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Archaic
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Washed up SMAC/X University Specialist
Nov 2001
time: 15:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Frogman
Urban Ranger
I'm a chemical engineer, so I've had all the thermodynamics anyone ever needs. Sure its a big system, but I never could figure out why they said that eventually the whole universe was headed for a state where everything would be evenly dispersed and break down over time. Two things always seemed to me to work against this principle. One is Life the other is gravity. As smart as we think we are, and as well as we think we understand the workings of gravity, we still don't know what the hell it is. Life is even trickier.
The fact that life gets more complex, not less, certainly does defy the logic of entropy which would suggest things break down, lose information, move to lower energy states. In the big picture, I know this must be true, but why is it that there is this one area that advances in the opposite direction? |
Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. Just because you're a chemical engineer doesn't mean you can't make mistakes, and in this case, you've made a rather significant one.
Now, before you or someone else bothers to point it out, the arguements below are pretty much copy/pasted almost word for word from Stardestroyer.net.
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creati...doscience.shtml
The second law of thermodynamics has two basic postulates:
- All physical processes create entropy (microscopic disorder).
- The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease, ie- entropy can be created but not destroyed.
Now..
1) The entropy of a living organism can decrease, because a living organism is not a closed system. Since it is an open system, entropy can leave and enter. Entropy doesn't have to be destroyed- just moved. Food, water, and energy enter and leave your body all the time, thus making it an open system. Furthermore, an entire species is even less of a closed system than an individual life form, and evolution occurs from one generation to the next, not in a single organism as it ages.
2) Complexity is not the destruction of disorder or the creation of order. In fact, there is more disorder in complex systems, as any student of chaos theory (or government bureacracies) can tell you. There is far more entropy in a nuclear power plant than there is in an ice cube, and a pretty snowflake has much more complexity than the drop of water from whence it came.
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Urban Ranger
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Apolyton Duke of Off-Topic
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quote:
Originally posted by Frogman
I'm a chemical engineer, so I've had all the thermodynamics anyone ever needs. Sure its a big system, but I never could figure out why they said that eventually the whole universe was headed for a state where everything would be evenly dispersed and break down over time. |
This is one of the hypotheses. The other one is Big Crunch.
quote:
Originally posted by Frogman
The fact that life gets more complex, not less, certainly does defy the logic of entropy which would suggest things break down, lose information, move to lower energy states. In the big picture, I know this must be true, but why is it that there is this one area that advances in the opposite direction? |
The purest form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the usable energy in a closed system decreases over time. Randomness is one of the interpretations, but you don't see that in the formula.
As Archaic pointed out, even if I accept this interpretation, the Law does not prohibit the increase of order in part of the system at the expense of the rest of the system as long as the overall randomness increases. That's why we have the phenomenon of crystalisation.
quote:
Originally posted by Frogman
Here's my view of evolution in a nutshell. The laws that govern the universe made life possible under certain conditions, and wherever those conditions are met, life will form. There is a dna blueprint that starts at the cellular level. That dna changes on a timetable triggered by both environmental factors or perhaps even a counter. Once the dna change is triggered, a process of change takes place that is not dependent on chance but rather on an endpoint that will once again be stable. |
How is your version more sensible than the prevalent version? You speak of an external timetable, how did it come about? Through what mechanism does it work on life on earth? What is this endpoint? Who or what defined it? Is it embedded in life itself or it is outside? If it is outside, where? If it is embedded, how can we find it?
So, still no answer and/or position on transitional forms?
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Urban Ranger
As far as I can see, Christian morality is frightening because it requires an external threat to impose the code. All this talks of fear of god and hell as punishment. |
Hoo boy. No. At least, not in Orthodox Christianity(what I am, and actually a rather large religion despite its obscurity in the western world). "The code," as it is, is for one's own good not because God is going to zap you good(although he may, who knows), but because it is believed to be the way we really are, or were, before the whole world went mad. All sin is in essence irrational behavior that hurt more than they harm; lies only lead to more lies just to maintain them, violence only hurts to no real benefit, and, well, let's not even start on the ways fooling around can make you unhappy. Sex is an act of total union, but it's regarded as no more serious than taking a walk. Ugh. Anyway, the point is not that evil makes the big man mad, but that you're better off without it. I have to go to class now, but I'll get back to ya later.
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Lincoln
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Logic leads to theism, not atheism: The Blind Atheist.
Even though this is a rough draft of the book the conclusions are still valid. Science cannot make a definitive satement about God so it is a lack of logic that uses science as the source of all truth.
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gunkulator
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quote:
Originally posted by Lincoln
Logic leads to theism, not atheism: The Blind Atheist.
Science cannot make a definitive satement about God |
that should be gods, plural. There's no reason to leave out the others whom you, for whatever reason, choose not to believe in. While you're at it, you can include faeries, leprechauns and the whole gamut of supernatural beings.
quote:
so it is a lack of logic that uses science as the source of all truth. |
AFAIK, no science or scientist has every claimed sole possession of all truth. Religions otoh...
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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quote:
Hoo boy. No. At least, not in Orthodox Christianity(what I am, and actually a rather large religion despite its obscurity in the western world). "The code," as it is, is for one's own good not because God is going to zap you good(although he may, who knows), but because it is believed to be the way we really are, or were, before the whole world went mad. All sin is in essence irrational behavior that hurt more than they harm; lies only lead to more lies just to maintain them, violence only hurts to no real benefit, and, well, let's not even start on the ways fooling around can make you unhappy. Sex is an act of total union, but it's regarded as no more serious than taking a walk. Ugh. Anyway, the point is not that evil makes the big man mad, but that you're better off without it. I have to go to class now, but I'll get back to ya later. |
Okay, I'm on break. Where was I? Oh yeah; like I was saying, there are different denominations of Christianity, of course, but I'm guessing there are others out there who focus on the individual rather than the whole wrath and smiting deal. I say that God defines ideals because, without a higher power, we are left with only our own reason, which has proven time and time again to be sadly lacking. Whether because of a devil giving us idiot ideas or for some other reason is a matter of personal opinion, but I think the most accurate picture of the Christian view of humanity is of good children who hang out with a bad crowd and get stupid ideas. As for the people who say, "believe or go to hell," well, stupid ideas come in many shapes and guises.
Take abortion, for example. Yes, I know you're all groaning now, but it's the best example I can think of at the moment. Most of the abortion argument centers around what point in the development of a fetus is the turning point at which it becomes "human." The logical answer is, "why the hell does it matter?" Whether you kill it while it's still an embryo or wait until it's fifty years out and shoot it, you're killing the exact same organism. If it's not human at any one point, it would be later, so abortion is essentially a pre-emptive attack against one's own conscience. That's not just rhetoric, it's plain scientific fact. Yet, for some reason, hundreds of thousands of people maintain that there's some magical point within a state of continuous development whereat it is no longer permissible to kill. That is not a reasonable assumption. Again, sorry to drag up an unrelated controversy, but it's the best thing that came to mind.
The point is guidance for the lost. Or it should be.
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Jack the Bodiless
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Converted underground reservoir tank.
Jan 1970
time: 05:27
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quote:
Take abortion, for example. Yes, I know you're all groaning now, but it's the best example I can think of at the moment. |
Except that Christianity doesn't actually provide any guidance on abortion. The only condemnation of abortion is in the Didache, which didn't make it into the Bible. The Old Testament, on the other hand, apparently recommends the administration of an abortifacient if you suspect your wife of infidelity:
quote:
Numbers 5:26-28 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her uterus shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. |
(The Hebrew word for "uterus" appears as "thigh" in the KJV and some other translations)
It's a classic example of projection: "I'm religious and I think abortion is disturbing, therefore it's against my religion". You don't actually NEED the religion to be "moral".
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
I did. It sure looks like an abortifacient. A possibly "defiled" adulteress is given a liquid which causes her belly to swell and her uterus to rot?
It seems that the uncertainty relates to whether she's "defiled" (pregnant) or not. If she isn't, the liquid has no effect.
Well, it ISN'T in the Bible. If your faith accepts the opinions of "church fathers" as canon, that's a separate issue.
And I'm saying that it has nothing to do with religion. It's only natural to feel an instinctive urge to protect babies: that's evolution in action. Hence, it's entirely natural to feel uneasy about abortion. The existence or nonexistence of God is not a relevant factor.
And the same applies to other issues of morality. "Godless" does not mean "immoral". |
No, it is not an abortifacient; it is deferring the judgment of a woman to god. And "defiled" is not referential to the state of pregnancy itself(puritanical fear of sexual functions is a latter-day phenomenon), but to the state of having had sex with another man. If she's innocent, she "shall conceive seed," like it says. If god holds her guilty the fetus will rot.
My faith accepts the church fathers as largely canonical. So do the Catholics, and together I'd say we make up the majority of baptized Christians on this earth. Our opinion is not some dissenting gibberish, but a valid position. I am not a fundamentalist. I do not use legalistic bible arguments, though apparently you do and it seems you don't even use them very well. (Where did you get that thing? Belligerentatheist.com?) If you're going to argue with me, argue with me, not with a hypothetical conception of the stereotypical protestant.
And for the second frigging time at least, I use this as an illustration of bad moral reasoning by human beings. I might as easily have used the Jerry Springer Show and probably avoided the argument. In this case, my argument was that a rather obviously clear-cut issue can be perverted by euphemism and pity-grabs until the relevant issue is an absolute blur. The same happens with most arguments that I see; even here, if we lacked the fear of mods, this whole site would inevitably degenerate into a flame-war hive of personal attacks within days. Human beings are too muddled, too seperate from the big picture, to see truth clearly all of the time. Even religion itself can be perverted, but it's slower-acting than the day-to-day lunacy we normally encounter. There's also the fact that, in my experience, prayers for moral guidance work. I believe there's a point in one of the epistles where St. Paul says God will never refuse a prayer for wisdom, and sure enough every time I have prayed for guidance I have found myself thinking more clearly within days. If it's a placebo effect, it's a good one, and it comes at no cost to me.
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Master Zen
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of naughty
Jan 2003
time: 23:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Elok
No, it is not an abortifacient; it is deferring the judgment of a woman to god. And "defiled" is not referential to the state of pregnancy itself(puritanical fear of sexual functions is a latter-day phenomenon), but to the state of having had sex with another man. If she's innocent, she "shall conceive seed," like it says. If god holds her guilty the fetus will rot.
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 I think science has long past solved the mystery of "conceivable seeds" and rotten fetuses....
quote:
My faith accepts the church fathers as largely canonical. So do the Catholics, and together I'd say we make up the majority of baptized Christians on this earth. Our opinion is not some dissenting gibberish, but a valid position. I am not a fundamentalist. I do not use legalistic bible arguments, though apparently you do and it seems you don't even use them very well. (Where did you get that thing? Belligerentatheist.com?) If you're going to argue with me, argue with me, not with a hypothetical conception of the stereotypical protestant.
And for the second frigging time at least, I use this as an illustration of bad moral reasoning by human beings. I might as easily have used the Jerry Springer Show and probably avoided the argument. In this case, my argument was that a rather obviously clear-cut issue can be perverted by euphemism and pity-grabs until the relevant issue is an absolute blur. The same happens with most arguments that I see; even here, if we lacked the fear of mods, this whole site would inevitably degenerate into a flame-war hive of personal attacks within days.
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Some people still flame... and others even if there weren't mods would act correctly. It isn't fear of God which drives people to act in a morally correct way. I do not inflict pain on others because I would not like them to do the same to me, not because I fear I will go to heaven or hell. They only restraint is my own logic and reason, not some angry deity torturing me for eternity.
quote:
Human beings are too muddled, too seperate from the big picture, to see truth clearly all of the time. Even religion itself can be perverted, but it's slower-acting than the day-to-day lunacy we normally encounter. There's also the fact that, in my experience, prayers for moral guidance work. I believe there's a point in one of the epistles where St. Paul says God will never refuse a prayer for wisdom, and sure enough every time I have prayed for guidance I have found myself thinking more clearly within days. If it's a placebo effect, it's a good one, and it comes at no cost to me. |
Prayer, meditation, etc. its all the same way of getting in tough with your inner self and finding answers inside of you. It's not god that's talking to you or guiding you (although most faithfull believe so) it is yourself. Now if people started getting some self-esteem and realizing that every problem's answer can be found within themselves, there would be no need for gods. Open your eyes, there is no "master plan", every success in life is because we've been smart enough to take it, and every defeat is because we've been stupid enough to let it happen. Oh and luck...or divine will? everything happens for a reason? umm. no. Luck is simply a point in a probability distribution. If if something happens for a reason, it's because we made that reason happen.
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Frogman
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Urban Ranger, I thought I gave my opinion on the transitional forms. I suggest there is a trigger in the dna that causes large scale changes in a short time. My contention is that the changes are more than a reaction to the environment they are a move along an already defined path. As I said above, I'm probably wrong but hey its my stab at it.
quote:
from Master Zen
But of course, most people accept what they want to hear, everything else must be wrong right? |
Which of course lead to the conclusion that everyone is wrong. I'm wrong, you're wrong and therefore its easy to punch holes in anyones belief. Some like to just leave it alone and not think about it and thereby not be wrong.
I think there is room in the universe for a spiritual dimension. Anecdotal evidence isn't solid proof, but the abundance of it leaves you wondering. People like Edgar Cayce are hard to explain. If it is possible to predict the future, than our concept of time needs adjusting. I think time is the most misunderstood concept of the universe we have.
So thats my soapbox. If everyone would just admit they're wrong, but making the best sence of it they can, we'd all get along a lot better.
quote:
more from Master Zen
No, it's not wrong, but my question was if it was necessary. Honestly, I have not found any correlation between moral people and religious people and thus I think it is incorrect to judge people just on basis of their faith. Good people come in all shapes and sizes and not all of them carry a cross. |
Not knowing anything else about a person, I would rather have my kids hang with the church going crowd than not. It does weed out the parents who just don't give a crap or would rather get high on Sunday mornings. There are plenty of immoral people in the church but I would bet its less than you would find in the general population.
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BustaMike
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You think you're better than me? You've been handling my ass pennies!!!
Nov 1999
time: 21:27
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quote:
You have got to be kidding. You say atheism doesn't care how we got here. Any group as intellegent as atheists profess themselves to be must at some point ponder their origin, their existance, and the meaning of life and death. Claiming its a stupid question and then criticizing those who attempt to answer it isn't much of a platform to claim intellectual superiority. I really don't think you're speaking for atheists but out on your own thin limb.
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You misunderstood what I meant. Speaking strictly for myself, I believe the Why? question can never be answered. Any attempt to answer this question from any standpoint is always done to try and make people feel more comfortable with the fact that they have been thrust into a universe that cannot be fully understood. Religion was originally created as an attempt to answer this question, but it fails just like everything else because there is no answer.
Now, given this, the question itself isn't stupid. It's the most basic question there is. Everyone has to find some way to deal with it. For some it's religion, for others it's atheism. In this sense, every answer is the correct one for the person asking the question. We get problems when people think that their answer is right for anyone besides themselves.
I slightly misspoke when I said atheism (or my take on it) doesn't care how we got here. What I meant was, because I know I will never have an answer to why we are here, I've accepted that fact and moved on. There's no need for me to constantly be troubled by something I can't answer. In a way, that is my answer to the question. I'm not sure that philosophy is actually atheism or not, but it sure isn't religious.
Hope that makes sense.
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Master Zen
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of naughty
Jan 2003
time: 23:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Frogman
Which of course lead to the conclusion that everyone is wrong. I'm wrong, you're wrong and therefore its easy to punch holes in anyones belief. Some like to just leave it alone and not think about it and thereby not be wrong.
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If you read my really really long first post about 2 pages back I also said everybody was wrong and that even I am a 99.99% atheist because there is a chance, remote as it is, that I might end up seeing jesus or allah when I die.
quote:
I think there is room in the universe for a spiritual dimension. Anecdotal evidence isn't solid proof, but the abundance of it leaves you wondering.
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So, just when something is missing there must be a reason for its existence? Hmm... so there must be sea monsters and dragons somewhere out there right?
Also, why must a "spritual" dimension not be science-based? Just because we many not be able to explain other dimensions which our current knowledge of science doesn not mean the unknown followes a divine constitution. There is only one constitution which governes the entire universe, it is science, and we haven't even begun to understand the first article.
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So thats my soapbox. If everyone would just admit they're wrong, but making the best sence of it they can, we'd all get along a lot better.
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I've admitted it. Have you?
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Not knowing anything else about a person, I would rather have my kids hang with the church going crowd than not. It does weed out the parents who just don't give a crap or would rather get high on Sunday mornings. There are plenty of immoral people in the church but I would bet its less than you would find in the general population. |
I would much rather know the people my kids hang out with and not judge others by their faith or lack thereof. It does not weed out the parents that get high on every other morning besides Saturdays.
You have no proof that religious people are more moral than others just because they publicaly adhere to a moral code. What is said in public and what is done in private (and in public) are two very different things.
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Elok
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Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:27
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quote:
I think science has long past solved the mystery of "conceivable seeds" and rotten fetuses.... |
Uh...if that's a joke, I don't get the reference.
quote:
Some people still flame... and others even if there weren't mods would act correctly. It isn't fear of God which drives people to act in a morally correct way. I do not inflict pain on others because I would not like them to do the same to me, not because I fear I will go to heaven or hell. They only restraint is my own logic and reason, not some angry deity torturing me for eternity. |
Has this whole board gone selectively illiterate? I just said that the reason for obedience in proper Christians should be a desire for peace in their lives, not fear of punishment. The remark on mods was a proviso for reality, not for the divine. And if you think there is a single human being on earth who consistently acts with goodness and reason, you're the one who's being naive here, not me. Do you act perfectly? Is everything you do sprung from truth? I don't think so...
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Prayer, meditation, etc. its all the same way of getting in tough with your inner self and finding answers inside of you. It's not god that's talking to you or guiding you (although most faithfull believe so) it is yourself. Now if people started getting some self-esteem and realizing that every problem's answer can be found within themselves, there would be no need for gods. Open your eyes, there is no "master plan", every success in life is because we've been smart enough to take it, and every defeat is because we've been stupid enough to let it happen. Oh and luck...or divine will? everything happens for a reason? umm. no. Luck is simply a point in a probability distribution. If if something happens for a reason, it's because we made that reason happen. |
And why do we not act with perfect reason at all times? How have we not evolved to a point such that we have such moments of utter clarity more than ten percent of the time? We have had scientific progress for centuries; we improve the agricultural sciences, so now most famines are caused by heavy-handed governments instead of natural disasters. We perfect computing, and we create computer viruses. We develop mass production, but we save on machine maintenance anyway by subcontracting foreign sweatshop managers. Year after year of enlightenment and we keep finding newer and better ways to make ourselves and each other miserable to make up for it. Or else we refit new vices. We have the power to make life perfect but we do not. That is not the behavior of a rational species. Why? The faith has an answer for that in the fall. Science cannot even try. That's why I go with religion there.
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Remember, this is not an isolated miracle: this refers to a standard procedure to be followed in cases of suspected infidelity.
Stripped of the mumbo-jumbo: every woman in this situation is to be given an evidently poisonous substance which has a high probability of killing any fetus she might be carrying.
So, unless this is a reliable miracle that can be invoked on demand (i.e. a magical spell: I'm fairly sure that it's heretical for Christians of any non-gnostic denomination to believe that God can be invoked like this), the result will frequently be the death of the fetus regardless of how it was conceived.
Call it "God's justice" if it makes you feel any better about it, but how is this not an abortion? |
Numbers 5:17(RSV) refers to the makeup of this horrible baby-killing poison: "the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water." Dirty water. Dirty water is supposed to be a reliable means of inducing a miscarriage? Or are you suggesting that ancient Hebrew priests lined their places of worship with poison? What kind of "poisonous substance" have you been smoking?
And you might be fairly sure, but you're still wrong. What do you think a modern Christian sacrament is, if not a readily repeated miracle? Bread and water transformed into flesh and blood, immersion in water causing a rebirth, anointment with chrism? Any of this ringing a bell? Do you know the definition of the word "covenant?" Sheesh.
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04-04-2003 14:15
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