Creationists - Explain this please

I don't believe it's fair to say that our species will not be around long enough to find the answers to all life's mysteries. We have no idea how long our species will live or how complex the answers to life's mysteries may be. I'd say it's a very safe bet that by the time our sun explodes our technology will have improved far enough to reach other systems and settle colonies on other pre-existing planets such as Earth which meet criteria for life. It seems to me that it's actually being close-minded to imagine a boundary of what humans can do. Not too long ago people would have laughed at you if you said that man could fly. Now here we are being laughed at saying man can colonize space. Some day people may be being laughed at who say they know how to find the meaning of life. Unfortunately if man doesn't understand something, they deem it impossible or illogical.

I also don't agree with your point of view that science "has no answers." Science has many answers, they are simply the equivalent of 2+2 at this point. To a toddler 2+2 is beyond their grasp. However as educated adults, y = mx + b seems elementary.

Perhaps, despite all our great advances, man is only at that stage of life where we can finally walk, and suddenly the possibilities seem endless.

Food for thought

Originally posted by Lasheic
The Big Bang certainly isn't a iron clad case by any means, but to ignore the evidence for it and pass it off as pure fantasy?

Everything that we think we know about the "Big Bang" is pure supposition. We adjust our fiction periodically, but it's completely unsubstantiated and unprovable.

Originally posted by Lasheic
We have not only seen Black Holes, but have seen them collide.

No, we have radio telescope images of some sort of curious anomaly about 300 million light years away, and we're applying our human imagination and explanations to the observation. We have not "seen" a black hole — EVER — and we cannot prove that black holes exist, except through the mathematical consensus of a bunch of hairless apes squinting across 300 million light years of space at a phenomenon that doesn't even exist any more.

Originally posted by Lasheic
Quantum Computers work, and are weird.

Again, this is not proof that Quantum Physics are real. For Godsake, it's called "counterfactual computation"... This is more of the same old Quantum hash about intuitive photons and the Universe anticipating the fact that it's being tested. Which is more like science-fantasy than science. Show me a product of Quantum Physics that I can purchase and put to practical use, not some micro-optic experiment that baffles the researcher and creates more questions than it answers.

Originally posted by Lasheic
Evolution has nothing to say, nor will ever have anything to say about the origin of life.

Precisely. Evolution is only a partial description of a process. Therefore, it cannot and should not be touted as the counterpoint of Creationism, which at least offers some sort of explanation of the origin of Life.

Show me ONE INDISPUTABLE EXAMPLE of an animal "mutating" or "evolving" into another TYPE of animal. As I stated earlier, no one disputes animals and plants will change, evolve if you will, to fit their environments.

Show me an invertebrate, then 3 or 4 "half-invertebrate" (where you can still tell it is the same animal, but with the start of a spinal column), then a full vertebrate animal.

Show me a fruit fly that evolved into something BESIDES a fly.

Even that bacteria experiment, which *IS* pretty cool by the way, with around 44,000 generations ended up with BACTERIA. Yes, the bacteria could eat a new type of food. BUT IT WAS STILL BACTERIA.

With all the monkeying around (pun intended) that scientists have been doing, the only way they can make new creatures is by mixing and matching DNA, which is hardly "evolution".

There is a major difference between micro evolution and macro evolution. No one disputes micro evolution happens (though I would say that to use the term "evolution" in this way is not really semantically correct). Humans have known you can change animals by selective breeding for thousands of years. Heck, the German Shephard and Doberman breeds were created within the lifetime of a single person. BUT THEY ARE STILL DOGS.

What you evolution people don't seem to grasp is this: by any fair standard, the fossil record should show ALMOST NOTHING BUT TRANSITIONAL SPECIES.

Over and over and over again, you find fossilized human footprints (sometimes with shoes on) in rock that is dated millions of years old. You have tens if not hundreds of examples of coal miners that find MAN MADE OBJECTS in coal beds, yet these are always dismissed as "hoaxes". You have pottery and art from thousands of years ago showing dinosaurs that look pretty much how we draw them today, but those are also deemed "hoaxes". For Christ's sake, you've had a T-Rex thighbone found with Red blood cells and unfossilized flesh still in it! That alone tells you that there was a full size T-Rex around less than 10,000 years ago!

You have Marco Polo and his advisors talking about seeing flying dragons. You have sailors who for thousands of years have talked about giant squids the size of ships. Oh, they were "hoaxers" too. Only, OOOPPPPSSS! Guess what, they finally found an intact giant squid that was 60 feet long. You have various governmental surveyors and explorers talking about seeing dragons, yet no one believes them. Yeah, you scientists believe Marco Polo when he says he went to China, but you don't believe him when he says he saw flying dragons on his way there.

At one time, scientists were SURE that the earth traveled around the sun. (BTW, it is a misconception that the Roman Catholic Church, of it's own accord, persecuted Galileo. They were pushed into it by the leading scientists of the time. Everyone seems to forget that little inconvenient fact of history) At one time, scientists were SURE that man could not fly in heavier-than-air vehicles. In fact, they were so sure, they published a PEER REVIEWED PAPER that "proved" as much several days or weeks before the Wright Brothers flew. In the early 1900s, you had scientists that were SURE you could not send anything into space. In the early to mid 1900s, you had scientists that were SURE that the "slingshot effect" would not work. And for the last almost 150 years, you've had scientists that were SURE we were just around the corner from finally explaining how evolution works.

Darwin said himself that if transitional fossils can't be found, his theory wasn't valid. He thought, and rightly so for his time, that scientists just hadn't found enough fossils yet. Here we are, some 100 million fossils later, and evolutionists can only point out a handful of transitional species, and absolutely none of them without contention?

And don't try to weasel out of the beginnings of life by saying that's the "theory of abiogenesis". I thought science had already ruled out abiogenesis? We have never observed life spontaneously coming out of non-life. Ever.

And let's not forget that the man who first said that doctors should wash their hands after visiting each patient was drummed out of the medical field by SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS.

I tell you what, let's see who has advanced science more: Christians or atheists. Would anyone care to look up the absolute best, the top of the line atheist scientists, and see what they have contributed to science. I, on the other hand, will look up the best of the Christian scientists. Let's see who has contributed the most to science. Let's stick to hard sciences, like physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc. Any takers?

Macro evolution is a bankrupt theory. Chemistry says so, biology says so, physics says so, information theory says so, and even statistics says so (and God knows, you can spin statistics to say just about ANYTHING, except when it comes to the chance of macro evolution actually happening)

reply to post by SkepticPerhaps


I honestly don't believe that humanity will exist by the time the sun explodes. I doubt we'll even make it to see the next million years. I don't believe we'll kill ourselves, our planet, or any of that other pessimistic "We're so stupid, I hate humanity" mumbo jumbo. This is for a twofold reason.

1. We are now just beginning to harness the true power of genetics, and with that - we will be able to control our own evolution. We have identified multiple beneficial mutations in populations which can be more rapidly spread throughout a population using medicine than it would take to spread them through descent. Further, we can identify already beneficial/non-beneficial programs in our DNA and turn them on or off.

An example of which would be the Fat/Insulin receptor gene which normally makes your body absorb most all of the calories you intake. This was because back in Hunter/Gatherer times, our bodies didn't know when or how successful hunt would be. So it maximized what it DID get. This isn't a problem anymore. So we can effectively shut that program down. Tests on mice have concluded that it DOES work, as mice who underwent treatment were given high caloric diets, ate ravenously, and showed all the health benefits of a calorie restricted diet. It's currently being researched for use in human clinical trials.
Reprogramming the Body


2. Even if we direct the flow of evolution, we will NEVER be outside of Evolution. Since Evolution is such a slow process, there will never be a point where we suddenly wake up one day and realize we're no longer human and hurriedly try to correct it. What we become then, will be normal for them and there will be no reason for them to change. This will become especially pronounced if Humanity begins colonizing space, because we will be separating large populations into two or more smaller populations which will diverge according the factors selected by their new environments. This is a well known phenomena in evolution where a population is split.

Although, I suppose we always could kill ourselves off entirely. That's a possiblity, but not a very likely one IMO.

Originally posted by SkepticPerhaps
I'd say it's a very safe bet that by the time our sun explodes our technology will have improved far enough to reach other systems and settle colonies on other pre-existing planets such as Earth which meet criteria for life.

A safe bet? Don't bet the farm, because you'd lose. Where do people get this bizarre notion that humanity will still be around concurrent with the demise of our Sun? By the time our Sun dies, not only will humanity have been extinct for about 5 billion years, but every species that evolved from humans will be extinct. THAT is a safe bet, if you can locate anyone or anything that will pay up.







[edit on 6/12/2008 by Doc Velocity]

The idea of an evolving organism indicate that mutations occur and are passed on through generations,,,, correct?

Now microbial and viral life have very quick life spans - thus creating many,many generations in a short amount of time in contrast to humans.

So why have so many diseases have mutated and "evolved" (such as AIDS) becoming resistant to drugs that have worked in the past?

And if this is true why is it not true for the rest of life?

Because monkey hands are actually feet that they use like hands?

Doc, you miss the point of my post. You are still limiting the capacities of humans. If history teaches us anything about humans, it's that people underestimate their race. The only possible way in which the human race would not colonize space is for a freak accident, or a very destructive war (whether it's between humans or with aliens) to make our race either entirely extinct or incapable of advancing. The time estimated until our sun dies (factoring in both a large margin of error and the sudden temperature rise which would kill all life on Earth) still leaves long enough time for us to advance BACK to this point. Surely even the alleged "NWO" have plans to colonize space, if only for their own survival.

Everything that we think we know about the "Big Bang" is pure supposition. We adjust our fiction periodically, but it's completely unsubstantiated and unprovable.

You're grossly mischaractarizing. Of course our theories modify and change as new evidence becomes available. That's how science works. In a way, science undergoes it's own evolutionary process. It starts with ideas about how the world works, and reality selects for ideas that are the most accurate. A theory is then reproduced with variation to fit the facts. More facts are learned, and so the theory is selected against again. It may end up killing the theory, or modifying it. This process continues again and again rigorously and brutally until we have a theory that conforms to and explains the evidence.

Some theories are very old and have stood the rigors of this process - like Newtonian Mechanics. Some are rather new, and have already been selected against by reality because they could not fit the facts. Such as Cold Fusion.

No, we have radio telescope images of some sort of curious anomaly about 300 million light years away, and we're applying our human imagination and explanations to the observation.

I still don't think you grasp the concept that science does not just make crap up. It CANNOT work that way. It has NEVER worked that way. Religion works that way, and they have a track record of at least six thousand years of non-achievement.

Black Holes have been photographed, detected, and know for several years now - confirming what we have already known through mathematics. There is plenty of research out there explaining the different methods of detection and why it's valid.

Chandra Xray Observatory

But, I suppose you know better than some of the brightest minds on the planet who's work and who's fields have helped deliver us into our first world society.

Again, this is not proof that Quantum Physics are real. For Godsake, it's called "counterfactual computation"... This is more of the same old Quantum hash about intuitive photons and the Universe anticipating the fact that it's being tested.

They have tested, measured, reproduced, and productive results. You might as well be arguing that electrons don't exist because you can't imagine something so tiny.

Quantum Teleporation
Quantum Teleportation

Quantum Mechanics
Overview of Quantum Mechanics, since you apparently need it.

Show me a product of Quantum Physics that I can purchase and put to practical use

Er, technically you can BUY a Quantum Computer like the one mentioned above. They ARE in existence. Good luck finding it on Ebay though. You might as well spend your money on IBM's Roadrunner supercomputer. You're going to get more preformance out of it. Tho you might want to think about moving closer to a power plant.

The practical application of Quantum Mechanics is still in it's infancy. You might as well be asking for a home desktop computer back in 1950.

Precisely. Evolution is only a partial description of a process. Therefore, it cannot and should not be touted as the counterpoint of Creationism, which at least offers some sort of explanation of the origin of Life.

No, it is a COMPLETE description of the Diversity of Life. Creationism may extend it's reach into other fields, but Evolution does NOT. Evolution CANNOT. And you can't claim that creationism is on equal footing because it is both unfalsifiable and untestable, which is not the case with Evolution. What you're proposing is like saying that Newtonian Mechanics are wrong because they can't account for the origin of the universe either.

Only "GODS" celestial mechanics can do that! It can do anything, because my 6,000 year old book tells me so! Suck on that Newton!

reply to post by sir_chancealot


Show me ONE INDISPUTABLE EXAMPLE of an animal "mutating" or "evolving" into another TYPE of animal.

There's a whole video of them on the first page, if you had cared to watch. But you obviously don't understand that this doesn't happen in a single generation. You cannot even create an entirely new breed of DOG in a single, or even several generations. Every single creature is a full and complete organism on it's own.

It does NOT happen the way you THINK it happens.

I suppose I could mention the Cynodont or the Microraptor , but I think you've already shown yourself to be closed off to any evidence which doesn't fit your narrow world view.

Transitional species.... YOU ARE A TRANSITIONAL SPECIES.

With all the monkeying around (pun intended) that scientists have been doing, the only way they can make new creatures is by mixing and matching DNA, which is hardly "evolution"

Technically, it IS Evolution - because it requires reproduction with variation that is selected against by it's environment. You need the reproduction for the creature. We control the variation, and we also control the selection process.

As a middle-ground, you have selective breeding which puts us in control of reproduction and selection, but still relies on random mutation. For an example, look at corn which was domesticated and breed from a species of Teosinte , a form of wheat grass, into what we eat today.

Evolution in nature takes much much longer, and with random mutations.

There is a major difference between micro evolution and macro evolution.

The only difference between "Micro" Evolution and "Macro" Evolution is timescale. What you propose is like saying that walking to your kitchen is doable, but walking to the next town over is impossible.

What you evolution people don't seem to grasp is this: by any fair standard, the fossil record should show ALMOST NOTHING BUT TRANSITIONAL SPECIES.

It does. Everything in the fossil record is a transitional species. Why can't YOU grasp that?

Over and over and over again, you find fossilized human footprints (sometimes with shoes on) in rock that is dated millions of years old.

None of that "evidence" has ever stood up to peer review. Try again.

You have tens if not hundreds of examples of coal miners that find MAN MADE OBJECTS in coal beds, yet these are always dismissed as "hoaxes".

That's because they are. Even your laughable Creationist websites debunk them as hoaxes and caution against believing in them.
Why don't we find human and dinosaur fossils together?
Where are all the human fossils?

You have pottery and art from thousands of years ago showing dinosaurs that look pretty much how we draw them today, but those are also deemed "hoaxes".

Most of them are. Many of which are created by the natives to sell to gullible fools.

We also have cave paintings that show humans and mammoths together. That really doesn't mean anything on it's own though. What gives it weight is collaborating evidence from other fields. We have also found human artifacts with Mammoth skeletons. Indeed, some think we are part of the reason they went extinct.

reply to post by Lasheic


Loyd, Is this you?

Originally posted by melatonin
Why x? God wanted it that way, he's magic donchyaknow.

Why a not b? God wanted it that way, he's magic donchyaknow.

Why b not a? God wanted it that way, he's magic donchyaknow.

Once you are not constrained by reality, all you have is one big bag of vacuity. If that sort of answer gives you a fuzzy feeling inside, I can ride with that. Just don't expect me to buy it. It can answer absolutely everything - no rhyme, no reason.

But at least he did attempt to answer the OP, so he deserves kudos for that.

sorry for my tardy reply....

isnt that how it works with intelligent creatures though?

why is this car here? because someone put it there.

why is it this color and not that color? because thats what the painter wanted.

those statements have nothing to do with "magic".

if god created things a certain then thats how he created them. i understand how you construe that as magic.

reply to post by sir_chancealot



For Christ's sake, you've had a T-Rex thighbone found with Red blood cells and unfossilized flesh still in it! That alone tells you that there was a full size T-Rex around less than 10,000 years ago!

Er, no it doesn't. It tells us that soft tissue was found in a very old bone that should not have soft tissue. Scientists are still trying to work out why. It's possible that we may have to revamp our currently held conceptions of fossilization.

In any case, it certainly doesn't help your case either provided (lol) a boot can "flash fossilize" in only 50 years.

You have Marco Polo and his advisors talking about seeing flying dragons.

A. Dude, have you SEEN some of the screwed up drawing early explorers made of currently known animal species? Much of that stuff is WAY off base, partially because when the explorers would see them - they would only catch glimpses. They didn't have photographs. So they had to draw from memory.

B. Subjective human testimony is the least credible form of evidence in science.

You have sailors who for thousands of years have talked about giant squids the size of ships. Oh, they were "hoaxers" too.

We still haven't found any "Kraken" the size of a gallion as depicted by those early sailors. What Giant Squid we have discovered are impressive, but not by not anything like what early sailors claimed to have seen. None of them were caught near the surface either, and they haven't attacked any boats since the Age of Reason.

They also saw Mermaids, but those turned out to be Sea Cows.

Yeah, you scientists believe Marco Polo when he says he went to China

We have historical records and documents to prove it. And not just from Marco Polo, but from the Vatican and China as well. Marco Polo himself was known as the "Man of a Million Lies" because of the over the top stories he told. Indeed, Kublai Khan took a shine to Marco because he was such a good and imaginative storyteller.

BTW, it is a misconception that the Roman Catholic Church, of it's own accord, persecuted Galileo. They were pushed into it by the leading scientists of the time. Everyone seems to forget that little inconvenient fact of history

Got a credible link?
I have one of Pope John Paul II apologizing for it in 1992

At one time, scientists were SURE that man could not fly in heavier-than-air vehicles. In fact, they were so sure, they published a PEER REVIEWED PAPER that "proved" as much several days or weeks before the Wright Brothers flew. etc... etc..

Yes, and so you're demonstrating the self correcting nature of Science. Nobody said that Paradigm shifts don't happen. Indeed, they're one of the most imporant aspects of Science.

Darwin said himself that if transitional fossils can't be found, his theory wasn't valid. He thought, and rightly so for his time, that scientists just hadn't found enough fossils yet. Here we are, some 100 million fossils later, and evolutionists can only point out a handful of transitional species, and absolutely none of them without contention?

Again, you have absolutely NO idea how rich the fossil record is. You might want to spend some more time on paleontology websites than creationist websites.


Here's one to get you started.

I thought science had already ruled out abiogenesis? We have never observed life spontaneously coming out of non-life. Ever.

Ok, so you don't know what Abiogenesis is either.
Abiogenesis


[edit on 12-6-2008 by Lasheic]

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Lasheic]

reply to post by sir_chancealot



And let's not forget that the man who first said that doctors should wash their hands after visiting each patient was drummed out of the medical field by SCIENTISTS AND DOCTORS.

You have a link?
I have one.
It was actually Joseph Lister who first seriously proposed sterilization and cleanliness in medicine. He made radical changes in the field. Indeed, he was a hero. There is even a public monument to him in England. He certainly wasn't "Drummed out" of the medical field. He retired after his wife passed away in 1893.

I tell you what, let's see who has advanced science more: Christians or atheists.

False dichotomy. Science is not synonymous with Atheism, nor vice versa. As already stated - most people who accept Evolution are Christian, and most Christians accept Evolution. For example, look at Robert Bakker, one of the worlds most famous Paleontologists is also a Pentecostal preacher. He even wrote a book titled "Bones Bibles and Creation"

Now... if you want to compare "Biblical Science" with actual science... this should be fun.


In case video doesn't work

It wouldn't matter, regardless, because a scientists faith or lack of faith has absolutely nothing to do with their work as scientists. They must still adhere to the scientific method. No advancements in mankind have ever come from saying "lol god dunnit"

Macro evolution is a bankrupt theory. Chemistry says so, biology says so, physics says so... etc

lol, no. Now go to school.

[edit on 12-6-2008 by Lasheic]

Originally posted by Lasheic
But, I suppose you know better than some of the brightest minds on the planet who's work and who's fields have helped deliver us into our first world society.

I think you've placed your Faith in Science. What we "know" about Science is that the Scientific Method is only about 500 years old, and what we call "modern Science" is less than a century old — Science hasn't been around long enough to make the extensive observations necessary for arriving at conclusions about our atmosphere, our hydrosphere and our biosphere, nevermind conclusions regarding the space beyond Earth.

No, Science does not know how the Earth's atmosphere works. No, Science does not know how the Earth's crust operates. No, Science does not know how the oceans work. Virtually everything we think we know about Nature, thus far, has been proven wrong or, perhaps worse, only half right. Indeed, Science has a track record of not thinking things through before releasing their incomplete knowledge on an unprepared world.

The internal combustion engine, with its century-old legacy of pumping pollutants into the atmosphere, is a good example of half-baked Science. So is the continent-wide electrical power grid, which generates both profound and subtle electromagnetic disturbances in the biosphere. So is antiviral inoculation, which — in addition to contributing mightily to the world's human overpopulation problem (and that's the up side) — has served to usher in a new era of super plagues. Another great example of lousy Science are genetically modified foods which, for some as-yet-unknown reason, are a bit more toxic to the environment than we planned. And, of course, Science has given us every manner of military weapon for slaughtering each other in the most dreadful ways imaginable.

And that's just a few of the wonders visited upon us courtesy of half-baked Science. So much for the "best and brightest minds" and our "first world society"...

The astronomers themselves have the worst jobs, I think. Every day, they wake up in a new universe, their preconceived notions shattered by stunningly simple revelations. As our various interplanetary probes go zipping about and relaying back one shocker after another for Earth-bound scientists, it becomes apparent that these guys were way off the mark in most of their theories regarding the Solar System. I'm sure that they much prefer deep-space Science, simply because we can't disprove their theories yet and probably won't for hundreds or thousands of more years.

So, those perplexing fairy tale creatures out there, such as black holes and quasars, are safe for the time being, until the day that we actually go and visit them in real time.






[edit on 6/12/2008 by Doc Velocity]

Ughh.
God did it.
You can ask anyone that was taught that.

Lasheic,

Very nice. I was almost applauding my monitor screen at your posts, you are 100% correct.

Originally posted by Doc Velocity
I think you've placed your Faith in Science.

The great thing about science is that it does not need a capital letter. You can't put your faith in it. You can only hear what the empirical results tell you, and judge for yourself what the world view must be, based on the evidence of repeatable experiments. Science dictates nothing to it's listener, and that is how it is different from religion. Science cannot place demands, it can only offer solutions.

Originally posted by Doc VelocityWhat we "know" about Science is that the Scientific Method is only about 500 years old, and what we call "modern Science" is less than a century old — Science hasn't been around long enough to make the extensive observations necessary for arriving at conclusions about our atmosphere, our hydrosphere and our biosphere, nevermind conclusions regarding the space beyond Earth.

By your own logic, then religion has proven that it takes thousands of years to get something wrong, and only a short period of time to set it right.

You have to have said that for kicks, one would assume, as you can't possibly believe we knew more about the universe before the advent of modern science. That would be a foolish stance to take.

Originally posted by Doc VelocityNo, Science does not know how the Earth's atmosphere works. No, Science does not know how the Earth's crust operates. No, Science does not know how the oceans work. Virtually everything we think we know about Nature, thus far, has been proven wrong or, perhaps worse, only half right. Indeed, Science has a track record of not thinking things through before releasing their incomplete knowledge on an unprepared world.

You've done your own research have you? Been out in the field collecting samples much, have we?

Can you substatiate any one of these wild claims with anything approaching evidence? I read plenty of explanations of all of the above when I was in school. All logical, sensible and above all, testable.

And even if science did not yet have the answers to these questions, it is completely open to debate! If you have proof that it works in a way other than currently accepted, you can give your work to the academic community and they will test it as well. And when your work shows them to be wrong, they will accept it into the new model of the universe that you have helped shape.

This is the beauty of science: it does not deal with absolutes. Unlike religions, which say "this is how it is and no other way", you CANNOT PROVE SCIENCE WRONG! Science will always take your empirical evidence for your argument against it's current paradigm, and incorporate it into its cannon of knowledge. What you were fighting against would suddenly become what you are fighting for.

Originally posted by Doc Velocity The internal combustion engine, with its century-old legacy of pumping pollutants into the atmosphere, is a good example of half-baked Science.

No, that was the result of man's negligence and lack of foresight, nothing to do with science. Science enabled us to be that incompetent, but it is in no way the fault of the knowledge, it is the fault of those that wield it.

Originally posted by Doc VelocitySo is the continent-wide electrical power grid, which generates both profound and subtle electromagnetic disturbances in the biosphere.

See above point.

Originally posted by Doc VelocitySo is antiviral inoculation, which — in addition to contributing mightily to the world's human overpopulation problem (and that's the up side)

You are a monster. Innoculation prevents thousands of child deaths per year. Science saves, and yet it asks for nothing in return.

Originally posted by Doc Velocity— has served to usher in a new era of super plagues.

Like what, worse than the Black Death that depopulated Europe by half?

Originally posted by Doc VelocityAnother great example of lousy Science are genetically modified foods which, for some as-yet-unknown reason, are a bit more toxic to the environment than we planned.

And your evidence for this is? Genetically modified foods have not been around long enough to give us any indication of their long-term effects.

Originally posted by Doc VelocityAnd, of course, Science has given us every manner of military weapon for slaughtering each other in the most dreadful ways imaginable.

No, men have given us that. Science has just given us the ability to do that, as well as perform open heart surgery, lung transplants, chemotherapy...the list goes on.

And it isn't like the human race was a bunch of little darlings before science reared it's ugly head and started instructing everyone to kill everyone in the name of physics. Why not ask the Cathars?

Originally posted by Doc VelocityAnd that's just a few of the wonders visited upon us courtesy of half-baked Science. So much for the "best and brightest minds" and our "first world society"...

And do you want the list of amazing scientific discoveries that allow you to post crap like that?

Originally posted by Doc VelocityThe astronomers themselves have the worst jobs, I think. Every day, they wake up in a new universe, their preconceived notions shattered by stunningly simple revelations. As our various interplanetary probes go zipping about and relaying back one shocker after another for Earth-bound scientists, it becomes apparent that these guys were way off the mark in most of their theories regarding the Solar System. I'm sure that they much prefer deep-space Science, simply because we can't disprove their theories yet and probably won't for hundreds or thousands of more years.

Twaddle.

Originally posted by Doc VelocitySo, those perplexing fairy tale creatures out there, such as black holes and quasars, are safe for the time being, until the day that we actually go and visit them in real time.

Just like the perplexing fairytale of God, who is safe forever because of his "ultimate loophole": "It just is, alright?"

Originally posted by miriam0566
sorry for my tardy reply....

Heh, that's cool.

isnt that how it works with intelligent creatures though?

In a way, yes. Many suffer from a teleological fallacy. In fact it appears to be an evolutionary tuned trait that we need to work against (i.e., seeing agnecy where none exists).

why is this car here? because someone put it there.

why is it this color and not that color? because thats what the painter wanted.

those statements have nothing to do with "magic".

if god created things a certain then thats how he created them. i understand how you construe that as magic.

However, we know that people drive cars and move them around. We know that painters decide to use particular paints. We can even watch them do so. These are trivial.

The same is not true for your proposed disembodied telic entity. The argument from design is a mere empty assertion.

Originally posted by melatonin
The same is not true for your proposed disembodied telic entity. The argument from design is a mere empty assertion.

but its not, its relative.

an insect picks a particular place to lay its eggs, why? maybe because of instinct but in the end you can say it wanted too.

a human choose to paint a picture a certain way, why? because thats what he wants to do.

why would magic man in the sky be any different? i dont understand how the possibility of a god making something a certain way because he wants too suddenly because illogical.

Originally posted by miriam0566
why would magic man in the sky be any different? i dont understand how the possibility of a god making something a certain way because he wants too suddenly because illogical.

Yes, if you buy into something which essentially suggests 'x can do anything', then you can apply it to whatever, whenever, however. No rhyme, no reason.

I'm not really challenging that. Again, that's trivial. But it's also a non-answer. If it makes you happy, miriam, go for it.

Just don't expect others to buy into such a vacuous assertion.

[edit on 12-6-2008 by melatonin]

Everything that we think we know about the "Big Bang" is pure supposition. We adjust our fiction periodically, but it's completely unsubstantiated and unprovable.

I , and the scientific community, the same one that slams creationism in its entirety, disagree with that statement.


content from external source.

New NASA space-probe observations of the oldest light in the cosmos are the most direct evidence yet that the universe expanded extremely quickly immediately after the big bang, physicists say.

Charles Bennett of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, led the team overseeing NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). He and colleagues announced the new results Thursday in a teleconference.


First Stars in Universe Detected?
Previous experiments—including WMAP results released in 2003—had provided strong evidence for the rapid-expansion theory, called inflation, that was first proposed by physicist Alan Guth in 1980.

In the trillion-trillionth of a second after the big bang, the universe expanded from the size of a gumball to astronomical proportions, according to the inflation theory. The universe then settled into a more leisurely pace of expansion over the past 13.7 billion years or so.

Smoking Gun

WMAP now has the most convincing evidence yet for inflation: a reading of the light released just after the big bang. This cosmic afterglow, known as microwave background, is made of a similar type of radiation to that which carries signals to a TV antenna.

The afterglow is as valuable to a cosmologist as the earliest fossils are to a paleontologist. It is the oldest radiation ever detected, still traveling almost 14 billion years after it was emitted.


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~elgoog~




[edit on 12-6-2008 by elgoog]