The Bathroom Wall

And, what are the "numerous inconsistencies" in the Bible?

Particularly enlightening is the admission towards the front of the correspondence that ...

Here are numerous inconsistencies in the bible, now where are those numerous mathematical formulations of irreducible complexity?

I still want to know where this idiot gets off insulting thousands of scientists he doesn't know as cowards who've been pressured into lying. I can't count how many creationists have said on this blog, "all the thousands of scientists who say my uninformed opinions are wrong are just lying."

Btw -- did our spy at the North Carolina Worldview Brainwashing Clinic finish transcribing the talks yet?

I am dying to know what vile anti-science garbage our would-be attorney Casey Luskin fed to those unfortunate children.

http://www.idconference.org/html/youth_conference.html

You are putting us on - aren't you? (From Bob, and at times, from me)

Let's look at the second one of those "contradictions" in greater detail. Genesis 1 describes the creation of the garden of Eden, into which man was then placed. Genesis 2 describes the creation of that garden, into which man was placed. There is nothing to suggest that trees were conceived and created strictly after man was created--such is the product of the desire to see something, not what's really there.

And, again, the third of those contradictions makes something out of the interjection "now" which is obviously not there. You could have as easily said "well" (I suppose that's what's been put in the New-Age "Good as New" translation).

There is no discrepancy between Genesis 1 and 2. If there are any truly poignant contradictions in the rest of that list, please bring them forward.

"Btw --- did our spy at the North Carolina Worldview Brainwashing Clinic finish transcribing the talks yet?"

I hope there's no wonder as to why scientists (and citizens in general) who dissent from evolution are suspicious of those who trumpet this worldview.

Genesis 1 describes the creation of the garden of Eden, into which man was then placed. Genesis 2 describes the creation of that garden, into which man was placed.

Here's a great list of 'science' that so-called 'scientists' made up to make Jesus look bad. http://www.skepticreport.com/creationism/thingscreationistshate.htm

I mean, those scientists are really stupid if they think we'll believe those lies. 'Lactose intolerence' is a sign of evolution? Come on. It's all part of God's plan that some people should get sick when they drink milk. Real Scientists don't bother with this secular liberal nonsense. All the science you need is in the bible. Maybe one day God will wipe out all the wicked, lying Saddam-and-Gamorah 'scientists' and their jobs can be given to real Christian Scientist. Wait. But not 'Christian Scientist"s I mean Christians who are Scientists. You know what I mean.

Timmy, thanks for the tip, but be more precise in your statements. When we say "Christian scientists" we do mean scientists who are Christian, and technically there is no distinction between "creation" science and "other" science, for we know that as (better, if) our knowledge advances sufficiently, it will confirm the scriptural record, and provide a plank in our proclamation of Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord. To some extent, it already does, but we mustn't be careful to put the cart before the horse. Russell has challenged me to "give an answer," as we were forewarned would happen, and I intend to do so in terms that he can wrestle with. It's a matter of simultaneous respecting the intellects of scientists, while at the same time forebearing that some (not all) of them may hold much deeper intentions when they argue inaccurately or contrary to the Scripture.

In Christ

Mr. A: If there are any truly poignant contradictions in the rest of that list, please bring them forward.

I can't judge their "poignancy"; they all look pretty contradictory to me, though.

Perhaps we can look more closely...
AFTER we see those references to numerous mathematical formulations of irreducible complexity.

Russell has challenged me to "give an answer," as we were forewarned would happen

Huh?

Russell has challenged me to "give an answer," as we were forewarned would happen

Huh?

The "Good" Book.

I hope there's no wonder as to why scientists (and citizens in general) who dissent from evolution are suspicious of those who trumpet this worldview.

> How about you show me where a bunch of scientists has supported a multi-day conference **for children** designed to each children that religion is bullshit and which teaches them tricks to use to convince people that their religious beliefs are bogus?

Sadly, that's a pretty good description of most universities today.

Posted by Admonitus on July 7, 2004 09:17 PM Timmy, thanks for the tip, but be more precise in your statements. When we say "Christian scientists" we do mean scientists who are Christian, and technically there is no distinction between "creation" science and "other" science, for we know that as (better, if) our knowledge advances sufficiently, it will confirm the scriptural record, and provide a plank in our proclamation of Jesus Christ as Creator, Redeemer, and Lord.

Russell has challenged me to "give an answer," as we were forewarned would happen, and I intend to do so in terms that he can wrestle with.

> How about you show me where a bunch of scientists has supported a multi-day conference **for children** designed to each children that religion is bullshit and which teaches them tricks to use to convince people that their religious beliefs are bogus?

Sadly, that's a pretty good description of most universities today.

Sadly, that's a pretty good description of most universities today.

Well, OK, gig's up. Seeing as roughly half of this board suspects that I am not in fact a creationist, and realizing I don't have any desire to search through creationist drudgery to get to something that might bring about even an entertaining response from Russell, it's time to let the cat out of the bag.

Seriously, I don't think Timmy is a creationist either. He's more over-the-top than my little puppet ever was.

Thanks to all the unwilling participants; it was side-splitting to see some of the responses to the fake character I created. A few years ago I managed to keep up this sham for much longer in a creationist-run chat room. I'm not losing my edge, either--I was making much "riskier" statements over at CARM. It seems to be the concentration of real scientists in the discussion that puts a half-life on my make-believe creationists.

I takes ten minutes to come up with the character, two posts to settle on the type of creationism, and five minutes to "rebut-but-but-whaddyasay" the responses the character's inanities draw. However, the true mark of a creationist is intrepid peddling of even more outlandish arguments, and a much more solid sense of conviction than I could ever present.

C'mon, Timmy, come out of the closet. You know what I mean.

Mr. A: ...might bring about even an entertaining response from Russell

Hey! what are you suggesting?

This prank gives me hope though: maybe they're all just having us on.

Sorry, Russell. No offense intended. Actually, I've been quite impressed with the response I've gotten from the moderators and posters here at Panda's Thumb. Frankly, it sounds a bit arrogant, but that's perfectly understandable given the muck you've been raked through by so many creationists.

By "entertaining" I meant an incisive, point-by-point dismantlement of what I wrote. It's not nearly as entertaining when even the board members have to express disappointment at the fake creationists' arguments--it tells me that I didn't do a good enough job of flip-flopping, parrying, and yet sounding like I knew something.

Take a look at Timmy's email address, Admont.

I have to admit, you had me going. I was a little suspicious when you used the top ten creationist arguments in such rapid fire, but I believed. Good work. I like that you made him a HS teacher. Nice touch. As was the obligatory 'liberal media' stuff.

Funny thing about it is, it takes some actual effort to write things so stupid it's unlikely a creationist would say them. I can't say I ever clearly succeeded at that.

If you want some real laughs, check out www.fixedearth.com. That guy really believes what he's saying. I thought it was a hoax. We exchanged several emails, and he was really offended that I thought he was kidding.

Anywho, stick around and read the articles. There's some very interesting science which gets posted here by the biologists.

The sad thing is that Mr. A's character was so very close to reality. I thought these guys were joking. And, hey, maybe they are, but the gag has been running so long, I'm afraid not.

One interesting thing about the AdMan was the seamless fusion between trailer-park creationist and country-club creationist (YEC and ID). While the former are generally happy to have the dense fog of sophistry supplied by the latter, in which to hide the silliness of their basic position, country-club creationists are uncomfortable when their less urbane cousins come a-visitin' and want a group photo. (Witness Dembski's indignant rejection of the "creationism" label)

I take it the malaprops were intentional. That had to take a little effort.

It seems to be the concentration of real scientists in the discussion that puts a half-life on my make-believe creationists.

I'm waiting for the day that Hovind, Ham, or Dembski pulls an Admonitus. "Just kiddin', boys. Devil's advocate, I swear."

Sir Peter strikes again. Continuing saga of a used car salesman.

Do you mean John C. Wheeler, famous astrophysicist? The other John Wheeler I know would never have entertained such a "mischievous" notion.

I'm waiting for the day that Hovind, Ham, or Dembski pulls an Admonitus. "Just kiddin', boys. Devil's advocate, I swear."

— Jim Anderson

Jim Anderson wrote:

I'm waiting for the day that Hovind, Ham, or Dembski pulls an Admonitus. "Just kiddin', boys. Devil's advocate, I swear."

I'm waiting for the day one of the Discovery Gang turns states' evidence, a David Brock, if you will.

(I wonder if we'll ever learn the story of the leaking of the infamous Wedge Document.)

OK, OK, if you think creationists are stupid and pig-headed, check out this debate between a political-saavy creationist and a guy who's got his head screwed on right. It matters not your political persuasion. One guys wins this argument hands down, and it's not even a partisan issue. The conclusion is for the loser to trot out this:

"And to think that brave American warriors are bleeding and dying for the likes of you, that can't or won't understand what is at stake and how long and hard the road will be to get there, makes me sick.

The only non issue I can think of, is you and your worthless thoughts.

As for your reply.. don't even bother. You have no salient points of view, only blind hate, ignorance and stupidity."

http://www.alittlemoretotheright.com/journal/00001606.html#comments

AdMan: I can see where you get some of your material!

Can a biologist here explain to me the "mid-domain effect" (MDE) of animal species, please?

I gather the hypothesis argues something more robust than, say, that cats who live where fish is available will often eat fish, but diversity gradients are not my field of expertise.

Fiona

PS - I enjoyed the hoax and I'm proud of you all.

And while we're on it, does anyone know which wag came up with the term "generation of diversity," abbreviated GOD? LOL

Thanks,
Fiona

And on a racier if not entirely OT note ...

Perhaps some of you men are familiar with or have even memorized this page, on which probable-nonscientists discuss the evolution of big hooters and sexy arses (as well, as, evidently, the evolution of the need for paper bags and beer), but I stumbled across it only now and my cats are wondering why I'm laughing so hard.

http://www.mwillett.org/Matters/sex-evolve.htm

"Is a vulva intrinsically yummy? I think not. Be honest with yourself, if you were served one in a restaurant you would leave it at the side of your plate, and possibly leave any chips that had touched it too."

You poor men. I never knew how you've suffered.

Fiona

Never seen that, but the name 'Rod' is hilarious by itself.

I have a request, unrelated (as far as I can tell) with any of the other threads on the bathroom wall. Due to my religious affiliations, I often find myself in conversations about homosexuality. For some reason, one of these conversations took me down a mental side alley of half-remembered information.

My request is for a source of information that would be accessable to a COBOL programmer who frequents places like Panda's Thumb and Talk Origins (meaning me) that discusses the genetics behind mutations that mess with genital development. I'm thinking specifically of humans born with both male and female sex organs (usually surgically "corrected" to be female).

Some questions I have:

Are individuals born with this mutation sterile?

Is it a single mutation that causes this, or a "family" of related mutations?

With what frequency does this occur?

What type of mutation is this? In my mind, this would be a regulatory problem (something "turned on" that shouldn't be, or visa versa) but I'm obviously not a biologist.

Speaking of the whole "homosexual gene" controversy, has a genetic link truely been found?

I know this probably seems odd, but fundamentalists spend a lot of time thinking and talking about sex (see Fred Phelp's uplifting web site...). I'd like to be armed with some facts next time I get sucked into one of these conversations.

Fundamental chemistry -

My COSH calendar tells me that according to Bishop Ussher the world was created on October 23rd. For chemists this is International mole day (10/23, get it?). To a numerologist this is obvious supernatural premonition of Avogadro's number.

IANADBOAD, but I'm pretty sure that hermaphroditism is probably caused by chemical imbalances and the like rather than being strictly genetic.

As far as homosexuality goes, I don't know that a genetic link has been found, but there is evidence that it's biologically based.

That's "I am not a develepmental biologist or a doctor" by the way.

This site blows! It's almost as sad as the infidels evo/cre forum!

One "Ryan" wrote: This site blows! It's almost as sad as the infidels evo/cre forum!

Gosh!

I wonder what we can do to improve it?

AdMan: Yep, John C. Wheeler the astrophysicist. See also Greg Egan's novel, _Distress_, for some of my other influences on the topic....

Sex-variants: There is at least one recessive mutation that produces a (sterile) sex-change (testicular feminization). However, these folks are not intermediate, indeed they tend to be exceptionally feminine aside from lacking menses et seq. (Trivia: Jamie Gillis is reputed to be one of these "XY females", as was Alfred Hitchcock's wife. Joan of Arc may have been one. )

AFAIK, intermediate-genital cases, and probably homosexuality and gender dysphoria, are thought to arise primarily from prenatal influences, (especially maternal stress), with genetic involvements perhaps appearing in family statistics.

In evolutionary terms, all those types probably fall under the heading of "bachelor drones"; that is, their usual role is to supply labor to the tribe, without adding to population pressure. This could well be useful enough at the tribe/community level to undercut the weeding-out of any "low-fertility" genes contributing to such effects.

See

Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex by Alice Domurat Dreger (Harvard University Press, 1998), and good luck.

Quick take a run over to

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/chinesedinosaurs/featheredDinos.asp

or

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O22E12DC8

to see AiG's critique of the exhibit of feathered dinos from China.

Here are some highlights:

***QUOTE***
"However, I was struck by the likeness of several of the models to modern flightless birds, such as the roadrunner and cassowary..."
***END QUOTE***

Mark Robertson's ornithology professor was obviously Chuck Jones.

***QUOTE***
"Did some dinosaur have a furry coating, or is this 'fuzz' just an artefact of the preservation or recovery process?"
***END QUOTE***

Now there's a gem. Were there any dinosaurs that had a furry coat? I am tempted to scotch-tape a few hundred pigeon feathers together (since I'm in New York City) and mail Mr. Robertson this "fur coat".

There's plenty more where that came from, including some very nice strawmen concerning direct lineages, whether something is a bird or a feathered dinosaur, and the like.

Chris

Quick take a run over to

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/chinesedinosaurs/featheredDinos.asp

or

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O22E12DC8

to see AiG's critique of the exhibit of feathered dinos from China.

Here are some highlights:

***QUOTE***
"However, I was struck by the likeness of several of the models to modern flightless birds, such as the roadrunner and cassowary..."
***END QUOTE***

Mark Robertson's ornithology professor was obviously Chuck Jones.

***QUOTE***
"Did some dinosaur have a furry coating, or is this 'fuzz' just an artefact of the preservation or recovery process?"
***END QUOTE***

Now there's a gem. Were there any dinosaurs that had a furry coat? I am tempted to scotch-tape a few hundred pigeon feathers together (since I'm in New York City) and mail Mr. Robertson this "fur coat".

There's plenty more where that came from, including some very nice strawmen concerning direct lineages, whether something is a bird or a feathered dinosaur, and the like.

Chris

Wayne:
It seems a bit strange waiting for you here in the... ahhm... well, you know!

I imagine myself being the butt of jokes... "Look at the dumb creationist, he actually fell for it! He's in the bathroom talking to himself!" : )

Anyway, in the event that you'll eventually show up, Wayne, and this isn't some evil initiation rite or something... here's a question for you...

Do you believe that evolution has been proven beyond all resonable doubt?

New fun from the Ediacaran.

Anyway, in the event that you'll eventually show up, Wayne, and this isn't some evil initiation rite or something . . . here's a question for you . . . Do you believe that evolution has been proven beyond all resonable doubt?

Do you believe that evolution has been proven beyond all resonable doubt?

— roger

Wayne asked,

<< Do you think god made man in his own image as it is stated in Genisis 1:26. >>

OK, I'm gonna assume you're not a troll, but a questing soul.

Let's start at the beginning, Wayne. The Bible was not written in English. It was written long before the English language existed.

In fact, you don't really know what the original text said, do you?

I'm guessing that you're trusting the King James version of the Bible ... and I could be wrong about that ... but as one site (the University of Minnesota) says about the King James version, which is what most of us are familiar with,

"Of the 54 scholars [working on the text], only 48 were recorded, as some passed away before the completion of the project [do I have to remark on the fact that they were employing elderly and dying scholars? I won't.]. ... There were fifteen rules that bound the committees. They consulted with translators and commentators of Chaldee, Hebrew, Syrian, Greek, or Latin when in doubt. [Note that they do not mention Aramaic, the language that Jesus and his compatriots spoke.] The new translation was entitled "The Holy Bible", and compared and revised against the previous translations. The Bible was printed by Robert Barker, appointed Printer to the King. Three editions followed the first printing, which contained a number of misprints."

[To show I'm not editing unfairly, I'll include the URL: http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/indextext/KingJames.html]

Wayne, I'm just asking: Do you feel confident in trusting a text that had so many errors from the get-go? And why should you believe in such a text? Is it because you have "a feeling of faith" -- or because your parents and neighbors told you to believe it?

Er, one more thing. If you really believe in the Bible, you ought at least to spell its chapter titles correctly. That's "Genesis." The word is from the Greek and it means something. It's not just a chapter title.

We are actually very friendly folks here, and we're up to a fair discussion. And I say, in a friendly manner, that you have a couple of choices. Either you can continue to accept what you've been told without question; or you can read, just a little bit, about scientific advances in all areas, starting with the science-popularizing magazines, such as Discover and Scientific American. They're actually very interesting and written for the layman (I'm an English major, myself, not a scientist).

I congratulate you for asking questions, because that's the only way we can find the truths about this very complicated world we live in.

Fiona

Basically this is what you would call most mainstream Christian scientists these days. They believe in God but do not believe the bible is a literal historical account because the evidence does not support it. Also you have to think about how the bible evolved and it has evolved. Just from translations from one language to another over the thousands of years different parts has had a impact on the stories in the bible. My son when he was 6 came to me and asked about the book of Genesis and if it was true and I asked him why does he ask. note my son went to a Catholic school at that time and goes to a Australian Uniting Church now He was interested in what it would mean if they found life on Mars. I asked him "What do you think it means?" he thought and said "Well maybe Adam and Eve is just a story that is a bit true" I asked "what do you mean "a bit true" and he said "well maybe the story kept changing". I asked "Why would a story change" and he said "each time its told from one person to another it could change a bit". I asked "why would that happen" and he said "different people might remember it a bit different and they might add bits to make it more exciting". I asked "so if this is what happens to the stories in the bible what does that mean to you?" and he looked puzzled and I asked "Do you still believe in God?" and he says "Yes" and I asked "so what why doesn't the change in the bible change your belief in god" and he said "because god didn't write the bible people did" I was very impressed with his mode of thinking. He still reads the bible (only 8 now) and he's starting to read parts of the Gnostic library specifically gospels that didn't make it into the New Testament because Irenaeus felt it threatened the simple model of Christianity that he was trying to band all the different groups of Christianity under.

— Wayne

Wayne:

Sorry, I was out all day, no time to post. And it appears you took a beating on my behalf! (I don't mean "beating" with all the connotations that conjures up, Fiona, but it sounded good!)

Actually, I am the Bible believing Christian/creationist. So please direct any anti-Bible/God/creation comments my way : )

What a fantastic response, btw, Wayne. I can tell you are the kind of person I thought you were!

In all honesty, in a wierd way I actually enjoy hearing a perspective that is completely different from my own. As you said, I always learn something new and I may even end up fine-tuning my own beliefs.

In an interview once, Michael Jordan said his main strategy at becoming so good at basketball was to figure out where he was the weakest, then work on that over and over. Nothing will point out the weakness of your thinking like hearing someone's perspective on the other side--especially someone who's really thought through their position.

So, with that said, I really do appreciate your perspective and attitude, Wayne. Besides, I naturally have respect for anyone who was in the military!

My only problem with your posts is they are way too detailed for me to address every point! I have a wife (who just broke her ankle the other day!) and two kids and a bunch of etc, etc... so my time is very limited.

Getting into something of value...

When it comes to evolution, I haven't quite figured out where you're coming from yet. As I understand it, you're quite confident that evolution is the best explanation for the various life forms we see today. But as to what started the "machine" running, you don't know. Right so far?

If that is the case, you would have no problem with the idea that God or a creator, choose to create life (intelligent design) through evolution. I guess you might not have a problem with the idea that aliens seeded life here either... right?

I have a difficult time arguing against that (although, the alien thing is just way too wacky for me) other than, I am simply not as convinced as you are that evolution has been proven. But granting that for the moment for the sake of argument... you still have to come back to accepting whatever you believe on faith. You reach a point, no matter what world view you hold, that you simply have to say: That's what I believe.

Either you have to accept that a creator started the process; or that matter and life are eternal; or that somehow everything came from nothing; or you just ignore the question.

I notice that several of your comments seem to imply that no faith is required to hold your world view. For example, --okay forgive me here, I'm not gonna take the time to go copy the quote because my cpu is SLOW and it's not on this chain--but something to the effect that: the only faith that's required to accept evolution is that the natural laws will continue functioning or will hold constant.

Here's where I see a weakness in many people's thinking who are either atheists or evolutionists or both...

For example an atheist once equated my belief in the Bible to believing in the Tooth Fairy or Mother Goose. Aside from shattering my illusions : ), it serves to make my point. Many people who take that perspective have the idea that they hold their beliefs based on only rational thought and proven ideas... ie. no faith required. They then find satisfaction in ridiculing people who admit to holding their views based on faith. (I am not accusing you of this, btw, Wayne.) But the paradox to me is, in the end, everyone accepts their world view based on faith since the answer to why are we here and how did we get here still has not been definitively answered.

Put it this way... if those answers have been proven, one way or another, definitively, they would be facts and anyone who didn't accept them would probably be a taco short of a combo.

I don't believe evolution has been proven to that extent by virture of the fact that there is still so much dissention from people who are much smarter and better qualified to make that determination than I am.

For example, the theory that the earth revolves around the sun is pretty well established fact. Almost no one disagrees with that (except for my cat who thinks the world revolves around him!) I don't think evolution has achieved anywhere near that level of acceptance.

One more thought and then I gotta go... (Hey I AM in the bathroom after all! : )

Here's my biggest problem with ATHEISTIC evolution (which I realize is not necessarily what you believe.) In the end, if there is no God and we are all just products of meaningless chance, then human life has little meaning and little value. Might makes right, survival of the fittest, get rid of the weak, etc, all come into play.

By contrast, the message of the Bible, and Jesus Christ in particular, is: Love those who hate you, do good to those who do evil to you. Human life has supreme value because God created it and loves us so much that Jesus was willing to give his own life to redeem us. We each have value because as you pointed out, according to the Bible, we are created in God's image.

I can't tell you exactly what that means, btw, as you probably already knew. Again, people smarter than I am disagree. But here's my best guess... I believe "in God's image" has several meanings which includes the fact that we are the only of God's creations who have an eternal soul, which means, among other things, that we were created with the capacity to love. Real love. (I want to believe my cat "loves" me, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I constantly satisfy his desire for food! :)

My take on the teaching in the Bible is that we were created to experience and share in God's Love. Sort of the ultimate love story, if you will. You can't have real, genuine love without the choice not to love. Hence, God created us with the capacity to choose to reject him. Unfortunately, sin entered the picture, which leads us to the messed up world we see around us. But that's another discussion.

Now I know that many people have done a lot of evil things in the name of God or religion or even Jesus Christ. But you can't judge Jesus by people's actions, you have to judge him by his words and his actions.

Evolution, to me, leads us down the path to nihilism--nothing matters, so do whatever feels good; get as much as you can out of life (which is often accompanied by 'no matter who you hurt in the process')

Well, that's probably enough from me! Take care and thanks for joining me in the bathroom! : )

BTW, thanks for your comments too, Ian. Didn't mean to ignore you! Gotta get to bed though!

Hi Roger,

Please forgive the ellipsed condensation.

You said, ". . . if there is no God and we are all just products of meaningless chance, then human life has little meaning and little value. . . Human life has supreme value because God created it and loves us so much that Jesus was willing to give his own life to redeem us . . ."

I, and probably most of the folks here, question or reject the notion that our lives have no value or meaning unless we were created by a loving God, and the notion that evolution leads to nihilism. Neither of those opinions is supportable.

Post Big Bang, evoluton is supported by hundreds of years of direct Scientific research and thousands of years of plant and animal breeding; Divine creation is supported by the Bible.

Prior to the Big Bang is and will probably always be, a blank. There was a Big Bang, and it could have been caused by a supernatural Omnipotent Entity - or not. Either way, until something better is laid on the table - with the evidence and research and hard science to even begin to validate it - evolution is it.

Roger,

Sorry, I should have added this: I do not disrespect your faith, nor anyone else's. You're obviously sincere in it and I accept that. I don't see Religion and Science as necessary antagonists, and the same can be said for many Religious scholars up to and including the Dalai Lama and - more or less - the Pope; and most Scientists. Evolution is not Atheism.

If that is the case, you would have no problem with the idea that God or a creator, choose to create life (intelligent design) through evolution. I guess you might not have a problem with the idea that aliens seeded life here either . . . right?

— Roger

Evolution, to me, leads us down the path to nihilism---nothing matters, so do whatever feels good; get as much as you can out of life

— Roger

Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

If that is the case, you would have no problem with the idea that God or a creator, choose to create life (intelligent design) through evolution.

For example, the theory that the earth revolves around the sun is pretty well established fact. Almost no one disagrees with that (except for my cat who thinks the world revolves around him!) I don't think evolution has achieved anywhere near that level of acceptance.

Now I know that many people have done a lot of evil things in the name of God or religion or even Jesus Christ. But you can't judge Jesus by people's actions, you have to judge him by his words and his actions.

(I want to believe my cat "loves" me, but I think it has more to do with the fact that I constantly satisfy his desire for food! :)

Here's my biggest problem with ATHEISTIC evolution (which I realize is not necessarily what you believe.) In the end, if there is no God and we are all just products of meaningless chance, then human life has little meaning and little value. Might makes right, survival of the fittest, get rid of the weak, etc, all come into play. By contrast, the message of the Bible, and Jesus Christ in particular, is: Love those who hate you, do good to those who do evil to you. Human life has supreme value because God created it and loves us so much that Jesus was willing to give his own life to redeem us.... ...Evolution, to me, leads us down the path to nihilism---nothing matters, so do whatever feels good; get as much as you can out of life (which is often accompanied by 'no matter who you hurt in the process')...

Prior to the Big Bang is and will probably always be, a blank

— bob

switching to that other species I think was misunderestimated above...

I don't know exactly how you want to characterize it: "love, affection, sense of comfort..." but our cat is interested in humans for more than just the food.

love, affection, sense of comfort . . .

— Russell

Evolution, to me, leads us down the path to nihilism---nothing matters, so do whatever feels good; get as much as you can out of life (which is often accompanied by 'no matter who you hurt in the process')

— roger

David H:

That's pretty much what my cat said... in so many words.

John Wheeler's middle name is Archibald.

David H mentions games theory. This can go a long way towards modelling altruism on repeated iterations, within a family or community say. But I've not seen it model altruism towards strangers one is not likely to encounter again. Anyone come across anything like that in the literature?

Is PZ a nihilist psychopath?

I don't think people are in a very good position to come to any decisive conclusions about the ultimate nature of the universe. On the other hand, I don't think you've got to be a rocket scientist to realize that you shouldn't lie, cheat, and steal. What alarms me about many religious folks is their implication that if it weren't for belief in God, we wouldn't know right from wrong. Thing is, if these irrationalists really mean what they say, does that imply that if they suddently lose their faith, they're going to murder us in our beds?

Russell: A voluble cat! I barely understand mine.... ;-)

Oh, and I missed a cue up there -- I forgot to define "love"! In games-theory/evolutionary terms, love is a profound commitment to the welfare of another person. The point that matters in the light of evolution is that you have committed yourself to look out for someone else consistently, not just when you see some potential advantage. If this is mutual, the effect is to pool your resources (and risks) against the world. Of course, this definition can be tilted and twisted in many ways, but so can the original L-word. And yes, I consider many close friendships to be love under this definition.

Gav: The thing is, over a million years, all the strangers essentially blur together. In that situation, the evolving behavior responds to collective experience, rather than individual memory. For example, our pre-hominid primate ancestors had encounters with snakes. The ones who tried to be too friendly with them, or even failed to avoid them, often died as a result. A few million years of selection, and not only man, but all the primates, have an instinctive fear of snakes.

Among ourselves, we deal with strangers first by testing them with various social rituals, while giving them the once-over out of the corner of our eyes. Seriously, we humans have become *very* good at reading emotion and sublimnal displays off other humans. We also look at circumstantial info such as clothing, cultural emblems, reputation, etc. All this is directed precisely toward breaking the Dilemma, by *finding out* something about the stranger, fast. The social rituals such as shaking hands and exchange of greetings are partly recognition signs for a tribe or culture, and partly cover for getting a look (listen, feel) at the stranger.

Thanks, Roger and Wayne, and it was totally my bad. You were right, I somehow skipped over some of the posts.

Fiona

Roger wrote:

<< Here's my biggest problem with ATHEISTIC evolution (which I realize is not necessarily what you believe.) In the end, if there is no God and we are all just products of meaningless chance, then human life has little meaning and little value. Might makes right, survival of the fittest, get rid of the weak, etc, all come into play. >>

But perhaps it's not a matter of right or wrong, but a matter of true or false.

Regards,
Fiona

(Preface: T. Russ's post in which he calls me an 'anti-religious biggot[sic]', possibly after having forgotten his recent history of tossing insults far and wide, including, ironically, attacks on others' english abilities)

"In order to be absolutely honest, I should not leave you with the impression that I am part of the generalized agnosticism of our culture. I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful. Reviewing the false claims of religion I do not wish, as some sentimental agnostics affect to wish, that they were true. I do not envy believers their faith. I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case.

Why do I say that? Well, there may be people who wish to live their lives under a cradle-to-grave divine supervision; a permanent surveillance and around the clock monitoring. Endless opportunity for praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self, a celestial North Korea. But I cannot personally imagine anything more horrible or grotesque."
--Christopher Hitchens

Bob:

You write: "Evolution is not Atheism."

You are right. I agree. I just find that most atheists gravitate toward evolution since it is their means of effectively explaining reality without the need for a creator.

I also agree that atheism does not equate to "evil". Some of my comments may come across that way, and, if so, I apologize for that. I'm sure that Steve and the other people he listed are great folks with no greater or fewer problems than anyone else. I only argue that on the philosophical level, the belief that there is no God, when taken to its logical conclusions, can lead to nihilism since we as humans are accountable to no one other than ourselves.

Steve wrote: "I'm a liberal, and a humanist, and a member of the ACLU. I try to make the world better. And I don't believe in magic invisible beings in the sky. Maybe if you didn't have god, you'd turn into a murderous raping nihilist barbarian, but I didn't, and I don't know any atheist who did."

Steve, you're right, and again, I didn't mean to imply that all or even most atheists end up that way.

At the same time I regocnize that even some of those who claim to believe in God have done terrible things at times. So a belief in God is not a guarantee that evil will be done away with. But the idea that there is a God means we are ultimately accountable to him and we will eventually stand before his judgement. The good news, according to the Biblical world view, is that God is a righteous judge.

If there is no God, how do you explain "conscience"? What is morally right and morally wrong? Who is to decide? If my morality differs from yours, who is right? The majority?

Wayne: This, I believe is another attribute of what it means to be created in God's image. Human beings are created with a conscience, we have the ability (which I believe is God-given) to discern right from wrong.

With God, and specifically I argue for the God of the Bible, we have a clear set of rights and wrongs summed up quite well in the 10 commandments. Jesus put it even simpler: Love your neighbor as you love yourself. With God, we have a higher authority to appeal to.

Since we're on the topic of the value of human life and the relationship of God to it let me bring up a topic I think illustrates my point. Admittedly, it's a hot button for some folks...

I'm guessing Wayne is from Australia, since he says: "No worries", and I don't know what the abortion laws are like there, but here in the United States we pretty much have abortion on demand since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. I'm guessing Australia is similar. Up until Roe, pre-born human life was protected by the law and the law was based on a Judeo-Christian ethic that human life, even pre-born was valuable as it is created by God. But in the 1960's many of the traditional ethics in this country were being challenged.

So by the time Roe came along the moral climate, at least among those on the Supreme Court if not the population in general, had moved away from that ethic to such an extent that Justice Blackmun could write: (And I'm paraphrasing but this is pretty close to his actual words) We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins since those in the respective disciplines of science, philosophy and religion have yet to adequately answer the question.

So while pre-born human life had been protected under the law for over 200 years in the U.S., now it was not. With a few strokes of the pen, Blackmun effectively declared that pre-born human life is no longer worthy of legal protection. Note that developing fetuses hadn't changed a bit, only our attitude towards them.

The difference was the shift in thinking that human life is created by God (as our Constitution points out)to a world view dominated by the idea that either God doesn't exist or is not worthy of consideration. Coupled with that is a backdrop of evolution which would argue that a fetus is not the same thing as a fully developed human being, therefore it is "morally" possible to consider legalization of abortion, which is where we are at now.

Here's the dilemma... is human life valuable? And what gives it its value?

Why is it morally permissible in our society for a woman to destroy the human life that is growing inside her body during pregnancy, but not permissible for her to destroy that same individual after birth? What are the differences between a nine month old fetus and a one month old baby that make it morally permissible to kill the one and protect the other?

Of course I come from the perspective that there simply are none and that life should be protected from conception (or at the very least implantation) onward, as in the days before Roe. This illustrates my point that when God is a part of the equation, human life has greater value than when he is removed.

Bob wrote: "I, and probably most of the folks here, question or reject the notion that our lives have no value or meaning unless we were created by a loving God, and the notion that evolution leads to nihilism. Neither of those opinions is supportable."

Bob: I think I said "little" rather than "no" meaning, but admittedly that's just semantics. The point is, if we were created by a God for the express purpose of having a relationship with him, then we have a phenomenal amount of value as we are valued by God. Each human life, then, has an infinite value because God's love is infinite.

By comparison, human life has much less value if there is no God and we somehow simply evolved into what we are today for no reason other than chance.

This is not meant to be a trick question for Bob or Steve or even Wayne...

In the broad scheme of things, if there is no God, what IS the meaning of life?

Russel wrote: "our cat is interested in humans for more than just the food."

Of course, you're right. I was probably too hard on my feline. I'm a cat lover, so mine is pretty spoiled. I just don't believe he was created to "love" me at anywhere near the level that my wife does. In fact, when you put it in those terms, I doubt if many of you would disagree with me. Of course Wayne may argue that he simply hasn't evolved to that level yet! On the other hand, he is REALLY my friend when he sees me getting close to the cat food! : )

Steve also wrote: "Prayer will cure the sick, if they take medicine at the same time." Steve: What about those are healed much to the surprise of their doctors when medicine had nothing to do with it? Or do you believe that people are never "miraculously" cured? BTW, I'm not talking about the "healing" evangelists on TV which I see as completely fake.

There's way too much in all of your posts to comment on everything, but I can't resist adding one more thing... Wayne writes:

"My question for you now is do you believe we should treat others as the bible says we should?
Now I don't want to blind side you so I'll tell you where I'm going with this. Have you ever read the bible and other scriptures to see how sexist it is? Women are treated as property in the bible. Here is one passage from the Gospel of Thomas tho many scholars believe it was added in after..."

Okay, there are several issues here... first, thanks for not blind-siding me! Next, I can't accept anything that comes from the agnostic gospels like Thomas. (Other than perhaps for their contextual or even humorous value, but certainly not as far as doctrine is concerned.)Thomas was not written by Thomas or any of the other disciples for that matter. Such books were not included in the Bible because they go against the teachings of Jesus as found in the other Gospels (which were eye-witness accounts) or they were known to have flaws.

That said, I've still heard others say the Bible is sexist. I think that comes from a misunderstanding of the culture the Bible was written in. By our standards the whole world was sexist. In fact, in its day, some of the ideas expressed by Paul and other Biblical writers were actually ahead of their time as compared to the culture they came out of.

An example is Jesus' compassion for the woman caught in adultery (which was a capital offence according to Jewish law) as well as his conversation with the woman he meets while in Samaria. In the first place the Jews hated the Samaritans and went out of their way not even to travel through their territory. Not Jesus. He went straight into the heart of Samaria. In the second place he carries on a conversation with a Samaratin woman. While speaking with her, he not only talks religion, which was reserved for men, but exposes her sin and does so in a compassionate way. The fact that this story is included in the Bible is a testament to how radical Jesus' teachings were. We often judge the Bible harshly when all it is doing is accurately reporting the events of a culture that is completely different from our own.

So when you ask if we are to treat others as the Bible instructs, I would say, yes, especially as it pertains to the teachings of Jesus. Jesus says in Matthew 5:43 "You have heard that it was said 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.' But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you." When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus responded: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and most important command. And the second is like the first: 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.' All the law and the writings of the prophets depend on these two commands." Matthew 22:37-40. Certainly some of his "followers" have failed to live up to that teaching while others have gone so far as to give their lives for the sake of Jesus. But that is his teaching and he himself lived up to it. If everyone in the world would just follow that advice it would be as close to a perfect world as we could get.

Take care, and Wayne... gooday mate! (Assuming you are Australian, do you hate it when Americans attempt to speak Australian? : )

"brevity is the soul of wit..."
--Polonius

Frank wrote:

"Forgive me if you made it clear somewhere, but I didn't catch what "kind" of creationist you are - YEC, one of the OECs (gap, day-age, progressive), etc., only that you are not convinced about "evolution" (also not sure which definition you have in mind). Are you equally or more unconvinced about the origins models implicit in creationisms other than yours?"

Oh-oh... now I'm going to be boxed into a previously specified and defined "type" of creationist, one that, no doubt, has alreay been "debunked" many times over... hmmmm... what kind of creationist am I?

Biblical. How about that?

I know that some people hold to a literal seven days, some do not. Some hold that the earth is relatively young, some do not. I don't know. The jury's still out for me. More important to me is whether or not there is a creator in the first place. If there isn't it would profoundly change my thinking... I might just decide to track Jim H down and murder him in his sleep! : )

(Just kidding, of course, Jim... ; )

BTW, how do you get your quotes to appear in those fancy little boxes?

Steve wrote:

"brevity is the soul of wit . . . "
---Polonius

Of course you WOULD make that comment RIGHT after my hugely, long winded post!

You see, Steve, there IS a God and he loves you! ; )

If there is no God, how do you explain "conscience"? What is morally right and morally wrong? Who is to decide? If my morality differs from yours, who is right? The majority?

— Roger

I don't know what the abortion laws are like there, but here in the United States we pretty much have abortion on demand since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision...

— roger

By comparison, human life has much less value if there is no God and we somehow simply evolved into what we are today for no reason other than chance.

— roger

In the broad scheme of things, if there is no God, what IS the meaning of life?

— Roger

Of course Wayne may argue that he simply hasn't evolved to that level yet! On the other hand, he is REALLY my friend when he sees me getting close to the cat food! : )

— Roger

I can't accept anything that comes from the agnostic gospels like Thomas

— Roger

Such books were not included in the Bible because they go against the teachings of Jesus as found in the other Gospels (which were eye-witness accounts) or they were known to have flaws.

— Roger

Take care, and Wayne . . . gooday mate! (Assuming you are Australian, do you hate it when Americans attempt to speak Australian? : )

— Roger

I know that some people hold to a literal seven days, some do not. Some hold that the earth is relatively young, some do not. I don't know. The jury's still out for me. More important to me is whether or not there is a creator in the first place. If there isn't it would profoundly change my thinking . . . I might just decide to track Jim H down and murder him in his sleep! : )

— Roger

Roger,
You asked, "In the broad scheme of things, if there is no God, what IS the meaning of life?"

Your question, first of all, presupposes that there IS - or perhaps MUST BE - some over-arching meaning to life, which is at best a conjecture. I'd ask YOU a question -what is your proof that there IS meaning to life? More than one question, I guess - does the life of all living organisms have meaning, or just ours, since we were made in the "image" of God, and given the task of obeying him?

If there IS a God, near as I can tell, the meaning of life is that we were created by a fickle and insecure Cosmic Trickster so desperate for love that It made us in order to have worshippers, and then demanded that adoration under the threat of eternal damnation, which It invented solely for the purpose. Just ask Noah. He witnessed firsthand the results of God's displeasure with those who were less than effusive in their show love for Him. An overload of testosterone, perhaps?

As to the meaning of life if there is no God. If there even IS any meaning to life, then I'd venture that it's something along the lines of, "Have a care for the ripples you leave in your passing. This Earth is all we've got; there are others who will pass in your wake; do not leave it less than those who passed before left for you."

Concerning conscience and morality -are yours the result of God's carrot and stick threat, or an independent realization that it's the only sensible approach to one's behaviour? For better or worse, we're all in this together

Wayne,
As far as the gospels go - to my knowledge they are anonymous, and were only attributed to MML and J perhaps several hundred years later, at a conference of bishops gathered to finalize the Bible. As the story goes, I think, they put all of the candidate writings in a pile in front of the altar and prayed over them; the "genuine" ones - those that made the cut - rose off the floor and settled in atop the altar. My suspicion is that that's an exaggeration and didn't really happen, but when one is dealing with the workings of a supernatural Omnipotence, one never really knows the score.

The oldest Christian documents are the letters of Paul. Paul is not big on historical details---they probably hadn't been fabricated yet. Paul was much more interested in Christ than Jesus, which is probably why he was always a favorite of Marcion and other gnostic heretics who didn't care much about some actual guy who supposedly lived in Palestine.

The Gospels are the novelization of a myth. Like other novels, their versimilitude is a rhetorical device, not evidence of their veracity.

Whatever the meaning of life is, the meaning of my life is not to be a slave to an invisible, evil monster in the sky.

"I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me tell you here tonight that the Old Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was satisfied when his enemy was dead. It was reserved for the New Testament-it was reserved for universal benevolence-to rend the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that the New Testament is good.
"I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it." - Robert G. Ingersoll, A Reply to Reverend Drs. Thomas and Lorimer

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are myth, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bards, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. - Robert G. Ingersoll

Oh-oh . . . now I'm going to be boxed into a previously specified and defined "type" of creationist, one that, no doubt, has already been "debunked" many times over . . . hmmmm . . . what kind of creationist am I?

— roger

Biblical. How about that?

— roger

I know that some people hold to a literal seven days, some do not. Some hold that the earth is relatively young, some do not. I don't know. The jury's still out for me.

— roger

More important to me is whether or not there is a creator in the first place. If there isn't it would profoundly change my thinking.

— roger

BTW, how do you get your quotes to appear in those fancy little boxes?

— roger

The bathroom wall is taking forever to load again. Maybe there's a way to set this thing up to automatically delete/hide posts more than 1 week old, or more than 100 posts old, or something? Aside from helping us viewers, it would save TPT bandwidth costs.

Friends on Panda's Thumb:

If I'm counting correctly 15 out of the last 17 comments were addressed to me... sorry folks, but I can't keep up! I have a life beyond cyber-space! But I'll address a few points...

Wayne:
Sure, cooperation among species is beneficial but according to evolutionary theory, wouldn't that be the exception rather than the rule? Isn't the primary explanation for newer (and improved!) life forms due to survival of the fittest rather than cooperation?

You write: "man isn't the only animal to know that stealing isn't nice."

How can you be sure what an animal "knows"? How do you know they "know"? Or have they just been conditioned to react in a certain way?

Abortion...

Wayne writes: "Some things you should know Roger. Your assumption that abortions on demand are legal until the baby is born is wrong. Most abortions are carried out in the first trimester. CDC estimates are 58% of abortions occur within the first 8 weeks. 88% occur within the first trimester and only about 1.4% of abortions occur after 20 weeks. "Late" abortions, after the first trimester, have dropped since 1973. Abortion numbers have drop from 1,186,039 in 1997 to 857,475 in 2000."

Wayne, even granting your numbers does nothing to prove your point that abortion is not legal through all nine months of pregnancy. In fact it is. Sure, most abortions occur within the first few months of pregnancy... so? Does that make the ones that occur in the third trimester okay?

Since we're on this point I might as well point out that I, and most pro-lifers, would be willing to make an exception when the mother's life is genuinely threatened. But this occurs in less than 1 percent of all abortions, so it's really a non-issue blown way out of proportion by abortion proponents. They want to out-law abortion with the exception of genuine life-threatening situations? Fine! Ain't gonna happen. Too much money to loose.

You write:"Legal abortions after 12 weeks is limited to serious fetal anomalies or where the mothers life in threatened by the pregnancy." Wayne, respectfully, I don't know where you're getting your information, but it is not correct. Granted, the original intent of the Roe decision was to limit abortion after the first trimester, but we have effectively moved WAY beyond that. The fact that congress couldn't even get the numbers necessary to ban partial-birth abortion under the Clinton administration says it all. Abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy right up to birth for ANY reason because "health" can be, and is, so loosely defined as to render it meaningless.

Wayne writes: "Do you know how many pregnancies miscarriage? In general 15%-20%. That's almost 1 in 5."

Again, not questioning your numbers, what's your point? Sure a significant portion of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. By far, most of those occur prior to implantation (or about nine days after conception). That's why I mentioned earlier that, were I making the laws, I would consider protecting human life from implantation on rather than conception.

But the point really has no relevance to the question. In other words are you saying because X number of humans die spontaneously during pregnancy, we are justified in taking more lives?

Wayne writes:
"When does a fetus become a baby? I don't know. But just as a laugh if god puts the soul in every baby at the point of conception then . . . well god is the biggest pornography watcher in the universe. Oh and if god put the soul in at that point in time god is doing so knowing that 1 in 5 will never see the light of day . . . and this is in America . . . forget about developing countries where the miscarriage rate is significantly higher."

Your tone seems tongue and cheek so I'll assume you're joking here. But to clarify, since I believe God created humans and directed them to be fruitful and multiply, I don't believe he views sex as pornography. We could get into monogamy and chastity, which I believe God values and honors, but the bottom line is God created sex, so I believe he sees it as something very special and wonderful. Humans are the ones who cheapen it. By the way, for the record, I'm Protestant, not Catholic. I have no problem with birth control.

As for the 1 in 5 not seeing the light of day... again: so? If God is God and he gives a soul when he chooses, so what? They may never see the light of day here on earth... so what? Maybe they go straight to his presence. The point is, he makes that decision, not us. Especially since he is God and we can't even figure out when life begins.

Wayne writes: "The babies before they are born do have rights. After 12 weeks the courts rule."

Are you suggesting that a woman must go to court before getting an abortion after 12 weeks? As a member of the ACLU, I'll bet Steve would have a cow if that were the case!

My point is: give me logical and rational reasons why a two-month old fetus; six month old fetus or eight month old fetus should not be protected legally when a one month old baby is? What are the fundamental differences between the two that justify the legal protection of the one but not the other?

And I don't want to blind-side you either so let me point out that if you argue that the younger a fetus is the less developed it is, therefore the less "human" it is, proves my point that evolutionary theory has (negatively) impacted attitudes with respect to pre-born human life and has cheapened it to such an extent that we no longer consider it worthy of legal protection.

Wayne: you admit that you don't know when a fetus becomes a baby. That's the problem. Neither did Justice Blackmun when he wrote the Roe decision. How can we morally allow a procedure that will kill millions of fetuses/babies if we can't even distinguish which entity we are killing? Where's the morality in that?

Atheism...

In response to my question... just what IS the meaning of life...
Wayne writes:
"Well in a evolution point of view . . . .to prosper and multiply. For us we have lots of fun along the way hopefully with out being mean to each other to much."

I think that's nice, Wayne, I really do, but those are YOUR values. You have already mentioned that you are not an atheist, so I could always argue that GOD instilled those values in you whether or not you recognize it. My question was if there IS NO GOD, what is the meaning of life?

My point here is that if there is no God AND if we arrived here through evolution, the SYSTEM, in this case evolution, couldn't care less about any MEANING to life. Bob makes my point precisely when he says: "Your question, first of all, presupposes that there IS - or perhaps MUST BE - some over-arching meaning to life, which is at best a conjecture. I'd ask YOU a question -what is your proof that there IS meaning to life?"

Bingo! Without God as a part of the equation there is no proof that there IS any meaning to life! Any meaning we as humans derive from our own individual lives is a nice by-product of our existance, if you will, but the system we are a "product" of is no "system" at all. Therefore, it doesn't care. We weren't "created" for any purpose. We just happen to find ourselves here. Sure, let's make the best of things, let's get along. Let's have a good time. Let's improve life for others... great! But in the end, the system that created us doesn't care because it's not a designer and it didn't even create us.

As I said in my previous post, this is completely different IF THERE IS A GOD. It's a completely different picture. Life then has meaning, whether or not you choose to recognize it.

Since we're on atheism, let me address this one to Steve who writes...
"Whatever the meaning of life is, the meaning of my life is not to be a slave to an invisible, evil monster in the sky."

Steve, if God were an invisible, evil monster in the sky, I'd be with you man! But we'd have a serious problem on our hands, namely: how do we defeat an invisible, evil (and presumably omnipotent since he created everything we experience as reality)monster?

Fortunately that's not at all the description the Bible gives of God. The Bible describes him as patient, compassionate and Holy (the opposite of evil). Sure, God hates evil in all its forms, but then, so do you. When the Bible speaks of God's "vengance" it is always speaking in reference to genuine evil. Think about it logically... if God exists and he's all-powerful AND evil, do you REALLY think he'd let you get away with believing he doesn't exist and basically thumbing your nose at him? Do you think he'd let ANY of us live in peace, if he's really evil? Was Hitler evil? Do you think Hitler would let you get away with anything if he was in control? How much more, then, would an all-powerful, evil God? Think of Hitler on steriods with unlimited power, insight and control. If you think you could get away with anything, you're kidding yourself.

Bottom line: either you're right and God is either dead or doesn't exist, or you're wrong and whatever God there is, is extremely loving and patient.

Steve... work with me here and indulge me for just a minute, okay? Most people are okay with the idea that a man named Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was crucified by the Romans. Will you grant that?

If so, then will you grant that He claimed to be God? Whatever else you may or may not believe, the Bible makes the claim that Jesus Christ is God.

So here we have a direct confrontation to your ideology. You say there is no God. Jesus says: Hello! I Am God!

If you choose not to believe it, fine, that's your choice, but realize that you are accepting your belief that there is no God by faith, since you can't prove it, just like you would be accepting Christ by faith if you choose to do so. You're right. It's your choice. Either you make that choice because your ancestors evolved to a level of consciousness that allows you to do so, or because God gave you the choice in the first place. I believe the latter.

You didn't answer my question... Do you believe people are ever miraculously cured much to the surprise of their doctors?

Wayne writes:
"Roger, whie you have said you are have a "biblical" view and have said that you take the bible litterally I'd say from you comments and outlook your comments and outlook indicate to me you do not read the bible litterally but interpret much of it. What you will probably find is you are not much different from many in here that are religious and believe in evolution. They believe the message of the bible is more important then the stories."

Wayne, again, you challenge my preconceived ideas. (Which is a good thing!) I used to be pretty hard-line about this... ie. you have to take everything literally in the Bible. But as I read the Psalms, Job and other books, I see a lot of allegory and I think a lot of it was meant to be so and recognized as such by the original writers and readers. That does not take away from its over-arching message, in fact it enhances it.

I still believe as Timothy says, that all scripture is inspired by God, but I no longer believe that HAS to mean it is in a perfect state, or even has to be. I believe God uses the imperfect to communicate his message. Billy Graham, for example, is an imperfect human being who has, I'm sure, made mistakes at times when he's spoken about God. Yet, I believe God has still greatly used Billy Graham to communicate his message.

The one exception I see is Jesus. I cannot accept that he would have made any mistakes when it comes to communicating God's message since he, in fact was God, communicating God's message!

On that note, good nite all! : )

Oh by the way... I have no idea why I wrote Agnostic rather than Gnostic other than the fact that it was like 3am when I wrote it! : ) Sorry.

Roger - Where in the bible does Jesus actually claim to be god?

(Not that I doubt you, or have any problem with your believing whatever you believe. It's just I remember scouring the bible, in vain, for any such statement. All I could find were statements that required - you'll pardon the expression - fairly liberal interpretation.)

Roger,

I don't think you did justice to what I wrote when you claimed I proved your point.
You went on to say, ". . .IF THERE IS A GOD. . It's a completely different picture. Life then has meaning, whether or not you choose to recognize it."

In that same post of mine that you used to "prove your point," I spoke to my assesment of the meaning of life if there was a God. I said, "If there IS a God, near as I can tell, the meaning of life is that we were created by a fickle and insecure Cosmic Trickster so desperate for love that It made us in order to have worshippers, and then demanded that adoration under the threat of eternal damnation, which It invented solely for the purpose. Just ask Noah. He witnessed firsthand the results of God's displeasure with those who were less than effusive in their show (of) love for Him. An overload of testosterone, perhaps?" I seriously doubt that that proved your point.

You also didn't answer my question - " - what is your proof that there IS meaning to life?" You previously offered something about that purpose or meaning being to love, and be loved by, God. Hopefully you've got something more than that pap to offer.

I accept being witnessed to on those occasions when I intentionally invite it. This is not one of those occasions. Your faith is yours, and seems sincere, but you're witnessing.

It should seem obvious that there can be no objective proof of the existence of God. You claim that without God there can be little value or meaning to life. It follows then - objectively - that by your parameters human life has little or no value. Statements of faith are subjective and not evidentiary.

Isn't the primary explanation for newer (and improved!) life forms due to survival of the fittest rather than cooperation?

— roger

How can you be sure what an animal "knows"? How do you know they "know"? Or have they just been conditioned to react in a certain way?

— roger

Wayne, even granting your numbers does nothing to prove your point that abortion is not legal through all nine months of pregnancy. In fact it is. Sure, most abortions occur within the first few months of pregnancy . . . so? Does that make the ones that occur in the third trimester okay?

— Roger

Are you suggesting that a woman must go to court before getting an abortion after 12 weeks? As a member of the ACLU, I'll bet Steve would have a cow if that were the case!

— Roger

...We could get into monogamy and chastity...

— Roger

I think that's nice, Wayne, I really do, but those are YOUR values. You have already mentioned that you are not an atheist, so I could always argue that GOD instilled those values in you whether or not you recognize it. My question was if there IS NO GOD, what is the meaning of life?

— Roger

The Bible describes him as patient, compassionate and Holy (the opposite of evil)...

— Roger

Bottom line: either you're right and God is either dead or doesn't exist, or you're wrong and whatever God there is, is extremely loving and patient.

— Roger

So here we have a direct confrontation to your ideology....

— Roger

You didn't answer my question . . . Do you believe people are ever miraculously cured much to the surprise of their doctors?

— Roger

But as I read the Psalms, Job and other books, I see a lot of allegory and I think a lot of it was meant to be so and recognized as such by the original writers and readers. That does not take away from its over-arching message, in fact it enhances it.

— Roger

The one exception I see is Jesus. I cannot accept that he would have made any mistakes when it comes to communicating God's message since he, in fact was God, communicating God's message!

— Roger

Theological discussions are lrrelevant to modern biology, not because the scientists have much interest in doing theology, but because concepts like "God" can't even be formulated in scientific terms. It's OK (apparently) for theological types to talk about entities they themselves don't claim to understand, but the same procedure doesn't work in science. A scientific creationism would have to include some account of what the heck a god is. A proper name in an old Hebrew book is not enough of a definition. Previously, theologians could rely on philosophy to provide some intelligibility to theological concepts, but I don't think anybody is still retailing prime movers any more.

Pious aside. I love the Jewish Bible and have been reading it all my life; but it beats me how a believer can actually read scripture since the poor text has to be tortured to deliver what is required of it, fundamentalism, catholic dogma, rabbinical Judaism, or whatever. And we know the trouble with confessions extorted by torture.

Just in case anyone particularly hates me commenting on their words, all you have to do is bulk it up to 2100 words, and it's guaranteed that unless I already know the author to be of some quality, I ain't reading it.

David Harmon commented (#5320) regarding games theory & altruism to strangers:

" .... in that situation, the evolving behavior responds to collective experience, rather than individual memory. For example, our pre-hominid primate ancestors had encounters with snakes. The ones who tried to be too friendly with them, or even failed to avoid them, often died as a result. A few million years of selection, and not only man, but all the primates, have an instinctive fear of snakes.

Among ourselves, we deal with strangers first by testing them with various social rituals, while giving them the once-over out of the corner of our eyes. ..."

Hm. Analogy between hard-wired caution with snakes and ideal which is shared by many cultures of altruism to strangers sounds nice. But in practice the latter is more of an "ought to be" than an "is". So where is the competitive advantage? Maybe just another example of our trickiness.

On which point, earlier postings on talking (signing) animals reminded me of the contrast in the Odyssey between the behaviour of the (human) Nestor who welcomes Telemachus and makes sure he and his followers have eaten their fill before asking if they've come as traders or pirates, and the non-human Polyphemus who can talk well enough but who blurts out the same question to Odysseus without any preliminaries. Don't know why I mentioned that really, unless it's to reinforce David's point.

It does occur to me though that applying Darwin's useful theory to cultural traits that aren't evidently inherited is well on the slippery slope towards the ism in Darwinism.

Are you suggesting that a woman must go to court before getting an abortion after 12 weeks? As a member of the ACLU, I'll bet Steve would have a cow if that were the case!

Steve . . . work with me here and indulge me for just a minute, okay? Most people are okay with the idea that a man named Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was crucified by the Romans. Will you grant that?

If so, then will you grant that He claimed to be God? Whatever else you may or may not believe, the Bible makes the claim that Jesus Christ is God. So here we have a direct confrontation to your ideology. You say there is no God. Jesus says: Hello! I Am God!

The Bible describes him as patient, compassionate and Holy

if God exists and he's all-powerful AND evil, do you REALLY think he'd let you get away with believing he doesn't exist and basically thumbing your nose at him? Do you think he'd let ANY of us live in peace, if he's really evil? Was Hitler evil? Do you think Hitler would let you get away with anything if he was in control?

Are you suggesting that a woman must go to court before getting an abortion after 12 weeks? As a member of the ACLU, I'll bet Steve would have a cow if that were the case!

Steve . . . work with me here and indulge me for just a minute, okay? Most people are okay with the idea that a man named Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was crucified by the Romans. Will you grant that?

If so, then will you grant that He claimed to be God? Whatever else you may or may not believe, the Bible makes the claim that Jesus Christ is God. So here we have a direct confrontation to your ideology. You say there is no God. Jesus says: Hello! I Am God!

The Bible describes him as patient, compassionate and Holy

if God exists and he's all-powerful AND evil, do you REALLY think he'd let you get away with believing he doesn't exist and basically thumbing your nose at him? Do you think he'd let ANY of us live in peace, if he's really evil? Was Hitler evil? Do you think Hitler would let you get away with anything if he was in control?

if God exists and he's all-powerful AND evil, do you REALLY think he'd let you get away with believing he doesn't exist and basically thumbing your nose at him? Do you think he'd let ANY of us live in peace, if he's really evil? Was Hitler evil? Do you think Hitler would let you get away with anything if he was in control?

Indeed, steve, the all-knowing all-powerful thing is a lot more forgiving than you might expect, given the Old Testament track record (and the admission of fundies that the New Testament changes nothing wrt to God's laws).

Perhaps the all-knowing all-powerful thing knows that you are going to find Jesus and become the most forceful and articulate ID advocate the world has ever seen!!!! It's all there for the taking, steve. I expect you could have your own satellite TV station in a year or two, max. Casey Luskin would be lovin' you. Dembski would be citin' you. And Charlie Wagner would be telling everyone he knew you way back when.

Every man has his price, GWW. I would champion ID ten ways to Sunday if the pot was sweet enough. But why would they pay me? IDiots will work for free. Hard to compete against crazy.

roger wrote: Isn't the primary explanation for newer (and improved!) life forms due to survival of the fittest rather than cooperation?

I would champion ID ten ways to Sunday if the pot was sweet enough.

yeah, that'll do. For a few million a year, creationists, you'll get a Physics BS-holder (next year) to do the following:

1) Give 3 weekly 30-minute speeches at churches of your choosing. I will provide PowerPoint, with lots of artificially-geometrical cell part diagrams in primary colors. Also included, 30-minute Q-A session. (misleadingly oversimplified animation optional)

2) Write no fewer than 104 letters per year to various scientifically-illiterate organizations such as school boards, assuring them ID is scientific and demanding at least 'equal time'.

3) Occasionally pretend to have a Ph.D.

4) 4 blurbs written for creationist books, using phrases like "stunningly annihilates the Darwinist paradigm" and "Evolution, you are about to become extinct!"

5) Frustrate debate opponents with assertions like "Evolution? You guys still haven't found your precious 'Missing Link', have you? So it's an unproven theory.", "Are you saying scientists never make mistakes? I'll tell you who doesn't make mistakes. God." and "Were you around 3 so-called 'billion' years ago? No? So you admit you have no idea what happened."

6) Whole new irrefutable terms, like "Intelligent Specificity", "Actual Irreconcilable Complication", and "Specified Design"

7) Consultant promises not to say "You Would think that, you dumb Okie." for the term of the contract, or a week, whichever comes first.

For an annual service contract fee, I can furnish slightly modified definitions for any such terms, every six months, indefinitely.

(fine print: comments made by The Consultant after term expired to the effect of "I was faking it for the Benjamins" shall not be interpreted as creating a legal liability with respect to the terms of this contract. Consultant retains no liability for anything.)

Steve I may jump the gun and do it before you. They'll hire me first since I have no science qualification at all and will fit in better with there PHDs currently making science claims. I may have to pay royalities to you for your quotes...or I could just mangle them a bit and state that they where mine.

Graduate courses are availible in the following ten areas: Old Testament New Testament Theology Biblical Languages Christian Education Pastoral Ministries Christian Counseling Evangelism & Missions Science and History English

Do Buildings Provide a Quality Education?

Managers are people who _______ things, but leaders are ________ who do the _________ thing; and for spiritual leaders the _______ thing is to _______ Jesus Christ.

WOooo nice clip art....those work books professionalism rivals some of the work books my son had in 1st grade!

Russell asked: where in the Bible does Jesus actually claim to be God...

There are several examples... here's a few...

...the Jews were well aware that their God referred to himself as "I AM". When Moses was receiving the 10 Commandments from God he asked: Who shall I say sent me? What is your name? (Exodus 3:13) God responds in the next verse: "And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Isreal, I AM hath sent me unto you." (forgive the King James English, that's the only Bible I have close by)

So this was well known by the Jews for centuries when Jesus came along. While having a dispute with the religious leaders who were questioning Jesus' qualifications they asked him --essentially who do you think you are? They ask: "You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?" (John 8:57)

Here's Jesus' answer: "Truly, truly, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am." This is not a typo. Jesus uses the incorrect grammar on purpose.

Their response was to take up stones to stone him to death because they recognized this as blatant blasphemy. (Equating himself with God)

In John 10:30 Jesus says: "I and my father are one."

In John 14:9 Jesus says: "...he that has seen me has seen the father."

In other places Jesus claims to be the "bread of life"; "the way, the truth and the life"; "the light of the world"; "messiah", etc, etc. There are a lot more, but I've been accused of "witnessing"! (Shame, shame!) So I better stop or I might convert you! (Hope that helps, though!)

Bob:
My original question was: "In the broad scheme of things, if there is no God, what IS the meaning of life?" You responded: "Your question, first of all, presupposes that there IS - or perhaps MUST BE - some over-arching meaning to life, which is at best a conjecture. I'd ask YOU a question -what is your proof that there IS meaning to life?"

That, in fact, speaks directly to the point I was making that without God in the picture, there is no evidence of any "meaning" to life. Rather, we are simply products of meaningless chance. Any meaning we find in our lives, while applaudable, has no bearing on the "system" responsible for our existance. I don't quite know what to say, it appears you object to the fact that I'm agreeing with you.

By contrast, we disagree about the ramifications if there is a God. With a creator, our "meaning" is defined as whatever his desire was in creating us. I disagree that "servitude" or unwarranted adoration was his motivation. Otherwise he'd have simply created robots who couldn't complain about their situation. I assert that a loving relationship was his desire.

You characterize a conceivable God as being: "a fickle and insecure Cosmic Trickster so desperate for love that It made us in order to have worshippers, and then demanded that adoration under the threat of eternal damnation, which It invented solely for the purpose."

See my previous post addressing Steve's concept of an "evil" God for my take on this. You have to understand the implications if God is evil, or even an insecure, cosmic trickster as you suggest. This would be like the class prankster/bully with UNLIMITED power. Not a pretty picture. If God wanted to trick you, you'd be tricked! My God revealed himself, his motives, desires and some of his attributes in the Bible.

Bob also writes:
"I accept being witnessed to on those occasions when I intentionally invite it. This is not one of those occasions. Your faith is yours, and seems sincere, but you're witnessing."

So let me see if I'm understanding you, Bob. You post a comment addressing an issue raised in a series of posts primarily between Wayne F and myself in which you speak to the issue at hand (that is, in fact, and has been an openly theological debate in nature), offer your take on it, share your world view and pose a question back to me. When I answer, I agree with at least part of your conclusions and comment on that while offering more of my world view to Wayne and whoever else is interested. This you label "unvited witnessing"? It would seem to be okay for you to offer your views of God, but if I do it's "witnessing"?

Wayne:

Sorry I didn't have time to address any of your comments. My son broke his arm today so I was at the hospital. The crazy thing is my wife broke her ankle last week! I hope I'm not next!

Steve I may jump the gun and do it before you. They'll hire me first since I have no science qualification at all and will fit in better with there PHDs currently making science claims. I may have to pay royalities to you for your quotes . . . or I could just mangle them a bit and state that they where mine.

— Wayne Francis

With a creator, our "meaning" is defined as whatever his desire was in creating us

— Roger

I will not be outdone. MY human/dino footprints will be initialed by Adam.

Roger wrote:

<< By contrast, we disagree about the ramifications if there is a God. With a creator, our "meaning" is defined as whatever his desire was in creating us. >>

Roger, your logic seems meandering and, well, illogical to me. Please do clarify. Do you believe that there is an a priori "meaning" to the existence of humans?

Let me know if my question is not precise.

Regards,
Fiona

Just an aside: isn't it interesting thatt religious people can't come up with a coherent story even though they aren't handicapped by having to provide any evidence for the truth of their ideas? You'd think that it would be easy for believers to make up a consistent account of God and creation granted that for them faith is a sufficient basis for making any claim they like any time they want to make it. i guess day dreaming is harder than it looks.

i don't think it would be hard to come up with a more rational set of stories. But the funny thing about religions is, the older one is, the more biographical knowledge about its origins and originators becomes lost, and that brings a kind of immunity to disproof. David Koresh was a few years ago. Everybody knows he wasn't supernatural. CNN was there. Joseph Smith was 150 years ago or whenever. People were around, but they're dead now. It's harder to show he was full of shit. Jesus? The bible? Who has any idea who wrote that, whether they were crazy, or corrupt, or whatever. Maybe if it's less susceptible to attack it's easier for people to swallow? I don't know. It seems to me that the more rational religious people should realize that there's no more reason to believe in the bible as the koran or the bhagavad-gita or the code of hammurabi, anyway. Do you think that people just coincidentally happen, 90% of the time, to decide that the best religion is the one their parents and community had?

As far as coming up with new stories, though, it's rare anyone invents distinctly new religious writings. (I'm not including analyses/popularizations, I just mean brand new revelation) Perhaps because doing so is an act of craziness or fraud. So the mutation rate for religion is low, if revealed writings are the DNA. The religions still change though, in a manner analogous to epigenetic changes, via culture and movements and politics and such. Heh. Creationists would tell you their religion sprung fully-formed from the mind of god and whichever of his press secretaries they believe in. But scholars can show you that little pieces came from previous religions, floods came from here, sacrifices from here, etc. Evolution/creation all over again.

Wayne, you're right to hit on the idea that omnipotence and free will are incompatible. If god knows what you're going to do, you have no ability to do otherwise.

I used to try to explain this to a catholic guy I knew (who stole $250 from me later, but what do you expect) thusly: According to the total omnipotence, god could tell me "Hey, Next Thursday, at 11:35 am, Jerry's going to cook a Denver omelette. And not a very good one." and I could tell you (Jerry), "Hey, Jerry. You don't have any free will. And to prove it, I will tell you something you are going to do, and are incapable of changing. Next Thursday, at 11:35 am, you're going to cook a Denver omelette. There are no two ways about it. Fly to Djibouti, cut your arms off, throw yourself off the MGM Grand in Vegas, you will cook that omelette, and it will suck, and there's nothing you can do about it. You cannot choose to do otherwise. So when next thursday rolls around, and you want to prove me wrong, what will you do?" He could never explain how he still had free will in that scenario, but he never stopped believing. I have yet to stop believing he was a dumbass.

He did, by the way, try to say lots of words he hoped would do the trick, most of them premised on the idea that god was 'outside of time' and somehow that was legitimate and did the trick. On those occasions, he never understood that all he was doing there was invalidating causality. When you get to break the laws of rational thinking, lots of stuff is possible! You can be free to choose something which you have to choose because in the future you freely choose it. It was around this time I started to realize that the costs of debate can easily outway the benefits...

In fact religions change drastically as they develop, and some of the stages in the development of sacred stories can be recovered by carefully studying how the succeeding layers of scripture were laid down like geological strata.
For example, the oldest version of the Christ story we have is in the Letters of Paul. In the letters, Christ's crucifiction and resurrection are spoken about in very general terms. No details. The Christ of the letters is more mythic than legendary, a take off on the endlessly repeated theme of the dying and rising God. The novelistic embellishments that create the illusion of a real Jesus accumulated later as the gospels were put together. Anybody who has ever written a short story or novel in the realistic style knows how its done. You add piquant little touches that no honest historian would have any way of knowing . You report speeches verbatim that nobody recorded at the time. If some circumstantial detail is unknown to you---how meetings of the Sanhedrin were actually conducted, for example--you just make them up figuring that your readers won't know either. Eventually, you end up with a sacred story that is far more believable than any accurate account could ever be. If Christ always says just the right thing, it's for the same reason that John Galt in Atlas Shrugged always says the right thing. The author has taken pains to make him perfect.

Please note, by the way, that regarding the New Testament as fiction is not quite equivalent to claiming that the people who cooked it up were acting in bad faith. It's an obvious induction from the history of a religions that the faithful everywhere and always invent freely and without scrupple. Actually, everybody pretty much understands that--they just think their religion provides an astonishing exception to an otherwise universal rule.

Wow... after reading all your comments I've come to realize how utterly idiotic my belief in God & Jesus is! Lucky for me (or unlucky depending on your point of view) Paul warned me in 1st Corinthians 1:23 that the Gospel is foolishness to the Greeks (or gentiles). So I guess I'll hang on to my foolishness a little while longer. And I'll keep posting if for nothing else than to provide you with some cheap amusement every now and then.

Wayne, thanks again for your comments and perspective... more Dr visits today, my son is going to have to have surgery to correct his broken bones! He's taking it pretty well though. I'd ask you guys to pray for him but... naaa! (On the other hand, it does bring up the question of what could possibly happen if an atheist, like say, Steve, were to pray! An interesting question, don't you think?! : )

Actually something occured in all this that I should share with you. I'm sure you'll find the rational answer, but we deluded simpletons like to think of this as God working in our lives...

My son went out on his bike with the dogs (labs) yesterday and one of them stopped right in front of him so he slammed on the brakes but stopped too quickly and came off the front of the bike. (This is what caused the broken bones) This happened quite a distance from our house. At the same time I was at the computer typing one of my long-winded posts for you guys. My wife says to me: "Would you please go check on David." So I did but he was not back yet. So, after more prompting from my wife, I decided I'd better go look for him. After driving a bit I found him. He was walking back to the house and it was obvious he'd had an accident.

Later on he asked me: "What made you come looking for me?" I said "Your mother, why?" He said, "Well, after I crashed I prayed that God would send you."

Now I realize you'll probably think the story is embellished or even contrived, but I know it happened 'cause I experienced it!

Anywhoo.. Wayne, you mention "fear" and "jelousy". I don't think the connotation of fear as it's used most of the the times in the Bible means what we think of today. I would substitute "respect". As far as jealousy, you say it is not a good characteristic... I question that, but again maybe we are just quibbling over semantics. I would expect my wife to be "jealous" if she saw me paying too much attention to another woman... if not, I would question her love for me. God calls himself "jealous" in the sense that he wants us to "have no other gods before him." Now IF God is real and IF he's the only one, then I can understand if he gets a little miffed when his creations start calling rocks or trees or pop stars their "God".

You write:
"1) God would not have a sex. You should not call God "he" or any male form. How is a singluar god male?
2) Would your life be over if there was no god Roger? Is the misterious purpose to life which you don't even know that important?"

Good questions... because they make me think. You say God would not have a sex... hmmm. Okay, I guess your god wouldn't, but the God of the Bible is described that way. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus claimed to be God, and he, in fact, was male.

Would my life be over if there was no God? Hmm... well under my world view, yes, because God created me! You're obviously not asking that, though! Well apparently Steve doesn't think so! That's encouraging! : )

Really, that's kind of a difficult question to answer. Certainly it would leave me feeling a lot of different things. Foolish, perhaps, for believing in something that doesn't exist. And yet at the same time it would give me even more questions as to what really IS the explanation for reality. Evolution, even if it were true, doesn't explain the "why". I'd want to know that.

So I guess I'm confortable with my current delusions!

You write: "Other issues I have is if god is all knowing God could not have created us with free will. For if god knows everything now and forever then our action are preordained and thuse we have no free will."

Steve agrees by saying: "Wayne, you're right to hit on the idea that omnipotence and free will are incompatible. If god knows what you're going to do, you have no ability to do otherwise."

I like Steve. You know exactly where he stands! BTW, it's omniscient (all knowing) not omnipotent (all powerful). In fact, I like you both, but I disagree with your logic. Fore-knowledge does not negate free will, it simply means that given all the possible outcomes, God already knows which one you'll choose. You still make the choice, he just knows which one you'll choose in advance. Seems like I've seen some Star Trek episodes that play with this concept but I can't quite remember which ones. Doesn't The Matrix deal with this concept too? I think it's the Matrix Reloaded, if I remember right. The prophet lady.. what's her name? The Oracle, already knows what... shoot!, I can't even remember his name, Kenau Reeves? ... Oh yeah! Neo will choose before he chooses to do it. She doesn't have the complete picture, like God does, but it's the same concept, he still decides freely and he decides to do exactly as she predicted. She even tells him in advance what he's going to do, much like your scenario, Steve. It's only when we get to the end of the movie that we understand why he chooses as he does. The fact that he choose as she predicted does not negate the fact that he still had other possible choices.

Fiona writes:
"Roger, your logic seems meandering and, well, illogical to me. Please do clarify. Do you believe that there is an a priori "meaning" to the existence of humans?"

My logic, Fiona, follows my brain patterns, and unfortunately, meandering is just the way it functions! No doubt, a mutation gone bad somewhere along my evolutionary chain!

By "a priori" are you suggesting "cause and effect" or something else? Do I believe there is a "meaning" to life, as in some hidden agenda of the creator, or perhaps some mystery we've yet to solve? No. I believe the Bible, so I believe God has revealed the reasons for creating us. This answers my question of "why are we here?"

Granted, that hypothesis is just way too simplistic for someone like Steve who believes I'm a victim of a bunch of creative imposters as well as my own gullability. Who knows? He may be right. I may be crazy! But at least I have an answer to the question, however naive and shallow it may be.

Wayne writes: "Why would god need to ask questions."

In a technical sense, he wouldn't. So why does he? There could be several reasons. I'm not very smart, but I can think of at least 2... 1. He believes that questions are the best method to communicate truth to the questionee or 2. He intentionally limits his knowledge in certain areas to see how we'll respond

You then ask: "how can a perfect being create imperfect items?"

Why would perfection have to create perfection? That is how you choose to define God, not necessarily how he may define himself. On the other hand, Genesis argues that the world WAS "good" when it was created, but when sin entered the picture (as a result of man's free choice) it (negatively) affected everything.

Wayne writes:
"Lastly I have a problem in that if God wanted to create us god made us a lot more complicated then we need to be. If I was a god and wanted companionship I would not create such complicated beings when I would have the power to create simpler beings that had the same cognative powers."

Well Wayne, sounds good, and if you ever get to be God feel free to try it out. In the mean time the Bible, correctly or incorrectly, gives a different picture. Maybe God likes a good challenge? I would ask: Why would you have a problem with this when you are comfortable accepting scientific theories as fact before you have all the facts?

In the end, as you point out, you have a problem with God. It would seem, if he exists, you'll have to address those concerns to him someday. If he, she or it doesn't exist, as Kim Possible would say: "No big!"

Take care!

I will not be outdone. MY human/dino footprints will be initialed by Adam.

Roger,

Sorry about your son's accident, hope everything's going okay. I stumbled downstairs at 0430 this morning, heard a strange noise, and discovered a burst pipe water leak in the Christmas Village/sitting room ceiling, merrily drip-dripping through the chandelier onto a coffee table, then the carpet, and slowly making its way through the floor to the basement. Damned poly pipe. Or maybe God's punishing me for doubting?

Your statement is that there is only meaning to life if the Christian God exists and created man in His image. You further state that that meaning is whatever His desire was when He created us, and you then define that desire as a "loving relationship."

By your statement then, your claim of "meaning to life" is predicated on the existence of a supernatural creating entity outside of natural law, and therefore beyond the boundaries of Science and objective empirical evaluation. So you cannot, in fact, offer any credible evidence for there being any "meaning to life" - the Christian/Judaic myth cycle does not qualify as credible evidence. So you neither answered my question nor agreed with me, and I certainly did not prove your point.

The "loving relationship" you state as the "meaning to life" is, I think, clear evidence of "a fickle and insecure (and capricious) Cosmic Trickster so desperate for love that It made us in order to have worshippers, and then demanded that adoration under the threat of eternal damnation, which It invented solely for the purpose." On reflection, though, perhaps "eternal damnation" is excessive -- how about Death and Destruction, Plague and Pestilence?

You said, concerning your beliefs, "I know that some people hold to a literal seven days, some do not. Some hold that the earth is relatively young, some do not. I don't know. The jury's still out for me." I can only assume then, in the absence of anything more specific, that you have no particular problems with YEC and Noah's Flood, surely a testament to the dangers of not giving God his declared due, and one hell of a case of overkill - a global catastrophe which covered the peak of Mt. Everest by more than a few feet and destroyed every living creature on the planet (guilty and innocent alike) save Noah, his family, and their 2by/7by menagerie, who were safely ensconced on an impossible feat of hand-tool engineering. Let's not forget, either, Sodom and Gomorrah. Didn't your loving God command the angel-sheltering believer to send his wife (or daughter?) out to be gang-raped to death by the horny mob? And we can't forget Job and that tribulations test - to prove a point to Satan, wasn't it?. So much for the dubious rewards of fulfilling His desire. At some point, I would guess that we'd also need to visit the long list of diseases and viruses He so thoughtfully provided, all of which seem to be equal opportunity scurges, striking without regard for quality or quantity of Godlove. Sounds like a capricious Trickster to me.

Your faith is dependent on a collection of anonymous and arbitrarily assigned; at least occasionally contradictory; and inaccurate in real world terms two thousand and more year old scriptural writings -- claimed by some to be the inerrant word of God. Since you've offered no specifics on your belief, I must assume you've got no opinion one way or the other here either? The best that can be said for the Bible is that there's a whole lot of metaphor and allegory contained within its pages. Fear of the dark has led our family tree to tens of thousands of years of God-making, and to the extent that helps someone get through the night, I guess there's no particular harm done. Unfortunately, though, over the course of our history as a species, it doesn't seem to have stopped there.

My apologies for the witnessing remark. You could probably make the same charge back at me.

I would expect my wife to be "jealous" if she saw me paying too much attention to another woman

— roger

You say God would not have a sex . . . hmmm. Okay, I guess your god wouldn't, but the God of the Bible is described that way. Also, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus claimed to be God, and he, in fact, was male.

— roger

BTW, it's omniscient (all knowing) not omnipotent (all powerful).

— Roger

He intentionally limits his knowledge in certain areas to see how we'll respon

— Roger

Why would you have a problem with this when you are comfortable accepting scientific theories as fact before you have all the facts?

— Roger

Bojo a go go - a classic site recovered!