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#14185 03/20/06 03:03 PM
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I was complimenting science when I said it was still listening to the Universe without yet definitive interpretation. I think if we all just kept paying attention to nature and life and the heart and meaning in our lives without labeling the cause...just kept respectfully listening, observing, hypothosizing and appreciating...well, I think the world would be a better place minus the arguments and wars over premature and adamant interpretations.


~Justine~
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#14186 03/21/06 01:50 AM
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Justine is absolutely true. i agree with him.
as Einstein quoted once
"if there is no god, it would be neccessary to create one".
the great genius whose contribution to science awarded him a nobel prize, believes in god and science is no exception. Creating another universe is stupid thought because man has no technology or will have any, for all the coming years because so far he has not been able to explore our own galaxy totally and how can he possibly think of creating 'universe'.
This universe is the most amazing thing created by god and replicating his universe by a man is quite impoosible.

#14187 03/21/06 03:39 AM
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rose wrote:
"This universe is the most amazing thing created by god and replicating his universe by a man is quite impoosible."

And your evidence for this is?

Please list the evidence, say the first 5 or 6 items, and for each item tell us how you authenticated the information.

Thanks.


DA Morgan
#14188 03/21/06 01:01 PM
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Here's my evidence

what led to the creation of this universe or any heavenly body for that matter, there is no specific answer from any one. It's just natural, and everything natural is god. everything that is law obeying, everything that occurs accordingly, is god.
i think the word nature is not limited to beautiful trees, flowers,hills etc.,
it pertains to everything heavenly.
Some people think that god is someone whose job is to bestow gifts upon them when they are in need of.
He's someone who motivates us to earn the gift naturally with hard work.
In short,i just wanted say that the evidence that god has created this universe is very deep rooted and in depth not every one can see and understand it.
"only the people who believe in god and love"
can see it.
Regards,
Rose.

#14189 03/21/06 01:51 PM
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I don't think it would be ethical to recreate the universe in a lab...and I don't think there would be enough room smile
Even if a micro cosmic Universe were created...once we created it I doubt we would have much control...it would be under the control of natural forces just like ours is. It would just be a tiny aspect of our greater Universe and not a seperate universe. The closest thing to a seperate universe could only be created in the imagination. I guess there are tons of those on Sci-Fi book shelves.


~Justine~
#14190 03/21/06 05:43 PM
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Dan asked:
"And your evidence for this is?"

Rose wrote:
"what led to the creation of this universe or any heavenly body for that matter,"

Rose ... a question is not an answer. A question is a question. Do you understand the concept of providing supporting evidence?

You have none. You have not a single shred of evidence to support your belief system. Ain't brainwashing a marvelous thing. Everything just gets whiter and duller.


DA Morgan
#14191 03/21/06 11:16 PM
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Dan, I don't expect any of this to cut any ice with you whatsoever, and it certainly does not lead us to the Christian God or even monotheism but...

A survey in the journal Nature revealed that 40% of American physicists, biologists and mathematicians believe in God--and not just some metaphysical abstraction, but a deity who takes an active interest in our affairs and hears our prayers: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This percentage has been stable over the last 90 years.


Anthony Flew

"Atheists are up in arms thinking that Professor Antony Flew has lost his mind. Flew, age 81, has been a legendary proponent and debater for atheism for decades, stating that "onus of proof [of God] must lie upon the theist."1 However, in 2004, Prof. Flew did the unheard of action of renouncing his atheism because "the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it."2 In a recent interview, Flew stated, "It now seems to me that the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design." Flew also renounced naturalistic theories of evolution:

"It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism."3

In Flew?s own words, he simply "had to go where the evidence leads."4 According to Flew, "...it seems to me that the case for an Aristotelian God who has the characteristics of power and also intelligence, is now much stronger than it ever was before."2 Flew also indicated that he liked arguments that proceeded from big bang cosmology and fine tuning arguments.

For a man who has spent decades promoting atheism, this decision came as quite a shock to atheists and theists alike."


Quotes from Scientists Regarding Design of the Universe

The following are all agnostics - I know anything written by a Christian would be inadmissable.

Fred Hoyle (British astrophysicist): "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

George Ellis (British astrophysicist): "Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this [complexity] possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word."

Paul Davies (British astrophysicist): "There is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all....It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature?s numbers to make the Universe....The impression of design is overwhelming".

Paul Davies: "The laws [of physics] ... seem to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design... The universe must have a purpose".

Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy): "I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing."

John O'Keefe (astronomer at NASA): "We are, by astronomical standards, a pampered, cosseted, cherished group of creatures.. .. If the Universe had not been made with the most exacting precision we could never have come into existence. It is my view that these circumstances indicate the universe was created for man to live in."

George Greenstein (astronomer): "As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?"

Arthur Eddington (astrophysicist): "The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory."

Arno Penzias (Nobel prize in physics): "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say 'supernatural') plan."

Roger Penrose (mathematician and author): "I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance."

Tony Rothman (physicist): "When confronted with the order and beauty of the universe and the strange coincidences of nature, it's very tempting to take the leap of faith from science into religion. I am sure many physicists want to. I only wish they would admit it."

Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist): "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine."

Robert Jastrow (self-proclaimed agnostic): "For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Stephen Hawking (British astrophysicist): "Then we shall? be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we would know the mind of God."

Alexander Polyakov (Soviet mathematician): "We know that nature is described by the best of all possible mathematics because God created it."

Ed Harrison (cosmologist): "Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God ? the design argument of Paley ? updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one.... Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument."

Edward Milne (British cosmologist): "As to the cause of the Universe, in context of expansion, that is left for the reader to insert, but our picture is incomplete without Him [God]."

Barry Parker (cosmologist): "Who created these laws? There is no question but that a God will always be needed."

Drs. Zehavi, and Dekel (cosmologists): "This type of universe, however, seems to require a degree of fine tuning of the initial conditions that is in apparent conflict with 'common wisdom'."

Arthur L. Schawlow (Professor of Physics at Stanford University, 1981 Nobel Prize in physics): "It seems to me that when confronted with the marvels of life and the universe, one must ask why and not just how. The only possible answers are religious. . . . I find a need for God in the universe and in my own life."

Henry "Fritz" Schaefer (Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia): "The significance and joy in my science comes in those occasional moments of discovering something new and saying to myself, 'So that's how God did it.' My goal is to understand a little corner of God's plan."

Wernher von Braun (Pioneer rocket engineer) "I find it as difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe as it is to comprehend a theologian who would deny the advances of science."

Carl Woese (microbiologist from the University of Illinois) "Life in Universe - rare or unique? I walk both sides of that street. One day I can say that given the 100 billion stars in our galaxy and the 100 billion or more galaxies, there have to be some planets that formed and evolved in ways very, very like the Earth has, and so would contain microbial life at least. There are other days when I say that the anthropic principal, which makes this universe a special one out of an uncountably large number of universes, may not apply only to that aspect of nature we define in the realm of physics, but may extend to chemistry and biology. In that case life on Earth could be entirely unique."

Agnosticism seems to be a far more honest position than atheism in the face of what we know about the universe.

Regards,

Blacknad.

#14192 03/21/06 11:37 PM
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Even Abiogenesis seems to be fraught with difficulties.

Scientific Facts and Solution

1. Homochirality somehow arose in the sugars and amino acids of prebiotic soups, although there is no mechanism by which this can occur (1) and is, in fact, prohibited by the second law of thermodynamics (law of entropy). (2)

Solution - reject the second law of thermodynamics


2. In the absence of enzymes, there is no chemical reaction that produces the sugar ribose (1), the "backbone" of RNA and DNA. "science of the gaps"
Chemical reactions in prebiotic soups produce other sugars that prevent RNA and DNA replication (1).

Solution - discard chemistry data
"science of the gaps"

3. Pyrimidine nucleosides (cytosine and uracil) do not form under prebiotic conditions and only purine (adenine and guanine) nucleosides are found in carbonaceous meteorites (1) (i.e., pyrimidine nucleosides don't form in outer space either).

Solution - discard chemistry data
"science of the gaps"

4. Even if a method for formation of pyrimidine nucleosides could be found, the combination of nucleosides with phosphate under prebiotic conditions produces not only nucleotides, but other products which interfere with RNA polymerization and replication (1).

Solution - discard chemistry data
"science of the gaps"

5. - Purine and pyrimidine nucleotides (nucleosides combined with phosphate groups) do not form under prebiotic conditions (3).

solution - discard chemistry data
"science of the gaps"

6. Neither RNA nor DNA can be synthesized in the absence of enzymes "science of the gaps"
Enzymes cannot be synthesized in the absence of RNA and ribosomes. "science of the gaps"
Nucleosides and amino acids cannot form in the presence of oxygen, which is now known to have been present on the earth for at least four billion years (4), although life arose at least ~3.5 billion years ago (5).

Solution - discard geological data
discard chemistry data

7. Adenine synthesis requires unreasonable HCN concentrations. Adenine deaminates with a half-life of 80 years (at 37?C, pH 7). Therefore, adenine would never accumulate in any kind of "prebiotic soup." The adenine-uracil interaction is weak and nonspecific, and, therefore, would never be expected to function in any specific recognition scheme under the chaotic conditions of a "prebiotic soup." (6)

Solution - discard chemistry data

8. Cytosine has never been found in any meteorites nor is it produced in electric spark discharge experiments using simulated "early earth atmosphere." All possible intermediates suffer severe problems (7). Cytosine deaminates with an estimated half-life of 340 years, so would not be expected to accumulate over time. Ultraviolet light on the early earth would quickly convert cytosine to its photohydrate and cyclobutane photodimers (which rapidly deaminate) (8).

Solution - discard geological data
discard chemistry data

9. Mixture of amino acids the Murchison meteorite show that there are many classes of prebiotic substances that would disrupt the necessary structural regularity of any RNA-like replicator (9). Metabolic replicators suffer from a lack of an ability to evolve, since they do not mutate (10).

Solution - discard chemistry data

10. The most common abiogenesis theories claim that life arose at hydrothermal vents in the ocean. However, recent studies show that polymerization of the molecules necessary for cell membrane assembly cannot occur in salt water (11). Other studies show that the early oceans were at least twice as salty as they are now (12)

Solution - Life arose in freshwater ponds (even though the earth had very little land mass), using some unknown mechanism.

11. Comparison of the dates of meteor impacts on the moon, Mercury, and Mars indicate that at least 30 catastrophic meteor impacts must have occurred on the earth from 3.8 to 3.5 billion years ago (13). These impacts were of such large size that the energy released would have vaporized the entirety of the earth's oceans (14), destroying all life.

Solution - Life spontaneously arose by chance at least 30 separate times, each within a period of ~10 million years.


References

1. Orgel, L. 1994. The origin of life on earth. Scientific American. 271 (4) p. 81. (Dr. Orgel is an atheist who has been working on origins of life research for over 30 years.)

2. This argument has nothing to do with the closed/open system question. The 2nd law of thermodynamics states that heat flows from hot bodies to cold bodies. This law also affects the formation of enantiomers in chemical reactions capable of producing stereoisomers. Since the formation of both left- and right-handed enantiomers requires the exact same amount of energy, both enantiomers are produced in identical amounts. Any deviation from this result is highly unlikely (much less likely than the scenario of starting your car on a hot California day and having freeze over while running).
Some researchers have cited the possibility of differential synthesis of one enantiomer over another in the presence of circularly polarized light. There are a couple problems with this theory. First, there is no source of this kind of light in the vicinity of our solar system. Second, the demonstration of circularly polarized light was found only in the infrared region of the spectrum. Light must be of much more energetic wavelengths (ultraviolet). Third, if stereoisomers were formed, the energy of the light would break them down within a short period of time.

3. Orgel, L. 1994. The origin of life on earth. Scientific American. 271 (4) p. 82.

4. Bortman, H. 2001. Life Under Bombardment from the NASA Astrobiology Insititute. - Alternating layers of oxidized iron in the so-called banded iron formation from Akilia Island in West Greenland demonstrates that free oxygen has been present on earth longer than 3.85 billion years.
Dimroth, E. and M. Kimberley. 1970. Can. J. Earth Sci., 13:1161.
Carver, J. H. 1981. Prebiotic atmospheric oxygen levels. Nature 292: 136-138.

5. Schopf, J.W. 1993. Science 260: 640-646.
M. T. Rosing, Science 283, 674 (1999).

6. Shapiro R. 1995. The prebiotic role of adenine: a critical analysis. Orig. Life Evol. Biosph. 25: 83-98.

7. Cytosine intermediates suffer the following problems:

a. Synthesis based upon cyanoacetylene requires the presence of large amounts of methane and nitrogen, however, it is unlikely that significant amounts of methane were present at the time life originated.

b. Synthesis based upon cyanate is problematical, since it requires concentrations in excess of 1 M (molar). When concentrations of 0.1 M (still unrealistically high) are used, no cytosine is produced.

c. Synthesis based upon cyanoacetaldehyde and urea suffers from the problem of deamination of the cytosine in the presence of high concenrations of urea (low concentrations produce no cytosine). In addition, cyanoacetaldehyde is reactive with a number of prebiotic chemicals, so would never attain reasonable concentrations for the reaction to occur. Even without the presence of other chemicals, cyanoacetaldehyde has a half-life of only 31 years in water.

8. Shapiro, R. 1999. Prebiotic cytosine synthesis: A critical analysis and implications for the origin of life. Proc. Natl.Acad. Sci. USA 96: 4396-4401.

9. Shapiro, R. 2000. A replicator was not involved in the origin of life. IUBMB Life 49: 173-176.

10. Monnard, P.-A, C. L. Apel, A. Kanavarioti and D. W. Deamer. 2002. Influence of ionic solutes on self-assembly and polymerization processes related to early forms of life: Implications for a prebiotic aqueous medium. Astrobiology 2:213-219.

11. Szathm?ry, E. 2000. The evolution of replicators. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 355: 1669-1676.
Knauth, L.P. 2000. Life on Land in the Precambrian and the Marine vs. Non-Marine Setting of Early Evolution. First Astrobiology Science Conference, April 3-5, 2000, NASA Ames Research Center, 403 (Abstract 353).

12. Knauth, L.P. 2002. Early Oceans: Cradles of Life or Death Traps? Astrobiology Science Conference 2002, April 7-11, NASA Ames Research Center. p. 9.

13. Chyba, C. and C. Sagan. 1992. Endogenous production, exogenous delivery and impact-shock synthesis of organic molecules: an inventory for the origins of life. Nature 355: 125-132

14. Kerr, R. 1999. Early Life Thrived Despite Earthly Travails. Science 284: 2111-2113. "For its first half-billion years, Earth endured a punishing rain of impacts, which vaporized the oceans and scorched the globe so fiercely that some researchers now propose that life could have first evolved on a more hospitable world, then later hitchhiked to Earth on a meteorite."
"A few of these impactors were probably 500 kilometers in diameter--big enough to create a superheated atmosphere of vaporized rock that would in turn have vaporized the oceans for 2700 years and sterilized even the subsurface, say Sleep and Zahnle."
Sleep, N.H., K.J. Zahnle, J.F. Kasting, and H.J. Morowitz. 1989. Annihilation of ecosystems by large asteroid impacts on the early Earth. Nature 342: 139-142.

Regards,

Blacknad.

#14193 03/22/06 04:28 AM
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Blacknad wrote:
"A survey in the journal Nature revealed that 40% of American physicists, biologists and mathematicians believe in God--and not just some metaphysical abstraction, but a deity who takes an active interest in our affairs and hears our prayers: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

Which all goes to prove that most human and afraid of their own mortality. No surprise. If humans were not hard-wired for "isms" they'd have died out long ago.

To be honest the fact that it is only 40% is amazing given that this country has a fatal attraction with religion. I consider that very good news.

But some of what you quoted is pure nonsense as you have taken phrases like "the mind of god" out of the intended context. Many of my colleagues use phrases such as this to communicate with the lay public and are not personally deists of any colour.


DA Morgan
#14194 03/22/06 04:46 AM
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Blacknad ... Your second posting is more evidence of lack of knowledge of science than evidence for the existence of a deity.

Lets take a few for example so as not to use too many electrons:

1. Homochirality somehow arose in the sugars and amino acids of prebiotic soups, although there is no mechanism by which this can occur.

This statement is absolutely not true. There is a known mechanism and I posted an article about it here at SAGG within the last 6 months. One possible solution is the selective adsorption of amino acids on calcite. Others involve clay. And there are numerous publications on RNA directed solutions. The point is you are pointing to a place where we don't have "the" answer yet and claiming that god exists in the darkness. The problem, of course, is that with every scientific discovery ... your god has to find a smaller and smaller place to inhabit.


6. Neither RNA nor DNA can be synthesized in the absence of enzymes

Finding god in the dark spaces again eh. Lets assume that RNA is manufactured in four years without the use of enzymes? Then what? And even if this is true, which it might well be, are you ready to declare it impossible for enzymes to form through natural processes?


7. Adenine synthesis requires unreasonable HCN concentrations.

And who defines unreasonable? This is poppycock my friend and you know it. HCN exists everywhere in space. It was one of the first organic compounds discovered in nebulae.


9. Mixture of amino acids the Murchison meteorite.

One meteorite. One. One out of zillions. And this proves what? That one specific meteorite contained stuff that didn't solve one specific problem. This is grasping for straws. This is desparation at its very worst. Would you be willing, right this second, to swear that god does not need to exist for life to form if I can show you the natural creation of cytosine?

The miracle Blacknad is that any precursors exist in space. 100 years ago your religion denied this was possible.

Oops!
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=438950
You've been lied to.
And lying is a sin.

So I guess #3 bites the dust too.

My point here is that given two hours I could destroy every single claim made above. You don't have evidence of god. You have evidence that science has yet to discover ALL of the answers. That is not the foundation of religion. And you have strong evidence that the source of what you posted has in some cases intentionally lied by omission.

You should be asking yourself ... if truth is on our side ... why is it necessary for the defenders of the faith to be anything less than scrupulously honest?


DA Morgan
#14195 03/22/06 05:51 AM
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"It's a very long leap from [mineral] surface chemistry to a living cell." Norman Pace (evolutionary biologist, University of California, Berkeley).


"On theoretical grounds, however, it [mineral clay synthesis] seems implausible. Structural irregularities in clay that were complicated enough to set the stage for the emergence of RNA probably would not be amenable to accurate self-replication." Leslie Orgel, 1998 (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies).


"There is no agreement on the extent to which metabolism could develop independently of a genetic material. In my opinion, there is no basis in known chemistry for the belief that long sequences of reactions can organize spontaneously -- and every reason to believe that they cannot. The problem of achieving sufficient specificity, whether in aqueous solution or on the surface of a mineral, is so severe that the chance of closing a cycle of reactions as complex as the reverse citric acid cycle, for example, is negligible." Leslie Orgel, 1998 (The Salk Institute for Biological Studies).

Blacknad.

#14196 03/22/06 08:02 AM
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Blacknad quoted:
"It's a very long leap from [mineral] surface chemistry to a living cell." Norman Pace (evolutionary biologist, University of California, Berkeley).

So? It is a very long leap from riding a horse to landing on the moon. We also did it in less than 100 years.

Blacknad wrote:
"On theoretical grounds, however, it [mineral clay synthesis] seems implausible"

You really must keep up with science news or at least use google.com. Try using google. to look up "Clay and RNA"

Blacknad wrote:
"In my opinion, there is no basis in known chemistry for the belief that long sequences of reactions can organize spontaneously"

Orgel's opinion is of no consequence. What happened happened and the evidence is found in nebulae, comets, and meteorites. What is worse is his implicit assumption that any organization is required: It is not. For every Orgel who runs off at the mouth ... there are hundreds of experts who would call him a fool for his statement. Myself among them.


DA Morgan
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Have it your way Dan, but there are many scientists much closer than you to the study of origins who are swayed to the possibility of a universe of design rather than chance.

On what basis do you reject design in favour of chance for the origins of the universe? What evidence do you have that it was chance and definitely not intelligent design?

Your choice is a philosophical one and nothing more.

If not, then what evidence do you have to bolster your position?

Regards,

Blacknad.

#14198 03/22/06 05:31 PM
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Blacknad wrote:
"there are many scientists much closer than you to the study of origins who are swayed to the possibility of a universe of design rather than chance."

Only if you research Christian web sites rather than read scientific journals.


DA Morgan
#14199 03/22/06 09:58 PM
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Dan,

Rubbish. There are stacks of agnostic non-Christian scientists that are open to a universe by design. You wouldn't go there because you don't like where it might lead. This is the only reason I can think of that you can't even entertain the thought.

Again...

On what basis do you reject design in favour of chance for the origins of the universe? What evidence do you have that it was chance and definitely not intelligent design?

Your choice is a philosophical one and nothing more.

If not, then what evidence do you have to bolster your position?


Regards,

Blacknad.

#14200 03/22/06 10:55 PM
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Blacknad wrote:
"There are stacks of agnostic non-Christian scientists that are open to a universe by design."

Not my point at all but thank you for doing so well to dodge it.

The point is that the percentage of Americans that believe X, Y or Z is some percentage. The percentage of Americans that are scientists that belive the same rubbish is significantly different. We are better educated and more open minded ... not demigods.

But lets say you can find 10,000 scientists that are willing to accept the Bible as the authentic work of the god of Christianity ... as opposed to the god of Judiasm, Islam, etc. Great. This means precisely what? 10,000 people have established peer reviewed evidence proving the existance of the invisible purple rhinoceros or 10,000 people having received a decent college education were brain-washed as children? or 10,000 people are deists who find themselves going to Christian churches, or 10,000 people have a wide mixture of personal beliefs but find themselves drawn to a similar answer to a simplistic question.

I am often seen at a Lutheran Church at holidays. Does that mean I am there accompanying a friend? As a guest of the minister and his wife who are personal friends? Enjoy the music? Am a devout god-fearing member of the congregation.

Stacks of agnostic non-Christian scientists that are open to a universe by design is a farce given the fact that the Roman Catholic church has denounced ID. Which pretty much puts a wooden stake through the heart of anyone claiming divine revelation of ID.

Blacknad asks:
"On what basis do you reject design in favour of chance for the origins of the universe?"

1. Zero evidence for a designer
2. Nothing that exists requires a designer
3. If he exists designer has proven for the last 2,000 years that he is incapable of doing anything more momentous than making a statue cry or imprinting the Virgin Mary on a street sign.

You see Blacknad it is not for me to prove that your invisible purple rhinoceros does not exist. Rather it is for you to provide evidence of anything that does exist that points specifically to the god of Abraham and Isaac rather than Ganesh or Vishnu. It is up to you to prove that the world is the way it is due to Jesus Christ rather than Mohammed. It is your belief. Surely you have some basis for owning it other than the fact that you used to be screwed up when you were younger and you replaced one vice with another.

Surely!


DA Morgan
#14201 03/23/06 08:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally posted by Blacknad:
There is truth in what Justine says.

Science does not know enough yet to draw any final conclusions about the 'why' or 'how' of existence.

And science is constantly forced to reorient itself.

[snip]

So Justine is correct - science has not yet finished listening (but it feels sure enough of itself to make some grand pronouncements).

So are you and Justine suggesting that science stop attempting to model the universe until all the facts are in? Or are the two of you suggesting that the only real science is observation, without forming hypotheses and theories?

If the two of you are saying either, you're wrong.


When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
--S. Lewis
#14202 03/23/06 10:36 PM
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What I believe Blacknad is saying is that he doesn't have all the answers. That he is insuffiently self-reliant to go about his life without a sense that even if he doesn't ... someone out there does.

And since scientists are honest enough, and have enough integrity to acknowlege that they don't ... he has decided to put his faith in those hypocrites and liars that claim they do.

Look here ... see in this authorless book that has no original untranslated manuscript ... see ... right here it says what happened. It says the god of Abraham created everything ... not a quantum fluctuation, not Vishnu, not the great turtle. And we'll borrow the virgin birth and flood from the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Christmas tree, and a few other trappings of popular mythology so that people will buy our nonsense.

When all is said and done all of the religious people on the planet that still have a brain, like Blacknad, can be frozen in place with just a few simple unanswerable questions. Then they try to change the subject.

1. Who created smallpox?
2. Who created satan?
3. Who created the apple and the snake?
4. What evidence is there of a virgin birth?
5. What evidence is there of a resurrection?
6. Why do men have nipples?

They love to point to the crucifixion but that is evidence of death ... not resurrection and thus of no value. Their "god" had one bad day. The patients at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Dana Farber, etc. have years of bad days ... each and every one as bad or worse.


DA Morgan
#14203 03/24/06 04:54 AM
Joined: Sep 2005
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Possibly we are dealing with a lack of imagination in the basic idea?

Take a little germ of insignifacance and throw it in the devoid soup. Stir it with graviatation and pop out everything we see here now and what we are likely to see in the future. Athiests want to have a superior being create each atom, and workables and failures. If they did not do it that way they have nothing to argue- not so far from deciteful. Any way I do not believe in a supreme creator. I want to see better ideas of defense from those that do.

So, if there was a creator he did not do the details any more than any originator does- he put the spark in the microb that blossomed into everything else. Please do not let pointless arguments getting you into details that would never exist.
jjw

#14204 03/24/06 06:29 AM
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The better idea is that Creator is you.
Its you who create it all in your consciouness.
Would it be deleted again ?
Truth as simple as that should not be deleted.
The simple brain can make you laugh in pain..all it takes is some chemical or some intelligent wiring of brain... If the perception of pain can be replaced by happiness then why not vice versa.
Neuro Science students can tell you this from simple text books.
Now the question is how much can be created in a life time permanently.
Including response to call for Peace.

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