The Magical Mystery of Life = Creationism

[Starboy]

Quote by: Dirty Name We treat Greek Mythology in school as an amusing collection of stories that have no relevance in today's modern world. Regardless of the veracity of the world's current largest religions, they are quite important and relevant in geopolitical terms. To teach them as though they are just an amusing collection of stories akin to Greek Mythology would be a pretty callous way of instructing children on the importance of Islam. There is a significant number of people for whom these religions shape their thoughts, actions, decisions, etc. and to treat one fifth or so of the world's population as though they are just a bunch of dupes would be a mistake, in my opinion.

The only difference between mythology and current supernatural religions is that there are no longer any adherents of any quantity for those mythologies any more. Otherwise in their day they were no different in the role they played in society than supernatural religions today. A lesson that is very important for people to learn.

Starboy

[RickSp]

Quote by: Dirty Name I don't see this inquisition you are talking about. And this thread was not intending to "attack" your precious science, nor are Intelligent Design promoters attacking "science" unless you consider the inclusion of it in school curriculum an attack. I suppose that possible, since I consider the exclusion of it an attack on humanity.

Yes, I consider teaching religion in science class to be an attack. It is certainly an attack on my children's education.

I was obviously using the word "inquisition" metaphorically. The Inquisition was indeed the organization that silenced Galileo. In the US, it is schools boards and religous groups in Pennsyvania, Kansas and a few dozen other states who want to force teachers to teach the equivalent of the "sun revolves around the earth" dogma to our kids. Intelligent Design sure as hell isn't science. It shouldn't be taught as such.

[Dirty Name]

Quote: Quote by: Dirty Name Belief in God = No risk, high reward No Belief in God = High risk, no reward Now, I don't believe for a moment that Pascal's Wager is a very good tool for converting people to Christianity or anything like that. But I do believe it's one of those things that, if you are wrong about God, it's going to really drive you nuts thinking how STUPID you were to take that bet. So now you are calling anyone who won't take your sucker's bet stupid? Pascal's Wager is a sucker bet. Pretty obviously so. The irony is that Blaise Pascal is thought to be the father of probablity, yet completely ignores probability in his famous wager. The fallacy of the wager is the assumption that there is only one possible god. The assumption is that the existence of god is unproveable. If so, one cannot know which of an infinite number of possible gods indeed exists. The chances of picking the wrong god are infinitely large. A better strategy is to stay intellectually honest, admit to not having any evidence to believe a particular doctrine and hope for the best. This could be preferable to ardently worshipping a false god based on fear. The first choice is at worst an honest mistake. The second is calculated fraud. If indeed there is a god, one might imagine the first choice would be forgiven before the second.

LOL. Not having any evidence? Are you suggesting that there is no evidence that Jesus Christ existed? There is all kinds of historical, geographical, and documentary evidence to support Christianity, including the fact that 10 of Jesus's disciples died for their beliefs, despite being in a position to know whether or not Jesus Christ was a fraud.

As for Buddhism, Hinduism, and a handful of other religions, there really is no downside to not believing in them, unless you consider being reincarnated as a lowly fly or toad is a bad thing.

As for Islam, I choose to believe in Jesus Christ over Mohammed because of the evidence that you say doesn't exist.

[Dirty Name]

the equivalent of the "sun revolves around the earth" dogma to our kids.

Now this is exactly the kind of attack I am talking about. Here you compare ID with "the sun revolves around the earth." While plenty of evidence exists to discredit the sun revolves around the earth theory, you cannot say the same thing about ID, yet you do it anyway.

That's the problem with people like you. You are blind to your own faults.

[Dirty Name]

Fifty years ago we had no idea how traits were passed on, now we are constructing simple life forms from scratch.

No we aren't. That's the point of this whole thread.

[Dirty Name]

And no reason to give religious ideas any credence at all.

How can you be so blind? No reason at all?

What about the very real fact that Jesus Christ existed, was crucified, and people were willing to die for the claim that they SAW HIM alive with their own eyes even after he was executed? How can you claim there is no reason at all? It's one thing to be willing to die for one's faith. But these people weren't preaching from faith, they were executed for claiming they SAW Jesus Christ, alive, as early as three days after he was executed at Golgatha at the hands of Roman soldiers. It's not like these guys are nutjob suicide bombers dying because they just have a strong sense of faith. These are ten men who claim they all saw, touched, and interacted with a man who was crucified, so they were in a position to KNOW whether or not they were lying or telling the truth. Obviously they believed what they were saying.

But I suppose you'll squelch any doubts you might have about these facts by convincing yourself that all of them were under the influence of a powerful hallucinatory narcotic, despite, as science would require, any evidence to support your theory.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Dirty Name Now this is exactly the kind of attack I am talking about. Here you compare ID with "the sun revolves around the earth." While plenty of evidence exists to discredit the sun revolves around the earth theory, you cannot say the same thing about ID, yet you do it anyway. That's the problem with people like you. You are blind to your own faults.

More insults in lieu of argument. It gets really boring DN.

You don't get it do you? The "sun revolves around the earth" theory as you call it, is arguably scientific in that it could be compared against empirical data. Copernicus and Galileo proved it false, again using empirical observations.

ID is not scientific so it can't be proven or disproven. It is religion masquerading as a theory, but it fails on all counts. As long as it can neither be proven or disproven is it is, by definition, dogma, not scientific theory. As the oft repeated saying goes, ID is just creationism in a cheap suit.

[Dirty Name]

The only difference between mythology and current supernatural religions is that there are no longer any adherents of any quantity for those mythologies any more. Otherwise in their day they were no different in the role they played in society than supernatural religions today. A lesson that is very important for people to learn.

While we are learning lessons, it's also important for you to understand that the belief in the Hebrew God has existed throughout ALL of the history of mankind. And it still exists today. Something that we can't say about Greek Mythology and all sorts of other religions that are either now extinct or newcomers to the scene. Christianity is not a newcomer, it is a derivative of Judaism, both of whom worship the same Hebrew God.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Dirty Name While we are learning lessons, it's also important for you to understand that the belief in the Hebrew God has existed throughout ALL of the history of mankind. And it still exists today. Something that we can't say about Greek Mythology and all sorts of other religions that are either now extinct or newcomers to the scene. Christianity is not a newcomer, it is a derivative of Judaism, both of whom worship the same Hebrew God.

Where do you get this stuff? What about the Chinese. They predate the Jews by at least two thousand years. Then there were the Egyptians that existed before the first person that walked the earth that called themselves a Jew. Why is it that supernaturalists are so profoundly ignorant, deceptive or both? I will say it again; you have to be a moron to be a Christian.

Starboy

[Sonart]

Quote by: Dirty Name You have proven yet again that you aren't exactly using logic. Pascal's Wager argues that no matter what, the payoff vs. the risk in the question of God's existence always dictates that you should err on the side of caution. In your "Best Bet" variation, what is the risk vs. reward?

Alas, this thread is moving faster than I have time to keep up with. :(

Dirty, don't take my comparison too literally. Yes, I understand completely Pascal's Wager, but for me it's irrelavent. I not only don't believe in God, a really can't believe in God, and I've tried... my mind simply won't work that way, it makes so little logical sense to me that it's like asking me to believe in Oden or Zues. For instance, when I watch Christians get totally rapturous over the phrase, "For God sacrificed his only begotten son so that we might live..", I'm just sort of dumbfounded. To someone not steeped in that tradition it sounds absolutely ridiculous. You might as well be saying, "For God stacked turtles upon turtles so that the heavens would open to us." What a silly thing for an omnipotent God to do.

So in order for me to fullfill Pascal's wager I'd have to cover my bases with a blantant lie, by saying, Ok, I'll make believe I believe, just in case.

Are you suggesting that would work?

Soooo, anyway, the point of my "variation" of Pascal is that, to my mind, it's a far better bet to believe that, since history has shown that we've found rational explanations for all the unknowns that plagued man in the past, unknowns that man used to attribute to god(s), that the best bet is that there are rational explanations for those things we still don't know.

Do you have a response to that, or are you simply interested in pointing out that I got Pascal's Wager wrong?

.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Dirty Name No we aren't. That's the point of this whole thread.

I read a paper where a group made a TB or a polio virus not too long ago. It replicated just like the natural stuff but was not as virulent.

Starboy

[rcne]

Quote by: Starboy I read a paper where a group made a TB or a polio virus not too long ago. It replicated just like the natural stuff but was not as virulent. Starboy

Do I understand you to say that they have created life from scratch. Now that is an accomplishment. I'd like to see the link. That was one of the BIG problems with the origins of life from the primordial sea. They (in a lab) just couldn't get life, they could create parts (peptides or something )but not life.

By Stuart A. Kauffman This article originally appeared in Nature 382 August 8, 1996. Copyright 1996 by Nature. On page 525 of this issue [1], David Lee and colleagues describe what appears to be the first case of a self-replicating peptide, a result that may prove to be either a mere chemical curiosity, or seminal. The authors show that a 32-amino-acid peptide, folded into an alpha-helix and having a structure based on a region of the yeast transcription factor GCN4, can autocatalyse its own synthesis by accelerating the amino-bond condensation of 15- and 17-amino-acid fragments in solution (see Fig. 1 on page 525). The design of this replicator was based on a protein found in nature, an alpha-helical coiled coil. Reasoning that a given alpha-helical subunit of the entire structure could be seen as a complementary binding surface, acting cooperatively to organize other participating peptide subunits in the coiling, the authors hoped that a similar 'template' function could be found in smaller fragments. The ligation, or joining, site was constructed so as to lie on the solvent-exposed surface of the alpha-helical structure of their 32-amino-acid sequence. http://www.santafe.edu/sfi/People/ka...-peptides.html

Lee et al. established autocatalysis by showing that by increasing initial concentrations of the 32-amino-acid template, with constant concentrations of the 15- and 17-amino-acid substrates, a marked increase was produced in the initial rates of template production. The increase correlates with the square root of the initial template concentration, as seen in self-ligating polynucleotide systems [2,3]. The reaction is region- and chemically selective, yielding less that 15% side products, and proceeds through the major autocatalytic pathway open to the system.

[Dirty Name]

Here is how science answers those questions: 4) What criterion will we use to prefer one explanation over another? The preferable explanation should be explained with constructs that can either be directly or indirectly observed. The preferable explanation should predict as much of what we have observe as possible. The preferable explanation should lead to the discovery of new phenomena - [This one is the ball buster]. The preferable explanation should be consistent with other preferred explanations. All of this should be done with as much honesty as the participants can muster.

I see nothing in here which disqualifies anything we know about the Hebrew God, or the man who claims to be his son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you already know to have been executed by Roman soldiers at the request of Jewish priests, circa 31 AD.

Thus there has been a plethora of observable phenomena, observed and documented by ten of his most loyal followers, all of whom claimed to have physically seen, and some to have touched this man AFTER he was known to be dead, and all of whom were executed - some in worse fashion than Christ himself - for sticking to the claim that he rose again after he died.

I'm curious why this evidence is insufficient to you, and what observable phenomena you base your rejections on.

[Starboy]

Quote by: rcne Do I understand you to say that they have created life from scratch. Now that is an accomplishment. I'd like to see the link. That was one of the BIG problems with the origins of life from the primordial sea. They (in a lab) just couldn't get life, they could create parts (peptides or something )but not life.

They did it by assembling protein fragments into the desired sequence. It was not in any way an attempt to reproduce abiogenesis. I’ll look for the link later. It was in science news if you subscribe.

Starboy

[Dirty Name]

Do you have a response to that, or are you simply interested in pointing out that I got Pascal's Wager wrong?

I've said already that I don't expect Pascal's Wager to convert anyone. I only expect that it will stick in your craw for all of eternity. That's all.

As for your claim that you can't believe in the verse John 3:16, I must ask, have you honestly read and considered the evidence that exists to support that this happened? Do you reject the very idea that Jesus Christ lived 2000 years ago? That's really the point. There is enough documentary evidence concerning the life and times of Jesus Christ that you should be able to make some reasonable assumptions based on what you read. But be sure to read both sides of the argument - don't just go looking for reasons not to believe he was the Son of God, because there's no doubt that whatever you go looking for - evidence for or against - you will find it.

You don't have to understand why turtles stacked upon turtles will open the heavens for us, you only have to see them stacked up to know that it is possible.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Dirty Name I see nothing in here which disqualifies anything we know about the Hebrew God, or the man who claims to be his son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you already know to have been executed by Roman soldiers at the request of Jewish priests, circa 31 AD. Thus there has been a plethora of observable phenomena, observed and documented by ten of his most loyal followers, all of whom claimed to have physically seen, and some to have touched this man AFTER he was known to be dead, and all of whom were executed - some in worse fashion than Christ himself - for sticking to the claim that he rose again after he died. I'm curious why this evidence is insufficient to you, and what observable phenomena you base your rejections on.

What can you predict with this? And I have read the accounts. They are completely consistent with a hoax. Also if you came across some itinerant bum that claimed to be the son of god and had been resurrected you would not believe it. Yet for some strange reason you found a two thousand year hearsay account not backed up by any contemporary sources to be convincing.

Also you make the classic supernaturalist mistake; you confuse the explanation with the evidence. The evidence is that it is claimed that a man was resurrected and there is the empty tomb and the first person accounts of a live Jesus after the event. The explanation is that he was the son of god. There are other explanations, much more plausible explanations. And as mentioned earlier the resurrection explanation is the least plausible even by the standards of most Christians because for any other claimant with the same evidence they would not believe it.

Starboy

[northtexan]

Quote by: Dirty Name You have proven yet again that you aren't exactly using logic. Pascal's Wager argues that no matter what, the payoff vs. the risk in the question of God's existence always dictates that you should err on the side of caution. In your "Best Bet" variation, what is the risk vs. reward? If you are right, what do you gain when you die? Nothing If I am right, what do I gain when I die? Eternal life in paradise. If I am wrong, what do I lose when I die? Nothing If you are wrong, what do you lose when you die? You get to burn in Hell for eternity. So now lets weigh the risk/reward paradigm: Belief in God = No risk, high reward No Belief in God = High risk, no reward Not even the craziest bettors, the high-risk Wall Street investors, or even the most unsafe adrenaline junkies would take flying leap like that. Now, I don't believe for a moment that Pascal's Wager is a very good tool for converting people to Christianity or anything like that. But I do believe it's one of those things that, if you are wrong about God, it's going to really drive you nuts thinking how STUPID you were to take that bet.

But what is the side of caution? There are many different religions, saying different things, some claiming that adherents of others will be damned. So which one is the side of caution? In the name of caution, it's clear that one shouldn't be an adherent of a more-tolerant religion: one that says that nonbelievers in it can be saved. Why do so, when if its right, one can get the benefit without belonging to it. Whereas, if one picks the most-intolerant religion possible, one gets its benefit in addition to those of all the tolerant ones. So, clearly, one should choose as intolerant a religion as possible.

Besides, a wager involves more than caution (of course inveterate gamblers will deny that). The issue is the expected return times the probability of the return. So you have infinite bliss to multiply times an unknown probability; but don't forget that you may have to share that bliss. So one way to maximize your gains (which are otherwise undefined, because of multiplication by infinity), you should pick an intolerant religion with very-few adherents. Then, you don't have to share your eternal bliss with many others. The ultimate would be a completely-intolerant religion to which only oneself belonged. So, there you have it, if you want to take the gambling approach to religion. Personally, I would take a more humanistic approach; but I realize that there are mean-spirited jerks out there who will prefer the gambling approach.

[RickSp]

Quote by: Dirty Name I've said already that I don't expect Pascal's Wager to convert anyone. I only expect that it will stick in your craw for all of eternity. That's all.

Pascal's wager is a sucker bet, really no wager at all. Odd, that you are claiming knowledge of the course of all eternity. Then again, so many of your claims are equally unsupported.

[Sonart]

Quote by: Dirty Name As for your claim that you can't believe in the verse John 3:16, I must ask, have you honestly read and considered the evidence that exists to support that this happened? Do you reject the very idea that Jesus Christ lived 2000 years ago

Before I go any further, I just want to congratulate you, Dirty, on holding forth in this lions den. This board is generally pretty liberal, but I've been spending time at a pretty conservative board and I realize how tough it is getting gang-banged 4 or 5 to 1 and remaining civil. So here's to ya... {{toast}}

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As to your question, don't worry, I'm not Gorgo...I have no trouble believing that Jesus existed and that he was probably a very charismatic character, of a particularly elevated consciousness and devotion to his faith. I also believe that the Bible, Old and New, are reasonably accurate chronicles of Biblical life and times, geography, politics, etc.

Unfortunately, I also believe that belief in the supernatural was fairly common back then, in various forms all around the globe, if for no other reason than scientific knowledge was fairly minimal. So no, I don't believe that Jesus performed miracles, that God literally spoke to anyone or that Jesus rose after he died. And I think under the circumstances... Jesus arrival on the scene (where'd had he been during his twenties?) getting into trouble with the authorities and brutally executed... that John 3:16 is sort of a convenient if convoluted after-the-fact explanation of some unfortunate but not necessarily sacred events. And it's easy enough in hindsight for his chroniclers to go back and say, well Jesus predicted it all and God sacrificed his son for all of us and the spread of Christianity is the result.

But to me it doesn't pass the martian test... if a martian landed and I explained to him that, well, God was unhappy that human beings were awful sinners, so he impregnated a woman out of wedlock -- (the immaculate conception always struck me as a pretty convenient explanation for why Mary was pregnent without being married) -- who then bore God's son, who then spread God's message for three years, until God sacrificed him by having him get arrested, suffering a brutal death for the sake of all of the bad stuff we do, who then rose to Heaven, promising that if we believed in his message we could be freed of sin and join him in Heaven when we die. I think the martian would look at me with one eyebrow raised very high and mutter, "ri-i-i-i-i-i-ight."

It's like, "Hooray, the Messiah's here, long live the... oh, sh!t, they killed the Messiah, what the... oh, God meant to do that... ok, yeah, that's it, God meant to do that because... um, because he died for our sins!... yeah, that's it, we're all such rotten bastages that God sacrificed his only begotten son so that we might all join him in heaven if we just listen up... someday... hopefully not too soon. And we can still go on being rotten bastages, as long as we're sorry."

Quote by: Dirty Name I've said already that I don't expect Pascal's Wager to convert anyone. I only expect that it will stick in your craw for all of eternity. That's all.

Ok, obviously we're talking past each other, Dirty. See, I really don't care about Pascal's Wager, I was playing off the concept of "Best Bets" with my own best bet, so I'll try again from a different angle...

Daniel's Wager --

"Since history has shown that we've found rational explanations for all the unknowns that plagued man in the past, unknowns that man used to attribute to God(s), then the best bet is that there are rational explanations for those things we still don't know, rather than also attributing them to God."

Your comments?

.

[xyzer]

What makes you think they aren't? Where are all the natural non-biological processes that billions of years ago turned inanimate matter into life? Shouldn't the same still be possible today? Where are all the new living things spontaneously appearing? Maybe God shut the process off.

This missive says it all! You evolutionists have an answer to that one? If so what new species has been created in this or the last century? Can you provide scientific theories for your choices?

MrPerfecto I congratulate you on your perspiscacity!