The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Now, here's another point: with due acknowledgement of Dr. Carl Sagan (RIP), when "evolutionists" start to drag out "billions and billions [of years]," that's where I personally begin to smell smoke. I'm not going to let you get away with telling me that some dramatic transformation occurred – entire new "kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus" – just because some unfathomable amount of time passed by.

I'm gonna blow my referee's whistle and say: "The fact of the matter is that you have no idea – and, neither do I!"

In fact, we see that biology has many error-correcting mechanisms and other features which appear specifically to prevent organisms from reproducing other than "after their own kind." You can't arbitrarily mix eggs and sperm and expect a new organism to be the result: it very specifically does not happen. "Mules and Hinnies are sterile." Somehow, the egg seems to be able to recognize incompatible sperm and will not allow them to enter. We don't yet understand how this works. But I think that we see actual mechanisms which seemingly-intentionally confine the scope of allowable variations to: "species." Similar though the genomes might be, you cannot impregnate a monkey with human sperm nor vice-versa. It doesn't work.

So, when you start talking about "vast amounts of time," I'll say that you are now hand-waving.

Now, the day may come when we discover some brand-new feature of biology which does allow these "dramatic variations" to occur ... and then, thereafter, to once again(!) reproduce "after their own kind" ... but I will flatly tell you that we don't know what that is ... yet! But, "vast amounts of time" are no substitute for whatever-it-is that we don't yet know. Much better just to admit it.

I personally continue to believe that "evolution" is good enough to explain "the origin of Species," but that it is not a sufficient explanation for everything else, for reasons including those aforesaid. I don't think that we have any idea – yet – what that right answer will actually turn out to be. I know that it bothers some people to have to say that, but it doesn't bother me.

slac-in-the-box

I will get back to your post soon but in the meantime would you please correct the following quote error


Quote:
Originally Posted by enorbet View Post
But if its practitioners start to create policies that effect evolution which occurs over eons, based only upon a few hundred years of using the scientific method, then it oversteps its bounds

I never said that. You did. I quoted you correctly for comment. Please fix.

sundialsvcs it is not productive to try to mix oil and water. It's rare than anyone, let alone Carl Sagan, spouts "billions and billions" with regards to human history and evolution. He did very often use that phrase in the field of Cosmology because it is meaningful there. We have far more than just an idea about the evolution of life on planet Earth and in that field millions and millions is more useful since for nearly 3 billion years the only life forms were single cell. I entreat you to please familiarize yourself with Stromatolites. some of the first one-celled "creatures" that cement minerals together for food and protection and because of this fossilize readily and are radiometric dated with little fuss and quite sufficient accuracy. I mean do you really care if a particular fossilized Stromatolite is 673,743,972 years old or 669,097,433 years old?. It's still entirely accurate to say it was more than 500 million years ago that it died, unless you are involved in some more specific sort of proof for comparison. To generalize to "I don't know and you don't either because we weren't there" is myopic and poisoning the well... or perhaps you don't grasp the level of expertise in this field.

You or I pick up a rock and it's just a rock. An archeologist can know rocks don't form like that naturally from many thousands of rocks collected and classified and what just looks a bit flaky to you and I reveals it was a scraping tool and can date when it was crafted, often give or take a mere hundred years. That's not particularly meaningful or accurate from a single life perspective but it can be encyclopedic in studying a civilization that lasted nearly a thousand years, especially when a few thousand more such rocks are gleaned from the area. You nor I nor nobody knows it all but collectively we know a LOT. That's what Civilization IS.

On the flip side, of course we have still a lot to learn but the skeleton has accurate form and is being fleshed out, NOT diminished, each year. At last count the colony of bacteria cultivated circa 1970 has gone through more than 67,000 generations AND a portion of the original was kept "on ice" for actual comparison, not just notes. We witness Evolution on many scales.

You might be surprised to know that (if there was a way to prevent the inevitable fisticuffs) I would like to see the day when ALL scriptures from ALL religions could be studied and discussed in schools short of University as perhaps a High School elective class in Philosophy. I just don't see how at least under present conditions, it could. To be perfectly forthright and clear, that does not mean that it should be taught as equivalent to scientific findings, since those come with the weight of evidence. Conversely it could be taught that Science has nothing to say about THE BEGINNING, since there is no, and possibly can never be, ANY evidence of that.

Originally Posted by enorbet slac-in-the-box I never said that. You did. I quoted you correctly for comment. Please fix.

fixed... my humble apologies: when I first quoted you, without my initial comment, there wasn't the context to let anybody know what I was supposed to be expanding upon, and I accidentally entangled the authorship when trying to nest the quotes (would never intentionally put my words in someone else's utterance)...

my bad, and fixed...

I can only hope that after some polite discussion and deep thought we may reach enough consensus such that you eventually share this understanding and utter something similar... until then I too am interested in you POV.

But if anybody read it before the correction: Enorbet did not say that science oversteps its bounds: I, slac-in-the-box, said it, and still say it.

stress about health is just as unhealthy as any unhealthy habit, and the global reaction to this pandemic has increased stress globally sufficient enough to cause casualties, not just from people too freaked out about the kiler cold... my friend's brother, got so stressed struggling for the right to not wear a mask in Colorado, that he threw in the towel and shot himself... casualites come in many forms...

some of the oldest living humans are herding sheep in the caucuses mountains. I think they live so long because they are counting their sheep and not their days... less stress...

perhaps the masks reduce stress for those who believe in them... to me, everyone seems one step away from being stormtroopers, trading their dignity to serve the empire of fear.

When folks are unsure, their tendency is to follow: behold the lynchmob effect. I am not a follower... I don't like to be hasty with important decisions that are irreversable... I am willing to learn: please convince me otherwise.

It relieves my stress



Can't afford to get sick now a days. Like go to ER and get ventilated. Still paying on dental bills.
Also. I consider selfish when a trauma bed is taken up by some one who won't wear a mask or get vaccinated.

Especially when living in a podunk town like I do.

Edit: I guess GOD is busy.

@enorbet: "Ancient fossils," no matter how old, will never convince me that "life as we know it now" somehow stumbled from there to here. And, no amount of "_illions of years" will fill-in that gap for me. Instead, I believe that this is yet another Mystery. We do not have the answer yet. We have not discovered it yet.

While we can very easily see that a process of species-level evolution does exist, it seems to be a low-level fine tuning mechanism which of course would be very important indeed. Forms of life sometimes need to adapt very quickly, and then to propagate those adaptations. But I think that it is in fact constrained to that minor role. I do not accept that it is the actual mechanism that is responsible for the vast diversity of forms of life that we now see – forms of life which are still reproducing only "after their own kind." I regard evolution as an indisputable process which serves as "the Origin of Species," but nothing further. There is a still-undiscovered piece that is missing, and I have utterly no idea what it is. Isn't that exciting?

Originally Posted by rokytnji It relieves my stress

Humor does relive stress (I mean jokes that make you laugh, and not a bodily fluid)...

Edit: I guess GOD is busy.

When God listens to our planet, the loudest prayers drown out the quiet soft ones such that God mostly hears: "damn it", and so God does.

Statistics are only valid on finite populations.

With an inifnite population there can be more instances in the extremes that approach infinity, though spaced farther apart, than all the instances under the bell.

Calculus, taking limits while approaching infinity, presumes continuity. But the assymptote could be a gap... it's never actually reached to be measurable...

IMHO, the universe doesn't have laws: it has infinite happenstance.

I used to have a cd player that held five cds, and had a "random mode" which, when in random mode, not only chose tracks from the five cds as randomly as its alogorithm allowed, but also had an icon of arrows going off in random directions that lit up when random mode was selected.

One day, I swore I put it in random mode, but I noticed it seemed to be playing a third track from Dark Side of the Moon in order... it made me go back and look at the icon, which sure enough, was lit up, and it was in random mode, and the next track it played was from a different cd alltogether.

It made me wonder how many tracks in a row it could randomly play... what if I hadn't checked on it? There's a schrodinger's cat for ya.

I decided that if it never played tracks in order some times, there would be a pattern to that, so it wouldn't really be random. In order to truly be random, there would have to be some ordered looking sequences here and there. How long can an orderly sequence be with infinite happenstance?

Gravity, plate tectonics, oxidation, and any other "law" or "paradigm" of science could simply be a random sequence appearing orderly enough for the duration that scientists have been observing.

Thus order is a subset of chaos.

This is why miracles are probable. Once I realized it, the rigidity of the sequences of order that seemed like natural laws, lifted, and super improbable sequences began happening around me with somewhat regularity. because I understand that the laws of physics are not laws at all.

When it comes to Infinite Happenstance, statistics fall short of yielding any useful conclusions.

Thus science oversteps its bounds when it makes policies that affect an infinite population, based on statistics gathered over a local finite population.

The beautiful random sequence stopped when I checked on it. That wasn't the only time. These ultra improbable sequences have attracted my attention enough that I've developed a relationship with Infinite Happenstance, which appears to be alive and have a sense of humor.

That's why this post belongs in this mega faith thread: to me, this Infinite Happenstance is worthy of worship and praise.

The most beautiful infinite sequence of them all is love.

Originally Posted by slac-in-the-box perhaps the masks reduce stress for those who believe in them... to me, everyone seems one step away from being stormtroopers, trading their dignity to serve the empire of fear.

I will get back to your longer post but this intrigued me. I wonder if you are yet a parent? I further wonder if you'd prefer doctors and nurses in the delivery room not wear latex gloves and protective surgical masks while delivering your child? Or do you prefer midwifery?

Originally Posted by enorbet I will get back to your longer post but this intrigued me. I wonder if you are yet a parent? I further wonder if you'd prefer doctors and nurses in the delivery room not wear latex gloves and protective surgical masks while delivering your child? Or do you prefer midwifery?

It is a 45 minute drive to the nearest fuel station. A two hour drive to a hospital. My son was born at home. I caught him with my own bare hands. I severed the umbilical cord with a shard of obsidium that I knapped the day before, and then boiled it in water for an hour, and left it submerged in rubbing alcohol until the moment it was needed. There was a midwife and doula on hand, so I wasn't winging it like the rest of my life . The obsidium was so sharp that it sliced the cord like butter; the midwife said the surgical shears she had usually took more effort.

When I was 24, camping alone (well, my canine friend was with me), I accidentally severed an artery in my ankle with a hatchet, over ten miles from my vehicle--it splurted a fountain of warm red stuff 12 inches on my dominant heartbeats, and 8 inches on the weaker beats. After an indefinite period of shock, in which I warmed my hands in my blood marvelling at its warmth, I realized I needed to improvize a way to stop the bleeding without using a tourniquet or cauterizing it -- which I did. And I kept it elevated because it didn't throb as much. The day after that, instead of hobbling towards my car, I decided not to let a mere artery wound ruin my campout. I hobbled in my initial direction, towards the Apalachian trail, and after an hour of exertion, the bandages were drenched with blood, but I was set up at a much nicer camp on a peninsula at Lake Fontana. For the next four days, without thinking about dirty water or any of that (I was thinking physical activity for circulation, but without bearing weight), I swam in the lake several times a day. On the fifth day at the lake, some canoers paddled up, and with company to bear witness, I removed my bandages for the first time since (because I didn't want the shock of seeing the fountain, I had been afraid to take them off). There was a black blood clot the size of a golf ball dangling off my ankle. I have retained full use of my foot, and I never saw a doctor. I have provided my own healthcare to myself and my family ever since. (Except when I was injured on a job site, and the boss made me go to an emergency room for stitches).

Statistics show that the mask reduces the transmission of airbourne pathogens in regions that use them. But my body is healthy, eats raw foods, including insects and small invertebrates, and can handle the natural distribution of pathogens that land on me or get inhaled. If people continue wearing masks, eventually everyone will be like David Vetter. Better get your bubble suit now, before the price goes up.

Occasionally--and nearly always when I push my limits and don't get enough rest, or let my hydration slip--I succomb to illness. On all these occasions, I have overcome the illnesses with rest, water, and heaps of probiotic kimchi and krauts.

I usually wipe sickness out before it reaches my lungs--however, should I feel it is about to get to my lungs, I bring out the heavy hitter: garlic! I read somewhere that antiperspirant in the armpits has lead to breast cancer in some women. I figure, if you can poison yourself through your armpits, then you can medicate yourself as well; and since it seems to go to the lungs, I mince fresh garlic, and spread it on my armpits held in place by snug longsleeve shirt. It burns for about 5-10 minutes. I have not experienced lung congestion that has outlasted 48 hours of the garlic treatment.

I've rebuilt most of our home, and repair my own vehicles. I file and shape the hooves of our horses. I garden and grow much of our produce. I like doing things myself. That includes healthcare. It also includes computing, which is why I use slackware

According to the Nuremburg Code doctors do not get to experiment on my body without my consent, and even with my consent, I "should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him" (me)" to make an understanding and enlightened decision".

When I was seven, my mother took me to the doctor, and they identified sphere shaped red blood cells (apparently, I am a mutant); they got so excited that they operated on me and removed my spleen. Then, once a month, for the next six years, it took the entire staff to hold me down so they could jab me in the ass with pennecillin. From my research thus far, I have not been able to determine, how many of the 30,420 people studied in the Moderna trials have hereditary spherocytosis and splenectomies. I want to be informed.

Advocates of mandatory vaccination say it is not a violation of the Nuremberg Code because it is not experimental. I guess they believe the Moderna Trials were adequate.

But on me, a spleenless mutant, vaccinations are experimental. Especially since there doesn't appear to have been any spleenless mutants in the trials.

What the CDC likes to say: "here's what you need to know about covid": get a vaccine and wear a mask. period. AFAIK, that is the language of propaganda. How dare them tell me what I need to know. I need to know the effects of vaccines on mutants. The cell walls of my spherocytes are genetically unstable. But perhaps, my mutation is advantageous. Maybe we'll be the only ones who can out-mutate this ever mutating virus. I don't want to mess with my biome, until I am sufficiently informed as is my right according to this Nuremberg Code.

In my adult life, I have taken care of myself without paying a dime for healthcare (well, I've bought lots of garlic and kimchi). I have purchased crutches for a few sprains. I did buy catastrophic inurance for a couple of years, but eventually I missed a payment and they dropped the policy.

When I was young, I also had asthma. I've been to the hospital when I was four years old with a pulse rate of over 300 beats per minute. They taught me to use inhalers and medicines that gave me the jitters. As an adult, I have learned how to control asthma through yoga, playing the didgeridoo, swimming, and most of all, controlling panic through relaxation. I've only had one attack in the last 20 years, and it was after lifting an extremely heavy round of wood into my truck. But the techniques still worked, and I was breathing fine again twenty minutes later.

I've faced death. When it's my time it's my time. I am a person that won't ever follow a herd. However, I would like to reach consensus with the scared people.

I am seeking a comrade adversary -- perhaps it can be one of you. We are comrades in desire to reach a consensus. We are adversaries as we begin discussion from different points of view.

But I am tired of condescending remarks from science devotees. I've completed every course necessary to attend medical school, except for organic chemistry and animal physiology. Also I would need to take the mcat. But I read too much Ayn Rand when I was young, and didn't want the money machine trying to tell me how to practice medicine, so I dropped out of Baylor's premed program, though I had the second highest marks in chemistry.

Just because we have the ability to do something doesn't guarantee that we should do it. Sundialsvcs has the ability to shoot me, but he shouldn't. I am all for understanding nature. But I don't think it is wise to manipulate nature, whether with nuclear power, or genetic modification, when we cannot even keep pollution out of our oceans. Why should I trust scientists? Truganini asked scientists to leave her mortal remains untouched; yet her skeleton was exhumed.

I think it is possible for the majority of people to be wrong. If you want to convince me to vaccinate myself and my family, it will take something more than "what you need to know". Please become my comrade adversary, and show me something useful.

I was raised in religious home/enviroment. The kind of religion I had around me had bad influence on me. It made me think sex is something awful and evil. So as I became older i rebelled and "became evil" and figured there should by no limitations, and intercourse should be like a handshake. I though as most people thinks nowadays that morality was religion's imaginary invention. I did not understand and/or was in complete denial of how it works on emotional level in reality. It turned out to be extremely crucial and important to me. But when I learned, it was too late. I can't 100% blame religion because it was somewhat telling me the truth. But maybe if I hadn't so much suppression to deal with by rebelling against it, nature would have guided me better than my ideas if my nature wasn't so brutally uprooted earlier on in my life. So I don't like religion as an establishment. I find evolution perfectly reasonable and the best documented, most straight forward and most probable scenario which I choose to assume is true (As with everything I do, I do not assume absolute truths because everything can be questioned no matter how well proven it is. I always evaluate most probable possibility and then assume it's true.).

I've spent a lot of time with religious people around and I still have them around. I used to hate religion a lot but I don't think I hate religion much now. It's just a human thing. I see religion as way for people to regulate fields of their life that they are not capable of fully understanding otherwise. Religion figuratively contains tons of things/truths related to human nature and to the way humanity tends to go on and roll with things and it is/was used to tell people what to do when they don't/didn't know what to do. I suppose I don't believe in religion literally. Tho it is often an efficient way to phrase certain things. I understand it's purpose. And I also understand how wrong is modern world that along with the "literal religion" rejects morality and any kind of spirituality. I suppose it probably will finally learn too. As for spirituality/misticism of any kind/form I think it is real. Less in a sense that there are some mysterious forces, rather in a sense that there is this thing in human brain that makes us feel things that we don't understand and probably is useful when we need to do things that we can't fully understand at the moment (and this is exactly what it was when religion was in it's prime of successfully regulating things for people that they weren't able to understand such as their own sexuality).

I've voted in survey at the top of this page andwas rather surprised to see there are a lot of people who share my beliefs. But I wonder how many of them were born in religious families as I was? If you recognize yourself here, tell me, what made you change your opinion on religion?

Originally Posted by ticipo I've voted in survey at the top of this page andwas rather surprised to see there are a lot of people who share my beliefs. But I wonder how many of them were born in religious families as I was? If you recognize yourself here, tell me, what made you change your opinion on religion?

Suppose it might be an idea to tell us what "your beliefs" are if you want people that "recognize themselves" to "come out"...

Some people did go through a "religious" upbringing which emphasized "dogma," "temporal authority" and/or "guilt." And some of them were damaged by it. But I don't think that we should typecast "religion" nor "religious belief" in these terms. The two are not the same.

Also: "When I was a child, I thought as a child." A young person's opinions are supplied to him by others, long before s/he is objectively or personally able to evaluate them. But the day will come, and come many times, when you do evaluate them and either make them your own, modify them, or reject them. It's entirely up to each person.

Eventually, your religious beliefs – if you have any – will become very personal, and, for some people, also very private. Some people want to hang their religion on your nose, while other people will change the subject. It's the idea of: "pray in secret." And, once again, an entirely personal choice.