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  #41  
Old December 26th 05, 02:35 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Stephen M. Zumbo:
Why not accept that they were suddenly
created by God then?


Chris L Peterson:
Because that isn't supported by the physical evidence.


Stephen M. Zumbo:
That actually makes more sense, given an omniscient
and omnipotent God, than blind chance and vast time scales.


Chris L Peterson:
That is a _huge_ given, "an omniscient and omnipotent God"! You seem to
think that such a given is no big deal. To me, it seems far less likely
than the absence of such a creature. In any case, if we accept your
given we might as well simply stop thinking completely- there can be no
rules in such a universe.

FYI, "blind chance" is in no way a component of evolutionary theory. If
you believe that, you don't understand it at all.


The question that Mr. Zumbo's proposition raises in my mind is this: If
the god he describes suddenly created all living things, and if he is
the kind of god that he is widely purported to be, why has he lied to
us by planting a vast quantity of evidence -- and why did he grant us
the intelligence to discover and understand the evidence -- that leads
to certain inescapable conclusions about everything from the behaviour
of subatomic particles to the evolution of life on Earth to the
evolution of the Universe itself?

If he wanted to hide from us the knowledge of the nature of reality,
why didn't he limit our intelligence to that of, let us say, an lesser
ape? Sure, the lesser apes are pretty smart in their way, but in the
absence of evolution, the greater apes like us would not be here to
figure out how the world started, how it came to be what it is, and
what it is likely to become in the future, and then the true God
wouldn't have to lie to us. In short, if evolution is untrue, the god
you describe is not the true God, for he is a habitual liar. Could it
be that we have gotten (read: "evolved") out of control and surprised
God with our prodigious intellect? A false god -- and his followers (or
his inventors, as the case may be) might be pretty upset about this,
but I think that a true God would be quite tickled and very proud of
us.

But it boils down to this, and I want an answer, and everyone I know
who thinks like I do wants an answer. We are in no way concerned with
what Mr. Zumbo believes and practices in his church, his home, his
private life. Sure, we have a moral and legal obligation to teach Mr.
Zumbo's children the truth as best we can in the public schools, but
Mr. Zumbo also has the right to tell his children to ignore what we
teach. Now why isn't Mr. Zumbo satisfied to leave /us/ alone as well?
What drives him to try force his beliefs on the rest of us?

Davoud

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  #42  
Old December 26th 05, 04:30 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Davoud wrote:

snip

I think that a true God would be quite tickled and very proud of
us.


I've always liked this idea.

But it boils down to this, and I want an answer, and everyone I know
who thinks like I do wants an answer. We are in no way concerned with
what Mr. Zumbo believes and practices in his church, his home, his
private life. Sure, we have a moral and legal obligation to teach Mr.
Zumbo's children the truth as best we can in the public schools, but
Mr. Zumbo also has the right to tell his children to ignore what we
teach. Now why isn't Mr. Zumbo satisfied to leave /us/ alone as well?
What drives him to try force his beliefs on the rest of us?


His religion. Sounds flippant but it's not. Part of their obligation
as evangelicals is to, well evangelize. Evangelicals are out to save
souls. To hell (literally) with whatever science, culture or species
gets in their way. It actually has a parallel in evolution, selfish
DNA. The gist is that DNA has evolved to prioritize its reproduction
through any means. Even the host organism can be sacrificed for
reproduction (black widow and some mantid males come to mind).

Shawn
  #43  
Old December 26th 05, 07:15 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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See

Radiometric Dating and the Geological Time Scale
Circular Reasoning or Reliable Tools?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dating.html

and

http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html

K. Michael M.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Stephen M. Zumbo wrote:

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/


Thanks for the link. I'll take a look at more of it in future, but I looked
at their page on radiometric dating already, and I saw no answer to the
basic unproven assumption that the rate of decay has been constant or
started at a known amount and was never altered. Without knowing these
starting points or changes, dating of rocks or fossils in the rocks is
impossible. Basically, the present is NOT the key to the past. This is
also implied in the Genesis model, since God rested from and finished
creation after six days. The processes in action today are fundamentally
different.


  #44  
Old December 26th 05, 12:42 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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wrote in message oups.com...
Stephen M. Zumbo wrote:
[...]
Where is evolution visible daily?


Naturally selected drug resistent bacteria?

--
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Lat +42° 11' 06.7"
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http://mysite.verizon.net/hiltonevan...troimaging.htm
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http://www.chempensoftware.com

  #45  
Old December 26th 05, 02:29 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Default Sad Christmas Story

Define the magic (or lack of it) in music.
Is music childish nonsense?

Reality may well be the true magic.
Its hidden secrets lie just a few minutes ahead of us into the far
future.
Only familiarity and cynicism dulls its sharp edges.

Chris.B

  #46  
Old December 27th 05, 03:06 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 00:39:37 -0500, Davoud wrote, in
part:

I can't help but
imagine what might have happened if Mr. MacRobert had been a budding
biologist at age 7:


In *that* case, a puppy would have gotten hurt. Being intelligent at a
young age is *not* a bad thing.

Of course, I'm biased. It was at about that age that I realized that the
subject matter of the religion class at the Catholic school I attended,
unlike that of the classes in arithmetic and spelling and so on, was of
a controversial nature, and was not universally recognized as true by
the academic community.

Yes. Never mind jolly old St. Nick. The Big Guy in the Sky.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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  #47  
Old December 27th 05, 03:10 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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On 24 Dec 2005 07:25:54 GMT, elaich wrote, in part:

Yet, grown adults disbelieve intelligent design, which is apparent in all
we see, and believe the myth of evolution,


LOL!

It's the lies people are fed from childhood that cause them to take
nonsense like "intelligent design" seriously. As intelligent people well
know.

John Savard
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  #48  
Old December 27th 05, 03:18 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 16:28:23 -0800, "Mij Adyaw" wrote, in
part:

I believe in evolution. I just believe that God created and directed
evolution. I wonder how many folks in this newsgroup share my belief?


I believe a *few* things myself.

I believe that consciousness is a real phenomenon. Partly, that is
because I myself am conscious. If consciousness _were_ an "illusion", as
some have claimed, exactly who is it that is perceiving the illusion?
Not only is it real, but it is something we haven't yet explained; we
don't know how either matter, or energy, or pattern can be conscious.

The closest mechanistic analogue to a human mind, though, is none of
those - but instead *an executing instance* of a program rather than the
program itself. I don't think we need the supernatural - but we need to
go considerably farther into the natural than we have done.

I believe that right and wrong are real pre-existing things, and like
the laws of mathematics and logic, what _is_ right is not something we
can decide for ourselves to suit our own convenience.

But that's about as far as I go into "religion". Nature, though with
much beauty, is uncaring and unethical. It does not value what is right
for thinking beings to value. We perceive and understand nature, and we
act, with the powers we have, if we act rightly, in a responsible and
moral fashion. Let us simply do our duty, and not compose stories to
ensnare the minds of others.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
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  #49  
Old December 27th 05, 05:00 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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Default Sad Christmas Story

John Savard:
I believe a *few* things myself.

I believe that consciousness is a real phenomenon. Partly, that is
because I myself am conscious. If consciousness _were_ an "illusion", as
some have claimed, exactly who is it that is perceiving the illusion?
Not only is it real, but it is something we haven't yet explained; we
don't know how either matter, or energy, or pattern can be conscious.


I would imagine that yours is the majority view. I don't know if
consciousness is real or simulated. Simulated by what? I don't know.
Ourselves, maybe? A simulation simulating itself? I do know that there
are serious thinkers -- not the kind of fringe scientists who are
testifying against evolution -- who wonder if the entire universe might
be an illusion or a simulation. That to me is a surreal idea, and I
love the surreal, in art and in art's imitator, life.

I believe that right and wrong are real pre-existing things, and like
the laws of mathematics and logic, what _is_ right is not something we
can decide for ourselves to suit our own convenience.


I don't think it's that simple. I think that the concept of right and
wrong, moral and immoral, evolved along with homo sapiens because good
behaviour provided an evolutionary advantage. At a certain point in our
evolution, however (quite a few thousand years ago) we achieved a level
of intellectual development at which we could make conscious, often
arbitrary, decisions about right-wrong and moral-immoral to suit our
own purposes. Our judgements on right and wrong are often laughably
wrong (if that makes sense). In 2001 bad people launched a heinous and
cowardly attack on our country, killing over 3,000 people. We went to
war, spent billions, and killed (so far) over 35,000 people ourselves
in the name of fighting these bad people. Yet over 400,000 Americans
are killed by tobacco products each year (CDC, Univ. of Penn.) at a
cost of $150 billion (lost productivity, health care) and another
42,000 (D.O.T.) are killed in automobile accidents. That's 110 9/11's
per annum. Where's the war on tobacco and auto accidents!?

But that's about as far as I go into "religion". Nature, though with
much beauty, is uncaring and unethical. It does not value what is right
for thinking beings to value.


This is the hardest concept for people to grasp. Personally I am
stimulated by the idea that we're on our own, that the universe doesn't
care one whit about us. There is, I think ample evidence for this on
earth, where we believe that the laws of nature are the same as in the
rest of the universe.

Yet I'm not an atheist. Nearly everyone I know who describes himself as
an atheist is an evangelist for atheism with an ax to grind -- is
trying to prove the unprovable as much as the religious fundamentalist.
Stephen Hawking falls into this category, as do some of the denizens of
SAA

My own belief, to the extent that it can be put into words, appeared on
this web page of mine http://www.davidillig.com/roofsthatopen.shtml
[Our Creator is] "...the Great Goddess That Created Everything and then
Promptly Left for Parts Unknown." I wasn't entirely joking. I'm told
that some people call this "Deism," but I'm really not up on all these
terms and their meanings.

Davoud

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  #50  
Old December 27th 05, 05:10 AM posted to sci.astro.amateur
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I know several intelligent folks at Fermi Lab that have PhDs and believe in
ID. Your statement is therefore incorrect and without basis in facts.

"John Savard" wrote in message
...
On 24 Dec 2005 07:25:54 GMT, elaich wrote, in part:

Yet, grown adults disbelieve intelligent design, which is apparent in all
we see, and believe the myth of evolution,


LOL!

It's the lies people are fed from childhood that cause them to take
nonsense like "intelligent design" seriously. As intelligent people well
know.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
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