The Faith & Religion mega Thread

If you were born and taught* nothing you'd die... so, what gives any the right‽

Geneticists believe that anthropologists have decided what a race is. Ethnologists assume that their classifications embody principles which genetic science has proved correct. Politicians believe that their prejudices have the sanction of genetic laws and the findings of physical anthropology to sustain them.

With full responsibility for my words as a professional biologist, I do not hesitate to say that all existing and genuine knowledge about the way in which the physical characteristics of human communities are related to their cultural capabilities can be written on the back of a postage stamp.

— Lancelot Hogben

Preachers not like Lancelot and I: teachers!?.

Genetics might say what a race consists of, but it can never say what it is capable of.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Genetics might say what a race consists of, but it can never say what it is capable of.

Actually it can and does. DNA, though far smaller than "a postage stamp", contains over 8,000,000 possible combinations in just one person. Because of sexual reproduction that combination jumps to 70,368,744,177,664 different possible chromosome combinations, so that's a lot of room for diversity. However that doesn't include the ability to "leap over tall buildings, fly faster than a speeding bullet" though bending steel with our bare hands is possible for some, just for simple examples. Flying requires machinery for us whether to create enough lift at Earth conditions or to reach other environments where air is more dense and/or gravity less.

Having said that, we could possibly fly or breathe under water through Evolution if 'we' is defined as descendants of Homo Sapiens under the right conditions over many millions of years but as long as we are earthbound and live for just a few decades there are very sharp limitations except as a long existing species. The numbers are large, but finite.

Religions* as\and opinions on average don't want we to "play "gods;"" (or think,,,) or, those Evolutionary changes could happen faster than they may... diversity can't be denied like most opinions.

Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity. --Roger Ebert

Diversity also disproves ___*

Futurama s3e17 sums it up best "we're dumb."

Actually it can and does. DNA, though far smaller than "a postage stamp", contains over 8,000,000 possible combinations in just one person. Because of sexual reproduction that combination jumps to 70,368,744,177,664 different possible chromosome combinations, so that's a lot of room for diversity. However that doesn't include the ability to "leap over tall buildings, fly faster than a speeding bullet" though bending steel with our bare hands is possible for some, just for simple examples.

Who closed the possibility? Since when?

Flying requires machinery for us whether to create enough lift at Earth conditions or to reach other environments where air is more dense and/or gravity less.

What? Is it the only way you know of flying? Very poor wisdom... Man can fly by the mere "Gravity" manipulation. "Gravity-dynamics" shall be the next technology to replace "Propulsion"... if only the rich-few did not suppress this knowledge to maintain their dominion through oil-gas industry. If that technology shall reach china sooner than usual it means goodbye to Caltex and combustion engines. Mark my word for this technology will dawn in your children's generation.

Having said that, we could possibly fly or breathe under water through Evolution if 'we' is defined as descendants of Homo Sapiens under the right conditions over many millions of years but as long as we are earthbound and live for just a few decades there are very sharp limitations except as a long existing species. The numbers are large, but finite.

So Evolution has become another esoteric science of "million-year-prophecy".

Can we clone goats?

Originally Posted by malekmustaq Who closed the possibility? Since when?

To what possibility do you refer? Surely you don't mean the possible permutations?

Originally Posted by malekmustaq What? Is it the only way you know of flying? Very poor wisdom... Man can fly by the mere "Gravity" manipulation. "Gravity-dynamics" shall be the next technology to replace "Propulsion"... if only the rich-few did not suppress this knowledge to maintain their dominion through oil-gas industry. If that technology shall reach china sooner than usual it means goodbye to Caltex and combustion engines. Mark my word for this technology will dawn in your children's generation. So Evolution has become another esoteric science of "million-year-prophecy".

I'd quip "Pot, meet Kettle" but then Evolution isn't all that esoteric nor does it require periods of time longer than a single human lifetime in many cases, especially compared with prophesy for a technology upon which we have yet to gain any control at all (excepting old Dick Tracy cartoons). Simply put, I can see Evolution at work and others have as well for ~160 years but I have yet to see or even hear about gravity being manipulated by Man.

That said at least we have begun some research on the subject but presently it is just speculation that it should be possible - --- NASA on Gravity Propulsion --- . Looks like more than one generation away to me but then as the Mock Turtle said "Well there was Mystery..." referring to the subjects of "Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'

Float these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ve_been_cloned

...who's their creator, same as yours‽ "We're dumb(.)"

Am I(\Futurama) right: Enorbet? I mean come-on, you vote for people NOT policies!!!

Originally Posted by jamison20000e Am I(\Futurama) right: Enorbet? I mean come-on, you vote for people NOT policies!!!

Heya Jamison. While Futurama is certainly thoughtful, interesting (and funny) adult affair I'm not sure if "you" refers to me but if it does then that is incorrect. I vote for some amalgam of party, people and policies. Party has become rather irrelevant since the Libertarian Party is barely libertarian anymore, the Democratic Party is no longer the party of the masses, and the Republican Party has become some bipolar beast but people and policies still matter very much. Of those policy matters most but people also matter since their ability to implement the policies they champion matters a great deal.

However since Corporations in the US are now figured equivalent to an individual and Supreme Court judges have become extraordinarily powerful AND free from popular vote AND in for life, party, people and policy have become even more important since the ability to push a favorite through now has deep and long-lasting effects on governance.

As it applies to religion and gods, it has always puzzled me why so many are angry and behave like drunken, petulant, blue blood children until I saw that through the concept that Man created God(s) and not the other way around.

Geez! Politics and Religion! I seem to recall my parents warning me about that

People times people don't implement policies, opinions and "jobs" do... aquaponics for all.edu
If we take all the "jobs" from governments that DON'T matter we have religions(.)


...a sand box with poop in one corner should not be played in and common sense is nil(point something)...

It should be mandatory for all citizens to vote but never on people only "jobs..."

I still maintain the opinion that one day we will find that there is much more than "(Species ...) Evolution." We will discover that our hypotheses which said that Evolution was the cause of all the diversity of life on the planet (generously salted with "billions and billions"), were in fact wrong. And we will discover, in yet another of Nature's "top secrets," something more marvelous and astounding than we can today imagine. (Said thing being, perhaps not a Deity, but a hitherto-unknown natural process.)

I still think that Evolution has built-in constraints which specifically work to keep creatures reproducing "after their own kind," even though we know that they share a great deal of genetic material and, in utero, go through some pretty amazing changes. (For example, human embryos, they say, briefly develop gills and a tail.) This leads me to strongly suspect the existence of another process, independent of the first, which is (or, was?) capable of producing radically-different genetic combinations that still(!) are viable, and which thereafter reproduce "after their own kind."

I'm not willing to ascribe it to "sufficient time," nor to "chance." (Nor, necessarily, to a Designer.) I think that the built-in constraints of Evolution would continue to operate as ... ahh ... "designed."

I suspect that there is yet another thing out there that we don't know – and, today, don't even suspect. After all, "if we think that we've got God(?) Nature figured out, the answer is 'No.'"

... which is one big reason why this topic is so fun and so engaging: it is truly inexhaustible.