God, science, and...being nice. [kill em with kindness]

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God, science, and...being nice. [kill em with kindness]

Hi everyone. I'm continuing my discussion with curious_george here. So far, she seems to genuinely want to learn and understand our worldview (yeah, shocking, I know), so be nice. 

curious_george wrote:
That's cool....so the Big Bang is basically the same as Einstien's idea of "white holes"??? A white hole is the opposite of a black hole...I found this definition  "Instead of collapsing inward, matter (and space itself) would expand outward from a "white hole". When matter inside the white hole moves past the boundary, the boundary begins to shrink inward. Eventually the radius shrinks to zero and the white hole disappears, leaving behind all of the matter which it originally contained. However, the first material out would have aged millions or billions of years while the last material out may only have aged a matter of days." Am I right...or is the Big Bang something else?

Well, currently, we're not even sure if white holes exist. But yes, there are hypotheses that the Big Bang was a kind of cosmological white hole. In particular, it's sometimes theorized that the matter that falls into a black hole is fed into other dimensions, where they then exit via a white whole. Could our own universe have originated this way?

I really don't know.

curious_george wrote:
What evidence?? The transitional forms? I have seen the charts...like the one in that first video...what was it of?? Clams of some sort, I think. And all those clams looked the same to me...they were different sizes, but they all looked like the same shell/clam thing to me. And why did the guy use the example of a creature that didn't exist instead of one that does...if there are a bunch of examples why didn't he choose an actual creature?? Is there other evidence?
 

Why did he use a hypothetical example? I think it was because he was just trying to explain how evolution worked in that video. I think he presents more evidence in the next video of his series.

It's this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKqqrfWevc

Is there other evidence? Yes, there's a lot. Embryology. Morphology. Genetics. Transitional fossils. Geographical distribution. Etc.  However, exactly why most of these things is such strong evidence requires explanation. It's complicated.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

 

curious_george wrote:
What about Pastuer?? Didn't he prove that life couldn't come from non-life?

I've never heard of that. Do you have a source?

I only know him for his work in germ theory.

curious_george wrote:
(Sigh) It's a long story, very personal. It's very complicated, but in essence...I was a very messed up young lady...and my Mom ( who hates my guts, kicked me out of the house and I went to live with my Grandparents) They put me in this little Chistian school THAT I DESPISED. But gradually, I changed. I know it was God because there was no one else around. It was God I was confronted with everyday in my schoolwork, in my home-life (my Grandparents are very religious), and in discussions with a teacher. It was God I felt the closest when I lay in bed at night crying...it was He who cared for me. He saved me from RAGE. I would have killed someone if I hadn't changed. It's that simple...and that complicated.

Hmmm, that's about what I expected. 

I can't deny that you experienced what you experienced, but neither does it seem to contain any objective evidence that anyone else could use. 

curious_george wrote:
Is adaptation for the sake of survival the same as mutation??

Eh, no.

You have mutation, which is just a mistake during genetic replication (did I say that already?), and then you have natural selection, which is probably the most important selective mechanism. I would say that, by definition, adaption and evolution are almost the same thing while the combination of mutations, natural selection, and other variables results in evolution.

curious_george wrote:
Okay. I understand that from the first video ( the other one wasn't working)...but I still don't understand. (Confused?? Me too)

It wasn't?

Um, here it is again. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vss1VKN2rf8

curious_george wrote:
A horse begets a slightly genetically altered horse which begets a slightly more genetically altered horse, and so on, until eventually it becomes so genetically altered it doesn't even look the same...but is it not still a horse?

Well, what's a horse? 

In the same way that Plato might refer to a perfect triangle, we often imagine all members of a species having some perfect essence unique to that species. In other words, there is some form or idea that would be the model for every entity that we see, and in this case, this 'form' would be Horse. As in, it wouldn't be a horse; it would be THE horse, the horse that all other horses are based on. Creationists assume that there is such a thing every time they make the micro but not macro argument, that a horse can 'adapt,' but it can never not be a horse. Ignoring for now the fact that genomes don't make such a distinction, in biology, there is no Horse. There are only horses, many different four-legged mammals galloping around. Then, what we define to be a horse is merely a calculated average of what we have observed. In several thousand years or several thousand years ago, the middle of the bell curve of horse was/might be be slightly different. 

So, is it still a horse? I think what you're asking is will it ever be something different enough such that that organism wouldn't be able to breed with the horses that currently exist. The answer to that, unless we purposely breed horses to stay the way they are, is yes. Over time, populations of organisms evolve. When they are given more time to evolve, the change is more dramatic. 

curious_george wrote:
Thank you. It is important to me. Everyone always tells me "You're too nice" I don't believe that such a thing is possible, but I do appreciate it when someone is as polite to me as I am to them.

 

Oh, I don't know if I can be as polite as you are, but I'll do my best.  

 

You don't have to look very hard to find a thread where I've insulted someone. Although, I'd argue, that it was 'warranted' in most cases.

 

 

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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 curious_george

 

curious_george wrote:
That's cool....so the Big Bang is basically the same as Einstien's idea of "white holes"??? A white hole is the opposite of a black hole...I found this definition  "Instead of collapsing inward, matter (and space itself) would expand outward from a "white hole". When matter inside the white hole moves past the boundary, the boundary begins to shrink inward. Eventually the radius shrinks to zero and the white hole disappears, leaving behind all of the matter which it originally contained. However, the first material out would have aged millions or billions of years while the last material out may only have aged a matter of days." Am I right...or is the Big Bang something else?

Quote:
Well, currently, we're not even sure if white holes exist. But yes, there are hypotheses that the Big Bang was a kind of cosmological white hole. In particular, it's sometimes theorized that the matter that falls into a black hole is fed into other dimensions, where they then exit via a white whole. Could our own universe have originated this way?

I really don't know.

Creation really is a big question. I believe that God created the world in seven days (the Bible defines days as a morning and and evening). I beleive that the evidence is everywhere. For example, have you ever heard of Lamanin? The coolest thing I've ever seen. Lamanin  "is a protein cell in your body that literally holds your skin, muscles, organs, and everything else in your body together, it is literally the glue of your body" (source: www.instructables.com/community/Lamanin) It's shaped like a cross. (Well, I guess that would depend on how you look at it...but seriously cool nonetheless) To me that is God speaking in....wait for it....METAPHOR!! In the same way Jesus Christ connects me to the Heavenly Father, Lamanin holds our skin, muscles, organ, and everything else together. Cool, huh? Here's the thing that many people, Creationists included, don't understand. God didn't break the laws of physics when He created the world...He created those laws when He created the universe...we only have physical laws because God likes order. He likes things to make sense...He so vastly amazing that He does something (like creating the universe) and everything He does works perfectly. The laws of physics are so cool, and also (in my opinion) proof of God.

"The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location." (source:www.drdino.com/read-article.php?id=30, author: Bruce Malone)

Quote:
Why did he use a hypothetical example? I think it was because he was just trying to explain how evolution worked in that video. I think he presents more evidence in the next video of his series.

It's this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEKqqrfWevc

Is there other evidence? Yes, there's a lot. Embryology. Morphology. Genetics. Transitional fossils. Geographical distribution. Etc.  However, exactly why most of these things is such strong evidence requires explanation. It's complicated.

Wow. Complicated is putting it mildly...it may take me a while to get through those...I have to read every sentence three times...I think I'll just go to the library and order books on the subject.

 

curious_george wrote:
What about Pastuer?? Didn't he prove that life couldn't come from non-life?

Quote:
I've never heard of that. Do you have a source?

I only know him for his work in germ theory.

Well, I guess the first thing I have to ask is...Is spontaneous generation the same as abiogenesis? But here's what I was talking about.. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio114/spontgen.htm

Quote:
Hmmm, that's about what I expected. 

I can't deny that you experienced what you experienced, but neither does it seem to contain any objective evidence that anyone else could use. 

I didn't think it would...but to me its crystal clear. Smiling

curious_george wrote:
Is adaptation for the sake of survival the same as mutation??

Quote:
Eh, no.

You have mutation, which is just a mistake during genetic replication (did I say that already?), and then you have natural selection, which is probably the most important selective mechanism. I would say that, by definition, adaption and evolution are almost the same thing while the combination of mutations, natural selection, and other variables results in evolution.

Natural selection had to start somewhere...where did the creatures come from in the first place?? Did they come two at a time, male and female, so that they could reproduce?

curious_george wrote:
A horse begets a slightly genetically altered horse which begets a slightly more genetically altered horse, and so on, until eventually it becomes so genetically altered it doesn't even look the same...but is it not still a horse?

Quote:
Well, what's a horse? 

In the same way that Plato might refer to a perfect triangle, we often imagine all members of a species having some perfect essence unique to that species. In other words, there is some form or idea that would be the model for every entity that we see, and in this case, this 'form' would be Horse. As in, it wouldn't be a horse; it would be THE horse, the horse that all other horses are based on. Creationists assume that there is such a thing every time they make the micro but not macro argument, that a horse can 'adapt,' but it can never not be a horse. Ignoring for now the fact that genomes don't make such a distinction, in biology, there is no Horse. There are only horses, many different four-legged mammals galloping around. Then, what we define to be a horse is merely a calculated average of what we have observed. In several thousand years or several thousand years ago, the middle of the bell curve of horse was/might be be slightly different. 

So, is it still a horse? I think what you're asking is will it ever be something different enough such that that organism wouldn't be able to breed with the horses that currently exist. The answer to that, unless we purposely breed horses to stay the way they are, is yes. Over time, populations of organisms evolve. When they are given more time to evolve, the change is more dramatic. 

So, let me get this straight (I'm a little slow...stick with me) horse as we think of them now aren't the same as horses originally...but it was still a horse, right? I mean it wasn't a deer...and then over thousands of years became a horse...It was a horse ancestor that became the horse that we think of today. So, a horse will never be a non horse? There are no in-between phases because it happens everyday...and you can't use fossils as evidence because that would require DNA testing? Or you can but nobody is smart enough to check the DNA to see if it is mutating. Seems like it would be a simple thing to prove. All you would have to do was pick an animal, any random animal, run DNA tests on it. Then breed it, and run DNA tests on that. ect. Right?? So, if we came from apes we could breed with them? (YUCK!!)

 

Quote:
Oh, I don't know if I can be as polite as you are, but I'll do my best.  

You don't have to look very hard to find a thread where I've insulted someone. Although, I'd argue, that it was 'warranted' in most cases.

 

Thank you for putting up with my questions. I have no doubt your insults were warranted. I don't think you would be rude for no reason.  

 

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curious_george wrote: "The

curious_george wrote:

 

"The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location." (source:www.drdino.com/read-article.php?id=30, author: Bruce Malone)

1. There is NO 'center of the Universe', any more than there is a center to the surface of the Earth.

2. Matter itself has not been stretched out, altho space is expanding, and continues to expand seemingly at an increasing rate. EDIT: I thought I remembered a passage saying something about stretching out the 'firmament' over the Earth, but I can't find it. It doesn't seem to say anything like that in Genesis.

What I thought I remembered really didn't fit science, since the Earth came into existence surrounded by space.

So Unless you can provide a specific quote, even this marginal match to science doesn't actually work.

3 The Universe does NOT have a boundary.

With the marginal exception of the expansion of space, those assumptions are in contradiction to science, further proving that the writers of the Bible knew little about the nature of the Universe.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Butter, can I borrow your

Butter, can I borrow your christian for a second ?

Hi George,

Sorry to but in, but I noticed you seem to believe in creation, so I was wondering what you would make of this :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html

Just one quick question and I'll let you guys get on with it. Since your belief comes from the bible, would it make any difference to you if this story turned out to be accurate ? I mean, would you still believe that god created the earth, if the bible itself made no such claim ?


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Anonymouse wrote:Butter, can

Anonymouse wrote:

Butter, can I borrow your christian for a second ?

Hi George,

Sorry to but in, but I noticed you seem to believe in creation, so I was wondering what you would make of this :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6274502/God-is-not-the-Creator-claims-academic.html

Just one quick question and I'll let you guys get on with it. Since your belief comes from the bible, would it make any difference to you if this story turned out to be accurate ? I mean, would you still believe that god created the earth, if the bible itself made no such claim ?

I read and re-read the article...and came to the conclusion that she didn't even know what she believed. She contadicted herself once. But I'm not sure if it really matters.

...but as to if it would affect my belief in God...No...because Hebrew is a very complicated language...I mean there are four different words that mean love. So yes...the word bara does mean "to create" (she admitted that herself) and it can also mean "spatially separate" there are two things with this though. First, why could God not first create the Heaven and the Earth and then separate them...there is even a theory that God created the earth put creatures on it....and, like, thousands of years passed between Gen1:1 and Gen1:2. Something interesting along those lines is that Satan before the fall was the protector of this planet...he had domain over it. After the fall, he was banished to earth for a reason, it was his domain.

And second, there are other places in the Bible that speak of God creating the universe...for example...Gen 2:4, "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-" , Isaiah 42:5 "he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:", and Isaiah 45:18 "For this is what the LORD says— he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: "I am the LORD, and there is no other."

My last point is that no matter if God created the Heavens and the Earth or if he separated them...he still created us...and as our Creator  He still has sovereignty over us. (or that is what I believe)

I hope that answers your question.


 

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BobSpence1

BobSpence1 wrote:

curious_george wrote:

 

"The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location." (source:www.drdino.com/read-article.php?id=30, author: Bruce Malone)

1. There is NO 'center of the Universe', any more than there is a center to the surface of the Earth.

2. Matter itself has not been stretched out, altho space is expanding, and continues to expand seemingly at an increasing rate. EDIT: I thought I remembered a passage saying something about stretching out the 'firmament' over the Earth, but I can't find it. It doesn't seem to say anything like that in Genesis.

What I thought I remembered really didn't fit science, since the Earth came into existence surrounded by space.

So Unless you can provide a specific quote, even this marginal match to science doesn't actually work.

3 The Universe does NOT have a boundary.

With the marginal exception of the expansion of space, those assumptions are in contradiction to science, further proving that the writers of the Bible knew little about the nature of the Universe.

Sorry I took that quote out of context. Bruce Malone was talking of Dr. Russell Humphreys who decided "to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed." (another excperpt from Bruce Malone's paper)  Not that it actually was true, but it was how He conducted the experiment. He was trying to see if it would match our world today, and it did...that was my only point. Just that the Bible could match physics if taken in the most literal terms, that they weren't too different, that they could get along, if you will.  Thats all I meant by it.

And I think the verses you are thinking of are Proverbs 8: 27-30. Smiling

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curious_george

curious_george wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

curious_george wrote:

 

"The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center. If these three assumptions are plugged into the currently accepted formulas of physics, and the mathematical crank is turned, we live in a universe in which clocks tick at different rates depending on your location." (source:www.drdino.com/read-article.php?id=30, author: Bruce Malone)

1. There is NO 'center of the Universe', any more than there is a center to the surface of the Earth.

2. Matter itself has not been stretched out, altho space is expanding, and continues to expand seemingly at an increasing rate. EDIT: I thought I remembered a passage saying something about stretching out the 'firmament' over the Earth, but I can't find it. It doesn't seem to say anything like that in Genesis.

What I thought I remembered really didn't fit science, since the Earth came into existence surrounded by space.

So Unless you can provide a specific quote, even this marginal match to science doesn't actually work.

3 The Universe does NOT have a boundary.

With the marginal exception of the expansion of space, those assumptions are in contradiction to science, further proving that the writers of the Bible knew little about the nature of the Universe.

Sorry I took that quote out of context. Bruce Malone was talking of Dr. Russell Humphreys who decided "to take the most apparent meaning of the Biblical text and see what model of the universe developed." (another excperpt from Bruce Malone's paper)  Not that it actually was true, but it was how He conducted the experiment. He was trying to see if it would match our world today, and it did...that was my only point. Just that the Bible could match physics if taken in the most literal terms, that they weren't too different, that they could get along, if you will.  Thats all I meant by it.

And I think the verses you are thinking of are Proverbs 8: 27-30. Smiling

The more literally you read the Bible the LESS it matches anything we know from science. You have to massively twist and bend the literal meanings to come anywhere near matching reality.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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Thanks for replying.

Thanks for replying. Apologies for getting all linguistic in this hard science thread.

curious_george wrote:
I read and re-read the article...and came to the conclusion that she didn't even know what she believed.

I read her thesis. She's a christian, alright. She just doesn't believe in god-the-creator anymore.

curious_george wrote:
She contadicted herself once. But I'm not sure if it really matters.

I dunno, could be it does. Where did she do that ?

curious_george wrote:
...but as to if it would affect my belief in God...No.

I meant would it affect your belief in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth. See, I was just wondering if what's really in the bible has any influence on what christians believe.

curious_george wrote:
..because Hebrew is a very complicated language.

Yes, it is. And she's one of the world's most respected experts, which is the whole point. I think we can fairly assume that she knows more about semiotic analysis than both of us put together, so either of us second-guessing her work would be a little presumptious, I think.

So far, no other expert disputes her findings.

curious_george wrote:
And second, there are other places in the Bible that speak of God creating the universe..

Using the same word, which now has a different meaning.

curious_george wrote:
My last point is that no matter if God created the Heavens and the Earth or if he separated them...he still created us...and as our Creator  He still has sovereignty over us. (or that is what I believe)

Yes, but this was about your belief in god as creator of the earth and the heavens. If the bible doesn't actually make that claim, would you still believe it ?

curious_george wrote:
I hope that answers your question.

Well, no, but that's okay, thanks for thinking about it anyway. I'll let you guys get back to the science now.


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curious_george wrote:She

curious_george wrote:
She contadicted herself once. But I'm not sure if it really matters.

Anonymouse wrote:
I dunno, could be it does. Where did she do that ?

"She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". " Okay...makes sense...many Hebrew words have two or more meanings... "  "She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added..." There's your contradiction... But she goes on to say ""Something was wrong with the verb. And what was wrong with the verb?? "God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"  I don't really undersand the problem...or the question for that matter. Please help me out. I have to have read that sentence a good 100 times, and I still don't understand her point. No one I've asked understood it either, I think that the wording is wierd. Maybe you could translate??

curious_george wrote:
...but as to if it would affect my belief in God...No.

anonymouse wrote:
I meant would it affect your belief in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth. See, I was just wondering if what's really in the bible has any influence on what christians believe.
 

Oh!Seems I misunderstood the question. Sorry....hmmmm, honestly, I don't know. Like I said before, He could have created them and then separated them. Who knows??? I think it would. I think that I would have to go with what the Bible actually said. I mean, if I didn't wouldn't I be a hypocrite? I mean..I believe that the Bible speaks the truth...so if I just pick and choose what to believe and what not to believe...how wrong is that? I hope never to be accused of "cherry picking" !! Does that answer your question? (Doing my best here)

curious_george wrote:
....because Hebrew is a very complicated langauge

anonymouse wrote:
Yes, it is. She is one of the worlds most respected experts, which is the whole point. I think we can fairly assume that she knows more about semiotic analysis than both of us put together, so either of us second-guessing her work would be a little presumptious, I think. 

Very true. I think I am going to ask Mr. Smith. He is a man who used to go to my church...known him forever. He used to teach Hebrew. He is all about the literal meanings of words. I think this would interest him.

****

Okay. Now I hope I have answered your question. Laughing out loud

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curious_george wrote:  I

curious_george wrote:
  I don't really undersand the problem...or the question for that matter. Please help me out. I have to have read that sentence a good 100 times, and I still don't understand her point. No one I've asked understood it either, I think that the wording is wierd. Maybe you could translate??

Well, it's probably hard to get the point across in only a few quotes. I'm looking at the text of her inaugural speech here, which is an abridged version of her thesis, I think, and I think her problem was that the verb "bara" doesn't get used when other things are created.

There were quite a few other points she made (even the abridged version is over 20 pages), but I'm not sure if I'm even qualified to make a correct translation, not being familiar with the correct translation of all those linguistic terms.

But if this really ends up creating the discussion she was hoping for, then I'm sure an english translation won't be far behind.

curious_george wrote:
I think that I would have to go with what the Bible actually said....  Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. Thank you for your honest answer.

curious_george wrote:
Very true. I think I am going to ask Mr. Smith. He is a man who used to go to my church...known him forever. He used to teach Hebrew. He is all about the literal meanings of words. I think this would interest him.

If her thesis gets translated into english, I'll get you a link. Would love to hear his opinion.


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curious_george

curious_george wrote:

curious_george wrote:
She contadicted herself once. But I'm not sure if it really matters.

Anonymouse wrote:
I dunno, could be it does. Where did she do that ?

"She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate". " Okay...makes sense...many Hebrew words have two or more meanings... "  "She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added..." There's your contradiction... But she goes on to say ""Something was wrong with the verb. And what was wrong with the verb?? "God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"  I don't really undersand the problem...or the question for that matter. Please help me out. I have to have read that sentence a good 100 times, and I still don't understand her point. No one I've asked understood it either, I think that the wording is wierd. Maybe you could translate??

If two things come from separating one thing - is it creation?

If I use electrolysis to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, have I created hydrogen and oxygen?

One of the basic tenets (of Christianity anyway) is creation ex nihilo - creating somethig form nothing. If all God did was separate things out, it means he had something to start with and did not create from nothing.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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I wrote a lot....

curious_george wrote:
Creation really is a big question. I believe that God created the world in seven days (the Bible defines days as a morning and and evening).

I have a lot of issues with the Genesis account of Creation, and that’s an understatement.

To scratch the tip of the iceberg here, of particular relevance to what you just stated, what we call day and night is merely the rotation of the Earth on its axis, exposing different sides of it to sunlight. In Genesis, the first day began when God, “separated the light from the darkness.” However, he did not produce the sun, moon, or stars until the third day. So, this simply doesn’t make any sense in terms of what we know about astronomy. 

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.” Genesis 1:3-5

“God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” Genesis 1:16

curious_george wrote:
It's shaped like a cross.
 

That’s…evidence?

A cross is a fairly simple shape. Essentially, it’s just two line segments that intersect perpendicularly. I’d be more shocked if there wasn’t something important in the human body that vaguely resembled a cross. 

Also, the microscope images…

  

Sure, technically, laminin does have three short arms and one long arm, but this really isn’t surprising….at all. It looks like most other proteins to me, random squiggly things.

And, the comments….

PKM wrote:
The diagram looks more like a caduceus to me- a great analogy for medical science and all the amazing things it has taught us. (Yes I know technically it should be a rod of Asclepius but that's the association my brain instantly made, and I consider it as valid as the cross comparison)

And, of course, as those microscope images show the actual molecule looks like... a tangled up thing. I could argue that (2,2)dimethylbutane, CH3 C(CH3 )2 C2 H5 is shaped "like a cross" but in actual fact it's nothing of the sort.

gmjhowe wrote:
Interesting, and although I do believe in God, at this point were just making shape associations. The 'cross' structure is common in many things, including chemical bond structures etc.

They speak for themselves.

curious_george wrote:
Here's the thing that many people, Creationists included, don't understand. God didn't break the laws of physics when He created the world...He created those laws when He created the universe

The laws of physics are merely descriptions of how our universe functions, so obviously, God cannot break the laws of physics if there is no such universe. There would be nothing to break.

I’m not sure if it matters though. I mean, isn’t God omnipotent? Or, at least, able to do anything that doesn’t produce a logical contradiction? He should be able to break the laws of physics whenever he wants, right?

curious_george wrote:
"The Bible clearly indicates three things about God's formation of the universe. First, the earth is the center of God's attention in the universe. By implication, the earth may also be located near the center-perhaps so man can see the glory of God's creation in every direction. Second, the universe (both matter and space itself) has been "stretched out". Third, the universe has a boundary, and therefore it must have a center.

But, based on what we know, the Earth is not in any inherently special location in our solar system nor in the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy isn’t special when compared to other galaxies. There is no evidence that the universe has a boundary either.

Also, we don’t have to assume that the universe has no boundary or center to deduce that it is much older than 6,000 years old. There are many independent and reliable dating methods. Additionally, these methods can often be checked against each other to validate their accuracy.

curious_george wrote:
Well, I guess the first thing I have to ask is...Is spontaneous generation the same as abiogenesis? But here's what I was talking about.. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio114/spontgen.htm
 

Ah, I’ve heard of those experiments. No, spontaneous generation is not the same as abiogenesis. As far as I know, no credentialed biologist currently believes in spontaneous generation, and very few would claim that abiogenesis is impossible.

Spontaneous generation claims that inanimate objects can just transform into extremely complicated organisms over a short period of time. It also doesn’t offer any explanation as to exactly how this happens. In abiogenesis, we begin with the simplest self-replicating molecules and perform countless experiments to determine how they could have gradually evolved characteristics necessary for them to be called “alive.” So, I suppose the main differences would be the scales of time and complexity, as well as how each hypothesis has typically been addressed when they were most popular.  

Personally, though, I do not think that there is a dichotomy between life or non-life, but rather a continuity, a gray area, in the same way that there is gray area for the development of consciousness, what we call morality, and many other things. 

curious_george wrote:
Natural selection had to start somewhere...

where did the creatures come from in the first place??

Well, that’s abiogenesis.

curious_george wrote:
Did they come two at a time, male and female, so that they could reproduce?

The first organisms wouldn’t have had a male and female member, as they would have reproduced asexually, making copies of themselves.  

The benefits become pretty obvious when we calculate the speed of the spread of genes through the population with sexual reproduction vs. asexual reproduction. So, sex enriches the gene pool, and also gives organisms a distinct edge in adapting to their environment.

How did sex originate? Well, that’s….more complicated. This seems plausible though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w0FiwfyUMM

curious_george wrote:
So, let me get this straight (I'm a little slow...stick with me) horse as we think of them now aren't the same as horses originally...but it was still a horse, right? I mean it wasn't a deer...and then over thousands of years became a horse...It was a horse ancestor that became the horse that we think of today. So, a horse will never be a non horse?

No, it will be a "non-horse" in that it will eventually evolve into something completely different. It used to be something completely different. If you could see its ancestors from 50 million years ago, it won’t look like a horse at all.

The point that I was trying to get across is that “horse” is just a word. And, I was discussing the problems with assuming that there is some idealistic form of horse that the organisms could never evolve too far from. 

curious_george wrote:
There are no in-between phases because it happens everyday...

Kind of. If it happens constantly (well, every generation to be precise), then every sample is, technically, an in-between phase. So, every fossil ever found is a “transitional form” by definition. Obviously, there are some fossils that we prize more than others, but none of them are any more or less “transitional.” You are the transition between your parents and your kids. 

curious_george wrote:
and you can't use fossils as evidence because that would require DNA testing?

We can do DNA testing sometimes? I'm not sure about the specifics here.

Well, there’s other things you can do. For example, you can determine the age of the fossil. You can study the morphology of the creature.

curious_george wrote:
Or you can but nobody is smart enough to check the DNA to see if it is mutating.

Sure we are. In fact, we’re way past that point. Biologists have already been manipulating genomes in organisms in the laboratory and accurately predicting the effects these specific mutations would have on populations.

We can even use our genes as a sort of map to trace our way back through time. If your (great)^20 grandfather had a peculiar mutation that was passed down you, we could trace this mutation in your genome, through all your ancestors, back to that grandfather; thus, providing strong evidence that you were related. This works for organisms in general. So, when we deduce that two organisms are closely related, it’s not just a matter of looking at them and claiming that they look similar. We can actually take DNA samples and show that their genomes are mostly the same.

But, of course, it’s a lot more than too. I think what really makes the evidence convincing is how all the pieces corroborate so nicely. 

curious_george wrote:
So, if we came from apes we could breed with them? (YUCK!!)

I don’t know if we could breed with our not-so-distant ancestors. But, obviously, if we go back far enough, it’ll just be ridiculous. At some point, we were just some kind of fish swimming in the water; it would kind of hard to procreate with a fish.  

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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anonymouse wrote:Well, it's

anonymouse wrote:
Well, it's probably hard to get the point across in only a few quotes. I'm looking at the text of her inaugural speech here, which is an abridged version of her thesis, I think, and I think her problem was that the verb "bara" doesn't get used when other things are created.

There were quite a few other points she made (even the abridged version is over 20 pages), but I'm not sure if I'm even qualified to make a correct translation, not being familiar with the correct translation of all those linguistic terms.

But if this really ends up creating the discussion she was hoping for, then I'm sure an english translation won't be far behind.

Oh!! Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. I was talking to my Grandpa about it. He said that he always believed that God didn't create the world out of nothing, but he used fragments of what was already there, and "recycled" I guess. He said that a lot of Christians do believe he made the world out of nothing, but although there are several times when it does speak of Him creating something from nothing He usually used something already in existence and transformed it. For example, He "formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into His nostrils the breathe of life, and man became a living being." Gen 2:7. He said that the Hebrew was mistranslated and Gen 1:2a should read "and the earth became formless and void" instead of "and the earth was formless and void" Gen 1:2b indicates that there was already waters...waters that the Bible does not indicate He created "and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." Gen 1:2b Waters (plural) not water. Interesting. Gen 1:6 "Then God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it SEPARATE the waters from the waters"  vs 7..God made the expanse and separated the watrs which were below...from the waters which were above. And He called the expanse Heaven." and again (if her thesis is correct) He separates. I read Genesis 1 substituting the word separate for the word create. It was really cool how it read. It makes me wonder, though, if there is another word that means create that maybe the author used instead of bara. Some places don't make sense with the word separate.

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curious_george wrote:

anonymouse wrote:
Well, it's probably hard to get the point across in only a few quotes. I'm looking at the text of her inaugural speech here, which is an abridged version of her thesis, I think, and I think her problem was that the verb "bara" doesn't get used when other things are created.

There were quite a few other points she made (even the abridged version is over 20 pages), but I'm not sure if I'm even qualified to make a correct translation, not being familiar with the correct translation of all those linguistic terms.

But if this really ends up creating the discussion she was hoping for, then I'm sure an english translation won't be far behind.

Oh!! Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. I was talking to my Grandpa about it. He said that he always believed that God didn't create the world out of nothing, but he used fragments of what was already there, and "recycled" I guess. He said that a lot of Christians do believe he made the world out of nothing, but although there are several times when it does speak of Him creating something from nothing He usually used something already in existence and transformed it. For example, He "formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into His nostrils the breathe of life, and man became a living being." Gen 2:7. He said that the Hebrew was mistranslated and Gen 1:2a should read "and the earth became formless and void" instead of "and the earth was formless and void" Gen 1:2b indicates that there was already waters...waters that the Bible does not indicate He created "and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters." Gen 1:2b Waters (plural) not water. Interesting. Gen 1:6 "Then God said, Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it SEPARATE the waters from the waters"  vs 7..God made the expanse and separated the watrs which were below...from the waters which were above. And He called the expanse Heaven." and again (if her thesis is correct) He separates. I read Genesis 1 substituting the word separate for the word create. It was really cool how it read. It makes me wonder, though, if there is another word that means create that maybe the author used instead of bara. Some places don't make sense with the word separate.

Our current understanding from scientific investigation and calculation is that at the formation of the Earth and for about 500 million years the Earth was too hot for liquid water to exist on it.

So, as far as the Solar System is concerned, "in the beginning" there was the Sun, and the Earth did not exist at all.

There were no "waters" anywhere in the Solar System until much later, and then only on the surface of some planets and moons. Ice formed on the outer planets and as chunks of ice in the far outer reaches of the solar system.

"Heaven", if it refers to what we see as the sky and stars, existed for billions of years before the Earth formed.

About a billion years later, the Earth formed as a hot dry rocky planet. Another 500 million years later, the oceans formed in the lower parts of the surface - they never covered all the land, so dry land always existed, it was the oceans that eventually formed.

Since Genesis doesn't match the reality of the formation of the Earth in any meaningful way it is silly to try and draw any conclusions about reality from it.

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 butterbattle wrote: I have

 

butterbattle wrote:
I have a lot of issues with the Genesis account of Creation, and that’s an understatement.

To scratch the tip of the iceberg here, of particular relevance to what you just stated, what we call day and night is merely the rotation of the Earth on its axis, exposing different sides of it to sunlight. In Genesis, the first day began when God, “separated the light from the darkness.” However, he did not produce the sun, moon, or stars until the third day. So, this simply doesn’t make any sense in terms of what we know about astronomy. 

“And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.” Genesis 1:3-5

“God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.” Genesis 1:16

I can't argue with you there. It does say that.  It also says that the sun and the moon were made to govern the day and the night, not cause them.  I wonder if there would still be light and darkness, day and night, if there were no sun and moon?? Hmmm...something for me to think about. I like thinking. People at work think I'm crazy...I'll be in the middle of making a blizzard and then stop an ask a science question. You have really got me thinking. About science and God. I wish I could talk to my Dad. He loves physics. He would be able to help me understand better. But I digress. Back to the issue at hand. Where does evolution? Big Bang? the science of creation? (i'm not really sure what to call it) say that the sun and moon and stars came from....did they come from the Big Bang? 

butterbattle wrote:
That’s…evidence?

Okay. That was a little presumptious...a lot presumptious. I just got over enthusiastic. I just think its cool. It doesn't take much for people who believe in God to see God in everything.

butterbattle wrote:
A cross is a fairly simple shape. Essentially, it’s just two line segments that intersect perpendicularly. I’d be more shocked if there wasn’t something important in the human body that vaguely resembled a cross. 

Also, the microscope images…

  

Sure, technically, laminin does have three short arms and one long arm, but this really isn’t surprising….at all. It looks like most other proteins to me, random squiggly things.

And, the comments….

PKM wrote:
The diagram looks more like a caduceus to me- a great analogy for medical science and all the amazing things it has taught us. (Yes I know technically it should be a rod of Asclepius but that's the association my brain instantly made, and I consider it as valid as the cross comparison)

And, of course, as those microscope images show the actual molecule looks like... a tangled up thing. I could argue that (2,2)dimethylbutane, CH3 C(CH3 )2 C2 H5 is shaped "like a cross" but in actual fact it's nothing of the sort.

gmjhowe wrote:
Interesting, and although I do believe in God, at this point were just making shape associations. The 'cross' structure is common in many things, including chemical bond structures etc.

They speak for themselves.

(Sigh) You are so right. I got way carried away. Stupid enthusiasm, gets me every time.

butterbattle wrote:

The laws of physics are merely descriptions of how our universe functions, so obviously, God cannot break the laws of physics if there is no such universe. There would be nothing to break.

I’m not sure if it matters though. I mean, isn’t God omnipotent? Or, at least, able to do anything that doesn’t produce a logical contradiction? He should be able to break the laws of physics whenever he wants, right?

Well, technically, yes, He could. But God likes order. He likes things to work perfectly. If you believed in God I would say, look at the universe, do you think things would work this well if He didn't like order?? I think that the perfection of how everything works: Chlorophyll in leaves converting light into food, Our bodies functioning as well as they do, the rain cycle. Things that work so well, is evidence of a Creator...if not the God I believe in...then something/someone else. I don't understand how things could develop into perfection. I mean if they weren't perfect, then how did they survive. Like trees before chlorophyll?? How did they survive to become the plant we think of today without cholorphyll?

butterbattle wrote:

But, based on what we know, the Earth is not in any inherently special location in our solar system nor in the Milky Way galaxy. Our galaxy isn’t special when compared to other galaxies. There is no evidence that the universe has a boundary either.

Also, we don’t have to assume that the universe has no boundary or center to deduce that it is much older than 6,000 years old. There are many independent and reliable dating methods. Additionally, these methods can often be checked against each other to validate their accuracy.

There is no evidence that the universe doesn't have a boundary. What are the dating methods. What are they called? How do they date things? I've heard of carbondating. But I also heard that it was unreliable, that it dated something from the present as thousands of years old. How do you check carbondating??

curious_george wrote:
Well, I guess the first thing I have to ask is...Is spontaneous generation the same as abiogenesis? But here's what I was talking about.. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio114/spontgen.htm
 

butterbattle wrote:

Spontaneous generation claims that inanimate objects can just transform into extremely complicated organisms over a short period of time. It also doesn’t offer any explanation as to exactly how this happens. In abiogenesis, we begin with the simplest self-replicating molecules and perform countless experiments to determine how they could have gradually evolved characteristics necessary for them to be called “alive.” So, I suppose the main differences would be the scales of time and complexity, as well as how each hypothesis has typically been addressed when they were most popular.

 

But where did the first simplest self-replicating molecule come from?? Did it just appear??   

butterbattle wrote:
Personally, though, I do not think that there is a dichotomy between life or non-life, but rather a continuity, a gray area, in the same way that there is gray area for the development of consciousness, what we call morality, and many other things. 
 

I have a question. (story of my life) If I find a gray area, I simply fill it with God, and then it makes sense to me and when I see gray areas in science, ones that scientists can't make sense of, I think that the whole thing is faulty. My faith in God takes care of all the unanswerable questions. And without this explanation none of evolution makes sense to me. How do you think about things? In the opposite way? You don't have to answer if you don't want to...I'm just curious. Smiling

butterbattle wrote:
The first organisms wouldn’t have had a male and female member, as they would have reproduced asexually, making copies of themselves.  

The benefits become pretty obvious when we calculate the speed of the spread of genes through the population with sexual reproduction vs. asexual reproduction. So, sex enriches the gene pool, and also gives organisms a distinct edge in adapting to their environment.

How did sex originate? Well, that’s….more complicated. This seems plausible though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w0FiwfyUMM 

butterbattle wrote:
No, it will be a "non-horse" in that it will eventually evolve into something completely different. It used to be something completely different. If you could see its ancestors from 50 million years ago, it won’t look like a horse at all.

The point that I was trying to get across is that “horse” is just a word. And, I was discussing the problems with assuming that there is some idealistic form of horse that the organisms could never evolve too far from. 

Through evolution a non-horse evolves into a horse. And it is possible that the non-horse looked like a fish and evolved slowly into the horse that we think of today. What are some of the transitional forms that scientists have found? About any organsim.  

butterbattle wrote:
Kind of. If it happens constantly (well, every generation to be precise), then every sample is, technically, an in-between phase. So, every fossil ever found is a “transitional form” by definition. Obviously, there are some fossils that we prize more than others, but none of them are any more or less “transitional.” You are the transition between your parents and your kids. 

Two questions: Do I look the same as my great^25 grandfather? and Why do we see the apes alive and around and none of our other transitional forms?

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BobSpence1 wrote:Our current

BobSpence1 wrote:

Our current understanding from scientific investigation and calculation is that at the formation of the Earth and for about 500 million years the Earth was too hot for liquid water to exist on it.

So, as far as the Solar System is concerned, "in the beginning" there was the Sun, and the Earth did not exist at all.

There were no "waters" anywhere in the Solar System until much later, and then only on the surface of some planets and moons. Ice formed on the outer planets and as chunks of ice in the far outer reaches of the solar system.

I was referring to the Genesis account of creation.

BobSpence1 wrote:
"Heaven", if it refers to what we see as the sky and stars, existed for billions of years before the Earth formed.

About a billion years later, the Earth formed as a hot dry rocky planet. Another 500 million years later, the oceans formed in the lower parts of the surface - they never covered all the land, so dry land always existed, it was the oceans that eventually formed.

Since Genesis doesn't match the reality of the formation of the Earth in any meaningful way it is silly to try and draw any conclusions about reality from it.

I believe Genesis is reality. So, to me, it does match. You are assuming that you are right and I am wrong. It only doesn't match if its the truth. Can you please site some sources, so that I can understand better how the earth was formed according to science today? I don't want to assume that I am right. I want to learn both sides, and since I already know the Genesis account, I would like to know the science side. In case you were wondering, I don't know this stuff becuase I went to a Christian school, and they only taught me according to the Bible. Smiling But I am learning a lot. It's fun. 

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-curious_george wrote:Two

-curious_george wrote:

 

Two questions: Do I look the same as my great^25 grandfather? and Why do we see the apes alive and around and none of our other transitional forms?

To the first question, probably not at all.  Not that any of us could know that with any certainty.  The better question is should you look the same as your great^25 grandfather?  The answer to that question is no, not at all necessarily.

The second question is much more fun to answer.

We see apes alive because they evolved from the common ancestor that we evolved from.  It is entirely incorrect, and I don't know how exactly the idea came into being (blame the media if nothing else), to say that we evolved from apes.  Apes are not a transitional form of humans.  I'll just write that again.  Apes are not a transitional form of humans. 

(In fact, transitional forms as they're commonly conceived never existed and don't exist for absolutely any thing that ever lived or ever will live, unless the term transitional is taken to mean any extant or extinct thing ever, including you and myself.)

Modern apes are just as evolved, or perhaps we might say more evolved than modern humans (they have shorter generations than human after all), this is because we did not evolve from apes.  Modern apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor probably some 6-7 million years ago.  The closest fossils we have in the 'human' lineage to the common ancestor are now Ardipithecus Ramidus, which lived some 4.4 million years ago in wooded areas and was bipedal and also adapted to tree climbing.

From a post I wrote in a different thread (and edited for presentation here):

Thomathy wrote:
...[I]t doesn't appear to be chimp-like.  That is, it throws off suspicions that our most ancient ancestors used to walk like chimps and gorillas (knuckle walking) and then evolved out of that trait.  [What] ...is being suggested is that our most common ancestor might not have been chimp-like ...[.]

Since Ardi walked bipedally, had a small brain and was adapted to some tree climbing and lacked all appearances or signs of knuckle walking it shows us that this particular ancestor had never been adapted to knuckle walking.  It shows us that if we were able to uncover more ancient ancestors of modern chimps we will find that they evolved into knuckle walking some time after the divergence of the common ancestor which spawned the present species and perhaps walked bipedally or were especially more arboreally adapted.

In any case, it is sufficient to say that modern apes exist because we never evolved from them, but along side them from a divergence with a common ancestor.

BigUniverse wrote,

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curious_george wrote:It

curious_george wrote:
It makes me wonder, though, if there is another word that means create that maybe the author used instead of bara. Some places don't make sense with the word separate.

Yes, there is : The verb "asa". The fact that two different verbs were used, was one of the things that made her wonder.

Anyway, you seem happy with god not being the creator of the heavens and the earth. Quite a lot of christians are less than pleased and are happily ignoring this.


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curious_george wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Our current understanding from scientific investigation and calculation is that at the formation of the Earth and for about 500 million years the Earth was too hot for liquid water to exist on it.

So, as far as the Solar System is concerned, "in the beginning" there was the Sun, and the Earth did not exist at all.

There were no "waters" anywhere in the Solar System until much later, and then only on the surface of some planets and moons. Ice formed on the outer planets and as chunks of ice in the far outer reaches of the solar system.

I was referring to the Genesis account of creation.

And so was I.

Genesis is wrong. It does not fit with what we now know in any way.

Quote:

BobSpence1 wrote:
"Heaven", if it refers to what we see as the sky and stars, existed for billions of years before the Earth formed.

About a billion years later, the Earth formed as a hot dry rocky planet. Another 500 million years later, the oceans formed in the lower parts of the surface - they never covered all the land, so dry land always existed, it was the oceans that eventually formed.

Since Genesis doesn't match the reality of the formation of the Earth in any meaningful way it is silly to try and draw any conclusions about reality from it.

I believe Genesis is reality. So, to me, it does match. You are assuming that you are right and I am wrong. It only doesn't match if its the truth. Can you please site some sources, so that I can understand better how the earth was formed according to science today? I don't want to assume that I am right. I want to learn both sides, and since I already know the Genesis account, I would like to know the science side. In case you were wondering, I don't know this stuff becuase I went to a Christian school, and they only taught me according to the Bible. Smiling But I am learning a lot. It's fun. 

How can the waters being there before the dry land match the water only coming long after the land?? I am simply stating the well-established scientific picture of the development of the Solar System, not assuming anything at all.

There is a massive amount of evidence for what I described. There is none for the Genesis story. Just a story in an old book.

Try here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Earth.

Here is a good site for explaining the science behind most of these religious-vs-science issues: http://www.talkorigins.org/.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


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curious_george wrote:Where

curious_george wrote:
Where does evolution? Big Bang? the science of creation? (i'm not really sure what to call it) say that the sun and moon and stars came from....did they come from the Big Bang? 

Technically…yes. Everything in this universe “comes” and occurs after the Big Bang. But, just like before, it’s really complicated. And, I’m probably going to seem like I’m going on a long rant, but I really want people to understand this; it’s extremely misleading to the average person to just tell them that the Big Bang “caused” everything. The other side absolutely obsesses in exploiting widespread ignorance of these subjects with ridiculous strawmen.

People want answers, but they hate working to get those answers.

People want simple answers to difficult questions, sometimes with hidden assumptions, on subjects that can’t be sufficiently understood without extensive study. Just the amount of knowledge you would need to possess to really understand current theories concerning the formation of stars and planets is mind-boggling. So, no offense, but science is a lot harder than religion. When the kid in Sunday school asks, “Why do I exist?” the pastor only needs to answer with, “God made you to worship him.” To provide an honest and truly comprehensive response without God, we have to cite various disciplines in biology, particularly anatomy and evolution, chemistry, physics, especially cosmology, etc. etc. etc. Then, when it’s all over, the kid probably won’t even understand one sentence we stated.

curious_george wrote:
(Sigh) You are so right. I got way carried away. Stupid enthusiasm, gets me every time.

It’s fine. Everybody makes mistakes.

Besides, you’re officially more open-minded than 99% of the theists I talk to on this forum.

curious_george wrote:
I think that the perfection of how everything works: Chlorophyll in leaves converting light into food, Our bodies functioning as well as they do, the rain cycle.

I would never say something is perfect so easily. ‘Perfect’ implies that the process or entity cannot be improved upon. The way you’re using the word perfect doesn’t make sense to me.

Our bodies grow old and wrinkled. We get allergies. We get sick and die. We suffer from genetic defects, cancer. We break our bones when we fall off a cliff. We choke on food. I wouldn’t call that perfect.

Regarding chlorophyll, your question hints at a common criticism of evolution called ‘irreducible complexity.’ For now, I’ll just say that methods of photosynthesis probably appeared before trees, or, at least, any trees like the trees we are aware of. And, of course, there are ways of getting energy other than using sunlight. So no, an organism would not have to change into a plant and evolve an entire system for photosynthesis or something. *sigh* It’s complicated.

The rain cycle? Water has to evaporate due to heat. It has to fall back to Earth again because of gravity.

curious_george wrote:
Things that work so well, is evidence of a Creator...if not the God I believe in...then something/someone else.

What, how does that follow? I really don’t understand this.

curious_george wrote:
There is no evidence that the universe doesn't have a boundary.

Hmmm, maybe, I don't know about that one.

curious_george wrote:
What are the dating methods. What are they called? How do they date things? I've heard of carbondating. But I also heard that it was unreliable, that it dated something from the present as thousands of years old. How do you check carbondating??

You’re probably thinking of radiometric dating, which measures the age of materials using the decay rates of radioactive isotopes. Carbon dating is one of these methods. Carbon-14 decays into Nitrogen 14 with a half-life of 5,730 years. There’s also Aluminum-26 with a half-life of 740,000 years. Iodine-129 with a half-life of 17,000,000 years. Samarium-147 with a half-life of 108,000,000 years. Uranium-235 with a half-life of 704,000,000 years. Potassium-40, 1,260,000,000 years. Uranium-238, 4.5 billion years. Thorium-232, 14 billion years. Rhenium-187, 41.6 billion years. Rubidium-87, 49 billion years. There are others too, but these are some of the most common tests.

Can we get the wrong results from carbon dating? Of course we can. The material just has to be contaminated or the carbon in the sample just doesn’t match the age of the material. The reason carbon dating works is because carbon is being continuously replenished in the atmosphere. It there was only a set amount of carbon-14, then it would obviously have all decayed to nitrogen by now. So, we can, technically, date anything with carbon-14 in it, but it usually works best on plants and plant materiel, since they get carbon directly from the atmosphere. It works less well on animals that eat the plants and even less well on other animals that eat those animals. It’s terrible for dating marine animals, since they often get carbon from sources in the water. 

How do we know that the results are accurate? Well, we can use it on something that we already know the age of to see if it’ll get the right age. We can also match it with other dating methods.

For example, dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating tree rings. You know, I assume, that we can determine the age of a tree by counting the rings in its trunk. What you might not have known is that the rings are unique, different from year to year depending on the conditions, so that we can often match the rings of one tree to the rings of another. If we have the trunk of one tree that lived from 1900 to 2000, and we find another 100 year old tree from the same area, with half of its rings matching the former tree, then viola!, we know that the latter tree lived from the year 1850 to 1950. Using only this method, scientists have been able to go back about 10,000 years, quite a ways past the YEC estimate of 6,000. So, if carbon dating and dendrochronology are accurate then we should be able to match their dates together, and indeed, we do. This strengthens the validity of both methods.

And, of course, there’s more. Even before radiometric dating, we knew that some material was older than others, based on what layer of sediment rock they were found in. We can match these with the results we get from radiometric dating as well. There’s over a dozen methods just for determining the age of light from distant stars and galaxies, which inevitably, also gets us the distances to those celestial places. There’s thermoluminescence, which measures the amount of light given off by materials that store energy from radiation. We can date ice cores, dating based on the accumulation of ice and snow in cold areas.

curious_george wrote:
But where did the first simplest self-replicating molecule come from?? Did it just appear??

Nothing ‘just appears.’ That wouldn’t be very scientific.

I hope you don’t mind watching more videos. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

curious_george wrote:
How do you think about things? In the opposite way? You don't have to answer if you don't want to...I'm just curious.

Um, if I don’t know the answer to something, then I don’t know the answer to it. If a claim seems to be supported by logic and evidence, then I’ll support that claim. If not, then I won’t. If I find out that I’m wrong, then I’ll accept that I was wrong.

Does that answer your question? 

curious_george wrote:
Through evolution a non-horse evolves into a horse. And it is possible that the non-horse looked like a fish and evolved slowly into the horse that we think of today. What are some of the transitional forms that scientists have found? About any organsim.

One of the sources I linked earlier had a huge list of fossils.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

If that hurts your brain too much, you could try…

http://www.holysmoke.org/tran-icr.htm I think this is the same list, without all the long explanations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

curious_george wrote:
Two questions: Do I look the same as my great^25 grandfather?

Every person looks different. You mean evolution? 

Um, even if each mother gave birth to the next generation at the age of 30, that’s only about 750 years ago….

curious_george wrote:
and Why do we see the apes alive and around and none of our other transitional forms?

No, no, no.

Any animal that currently exists would be our cousin in evolutionary terms, not our ancestor. They could be similar to our ancestral form, but it’s not the same thing because each independent line that split off would have evolved on its own. Metaphorically, we are not at the top of a ladder. We’re at the end of a branch of a tree, with every other organism that currently exists at the ends of all the other branches.

So, your question doesn’t make sense. If you’re asking ‘why didn’t any of our ancestors survive to evolve into other creatures, organisms other than apes’ (although humans are, taxonomically, apes) the answer would be, they did. Assuming that life originated in one location, we would all share a common ancestor (common descent), so every living thing that currently exists would be our “other transitional forms."

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:
It’s terrible for dating marine animals.

I know, I have terrible problems dating marine animals too. They're such prudes.


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butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:

Technically…yes. Everything in this universe “comes” and occurs after the Big Bang. But, just like before, it’s really complicated. And, I’m probably going to seem like I’m going on a long rant, but I really want people to understand this; it’s extremely misleading to the average person to just tell them that the Big Bang “caused” everything. The other side absolutely obsesses in exploiting widespread ignorance of these subjects with ridiculous strawmen.

Long rants....I've had a few of those. The other side?? You mean creationists like me?

butterbattle wrote:
People want answers, but they hate working to get those answers.

I agree entirely. People are inerrantly lazy. I think that this is an opportune time to tell you that I went to the library and got The Size of the Solar System, The Age of the Univers, Chemistry of Life, Origins, and A Breifer History of Time. I also have a waiting list of books about Albert Einstein...and Physics for Dummies. LOL!

butterbattle wrote:
I would never say something is perfect so easily. ‘Perfect’ implies that the process or entity cannot be improved upon. The way you’re using the word perfect doesn’t make sense to me.

Hmmm...is anything perfect then? I think that I had a bad choice of words...what I meant was... things that work together in a complete way. Maybe that doesn't make any more sense.

butterbattle wrote:
Our bodies grow old and wrinkled. We get allergies. We get sick and die. We suffer from genetic defects, cancer. We break our bones when we fall off a cliff. We choke on food. I wouldn’t call that perfect.

Me neither. After being banished from the Garden from eating of the fruit, our initial perfection was taken away. But I was talking about our bodies working in cycles...everything functioning in a way that is hard for me to understand how it evolved without it working like this. 

butterbattle wrote:
Regarding chlorophyll, your question hints at a common criticism of evolution called ‘irreducible complexity.’ For now, I’ll just say that methods of photosynthesis probably appeared before trees, or, at least, any trees like the trees we are aware of. And, of course, there are ways of getting energy other than using sunlight. So no, an organism would not have to change into a plant and evolve an entire system for photosynthesis or something. *sigh* It’s complicated.

What's not complicated. Nothing is simple. So the things necessary for survival of the plants and animals we see today evolved before them?

butterbattle wrote:
The rain cycle? Water has to evaporate due to heat. It has to fall back to Earth again because of gravity.

I was using it as an example of how things work together... heat and gravity working together to make it rain. That was what I meant.

butterbattle wrote:

You’re probably thinking of radiometric dating, which measures the age of materials using the decay rates of radioactive isotopes. Carbon dating is one of these methods. Carbon-14 decays into Nitrogen 14 with a half-life of 5,730 years. There’s also Aluminum-26 with a half-life of 740,000 years. Iodine-129 with a half-life of 17,000,000 years. Samarium-147 with a half-life of 108,000,000 years. Uranium-235 with a half-life of 704,000,000 years. Potassium-40, 1,260,000,000 years. Uranium-238, 4.5 billion years. Thorium-232, 14 billion years. Rhenium-187, 41.6 billion years. Rubidium-87, 49 billion years. There are others too, but these are some of the most common tests.

Can we get the wrong results from carbon dating? Of course we can. The material just has to be contaminated or the carbon in the sample just doesn’t match the age of the material. The reason carbon dating works is because carbon is being continuously replenished in the atmosphere. It there was only a set amount of carbon-14, then it would obviously have all decayed to nitrogen by now. So, we can, technically, date anything with carbon-14 in it, but it usually works best on plants and plant materiel, since they get carbon directly from the atmosphere. It works less well on animals that eat the plants and even less well on other animals that eat those animals. It’s terrible for dating marine animals, since they often get carbon from sources in the water. 

How do we know that the results are accurate? Well, we can use it on something that we already know the age of to see if it’ll get the right age. We can also match it with other dating methods.

For example, dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating tree rings. You know, I assume, that we can determine the age of a tree by counting the rings in its trunk. What you might not have known is that the rings are unique, different from year to year depending on the conditions, so that we can often match the rings of one tree to the rings of another. If we have the trunk of one tree that lived from 1900 to 2000, and we find another 100 year old tree from the same area, with half of its rings matching the former tree, then viola!, we know that the latter tree lived from the year 1850 to 1950. Using only this method, scientists have been able to go back about 10,000 years, quite a ways past the YEC estimate of 6,000. So, if carbon dating and dendrochronology are accurate then we should be able to match their dates together, and indeed, we do. This strengthens the validity of both methods.

And, of course, there’s more. Even before radiometric dating, we knew that some material was older than others, based on what layer of sediment rock they were found in. We can match these with the results we get from radiometric dating as well. There’s over a dozen methods just for determining the age of light from distant stars and galaxies, which inevitably, also gets us the distances to those celestial places. There’s thermoluminescence, which measures the amount of light given off by materials that store energy from radiation. We can date ice cores, dating based on the accumulation of ice and snow in cold areas.

Ok. That makes a lot more sense to me now. Thank you.

butterbattle wrote:
I hope you don’t mind watching more videos. 

I don't mind at all. I was actually going to pick a day and do nothing but watch all of the videos I could find on the subject. I just haven't had time yet.

butterbattle wrote:
Um, if I don’t know the answer to something, then I don’t know the answer to it. If a claim seems to be supported by logic and evidence, then I’ll support that claim. If not, then I won’t. If I find out that I’m wrong, then I’ll accept that I was wrong.

Does that answer your question? 

Yes. Thank you and thanks for the list of transitional fossils. It was very helpful.

curious_george wrote:
Two questions: Do I look the same as my great^25 grandfather?

butterbattle wrote:
Every person looks different. You mean evolution? 

Um, even if each mother gave birth to the next generation at the age of 30, that’s only about 750 years ago….

...and evolution needs more time!!! RIGHT!!

curious_george wrote:
and Why do we see the apes alive and around and none of our other transitional forms?

butterbattle wrote:
No, no, no.

Any animal that currently exists would be our cousin in evolutionary terms, not our ancestor. They could be similar to our ancestral form, but it’s not the same thing because each independent line that split off would have evolved on its own. Metaphorically, we are not at the top of a ladder. We’re at the end of a branch of a tree, with every other organism that currently exists at the ends of all the other branches.

So, your question doesn’t make sense. If you’re asking ‘why didn’t any of our ancestors survive to evolve into other creatures, organisms other than apes’ (although humans are, taxonomically, apes) the answer would be, they did. Assuming that life originated in one location, we would all share a common ancestor (common descent), so every living thing that currently exists would be our “other transitional forms."

 

Okay. I didn't know that. Interesting. I am learning so much. I'll probably have more questions for you when I finish my science books. And I probably won't be on for a few days. I'm going to pick up my sister from college. Smiling

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KSMB wrote:

butterbattle wrote:
It’s terrible for dating marine animals.

I know, I have terrible problems dating marine animals too. They're such prudes.

 

 

            Marine animals are not prudes!!!!!!!!  Just bring the right tarter sauce!  A couple of stiff shots and they're all yours.

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VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

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George,I approach the text

George,

I approach the text in a similar way as your grandfather.

Think about the first verse, commonly translated as saying, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." I could pick apart that translation for hours. Instead, I will focus on the word bereshit, here rendered as "created." The word was frequently used to describe the result of eating food, which was to fill up the stomach. The word means, not to create, but to fill up or to populate with things that might or might not have existed before. In practically all verses where it discusses creation, it seems to always mean separating, differentiating, manifesting, and generally fashioning, rather than creating from scratch, which is a notion that appears quite alien to the texts and to the language that the texts were written in.

I also dislike "the heavens and the earth" translation because it leads people to think of the theological idea of heaven and to think of our planet Earth as an orb, which biases the reader to interpret everything that follows quite differently from how it should be interpreted. In other words, the popular translation is full of weasel-wording. A better translation would "the skies and the terrain", as that is all the verse mentions.

Another problem with the popular translation is how they render it in the past tense and divide up the first few verses as separate sentences and paragraphs. This leads you to think that the second verse describes the appearance of the heavens and the earth after God brought it into being and that the third verse, in the next paragraph, describes an action that occurred after the first verse. In other words, it leads you to believe that the heavens and the terrain were created to be featureless and plunged in darkness and that light came afterward. There is another way to approach the text, which hardly ever gets mentioned in any translation, in any footnote, or any commentary. To understand what I mean, set aside any knowledge you have about how people divide the text into sentences, paragraphs, and verses, as those are generally arbitrary. Now, present the text the same way that you would present a Psalm, and then interpret it like I would interpret a Psalm. (Recall that Psalms are poems in which each set of two lines expresses the same thought but with different words, meaning that line 1 expresses a thought, 2 expresses the same thought as 1 but differently, 3 expresses a new thought, 4 expresses the same thought as 3 but differently, and so on.)

When Elohim began to fill up the skies and the terrain,
    The terrain was featureless and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep,
And [then] the breath of Elohim fluttered over the face of the waters
    and Elohim said, "Let there be light!", and there was light.

Before saying more, I know "breath of Elohim" is a peculiar translation. It's not unwarranted though. In contrast to how modern theists think about air as "just this gas", the Hebrews of this time thought of air as a divine substance. They thought of Elohim as the life-force of the universe, or the force of vitality, and that Elohim imparted that force onto other things with the use of air or breath, which came to be known as spirit. This notion of air as a divine thing was common for many centuries afterward, extending into Latin speaking peoples, and that is ultimately where we got our word for respirator, for it was the thing that enabled us to re-spirit the body. You must keep this mystical idea of air in mind when you're dealing with texts like Genesis, otherwise you'll kind-of miss the point.

But back to what I was saying. Take the text as I have presented it and interpret it like a Psalm, such that lines one and two express the same thought but with different words and likewise with lines three and four. As you can see, in 1-2, the terrain was featureless and empty, meaning there was no mountains or lakes or living things, and this terrain was underneath a large mass of water (this detail comes from the context of later verses), and all of this existed together in a state of total darkness, and that was the start of affairs when Elohim to fashion the world. Then, in 3-4, Elohim voiced the command "Let there be light!" by using that divine air, or spirit, which fluttered above the surface of the waters, and it was that divine air which made light appear.

As an aside, do you know why the Hebrew scriptures taught that no man could see God without being blinded? Most people would never realize that this notion actually comes from this passage in Genesis. You see, Elohim is said to contain so much of that divine air that created light that he is, in a manner of speaking, an incandescent light-bulb when he is God. For man to see Elohim without being blinded, Elohim would have to relinquish all of that divine substance and therefore give up his status as a god. Hence, when Elohim is God, men cannot see Elohim and therefore God without being blinded, and when Elohim is not God (something that Elohim would never will to happen and therefore would never occur, but is metaphysically possible), then men can see Elohim without being blinded but they cannot see Elohim as God, only as what used to be God. Think about it.

Anyway, as you can see, this approach to the verses has us conclude that only one creative act transpired (another word that comes from the Latin for breath, by the way), which was the command for light to appear, unlike the other approach which has us conclude that two creative acts transpired, the creation of the terrain and the skies and then the light. In other words, this approach has us conclude that Elohim did not create the skies and the terrain, but only thrown light upon it and, now that it was visible, began (after these verses) to populate it with things that were made from pre-existing materials, which is how your grandfather sees it.

It should also be said that separation is not the only thing that was done. There was both separation and combination, which is to say that some things were separated so that they could exist apart from eachother, such as day and night, and some things were separated so that they could come together in a different way to create something new, such as the separation of the things in the dirt to come together to form the vegetation.

Sorry for the long post, but I thought that you would find this interesting Smiling

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curious_george wrote:Long

curious_george wrote:
Long rants....I've had a few of those. The other side?? You mean creationists like me?

Well, not you. I'm thinking of people like Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind.

curious_george wrote:
Hmmm...is anything perfect then? I think that I had a bad choice of words...what I meant was... things that work together in a complete way. Maybe that doesn't make any more sense.

I kind of understand what you mean. I think we intuitively attribute complex structures to intelligent design.   

curious_george wrote:
So the things necessary for survival of the plants and animals we see today evolved before them?

A lot of it did, but I don't know the details. 

curious_george wrote:
Um, even if each mother gave birth to the next generation at the age of 30, that’s only about 750 years ago….

...and evolution needs more time!!! RIGHT!!

Yes.

Well...I should say that it really depends on the number of generations. 25 generations simply isn't enough to produce dramatic changes.

curious_george wrote:
Okay. I didn't know that. Interesting. I am learning so much. I'll probably have more questions for you when I finish my science books. And I probably won't be on for a few days. I'm going to pick up my sister from college. Smiling

Cool. Are you in college as well?

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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George,You said you had

George,

You said you had trouble understanding how all of the activity in Genesis 1 could be understood as separation. There is a different approach (technically, it's the same, but pragmatically, it's much easier to understand) though. Try coming to the text this way:

 

1.01-02 | Intro

    1.03-05 | Day 1 | Elohim does splitting action with light and dark
    1.06-08 | Day 2 | Elohim does splitting action with water and sky
    1.09-13 | Day 3 | Elohim does splitting action with land and plants

    1.14-19 | Day 4 | Elohim does filling action with light and dark
    1.20-23 | Day 5 | Elohim does filling action with water and sky
    1.24-31 | Day 6 | Elohim does filling action with land and plants

2.01-02 | Close

Stultior stulto fuisti, qui tabellis crederes!


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Thomathy

Thomathy wrote:

-curious_george wrote:

 

Two questions: Do I look the same as my great^25 grandfather? and Why do we see the apes alive and around and none of our other transitional forms?

To the first question, probably not at all.  Not that any of us could know that with any certainty.  The better question is should you look the same as your great^25 grandfather?  The answer to that question is no, not at all necessarily.

The second question is much more fun to answer.

We see apes alive because they evolved from the common ancestor that we evolved from.  It is entirely incorrect, and I don't know how exactly the idea came into being (blame the media if nothing else), to say that we evolved from apes.  Apes are not a transitional form of humans.  I'll just write that again.  Apes are not a transitional form of humans. 

(In fact, transitional forms as they're commonly conceived never existed and don't exist for absolutely any thing that ever lived or ever will live, unless the term transitional is taken to mean any extant or extinct thing ever, including you and myself.)

Modern apes are just as evolved, or perhaps we might say more evolved than modern humans (they have shorter generations than human after all), this is because we did not evolve from apes.  Modern apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor probably some 6-7 million years ago.  The closest fossils we have in the 'human' lineage to the common ancestor are now Ardipithecus Ramidus, which lived some 4.4 million years ago in wooded areas and was bipedal and also adapted to tree climbing.

From a post I wrote in a different thread (and edited for presentation here):

Thomathy wrote:
...[I]t doesn't appear to be chimp-like.  That is, it throws off suspicions that our most ancient ancestors used to walk like chimps and gorillas (knuckle walking) and then evolved out of that trait.  [What] ...is being suggested is that our most common ancestor might not have been chimp-like ...[.]

Since Ardi walked bipedally, had a small brain and was adapted to some tree climbing and lacked all appearances or signs of knuckle walking it shows us that this particular ancestor had never been adapted to knuckle walking.  It shows us that if we were able to uncover more ancient ancestors of modern chimps we will find that they evolved into knuckle walking some time after the divergence of the common ancestor which spawned the present species and perhaps walked bipedally or were especially more arboreally adapted.

In any case, it is sufficient to say that modern apes exist because we never evolved from them, but along side them from a divergence with a common ancestor.

 

+1

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Visual_Paradox wrote:Think

Visual_Paradox wrote:

Think about the first verse, commonly translated as saying, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." I could pick apart that translation for hours. Instead, I will focus on the word bereshit, here rendered as "created." The word was frequently used to describe the result of eating food, which was to fill up the stomach. The word means, not to create, but to fill up or to populate with things that might or might not have existed before. In practically all verses where it discusses creation, it seems to always mean separating, differentiating, manifesting, and generally fashioning, rather than creating from scratch, which is a notion that appears quite alien to the texts and to the language that the texts were written in.

wow. you know a lot about words. I love words even though I can't spell at all. This is totally off subject, but I have been fascinated lately by how people will use a word so commonly and not even realize that that word has a deeper meaning...no...a more significant meaning. They use it as a filler word. For example, awesome. People use that all the time....but never to the actual degree intended by the first person who used it. Back to the subject,  I actually agree with my grandfather. It makes sense.

Quote:
Another problem with the popular translation is how they render it in the past tense and divide up the first few verses as separate sentences and paragraphs. This leads you to think that the second verse describes the appearance of the heavens and the earth after God brought it into being and that the third verse, in the next paragraph, describes an action that occurred after the first verse. In other words, it leads you to believe that the heavens and the terrain were created to be featureless and plunged in darkness and that light came afterward. There is another way to approach the text, which hardly ever gets mentioned in any translation, in any footnote, or any commentary. To understand what I mean, set aside any knowledge you have about how people divide the text into sentences, paragraphs, and verses, as those are generally arbitrary. Now, present the text the same way that you would present a Psalm, and then interpret it like I would interpret a Psalm. (Recall that Psalms are poems in which each set of two lines expresses the same thought but with different words, meaning that line 1 expresses a thought, 2 expresses the same thought as 1 but differently, 3 expresses a new thought, 4 expresses the same thought as 3 but differently, and so on.)
  Of course it isn't mentioned. Religion can be a lot like the government. LOL!!

Quote:
When Elohim began to fill up the skies and the terrain,
    The terrain was featureless and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep,
And [then] the breath of Elohim fluttered over the face of the waters
    and Elohim said, "Let there be light!", and there was light.

I love that. It is simply beautiful.

Quote:
Before saying more, I know "breath of Elohim" is a peculiar translation. It's not unwarranted though. In contrast to how modern theists think about air as "just this gas", the Hebrews of this time thought of air as a divine substance. They thought of Elohim as the life-force of the universe, or the force of vitality, and that Elohim imparted that force onto other things with the use of air or breath, which came to be known as spirit. This notion of air as a divine thing was common for many centuries afterward, extending into Latin speaking peoples, and that is ultimately where we got our word for respirator, for it was the thing that enabled us to re-spirit the body. You must keep this mystical idea of air in mind when you're dealing with texts like Genesis, otherwise you'll kind-of miss the point.

I love the translation "breath of Elohim" How did you come to know so much? I always wanted to take a Hebrew class, a Greek class, and a Latin class. Is that what you did?

Quote:
But back to what I was saying. Take the text as I have presented it and interpret it like a Psalm, such that lines one and two express the same thought but with different words and likewise with lines three and four. As you can see, in 1-2, the terrain was featureless and empty, meaning there was no mountains or lakes or living things, and this terrain was underneath a large mass of water (this detail comes from the context of later verses), and all of this existed together in a state of total darkness, and that was the start of affairs when Elohim to fashion the world. Then, in 3-4, Elohim voiced the command "Let there be light!" by using that divine air, or spirit, which fluttered above the surface of the waters, and it was that divine air which made light appear.

Cool.

Quote:
As an aside, do you know why the Hebrew scriptures taught that no man could see God without being blinded? Most people would never realize that this notion actually comes from this passage in Genesis. You see, Elohim is said to contain so much of that divine air that created light that he is, in a manner of speaking, an incandescent light-bulb when he is God. For man to see Elohim without being blinded, Elohim would have to relinquish all of that divine substance and therefore give up his status as a god. Hence, when Elohim is God, men cannot see Elohim and therefore God without being blinded, and when Elohim is not God (something that Elohim would never will to happen and therefore would never occur, but is metaphysically possible), then men can see Elohim without being blinded but they cannot see Elohim as God, only as what used to be God. Think about it.

Actually, I did know that.


Quote:
Anyway, as you can see, this approach to the verses has us conclude that only one creative act transpired (another word that comes from the Latin for breath, by the way), which was the command for light to appear, unlike the other approach which has us conclude that two creative acts transpired, the creation of the terrain and the skies and then the light. In other words, this approach has us conclude that Elohim did not create the skies and the terrain, but only thrown light upon it and, now that it was visible, began (after these verses) to populate it with things that were made from pre-existing materials, which is how your grandfather sees it.

Do you think this affects His God-ship over us? Does this make Him not our Creator?

Quote:

It should also be said that separation is not the only thing that was done. There was both separation and combination, which is to say that some things were separated so that they could exist apart from eachother, such as day and night, and some things were separated so that they could come together in a different way to create something new, such as the separation of the things in the dirt to come together to form the vegetation.
The English translation of Genesis uses the word separation several times. (sigh) so complicated.
Quote:
Sorry for the long post, but I thought that you would find this interesting Smiling
Interesting is not the word for it. Fascinating. Spell-binding. AWESOME!!!

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butterbattle wrote:Well, not

butterbattle wrote:

Well, not you. I'm thinking of people like Ray Comfort and Kent Hovind.

Two questions. 1. What makes me different from them? (You don't have to answer that)  and ( I may be asking for a long rant here, but here goes nothing) 2. What do you have against Kent Hovind? (Wince)

butterbattle wrote:
I kind of understand what you mean. I think we intuitively attribute complex structures to intelligent design.   

Exactly. That is exactly what I meant.

 

butterbattle wrote:
Yes.

Well...I should say that it really depends on the number of generations. 25 generations simply isn't enough to produce dramatic changes.

How many generations does it take? and how do you know how many generations it takes?

Quote:
Cool. Are you in college as well?

Actually, I am in the process of moving to a new state. So I won't be able to start college until next year. Which stinks because I love learning new things. I could stay in school the rest of my life and be a happy person. I considered starting online college, but I don't really like that idea. I'd rather be in a classroom. But I can't wait. I am going to major in Psychology with an emphasis in Counseling. Smiling Are you in college or graduated or....????

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curious_george wrote:Two

curious_george wrote:
Two questions. 1. What makes me different from them? (You don't have to answer that)

I'll answer it anyways. 

*begins barfing flowers and bunnies* As far as I can tell, unlike the vast majority of the people that come to this forum, you came here with an honest desire to learn more and to discuss these difficult topics with us. You're polite; you don't insult everyone you disagree with. You're honest with others and with yourself. You're open-minded, trying to understand my perspective instead of just ranting about how I'm going to hell.  

curious_george wrote:
and ( I may be asking for a long rant here, but here goes nothing) 2. What do you have against Kent Hovind? (Wince)

Lol, what I have against Kent Hovind is what I have against every one of these fundamentalist posterboys. These individuals get corrected on the exact same point so many times by so many different people that I start to wonder if they're really that stupid or if they're intentionally lying to make a profit. I mean, Kirk Cameron was probably told at least hundreds of times that evolution does NOT predict the existence of a crocoduck. Yet, he kept using it. It's ridiculous to the point of being self satiring. 

However, Kent Hovind is worse because he tells his 'sheep' that he's a biologist and that he 'taught science for 15 years,' when he obviously doesn't even possess a rudimentary understanding of any science related topic. He probably still believes that evolution violates the second law of thermydynamics, that it logically leads to genocide, that one chromosome contains all the genetic information necessary to 'make' another human, and that atheists worship Darwin.

curious_george wrote:
How many generations does it take? and how do you know how many generations it takes?

You mean, how many generations does it take to evolve into two different species? There's no set number; it has to depend on the environment and the specific organism. But, the population would need to be divided somehow. Then, we would need enough time for the two groups to noticeably diverge in their characteristics. 

curious_george wrote:
Smiling Are you in college or graduated or....????

I'm a sophomore, majoring in physics at the University of Washington, Seattle.  

I should be studying for an exam right now instead of talking to you......

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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butterbattle wrote:I'll

butterbattle wrote:

I'll answer it anyways. 

*begins barfing flowers and bunnies* As far as I can tell, unlike the vast majority of the people that come to this forum, you came here with an honest desire to learn more and to discuss these difficult topics with us. You're polite; you don't insult everyone you disagree with. You're honest with others and with yourself. You're open-minded, trying to understand my perspective instead of just ranting about how I'm going to hell.  

Want to know something stupid? I sat here for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what you meant by barfing flowers and bunnies. I finally figured it out, though. I watched the rational response debate on youtube...and was appalled by how horribly Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron handled themselves. I was offended a couple of times....especially by the crocoduck. That was poorly done. I realized that I had no business believing evolution was wrong if I didn't even understand it. So, I joined the forum. And I have always disagreed with the whole "believe in God or go to Hell" thing. I call it the scare tactic. I hate it. It's not my place to condem anyone to hell.

butterbattle wrote:
Lol, what I have against Kent Hovind is what I have against every one of these fundamentalist posterboys. These individuals get corrected on the exact same point so many times by so many different people that I start to wonder if they're really that stupid or if they're intentionally lying to make a profit. I mean, Kirk Cameron was probably told at least hundreds of times that evolution does NOT predict the existence of a crocoduck. Yet, he kept using it. It's ridiculous to the point of being self satiring. 

However, Kent Hovind is worse because he tells his 'sheep' that he's a biologist and that he 'taught science for 15 years,' when he obviously doesn't even possess a rudimentary understanding of any science related topic. He probably still believes that evolution violates the second law of thermydynamics, that it logically leads to genocide, that one chromosome contains all the genetic information necessary to 'make' another human, and that atheists worship Darwin.

(sigh) Kent Hovind was always my favorite, although some of his ideas he says in a very rude way. He's funny. I never liked Ken Ham...he gives me the creeps. I don't trust him.  

butterbattle wrote:
You mean, how many generations does it take to evolve into two different species? There's no set number; it has to depend on the environment and the specific organism. But, the population would need to be divided somehow. Then, we would need enough time for the two groups to noticeably diverge in their characteristics. 

So, when the New World began to be populated we were divided by the sea. Have we evolved from the Europeans? Granted it has only been 517 years give or take. Is that enough time? OH!! And that reminds me of another question. I am by no means racist, but where do you believe all the different skin colors came from?

butterbattle wrote:

I'm a sophomore, majoring in physics at the University of Washington, Seattle.  

I should be studying for an exam right now instead of talking to you......

THATS why you're so smart. It all makes sense to me now. LOL! Unless, of course, you fail your exam. lol! Just kidding.

********

Off subject, but I just noticed we earn points for our posts. What do you do with points...what do they mean??

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curious_george wrote:

butterbattle wrote:
You mean, how many generations does it take to evolve into two different species? There's no set number; it has to depend on the environment and the specific organism. But, the population would need to be divided somehow. Then, we would need enough time for the two groups to noticeably diverge in their characteristics. 

So, when the New World began to be populated we were divided by the sea. Have we evolved from the Europeans? Granted it has only been 517 years give or take. Is that enough time? OH!! And that reminds me of another question. I am by no means racist, but where do you believe all the different skin colors came from?

Skin color and all the other differences we traditionally have thought of as 'racial', or ethnic, are precisely the sort of variations, part random, part selected by the environment as being advantageous, which if given enough time, eventually lead to what we would classify as separate species. Species is not a precisely defined term, ultimately.

All life on earth is related, the lines of descent forming a tangled bush rather than a nice tree, branches forming and rejoining, but ultimately starting in a moderately broad but connected collection of proto-DNA/RNA molecules with all possible and viable sequences. It is a classic mistake to think of one single original 'species' or, even worse, individual, as the origin of all life, because genetic material is always exchanged between individuals, whether directly as we see in bacteria, or in sexual reproduction.

Without it, evolution would be far more difficult, or at least much slower, because it reshuffles the genetic sequence, so evolution doesn't have to rely purely on mutation within each line of descent.

Most variation between 'species' is variation in the mix of active genes. Actual mutation of individual genes plays a smaller role, but it is ultimately vital to provide the basis for genuinely new characteristics.

 

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curious_george wrote:Want to

curious_george wrote:
Want to know something stupid? I sat here for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what you meant by barfing flowers and bunnies. I finally figured it out, though.

It just meant that I was going to unleash a profusion of complements. 

curious_george wrote:
(sigh) Kent Hovind was always my favorite, although some of his ideas he says in a very rude way. He's funny. I never liked Ken Ham...he gives me the creeps. I don't trust him.

I can understand that. Kent Hovind is a pretty good public speaker, and he presents his ideas in a way that's easy to understand. He's just..........wrong.

curious_george wrote:
So, when the New World began to be populated we were divided by the sea. Have we evolved from the Europeans? Granted it has only been 517 years give or take. Is that enough time?

Eh....is it enough time to evolve from them? Yes? Maybe? I'm not completely sure what that means. We have, in a sense, evolved from Europeans because there are differences, albeit subtle and minimal. But, under that definition, you've evolved from your great^25 grandfather as well because evolution is happening constantly, and no two genes pools are exactly the same. 

Again, there is no inherent threshold at which an "unevolved" organism becomes "evolved." The term 'evolved' is a bit ambiguous here. 

curious_george wrote:
OH!! And that reminds me of another question. I am by no means racist, but where do you believe all the different skin colors came from?

*drumroll* Evolution! Skin color is determined mostly by the melanin in your skin. This is determined by your genes. People that live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. And...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color

"When Hominids evolved relative hairlessness (the most likely function of which was to facilitate perspiration), they evolved dark skin, which was needed to prevent low folate levels since they lived in sun-rich Africa. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and light skin color re-emerged. Sexual selection and diet may have played a part in the evolution of skin tone diversity, as well[4]."

curious_george wrote:
THATS why you're so smart. It all makes sense to me now. LOL!

Lol. I'm not that smart.

curious_george wrote:
Unless, of course, you fail your exam. lol! Just kidding.

It wasn't good, but it wasn't too bad either. It was about what I expected.

curious_george wrote:
Off subject, but I just noticed we earn points for our posts. What do you do with points...what do they mean??

As far as I can tell, they don't mean jack ****. 

Edit: But Hamby is beating everyone else by a lot.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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BobSpence1 wrote:Skin color

BobSpence1 wrote:

Skin color and all the other differences we traditionally have thought of as 'racial', or ethnic, are precisely the sort of variations, part random, part selected by the environment as being advantageous, which if given enough time, eventually lead to what we would classify as separate species. Species is not a precisely defined term, ultimately.

All life on earth is related, the lines of descent forming a tangled bush rather than a nice tree, branches forming and rejoining, but ultimately starting in a moderately broad but connected collection of proto-DNA/RNA molecules with all possible and viable sequences. It is a classic mistake to think of one single original 'species' or, even worse, individual, as the origin of all life, because genetic material is always exchanged between individuals, whether directly as we see in bacteria, or in sexual reproduction.

Without it, evolution would be far more difficult, or at least much slower, because it reshuffles the genetic sequence, so evolution doesn't have to rely purely on mutation within each line of descent.

Most variation between 'species' is variation in the mix of active genes. Actual mutation of individual genes plays a smaller role, but it is ultimately vital to provide the basis for genuinely new characteristics.

Asexual reproduction involves only one parent organism, right? How does this play into the whole genetic material is always exchanged between individuals?? I mean no disrespect...I'm just confused.

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butterbattle wrote:Eh....is

butterbattle wrote:

Eh....is it enough time to evolve from them? Yes? Maybe? I'm not completely sure what that means. We have, in a sense, evolved from Europeans because there are differences, albeit subtle and minimal. But, under that definition, you've evolved from your great^25 grandfather as well because evolution is happening constantly, and no two genes pools are exactly the same. 

Again, there is no inherent threshold at which an "unevolved" organism becomes "evolved." The term 'evolved' is a bit ambiguous here.

curious_george wrote:
OH!! And that reminds me of another question. I am by no means racist, but where do you believe all the different skin colors came from?

*drumroll* Evolution! Skin color is determined mostly by the melanin in your skin. This is determined by your genes. People that live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. And...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color

"When Hominids evolved relative hairlessness (the most likely function of which was to facilitate perspiration), they evolved dark skin, which was needed to prevent low folate levels since they lived in sun-rich Africa. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and light skin color re-emerged. Sexual selection and diet may have played a part in the evolution of skin tone diversity, as well[4]."

Okay. So evolution doesnt make one organism better than another it makes them different from eachother.?????

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curious_george wrote:

BobSpence1 wrote:

Skin color and all the other differences we traditionally have thought of as 'racial', or ethnic, are precisely the sort of variations, part random, part selected by the environment as being advantageous, which if given enough time, eventually lead to what we would classify as separate species. Species is not a precisely defined term, ultimately.

All life on earth is related, the lines of descent forming a tangled bush rather than a nice tree, branches forming and rejoining, but ultimately starting in a moderately broad but connected collection of proto-DNA/RNA molecules with all possible and viable sequences. It is a classic mistake to think of one single original 'species' or, even worse, individual, as the origin of all life, because genetic material is always exchanged between individuals, whether directly as we see in bacteria, or in sexual reproduction.

Without it, evolution would be far more difficult, or at least much slower, because it reshuffles the genetic sequence, so evolution doesn't have to rely purely on mutation within each line of descent.

Most variation between 'species' is variation in the mix of active genes. Actual mutation of individual genes plays a smaller role, but it is ultimately vital to provide the basis for genuinely new characteristics.

Asexual reproduction involves only one parent organism, right? How does this play into the whole genetic material is always exchanged between individuals?? I mean no disrespect...I'm just confused.

As I already said, bacteria, which are asexual, do exchange genetic material. They do this in several different ways, For more detail, see this link: http://www.slic2.wsu.edu:82/hurlbert/micro101/pages/Chap9.html

This article on asexual reproduction includes this:

Quote:

Some species alternate between the sexual and asexual strategies, an ability known as heterogamy, depending on conditions. For example, the freshwater crustacean Daphnia reproduces by parthenogenesis in the spring to rapidly populate ponds, then switches to sexual reproduction as the intensity of competition and predation increases.

Hope this sorts out your confusion...

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curious_george wrote:

butterbattle wrote:

Eh....is it enough time to evolve from them? Yes? Maybe? I'm not completely sure what that means. We have, in a sense, evolved from Europeans because there are differences, albeit subtle and minimal. But, under that definition, you've evolved from your great^25 grandfather as well because evolution is happening constantly, and no two genes pools are exactly the same. 

Again, there is no inherent threshold at which an "unevolved" organism becomes "evolved." The term 'evolved' is a bit ambiguous here.

curious_george wrote:
OH!! And that reminds me of another question. I am by no means racist, but where do you believe all the different skin colors came from?

*drumroll* Evolution! Skin color is determined mostly by the melanin in your skin. This is determined by your genes. People that live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin. And...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_skin_color

"When Hominids evolved relative hairlessness (the most likely function of which was to facilitate perspiration), they evolved dark skin, which was needed to prevent low folate levels since they lived in sun-rich Africa. When humans migrated to less sun-intensive regions in the north, low vitamin D3 levels became a problem and light skin color re-emerged. Sexual selection and diet may have played a part in the evolution of skin tone diversity, as well[4]."

Okay. So evolution doesnt make one organism better than another it makes them different from eachother.?????

That is not a very accurate way to put it.

Evolution allows organisms to adapt to changing or new environments, so they ultimately have more offspring than more poorly adapted organisms.

If orqanisms from the same group, spread into two or more regions which separate them to some extent, like different valleys, or different islands, so that they are much less likely to interbreed, simple random variation, known as ''genetic drift', may cause them to gradually become noticeably different, as Darwin saw with the finches and turtles in the Galapagos Islands. Any actual difference in climate or other environmental factors will further drive the process of change.

It is not that one organism is better than the other, it is that they are each better than the other in the environment they have adapted ('evolved' ) in.

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curious_george wrote:Okay.

curious_george wrote:
Okay. So evolution doesnt make one organism better than another it makes them different from eachother.?????

Edit:

Evolution allows organisms to adapt to their respective environments, AND it creates variation. It 'improves' the gene pool, and it can lead to speciation when groups of organisms are separated.

Once again, some members of a species are more likely to reproduce than others because they possess traits that grant them a higher chance of survival. When organisms survive to reproduce, they perpetuate these traits because their genes are given to their offspring. Hence, succeeding generations will be more likely to possess these same beneficial traits, for the simple reason that they've inherited their genes from the members of preceding organisms that were able to survive.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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butterbattle wrote:

curious_george wrote:
Okay. So evolution doesnt make one organism better than another it makes them different from eachother.?????

Edit:

Evolution allows organisms to adapt to their respective environments, AND it creates variation. It 'improves' the gene pool, and it can lead to speciation when groups of organisms are separated.

Once again, some members of a species are more likely to reproduce than others because they possess traits that grant them a higher chance of survival. When organisms survive to reproduce, they perpetuate these traits because their genes are given to their offspring. Hence, succeeding generations will be more likely to possess these same beneficial traits, for the simple reason that they've inherited their genes from the members of preceding organisms that were able to survive.

The reason I was wondering is because I have been reading about Hitler recently. The whole thing he had against the Jews was that he thought they were the least evolved, with blacks being right above them and so on until you get the blue-eyed, blonde arians(spelling???). I always found it ironic that Hitler himself had brown hair and brown eyes and was a Jew. But in Mien Komf he said that he knew eventually he would have to eliminate himself...He was going to kill himself for the sake of what he called a new race. Some say he wouldn't have been so bloodthirsty if he hadn't gone to a Russian engineering school...where he met Stalin. But that's just speculation.

It also makes me wonder...democracy says that all men are created equal. Is that true? If we are all evolved are all men created equal? This could just kill democracy. To say that some are better than others, depending on the environment, isn't that asking for people to believe they are better than another and to therefore treat others with contempt and hatred for simply being different from them?? Seems to be a moral matter and an evolutionary matter.

And for that...where did our morals come from?? I mean as we slowly developed from cavemen how did they realize right and wrong?? Wouldn't they have just killed eachother and other horrible things?? How did they survive without morals. Look at our society today...it is slowly losing all moral value. Women walk around in next to nothing...and its okay. Violence on Tv is okay. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy CSI as much as the next person..but isn't that errosion of our moral values? Some would argue that without religion there would be no morals...I can see their point. As religion errodes and more and more people believe in no God, in no "higher being" of any sort, so to, does our morals. ( I think I found my soap box..long rant?...I think so) It is so assuming to say that religion is the reason for morals. I look at all the people who kill in the name of God and I shudder. The Crusades?? They took innocent Muslim lives in the name of God...a God who loves Muslims and Buddists as much as the Jews and Christians. And then I look at Isreal in the Bible...how they destroyed the Assyrians and the Agagites and the inhabitants of Canaan. And I wonder...is it any different? It probably isn't...I am probably missing something.

 And yet none of this destroys my faith in God. I won't force anyone else to believe in Him, but I do believe in Him, and His goodness and His wrath and His mercy. I don't understand many things, but still I believe. It seems so ignorant, I know. (sigh)....

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curious_george wrote:The

curious_george wrote:

The reason I was wondering is because I have been reading about Hitler recently. The whole thing he had against the Jews was that he thought they were the least evolved, with blacks being right above them and so on until you get the blue-eyed, blonde arians(spelling???). I always found it ironic that Hitler himself had brown hair and brown eyes and was a Jew. But in Mien Komf he said that he knew eventually he would have to eliminate himself...He was going to kill himself for the sake of what he called a new race. Some say he wouldn't have been so bloodthirsty if he hadn't gone to a Russian engineering school...where he met Stalin. But that's just speculation.

Just wondering, but where exactly did you get that information ? I've only read the chapter on race in "Mein Kampf" (and that was bad enough) but I really don't remember him announcing he was going to kill himself (anyway, that book had more than one author). It's mostly a lot of bs about racial purity, nothing about evolution. I also missed the bit where he calls the Jews "least evolved". Where is that ?

 

edit : I had a look for myself, and apparently he does mention evolution twice, once when talking about evolution within a species (something creationists have no objection to), and once when he's actually talking about social evolution.

Both examples and quotes can be found here : http://www.skepticwiki.org/index.php/Hitler_and_evolution

The entire text of "Mein Kampf" is also linked in the references. Maybe you could point me to the chapter where he mentions he's going to kill himself for the sake of a new race, or where he calls the Jews "the least evolved" ?


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Anonymouse wrote:Just

Anonymouse wrote:

Just wondering, but where exactly did you get that information ? I've only read the chapter on race in "Mein Kampf" (and that was bad enough) but I really don't remember him announcing he was going to kill himself

That is second hand information, my step-dad has a fascination with Hitler and he read the entire book. He said that Hitler said that he knew he would eventually have to eliminate himself (those are the exact words of my step-dad. I have never read Mien Kampf myself.) On reflection, I don't really know if this is true. I accepted it because he knows more about Hitler than I care to know. Perhaps he is wrong.

anonymouse wrote:
(anyway, that book had more than one author).
IT DOES!! ( Surprised)

anonymouse wrote:
It's mostly a lot of bs about racial purity, nothing about evolution. I also missed the bit where he calls the Jews "least evolved". Where is that ?

Again, something my step-dad told me. I have seen that elsewhere, and I found  this quote from encyclopedia brittanica searched under Mien Kampf (found below)... In one of my public school books, I do remember seeing a chart...with Jews at the bottom, and right above them Africans, and right above them Asians, then Austrialians, then the English, then Germans(Aryans) at the top. And a caption that read "Hitler's evolutionary chart" I cannot, however, seem to find that chart anywhere else and so I have to concede to the fact that it was a bunch of hog-wash. The books that I have been reading on Hitler are focusing mostly on his political rise to power rather than on his belief-system.

The following is a quote from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

Quote:
"The first volume, entitled Die Abrechnung (“The Settlement [of Accounts],” or “Revenge” ), was written in 1924 in the Bavarian fortress of Landsberg am Lech, where Hitler was imprisoned after the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. It treats the world of Hitler’s youth, the First World War, and the “betrayal” of Germany’s collapse in 1918; it also expresses Hitler’s racist ideology, identifying the Aryan as the “genius” race and the Jew as the “parasite,” and declares the need for Germans to seek living space (Lebensraum) in the East at the expense of the Slavs and the hated Marxists of Russia. It also calls for revenge against France.

According to Hitler, it was “the sacred mission of the German people...to assemble and preserve the most valuable racial elements... and raise them to the dominant position.” “All who are not of a good race are chaff,” wrote Hitler. It was necessary for Germans to “occupy themselves not merely with the breeding of dogs, horses, and cats but also with care for the purity of their own blood.” Hitler ascribed international significance to the elimination of Jews, which “must necessarily be a bloody process,” he wrote." (Online encyclopedia brittanica)

 

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curious_george wrote:That is

curious_george wrote:
That is second hand information, my step-dad has a fascination with Hitler and he read the entire book. He said that Hitler said that he knew he would eventually have to eliminate himself (those are the exact words of my step-dad. I have never read Mien Kampf myself.) On reflection, I don't really know if this is true. I accepted it because he knows more about Hitler than I care to know. Perhaps he is wrong.

I see, so your step-dad was just speculating about Hitler's thoughts. My bad, I though you were saying it was actually in Mein Kampf.

curious_george wrote:
IT DOES!! ( Surprised)

Yeah, it's not common knowledge, but there were a whole bunch of fruitcakes involved in this dreary propaganda piece.

Next to Hitler, who only dictated a part of it, there was Emil Maurice (one of his fellow prisoners), Rudolf Hess, of course, party member Ernst Hanfstaengl, hieronymite friar Bernhard Stempfle, and Hitler's favorite cousin Geli Raubal. Even less well known are the contributions of Dr. Karl Haushofer (famous german politician) . Many of his ideas are mentioned almost verbatim in the book, as are those of Henri Ford. Later on, Max Amman and Dietrich Eckart re-wrote whole chunks of it.

Yeah, I know, too much information.

curious_george wrote:
Again, something my step-dad told me. I have seen that elsewhere, and I found  this quote from encyclopedia brittanica searched under Mien Kampf (found below)... In one of my public school books, I do remember seeing a chart...with Jews at the bottom, and right above them Africans, and right above them Asians, then Austrialians, then the English, then Germans(Aryans) at the top. And a caption that read "Hitler's evolutionary chart" I cannot, however, seem to find that chart anywhere else and so I have to concede to the fact that it was a bunch of hog-wash. The books that I have been reading on Hitler are focusing mostly on his political rise to power rather than on his belief-system.

Well, he's actually pretty clear on his belief system : For it was by the Will of God that men were made of a certain bodily shape, were given their natures and their faculties. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. ii, ch. x

Doesn't sound like a guy who believes in evolution, does it ?

Anyway, since Hitler is such a hot button, maybe it's wise to always check, whenever someone (be they theist or atheist) makes a claim about something he wrote in Mein Kampf. So here's the link to the english translation : http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

Still, to be fair, I really can't blame you for just taking someone's word for it. It's an extremely boring book. (On the other hand, always check your facts)


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Whoa! There are too many

Whoa! There are too many things I want to cover in detail. I'll give my opinion on the Hitler stuff and save the rest for later.

I don’t think Hitler accepted evolution, or at least, he didn’t accept speciation or common descent.

http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law--one may call it an iron law of Nature--which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. XI, Race And People 

Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. ch. XI

The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist within the species must be in the various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed. It would be impossible to find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese, just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice. ch. XI

(Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ikm3o5hDks . Lol, fail. )

That is why the struggle between the various species does not arise from a feeling of mutual antipathy but rather from hunger and love. In both cases Nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. ch. XI

See, Hitler didn’t know anything about biology. Rather, he seemed to have an unabashedly ignorant perspective on evolution that is still held by many Creationists today. Hitler believed that species of organisms could ‘adapt’ or become ‘superior,’ but they could never be anything other than their own ‘kind;’ he argued that organisms could never evolve beyond an undefined threshold based solely on the strength of his intuition (it’s truthiness!). So, he held to what some might call ‘microevolution but not macroevolution.’

Either way, accepting evolution doesn’t mean you have to support eugenics or “Social Darwinism,” just like accepting that goldfish often eat other doesn’t mean you have to support cannibalism. That’s just a naturalistic fallacy. We cannot derive an “ought” from this because evolution simply “is.” And because nature simply ‘is,’ the validity of evolution will remain the same regardless of what silly implications we draw.

Anyways, the Nazis never ‘proved’ that the ‘Nordic race’ was superior. They thought you could tell whether a person was ‘superior’ by their eye color. Ugh, so stupid…… Groups of humans simply haven’t diverged long enough and there’s too much interbreeding in many parts of the world (like Europe) for there to be a ‘master race.’

So, Hitler was a Creationist. He was a theist. Was he a Christian? I’m not sure about that one.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hitler

Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i

It is not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity. 14 October 1941

I say: my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as sufferer but as fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before - the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people. Adolf Hitler, Munich speech of April 12, 1922

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. 19 October 1941

If I had to guess, I would say that Hitler accepted at least the main tenets of Christianity, but that he didn’t like organized religion because it was deceitful, and……….invented by Jews. 

curious_george wrote:
It also makes me wonder...democracy says that all men are created equal. Is that true? If we are all evolved are all men created equal? This could just kill democracy.

Democracy generally establishes that people are “equal under the law” or that they have “certain equal undeniable rights.” It does not say that individuals are actually “equal” in their abilities.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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There's a lot....be

There's a lot....be prepared... LOL!!

butterbattle wrote:

Whoa! There are too many things I want to cover in detail. I'll give my opinion on the Hitler stuff and save the rest for later.

I don’t think Hitler accepted evolution, or at least, he didn’t accept speciation or common descent.

So I have realized. I am such a horrible arguer....lol....my sister wouldn't agree. I always beat her. She's just a push-over though (hope she doesn't read this)...(wince)

buttrbattle wrote:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt

Even a superficial glance is sufficient to show that all the innumerable forms in which the life-urge of Nature manifests itself are subject to a fundamental law--one may call it an iron law of Nature--which compels the various species to keep within the definite limits of their own life-forms when propagating and multiplying their kind. Mein Kampf, vol. 1, ch. XI, Race And People 

Every crossing between two breeds which are not quite equal results in a product which holds an intermediate place between the levels of the two parents. This means that the offspring will indeed be superior to the parent which stands in the biologically lower order of being, but not so high as the higher parent. For this reason it must eventually succumb in any struggle against the higher species. ch. XI

The fox remains always a fox, the goose remains a goose, and the tiger will retain the character of a tiger. The only difference that can exist within the species must be in the various degrees of structural strength and active power, in the intelligence, efficiency, endurance, etc., with which the individual specimens are endowed. It would be impossible to find a fox which has a kindly and protective disposition towards geese, just as no cat exists which has a friendly disposition towards mice. ch. XI

(Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ikm3o5hDks . Lol, fail. )

That link didn't work out so well...in fact I'd say it didnt work at all. LOL! I will type it into the command bar manually when I am finished with this.

butterbattle wrote:
That is why the struggle between the various species does not arise from a feeling of mutual antipathy but rather from hunger and love. In both cases Nature looks on calmly and is even pleased with what happens. ch. XI

See, Hitler didn’t know anything about biology. Rather, he seemed to have an unabashedly ignorant perspective on evolution that is still held by many Creationists today. Hitler believed that species of organisms could ‘adapt’ or become ‘superior,’ but they could never be anything other than their own ‘kind;’ he argued that organisms could never evolve beyond an undefined threshold based solely on the strength of his intuition (it’s truthiness!). So, he held to what some might call ‘microevolution but not macroevolution.’

I'm with Hitler there...microevolution makes perfect sense...its macroevolution that doesn't make sense to me. LOL!! I'll get it someday. Actually, I don't even have a problem with macroevolution so much as abiogenesis and how evolution started. But I am reading the third book from the library Origins so hopefully that will answer those questions. However, I think that I am going to start asking questions about dinosaurs....lol.

butterbattle wrote:
Either way, accepting evolution doesn’t mean you have to support eugenics or “Social Darwinism,” just like accepting that goldfish often eat other doesn’t mean you have to support cannibalism. That’s just a naturalistic fallacy. We cannot derive an “ought” from this because evolution simply “is.” And because nature simply ‘is,’ the validity of evolution will remain the same regardless of what silly implications we draw.

First, I'd like to say that I think that "the validity of evolution will remain the same regardless of what silly implications we draw" is a very poetic phrase and I think it very well said. Second, I couldn't agree with you more. Evolution will always be what it is, never anything else. Thirdly, Do you think that people that believe in God could believe in evolution also?? Or are they too different. Thanks to Anonymouse, I think that it has been established that God only separated the universe according to the Bible. Which, in my opinion, makes a lot of sense with the law of conservation of mass-energy...but I think I might be crazy. 

butterbattle wrote:
Anyways, the Nazis never ‘proved’ that the ‘Nordic race’ was superior. They thought you could tell whether a person was ‘superior’ by their eye color. Ugh, so stupid…… Groups of humans simply haven’t diverged long enough and there’s too much interbreeding in many parts of the world (like Europe) for there to be a ‘master race.’

So, Hitler was a Creationist. He was a theist. Was he a Christian? I’m not sure about that one.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hitler

Whoever would dare to raise a profane hand against that highest image of God among His creatures would sin against the bountiful Creator of this marvel and would collaborate in the expulsion from Paradise. - Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol ii, ch. i

It is not opportune to hurl ourselves now into a struggle with the churches. The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death. A slow death has something comforting about it. The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science. Religion will have to make more and more concessions. Gradually the myths crumble. All that is left is to prove that in nature there is no frontier between the organic and the inorganic. When understanding of the universe has become widespread, when the majority of men know that the stars are not sources of light but worlds, perhaps inhabited worlds like ours, then the Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity. 14 October 1941

I say: my feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to the fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as sufferer but as fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and of adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before - the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice. And as a man I have the duty to see to it that human society does not suffer the same catastrophic collapse as did the civilization of the ancient world some two thousand years ago - a civilization which was driven to its ruin through this same Jewish people. Adolf Hitler, Munich speech of April 12, 1922

The reason why the ancient world was so pure, light and serene was that it knew nothing of the two great scourges: the pox and Christianity. Christianity is a prototype of Bolshevism: the mobilisation by the Jew of the masses of slaves with the object of undermining society. 19 October 1941

If I had to guess, I would say that Hitler accepted at least the main tenets of Christianity, but that he didn’t like organized religion because it was deceitful, and……….invented by Jews. 

Deceitful??? (feigning offense) What do you mean deceitful?? 

curious_george wrote:
It also makes me wonder...democracy says that all men are created equal. Is that true? If we are all evolved are all men created equal? This could just kill democracy.

butterbattle wrote:
Democracy generally establishes that people are “equal under the law” or that they have “certain equal undeniable rights.” It does not say that individuals are actually “equal” in their abilities.

Interesting you should say that...equal under the law... because my mother (she loves conspiracies and I get to listen to them most of the time....yay. :/ ) told me that the 14th amendment made African Americans U.S Citizens but not equal (where DOES she get this stuff) they still had to have birth certificates which Caucasian Americans were not required to have until 1933. And that when Jimmy Carter was president he gave our birth certificates to the Federal Reserve as collatoral for money that he needed instead of having them print new money(which the president has the power to do under constitutional law)and so we are all just slaves. We don't actually own anything and they let us believe that we are free when we are not. I'm not one for conspiracy theorys...I prefer facts and you can hardly ever prove things against our government unless you want to read thousands of thousand page documents. The only conspiracy I believe in is the vaccination conspiracy...vaccinations are bad for you...thats all there is to it. But that really isn't that important.

Of course individuals are not equal in their abilities...I believe that God gives us each different gifts and talents. Which reminds me of another question: How do talents evolve...or do they? I'm sorry I know I have thousands of questions...and I hope I don't overwhelm you. Laughing out loud

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curious_george wrote:I'm not

curious_george wrote:
I'm not one for conspiracy theorys...I prefer facts and you can hardly ever prove things against our government unless you want to read thousands of thousand page documents. The only conspiracy I believe in is the vaccination conspiracy...vaccinations are bad for you...thats all there is to it. But that really isn't that important/
You believe one of the biggest, most bogus conspiracies out there and that's not important?  It's a crock of woo-woo.  Drop that one and then you can say you're not one for conspiracy theories.  Until then you're in the same camp as Truthers, Alien Lizards Control our Government and The Government is Evil conspiracists.  Except you're doing far more harm by supporting that complete fabrication.

BigUniverse wrote,

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Thomathy wrote:

curious_george wrote:
I'm not one for conspiracy theorys...I prefer facts and you can hardly ever prove things against our government unless you want to read thousands of thousand page documents. The only conspiracy I believe in is the vaccination conspiracy...vaccinations are bad for you...thats all there is to it. But that really isn't that important/
You believe one of the biggest, most bogus conspiracies out there and that's not important?  It's a crock of woo-woo.  Drop that one and then you can say you're not one for conspiracy theories.  Until then you're in the same camp as Truthers, Alien Lizards Control our Government and The Government is Evil conspiracists.  Except you're doing far more harm by supporting that complete fabrication.

 

Interesting bit on conspiracies, a large group of birthers have moved on to become staters.

 

http://open.salon.com/blog/con_chapman/2009/08/12/birthers_hawaiis_not_a_real_state

 

They are now arguing President Obama cannot be president due to Hawaii not being a "real" state.

Theism is why we can't have nice things.


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Norbert Speiser wrote:"Obama

Norbert Speiser wrote:
"Obama is not a legitimate president because Hawaii is not a legitimate state,"
Norbert Speiser wrote:
  "Hawaii does not have a straight line in its borders, which is required in order to obtain statehood."

That's my favourite.  Wow!

Wait!

Article wrote:
Hawaii is the only state with a royal palace, a fact that has caused many birthers to suspect that Obama will ultimately demand to be named King of the United States.

Royal palace = demand to be named king.  Non sequitur much?  Nah, the first is still my favourite.

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."


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Norbert Speiser wrote: 

Norbert Speiser wrote:
  "Hawaii does not have a straight line in its borders, which is required in order to obtain statehood."

...uh...um...why...that can't be a real quote, can it? 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


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Thomathy

Thomathy wrote:

curious_george wrote:
I'm not one for conspiracy theorys...I prefer facts and you can hardly ever prove things against our government unless you want to read thousands of thousand page documents. The only conspiracy I believe in is the vaccination conspiracy...vaccinations are bad for you...thats all there is to it. But that really isn't that important/
You believe one of the biggest, most bogus conspiracies out there and that's not important?  It's a crock of woo-woo.  Drop that one and then you can say you're not one for conspiracy theories.  Until then you're in the same camp as Truthers, Alien Lizards Control our Government and The Government is Evil conspiracists.  Except you're doing far more harm by supporting that complete fabrication.

A. I was referring to the whole conspiracy theory topic. It's really not important. What you believe and what I believe doesn't have to separate us. It doesn't have to put us into camps. We are just people...all of us people. I am the same as you...I have a heart, two eyes, and a nose. What is important is others. Being the kind of person that helps and is kind and forgiving. Someone who sees what needs to be done and does it. Regardless of religion. Regardless of conspiracy theories. Regardless of what you want. Selflessness. Thinking of others before you think of yourself. That's whats important.

B. The world is evil. Look at all the rapists, murderers. Look at the hatred  Muslims, Christains, Athiests (and more, but those are the ones I could think of off the top of my head) have towards eachother (with the exception of some), and towards thier fellow MAN. It makes my heart sad. Our jails are full of people...with all different crimes. We all lie to eachother. Why would that not include the government? I'm not saying everyone is evil. I am just saying that most of the world is. If I could change it, I would, but I know that trying to change the world is impossible. But I can change myself. I can make myself a better person. I can look out for others and do what I can to help them.

C. There is a difference between plausible conspiracies and non-plausible conspiracies. Alien Lizards control our government?? Puh-lease. That is an insult to anyone with intelligence. (I hope I haven't just chosen one that you believe in..because that would be my luck..lol) But vaccines being bad for you?? That at least is plausible.

D. Vaccines have been suspected to cause autism and other disorders. It hasn't been proven...just experimented with. They are looking into it. www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-dpt.htm This is a non-biast website run by the University of Arizona College of Medicine. You should check it out. Smiling

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curious_george

curious_george wrote:

www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-dpt.htm This is a non-biast website run by the University of Arizona College of Medicine. You should check it out. Smiling

Non-biased ? I did check it out, and it seems to be a still under construction alternative medicine site, offering literature on subjects such as "creative arts for healing",  "herbs and natural resources", and "Native American Healing".

As for being run by the University of Arizona College of Medicine, well, their "about" page is still under construction as well, so how do you know ? Are you maybe referring to some of the source material they use on one of their pages ?


curious_george
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Anonymouse

Anonymouse wrote:

curious_george wrote:

www.healing-arts.org/children/vaccines/vaccines-dpt.htm This is a non-biast website run by the University of Arizona College of Medicine. You should check it out. Smiling

Non-biased ? I did check it out, and it seems to be a still under construction alternative medicine site, offering literature on subjects such as "creative arts for healing",  "herbs and natural resources", and "Native American Healing".

As for being run by the University of Arizona College of Medicine, well, their "about" page is still under construction as well, so how do you know ? Are you maybe referring to some of the source material they use on one of their pages ?

What?? That's weird. The website that I was on has a note at the top that says it is in affiliation with the University of Arizona College of Medicine and is overseen by Dr. Lewis Mehl-Meldrona--who works for the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine. It has on some of its pages a logo looking thing that says Autism research. It has a mission statement:

"Our mission is to provide the most comprehensive site available for the discussion of medical and physical therapies for the treatment of brain-injured children, hence creating a networking structure for parents and physicians alike. This website will provide viewers a new way of looking at neuro/metabolic disease, and offer a creative opportunity for involvement in the exploration of medicine and healing. "

And I suppose that that would include Native American Healing, herbs and natural resources, but I didn't see any links to such things. How very odd.

This would happen to me. (ha) I read some of the articles...checked their sources. Went all over the internet. And it isn't even what I thought it was. (frustrated sigh) I AM trying here.

Oh well. Its not like it really matters on the grand scale of things. I'm not trying to prove I'm right, just describe why I believe vaccines are bad for you. My gift is not persuasion. Smiling I may get fired up and passionate about the things I believe, but I always do so slowly and always have good reasons behind my beliefs. My good reasons may be another persons bad reasons, and because of that I would NEVER force something I believe on someone else.

 

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