Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Paizo is the only message board I post on, and if you click on "recent threads," you'll see this one's by far my favorite. Posting with you and Sebastian and Sir Kaikillah and Lady Aurora and the Jade and others is like talking with a bunch of friends over a beer, except there's no refreshments, and no need for a designated driver.Me too. And one of these days I hope to have a real beer with some of you -- Sebastian, I will be coming back out your way in a year or two. You up for it?
Are you kidding me - I'd turn the hose on you. ;-)
Of course I'd be honored to have you visit Bill. I was starting to consider organizing a GenCon SoCal get together for those of us down in this corner of the country, but then they went and killed GenCon SoCal, so that idea went away. Paizo is also the site where I hang my virtual hat.
The stats for a Dire Tick are the same as those of a Venerable Red Dragon, except they also have the weasel's blood drain ability.
The stats for a Dire Tick are the same as those of a Venerable Red Dragon, except they also have the weasel's blood drain ability.
Just a few more levels of Wizard and I'm all over it with the shapechange spell...
Edit: You added back in the correlation between atheism and education. I thought I had misstated teh correlation between creationism and education as such.
"About three-quarters of those with a postgraduate degree say humans developed over millions of years from less-advanced forms of life, while 22 percent chose the 'created in present form' option. The findings are based on two polls of 1,001 adults, each conducted May 8 to 11 this year and Nov. 7 to 10, 2004, with a margin of error of two percentage points." Washington Times, June 9, 2006 article entitled "Americans Still Hold Faith in Divine Creation." I seem to remember seeing the atheist one, too, but I'm having more trouble putting my finger on it. Will post when I have a reference with actual numbers.
From Wikipedia (not exactly reliable): "According to a study by Paul Bell, published in the UK Mensa Magazine in 2002, there is an inverse correlation between religiosity and intelligence. Analyzing 43 studies carried out since 1927, Bell found that all but four reported such a connection, and he concluded that 'the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind.'"
I'm unable to access the original study, so I can't comment on the reliability of the data for this one. Maybe I should edit it back out? Will keep looking.
Ignore the pointless and annoying title header, and check out the numbers further down the page... or, even better, look at the original studues referenced.
That's not what I said, nor is it my opinion. But thanks for caring enough to employ some deductive logic on my behalf. I do appreciate the attempt.
What? Do you mean to say that people who beleive in God are stupid? I'm sorry, but if that's your opinion, then leave that part of you out of this discussion. It's not helpful.
I apologize for jumping to conclusions like that.
I have never heard that anyone became a Christian because they were told that they are going to hell.
Really? Because I've had "so you don't go to hell" (or "so you can go to heaven") as the ONLY reason for me to convert before, from several people. Not that I did convert. That sort of stuff is not as motivating as it sounds.
Hey, where's Sebastian's posts? Has Paizo cut him off? ;-)
Ummm... yeah our resident lawyer is MIA. Anyone have a clue why?
I don't see how evoution is observable or predictable at all. I have not seen ANY hard, indisputable evidence of evolution like you have with say gravity. In fact the evidence to me seems to be exactly the opposite.
It's observable in historical records. In animals, that means the fossil record. For something like pop music, you just have to look at radio play lists. It's natural selection which decides which bands stay popular for decades and which fade into obscurity. If you think music today is crap, wait 20, 30, 60 years, when natural selection has weeded out the posers and the one hit wonders, and you'll see music is just as good today as it was in whatever decade you consider the golden era. Styles of music change because they have to change; like life forms, each generation has to carve their niche in the world.
Surely, with farmers actively seeking to engage in selective breeding to improve their bloodline, we would have developed a new species? Sure, we have developed countless variations of existing species, but no new ones (at least that I am aware of).
Well we can only hybridize, we can't mutate [edit: well, until very recently we couldn't]. On this subject though, one of my favorite arguments from "Truth in Genesis" is the banana as "evolution's wost nightmare". They talk about how the banana is the perfect fruit, excellent nutrition, pre-wrapped, shaped to fit the hand, etc. Thus evidence of God's love, or something. You know what also makes it great? No seeds. So how does it reproduce? It has to be cultivated by man. The modern banana is a freak that wouldn't otherwise survive in nature. Wild bananas are practically inedible.
Even with the examples you gave, how many of them are repeatable in the science lab? How many are observable in the natural world? The one example you gave we can observe, letters into a novel, only occurs under the explicit guidance of the author (or creator).
Not just the author, but the editor, the critics, and the reading public. The nature of novels evolves due to all sorts of environmental factors (natural selection).
And in case you going to make the assertion that complexity is the result of intelligence (something I hear from creationists all the time): this is not just untrue, it's the opposite of truth. The universe is ridiculously complex; intelligence is the ability to simplify this complexity to the point that it can fit into about thee pounds of grey matter.
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y'all are weirding me out.
I call shenanigans on you Sebastian! I can see your posts now but two hours ago their wasn't a single post of yours on any thread.
You expect me to believe you had nothing to do with it?
One good thing about living in Australia is that I don't have to put up with all this creationist/evolution and secular/Christian rivalry. It's interesting, to me it looks like all this stuff is an American cultural rather than a religious phenomenon.
Australia is (thank the gods) generally ina place where if anyone protested that a high school was teaching evolution (even a Christian high school) people would quietly ignore them. Our national attitude is that this religion thing is all well and good, but there's such thing as taking it too seriously. I have also never heard an Australian suggest in public or private that secularism is a bad thing or that atheists have some sort of agenda.
Then again one of our other cultural traits is that we don't stand up to authority well, and we want to be just like everyone else. So in the last five years I've seen a huge increase in US style evangelical movements among young Aussies, and I fear it's only a matter of time before we start taking creationist's demands seriously just because you guys do.
Then again one of our other cultural traits is that we don't stand up to authority well, and we want to be just like everyone else. So in the last five years I've seen a huge increase in US style evangelical movements among young Aussies, and I fear it's only a matter of time before we start taking creationist's demands seriously just because you guys do.
You need to beware of those young evangilical christians. They want nothing less than your soul.
Of course they're young and passionate, which makes them easy to trip up. That makes them easy to torment if you have a bit of bible knowledge. That is if you enjoy that kind of stuff. (hehe)
What? Do you mean to say that people who beleive in God are stupid?
Hmmmm..... I've though about this for a while because for the longest time when I pictured all the stupid people I know they were filling up St Peters church back home. Most of my class and DEFINATELY all the adults in the bible study program.
For a while I was of the opinion that a religious person had a much lower chance of being intelligent.
Truthfully I am still of that exact same opinion. But for different reasons.
I do not think religion is stupid. I know many intelligent people of the christian persuasion and I know one or two stupid atheists.
However, I do think that religion is very appealing to stupid people compared with atheism.
Religion is a tool and unfortunately stupid people in large enough numbers will learn how to use it toward their own goals. Personally I feel sorry for the intelligent people of Christianity, it has to be frustrating to discuss your faith when their are so many people who never bothered to contemplate it in the first place. (Iknow it always pissed me off).
Of course they're young and passionate, which makes them easy to trip up. That makes them easy to torment if you have a bit of bible knowledge. That is if you enjoy that kind of stuff. (hehe)
Can I say "hell yes!" strongly enough?
Ignore the pointless and annoying title header, and check out the numbers further down the page... or, even better, look at the original studues referenced.
Hmmm.... See now this makes sense to me. When I always looked at science I always saw how small coincednces had HUGE impacts on the natural order of things.
Take water for example. Not complex at all, just three little atoms in a v shaped molecule with very slight negative and positive charges at either end. Simple, nothing all that spectacular. But the unique shape, composition, and charge of water allow for hydrogen bonding. Which in turn is responsible for the presence of life on earth. With hydrogen bonding we have a non-reactive, stable substance that allows for the transport of billions of chemical reactants in a closed, temperature stable environment.
Also because of hydrogen bonding water molecules form a less dense pattern at low tempuratures. The commonplace phenominon of ice floating is the only thing that allowed life to evolve. If ice didn't float then ur oceans and seas would all be frozen. The ice would freeze on the surface and then sink to the bottom, away from sunlight and insulated by a vast volume of water overhead. Next freeze, another layer, and more and more until it reaches the top at which point thier would be so much ice their would not be enough time for the warmer seasons to melt a significant amount away.
A religious person might see this as a god pulling a magnificent miracle in creating the world.
But since water is so simple all it shows to me is that the energies and matter of this universe follow patterns, sometimes their aren't even remotely complex. It shows mw that, yeah all this arising out of chance might be a little more feasible than I thought.
It's observable in historical records. In animals, that means the fossil record.
How exactly is natural selection observable? Yes, we see different species appearing at different times, but where is the evidence that natural selection produced these results?
This is exactly the scientific approach I expressed my concerns about. Where is the evidence natural selction produced these differeing species? I get as a scientific theory it is by far the best one available, but by its nature the theory is practicably untestable.
For something like pop music, you just have to look at radio play lists. It's natural selection which decides which bands stay popular for decades and which fade into obscurity. If you think music today is crap, wait 20, 30, 60 years, when natural selection has weeded out the posers and the one hit wonders, and you'll see music is just as good today as it was in whatever decade you consider the golden era. Styles of music change because they have to change; like life forms, each generation has to carve their niche in the world.
How is this "natural" selection when the selecting is being done by intelligent, rational humans, and not blind chance?
Surely, with farmers actively seeking to engage in selective breeding to improve their bloodline, we would have developed a new species? Sure, we have developed countless variations of existing species, but no new ones (at least that I am aware of).
I have been corrected on this point, and I will definently do more research on it. Thanks for the clarification Kirth, i will have to check out about those cattle (although I see no reason to doubt your word, it is good to see it for myself).
On this subject though, one of my favorite arguments from "Truth in Genesis" is the banana as "evolution's wost nightmare". They talk about how the banana is the perfect fruit, excellent nutrition, pre-wrapped, shaped to fit the hand, etc. Thus evidence of God's love, or something. You know what also makes it great? No seeds. So how does it reproduce? It has to be cultivated by man. The modern banana is a freak that wouldn't otherwise survive in nature. Wild bananas are practically inedible.
And there are probabaly a billion more stupid things the answers in genesis people say. I can no longer be bothered to check them out.
And yet a lot of scientists present it as fact, when it is really just theory.As they point out the THEORY that the planets orbit the Sun (which the Catholic Church once went to great lengths to point out was "just a theory," because it conflicted with the party line). Germs causing disease is "just a theory," too. I've posted at length about this before; the scientific term "theory" doesn't mean what laypeople assume it does. Creationists love to call out that evolution by means of natural selection is "just a theory," but if we put stickers saying so in textbooks, we should also put stickers saying that World War II was "just a theory" and that yeast making cake rise is "just a theory" and so on and so on. You can't just single out natural selection and pretend it's the only one. Everything we learn in chemistry class is "just a theory!", but nobody yells that over and over because the theories we learn in chemistry don't contradict a "hot-button" religious movement.
Also, in science, no theory is ever "proven." Every theory is automatically an "UNPROVEN THEORY"!
For the same reasons, I'd also yell at any so-called "scientist" who refers to natural selection as a means of evolution as "fact."
Thanks Kirth. I really appreciate your approach to the issue, and I wish more on the "natural selection" side of the argument would present it as you have, and those on the other side could also stand to understand this as well. You have enlightened me, and I wish more poeple would take a stance closer to you on this issue.
It just seems like people often make broad, sweeping claims about what sicence has proven, when really science has proposed a theory that seems to best explain all the available data.
It is great hearing this argument from a scientist, and hearing from a scientists who is clear and honest about the strenghts, and weaknesses and limitations of the scientific method. I have really enjoyed reading your posts on the topic.
Sorry for confusing Evolution and Natural Selection. I have never really understood the difference, but now that I know, I will try hard to use the correct terms.
The next feline evolutionMe?
You meant "I?" Jerk muahahahaha
The next feline evolution
AAAWWW! Cute kitty.
I wish more on the "natural selection" side of the argument
It would take a long, long time to gather enough observations on large animals to prove this. Thankfully, we have microogranisms.
To look at natural selection in microorganisms, we only have to look at all the new antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Also, while there is debate on the exact nature of viruses (they are one reason cell theory is only a theory), the everchanging flu strains and the immune-system avoiding mutations of HIV.
It may seem that these incidents have very little to do with larger organisms, but the very changes and mutations in bacteria that give rise to new traits happen in your body every day. Not neccessarily in the parts of you that would influence new generations, but it's there. Also, organisms that reproduce sexually don't really need mutation to produce new traits, the merging of DNA from two genetically differing parents is enough to cause significant variation that can potentially diverge into new species. It happens so much slower on the macro level because our generations are so much longer. (most bacteria have a new generation about every twenty minutes)
Here's something interesting to consider in the evolution debate: Tarsiers have the longest contiguous fossil record. They have not changed in 45 million years. Odd, but interesting.
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Here is a quick science question that has a little bit of a religious bent to it...
I was reading somewhere that seemed to suggest that not only the earth, but perhaps the entire universe is around 6.5 billion years old after dating meteor rocks and so on. I this true?
I was also reading about some kind of expansion "theory". Where basically the entire universe is expanding away from one point. Is this true? Can they figure out where that point is? Based on how rapidly the universe is expanding (assuming it is true) can they determine the same time frame (6.5 billion years ago)? (I thought that I saw that they two things were not consistent.) Is there any idea what was in the universe before ... well, before nothing?
Just wondering what (if any) scientific evidence there is to any of this.
How is this "natural" selection when the selecting is being done by intelligent, rational humans, and not blind chance?
Because evolution is not "blind chance" it's the result of environmental factors. Special as we are, humans are an environmental factor. The choices me make about things, over iterations of whatever we come in contact with, effect that evolution of those things as much as any predator affects future generations of an organism. And, like I said, intelligence doesn't create complexity.
Let me put it this way: Creationist like to ask the rhetorical question, "How can you see the watch and deny the watchmaker?" To which I say: How can you deny the miners and smelters who unearthed the metal, the glazer who made the glass, the guy who made the enamel for the face, the guy who made the watchmaker's tools? How can you deny the people who discovered and refined the process of refining metal, making glass, making enamel, making tools, counting with numerals, telling time? How can you deny the long line of previous watchmakers who turned a crude sundial into a technological marvel and taught our watchmaker how to make watches? The watchmaker did not make that watch whole-cloth, all by himself. That watch is the result of years of evolution. The watchmaker is not God, he is merely a parent.
Cars are another popular example of evolution. Cars today resemble cars of yeasteryear in the same ways humans resemble our very distant ancestors. But just like hominids change over time, cars take on different superficial aspects as a result of their enviroment, in this case, technilogical advances, environmental concerns, fashion. Someone discovered that a car's cigarette lighter could be used to power an appliance if it had a lighter-shaped plug. Even though most people don't smoke anymore, they make cars with lighter-shaped holes, so people can plug in their appliances. It might make more sense to just put a standard outlet in the car, but that's not how evolution works.
I'm not saying the evolution of technology, both physical and abstract, is exactly like animal evolution, but it seems very silly to me for it to be radically different (especially given all the evidence).
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You meant "I?" Jerk muahahahahaThe next feline evolutionMe?
WIX/AWED: Proof of aberrant mutations in the human population.
The next feline evolution
Thats awesome! i wish my cat could do that
I have been corrected on this point, and I will definently do more research on it. Thanks for the clarification Kirth, i will have to check out about those cattle (although I see no reason to doubt your word, it is good to see it for myself).
I'd hoped you would... that's the scientific method at work. Every theory exists to be tested as rigorously as possible by one's peers; otherwise our theories would never improve.
I wish more on the "natural selection" side of the argument would present it as you have, and those on the other side could also stand to understand this as well. You have enlightened me, and I wish more poeple would take a stance closer to you on this issue.
It just seems like people often make broad, sweeping claims about what sicence has proven, when really science has proposed a theory that seems to best explain all the available data. It is great hearing this argument from a scientist, and hearing from a scientists who is clear and honest about the strenghts, and weaknesses and limitations of the scientific method. I have really enjoyed reading your posts on the topic.
Wow... thank you very much indeed! It always seemed to me that the whole point of science was to improve our predictive ability, as I mentioned above. No theory is perfect, and better theories are progressively more useful. Also, that the cause of scientific literacy is extremely ill-served by making religious-type claims on its behalf. Just as religion flourishes best when it is inclusive and tolerant, and does not needlessly contradict the obvious, so is science best off when ideas are constantly being investigated by people who understand them well enough to help in the process.
I also see absolutely no conflict between the two, if one accepts them as I've outlined. In fact, if I were a Christian I'd LOVE natural selection, because it seems like a really slick method for evolving organisms, a method worthy of an omnipotent Creator. Just *bam* putting critters on earth shows a lack of imagination that always seemed, well, pretty lame to me.
Here's something interesting to consider in the evolution debate: Tarsiers have the longest contiguous fossil record. They have not changed in 45 million years. Odd, but interesting.
Correction on this, longest fossil record of any primate. I think it's sharks that have the longest contiguous fossil record of any animal.
Let me put it this way: Creationist like to ask the rhetorical question, "How can you see the watch and deny the watchmaker?" To which I say: How can you deny the miners and smelters who unearthed the metal, the glazer who made the glass, the guy who made the enamel for the face, the guy who made the watchmaker's tools? How can you deny the people who discovered and refined the process of refining metal, making glass, making enamel, making tools, counting with numerals, telling time? How can you deny the long line of previous watchmakers who turned a crude sundial into a technological marvel and taught our watchmaker how to make watches? The watchmaker did not make that watch whole-cloth, all by himself. That watch is the result of years of evolution. The watchmaker is not God, he is merely a parent.
The watch analogy that Intelligent Design proponents use has a logical flaw anyway, besides the famous Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster refutation.
If the fact that an entity (a being, a piece of technology, the universe, whatever) is complex in structure suggests that it must have an intelligent creator, then such creators would recur eternally. That is, if the compexity of a human being means that we must assume a more complex being craeted it, then the complexity of that proposed creator means we must also assume that it was created by another more complex being, ad infinitum. There are only three ways out of this that I can see, none of which are very advantageous to a theist arguing for God:
1: The creator of humans and the earth (and the deity behind the Bible)is not omnipotent. He is, to use D&D terms, a lesser god created by a greater god, who was created by a still greater god etc, and he has lied to us about his omnipotence. Some Gnostic Christians believed this with their notion of the Demiurge.
2: The creator of the Universe, humans etc is not the god of the Bible, but a different unrevealed god (the Pastafarian argument). Hence he is under no obligation to be omnipotent or to comform to any of our notioons of what a god is.
3: Logic doesn't work or apply when you are talking about God. In which case why attempt to use logic (the watch analogy) in the first place?
I was in a bad mood once and said this when some Mormon's came to my door and tried the watch analogy on me. They said they'd come back later and never did. I feel bad because I like Mormons, I think they are very genuine in their faith and they do alot of good. I can forgive what to my mind are inconsistencies in their doctrines because, really, all religions seem inconsistent to me. If they didn't I'd be religious!
I was also reading about some kind of expansion "theory". Where basically the entire universe is expanding away from one point. Is this true? Can they figure out where that point is? Based on how rapidly the universe is expanding (assuming it is true) can they determine the same time frame (6.5 billion years ago)? (I thought that I saw that they two things were not consistent.) Is there any idea what was in the universe before ... well, before nothing?
Read "A Brief History of Time." Stephen Hawking does a fantastic job of making EXTREMELY arcane astrophysics accessible to like, normal people. That stuff is out of my league; I'll have to leave it to him.
A religious person might see this as a god pulling a magnificent miracle in creating the world.
But since water is so simple all it shows to me is that the energies and matter of this universe follow patterns, sometimes their aren't even remotely complex. It shows mw that, yeah all this arising out of chance might be a little more feasible than I thought.
What confuses me is that so many people think that these two situations are irreconcileble. Either God created the universe in the blink of an eye and uses his not inconciderable will to make everything go, or science disproves God. I believe this is not the first time this opinion (the first sentence) has been expressed here, but I felt I had to make my confusion known. Any ideas about some rationality behind these views?
I was also reading about some kind of expansion "theory". Where basically the entire universe is expanding away from one point. Is this true? Can they figure out where that point is? Based on how rapidly the universe is expanding (assuming it is true) can they determine the same time frame (6.5 billion years ago)? (I thought that I saw that they two things were not consistent.) Is there any idea what was in the universe before ... well, before nothing
As far as I know, the current theory is that the universe started infinite, and the infinity is expanding. Not to anywhere, because there is no anywhere outside the universe, but the everywhere is getting bigger. Only not, because infinity multiplied by anything is still only infinity. There is no "starting point" because there cannot be a center of infinity, and everywhere is expanding at the same pace.
I fully understand that my limited knowledge has most likely been more confusing than useful, and agree that Stephen Hawking is probably a better source of this kind of stuff.
Because evolution is not "blind chance" it's the result of environmental factors.
That hits the nail on the head. A flowing stream is mindless, but it produces smooth, polished stones-- pretty enough to have been designed. But they weren't designed, they were formed by the constant wearing of the current, which flows in one direction. You can watch sugar crystallize as intricate, pretty "rock candy" crystals from cooling water. Snowflakes are another great example of intricate, non-random, seemingly designed structures in nature. God does not have to come down to Earth and personally cause a miracle every time these things happen, so I see two possibilities: (1) natural causes can create intricate results that seem to be "designed" because they're obviously not random; or (2) God designed the Universe to produce these kinds of results based on the laws of nature He dictated. I don't personally believe in an anthropomorphic God, but if I did, I'd also see no problem with both possibilities being correct. Didn't Carl Sagan say something about science leading him to belief in a higher power of some kind? Dunno. (He was kind of nutty in a lot of ways, for my money, but people really dig him.)
As far as I know, the current theory is that the universe started infinite, and the infinity is expanding. Not to anywhere, because there is no anywhere outside the universe, but the everywhere is getting bigger. Only not, because infinity multiplied by anything is still only infinity. There is no "starting point" because there cannot be a center of infinity, and everywhere is expanding at the same pace.
You're nearly there. Picture the surface of a balloon as the balloon is being inflated, the surface of the balloon expands (relatively) evenly all over. Viewed as a two-dimensional object, the surface is finite, but has no center.
Add an extra dimension to the balloon, so the surface is three dimensional, and you have something akin to our expanding universe.
What confuses me is that so many people think that these two situations are irreconcileble. Either God created the universe in the blink of an eye and uses his not inconciderable will to make everything go, or science disproves God. I believe this is not the first time this opinion (the first sentence) has been expressed here, but I felt I had to make my confusion known. Any ideas about some rationality behind these views?A religious person might see this as a god pulling a magnificent miracle in creating the world.
Not sure I can help you there. When I was still a practicing Catholic I believed in evolution as gods work. Funnily enough it is the religions teachings that disproved God to me, not science.
Random topic:
Is it scary/hilarious that I am allergic to the incense that they use in some Catholic churches (y'know, those guys with censers that chant n'stuff)?
Consider yourself lucky. When I go into Catholic churches, lightning strikes the altar and the holy water boils out of the fonts.
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Consider yourself lucky. When I go into Catholic churches, lightning strikes the altar and the holy water boils out of the fonts.Random topic:
Is it scary/hilarious that I am allergic to the incense that they use in some Catholic churches (y'know, those guys with censers that chant n'stuff)?
Oh, dass nuthin'. I have horrible luck when I am around/in/near churches.
- When I was about 5, I was at a wedding, and projectile vomited onto the people in front of me.
- I traveled to the Vatican once, and had the misfortune of wearing a Marilyn Manson t-shirt. (I didn't realize the gravity of the situation until it was pointed out to me by a rather scary-looking security guard. I got kicked out of St. Peter's.)
- Also when I was in Rome (the next day), I was gazing at the Sistine Chapel ceiling, when I managed to walk smack into a nun. Without thinking, I said something to the effect of "Jesus Goddamn Christ."
She crossed herself, and ran, not walked, RAN out of the chapel.
- When I was about 12, I attended a Boy Scout function at an Episcopalian church. I then proceeded to pass out from heat exhaustion standing at attention at the rear of the church. Apparently, my nose bled something awful.
Note: all of these ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
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Um...String theory invalidates Evolution on the grounds that evolution is dependant on generational change over time but stringtheory tells us thst time is purely a consequence of change in your string entanglement (the possibility entanglement that generates your whole existance over all the possibilities open to you) Unfortunately life is the only thing capable of manipulating your string entanglement so life is capable of existing outside the boundaries defined by time.
a change in string entanglement causes what it created to cease to exist leaving entanglement debris (matter).
We actually exchange string entanglement information just so we can have this conversation, genetic differences amount to differenced in possibility. Unfortunately this knocks religion on the head. We are one organism, separated by event horizon and singularity.
We probably are not even human beyond our need to be.
Um...String theory invalidates Evolution
Unfortunately, string theory has the same problem as ID in refuting natural selection inasfar as it is not observable, not falsifiable, and hence not science. In that respect, it's like saying, "I've proved that Darwin was wrong and the Bible is wrong, because my imaginary idea says so." It might be a very good idea, but if it makes no falsifiable predictions, it's just not a scientific idea. Apples and oranges, as with the whole "science vs. religion" thing.
We are one organism
Emotionally, I agree with you. As a Buddhist I agree. But scientifically, I can't demonstrate this, so I won't attempt to put it up against, say, the theory of evolution by natural selection.
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Kirth -- I really don't know that much about Buddhism. I was wondering if you could help clarify a few things for me or explain how the different "sects" of Buddhism differ in the following ways...
Suffering -- It sounds kind of like Buddhists believe that should/needs to withdraw from the world somehow in order to aleviate suffering. Before I ask too many things about something I don't know about, I was wondering if you could clarify a bit.
Enlightenment -- I have heard that Buddhists kind of believe that everything in this world is basically an elaborate illusion of some kind and that the ultimate point is to leave the illusion and gain enlightenment. I'm sure that I have something wrong here but just wanted to try and get a feel for it and was wondering what happens if enlightenment isn't achieved.
Thanks ahead of time for any insight...
Wow.
I wanted to see Eve battle Satan and didn't realize I'd be playing as Satan. So I beat Eve twice, then Noah twice, then Moses twice, then Mary twice, then Jesus took the first round (soundly) but I came back twice in a row...
Congrats type message...
Then I had to fight a special new enemy. God.
So I beat him twice and then it congratulated me again and said I'd unlocked the God character for arcade mode by going to arcade mode and typing in Jehovah. God's neat because one of his special powers is transforming into Eve, Noah, Moses, Mary, and Jesus.
I found the special attacks hardly ever worked for Satan and stuck to a strategy of hitting Z a lot and constantly closing in on the enemy, backing them up into a corner, because if you give them room they use the extra time to generate hilarious and devastating attacks. Jesus threw a ton of fish on me and sledgehammered me with a huge wooden cross. Mary throws her halo like a shuriken. Note: Give Jesus just a little bet of extra room when you get him into a corner. He's dangerous.