someone's word on it. As far as Evolution goes, i can look at the hard science myself. It might not be 100% as it changes and evolves (Like Einsteinian Physics replacing Newtonian Physics and Quantum Physics and superstring theory potentially replacing Einstein) but it's the best tool we have currently for Humankind to understand the world around us.

Incidentally, Quantum Theory predicts other Universes existing side by side with ours (In fact the idea is pretty well accepted nowadays). In fact, one proposed possibility is to build a nanocomputer that does it's calculations in another Universe.

montythegeek
07-20-2004, 08:24 PM
I'll just quickly say that Polecat's and JZ's posts are similar to my view and one exemplified by a devout Christian biology teacher in undergrad, who said thus:

"We have a responsibility as creatures of God to use the gift of science to understand and explain God's Creation, or more broadly, the universe."

Mutual exclusivity in this debate is simply stupid and frankly, arrogant.

Creationism or Evolution?
Big Dick or Small Dick?
Am I having an affair or not?
Nakie, topless, or gogo?
Bush or Kerry?
etc..etc...etc..
nothing is "simply stupid" or "frankly arrogant" on this site.
my two cents



P we can always combine the disparate threads and discuss whether John has a bigger dick than W. We know Dubya has his dick and Dick's dick, so that is 3 against 2, or is that 4-2?

montythegeek
07-20-2004, 08:37 PM
This is a very interesting topic to debate. I am on the fence becasue I tend to think that life is a test in part of a bigger puzzle. There is too much with regards to ghosts and preminition, deja vu, dreams, ect. to feel like there is not more dimentions and more sides to it. Just a bunch of amimals living together on a planet in the middle of space seems strange to me. I feel we are in a test, or a holding period, or a number of other things. The whole evolution theory is missing so many pieces and cannot explain common occurances and gaps in species. They only know a few pieces of a very complex and mysterious past. Maybe we aren't supposed to know our past or our future.... Maybe it's all just a test, practice...


Ryan your comment was interesting an made me do some arithmetic. There are 150 million square kilometers and the number of people who have ever lived is somewhere around 20 billion if i remember right. Every person who had ever lived would have to dig about 2 acres of land a foot deep in their life to to have looked everywhere to a depth of one foot if I did the math right. That is a shitload of dirt, and everyone would have had to do it and that would probably clear off a fraction of what has accumulated on average since a couple hundred million years ago.

Second, animals have to die in a really odd fashion for their skeltetons to be preserved. Something has to cover them up pretty darn soon before the predators scatter the bones. That is why the LaBrea tar pits are so odd. How many humans do you know off in the last 500 years who fell in and never got out?

Fun to think bout though. What are people going to know about us in 10,000 years? Even a thousand?

Madcap
07-20-2004, 09:10 PM
A couple of pages ago, i promised to post info on how to date things like the age of the Earth. I just forgot, but here goes...

Here's how, what you need is something absolutly regular, and has been taking place on Earth from the very beginning, and that can be easily measured. In 1896 a french physicist named Antoine Henri Becquerel by accident (he was looking for something else) discovered that a certain substance containing atoms of the metal Uranium gave off radiations that were unknown at the time. The Polish-French chemist Marie Sklodowska studied this phenominon further and, in 1898, concluded that the new radiation was the result of radioactivity. Uranium and another type of Atom, Thorium (which is similar to Uranium) were both radioactive, and some british chemist (i forget his name) showed, in 1914, that as a result of Radioactivity Uranium and Thorium atoms broke down into somewhat simpler atoms, which then decayed into others, until finally, at the end of what is termed a radioactive chain, atoms of Lead were produced. These lead atoms were not radioactive, so the process of decay finally came to an end.

Our mystery brit and his partner (some New Zealander whom i also can't remember) showed that every radioactive element had what they called a half-life. In other words,a given quantity of any radioactive element lost half it's atoms through breakdown in a certain characteristic length of time, then half of what was left in an additional increment of that interval, then half of what was left, and so on. This meant that you could predict exactly how much of any quantity of Uranium or Thorium would be left after a given number of years.

As it turned out both Uranium and Thorium broke down very, very slowly. Uranium's half life is 4.5 billion years, and Thorium's is 14 billion years. Those long half lives are why we even have ANY of either element still present in the earth's crust even if the predictions are right and the Earth is as old as science says it is. It also sets an upper limit on Earth's age (if Earth was, say, a Trillion years old, the stuff would all be long gone by now)

In 1907, even before the stuff about radioactive breakdown had been compleatly worked out, a yank physicist named Bertram Borden Boltwood (see, he's an American, so i remember his name . Actually, who could forget ol' BBB. If my mom had named me Bertram, i'd never have forgiven her) suggested that if a rock contained Uranium, that Uranium would slowly break down and produce lead at a fixed rate. From the amount of lead that had been produced, one could calculate how long the rock had sat there, solid and undisturbed.

It's not really that simple, since the rock might have had lead in it to begin with. However, Lead comes in 4 different closely related varieties, or Isotopes, that only naturally occour in certain fixed proportions. One of the isotopes is not produced by radioactive breakdown, and by measuring how much of that isotope is present in the rock, you can calculate how much of all 4 isotopes were in the rock to begin with. Thus, only the presence of lead in excess of that quantity counts in determining age of the Rock.

It's not hard to find rocks that are 1 billion years old, in fact, in 1931, rocks were discovered that were 2 billion years old, and the oldest rocks ever found date at 3.8 billion years old.

Now, this only tells us how old the rocks are, not how old the earth is. In the days before 3.8 billion years ago the whole place could have been remelted a thousand times for all we know. So the earth is at least 3.8 billion years old. BILLION. It's generally accepted that the earth is 4.6 billion years old, but there are many ways to find this out and i decided to go with this one because all i need to do is prove the Earth older than 1 billion years to really make my point (really, the age of 6,001 would have done the trick but i went high.)


*Whew*

montythegeek
07-20-2004, 09:22 PM
Madcap, Is your Brit Rutherford. For some reason that name rings a bell.

Madcap
07-20-2004, 09:24 PM
Could be. After all that typing i just don't have the drive to check on it.

Jay Zeno
07-20-2004, 10:15 PM
Following the laws of physics as we've discovered and verified over and over again, light from distant quasars took billions of years to get here.

If the world was just a few thousand years years old, as creation beliefs go, then God or some cosmic practical joker set up a series of laws for physics and then deliberately violated them in order to make us believe that something that does not exist does exist. Or vice versa.

It boggles the mind. I'd say that if God or whatever worked so hard to manufacture evidence to deduce things from physics, we oughta go ahead and accept what they're trying to convince us of.

Silverback
07-20-2004, 10:27 PM
Following the laws of physics as we've discovered and verified over and over again, light from distant quasars took billions of years to get here.

If the world was just a few thousand years years old, as creation beliefs go, then God or some cosmic practical joker set up a series of laws for physics and then deliberately violated them in order to make us believe that something that does not exist does exist. Or vice versa.

It boggles the mind. I'd say that if God or whatever worked so hard to manufacture evidence to deduce things from physics, we oughta go ahead and accept what they're trying to convince us of.


But then you would fail the test of faith. :)

wasfatboy
07-21-2004, 05:48 AM
my head hurts!

RYAN
07-24-2004, 07:11 PM
I do not believe in the bible creation, The bible was written many many years after jesus died, and many of the messages and meanings were lost or changed. The vatican continues to do this to this day by and has made many revisions to the new testament. I beleive jesus was a mystic, one of many that has been sent here by a higher power to shed some light on the truth-seekers of the time. Much like many mystics of the past, Jesus was not well accepted by a society who does not want to change their ways of living for sensual pleasures instead of living by God's code. Mystics believe that the only way to prevent reincarnation into this hell we call earth is to master many spiritual challenges in life, lose our inherent ego, our love of wealth, sex, drugs, and the like and live exactly how you would picture God living, if you beleive in god. Mystics feel the purpose of life is to become as much like God as possible, until we actually become Him. They feel this can take many lives as we build up our spirit, or "prana". To mystics, earth is hell - reincarnation is torture. There is a totally amazing book called "Glimpses of Reality" by Benito De Donno about his first hand experiences about mysticism by living amongst a mystic in india for several years. There is also a book called "autobiography of a yogi" that is also very good. Glimpses of reality is really a great read for anyone interested in the possibility that the world is more than we see. Just because you cannot see spirit does not mean it's not there. Thooughts cannot be seen, but does that mean they do not take place. Look around at all the millions of creatures, plants, fruits, oceans, mountains, rivers, ect. and ask yourself if this could have been created by a big bang in the sky. I think not. There is some kind of creative force behind this planet and this universe. It is beyond the scope of our intelligence, but it is there none th less. Only people with no faith would think otherwise. This earth was NOT made a few thousand years ago, but it is the vision of something higher than us. That's my opinion at least. Humans are more than "smart apes" or whatever the flavor of the day is in the evolutionalry circles. We are divine beings of God, at least we can be....

madmaxine
07-24-2004, 07:51 PM
Science is God's tool to engineer life on this earth in this ecosystem. I had the great pleasure of working in the wildlife biology field, and I witnessed the great grace that is God in beautiful plants and trees, different animals, rivers, lakes, and oceans. The night sky and stars, the sun, the moon, the other plants. The beauty of symmetry, and the mysterious evolutionary lynchpin that is...asymmetry and mutations!
Why can't people live with a mystery? One story relating to this topic: I had to have my wisdon teeth extracted a few years back. I was referred to an oral surgeon who had me watch a film explaining that wisdom teeth came from earlier stages of human evolution where Neandrathals had longer jaws with more teeth. As humans evolved into more delicate creatures, many humans had not the space for extra large molars.
He STRONGLY disagreed with the film, after he explained his personal creationist theory on wisdom teeth (uh, I forget what) I left his office and refused to have the surgery done by him. Too flaky!
My theory? God gave humans extra molars in case they happened to lose their other ones, so they wouldn't starve. That's what happened to me, I retained my bottom two to replace two permanent molars that were pulled.

Madcap
07-24-2004, 11:50 PM
I keep being asked what proof there is of the big bang, and how i can believe in something so silly without proof (i wish the questioner's would stop, for a moment, and think about how stupid that sounds coming from a creationist). So here it is...

The first piece of evidence supporting the Big Bang Theory is the Doppler shift,also called the red shift, of other galaxies. This effect was noted by Edwin Hubble around1930. The Doppler shift is like the change in sound a train horn makes as the train moves closer or further away. When viewed using spectral analysis, an object moving toward us at high velocity has a blue shift, due to the contraction of light waves. When moving away objects shift to red, due to the expansion of light waves. This indicates that the universe is moving, not static, moving due to the Big Bang. Any other interpretation require effects that have no experimentation or evidence.

The second piece of evidence is microwave background radiation. The Big Bang Theory predicted a much hotter early universe. In 1964, two reasearchers, Arno Pezias and Robert Wilson accidentally discovered that space was not absolutely cold, but three degrees Kelvin. The raised temperature is due to the radiation of photons. The distribution of photons was measured, and, according to Plank's black body radiation curve, equaled the number necessary to achieve a temperature of three degrees Kelvin. The interpretation of this radiation bath is that it is heat left over from the Big Bang, and again, no other suitable explanation exists. Let me add that the researchers responsible for this discovered it accidentally. They worked for a telephone company, and were not attempting to support the Big Bang Theory.

The third piece of evidence is something creationists have long said was impossible: an indirect way to test the theory in a laboratory. The Big Bang Theory predicts that the universe started cooling fractions of a second after the explosion. Also predicted was that this rapid cooling would produce strings and other topologies in the structure of space-time. The same mechanisms should produce string like vortices when heated liquid helium cools into a super-fluid state. This is akin to what happens when water freezes and leaves cracks and lines in the ice cubes. Two teams of scientists *found* just such vortices.

Creationists can continue to deny the Big Bang, just as they deny Evolution, until they are blue in the face, but just like evolution, the Big Bang is a fact that they cannot deny away.

This, however, says nothing about the existance or non-existance of god.

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:12 AM
Some common Creationist arguments, and evolutionist responses...

Punctuated Equilibrium Proves Darwin Wrong
Evolution deniers, in their denial, have misunderstood, either naively or intentionally, the healthy debate among scientists about the causal agents of organic change. They take the exchange of ideas and the self correcting nature of scienceas evidence that the field is coming apart at the seams. Eldredge and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium is a refinment and improvement on Darwin's theory and no more proves it wrong than Einsteinian relativity proves Newton wrong.

Lack of Transitional Fossils
What lack? In human origin, we have Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Early Sapiens, Cro-Magnon, and modern humans. There have even been finds that demonstrate transition between the species. The 1972 find at the site of Koobi Fora in Kenya beautifully depicts a transition between Australopithecus and Homo Habilis. We have Ambulocetus Natans, a transitional form between land mammal and whale. We have Archeopteryx, part bird, part reptile.
With seismic upheavel, erosion, consumption by predatory or scavenging animals, and the possibility of punctuated equilibrium it is fortunate that we have the wealth of fossils we possess today.

If We Descended From Apes, Why Are There Still Apes Around?
This one tries my patience every time I hear it. First, Let me say this loud and clear. WE DID NOT DESCEND FROM APES! We share a common ancestor with apes. The fact that evolution deniers persist in thinking evolutionist believe we are descended from apes, indicates to me that they don't even bother to look into the science they strive continuously to discredit.

What Scientists Call Evolution is Only Adaptation
Moles have subcutaneous eyes. cave fish have no eyes, but their skulls clearly indicate that their ancestors did. Whales have vestigial hipbones. Organs and limbs don't disappear due to adaptation. they disappear because of evolution. The creature no longer has the need to divert energies toward building these organs and limbs, so the information for building them gets edited out of their genetic codes.

Losing Limbs and Organs is Devolution, Not Evolution
Oh, so you can have one and not the other? Eyes are soft tissue and easily damaged. If they are no longer needed, it makes perfect sense to evolve away from them, as they are now a hinderance, a waste of energy to build and maintain, and an area of vulnerability to attack. In water, legs would increase resistance, slowing the creature, and again present targets of attack for predators, so water dwelling animals evolved away from legs.. These are indications of evolution, not devolution, whatever that is.

Fossils Are Planted by Satan to Test Our Faith
These people are so out of touch with reality, as to make debate impossible. Should you encounter one in person, and I have once, my advice would be to speak calmly and reassuringly, make no sudden movements, and back away slowly.

The Flood Accounts For Fossil Stratification
Humans drown in floods all the time, why do they only appear in upper levels? Why are bottom dwelling marine invertabrates found at all levels of strata? Why are whales and dolphins found only at high levels, while marine reptiles of simular shape and size found much lower? Why did not one trilobite float up to a higher strata? And finally, why would fish drown at all?

Radiometric Dating is Inaccurate and Circular in Reasoning
We have several tools in the dating of fossils. Some of these are potassium 40, which decays to argon 40, with a half life of 1250 million years. rubidium 87, which decays to strontium 87, with a half life of 4880 million years. And uranium 238, which decays through a series of elements to lead 206, with a half life of 4470 million years. In conjunction with radiometric dating, we use lithostratigraphy, or rock sequencing. Then we apply the fossil index. This gives us three seperate and independant references to the date.
As far as inaccuracy to radiometric dating, external factors, such as pressure, temperature, chemicals, cosmic radition, or nearby supernovas, only marginally alter the results. Supernovas could theoretically alter the results to read too young, not older. All other experimentation indicates that any other forces could not affect radiation decay by more than 1%.

Potassium-Argon Dating is Invalid Due to Infiltration From Outside Sources
There are times when potassium-argon dating will give anamolous readings. Basalts formed from deep ocean volcanic eruptions are one of these. However, these anomolies are recognized and compensated for by measuring the amount of argon 36, and using the known isotopic composition of atmospheric argon to make the correction.

Life is Too Complex to Have Not Been Created
Researchers agree that the spontaneous manufacture of amino acids, nitrogen bases, sugars, etc. is no problem, and have demonstrated this. (Urey,Miller1974) There have even been a number of successes assembling as many as twelve nucleotides into strings under prebiotic conditions, and polypeptides can then be formed from simple amino acids. The discoveries of Watson and Crick in the 1950's demonstrated that polynucleotides have an intrinsic ability, almost a desire to associate with complimentary strings, hence DNA. When these strands drift apart, due to intense heat, they may serve as templates for new models, and self-replication has begun. They can grow in length by the same process. The template synthesis is not perfect, occasionaly a nucleotide is put in a different position, causing the mutation that leads to diversity. Natural selection preserves the gains, and eliminates the mistakes.
The process of molecular self assembly had millions of years to begin. It took place, not in an isolated area, but on a world wide scale. Once the process was started, and the proper molecules had bonded, it suddenly moved into an entirely different game, that of diversification. While the numerical odds of it occuring seem staggering at first, also staggering is the incredible amount of time it had to work with.

Darwin Renounced Evolution Before He Died
Not according to his personal notes, possessed by his family. Also, please note that religion has always raised an oppresive hand to those who question their authority. Remember what the Holy Inquisition threatened Galileo with for stating that the Earth revolves around the Sun? If religion will stoop so low as torture and murder, then lies about a dead man is easily within its capabilities.

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics Proves Evolution Did Not Occur
The 2nd law applies to systems that are both closed and thermally isolated from their surroundings. Living organisms take in and expel matter and exchange heat with their surroundings, making them open systems.
Also, organisms take in foodstuffs that contain highly ordered, low entropy molecules, like proteins and starches, and excrete wastes that contain less ordered molecules. Therefore, an organism discards matter with a greater entropy content into its environment than the matter it takes in. Energy, heat, and entropy transfers within subsystems operating inside a closed system are perfectly allowable under the laws of thermodynamics. So the argument is invalid under either open or closed systems.

Australopithecus Was Only an Ape
Australopithecus had an upright posture, as indicated by the entry position of the spine into the skull. The spine entered the skull from the bottom, not from an angle. An angle would indicate a quadraped, or the occasional biped, like an ape. The bottom entry position indicates that Australopithecus was an upright walker. Biomechanical studies performed on the hips also indicates bipedial locomotion. One last piece of evidence that Australopithecus was not an ape is the canines which did not protrude beyond the other teeth in a functional manner. In this Australopithecus resembles homo sapien, and no other primate.
With the brain of an ape, and the upright posture of a man, Australopithecus is the transitional fossil.

How Could the Universe be Created From Nothing?
This is a funny thing for evolution deniers to ask, as their creation "theory" says the same thing, but here goes.
The total known energy in the universe adds up to almost zero. The potential energy of the gravitational attraction of the galaxies is proportional to the mass of the galaxies. Since energy must be supplied to push the galaxies apart, as is shown by red shift, this creates an incredible amount of negative energy. The mass energy of every particle in the universe creates an incredible amount of positive energy.
At the moment, known positive energy is smaller than known negative energy by about a factor of ten. If the remaining numbers equal zero, then the universe could be created from vacuum. Scientists are looking for these numbers called missing mass, and there are several theories that could account for it, including dark matter, neutrino mass, and black holes.
My personal theory involves the existance of a black hole in the center of most, if not all, spiral galaxies. While black holes have yet to be completely and irrevocably proven, there is proof that something is in the center of several galaxies. These somethings behave exactly the way black holes are supposed to. These black holes could account for the missing mass and additionally provide for the mechanisms for my personal theory.

Phoenix Universe Hypothesis

By Madcap
As entropy increases, the universe slows, grinds to a halt, contract. The galaxies collapse into their parenting black holes, fiery chaos ensues. The black holes begin to attract each other, they converge, and collapse into each other, forming a super black hole. The super black hole, being inherently unstable, explodes. The process of creation begins anew out of the ashes of nothingness.


*whew*

RYAN
07-25-2004, 12:16 AM
This topic is obviously supposed, forever and forever, to remain a mystery. I for one believe there is much more than meets the eye. I feel humans understand the equivlent to 1 grain of sant amongst all the sant on earth. I also feel earth is about the same porportion to the entire universe. There are billions and billions of planets out there. We are truelty insignificant, yet vitally important in our own paths to become divine beings of light....

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:22 AM
Well i have to disagree with you there. A lot of people weild the size of the universe like a club, it's unclear whether they are trying to educate people or scare the shit out of them. Earth is, by definition, NOT insignifigant. It's a hell of a lot more signifigant than, say, Triton, or Mercury. Venus is the closest thing to the ninth circle of hell that we know of.

It's possible that life existed once on Mars, and may still exist on Europa. But that's three worlds among thousands that exist in our solar system alone (Counting all the moons, the asteroid belt, the Oort cloud, and the Kuiper belt, well and the lone asteroids).

RYAN
07-25-2004, 12:29 AM
the difference betewwn humans and all other previous beings on earth is that we all have a soul, and a spirit. We can engineer the most advanced computer, capable of billions of functions per second, but we can never create an emotion, or a living cell. We cannot compare bumans to similar beings before us, because no prior lifeform displays any feeling of emotion or soul, just the willingness to survive and reproduce. We are nit much different, but we have Godlike capabilities, even thought 99.99999% of us fail to ever use them. I feel there will be a transition in the future (next 100,000 years) where humans will reach a point where they will start living more like God, and reach there true potential. I feel humans will switch to fruitarianism and then breatharianism and then be nourished solely by prana, or air and light. We are starting to comprehend that even with our brilliant advances in medicine, humans continue to be the sickest beings on the planct, and hospitals are still full to capacity. I truely believe that less than 1 in 1 million humans even have the slightest idea what true health feels like. We will reach a point where we will see the err of our ways and we will start to break this worldwide addiction of eating for pleasure, and we will start eating for health, and then eating little or nothing at all... People have alreadt begun to do exactly this, but it will take tens of thousdands of years to be commonplace, and we will all still be here in different bodies, trying to reach perfection.

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:33 AM
To each there own. Can't say i ever believed in reincarnation, though.

onlythebest
07-25-2004, 12:39 AM
If there is a such thing as reincarnation,I want to come back as a pet dog with someone like me to take care of me.I LOVE ANIMALS!!!

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:41 AM
I wanna come back as an Amoeba or a Paramecium.

onlythebest
07-25-2004, 12:42 AM
I wanna come back as an Amoeba or a Paramecium.


No one will be able to see you then.

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:43 AM
:devil:

Then i'll have you all right where i want you!

MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

RYAN
07-25-2004, 12:44 AM
evolution cannot possibly make 1 shread of sense because the basic premise of evolution is that species will try to continually advance and become higher beings yet cockroaches have stayed exactly the same for billions of years. this directly contradicts the whole theory of evolving, or evolution itself. Besides, perfecting a limb with digits for example would take millions of years to perfect according to evolutionists. Yet, this very process of having a half-limb during "evolution" would be a disadvantage to the species and would not take place. the very process of growing a limb would tremendously hinder the species. The ONLY ONLY ONLY possible scenario would be that ALL species coexisted at one time, and humans are proving to be the only successful ones. Sure we have found bones from some old species, but they prove nothing but that these species existed, NOT that they are a distant cousin of modern humans. We are getting to a point very quickly where humans will be the only species left, and PLANTS which we have no competition with for oxygen becasue we have a symbiotic balance where we trade gases. As it is right now, we are losing thousands of species a day, and no new ones are being created. YES, new ones may be discovered, but that does NOT mean that they are new to the planet, just new to US. Also, according to evolution there wouldn't even be any fluid species, just a bunch of organisms seeking to be the highest lifeform, which obviously isnt true since most if not all species have remaind exactly the same for millenia. The evolution theory do not hold water.

onlythebest
07-25-2004, 12:45 AM
Damn,this is Madcap's conspiracy of "Big Brother".He can see us,but we can't see him.Hey..................that's not fair!

RYAN
07-25-2004, 12:47 AM
If there is a such thing as reincarnation,I want to come back as a pet dog with someone like me to take care of me.I LOVE ANIMALS!!!


According to mysticism that is entirely possible. Humans can go down to a lower species and spend possibly millions of years trying to work back up to humanity, only to usually mess it all up over again.

onlythebest
07-25-2004, 12:50 AM
But I don't want to come back as a human.Most humans suck.I just want to be blissfully ignorant and content.

Madcap
07-25-2004, 12:54 AM
evolution cannot possibly make 1 shread of sense because the basic premise of evolution is that species will try to continually advance and become higher beings yet cockroaches have stayed exactly the same for billions of years.


No. They haven't (Not to mention that multicellular life isn't even one billion years old, there have only been land animals for 600 million years). Plus, a species only changes when it has to. Sharks, for instance have stayed the same for 55 million years. This is not against evolution. Evolution is this: A genetic change within a given population in response to outside stimuli, and that is IT.


Besides, perfecting a limb with digits for example would take millions of years to perfect according to evolutionists.

Avtually, there are a lot of better ways to do it. We have five fingers because some fish had five bones in it's fin.


Yet, this very process of having a half-limb during "evolution" would be a disadvantage to the species and would not take place.

Things don't just vanish. It's a process. You tell me, why do whales have hipbones then?


the very process of growing a limb would tremendously hinder the species.

Not really. Sometimes it does, but those species die off.


The ONLY ONLY ONLY possible scenario would be that ALL species coexisted at one time, and humans are proving to be the only successful ones.

This never happened. Never. Not ever.


Sure we have found bones from some old species, but they prove nothing but that these species existed, NOT that they are a distant cousin of modern humans.

Some of them are. Neanderthal, for instance, was not while Homo erectus and Austrelopithicus was.


We are getting to a point very quickly where humans will be the only species left, and PLANTS which we have no competition with for oxygen becasue we have a symbiotic balance where we trade gases.

Humans would be extinct long before that happened.


As it is right now, we are losing thousands of species a day, and no new ones are being created.


Actually, evolution has been observed in a lab. Plus the english white moth has turned dusty greay ever since the industrial revolution. You'll have to try again. All you have to do is look at fruitflies to SEE evolution in action. Bacteria too.

NinaDaisy
07-25-2004, 01:39 AM
Evolution, if only because I've been taught to think for myself and primarily from empirical data.

Madcap
07-25-2004, 01:41 AM
See?

Nina knows all.

madmaxine
07-25-2004, 02:05 AM
Madcap, thank you for the evolution info. How many people would be surprised to find this discussion on a BBs for strippers?....Ladies, remember, the whole reason we make money at what we do is that we can produce life. It could be said we are closer to God because of that little fact. The whole world owes us, ha ha!

Madcap
07-25-2004, 02:08 AM
How many people would be surprised to find this discussion on a BBs for strippers?....


That's because some people can't get past their own preconceptions. Thank the proverbial God that I am not one of those people. Actually i pity them.

Anyone who can look at Ferarri, or Lexi, or Gynger and see only a Stripper is a sad, sad individual.

Jay Zeno
07-25-2004, 07:08 AM
Thanks to Madcap for posting that tonnage of information.

A few observations. We are likely descended from australopithecines, but not from the whole genus Australopithecus. One Australopithecus fossil trail goes robust (heavier teeth and bones, ridged skull), another went gracile (lighter dentition, more nimble). We are more like the graciles.

The Big Bang nicely accommodates the most observable phenomenon, but there are still questions that remain, and it's still a theory. Check out inflation theory (the universe began from nothingness out of a negative vacuum fluctuation) and ekpyrotic theory (a bit difficult to grasp - our universe is a membrane, one of many, and ... well, it's a bit difficult) for alternative theories. They fill several holes that the Big Bang presently does not, athough they're far from perfected. Fom our viewpoint, an inflationary universe would be indistinguishable from a Big Bang universe.

The Vatican gave its stamp of acceptance to the Big Bang theory. Not that it matters, because it doesn't, but it just goes to show that a lot of religious thinking has, well, evolved in the last few hundred years. Catholics and many other religious students are taught that God can use what God wants to us to get the job done, including evolutionary processes.

montythegeek
07-25-2004, 08:02 AM
How many people would be surprised to find this discussion on a BBs for strippers?....


That's because some people can't get past their own preconceptions. Thank the proverbial God that I am not one of those people. Actually i pity them.

Anyone who can look at Ferarri, or Lexi, or Gynger and see only a Stripper is a sad, sad individual.

The issue of stereotypes is exactly to the point of the way this discussion tends to go off point in society. First I must state that I am solidly in the Evolution camp although not as "popularly" proclaimed as "survival of the fittest". I would describe it as "survival of the lucky-adequate" if forced to condense evolution to a catch phrase.

At the time Darwin wrote, there were a number of atheist who foolishly thought "now we have a way to deflate those yokels who believe in God". The existence of God (or lack) has no bearing on the correctness of the theory abd vice versa. The other side (also foolishly) thought "well we can fight atheism by fighting evolution." They were equally distracted by irrelevant considerations. Of course not all one either side believed this, but the bigmouths took over the discussion.

The prejudices and stereotypes of people on both sides just made the whole thing worse.

NinaDaisy
07-25-2004, 09:32 AM
See?

Nina knows all.


Who, moi? Nah, I just think I do! ::)

montythegeek
07-25-2004, 09:45 AM
See?

Nina knows all.


Who, moi? Nah, I just think I do! ::)

Nina is highly evolved and MC and I are Neandethals. All hail Nina, or Else. LOL. She has minions to do her dirty work.

Lexi
07-25-2004, 09:59 AM
I have very mixed views, and forgive me if I sound ignorant, but anyway...

I believe in creation. I believe that SOMETHING is responsible for making this world so perfect, and by that I mean...
We are the PERFECT distance from the sun. Most animals and humans serve a purpose.
Worms, whom I despise and have a severe phobia of, even have a purpose. They go through the soil, making tunnels....these tunnels supply air for the roots of the plants. Those plants are the ones who give off the air we breathe. etc...
Just like there are humans who are a waste, or like the appendix which serves no purpose, I am sure someone will say that there are animals with no purpose. Right, but thats with everything.

But the point is....everything we are is perfect. We eat because we need to survive, we sleep because we need to have our bodies function the next day, etc...

Look at conception. How PERFECT is that? (aside from problems, obviously) Look how how we have emotions.
Where did THAT come from? As someone mentioned, we cant make emotions. Did "evolution" make emotion? Doesnt sound right.

However, I also believe in people evolving, and adaptation is something too factual to even argue. But besides all that, i do believe that there is more than we know.

Humans tend to think that if they dont have the answer to something, then its not there.
When people speak of spirits, others laugh it off. Why? Because they either havent seen it, or felt it. But others have.
Why do we think that we are the only people in this world? There ARE other galaxies other than this one, and there may be life on others as well. It would be sorta ignorant to thnk that in this entire universe its only about us.