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#76 2002-12-22 11:18:36

Auqakah
Member
From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

"why would god make these 10 rules, and these 10 rules only, for salvation?  they are too human, and they are based on human experience and values."

I'm not actually sure about that at all. But probably just because those are the rules God wants us to follow. What other reason would be needed for an omnipotent being?

"it is pretty obvious that the celestial bodies came before people.  and as humanity advanced, would not god update it?  wouldnt he right "revisions" through someone.  or in these admittedely dark times, wouldnt he send a sign?"

Seeing as a large proportion of the globe believed the world was flat, and that the stars were in fact gods, its not all that obvious that the celestial bodies came first. And God doesn't need to update it, because everything was gotten down the first time round, right down to the very end. And He sent a sign; He sent His son, and we killed him. And these dark times are no more and no less than dark than a great many other dark times; so why now?

"and nuclear power being stretched to chernobyl being stretched to a star scorching the earth seems a stretch to me."

As I said, Chernobyl means 'Wormwood' in the Ukraine. Where is Chernobyl? What powers a star? Nuclear power, basically. And what was at Chernobyl? A nuclear reactor... or, to a slightly less advanced culture... a star, in a way. The star fell; ie, it failed; and scorched the Earth. Radiation. Just ask the sheep in the Highlands in Scotland that were around at the time.

"why would he allow us to destroy ourselves?"

We can do whatever we wish to do. We have free will. If we want to destroy ourselves, then it is our choice to do so. God gave us free will; what sense would it make to then take it away because we do stupid things?  smile


Ex Astra, Scienta

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#77 2002-12-22 11:46:18

soph
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Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

i meant make revisions to the bible, as people became more "intelligent"

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#78 2002-12-22 12:56:14

Auqakah
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From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

For what reason? As people become more 'intelligent', surely they can grasp the Bible better, and thus there is no need for revisions?


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#79 2002-12-22 14:14:02

Phobos
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Registered: 2002-01-02
Posts: 1,103

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Imagine if you had all the knowledge that ever was; you knew the history of both the past, the present, the future - not just for you, but for every person, animal, mineral, vegetable... every star, every speck of hydrogen. And on top of that, you created the whole shebang. Now, you decide to write this book.... to teach your creations about how they were created, and to give them some pointers and tips and hints (and laws) on how to live.

When you speak of the future are you speaking of it as an alterable state?  If the future as God has seen it can't be altered than giving people tips on how to live is pointless and the concept of freewill meaningless since our paths would essentially be pre-determined or known.  Before quantum mechanics came along a lot of scientists used to believe that it was theoretically possible to determine the fate of everything in the universe if we could plot with precision the location and speed of every atom and subatomic particle.  In that kind of universe,where everything can be predetermined in advance, freewill is an illusion.


To achieve the impossible you must attempt the absurd

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#80 2002-12-22 14:26:42

Auqakah
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From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Are you saying that an omnipotent, timeless, omniscient being (ie, God) cannot fortell many different possible timelines?

Seeing as God created the universe, I'm willing to bet that He knows every move that every molecule in the universe not only will make, but could make. Hence, the future is alterable.

But because of our nature, and because of group dynamics, too, the future, to a certain extent is unalterable - in a fluid kindof way. But for each individual, the future is dynamic, and so free-will still exists.


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#81 2002-12-23 11:26:54

Bill White
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Registered: 2001-09-09
Posts: 2,114

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

'Go forth and multiply, and be as many as the stars.' A prediction that one day, there will be space travel?

Heh!  tongue

This sure works for me. . .

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#82 2002-12-23 17:01:59

Preston
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Posts: 72

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

(somewhat off-topic) In a strictly non-spiritual world, there is no free will with quantum mechanics either. You may think you have free will, but every moment is a function of the previous state of the universe and random statistical processes.

Not that this rules out punishment, in the sense of preventing future crimes by someone who's demonstrated he's bad.

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#83 2002-12-23 17:16:11

soph
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Posts: 1,492

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

random statistical processes.

wouldnt that indicate a random element...your free will?  besides, your choices still affect the function, not the other way around.  your choices are in a sense, the function.  we can never predict the future completely-only in generalities, and possibilities.  if someone knew what was going to happen, they could always have a chance at changing it.

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#84 2002-12-23 18:42:15

Preston
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Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

If you stare at an electron cloud, your free will cannot help you to force the particle to appear in some exact chosen position when you measure the position. The 'random element' (which I called random statistical processes) are in fact truly random quantum mechanical probabilities. There are only probabilities so there is no free will.

Your choices affect the function but all of your choices are generated utterly by the Function -- your brain is electrons, protons, neutrons, EM waves. So, really, it's just the function determining everything.

A lack of free will says nothing about whether or not we can predict the future (which we cannot do).

Such is the case, in any event, in a spirit-less world.

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#85 2002-12-26 12:29:42

Auqakah
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From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

A lack of free will says nothing about whether or not we can predict the future (which we cannot do).

Ah - but we can predict the future. Or rather, we can predict that we can predict the future; in so far as the future is predictable in a limited way. Its entirely possible, in fact, to simulate every function and entity in the universe - its just not feasible.

However, with the emergence of a blossoming and relativley 'new' type of mathematics, things are looking up for a decent method of prediction of the future. At least on a quantum level, anyway. This exciting branch of mathematics is called quantum determinacy; and I think they might have a few experiments in that direction at CERN. If they don't, I give my permission for you to beat me senseless with witty remarks and sarcasm. wink

Such is the case, in any event, in a spirit-less world.

Uh-huh. Yes, in a spirit-less world. But, this isn't a spirit-less world. I point to several experiments in the last fifty years aimed at discovering if the spirit does, in fact, exist. They were succesful on at least one occasion; at the point of death, they monitored a volunteer (they didn't kill them just for the experiment, though). Their spirit weighed in at just under thirty pounds - it left approximatley six minutes after death. I'm sure you can find info about it online - I would provide a link, but due to having been online for a (large) number of years, I'm now absolutely awful at finding anything. And I'm lazy, too. But honest.  big_smile

You may think you have free will, but every moment is a function of the previous state of the universe and random statistical processes.

Uhm. If you can think that you have free will, then you do - if you didn't have free will then you wouldn't be able to think that you did. Its a bit like if you don't have legs, you can't run - discounting artificial attachments and the like, naturally.


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#86 2002-12-26 13:25:17

Preston
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Posts: 72

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

However, with the emergence of a blossoming and relativley 'new' type of mathematics, things are looking up for a decent method of prediction of the future. At least on a quantum level, anyway. This exciting branch of mathematics is called quantum determinacy; and I think they might have a few experiments in that direction at CERN. If they don't, I give my permission for you to beat me senseless with witty remarks and sarcasm.

Theoretically speaking, wave functions yield a probability distribution, so we can't even theoretically determine the future. As for this new thing you speak of, I don't know anything about it, but if it's true and the future can be predicted, then there would be no free will because you are destined to do something.

Their spirit weighed in at just under thirty pounds - it left approximatley six minutes after death.

If the spirit weighed thirty pounds, then it would be blatantly measureable. The mass of a person can be determined by knowing the density of various tissues, which are all basically about 1 g/cc, and the volume of the person. No, I think there is some very bad science at work here. If there are spirits then they should be nonphysical (thus nonmeasureable) considering that they have not been measured. So I'm not saying there aren't spirits, but in the case that there aren't then this lack of free will I speak of stands.

Uhm. If you can think that you have free will, then you do - if you didn't have free will then you wouldn't be able to think that you did. Its a bit like if you don't have legs, you can't run - discounting artificial attachments and the like, naturally.

Ah, but in the scenario I outlined, every thought is a function of physics (determinable or not, you have no control over it)which is out of your control. Thus every choice is also, and you may think you have free will, but it is an illusion.

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#87 2002-12-26 13:53:16

Auqakah
Member
From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Ah, but illusion is the only thing that truly exists for humanity, no? So therefore, from your perspective, if free will is an illusion, then it still exists nonetheless. If I don't know that I don't have it, then does it matter if I do?  wink

But thirty pounds might not have been the weight. Realistically speaking, it may well have been an illusion of weight created by the movement of a non-physical object. At any rate, something was going on. And if something was going on, then something happened. This is logic that cannot be argued with, don't you think?

And I know I have a spirit, because I can feel it. So there.


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#88 2003-01-12 15:16:59

Echus_Chasma
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From: Auckland, New Zealand
Registered: 2002-12-15
Posts: 190
Website

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Oh, and, incidentally - even the order of Creation in Genesis is correct. 'Sky', stars, Earth, moon, animals, humanity.

Yeah, maybe "And there was light" was the big bang. The Bible says that God created the universe in 6 days, well if you think about it, How long was a day then? Earth hadn't been completely made so maybe it wasn't 6 days of 24 hours like people think. How long is a universe 'day'? Billions of years, so maybe thats that the Bible is saying.

I dunno, its just a thought thats been on my mind for a while.
Hmm, If I said that a couple of hundred years ago I would've been hanged, probably faster than saying that the earth is round or the universe doesn't revolve around the earth.


[url]http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Echus[/url]

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#89 2003-01-13 15:54:25

TJohn
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Posts: 149

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Quote: Yeah, maybe "And there was light" was the big bang. The Bible says that God created the universe in 6 days, well if you think about it, How long was a day then? Earth hadn't been completely made so maybe it wasn't 6 days of 24 hours like people think. How long is a universe 'day'? Billions of years, so maybe thats that the Bible is saying.


I've thought about that as well, Echus_Chasma.   smile


One day...we will get to Mars and the rest of the galaxy!!  Hopefully it will be by Nuclear power!!!

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#90 2003-01-13 16:13:01

Echus_Chasma
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From: Auckland, New Zealand
Registered: 2002-12-15
Posts: 190
Website

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

I've thought about that as well, Echus_Chasma.

Great minds think alike.   big_smile  cool


[url]http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?Echus[/url]

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#91 2003-01-13 17:43:01

Auqakah
Member
From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Well, day and night in the Bible are generally treated as two seperate things - 40 days and nights comes up rather alot, for example. And one portion state, "Ten thousand years on Earth is but a day in Heaven". Considering that most people around that time couldn't count particuarly well, and few people ever see ten thousand anythings, then ten thousand might well represent a far larger number - and just be a conveniant large, yet comfortably small number.

You see, I've had that thought as well.  :;):


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#92 2003-02-09 18:40:43

nickmallory
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From: England
Registered: 2003-02-09
Posts: 2

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Once every rock and stream and tree needed its own ghost or god or spirit to animate it, then we decided that was silly but that a big sky god was needed to keep the sun going round the earth, then we found out that the earth went round the sun quite happily by itself so we needed a god to have created life, then we found out that life evolved quite happily by itself, so we were reduced to needing a god to light the blue touch paper of the big bang.  We're risen apes, not fallen angels.  Get over it.
  Science gradually enables us to discover that we're not special in any way.  There is no supernatural animation needed to create life or consciousness or anything like that and the soul simply doesn't exist.  Christians are atheists about the 499 other major gods out there, just take that extra logical step boys.  You believe that Zeus lives on top of Mount Olympus?  Neither do I, although the greek myths were a whole lot more fun.
  The question of life in the universe is the topic here and perhaps should be split into two.
   It's almost certain that there's lots of life out there.  There's a lot of stars in a lot of galaxies, there's planets and accretion disks everywhere we look, carbon and water are common as, well, dirt.  Life on earth, our only current example, began around 3.5 billion years ago, that is just as soon as it possibly could.  We've had multicelled life for around 500 million years, again just as soon as there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere to allow it.  We find life everywhere on earth, places we'd never have dreamed of thirty years ago.  The huge biomasses of primitive life in the rocks, teeming communities living around sea bed smokers utterly cut off from the sun.  We'll find life anywhere there's a rocky planet, a relatively stable orbit and liquid water. 
  There's life on Europa because that's got all three.
  Intelligent life is a different matter.  There was complex multi cell life here for 500 million years without any sign of higher intelligence before we evolved.  More than that we as homo sapiens only developed the ability to think intelligently e.g. scientifically a few hundred years ago for the most part.  It's easy to imagine an earth with no mankind (a comet strike here, a basalt melt there).  Easy to imagine us still living in caves.  If we'd let religion rule our thinking we'd still be riding around in ox carts burning people.  Evolution isn't a ladder of progress, we weren't inevitable.
    Let's all download the seti@home programme and help though.  We're not going to discover the answer to this question by sitting around discussing it.  That's why the greeks didn't build any starships.  Our signals are travelling out there, maybe someone's already picked them up and is on their way.  We have the technology to start sending out interstellar probes.  We have the ability to get to Europa, burrow under the ice and take a look.  Let's do it while we still can.
  The truth won't be found in the bible, it's a mistranslated story book about things which never happened.  Everything it says about cosmology, biology etc is simply wrong.  You can pretend it's all a metaphor (what's a day etc) but you won't learn anything. 
  No?  Tell me this.  God decides to kill everyone on earth for being naughty.  Every man, woman and little baby except for Noah's family.  Yes he does.  He makes it rain for forty days and nights.  Earth is covered in water.  Even the top of Everest.  That means, as Everest is 29,000 feet high that it rains about 725 feet every 24 hours during that period.  That means 30 feet an hour.  That means six inches of rain every minute.  For forty days and nights.  Meanwhile Noah is popping all over earth discovering Australia and picking up Koalas and Kangeroos and Jaguars from latin america and half a million kinds of beetle and whatabout all the fresh water fish..it's just nonsense isn't it?
   If we're going to call ourselves intelligent life we have to think intelligently.  That means rationally.  That means according to the evidence.  That means we stop talking about the bible, or the koran, or whatever, and get on with exploring the universe properly.

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#93 2003-02-18 19:11:44

Gennaro of Scandinavia
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From: Sweden
Registered: 2003-02-14
Posts: 13

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Phobos wrote:

Just recall all those people who not very long ago thought that stars having planets was a rare occurence in the universe.  A lot of people are eating their words as we speak.

I have never understood how one could believe this. All bodies in the universe are essentially made up of the same matter clumping together by gravity. As it is a general observation in nature that smaller and simpler things are more common than large and complicated ones, it goes without saying there ought to be far more planets than suns, far more smaller stars than bigger stars (which is empirically proven) and so forth.
Hence stars without any planets ought to have been considered the exception, not the other way around (especially when one considers how stars are form in the first place).

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#94 2003-02-19 10:19:38

noctis
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From: Oxford UK
Registered: 2002-09-14
Posts: 12

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

i think that the reason it was thought planetary systems were rare was that the mechanism for forming them was considered highly unusual, people didn't realise that they could simply accrete seperately in the disk that formed the star, without lots of coincidental peturbations of the accretion disk. It was thought that all the material in the original disk would usually condense to form the star...
or that they (planets) were even captured bodies completely independant of star formation...
all this shows how many people only seem to apply parsimony selectively, when it suits their (usually) pessimistic views
or maybe i'm just cynical
i've been lurking here for quite a while smile
but might as well start posting at some point smile


The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry

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#95 2003-02-19 18:07:29

noctis
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Posts: 12

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

although i do think there are lots of galactic environments where planetary orbits will not be stable


The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry

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#96 2003-02-19 20:04:32

Josh Cryer
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Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

I don't think anyone really believed planets were rare. We'd just not observed such creation, and henceforth never made any solid assumptions. This isn't the same as not believing they existed. It's just playing it safe.


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#97 2003-02-23 20:53:51

soph
Member
Registered: 2002-11-24
Posts: 1,492

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

all this shows how many people only seem to apply parsimony selectively, when it suits their (usually) pessimistic views
or maybe i'm just cynical

Oh, I completely agree.  I don't know how many times people at space.com have told me, "but we can't do that," or "that's a fantasy" when i have suggested something that scares them.

People are afraid of learning something new, that would change the world.  They've fallen into a certain world view, and they have certain wants and needs, and they don't move beyond those wants and needs.

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#98 2003-02-23 20:58:34

Josh Cryer
Moderator
Registered: 2001-09-29
Posts: 3,830

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

I don't know how many times people at space.com have told me, "but we can't do that," or "that's a fantasy" when i have suggested something that scares them.

Hey, I've got the same sort of flack here on these very forums. I guess we have something in common. smile


Some useful links while MER are active. [url=http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html]Offical site[/url] [url=http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/MM_NTV_Web.html]NASA TV[/url] [url=http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/mer2004/]JPL MER2004[/url] [url=http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mera/statustextonly.html]Text feed[/url]
--------
The amount of solar radiation reaching the surface of the earth totals some 3.9 million exajoules a year.

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#99 2003-03-26 17:09:39

Auqakah
Member
From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

Once every rock and stream and tree needed its own ghost or god or spirit to animate it, then we decided that was silly but that a big sky god was needed to keep the sun going round the earth, then we found out that the earth went round the sun quite happily by itself so we needed a god to have created life, then we found out that life evolved quite happily by itself, so we were reduced to needing a god to light the blue touch paper of the big bang.  We're risen apes, not fallen angels.  Get over it.
  Science gradually enables us to discover that we're not special in any way.  There is no supernatural animation needed to create life or consciousness or anything like that and the soul simply doesn't exist.  Christians are atheists about the 499 other major gods out there, just take that extra logical step boys.  You believe that Zeus lives on top of Mount Olympus?  Neither do I, although the greek myths were a whole lot more fun.
  The question of life in the universe is the topic here and perhaps should be split into two.
   It's almost certain that there's lots of life out there.  There's a lot of stars in a lot of galaxies, there's planets and accretion disks everywhere we look, carbon and water are common as, well, dirt.  Life on earth, our only current example, began around 3.5 billion years ago, that is just as soon as it possibly could.  We've had multicelled life for around 500 million years, again just as soon as there was enough oxygen in the atmosphere to allow it.  We find life everywhere on earth, places we'd never have dreamed of thirty years ago.  The huge biomasses of primitive life in the rocks, teeming communities living around sea bed smokers utterly cut off from the sun.  We'll find life anywhere there's a rocky planet, a relatively stable orbit and liquid water. 
  There's life on Europa because that's got all three.
  Intelligent life is a different matter.  There was complex multi cell life here for 500 million years without any sign of higher intelligence before we evolved.  More than that we as homo sapiens only developed the ability to think intelligently e.g. scientifically a few hundred years ago for the most part.  It's easy to imagine an earth with no mankind (a comet strike here, a basalt melt there).  Easy to imagine us still living in caves.  If we'd let religion rule our thinking we'd still be riding around in ox carts burning people.  Evolution isn't a ladder of progress, we weren't inevitable.
    Let's all download the seti@home programme and help though.  We're not going to discover the answer to this question by sitting around discussing it.  That's why the greeks didn't build any starships.  Our signals are travelling out there, maybe someone's already picked them up and is on their way.  We have the technology to start sending out interstellar probes.  We have the ability to get to Europa, burrow under the ice and take a look.  Let's do it while we still can.
  The truth won't be found in the bible, it's a mistranslated story book about things which never happened.  Everything it says about cosmology, biology etc is simply wrong.  You can pretend it's all a metaphor (what's a day etc) but you won't learn anything. 
  No?  Tell me this.  God decides to kill everyone on earth for being naughty.  Every man, woman and little baby except for Noah's family.  Yes he does.  He makes it rain for forty days and nights.  Earth is covered in water.  Even the top of Everest.  That means, as Everest is 29,000 feet high that it rains about 725 feet every 24 hours during that period.  That means 30 feet an hour.  That means six inches of rain every minute.  For forty days and nights.  Meanwhile Noah is popping all over earth discovering Australia and picking up Koalas and Kangeroos and Jaguars from latin america and half a million kinds of beetle and whatabout all the fresh water fish..it's just nonsense isn't it?
   If we're going to call ourselves intelligent life we have to think intelligently.  That means rationally.  That means according to the evidence.  That means we stop talking about the bible, or the koran, or whatever, and get on with exploring the universe properly.

Life is so simple to the uber-sceptic with an 'open mind'.

There is no black and white, you see. I was watching a television program, it doesn't matter which one (especially as I can't remember anyway), but I recall it was a science fiction.

And there was this alien in it; some superbeing type thingy. It wasn't a particuarly great story, but there was this one line that made sense to me, in a way:

"Those humans. They put so much faith in gravity."

And it struck me that there was just an immense amount of irony in that statement. After all, it could actually be mere probability that things tend to 'fall' more quickly when near objects of larger mass. What if, one day, something /didn't/ fall?

Well, actually, I remember reading an Isaac Asimov essay on that very subject. I'm afraid I don't remember the exact essay (although I have a sneaking suspicion it was one from the /Gold/ compilation), but he made that very same point: what if gravity is mere probability? What if it all is?

And therefore, isn't our belief in gravity and the universe of physics that we're building to describe the universe around us merely, in itself, a form of faith? Are we not trusting that the universe, in fact, has some form of order? And therefore, if we accept that it has some form of fundamental underlying order, then is it not equally possible that that order is a created and constructed one, and not a random one.

And really, you have to admit its kinda unlikely that ALL THIS just happened to come about.

Fallen angels? Um. No, that would be Lucifer.

Anyway. Apes? Really? Speak for yourself, if thats the case. And show me some proof. Frankly, 'we're genetically similar and there is a possible genetic link in a long line of supposition based psuedo-science' just does not cut it when a perfectly viable other option exists: everything was created, and things change /because they had to be adaptable/.  I'm sorry, but humans descended from apes is ridiculous, no matter how much a geezer with a beard proclaims it to be so. Darwin was insane with grief from his wifes death (originally being a Christian), and blamed God for her sad demise, setting out to 'disprove his existance'. Now that in itself proves the man was not sane or rational; if he blamed God, then why disprove God's existance? That would prove himself wrong, and God right. Makes no sense to me, really, but I'm getting off subject.

Apes are... apes. Humans and apes are different in a multitude of ways (although mostly not biological). Each simian species has some human-like traits, but none have anywhere near all - and I ask you, if apes became men, why are there still apes?

Why didn't the others change? And don't give me that 'not enough protein' baloney. You can get protein from ant-meat, which many simian species eat. So. Tell my that is?



Moving on.




The killing thing, huh. Well. If you think about it, and everyone is going to be living... well, forever... eternal life means that, remember... then surely 'death' is only relative, anyway? Especially when you knew you'd kill them, because you knew they'd act incorrectly and enrage you in the first place because you knew... you see the problem with trying to figure that out rationally when eternal life is brought into it?

And consider this.

You want to get across the idea that you killed everyone on the planet, and it was terrible, and only a few people survived, and make it credible over several hundred years /at the least/, despite the fact that /you know/ that social and technological change are eventually going to be rife?

Thats a helluva task. So a flood is a good way to describe it; floods are terrifying to farming cultures, which the majority of the cultures in existence were then. And, as scientists have noted, there are many, many flood 'myths'. Now, I imagine most aren't myths (as myths rarely aren't based in fact), but the fact is that there ice covered this Earth under two hundred thousand years ago. And humanity existed under two hundred thousand years ago. And where the heck did that ship that fits the exact parameters of the ark appear from on Mount Ararat in Turkey? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

Now, consider: how would a desert culture from the 2nd or 3rd century understand /ice/ covering the /world/? Water is a stretch, for starters. But /ice/?! So, a flood, then: the world was flooded, and all the little animals were saved by Noah. Well, no, maybe not. Maybe the thing was altered for easier consumption. Maybe the damned animals were preserved in embryionic form, because God gave Noah the knowledge to be a geneticist. Who knows other than God, and Noah's family, and a coupla doves, anyway?

My point is that you shouldn't rubbish /my/ beliefs any more than /I/ should rubbish yours. And believe me, I could in a picosecond.

Also, life existed right from the moment the planet was formed (see the BBC News archives for a 3.9 billion year old crystal that was found /with/ bacteria preserved inside, roughly July last year time).

I don't dispute the possibilities of how life and the universe was created.

But I /do/ rather dislike people who proclaim their own beliefs as cast-iron fact when no such fact exists.

And I know to what you refer when you say exploring the universe properly:

a. If you dont understand it, and cant see it, it doesnt exist.

Well, I'm sorry, but I follow

1. If it could exist, or it might exist, then it probably exists unless
a) there is something else that might exist that negates the possibility that the other thing might exist

And that, my friend, is the universe in a nutshell.


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#100 2003-03-26 17:14:46

Auqakah
Member
From: England
Registered: 2002-07-13
Posts: 175

Re: Is there any point in wondering? - Isn't the question answered, after all?

And I just thought of something.

Someone here mentioned that we're intelligent life - and the we should think rationally because of that.

I'm afraid thats not really true, though, is it? I mean, we aren't intelligent life. We're /emotional/ life.


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