APP - 82 million year old fossil being excavated
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Dixie - In Memoriam
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Who suggested we fill gaps with "god did it?" Why would we want to fill gaps in understanding physical sciences with supernatural and spiritual things? That's sort of retarded, isn't it? We don't have to try and fill the never-ending gaps in our knowledge and understanding of the universe with ANYTHING! We have to keep an open mind to possibility and continue exploring it, not fill in gaps and draw conclusions... especially not filling in gaps for physical sciences with spiritual understandings, that totally makes no sense.
Yes, man created science, and as for Og & Ug, man created mathematics as well. We did so on the basis of our ability to have cognitive thought and imagine these things, conceptualize them, and form rational beliefs around them as a foundation of understanding. This still doesn't answer the question as to why they work. As well as you can explain HOW something works, you lack the ability to tell me WHY it works. It is your argument that "It just does" and that's it. I argue that something more could be at play, because nothing has been answered definitively.
I'd say that under that scenario it is very likely we're only "half-baked" so to speak.
Lowaicue
英語在香港
If there is a why then you are introducing cause. Let's go back.
Trillions of galaxies, right?
Trillions of star systems in each (probably), right?
Billions of years, right?
Now take any element, any thing at all that you can recognise as a tangible something and (theoretically) place a trillion of them on each of every planet in each and every star system in each and every galaxy and wait.
Do you think that nothing will change, ever? Do you think that temperature, starlight, movement through space, nothing will ever change?
Now THAT is stretching the imagination, Dixie.
The problem with man, and it applies to a certain degree to everyone, is that we are supremely arrogant. We believe that we are here for some purpose, that the earth was created to serve us, that we are just too good to be the product of fluke or co-incidence.
My contention is that we are not special. We are co-incidental and we have no justification to place ourselves anywhere but at the level of any other living thing.
Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
I don't understand what you are saying here, or what it has to do with what I've said. Elements react with each other in certain ways and cause different reactions with other things, etc. No one has disputed this happens, but you won't address WHY this happens. You can explain HOW things happen in our universe, you can't tell me WHY they happen as they do. We can presume, unless we were just extremely lucky, that all the elements needed to form billions of life forms, are all over our universe. Where did these elements originate and what gave them their properties? What made things in our universe work in a predictable way, so that we could even develop theories and hypothesis about the physical universe? Science can't answer this, it won't ever be able to answer it, and you are refusing to even entertain the question. Still, the question remains. You have closed your mind to possibility outside of physical science, and I have maintained something more could be at play. Something we don't currently comprehend or even have the capacity to understand, perhaps. You want to refute that and claim this is all the result of nothing but luck, chance, happenstance, fluke... whatever. I think it is a remarkable and extraordinary feat to have simply materialized out of the void of nothingness.
I agree that man is extremely arrogant, here you have, basically proclaimed man knows just about everything, we've supposedly filled in most of the gaps now, after just 600 years or so of Science, we're ready to proclaim "facts" and close the book on further examination, because we KNOW so much! If it doesn't fit or conform to our understandings of physical science, we have to dismiss it and scoff at the possibility of it, because our beloved Science has answered all our questions, or most of them, in the brief 600 years we've been practicing science.
I don't know where you get this idea that we believe we are here for a purpose or the earth was created to serve us, or that we're "too good" for something... none of this is what I personally believe, and it has nothing to do with the question, really. It is your interjecting your hatred for religious dogma, by trying to make their point of view the argument, instead of addressing the question itself. I believe we are not the product of coincidence because virtually nothing we find in the natural world, operates on coincidence. Is it just a mere coincidence that gravity pulls things down instead of pushing things away? No, we understand there is a reason gravity behaves as it does, even though we are still baffled by WHY. And if sheer coincidence is responsible, we're talking about literally billions of sheer coincidences in a row, in precise order, to a precise degree and limit, repeatedly over billions of years.
Now... You go home today and find your wife in the bed with the next door neighbor. Is it more plausible this was the result of coincidence and fluke? Like, maybe he was sleepwalking in the middle of the day, and your wife was napping, and he just happened to sleepwalk into your home and bedroom and get in bed with your wife? Yeah, perhaps that is possible... but is it not just a plausible that something else might be the explanation? You can choose to reject all other possibility, and defiantly cling to the notion that it's just a coincidence, and your wife would never do such a thing to you, and your neighbor is a great guy and all the rest... but are you doing yourself any favors by closing your mind to possibility here, or are you simply choosing to remain ignorant?
Life didn't happen "just because." It's too profoundly beautiful and miraculous to have "just happened," it doesn't make rational or logical sense. Plus, it completely and totally abandons the scientific method to assume this, because you've stopped asking questions and drawn conclusions. Whenever you proclaim science has answered something and settled the debate, you have stopped practicing science and began practicing FAITH. That is what you are doing here, and it puts you very much in common with the God-believers, because your viewpoints are based on your FAITHS.
USFREEDOM911
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
Lowaicue
英語在香港
Why do you say life is too beautiful to have just happened? Beauty is another human attribute. The woman you consider beautiful may not be the woman I consider beautiful. We find some things beautiful and somethings not beautiful but our choice is limited to what has evolved and what we can see and experience. We cannot find beauty in something of which we are totally ignorant. The baby loves its mother. It hasn't chosen the mother. It is that sort of thinking that takes us back to man's arrogance. Does a dog share that arrogance? Or a sheep? Or a cockroach or a potato? And how much different are we from any of them. We may think of ourselves as lucky but in comparison to what? I am sure a sea urchin is not discontent with its lot.
I don't think I, or anyone else, has ever said that science has ever settled anything. Science (study) continues to study and build evidence to the point that as humans we accept that evidence as being more likely than any alternative.
'Only god has all the answers.' That is why man invented it.
I think you might benefit from abandoning the vocabulary of religion. The word faith cannot, either in its positive sense or in its negative sense, be used in a discussion of this nature; neither can 'belief', 'dogma', 'scripture', etc etc etc.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
Haiko shall not be mocked......or at the very least, shall not notice it......
Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
How do you KNOW this? I can say, I went to New York in a car. I can show you the car, I can show you I am indeed in New York, and I can prove I was previously someplace else. I haven't told you WHY I went to New York. I could have gone "just because" or I could have had a legitimate reason, either possibility exists. More than likely, even if it's trivial, there is a REASON WHY I WENT. Perhaps the reason WHY is "just because" but you can't possibly KNOW this unless you ask the question. You're saying there doesn't have to be a reason why, and I agree, but there also doesn't have to be no reason at all. Without seeking the answer, we remain ignorant of WHY.
True, but we don't have to pretend science DOES have the answer and proclaim a conclusion. That is the antithesis of science, and the practice of faith. You are the one characterizing God as an invention of the mind, but so is science! Every "theory" you espouse, is an invention of the mind. You can offer physical evidence, but that too is an invention of the mind. So we have a bit of a dilemma if we are to discard inventions of the mind, don't we?
No, we CAN'T say this and not be ARROGANT! We know of the elements on our planet, and the moon, and possibly Mars or the handful of planets we've sent probes to, but we simply don't know if we've discovered all, most, or even a fraction of ALL the elements. It is total arrogance to make this claim, and you are a fool to make it.
No, we can't say ANYTHING with CERTAINTY! We can say we reasonably believe... We can say we think... We can say, to the best of our knowledge.... We CAN'T say this is CERTAIN! That's one of the most basic fundamentals of science, NOT drawing conclusion, which you seem to do with ease.
Yes, indeed you have, and you continue to articulate this in almost every sentence you write, as I have highlighted.
I don't have to show you evidence of possibility. You're not some genius on throne who gets to decide what things are possible. I don't really give a damn if you "consider" possibilities or not, that is entirely up to you, but it denotes closed-mindedness to refute possibility, or to even suggest you have to "consider" possibility.
Unlike your mind, which remains sufficiently closed to any other possibility outside your limited understanding of physical sciences. Perhaps all the things in our universe can't be explained with our roughly 600-year-old man-made practice of physical science? Perhaps there are things beyond the realm of science to explain? I keep the doors of my mind open to this possibility, you've chosen to close those doors and remain happily ignorant.
But that's EXACTLY what you just claimed: "We can say, based upon evidence, that we know of many elements in the universe and we certainly know of most." You simply do not know what we do not know.
Again, this is an arrogant closed-minded OPINION, not a fact. You've not answered ANY of my questions on WHY, you simply discount them as unimportant or irrelevant. It is arrogant and contradictory to science to proclaim "few areas of ignorance remain." You simply don't know this. You can not know what you don't know!
When I say "precise order" I am referring to the events which lead to evolution. An order of events had to first happen, in order for evolution to even be possible. If those things had not happened in the order in which they did, evolution might never have occurred. You keep saying there is no why, but there is a why, I have asked the question, and you don't have an answer. And again, you arrogantly proclaim something "would not have been possible" when you simply don't KNOW this for a fact.
First of all, I didn't JUST say life is too beautiful, I also included "miraculous" and other adjectives. And yes, these are realized human attributes, just like knowledge of science is a human attribute. Our choice is most certainly NOT limited to physical things we can see and experience. Imagination and creativity shoot that boat full of holes. Again, these are human attributes, but there is also human spirituality. Perhaps you can't find beauty in spirituality because you are ignorant of it? That doesn't apply to everyone, nor does it have to. People experience spiritual things every single day, just because you didn't, doesn't mean they didn't.
I say that it's possible it didn't just happen because logic tells me, it probably didn't. Again, I drove to New York in a car... it's possible that just happened for no apparent reason whatsoever, but it's just not likely that is the case. You may forever be completely ignorant of WHY this happened, especially if you never bother to ask. It doesn't change the fact there was most likely a reason, as there is a reason for virtually everything.
The baby doesn't comprehend "love" yet, it has no basis on which to formulate such an opinion. It may have an inherent bond, it may be aware of who is mother and who is not, it may be more comfortable with mom, but the emotion of "love" comes much later, when a realization occurs after some degree of life experience. The rest of this paragraph rambles and doesn't make coherent sense, and I am not sure what you are trying to say here. We are, however, very different from a potato, in many different ways.
But YES you have! According to you, we now know most all the elements in the universe, and there are very few questions we remain ignorant of. You have consistently made these comments, and they all denote your arrogant belief that physical science has concluded things it simply can't conclude. You also seem to think science is the only valid answer to anything, and it's not possible for anything outside physical science to even exist.
But science deals with the physical universe only. Even at that, it does not draw conclusions or refute possibility. It certainly doesn't surmise that things "just randomly happen" for no reason. Even when you arrogantly insist science knows almost all, science continues to ponder and ask questions.
Except that I have not said this. I merely interjected the possibility that physical sciences can't explain all things. You've closed your mind to this possibility and soundly rejected it. This is your choice to remain arrogant and ignorant. Science did not make you do that.
And you might benefit from thinking outside the box and not attempting to conclude things you simply don't know for certain. When you have made a conclusion, whether that conclusion was reached through science or not, you have stopped practicing the art of science, and you have begun practicing the art of faith. You have a faith in your belief that no supernatural entity exists, and you are relying on this faith to make your proclamations and draw conclusions. You COULD be wrong!
if god is omnipresent, omnibenevolent and omniscient, then why is there such misery on earth?
are you aware of the yeast growth formula, our population growth has a close correlation to it and soon we will die of the poisons we are creating...or maybe malthus will have the last word
Length extension in
growing yeast: is growth
exponential? – Yes
http://www.cellcycle.bme.hu/articles/pombe/cooper.pdf
population growth VS food growth
The Reverend[SUP][1][/SUP] Thomas Robert Malthus FRS (13 or 14 February 1766 – 23 or 29 December 1834[SUP][2][/SUP]) was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography.[SUP][3][/SUP][SUP][4][/SUP] Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent.[SUP][5][/SUP]
Malthus has become widely known for his theories about population and its increase or decrease in response to various factors. The six editions of his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.[SUP][6][/SUP] William Godwin and the Marquis de Condorcet, for example, believed in the possibility of almost limitless improvement of society. In a more complex way, so did Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose notions centered on the goodness of man and the liberty of citizens bound only by the social contract—a form of popular sovereignty.
Malthus thought that the dangers of population growth would preclude endless progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".[SUP][7][/SUP] As an Anglican clergyman, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour.[SUP][8][/SUP] Believing that one could not change human nature, Malthus wrote:
Must it not then be acknowledged by an attentive examiner of the histories of mankind, that in every age and in every State in which man has existed, or does now existThat the increase of population is necessarily limited by the means of subsistence,
That population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.[SUP][9]
[/SUP]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_MalthusThat population does invariably increase when the means of subsistence increase, and,
That the superior power of population is repressed, and the actual population kept equal to the means of subsistence, by misery and vice.[SUP][9]
[/SUP]
USFREEDOM911
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
USFREEDOM911
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN
When have I ever said that god is any of those things? The problem you have is conflating me saying, "This seems logical" with somebody who believes in Yahweh or Allah...
Tell me. If God's plan runs the universe, and he knows everything that ever will happen why would he create Lucifer? These are silly nonsense questions and have little to do with what I have said in this thread.
The easy answer is to simply point out that without choices and hardship free will would be worthless and the necessity wouldn't exist to create and learn. If you are this omniscient being you would know that you cannot create intelligent creatures without allowing them to make choices...
you should have specified which god you meant...i was referring to the christian biblical god
since there is no proof that free will exists or predetermination exists or that any god exists or does not exist. your statement that the absence of proof is no proof that something does not exist is indeterministic
personally, i go with pantheism and solipsism or in my words, gaea of the universes...
of course i expect that i will find out before you do as i am several years older than you
oh well
Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
This is the problem with the God-deniers. They want to somehow cling to the thought that no other possible incarnation of God can exist, unless it conforms to a specific religious connotation. And again, the problematic definition of "existence" comes into play, what is meant by this? A physical presence is not in existence, and the only religion I know of who has ever believed a physical presence of God existed, readily admit there is no present physical existence. So we have to first modify our usual understanding and context of the word "exist" to fit the argument. God-deniers can't do this, because when we apply spiritual evidence to the possibility of a spiritual entity, the God-deniers can't argue with it.
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
Bio 101 question:
I've read that humans share 97% of their DNA with Orangutans. This is more than any other mammal. Why is this not generally commented on more. Is it just easier to say chimps?
I've read that humans share 97% of their DNA with Orangutans. This is more than any other mammal. Why is this not generally commented on more. Is it just easier to say chimps?
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Yep. If I were God, I would make up my own esoteric definition for the word in Hebrew which in other contexts always refers to the 24-hour period of time between the risings of the sun, a definition used pretty much by no other person or entity before or sense then, including myself later in my own book, and tell my followers to write that down. My goal, after all, would not be to convert people to my cause by talking to them sensibly, but to confuse them and utterly contradict the fossil record I left, and make my followers look as if they're just making up arbitrary, desperate bullshit in order to salvage a ridiculous, ancient idea utterly abandoned by all sensible people.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Bio 101 question:
I've read that humans share 97% of their DNA with Orangutans. This is more than any other mammal. Why is this not generally commented on more. Is it just easier to say chimps?
Well, chimps are smarter, and thus thought of as more human like. Even if, I suppose, it's not entirely true.