Creationism

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now see, this kind of creationism is nowhere near as ridiculous as the 6-day literal interpretation.

danandlouie: my wife is a catholic and mocks the creation museum. that said, less than half of americans accept the theory of evolution.

Woe unto The Republic!

ruveyn

That would make sense if there were a few hundred thousand or even a couple of million planets in the universe, as we could quite feasibly check them all out. But this is not the case. As you are no doubt aware it is estimated that there are between 1 - 30 billion planets in our galaxy and approximately 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Your statement above is just a massive strawman aimed at the gullible. As Dawkins points out even given massively absurd odds of (for instance) a billion to one that life will arise on a planet you still get the probability of at least 1 billion planets having some form of life, and as he also says the chance of finding one of those life bearing planets in a universe the scale of ours if like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Of course the irony of your opening statement regarding Magrathea being that Adams was a great observer of human behavior and some of the idiocies / absurdities that we carry on with.

I don't think you understand what I was trying to accomplish. If you would humor me for a while, you would see where I'm going with this, namely, I'm pointing out that the belief in right and wrong is a religious belief, not a scientific one. You have already accepted morality even though you have no proof of morality, thus to reject God because you have no proof of God is fallacious.

http://www.project-reason.org/newsfeed/item/moral_confusion_in_the_name_of_science3/

that's a link to a great TED talk by sam harris where he gives an idea of scientific morality. underneath the video is a very long article written by harris that addresses a lot of the concerns people have had about the idea.

but if that's too much information, we can stick to "right." you believe in "right" but you don't understand how someone could differentiate between "right" and "wrong" without using "because -blank- says so?" really?


....really?

Unless, of course, we ARE the needle in the haystack.

And there is no straw man. Where is the evidence of a comparable system? The issue here is there is no empirical evidence of it as of yet. Last I checked, scientific reasoning tends to ignore that for which there is no evidence. Empirically speaking, it is not correct to say that life exists beyond our solar system. Moreover, it is not correct to say that even the CAPACITY for life exists. I think we're looking at the possibility of water beneath the the surface of a Jovian moon, which seems promising, but that's about it at the moment.

That leaves the possibility that other planets beyond our galaxy of a comparable age as or older than the Terran system. Now, in that kind of spread of time, it makes sense that there ought to be at least the same or better probability that life would arise. Perhaps such an advanced civilization could arise to make use of space travel and much more advanced technologies. If you're a conspiracy theorist or you watch the History Channel too much, you might say we have the evidence, it's just been covered up by various world governments. That hardly seems likely, though, since such evidence would be difficult to pass over or ignore. Not only that, but unfortunately more of the scientific community still regard UFOs and extra-terrestrials as pseudo-science. Enough time has passed, therefore we should have had more evidence by now.

But we don't. And your argument regarding "feasibility" just doesn't cut it. If life is so likely to develop in x-billion years, there ought to be an increased likelihood that we could readily find systems capable of fostering life. Only time will tell, but I suspect we already know the answer to that question.

Side note: I was using Magrathea more as a simile rather than a loose interpretation of Genesis. The idea here being, assuming God to be the Creator, that He has the power to create distinctly separate and different creations with the full intent of bringing them together at the proper time. I have no more evidence of that than you have of other regions of space being hospitable to the arrival of life, but given the wording of the order of Creation--light before sun--it does seem to make plausible sense that Earth was not created in conjunction with the rest of the universe, but rather that the universe was prepared for the arrival of Earth, the release of a specially-created planet made specifically for God's purpose and divided from the spiritual realm as soon as the universe was able to support it.

Morality is based on opinions and the way you were brought up in your society. Sure, religion can be an influence. But it's not required.
Morality is observed with almost every person, God is not.

But assuming morality is religion-based, why has it evolved over time? For the Christian religion, why are not still restricting women? Why don't we have slavery? Would it not stay the same as when it was first set? And what about before it was set? Did Moses beat people up and rape women before he carried two tombstones of commandments down the hill? Why not?

If nothing else I can only admire your voracious appetite for totally improbable fantasy.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/bigphotos/21329204.html

America must be a strange place.

Baseless assertion.



The chemicals only follow the laws of chemistry. Do you really think they are subject to a mysterious force of the soul? Bend a spoon.



Is that simply what you feel, or because you are uncomfortable with this FACT?



That is because the structure of different human brains are different.

I'm gonna pick up the book 'The Grand Design' and look at it, it seems great to explain how the universe came about and science and all that stuff.

I'm sorry. Insist that feelings are somehow "magical" and divorced from the physiological processes that cause them if you wish, but that's not reality. You can't "choose" to have a sudden release of chemicals in certain situations, this is a physical response to stimuli. Someone who references "souls" as being part of our emotive response obviously has a mystical view of all things scientific.

Actually, all possibilities are considered with regards to things that are testable but have not yet been tested. The first planets to have been discovered outside our solar system have been gas giants like Jupiter because our telescopes and equipment could not be sensitive enough to see planets the size of Earth. This will change however, since we now have techniques and telescopes in space, like Kepler, that can actually detect such planets. It is not correct to say that the capacity doesn't exist because it has not been ruled out.

Also, every single chemical element that makes up a living organism is also found in non-living matter and the rest of the universe. If Earth and it's life were a separate creation then why are we even made of the same matter as the rest of the Universe? The atoms that make us up were once forged in core of an exploding star. The Earth and every living thing that crawls on it is not separate from the rest of the universe but part of it.

Anybody can bend a spoon with their hands. The mechanism exists, and any good anatomy/physiology textbook can explain that--this is high school stuff. What the anatomy/physiology CAN'T determine is from whence the decision comes to bend the spoon. Science doesn't ask those kinds of questions UNLESS it can be determined that there is some physically determining reason by which we should bend spoons at all--for example, a chemical imbalance as a determining cause for someone to obsessively or compulsively bend every spoon he sees. Science is simply not equipped to make determinations under normal operating circumstances as to the reasons why. I'm sure you could go around asking people why it is they bend spoons and show common causal relationship among spoon-benders, but the data gathered is anecdotal at best. This kind of data gathering is best left to psychological investigation, and whether psychology is a legit science is still occasionally debated (by the way, I was forced to study psychology as an integral part of my major, which was music education, and understanding book knowledge of psych and data collection didn't help me one bit with teaching. There is a wide gap between theory and practice, which in no way diminishes the value of psychology. My wife did complete a degree in psychology and has a little bit better knowledge of the subject than I do, and she can back me up on what psych is and isn't. Psych can seem hokey in its various approaches, but being a comparably "hokey" science will not preclude the men in white coats from picking you up and locking you up in a hospital if you express even the remotest hint of self-destructive thoughts. My wife would say "been there, done that," and the irony is, through no real fault of her own, she got to experience that whole side of her field from the perspective of an unwilling patient). The point is, spoon-bending is a decision that one can make for a number of reasons or perhaps no reason at all--simple boredom, even. There is no reason at all, no evidence at all to suggest that cognitive and physical behavioral patterns aren't subject to the decision-making processes of the psyche or soul. The process of thinking is generally an orderly process, not random, chaotic, or confused except when a flawed physical sensory interface feeds the mind misleading information. When everything is functioning normally, most people in general tend to make sensible decisions and act accordingly. The CNS obeys the will of the person who occupies it and provides a physical interface with the natural world. No need for me to stare endlessly at a spoon to get it to bend. If I want to bend a spoon, there is a sensible way to make that happen.



Notice how I used the words "I think" in the quote you took from me. Even I can admit when I've drawn conclusions based on what I DO know about things I don't know. You're certainly under no obligation to agree. It remains, however, that we ARE responsible for our responses to emotions or "chemical processes," either way. Any criminal can certainly and legitimately make a case for being under the influence of "random chemical processes" in a court of law if this is true; but this kind of defense never holds up UNLESS it can actually be determined that there really is a physiological problem. People even in Biblical times had enough sense to tell the difference, even if they had no way to determine the actual physiological processes involved. We are self-trainable to decide beforehand how we will respond in various situations. Random chemical processes do not adequately explain why this is and actually cause more problems than they actually explain.



Not true. The basic structure and function of the CNS is NOT fundamentally different from person to person. It is a known fact that certain areas of the brain respond to certain types of stimuli, plus it is known that certain types of mental functions are affected by corresponding areas. Neurons DO have a limited mechanism for regeneration, and often groups of brain cells adapt to handle the activities normally associated with disaffected areas of the brain. If the basic structure and function of the CNS is NOT remarkably different from human to human, why are we so different? Well, we are different PEOPLE. Possessing a soul gives us our spiritual sense of identity. The CNS only helps us interface with the physical world around us. Ultimately we are responsible as individuals for our decisions.

Every one of your decisions is influenced by your personality, thoughts, your environment and intent. It's not as special as you think it is. If I want to prove free will exists, I can always raise my left arm and go 'there, I did that all by myself', lying as it was influenced by my intent of proving free will. I can push someone away from in front of a car because of my personality and environment. You replying to this post to prove me wrong is influenced by your personality, thoughts and intent.

All of this is done physically in your brain using chemicals and neurons. Note how depression is caused by chemicals.

I'm glad I live in Britain, we seem to be at least a bit saner. As far as I know teaching evolution in science class has never really been much of an issue, not to mention Darwin's face is on every £10 note.