WingCommander-Simulator ? ?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally posted by junior
The other day, I heard a brief run down of the Pharisees rules regarding trips on the sabbath day (no more than 2000 steps, iirc), and the contortions they made to get around those laws.
*shudder*
That is why the Pharisees were hypocrites - worshipping the Law instead of the God behind the Law, as well as twisting the Law to their own personal gain.

Originally posted by junior
At the end of the story, you learn that the name of the historian is Moses, and the scribe is Aaron.
Interesting. I don't think I've ever read much of Asimov's stuff.
 
Originally posted by AD
What do the scientists who set up the experiment represent? Its not entirely a question you see. They were controling exactly what was in the experiment, they caused the current to run through the gases which caused amino acids to form in the (was it water?) below. It just argues the case that if this model is to be found true you cannot ignore the oversight of a higher power.

Thank you. I see what you are saying now. I had originally understood "represent" to mean "stand up for," or "associate with." As in, "what community or faction do they represent?"

You are posing an interesting philosophical question on the nature of scientific experiment. But it seems to me that there is no possible answer for it.

Can you formulate a different experiment or observation that would not involve a "higher power?" If the observation is performed in a laboratory, then some human must set up the experiment. But even if the observations were made in the field (say on another planet) with the same result you could always argue that God created the amino acids.

All scientific experiment presupposes that events are governed by underlying physical laws. The universe works however it works, and no Godly intervention is assumed to occur. You can think of this as a bias if you want to, but it is better understood as a starting point. Modern scientists are not trying to determine whether or not there is a God. They are trying to understand the principles that govern the behavior of the natural world. Researchers simply ask better and more interesting questions about the universe if they assume that God does not play an active role in running things. Or at least, they assume that He plays an absolutely consistent role which may be factored out. While this is not at all spiritually satisfying, it has proven to be a useful tool in learning about the world around us.

That said, I still don't understand what any of this has to do with the Theory of Evolution. Evolution is the study of how and why genetic changes occur in populations of living organisms. People seem to keep returning to the origin of life on Earth and implying that this is somehow a problem that the Theory of Evolution can't explain. To me, this is like refusing to accept Kepler's laws of planetary motion because he and Tycho Brahe couldn't explain where they got all those planets from in the first place. Or refusing to believe that airplanes can fly, since Bernoulli never adequately explained where air comes from.
 
When I was in college, some one asked us physics majors why scientists don't talk about God in their theiroes and such. THe answer was true then as it is appropriate here. Scientists are duty-bound, by their employers, selves, government, God, or whom ever it is at the time, to be as objective as possible in all situations. The problem with mentioning God and similar beliefs is that these concepts almost always carry subjective tones, something which is forbiden in science. As a result, most scientists assume that God doesn't exist and proceed accordingly. It's not that scientists don't believe in God. It's just that it isn't their jobs to talk about him.
 
Originally posted by Lelapinmechant
"The chance for life happening the way it has on this planet is akin to all the parts of an airplane existing in a land fill and then, when a strong wind comes along, being blown in exactly the right manner to create a working airplane."
I've heard similar analogies - a library burning down with the complete works of Shakespeare somehow forming from it as a result, or a <insert favourite car> forming out of a junk yard. :)

Originally posted by Knitewing
They just label the opposition religious zealots.
Labels are misleading. :(

Originally posted by Knitewing
No beginning point. What caused the big bang?
Energy is neither created nor destroyed. So indeed, what caused the so-called 'Big Bang'?

Originally posted by Knitewing
Mine is not a blind faith that many Christians have.
How should it matter whether it is 'blind' or not? Faith is faith. Everyone has it, whether they know it or not. People have faith that a chair will be able to support their weight. People have faith that a computer will work when power is supplied (well, that's debatable depending on the quality of the computer :)).

Originally posted by milo
In the parable of Lazarus, God says that we have Moses and the Prophets. If that isn't enough to convince us, having Lazarus come back from the dead won't make any difference.
'twas no parable, and I think you've pulled the story from the wrong place. Lazarus was raised from the dead. And if Jesus himself rising from the dead isn't enough to convince people, nothing will.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
Labels are misleading. :(

That is true in all cases.

Energy is neither created nor destroyed. So indeed, what caused the so-called 'Big Bang'?

This question is one of the current hot topics in astrophysics. There are several competing theries, but most agree that there was stuff before our universe existed. Most theories say that there are many universes out there, and that a collison between two of them created ours. Physicists also agree than the dementions: length, width, hieght, time, etc; are separate entities from our universe, and also existed before our universe existed. They already proved the our universe had gone through a period of massive inflation in the early years of its life, meaning the previously accepted age of the universe is in fact wrong and has to be recalculated.
 
Originally posted by Wedge009
'twas no parable, and I think you've pulled the story from the wrong place. Lazarus was raised from the dead. And if Jesus himself rising from the dead isn't enough to convince people, nothing will.

I was referring to a different Lazarus. See the Gospel According to Luke 16:19, through the end of the chapter.
 
Originally posted by Meson
There are several competing theries...
Too much thinking for me. :)

Originally posted by milo
I was referring to a different Lazarus. See the Gospel According to Luke 16:19, through the end of the chapter.
Oh, yes forgot about that one. But the point is the same - Moses and the prophets for the people of the Old Testament, Jesus for the New.
 
Originally posted by Knitewing:
Too many other things in the bible turned out to be proven by archeology exactly as they were stated.

Well, I’m sure we can say the same about A Tale of Two Cities, as well as a lot of other thoughtful fiction, which is not to argue that the Bible is mostly fiction, only that the kind of proof you point to is hardly distinctive of only nonfiction. But I take your point to be that you are quite comfortable accepting the archaeological evidence as indirect proof for God’s stated role in the creation of life. How curious, then, that when it comes to evolution you will accept only direct, unquestionable proof.

No I find fault with scientist who say they have the answer when they have something that fits the situation but is not proven and then stick by it after it has been proven wrong.

I agree with milo: you simply don’t have a very good understanding of how science works. But I’ll take you seriously all the same. Based on your general complaint, I assume you don’t believe in gravity either, and you’ve concluded that the phenomenon science continues to assert must be gravity is really God personally “pushing-and-pulling” everything. I mean, science still lacks a settled theory of so-called quantum gravity. And Einstein’s old bugaboo, the cosmological constant (or “anti-gravity”), has unexpectedly reared its intriguing head again. In short, there are “holes” in our understanding of gravity. So, just like evolution, you really must have a problem believing in gravity, right?

I require proof period. Both of religion and of science. I would not put my faith in something such as religion unless I was sure it was right. . . . I researched the subject and found way to many holes in evolutionary theory and I found answers in Christ.

With all due respect, I suggest what you found in your religion was comfort, which is a great thing that science admittedly can’t always provide and sometimes even takes away. It’s indeed a scary world where nuclear war can occur.

What caused the big bang? They [the evolutionists/scientists] do not answer the questions raised by dating from background radiation. They do not answer the impossibility of everything happening just so that something as fragile as life could form . . . Religion has an answer. An all powerful creater.

No, it is more accurate to say that religion as well as mythology assert a certain kind of answer, usually metaphysical/moral, but without the explication and deeper understanding of the physical world that science strives over time to provide (albeit at the risk of sometimes overshadowing or diminishing those original “answers”). But also let us not gloss over the classic difference between faith and knowledge. Given a choice between believing and knowing, I (and I daresay quite a few others) would and should prefer “making the leap” toward knowing. (And if in the pursuit of science we mortals should ever come face-to-face with God, I’m sure we’ll still have no end of questions for her.)

No my friend, I have never come across any part of scripture I find false due to science.

Then I must stand by what I said originally, essentially that you will never take science seriously, no matter how strong the proofs, whenever it threatens to overthrow your religious beliefs. In sum, you present yourself as perfectly content to believe whatever your chosen religion believes (and that’s certainly your right).
 
I do not believe that there is anything fundamentally incompatible between Creation and Evolution, assuming that Creation is defined as God making the Universe and Humankind, and if Evolution is defined as the average genetic makeup of a population changing over many generations.

What really seems to be going on here is that we have been confused as to what is exactly meant by Creation and Evolution. Without forming a clear and distinct picture of each, we cannot compare them.

I would say that the biggest obstacle on the Creation side is the assumption that the Universe came into being approximately six thousand years ago over a 144 hour period as humans measure time. I believe it was the apostle Paul who wrote in one of his letter, "For God, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day". Such a statement would mean that the six days of Creation does not necessarily mean the period of six rotations of the Earth about its axis. Also, one must recall that, to the ancient Hebrews, any number above a few thousand was essentially considered to be infinity for normal purposes. God told Abraham that his descendents were to be "as many as the stars in the sky", but the human eye can only see about three thousand stars, not the many trillions that we see with our telescopes.

For those who do subscribe to the idea that Creation was only a few thousand years ago, I ask this: If the world is that young, then why does it appear to be so much older? Why do the rocks appear to be billions of years old, and why do we find the bones of creatures that died out long before humans became civilized enough to take note of them? If God created the world with these things in place, then why? Why would God seem to be lying to us about the age of the Earth? The statement "God works in strange ways" is a non-answer, claiming that we are not supposed to understand it. I cannot accept that God would lie to His children in such a way.

On the Evolution side, we must recall that Darwin's work was "On the Origin of Species, NOT "On the Origin of Terrestrial Life". Evolution does NOT claim to explain the origin of the first organisms. Rather, it attempts to explain how many diverse kinds of organisms can be descendants of the same organism, as Darwin speculated when he examined several species of birds in the Galapagos islands which were nearly identical save for the shapes of their beaks.

To those who accept what has by other posters been termed "micro-evolution" (the change of characteristics within the gene pool of a species) but deny that which has been termed "macro-evolution" (the generation of new species), let us examine the formal definition of "species". A species is any group of organsms capable of interbreeding and producing viable, fertile offspring. Therefore, horses and donkeys are separate species because the offspring produced as a result of their interbreeding--mules--are sterile and cannot reproduce. On the other hand, dogs (Canis familiaris, also called Canis domesticus), despite the wild variations in appearance and size of their many breeds, are considered to be a single species since any two breeds can be crossbred and produce fertile offspring.

Now, as for the generation of new species, it is generally accepted that many domesticated plants and animals are separate species from the wild varieties from which they are descended. Domestic corn, wheat, and rice, for example, cannot be cross-pollinated with the wild varieties. Among animals, we can again look to dogs as an example. Domestic dogs can interbreed with wild wolves, BUT their offspring are entirely sterile in most cases, therefore dogs and wolves are separate species. This stands as evidence that humans have, in fact, created new species through their selective breeding of plant and animal life.

There are those who would claim that this Artificial selection is completely different from the Natural selection proposed by Darwin, but the underlying concept is the same. Some members of a population will have a higher rate of survival and reproduction than other members because of an advantage conferred by there genetic makeup. In fact, from a Natural selection viewpoint, Humans can be viewed as a super-predator, killing off any members of a population which show certain traits, which leads to an increase in the proportion of members which lack those traits.

Now, as for where God fits into this picture, who is to say that it is not He who sets the environment which drives the selection of living organisms?
 
Originally posted by Knitewing
No I find fault with scientist who say they have the answer when they have something that fits the situation but is not proven and then stick by it after it has been proven wrong.
Now, wait a minute! You haven't provided any reasonable evidence in this thread, except for a few titles (and titles are useless unless you tell us exactly what the contents of the books argue - if I told you the Bible agrees with evolution, you'd demand a quote). On the other hand, you have, twice, showed that you are either gravely misinformed, or simply never bothered to look up our side of the argument. You talk about "Stanley and Miller", when they were in fact one person, and what you say about the conditions of his experiment are baseless allegations.
Furthermore, when I mentioned traces of life dated at 2.4 billion years, you told me this was science fiction because carbon dating has been proven wrong. I explained that carbon dating is only accurate until 40,000 years, and wasn't used to date stromatolites, but you simply ignored this.
It seems to me that you are focussing on things you can prove wrong, but when your "proof" is rejected as falsehood, you respond with silence - ironically, this is the very criticism anti-evolutionists level against pro-evolution scientists. No, Knitewing, there will indeed never be enough proof to change your mind.

Originally posted by Wedge009
How should it matter whether it is 'blind' or not? Faith is faith. Everyone has it, whether they know it or not.
It's not faith! It's genetics!

...Sorry, I couldn't resist that one, especially given the subject at hand ;).
 
Originally posted by Quarto


Furthermore, when I mentioned traces of life dated at 2.4 billion years, you told me this was science fiction because carbon dating has been proven wrong. I explained that carbon dating is only accurate until 40,000 years, and wasn't used to date stromatolites...

I believe that older fossils and rocks are dated using Uranium dating. Uranium, like all radioactive substances, decays at a certain rate depending on which substance--this rate, called the half life (since it is the time it takes for half of the substance to decay--after two half-lives, 3/4 of it has decayed, and so on) is related to the nature of the substance, and does not change except in cases where the radioactive material is concentrated enough for a nuclear chain reaction to occur.

Uranium has the longest half-life of any known material--its half-life is billions of years. The ratio of Uranium to its primary decay product--Lead--tells you how many half-lives have passed, and therefore, how old the rock is.

It is precisely because of this that I ask why some people continue to insist that the Earth was formed mere thousands of years ago. Why would God make the rocks look like they are billions of years old? Why would He lie to His children in this way?
 
Dating techniques come in many flavors. Some are suited for things that are billions of years old, some are not. Here are some non-carbon dating methods. I believe potassium-argon dating is used for things that are millions of years old. Feel free to tell us if any of these have been proven 'inaccurate' too.

Archaeomagnetism
Astronomical Dating
Dendrochronology
Electron Spin Resonance
Fission Track
Optically Stimulated Luminescence
Potassium-Argon Dating
Racemization
Thermoluminescence Dating
Uranium-Thorium Dating

For more on dating techniques, go here.
 
Originally posted by Ijuin

It is precisely because of this that I ask why some people continue to insist that the Earth was formed mere thousands of years ago. Why would God make the rocks look like they are billions of years old? Why would He lie to His children in this way?

Why do people believe the Earth is only several thousand years old?
Simple, really. Because a literal reading of Genesis is fairly straightforward on that point.
Why does it read that way?
Maybe it really is only several thousand years old?
(don't believe that one myself)
Different cultural considerations caused the Hebrew writers to express it in that fashion?
(most likely, imho)
Some other reason?
(always a possibility)

My own opinion on the subject?
Seriously, I really don't have one, except that the Earth is pretty old (yes, Virginia, there were dinosaurs), and that God was somehow involved.
Did God compress time, and it only lasted seven days objectively?
Don't really care.
Did God evolve man from the apes?
Don't really care.
Did God evolve everything but man, and then create man at the end of it all?
Don't really care.

Ultimately, worrying about it all is about as useful as trying to figure out how many angels fit on the head of a pin.
 
Originally posted by junior
Ultimately, worrying about it all is about as useful as trying to figure out how many angels fit on the head of a pin.

...unless you are a biologist, or studying to be one at school. In that case, I think the details of how different species have evolved and how they are related would be pretty important to you. Wouldn't you agree?
 
Originally posted by milo


...unless you are a biologist, or studying to be one at school. In that case, I think the details of how different species have evolved and how they are related would be pretty important to you. Wouldn't you agree?

Sorry, but I suppose the fact that I mentioned that 'I don't really care' didn't make it clear enough that it all applies to me, and not necessarily to others.
I suppose that if you're a pin manufacturer, you could also find a reason why it might be important to determine how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.
 
Hmmm...

The existence of god has already been proven by Aquinas, and if you haven't read it/heard it/understood it then you really should...

However, I don't really think that the existence of god is in question here anyway, but the origins of man/existence are...

I'm not sure how to add to this... Both sides of the argument are problematic at best, and I don't necessarily believe in either... (though if forced to choose, I would have to admit that evolution DOES offer a much better fitting explanation, which can be backed up strongly by solid facts)
 
God exists because LOAF says so.

Evolution exists because LOAF says so.

This thread is over because LOAF says so.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top