Thread: God

We don't believe because there is unequivacally proof.
Belief makes us who we are. Denying that, we're nothing.

What do you mean by nothing?

quote:
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fact that the earth revolves around the sun only a theory and not fact?

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There is nothing wrong with that statement. It all depends
on your vantage point.

It wasn't a statement. Answer the question. If I'm sitting in my car going 80 mph it may appear from my vantage point that I am motionless and the earths rotation has speeded up (and its angle of rotation when I go round a bend). Is this really happening?

Uhhhh... The Sun may be rotating, but that doesnt make it orbit earth in any way shape or form.

>>If I'm sitting in my car going 80 mph it may appear from my vantage point that I am motionless and the earths rotation has speeded up [...]. Is this really happening?

From your frame of reference it is. From a universal frame, obviously, it is not. However, in determining a plantary bodies rotation, it is incomplete (and therefor false) to use any frame of reference other than a universal one.

I love debates like this... gives me a chance to exercise my critical thinking abilities and well... arguing is fun (I hate that I always come in at the tail end of debates such as this)

The problem with religion is that you are required at some point to take a leap of faith. Every argument given by those who believe in some form of god are based on their "holy book" (ie. Bible, Coran,...). But for one to be convinced of something by an argument based on a statement in the Bible (etc), requires the assumption that the Bible is itself valid. Which in itself assumes the existsance of god (not one place in the bible attempts to give credence to the fact that god exists, its just assumed that he does). Therefore, one cannot prove the existance of god by means of quoting scripture.

I am a very mathematical and scientific person, meaning that I need proof (or at least, strong evidence) of anything before I believe it to be true. And belief in a higher power does not follow from the knowledge science has given us so far. People often make the argument that the knowledge science has given us itself is proof of intelligent design. But I dont believe this is so.

It is thought that many complex phenomena can be described by very simple set of rules (just as the most beautiful fractal can be created with a simple rule). Just take a look at mathematics itself. From very simple definitions one can create whole new brances of mathematics. It may be that what we observe in the universe is just the result of a very simple set of laws, from which everything we know to be true now can be derived (which, by the way, I think will turn out to be the case).

I have absolutely no problem with those who choose _freely_ to believe in god, but I do have a problem with those who refuse to acknowledge the fact that its only their _belief_, not some sort of fact that they have the right to shove down peoples throats.

Furthermore, I dont believe that I will be punished by god (if, in fact he does exist) for exercising the ability he gave me, the ability to reason. As Sentaku senshi describes god, he gave us the free will to make a choice, but if we choose not to believe in god, we rot in hell. Thats not much of a choice. It like saying either you do X, or I shoot you in the head, and trying to say that the person has a free choice in the situation.

I used to be a christian, and the fact is, god (the way the bible portrays him) seems awfully petty, concieted, egotistical, power hungery, jealous,... these are interestingly human traits. As I told my friend a month ago when we were discussing religion, it seems to me that instead of us being made in god's image, god was made in our image.

--whew, sorry for the long-winded reply... kinda got carried away

>That's a totally bias thing to say since there are probably a lot smarter people then you who believe in God. People like you make me sick.<

What kind of argument is this? I'm sure there's plenty of smart people who believe in all sorts of crap; this doesn't make their beliefs correct. Smartness isn't a universal thing. Some people seem very smart at some things and complete retards at others. I'm sure Adolf Hitler was a pretty smart man in some respects. Does that mean that you'll subscribe to his (ignorant) beliefs?

"How did you logicaly come up that statment"

Because you have demonstrated no understanding of the principles involved.

"Many people still remember the experiment by Stanley Miller in 1953 in which he mixed up some chemicals and a spark and got some very simple 'building blocks' of life. I read recently an interview with Stanley Miller in which he basically admitted that he hadn't gotten any further..............."

And? Millers experiment showed that the basic building blocks of life sponteously, OF COURSE YOU DONT GET CELLS spontaneously forming!!

"Well, that's what I call an honest man, because the original experiment of the sparking produced only certain amino acids. And they are all a mixture of left and right-handed forms. Life is made up only of left-handed forms so to get the mixture of left and right forms and expect only the left form to associate together to form proteins is just 'not on'. "

Excellent, another creationist who has no grasp of the science involved, the left-handed and right-handed forms of molecules are called enantiomeers and they form due to processes resulting in chiral compunds, there are several possiblities explaining why life is all L-form (almost all), they all relate to the fact that the stereoisomers have different chemical properties when reacting with other steroisomers, of course you have no idea what im talking about and neither does the fool creationist who wrote this piddle.

"In any case, the cell is made of more than just amino acids - also fats, carbohydrates, DNA, RNA and soon."

Well DUH: NO ONE THOUGHT A CELL WOULD RANDOMLY SPRING INTO EXISTANCE, there was 600 MILLION YEARS of chemical evolution between the first replicator and the first evidence of cellular life.

"The scientists who work on origin of life problems know very well that experiments designed to produce amino acids don't produce sugars."

Except Miller's experiment was NOT "designed" to produce anything at all, he just dumped in the chemicals we know to have existed at the time together with electricity to simulate lightning and bam out popped AAs.

"And there is of course a problem of preservation of the molecules. They just undergo random destruction unless they are protected, like in a cell"

WRONG, with a reducing environment meta-stable organic compunds can avoid break down for thousands if not millions of years

"No, the presence of building materials is one thing, the requirement of the plan to put these building materials in the proper places and get them working together is another thing"

HELLO, anybody home? E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N does not need a plan! Let me explain this once more:

Initial replicator forms from organic soup of chemicals by pure chance, replicator replicates and mutates, accumulating positive traits, (positive traits make it more likely to successfully replicate). We know MISCELLES which are the lipids that make up CELL MEMBRANES also spontaneously form in the environment available on prebiotic Earth, our replicator (now getting on to look more like RNA), ends up inside a miscelle (by chance) which offers considerable advantage since it now has "control" over its chemical environment.............. and x number of million years later we get the first cell. Its really not that hard to grasp.

"Benifts of wipping out the freshman in my high school
1. The school would be less crowed
2. Nummerios restrictions placed on us as a result of there actions would be lifted
3. Teachers that had freshman classes could be resingned other classes allowing for more diversity
4. No one likes them any ways

Logicly they provide no benifts, and add major disruptions and should be removed "

There are many situations where logically we should break with morality, a good one being the opportunity to do a perfect crime, untraceable etc. do you take it? Logically yes, morally no. Because morality is there to protect SOCIETY, because SOCIETY benefits the individual.

Logic IS the ONLY way to understand anything BUT human behaviour in terms of our interactions is often not based on logic, since ultimately our behaviour is governed by the needs of our genes not the needs of ourselves.

"Jesus Christ alone, of all men in history, has conquered man's greatest enemy - death"

And the evidence....... oh wait no there is none.

>it's almost impossible to choose a universal frame of referance.
a universal reference frame (more commonly called an inertial reference frame) is essentially one that has constant velocity (one that isnt accelerating, but not necessarily motionless, since motion is relative). So its not really that though to choose one.

I'm tired and don't feel like coppying and pasting all of cydes and Nicks statments.

1. For the issues of time I will get back to that in a few days after I have had time to do some research, witch will take a couple of weeks because the information I require I can't get until I have my car.

2. For the car movement situation everythign is based on the Frame of reference that you are in.

3. Read this article There's a Difference—Macro- vs. Micro-Evolution
Note: I see no reason to type out what it says.

4. I have been arguing against Macroevolution, not microevolution so you can get off my Case about DNA canges.

>And? Millers experiment showed that the basic building blocks of life sponteously, OF COURSE YOU DONT GET CELLS spontaneously forming!!<
No one said you had to get cells spontaineosly forming. You should however be able to get cells creating them selves with the building blocks of life.

>Excellent, another creationist who has no grasp of the science involved, the left-handed and right-handed forms of molecules are called enantiomeers and they form due to processes resulting in chiral compunds, there are several possiblities explaining why life is all L-form (almost all), they all relate to the fact that the stereoisomers have different chemical properties when reacting with other steroisomers, of course you have no idea what im talking about and neither does the fool creationist who wrote this piddle.<

First of this guy was an evoluionist at one point in time, and I belive has a PhD, I'll find the article I got the information from latter.

>HELLO, anybody home? E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N does not need a plan! Let me explain this once more:

Initial replicator forms from organic soup of chemicals by pure chance, replicator replicates and mutates, accumulating positive traits, (positive traits make it more likely to successfully replicate). We know MISCELLES which are the lipids that make up CELL MEMBRANES also spontaneously form in the environment available on prebiotic Earth, our replicator (now getting on to look more like RNA), ends up inside a miscelle (by chance) which offers considerable advantage since it now has "control" over its chemical environment.............. and x number of million years later we get the first cell. Its really not that hard to grasp.<

All of this is theory, not fact learn the diffence.

>There are many situations where logically we should break with morality, a good one being the opportunity to do a perfect crime, untraceable etc. do you take it? Logically yes, morally no. Because morality is there to protect SOCIETY, because SOCIETY benefits the individual.<
No taking advantage of society benifts the individual.

>And the evidence....... oh wait no there is none.
No one could disproof the Aposoles at the time. There are way to many factors that if they lied they would have been caught by.

"If that's your excuse after a crime, I can't help you."

...... i don't commit crimes.

"3. Read this article There's a Difference—Macro- vs. Micro-Evolution
Note: I see no reason to type out what it says."

Read it, and its the same tired nonsense from people who dont understand much, i will break it all down in another post. (the idea of microevolution without macro is utterly ludicrous, what do you think happens if you allow small changes to accumulate between two groups of organisms for millions of years...... small change + small change + small change + small change + a million other small changes = suprise suprise BIG CHANGE)

"No one said you had to get cells spontaineosly forming. You should however be able to get cells creating them selves with the building blocks of life. "

No you should NOT, because you dont have the initial replicator all you have is the bricks not the builder.

"First of this guy was an evoluionist at one point in time, and I belive has a PhD, I'll find the article I got the information from latter."

First off there is no such thing as an "evolutionist", second off he has never been an evolutionary biologist, third if thats Michael Denton who is perhaps the most credable anti-evolution creationist (believe me thats not saying much) then everyone already knows exactly how informed his biology is, in fact in his last book he has done a complete U-turn and now seems to go for the guided-evolution stuff.

"All of this is theory, not fact learn the diffence"

Indeed it is theory, but then SO IS GRAVITY, all science consists of is a bunch of theories with evidence supporting them. The point is we CAN explain the formation of life we do not need to resort to magical creation to solve it.

The question is do you believe something that is consistant with everything we know about the world and that has a large amount of evidence supporting it, or do you simply through up your hands and say its magic?

Do you say God makes our eyes see by magic or do you say that rod and cone cells in the pupil send signals down the optic nerve to the brain via the light catalysed break down of redopsin?

Do you say God makes the sky blue by magic or do you say that the colour is due to the selective scattering of different wavelengths of light by the atmosphere?

Do you say God makes us live and breathe by magic or do you say that a chemical system so complex that i could spend the rest of life studying it and not even have scratched the surface, is infact whats making us tick?

So, do you say God made life by magic, or do you say that from the intial prebiotic conditions a replicator formed which gradually evolved into life today.

Religion always favours the former answer, it always has, religion made Galileo repent his heresy that the Earth went round the sun, attacked darwin for explaining how life arose, religion has a history of trying to stop science revealing the truth...... BUT IT ALWAYS FAILS, irrationality can only hold back logical explanation for so long......... so it is with evolution, most educated people know it to be true but ignorance is still strong enough to have a voice: The Creationists, but that voice grows weaker as education fights back the ignorance of the coming generations.

Every question you have has an answer, every point creationists make has been utterly demolished by real scientists, whats so frustrating is that the same tired arguments that have been knocked down over and over again keep getting repeated.

"No taking advantage of society benifts the individual."

No it doesn't, not in terms of genes it doesn't; if your genes are "take advantage of society" genes, then you end up being ostracised from society and you have a big disadvantage vs. those people who didn't have "take advantage of society" genes and hence who didnt get kicked out. Hence "take advantage of society" genes get selected against.

Next......

"No one could disproof the Aposoles at the time. There are way to many factors that if they lied they would have been caught by."

Is this a joke? LACK OF DISPROOF IS NOT PROOF: You cannot disprove the invisable kangeroo (named Joseph) lying at my feet, the fact that you cannot disprove him does NOT CONSTITUTE PROOF OF HIS EXISTANCE!!

Blah im not breaking all that nonsense down, the websites quotes two creationists (one of whom has since done a U-Turn anyway) who's points as usual have been thoroughly demolished by sciene.

As i said before the idea that you can have micro without macro is absurd, the reason that there is more difference between a cat and a mouse than between a cat and a tiger is because the amount of time between they have been a seperate species is much longer:

Species A splits into Species B&C

Species B splits into Species D1&E1

Species C splits into Species D2&E2

now at this present stage species D1 & D2 are very similar say 2 breeds of a mammal.

But if you continue down the line splitting and splitting:

D1 -> F1 & G1
D2 -> F2 &G2

F1 -> H1 & I1
F2 -> H2 & I2

.......... etc.

The further down you go the more disimilar they become Z1 & Z2 will resemble each other much less than D1 & D2 resembled each other.

As it happens macroevolution is not JUST micro scaled up (though macro WOULD still happen EVEN IF IT WAS, as i have just explained), there are additional mechanisms that cause larger changes than usual, one is Hox genes that are like 'master' genes hence mutations in them can lead to large phenotypic change, there is a fascinating protein that stabilises enzyme structures that can allow mutations to "build up", that can lead to a sudden large phenotypic change, and then there is the more controversial puctuated equilibria model which is so often misunderstood by creationists.

>Let's just give this thread some rest ... at least for a week.<

WTF?? This thread's not due a rest until the 18th. And a whole week? You'd make a very poor jhvh.