First Human Cloned - What do you think?

Originally posted by Madman
1) galileo was hounded by the catholic church, his books outlawed and he lived in exile for many years, the church only accepted after hundreds of years.
...none of which changes the fact that it was HE (a human) who pointed this out to the Pope & Co. That they lived in denial for so long is to their shame...

Originally posted by Madman
3) anyone who honestly believes the "created in gods own image" line needs their head examined, it is mere human arrogance to believe that we should be a copy of said deity...
As a christian myself, i believe in god, and i believe in the creation.
Huh?...You contradict yourself here, sir. Check Genesis 1, esp. Gen 1:26-28.

I'll PM you the rest of what I have to say about this, since I've essentially been told that the 1st Amendment doesn't necessarily apply on the CZ. ;)
 
preacher, galileo did not change the churches mind, columbus and other explorers did, galileo merely said "ere, ur wrong!"

and secondly just because i am a christian doesnt mean i have to believe that we are in gods image, i dont remember the bible being written by god, it was written by humans and i have the right to take that particular part as being licensed arrogance of the writer :D

and on a side note, i hate to be a party pooper, but not living in the states, i have no idea what the hell the first amendment is or means anyone like to clarify??
 
Without quoting it, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to peaceably assemble.

And the teeth to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is the Second Ammendment.
 
Originally posted by Madman
preacher, galileo did not change the churches mind, columbus and other explorers did, galileo merely said "ere, ur wrong!"
Exactly. What I said was that he "put them on notice" that they were wrong. I stand correct :D

Originally posted by Madman
... just because i am a christian doesnt mean i have to believe that we are in gods image, i dont remember the bible being written by god, it was written by humans and i have the right to take that particular part as being licensed arrogance of the writer :D
I'm still working on my PM to ya, but this helps me frame my response to you a bit better. Lemme just say this real quick: If I say I'm a WC fan, but I don't own the games, have never played them, read any of the novels, been on the CZ, etc., then you wouldn't think of me as really being a fan at all, would ya?... Same principle applies.

Originally posted by Madman
and on a side note, i hate to be a party pooper, but not living in the states, i have no idea what the hell the first amendment is or means anyone like to clarify??
Sorry, I didn't know you were a Brit (I just checked yer profile). I was referring to our "Freedom of Speech" (= 1st Amendment to the US Consitution) here.
 
before starting, i'll just say here and now that I am a Christian through and through, I however do not go to church simply becasue of my own personal experieances with the hypocrasy of organized religion.

Firstly, to Preacher (I find it mildl ammsuing that that is exactly what he's doing here), you're WC analogy is flawed since there are varying scales of fandom. Just as example, the way I was introduced to Lord of the Rings was, a friend gave me a loose outline of the novels and the background behind them (Tolkien's creation of an entire history for Middle-earth, etc.) and it intrigued me. At that point, I became a fan, withoiut having read the books, seen the films (impossible since they were still two years from release at that point), or anything like that. I became more of a fan once i had read them and seen the films. to come back to the original statement, by Madman that a professed Christian dosen't need to believe we're created in God's image to be a Christan. He is absolutely correct in stateing that the Bible was written by mortal human males (that is important to remember folks) and thus is inheirently flawed. God's work ended at the inspiration phase as far as the written word is concerned. The other thing to remember is that the defining quality of being a Christian is a belief in Christ.

Secondly, again to Preacher, and to anyone else for that matter who'd like to chime in on this one, I have a condition called congenital nystagmys (sp?) other wise known as dancing eys. basically, certain cells in my eyes that may have been motion sensors or light sensors or anyother vision thing, during my development in my mother's womb, didn't go to the correct part of the eye. This casues my eys to get "confused" as my optometrist put it, and move around on there own. basically they shake willy nilly. tell me, how in the world is that "Intelligent design: as you put it? I must say that I am not bitter about it. I'm not taking my impairment out on you. I don't even see it as such. I'd just like to know how that, or any other "at birth" affliction anyone else may have, fits into your theory of "intelligent design." And Preacher, before you respond, please, i beg you, come up with something other then "God created you the way He wanted you." I've heard it a million times before and frankly I don't buy it.
 
Originally posted by Bobbo1701

Secondly, again to Preacher, and to anyone else for that matter who'd like to chime in on this one, I have a condition called congenital nystagmys (sp?) other wise known as dancing eys. basically, certain cells in my eyes that may have been motion sensors or light sensors or anyother vision thing, during my development in my mother's womb, didn't go to the correct part of the eye. This casues my eys to get "confused" as my optometrist put it, and move around on there own. basically they shake willy nilly. tell me, how in the world is that "Intelligent design: as you put it? I must say that I am not bitter about it. I'm not taking my impairment out on you. I don't even see it as such. I'd just like to know how that, or any other "at birth" affliction anyone else may have, fits into your theory of "intelligent design." And Preacher, before you respond, please, i beg you, come up with something other then "God created you the way He wanted you." I've heard it a million times before and frankly I don't buy it.


I think that by *Inteligent design* they mean the difference between the lower life-forms and us (or the difference between us and another lifeforms).
And remeber that *inteligent* doesn´t means *perfect* ;)
 
Intelligent design is the philosophy that, because of all the order in the universe, some greater intelligence (read: God) must have designed it to work as it does. Many proponents of the theory are also of the opinion that things like the evolution of man from lower animals did occur, but that this evolution itself was designed into the world during its creation by the intelligent designer.
 
Originally posted by Bobbo1701
before starting, i'll just say here and now that I am a Christian through and through, I however do not go to church simply becasue of my own personal experieances with the hypocrasy of organized religion.

I'm the same. I don't know about the hypocracy of organised religion, but I feel that I don't need to attend church to show my belief in Christ.

Anyway, in terms of whether God created us or whether we evolved from apes, I will say that, with apologies to those that follow a diffirent religion that contradicts this, there's too much that's been proven in the Bible to say that what's in it is not accurate. There was the finding of Noah's Ark, Betheleham, the crucifing of Jesus, and, I'm not sure if this was in the Bible but some of the prophosised signs of Christ's return and the next stage of human evolution have been fulfilled or are in the process of being fulfilled.
 
Originally posted by Phillip Tanaka
I'm the same. I don't know about the hypocracy of organised religion, but I feel that I don't need to attend church to show my belief in Christ
Check Hebrews 10:25 (among others), then...

Originally posted by Ghost
I think that by *Inteligent design* they mean the difference between the lower life-forms and us (or the difference between us and another lifeforms)...
No, it means what it says: There is such order and organization, such exquisite design of structure and function, it must have come from an intelligent Source. Applies equally to man and beast, to bird and flower, Earth and Mars.

Originally posted by Bobbo1701
...to come back to the original statement, by Madman that a professed Christian dosen't need to believe we're created in God's image to be a Christan. He is absolutely correct in stateing that the Bible was written by mortal human males ...The other thing to remember is that the defining quality of being a Christian is a belief in Christ.
-No. Unless a Christian believes in the "in His image" part, there's no basis on which to place one's faith, and the whole machine breaks down, so to speak.
-Of course it was *penned* by human males. But when I dictate a letter to my secretary, the recipient of the letter knows it was from *me*, not her. Same principle, essentially...
-Yes, but it's at least equally important what is meant by "belief"... : There's "head" belief (that is, intellectual), and there's "heart" belief. I believe in my head that H2 plus O makes for water; but I believe in my heart that my favorite niece loves me somethin' fierce (she's like a daughter to me), as I likewise love her. Both, so far as can be determined, are true; both affect my life to some degree. But utimately, the latter is the more important truth of the two to me. Same principle with religious "belief". (see Romans 10:9-13).

Originally posted by Bobbo1701
Secondly... I have a condition called congenital nystagmys....tell me, how in the world is that "Intelligent design: as you put it?.... I'd just like to know how that, or any other "at birth" affliction anyone else may have, fits into your theory of "intelligent design."
Like someone else later said, intelligent ain't the same as "perfect". I can't tell you the "why" you seek, but I can tell you this: We live in a fallen world, and that's what comes with the package. You might notice that the world as we know it differs considerably from the description given of the garden of Eden. The reason for this is sin, whose entry into the mix caused that which was perfect to likewise enter a fallen state. In short, it ain't the Creator's fault, it's man's...
 
Wow i cannot believe there was a debate about the absurd notion of intelligent design that I have missed for so long. I guess its time for me to step up.


First off i would like to state my premise, that Intelligent design is the most ludicrisly illogical concept ever attempted to be presented by pseudoscientific, pseudological, fundamentalists.

OK now let us examine what intelligent design states.

Intelligent design claims, that the complexity and "order" of the natural world, both in the realm of life and in the universe in general, can only have been brought about by a higher being, a god if you will, and thus all of modern biology, physics, astronomy, geology, and basically all of science is wrong. (the anti-science part is rarely stated but it is implied in the basic claim).

Now in order to defend intelligent design there are several standard arguments, many brought up by Preacher (now i know why he is called that). They all either illustrate a logical fallacy, or are just plain based in incorrect facts. I will now present a sampling of each of these and will demonstrate why they are fallicious.

1. "The second law of thermodynamics claims that everything is moving towards chaos, not order, thus (evolution, the evolution of galaxys stars planets etc) must be wrong and god must have done it"

This statement is insidious for several reasons, firstly most people dont know enough about thermodynamics etc to be able to see the fallacy with this argument making it an appeal to the ignorance of the general populace, secondly it sounds smart. It is just completely WRONG. The second law of thermodynamics roughly states that "Entropy will always increase within a closed system". Entropy can be taken in this context to mean disorder, chaos, wasted energy. Now what is a "closed system" you may ask, a closed system is a system that does not have any interactions with any other system, no energy or matter transfer. This is important because the earth is an open system, each star is an open system, any square parsec of space is an open system, but the universe as a whole is a closed system. Within an open system entropy can be decreased considerably but in order to do this the entropy outside of this system must be increased. Thus individual eddys of order can and are created in exchange for generally increasing the disorder of the universe. As such all the things mentioned in fact can happen in accordance wiht the 2nd law of thermodynamics and form an integral part of it because one of the primary ways in which entropy is increasing throughout the universe is via the creation of temporary sub-systems of order.
Just think about this. If evolution (the most commonly argued point) violated the second law of thermodynamics, so would a baby growing from a single fertilized cell into a multicellular functional organism. Thus there would be no people.
Also think about this, we as humans increase the entropy of the outside world all the time. We take a fully formed reletively ordered piece of meat, with complex protiens, carbohydrates, etc. and break it down into its component elemts then release portions of this back into the system of the earth in the form of excrament and CO2.

Next argument:
1. Look at the world around you, everything in nature is so interrelated and complex that it can only have been designed, if you remove a single species from the chain of life entire portions fall apart. God must be responsable.

Im sorry but if god is responsable for life then he is either an idiot or grossly incompetent. Since we are talking about complexity of design engineering may be a good thing to bring up. An axiom for engineers is the concept of Occams Razor, basically that all other things being equal the least complex method should be chosen. In other words the less complex the better. Life on earth is interdependant, complex, and generally flawed, a better example of jury rigging I have never seen. The "best" most "intelligently designed" system would be one with the least interdependacy, the least complex, and the least flawed.
Flaws in the system present themselves well in humanity. First off the vast majority of our DNA is unneeded by a human being, it is waste leftovers of former evolutionary pathways, if humanity was designed, why would we need the gene codes to produce gills? More improtantly is the human eye. Basically it is wired backwards, the neurons on the retina must obstruct the detection abilitiy of the eye inorder to relay data back to the brain, they reduce our visual accuity. Now some would claim that this is the only way to makean eye, or the best way that exists, however the Eye for the branch that contains the Squid and the Octapus has a properly wired eye. Why would god have replicated the same bad design in 95% of all vertebrate animals only to use a good design in 5% of the animals. There is a word for when an engineer or designer uses a design that he knows is subpar that can lead to death and danger and a reduction in efficiency, it is called incompetant, or more often "criminally negligent". Your "intelligent designer" is not only incompetent but also should be arrested for his gross negligence.

Next argument:
1. The universe works so perfectly planets revolve around stars, etc. God must have done it.
Answer: The laws of physics work well to

Follow up
2. Those laws of physics must have been created by a designer to work so perfectly.
Answer: IN this case the argument presented is that the laws of physics need a god to create them. The choice is between: the observed properties of the universe as generated in the big bang (an observed phenomina) and all those exact same properties but with some dude sitting around thinking them up then taking a 13 billion year long vacation. This once again is where Occams Razor as a philisophical concept comes into play, all other things being equal take the least complex. Well both claimants dont dispute the laws of physics so the only difference is god. Thus god can be removed, eliminating redundancy which in this model of god, he is.


There are alot more arguments i could refute, i havent the time, and this is already too long a post
 
Originally posted by Preacher
Check Hebrews 10:25 (among others), then...

Ok I looked it up and my interpretation of it is not "go to church on the Sabbath day." Rather that we should meet and discuss and worship anywhere. Even here. This discussion (as deviated as it is from the original topic) can easily qualify.



Originally posted by Preacher
-No. Unless a Christian believes in the "in His image" part, there's no basis on which to place one's faith, and the whole machine breaks down, so to speak.

Just simply because you seem to know the Bible much better then I do, please, where does it say this. i'd like to be informed on it before I reply to it.

Originally posted by Preacher
-Of course it was *penned* by human males. But when I dictate a letter to my secretary, the recipient of the letter knows it was from *me*, not her. Same principle, essentially...

That is true yes. However, becasue we are given free will, and so were the writers, thus they could easily change anythign they wanted. In you're secretary example, let's say that you, while dictating a letter were to use poor grammer. Such as, without thinking about it, saying "gonna" instead of "going to." I think it would be rude for your secretary to correct you on the spot. He/She may just correct there on the letter and not say anything. Now with the writers of the Biblical verses, God may have told them, through inspirations, to say something about slaves that particular author may not like. So he either changes it or dosen't say it at all. The other thing to remember is that the Old Testement was verbally past down for many centuries before it was commeted to the page. Now add on to that that it has been translated and retranslated hundreds of times since then and discrepencies are bound to appear.


Originally posted by Preacher
-Yes, but it's at least equally important what is meant by "belief"... : There's "head" belief (that is, intellectual), and there's "heart" belief. I believe in my head that H2 plus O makes for water; but I believe in my heart that my favorite niece loves me somethin' fierce (she's like a daughter to me), as I likewise love her. Both, so far as can be determined, are true; both affect my life to some degree. But utimately, the latter is the more important truth of the two to me. Same principle with religious "belief". (see Romans 10:9-13).

Now here is where you and I agree 100%. My friends are like my second family. I would kill to protect them from any harm. And i believe with all my heart that they would do the same. But intellectually speaking, i believe that if I drop something, it will fall. Gravity on this planet is a constant. but my belief in my friends far outweighs my belief in gravity.

Originally posted by Preacher
Like someone else later said, intelligent ain't the same as "perfect". I can't tell you the "why" you seek, but I can tell you this: We live in a fallen world, and that's what comes with the package. You might notice that the world as we know it differs considerably from the description given of the garden of Eden. The reason for this is sin, whose entry into the mix caused that which was perfect to likewise enter a fallen state. In short, it ain't the Creator's fault, it's man's...

First off, I'm not really seeking a why. It's really not a questin of why for me anymore and hasn't been since I was about 10. It's something that makes up me and who i am and i live with it. It's more a question of how, which i now know, and what can be done to live with it and if it can ever be fixed. I simply wanted to know you're take on "at birth" afflictions in the context of the theory you brought up.

Second, it jsut occured to me that I culd be coming off as an absolute ass with all this. I don't mean to dothat. It's jsut that when I dicuss this stuff I get rather passionate. I simply enjoy discussing it and if i come off as really harsh about it, i don't mean to and apologize. I do consider your opinion vailed and who knows, maybe it will spark me to look nto something deeper to change my mind. I'm only 10 and my spiritual life is still very much in flux.
 
well, to interrupt the great religious debate, i just saw on BBC that the parents of the cloned baby have decided against the tests that would determine if the baby was really a clone. the reason given was that they didn't want to have the tests untill "they [the parents] were guaranteed that the baby -nicknamed Eve- would not be taken away" still smells like hoax to me.
 
<devil's advocate>

Originally posted by Napoleon
Intelligent design claims, that the complexity and "order" of the natural world, both in the realm of life and in the universe in general, can only have been brought about by a higher being, a god if you will, and thus all of modern biology, physics, astronomy, geology, and basically all of science is wrong. (the anti-science part is rarely stated but it is implied in the basic claim).

Actually, it seems to be more of an attempt to integrate physical science into religion. The concept being that the designer created these things to bring his plans to his chosen destination. Science can be, when viewed this way, God's tool.

Im sorry but if god is responsable for life then he is either an idiot or grossly incompetent. Since we are talking about complexity of design engineering may be a good thing to bring up. An axiom for engineers is the concept of Occams Razor, basically that all other things being equal the least complex method should be chosen. In other words the less complex the better. Life on earth is interdependant, complex, and generally flawed, a better example of jury rigging I have never seen. The "best" most "intelligently designed" system would be one with the least interdependacy, the least complex, and the least flawed.
Flaws in the system present themselves well in humanity. First off the vast majority of our DNA is unneeded by a human being, it is waste leftovers of former evolutionary pathways, if humanity was designed, why would we need the gene codes to produce gills?

You've taken a short sighted and limited view with respect to the world and it's ecosystem... while life is, in some ways fragile, it obviously isn't too much so, as it survives today. The variety that has existed through history has allowed for survival through vast changes in climate and circumstances.

God, perhaps, did not go out to create a series of completely individual people and creatures. It is the interactions between different beings that make us what we are. Instead of a bunch of unrelated individual creatures, the world is a single system, which, when viewed as that, instead of examining each component individually, has a suprising amount of redundancy.

We've got creatures that could survive through heavy radiation, we've got ones that could and probably have survived an ELE asteroid strike, we've got ones that can survive ice ages. From there, things can and have started up again. The fact that life on this planet has recovered from events that should have, or did destroy a large portion of the life on the planet demonstrates a beautiful equilibrium condition that is magnitudes better than any jury rigged solution I've ever seen.

I will also point out that, while Occam's Razor is a good tool for developing a sensible argument, it is not, in fact, useful beyond being a good pointer. It also was not originally a device for engineering, but rather a tool used in philosophical debate. Occam's Razor is not incredibly telling with reguards to the complexity of the design of something you don't understand the purpose of, in this example, life. Working with the assumption that there is an intellegent designer, one does not know the goals or motivations and therefore one can not evaluate what is required complexity and what is not.

More improtantly is the human eye. Basically it is wired backwards, the neurons on the retina must obstruct the detection abilitiy of the eye inorder to relay data back to the brain, they reduce our visual accuity. Now some would claim that this is the only way to makean eye, or the best way that exists, however the Eye for the branch that contains the Squid and the Octapus has a properly wired eye. Why would god have replicated the same bad design in 95% of all vertebrate animals only to use a good design in 5% of the animals.
There is a word for when an engineer or designer uses a design that he knows is subpar that can lead to death and danger and a reduction in efficiency, it is called incompetant, or more often "criminally negligent". Your "intelligent designer" is not only incompetent but also should be arrested for his gross negligence.

Jesus, I'd hate to be your engineer... Sacrificing efficiency for various reasons is *not* incompetant nor is it negligent. It is regularly a a necessity as one always needs to consider more than one aspect of a project. Cost, safety, lack of quality materials, or just plain lack of necessity. You don't go building excessive efficiency into something if there's not enough reason to justify the extra labour. Maybe this hypothetical designer didn't think it was a worthwhile effort... He obviously didn't try to create us as perfect beings.

I'll also point out that it can't be a big tradeoff if 95% of all vertebrates have this type of eye. I like the way Neal Stephenson puts evolution in Cryptonomicon

Let's set the existence-of-god issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get rid of each other, either by spamming their environments with rough copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored. Most of them failed, and their genetic legacy was erased from the universe forever, but a few found some way to survive and to propagate. After about three billion years of this sometimes zany, frequently tedious fugue of carnality and carnage, Godfrey Waterhouse IV was born, in Murdo, South Dakota, to Blanche, the wife of a Congregational preacher named Bunyan Waterhouse. Like every other creature on the face of the earth, Godfrey was, by birthright, a stupendous badass, albeit in the somewhat narrow technical sense that he could trace his ancestry back up a long line of slightly less highly evolved stupendous badasses to that first self-replicating gizmo--which, given the number and variety of its descendants, might justifiably be described as the most stupendous badass of all time. Everyone and everything that wasn't a stupendous badass was dead.

If the trait hasn't gotten us all killed, it obviously isn't too bad.



Next argument:
1. The universe works so perfectly planets revolve around stars, etc. God must have done it.
Answer: The laws of physics work well to

I have a more elegant response than the response below.

It is possible that this designer created the laws of Physics to further his intentions. There is nothing that says they must have been, but if a designer were to exist, this would have to be expected. We wouldn't be very good as our form of life without the ability to understand the way the basic rules of how the universe works. The designer therefore provided physical rules that would first bring existance into being, then shape it into what exists currently, allow some longevity to the universe, hold things together and allow us a framework for understanding and comprehending.

Follow up
2. Those laws of physics must have been created by a designer to work so perfectly.
Answer: IN this case the argument presented is that the laws of physics need a god to create them. The choice is between: the observed properties of the universe as generated in the big bang (an observed phenomina) and all those exact same properties but with some dude sitting around thinking them up then taking a 13 billion year long vacation. This once again is where Occams Razor as a philisophical concept comes into play, all other things being equal take the least complex. Well both claimants dont dispute the laws of physics so the only difference is god. Thus god can be removed, eliminating redundancy which in this model of god, he is.

The Big Bang doesn't deny the theory of intellegent design. The Big Bang had to come from something.
 

Originally posted by Preacher
-Of course it was *penned* by human males. But when I dictate a letter to my secretary, the recipient of the letter knows it was from *me*, not her. Same principle, essentially...

Two words: Chinese whispers


Originally posted by Preacher
-Yes, but it's at least equally important what is meant by "belief"... : There's "head" belief (that is, intellectual), and there's "heart" belief. I believe in my head that H2 plus O makes for water; but I believe in my heart that my favorite niece loves me somethin' fierce (she's like a daughter to me), as I likewise love her. Both, so far as can be determined, are true; both affect my life to some degree. But utimately, the latter is the more important truth of the two to me. Same principle with religious "belief". (see Romans 10:9-13).

I believe this is probably where all the Creationist stuff started. Christians trying to merge their "heart" belief with their "head" belief by using their "science" to prove the existance of a creator. I put the word science in quotes because in all of the papers I've read by Creation supporters, never has a single one been peer reviewed by an unbiased third party.

Having faith in a religion is fine if that helps you get through life. But precisely what is that purpose of mangling real science with biased religious views? If anything religions should be amended to reflect what science has discovered.
 
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