JackC 0
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jakee 1,259
QuoteI have found the literature produced by genetic anthropologists, mapping the and migration of Homosapien sapiens, very interesting. According to them, tracing the mitochondrial DNA passed by mothers and the Y chromosomal DNA passed by fathers, everyone alive today has descended from one breeding pair of our Homosapien sapien ancestors.
Correct in some respects, but misleading in others.
If you go far enough back you will find people who are common ancestors of everyone alive today. However this is not in any way a suggestion that there is one pair of human ancestors that are the sole ancestors of humanity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor
QuoteAs far as the original sin, I have understood the story to be a description of how sin is committed. The initial act is self-deification, from there , the individual grants themselves the rights and privileges of a supreme being, masters of their created reality. In this state they are justified to do or take what ever they want with a clear conscience. These individuals usually act covertly since exposure of their deeds can carry undesirable consequences.
"These individuals"? The whole point of original sin is that it taints everybody.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
There is a branch of physics called "soild state physics" that deals with, you guessed it, solids. The sort of solids that Rutherford discovered actually had gaps in them. Physicists use the word solid because that's a pretty good description of what it is, despite Rutherford's "gaps". In strict physics terms, the phrase "soild state" actually refers to anything that isn't a gas or a plasma but that will just confuse the issue so forget I mentioned it.
On an atomic scale, solids do have gaps in them but they are "quantum gaps". They are not macroscopic gaps or even what most people would consider to be a gap. You cannot drive you car through a "quantum gap" nor can you poke your finger through one. "Quantum gaps" only allow quantum particles to pass through. Rutherford didn't use golf balls in his experiment, he used alpha particles. Alpha particles are quantum particles, not golf balls. They behave like alpha particles, they do not behave like golf balls. You can diffract alpha particle, you cannot diffract golf balls. Or cats (I could tell you why but it's a bad joke and a long story)
If we take your definition of solid, not only will physicists have to work hard to decypher what you're talking about but in fact there can be no earth bound solids. You'd have to travel to the nearest neutron star to find anything that you would even recognise as being "a bit firm".
If you want to carry on with your definition, go right ahead but don't expect people to understand you.
That's not the energy I was refering to which is the exact problem with using the same word for mystic energy* as you do for scientific energy (mystic energy* will henceforth be denoted by an asterisk).
To quote you "The duality concept in religion, most often of the masculine and feminine energies*, ... Taoism refers to it as yin and yang."
Note the asterisk. This is the type of energy* that is not energy but is a completely different concept.
Mass is not energy, momentum is not energy, velocity is not energy, coal is not energy, rock is not energy and energy* is not energy. All of those things (except energy*) may possess energy or have a mathematical relationship to energy but they are not energy.
No, the sun does have energy. It does not have energy*, or if it does then I don't know anything about it.
It's not these trivial similarities that are being denied. In fact I am asserting that these similarities are just that. Trivial. The thing I'm denying, is that these similarities are non-trivial as you originally tried to suggest. But I'm glad we have now agreed that any similarity between concepts in hard science and concepts in eastern religion are trivial.
Synonyms for trivial include:
commonplace, diminutive, evanescent, everyday, flimsy, frivolous, immaterial, inappreciable, incidental, inconsequential, inconsiderable, insignificant, irrelevant, little, meager, mean, meaningless, microscopic, minor, minute, momentary, negligible, nonessential, nugatory, paltry, petty, piddling, puny, rinky-dink, scanty, skin-deep, slight, small, small-town, superficial, trifling, trite, two-bit, unimportant, valueless, vanishing, wee, worthless
I'm glad we cleared that up.
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