Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:

Religious concepts must not be taken literally.
In most cases it can have more than one meaning.
dkv makes an important point here - religious messages are usually intended to be understood as metaphor.
But dkv, if you lived in the US you would see that there are a great many people who do try to understand Christian scripture literally. They really do believe in the literal "truth" of the Bible. It's a dangerous and growing movement in our country. "President" Bush himself is an ardent believer in Biblical truth. It's very frightening for those of us who live next door to these people.

Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:

In the next reply I hope to get a good defintion of life.
Unfortunately, there isn't a good definition of life. Biologists - those who study life - don't agree about what should be considered "alive". There are some generally recognized characteristics shared by all living things: Homeostasis, Response to environment, Growth and development, Reproduction (and many biologists would include other features as well). However, even in the most strictly defined sense, there are always a lot of examples of things that fall into gray areas. Many biologists believe that life can't be treated as a black-and-white phenomenon.