How can you honestly believe in God.

Originally posted by Methuselah
if the process is not so random, it had to be designed. you cant get a process out of randomness. you get patterns, but you dont get a process. just like moving water sorting particles into layers... it that a process? no its simply a pattern we see in the flow of water with particles.

Aye, some call evolution the 'blind watchmaker'.

We could call many things which are natural a process. You seem to be stuck on the engineering sense of the word.

en.wikipedia.org...

yep and that process had to come together somehow, they produce organic chemicals??? ok, but I dont think you get an organism in a star... its a little too hot for that.
oh and btw, you can only get so many chemicals from stars... not all of them.

I know, I didn't say we can get all elements from stars, those heavier than Iron are produced from supernovae.

Organic chemicals have been found in space, but I don't think I suggested they were created by stellar synthesis...

natural selection only works if you have things to select from... natural selection does nothing more than selects. it does change anything. it will not change a animal from the past into a human or a monkey over millions of years. natural selection is not organized either. natural selection/survival of the fittest... wow, talk about very random...
adaptations... just change in habits, or maybe becoming tolerant to one thing or another... these processes will never change a animal of the past into a human or a monkey over millions of years... it wont change a whale to a cow, and it wont change a dog to a horse... it wont change any kind of animal to a different kind of animal no matter how much time you give...

That's some very firm beliefs you have there.

How do you know that? Or is this just an argument from incredulity?

Evolutionary algorithms are proving to be very useful in all sorts of fields outside of biology. Of course evolutionary mechanisms can organise and develop complexity.

We have the choice of magical spontaneous appearance of species over millions of years, or a gradual evolution of diversity.

millions of years ago.... translates to... long ago and far away... it means im about to tell you a fairytale.
3 billion years ago plants evolved photosynthesis??? if that is fact... tell me why it happened. and tell me why animals didnt evolve the same process within skin cells. tell me why its only plants.

I thought I made it very clear, plants didn't evolve photosynthesis, bacteria did. Are you asking why we don't use photosynthesis?

Probably the same reason we don't use sonar or have wings. We actually have our own symbiotic organelles - mitochondria.

Woah, someone's been hitting the creationist nonsense sites, I'd lay off them, worse than skunk for rotting the brain...

tell me why the plants depend on birds to chirp in the morning.

Are you saying that without birds, plants wouldn't exist?

I think the evidence suggests otherwise.

tell me why plants depend on bees for cross pollination.

Because some plants have developed a good relationship with other species? One that is to the benefit of both?

tell me why plate tectonic activity is a requirement for life to exist on thie earth.

I'm not sure it is. But it has no doubt helped evolution.

tell me why the giraffe has special blood vessels in its neck to keep it from passing out or even dying whenever it bends over to drink water.

Because it was an advantage to have them?

tell me why the human body doesnt have all that is included in other animals if we are so far ahead of the rest in this process of evolution.

Do you think evolution says we should have wings, beaks, sonar, retractable claws, fins etc etc?

No animal is any further than another. That's just you suggesting it to be so. Maybe Dolphins laugh at our lack of sonar...

Where are you finding this stuff?

tell me how salmon know to swim back upstream to give birth to their young.
tell me how baby turtles know where to swim after being born.

tell me how a most birds born alone know everything they need to know without being taught by a parent.

tell me how the woodpecker can open its eyes between pecks for accurate strikes.

Because the behaviour is coded in their genes? The same way that a human baby has emotions coded in its genes.

tell my why there are symbiotic relationships in nature that have to exist in order for life processes to continue strong.

Because these organisms have co-evolved?

there is way too much on this earth that is unexplainable by science and will never be explained.

I'm sure there are things that will be difficult to solve, I'm sure we will never explained everything.

But your approach is basically surrender to a non-answer.

and indoctrinating people who dont know any better is not true science... its wrong.

Listen, I'd rather people know that we don't violate SLOT everyday, that plants didn't originally evolve photosynthesis, and that Perry Marshall is a dufus.

But I understand that you don't know any better...

Are you a homeschooler?

[edit on 27-8-2007 by melatonin]

ok...27 pages....

...i am not gonna invest the time to read up on this thread. Nothing personal, i just think that i could likely predict the previous 26 pages of verbage based on my experience in internet forums and such topics.

What I WILL do, however, is chime in with my thoughts on the OP's Title Line.

Does anyone who believes in God actually believe "honestly"?

How many of us, when we pray, will say "God, if you do (THIS), i promise that i will never, ever again do (THAT)"? Or how about everytime you consider to yourself, "What if there is no God", and then answer yourself with "I better believe or else!!!"? Where is the honesty in that?

Do we, as humans, understand the depths of what it means to "believe in God"? Do we even know what God would want from us?

If i stand at the top of the mountains and look out below, i will see different religious beliefs in every degree of direction i look. So, before you consider that man DOES indeed know what God is, who God is, what God wants, or anything pertaining to the very existence of a being we would call "God", i ask you to consider the preceding paragraph before replying.

Do we know the difference between what we "know" and what we "think we know"? This is a real telling trait, i believe. It is the primary question one should ask himself everytime he is in the presence of any "expert".

My answer to the question: "How can you honestly believe in God?" would be "There is no such thing as believing honestly in God, as the human psyche precludes it". In lieu of this belief we carry with us a feigned belief rooted in fear feeding on hope.

all I can do it laugh at everything you say because it all contradicts itself.
oh and I cant believe you thought that video would really get someone to believe in evolution just because people took random images and placed them in such an order to form their desired image. thats called design, not random chance.

the reason the giraffe has special blood vessels in its neck is because it was beneficial to have them?... wow!
uh no, its because if it didnt have those blood vessels, it would die from bending over... or it would pass out when it stood back up.

hold on I gotta change my pants, I just soiled myself from laughing so hard!!!

Originally posted by Methuselah
the reason the giraffe has special blood vessels in its neck is because it was beneficial to have them?... wow!
uh no, its because if it didnt have those blood vessels, it would die from bending over... or it would pass out when it stood back up.

In which case it is beneficial to have them...

Not dying would be a benefit, no? Or do you think being dead makes no difference to an organisms reproductive potential?

[edit on 27-8-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by Methuselah
all I can do it laugh at everything you say because it all contradicts itself.
oh and I cant believe you thought that video would really get someone to believe in evolution just because people took random images and placed them in such an order to form their desired image. thats called design, not random chance.

The pictures were indeed random. In this case, not being close to the picture would be undesirable and being close to the picture was desirable. This is similar to how having a trait that allows an organism to survive in an environment. It is not intelligent design. Your thinking that it is is merely your ignorance.

As for giraffes, their necks grew longer over time, they weren't always the length they are now. As they grew, the blood vessels formed to negate the added strain circulatory system. Since this was more beneficial, this trait was passed on to the giraffe's descendants. They are not evidence of intelligent design, they are evidence of evolutionary adaption.

Your grasp of science is extremely poor. I suggest you do more research before you attempt to debate others.

wow! im glad you know everything about science and how things came about...
I think your deliberate ignorance and denial of such is far worse than what you claim to be my ignorance.

you know this whole argument it like a Mac and a PC debating on whether or not man exists.

The answer is obvious, Man designed the programs, randomly generating numbers will not lead to Windows Vista, it wont lead to a MAC OS. it wont lead to Linux or Unix. heck it wouldnt even lead to a low level program like a device driver or even a script or batch file.

evolution is blind, it doesnt know what is beneficial and what is not.

if you write a program with the extension as .vbs you cant take that same code and save it as .bat or .exe, it wont work. and randomly generating numbers and letters inside the existing program will not ever get the .vbs program to ever be saved as .exe or .bat

scrambling the existing information would be nonbeneficial almost always in computer programing, code copied from one part to another within the same program may be beneficial, but its still the same program, only it does spell check twice instead of just once.

the only place I have ever seen evolution is in the textbooks. it cant even happen in the digital world.

it order for an increase in complexity to occur, their has to be an intelligent force guiding it along the way. its obvious that evolution cannot occur in computer code which involves many languages (many options, more of a variety to select from)
how do you expect for evolution to occur in a code that has one language, DNA. DNA is the plan for each organism.

Lets just say the DNA for a human spelled out the word Person.
you can scramble, copy, paste do what ever you want with the existing information, you will never be able to spell the word Zebra, Horse, Apple, Hamster,Banana or Donkey, especially with random processes.

Yes some of these words may have a few letters that are the same, but thats only because they are using the same language... OMG imagine that... could it be that the reason we may have genetic similarities is because we all use the same code? DNA? holy cow! horses and zebras probably came from a common ancestor, and it probably looked something like a horse, nothing else.

Micro Evolution is supporting evidence for Creation and its also observable.
Macro Evolution is not observable, it is assumed to have happened = Faith.



rearranging the letters in that word, scrambling them, copying them will never change what it actually is.

Not dying would be a benefit, no? Or do you think being dead makes no difference to an organisms reproductive potential?

being dead in the theory of evolution is a benefit to the 'more fit'. producing offspring with the 'less fit' slows the process down. not being dead it very beneficial in my world because I get to laugh at people like you for believing in such a dumb theory that begins with "in the beginning, there was nothing..... and then all of the sudden space expanded out of nothing and matter and energy expanded space.... "

but wait a minute, where did the matter and energy come from if there was nothing to begin with.... google the theory, they all say the same thing. in the beginning, there was nothing.. nothing at all... nothing really means nothing...


[edit on 27-8-2007 by Methuselah]

[edit on 27-8-2007 by Methuselah]

God spoke to me once.

Actually, it was just some guy with a megaphone telling me to get out of the way of the camera on the set of Snakes on a Plane.

If there is no god, then we were once monkies? Is that the point you're trying to make? Yeah, 28 pages, I didn't read a bit of it. I'm just tired of people argueing religion honostly....

Religion starts wars. You believe in god, I don't. Have a nice day. That's the easy way to do it. BUT NO! Instead it's. I believe in MY god, you believe in yours. For that you will be killed/flamed/bashed/etc. Whatever.

People choose to believe. They're going to no matter what. Get over it.

Friggin' communists.

Since this was more beneficial, this trait was passed on to the giraffe's descendants. They are not evidence of intelligent design, they are evidence of evolutionary adaption.

adaptation to what? life?

evolution has the power to blindly pass on the beneficial modifications? sounds like fantasy to me.

and whoever asked the original question on this thread has set us up for failure, you asked for once purpose, and that was to give your best efforts to debunk all that we believe using your flawed logic and theory.

I just lost about 10 IQ points on this thread alone, I learned that nothing can produce something... even a 5 year old can tell you that its impossible for that to ever occur.

maybe I should believe in evolution, its a lot easier to live my life the way I want... I can commit crimes mentioned in the bible that wouldnt matter anymore... I can commit murder and not go to hell for it. I can cheat, steal, commit adultery,... I can do whatever I want now. there is no after life... so if it feels good to me, im gonna do it... and who is to say im wrong for doing what I want?
in fact, (im getting ready to make a point, no real intentions in this next statement) im going to find everyone on this thread and murder them all... maybe not all, just the ones I dont like simply because I dont like them... if evolution is true... who is to say I would be wrong for doing that? a bunch of people who just might not be as evolved as I? who is to say my logic in that mindset it flawed? there is no one over me. just because people among us were selected to confirm law doesnt mean they govern me.

(back to reality) im not going to kill anyone, I was simply making a point.

if evolution is true, there is no moral standard. just imagine, if everyone lived by the 10 commandments... life would be good.

I hope you get your answer, at least the one you were looking for...

Well, everyone else has got a flame war going so I am going to do some flaming myself, who am I flaming? That damn Sumerian that sit down and wrote all these campfire tales down on clay tablets. I mean cam anyone not tell that the Sumerian writings have a whole lot in common not just Christianity but other religions some that are no longer existent.

You know when people are evolving, learning to talk and write. Don't you think that when something is written it will be remembered especially when it's one of the first things recorded.. Let's look at a likely suspect, if I took a lot of hallucinogens (be it mushrooms, cactus, salvia, frogs etc. that have had their use in a lot of tribal religions) and said I saw god would you believe me? Probably not in this day and age but if you were one of the people thousands of years ago who also subscribed to taking that particular hallucinogen you might be more inclined to believe that I did in fact see gods.

There are good "trips" and bad. Who is to say that some shaman took the proper dose achieved enlightenment remembered his experience and told it by the campfire. There is the ground's for a good god. Now perhaps this same fellow took more than the desired dose or had something happen to him prior to this that put him in a bad mindset. Perhaps he had a horrid experience and remembered it to tell, or just went bonkers permanently. The people could see this as a bad god and record it.

So you have some drug induced stories that are inscribed on clay and more than likely get handed down for some time possibly with new twists getting added here and there. This is fine, it's the local campfire tale that gets handed down from generation to generation until what happens? Eventually the cradle of civilization starts to spread, and spread they do all over the globe. They all remember this story but being 1000's of miles away from the clay book they probably did not want to carry they do their best from memory leaving out certain aspects adding others.

So now you have smaller isolated groups each telling a slightly different story. Possibly made different by weather or not some events happened that they connected to the story by one way or another. Constantly changing as people are constantly on the move and evolving in to not just stories but history. Now I know that some people pull the jesus card right about here but let me use an example. The monk who worshiped Buddha and protested by setting himself on fire in the middle of the street and burning to death, did Buddha use him to pay for the worlds sins? Not until you have a person that says thats what happened.

For all we know he might very well end up in some scripture sometime down the road. So you have a monk that Buddha sacrificed for the good of man, and because someone said thats the way it is, and the monk was alive at one point in time Buddha must surely exist too. IS that very likely to happen, probably not but that is partly due to the fact that we have a more advanced understanding of things than we did 1,2 or 3000 years ago.

It was not very long ago that the Salem witch hunts were going on, you had people being poisoned by ergot that infested their grain at the time. People didn't know what was happening but you had some kids who were making accusations of witch craft. Well, if we don't know what it is and these children claim it is so that answer will have to do so witch hunt it is. Even though nobody was actually "cursed" the people swallowed it whole and killed people until the kids came forward with the truth. They believed in something they thought to be true because it could not be explained otherwise.

What happens when the "kids" who thought up the story take it to their graves? What happens if the truth never comes forward? History will show the people believe it until it can be proven otherwise and sometimes kill for it. If the story persists for long enough people will believe it even when the truth has been discovered. Sometimes for no other reason than its what their mothers, mothers, mothers have believed in for hundreds of years. Much like the earth being flat, or the center of the universe. The man who said it was not and had the means to prove it was locked up.

This is why people that do not subscribe to religion care weather someone believes or not. People can kill, jail over religion. They can find vindication in their scripture. They can do all of this without tangible proof, (and I say that because if anyone could show tangible proof of their god I am sure they would). It would be a great day if someone ever does, "here is the great one look at him and obey him regardless of what you believed before and if you don't listen he'll do what he does with bad people. Sure would clear up some confused people but it has not happened. But would your religion be one of the ones that was "confused"? Worshiping the wrong god for all these years.

I don't think you will need to worry about that, you can always have the possibility that you are right if it does not. And religious people of all faiths love that possibility. Because if you can not prove that it does not exist, there is always the possibility. Possibilities are nice but I prefer probability I.E. I will possibly win the lottery, I will probably win the lottery. I buy a ticket I will have a better chance than if I did not. The more I have the more probable it is I will win. I am not going to spend my life buying tickets for a lottery that there is no proof I will ever get to check the numbers on. Even if it says I can collect enough to "win for sure" if I do the right things.

People of faith can hold a lot of tickets, people with out faith have no tickets only the time and money they saved by not getting them. Or even possibly some tickets acquired because they did something that earns them in the course of their daily life. But our tickets don't count because we didn't get the most expensive one? I never liked lotteries enough to put forth my all into them. Especially one whose manual was written thousands of years ago with a "guarantee" I have seen no evidence in. People that have a lot of tickets just like to remind me what will happen if I loose the lottery that is "possible" not probable.

Of course our lives aren't important in the whole scheme of things. If we all died tomorrow, you think the universe would just stop because of our deaths? We are no more important or less important than the animals around us. No one is forcing you to make others happy. It is this ignorant view that you share, that has screwed up our understanding of science. Example, geocentric model of the universe. Just because you think we as humans are the product of god and we are so special.

Originally posted by Methuselah
no more important than the animals? so if I wanted to hunt you down and kill you so I can eat, that should be ok right?
If there is no god, then there is no way of telling right from wrong.
and no, my view does not screw up any understanding of science. theories based off of flawed assumptions is what screws up science.
I already admitted that my theory is religious, now why cant you just admit yours is?

Umm what the in the world you talking about? I'm talking about how all lives should be respected equally.
'Right' and 'wrong' is a perspective. So exactly, there is no god.
If you think you wouldn't like it if someone does this to you, then you wouldn't do it to others. Just logical and comes from the brain, so i don't need god to tell me that.

And no my theory is not religious. I do not worship my theory.

So your saying that 'god' himself can't make something without it falling? And you say there is no way of getting around it? Some of the things you say are stupid. Of course if god exist he could find a way around it. Did you just make that up on the spot to defend yourself or you know for a fact?

Originally posted by Methuselah
if God gives us freewill, the power to chose him over ourselves, than yes, no matter what we are going to fall away in one form or another.
I know that for a fact, in order to God to receive true love from us, he had to give us the freewill to chose him over ourselves. people dont understand this simply because it doesnt make sense at first. but if you take a few minutes to actually think about it, you will come to realize that its the only way for God himself to experience true love and fellowship by having faith and showing love out of choice and not because we are forced.

umm yes... fact.... This is how i see it from your response - God needs something has low as us compare to him to love him... If god was so great, wouldn't you think he would have better things than worry about our love?

Originally posted by Methuselah
its good to know that people can determine when and wherein certain things evolved. you dont know and no one knows when things happened. this is all based on assumption and false dates.
I cannot believe people have you guys believing in this. and thats exactly what it is, believing.

LOL... Replace evolution with religion and you have it perfect.

"He who Doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you Please." - William Blake

Originally posted by Methuselah

evolution is blind, it doesnt know what is beneficial and what is not.

[edit on 27-8-2007 by Methuselah]

Heh Nice work there Methuselah, you have been giving such a comprehensive look to the ONLY viable possibility to bring about all we see before us in nature,,

Intelligent Design.

Thing is we are talking to people who talk as if they know Science.

heh yeah WEIRD SCIENCE!

Don't know if you have been following my posts but they are along the same drop dead common sense line of thinking yours is.


You know what is really nice about the postulate of Intelligent Design is HOW EASY IT OWNS ANY OTHER CONCEPT OR IDEA regarding our existence. I remember when Science just scared the bejeeziz out of anyone debating the existence of GOD. If anyone with a good grasp of Science and Biblical account can easily see that Science actually CONFIRMS GOD and why shouldn't it. After all GOD ROCKS!

By the way,, the analogy of evolution being blind was great I have to steal that one lol

Perhaps it would be better to try this from a mathmatical observation. One that you have inspired in me to illustrate

Now I think Math is a thing that can't be argued with. Another words 4+4 wil always be 8. So

Is the Godless ready?

Ok.

0 from 0 = 0 or Zero from Zero = Zero

0x0=0
0-0=0

I don't care how you crunch the numbers Nothing added to nothing or taken from nothing even works because nothing wouldn't even have the distinction that it's nothing because that would BE somthing.

nothing leaves nothing ya got to have something if ya wanna believe in me - GOD

Sounds like a song lol

Take Care Brother

Smart Stuff you got here.

reply to post by shizzle5150


AGGHHH HA HA HA@!!! LoL Hey man You Cracked me up !!

Umm you were on drugs when you wrote that right?

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
Just a heads up to Conspiriology:

You may want to review this post by kinglizard, one of the moderators, about your use of all caps, or largely caps when you're angry. It's not good board etiquette.

I'm not even going to continue to discuss this point with you, as it is clear you are not (yet) capable of having an objective rational discussion without resorting to name calling and "shouting."

When you've calmed down and are willing to have a discussion without these activities, I'll be glad to carry on where we left off.

I am sorry,, I am a little hard of hearing and all that small case is like whispering.

If my entire posts were all in caps I would lean a scandalous bit to your position but I allow myself some creative liscense in my writing and if it is too abrasive for you I agree,, don't read it. I know I pass over many I see as a total waste of time. ( no,, obviously you are not in that category)

Now I think you would agree I was getting a little overwhelmed, as you know, subjects like this are usually passionate and I expect them to have an edge that I make allowances for. Invariably I don't get the same lattitude in return. It's OK I'm used to it.

I am a fresh now having recuperative 8 hours sleep and am delighted to see Methuseleh here. Well I got to address a Bible question and It may be a long night = )

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul
lenisey, einstein uses words like "god" as a metaphor in much the same way one of his biggest fans, carl sagan, did.

here's a big ol quote from einstein in a letter that he wrote to an atheist.

he had no theological dispositions, no disposition to the supernatural, all of his admiration was for the natural. by his very own words he shows us he is an atheist.

No he doesn't say it he suggest it. What he says you can see and hear with your own GOD DESIGNED EYES AND EARS. Just look at the PBS link

Now that quote is taken out of context and doesn't have the verbatim account as seen below

"You may call me agnostic for I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being.
- Albert Einstein"

Ther ya have it. YOU MAY CALL ME A WHAT???

THATS RIIIGHT A G N O S T I C

Can you say that word? Go ahead try ?
C'mon,, just once try?



Yeah now that makes it clear

If I have to Ill post the VIDEO AND MPEG Sound versions also if you still don't get it after that then you are just being adversarial for the sake of argument because you feel if you can beat us at that then

YOU BE Intellahgeint!

If god was so great, wouldn't you think he would have better things than worry about our love?

WoW this speaks VOLUMES.

Let me just suggest that GOD doesn't have to apologise for desiring the recipricol exchange of the most beautiful experience one can receive and offer.

LOVE.

Try it sometime,, fall in love or have a child, then when it is taken away from you or perhaps your child is kidnapped, dies or just runs away from home.

Tell me then if you still got better things to worry about.

Like I said before

YOU JUST DON'T


GET IT.



[edit on 28-8-2007 by Conspiriology]

Originally posted by Conspiriology
No he doesn't say it he suggest it. What he says you can see and hear with your own GOD DESIGNED EYES AND EARS. Just look at the PBS link

METAPHOR, einstein was merely using the words "god designed" in place of "eyes and ears that formed through a gradual natural process over millions of years" because it sounds far more poetic the first way.

Now that quote is taken out of context and doesn't have the verbatim account as seen below


"You may call me agnostic for I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being.
- Albert Einstein"

Ther ya have it. YOU MAY CALL ME A WHAT???

agnostic: atheist writ polite.
he did not believe in a god, he did not believe in the supernatural, that makes him one without theism.

THATS RIIIGHT A G N O S T I C

Can you say that word? Go ahead try ?
C'mon,, just once try?

you're quite rude, you know that? first it was name calling....

Yeah now that makes it clear

agnostics still DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD. agnostics are atheists, whether or not they choose to use the word is their own choice.

If I have to Ill post the VIDEO AND MPEG Sound versions also if you still don't get it after that then you are just being adversarial for the sake of argument because you feel if you can beat us at that then

ok, you're just refusing to understand what a metaphor is, einstein was using one.

Well i just want to finally just answer the original question
i can honestly believe in God because he answers my prayers,
well not for any type of gain....just to help others when it was
important

And i KNOW that it is God answering me
because otherwise my life must be full of amazing miraculous coincidences

i have prayed and helped MANY people, and the exact help requested would come within the hour.-
i have asked the Lord for guidance and confirmation that i was
on the right path in my interpretation of the bible
and for something to prove to me that he wants me to keep
trying to make others aware of him..
i would not ask any church religion, cuz i do not believe
in their idea of God.
(they are nice social events , but whatever)

and found an article the next day for a class starting up ,
free, taught by 2 prophets
who will be reading "revelations" and explaining it , teaching it ,

I was the only one there the 1st day
they opened the door and told me

"He told us that the 1st day-only 1 would come.....
she will bring the others- it is what she does"

i know it is way out there
but it is 100 % true....by the 3rd class there were over 20 people
It lasted 1 month and i learned soooo much

And this is how God gave me proof.
It IS what i am supposed to do.

maybe if you opened your heart up to Him, asked Him to come in
and asked Him for something that would help you to believe
then he would give you the proof YOU needed

He will not come in uninvited
He does not force his way in,
it is all part of the "free will"
This is why non- believers do not feel HIm,
Cannot find Him
You must seek the LOrd
He is there for anyone who wants to let him in
renee

Originally posted by Methuselah
wow! im glad you know everything about science and how things came about...
I think your deliberate ignorance and denial of such is far worse than what you claim to be my ignorance.

I don't think I do know everything about science and how stuff came about. I think it's quite obvious I know more about science than you, but hey, to be brutally honest, it's quite probable my 13 year old son does.

Originally posted by Methuselah
the only place I have ever seen evolution is in the textbooks. it cant even happen in the digital world.

Genetic programming (GP) is an evolutionary algorithm based methodology inspired by biological evolution to find computer programs that perform a user-defined task. Therefore it is a machine learning technique used to optimize a population of computer programs according to a fitness landscape determined by a program's ability to perform a given computational task.

...

GP is very computationally intensive and so in the 1990s it was mainly used to solve relatively simple problems. But more recently, thanks to improvements in GP technology and to the exponential growth in CPU power, GP produced many novel and outstanding results in areas such as quantum computing, electronic design, game playing, sorting, searching and many more.[4] These results include the replication or development of several post-year-2000 inventions. GP has also been applied to evolvable hardware as well as computer programs. There are several GP patents listed in the web site [5].

Genetic programming

Originally posted by Methuselah
evolution is blind, it doesnt know what is beneficial and what is not.

Evolution is blind in the sense that it does not plan in the way human design does.

Paley's argument is made with passionate sincerity and is informed by the best biological scholarship of his day, but it is wrong, gloriously and utterly wrong. The analogy between telescope and eye, between watch and living organism, is false. All appearances to the contrary, the only watchmaker in nature is the blind forces of physics, albeit deployed in a very special way. A true watchmaker has foresight: he designs his cogs and springs, and plans their interconnections, with a future purpose in his mind's eye. Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind's eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.

www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk...

You should read the blind watchmaker, you might actually learn a bit about what evolution is.

you will never be able to spell the word Zebra, Horse, Apple, Hamster,Banana or Donkey, especially with random processes.

Evolution is not random.

For the brazillionth time, it is non-random selection of random variations.

At this point, you are just being willfully ignorant.

Macro Evolution is not observable, it is assumed to have happened = Faith.

No, there is evidence for common descent. Faith is believing without evidence, you should know that.

www.talkorigins.org...

being dead in the theory of evolution is a benefit to the 'more fit'. producing offspring with the 'less fit' slows the process down. not being dead it very beneficial in my world because I get to laugh at people like you for believing in such a dumb theory that begins with "in the beginning, there was nothing..... and then all of the sudden space expanded out of nothing and matter and energy expanded space.... "

Errrm, yeah, OK.

Again, with the strawman.

No-one proposes that something came from nothing. The big bang proposes that this universe came from a singularity. That's not nothing.

What happened before that is under examination, but again, if there was nothing to study, what would be the point?

ABE:

Originally posted by Methuselah
if evolution is true, there is no moral standard. just imagine, if everyone lived by the 10 commandments... life would be good.

Amazing to think that the 'moral sense' is actually a result of evolution. Evolution doesn't speak to moral standards.

Then again, the next time you say that evolution is a random process, you can file that under 'bearing false witness'.

Are you a liar for Jay-sus?

[edit on 28-8-2007 by melatonin]

I'd like to answer the OP's thread question on how I can believe in God.

Step 1. I realized I was more than a corporeal being.
Step 2. I realized that I was a free moral agent on my spiritual side, completely free to choose what I do in the spirit.
Step 3. I acted on my free moral agency because I realized the faith that was in me. Please note that I say I realized the faith that resided in me via my free moral agency and that faith could be applied in a number of directions. I chose to place my faith in God.

It was actually quite simple for me. I cannot prove God exists, nor would I want to if I could. To prove God exists destroys faith and quite frankly, I enjoy my faith. I believe there will come a time when I KNOW God exists, but for this short time I have as a physical being with the right to choose, I enjoying BELIEVING God exists. What I don't enjoy are people who are militantly active in attacking me, and other believers, because they just can't seem to tolerate the opposing choice to the one they made.


[edit on 8-28-2007 by Valhall]

Originally posted by Conspiriology

If god was so great, wouldn't you think he would have better things than worry about our love?

WoW this speaks VOLUMES.

Let me just suggest that GOD doesn't have to apologise for desiring the recipricol exchange of the most beautiful experience one can receive and offer.

LOVE.

Try it sometime,, fall in love or have a child, then when it is taken away from you or perhaps your child is kidnapped, dies or just runs away from home.

Tell me then if you still got better things to worry about.

Like I said before

YOU JUST DON'T


GET IT.



[edit on 28-8-2007 by Conspiriology]

What the @#$%^ are you talking about? As you would know, i'm human and god is not. So why the hell are you comparing me to god? Hmmm maybe you think i'm god himself ... If god exist then he wouldn't be controlled by such things as love, 'mind-forged manacles'. Kind of sad how he has to makes thing to love him. How do you know love is the most beautiful experience? If you think there's a god, then you should consider there might be other feelings out there...

[edit on 28-8-2007 by AncientVoid]