Stating a claim that's transparently pseudoreligious (IE, paraphrased- "life couldn't have just happened") and comparing it directly with the "age of the Universe", a number in direct conflict with certain interpretations of that same religion.
I like your work, Ralph, but please understand when I say 'hot button' issues rarely make for good comics. Good arguments, yes, but poor comics.
Rennen
How ironic.
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Kinsfire
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Actually, there's a very interesting book out there that makes an excellent case for a much higher likelihood of life "just happening". The book is called Quantum Evolution. Excellent book, and it does an interesting job of explaining some of the oddball things concerning the evolutionary theory.
Kinsfire
Kinsfire
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David Adrian
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*Chuckle* Bear in mind, the premise is already false-to-fact with respect to the history it's modeled on. Note Ben's wording: "Presuming one Terran ocean..." Already there's an anomaly: even in Pangeaic times, there were at least two Terran oceans.
More to the point, the basic premise is incomplete. Yes, the odds of life developing at any one place and at any one time are astronomical... but remember, there are an astronomical number of places where the event could happen, and a very long baseline of time for the event to happen in. To phrase a much-simplified analogy: yes, it's rediculously improbable for a man to be dealt three royal flushes in a row - but if you deal poker hands to score of people, and keep dealing to them for a long time, sooner or later someone will probably be dealt three consecutive royal flushes.
The universe has more than a score of "players": astronomers have already catalogued more than a hundred approximately Terran-sized planets - and we can't detect planets anywhere near as far away as we can detect stars. It seems reasonable to allow that the universe may in fact contain billions or trillions of Terran-scale planets. Time-scale is even harder to catagorize, but if you regard the time from protoplasmic life forming in Terran oceans to the present day as one "hand", Old Home Terra has played a large number of hands already - theories vary, but one could reasonably place the number on the order of a hundred. (Not "on the close order of"; theories vary way too much!) And Terra is much younger than the universe; I would guess that the universe itself would probably have had the time to "deal" somewhere on the order of ten thousand hands.
Let's see... taking the conservative side, that means something around ten billion possible attempts. The appropriate calculation is: probability=1-(1-10^340,000,000)^10,000,000,000. Now, it's been a while since I've played around with that kind of calculus (and the bloomin' scientific calculator doesn't like exponents that big!), but if I'm ballparking the answer right, that would make it better than 95% likely that life of some type would have developed to the point we've reached by now.
More to the point, the basic premise is incomplete. Yes, the odds of life developing at any one place and at any one time are astronomical... but remember, there are an astronomical number of places where the event could happen, and a very long baseline of time for the event to happen in. To phrase a much-simplified analogy: yes, it's rediculously improbable for a man to be dealt three royal flushes in a row - but if you deal poker hands to score of people, and keep dealing to them for a long time, sooner or later someone will probably be dealt three consecutive royal flushes.
The universe has more than a score of "players": astronomers have already catalogued more than a hundred approximately Terran-sized planets - and we can't detect planets anywhere near as far away as we can detect stars. It seems reasonable to allow that the universe may in fact contain billions or trillions of Terran-scale planets. Time-scale is even harder to catagorize, but if you regard the time from protoplasmic life forming in Terran oceans to the present day as one "hand", Old Home Terra has played a large number of hands already - theories vary, but one could reasonably place the number on the order of a hundred. (Not "on the close order of"; theories vary way too much!) And Terra is much younger than the universe; I would guess that the universe itself would probably have had the time to "deal" somewhere on the order of ten thousand hands.
Let's see... taking the conservative side, that means something around ten billion possible attempts. The appropriate calculation is: probability=1-(1-10^340,000,000)^10,000,000,000. Now, it's been a while since I've played around with that kind of calculus (and the bloomin' scientific calculator doesn't like exponents that big!), but if I'm ballparking the answer right, that would make it better than 95% likely that life of some type would have developed to the point we've reached by now.
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Kinsfire
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...and the book I mentioned actually goes into some fairly odd work that seems fairly sound concerning quantum physics. IIRC, he presumes that life was more likely in this universe because (by the Everett (Many Worlds) theory of Quantum Physics) the physics of this universe were predisposed to have life form.
Mind you, my saying this doesn't deny the fact that I believe that there IS, in fact a god, or God, or GOD, or however you choose to refer to Deity (I tend to refer to it as the Ultimate). I'm also of the following mindset concerning Ultimate - it is SO vast that we can not hope to conceive of grasping it in its entirety, and it created the science that the rest of the universe runs on.
(As an aside - when will people realize that the evolutionary theory and religion are not mutually exclusive?)
Kinsfire
Mind you, my saying this doesn't deny the fact that I believe that there IS, in fact a god, or God, or GOD, or however you choose to refer to Deity (I tend to refer to it as the Ultimate). I'm also of the following mindset concerning Ultimate - it is SO vast that we can not hope to conceive of grasping it in its entirety, and it created the science that the rest of the universe runs on.
(As an aside - when will people realize that the evolutionary theory and religion are not mutually exclusive?)
Kinsfire
An excellent summation, Dave. That's an argument I've used myself.
You find some algae on a rock. What are the odds that life will have "spontaneously appeared", at that time, on that rock? Hundreds of billions to one? Probably.
How many rocks are there? Billions? How many oceans? Dozens? Over how long a period? Four billion years?
There's a hundred billion stars in our own galaxy alone, and another billion galaxies scattered throughout the skies. If only a fraction of a percent of them harbor M-class (to borrow a tired Star Trek phrase) that is still billions of planets.
The age of the universe is generally accepted as anywhere from eight to fourteen billion years, with the Earth being roughly 4.5 billion years old.
A billion planets, given several billion years each... well, even the word "billion" has lost some of it's power now, hasn't it?
Suffice to say that yes, the odds are astronomical, but we were given an astronomical number of chances.
Think of it this way: Take a handful of dry sand, and throw it on any smooth hard floor. See that pattern?
Now, sweep up the sand and throw it again. Try to get the sand to fall in precisely the same pattern, down to the last sand grain, as before.
Impossible?
No, it's not. Why not? It happened the first time, didn't it? That proved that such a pattern was possible.
And, since there was no prior template, any pattern was acceptable. Read that again if you don't quite have it. What would life look like if we didn't know what life looked like?
We have a human-centric view. Naturally, we don't know anything else. In other words, the odds that Man, a bipedal mammal with opposable thumbs, evolved from base chemicals on this particular planet are astronomical, a staggering number only truly expressible mathematically.
But the odds that ANY life, in ANY shape, would have come from "nothing" SOMEWHERE in a staggeringly vast number of scattered locations and conditions, over an inconcievable period of time...
Well, here we are. We beat the odds, and now have the arrogance to assume the Universe was shaped to hold us, rather than acknowledging that we were shaped given the conditions supplied by the Universe.
Douglas Adams used the "puddle" analogy- the puddle assumes the depression in which it lies was shaped specifically for it, since it fits the shape of the puddle so well.
Rennen
You find some algae on a rock. What are the odds that life will have "spontaneously appeared", at that time, on that rock? Hundreds of billions to one? Probably.
How many rocks are there? Billions? How many oceans? Dozens? Over how long a period? Four billion years?
There's a hundred billion stars in our own galaxy alone, and another billion galaxies scattered throughout the skies. If only a fraction of a percent of them harbor M-class (to borrow a tired Star Trek phrase) that is still billions of planets.
The age of the universe is generally accepted as anywhere from eight to fourteen billion years, with the Earth being roughly 4.5 billion years old.
A billion planets, given several billion years each... well, even the word "billion" has lost some of it's power now, hasn't it?
Suffice to say that yes, the odds are astronomical, but we were given an astronomical number of chances.
Think of it this way: Take a handful of dry sand, and throw it on any smooth hard floor. See that pattern?
Now, sweep up the sand and throw it again. Try to get the sand to fall in precisely the same pattern, down to the last sand grain, as before.
Impossible?
No, it's not. Why not? It happened the first time, didn't it? That proved that such a pattern was possible.
And, since there was no prior template, any pattern was acceptable. Read that again if you don't quite have it. What would life look like if we didn't know what life looked like?
We have a human-centric view. Naturally, we don't know anything else. In other words, the odds that Man, a bipedal mammal with opposable thumbs, evolved from base chemicals on this particular planet are astronomical, a staggering number only truly expressible mathematically.
But the odds that ANY life, in ANY shape, would have come from "nothing" SOMEWHERE in a staggeringly vast number of scattered locations and conditions, over an inconcievable period of time...
Well, here we are. We beat the odds, and now have the arrogance to assume the Universe was shaped to hold us, rather than acknowledging that we were shaped given the conditions supplied by the Universe.
Douglas Adams used the "puddle" analogy- the puddle assumes the depression in which it lies was shaped specifically for it, since it fits the shape of the puddle so well.
Rennen
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ZOMBIE USER 12759
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Rennen wrote:
So you ADMIT that the existance of life was written into the very fabric of the universe itself! And you're using that as a counteragument to a philosophical proof of the existance of God? HA!the odds that ANY life, in ANY shape, would have come from "nothing" SOMEWHERE in a staggeringly vast number of scattered locations and conditions, over an inconcievable period of time...
Last edited by ZOMBIE USER 12759 on Wed Nov 13, 2002 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Random George
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personally, i turn it around. people ask what the odds are that life would have happened here, in just this way. i say that life could have happened anywhere, and this is the way and the place where it happened. when you think about the monumental number of coincidences that had to occur just for the members of your direct paternal and maternal ancestry to come into existence, and for your parents to meet (my parents, for example, met because a misdirected aerial hot dog started a food fight), and for one particular sperm to fertilize on particular ovum, expressing a totally unique genetic code, the dimple on your chin and the color of your eyes (or perhaps a clubbed foot, a cleft palate, or a faulty heart valve) can either be seen as deliberate acts of divine will, or as a natural outcome of the progress of the world.
life, to me, is sacred and precious as it is precisely because it is so tenuous and based in serendipity. the sheer odds of a rose rooting in the woods and blooming just on the day i'm going to walk by it are so astronomically unlikely that it might as well be magic. instead of the arrogant assumption that the sole end of all those odds was to provide me with a pleasant experience for a moment or two, i accept the chaos that is life and respect and appreciate its beauty. the divine and the serendipitous are not mutually exclusive.
an aside to kinsfire's aside: they will learn that when they understand that the true definition of evolution is a shift of a species' common genotypic pool over time in response to varying levels of fitness conveyed by phenotypic expressions of genotypic variety and has little to nothing to do with the origin of species, and that true spirituality is more about understanding your true place in regard to something larger than yourself and working to become a better individual out of love for that which is greater than yourself and a deep inner desire to connect with it, not out of strict adherence to a set of imposed behaviours followed only to gain the approval or avoid the disapproval of a greater being feared more than it is loved. many people see this, and they are happy people; too many do not, and they are unhappy people who soon become surrounded with more unhappy people. look to the happy spiritualists--they are the blessed children of a loving god. look to the angry religionists--they are the flawed children of a vengeful god. how is it that both of them claim the same god?
life, to me, is sacred and precious as it is precisely because it is so tenuous and based in serendipity. the sheer odds of a rose rooting in the woods and blooming just on the day i'm going to walk by it are so astronomically unlikely that it might as well be magic. instead of the arrogant assumption that the sole end of all those odds was to provide me with a pleasant experience for a moment or two, i accept the chaos that is life and respect and appreciate its beauty. the divine and the serendipitous are not mutually exclusive.
an aside to kinsfire's aside: they will learn that when they understand that the true definition of evolution is a shift of a species' common genotypic pool over time in response to varying levels of fitness conveyed by phenotypic expressions of genotypic variety and has little to nothing to do with the origin of species, and that true spirituality is more about understanding your true place in regard to something larger than yourself and working to become a better individual out of love for that which is greater than yourself and a deep inner desire to connect with it, not out of strict adherence to a set of imposed behaviours followed only to gain the approval or avoid the disapproval of a greater being feared more than it is loved. many people see this, and they are happy people; too many do not, and they are unhappy people who soon become surrounded with more unhappy people. look to the happy spiritualists--they are the blessed children of a loving god. look to the angry religionists--they are the flawed children of a vengeful god. how is it that both of them claim the same god?
"Twelve highlanders and a bagpipe make a rebellion"
-Scottish proverb
-Scottish proverb
-Very much so. We are, are we not, made up of the same general materials as rocks and water? A carbon atom here, a water molcule there, combine this with oxygen and that with nitrogen and we have a protein molecule. When a bunch of protein molecules gather together they form chains, strands. Certain strand combinations exhibit certain traits and in certain conditions become self-replicating.Madcat wrote:So you ADMIT that the existance of life was written into the very fabric of the universe itself! And you're using that as a counteragument to a philosophical proof of the existance of God? HA!
There is no atom, molecule or basic compound found in the human body that cannot be found anywhere else. So yes, we are indeed from the "very fabric of the Universe".
In any case, you missed my point.
The idea I was trying to get across is that yes, odds for Man, on Earth, in his present state, at this time, from simple chemicals, are staggering. The numbers surpass astronomical. But that's working backwards, and the Universe doesn't work that way.
The odds of ANY life, showing up on ANY of a hundred billion worlds, at ANY time in the past ten billion years, in ANY state, are far, far higher. Vegas betting odds, in fact.
Odds are... well, odd things. For you to be sitting here reading this, your particular parents had to meet, those two bits of genetic material had to join to form a zygote... There alone is one-in-a-billion odds that any two people on the planet could produce you.
But again, that's working backwards- starting with the result and calculating the possibility of that result being achieved.
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The JAM
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Back to our strip...
[...unWARP!!!]
Good evening.
The statement was needed to make Petey give a power surge while trying to make that calculation.l
I, for one, know what I believe, and know what the facts are. I know all you guys have made your points for and against what you believe, but one thing I find missing is:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Which, simply states that everything is wearing out, including DNA. My dad, a chemical engineer, encountered that law in his studies, and seeing that it is very well proven, rejected the theory of evolution because of it.
There are many things that disprove evolution that you will NOT see on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic, among them, the decay of the Earth's magnetic field (reverse the process and see how hot things get 10,000 years ago), the extension of the lunar orbit (reverse the process and see how close the moon was 65,000,000 years ago), the complete absence of the theorised geologic column, the fossil record that show how species have been *shrinking* from the beginning of time (and the Cambrian layer shows species that appeared "suddenly"), and human and dinosaur footprints that are on the same rock layer.
And wouldn
Good evening.
The statement was needed to make Petey give a power surge while trying to make that calculation.l
I, for one, know what I believe, and know what the facts are. I know all you guys have made your points for and against what you believe, but one thing I find missing is:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Which, simply states that everything is wearing out, including DNA. My dad, a chemical engineer, encountered that law in his studies, and seeing that it is very well proven, rejected the theory of evolution because of it.
There are many things that disprove evolution that you will NOT see on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic, among them, the decay of the Earth's magnetic field (reverse the process and see how hot things get 10,000 years ago), the extension of the lunar orbit (reverse the process and see how close the moon was 65,000,000 years ago), the complete absence of the theorised geologic column, the fossil record that show how species have been *shrinking* from the beginning of time (and the Cambrian layer shows species that appeared "suddenly"), and human and dinosaur footprints that are on the same rock layer.
And wouldn
Look! New improved magic pixie dust!
Same old crap.
First it was Billyuns and Billllllyuns of years.
Then it was fractals and chaos theory.
Now it's quantum magic-- pardon me, mechanics.
Always some new magic lamp to rub.
Point out that the formation of life, even over aeons, bends or breaks several laws of thermodynamics, and someone will spout something about "closed" versus "open" systems... and claim that including the SUN into the equation means there's still a net increase in entropy, so it's all good (as if the paradox is solved by drawing a bigger circle around the problem..... and ignoring that *the entire universe, by the evolutionary model, is in violation of the process of entropy.....* from a dot to an explosion to masses and clouds of gas to stars, solar systems, planets, and at least *one* planet supporting life. That's a net DECREASE in entropy by any measure.)
All new half-understood scientific mantras and mumbo jumbo to mumble. Oh no, not creation. Anything but that.
Arguing with a born-again Darwinist--- even with the hardest science-- is like trying to teach a pig to sing opera. It makes a ruckus, exhausts you fruitlessly, and only annoys the pig.
First it was Billyuns and Billllllyuns of years.
Then it was fractals and chaos theory.
Now it's quantum magic-- pardon me, mechanics.
Always some new magic lamp to rub.
Point out that the formation of life, even over aeons, bends or breaks several laws of thermodynamics, and someone will spout something about "closed" versus "open" systems... and claim that including the SUN into the equation means there's still a net increase in entropy, so it's all good (as if the paradox is solved by drawing a bigger circle around the problem..... and ignoring that *the entire universe, by the evolutionary model, is in violation of the process of entropy.....* from a dot to an explosion to masses and clouds of gas to stars, solar systems, planets, and at least *one* planet supporting life. That's a net DECREASE in entropy by any measure.)
All new half-understood scientific mantras and mumbo jumbo to mumble. Oh no, not creation. Anything but that.
Arguing with a born-again Darwinist--- even with the hardest science-- is like trying to teach a pig to sing opera. It makes a ruckus, exhausts you fruitlessly, and only annoys the pig.
"What was that popping noise ?"
"A paradigm shifting without a clutch."
--Dilbert
"A paradigm shifting without a clutch."
--Dilbert
Well, Junior, not to be rude, but is that an Aria I hear?
Your statements concerning Entropy and the laws of thermodynamics sound like they came straight from a Chick tract. "Several" laws? There's only three that I know of. Which law is broken and just how, precisely?
And, as usual, a theist uses a fundamental law of physics to say- or at least imply- that the Universe could not have possibly formed as commonly believed, and yet could have spontaneously popped into existence with the snap of some Omnipotent Being's fingers.
Am I the only one to see the inherent contradiction in that argument? I see it used constantly: Life is a violation of the Second Law (energy flows towards disorder), yet Creation is somehow not in violation of the First Law (energy cannot be created from nothing.)
Mumbo-jumbo indeed.
Energy is spent assembling the creature, the creature consumes energy over it's lifespan, the energy, elements and nutrients spent at the beginning are lost when it decays. Where in this scenario is energy created?
JAM- happen to have a (nonbiblical) reference for that assertation of the magnetic field and/or the Moon's orbit? And just out of curiosity, are you assuming a Biblically-derived age of the earth at some 5,000 years, with those assertations?
Rennen
Your statements concerning Entropy and the laws of thermodynamics sound like they came straight from a Chick tract. "Several" laws? There's only three that I know of. Which law is broken and just how, precisely?
And, as usual, a theist uses a fundamental law of physics to say- or at least imply- that the Universe could not have possibly formed as commonly believed, and yet could have spontaneously popped into existence with the snap of some Omnipotent Being's fingers.
Am I the only one to see the inherent contradiction in that argument? I see it used constantly: Life is a violation of the Second Law (energy flows towards disorder), yet Creation is somehow not in violation of the First Law (energy cannot be created from nothing.)
Mumbo-jumbo indeed.
Energy is spent assembling the creature, the creature consumes energy over it's lifespan, the energy, elements and nutrients spent at the beginning are lost when it decays. Where in this scenario is energy created?
JAM- happen to have a (nonbiblical) reference for that assertation of the magnetic field and/or the Moon's orbit? And just out of curiosity, are you assuming a Biblically-derived age of the earth at some 5,000 years, with those assertations?
Rennen
Re: Look! New improved magic pixie dust!
Have a look at the quantum chromodynamics (sp?). Argumentation gets even more weird when talking about flavors and colorsRHJunior wrote:Same old crap.
First it was Billyuns and Billllllyuns of years.
Then it was fractals and chaos theory.
Now it's quantum magic-- pardon me, mechanics.
All this is part of the scientific exploration of our world. No scientist will say that he has found the absolute truth since such a thing doesn't exist for science. We can only build models that describe "reality", do predictions from this model and see if we got it right.
This is the only way to learn about nature.
Entropy isn't everything that has to be considered. Do some simple experiments like precipitation of salts from solution. The entropy will decrease. Have a look at this experiment (2,8 MB) This is a solution of silver salts and some current run through it. The resulting metal even forms a fractal structure. The anomaly of water is the reason for fish being able to survive in a frozen lake and due to the forming of structures in its crystaline forms. Salts and metals crystalize in stunning structures (when I find the one I've been looking for, I'll post it).RHJunior wrote: Point out that the formation of life, even over aeons, bends or breaks several laws of thermodynamics, and someone will spout something about "closed" versus "open" systems... and claim that including the SUN into the equation means there's still a net increase in entropy, so it's all good (as if the paradox is solved by drawing a bigger circle around the problem..... and ignoring that *the entire universe, by the evolutionary model, is in violation of the process of entropy.....* from a dot to an explosion to masses and clouds of gas to stars, solar systems, planets, and at least *one* planet supporting life. That's a net DECREASE in entropy by any measure.)
CJ
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Kinsfire
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Concerning this entire evolution discussion:
Did anyone note that I referred to evolution as a theory? There are other suggestions out there as to what may have happened. (There is apparently some evidence that LaMarck (sp?) may have been at least slightly right.)
For some reason, a lot of scientists have grasped onto Darwin's theory as The Truth, and you're a fool and an idiot if you might suggest something other than that. Look at the drubbing Robert Sheldrake has taken for his suggestion of the morphogenetic field. This posits, based on rigorously done experiments, that there may be a non-local method of passing information. The experiment involved having mice run a maze they'd never seen. As is obvious, their times speed up the more they run that maze. Well, they'd build an identical maze (to avoid the scent explanation for finding the path), and run subsequent generations in those identical mazes, and the times kept getting faster, even though these mice had never seen this maze before. The clincher, though, was when they placed mice that were NOT related in an identical maze, and THEIR first run through was faster than they expected.
What am I trying to say? Evolution isn't the only answer. However, I also vehemently deny that the Bible as we read it in the USA is the word of God directly from him. After all, which English version is correct? King James? King James Revised? The Catholic Bible? Or are the earlier versions, in other languages correct? Should we go back to the original Greek and Aramaic? Errors creep in through translation - that's why Islamic tradition states that only the Qu'ran is the correct version - you must read the words of the Prophet in the original. I have a version of the Koran, but I doubt I'm ever going to learn Arabic just to read a book.
Why is it that there is no middle ground? Is it at all possible (as I think I suggested earlier) that God created the universe (Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.) and then let everything go? Our scientific laws (or suggestions, as the case may be) are part and parcel of this universe, therefore the Creator, by the very description, must have made them part of it. Or is science the Devil's creation?
Just read an interesting bit from a Rabbi concerning a number of things - according to him, Satan is not a name, it's a title - Ha-Satan. He works directly FOR God, as sort of a District Attorney, or tester. He says the bit in Isaiah concerning the Morning Star is ... well, let me quote him directly:
+++
apparently there's a lot of discussion about who this actually refers to. needless to say, jewishly it has no connection to "Ha-Satan" - the root Heh-Lamed-Lamed, which is where the word "heileil" (translated in the jerusalem bible as "bright star") comes from. it looks to me from an examination of the primary text and a quick flip through my jastrow and the hirsch etymological dictionary that the confusion arises from the connection between the heh-lamed-lamed root, which can mean any one of "radiate, shine, boast, be hypocritical, shining" and the 'gradational variants' of the chet-lamed-lamed ("profanation") and alef-lamed-lamed ("deny") roots. i can see how that might be connected to the christian conception of "satan", but it doesn't hold up jewishly as far as i can see, because "ha-satan" is not considered in jewish theology as being a rebel against G!D. far from it - he is of course on the celestial payroll as the public prosecutor. the sages identify the character being talked about as being a human being - nebuchadnezzar or some other fellow from the large available cast of anti-jewish nasties. neb is usually considered to be the prime suspect because he was considered to be the acme of arrogant power-madness.
+++
Interesting stuff, no? Especially since he's reading something a HECK of a lot closer to the original than anyone reading an English Old Testament does...
Still, I've dragged myself away from my point. Why can't the Creator have made the universe and let it go on it's merry way? I look at discovering new scientific interests as coming closer to God, myself. Why must EITHER science OR the Bible be correct? Why that "or"?
Kinsfire
Did anyone note that I referred to evolution as a theory? There are other suggestions out there as to what may have happened. (There is apparently some evidence that LaMarck (sp?) may have been at least slightly right.)
For some reason, a lot of scientists have grasped onto Darwin's theory as The Truth, and you're a fool and an idiot if you might suggest something other than that. Look at the drubbing Robert Sheldrake has taken for his suggestion of the morphogenetic field. This posits, based on rigorously done experiments, that there may be a non-local method of passing information. The experiment involved having mice run a maze they'd never seen. As is obvious, their times speed up the more they run that maze. Well, they'd build an identical maze (to avoid the scent explanation for finding the path), and run subsequent generations in those identical mazes, and the times kept getting faster, even though these mice had never seen this maze before. The clincher, though, was when they placed mice that were NOT related in an identical maze, and THEIR first run through was faster than they expected.
What am I trying to say? Evolution isn't the only answer. However, I also vehemently deny that the Bible as we read it in the USA is the word of God directly from him. After all, which English version is correct? King James? King James Revised? The Catholic Bible? Or are the earlier versions, in other languages correct? Should we go back to the original Greek and Aramaic? Errors creep in through translation - that's why Islamic tradition states that only the Qu'ran is the correct version - you must read the words of the Prophet in the original. I have a version of the Koran, but I doubt I'm ever going to learn Arabic just to read a book.
Why is it that there is no middle ground? Is it at all possible (as I think I suggested earlier) that God created the universe (Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.) and then let everything go? Our scientific laws (or suggestions, as the case may be) are part and parcel of this universe, therefore the Creator, by the very description, must have made them part of it. Or is science the Devil's creation?
Just read an interesting bit from a Rabbi concerning a number of things - according to him, Satan is not a name, it's a title - Ha-Satan. He works directly FOR God, as sort of a District Attorney, or tester. He says the bit in Isaiah concerning the Morning Star is ... well, let me quote him directly:
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apparently there's a lot of discussion about who this actually refers to. needless to say, jewishly it has no connection to "Ha-Satan" - the root Heh-Lamed-Lamed, which is where the word "heileil" (translated in the jerusalem bible as "bright star") comes from. it looks to me from an examination of the primary text and a quick flip through my jastrow and the hirsch etymological dictionary that the confusion arises from the connection between the heh-lamed-lamed root, which can mean any one of "radiate, shine, boast, be hypocritical, shining" and the 'gradational variants' of the chet-lamed-lamed ("profanation") and alef-lamed-lamed ("deny") roots. i can see how that might be connected to the christian conception of "satan", but it doesn't hold up jewishly as far as i can see, because "ha-satan" is not considered in jewish theology as being a rebel against G!D. far from it - he is of course on the celestial payroll as the public prosecutor. the sages identify the character being talked about as being a human being - nebuchadnezzar or some other fellow from the large available cast of anti-jewish nasties. neb is usually considered to be the prime suspect because he was considered to be the acme of arrogant power-madness.
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Interesting stuff, no? Especially since he's reading something a HECK of a lot closer to the original than anyone reading an English Old Testament does...
Still, I've dragged myself away from my point. Why can't the Creator have made the universe and let it go on it's merry way? I look at discovering new scientific interests as coming closer to God, myself. Why must EITHER science OR the Bible be correct? Why that "or"?
Kinsfire
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Marcus Talbain
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you know, I really enjoy a good old-fashioned slice of Apple Pie, fresh from the oven, maby with a bit of vanilla ice cream on top...mmm mmm.
Schlock Code v1.0:
a(a++) E h+ i+++ I--- k+++>+++++ KL--- p+ Rs--- S++ SF+++ T+ 4UM- v+++ w-(w+) CQC+ (CQC++++) C Ba--- MU+(Mu+++) Gh++++
a(a++) E h+ i+++ I--- k+++>+++++ KL--- p+ Rs--- S++ SF+++ T+ 4UM- v+++ w-(w+) CQC+ (CQC++++) C Ba--- MU+(Mu+++) Gh++++
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Random George
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ZOMBIE USER 12759
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The JAM
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Well...
[...unWARP!!!]
Good evening.
The Earth's tides are pulling the Moon "forward", i.e., accelerating it, thus making the orbit expand.
As for the magnetic field, I have several science books here that I show you, but I take it you're interested in an Internet source? A websearch should give you a handy reference.
Maybe this whole thing would have been less controversial if Ben had asked Petey to calculate to the last digit the value of Pi....
...which has nothing to do with the supernatural, of course.
Until next time, remember:
I AM THE J.A.M.
Good evening.
[WARP!!!]
Good evening.
The Earth's tides are pulling the Moon "forward", i.e., accelerating it, thus making the orbit expand.
As for the magnetic field, I have several science books here that I show you, but I take it you're interested in an Internet source? A websearch should give you a handy reference.
Maybe this whole thing would have been less controversial if Ben had asked Petey to calculate to the last digit the value of Pi....
...which has nothing to do with the supernatural, of course.
Until next time, remember:
I AM THE J.A.M.
Good evening.
[WARP!!!]
Re: Well...
For sure since Peteys answer would've been that there is no last digit in transcendental or more general in irrational numbers.The JAM wrote:Maybe this whole thing would have been less controversial if Ben had asked Petey to calculate to the last digit the value of Pi....
Have a look at Carl Sagan - Contact. In this story, messages "build in" the digits of transcendental numbers are side subject. Besides that, the philosophical theories and thoughts about faith mentioned are also very interestingThe JAM wrote:...which has nothing to do with the supernatural, of course.
CJ