What if God was scared of heights?
| Votes | Answer |
|---|
| 10 | Other answer: please state | | 9 | What a stupid survey | | 4 | He'd have to create the universe all over again and put himself in a field somewhere. | | 1 | He'd have to go and get help. | | 1 | He'd have to put up with it. | | 1 | What a great survey |
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| User | Comment |
|---|
Crayons   | | posted 31-Jul-2008 2:02pm |
LOL. | dab  | | posted 31-Jul-2008 2:15pm |
God is everything. Fear of heights is included in everything so God *is* scared of heights. | Enheduanna  | | posted 31-Jul-2008 2:57pm |
What if God knew how to use the subjunctive? | Wicksy  | | (reply to dab) posted 31-Jul-2008 3:57pm |
So God was behind 9/11? | Melf   | | posted 31-Jul-2008 4:48pm |
He'd blame it on the people - maybe he destroyed the Tower of Babel because it gave him vertigo. | | bill | | posted 31-Jul-2008 5:47pm |
Just a slob like one of us?
I suppose he could just do away with the 3rd dimension. | | JohnCD | | posted 31-Jul-2008 6:39pm |
What a stupid question this is. Who's the moron that came up with this survey? | | dab | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 31-Jul-2008 9:47pm |
If you believe in God, isn't that a necessary conclusion? | | southernyankee | | posted 31-Jul-2008 10:47pm |
He / she can just monitor the universe with his laptop. You don't have to not have fear of heights to look at the world with google map? How hard would that be. | | JessicaWoman99 | | posted 31-Jul-2008 11:17pm |
Really God is not afraid of heights and even if God were afraid of heights well then forget it | | they |
God Shmod. | | Pomeranian |
If I were to believe in God, I'd believe in either a God who is everywhere or a God who is outside of the universe; either way, God wouldn't give a hoot about heights, since he wouldn't be above anything in any human sense of the term. And stuff. | | Pomeranian |
The subjunctive is the mood of sexual deviants and liberals. | | Pomeranian | | (reply to dab) posted 1-Aug-2008 2:05am |
But then God is also not scared of heights so God could totally deal. and stuff. | | docgbrown |
Since he is all everything he'd prefer to observe from up close | | Wicksy | | (reply to dab) posted 1-Aug-2008 3:34am |
So God was behind 9/11, not Bin Laden!!
Not very nice of God, was it! | | Wicksy | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 1-Aug-2008 3:34am |
| | dab |
Also true. | | dab | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 1-Aug-2008 7:28am |
> So God was behind 9/11, not Bin Laden!!
I didn't say it wasn't Bin Laden.
> Not very nice of God, was it!
No, not at all. If God exists, it is not a very nice being. | cloudhugger  |
This is hilarious!! 
the only answer for this one is contigient on the question of is God claustrophobic? | | cloudhugger | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 1-Aug-2008 8:39am |
> What a stupid question this is. Who's the moron
> that came up with this survey?
| | Wicksy | | (reply to dab) posted 1-Aug-2008 8:45am |
We're all doomed then!  | | dab | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 1-Aug-2008 9:39am |
That's only if God exists. And even then, it appears to be a rather capricious God in its evil. It doesn't really seem actively hostile, just passively callous. In fact, it's really difficult to distinguish God's wrath from random chance (or in the case of things like 9/11, human malice). And don't forget, if God contains everything, it contains all good and beautiful as well as all evil. | | Enheduanna |
The indicative does have a certain air of heterosexuality about it. | | jettles |
i don't think it matters, god is not up or down, this is a human earthly concept that does not pertain to god | | Kristal_Rose |
God would create a universe of infinite ground, with a small spherical pocket of air in the middle in which you could crawl around and have your head scrape the other side, or a paradigm in which height didn't exist; time and zjubfraness instead of time and space.
Since there are people afraid of heights, part of god is afraid of heights. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to bill) posted 2-Aug-2008 8:59am |
Hmm, that's easier than doing away with space entirely.
God could just makes space infinitely tall, which would make everything else infinitely short in comparison. Oh wait, that's already been done. Perhaps God 'is' afraid of heights. | | bill |
This sounds like that thing from relativity where matter becomes infinity long as it approaches the speed of light. Maybe God hangs out in black holes, or maybe that's where God can never god because everything is too tall there. Satan... Hell is the black hole at the center of every galaxy? | | Danger |
Don't look down! | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to bill) posted 3-Aug-2008 8:23am |
If the old catholic church were still up to snuff, that probably would be the prevailing theory. | | Melf | | (reply to bill) posted 3-Aug-2008 8:38am |
There's, um, actually a two part Doctor Who episode based on your last idea  | | jindalmeenakshi9 |
he would operate from depths of hell !! | | bill | | (reply to Melf) posted 3-Aug-2008 9:51am |
oh gawd | | Melf | | (reply to bill) posted 3-Aug-2008 10:05am |
Um. | | navelraker |
some people are afraid of heights,..........not me..............oh noooooooooooo,........i'm afraid of widths | | ihatespiders |
If that were true, there would be no airplanes,mountains,or birds,or tall buildings. | | LindaH |
Some people are afraid of depth. | | kcthedog | | posted 5-Aug-2008 12:37am |
It doesn't make sense, it is like asking if God could make a rock so big even he couldn't lift it. Stupid! | | JohnCD | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 9-Aug-2008 12:38am |
> So God was behind 9/11, not Bin Laden!!
>
> Not very nice of God, was it!
What a stupid ridiculous thing to say. | | justjulie | | posted 16-Aug-2008 8:28am |
would have to ask for help from below | | Wicksy | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 18-Aug-2008 4:09am |
Why is it ridiculous? | | JohnCD | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 22-Aug-2008 6:07pm |
> Why is it ridiculous?
Must you ask such a question? I think that should be obvious. | | Wicksy | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 25-Aug-2008 12:02pm |
More ridiculous than believing in a supernatural being?? | | JohnCD | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 29-Aug-2008 11:50pm |
> More ridiculous than believing in a supernatural being??
Believing in God is hardly ridiculous; not believing in him is. | | Wicksy | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 31-Aug-2008 5:38am |
Of course, because using all the scientific evidence on fossils, the real age of the earth, natural selection etc, it would be silly of me not to believe in a God that has no evidence and according to the bible, earth is only 6000 years old?? | | JohnCD | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 31-Aug-2008 8:39pm |
> Of course, because using all the scientific evidence on fossils, the
> real age of the earth, natural selection etc, it would be silly of
> me not to believe in a God that has no evidence and according to the
> bible, earth is only 6000 years old??
That's right, the earth is only 6000 years old like the Bible says. Evolution cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life, the profound complexity of the human eye, the amazing ability of birds to fly, nor anything else we can discover in the natural world. There is irrefutable evidence for an intelligent designer and higher power and that is the God of the Bible. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 31-Aug-2008 9:41pm |
You should watch a good show on evolution. They make a good case for the evolution of eyes from photosensitive dimples in the skin, and insect wings from gills. I am one of the firmest believers in god you'll find, but I also believe in evolution. Plants and animals are evolving in our lifetimes, and certainly over the past few millenia. Corn was only 2" long in the early recorded history of the Maya. New virusus of greater complexity come into existence all the time, derived from their predecessors.
Science can even explain the origin of life. Mix the right ingredients for a billion years, and eventually it will happen somewhere in the universe. We are lucky to be at least one of those places whee it happened. What science can not explain is the birth of matter, energy, space, and time. Have you ever heard native creation myths? The continents beng built on the back of tortoises (thus the earthquakes) is not too unlike biblical creation, bothering to site the creation of 'great whales' (dinosaurs and such?) without going into other explicit tales. You have to figure that ancient rabbis telling the tale of Genesis around the campfire for millenia isn't substantially different from what the native elders were doing.
The symbolic importance of Moses and the tablets of stone is immense for two reasons. One, like the scriptural Alhambran temple architecture, it suggests that like nanotechnolgy, the patterns of creation and evolution are built into matter itself. the other thing is that it represents the birth of historical time consciousness in mankind. Until then culture lived in the moment with a sort of eternity view of past and future. Time wasn't written in stone, it was a dream story passed on through the generations. 6000 years is more like the birth of recording history than the actual life of the planet. Mayan, Chinese, and Indian history goes back to further. Are we to believe God created the world complete with dinosaur bones and societies who imagined they had been around longer than the beginning of the planet, or that their history didn't actually exist? I would think it's a bit more like saying your family began with your great-great-great grandfather simply because you don't have records of the 1000's of generations which preceded him.
Even with evolution, there is evidence in everything around us of a higher central power. Even if the whole of creation of the universe was a chain reaction of 15 billions of years of recombinant-molecular evolution, this implies that within the very first matter was the design-seed which would make all this happen.
The bible was written by people. Even if god spoke to you on the phone every night for 10 hours, there would be a considerable limit to what you could explain to your peers if you were writing the bible. Unfortunately for the most part, the bible was't even written by guys talking directly with God, it was written by authers recounting the lives of those like Jesus who did. | | LindaH | | (reply to Wicksy) posted 31-Aug-2008 10:09pm |
Your brother is afraid of heights? | | JohnCD |
> You should watch a good show on evolution. They make a good case for
> the evolution of eyes from photosensitive dimples in the skin, and
> insect wings from gills. I am one of the firmest believers in god
> you'll find, but I also believe in evolution. Plants and animals are
> evolving in our lifetimes, and certainly over the past few millenia.
> Corn was only 2" long in the early recorded history of the Maya. New
> virusus of greater complexity come into existence all the time, derived
> from their predecessors.
>
> Science can even explain the origin of life. Mix the right ingredients
> for a billion years, and eventually it will happen somewhere in the
> universe. We are lucky to be at least one of those places whee it
> happened. What science can not explain is the birth of matter, energy,
> space, and time. Have you ever heard native creation myths? The continents
> beng built on the back of tortoises (thus the earthquakes) is not
> too unlike biblical creation, bothering to site the creation of 'great
> whales' (dinosaurs and such?) without going into other explicit tales.
> You have to figure that ancient rabbis telling the tale of Genesis
> around the campfire for millenia isn't substantially different from
> what the native elders were doing.
>
> The symbolic importance of Moses and the tablets of stone is immense
> for two reasons. One, like the scriptural Alhambran temple architecture,
> it suggests that like nanotechnolgy, the patterns of creation and
> evolution are built into matter itself. the other thing is that it
> represents the birth of historical time consciousness in mankind.
> Until then culture lived in the moment with a sort of eternity view
> of past and future. Time wasn't written in stone, it was a dream story
> passed on through the generations. 6000 years is more like the birth
> of recording history than the actual life of the planet. Mayan, Chinese,
> and Indian history goes back to further. Are we to believe God created
> the world complete with dinosaur bones and societies who imagined
> they had been around longer than the beginning of the planet, or that
> their history didn't actually exist? I would think it's a bit more
> like saying your family began with your great-great-great grandfather
> simply because you don't have records of the 1000's of generations
> which preceded him.
>
> Even with evolution, there is evidence in everything around us of
> a higher central power. Even if the whole of creation of the universe
> was a chain reaction of 15 billions of years of recombinant-molecular
> evolution, this implies that within the very first matter was the
> design-seed which would make all this happen.
>
> The bible was written by people. Even if god spoke to you on the phone
> every night for 10 hours, there would be a considerable limit to what
> you could explain to your peers if you were writing the bible. Unfortunately
> for the most part, the bible was't even written by guys talking directly
> with God, it was written by authers recounting the lives of those
> like Jesus who did.
You say that you believe in God and that’s good and I’m glad to hear that, but it doesn’t sound like you believe everything the Bible says which is God’s law and word.
Evolution cannot provide a satisfactory explanation for the origin of life. Evolution has not been proven and is simply just a theory. Charles Darwin is generally thought of as the originator of the theory of evolution, but this theory has actually been in existence for over 2000 years. Since the time of Darwin, numerous well informed and respected scientists have discovered his theory of evolution to be inadequate. Many Scientists admit that the theory of evolution is in trouble and there are too many things it can’t explain. The theory of evolution requires the Earth to be millions or billions of years old. However, the dating techniques used to date the Earth rely on assumptions. There is other evidence to suggest that the Earth is much younger than billions of years old. Interestingly, most of the coal that has been carbon dated still has some level of carbon 14 in it. However, according to traditional thinking coal should be millions of years old and therefore not have any carbon 14 in it, since carbon 14 has a half life of 5730 years!
The fact that many species in the fossil records are not alive today does not support evolution. Species have become extinct and are continuing to do so at an alarming rate. The world-wide gene pool is diminishing, not growing. This is the opposite of what the theory of evolution proposes for life on earth. Fossils show the great stability with which organisms can reproduce themselves rather than their ability to change into other forms. Even Darwin himself admitted that the fossil evidence was one of the weakest aspects of his theory of evolution. The fossil evidence shows three major characteristics that contradict the theory of evolution. Firstly, there is an absence of intermediate forms. Secondly, there are a vast number of plant, insect, fish and mammal fossils that are identical to organisms that are alive today and are described as living fossils. Thirdly, the sudden appearance in Cambrian rock of fully formed complex creatures with no evidence of earlier forms.
Here’s a question for you. If evolution was in fact true (which it isn’t), and humans evolved from apes like the theory of evolution suggests, they why are there still apes on earth today? Surveys show that seventy-one percent of adult Americans think that the evidence against Darwin should be taught in schools. Over the past two years the boards of education in several states teach children about Intelligent Design before talking about the theory of evolution with more states keen to follow suit.
| | Wicksy | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 1-Sep-2008 5:12pm |
| | Wicksy | | (reply to LindaH) posted 1-Sep-2008 5:13pm |
He certainly is! | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 2-Sep-2008 12:31am |
No, I believe in God because I talk with God and often see miracles. I don't take much stock in the bible because I'm sure it was written by people like me, people who talk wih God, but otherwise are no different than any other author or politician writing for the masses in the context of their time and culture. I do believe in many of the events which happened, and have had visions of some of them, and belive God is omnipotent enough to reform the universe in the blink of an eye, but I still believe that people need to find God now, and not get their god from outdated history books written by and for people who no longer exist. (btw, I'm a reverend in the Universal Life Church and counsel many diverse spiritual discussion groups in LA).
While most computer programs are graphical these days, there are still text based applications. When cake came into being, bread did not stop existing. If we were to develop a strain of pink glow-in-the-dark mice, brown and white mice would still be around. Like arts and sciences life branches of in diversity. Some branches become dea ends while others prosper and branch more. It's a form of insurance for the continuance of life. For life on the entire planet, the question is whethar life can branch off at the same rate species extinguish in response to changing conditions like ice ages. As long as we still have protozoa, the planet can get back on its feet in some form. Eventually though, as the sun dies, it will inevitably decline. I figure God has things like us going in some of the 15 billion other star systems, so whethar or not we ourselves live beyound our own solar system really doesn't matter.
Apparently Intelligent Design can have a range of meanings. I believe in it myself, as I witness that every molecule collision is under god's control, towards a centrally orchestrated purpose which manages to work in the perfect life lessons for every individual much like the gears of a clock have their own perspective realms but also all fit into global events like hourly chimes. Evolution is not in conflict with Intelligent Design.
Even if evolution didn't exist naturally (which I think is a preposterous view), it's undeniable that scientists are making it exist now, as have hybrid farmers for millenia.
Here are the only reasons I see to dismiss evolution:
A) You wish to insist the world is only 5000 years old, and dismiss ice ages and the forming of planets from galactic mss and such.
If you're going that route, you might as well go for hindu cosmology in which the universe was created this very moment, complete with memories of having been alive yesterday. That's actually teh model I believe in, that all of this, past, present, and future, is a complex dream of god, capable of taking any form any instant. I have already seen too many things breaking the laws of physics (walking on water stuff, though not so miraculous), and seen all of it coming together, nature, events, history, and peoples paths, and that timely information which comes my way, to see the world as if matter were all detached, stupid, and random.
B) You share the original argument people had with Darwins theories on the implications of the nature of the soul. Darwin was himself a Christian. He did not suggest as people accused him of that men have no souls. Rather he suggested that either they don't, or that the soul of God is in everything (as native cultures believe). Other theories though can also explain men having souls while other things do not, in spite of evolution.
C) You fear that the nature of reality being the result of a chain of atomic reactions implies god is not behind all of it. That water boils on a stovetop is a sign of what a spectacular creation God has created, not an indication God does not exist, and likewise, Men evolving from protozoa or birds from dinosaurs indicates a far more complex far-seeing god than one who just creates Men from scratch. This brings up the question of epiphenomenalism which I will bring up in a moment.
D) You don't care for the sanctity of a scientific physics explanation at all, and can't see that God works in many parallel planes, of which the plane of physics is only one of them. A person can pray that an answer is found tomorow for a national catastrophe, and have that prayer answered tomorrow in the form of the culmination of some activity which took hundreds of people years to achieve. Both the mortal history and the realm of instantaneous prayer answering are true. A person living close to God can live in constant miracle as regards their personal experience of life, but at the same time, these components also form the world of meaningless random events for those living entirly on a mortal plane. Both are true. It's a choice to see all active creation as God or not. Most people don't mind the ariginal definition of coincidence - 'co'-incidence. That which happens in our minds written by God naturally co-incides with the events God orchestrates to come our way in a timely manner. The closer you are to knowing God, the more this is evident at every second.
- This isn't to say God couldn't dismiss physics entirely upon an instant whim. But creation is story caused by limitation and ignorance of God, otherwise God would simply have remained a ball of joyous light. This kaleidoscope of diverse limitations, like the laws of physics, and life and death, give God a more interesting
experience than just being light for eternity, or even having a circle of angels.
Epiphenomenalism - means that life is a predetermined chain of tomic reactions much like a game of pool. Our every choice is the result of our upbringing, our brain chemistry, what we had for lunch, and what events appeared in our path. The state of reality at the atomic level determines what will happen an instnt later, and that includes our thoughts. Everything is a reaction. Even if this were the case, to be what we are now, means God had planned a 15 billion year long pool-game calculation of glorious immensity. If epiphenomenalism is not the case, it indicates that there is a separate plane of consciousness apart from matter, either men's souls or god, which can change the laws of atomic level physics to create alternative events. Let's skip the 'mens souls' case and go straight to God consciousness altering events, this then brings up epiphenomenalism of God. Every new decision would be a reaction to the current state or history of the universe, or at least a reaction to the chain of thought god had through the eons, which again would indicate the entire course of God had been created the moment God came into existence. Again, the Hindu cosmology best explains this, that God is the alpha and the omega, that god is all time and space in this very instant, and us mortals only have a limited window of all god is now.
Amongst my numerous intense spiritual expriences was one in which I went both out of body and out of mind. Typically when one does remote viewing or goes on astral flights, they bring some of their intellect with them. I was engaged in a spiritual discusion which was taking place on a higher plane. Though it was also spiritual subject matter at the mortal level. In higher level language, a discussion about the botlling of soda-pop can be perfectly understood as a description of transmigration of souls. Anyhow I went even above this, where my observor consciousness floated above my body, and came to realize that even at the highest levels of spiritual intellect, that the mind is a machine, including it's decisions and any ego, and on a fixed course, and that our consciousness (our soul, belonging to God) is just along for the ride.
Conciousness
Like the creation of time space and matter from nothing, our own consciousness is proof of God. By consciouness I do not mean intellect, ego, or sense perception. Even if one meditates meditates without thought, and without sensory input, our consciousness, awareness of exstence (even that lacking form or thought) is with us at al times. That is what seperates us from computers. They too have have senses, thought processes, and reactions, and their decisions, while less complex, are no less at the mercy of the current trajectory of atomic matter than our own thoughts. The difference is that we 'know' we are experiencing existnce. This knowing is not a thought. Cmputers can have thoughts that they exist, monitor all their senses, and type 'I am' all day long, but never have actual awareness. The awareness comes from a spiritual plane of reality which inhabits the physical plane.
One more point on epiphenomenalism. Provided that the universe we have now exists, or even it's atomic components exist, and that Einsteins rules of conservation of mass, light, &/or energy are true, given eternity, prhrazillions and phrazillions of years of molcules bouncing off each other and recombining, this indicates that not only will our miraculous universe exist, but that eventually every conceivable preposterous universal wide molecular arrangement of the universe will eventually exist, and exist for eternity. Even this snapshot of life on earth will evntually happen identically a trillion times again as long as time, space, matter, and energy continue to exist.
In the scope of the miracles of the existence of creation and conciousness, and the omnipotence of god, matters like whethar or not it's been evolution are really pretty trite.
Faith of any sort, including your faith in biblical creationism is a good stepping-stone, but it's no substitute for exploring the nature of omnipresnt God here now. Your own consciousness is the tool God gave you to discover and directly exprience the omniptence and omniprsence of God, rather than just reading that it existed some millenia ago.
While I think you are way off base totally dismissing scientific models of the history of the universe (which will be somewhat speculative for eternity, yet always gain solid ground too), your willingness to believe in biblical creation is a useful asset, in that it can prepare you to find out what reality and God actually are now right under our noses, something even more mind-blowing than creationism would be for a scientist. Creationism isn't something that happened 5000 years ago it's something happeing ever instant, and if you get closer to God, you can witness it for yourself. Upon achieving such sight, it will also bring light to a lot of otherwise cryptic biblical scriptures Jesus was rambling on about, like the Quick and the Dead, for instance, or how the spirit was to affect the ears when his disciples preached such that they need not worry what they would say, that each would hear what God meant them to hear on an individually catered basis. Finding God is a bit like suddenly realizing the existence of gravity and air, you'll wonder how you could have missed it all around you all your life. | | southernyankee | | posted 3-Sep-2008 12:20am |
I just realized that this is a dumb question if you really think about it. God wouldn't be looking down anyway, she/he be looking up. Think about it, you look UP to see the moon. But what if 12 hours would pass but you can still see the moon. It doesn't matter, you'd still be looking UP no matter where the Earth is. If you were on the moon looking at Earth, you'd still be looking up, not down.
In space, there is no up and no down. No matter where you are, what star or planet, you would always be looking up. So God's fear of heights would be irrelavant. | | southernyankee | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 3-Sep-2008 12:34am |
"There is other evidence to suggest that the Earth is much younger than billions of years old. Interestingly, most of the coal that has been carbon dated still has some level of carbon 14 in it. However, according to traditional thinking coal should be millions of years old and therefore not have any carbon 14 in it, since carbon 14 has a half life of 5730 years!"
Not very convincing. Just because the carbon is young doesn't prove the earth is young because the carbon could have come into existance long before earth was already there. Afterall, carbon comes from dead trees, by that logic every tree alive you see has to be 6 billion years old. See where this is going.
"Here’s a question for you. If evolution was in fact true (which it isn’t), and humans evolved from apes like the theory of evolution suggests, they why are there still apes on earth today?"
Sigh. I really expected much better from you. Birds most likely came from reptiles but reptiles are still around. Fungus came from bacteria, but bacteria is still around. More than likely, what happened was some apes evolved but some didn't.
Actually, not all evolutionary experts even believe humans came from apes. So possibly both humans and apes came from the same previous ancestor diverging from one another.
"Surveys show that seventy-one percent of adult Americans think that the evidence against Darwin should be taught in schools. Over the past two years the boards of education in several states teach children about Intelligent Design before talking about the theory of evolution with more states keen to follow suit."
Science is NOT a democracy (nor should it be). Poll numbers indicating an idea's popularity isn't a good way to measure its merit. | | JohnCD |
> "There is other evidence to suggest that the Earth is much younger
> than billions of years old. Interestingly, most of the coal that has
> been carbon dated still has some level of carbon 14 in it. However,
> according to traditional thinking coal should be millions of years
> old and therefore not have any carbon 14 in it, since carbon 14 has
> a half life of 5730 years!"
>
> Not very convincing. Just because the carbon is young doesn't prove
> the earth is young because the carbon could have come into existance
> long before earth was already there. Afterall, carbon comes from
> dead trees, by that logic every tree alive you see has to be 6 billion
> years old. See where this is going.
>
>
>
> "Here’s a question for you. If evolution was in fact true (which it
> isn’t), and humans evolved from apes like the theory of evolution
> suggests, they why are there still apes on earth today?"
>
> Sigh. I really expected much better from you. Birds most likely
> came from reptiles but reptiles are still around. Fungus came from
> bacteria, but bacteria is still around. More than likely, what happened
> was some apes evolved but some didn't.
>
> Actually, not all evolutionary experts even believe humans came from
> apes. So possibly both humans and apes came from the same previous
> ancestor diverging from one another.
>
>
> "Surveys show that seventy-one percent of adult Americans think that
> the evidence against Darwin should be taught in schools. Over the
> past two years the boards of education in several states teach children
> about Intelligent Design before talking about the theory of evolution
> with more states keen to follow suit."
>
> Science is NOT a democracy (nor should it be). Poll numbers indicating
> an idea's popularity isn't a good way to measure its merit.
The research I did on evolution versus creation sounds very convincing to me. Evolution is just a theory and nothing more that makes no sense at all. There is absolutely no proof of evolution and I believe what the Bible teaches about creation. I'll respect your opinions and beliefs if you will respect mine and we can agree to disagree. | | southernyankee | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 3-Sep-2008 1:20am |
Um, ok, fair enough.
"The research I did on evolution versus creation sounds very convincing to me."
Well, the whole point of surveys, discussion boards, etc is pretty much to explain to the other person why their opinion is wrong.
On a side note: Even intelligent design admits to evolution being true, to some degree. Actuallly, doesn't ID go against a lot of what the bible says, since you seem to be a proponent. | | Kristal_Rose |
"Well, the whole point of surveys, discussion boards, etc is pretty much to explain to the other person why their opinion is wrong." - No wonder you can be such a pain. Maybe you shoud do a survey on the subject, if you can imagine beforehand other motives people might have.
Even explaining why your opinion is right doesn't necessarily have to involve disproving the other's opinion. Other motives may include understanding alternative views or finding common ground to agree upon, if about comparing views at all.
He seems to have a different definition of Intelligent Design than the one I am familiar with. It occurs to me now that that may have been the intent of ID marketing proponents.
I can see some advantage to it, to remind us that evolution is still only a theory. Of course electricity could still be considered a theory too, but our theories seem pretty functional as far as powering appliances goes.
The evolution thing seems to have deeper tendrils than just the specific scientific belief though. I wonder how a person could believe biology is an exception, when most everything else in the world is evolving, but the more I talk to creationists (which isn't too aften), the more I see they don't think anything (like culture or engineering) evolves, or should evolve either. | | dab | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 3-Sep-2008 8:23am |
> Evolution is just a theory and nothing more that makes no sense
> at all. There is absolutely no proof of evolution and I believe what
> the Bible teaches about creation.
Yes, evolution is just a theory. And you're right that there is no proof. However, the important thing to understand if you don't want to speak nonsense on this topic, is that there is no proof of any scientific theory. Ever. Re-read that previous sentence a few times as it's too often glossed over by people in this debate. Understand it well because it is the very heart of the issue.
The one common characteristic of all scientific theories is that they can be disproved but they can never be proven. If, after many years of trying, no-one has managed to disprove a theory, it becomes widely accepted as probably true. But it's still *just* a theory and it is still not proven.
Creationism, on the other hand, can not be disproved. For any possible evidence or experimental results, creationism can explain that evidence or those results by saying, "God made it that way". Since there is no conceivable way to disprove creationism, it is not a scientific theory. Science is all about a particular process for discovering how the universe works. It's not the only method and creationism comes from another path. It's best not to mix the two. | | JohnCD | | (reply to dab) posted 3-Sep-2008 11:12am |
> |> Evolution is just a theory and nothing more that makes no sense
> |> at all. There is absolutely no proof of evolution and I believe
> what
> |> the Bible teaches about creation.
>
> Yes, evolution is just a theory. And you're right that there is no
> proof. However, the important thing to understand if you don't want
> to speak nonsense on this topic, is that there is no proof of any
> scientific theory. Ever. Re-read that previous sentence a few times
> as it's too often glossed over by people in this debate. Understand
> it well because it is the very heart of the issue.
>
> The one common characteristic of all scientific theories is that they
> can be disproved but they can never be proven. If, after many years
> of trying, no-one has managed to disprove a theory, it becomes widely
> accepted as probably true. But it's still *just* a theory and it
> is still not proven.
>
> Creationism, on the other hand, can not be disproved. For any possible
> evidence or experimental results, creationism can explain that evidence
> or those results by saying, "God made it that way". Since there is
> no conceivable way to disprove creationism, it is not a scientific
> theory. Science is all about a particular process for discovering
> how the universe works. It's not the only method and creationism
> comes from another path. It's best not to mix the two.
Everything you said is true. Evolution will never be proved and creation will never be disproved. The debate between the two will continue as long as humans prevail on this earth. As a Christian, I have a lot of faith in God and what the Bible says so that's why I believe in creation versus evolution, plus the the evolution theory doesn't make much sense to me. | | JohnCD |
> Um, ok, fair enough.
>
>
> "The research I did on evolution versus creation sounds very convincing
> to me."
>
> Well, the whole point of surveys, discussion boards, etc is pretty
> much to explain to the other person why their opinion is wrong.
>
> On a side note: Even intelligent design admits to evolution being
> true, to some degree. Actuallly, doesn't ID go against a lot of
> what the bible says, since you seem to be a proponent.
I'm not sure what you mean by the acronym "ID" | | southernyankee | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 3-Sep-2008 11:46am |
Intelligent Design. | | southernyankee |
"Even explaining why your opinion is right doesn't necessarily have to involve disproving the other's opinion. Other motives may include understanding alternative views or finding common ground to agree upon, if about comparing views at all."
If the other person's opinion is different than your opinion and your opinion is right, then logically the other person's opinion by definition must be wrong. Though its possible for both people to be wrong as well, or one right, but for the wrong reasons.
The only exception is if the two of you are argueing two different issues, and don't even agree on what is it that you are arguing.
(Well, to be fair, I'll grant you the point on finding common ground, people will agree on something sooner or later, but then that defeats the purpose of debates. I guess other than pointing out why the other person is wrong, you also benefit from hearing the other person's wonderful theory as to why they think that you are wrong.)
| | JohnCD |
> Intelligent Design.
I should have know, dumb question. | | Kristal_Rose |
It could also be (and is often likely) that people are arguing from different contexts or perspectives. A flying fish can both swim and fly. There may also be multiple causative concerns addressed, and one being correct doesn't necesarily indicate the other isn't correct as well. Your not one who seems to go so much for multiple concurrent explanations of things though.
SC has more of it's fair share of debaters to be sure, but that's far from why people show up here or at other forums. At the other forum I spend my time in at's all about creative collaboration and sharing media resources and guiding opinions. Rarely is it even implied there that someone is 'wrong'.
Even for those who do debate, 'for sake of debate' probably isn't the why behind why they come here.
Your posts are debates, but you've done some projecting on others. Scan through quantities of posts and you'll find that debates are the minority of posts here these days, or at least not an overwhelming majority. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to dab) posted 4-Sep-2008 12:43am |
Excellent post there. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to JohnCD) posted 4-Sep-2008 2:24am |
"plus the the evolution theory doesn't make much sense to me"
That's the part I don't get about your position. Arts (music, literature, painting), sciences (engineering, mathematics, computer programming, medical practice), culture (relationships, fetishes, complex emotions) - all are made of constituent parts which recombine to form new possibilities. The powerful, practical, or intriguing possibilities gain popular support and those less popular die out from irrelevance. Why is it difficult to imagine that the recombination of constituent biological elements over eons would be any different? In a most simple case, couldn't you imagine a race of people dying out, say continental Europeans, leaving the Irish to mate more frequently with the Chinese, and creating millions of people with a combination of positive and negative inherited traits from those two races? (Of course the implication here is also that continental europeans had traits so negative that their numbers dwindled.) Today we do not have the same balance of animal life we had two centuries ago where the ground was covered in bison, and the skies in carrier pigeons, roosting in chestnut trees. Places like Australia and had massive shifts when unbalanced species were relocated there.
Is it likely that everyone in the future will have the latest disease anomaly, AIDS? Probably not. If the lifestyle which brings about AIDS was the most popular, and medical science allowed such people to stay alive, have children, and prosper above those not living the lifestyle though, then yes, we would all eventually have AIDS. AIDS is a rather slight abberration compared to finding that longer flippers survive at sea better, but then AIDS might take 200 years, and longer flippers a milion years to show up and win out. Of course if the earth is only 5000 years old, that alone makes significant evolution of species impossible. I guess the two theories, creation vs evolution, and 5000 vs billions of years, go hand in hand more than I bothered to imagine.
Besides asking why you chose the biblical explanation over science, I could also ask why you chose the Christian bible over creation stories from other cultures like natives or Hindus, but I must imagine that is simply because that's what you were raised with.
If you were raised with one set of beliefs, and there is no cost to not believing in other belifs, then there isn't really any reason to change. On the other hand, if you were to become an electrical engineer, you would quickly find a cost to believing circuits are posessed by spirits, rather than taking up the beliefs of Ohm and Faraday.
I'll say one thing for creationism in the context of taday's world, it sure forces one to prove their faith. I changed my gender, and that sounds a heck of a lot easier than what you must go through to maintain your position. I had my share of standing vigilant with my spiritual beliefs and being called crazy for them though. There's a big difference though which makes your position more tenacious, and that's that at least I had the advantage of standing for something I was actually witnessing, while you are trusting the words of ancient authors you never met.
The testaments of Christs disciples were probably written second hand, and even within those testaments the degree of divine connection present in those disciples is lightly described. As for the Old Testament, it was passed orally for many many generations before it was committed to writing. Eventually the Rabbis had to come up with a numeric system of parity checking to make sure the text didn't get too altered over the generations. By the time of the dead sea scrolls, multiple versions were already becoming a problem. I'm sure you're aware that christians, jews, and catholics each have settled on different sets of OT books which were available to choose from at the time of Christ. The first substantial catholic-christian set was selected in 400 AD by emperor Constantine, a converted warrior empiricist who had his own wife boiled alive. Prior to that the greeks had collected some 70 books (the septugenarian). ..and then one must assume by writing style alone that the original authors were taking some poetic liberties, and unquestionably dealing with the issue of inclusion and omission.
My question to you in all of this, if you believe the bible to be the literal word of God (as your stance on creationism suggests) is what is the procedure of divine mechanism by which this happens in spite of all the authoring, oral tradition, culling, and editing through the hands of mankind which has taken place over the millenia? Would some divine force, if you were in the position of Constantine or King James guide you to make the most accurate translations and prevent you from being deceitful in your revisions? Often people in the bible died and went to 'sheol', the hebrew word for dirt. It wasn't until the fourth hundredth century in which fanciful depictions of hell were imagined to exist (or at least documented as being something people thought existed), and it interpreted that such persons went to hell rather than back to dust. Which is God's word, the pre or post 400th C. interpretation?
What about the living word of God, the Logos, present in nature and on men's tongues to divinely inspired hearing? A good deal is made about it in the dead sea scrolls, but only a dozen or so references to it exist in KJ, and those are glossed over as insignificant non-sequitors to all but the Christian mystics, who consider such to be the singlely most important thing Christ taught about.
If you wish to believe without the additional facet of reason, fine, but then you have no place in a rational dialogue. While I have some contention with your dimissal of the parallel realm of science, my primary objective here is to provoke you into discovering for yourself what the nature of God is rather than living your entire life settling for second hand documentation of questionable accuracy.
Do you have any other tools at your disposal, like having visions, heartfelt intuitions, or reading scripture while using bibliomancy as a concordance, or at least the mortal tools of cross-cultural analytical anthropology? ..Perhaps some patterns or miracles in your life which back up a certain cosmology? Because one's parents parents parents said so is a sorely lacking means to claim one's faith, especially when it's not absolutely assured what they said in the first place, or even who they were and what their motives were. In all that text, one has to be suspicious of slant just in how little of Christ's actual teachings were present in the testaments. More can be found in the Gospel according to Thomas, which is of more an Essene flavor.
How old are you anyhow? I'm guessing you really haven't had time to do your homework on the matter. I'm no friend of ignorance, regarding science or the nature of God. One day you will have kids (in much the same manner as 10 billion people are here todoy), and I'm hoping you can tell them "This much I know to be true.., This much I take on faith for lack of personal evidence.., Go find out for yourself." Rather than perpetuate the biases of Constantine and King James for generations to come. A pearl of truth is worth more than volumes of doubt and speculation. | | LindaH |
ɟɟnʇs puɐ uʍopǝp!sdn llɐ ʞool ʇ,uplnoʍ s6u!ɥʇ os | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LindaH) posted 4-Sep-2008 6:27pm |
That post was a lot of work. | | LindaH |
It was fun. | | JohnCD |
> "plus the the evolution theory doesn't make much sense to me"
> That's the part I don't get about your position. Arts (music, literature,
> painting), sciences (engineering, mathematics, computer programming,
> medical practice), culture (relationships, fetishes, complex emotions)
> - all are made of constituent parts which recombine to form new possibilities.
> The powerful, practical, or intriguing possibilities gain popular
> support and those less popular die out from irrelevance. Why is it
> difficult to imagine that the recombination of constituent biological
> elements over eons would be any different? In a most simple case,
> couldn't you imagine a race of people dying out, say continental Europeans,
> leaving the Irish to mate more frequently with the Chinese, and creating
> millions of people with a combination of positive and negative inherited
> traits from those two races? (Of course the implication here is also
> that continental europeans had traits so negative that their numbers
> dwindled.) Today we do not have the same balance of animal life we
> had two centuries ago where the ground was covered in bison, and the
> skies in carrier pigeons, roosting in chestnut trees. Places like
> Australia and had massive shifts when unbalanced species were relocated
> there.
>
> Is it likely that everyone in the future will have the latest disease
> anomaly, AIDS? Probably not. If the lifestyle which brings about AIDS
> was the most popular, and medical science allowed such people to stay
> alive, have children, and prosper above those not living the lifestyle
> though, then yes, we would all eventually have AIDS. AIDS is a rather
> slight abberration compared to finding that longer flippers survive
> at sea better, but then AIDS might take 200 years, and longer flippers
> a milion years to show up and win out. Of course if the earth is
> only 5000 years old, that alone makes significant evolution of species
> impossible. I guess the two theories, creation vs evolution, and 5000
> vs billions of years, go hand in hand more than I bothered to imagine.
>
> Besides asking why you chose the biblical explanation over science,
> I could also ask why you chose the Christian bible over creation stories
> from other cultures like natives or Hindus, but I must imagine that
> is simply because that's what you were raised with.
>
> If you were raised with one set of beliefs, and there is no cost to
> not believing in other belifs, then there isn't really any reason
> to change. On the other hand, if you were to become an electrical
> engineer, you would quickly find a cost to believing circuits are
> posessed by spirits, rather than taking up the beliefs of Ohm and
> Faraday.
>
> I'll say one thing for creationism in the context of taday's world,
> it sure forces one to prove their faith. I changed my gender, and
> that sounds a heck of a lot easier than what you must go through to
> maintain your position. I had my share of standing vigilant with my
> spiritual beliefs and being called crazy for them though. There's
> a big difference though which makes your position more tenacious,
> and that's that at lea |
|
