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Ozz
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Canada
Mar 2002
time: 05:21
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Originally posted by loinburger
Archeologists/anthropologists have discovered that many tribes of Neanderthals buried their dead, a practice performed almost exclusively for religious purposes. |
They had a religous adversion to Saber Tooth tigers,
Hyenas and the like developing a taste for human flesh.
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Lemmy
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Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:21
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quote:
Lemmy, that's not how evolution is said to work.
evolution works with randomized genetic modification during reproduction. Most of these modifications are bad modification that result in degeneration. That's the point where natural selection pops in, since natural selection takes away the wrong modifications so only the good new will survive.
compared to my monkey example, a monkey types:
asdfk asdf;;lk jasfd lkj afsdl;kj the alkj dk cat asdljdsafj is ;laskf fdkdsa lovely.
natural selection removes a whole bunch of errors, and then "The cat is lovely" stays.
the odds that a monkey will write a good book that way are higher than that evolution will result in the current life on the planet earth.
But, according to the scientists, that's no problem, since there are more changes than odds, because of the billions of planets, is the explanations of the scientists.
this is not my personal opinion, it's just the plain way evolution is said to work.
Now back to the question: do you see a monkey see a book like shakespear with human control like that, if you give it X time?
-------------------
*if* you still stick to your form of evolution,
than it still does not work.
Say you have monkeys with inteligence 1 up to 10.
The avg would be 5.5, right?
Natural selection will remove the 1-4 monkeys, so only 6-10 are left over. Now the avg will be 8. If you continue this way, in the end, there will be only monkeys with level 10.
What monkeys need to evolve into man is that their inteligence should raise, from 10 to 10.000. New gens much appear or the old gens much be modificated. Then we get back to the first part of this message.
The question stays the same, will monkeys with human supervision ever write a book of shakespear?
CyberShy |
ah yes, mutation, that's what i missed..
Using your example, you got a monkeys with intelligence 1-10, avg 5.5, and only the smartest can survive, because they are firstly smart enough to find food, anbd also smarter then other monkey and get it before them.
Now without genetic mutation, the highest attainable intelligence would be 10, and let's assume humans are at 13, (i think the difference is in fact much smaller)
Now with each generation, there is a chance of a genetic mutation, making a monkey smarter then any monkey before, say 10.5, and he will almost certainly survive, being the smartest, his children will inherit some of his intelligence, it may not be 10.5, maybe it's 9, or even 4 one time, the dumb monkey will die anyway, and again the smartest survive, allowing perhaps another genetic mutation making it smarter again, do this a couple of thousands/millions times, and it's quite possible that monkeys reach an avg intelligence of 13.
And yes, if the human race survives, then i think monkeys will even write books without human supervision, and maybe even in their own language (which they developed during their evolution).
And they will know what they're writing and why they're writing like any (ok, most) human writers today.
I know the odds are small, but they don't need to be big if you accept that the world is 4-5 billion years old, and that only humans (or any ape species), of all the species that ever lived, got so intelligent. (and no, even though only we made it, i still don't think we had a helping hand)
edit: just remembered that prophecy thing...too late and tired now, maybe tommorow.
Last edited by Lemmy on 30-08-2002 at 03:18
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loinburger
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Sweet Sauce Jones
Jul 1999
time: 00:21
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Originally posted by Lars-E
Evolutionists do not believe the flood happened. |
Mostly because there's no evidence for it. A massive flood might screw up a lot evidence deposited prior to the flood, but such a flood would itself leave evidence of its occurrence.
For example, if every plant and animal on the planet were wiped out except for those on the Ark, then one would expect that the world's fauna and flora wouldn't be very diverse. Instead, there is an abundance of diversity, something that wouldn't be conceivable if every plant and animal species originated from Turkey (or wherever the Ark landed) a mere two thousand years ago. Why are there duck-billed platypi in Australia and nowhere else? How did they get to Australia from Turkey in such a short time? Why aren't there even any remains of duck-billed platypi in any region besides Australia? This same problem presents itself with thousands, millions, even billions and trillions of plant and animal species. Not very many life forms can survive for very long in Turkey, and there's no way for life forms to travel from Turkey (in 2,000 BC) quickly enough to survive. How did cacti get to the American Southwest? How did penguins get to Antarctica? How did polar bears get to Canada? Etc.
The problem presents itself with humans as well. How did humans disperse from Turkey to the four corners of the world in such a short period of time? Why is there such diversity in humans if they are all descended from Noah and his family?
Last edited by loinburger on 30-08-2002 at 04:48
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ckweb
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quote:
Originally posted by Ethelred
That thread died because you had long left the initial reason for your starting it which was dubious at best. That is as I recall you were upset with me for using Fundamentalist ideas against Fundamentalist and seemed to feel that I was somehow obligated to use YOUR concepts of the Bible in a discusion with them but then you complained when I used your concepts in the discussion with you.
As a consequence there was nothing left to comment on without going over all the questionable remarks you made one by one and most of that was stuff I had little interest in. I did ask you to get to the point and you started hemming and hawing about definitions so it looked to me like you were going to drag things out rather get on with it. |
An interesting, if not lopsided, interpretation . . .
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There is no such thing as othodox (lower case as opposed to the Orthodox Churches) Christianity, except maybe in comparison to the fringe groups like the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. There are far too many that disagree with your ideas on what constitutes orthodox especialy in the US where Fundamentalism is a major force. |
Actually orthodox churches do exist and they agree on far more than you realize but I suppose I should defer to your authority as an insider . . . oh wait, that's right you aren't a Christian.
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Well it may be beyond your grasp but morals are not beyond mine. Holiness is another matter as that can't exist without a god and after all that is what is open to question on this thread. |
I'm glad you're so perfect. Perhaps you can enlighten me.
quote:
Obviously that only pertains to the Old Testament. It wasn't assembled as a cohesive whole till after the Diaspora in any case but at least most of it appears to have written initially long before that. It might be that at least some of the individual parts were not in their present form till after the end of the Babylonian captivity. |
Obviously.
Last edited by ckweb on 30-08-2002 at 09:11
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ckweb
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quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
...Yes, I should have addressed that.
The word I used was "much", not "most". Of course, "much" is a subjective term, but the recent stuff includes the Book of Daniel, often cited as "prophecy" of events that took place half a millennium earlier.
Also, a lot of the older stuff has been rewritten since. Particularly the stuff written prior to the Babylonian captivity (700 BC or thereabouts) when the Jews were still polytheistic. People who describe Judaism as an "ancient" religion often don't appreciate that Judaism as we know it today isn't much older than Christianity, even though parts of it are much older. |
I suppose "much" is a subjective term but when maybe a handful out of 39 books could have been written around 200 B.C.E., I don't think "much" really qualifies.
About Jewish polytheism . . . I think you have to distinguish between orthodox and popular religion. I would argue that it is fair to say that Israelite orthodoxy was monotheistic, or at least henotheistic, since its virtual inception. At the same time, popular religion always has a tendency to be syncretistic and therefore, there is little doubt that that large portions of Israelite society would have worshipped other gods in addition to their God. For instance, there is an archaelogical find that bears the inscription, "Y*** and his consort, Asherah."
I would agree that Judaism as it is today, which in many respects defined itself in response to Christianity, represents the emergence of a certain strand of the ancient religion. So, it could be argued that Judaism is as recent as Christianity. But, that is like saying the RCC only arose at the Council of Trent in response to Protestantism. While it may contain a kernel of truth, it is somewhat unfair to the historic traditions on which the emerging tradition stands.
Anyways, this is off-topic.
Last edited by ckweb on 30-08-2002 at 09:43
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ckweb
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quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
And the Bible also allows us to date "the very beginning" to 4000 BC or thereabouts (by counting the years in the genealogies). As humanity is a lot older than that (and there is evidence of religious activity before that), it's reasonable to assume that religions which predate the Jewish date for the creation of the Universe are older than Judaism. |
It is wrong to develop a chronology from biblical genealogies. This is what led to our screwed up calendar in the first place. The most genealogies can do with respect to dating is provide very, very general guidelines and only then in cases where one of the names in the genealogy can be dated with(in) an extra-biblical event/time/reference.
Even so, otherwise, I take your side against CyberShy on this one, although I hate doing so given how much you guys are beating up on him with dubious proofs (at least as it pertains to your biblical interpretation and knowledge). The religion known as Judaism is predated by many other religions; this is simple fact. But, that being said, this obviously does not invalidate the Judeo-Christian God or mean that that God wasn't active or worshipped in some form or another prior to the emergence of the religious institutions that arose around it.
BTW, those links you threw out, especially your own thread, are laughable. A bunch of hacks trying their hand at biblical interpretation . . . it's like Fundamentalist hacks who try their hand at Evolutionary Biology/"Creation Science." The holes are too numerous to waste time debunking.
Last edited by ckweb on 30-08-2002 at 09:41
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ckweb
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quote:
Originally posted by Sava
ckweb... does God talk to you? Does he tell you to kill abortion doctors?
Anyone who says that they have experienced God is no different from the Islamic fundies that crashed the planes into the WTC in the name of Allah. |
That's a pretty inflammatory, narrow, and xenophobic view . . . but to each their own, I guess.
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Religion is a social control. CkWeb, go to college and take some religion courses so you can study religion as a human phenomenon. Religion is a symptom of the human condition. |
 Oh, if you only knew, . . .
Last edited by ckweb on 30-08-2002 at 09:47
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CyberShy
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Delft, The Netherlands
Mar 1999
time: 06:21
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quote:
The most obvious ones are the many NT verses in which it is prophesied that Jesus will return soon (within the lifetime of Paul, and James, and Peter, and John). |
AFAICS Jesus never said he would return during the livetime of the named people. I think you refer to the "this generation shall not pass......" passage.
The common explanation for that is indeed that Jesus talks about his death and ressurection, which sets the beginning of the kingdom of God, and the new testament. (not the bunch of books, but the new convenant)
The apostles indeed do talk about Jesus coming as something to happen soon. No matter what people say about 'soon for men is different than soon for God' I think I must say: they were wrong. They really thought they should live to Jesus coming back.
BUT the apostles were not prophets. Their job was to spread the gospel. Not to forsee the future. For that reason I think we cannot take their words to be prophecies, but morely an enthiousiast message that Jesus could return any minute, which is something we, christians, are about to expect.
What if Paul would have said "Jesus will return in another 2,000 - x,000 years.......
Jesus on a sidenote gave some specifications about the end of times, at first that the gospel must have been spread all over the world. (a prophecy that's almost fullfilled!)
Conclusions: some of the apostles were wrong. That doesn't change the biblical message though. The bible never prophecied a return of Jesus during the livetime of the disciples.
If you refer to Jesus who says to Pete that "If he wants John to live to see him return from the clouds" it can be exlained by figurative speaking. Jesus says "IF", and he continues his speach by "what good would it be if you knew that?"
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There are also the cities that were to be "utterly destroyed" and never inhabited again, but still exist in later books, and even in the modern world |
can you quote the right passage?
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But Isaiah predicts that five cities in Egypt will speak Caananite (now an extinct language) and that there will be an alliance with the Assyrians (now an extinct civilization). So no "it hasn't happened yet" argument will work here. |
again, can you quote the right passage?
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And Jeremiah 42 predicts that all Jews who return to Egypt will die. They didn't, and Joseph and Mary supposedly took Jesus there to keep him safe! |
Jeremiah talks about permanent going back to Egypt, and thus Israel ceasing to live in the land God gave to them.
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"How" is not relevant: merely that it happens. |
it happens in a vacuum, the big bang theory postulates no preexisting space or vacuum. Hence there would have been no place for virtual particles to fluctuate.
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The two steel plates in a vacuum are pushed together by the pressure of the virtual particles forming around them. |
Ok, that might be true (and obviously is true) but my comment on '2 steel plates is not nothing' is based on the question, are we sure about the effects of these 2 steel plates on the virtual particles, or on the energy.
That it occurs around steel plates does not nescecary means it happens when there are not two plates near.
anyway, even *if*, you still need a vacuum (space, room) to have these particles to exist.
Second, virtual particles, if real, form as matter and antimatter in equal amounts. However our universe appears to consist almost entirely of ordinary matter. Antimatter is distinctly rare.
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If there is doubt about whether something came from nothing, then there is doubt about the need for a God. |
That's true.
But, I think that my theory might be a "use a god to fill a gap" theory. Yours morely is the "ignore the gap" theory.
Is there any scientific theory about an infinite backwards existing 'space'? Can you link to one?
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The construction of the human genome does not require any bricks that aren't available, or a special method of stacking that we don't have. Therefore, in principle, it is "evolvable", just as a wall is "buildable". |
once the bricks were inavailable.
But I agree, if the mutations will occur in the right order in the right place, and natural selection will not take them away (which MIGHT happen as well)
BUT: this is al theoretical.
And:
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If evolution worked like that, with several successive changes needed to make something that works: yes, this would be a problem. But that's why the theory insists that all evolutionary changes work in small steps where every step counts. |
if it would work like this, the diversity should be much bigger than the diversity there is right now on earth.
There are not enough between forms. There are some 'example' forms, but there's not the ammount of between forms one would expect in this case. Neither is there the expectable ammount of detail differences between human races.
If we take other mammals, there is so much diversity among them. There are many types of monkeys, fishes, wales..... etc. Why are all humans so close related?
The racial difference is so tiny compared to other animal families......
The difference between an human and a monkey is huge compared to the difference between a german and a chinese. The racial differences could have happened during a fair little ammount of time. Our skin differences might have occured in the past 10,000 years..... And even most scientists talk about degeneration on that topic, since the african black-skin was about for sure the oldest type of humanity, and the white race have a skin-type that's for sure not better compared to the african type.
If we compare our capabilities with apes, since they appear to come from the same ancestors, in fact apes have evoluved much further than humans.
Indeed, humans evolved inteligence. But apart from that apes have a better sight, better ears, they control their body better, their capacities to survive in the jungle are better.
How comes that we, humans, survived, how did we escape natural selection? If we got brains first, I wonder why we are not apes with brains right now? Since the degenerated humans could never survive the earlier inteligent humans........
But still there is no inteligent life among any other species.
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Nobody has yet come up with an example of something that could NOT have evolved in small steps like that. |
but all the species we have right now are (temporary) end products.
It's not like we have species with step-1 eyes, step-2 eyes, step-3 eyes etc. etc. Pherhaps there is on example (which again must prove the entire theory) but if the step-10 eyes survived natural selection, step-9 and step-8 eyes must still exist in broad forms. But they do not.
We have humans with bad eyes, but again, that's not the former step in evolution, but morely degeneration.
In fact there are more proofs for degeneration than for evolution. Can degeneration and evolution happen at the same time? Or do you deny the existance of degeneration?
Sava
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Anyone who says that they have experienced God is no different from the Islamic fundies that crashed the planes into the WTC in the name of Allah. |
Thus: you want to compare me with mass-killers?
You want to compare me with people who kill 3000 people with no mercy?
If you would confirm that next to me I would beat the hell out of you. You're a fanatic fundamentalist yourself by putting up utter crap like that.
Lemmy:
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the highest attainable intelligence would be 10, and let's assume humans are at 13, (i think the difference is in fact much smaller) |
If I compare the human achivements with the achivements of monkeys I would say...... nah 10:13 really makes no sence. 10:10000 would be more close to it.
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Now with each generation, there is a chance of a genetic mutation, making a monkey smarter then any monkey before |
but there's a bigger change of degeneration. let's say 1:999.999 (mutation in fact is a good form of degeneration, one gen doesn't transit the right way into the new organism, but while this usually results in a broken gen, it results by accident in a new type of gen)
Than that new organism should not die by a natural cause, (in nature, most of the newborn babies are killed. and if the difference is that little, the new type still has a big change to not survive!)
after that, when this specy reproduces, the new gen should not be lost again, because the gen of the mating partner replaces the newly found gen.
Anyway, since there's a big change for degeneration, what if the 10,5 monkey by accident mates with a 0,5 monkey? ooops.
The problem is that natural selection would do a good job if we did indeed talk about big-steps. If I evolve into a 4-arms human, the change that my kind will survive your stupid 2-arms type is big. Natural selection will most certainly do that job.
But now, you guys talk about little step by little step.....
Remember that in that case natural selection will hardly work, for sure if you take the effects of degeneration into it.
If there are 100 mutations in one generation,
and one of them is good, and 99 is bad.
Pherhaps indeed much of the bad ones will die because of natural selection, but the change that more of them will survive than the 1 good mutation is large.
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I know the odds are small, but they don't need to be big if you accept that the world is 4-5 billion years old |
4-5 billion years is not that much if you consider how much must be done by pure luck.
I predict that within the next 10 years, scientists will suddenly claim that the world is not 5 billion years old, but 50 billion years. That's not because of new insight. It's because they need more time.
and that's the big flaw, in theory, everything can happen, if you give it enough time. That's why scientists give those huge ammounts of time to everything. It's the easy to give, hard to check, factor that will heal everything.
CyberShy
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CyberShy
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Delft, The Netherlands
Mar 1999
time: 06:21
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The guy who pointed out the Bethlehem problem to me has a theology degree and about twenty years experience as an ordained Church of Christ minister. |
please don't talk about people with a theological degree in the meaning of "He must be smart and know what he talks about"
as a christian, and twice a sunday church visitor, I can tell you that indeed much ministers I've listened to with a theological degree are capable to say the most utter crap. To talk 40 minutes about nothing, to produce bible studies that could be made by a teenager without any theological degree.
Not to talk about the bunch of theologs who do not believe in resurrection, in a living God, and take about nothing in the bible literary, but still commit their very live to it. you must be plain stupid to live a life to something you don't take serious.
really, if we talk about the madness among theologicans, I'm on your side.
Than we do not even talk about the whole bunch of theologicans who want to be token serious among other scientists, and for that reason publish all those books about their opinion on the bible.
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Lemmy
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Bubblewrap
Dec 2000
time: 06:21
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quote:
If we take other mammals, there is so much diversity among them. There are many types of monkeys, fishes, wales..... etc. Why are all humans so close related?
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humans are part of the monkey family of species.
And the difference between the human and chimp genome is only a few %.
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4-5 billion years is not that much if you consider how much must be done by pure luck.
I predict that within the next 10 years, scientists will suddenly claim that the world is not 5 billion years old, but 50 billion years. That's not because of new insight. It's because they need more time.
and that's the big flaw, in theory, everything can happen, if you give it enough time. That's why scientists give those huge ammounts of time to everything. It's the easy to give, hard to check, factor that will heal everything. |
Again you make a fundamental mistake about science, science isn't here just to prove old theories, if it was, we would still believe that everything consists of the four elements(wind, water, fire, and one other thing).
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LDiCesare
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La Ferté sous Jouarre France
Jan 2001
time: 05:21
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In fact there are more proofs for degeneration than for evolution. Can degeneration and evolution happen at the same time? Or do you deny the existance of degeneration? |
Read Darwin. The theory of evolution is built around TWO processes: Natural selection and disuse. Disuse is what you call degeneration.
It fits perfectly well in the theory of evolution.
A few remarks:
Can anyone explain me why all those God argumetns always end up as comments about the Bible instead of, say, the Vedas?
Disproving God is impossible unless you give definitions of God which are biased. If we are all parts of a computer simulation, then God is just a programmer. Just suppose the guy is really skilled and has a really powerful machine. This theory is consistent.
Proving such a theory is another matter. Proving that the god of the Bible exists rather than another one is also not the original question here. You'd find it hard to prove it against any other God-theory, that is what faith is about.
Now, that a god has to exist I just don't think you can prove. I just tackle a few points about evolution. The theory holds remarkably well despite what you have been saying. You say there should be differences between human races. From a biological point of view these are not even different species as they can interbreed, so calling them "races" is not correct. And humans can be explained by natural selection. Intelligence allows one to throw rocks for instance, giving an excellent weapon. Also, find one animal with better stamina on long distance runs than a man. Man can exhaust any animal running after them for hours. Most modern men probably can't, but that is irrelevant. Amerindians ran to follow bison hordes all day long, and most modern men can't do it either.
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There are some 'example' forms, but there's not the ammount of between forms one would expect in this case. |
No. That [b]you[b] would expect. And your expectations are not mine. The fact donkey and horses can breed but get sterile offsprings makes donkeys and horses intermediaries somehow. Zebra and horses can breed too. I am unsure zebra and donkey can breed, but you can see horse as an intermediary race between donkey and zebra.
Explaining where the world comes from through a God who comes from somewhere we don't know any more about is something that baffles me. You just add conscience to the universe by doing that. This ultimately means believing in God is believing there is a purpose behind the universe (well, one could say a god created the universe by accident, but I yet have to see someone worshipping a god to say so). Thus all arguments end up into "can you prove the world needed intelligence to be as it is". Randomness can explain things as well as intelligence many times. Things that are highly unprobable don't need intelligence to explain them.
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Jack the Bodiless
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Converted underground reservoir tank.
Jan 1970
time: 05:21
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Conclusions: some of the apostles were wrong. That doesn't change the biblical message though. The bible never prophecied a return of Jesus during the livetime of the disciples. |
I think you meant to say that JESUS didn't prophesy that. The Apostles did, and it's in the Bible. Therefore the Bible did.
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There are also the cities that were to be "utterly destroyed" and never inhabited again, but still exist in later books, and even in the modern world
can you quote the right passage? |
They were in the False Prophecies article. Here's some:
quote:
Joshua 8:28 And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day.
Isaiah 13:19-20 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.
Isaiah 17:1 The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.
Jeremiah 49:33 And Hazor shall be a dwelling for dragons, and a desolation for ever: there shall no man abide there, nor any son of man dwell in it.
Jeremiah 50:35 & 39 A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men...
... and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.
Jeremiah 51:29 And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant.
Jeremiah 51:37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
Jeremiah 51:42-43 The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.
Ezekiel 26:7 & 14 For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people...
...And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 26:21 I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord GOD.
Ezekiel 27:36 The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.
Ezekiel 28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
(Ironically, Jesus and Paul both visited Tyre centuries later: it was still there, and inhabited)
Ezekiel 29:9-11 And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. |
quote:
But Isaiah predicts that five cities in Egypt will speak Caananite (now an extinct language) and that there will be an alliance with the Assyrians (now an extinct civilization). So no "it hasn't happened yet" argument will work here.
again, can you quote the right passage? |
Again, these were in the article.
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Ezekiel 19:18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
Ezekiel 19:23 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land. |
quote:
And Jeremiah 42 predicts that all Jews who return to Egypt will die. They didn't, and Joseph and Mary supposedly took Jesus there to keep him safe!
Jeremiah talks about permanent going back to Egypt, and thus Israel ceasing to live in the land God gave to them. |
Here is the verse: "So shall it be with all the men that set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them."
Note that ALL the men who go to live in Egypt will die. Yet Jews went to live (permanently) in Egypt for centuries afterwards.
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Second, virtual particles, if real, form as matter and antimatter in equal amounts. However our universe appears to consist almost entirely of ordinary matter. Antimatter is distinctly rare. |
So maybe God was composed of matter. He created large amounts of matter and antimatter, then screamed "Oh, @#%&@!!!" and exploded. 
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If there is doubt about whether something came from nothing, then there is doubt about the need for a God.
That's true.
But, I think that my theory might be a "use a god to fill a gap" theory. Yours morely is the "ignore the gap" theory. |
I think yours is a "let's make a gap for God" theory.
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Is there any scientific theory about an infinite backwards existing 'space'? Can you link to one? |
I don't need one. If time itself began in the Big Bang (as a lot of physicists believe), there was no "before", and hence no need for an "infinite backwards existing space". We're not familiar with the notion of time itself having a beginning, with nothing "before" it.
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If evolution worked like that, with several successive changes needed to make something that works: yes, this would be a problem. But that's why the theory insists that all evolutionary changes work in small steps where every step counts.
if it would work like this, the diversity should be much bigger than the diversity there is right now on earth.
There are not enough between forms. There are some 'example' forms, but there's not the ammount of between forms one would expect in this case. Neither is there the expectable ammount of detail differences between human races. |
Interbreeding tends to smooth out the differences within a species. That's why speciation (formation of new species) requires some form of isolation: a group living away from the rest, either in a separate region or adapted to eat a different food or whatever. For instance, there are closely-related flowers which could interbreed except for the fact that they bloom at different times to attract different pollinators (hummingbirds and bats). They have become "reproductively isolated", so any further beneficial mutations can only spread through one variety and not the other. Any accidental crossbeed dies out because it blooms at the wrong time for both the hummingbirds and the bats.
And humans are closely related because we evolved relatively recently from a small group in Africa. There is still more genetic diversity in Africans than in the rest of humanity, descended from a subgroup who left Africa.
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but all the species we have right now are (temporary) end products.
It's not like we have species with step-1 eyes, step-2 eyes, step-3 eyes etc. etc. Pherhaps there is on example (which again must prove the entire theory) but if the step-10 eyes survived natural selection, step-9 and step-8 eyes must still exist in broad forms. But they do not. |
Actually, they do. Studying them was what led Darwin to figure out the evolution of the eye. Of course they're rare, because the step-10 eyes are so much better.
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If I compare the human achivements with the achivements of monkeys I would say...... nah 10:13 really makes no sence. 10:10000 would be more close to it. |
A chimpanzee is about as smart as a 6-year-old human (except in language skills).
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If there are 100 mutations in one generation,
and one of them is good, and 99 is bad.
Pherhaps indeed much of the bad ones will die because of natural selection, but the change that more of them will survive than the 1 good mutation is large. |
Bad mutations don't have to be eliminated in a single generation. If one family can run fast, but 99 families have unusually short legs and can't run at all, both will probably produce offspring. But with each new generation, the fast runners get killed slightly less often than the normals, while the shorties get killed quite often. With each new generation, the ratio shifts a bit more.
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I predict that within the next 10 years, scientists will suddenly claim that the world is not 5 billion years old, but 50 billion years. That's not because of new insight. It's because they need more time. |
The estimate of 4-5 billion years didn't come from evolution, but from radiometric dating. Biologists didn't NEED that amount of time: most of the "interesting stuff" happened within the last billion years. Astronomers say that the Sun is about 5 billion years old, and the Universe is 12-15 billion years old.
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Originally posted by CyberShy
ckweb
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Even so, otherwise, I take your side against CyberShy on this one, although I hate doing so given how much you guys are beating up on him with dubious proofs (at least as it pertains to your biblical interpretation and knowledge). The religion known as Judaism is predated by many other religions |
You don't side against me in this case. I said about the same thing. (organized judaistic religion only started around the days of Jacob / the beginning of Israel) |
Actually, I do disagree with you. I would certainly date the emergence of Judaism, as it is known in its present-day form, to a much later period.
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Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
The guy who pointed out the Bethlehem problem to me has a theology degree and about twenty years experience as an ordained Church of Christ minister. Not exactly a "hack".
Though what matters are the arguments, not who is making them. You think Micah was prophesying Jesus? You think there really was a Star of Bethlehem, or a massacre of children somehow overlooked by historians? |
Perhaps not a hack, assuming his theology degree is from a legitimate University or College teaching mainstream theology. But, if not a hack then perhaps misinformed . . . BTW, I was critiquing the arguments by suggesting the authors were hacks; the arguments are bad.
My point of view on this matter, shared by a growing consensus of scholars, is that the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke are midrash--a genre previously not understood by many scholars because of latent, or sometimes explicit, anti-Semitism that existed in the field. (Midrash is largely a Jewish genre). Midrash requires reading the text somewhat differently and the historicity of certain events would not be necessary.
BTW, if it is historical, there is absolutely no big deal that a star went unreported and a massacre of children in an incredibly small, backwater town of Bethlehem went unreported. You don't hear about every massacre in other parts of the world in today's world and you probably get CNN; imagine back in that day! Besides, you are giving an argument from silence, which proves nothing.
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Originally posted by Boshko
Not when astronomers in China and Babylon (and Egypt too I think) kept damn good records of celestial happenings at that time and made no mention of anything of the sort. |
Really--damn good records, huh?! . . . so they reported every celestial event without fail. If you would, prove it. Oh, while you are at it, could you also show me the diskette or hard drive on which these events were recorded for posterity? There can't be any missing records . . . papyrus doesn't have the longevity of modern storage techniques. C'mon, a little common sense, please!! One unreported star is no big deal (actually, it was reported in Matthew but, no wait, that doesn't count of course because it is the Bible and everybody knows the Bible is wrong.)
Also, it is still an argument from silence.
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29-08-2002 23:18
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