warri0r45

[/hide] Some pretty good stuff there. I'm no physicist so I'll leave the big bang stuff to someone else. As for the little part I bolded, as a general rule that's correct but there are ways of diversifying DNA between bacteria. Obviously mutations would aid in the diversification and indeed bacteria have a pretty high rate of mutation which is furthur exacerbated by short generation times. The specific mechanism of DNA diversification between bacteria is achieved through things called 'sex pili' which allow bacteria to transfer plasmid DNA which aids in antibiotic resistance. Just a little fact of the day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilus this i do understand. the reason that the mutations are so easily accomplished can be credited to the fact that bacterial dna are formed into rings that are easily spliced. infact genetisists do this when creating products from better drugs to enhancing plants used for food. however as u move into the more complex organisims it becomes more dificult to mutate genes without destroying the reproductive properties of the organism. as with bacteria this doesnot present a problem as bacteria simply devide. what i was talking about with the sterility was more of a cat mating with a dog. bacteria obviously dont mesh well with mamals. on the other hand 1 dog can mate with another breed of dog with no problem as their genes are close enough. the only organisims that are able to mutate other organisms genes are usualy retro viruses. retro viruses penetrate the outer layer of the nucleus and exchange a premeade rna section into the dna. obviously this usualy will destroy the organism...aids anyone...and if u must say that evolution as a method of spontanious change, you must look at the virus as the most evolved organism on the planet. it is the proliferation of an organism in the most simplist way. of course there would be those that say humans too are a type of virus as we have no consievable use othere than to proliferate and exist..the same as viruses. You could argue all forms of life are viruses of some sort (in a very, very broad way). Everything has a need for nourishment and exists, on the biological level, only to reproduce. I find fungi pretty facinating in this respect. Thier whole adult life cycle is spent growing thier hyphae (little tubes used to absorb broken down nutrients) outwards at any cost with only one goal - to feed.

Some pretty good stuff there. I'm no physicist so I'll leave the big bang stuff to someone else. As for the little part I bolded, as a general rule that's correct but there are ways of diversifying DNA between bacteria. Obviously mutations would aid in the diversification and indeed bacteria have a pretty high rate of mutation which is furthur exacerbated by short generation times. The specific mechanism of DNA diversification between bacteria is achieved through things called 'sex pili' which allow bacteria to transfer plasmid DNA which aids in antibiotic resistance. Just a little fact of the day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilus

Quality, quality material there bud. First off why should I not show you what other people think.See the thing is i have no clue if these people said it.All i know is that its there and i can use it. Same principle apllies to science.How do you know the earth is round. Cause other people told you and its in books.How do you know that there are polar bears at the north pole , because other people have told you. How do you know the man landed on the moon. What if its all a con. YOU DONT KNOW. For all you know the tv shows of animal coiuld be done in a studio with special effects.You know what others have shown you.Not what you have discovered. How do you know the dinisaurs exiseted you never saw them. Oh right you saw them in the musem. Its called plastic.You don tknow if its real or not.You clame that you know all these things that happened in the past, yet you have never seen them. Only what people have tolod you or showed you.I can go on about this forever. This can be said about religon too. How do you know its only in a book. Well the thing is that this book CHANGE YOUR LIFE IF YOU READ IT.Just look at the christians.Have you ever been around us. It feels different. I used to be an aithiest.Till one day my best friend asked me to come to church.At first i was like i cant, and made exusses.But one sunday i decided to go.Before i became a christain i had a disiplen problem, i did poor in school, i had almos tno friends, i woke up feeling as if something was missing, i though yet another day of nothing to do . Heck what do i know im a 14 year old kid that is spending my time trying to let you in on the greatest thing in everyones life, yet you wont even try to understand what is in front of you.But heck i love yah, and god loves you, even if you tell god to go [bleep] himself he still loves yah. I find it rediculous to assume that everyone on the planet is out to get me with a world wide education conspiracy. I trust what I've learnt because its sensible and varifiable. One day I'll be able to be one of the people who tells others what science says because I plan to eventually end up in the field. Either way, science has helped the world in a far more tangible way than anything before it. That's why I trust it. I won't try to understand what's in front of me? I went to a Lutheran highschool. I've heard the stories, hymns, songs, prayers and even recall a rationalisation a teacher made to try and call evolution bunk science. I've been exposed to religion for 6 years in school and never acepted it because it in no way appealed to me to just believe something I cannot see or have any knowlege of. Oh and I've never told god to go and [bleep] himself. Please, how can I do that if I have no idea what/who he/she/it is? And on the 'why are monkeys still here?' thing. As Nadril so aptly put it, humans did not evolve from mokeys. We and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor. The evolution branch split and we still have both species today because neither has died out. I recomend googling 'phylogenetic tree.' Edit: Did it for you. It's essential that you understand that evolutionary history is more like a tree than a linnear ladder.

Evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency over time. Mutations occur. They impart differential reproductive frequency on the population. Good mutations enhance this frequency and are therefore selected for which means they proliferate through the population. The result of this is that the population evolves. I reccomend a study of genetics; specifically population genetics. You'll soon enough find that evolution is an intrinsic property of life like roundness is an intrinsic property of circles.

Copy and paster FTL. Come up with your own arguments. Quality, quality material there bud.

No, science, theories included, are based on facts and observations; things we know. Going the other way around and basing knowlege on what we think is true and just believing in it is useless guesswork i.e. religion. Let me quote you what I posted from another topic - You see we start with things we know. We know phenomena occur because we observe them. The idea that these things occur is fact. Theory is an explanation used to eventually bring knowlege and conclusions of use to humanity.

Nobody Knows. That's why we have religion. So believe god did it if you like. Anyway on to your statistic regarding the improbability of life I think you'd need to understand that the principal of natural selection kills off any organism that dosen't fit that verry narrow niche and allows those that do to relish and proliferate. The fact that evolution defies odds such as this is to be expected in light of natural selection and how it works. To give you an analogy, say there is a very exclusive club. There are very specific requirements to get in, such that 99.9999% of all people in the world can't. Just say that the only people in the world that get the ladies ( :wink: ) are those that get to go in the club and those that can't get in don't procreate because they don't fit the requirements. Over time, those that have the genes necessary to fit the requirements of getting in the club will proliferate and adapt to the narrow requirements while those that don't will die off. Natural selection in action. :lol:

Explanation: Stupid people who wanted God to perform miracles when no one needed him to. On topic, many atheists search for the truth, which most of us would agree is a good thing. But they seem to think that the only possible way to reveal the truth is through science. Science will not produce truth, science can change at any given moment. Your scientific knowledge may become completely useless. Why do I prefer reading the Bible instead of scientific books, articles etc? The Bible contains sufficient knowledge, answering meta-physical question such as meaning of life and how to live your life. Science is a framework, explaining some physical parts of the universe, perhaps useful today but not necessarily tomorrow. So you'd rather a divisive and community dependant absolute truth rather than an objective and accountable one. It looks like we still don't agree on the best way to find truth (if you can recall a discussion on a similar topic a while back now). You can't escape that science is the most reliable and useful tool to uncover objective truth, varifiable by empirical evidence. The fluidity of the system is a plus and not a minus as you paint it out to be. You may want everything to be 100% true the moment we discover it but the accountablity in science is an admission that we can make mistakes. There are some things which are universal knowns in science, too. We call these laws and facts.

People like yourself are the reason I don't like religion. You are the product of the problem. You were actually brought up to believe that christianity is the only way to goodness and us heathens are all sad sacks with no morality unless we've found christ. To put it simply, you are wrong. I don't know whether to feel sad, disturbed or angry with you. Why would you refuse to read scientific "mumbo jumbo" if for no other reason than you're worried it will disturb that happiness you have with your faith? If you actually have faith it wont. Either way if you want to hear about said scientific mumbo jumbo, I'll gladly give you a run down but 10 words will in no way suffice. I always figured miracles made possible by God's existence was an axiom :| Of course. God can supposedly do anything. But there's no evidence for any of this, miracles included. But you implied you have qualms with Christians that believe in miracles, but no qualms with Christians that don't believe in miracles. If someone is a Christian they are going to believe in God making belief in miracles a perfectly consistent view to have. If belief in miracles is ridiculous in your opinion, then belief in God must be equally ridiculous in your opinion making Christianity ridiculously in your opinion which begs the question do you really have no qualms with people that follow Christ? I didn't directly express qualms with these things although I'd personally rather people think critically of all of it. What I was implying is that people who follow Christ seem to have this underlying fear or need or whatever you want to call it, which means that they somehow need to defend such myths. If they believe in this stuff as well as in the teachings of Christ I obviously can't stop them. Overall I have no qualms with the people who hold these views. I'd just rather that the society in which they were brought up and the beliefs they hold are vehemently questioned. Ok if i understand what your saying... what is Easier to believe (only you can decide) 1. God created the earth and everything in 6 days or the.. 2. Big bang theory along with the Implosion to create earth Specialy for us..and you now believe the earth is 4.6 billion years old...and we were created from Monkeys and fish... That's simple. One has evidence and one does not. One is a myth and one was concluded after looking at nature and gathering evidence. Do some proper research on the issue and you'll see what I mean. I can give you a broad depiction of why evolution makes sense if you'd like but as for the others I'd advise you to ask a scientist. Edit: The bold highlights a misunderstanding you made. Earth was not created specially for us. We evolved to suit it. The fact that everything is just so for life to even exist is to be expected. To elaborate on that, natural selection has killed off any individual that dosen't meet the requirements, so to speak, over the 3 billion or so years of evolution because fitting the requirements makes you more able to pass on your genes to the next generation while not fitting the requirements usually results in the death of those ill fitting genes. lol, evidence you are talking about the bible? because I have taken a geology class learning all the scientist rubbish. do tell me why evolution makes sense. and i know they haven't concluded evolution..there is no evidence at all that we came from fish or damn monkeys. and im pretty damn sure the moon didn't come out of the pacific ocean...so therefore im guessing the earth is at about 8000 years old and not this outrageous number 4.6bill You are either one of three things. Uninformed in the "scientist rubbish", ignorant of the "scientist rubbish" or a delusional bigot who is scared thier faith will be comprimised. You choose. And I'd really rather you not make science out to be rubbish. It's done so much more for you than you can ever need. It's made your life a luxury and all the trials in life of a trivial insignificance. I also find it cute how you're "guessing" the earth is 8000 years old. Let me rephrase that for you. You think you know that the earth is 8000 years old because of what the bible tells you. Just for your sake I'll tell you how evolution works and then let you judge it, assuming you don't know much about it becuase of your parents trying thier darndest to keep it out of the house and attest to it's falsities. There are organisms. Take a population, for example. When creating the cells that make babies, mutations occur which change the DNA. These mutations can effect the baby organism in one of three ways; 1) No harm whatsoever (i.e. still codes for the same protiens) 2) Harm and possibly death (e.g. it cuts out a crucial function) 3) Benefit to the organism (e.g. running faster, beter ability to metabolise, etc) Now the process known as natural selection selects for these good mutations and selects against the bad. What this means is that the organisms which carry the good mutations are more suited to the environment in which they live and can then reproduce more because of this new found benefit. On the other hand, those with the harmful mutations unfortunately won't get much of a chance to and will die off. This is evolution through the mechanism of natural selection. That this happens is fact. The theory of evolution explains and expands on this phenomenon. Next, imagine part of this original population being split from the original ( :cry: ) by some geological barrier. For example, imagine that a bushfire scares off a part of the population around to the other side of a mountain range. Wait a minute, dosen't that mean the are in a new environment? Yes! As such, the requirements that natural selection will impose on this new population will be different. Therefore, the mutations that may have been of benefit before may no longer be beneficial and the harmful mutations before may even, on rare occasions, actually become useful! As a result different mutations will be selected for as these different mutations allow thier beholder to reproduce at a higher frequency and pass on thier genes. As a result of this migration of part of the population, selection needs are changed and the secondary population actually begins looking different than the original populaton. In some cases, this happens untill a new species is formed! \ This is called speciation. This has been observed in nature and imposed in the laboratory. There is no barrier which prevents said phenomenon. So now you know. : Oh and as for this "outragous number, 4.6 bill" here's a start - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating It's quite ignorant of you to argue such a conclusion is outragous when a multitude of known decay paths are used, each of which shows constant decay and can be used to measure geological time with a mathematical function and each of which corroborates to the others within a useful degree of accuracy. We know for a fact that the earth is not 8000 years old. If it is, god is clearly trying to fool us. A deceptive god?

Dude... Why so harsh? :?

Sorry to hear that mate. :( Unfortunately it's all part of life. Cherish the good times you and your grandma had and remember them. Don't be afraid to find solace in your family and feel. I'm no psychologist (perhaps godess can help out here or possibly correct me) but it's always healthy to recognise what you feel before dealing with it in what ever way makes you cope best. I wish you all the best.

So it's all up to you to decide what constitutes love? Just like you said, striker, there are exceptions to everything. There seem to be quite a few of these exeptions attesting to your incorrect belief that people under 18 can't love. Am I getting this right? Do you really believe that 18 is the magical age at which love automatically becomes possible? Or is that just what you want? Is that just the criteria that you use to judge if people are in love?

I always figured miracles made possible by God's existence was an axiom :| Of course. God can supposedly do anything. But there's no evidence for any of this, miracles included.

Ok if i understand what your saying... what is Easier to believe (only you can decide) 1. God created the earth and everything in 6 days or the.. 2. Big bang theory along with the Implosion to create earth Specialy for us..and you now believe the earth is 4.6 billion years old...and we were created from Monkeys and fish... That's simple. One has evidence and one does not. One is a myth and one was concluded after looking at nature and gathering evidence. Do some proper research on the issue and you'll see what I mean. I can give you a broad depiction of why evolution makes sense if you'd like but as for the others I'd advise you to ask a scientist. Edit: The bold highlights a misunderstanding you made. Earth was not created specially for us. We evolved to suit it. The fact that everything is just so for life to even exist is to be expected. To elaborate on that, natural selection has killed off any individual that dosen't meet the requirements, so to speak, over the 3 billion or so years of evolution because fitting the requirements makes you more able to pass on your genes to the next generation while not fitting the requirements usually results in the death of those ill fitting genes.

That argument doesn't work on fundementalists [it's still perfectly logical though.] Yeah. Perhaps the argument that god could see straight through the Pascal's Wager charade would work better. Then again I'm not going to hold my breath.

Going on the actions of Christ is fine. From what I understand (I'm no theologian) he was a decent bloke who taught some good things. It's all the supernatural baggage that is contradicted by science which is the irrational part. I have no qualms with people who follow Christ. It's just the tagline of defending ideas such as creationism, the flood, miracles, morality against homosexuality, etc, which make the people defending it look like they feel thier faith in Christ is somehow comprimised if these ideas are challanged. I have a general question for those evolution doubters out there; what would it take for you to be done with a literal account of genesis and rather see it as metaphorical? I'm sure if there was a god he'd be a top bloke and wouldn't punish you for following the rationality and critical thinking skills which help us conclude evolution and which he gave us. EDIT: I get it now!!! My view is that having faith and hope is better than believing in rationality because if it doesn't come true no regrets if it does you've done the right thing it's not like you have no fun when you're a religous bloke. Better safe than sorry to sum it all up :) By the way I don't exactly get your signature with Americans going to bed but I know our government is in control. Lol? Ask yourself why would god punish me for thinking rationally and trying to unveil the mysteries of this world? Why would god punish me for being skeptical and thus leaving unanswered and difficult questions up for answering? Why would god punish me for trying to look past faith and accept reason to try and improve the world in some tangible way? Either way I'm sure god would be the first of all entities to see through your better safe than sorry rationale. Either have faith or don't. Don't make excuses so you can have faith. And the quote in my sig is a quote from comedian Bill Hicks.

Your missing the point; an athiest believes he is correct as much as a christian. We, [or atleast I] are not afraid of the alternate scenario because I do not believe in god at all. I live an as happy life as a christian does because my belief is as firm as yours is. I do not believe in god, therefore I do not go through life fearing 'just incase'. Not to sound rude or anything but if the Christian view were correct, yes you've lived a happy life but have to face an eternity of Hell just because you had to take the risk. So living your life is the same is an Atheist and Christian tend to be the same but better safe than sorry. :) Your chances of being correct are still incredibly small. What makes you think the most popular religion is the right one? What makes you think any are right? Do you realise how slim the chances of any one of the thousands of religions around the world being correct is? An atheist is liberated from such questioning by lacking the belief that any are real or true accounts of reality. If you want more of a rebuttal to your position I suggest you google "criticisms of Pascal's Wager."

First of all, the Bible teaches that God s no one, and that you shouldn't anyone. Second of all, the Bible does teach against homosexuality, and it is shamed by it, but it nowhere says God s anyone who is, he just is shamed by it, but God loves everyone, from Mother Teresa to Osama Bin Laden, even George Bush. =D> , but anyway, anyone who actually knows anything about the Bible knows God s no one. And yes, I do believe in the bible. :mrgreen: And another thing to you athiest kids -.- , evolution makes no freaking sense at all, okay if humans did come from monkeys (lol?) why were some monkey's left behind? Not very fair you ask me. Just makes no sense at all to me, so that alone just proves God is real. Why do Atheists care what other religions think they should just shut up and mind there own buisness and do not tell me that Christians attack other religions because it's not, it's the people attacking your beliefs so making threads like these is just pointless. :| You don't believe in evolution? Clear hard evidence? You choose to believe in a bunch of 2000 year old badly translated scriptures? If i were to write a book now claiming that a man unknown and unseen called Rod had created mankind, 2000 years later you would believe me over blatent facts? Other monkeys didn't evolve because evolution is just mutation over long periods of time. For example, if a family had 3 perfectly normal children, but 1 child with webbed toes and this child gave birth to 3 children all with webbed toes, but his 3 siblings gave birth to children with normal toes, then 1 species survives while another is created. Etc... Your acting like Evolution is all fact. You seem to forget that its called "Theory of Evolution" and there is "clear hard evidence" against the theory of Evolution. And about the monkey thing. If Evolution takes a very long time to take affect, don't you think that some where millions of years ago there would be a change with a monkey, or an fish, bird, whatever, and we would be able to see it? If you think your right, then tell me how thats possible, if all animals "evolve" like you say, we should be seeing it now, since there would have been a lot of changes, millions of years ago. Evolution is a fact and a theory. The idea that evolution happens is a demonstrable fact evidenced by a 5 minute study of genetics. Ask any scientists whether evolution happens. The theory of evolution is a unifying explanation incorporating facts, explanations, observations, hypotheses and tests in order to best define and explain the processes of evolution and to help draw conclusions, one of which is that the theory of universal common descent is an accurate account of life on earth as evidenced by overwhelmingly favourable empirical evidence. I'll give you an analogy I like to use. Gravity is a fact. The theory of gravitation merely attempts to explain how the phenomenon works. Just to add, we can see evolution in action now, have seen it many times and have tested it many times. We also see the effects of millions of years of past evolution as documented in the fossil record and other lines of evidence.

Going on the actions of Christ is fine. From what I understand (I'm no theologian) he was a decent bloke who taught some good things. It's all the supernatural baggage that is contradicted by science which is the irrational part. I have no qualms with people who follow Christ. It's just the tagline of defending ideas such as creationism, the flood, miracles, morality against homosexuality, etc, which make the people defending it look like they feel thier faith in Christ is somehow comprimised if these ideas are challanged. I have a general question for those evolution doubters out there; what would it take for you to be done with a literal account of genesis and rather see it as metaphorical? I'm sure if there was a god he'd be a top bloke and wouldn't punish you for following the rationality and critical thinking skills which help us conclude evolution and which he gave us.

And that disproves evolution how? Be a lot more specific in your critique please. Anyway they came from thier evolutionary ancestors, as according to the theory of universal common descent and as evidenced by fossils, and similarities of all kinds (including in biochemistry, anatomy, embryology, genetic code, energy currency, bone structure etc, etc, etc...) I'm assuming you're referring to abiogenesis. It's a common criticism which is totally misguided to say the least. The theories of abogenesis and evolution are two distinctly different theories. I'm not as apt with abiogenesis so I'd suggest do some personal study for yourself. If you try and argue that evolution has to explain where the first cell came from then science and how it's taught would collapse into a heap. Think of aerodynamics. When studying such a science, it's taken as an axiom that there is air just like in evolution it's taken as an axiom that in some point in the past, there was life (which is obviously true). It's just that all empirical evidence and observations suggest universal common descent, which is taken into account in the broader theory of evolution. Another reason why I'm an atheist; I find the concept of a deceptive designer disturbing. The account of genesis and what scientists have found out obviously conflict, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. God you're smart :). Just doing my best to defend science. :P :wink:

And that disproves evolution how? Be a lot more specific in your critique please. Anyway they came from thier evolutionary ancestors, as according to the theory of universal common descent and as evidenced by fossils, and similarities of all kinds (including in biochemistry, anatomy, embryology, genetic code, energy currency, bone structure etc, etc, etc...) I'm assuming you're referring to abiogenesis. It's a common criticism which is totally misguided to say the least. The theories of abogenesis and evolution are two distinctly different theories. I'm not as apt with abiogenesis so I'd suggest do some personal study for yourself. If you try and argue that evolution has to explain where the first cell came from then science and how it's taught would collapse into a heap. Think of aerodynamics. When studying such a science, it's taken as an axiom that there is air just like in evolution it's taken as an axiom that in some point in the past, there was life (which is obviously true). It's just that all empirical evidence and observations suggest universal common descent, which is taken into account in the broader theory of evolution. Another reason why I'm an atheist; I find the concept of a deceptive designer disturbing. The account of genesis and what scientists have found out obviously conflict, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion.

Wow I didn't realise there was solid proof that he didn't exist either. Have I missed something? :roll: Perhaps then you believe in Thor, Zeus or Quetzalcoatl? Or the invisible pink elephant, flying spaghetti monster or the flying teapot? Or ghosts, pixies, faries, gremlins, trolls, witches and warlocks? I think I've made my point clear enough. Ihave thouroghly read this post, and have come to the conclusion that you are very close-minded and intolerant. It would seem that you have not been touched by his noodly appendage, and should visit this webpage. -Pastafarian for life. In the name of the FSM I see the light! :P (humour, people. Please don't get offended)

I am highly doubtful and skeptical of any god that has been thought up and given specificproperties. I am however not closed off to the idea that some creator does exist, most likely one not like any god we humans have thought up. And yes, as you established in your last sentence, you have reiterated my argument :P . There is no such thing for or against, Reb. Science is a purely naturalistsic methodology. Trying to gather evidence from the supernatural is, as you said, impossible because there's no data or knowlege to grasp. Note that this is for your archetypal, arbitrary creator; I've seen good arguments against many specific deities made. Which is exactly my point :P . And yes, as I said, specific man-created deities can be pretty much completely disproven, but the simple idea of a creator can not be disproven. Looks like we're in total agreement then. :P :)

Just to make some relevance I wouldn't doubt that the church has done some great things over the years. Anyway on to the Irish potatos. Sorry, just can't pass up this irony. It's great that the church helped in such a devistating crop loss but a knowlege of evolution could have stopped such a total devastation from ever occuring by manipulating the genetics of the crops through artificial selection. :P There's a very good reason for not being wishy washy and rather being skeptical and highly doubtful of any god. Any concession to a god explanation halts scientific progress because it makes us content with knowing that we don't know, so to speak. Scientists have come along way and realised labelling natural phenomenon with deity after deity is useless to progress. It's only through conceding that we don't have the answers that we can start looking for them. Come to think of it, this is an argument against theism rather than agnosticism. Please, don't paint scientists out to be the ones with an agenda. I could easily turn this around and question why is it that the only ones who oppose said science have religious beliefs to defend? If evolution was disproven for a bigger and better theory I would be glad because the scientific process would have worked. There is no such thing for or against, Reb. Science is a purely naturalistsic methodology. Trying to gather evidence from the supernatural is, as you said, impossible because there's no data or knowlege to grasp. Note that this is for your archetypal, arbitrary creator; I've seen good arguments against many specific deities made.