<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->1) It used to be that primordial soup theory was prevalent - Oparin and Miller's little test-tube lightning experiment proved that you could build amino acids from what they conjectured were the elements most prevalent in the atmosphere or dissolved in the ocean at the time.
2) Recently, fossil evidence from the oldest known bacteria has shown that if life did spring up from chemicals, it needed to have done so fairly quickly.
3) Geologists can't find any evidence of a chemical composition of the pre-life Earth matching that Oparin/Miller used as a premise.
4) Geological/chemical evidence points to a hostile environment for which amino acids would form.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Amino acids form on meteorites. Eh?
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->When Stanley Miller conducted his experiment simulating the production of amino acids on the early earth, he presupposed that the earth's atmosphere was composed of a mixture of what chemists call reducing gases such as methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). He also assumed that the earth's atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen. Miller derived his assumptions about these conditions from Oparin's 1936 book. In the years following Miller's experiment, however, new geochemical evidence made it clear that the assumptions that Oparin and Miller had made about the early atmosphere could not be justified. Instead, evidence strongly suggested that neutral gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor, not methane, ammonia and hydrogen, predominated in the early atmosphere. Moreover, a number of geochemical studies showed that significant amounts of free oxygen were also present even before the advent of plant life, probably as the result of volcanic outgassing and the photodissociation of water vapor.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I like how it says "a number of geochemical studies" without actually citing any. I could just as easily come up with a number of studies pointing to the opposite.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->5) the simplest extant cells are much more complex than can be described by mere accidental amino-acid formation/replication. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Well DUH. I'm assuming that you know what "extant" means: currently or actually existing. modern cells have had millennia to come to their present forms; even the simplest of those existing today would be too complex to come about by chance. Their complexity has only come by evolution from simpler forms.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Assume for the moment that the reducing gases used by Stanley Miller do actually simulate the conditions on the early earth. Would his experimental results, then, support chemical evolution? Not necessarily. Miller-type simulation experiments have invariably produced non-biological substances in addition to biological building blocks such as amino acids and nucleic acid bases. Without human intervention, these other substances will react readily with biologically relevant building blocks to form a biologically irrelevant compound, a chemically insoluble sludge. To prevent this from happening and to move the simulation of chemical evolution along a biologically promising trajectory, experimenters have often removed those chemicals that degrade or transform amino acids into non-biologically relevant compounds. They must also artificially manipulate the initial conditions in their experiments. Rather than using both short and long-wavelength ultraviolet light which would be present in any realistic atmosphere, they use only short-wavelength UV. Why? The presence of the long-wavelength UV light quickly degrades amino acids. Thus, investigators have routinely manipulated chemical conditions both before and after performing "simulation" experiments in order to protect their experiments from destructive naturally occurring processes. These manipulations constitute what chemist Michael Polanyi called a "profoundly informative intervention."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> My Honors Chemistry professor (Ph.D, D. Sc. in Chemistry from Oxford) has as his personal pet research project the same thing, but taken from the opposite view. The "sludge" is a remarkably efficient way to concerntrate organic compounds precisely so they <b>do</b> react faster.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Various methods of calculating probabilities have been offered by Morowitz, Hoyle, Cairns-Smith, Prigogine, Yockey and more recently, Robert Sauer. For the sake of argument, these calculations have generally assumed extremely favorable prebiotic conditions (whether realistic or not) and theoretically maximal reaction rates among the constituent monomers (i.e. the constituent parts of the proteins, DNA and RNA). Such calculations have invariably shown that the probability of obtaining functionally sequenced biomacromolecules at random is, in Prigogine's words, "vanishingly small . . .even on the scale of . . .billions of years." As Cairns-Smith wrote in 1971: "Blind chance...is very limited. Low-levels of cooperation he [blind chance] can produce exceedingly easily (the equivalent of letters and small words), but he becomes very quickly incompetent as the amount of organization increases. Very soon indeed long waiting periods and massive material resources become irrelevant." Consider the probabilistic hurdles that must be overcome to construct even one short protein molecule of about one hundred amino acids in length. (A typical protein consists of about 300 amino acids, and some are very much longer).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Again, you make a misguided quotation. <b>Things don't spontaneously appear in their present forms!</b> Complexity arises from building off of a simple precursor. Ribozymes (catalytic RNA sequences) exist which are of only ~40 nucleotides in length. I have no doubt that there are shorter ones, because the phenomenon of enzymes built entirely of RNA is a relatively new discovery.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First, all amino acids must form a chemical bond known as a peptide bond so as to join with other amino acids in the protein chain. Yet in nature many other types of chemical bonds are possible between amino acids; in fact, peptide and non-peptide bonds occur with roughly equal probability. Thus, at any given site along a growing amino acid chain the probability of having a peptide bond is roughly 1/2. The probability of attaining four peptide bonds is: (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2)=1/16 or (1/2)4. The probability of building a chain of 100 amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide linkages is (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. Second, in nature every amino acid has a distinct mirror image of itself, one left-handed version or L-form and one right-handed version or D-form. These mirror-image forms are called optical isomers. Functioning proteins tolerate only left-handed amino acids, yet the right-handed and left-handed isomers occurs in nature with roughly equal frequency. Taking this into consideration compounds the improbability of attaining a biologically functioning protein. The probability of attaining at random only L-amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain 100 amino acids long is again (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. The probability of building a 100 amino acid length chain at random in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L-form would be (1/4)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1060 (zero for all practical purposes given the time available on the early earth). Functioning proteins have a third independent requirement, the most important of all; their amino acids must link up in a specific sequential arrangement just the letters in a meaningful sentence must. In some cases, even changing one amino acid at a given site can result in a loss of protein function.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Studies of extraterrestrial amino acids (the Murchison meteorite in particular) have shown a slight excess of the L-form of amino acids in their sample groups. Perhaps our bodies' preference for this particular optical isomer isn't just due to chance. The fact that amino chains were constantly linking and unlinking would have meant that countless numbers of combinations were tried out before the "right" one was hit upon. And there are cases where changing one amino acid for another would lead to loss of protein function; there are more cases where they don't. Substitute a polar/nonpolar amino acid for another one of the same polarity and relative size, and generally nothing happens. In addition (courtesy of my Organic Chemistry textbook) the frequency of peptide bonding is much higher than that; as a zwitterion (with both positive and negative charges), the amino acids line up readily.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->then, they go on to discuss whether proteins could have assembled themselves due to electronegativity or polarity based on primary structure...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Frankly, I don't know enough about this to say anything definitive.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->During the last forty years, molecular biology has revealed a complexity and intricacy of design that exceeds anything that was imaginable during the late-nineteenth century. We now know that organisms display any number of distinctive features of intelligently engineered high-tech systems: information storage and transfer capability; functioning codes; sorting and delivery systems; regulatory and feed-back loops; signal transduction circuitry; and everywhere, complex, mutually-interdependent networks of parts. Indeed, the complexity of the biomacromolecules discussed in this essay does not begin to exhaust the full complexity of living systems. As even the staunch materialist Richard Dawkins has allowed, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Yet the materialistic science we have inherited from the late-nineteenth century, with its exclusive conceptual reliance on matter and energy, could neither envision nor can it now account for the biology of the information age. As Werner Gitt has said, throughout the natural sciences "energy and matter are considered to be basic, universal quantities. But the concept of information has become just as fundamental and far reaching. . . information has rightly become known as the third fundamental quantity." Or as Norbert Weiner put it, "Information is information, neither energy nor matter. No materialism that fails to take account of this can survive the present day." The molecular biology of the cell raises the possibility that "no materialism" will survive the revolution beginning to take root in science. While established journals and institutions continue to propagate the orthodoxies of a generation ago, many scientists, philosophers of science and mathematicians have begun to challenge these views and to formulate alternative approaches. Recent work in probability theory has defined information more precisely and articulated clear mathematical criteria for the identification of intelligently designed systems, thus providing a theoretical framework for a new science based upon the reality of design. A new book on the "irreducible complexity" of biochemical systems explains why gradual undirected evolution cannot produce such systems, and suggests intelligent design as the most viable scientific alternative. A new peer-reviewed journal, Origins & Design, opens this spring with a seminal article by a former chemical evolutionist turned design-advocate. Other work promises to reshape our conception, not only of living things but of our science and ourselves. If the simplest life owes its origin to an intelligent Creator, then perhaps man is not the "cosmic orphan" that twentieth century scientific materialism has taught. Perhaps then, during the twenty first century, the traditional moral and spiritual foundations of the West will find support from the very sciences that once seemed to undermine them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> I've gone over this before.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 07:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 07:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-camO.o+Sep 24 2004, 07:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (camO.o @ Sep 24 2004, 07:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I just deleted a post I've spent the last hour and a half on and am now officially resigning from this thread. There's no point in arguing my side when the entire opposition refutes it time and time again with obstinate, scientifically inconclusive, homebred theories concerning why there can be no such thing as evolution.
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> lmao man, "homebred theory" ? this is from some pretty respectable origins scientists, and they're not creationists, if that's what you mean. please, refute my evidence if you can. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Wow this thread has gone a long way from the original topic, oh well, I can't say I hate a good theological discussion <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyways, I was just going to pipe in here and state that evolution is sientificly proven fact. Not to say that there is any evidence at all that there has been any evolution in the past several billion years what so ever, just to say that the fact that species adapt geneticly via natural selection, is very much just that, fact. I don't really understand how the world formed with absolutly no fossile evidence for evolution, but it the is scientificly documented studies of speciation occuring, so evolution can definantely happen.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 09:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 09:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> did you guys even read the article? There's a huge list of citations at the end. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> This is important. As a reader of scientific papers, <i>a huge list of citations means nothing</i>
That said, there is no citation for the particular point which I brought up. Hence my question.
This thread offically sucks. Everyone needs to stop trying to change everyone elses views. The science folks can't disprove there being a god and the religious people can't prove there is. Stop trying, by the way do any of you even remember what this thread was about? Thats right, a preacher going to a metallica concert. Wow.
<!--QuoteBegin-TheCheeseStandsAlone+Sep 24 2004, 10:11 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TheCheeseStandsAlone @ Sep 24 2004, 10:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> This thread offically sucks. Everyone needs to stop trying to change everyone elses views. The science folks can't disprove there being a god and the religious people can't prove there is. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Everybody realizes this by now. Now its just a contest to see who can get the last word.
AllUrHiveRblong2usBy Your Powers Combined...Join Date: 2002-12-20Member: 11244Members
edited September 2004
<!--QuoteBegin-SkulkBait+Sep 24 2004, 10:58 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (SkulkBait @ Sep 24 2004, 10:58 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-TheCheeseStandsAlone+Sep 24 2004, 10:11 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (TheCheeseStandsAlone @ Sep 24 2004, 10:11 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> This thread offically sucks. Everyone needs to stop trying to change everyone elses views. The science folks can't disprove there being a god and the religious people can't prove there is. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Everybody realizes this by now. Now its just a contest to see who can get the last word. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Which can only be won by Talesin, or maybe Nem, so we might as well just stop.
Wow.....reading this thread is amazing....I was not aware that half of the people here have PhDs in molecular biology, geology, chemistry, physics, and theology all at the same time! Take a step back, one side has scientists, the other has their scientists (albiet one side's scientists VASTLY outnumbers the others) but when even the scientific community is debating the issue (which it really isn't, BTW. From all I can tell creation scientists are on about the same level as UFO people in credability with the scientific community) how can we debate the issue ourselves? Are we trying to say we are as smart and as educated as the scientists we are trying to disprove? How pompous!
Frankly I look at it in one of 2 ways 1) Simply agree with the majority. I don't think there is much doubt in anyone's mind that the majority of individuals who are learned in the feilds pertinant to the orogin of life would accept some variant of evolution, creation scientists are very much in the minority. So, by the logic of democracy, the side that has more smart people on it wins. Score 1 for evulotion. 2) Simply use Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is the correct one. The logic goes a little something like this: Which of these 2 statements is simpler? How did life origionate? I don't know, I wasn't there. How did life origionate? God. How did God Origionate? I don't know, I wasn't there. The choice by this method is simple. We cannot be sure how life origionated, but we can rest assured that God was probably not involved.
<!--QuoteBegin-AllUrHiveRBelong2Us+Sep 24 2004, 11:46 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (AllUrHiveRBelong2Us @ Sep 24 2004, 11:46 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Wow.....reading this thread is amazing....I was not aware that half of the people here have PhDs in molecular biology, geology, chemistry, physics, and theology all at the same time! Take a step back, one side has scientists, the other has their scientists (albiet one side's scientists VASTLY outnumbers the others) <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The percentage of christians who are scientists compared to the total population of christians is acctually pretty much equal (I have heard higher in fact) than the percentage of athiest/agnostic scientists in comparision to thier total population. Considering that are total population is higher than thiers, the acctual numbers of christian scientist is probably greater (but I wouldn't say its a VAST outnumbering). That being said, there is just as much argument on many of these issues within the christian scientific community as there is outside of it, so the athiests scientist don't exactly find them self facing a unified front from us. Realisticly, science is the search for material truth, so most scientists don't focus on proving or disproving theological issues, most are just trying to "make actual advances in the field of science".
<span style='font-size:5pt;line-height:100%'>Skeleton of kadavra FTW</span>
Religion has served the purpose of social control for centuries on end... hopefully this outdated practice of letting organised religion dictate peoples lives will end soon, as there are superior forms of social control in Western countries. As maddox said: "Believe what you want to believe and shut up about it"!
The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better.
<!--QuoteBegin-amarc+Sep 25 2004, 10:44 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (amarc @ Sep 25 2004, 10:44 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Religion has served the purpose of social control for centuries on end... hopefully this outdated practice of letting organised religion dictate peoples lives will end soon, as there are superior forms of social control in Western countries. As maddox said: "Believe what you want to believe and shut up about it"!
The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yeah cant wait for more secular countries - look how awesome they are:
Soviet Russia, Cambodia, China etc - all warm and cuddly
But yes, this thread does officially suck - switfy, I sent you a pm.
EDIT
Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Marine01+Sep 25 2004, 11:00 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Marine01 @ Sep 25 2004, 11:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Yeah cant wait for more secular countries - look how awesome they are:
Soviet Russia, Cambodia, China etc - all warm and cuddly. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> What are you jabbering about? The implied message was that hopefully more Western states will become secular, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I didn't express myself properly. A Western secular state is <i>just a little</i> different to an authoritarian Communist dictatorship - for example, France. Do people make moronic allusions to make me laugh? It's a disturbing trend across these forums recently.
I should’ve posted this six pages back, but decided not to for several reasons. It displays my point though.
Matthew, what I think everyone here who doesn't agree with your belief is trying to say, is that you can't prove something to be false if you can't prove your belief to be true. And seeing how it is a belief, the only way you can actually affirm to us your faith is by giving direct evidence of the Almighty's existence. Merely saying that something cannot come from nothing is circular reasoning, for you cannot affirm something to be true and predicate that your postulates are therefore true based on the presumption of the before without again, direct and factual evidence. Likewise, it is the same if it were conversely so and also in the belief that no God exists. Everything is bounded to either coherence or correspondence and whatnot per se.
By taking the two major “premises” running around here…
"Something cannot come from nothing." Something, the minor "premise," therefore something cannot come from nothing, the conclusion.
"God cannot come from something." God, the minor "premise," therefore God cannot come from something, the conclusion."
Inversely, God can come from nothing; both of them are postulates or presumptions; perhaps the "premises" should be called otherwise.
Looking from the efficient cause of all things is the best way to start instead of arguing for e.g. whether the bible is the word of God… If you can first prove that God <u>indeed</u> exists then you at least have one stone in the river allowing your foot to step on another.
These discussions never go anywhere and are simply methods to express one's opinion on a concept that can never be understood. If I can say one thing about God it would be that he is probably a feel and not a think.
People like to secretly hope that perhaps the grass is greener on the other side. The subject of death can be of two sides, and that is you either become the shadows and dust or are transcended into a blissful afterlife. It is the inflated ego that prevents us from understanding children's truths and the reality that this world has gone awry that prevents alot of us from embracing concepts which require one to be alltruistic and all-in-all, metaphorically speaking, lacking in skepticism. It is a faith that realistically requires stubborness to be faithful, and although many contain alot, if built like a house of cards, it is also meant to be broken.
<!--QuoteBegin-amarc+Sep 25 2004, 12:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (amarc @ Sep 25 2004, 12:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> A Western secular state is <i>just a little</i> different to an authoritarian Communist dictatorship - for example, France. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> How dare you say I live in an authoritarian Communist dictatorship <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> j/k
Seriously , I doubt religious countries such as Iran , Saudi Arabia , Isra?l , and the USA contribute much to world peace...
<!--QuoteBegin-amarc+Sep 25 2004, 11:22 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (amarc @ Sep 25 2004, 11:22 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What are you jabbering about? The implied message was that hopefully more Western states will become secular, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I didn't express myself properly. A Western secular state is <i>just a little</i> different to an authoritarian Communist dictatorship - for example, France. Do people make moronic allusions to make me laugh? It's a disturbing trend across these forums recently. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were talking about secularity as though it was the harbringer of peace and happiness, I was pointing out that to date, it hasnt been. I listed the only examples of completely secular states, neglecting to mention North Korea, but hey. Why should we believe that pure secularity = a good thing? Oh oh oh, you say, but I mean in a Western state - all the Western states I know have their backgrounds and beginnings in Christianity, it never occured to you that this might be more than a coincidence? Probably not, you were too busy slanging people (another disturbing trend on this board) to be that perceptive.
Stak, name a few countries that contribute to world peace. How exactly do you contribute - by doing nothing? Then the Swiss take the cheese. By not having a military? Or do you do it the French way, by propping up Middle Eastern dictatorships and selling them nuclear reactors but not actually doing any fighting? Which is it?
<!--QuoteBegin-kida+Sep 25 2004, 06:43 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kida @ Sep 25 2004, 06:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I should’ve posted this six pages back, but decided not to for several reasons. It displays my point though.
Matthew, what I think everyone here who doesn't agree with your belief is trying to say, is that you can't prove something to be false if you can't prove your belief to be true. And seeing how it is a belief, the only way you can actually affirm to us your faith is by giving direct evidence of the Almighty's existence. Merely saying that something cannot come from nothing is circular reasoning, for you cannot affirm something to be true and predicate that your postulates are therefore true based on the presumption of the before without again, direct and factual evidence. Likewise, it is the same if it were conversely so and also in the belief that no God exists. Everything is bounded to either coherence or correspondence and whatnot per se.
By taking the two major “premises” running around here…
"Something cannot come from nothing." Something, the minor "premise," therefore something cannot come from nothing, the conclusion.
"God cannot come from something." God, the minor "premise," therefore God cannot come from something, the conclusion."
Inversely, God can come from nothing; both of them are postulates or presumptions; perhaps the "premises" should be called otherwise.
Looking from the efficient cause of all things is the best way to start instead of arguing for e.g. whether the bible is the word of God… If you can first prove that God <u>indeed</u> exists then you at least have one stone in the river allowing your foot to step on another.
These discussions never go anywhere and are simply methods to express one's opinion on a concept that can never be understood. If I can say one thing about God it would be that he is probably a feel and not a think.
People like to secretly hope that perhaps the grass is greener on the other side. The subject of death can be of two sides, and that is you either become the shadows and dust or are transcended into a blissful afterlife. It is the inflated ego that prevents us from understanding children's truths and the reality that this world has gone awry that prevents alot of us from embracing concepts which require one to be alltruistic and all-in-all, metaphorically speaking, lacking in skepticism. It is a faith that realistically requires stubborness to be faithful, and although many contain alot, if built like a house of cards, it is also meant to be broken. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Yoah hold on there kid.... I am not trying to convert anyone, do we not have a right to defend our religion, this topic had started off religous (in an odd sense, metallica compared to the Bible.... HA), but some people felt the need to contribute and start dissin Christianity and Jesus and this is where most of us jumped in, but then somehow it morphed into a religious debate..... I seriously don't think many expect to persuade us either by your "GOD doesn't exist, but we have no proof that he doesn't so just accept it and convert to atheism" (not actual quotes, but did it that way as if an atheist had said it and I realize no one has said this , but neither are we doing the reverse). Why is it the moment we defend our faith we are immediatly accused of trying to convert.... Talk about stereotyping. Sure Im religious, sure it'd be awesome if you all became Catholics outa the blue. Likewise I'm sure you'd all be happy if we were atheists.........., but the point is I could care less, I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind here today, My point is though just have decent morals OK? Or is that too hard to ask? The Bible teaches morals and ethics not science like some would love to think )GOD creating the wourld is based on faith it doesnt say scientifically how it was done).......... we don't go to church to learn about chemistry thank you very much..... Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs. We all have free wills and GOD made it that way so you can do what ever you please, just dont run around half-cocked trying to claim I'm trying to "affirm" my faith to you, I don't have to prove to you anything because I know most of it will go in one ear and out the other. I have an open mind and there's a reason I am indeed Catholic, there are also reasons that I am politically an Anarchist, but I think your assuming we have closed minds and closing your own just becasue we feel we should defend our faith when it is attacked, which is in my opinion unreasonable to assume, do you comprehend kid?
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 25 2004, 11:49 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 25 2004, 11:49 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Marine01+Sep 25 2004, 06:00 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Marine01 @ Sep 25 2004, 06:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> mb, mb. just can't break through <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Maybe if you could come up with something that wasn't the product of ten minutes of blabbering and inconclusive research, put into a form that makes it appear professional and credible, when in fact, it is not.
First result in google search. Maybe if you considered some of the facts on that page, instead of running to "evolutionsuxors.com," this debate would make a lot more sense.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You just put personal beliefs, and discussion in the same sentence. Therein lies the problem, faith and debate has as little to do with each other as apples and oranges. You keep accusing atheists of being flaming ignorant, when you're standing in the same fire. Religion teaches morals, but it also taught witch prosecution, the Spanish inquisition, the crusades, islamic radicalism, etc. etc.
And no, he doesn't comprehend, because it looks like you made that post with a blood alcohol level of 0.5.
I think this discussion is already beyond the point of comparing arguments, and the only conclusion we've reached is that we'll never reach one. Sayonara.
<!--QuoteBegin-camO.o+Sep 25 2004, 12:01 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (camO.o @ Sep 25 2004, 12:01 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 25 2004, 11:49 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 25 2004, 11:49 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Marine01+Sep 25 2004, 06:00 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Marine01 @ Sep 25 2004, 06:00 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> mb, mb. just can't break through <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Maybe if you could come up with something that wasn't the product of ten minutes of blabbering and inconclusive research, put into a form that makes it appear professional and credible, when in fact, it is not.
First result in google search. Maybe if you considered some of the facts on that page, instead of running to "evolutionsuxors.com," this debate would make a lot more sense.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You just put personal beliefs, and discussion in the same sentence. Therein lies the problem, faith and debate has as little to do with each other as apples and oranges. You keep accusing atheists of being flaming ignorant, when you're standing in the same fire. Religion teaches morals, but it also taught witch prosecution, the Spanish inquisition, the crusades, islamic radicalism, etc. etc.
And no, he doesn't comprehend, because it looks like you made that post with a blood alcohol level of 0.5.
I think this discussion is already beyond the point of comparing arguments, and the only conclusion we've reached is that we'll never reach one. Sayonara. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Wow you made a post full of nonsense and called me drunk, good for you I suppose you and your atheist views sure showed me.........
This statistic originated from a book called <u>Evolution From Space</u> by Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe. It was no surprise to me, then, that both of your articles involving the improbability of life <a href='http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_origins.htm' target='_blank'>arising</a> by <a href='http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W1201.pdf' target='_blank'>chance</a> cited this very book.
I've also dug up information on "Borel's Law," and an explanation for why neither myself or anyone I knew had ever actually heard about it.
Creationists often cite the ridiculously low probability of a 1 in 10^40000 odds of life arising from non-life occuring (that's 1 in 1000000000000000000000000 plus some 39970 more '0's). This statistic first originated from the book "Evolution From Space," which speculates on the possibility of life originating from an extraterrestrial source, and the impossibility of life arising from the Earth itself. The problems with this theory are obvious - if it's already so unlikely for life to occur on the Earth, then wouldn't the odds of life occuring elsewhere in the cosmos and then somehow couriered over to the earth be even less likely? Finally, there is Borel's Law, a common mathematical citation by which creationists justify the above stated statistic.
<b>Borel's Law</b> To even need to explain Borel's <i>Law</i> in support of the theory of biogenesis is ironic. To acknowledge Borel's ideology as <i>law</i> or <i>theory</i>, as I have done, is to err in much the same way as many abiogenesis supporters have, including our amiable Wheeee. Borel's Law states nothing. It is merely an overelegant assertion of the obvious - the fact that improbable things don't happen.
Borel's Law is not constant. However, it is applicable to all things. On the other hand, it is irrelevant to all. Borel states that for each phenomenon that can occur, the chances of it occuring may be no greater than 1 in 10^x. Simply put, depending upon the scope of said phenomenon, whether it is subatomic, atomic, cosmic, planetary, or human, x will differ in size depending on a number of factors. Borel's Law is not a given, for surely, somewhere, someplace, something very unlikely to happen has happened. When playing the lottery, for example, purchasing the one millionth ticket with a probability of winning of 1:1,000,000 grants you a 100% chance of winning, does it not?
Borel was not a creationist. Nor was he a quack. He wasn't very significant. But he wasn't altogether useless. Creationists, in particular, have formed something of a cult following of Borel and his Law, abusing his theory as a means by which to prove themselves correct. In doing so, they are making the mistake of treating Borel's Law as if it were mathematically proven fact, of which it definitely is not. I could go on to state the improbability of calculating the probability of the life-from-nonlife, but Borel himself has done a better job indeed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The Problem of Life.
In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.
When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?
<b>It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.</b>
Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.
Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance.
- Emil Borel from <i>Probability and Certainty</i><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Evolution From Space</b>
outline: - life-from-nonlife theory
- Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's theory (what kind of last name is that?!) - Assumes a much higher qualification for life - NOT SPONTANEOUS - More improbable then life-from-nonlife by any and all means. - Evolution is selective, not random
<b>Conclusion</b>
/ will be updated when I finish writing it - one or two more hours perhaps.
<!--QuoteBegin-kida+Sep 25 2004, 06:43 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (kida @ Sep 25 2004, 06:43 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Looking from the efficient cause of all things is the best way to start instead of arguing for e.g. whether the bible is the word of God… If you can first prove that God <u>indeed</u> exists then you at least have one stone in the river allowing your foot to step on another. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Why should I have to prove that God exists? After all, I have yet to see someone prove to me that I need oxygen to exist, yet if I state it, no one is going to come and try to disprove it. Very few things are provable, but I do have tonnes of evidence for the existance of God, although any time I say it, it will either be disputed or overlooked because it doesn't "prove" anything. Well prove to me that I need oxygen to exist, but I bet I can dispute you using presuppositions that are not the same as yours until you are blue in the face. People don't belive or disbelive things because they are proved, people assume certian facts about the universe (for instance, I assume that you exist, I assume that things I can see and feel are real, I assume that scientists attempt to find truths) and the way they decide weather something is fact or not, is they compare the evidence to thier presuppositions and from there you decide weather evidence + assumption = validated new fact. So when we say God exists and you say "prove it" you can stuff it, because nothing in the world can be proved, so you might as well argue that you know for a fact that nothing in the world exists, just because it cannot be proved.
From now on no one is going to try to 'prove' anything. If you present evidence I am going to dispute it, and if I present evidence you are going to dispute it, and if at the end of the day, the evidence is sufficiant one way or the other to change the way someone belives dispite thier presuppositions about the universe that probably won't change no matter what, then someone goes home with a new opinion and the story ends until another set of evidence is presented. If absolutly nothing could possibly work to change you one way or another, chances are you need to reevaluate your set of presuppositions, because they are a little too narrow, and aren't allowing enough fact to get through.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Which is why human beings are pretty much no longer evolving, because natural selection is not really working in our species any more.
What you are assuming of me is not exact of the things I know to be true. What is objectively in the understanding I affirm as true, not notions based on evidence that isn't conclusive. But that doesn't mean I deny those possibilities.
The point I was trying to maintain throughout is that you can't necessarily base the presumption of God's existence on pieces of evidence which have no relevance to his actuality. It isn't narrow minded thinking, rather a way to be realistic of matters debatable as this.
Although I do believe in the existence of God, my portrayal of emphasis is one that says, "he believes who, influenced by some strong authority, thinks something to be true without having sure grounds on which to base his comprehension."
Don't deny that oxygen does not exist, after all, if you were to bag yourself over the head, how would you sustain? It is only through trial and error, or in this case, obvious fact, that we can actually prove that oxygen is necessary for our survival. Whereas God can only be deduced from his creation, and even that is not conclusive enough in this age of world to come to the final grounds of his relative existence.
Looking from this perspective, we can see that with the use of good sense through forms of thought, idea, and imagination on maintaining truth of substance, that we are able to form a proper comprehension of anything which is based on good grounds.
If we are trying to prove that God exists, it is futile because the presumption is that he either comes from nothing or does not. Using our senses we cannot afirm this presumption, which shouldn't be taken in the way we often use, but in that it isn't a veritable fact based upon an observation or incidence of direct existence.
Due to this common knowledge we predilect as scientific inquiry and the fact that faith comes from God and not intelligent inquisition of intrigue, it isn't proper to say, objectively in the understanding, that all verity is obtained through human reasoning.
This is why what I have been attempting to show is necessary for anyone, I presume, to come to the grounds that God is a feel and not a think. Therefore no amount of human reasoning in any case or form of theological treatises and scientific inquiry will in the subjective sense persuade God to allow his existence and essence to be known - to be obviously manifested before all of humanity.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is?
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> you must have been the one not paying attention, since i've taken college level bio courses. anyway, evolution is random. natural selection is not. natural selection cannot, in and of itself, produce a separate species. natural selection is merely a genetic selection of *already existing* traits. evolution creates new traits by genetic mutation - point mutations or shift mutations, or possibly intron/exon interaction.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> you must have been the one not paying attention, since i've taken college level bio courses. anyway, evolution is random. natural selection is not. natural selection cannot, in and of itself, produce a separate species. natural selection is merely a genetic selection of *already existing* traits. evolution creates new traits by genetic mutation - point mutations or shift mutations, or possibly intron/exon interaction. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You're bickering over the definition of evolution. Thinking about it twice I think acctually Camo is right here, evolution is the end result of all the evolutionary processes, one of which is natural selection (there are three more, but I can't remember them). The random factor is mutation, which is the first step to the whole process. Wheee, you are stating that evolution = mutation, I'm pretty sure that evolution is the entire end result process. The process of evolution has been stopped in humans becuase the process of natural selection has been undermined by the fact that we build environments for ourselfs that are safe for all (thus none are selected out), thus natural selection must be a prerequisite for evolution, and thus evolution must be selected.
<!--QuoteBegin-Swiftspear+Sep 25 2004, 07:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Swiftspear @ Sep 25 2004, 07:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Why should I have to prove that God exists? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ha. ha. You're not serious are you? Go ahead and have blind faith in some religion that's been forged by MAN, but I'll stick to my science with cold hard facts, at least science admits when they are wrong.
There are so many inconsistencies between numbers, historical errors, scientific impossibilities, and things that are just plain wrong in the Bible that it's absolutely ludicrous to think that it's the book of God. In the bible it says that Pi = 3. Wow my calculator is more powerful than God himself. Go figure.
Besides the concept of a God is paradoxical in many ways... I'm sure you've heard of the one with the real heavy rock, but let me propose this one: If God is concious he requires time (this follows from conciousness allows you to make a decision, if you make a decision you have changed from undecided to decided, and time is a measure of change) but if god requires time he can't be the cause of time. If god didn't cause time he's not the first cause.
<!--QuoteBegin-Nadagast+Sep 26 2004, 12:35 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Nadagast @ Sep 26 2004, 12:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Swiftspear+Sep 25 2004, 07:15 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Swiftspear @ Sep 25 2004, 07:15 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Why should I have to prove that God exists? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> ha. ha. You're not serious are you? Go ahead and have blind faith in some religion that's been forged by MAN, but I'll stick to my science with cold hard facts, at least science admits when they are wrong.
There are so many inconsistencies between numbers, historical errors, scientific impossibilities, and things that are just plain wrong in the Bible that it's absolutely ludicrous to think that it's the book of God. In the bible it says that Pi = 3. Wow my calculator is more powerful than God himself. Go figure. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> The bible is God's word through man. Where does it say Pi = 3? (Genuinely curious.)
Find me one passage where God specifically said anything inconsistent. Not a guy, but God.
Comments
2) Recently, fossil evidence from the oldest known bacteria has shown that if life did spring up from chemicals, it needed to have done so fairly quickly.
3) Geologists can't find any evidence of a chemical composition of the pre-life Earth matching that Oparin/Miller used as a premise.
4) Geological/chemical evidence points to a hostile environment for which amino acids would form.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Amino acids form on meteorites. Eh?
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->When Stanley Miller conducted his experiment simulating the production of amino acids on the early earth, he presupposed that the earth's atmosphere was composed of a mixture of what chemists call reducing gases such as methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3) and hydrogen (H2). He also assumed that the earth's atmosphere contained virtually no free oxygen. Miller derived his assumptions about these conditions from Oparin's 1936 book. In the years following Miller's experiment, however, new geochemical evidence made it clear that the assumptions that Oparin and Miller had made about the early atmosphere could not be justified. Instead, evidence strongly suggested that neutral gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor, not methane, ammonia and hydrogen, predominated in the early atmosphere. Moreover, a number of geochemical studies showed that significant amounts of free oxygen were also present even before the advent of plant life, probably as the result of volcanic outgassing and the photodissociation of water vapor.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I like how it says "a number of geochemical studies" without actually citing any. I could just as easily come up with a number of studies pointing to the opposite.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->5) the simplest extant cells are much more complex than can be described by mere accidental amino-acid formation/replication.
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well DUH. I'm assuming that you know what "extant" means: currently or actually existing. modern cells have had millennia to come to their present forms; even the simplest of those existing today would be too complex to come about by chance. Their complexity has only come by evolution from simpler forms.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Assume for the moment that the reducing gases used by Stanley Miller do actually simulate the conditions on the early earth. Would his experimental results, then, support chemical evolution? Not necessarily. Miller-type simulation experiments have invariably produced non-biological substances in addition to biological building blocks such as amino acids and nucleic acid bases. Without human intervention, these other substances will react readily with biologically relevant building blocks to form a biologically irrelevant compound, a chemically insoluble sludge. To prevent this from happening and to move the simulation of chemical evolution along a biologically promising trajectory, experimenters have often removed those chemicals that degrade or transform amino acids into non-biologically relevant compounds. They must also artificially manipulate the initial conditions in their experiments. Rather than using both short and long-wavelength ultraviolet light which would be present in any realistic atmosphere, they use only short-wavelength UV. Why? The presence of the long-wavelength UV light quickly degrades amino acids. Thus, investigators have routinely manipulated chemical conditions both before and after performing "simulation" experiments in order to protect their experiments from destructive naturally occurring processes. These manipulations constitute what chemist Michael Polanyi called a "profoundly informative intervention."<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My Honors Chemistry professor (Ph.D, D. Sc. in Chemistry from Oxford) has as his personal pet research project the same thing, but taken from the opposite view. The "sludge" is a remarkably efficient way to concerntrate organic compounds precisely so they <b>do</b> react faster.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Various methods of calculating probabilities have been offered by Morowitz, Hoyle, Cairns-Smith, Prigogine, Yockey and more recently, Robert Sauer. For the sake of argument, these calculations have generally assumed extremely favorable prebiotic conditions (whether realistic or not) and theoretically maximal reaction rates among the constituent monomers (i.e. the constituent parts of the proteins, DNA and RNA). Such calculations have invariably shown that the probability of obtaining functionally sequenced biomacromolecules at random is, in Prigogine's words, "vanishingly small . . .even on the scale of . . .billions of years." As Cairns-Smith wrote in 1971: "Blind chance...is very limited. Low-levels of cooperation he [blind chance] can produce exceedingly easily (the equivalent of letters and small words), but he becomes very quickly incompetent as the amount of organization increases. Very soon indeed long waiting periods and massive material resources become irrelevant." Consider the probabilistic hurdles that must be overcome to construct even one short protein molecule of about one hundred amino acids in length. (A typical protein consists of about 300 amino acids, and some are very much longer).<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, you make a misguided quotation. <b>Things don't spontaneously appear in their present forms!</b> Complexity arises from building off of a simple precursor. Ribozymes (catalytic RNA sequences) exist which are of only ~40 nucleotides in length. I have no doubt that there are shorter ones, because the phenomenon of enzymes built entirely of RNA is a relatively new discovery.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->First, all amino acids must form a chemical bond known as a peptide bond so as to join with other amino acids in the protein chain. Yet in nature many other types of chemical bonds are possible between amino acids; in fact, peptide and non-peptide bonds occur with roughly equal probability. Thus, at any given site along a growing amino acid chain the probability of having a peptide bond is roughly 1/2. The probability of attaining four peptide bonds is: (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2)=1/16 or (1/2)4. The probability of building a chain of 100 amino acids in which all linkages involve peptide linkages is (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. Second, in nature every amino acid has a distinct mirror image of itself, one left-handed version or L-form and one right-handed version or D-form. These mirror-image forms are called optical isomers. Functioning proteins tolerate only left-handed amino acids, yet the right-handed and left-handed isomers occurs in nature with roughly equal frequency. Taking this into consideration compounds the improbability of attaining a biologically functioning protein. The probability of attaining at random only L-amino acids in a hypothetical peptide chain 100 amino acids long is again (1/2)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1030. The probability of building a 100 amino acid length chain at random in which all bonds are peptide bonds and all amino acids are L-form would be (1/4)100 or roughly 1 chance in 1060 (zero for all practical purposes given the time available on the early earth). Functioning proteins have a third independent requirement, the most important of all; their amino acids must link up in a specific sequential arrangement just the letters in a meaningful sentence must. In some cases, even changing one amino acid at a given site can result in a loss of protein function.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Studies of extraterrestrial amino acids (the Murchison meteorite in particular) have shown a slight excess of the L-form of amino acids in their sample groups. Perhaps our bodies' preference for this particular optical isomer isn't just due to chance.
The fact that amino chains were constantly linking and unlinking would have meant that countless numbers of combinations were tried out before the "right" one was hit upon. And there are cases where changing one amino acid for another would lead to loss of protein function; there are more cases where they don't. Substitute a polar/nonpolar amino acid for another one of the same polarity and relative size, and generally nothing happens. In addition (courtesy of my Organic Chemistry textbook) the frequency of peptide bonding is much higher than that; as a zwitterion (with both positive and negative charges), the amino acids line up readily.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->then, they go on to discuss whether proteins could have assembled themselves due to electronegativity or polarity based on primary structure...<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Frankly, I don't know enough about this to say anything definitive.
<!--QuoteBegin-Wheeee+Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Wheeee @ Sep 24 2004, 05:37 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->During the last forty years, molecular biology has revealed a complexity and intricacy of design that exceeds anything that was imaginable during the late-nineteenth century. We now know that organisms display any number of distinctive features of intelligently engineered high-tech systems: information storage and transfer capability; functioning codes; sorting and delivery systems; regulatory and feed-back loops; signal transduction circuitry; and everywhere, complex, mutually-interdependent networks of parts. Indeed, the complexity of the biomacromolecules discussed in this essay does not begin to exhaust the full complexity of living systems. As even the staunch materialist Richard Dawkins has allowed, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." Yet the materialistic science we have inherited from the late-nineteenth century, with its exclusive conceptual reliance on matter and energy, could neither envision nor can it now account for the biology of the information age. As Werner Gitt has said, throughout the natural sciences "energy and matter are considered to be basic, universal quantities. But the concept of information has become just as fundamental and far reaching. . . information has rightly become known as the third fundamental quantity." Or as Norbert Weiner put it, "Information is information, neither energy nor matter. No materialism that fails to take account of this can survive the present day." The molecular biology of the cell raises the possibility that "no materialism" will survive the revolution beginning to take root in science. While established journals and institutions continue to propagate the orthodoxies of a generation ago, many scientists, philosophers of science and mathematicians have begun to challenge these views and to formulate alternative approaches. Recent work in probability theory has defined information more precisely and articulated clear mathematical criteria for the identification of intelligently designed systems, thus providing a theoretical framework for a new science based upon the reality of design. A new book on the "irreducible complexity" of biochemical systems explains why gradual undirected evolution cannot produce such systems, and suggests intelligent design as the most viable scientific alternative. A new peer-reviewed journal, Origins & Design, opens this spring with a seminal article by a former chemical evolutionist turned design-advocate. Other work promises to reshape our conception, not only of living things but of our science and ourselves. If the simplest life owes its origin to an intelligent Creator, then perhaps man is not the "cosmic orphan" that twentieth century scientific materialism has taught. Perhaps then, during the twenty first century, the traditional moral and spiritual foundations of the West will find support from the very sciences that once seemed to undermine them.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I've gone over this before.
Nearly a century of evidence to the contrary? Forget that, I've got STATISTICS and OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTES! <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
lmao man, "homebred theory" ? this is from some pretty respectable origins scientists, and they're not creationists, if that's what you mean. please, refute my evidence if you can. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow this thread has gone a long way from the original topic, oh well, I can't say I hate a good theological discussion <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Anyways, I was just going to pipe in here and state that evolution is sientificly proven fact. Not to say that there is any evidence at all that there has been any evolution in the past several billion years what so ever, just to say that the fact that species adapt geneticly via natural selection, is very much just that, fact. I don't really understand how the world formed with absolutly no fossile evidence for evolution, but it the is scientificly documented studies of speciation occuring, so evolution can definantely happen.
and evolution/natural selection isn't what's under debate here, it's whether those two forces alone could have produced the world as it is today.
This is important. As a reader of scientific papers, <i>a huge list of citations means nothing</i>
That said, there is no citation for the particular point which I brought up. Hence my question.
Does that mean you concede the other points?
No, Metallica sux. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Everybody realizes this by now. Now its just a contest to see who can get the last word.
Everybody realizes this by now. Now its just a contest to see who can get the last word. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which can only be won by Talesin, or maybe Nem, so we might as well just stop.
Wow.....reading this thread is amazing....I was not aware that half of the people here have PhDs in molecular biology, geology, chemistry, physics, and theology all at the same time! Take a step back, one side has scientists, the other has their scientists (albiet one side's scientists VASTLY outnumbers the others) but when even the scientific community is debating the issue (which it really isn't, BTW. From all I can tell creation scientists are on about the same level as UFO people in credability with the scientific community) how can we debate the issue ourselves? Are we trying to say we are as smart and as educated as the scientists we are trying to disprove? How pompous!
Frankly I look at it in one of 2 ways
1) Simply agree with the majority. I don't think there is much doubt in anyone's mind that the majority of individuals who are learned in the feilds pertinant to the orogin of life would accept some variant of evolution, creation scientists are very much in the minority. So, by the logic of democracy, the side that has more smart people on it wins. Score 1 for evulotion.
2) Simply use Occam's Razor, the simplest answer is the correct one. The logic goes a little something like this: Which of these 2 statements is simpler?
How did life origionate? I don't know, I wasn't there.
How did life origionate? God. How did God Origionate? I don't know, I wasn't there.
The choice by this method is simple. We cannot be sure how life origionated, but we can rest assured that God was probably not involved.
The percentage of christians who are scientists compared to the total population of christians is acctually pretty much equal (I have heard higher in fact) than the percentage of athiest/agnostic scientists in comparision to thier total population. Considering that are total population is higher than thiers, the acctual numbers of christian scientist is probably greater (but I wouldn't say its a VAST outnumbering). That being said, there is just as much argument on many of these issues within the christian scientific community as there is outside of it, so the athiests scientist don't exactly find them self facing a unified front from us. Realisticly, science is the search for material truth, so most scientists don't focus on proving or disproving theological issues, most are just trying to "make actual advances in the field of science".
<span style='font-size:5pt;line-height:100%'>Skeleton of kadavra FTW</span>
The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better.
The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah cant wait for more secular countries - look how awesome they are:
Soviet Russia, Cambodia, China etc - all warm and cuddly
But yes, this thread does officially suck - switfy, I sent you a pm.
EDIT
Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Soviet Russia, Cambodia, China etc - all warm and cuddly. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
What are you jabbering about? The implied message was that hopefully more Western states will become secular, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say I didn't express myself properly. A Western secular state is <i>just a little</i> different to an authoritarian Communist dictatorship - for example, France. Do people make moronic allusions to make me laugh? It's a disturbing trend across these forums recently.
Matthew, what I think everyone here who doesn't agree with your belief is trying to say, is that you can't prove something to be false if you can't prove your belief to be true. And seeing how it is a belief, the only way you can actually affirm to us your faith is by giving direct evidence of the Almighty's existence. Merely saying that something cannot come from nothing is circular reasoning, for you cannot affirm something to be true and predicate that your postulates are therefore true based on the presumption of the before without again, direct and factual evidence. Likewise, it is the same if it were conversely so and also in the belief that no God exists. Everything is bounded to either coherence or correspondence and whatnot per se.
By taking the two major “premises” running around here…
"Something cannot come from nothing."
Something, the minor "premise," therefore something cannot come from nothing, the conclusion.
"God cannot come from something."
God, the minor "premise," therefore God cannot come from something, the conclusion."
Inversely, God can come from nothing; both of them are postulates or presumptions; perhaps the "premises" should be called otherwise.
Looking from the efficient cause of all things is the best way to start instead of arguing for e.g. whether the bible is the word of God… If you can first prove that God <u>indeed</u> exists then you at least have one stone in the river allowing your foot to step on another.
These discussions never go anywhere and are simply methods to express one's opinion on a concept that can never be understood. If I can say one thing about God it would be that he is probably a feel and not a think.
People like to secretly hope that perhaps the grass is greener on the other side. The subject of death can be of two sides, and that is you either become the shadows and dust or are transcended into a blissful afterlife. It is the inflated ego that prevents us from understanding children's truths and the reality that this world has gone awry that prevents alot of us from embracing concepts which require one to be alltruistic and all-in-all, metaphorically speaking, lacking in skepticism. It is a faith that realistically requires stubborness to be faithful, and although many contain alot, if built like a house of cards, it is also meant to be broken.
How dare you say I live in an authoritarian Communist dictatorship <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> j/k
Seriously , I doubt religious countries such as Iran , Saudi Arabia , Isra?l , and the USA contribute much to world peace...
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The sooner states around the world become completely secular the better.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You were talking about secularity as though it was the harbringer of peace and happiness, I was pointing out that to date, it hasnt been. I listed the only examples of completely secular states, neglecting to mention North Korea, but hey. Why should we believe that pure secularity = a good thing? Oh oh oh, you say, but I mean in a Western state - all the Western states I know have their backgrounds and beginnings in Christianity, it never occured to you that this might be more than a coincidence? Probably not, you were too busy slanging people (another disturbing trend on this board) to be that perceptive.
Stak, name a few countries that contribute to world peace. How exactly do you contribute - by doing nothing? Then the Swiss take the cheese. By not having a military? Or do you do it the French way, by propping up Middle Eastern dictatorships and selling them nuclear reactors but not actually doing any fighting? Which is it?
Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
mb, mb. just can't break through <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Matthew, what I think everyone here who doesn't agree with your belief is trying to say, is that you can't prove something to be false if you can't prove your belief to be true. And seeing how it is a belief, the only way you can actually affirm to us your faith is by giving direct evidence of the Almighty's existence. Merely saying that something cannot come from nothing is circular reasoning, for you cannot affirm something to be true and predicate that your postulates are therefore true based on the presumption of the before without again, direct and factual evidence. Likewise, it is the same if it were conversely so and also in the belief that no God exists. Everything is bounded to either coherence or correspondence and whatnot per se.
By taking the two major “premises” running around here…
"Something cannot come from nothing."
Something, the minor "premise," therefore something cannot come from nothing, the conclusion.
"God cannot come from something."
God, the minor "premise," therefore God cannot come from something, the conclusion."
Inversely, God can come from nothing; both of them are postulates or presumptions; perhaps the "premises" should be called otherwise.
Looking from the efficient cause of all things is the best way to start instead of arguing for e.g. whether the bible is the word of God… If you can first prove that God <u>indeed</u> exists then you at least have one stone in the river allowing your foot to step on another.
These discussions never go anywhere and are simply methods to express one's opinion on a concept that can never be understood. If I can say one thing about God it would be that he is probably a feel and not a think.
People like to secretly hope that perhaps the grass is greener on the other side. The subject of death can be of two sides, and that is you either become the shadows and dust or are transcended into a blissful afterlife. It is the inflated ego that prevents us from understanding children's truths and the reality that this world has gone awry that prevents alot of us from embracing concepts which require one to be alltruistic and all-in-all, metaphorically speaking, lacking in skepticism. It is a faith that realistically requires stubborness to be faithful, and although many contain alot, if built like a house of cards, it is also meant to be broken. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yoah hold on there kid.... I am not trying to convert anyone, do we not have a right to defend our religion, this topic had started off religous (in an odd sense, metallica compared to the Bible.... HA), but some people felt the need to contribute and start dissin Christianity and Jesus and this is where most of us jumped in, but then somehow it morphed into a religious debate..... I seriously don't think many expect to persuade us either by your "GOD doesn't exist, but we have no proof that he doesn't so just accept it and convert to atheism" (not actual quotes, but did it that way as if an atheist had said it and I realize no one has said this , but neither are we doing the reverse). Why is it the moment we defend our faith we are immediatly accused of trying to convert.... Talk about stereotyping. Sure Im religious, sure it'd be awesome if you all became Catholics outa the blue. Likewise I'm sure you'd all be happy if we were atheists.........., but the point is I could care less, I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind here today, My point is though just have decent morals OK? Or is that too hard to ask? The Bible teaches morals and ethics not science like some would love to think )GOD creating the wourld is based on faith it doesnt say scientifically how it was done).......... we don't go to church to learn about chemistry thank you very much..... Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs. We all have free wills and GOD made it that way so you can do what ever you please, just dont run around half-cocked trying to claim I'm trying to "affirm" my faith to you, I don't have to prove to you anything because I know most of it will go in one ear and out the other. I have an open mind and there's a reason I am indeed Catholic, there are also reasons that I am politically an Anarchist, but I think your assuming we have closed minds and closing your own just becasue we feel we should defend our faith when it is attacked, which is in my opinion unreasonable to assume, do you comprehend kid?
Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
mb, mb. just can't break through <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe if you could come up with something that wasn't the product of ten minutes of blabbering and inconclusive research, put into a form that makes it appear professional and credible, when in fact, it is not.
<a href='http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html' target='_blank'>http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html</a>
First result in google search. Maybe if you considered some of the facts on that page, instead of running to "evolutionsuxors.com," this debate would make a lot more sense.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You just put personal beliefs, and discussion in the same sentence. Therein lies the problem, faith and debate has as little to do with each other as apples and oranges. You keep accusing atheists of being flaming ignorant, when you're standing in the same fire. Religion teaches morals, but it also taught witch prosecution, the Spanish inquisition, the crusades, islamic radicalism, etc. etc.
And no, he doesn't comprehend, because it looks like you made that post with a blood alcohol level of 0.5.
I think this discussion is already beyond the point of comparing arguments, and the only conclusion we've reached is that we'll never reach one. Sayonara.
Brick wall - 1. Wheeee 0, though kudos for the effort <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
mb, mb. just can't break through <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maybe if you could come up with something that wasn't the product of ten minutes of blabbering and inconclusive research, put into a form that makes it appear professional and credible, when in fact, it is not.
<a href='http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html' target='_blank'>http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html</a>
First result in google search. Maybe if you considered some of the facts on that page, instead of running to "evolutionsuxors.com," this debate would make a lot more sense.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your all chewing me up when I think in a political discussion I am much more lenient, not on morals, but on personal beliefs<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You just put personal beliefs, and discussion in the same sentence. Therein lies the problem, faith and debate has as little to do with each other as apples and oranges. You keep accusing atheists of being flaming ignorant, when you're standing in the same fire. Religion teaches morals, but it also taught witch prosecution, the Spanish inquisition, the crusades, islamic radicalism, etc. etc.
And no, he doesn't comprehend, because it looks like you made that post with a blood alcohol level of 0.5.
I think this discussion is already beyond the point of comparing arguments, and the only conclusion we've reached is that we'll never reach one. Sayonara. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow you made a post full of nonsense and called me drunk, good for you I suppose you and your atheist views sure showed me.........
I finally found some background on that ridiculous 1 in 10^50000 statistic you kept citing Wheeee.
Source: <a href='http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/foster0.html' target='_blank'>http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ric...er/foster0.html</a>
This statistic originated from a book called <u>Evolution From Space</u> by Fred Hoyle and N.C. Wickramasinghe. It was no surprise to me, then, that both of your articles involving the improbability of life <a href='http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_origins.htm' target='_blank'>arising</a> by <a href='http://www.johnankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W1201.pdf' target='_blank'>chance</a> cited this very book.
I've also dug up information on "Borel's Law," and an explanation for why neither myself or anyone I knew had ever actually heard about it.
<a href='http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html' target='_blank'>http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/borelfaq.html</a>
To demonstrate how all this links up:
Creationists often cite the ridiculously low probability of a 1 in 10^40000 odds of life arising from non-life occuring (that's 1 in 1000000000000000000000000 plus some 39970 more '0's). This statistic first originated from the book "Evolution From Space," which speculates on the possibility of life originating from an extraterrestrial source, and the impossibility of life arising from the Earth itself. The problems with this theory are obvious - if it's already so unlikely for life to occur on the Earth, then wouldn't the odds of life occuring elsewhere in the cosmos and then somehow couriered over to the earth be even less likely? Finally, there is Borel's Law, a common mathematical citation by which creationists justify the above stated statistic.
<b>Borel's Law</b>
To even need to explain Borel's <i>Law</i> in support of the theory of biogenesis is ironic. To acknowledge Borel's ideology as <i>law</i> or <i>theory</i>, as I have done, is to err in much the same way as many abiogenesis supporters have, including our amiable Wheeee. Borel's Law states nothing. It is merely an overelegant assertion of the obvious - the fact that improbable things don't happen.
Borel's Law is not constant. However, it is applicable to all things. On the other hand, it is irrelevant to all. Borel states that for each phenomenon that can occur, the chances of it occuring may be no greater than 1 in 10^x. Simply put, depending upon the scope of said phenomenon, whether it is subatomic, atomic, cosmic, planetary, or human, x will differ in size depending on a number of factors. Borel's Law is not a given, for surely, somewhere, someplace, something very unlikely to happen has happened. When playing the lottery, for example, purchasing the one millionth ticket with a probability of winning of 1:1,000,000 grants you a 100% chance of winning, does it not?
Borel was not a creationist. Nor was he a quack. He wasn't very significant. But he wasn't altogether useless. Creationists, in particular, have formed something of a cult following of Borel and his Law, abusing his theory as a means by which to prove themselves correct. In doing so, they are making the mistake of treating Borel's Law as if it were mathematically proven fact, of which it definitely is not. I could go on to state the improbability of calculating the probability of the life-from-nonlife, but Borel himself has done a better job indeed.
<!--QuoteBegin--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The Problem of Life.
In conclusion, I feel it is necessary to say a few words regarding a question that does not really come within the scope of this book, but that certain readers might nevertheless reproach me for having entirely neglected. I mean the problem of the appearance of life on our planet (and eventually on other planets in the universe) and the probability that this appearance may have been due to chance. If this problem seems to me to lie outside our subject, this is because the probability in question is too complex for us to be able to calculate its order of magnitude. It is on this point that I wish to make several explanatory comments.
When we calculated the probability of reproducing by mere chance a work of literature, in one or more volumes, we certainly observed that, if this work was printed, it must have emanated from a human brain. Now the complexity of that brain must therefore have been even richer than the particular work to which it gave birth. Is it not possible to infer that the probability that this brain may have been produced by the blind forces of chance is even slighter than the probability of the typewriting miracle?
<b>It is obviously the same as if we asked ourselves whether we could know if it was possible actually to create a human being by combining at random a certain number of simple bodies. But this is not the way that the problem of the origin of life presents itself: it is generally held that living beings are the result of a slow process of evolution, beginning with elementary organisms, and that this process of evolution involves certain properties of living matter that prevent us from asserting that the process was accomplished in accordance with the laws of chance.</b>
Moreover, certain of these properties of living matter also belong to inanimate matter, when it takes certain forms, such as that of crystals. It does not seem possible to apply the laws of probability calculus to the phenomenon of the formation of a crystal in a more or less supersaturated solution. At least, it would not be possible to treat this as a problem of probability without taking account of certain properties of matter, properties that facilitate the formation of crystals and that we are certainly obliged to verify. We ought, it seems to me, to consider it likely that the formation of elementary living organisms, and the evolution of those organisms, are also governed by elementary properties of matter that we do not understand perfectly but whose existence we ought nevertheless admit.
Similar observations could be made regarding possible attempts to apply the probability calculus to cosmogonical problems. In this field, too, it does not seem that the conclusions we have could really be of great assistance.
- Emil Borel from <i>Probability and Certainty</i><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Evolution From Space</b>
outline:
- life-from-nonlife theory
- Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's theory (what kind of last name is that?!)
- Assumes a much higher qualification for life
- NOT SPONTANEOUS
- More improbable then life-from-nonlife by any and all means.
- Evolution is selective, not random
<b>Conclusion</b>
/ will be updated when I finish writing it - one or two more hours perhaps.
Why should I have to prove that God exists? After all, I have yet to see someone prove to me that I need oxygen to exist, yet if I state it, no one is going to come and try to disprove it. Very few things are provable, but I do have tonnes of evidence for the existance of God, although any time I say it, it will either be disputed or overlooked because it doesn't "prove" anything. Well prove to me that I need oxygen to exist, but I bet I can dispute you using presuppositions that are not the same as yours until you are blue in the face. People don't belive or disbelive things because they are proved, people assume certian facts about the universe (for instance, I assume that you exist, I assume that things I can see and feel are real, I assume that scientists attempt to find truths) and the way they decide weather something is fact or not, is they compare the evidence to thier presuppositions and from there you decide weather evidence + assumption = validated new fact. So when we say God exists and you say "prove it" you can stuff it, because nothing in the world can be proved, so you might as well argue that you know for a fact that nothing in the world exists, just because it cannot be proved.
From now on no one is going to try to 'prove' anything. If you present evidence I am going to dispute it, and if I present evidence you are going to dispute it, and if at the end of the day, the evidence is sufficiant one way or the other to change the way someone belives dispite thier presuppositions about the universe that probably won't change no matter what, then someone goes home with a new opinion and the story ends until another set of evidence is presented. If absolutly nothing could possibly work to change you one way or another, chances are you need to reevaluate your set of presuppositions, because they are a little too narrow, and aren't allowing enough fact to get through.
[edit] spelling
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Which is why human beings are pretty much no longer evolving, because natural selection is not really working in our species any more.
The point I was trying to maintain throughout is that you can't necessarily base the presumption of God's existence on pieces of evidence which have no relevance to his actuality. It isn't narrow minded thinking, rather a way to be realistic of matters debatable as this.
Although I do believe in the existence of God, my portrayal of emphasis is one that says, "he believes who, influenced by some strong authority, thinks something to be true without having sure grounds on which to base his comprehension."
Don't deny that oxygen does not exist, after all, if you were to bag yourself over the head, how would you sustain? It is only through trial and error, or in this case, obvious fact, that we can actually prove that oxygen is necessary for our survival. Whereas God can only be deduced from his creation, and even that is not conclusive enough in this age of world to come to the final grounds of his relative existence.
Looking from this perspective, we can see that with the use of good sense through forms of thought, idea, and imagination on maintaining truth of substance, that we are able to form a proper comprehension of anything which is based on good grounds.
If we are trying to prove that God exists, it is futile because the presumption is that he either comes from nothing or does not. Using our senses we cannot afirm this presumption, which shouldn't be taken in the way we often use, but in that it isn't a veritable fact based upon an observation or incidence of direct existence.
Due to this common knowledge we predilect as scientific inquiry and the fact that faith comes from God and not intelligent inquisition of intrigue, it isn't proper to say, objectively in the understanding, that all verity is obtained through human reasoning.
This is why what I have been attempting to show is necessary for anyone, I presume, to come to the grounds that God is a feel and not a think. Therefore no amount of human reasoning in any case or form of theological treatises and scientific inquiry will in the subjective sense persuade God to allow his existence and essence to be known - to be obviously manifested before all of humanity.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is?
God is not a part of everything.
Other than that I agree with most of what this guy said.
~ DarkATi
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
you must have been the one not paying attention, since i've taken college level bio courses. anyway, evolution is random. natural selection is not. natural selection cannot, in and of itself, produce a separate species. natural selection is merely a genetic selection of *already existing* traits. evolution creates new traits by genetic mutation - point mutations or shift mutations, or possibly intron/exon interaction.
hence "natural selection". I think you have two very different concepts confused.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
WTH? Did you fail freshman year biology or something? Evolution is random? If evolution is carried out by a selective process, then could you explain just how the hell it's random? Do you have any clue just what evolution is? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
you must have been the one not paying attention, since i've taken college level bio courses. anyway, evolution is random. natural selection is not. natural selection cannot, in and of itself, produce a separate species. natural selection is merely a genetic selection of *already existing* traits. evolution creates new traits by genetic mutation - point mutations or shift mutations, or possibly intron/exon interaction. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You're bickering over the definition of evolution. Thinking about it twice I think acctually Camo is right here, evolution is the end result of all the evolutionary processes, one of which is natural selection (there are three more, but I can't remember them). The random factor is mutation, which is the first step to the whole process. Wheee, you are stating that evolution = mutation, I'm pretty sure that evolution is the entire end result process. The process of evolution has been stopped in humans becuase the process of natural selection has been undermined by the fact that we build environments for ourselfs that are safe for all (thus none are selected out), thus natural selection must be a prerequisite for evolution, and thus evolution must be selected.
ha. ha. You're not serious are you? Go ahead and have blind faith in some religion that's been forged by MAN, but I'll stick to my science with cold hard facts, at least science admits when they are wrong.
There are so many inconsistencies between numbers, historical errors, scientific impossibilities, and things that are just plain wrong in the Bible that it's absolutely ludicrous to think that it's the book of God. In the bible it says that Pi = 3. Wow my calculator is more powerful than God himself. Go figure.
Besides the concept of a God is paradoxical in many ways... I'm sure you've heard of the one with the real heavy rock, but let me propose this one:
If God is concious he requires time (this follows from conciousness allows you to make a decision, if you make a decision you have changed from undecided to decided, and time is a measure of change) but if god requires time he can't be the cause of time. If god didn't cause time he's not the first cause.
ha. ha. You're not serious are you? Go ahead and have blind faith in some religion that's been forged by MAN, but I'll stick to my science with cold hard facts, at least science admits when they are wrong.
There are so many inconsistencies between numbers, historical errors, scientific impossibilities, and things that are just plain wrong in the Bible that it's absolutely ludicrous to think that it's the book of God. In the bible it says that Pi = 3. Wow my calculator is more powerful than God himself. Go figure. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
The bible is God's word through man. Where does it say Pi = 3? (Genuinely curious.)
Find me one passage where God specifically said anything inconsistent. Not a guy, but God.
~ DarkATi