Take the classic example in high school textbooks, the short-necked giraffe. Here is the picture of the happy short-necked giraffe family. They seem to be doing quite fine, maintaining their population without apparent trouble. Then along comes the mutant giraffe with the slightly longer neck. Let me just inject here that the giraffe didn't suddenly develop scales or feathers or something completely uncharacteristic - just one body part was slightly longer than usual.
Seems like a pretty good example. I'm just waiting for you to "drop the bomb" and explain how this is a hoax or something, though... doesn't it sort of go against your previously-posted idea that God created giraffes exactly as they are?
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Actually thats not correct, at least according the theory of evolution as I understand it - humans did not evolve from apes - both lines evolved from a common ancestor which is not the same thing. And I think an important distinction.
The point remains though. The creatures that evolved to become humans were exposed to a different environment than those that became apes. It's not as if species A became species B which completely dominated the need for species A (or a subsequent species C). That does happen, but the diversity of life forms suggests that as often as not, the new species survives in a different niche from the old species.
I think they are - those who have chosen and to dwell in the most remote and inaccessible regions - have the best opportunity to survive. The threat they face is encroachment by a more aggressive species - by no means a new threat - humans are just better at it. The other thing to remember is time frames - measured in generations not years - the number of generations the great apes have had to respond to this newest threat man is miniscule - not a fair assesment of the process of evolution (at least as I was taught).
Sorry, I was responding to the point made about questioning evolution because we don't see it going on, not actually expressing a belief that it has stopped. It was a rhetorical device.
The nature of storytelling especially to make a point is exaggeration - did Jesus turn water into wine or was the force of his personality such that those present were intoxicated and revelled as if drinking wine - a scribe could easily take such a liberty. Healing? There are faith healers today. Miraculous events. Most importantly though I would like to think that we have evolved outr thinking has evolved - the need for miracles diminished. Though not the need for faith. Faith is a source of character and moral strength - something we desperately need (IMO). But ironically, miracles diminish faith - they may enhance belief, but not faith. An interesting topic for discussion - but I am too poor a typist.
Again, that was meant as a rhetorical point because the view expressed was biblical literalism, which doesn't leave a lot of room for believing that the Jesus actually did not turn water into wine.
Where did you get that most people believe in some sort of higher power - when you add christians, jews, and moslems together you have far more than 1/4 believing in the same god and mjuch of the same philosophy - and even practice.
Again, I was addressing the biblical literalist argument. 3/4 of the world do not believe in Christianity. In generations past, according to the bible, god has allegedly rained fire/flooded the world/etc when his chosen people are disproportionately under-represented here on earth. Even if the whole hell-and-brimstone god isn't your bag, you've got to admit that the frequency of miracles has decreased dramatically from even the days of the New Testament. The point I was attempting to make is that if you believe the bible is literally true, and are troubled by the lack of modern day evidence for evolution, shouldn't you be equally troubled by the lack of modern day evidence for that literal truth?
Just a neat aside I once posted improperly:
Would this be considered a potential sign of chimpanzee evolution?
Wanted to be a primatologist in my early teens. Got close enough to the job to decide against.
Just a neat aside I once posted improperly:
Would this be considered a potential sign of chimpanzee evolution?
Wanted to be a primatologist in my early teens. Got close enough to the job to decide against.
I especially like that, when you click the link, the top of the upcoming browser window reads "Chimps make weapons to hunt scientists." If that's true, it's clear evidence to me that chimps are Christians who believe in creationism and are angry that anyone could think that mere humans are somehow related to them.
I especially like that, when you click the link, the top of the upcoming browser window reads "Chimps make weapons to hunt scientists." If that's true, it's clear evidence to me that chimps are Christians who believe in creationism and are angry that anyone could think that mere humans are somehow related to them.
lol That's a great story idea, Kirth. Start the story off with behavioralist studying chimps from behind a deer screen and then, barring anything remotely sci fi happening, the chimps methodically enact a fairly simple ploy to distract, overpower, and imprison the scientists. A ruse that would never work except for the scientists' false belief that they truly understood their quarry's limitations.
Planet of the Apes touched a little on that, "You, human? Descended from me? Aw Naw! I ain't tryin' to hear that noise, son!"
Hey, Kirth has KIR which backwards is RIK which is the last four letter of your first name. Was that on purpose or am I just beautiful-minding myself into a slow comforting insanity?
Kahoolin, you make an interesting point. Again, I don't agree necessarily but at least you have a philosophy to support your beliefs. Thanks for sharing it. It's very interesting.
Well, I wouldn't say it's a fully developed philosophy yet, more of a theory at the moment that is gaining ground the more I think about it. But thanks, I am also enjoying this discussion.
Hey, Kirth has KIR which backwards is RIK which is the last four letter of your first name. Was that on purpose or am I just beautiful-minding myself into a slow comforting insanity?
You have WAY too much time on your hands, Jade! Like when Dave Barry looks at politician's names and rearranges the letters to spell "I love weasel phlegm" or something.
Kirth Gersen is a character from Jack Vance (as Erik Mona was the first on the boards to correctly identify).
Actually, Kirth, I never denied that natural selection exists or has resulted in modifications to individual species. The textbook example is just that - an example. I'm not sure if even evolutionists have any evidence that giraffes were originally short-necked or not. It's meant (in its placement in textbooks) as an example of what *could* have happened (I think) and not as evidence of what *did* unequivocally happen. Whether the short-necked giraffe ever existed and/or mutated is not really the point. But I'd be perfectly willing to believe giraffes were once short-necked and then mutated into long-necked creatures. This doesn't conflict with my beliefs whatsoever because the giraffe would still be a giraffe, not some different species. And the original giraffe would still have been created by God.
Again, this is just my personal beliefs based on my own personal interpretation of scripture. I'm not asking anyone to substitute my judgement for their own, I'm just sharing my opinion.
The discussion on the selection of scriptures is tainted by too much DiVinci Code reading, it would appear. Many of the statements made here are completely false and inaccurate. The Jews don't accept Jesus as the Messiah so their scripture is mostly what Christians call the Old Testament. It's not, strictly speaking, a completely different text. The New Testament was written by disciples and followers of Jesus who witnessed the events or were partnered (worked in ministry with) those that did (Paul didn't convert until Jesus had already ascended but he doesn't talk about Jesus's ministry, only his own in founding the early church). But the entire Bible is God's Word which He inspired the various authors to put onto paper (or papyrus, whatever). That's how it's infallible.
The council which combined the separate scriptures into one book (NOT the council at Neceime, BTW) did not pick and choose individual verses from available texts. And the criteria was not politically motivated or denominational, it was simply if the (human)author was evident and known to have witnessed/participated in the recorded events. Of course, Moses was not present at creation but Genesis's inclusion in the pentatuke (sorry, spelling?) had never been questioned and since Jesus quotes Genesis in the New Testament no one disputed its veracity (at the time, anyway). It wasn't like people brought a bunch of "holy" books to this meeting and then a cluster of "experts" fished through the pile in a "this one stays, this one goes" manner. The books brought together were never questioned - it was simply a matter of putting everything together into one book. I don't know, like taking different formerly-marketed Beatles albums and combining all those songs onto one compilation album (without any previously unreleased music).
At any rate, one can't argue another into belief - and I'm not trying to. One either believes it or doesn't. Kinda simple really.
You have WAY too much time on your hands, Jade! Like when Dave Barry looks at politician's names and rearranges the letters to spell "I love weasel phlegm" or something.
Never read the Demon Princes novels.
Useless wordplay just occurs to me. My eye has become so trained on anagrams, palindromes, and crytograms that sometimes it just kicks in at inopportune moments. There's times where I have to remind myself to read left to right. It's like some kind of voluntary dyslexia I tought myself in my early 20's.
Also, burning bushes and whatnot are not necessary anymore because the Holy Spirit is now active - revealing God's will, convicting sinners, prompting righteous behavior.
It's interesting to hear someone question the absence of God's wrath visible on a daily basis. First, I personally believe there's all kinds of evidence of God's wrath on earth but His full wrath and judgement on the unbelievers is held in check. We are currently living in what some call the Time of Grace. This is when we can choose to accept or deny the Holy Spirit's leading and live accordingly. There is one time to die and one judgement. So right now, if someone dies, they face judgement - followed by either reward or punishment. But the Time of Wrath will come one day when those on earth will face all kinds of horrible tribulations. Revelations describes much of it in nasty detail. Right now God is being patient but the Bible says He will not withhold punishment indefinitely.
Anyway, just my thoughts on the whole wrath of God thing.
Aurora,
Regarding the selection of texts, I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls when they were here, and left the museum quite curious as to why they weren't included. I mean, did God hide them so they wouldn't make it into the Bible? Then why allow them to be discovered later on?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I still don't understand how there can be multiple versions of the bible if it is infallible? How do you figure out which was written with divine guidance and which was just some dude making stuff up. How about the book of Mormon? How about the King James version? Why are there different translations? Which one of those is correct?
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I still don't understand how there can be multiple versions of the bible if it is infallible? How do you figure out which was written with divine guidance and which was just some dude making stuff up. How about the book of Mormon? How about the King James version? Why are there different translations? Which one of those is correct?
Answer none and all. The bibles have a lot of historical facts in them but they also have stories like Jonah and the whale. Dude swallowed by a whale lives inside it for a couple weeks. He gets out. The story has a good moral but obviously didn't really happen, unless you are a short-sighted zealot who has been brainwashed into believing EVERYTHING in the bibles. It is a book to guide you in decisions with tales of a moral bent. People who believe in the literal meaning of every passage usually end up being the quacks who try to say that ______(insert cultural, ethnical, religious group here) are evil and/or sinful and should be punished for their crimes/sins.
God gave use free will (if you suscribe to that belief)and yet religious institutions and such seem to try to get people to give up more and more of it at every turn.My take, which I am sure will anger some.
FH
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Answer none and all. The bibles have a lot of historical facts in them but they also have stories like Jonah and the whale. Dude swallowed by a whale lives inside it for a couple weeks. He gets out. The story has a good moral but obviously didn't really happen, unless you are a short-sighted zealot who has been brainwashed into believing EVERYTHING in the bibles. It is a book to guide you in decisions with tales of a moral bent. People who believe in the literal meaning of every passage usually end up being the quacks who try to say that ______(insert cultural, ethnical, religious group here) are evil and/or sinful and should be punished for their crimes/sins.
God gave use free will (if you suscribe to that belief)and yet religious institutions and such seem to try to get people to give up more and more of it at every turn.
My take, which I am sure will anger some.FH
Dude! I'm posting in response to Lady Aurora who is a self-proclaimed biblical literalist. I'm trying to make the point that the bible can't be literally true because there's not even a single consistent version of the document in existence. And I'm trying to do it without calling her a quack! ;-)
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Dude! I'm posting in response to Lady Aurora who is a self-proclaimed biblical literalist. I'm trying to make the point that the bible can't be literally true because there's not even a single consistent version of the document in existence. And I'm trying to do it without calling her a quack! ;-)
Oh, got it. But if it walks like a duck, and has a belief system like a duck.....
FH
I tried to limit my focus to defending atheists from broad generalizations.
"You've convinced me, Jade... yer all a bunch of godless snowflakes... each one unique in its own souless way..."
I have further reaching philosophies and observations but I've no desire to bring anyone down or attempt to convert believers to non belief and so I often tend to candy coat my points with humor when possible. The religious folks and atheist folks I know have all been very good to me in this life. That said, this has all been one heckuva read.
The discussion on the selection of scriptures is tainted by too much DiVinci Code reading, it would appear.
No not really - the history on the construction of the bible is really secret - no conspiracy theory.
Many of the statements made here are completely false and inaccurate. The Jews don't accept Jesus as the Messiah so their scripture is mostly what Christians call the Old Testament. It's not, strictly speaking, a completely different text.
I wasn't referring to content but the compilation process.
The New Testament was written by disciples and followers of Jesus who witnessed the events or were partnered (worked in ministry with) those that did (Paul didn't convert until Jesus had already ascended but he doesn't talk about Jesus's ministry, only his own in founding the early church).
I wasn't aware of that - my understanding was that even the gospels were actually probably "written" by others - as I stated above I don't think that diminishes them - just makes literalism more difficult to buy into.
Another challenge is simply that of translation - to latin - to english. It is virtually impossible to get perfect translations that capture all of the nuance of what is written.
The council which combined the separate scriptures into one book (NOT the council at Neceime, BTW) did not pick and choose individual verses from available texts. And the criteria was not politically motivated or denominational
How can you know there were no political motivations?
I can't think of anyone who is completely devoid of political motivations - the will to act on them perhaps.It seems equally improbable that denominational attitudes were completely absent - but that my impression based on the denomination rivalries I see in religion today.
It would be great to think that you were right about that, but it seems really niaive.
For the record - although I don't agree with many of your points - or literalism in general - I have a lot of respect for your willingness to express them. In our culture (modern Western) there is a general contempt for the public expression of faith and worse for those who express literalist views. I think "coming out" and arguing politely for you views as you have shows a lot of character and courage - Two characteristics I have a lot of respect for.
I hope that you accept my comments as points for discussion rather than criticism.
Its easy to make snide remarks - especially with regard to something as personal and difficult to express as matters of faith. I admire how you haven't risen to the bait of certain posters who have attempted to bully with their words.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Its easy to make snide remarks - especially with regard to something as personal and difficult to express as matters of faith. I admire how you haven't risen to the bait of certain posters who have attempted to bully with their words.
I don't normally use the old "LOL", but it's true, so LOL!
BTW, you spelled Sebastian wrong. It's S-E-B-A-S-T-I-A-N, not C-E-R-T-A-I-N P-O-S-T-E-R-S.
And with that, I'm off to kick sand on nerds (other than myself) and steal candy from small children. Let me know if you need help getting onto that horse, it looks fairly tall.
And with that, I'm off to kick sand on nerds (other than myself) and steal candy from small children.
Save me a Zagnut, yo.
Kirth, um... you've got me stumped there. I don't know a whole lot about the Dead Sea Scrolls. I wasn't aware that they represented excluded information. I always thought they were just copies of the included scriptures (not copies in the strictest sense of the word but copies as in the same information).
Sebastian, you've highlighted a reasonable concern. Translations of the original greek and hebrew texts open up the real possibility of human error entering the scriptures. I personally find the King James Version one of the worst cases of this (though not worse than denominational versions that literally chop out any controversial verses and add in human theologies). So, in my opinion, there are translations that may contain distortions (intentional or otherwise). Many of the more modern translations, however, have been translated as accurately as possible by real experts in greek and hebrew from the original texts (instead of from verses already translated into the common language). But Kyr is right - no translation from the original can truly capture every nuance perfectly. Studying greek and hebrew (which I do, BTW) can really help but as long as my mother tongue is still english I have to largely rely upon my translation (which I confess *may* contain translation errors). That doesn't make the scriptures themselves inaccurate, only the translation. A small point of contention maybe, but an important one.
Also, Fake Healer, the account of Jonah speaks of him being swallowed by a large fish (whether this was a large shark, a whale or some other kind of fish is not clear - and yes, I know whales are mammals). He remained alive (if unhappy) only three days - not "weeks". There was a news account several years ago of a man being swallowed (relatively intact) by a shark, IIRC, over in Southeast Asia and later being rescued alive. Of course, in his case, fishermen cut open the belly and the man fell out unconscious but still...
Anyway, thank all of you for showing me respect even if you disagree with my viewpoints. I'm especially touched, Sebastian, that you have put such effort into withholding derogatory names and biting criticisms. All the same, I'm not at all offended by those who regard me as some kind of kook. Insults run off me like water off a duck's---- oh, bother! ;p
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Anyway, thank all of you for showing me respect even if you disagree with my viewpoints. I'm especially touched, Sebastian, that you have put such effort into withholding derogatory names and biting criticisms. All the same, I'm not at all offended by those who regard me as some kind of kook. Insults run off me like water off a duck's---- oh, bother! ;p
I can't figure out if that's sarcasm, but rereading my posts, I really only see one time I went too far (re: common sense), so I'm gonna take it as genuine (and maybe Kyr's passive-aggressive bullying post wasn't even directed at me). I appreciate your posting Lady Aurora, even if your beliefs are alien to me.
Wow. Duck out of a conversation for a week or so and--everyone's talking about my post! Lady Aurora, for having replied to my post, let me step through some "answers". Many of them got covered more or less, but that just lets me know the areas that still need explained.
First, nipples and such. They bother me because creation is neat and tidy (or I guess I think it should be) and what would come of it should feel archtypal and original. I'd imagine we'd have a somewhat "holy" feel in our construction--not sweaty armpits and bad breath.
Evolution, on the other hand, gives what I consider to be a nifty explaination for things as they are. Changes happen gradually and unevenly. Things that aren't broke go unfixed for millions of years. Do we need tailbones? Nope. Do they harm us at all? Nope. So there they sit, getting passed from parent to child as a little reminder of where we came from. Likewise nipples. All embryos are females. We all have nipples, and given the right hormones a guy can even have working breasts--but we don't naturally secrete those hormones, but still the nipples do us no harm so they get passed along.
Second, I'll take a stab at the idea of why we didn't all die from being modern humans with no technology. At the time we weren't. We weren't even one species. There were lots of groups. We adapted to problems one at a time, thinking them over and trying to get solutions. It wasn't like we needed an AK-47 to get every job done. For a while a bit of bone to scrape the extra meat off a carcass, or wearing the skin of an animal to keep warm were enough to get us from crisis to crisis. Big animals attack us, we sharpen sticks use a fast guy as bait, lure it into a low area and encircle it and stab it to death. It's only relatively recently that we've become addicted to our premade items--and even so in a pinch we're still really adaptable!
Finally the idea of evolution as a cross-species thing. The first thing to realize, is that one kind of "animal" turning into another--giraffes with feathers for example, is all a problem of terminology. "Animals" don't exist. "Species" don't exist. They're invented terms--mostly dating back to Aristotle, for catagorizing things we see. Platapuses for example, are hard because they don't fit into our scheme for catagorizing things. It has fur like a mammal, but it has a poisoned stinger--which are usually an invertibrate thing, and it lays eggs, but it has a pouch, and a bill. The names of animals are a fiction created by us. Scales get long enough, they turn into specialized things called feathers or fur. We create the difference. Strip the skin off of us, and we're all remarkably similar inside. We all have hearts, muscles, bones, eyes, noses. A lot of us have teeth. But we get caught up because one "animal" can't become a different "animal" when we named them all in the first place...
Really thought provoking thread. Thank you all. My grief with evolution is entropy pertaing to the laws of thermodynamics, and my grief with the bible is what everyone ELSE had to say after the Old testement and Jesus himself. I really like the point made that perhaps we all have a heaven to go to.
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Wow. Duck out of a conversation for a week or so and--everyone's talking about my post! Lady Aurora, for having replied to my post, let me step through some "answers". Many of them got covered more or less, but that just lets me know the areas that still need explained.
First, nipples and such. They bother me because creation is neat and tidy (or I guess I think it should be) and what would come of it should feel archtypal and original. I'd imagine we'd have a somewhat "holy" feel in our construction--not sweaty armpits and bad breath.
Evolution, on the other hand, gives what I consider to be a nifty explaination for things as they are. Changes happen gradually and unevenly. Things that aren't broke go unfixed for millions of years. Do we need tailbones? Nope. Do they harm us at all? Nope. So there they sit, getting passed from parent to child as a little reminder of where we came from. Likewise nipples. All embryos are females. We all have nipples, and given the right hormones a guy can even have working breasts--but we don't naturally secrete those hormones, but still the nipples do us no harm so they get passed along.
Dude, I like my nipples! Stop acting like they serve no purpose! Do us no harm, Hummmph! The Misses don't know what she should be doin' wit em then! And which geek among us hasn't been Perple Nerpled? They are a vital and integral part of what us men Niptacular!
;PFH
My grief with evolution is entropy pertaing to the laws of thermodynamics
The Second Law applies perfectly well, because it doesn't state that all things proceed directly to greater entropy without passing "Go" or collecting $200. Things can become more organized, rather than less, if energy/work is added to the system. Pebbles in a stream get worn from random shapes to smooth, flattened ovals. No need for divine intervention, and no violation of thermodynamics. Creatures being "eroded" by their environment is an analogous situation.
Granted, that's not a very technical response; there is a very nice mathematical refutation of that Discovery Institute entropy argument somewhere, if I can put my fingers on it...
Sebastian, rereading my post I guess it came off snarkier than I intended. No, I wasn't being sarcastic but sincere. I guess my comment toward you came off as a back-handed compliment. I wasn't trying to insult you or imply that you're rude. I was just surprised to see you reign in Fake Healer when in other threads you have been quite blunt in expressing your opinions. Nothing wrong with that and maybe your comment to Fake Healer was sarcasm missed by me. But I do sincerely appreciate the patience shown me and the minimal name-calling that's happened here.
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Granted, that's not a very technical response; there is a very nice mathematical refutation of that Discovery Institute entropy argument somewhere, if I can put my fingers on it...
I'd like to see that. I've heard that counter to evolution before and, although instinctively I don't feel it's valid, I don't quite know how to wrap my mind around how to put it into words. I mean, entropy can be staved off if only for a little while...
I'd like to see that. I've heard that counter to evolution before and, although instinctively I don't feel it's valid, I don't quite know how to wrap my mind around how to put it into words. I mean, entropy can be staved off if only for a little while...
Not the one I was looking for (less clear, and a bit meandering) but interesting anyway:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/thermo/probability.html
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I remember when I was 19, and my grandmother was a Missouri Synod Lutheran...
Me: "well maybe Noah didn't have ALL the animals on the ark."
Her: "don't question. Just believe. Believe."
So when I was 19, we were sitting there, eating dinner, and the news was on in the background. They were just starting with the Hubble space telescope, and as a snippet, added "the Hubble might, conceivably, be able to see the beginning of the universe."
So on that note, silence. She asks me how that's even possible. So I have to think; when I went to visit her that year I swore I wouldn't even come within 9 miles of this argument; she's just my grandmother and she doesn't want me to end up in hell. So I explain to her my meagre understanding of Einstein and speed of light and all that,...so if you have a powerful enough telescope you could conceivably see the big bang,...but I don't want to get into a discussion about how old the universe is here; I know what one camp believes and I know what the other one does too.
I just wished that science didn't have to be this great enemy that was trying to make God disappear, and so in my mind, it isn't. By the time you're 38 you either learn to make concessions with the universe or you don't. And like Galileo said when he recanted, it doesn't matter anyway; if it's true it's true.
From Doug Craigen (PhD physics, contributing writer for the Assiniboia-Charleswood Community Church):
"Though I believe that we should stop arguing that the process of life (e.g. evolution) violates the second law of thermodynamics, this is not to say that there are no big unanswered questions for those who would use evolution to argue philosophically against religious belief. How and why it is that we see so much orderliness and design in the world around us remain big questions. However, the second law says nothing about design (which is a matter of perception of what is there) and does not appear to contradict anything about the order we observe. Actually, it should strike us as odd if God had set up the universe to operate under inconsistent laws.... The vast majority of the Bible is about God's Providence guiding the world in ways that we would never see, except perhaps by inferal from the final result, where the miraculous is the exception. Whereas events like the parting of the Red Sea are spectacular, most of the Bible suggests a God who orchestrates events behind the scenes, planning hundred or thousands of years in advance through the smallest details in life for thousands of miles around. It would be arrogant to believe that now that we are a "scientific" people, that if we cannot detect God's working in our microscopes, then He isn't there. The church has gotten sidetracked on this point many times, with horrible results. The Bible is not a text book of Science. It is a mistake either to classify scientific theories as Biblical and non-Biblical, or to believe that the proof of God's existence will be found in the failure of science to explain something. We believe that God set the universe in motion with consistent and sufficient mechanical rules. Science studies those rules."
Grimcleaver, thank you for your nipple explanation. It's the first logical argument for their existence I've heard. By the way, bad breath and sweaty armpits (and the like) don't have to be an example of how God didn't quite work out the kinks in his creation. Adam and Eve were perfect, the animals were perfect, the plants were perfect, in short - the world was "good" when God created it. Then Adam & Eve sinned and evil "entered" the world. We dwell, I believe, in a fallen world where Satan has been given the freedom to wreak havoc. God cursed the ground and it produced thorns, etc and became difficult to cultivate. Since in the perfect world to come the Bible describes lions eating straw, children playing with vipers, etc; I interpret that to imply that animals were originally vegetarians and harmless to people (that the "new earth" will be like the Garden of Eden was originally). Before Adam & Eve sinned the Garden of Eden provided everything they needed but after they sinned (and were cast out of the garden) they had to work for the substanence, were ashamed of their nakedness & needed clothing (supplied by the killing of animals), had painful & difficult childbirth, etc. I'm having difficulty expressing my viewpoint here. I guess I'm trying to say the failings of the human body (and its susceptibility to diseases for that matter), and the aggressive "nature" of animals, and the weedy characteristics of some plants are all a result of God's good world gone bad. He allowed His perfect world to go to wrack & ruin but someday He'll destroy this world and recreate a new one that will be perfect like before.
Kirth, thank you for your latest post. All I can say to it is ...amen!
I dunno. If we couldn't go out in the sunlight or we'd turn to ash, or if we had marks in our foreheads I guess that would feel more "cursey". The fact that we belch, doesn't seem like a "dust of the earth" kind of thing. It doesn't make bemoan my fate, or turn to God, or grow spiritually--it just makes me see myself as less divine and more just a multicellular glob of jelly just like everything else. It helps me feel a certain connection to the world around me--but not in a happy "circle of life" kind of way--in a way that makes me glad we got outta' there. Seems weird that for something bad that Adam did (and in which he had no choice, really, but that's a discussion for another day) that the cursed humans got the best out of it. The flowering plants get eaten, the pretty swans get eaten, the lions slowly starve to death, the trees get burned in a fire. I pop Final Fantasy XII in my PS2 and zap myself a microwave dinner.
It just seems things, if created, should better fill the measure of their creation. They just don't seem to. It seems more like a story to explain stuff that people saw going on and to answer questions about their lives--like if we're the chosen people, why does life stink so bad? As time goes on, it seems like our curse hasn't really gotten so bad, we've been able to improve things so people don't really "sweat off their brow to get bread" more they more "sit behind a computer all day to get frozen pizza."
if we evolved from apes through natural selection then why are there still apes around?
Let's take this question to its logical conclusion: If humans evolved from rocks, why are there still rocks? Answer: Because otherwise there would be no where to stand. Obselesence is part of evolution, but not always. Your question is the same as asking, if we have celphones, why do we still have landlines? If we have cars, why do we still breed horses? If we have 3.5, why do people still play AD&D? There's no such thing as better, only different (and perhaps, preferential).
As for physics, entropy isn't about things falling apart, it's about things becoming more complex. Sometimes that means falling apart, sometimes that means becoming highly convoluted (and then falling apart). Evolution tends toward more compexity (but without neglecting simplicity, because the complex is merely the emergent behavior of a lot of simple things). And if we just want to talk about heat, complex organism produce a lot more heat that simple ones (humans, especially).
Just read this in Andrew Vachss' latest, and thought it was germane to some of the previous posts:
"It's easy to point the Bible at folks like you're aiming a gun, but it's just a book, isn't it? Everybody who reads it comes away with whatever they bring to it."
As for physics, entropy isn't about things falling apart, it's about things becoming more complex. Sometimes that means falling apart, sometimes that means becoming highly convoluted (and then falling apart).
Or as it says in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "The empire long united must divide, and long divided must unite." True words, and a prime example of evolution at work.
As for physics, entropy isn't about things falling apart, it's about things becoming more complex. Sometimes that means falling apart, sometimes that means becoming highly convoluted (and then falling apart).Or as it says in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "The empire long united must divide, and long divided must unite." True words, and a prime example of evolution at work.
If that analogy is accurate then it sounds like entropy is pretty much the same concept as the interaction of yin and yang in Daoism.
Go ancient China! Way to anticipate western theoretical physics by a couple of thousand years...
If that analogy is accurate then it sounds like entropy is pretty much the same concept as the interaction of yin and yang in Daoism.
No... it's not. Or at least, not that I can tell, and I've probably read the Tao Te Ching once for every engineering physics course I've had.
If that analogy is accurate then it sounds like entropy is pretty much the same concept as the interaction of yin and yang in Daoism.No... it's not. Or at least, not that I can tell, and I've probably read the Tao Te Ching once for every engineering physics course I've had.
As I understand it in the Daoist conception everything in existence is composed of a duality. Things go as far as they can in one direction and then swing over into the other extreme, so that a constant state of balance is maintained. Systems become extraordinarily yin or yang and then spontaneously reverse when their limit is reached. That sounds to me pretty much like the modern concept of energy, though I admit I don't know much about the idea of entropy. I've read a lot more on religion and philosophy than I have on science...
Kirth, do you think you can explain in simple terms how entropy differs from the Daoist idea?
Kirth, do you think you can explain in simple terms how entropy differs from the Daoist idea?
Lemme try. Entropy has to do with the state of energy; in simplest terms, how easy it is to get that energy to produce work. If I've got a rock balanced on a peak, that's low entropy, because it's easy to do get that potential energy to do work. When the rock rolls off, the potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, and eventually the kinetic energy bleeds off as heat as friction causes the rock to stop. That heat, in the form of ambient temperature, is harder to use to do work: i.e., higher entropy. The Second Law of Thermodynamics, in simple terms, says that reactions are favored that will increase the statistical mean entropy level. Where it differs from yang is that it's a 1-way trip, with the sum total measure of entropy in the universe generally increasing and never decreasing again.
Ah, so the idea is that entropy increases until all energy is dissipated, then the universe will be sort of empty and without movement or potential for movement.
And the Daoist idea is that when a point of maximum entropy (yin) is reached the whole thing would spontaneously restart as a sort of new universe with minimum entropy (yang). But because there is no known theoretical reason for why this would happen, scientists must assume that it wouldn't, and that eventually everything just ends.
Ah, so the idea is that entropy increases until all energy is dissipated, then the universe will be sort of empty and without movement or potential for movement.
And the Daoist idea is that when a point of maximum entropy (yin) is reached the whole thing would spontaneously restart as a sort of new universe with minimum entropy (yang). But because there is no known theoretical reason for why this would happen, scientists must assume that it wouldn't, and that eventually everything just ends.
The end of the universe is far beyond my limited scope. I'm an earth scientist and a Buddhist, not an astrophysicist nor a Daoist. Read Stephen Hawkings' "Brief History of Time" if you want a mathematically detailed description of the Universe (and its beginning and possible ends) that is nevertheless quite accessible to non-physicists.
The end of the universe is far beyond my limited scope. I'm an earth scientist and a Buddhist, not an astrophysicist nor a Daoist. Read Stephen Hawkings' "Brief History of Time" if you want a mathematically detailed description of the Universe (and its beginning and possible ends) that is nevertheless quite accessible to non-physicists.
Heh, thanks for the recommendation but I had enough trouble understanding your explanation (which was great by the way)!
It's funny, when I was doing philosophy I could understand the most complex things about time, personal identity, truth, epistemology etc, but as soon as someone puts it into numbers my brain goes "guh?"
Yet other people read the same things I read and go "WTF?" But if someone says to them "look, its like this, if t(x>bn)=N, then b=(x-t)" And they say "Oh, now I get it!"
Funny old place, the universe.
Ah, so the idea is that entropy increases until all energy is dissipated, then the universe will be sort of empty and without movement or potential for movement.
But without entropy, the universe would be equally empty: all whizzing around without settling into something meaningful. So, if you want to put it into ancient Chinese terms: Life as we know it exists only in the transition from Yang to Yin.
hehe so; hmm. the universe is very empty; vastly more empty than it is filled; matter takes up only a small spec of the gross area; and well, who can really say that the whole of existance is meaningfull in the big picture. I just keep picturing that week long calendar in the old Carl Sagan show Cosmos; whereas we are like the last 6 seconds of day 6 on the cosmic scale; sounds pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. Entropy; am not sure I can concieve of that any better than I can and infinite yet expanding universe concept. I sit right next to a honest to goodness Astrophysicist who loves to run on about such things; uses terms like dark matter a lot and when I was young was into Taoism so am more into internal space than outer space, but I do like looking at Hubble photographs :)
hehe so; hmm. the universe is very empty; vastly more empty than it is filled; matter takes up only a small spec of the gross area; and well, who can really say that the whole of existance is meaningfull in the big picture.
My take on life is that it is a convergence of Sturgeon's Law (99% of everything is crap) with the Law of Large Numbers (Given a sufficient population, even an unlikely event is guaranteed to occur). In other words, if you want beautiful starlit nights, you need huge nuclear explosions and lightyears of empty space.
Here's a little tidbit I recently came across on the wonders of evolution:
How many nostrils have you got?
Four. Two you can see; two you can't.
This discovery came from observing how fish breath. Fish get oxygen from water. Most of them have two pairs of nostrils, a forward-facing set for letting water in and a pair of 'exhuast pipes' for letting it out again.
The question is, if humans evolved from fishes, where did the other pair of nostrils go?
The answer is that they migrated back inside the head to become internal nostrils called /choannae/ - Greek for 'funnels'. These connect to the throat and are what allow us to breath through our noses.
To do thus they somehow had to work their way back through the teeth. This sounds unlikely but scientists in China and Sweden have found a fish called /Kenichthys campbelli/ - a 395-million-year-old fossil - that shows this process at its half-way stage. The fish has two nostril-like holes between its front teeth.
/Kenichthys campbelli/ is a direct ancestor of land animals, able to breath in both air and water. One set of nostrils allowed it to lie in the shallows and eat while the other poked out of the water a bit like a crocodile's.
Similar gaps between teeth can also be seen at an early stage of the human embryo. When they fail to join up, the result is a cleft palate. So an ancient fish explains two ancient human mysteries.