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#51
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Sad Christmas Story
Stephen M. Zumbo wrote:
Avian flu is not evolution of one species into another! It's painfully obvious your understanding of evolution is flawed and you haven't even bothered to visit the site: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ so it's a waste of everyone's time to discuss the matter with you until you educate yourself. Have a Happy New Year. |
#52
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Sad Christmas Story
Mij Adyaw wrote:
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. Now there's a seriously effective argument from the simpleton top-poster. Greg -- "Destroy your safe and happy lives before it is too late The battles we fought were long and hard Just not to be consumed by rock and roll" - The Mekons |
#53
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Sad Christmas Story
Davoud wrote:
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 Thoughtful post. I am frequently surprised by how much we tend to agree on many fundamentals but disagree on their implications. One of the nicest aspects of life is that we can never really know, you know? Our inability to prove ourselves and our existence is one of the reasons why I suspect that we are more than the sum of our parts. You oughtta read Voltair, if you haven't already. He came to many of your conclusions. There's a story (perhaps apocryphal) that an extraordinarily beautiful sunrise caused him to blurt out a profession of faith in the creator of such grandeur. He is said to have exclaimed, "I believe! I believe!... As to Madame and her son, however, that is another matter." Warmest, Chris (Not a Deist) |
#54
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Sad Christmas Story
You're a brick wall. All the group members should realize that the requests for data which you creationoid types routinely request and are duly deluged with (pun intended) will in turn be duly ignored or discounted regardless of their unassailable scientific qualities. Why don't you stop posting this on a science news group. Stick to astronomy and have a Merry Christmas. Shawn Shawn, I enjoy amateur astronomy and reading the observational posts here. I didn't start this thread. I responded to this thread because I strongly disagree with the evolutionary viewpoint that is pervasive in science today, for the specific reasons I have mentioned in previous posts. I especially strongly disagree with the unproven assumptions at the bottom of the evolutionary view summed up in the statement, "The present is the key to the past," quoting the father of uniformatarianism, James Hutton and Charles Lyell. Is it not true, if the present is NOT the key to the past (which is what the Bible indicates by saying "God finished the work of creation...ended all the work He had done." Genesis 2:2-4. and by causing a worldwide flood which would have catastrophic consequences and totally change the Earth systems.), then the evolutionary view is NOT unassailable and should be challenged. Scientists who hold the creationist view are trying to understand what is seen in the Universe today when matter and energy are only conserved not created, while admitting to the assumption that God didn't lie when gave us the story of creation in Genesis 1-3, and other aspects of science alluded to in Scripture. JOB 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. I'm not an expert, but I'll keep trying to learn and present this view when I can or think I should. I hope people will respond thoughtfully. For now, I'm off to work for the day. Steve |
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Sad Christmas Story
Chris.B writes:
Obsessive bottom-posting about top-posting may lead to being crushed beneath an avalanche of posts ... namely those to which you responded by bottom-posting obsessively about top-posting thereby undermining the whole structure of newsgroup netiquette leading to a fatal collapse! Greg Now there's a seriously effective argument from the simpleton top-poster. G.T. wrote Now be NICE! ;-) |
#56
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Sad Christmas Story
Stephen M. Zumbo wrote:
snip which is what the Bible indicates by saying "God finished the work of creation...ended all the work He had done." Genesis 2:2-4. and by causing a worldwide flood which would have catastrophic consequences and totally change the Earth systems. snip God didn't lie when gave us the story of creation in Genesis 1-3, and other aspects of science alluded to in Scripture. This statement illustrates the gulf between science and blind faith. Before making such a statement, a scientist would have to have ample peer reviewed data to support each of the following: God exist? honest/liar? s/he it? story of creation? aspects of science alluded to in scripture??? or a really big grant. :-) The fundamentalist says it with absolute certainty and no evidence. JOB 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. Can we start calling it the "Holey Bible"? I just don't see how biblical literalists keep from going insane. Then again maybe they don't. Shawn |
#57
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Sad Christmas Story
"Stephen M. Zumbo" wrote in
: wrote in message oups.com... Stephen M. Zumbo wrote: I used to believe in evolution, basically because in grade school and high school and college that's all I was taught. Because that's what is displayed in museums as though it is a proven fact. It would appear you were taught poorly. To learn what it really is: 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. If the rate of decay was changed to account for a young earth i.e 6000 years versus 4.6 billion years. The decay rate would have had to have averaged about 766,000 times the current rate. That would have meant the rate of heat production in the Earth's interior was much too great to account for the modern temperature profile. Where ever radioactive decay is observed in the debris of distant type I supernova, the decay goes completely by the book. How would stars like the Sun have possibly worked if nuclear reactions were 766,000 times different (and remember that is the average - no change at all has been noted since radioactivity was discovered). As far as evolution goes here are some good resources: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ Whales: http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/ Hominids: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ Horses: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/horses/horse_evol.html Transitional fossils: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html Tree of life project: http://www.tolweb.org/tree/ http://www.tolweb.org/tree?group=Life_on_Earth Klazmon. SNIP |
#58
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Sad Christmas Story
"Stephen M. Zumbo" wrote in
: One quick and simple example that's affecting the world: avian flu. Avian flu is not evolution of one species into another! It is exactly what I said in my earlier post: variability within a type of living thing: viruses. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html Klazmon. |
#59
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Sad Christmas Story
On Mon, 26 Dec 2005 23:00:31 -0500, Davoud wrote, in
part: That's 110 9/11's per annum. Where's the war on tobacco and auto accidents!? There *is* a war on auto accidents - we fight it as best we can, without eliminating cars, because they are *useful* to us. As for tobacco, to compare it to September 11, you would have to count only deaths from second-hand smoke. John Savard http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html _________________________________________ Usenet Zone Free Binaries Usenet Server More than 140,000 groups Unlimited download http://www.usenetzone.com to open account |
#60
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Sad Christmas Story
Good post Steven. This group also needs the Christian perspective.
"Stephen M. Zumbo" wrote in message ... You're a brick wall. All the group members should realize that the requests for data which you creationoid types routinely request and are duly deluged with (pun intended) will in turn be duly ignored or discounted regardless of their unassailable scientific qualities. Why don't you stop posting this on a science news group. Stick to astronomy and have a Merry Christmas. Shawn Shawn, I enjoy amateur astronomy and reading the observational posts here. I didn't start this thread. I responded to this thread because I strongly disagree with the evolutionary viewpoint that is pervasive in science today, for the specific reasons I have mentioned in previous posts. I especially strongly disagree with the unproven assumptions at the bottom of the evolutionary view summed up in the statement, "The present is the key to the past," quoting the father of uniformatarianism, James Hutton and Charles Lyell. Is it not true, if the present is NOT the key to the past (which is what the Bible indicates by saying "God finished the work of creation...ended all the work He had done." Genesis 2:2-4. and by causing a worldwide flood which would have catastrophic consequences and totally change the Earth systems.), then the evolutionary view is NOT unassailable and should be challenged. Scientists who hold the creationist view are trying to understand what is seen in the Universe today when matter and energy are only conserved not created, while admitting to the assumption that God didn't lie when gave us the story of creation in Genesis 1-3, and other aspects of science alluded to in Scripture. JOB 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. I'm not an expert, but I'll keep trying to learn and present this view when I can or think I should. I hope people will respond thoughtfully. For now, I'm off to work for the day. Steve |
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