SpeedRacer 1 #776 August 31, 2007 OK, we're up to 776 posts on this thread now. And it's Friday evening. Everyone take a break & go out & get a beer. Speed Racer -------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maadmax 0 #777 September 1, 2007 Phil or any of you other atheists, I don't know if you will indulge me or not but I am curious what makes the realities you have constructed for yourselves tick. How do you discern right from wrong, good from evil ( if they exist for you)? How do you determine where your rights end and another persons begins? Why should anyone continue living? Does an individuals existence mean anything? How did this complex universe come into being with its infinitely small tolerances for time, space, particle spin, charge, mass, strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, electromagnetic energies, and yet to be identified force carriers and mass particles etc that statistically defies a chance beginning. Does might make right or is there a higher moral determinant? Are there any absolutes either good or bad? I guess that is enough for starters. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beowulf 1 #778 September 1, 2007 Would you like that in five sentences or less? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SpeedRacer 1 #779 September 1, 2007 what's your favorite breakfast cereal? Speed Racer -------------------------------------------------- Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coreece 190 #780 September 1, 2007 Is it not logical...perhaps even scientific to assert that a creation has a creator...would we not use this assertion in our own physical world? Furthermore, where did the concepts come from? (eg. what feels good? who decided what an orgasm should feel like to allow us to procreate? Who decides what hurts? who decides what tasty wheat tastes like?) Is the bible not true when it says we supress this truth? Would we be more acceptible of this truth if we felt that our only revelation of God did not demand a perfection that is impossible to adhear too...in order to define the perfection of God? Are we more apt to believe that another lifeform exsists somewhere in this vast universe, and not believe that a creation has a creator? As far as we know we are the only ones who could careless how the universe began. Without us, what is the point? Was the universe's intention to evolve into a state that could ackowledge itself? If so, where does this wisdom to control come from? Did it just happen? Has it always been? To deny a force ( a force that I believe is God) is absolutely illogical an unscientific. Give me evidence that this force doesn't exist and perhaps I will take your comments with a grain of salt. The fact is that we do not want to believe that there is something that powereful, We cannot believe how important we really are, we do not want to be submissive to anything, we do not love God nor give him thanks for what we have but hate him for what we don't have. God is our enemy and the Bible says so. We hate him for what he is and because he is not what we want him to be. We are prideful and arrogant. We do not understand because we are the source of our misunderstanding and do not want to understand....How can we understand? Our search to understand by our own intellect is futile and will only result in more questions. When we have proven ourselves wrong we say "one step closer to the truth" but it is one step closer on an infinite thoroughfare. Is in not true what the bible says...."Vanities of vanities! All is Vanity."? We cannot come to understand the fullness of God on our own, because it pleases Him. He does not want us to find him in our own wisdom, because we would boast. God is our enemy, why would our enemy let us win? Yet He loves us so, that if we believe and ask him to give us understanding with a sincere heart...He will. This is the "F" word. This faith may be as little as saying that I cannot understand this absudity, but if you exsist, please help me to understand. People say let me see and I'll believe...is this not an oxymoron? How easy is it to "believe" in fact? Is it not fact? But believe and you shall see. If God requires faith than is not the Bible written perfectly? In any event, let it be known that this faith is a gift from God that man may not boast. And this belief is in Chirst who has demonstrated the character of God in his love and wrath, so that we may know God for who he is and not waht we want him to be. Amen Corey AKA...Low MAOYour secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #781 September 1, 2007 "That doesn't sound like a question from a man who said he had years of Hebrew ... " Nice way of avoiding the issue Steve and all the ignorant nonsense in Genesis. if you are referring to the meaning of the name of Adam it makes no difference. The facts are that human beings evolved from other primates, they were not created in one instant, the story of the Garden of eden is a ridiclous pile of nonsense and has no bearing on reality. Now if you want to continaully dodge this huge error in the bible with meaningless phrases like it just represents mans interaction with god or debates over what the word Adam means i think it will just continual to show what mental gymnastic moderate Christians have to go through to try to accept two obviousoly contradcitory narratives: that of science and that of the bible. Why not use Occams razor and accept that science is correct and the bible is wrong? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coreece 190 #782 September 1, 2007 Quote The facts are that human beings evolved from other primates Fact???LOL....I bet you'll also say that it is fact that primates evolved from other primates.... Edit I'm not really laughing...I suppose this is one of those instances when we perhaps proven ourselves wrong again and say we are "one step closer to the truth"....We'll never figure it out...thanks for trying, but perhaps it's time to use all those ELITE brilliant minds for more practical things rather than our own prideful curiosity. We could use some help on containing antimatter...you know what I mean...it's been what...30 -40 years?Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #783 September 1, 2007 "How do you discern right from wrong, good from evil ( if they exist for you)? " My sense of right and wrong (yes they do exist for me) are like everyones elses's, determined partly by biological impulses,cutlural influences and my own thought proceses. We have evolved to have instincts that help us be moral. for example evidence suggests that empathy is an instinct that springs from brain activty in ventromedial prefrontal cortex. If there is damage to this area people find it hard to empathise with others. Moralty is also cultrualy deterined, if you had been borne two hundred years ago you would be much more likely to be racist than today. This view of morailty is a subjective one. But like our view of art is subjective, most people still agree that a stunning sunset is beautiful.So most will agree that murder is wrong. Many religions claim to give us an objective reality and this obvious nonsense. Chrsitians for example both defended and attacked the anti semitism of the NAzis, they both defended and attacked the instiution of slavery. Look at contempary moral issues such as abortion, stem cell research, the war in Iraq, the death penalty. You will find people of the same religion on both sides of these moral debates so the claim that religion gives any kind of objective morlaity is obviously false. "Why should anyone continue living? Does an individuals existence mean anything?" If one believes this is the only life you get it means we have to embrace life more than ever , that gives this life more meaning than if its just a temporary existence. Why would 70/80 years be meaningful compared to an eterninty in heaven? "How did this complex universe come into being with its infinitely small tolerances for time, space, particle spin, charge, mass, strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, electromagnetic energies, and yet to be identified force carriers and mass particles etc that statistically defies a chance beginning." In order to state something is statiscially unlikely one has to know the underlyng determining factors. If if pulled the ace of spades out of deck of cards placed it back in th pack and then reshuffled them and pulled the ace of spades out again and repeated this process and kept pulling the ace of spades out, would you think this was unlikely? well it would be very unlikely if it was a normal deck of cards. But what if it was a trick deck where every card is the ace of spades? suddenly it wouldnt be so unlikely would it ? The point is we have to know how the probabilities are determined before we say something is unlikely. As we have no idea how the values of the physical constants you mention are determined we cannot say that the values we have are unlikely. Your presenttion of the fine tuning argument rests on a completely groundless assumption of probability. Tell me how the values of the fundmental forces are originally detemined in the universe and then we can discuss the probability of the values we have. But of course if you could show that you would be getting a call from the Nobel committee. Furthermore the universe seems to be very inhosiptiable to life, eventually the universe will not be ble to support any life at all.It will be so that for a tiny moment of its history it once supported life . So how is that fine tuning? "Does might make right or is there a higher moral determinant?" As I understand mono theistic theology any act whatsoever by god be it saving someone or wiping out whole populaitons is always right. Is that not might making right? Moraility is subjectively deterined in ways I discussed above. In my mind there are absolute right and wrongs but othe people dont always agree. Thats true if one is religious or not. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coreece 190 #784 September 1, 2007 Quoteprobability Dude...sorry, I'm tired, but I think the probability is 100% since we exsist. However, I would say that the probability of a creation having a creator is higher than anything you can assert otherwise...Does that make sense?Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,257 #785 September 1, 2007 Quote How do you discern right from wrong, good from evil ( if they exist for you)? How do you determine where your rights end and another persons begins? A mix of instinct, learning, law, societal pressure etc. Quote Why should anyone continue living? I like being alive. Don't you? Quote Does an individuals existence mean anything? It means something to the individual, and to the people around them. Sometimes an individual will be influential enough to mean something to the entire world, sometimes people leave things behind that still mean things several thousand years later. Quote How did this complex universe come into being with its infinitely small tolerances for time, space, particle spin, charge, mass, strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, electromagnetic energies, and yet to be identified force carriers and mass particles etc that statistically defies a chance beginning. I don't know. Quote Does might make right or is there a higher moral determinant? In my opinion no. Some would argue that on a large scale (say international relations) might is right. I disagree. Quote Are there any absolutes either good or bad? No.Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maadmax 0 #786 September 1, 2007 QuoteWould you like that in five sentences or less _______________________________________________ Come on Beowulf cut loose. You feel you know what doesn't exist. What does exist? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites br0k3n 0 #787 September 3, 2007 Quote How do you discern right from wrong, good from evil ( if they exist for you)? So let me ask you this, do you have an overwhelming urge to rape and pillage, but you don’t because you believe some sky god is watching over you??? Quote Why should anyone continue living? Because life is for living, not existing… unfortunately for far to many people (those stuck in religious doctrine) life is about existing, because they are expecting a glorious afterlife, and sacrifice their life for this belief. Beside do you require a reason to live? Quote Does an individuals existence mean anything? Probably not, I think we would be very ignorant to believe otherwise. Quote How did this complex universe come into being Well there are several theories about this topic, One of the most widely accepted theories of how the universe began, is the Big Bang Theory , which states that our universe began with a giant explosion. There are three pieces of evidence supporting the theory. 1. As far as we can tell, the universe is still expanding today. 2. The abundance of chemicals that correctly account for the hot dense stage that followed the Big Bang. 3. The existence of heat radiation that is the suspected "afterglow" of the Big Bang. This piece (point 3) last evidence so conclusively confirmed the theory of the universe's beginning that Stephen Hawking said, "It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time." Now there are other theories like the theory of creation, however so far to date it is a theory without 1 single piece of evidence to support it… I guess that is enough for starters.....----------------------------------------------------------- --+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Erroll 49 #788 September 3, 2007 Quote Quote Quote .....book that is full of incontinences,..... A tad harsh, don't you think? No. I guess you didn't get it. That's ok. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Hausse 0 #789 September 3, 2007 Haven't read the thread so don't yell at me if someone already said the same: I believe that mankind created god (yes I'm athesit) out of the simple reason that they were not able to accept (out of what ever various reason) that the ARE just a piece of dust in the universe, the the are NOT important and that there might be times were NOBODY loves them. Simple and straight forward. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites billvon 2,402 #790 September 3, 2007 > who decided what an orgasm should feel like to allow us to procreate? We did, in a way. People who experience orgasm as pain don't procreate, and are now all dead (and more importantly didn't have many, if any, kids.) So the people who are left are the people who liked what an orgasm felt like. >Who decides what hurts? Again, we do. If someone decides that cutting their fingers off feels good, then they tend to not reproduce, and the tendency to cut one's fingers off goes away. Likewise, if you prefer your fingers intact, and experience pain when you injure them, you will rapidly learn to NOT injure them. This helps you survive so you can pass on those pain genes. >Are we more apt to believe that another lifeform exsists somewhere in >this vast universe, and not believe that a creation has a creator? ?? As I am sure you are aware, there are far more lifeforms on the earth than mankind! I don't see how finding life on Europa would be any more or less proof of God's existence than finding bacteria in volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean. >Without us, what is the point? The same as the "point" was before you were born. The "point" is what we make it to be. >Was the universe's intention to evolve into a state that could ackowledge itself? No more so than a tank of gasoline has an "intention" to explode. It can happen, but that doesn't mean the gas is sitting there plotting against you. > Our search to understand by our own intellect is futile and will only >result in more questions. And more answers, which is why we have rovers running around on Mars, airplanes, nylon etc. >When we have proven ourselves wrong we say "one step closer to the >truth" but it is one step closer on an infinite thoroughfare. Definitely true! But its infinite extent does not negate the value of having some knowledge. I mean, you can have infinite amounts of money - but does that mean that ten cents is the same as ten million dollars? Most of us would prefer one over the other, even if it's just another small step in an infinite scale of monetary wealth. >And this belief is in Chirst who has demonstrated the character of God >in his love and wrath, so that we may know God for who he is and not >waht we want him to be. I think the idea that we fully understand everything behind the concept of God is as conceited as thinking we understand everything in the natural world. We have spent centuries with the best minds in the world studying observable phenomena, and now we have a smattering of understanding as to how the world works. We have spent centuries with some very bright people doing the same thing with God - but without anything other than historical records to study. No observable phenomena. No checking to see if we're right. No collaboration from other researchers in other religion. So believe in God any way you choose to do so. But rest assured that your view of God is just one of thousands in the world today, and the odds of you being 100% right and all those thousands of others being wrong is - well, small. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites philh 0 #791 September 3, 2007 Human evolution is a fact and if you think you can overturn it, feel free to show us the evidence. As far as setting a bunch of biologists on the antimatter task, not sure why that would be helpful. Unless you think we should stop biology and make everyone in science study physics only? Many young scientists want to study biology now more than ever (and physcis is declinig in populairty) for a few reasons 1) there are lots more jobs in bio tech these days and 2) biology is an area of science thats making lots of exciting progress whereas physics is not. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites philh 0 #792 September 3, 2007 "Dude...sorry, I'm tired, but I think the probability is 100% since we exsist. However, I would say that the probability of a creation having a creator is higher than anything you can assert otherwise...Does that make sense? " The probability im referring to is the probability of the fundamental constants of nature having the values they have. People that bring up the fine tuning argument for the existence of god assert that the values are highly unlikely to give rise to us and so there must be a god chosing them. When you say the probabilities are 100% that is correct but not really answering the question. My answer to the question is that since we dont know the underlying process that drives these values we are not in a position to say thhey are either likely or unlikely. To give an analogy we can say the chances of pulling an ace of spades out of a deck of cards is 1/52 if we know we have a fair deck of cards properly shuffled. If we dont know whats in the deck (it could be 52 ace of spade for all we know) we cannot say one outcome is likely or not. Obviously after the event the probability of that event is 100% but thats not really th point. "However, I would say that the probability of a creation having a creator is higher than anything you can assert otherwise" before one can state this one would have to observe many creation events and observe a creator for each of them. As far as Im aware there is almost nothing we have ever observed which creates matter or energy therefore one cannot make such a statement. The only thing thing that might count as a qualification for this is a quantum vacuum flucatuation where energy does pop into existence out of a vacuum,alough it must vanish back into the vacuum rather quickly. We have not detected any cretor assoiated with this so your conclusion is further undermined. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Coreece 190 #793 September 3, 2007 QuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect.Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Coreece 190 #794 September 3, 2007 QuoteMany young scientists want to study biology now more than ever (and physcis is declinig in populairty) for a few reasons 1) there are lots more jobs in bio tech these days and 2) biology is an area of science thats making lots of exciting progress whereas physics is not. This is very discouraging, yet proves my point.Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites JackC 0 #795 September 3, 2007 QuoteQuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. From a creationist, yeah, that's pretty much all we would expect. Here's a game for you to play. Take a string of 100 ramdom letters. Next change 1 letter at random. Keep doing that and every time you see a recognisable word fragment in the string, keep that fragment and change one of the other letters. How many iterations does it take for you to get a usable word somewhere in that string? Does iteration #1 look the same as iteration #223462345782? If you compare iterations #236 and #237, and call that change microevolution what happens if you compare iteration #245 with iteration #284571457? Is that still microevolution? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites philh 0 #796 September 3, 2007 "I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. " perhaps you can defiine what you mean by micro evolution.I understand evolution as a change in gene freuqencies over time. Now if you ar telling me there is an upper limit on this change perhaps you can tell me what that upper limit is.give me a specific number and how you arrived at it and what evidence you have to verify it. In fact if you have such data I reccomed publishing it in a peer reviewed journal. You might get a Nobel prize becuase such a discovery would be totally new to science. but you'll need some evidencce to back up your claims. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites philh 0 #797 September 3, 2007 "This is very discouraging, yet proves my point. " Whilst biology and physics are both important I would not want to try and say one is definitley more important than the other. How does one asses the relaitve value of discovering the Higgs boson to discovering a cure for Aids ? What is the relative probability of achieivng fusion power compared to being able to grow any new tissue at will? these are diffciult question to decide so I think its very unwise to say so categorially that a shift from physcis to biology is necessarily discouraging. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites JackC 0 #798 September 3, 2007 Quote Whilst biology and physics are both important I would not want to try and say one is definitley more important than the other. Phil, I would have thought the answer was self-evident. All science is either physics or stamp collecting.~ Ernest Rutherford, Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites jakee 1,257 #799 September 3, 2007 QuoteQuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. You don't need to 'give' us anything - we already have evolution. That battle was won long before you were even born. BTW, your use of 'microevolution' (a completely arbitrary distinction) in that sense shows that you have fallen prey to the fundamentalist evangelist crowd. You might be interested in finding out just how much 'micro-evolution' they are prepared to accept in order to make their own stories work. Enough, for instance, to give us every single species on the planet from the few examples that Noah was able to fit onto a wooden boat only 5k years ago. Real biologists have never dreamed of evolution working as rapidly as that!Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites maadmax 0 #800 September 3, 2007 Atheists, thanks for those who responded. Your answers have given me a little insight into your rationalizations. It appears we do have something in common. We both have a belief system, neither of which can be proven or disproven by our current state of technology, and we use the same information to support our contradictory views. Of course if you are right you will never get the chance to say I told you so. If you look at hard cold logic it is a dumb choice to bet on. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Next Page 32 of 49 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0
br0k3n 0 #787 September 3, 2007 Quote How do you discern right from wrong, good from evil ( if they exist for you)? So let me ask you this, do you have an overwhelming urge to rape and pillage, but you don’t because you believe some sky god is watching over you??? Quote Why should anyone continue living? Because life is for living, not existing… unfortunately for far to many people (those stuck in religious doctrine) life is about existing, because they are expecting a glorious afterlife, and sacrifice their life for this belief. Beside do you require a reason to live? Quote Does an individuals existence mean anything? Probably not, I think we would be very ignorant to believe otherwise. Quote How did this complex universe come into being Well there are several theories about this topic, One of the most widely accepted theories of how the universe began, is the Big Bang Theory , which states that our universe began with a giant explosion. There are three pieces of evidence supporting the theory. 1. As far as we can tell, the universe is still expanding today. 2. The abundance of chemicals that correctly account for the hot dense stage that followed the Big Bang. 3. The existence of heat radiation that is the suspected "afterglow" of the Big Bang. This piece (point 3) last evidence so conclusively confirmed the theory of the universe's beginning that Stephen Hawking said, "It is the discovery of the century, if not of all time." Now there are other theories like the theory of creation, however so far to date it is a theory without 1 single piece of evidence to support it… I guess that is enough for starters.....----------------------------------------------------------- --+ There are 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.. --+ Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Erroll 49 #788 September 3, 2007 Quote Quote Quote .....book that is full of incontinences,..... A tad harsh, don't you think? No. I guess you didn't get it. That's ok. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Hausse 0 #789 September 3, 2007 Haven't read the thread so don't yell at me if someone already said the same: I believe that mankind created god (yes I'm athesit) out of the simple reason that they were not able to accept (out of what ever various reason) that the ARE just a piece of dust in the universe, the the are NOT important and that there might be times were NOBODY loves them. Simple and straight forward. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 2,402 #790 September 3, 2007 > who decided what an orgasm should feel like to allow us to procreate? We did, in a way. People who experience orgasm as pain don't procreate, and are now all dead (and more importantly didn't have many, if any, kids.) So the people who are left are the people who liked what an orgasm felt like. >Who decides what hurts? Again, we do. If someone decides that cutting their fingers off feels good, then they tend to not reproduce, and the tendency to cut one's fingers off goes away. Likewise, if you prefer your fingers intact, and experience pain when you injure them, you will rapidly learn to NOT injure them. This helps you survive so you can pass on those pain genes. >Are we more apt to believe that another lifeform exsists somewhere in >this vast universe, and not believe that a creation has a creator? ?? As I am sure you are aware, there are far more lifeforms on the earth than mankind! I don't see how finding life on Europa would be any more or less proof of God's existence than finding bacteria in volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean. >Without us, what is the point? The same as the "point" was before you were born. The "point" is what we make it to be. >Was the universe's intention to evolve into a state that could ackowledge itself? No more so than a tank of gasoline has an "intention" to explode. It can happen, but that doesn't mean the gas is sitting there plotting against you. > Our search to understand by our own intellect is futile and will only >result in more questions. And more answers, which is why we have rovers running around on Mars, airplanes, nylon etc. >When we have proven ourselves wrong we say "one step closer to the >truth" but it is one step closer on an infinite thoroughfare. Definitely true! But its infinite extent does not negate the value of having some knowledge. I mean, you can have infinite amounts of money - but does that mean that ten cents is the same as ten million dollars? Most of us would prefer one over the other, even if it's just another small step in an infinite scale of monetary wealth. >And this belief is in Chirst who has demonstrated the character of God >in his love and wrath, so that we may know God for who he is and not >waht we want him to be. I think the idea that we fully understand everything behind the concept of God is as conceited as thinking we understand everything in the natural world. We have spent centuries with the best minds in the world studying observable phenomena, and now we have a smattering of understanding as to how the world works. We have spent centuries with some very bright people doing the same thing with God - but without anything other than historical records to study. No observable phenomena. No checking to see if we're right. No collaboration from other researchers in other religion. So believe in God any way you choose to do so. But rest assured that your view of God is just one of thousands in the world today, and the odds of you being 100% right and all those thousands of others being wrong is - well, small. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #791 September 3, 2007 Human evolution is a fact and if you think you can overturn it, feel free to show us the evidence. As far as setting a bunch of biologists on the antimatter task, not sure why that would be helpful. Unless you think we should stop biology and make everyone in science study physics only? Many young scientists want to study biology now more than ever (and physcis is declinig in populairty) for a few reasons 1) there are lots more jobs in bio tech these days and 2) biology is an area of science thats making lots of exciting progress whereas physics is not. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #792 September 3, 2007 "Dude...sorry, I'm tired, but I think the probability is 100% since we exsist. However, I would say that the probability of a creation having a creator is higher than anything you can assert otherwise...Does that make sense? " The probability im referring to is the probability of the fundamental constants of nature having the values they have. People that bring up the fine tuning argument for the existence of god assert that the values are highly unlikely to give rise to us and so there must be a god chosing them. When you say the probabilities are 100% that is correct but not really answering the question. My answer to the question is that since we dont know the underlying process that drives these values we are not in a position to say thhey are either likely or unlikely. To give an analogy we can say the chances of pulling an ace of spades out of a deck of cards is 1/52 if we know we have a fair deck of cards properly shuffled. If we dont know whats in the deck (it could be 52 ace of spade for all we know) we cannot say one outcome is likely or not. Obviously after the event the probability of that event is 100% but thats not really th point. "However, I would say that the probability of a creation having a creator is higher than anything you can assert otherwise" before one can state this one would have to observe many creation events and observe a creator for each of them. As far as Im aware there is almost nothing we have ever observed which creates matter or energy therefore one cannot make such a statement. The only thing thing that might count as a qualification for this is a quantum vacuum flucatuation where energy does pop into existence out of a vacuum,alough it must vanish back into the vacuum rather quickly. We have not detected any cretor assoiated with this so your conclusion is further undermined. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coreece 190 #793 September 3, 2007 QuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect.Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Coreece 190 #794 September 3, 2007 QuoteMany young scientists want to study biology now more than ever (and physcis is declinig in populairty) for a few reasons 1) there are lots more jobs in bio tech these days and 2) biology is an area of science thats making lots of exciting progress whereas physics is not. This is very discouraging, yet proves my point.Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JackC 0 #795 September 3, 2007 QuoteQuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. From a creationist, yeah, that's pretty much all we would expect. Here's a game for you to play. Take a string of 100 ramdom letters. Next change 1 letter at random. Keep doing that and every time you see a recognisable word fragment in the string, keep that fragment and change one of the other letters. How many iterations does it take for you to get a usable word somewhere in that string? Does iteration #1 look the same as iteration #223462345782? If you compare iterations #236 and #237, and call that change microevolution what happens if you compare iteration #245 with iteration #284571457? Is that still microevolution? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #796 September 3, 2007 "I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. " perhaps you can defiine what you mean by micro evolution.I understand evolution as a change in gene freuqencies over time. Now if you ar telling me there is an upper limit on this change perhaps you can tell me what that upper limit is.give me a specific number and how you arrived at it and what evidence you have to verify it. In fact if you have such data I reccomed publishing it in a peer reviewed journal. You might get a Nobel prize becuase such a discovery would be totally new to science. but you'll need some evidencce to back up your claims. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
philh 0 #797 September 3, 2007 "This is very discouraging, yet proves my point. " Whilst biology and physics are both important I would not want to try and say one is definitley more important than the other. How does one asses the relaitve value of discovering the Higgs boson to discovering a cure for Aids ? What is the relative probability of achieivng fusion power compared to being able to grow any new tissue at will? these are diffciult question to decide so I think its very unwise to say so categorially that a shift from physcis to biology is necessarily discouraging. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JackC 0 #798 September 3, 2007 Quote Whilst biology and physics are both important I would not want to try and say one is definitley more important than the other. Phil, I would have thought the answer was self-evident. All science is either physics or stamp collecting.~ Ernest Rutherford, Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jakee 1,257 #799 September 3, 2007 QuoteQuoteHuman evolution is a fact I'll give you micro evolution...but that's all...and you very well know that's all you can expect. You don't need to 'give' us anything - we already have evolution. That battle was won long before you were even born. BTW, your use of 'microevolution' (a completely arbitrary distinction) in that sense shows that you have fallen prey to the fundamentalist evangelist crowd. You might be interested in finding out just how much 'micro-evolution' they are prepared to accept in order to make their own stories work. Enough, for instance, to give us every single species on the planet from the few examples that Noah was able to fit onto a wooden boat only 5k years ago. Real biologists have never dreamed of evolution working as rapidly as that!Do you want to have an ideagasm? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
maadmax 0 #800 September 3, 2007 Atheists, thanks for those who responded. Your answers have given me a little insight into your rationalizations. It appears we do have something in common. We both have a belief system, neither of which can be proven or disproven by our current state of technology, and we use the same information to support our contradictory views. Of course if you are right you will never get the chance to say I told you so. If you look at hard cold logic it is a dumb choice to bet on. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
