well it wasn't when I just viewed the post but when I hit post reply on the bottom I got that banner. I just find it funny that there's even a poll out there about it. Whose to say if ___ marriage is right or wrong. Again these are all beliefs, whether its right or wrong is all subjective to the person you're asking. Just like the rest of the stuff on this board that is being discussed.

 

leaving aside for the moment the idiocy of organized religions, if there is no creator, how does one explain the existence of life? an accident? a coincedence? hardly. as bill bryson explains in his book "a short history of nearly everything", a coincedental beginning is unlikely....i'd have to agree in many respects (this is a scientific book by the way):

"for life to exist you need amino acids and proteins. creating amino acids is not a problem (in 1953 stanley miller, a graduate student at the university of chicago did so). the problem is creating proteins. proteins are amino acids strung together in a particular order. take the protein collagen...it has 1055 amino acids strung together in a particular order. to make one molecule of collagen you need to string the amino acids to come together in this exact order. but a crutial point is -you don't make it- it makes itself spontaneously, without direction. the likelihood of a 1055-sequence molecule of collagen spontaneously assembling are frankly nil. to grasp this, visualize a slot machine about 90 feet long to accomodate 1055 wheels. how long would you have to pull it for the exact order necessary to come up? effectively forever. even if you reduced the size to 200 wheels (a more normal protein sequence of amino acids), the odds are 1 in 10 to the 260th power; a number larger than the atoms in the universe.

hemoglobin is only 146 amino acids long yet it offers odds of 1 in 10 to the 190th power. for random events to even produce a single protein would seem a stunning improbability-like a whirlwind spinning through a junkyard and leaving behind a fully assembled jumbo jet, as in the colorful simile of astronomer Fred Doyle.

Yet we are talking about several hundred thousand types of protein, perhaps a million, each unique and vital to the maintenance of a happy you.

and it goes from there. a protein to be of use must not only assemble itself in the right order, it must also fold itself into the correct shape. a protein is no good to you if it can't reproduce itself, and proteins can't. for this you need DNA. DNA is a whiz at replicating-but can do virtually nothing else. so we have a paradoxical situation; proteins can't exist without DNA and DNA has no purpose without proteins. are we to assume that they arose simultaneously with the purpose of supporting each other? if so, wow.

and there is still more. DNA, proteins and other components of life couldn't prosper without some sort of membrane to contain them. no atom or molecule has ever acheived life independently. pluck any atom from you and it is no more alive than a grain of sand. it is only when they come together in this nurturing environment of a cell that these diverse material can take part in the amazing dance that we call life.

as physicist paul davies puts it, "if everything needs everything else, how did the community of molecules ever arise in the first place?" it is like all of the ingredients in your kitchen got together and baked themselves into a cake-but a cake that could moreover divide when necessary to produce more cakes. it is little wonder we call it the miracle of life."

 

Surfie, maybe aliens seeded the fledgling earth with those amino acids. Maybe they were not even Christians, but scientists.

oooooo. (dunno, not real concerned in drawing logics from unknowables)

I just don't think all this came about quite like the worlds' scriptures would have us take, on pure faith.

 

just b/c we cant create proteins at this point in time doesnt mean anything. Could they make computers 2000 years ago? no. .................. nothing is certain

 

it's the old intelligent design vs. evolution debate....

I would like to think that in the end common sense trumps all.

 

Sci i was not commenting on christianity. i was commenting how implausible life being accidental was. the "creator" certainly could have been aliens. by the same token it could have been me. i was demonstrating that you being here is a miracle not an accident. you may very well be responsible for that miracle. imo, something is. "scientifically" by the odds it couldn't have been an accident. this isn't rocket science.

no wibbly, it's the "new" intelligent design theory. the old one added a god as being responsible. mine takes into account that you could possibly be god (or me, but 6 of one half dozen of another). but obviously something of purpose got the whole thing going.

 

I understand what your saying about how everything needs to be perfect for life to exist....I even talked about it somewhere in the morass above.

It is pretty improbably that life exists at all, so many things had to be exactly perfect. It's hard to understand why/how these improbable things lined up.....so lets just assume god did it.

Seems like kind of a cop out to me....

 

yes, i'd agree that is a cop out. but let's also assume accidents and coincedence played as little a part as a bearded white guy on a throne.

so, now let's try and get to the bottom of it. is it all me? is it all you? or a combination of all of us who believe to be aware.

the issues clearly are not whether it is "okay to be ___" or should we agree to "not use fossil fuels", or should people be able to expel life before it's come to fruition....the real issue is "what the heck is going on here?", and this will be missed by many folk who get stuck playing shakespeare for 70 plus years.

there are bigger issues than ones experience of "the play". they are about us being at all and the broader ramifications of "where is here?" and "what is experiencing this?" and "from where?"

that is where the "separate" nature of each of us breaks down, not in "beliefs", but in the entire freakin' miracle that "we" can be anywhere to experience disagreement about anything at all. in whose mind does this all exist? to take "being" as lightly as many do is an absurdity.

imo, it takes a lot to be aware of the miracle of living. i'm truly in awe of people who aren't paying attention. imo, the fact that you "are" is miraculous. we don't need fairy tales to explain it, or we do. that is of little consequence....what a gift "being" is...who cares where it's from?

[/rant]

 

I'm in awe of being alive, too. But I feel safe in accepting my "due", as do the other animals who do not worry about their places in the "scheme" or balance of living today.

This notion that "you" or "I' could have been creator just does not sink in on me yet. I think it seems like another layering of -groping for answers to questions common sense should not ask-.

you think so well. "surfie" is only my affectionate nick and shorthand, you know that of course.

stinkweid.

 

Sci, i'm going below (for lack of a better term) "accepting due" which basically means "playing the part" in the "play" of agreed upon perceptions of the world and its attributes and truths. i'm pretty much looking for answers, not myths and fairy tales.

i'm going to the "place" that looks to understand the experience of "here"; meaning asking what and where that is. where is this occurring? obviously there is a here because we are communicating somewhere. but where is that? in what space? is it in me or outside of me? if "here" were to have a shape from looking outside of it, what is that shape and what is outside of that shape? apparently a there. can i go there? if "here" isn't shaped like something, how can it have attributes and be anywhere?

i don't hope to have you answer what i'm asking. i look at things from a different perspective when i drink. it's neither here nor there anyway, we'll all be dead soon.

j/k

 

When you take into the account the size of space (which is actually inconceivable) i think its very probable that somewhere, all the proper coniditions (those that we know, and those that we dont) could have been present to create life, on the other hand, i also acknowledge the fact that there could be a creator/creators, its all speculation.

 

All speculation and all beliefs....hahaha....I love the way everything reverts back to beliefs, which I have been saying all along.

 

It just took me, o...lets say 6.5 hours to read through this thread(im at work, and doing work), and I just want to say thats its ok to be ___...and its ok to wonder why I, we are here...and its ok...to, uh, state you mind and such, and you opinion and daily acts of unselfishness and how many times you wrote a whole bunch of stuff about dogs, but seriously, this thread went downhill a small before page 3. I was hoping to read posts by 'non believers' about seismic activities. Not words from the other end of the spectrum!

Since we're off topic... I think...

Q: Why are their people who are 'good, religious' folk who live their life working for the greater good and fighting the bad look down upon and wish to banish all that is Harry Potter of Lord of the Rings when those tales offer a great...well, tale of good versus evil where good prevails?*

*usually...Harry Potter 7 not yet released.

 

well, idk about lotr, but as for harry potter,...... I have a few good friends that are christians, and i mean real christians. they dont smoke drink go out listen to music thats not christian, go to church a few times a week etc. ne ways, we were watching tv one day and a commercial for harry potter came on, and their mom said to change the station. I was like wtf, you got 2 be kidding me. so later that day i asked my friend what was up, and he said that he heard a preacher say that J.K. rowling was a witch, and the spells that were actually recited in the movies were real. I couldnt help but laugh. Once i pulled myself together, i told my friend to go do some research on Rowling.


no offense to anyone, but it seems to me that good christians are easily manipulated by people like that preacher.

 

I wouldn't say it has to do with being a christian, but the fact that some people just go along with the masses instead of questioning and seeking. Some people do take what others say and believe it, others like me are smart enough to be skeptical and seek instead of holding everything someone says to be true. It really just depends on the person, not the fact that they are a christian.

 

i know what you mean, i was just using them along with the preacher as an example

 

Psst: In many fundamentalist churches the flock is taught that atheists ARE in league with the Devil, literally.

That athiests are just the same as satan worshippers.

that's funny if it were not so potentially fatal.

For homos are sleeping with the Devil too. Mignions of the devil are fair game for murder, you know.

Which reminde me of Jimmy Swaggart's infamous boast. You all saw that video or heard the audio?

 

negative

 

can't say that I have.

 

Caution SciFly... you too could be guilty of extreemism, by stating such broad statements...

What you state is extensively Non-Biblical and restricted to the minority of fundamentalists holding what "They Call" a christian worldview...

It's unfair and non-acurate...

There are half-truths in your statements, regarding where the atheist's allegiance lies, in regards to relationship with God or the Devil, coming from a biblical foundation.

Obviously, and by nature, and Atheist would be anti-God, since the belief in the sole existance of said God is discounted and critized, so therefore, if you are anti-God, coming from a Biblical Perspective, you would be pro-Devil and the teachings there-of. Biblically, there isn't much grey area on that one...

Grounds for anything other than compassion... that's where it gets really shady in your statements and with many "Churches". Biblical teachings are consistently adament about compassion towards unbelievers and understanding in regards to their worldview and behavior... But, I must state that it strongly promotes standing up against that behavior with the beliefs of the Biblical teachings... but never against the person themselves... That is stated repeatedly that only God knows the heart of an individual... and therefore, Only God knows the true character of that person...

But, bringing it to such comments as those posted... makes it stereotypical and takes credibility away from your worldview as a result... Gotta be careful...