Recent Comments Themes

Theme: Is There a God? – October 15, 2008

How have you come by that theory?

Theme: Is There a God? – October 15, 2008

If there is no god, then is not a fascist, despotic, police state the ideal society?

Theme: Is There a God? – October 13, 2008

Besides, it doesn't explain why they seem to be telling different things to different cultures on this planet, how they intend to preserve our essence when we die, or how they would justify passing judgement on us, or why they see fit to tell us they are one person, and that they created the universe instead of the other way round.

Theme: Is There a God? – October 13, 2008

Dexter

"Of course it's possible that someone's experience is an illusion, but if the illusion produces beneficial results and harms no one else, I don't see much wrong with that."

I already don't harm anyone (at least, I try not to). Believing that the voice compelling you to do things isn't just your subconscious can lead to massive amounts of harm being done to other people. However, if potential suicide bombers (for example) were open to the idea that they're imagining things, as you are, such horrific things wouldn't happen.

"This is the main issue I have with atheists pontificating about God. They literally don't know what they are talking about."

A spectator sees more of the game. Besides, what about those who used to think they were talking to someone, but now see differently?

"If you can't trust another person, no matter how wonderful they are, it's going to have a negative impact on the quality of your relationship."

The first act of trust is believing that there _is_ a person to have a relationship with. Are we wrong to expect a reasonable amount of justification for taking that step?

"If they've learned how to prolong their lives indefinitely, understand how to manipulate matter, communicate across vast distances and treat each other equitably, why wouldn't we consider them to be Gods? Are we just too proud to think we're not on top of the developmental heap?"

Of course not. But this definition of a "god" doesn't satisfy many of the important criteria that most world religions hold: having created the universe, for example. I'd be fairly ready to accept the extraterrestrial explanation, and I'm sure many others would be too. It comes without a lot of the metaphysical and scientific baggage usually associated with Theism. It's not enough for me, though. Aliens don't count as gods, no matter how advanced they are.

Theme: What Makes Us Happy? – October 12, 2008

What makes us happy? Maybe one of the following?
Next time you go to kill a cockroach, catch it and set it free in the garden-you'll feel righteous and holy.
Hang out with friends more ugly than yourself and you'll feel beautiful.
Hang out with friends less fortunate and you'll feel lucky.
Give advice to others and you'll feel important.
Put lots of big words in a sentence and you'll feel intelligent.
Take out the garbage and you'll feel useful.
Watch a comedy instead of the news and you'll feel like laughing.
Watch the news instead of a comedy and you'll feel superior.
Write a comment like this in a blog and you'll feel silly.
Happiness is relative-not always 'a relative'.

Theme: Rethinking Poverty – October 12, 2008

The catchphrase "Make poverty history." But how? originates with the mind who does not know history.
When the collective mindset is tuned to bondage and slavery under the motto " Multipy and Conquer justified in the name of a god" poverty and illiteracy is glorified horror turning those unfortunate ones insane, producing offspring with degenerative genes. A product of The Perverted Mind in Control.

A one laptop per Child is wonderful when your tummy is filled, your brain functions and .. you enjoy Freedom of Speech.

Poverty and Illiteracy are signs of great wickedness. Not one animal in the known universe reproduces under these circumstances.... Oh, I forgot..Man is the image of god/allah and co... Pardon My Ignorance.

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 11, 2008

As of the "How genius is it." Well, we are here, aren't we?

Theme: Is There a God? – October 11, 2008

I'm not looking for "quick" answers about God, I'm looking for the truth.

In my experience, it is far more profitable to consult someone who has actual, and preferably considerable, experience with something than someone who has only theorized about it. (A possible exception to this might be Albert Einstein on relativity - he did marvelous thought experiments - not personal relativistic travel.) This is the main issue I have with atheists pontificating about God. They literally don't know what they are talking about. Of course it's possible that someone's experience is an illusion, but if the illusion produces beneficial results and harms no one else, I don't see much wrong with that.

I think Benedikt is quite right about faith being intertwined with trust. Essentially, we are considering if it is possible to have a relationship with a theoretical being, but before considering if the other being is real you have to consider your own "relationship readiness". If you can't trust another person, no matter how wonderful they are, it's going to have a negative impact on the quality of your relationship.

The thing I find most compelling about Dawkins is his idea that our existence (assuming this isn't all an illusion) proves that there is at least one process at work that caused disorganized matter and energy to become organized into intelligent beings. If the universe is 13 billion years old and the earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago and human life has been here for 3 billion, isn't it equally probable that someone else somewhere is at least a couple of billion years ahead of us on the developmental curve? If they've learned how to prolong their lives indefinitely, understand how to manipulate matter, communicate across vast distances and treat each other equitably, why wouldn't we consider them to be Gods? Are we just too proud to think we're not on top of the developmental heap?

Theme: What's Next in Tech – October 11, 2008

Great.

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Thanks Oliver!

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Caroline,

The oldest artifacts, those that allow us to date the appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens for sure, are dated back to at least 40,000 years ago. Not 10,000, 40,000. Most probably we appeared long before that. This if you mean obviously human made "artifacts." There are plenty of artifacts made by other members of the hominids dated farther back in prehistory.

Still, your question does not make a lot of sense, since we humans are a very recent species on Earth. Not finding human made artifacts dated 60 million years ago makes good sense. there were no humans back then.

I hope all of this helps. Still, the only way you will know better is if you go to those sources that can give you more detailed information and also how scientists get to know these things.

Best for your essay,
---Gabo

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Caroline Doug

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=15-answers-to-creationist

This gives an answer to most of your questions, including a specific address to the monkeys/Hamlet thing.

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Hi again Caroline,

Your other questions require you to know a few more things about evolution.

1. Evolution works with what is available. It does not decide to do things, things happen according to genetic backgrounds and what the environment demands. This implies that many organisms will be evolutionary deadends, as soon as they are confronted with an environment they cannot adapt to, they will fail and leave no descendants.

2. I left some simplified explanations below for someone else who was asking questions about evolution. Please take a look.

So:

Esquimos with fur:
Why would they evolve fur? They already knew how to cover themselves with animal skins. Remember that for evolution to occur, non-adapted members of a population should die, while better covered (furred) members would survive, and leave a subpopulation that, when reproducing, would leave furred descendants.

Arctic ethnic groups, while much "younger" than equatorial people, do have strong exposure to the sun. have you seen how people practicing sports in snow get severely burned? The snow and ice reflect the sun so strongly that you need lots of sun protection. This would also favor eyes protected by the form of the eyelids.

SIngle celled organisms did not appear all of a sudden, but through evolution. Thus, it is not the equivalent of a monkey typing Hamlet randomly, but rather, lots of monkeys typing, with selection taking out little pieces that look like hamlet, until a recombination of the pieces takes you closer and closer to hamlet. This has been demonstrated with programs that write randomly, and other programs that select the little pieces. Getting hamlet by random mutation, and proper selection takes very little time.

The female example does not make sense. It would work the other way around too, and I would need to explain you about the evolution of sex, not enough space here for that.

Artifacts more than 10,000 years old? Coming on next post.

-Gabo

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Hey Caroline,

It would take much more space than allowed to answer your questions. I will try a couple, or maybe one, at a time. Seems like your first question (transitional fossils), and the "Crick quote" that Doug wrote, should be answered first.

1. Darwin: Darwin wrote the origin of species long ago, and back then, he said the number of fossils was too small to really be a reliable source of information. Your comment is related to a misquote often found in extremist creationist books/web sites, such as Answers in Genesis.
Such kind of misquoting is called "quote mining" (the same goes for that Francis Crick quote). The fallacy consists on taking only a very short part of somebody's comments so as to make it appear like the author is saying something completely different to what the author meant. In both these cases (Darwin and Crick), the context makes it clear that these authors found proper and very convincing answers to the very "objection" they were talking about. Please find the complete text and explanation following Darwin's statement by googling "complete work darwin" and then finding the text on the origin of species. I will never understand how supposedly religious people, who should be committed to the truth, lie by taking quotes out of context.

Darwin went all the way to explain how geographic differences within groups of related animals show how transitions can occur.

Now, Darwin did not know we would find many more fossils after his time, but we have. Now, I can assure you that there are many many many fossils that demonstrate transitions, some very spectacular (for instance, from dinosaurs to birds), some related to our extinct hominid relatives that show, beyond doubt, that we and the chimps come from a common ancestor.

More to follow!
---Gabo

Theme: What Makes Us Happy? – October 10, 2008

Life is not being just being happy everyday, it is how we respond to the events and activities of our day. Gracefully we move through life, loving our way through circumstances and consequences. The goal of being happy is how we respond to the occurrences of life as it happens around us not to us.

Most of us are uptight about everything, Some of us hate what we do because the job we get paid for is advancing the goals and dreams of someone else. "Being in service is not servitude!"

Giving the gift we have come here to give to life to the world is what makes me happy. To awaken this in everyone and connect that with community is a happy event....

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

YES!!! Go Caroline!

It's about time the world takes a brand new look at evolution through a modern lense. Soooo much knowledge has been gained since Darwin's "On the Origin of Speices" in 1859. Darwinism is no longer the best explanation of life's origin. It's barely even a competing theory, considering all that we know now.

Francis Crick: "An honest man, armed with all the knowledge availiable to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of live appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."

Theme: Evolution's Genius – October 10, 2008

Hello everyone.

I was introduced to TED talks by my American Journalism class. During my free time, I decided to browse this site, and looking for an interesting topic for my next paper, I came across this page.


The title of this page is "Evolution's Genius." However, today, I am going to ask a question: Just how genius is it?

We know that evolution is existent today to some degree. There are differences, for example, in breeds of dogs. Human remains show that human beings have grown slightly, but extremely slowly throughout time. However, there are still quite a few holes in this theory that many consider fact. I'll list a few that I have found.

1. Charles Darwin admitted that fossils of the transitional links between species would have to be found in order to prove his "Theory of Evolution." Well, these transitional links have never been found.

2. If natural selection is true, then why don't we see Eskimos with human fur to stay warm, similar to what a dog would have?

3. Evolutionists say that dark-skinned people who live near the Equator have melanin that has evolved to protect their skin from the sun. Then why do Artic ethnic groups have dark skin? Even if their ancestors were from the equator, wouldn't it have evolved over time?

4. What are the odds that a simple single cell organism could evolve given the complexity of more than 60,000 proteins of 100 different configurations, all in the correct places when after 35 trilllion attempts, a chimp attempting to write the ABC's in order only typed 14 letters
correctly?

5. When a female reproduces , she can only reproduce eggs. There is not possible way for her to produce sperm without supernatural interaction. Therefore, females cannot be part of evolution.

6. We can find artifacts that date back even 4,000 years, and possibly 8,000. But, if evolution is true, why can't we find artifacts over 10,000 years?

To me, it takes more faith to believe in the theory of evolution than in the theory of creation

Theme: A Greener Future? – October 10, 2008

www.windesal.com can become a powerful symbol of green future,especially for those over 1bn people in the world challenged by the lack of fresh water,those in future expected 3bn within the next 20years that will face the same prospect.

Theme: Is There a God? – October 10, 2008

Dexter Francis,

The quickest way to answer the question why God is male is by noticing that monotheism in the West introduced "Father God, the creator", and Taoism in the East introduced "Tao, the Mother of ten thousand things".

It is clear by this remark that the dualism of the sexes is manifested in world's spirituality from the early times, when religion is considered as a universal phenomenon.

One more evidence may help even better: the West is characterized by its focus on Reason (or Logos); the East is characterized by its focus on Wisdom (or Sophia). These are the antipodes in the duality of man's mental power. There is no word for Logos in the East. You may know that the beginning verses of the Gospel according to John are translated in Chinese as: "In the beginning was the Tao..." Tao means "the Way" not "Logos".

You also probably know that the spiritual leader Dalai Lama is also named as "Ocean of Wisdom". By using the opposites of these words in the yin-yang dualistic principle let me insist that naming him as the "Fire of Reason" is an intellectual absurdity.

I will cover the above issues in detail in one of my next sections of Part 3.

Now, referring to the "Kingdom of Heaven", I think I have covered the issue in the continuation part of my last comments. As to the "Heavenly Mother", my intention is not to discuss or interpret dogmatic issues; so far I have been using only quotations from the Bible in order to show my understanding of their meaning when applied to the spiritual quests in our times.

Theme: Is There a God? – October 9, 2008

(continued from below)

"At this point, any 'answer' to that (from science or religion) has to be taken on faith. Period. "God did it" or "it just always was" each carry the same level of silliness to their opponents and should both be treated as plausible until one or the other can be proved."

They do not carry the same level of silliness. But let's assume for a moment they would and we give them the rating of 50 on the official silliness scale.

"God did it" implies "God exists" which is at least as silly. So we have 100 points here. Now, where did god come from? Well, it always existed! Wait, I know that answer from somewhere. Oh yes, another 50 points and we end up with 150 points of silliness.

Let's check the other statement. "It always existed" implies the universe exists. Well, apparently it does since I can see it right now. 0 points there.

And there you go! 150 vs 50. "God did it" is 3 times as silly.

Well, enough with the silliness. The whole excursus above is besides the point since no reputable scientist is even proclaiming as a fact that the universe always was. Fox News is not a scientific outlet! It may have been, it may not. We don't know.

Lastly, the issue with faith and science is really becoming tiresome. Faith is believing something as true without any evidence.

If I wanted to go out on a limb I'd state that faith is partly a trust issue. And just as religious people trust their minister that he isn't just another con artist, you might think you have to trust scientists that they don't scam you. But - and that's a big "but" - you don't really have to trust anyone's word in science. In fact, it's frowned upon and it's were peer review and testability come into play. It's how progress is made.

Science is postulating explanations for observations (evidence) that create predictions that can be tested (more evidence). You can acknowledge a scientific theory or not, but in either way there's no faith involved.