The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by OregonJim Another deceitful analogy - "bathtubs, ponds and lakes" intimates that science has experience in fields that are SIMILAR to biology and genetics. THERE ARE NONE.

What?

We've also metaphorically broken eggs and will some more so if altering (HOPEFULLY in good ways ) or creating life is "gods's work" our loss...

Back@OregonJim: you don't understand theory or science in general, come on you're full of it? Only deceit can ever prove actual "gods," "devils" and "afterlife" exist!

Originally Posted by ntubski I'm not sure what you're trying to imply with this "convenient" remark. Since vitalism was abandoned as a no longer viable theory, it's true that "organic" doesn't really have a very meaningful scientific definition.

There are some people who question the definition of "alive". Viruses, both biological and binary code, are not in current terms technically alive even though they self-replicate, adapt, and hide from threats because they require some external source/environment to accomplish this. Is that any different from a human requiring a mate, food, shelter and air to breathe?

Somewhat similarly, the most basic lifeform, Prokaryotes (the family that includes bacteria), still have requirements for external sources even if it is only the chemistry within rocks.

From Wikipedia_Prokaryote

Originally Posted by Above_Wiki A prokaryote is a single-celled organism that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus (karyon), mitochondria, or any other membrane-bound organelle.[1] The word prokaryote comes from the Greek πρό (pro) "before" and καρυόν (karyon) "nut or kernel".[2][3] Prokaryotes can be divided into two domains, Archaea and Bacteria. Species with nuclei and organelles are placed in the domain Eukaryota.[4]

It should be noted that humans fall into the Eukaryote category and that the steps from basic molecules to one-celled "life" to multi-celled organisms does not require a "Leap of Faith". It is quite linear, even if also quite fuzzy considering 99% of all life that ever existed on Earth is now extinct (a lot of dead branches), according to the fossil record.

So, did God hurl the 10km asteroid that likely wiped out most dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago, making it more likely that humans could evolve or did it he/she/it set The Universe up that way (the plan all along?), or did it just happen that way because of the way things are, by chance and probability? Considering The Universe contains trillions of galaxies, each with near trillions of star systems, what are the odds?

Originally Posted by OregonJim Originally Posted by OregonJim View Post Another deceitful analogy - "bathtubs, ponds and lakes" intimates that science has experience in fields that are SIMILAR to biology and genetics. THERE ARE NONE.

Originally Posted by jamison20000e What?

Exactly! He is a piece of work, right?

Look Jim, now that I've proven you inserted your own conclusion into a quote from a scholarly paper as if it was included in the original you seem bent on throwing "deceit" my way and I hereby invite you or anyone else to quote me in the use of ANY deception. I have never altered data, period!, nor even sought to deceive since that would be anathema to a scientific point of view, which yours clearly is not. You're welcome to your pet concepts but stop accusing me of anything provably untrue or I will report you. The most likely result of that is that we will both be admonished and all or most of our posts here deleted. I'm willing to accept that as the price of stopping your vindictive, misguided accusations. How about you? That's how much I value truth. Let's see how much you do.

You knowingly misquoted stating that "any child could draw that conclusion" as justification and that's just pure rationalization of wrongdoing. You, Sir, are guilty of willful deceit by anyone's standards. Now you wish to deflect that guilt at me and it simply does not exist. You may disagree with me but don't call me in effect a liar because I simply am not one due to my most cherished convictions and principles. So I challenge you PROVE IT!, as I did with objective observation of an actual event. I will rescind the ignore on your posts to see how you respond because I view this as extremely important. Cease and desist! or prove me deceitful. I don't expect an apology (I think you're incapable of apologizing to anyone) just your cessation of this accusation of deceit. Don't add lies on top of lies. That is, after all the pitfall of lying.

in the above case the common point is bodies of water. There is no need for something SIMILAR to biology and genetics when we have the bodies of accumulated knowledge that are Biology and Genetics! Duh! Where is the deceit or even intention of it in this? You're grasping at straws, Jim.

You have 98 posts and I suspect most or all of them are in this thread. I have over 10 times that many because i post in many threads, not just Faith and Religion, where I maybe have 100. We don't need to compare Rep. I can afford to lose 10% but can you afford to lose 99%? for a falsehood?

Sometimes deceit is just a shared wrong way... hence blind.

Enorbet, I am very reluctant to act upon a "body of evidence" when that "evidence" consists of observation, of rather gross (as in, "only the most-superficially observable ...") perceptible characteristics of how "the system" appears to us to behave.

What we're doing with that evidence is ... diving rather-deeply into thoughts of "the underlying implementation." I am very reluctant to do that.

Obviously, we're seeing a lot of sh*t that we can't explain. Therefore, "humans that we are," we proceed to explain them!

But ... I'm just sayin' that we have to be very, very careful with mental exercises like that. I suggest that we should continue to make it a point to "pour buckets of 'maybe' and 'perhaps' and it (to us) appears that'" into just-about everything that we say about biology.

I'm not persuaded that the readily-observable (and yet, very mysterious ...) phenomenon of "species evolution" is sufficient to explain "the origins" of "anything but 'species.'" And no, I do not have anything(!) to offer-up in return.

It continues to be a fascinating question. But, let us remember, "so was (to 'the other Blind Men ...') the nature of The Elephant."

"Yeah, yeah, it sux not to know." ... ... (Yet!™)

Gentlebeings ... gentlebeings ... go easy on the mud-slinging, please ... "The topic, not the people." ... ...

Or-accepting ever not!

E.g: do we need paleont*ology anymore or could we feed and educate billions hear now instead..?

And, if we'd have to accept your god damn lord and savior to do so you're the devil!

My mom "yelled" at me for picking on my 12 year old nephew at father's day dinner so I "yelled" back, I'm not being too rough you just don't know how to be a boy (realizing later she does after growing up with so many brothers big and small) but she knows quite well to be the (average) girl( will cry at too much.) My nephew of course jumped on my side of it... (dad stayed out of it. )

I realize lot's of girls that could kick my butt may want to smack the back of my head now but worst yet are the wusse(s)ucker who kill people for "good" or "bad!"

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Enorbet, I am very reluctant to act upon a "body of evidence" when that "evidence" consists of observation, of rather gross (as in, "only the most-superficially observable ...") perceptible characteristics of how "the system" appears to us to behave. What we're doing with that evidence is ... diving rather-deeply into thoughts of "the underlying implementation." I am very reluctant to do that. Obviously, we're seeing a lot of sh*t that we can't explain. Therefore, "humans that we are," we proceed to explain them! But ... I'm just sayin' that we have to be very, very careful with mental exercises like that. I suggest that we should continue to make it a point to "pour buckets of 'maybe' and 'perhaps' and it (to us) appears that'" into just-about everything that we say about biology. I'm not persuaded that the readily-observable (and yet, very mysterious ...) phenomenon of "species evolution" is sufficient to explain "the origins" of "anything but 'species.'" And no, I do not have anything(!) to offer-up in return. It continues to be a fascinating question. But, let us remember, "so was (to 'the other Blind Men ...') the nature of The Elephant." "Yeah, yeah, it sux not to know." ... ... (Yet!™)

After yet another iteration of such dismissing thoughts, it seems to me that you prefer to "close your eyes and ears" to what you consider as "taboo" (e.g. observation, accumulation of relevant data, inductive and deductive reasoning, scientific culture and method, etc.), in order to protect your simple and simplistic boolean answers (e.g. "We-don't-know, period!™") from any "interference" based on rationality, instead of accepting the more nuanced fact that the complexity of the real world can actually be investigated, and that such investigation is a source of genuine knowledge, and that such knowledge is increasing. However, let's belittle and dismiss, once again, observational evidence and rational thought-processes, and let's rely on OregonJim's self-authenticated "self-authentication mechanism™" and on sundialsvcs' "still small voices in the night™", also known as "ignorance is bliss™". Good luck...

@ sundialsvcs - Thank you for your most recent explanation on your views on Evolution, Biology, and Genetics. I do understand the need for some caution if only because so recently what was thought to be "junk dna" turned out to be very important. The fact remains that the importance took only a few years now. After the initial shock at somethings so basic, and especially since we've been directly and/or indirectly commandeering Evolution at least since dogs were domesticated, probably around 40,000 years ago (it is interesting and a little troublesome that 40,000 years is not a "hard number" because the wolves that were the direct antecedent to dogs went extinct and so far, no remains have been found that have yielded reliable DNA) we quickly moved on to discovering if they were indeed "junk"..

Medicine is considered a practice, not a Science, exactly for such reasons - diversity among individuals. So I do "get it" but that doesn't mean all modern medicine is bunk.

That said, since the discovery of DNA one of it's most important features is "having the source code" as you likely appreciate being also a coder. Reverse engineering what took possibly a billion years to go from RNA to DNA is a huge task but lately the genomes have been decoded for a great many species, thanks to supercomputers. This is different than decoding encryption because encryption was designed to be difficult on purpose whereas the genetic code is not "trying to hide" it is merely complicated.

The advances in just the last few years is nothing short of astounding because of this huge and growing database, and even stem cells has become somewhat old hat. I wonder if you have read of CRISPR ? (I'm not going to post a link because I would rather not bias anyone's interest on such a powerful and controversial subject. Just look it up if you like)

This came about exactly because of the ability to recognize odd bits and set them against a huge database. The possibilities are absolutely breath-taking both bad and good. The point is that truly huge leaps have been made recently.

Example - I have a life-threatening disease that until recently was only treatable by Chemo and even that had a success expectation of roughly 30%. Now there exists a treatment in which the genome is specifically determined for exact treatment and the success rate is over 96%.

We may be adolescents in our level of understanding of Biology and Genetics but we aren't stupid and we are taking all the right steps to be cautious and rigorous. If you look deeply into CRISPR you may argue that the Chinese aren't being particularly cautious, but the fact remains that what is being learned is profound and a huge leap in understanding of fundamental processes. We may be adolescents but we are no longer "babes in the woods".

Originally Posted by enorbet Look Jim, now that I've proven you inserted your own conclusion into a quote from a scholarly paper as if it was included in the original [...]

Blah blah blah. You've done no such thing. Aren't you getting tired of repeating yourself over and over and over and over?

Originally Posted by enorbet You have 98 posts and I suspect most or all of them are in this thread. I have over 10 times that many because i post in many threads, not just Faith and Religion, where I maybe have 100. We don't need to compare Rep. I can afford to lose 10% but can you afford to lose 99%? for a falsehood?

Apparently, you don't know how the forums work. Posts in THIS thread (or any other GENERAL thread) don't get added to your "score". If you care to count, my posts outnumber yours by a wide margin (not that it matters at all to me, but you brought it up). Your allusion to comparing reps makes no sense - win/lose what? To/from whom? I don't care anyway, so don't bother to answer.