First Human Cloned - What do you think?

Originally posted by steampunk
...They won't give access to the baby because they fear legal action or some such B.S. So no more DNA testing and no more proving/debunking the claim.
Gee, now there's a shocker, huh?... :rolleyes:

Locations and people in the bible have been found I accept that. But that doesn't make the Bible completely right. The equivalent Hindu text is OLDER than the Bible and mentions demons and a Monkey King. recent evidence implies that a city in the text was real. But I bet that isn't going to change your mind about there being multiple gods instead of just one now is it?

I didn't say it made the Bible completely right. My point is that scientific descoveries have thus far not refuted one thing in the Bible, whereas some of the same discoveries HAVE forced science to refute ITS own previous positions on some biblical events/people. Also, science only "implied" the veracity of the Hindu city you referred to; in the case of the discoveries I referred to, same served to PROVE the biblical account involved, not merely imply that it was true.

================

Originally posted by cff
don't think so. For one you ignore that after all the propagation, and the translations the texts might be quite corrupted. For one we don't even know how to name God. Jahve? Jehova?
See multiple references elsewhere in recent posts for the refutation of corrupted texts idea. As for the name of God, He gave different names for Himself to different groups of people over time in the biblical texts; perhaps this is what leads to your apparent confusion in this area.

Think of it: Let's say your given name is Charles Smith, and you're a 42 year old married father and a businessman by profession. When you were 8 years old, you might've introduced yourself to new friends as "Chucky". When you went off to college, you then decided to go by the name of "Chip". When you got engaged and then married, your wife ended up calling you by the nickname of "honey" or "snookums". Your little girl calls you "Daddy". To your clients and employees, you're still "Charles" or "Mr. Smith". You're still only one person, yet all these different types of people know you by all these different names. Does that mean that you have a split personality or that something is wrong with you, or you're "two faced"?... Not at all. It is appropriate that different people know you by different titles/names, depending on the type of relationship they have with you, and what role you play in their lives. Same with God. To the ancient Jew, He was the eternally existent, all-sufficent, self-existent, all-powerful, holy, loving, saving God. But at different stages of the history of His relationship with the Israelis, He revealed different aspects of his character to them, and thus had them call him by an increasing number of titles/names. To answer the last part of your quote, the name given was "Yahweh"; but awestruck Jews were so afraid to pronounce the name of this omnipotent, holy God that they substituted the derivative name "Jehovah" instead.

Now if we assume a 'free will' or a soul. Ask yourself something: Under the precise same circumstances would you act the same again. Yes, you would (unless you learned that that act was foolish, but then the circumstances aren't the same after all). So even in the case of a free will existing the free will would be negated by the environment.

Not necessarily; it depends on how certain I was about my decision in the first place, and/or how important it was. I might equally well have chosen white toilet paper over pink; the decision wasn't all that important. Likewise, if I was forced to choose between hitting a deer with my car or veering off into a ditch, I could equally as well choose A or B; it's an important decision, but the net impact might be the same (either way, my car could get totalled and I could get seriously injured or killed).

Similar animals can do things that we humans cannot. A cat would laugh at your ability to predict earthquakes. Some fish would laugh at your ability to analyze the quality of water. A snake would laugh at your ability to see at night. So actually those have to be the superior beings, don't they?

Okay, one more time: That man CAN and DOES do ALL these things, and animals (even collectively) are incapable of doing but a FRACTION of them, is the crux of the matter.

And, the only stupid dog I ever met was my wife's poodle. GAWD that little floor mop is dumb. Not even worthy of the title "dog", I could only go so far as to refer to him as a "canine"...As for cats, they don't fall for the mirror, but then again, about the only things they DO go for is dinner, and big ol' balls of yarn.

I don't see how stochastic changes whith the scale you apply it to. Mathematics is absolute.

Not the stochastic; the order of magnitude. The point is, to have such order, spanning the gamut from huge celestial objects all the way on down to microscopic atoms & cells (and everything in between) speaks a weightier argument in favor of intelligent design than if this were not so. Do we not think more highly of the builder's craftsmanship when he has built an entire house from scratch, as opposed to the simple building facades you see on a Hollywood movie set?... They look real and detailed from the frontside, but when you peer behind 'em, you see they're nothing more than (essentially) a glorified mural painted onto a slab of plywood, held up by 2x6 studs. Takes a whole lot more knowledge and skill to assemble an entire house than just to slap together a facade.

Uhm - that doesn't have anything to do with "junk DNA"

Never said it did. I was pointing out that redundancy in designed systems is not necessarily "waste", and can actually be (in that example) a lifesaving failsafe mechanism.

... Of course it is entirely possible that some writers of the holy book twisted the truth to their personal advantage.

It's also 'entirely possible' that Bin Laden will have an attack of conscience and turn himself over to US troops today, but I think we all know how likely that is.

Actually didn't Jesus say something along these lines: "Wherever people assemble in my name..."

Yes, He did. The point the other guy (or was it you?) made in the earlier post was to correct me on this. "Going to church on Sunday" is not the only way to "do" church. The crux of it is that believers need to assemble together somewhere, and on a frequent/regular basis, to worship and strengthen/encourage one another in the faith. Whether or not that's in a "standard" church on a Sunday is irrelevant.
 
OBJECT LESSON: This is what happens when we open an "edit" session in a separate window, and the "delete post" button is permanently out of order.

:mad: :mad: :rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by KrisV
It's not out of order. You're just not allowed to use it.
Ah.
Well, functionally speaking, the net result is the same.

So, why's it there if we can't use it?...:confused:
 
any man willing to worship the wc presence without playing it is a true fan! :D

but seriously beliefs in the bible and in specific quotations do not a christian make, belief in the resurrection and ascension make a christian (and the messiah part is good too) just because u dont believe in a specific line doesnt mean you arent a christian, otherwise no christians wud eat pork and we'd have all sorts of "wierd" laws to obey, in fact we'd be amish! with added christian laws.

the bible is open to interpretation, and the freedom to interpret it as you like is a right that every man should have.

on a side note? why wasnt freedom of speech in the original constitution????
 
Exactly, Madman. If my family followed the people word for word, we'd have sold my younger sister into slavery 4 years ago. Saaaay, that's not a bad idea....... :)
 
Originally posted by Preacher


I didn't say it made the Bible completely right. My point is that scientific descoveries have thus far not refuted one thing in the Bible, whereas some of the same discoveries HAVE forced science to refute ITS own previous positions on some biblical events/people.


Ya know Ive wanted to say how stupid you are but i didnt want to be offensive, but good god man, think for 2 seconds. The flood, is scientifically impossible, the earth is billions of years old, evolution happened, there was no adam, all things shown to be true by modern empirical science, how can you say that biblical stuff isnt shown wrong by modern science?

Science isnt forced to refute everything. The entire point of science is to empirically collect and analyse data. To describe the world. Thus anything that is discovered becomes part of science and while it may be in contradiction to a previously held theory, it isnt refuting science. It is just plain ignorance to think that it would.
 
The flood is proven, yet it was not like monumental as described in the bible. About 10000 years ago, the barrier between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which was anordinary fresh water lake by then, broke. The lake was flooded by salt water, the water rose very quickly for some months, resulting in the nowadays Black Sea.
 
i didnt know the bit about the mediterranean and the black sea, but i was aware that the flood had been proven, whered u read about that theory?

theres a theory at present that if you shorten the accepted timeline for the pharoahs then the bible fits in perfectly with said timeline, the bible does have a large amount of accurate historical information, wether that info got in by "historical placement" of the book, or by way of those being the events surrounding the jewish race and simply being put down (ie wether its placing of a story, or the truth) remains to be seen. skeptics cannot refute the truth, they can only refuse to believe the unproven, which unfortunately great sections of the bible seem to be
 
Lynx, i would very much like to see the evidence for that, since iirc the plates correctly that gap should have been narrowing over the past few million years, not being created. Regardless the implications of the claims behind the flood fall apart wiht a silly little regional flood. and the bible claims god kills everything on earth, so even with this theory the bibilical flood is bull
 
In some scientic magazine don't know which anymore because I read lots of them.

Napoleon: It doesn't proves that the bible is right. I just wanted to say that this was maybe that thing that was described as the big flood in the book later. BTW it wasn't really a small flood, the original black sea was only half as big as now if I remember the article correctly. As for the evidence, there were found some old villages and houses burried in the water.
 
Originally posted by cff
<

I am sorry, Napoleon , but while I can agree to most of your arguments, your views (LOL) on the human eye are wrong. It is an intelligent design all along. The reason why simple eyes are properly wired is that they only got the light sensitive cells. Now those can be wired to the back.
Now the human eye uses image enhancing techniques to improve the image via 4 layers of cells located before those light sensitive ones. Yes, this is stupid, as it hinders the light from passing. However the calculated image by far surpasses that small loss.
Now of course you could ask as to why these cells cannot be done behind the retina? Well quite simple: Somewhere the nutrition has to happen as well. Between all the blood vessels there isn't much space. Now of course that image processing could also be done later in the brain. Only problem here is that it has to be done before the nerves are crossed out. Which doesn't leave much space at all.
So the concept of the human eye while maybe not perfect isn't exactly a mistake either. It is kinda inevitable.


.

there is NOTHING simple about an octopuses eye, it is just as complex as ours, and it is more efficient and a better design.
 
Originally posted by Lynx
In some scientic magazine don't know which anymore because I read lots of them.



I saw a Discovery Channel special about a year or 2 years ago about the flood.
Some archeologists found in the actual Iraq a very big clay layer, like 15 or 20 meters below the terrain (they said that is equal to 5000-7000 years ago) that clay means that the the terrain was flooded by the water of the Persian gulf, and was a big flood, the reasons of the flood weren´t found but some of them believe that was a meteor or a relative small asteroid that made impact in the persian gulf.
 
Originally posted by Napoleon
Ya know Ive wanted to say how stupid you are but i didnt want to be offensive, but good god man, think for 2 seconds. The flood, is scientifically impossible, the earth is billions of years old, evolution happened, there was no adam, all things shown to be true by modern empirical science, how can you say that biblical stuff isnt shown wrong by modern science?

And I suppose you were there for all of it? Fact is, the acid test comes down to seeing it with your own eyes. None of use have lived over 200 years (if anyone has, you should probably write a book or two), and certainly not 6000, or however many billions that evolution is going at now.

Evolution works as much on Faith as any religion. It's going strong now because you have peer pressure from most of the scientific community, and enough propaganda to make movies out of. This is no different from back in the Dark Ages when a Bishop was as powerful as a king, and if you didn't believe what the leadership believed, you were a fool, a heretik, or dead.

Evolution is no better than Catholocism of that time, supported by thugs who know nothing better to say than "You're a fool."
 
I read the topic a few times, and I expected religion to be brough into this, though, as ANY thread around here, it just moved into something completelly different
so, as a history student and someone very interested in biology, for the same reasons, I decided I should throw in some things, expecting it to eventually be criticized in one way or another

1- the flood: theories indicate it did happen, yes. BUT there is a difference between a flood happening and it been like what is described in the Bible. the fact is that MANY cultures and religions describe such an even, which, adding to some scientific findings that may indicate flooding in an earlier age (supposedly after the last Ice Age). the story in the bible would simply be one more of those, possibly the most famous (at least in the west)

2- animal intelligence: the comment about "fine with animals, not with humans" is not only very humancentric (sorry, Im not sure if that is the correct translation), and extremelly medieval, but very egotistical. Animals ARE intelligent, and, btw, sentience nowadays is used to indicate an animal who can recognize its own existence, which animals like dogs, do. Now, the comment about humans superior for been able to build and blah blah, humans do it because we need, and our evolutionary path (based on our envionment) allowed AND needed us to do so. Other animals may not need it, so why would they complicate their lives in that way? One day go watch one single animal. Watch how a octopus is capable of realizing how to open a can to take the food out of it, or how a dog learns what it should do, how do indetify something or someone. Want something else? Mammals play to learn. Chimps watch their parents using tools (like sticks to pick ants) and learn to do it. have you even seen how the lionesses capture a faster antilope? the type of trap they do, and the stealthy ways they move (actually knowing when to lie down to hide) is more than instinct

3- the rael..bleh, forgot the name: if you were going to do a experiement, would you do one and see what happens? lets magnify this. if you wanted to make an experiment where you wanted to be able to say you had success, would you do only one? just like women who have problems to carry babies in their wombs, or other different problems, that require implantation of already fetilized eggs inside a woman`s womb, you usually have many (yes, they usually put 10 or more fertilized eggs to make sure at least one will work). in the same way, someone wanting to have success would try to have many mothers pregnant with clones, hence two been born so close together

4- why cloning: other than the use for organs and genetic material, some couples cant have babies for various reasons. And the comment that "if 2 lesbians want to have a baby, go to a sperm bank" is both incensitive and, forgive me, stupid. You say that cause youre not involved. if 2 women or 2 men want to have a baby of their own, they want it to be part of them. I really dont know if its scientifically possible to do it, but if it is, they would want it to be that way. If people will want to do evil with it? as someone else already mentioned, of course they will! Anything man ever did was used for something bad, or wrong in someone`s mind. if you were to think like that, we would be still in the stone age, just like those animals some people here seem to like to comment are stupid

5- image of god: I didnt want to touch religion, but, man, if you want to spend your life thinking that, you will be facing some serious problems. btw, what are you doing in a forum that is ina site about a game where humans encounter intelligent alien races? I mean, if you are made in the image of your creator, what about the kilrathi? :)
Soon youre going to be as my exgf saying "do you really believe what scientists say that man can from apes?"

6- ok, so I wasnt going to touch religion, but sometimes it just have to. Ok, the Bible. maybe you are not aware, but most of the thing in it (not to mention symbolism) has a lot of "borrowed" things from other religions. Well, the Hebrews have too, so dont feel bad. The parting of the sea, ancient egypt`s tale of mystics. same about the ressurection of a dead person (or animals in that case). even traditions like the Easter Egg (a pagan legend) and the Christmas tree (same thing)

anyway, enough talking, I still got to go out tonight
Im sure Ill have replies to that anyway, so, until soon
- K
 
Without quoting because I'm too lazy:

I believe the year was 1995 on the Catholic church officially accepting that the earth goes round the sun. And to my knowledge the official muslim word is still earth is the center and the world is flat ...

The Creationist theory on fossils as described by Ken Ham apparently some big Creation supporter or something:
Noah didn't take all the animals on the ark (or the dinosaurs refused to get on whatever). They drowned and their bodies fell to the bottom of the ocean to get covered by sediment. Of course.

Freedom of speech wasn't in the original constitution? Really? You mean the original signed one or like, a draft? The constitution was written up by quite a few smart fellows, I doubt they'd leave that out.

Even if all the authors of the bible were completely honest and never exaggerated as Preacher implies (how is that even remotely possible?) there are still human failings like bad handwriting and evolution of languages (gay used to be happy but not anymore) that will corrupt the bible. It would be @#@$@ amazing if they actually pulled it of.

And just to get a better understanding of what some Christians are thinking:
What precisely do some Christians hope to achieve by believing the bible in its entirety? Some groups go so far as to believe it word for word to the letter. And what is the point of trying to push the religion on to others? Does the bible not teach tolerance and acceptance anywhere?
 
Originally posted by cff

One also shouldn't forget that the heliocentric approach wasn't any more accurate then the geocentric (I think that was how it was named) one back then. So it was more a matter of taste which one you wanted to use. They had both been about as complicated and as accurate as each other. So from a scientific point of view this scepsis wasn't that stupid.

Indeed, and I don't believe I said it was a stupid approach... a geocentric model is perfectly capable of working, all you do is set up the earth as your origin and calculate the movements around it, you'll end up with the same results as eliptical orbits (which didn't get worked out until Kepler and Newton...) This doesn't change the issue that scientists are more than capable of conceptual biases.
 
Back
Top