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Friday, June 20, 2008 - 09:54 pm  Hmm Depending on how you veiw it manknid has been arguing over gods and their potential names for somewhere between millions and thousands of years.. So I have a fw points and questions... A. I was just curious if any of y'all thought it would be settled here.. B. Curious as to why this sort of discussion ever got started here in the first place. C. I also was a bit curious as to what this thread hoped to achieve? D. I find that, though I cannot qoute scripture, I seem to remember several bits about not judging, removing a mote from a brothers eye when there is a beam in your own, giving unto Ceasar what is Ceasars and unto god what is god's.. I point out those references, as I belive, the problem people tend to have with Christians of a zealous nature, is the quickness with which that sort of admonition from god is forgotten in thier haste to purge evil. I find that the problem I tend to have with "holy" people is they spend so much time worring about the sins of others and ignore their own. They also seem to think the ones they "preach" to are not aware of the situation.. I believe most Christians should spend far more time worrying about their own "proverbial houses" than they do about mine, or anyone elses. E. I find that one of the most interesting books in the bible is Leviticus and all it's admonitions, that I know most modern Chritian through to the way side. They quote Leviticus against homosexuality, and then forget Leviticus as they line up for crab claw and oysters, or allow women to go about with nothing on their heads, or men shaving their beards,and a host of others. F. I firmly believe that Chritians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Pagans, Taoists, Zoastrians, Rastafarians, Bahai, Secular Humanists, Atheists et al should absolutely live the way, they feel they should live. believe what they feel they should believe. My only objection with any religion or religious group, is when it decides it needs to tell me, or anyone else how I should live. That is between a person and whatever god or lack there of they choose. To me a Christian who judges an atheist evil, is just as sad as the atheist that says a Christian is stupid. G. I hope and pray everyday that people of differing ideas, and faiths will one day wake up and realize that, in all the time they have spent fighting over which god is right, or idea better, that true evils of Hunger, Disease, Deteriorating Environment, and Opression have run rampant on this spinning blue marble. I also hope there is time to fix them before the only thing left around to argue whos god is best, are the floating bits of religous paper and vestigial echos of threads such as this one. *sorry, I really had no plans to be preachy, but this whole discssion is one that angers and saddens me greatly, and I find it hard to believe that any creator finds true happyness in the conditions we allow to exist on this world in any of their names.*
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| Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 08:06 am It's capitalizum's fundamental point of making profit off everything thats creating the problems with Food, medication, pollution and equality. Thats why we are already at war. Religion V Capitalizum Faith V Freedom Neither can exist with out the other, yet they need to conquer each-other to ensure their own survival. I'm finding it very difficult choosing between the two. I might just dig a big hole and hibernate for 11 years.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 02:03 am My 2 cents: First off, I am a Christian. People can say what they will about that. I also happen to believe that people worship in their own way, and in their own time, the same God as I do. (People, meaning anyone who are not atheist, humanist, toaist....basically only Christians Muslims and Jews all worship the same God.) The conflict between these 3 groups is over the idea of Jesus. Jews do not believe Jesus to be the Messiah. Christians DO believe him to be Messiah. Muslims don't even BELIEVE in a Messiah, but if there was one, Muhammad is the closest thing to Messiah as there ever will be. THAT, my friends, is the ONLY fundamental difference between these three different religions. All the other differences pale in comparison to this one. Now, with that out of the way, and since I believe Christians, Muslims and Jews all worship the exact same God, we all should, in actuality, be brotherly towards one another. The reasons for making this impossible: Exactly what others...mostly atheists...in this thread have said. One religion will preach, but the others "Don't want that crap shoved down my throat!!" That kind of talk will get more and more severe, and turn to violence. So, for those atheists who talk like that, your only fanning the flames. Here's a solution to ya: JUST IGNORE THESE PREACHINGS! That is all you have to do.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 02:08 am Now, I am seperating this post from above, because it gets way too long To any atheist out there who may be reading this (seems like a good 90% of this thread): IF you are correct in that there is no God at all, then that means no matter what anyone does, their fate is exactly the same. Now, if there IS a God, and you do not believe in God, have no faith in God, and simply want nothing to do with Him...in essence, let us say that the Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all right in that the wicked and non-believers will be punished. And it is only purely 50-50 chance of one or the other to be correct, wouldn't it actually be SAFER to just ASSUME God exists? I mean, if you believe in Him, and worship him your entire life and it turns out there really IS no God, then at the end of your life, big deal, your fate is exactly like everyone elses. But in this 50-50 chance scenario, you truly do not believe, and reject the idea of God, at the end of your life, your fate is NOT going to be the same as others. You, MAY be punished, and quite severely, for a very very long time. Think about.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 03:11 am Anyone who wants proof as to the existence of God, there is no stronger evidence than if you just look around. Go outside on a clear cold night, in the middle of the wilderness, and look up. Science is SOOO chock full of evidence for the existence of God. MANY scientists have went from being atheist, to being true believers simply because they HAVE studied science. SCIENCE is not supposed to take anything for granted. either something is true, or it is false. There are theories if scientists just are not quite sure yet whether something is true or false. One thing a good scientist never does is to ASSUME something is correct. (In case anyone has not noticed, this post is for all those who think that ALL religious people "blindly" follow the Bible) I am going to take the rest of this post step-by-step Anyway, back to assuming things where I left off. That being said, no science has ever proven religion to be false, and by saying religion is false, you are ASSUMING God is not real, and so you yourself are a hipocrite. (Not a very Christianly thing to say, I know. I am judging people by saying that, but I am human, what can I say? :P) Science has yet to prove that the Big Bang actually happened. Science has yet to prove evolution to be on-going. Science has yet to prove how the Earth was actually formed. Now I myself believe in Evolution, the Big Bang, and the theories involved on how the Earth formed., up to a point. I believe God set everything in motion. Matter, energy, the Big Bang, Evolution. And that He had a direct hand in all of these things to create conditions for humans to eventually exist. The whole creation story in the Bible is not to be taken literally. It is just that: a story in order to simplify how God created everything. In the creation story, it says 7 days...I believe it probably was more like 7 BILLION YEARS. May seem like seven days to Him, but to us, it was BILLIONS of years. If you read into the creation story in the Bible, and try to "interpret" what the Bible says about creation, you'll discover that, omg, yes, evolution is probably real! "In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the DEEP, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters" DARKNESS WAS OVER THE SURFACE OF THE DEEP. What does that sound like? Sounds like the universe just before the Big Bang to me. ok, so God created the universe with nothing in it. "And God said "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he seperated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day" This was the first BIG step taken. The Big Bang already happened, and the stars have formed and have become seperated from eachother. The planets are forming, gasses are seperating. "And God said, "let there be an expanse between the waters to seperate water from water." So God made the expanse and seperated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky" And there evening and there was morning - the second day. Over the next billion years, the earth...not as we know it...was beginning to be formed. All the methane and nasty other gasses, together with all the volcanic activity formed the atmosphere, and eventually water began to fall from the sky to form vast, deadly, oceans. And God said "Let the water from the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so God called the dry ground "land" and the gathered waters he called "sea." And God saw that it was good Then God said "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. The land produced vegetation....etc.... Over another couple million years, the earth begins to cool down, due to the formation of water, which would cool the stmoshpere down quite a bit, and the poles begin to freeze, locking up huge amounts of water, forming more land. The second part, life finally begins to evolve. Plants (mostly bacterias, but later more advanced plants) begin to form, because they can use all the carbon dioxide in the atmoshere as energy, and they convert that into oxygen. "And God said "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to seperate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark season and days and years, and and let be be light in the expance of the sky to give light on the earth."....etc... Now, here, the atmoshpere begins to get less and less thick, as oxygen beings to permeate throughout. You know the planet Venus, and how it is earths sister planet? Venus is pretty much like the earth BEFORE the earth started to get populated with simple vegatative life. JMR already talked about Venus and how we could send bacteria down into the atmosphere of that planet, they would survive those harsh conditions, and eventually produce enough oxygen to perhaps have water molecules form, and it would begin to rain. The mixture of rain and oxygen would cool the planet down, the cloud cover would begin to disappear, and there would be light one could see from the surface of the planet. Venus would be a bit opposite of what happened to earth, but is the same concept. "And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the GREAT creatures of the sea and every living and moving this with which the water teems, according to their kind"....etc.... Here is the PERFECT example of God setting evolution in motion. After the earth was formed, it cooled down, and plant life began to grow, all the sudden, over a couple million more years, animals begin to form. They begin to crawl onto the land. Also VERY intriguing is the use of the words "SO GOD CREATED THE GREAT CREATURES." Could this mean the dinosaurs? Near the end it says "and let the birds increase on the earth." One could very well see parallels here that "letting the birds increase" could actually mean that the dinosaurs would evolve INTO birds. I.E. T-Rex would become a chicken! SCIENCE HAS THEORIES ON THIS EXACT THING HAPPENEING!!! ok, going on. Then God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each accoording to their kind." etc... The dinosaurs are now evolving into smaller, more useful animals, such as horses, pigs (could it be? possibly even MONKEY-LIKE CREATURES??") Eventually, God created man in his own image. FINALLY, we come about! NOW, here is another shocking revelation on the truth of the Bible! Perhaps one of the most convincing things ever: If the Bible preaches about how God created EVERYTHING, even Evolution, AND if the Bible was written between the year 1450 BC - 70 AD, back then, NOONE, knew ANYTHING about evolution. In fact, the theory of evolution didn't even come about until Charles Darwin first published the idea in 1837...EITEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN AD!! That was ONLY 171 years ago! Do you want ANY MORE proof? I could talk about the chances of the sun being the size it is, the heat and light it gives off in order to sustain life a planet. I could go further and explain about the CHANCES of a galaxy to be as stable as the milky way is. I could talk about the CHANCES of the PERFECT sized piece of rock being the EXACT PERFECT distance form the PERFECT star in order to support such abundant life. THEN about the chances of that rock having a magnetic core which produces the magnetosphere, combined with the thickness of the ozone layer, which, when in combination of one another, regulates PERFECTLY the amount of radiation coming down to the PERFECT sized rock, that is in the PERFECT postion in space relative to the PERFECT star in order to support abundant life. Shall I continue? Now, this PERFECT condition has to happen to have the PERFECT mixture of gasses in order to support abundant life. Not only that, but the PEFRECT mixture of gasses, when combined with ALL of the PERFECT condition as stated above, in order to support this life. And don't forget: The Milky Way is one of THE most stable galaxies we have ever been able to observe yet! Shall I continue? Not to mention having a huge gass giant just beyond the asteroid belt (and YES, the asteroid belt is VERY MUCH needed inthe creation of a rocky planet the size of our earth). This huge gas giant...Jupiter, in our case, has to be close enough to the belt to suck up any stray asteroids, thereby preventing the earth from constant strikes, thereby disrupting any chance life MAY have. You can see all the strikes that have hit the moon as it is. But as the HUGE impact of asteroids that have been viewed for the first time only a couple years ago on Jupiter has shown, how incredibly lucky we are to have such a friendly giant neighbor. Shall I go on? All of this STILL has not explained how life even started to BEGIN with. AND I STILL have not talked about all the other far-out chances for the perfect condition for abundant life here, most of which I cannot remember, or care to explain right now. Tell me when to stop, please..... I guess I will right here, I could write almost a whole book right now, if I haven't already
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 03:18 am OMG! We have an heretic among us! hehehe Sorry, Michael. I couldn't help it. :p
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 03:24 am To anyone who cares to have SCIENTIFIC proof of the existence of God, please, you have to read the above post that I made. Science...or atheistic scientists....could not possibly come up with a case against God all scientific research and evidence that man kind has ever achieved. And to try to do so, is horribly unscientific. That is another lesson of science other than ASSUMING something is true or false: Chances. Science is NOT the lottery. If there is even a chance of something not being 100%...scientists could be 99.999999999% sure something is true, but if it isn't perfectly 100%, then it is only a theory, and will never be considered a scientific law. This exact argument has been made in the public education system only a few years ago. The US government wanted to teach kids about "Intelligent Design" in the public schools for this VERY reason. Huge problem with that is that they cannot use the words God, or "a god", or "the gods." Only that "something" had to have created life. Whether it be aliens or whatever, which would only CONFUSE the kids even more! Hell, I hate the idea of aliens that created life on earth, because then you only run into the same damn problem: what, or who, created the ALIENS? You could make the same argument about how God was created, but at that point,l it is just getting way to futile, because you FINALLY come down to the essential beliefe system of every single human ever in existance: Where did God come from? Christians, Jews, and Muslims say that God is eternal, and all the atheists will cry foul. The reason religions just take it on faith, is simply because to do otherwise, you'll only end up becoming a mad, frustrated old fool, who only thinks that all the answers are obtainable by the human mind. Or perhaps "collective" minds...and that is called "the internet".
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 03:47 am John: LOL so THAT is why there are so many atheists that play this game: This is actually an atheistic group in wich anyone who has a religion is called a "heretic." lol Unless your referring to me about reinterpretting the Bible. hehehe I forget where in the Bible it is (I am no scriture scholar at all) But I seem to remember somewhere in the Bible, maybe in Revelation, saying about how more and more people will come to understand more of "the truth" or something along those lines. I dunno, I just remember something about that, because I have always thought that Genesis was about evolution. And before 171 years ago, evolution has never even been thought of at all. Considering this book has been around for thousands of years, and for thousands of years people have been reading Genesis, and taking it to literally mean 7 days and so forth, then all the sudden, in the 1830s, the idea of evolution is formed, and is formed after Christ died. a century and a half after Darwin proposed that idea, people (I am not the only one) began to make the connection between Genesis and Evolution, and so a "truth" has been made clear, like how I remember revelation describing it...or was it that abominable "Left Behind Series"? I don't remember where it was, or what it said, but I remember thinking, "Wow! THAT'S what they were talking about"....
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 11:02 am OK, I'll bite. In response to your first two posts: Now, with that out of the way, and since I believe Christians, Muslims and Jews all worship the exact same God, we all should, in actuality, be brotherly towards one another. The reasons for making this impossible: They may worship the same God, but they disagree completely on how he should be worshipped. Jews believe you must follow the Torah (Old Testament) to get to Heaven and do not believe in later prophets (Jesus and Mohammed). Christians follow Jesus as the way to salvation. He supposedly replaced some of the laws of the Old Testament liberating the Christians from certain practices (not wearing two kinds of material, declaring all animals to be clean and therefore edible). How can Jews respect the beliefs of Christians whom they must think are committing abominations according to their own laws? How can Christians respect the beliefs of Jews who have denied Jesus as mankind's saviour? Both must deny that the other will get to Heaven for they are on different paths. Muslims have one prophet more (Mohammed) who replaced much of the rules laid down by Jesus (it is my understanding that Muslims recognise both Jesus and Moses as lesser prophets, but follow the rules laid down by their later prophet, Mohammed). Likewise, how can they respect the beliefs of Jews and Christians who fail to recognise the prophet Mohammed? Similarly, how can Jews and Christians respect the beliefs of Muslims who have replaced the rules of Moses and Jesus with those of Mohammed, whom they do not consider to be a prophet? All three must deny that two of the others cannot reach Heaven as they are following the wrong set of rules. Here, we have the makings of conflict and a moral dilemma in terms of how to get to Heaven. Which path should an atheist (or theist who has not yet picked a Religion) chose? All three believe sincerely in their particular book/prophet. All three must sincerely believe that the others are wrong, for otherwise, they would have changed religion themselves. This is the fallacy in your argument that it is better to believe in one of these Religions rather than none. It is generally known as Pascal's Wager after the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. It is not a simple 50-50 choice. If there isn't a God, it makes no difference what you believe, if there is a God, you have the pick of thousands of religions (who's to say that Zeus or Woden or Mithras isn't the true God?). It could be that worshipping the wrong God will send you straight to Hell, whereas believing in no God, but otherwise leading a moral life might send you through purgatory and to Heaven, or a least a lesser circle of Hell? Who is to say that the one true God, Baal, is not insanely jealous of Yahweh, his rival? Furthermore, believing is not something you can "just do". Surely God would be aware that you have only been paying lip-service to the rules He has laid down in the hope of sneaking past him into Heaven? Surely he would have more respect for the atheist who doesn't believe and is open about it, but lives a moral life nonetheless? In fact, why not buy something like a robotic Electric Monk to do your believing for you (Douglas Adams suggested this in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency)?
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 12:01 pm Anyone who wants proof as to the existence of God, there is no stronger evidence than if you just look around. Go outside on a clear cold night, in the middle of the wilderness, and look up. Yes, I see lots of large balls of nuclear fusion, cluster together in Galaxies. How does this prove God exists? In many respects, it disproves the veracity of the Bible (at least, the Old Testament). There is plenty of evidence for the Big Bang (I'll go into this in detail if called on it, but will leave discussion for a separate post) which puts the origin of the universe at 13.7 Billion years old - far older than suggested by the Six-Day model of Genesis. In fact, you may note that Genesis actually contains two creation myths, one after the other which contradict each other. Science is SOOO chock full of evidence for the existence of God. MANY scientists have went from being atheist, to being true believers simply because they HAVE studied science. I would disagree, and say that many have gone from being believers to atheist simply because they have studied science. For a start, there are plenty of scientific absurdities in the Bible: * The bat is a bird (Lev. 11:19, Deut. 14:11, 18) - it's not, it's a mammal; * Hares chew the cud (Lev. 11:6); * The earth was formed out of and by means of water (2 Peter 3:5 RSV) - I could go into the formation of the Solar System if you ask me to; * The earth rest on pillars (1 Sam. 2:8) - evidence used to support the "theory" that the Earth is flat; * The earth has ends or edges (Job 37:3) - ditto; * The earth has four corners (Isa. 11:12, Rev. 7:1) - ditto; * Some 4-legged animals fly (Lev. 11:21) - I challenge anyone to name one; * A foetus can understand speech (Luke 1:44) - how many conversations have you known to take place with an unborn child, or even a one-year old for that matter. SCIENCE is not supposed to take anything for granted. either something is true, or it is false. There are theories if scientists just are not quite sure yet whether something is true or false. One thing a good scientist never does is to ASSUME something is correct. Agreed, science should not take anything for granted. No good scientist should assume that something is correct. Why do you assume that (a) God exists; (b) you have picked the right God? Anyway, I now need to explain what a Scientific Theory is. Theory is not used as a synonym for guess or hunch. A theory is developed from observation and experimentation. We only have a Theory of Gravity but you wouldn't catch a scientist stepping out of a fifth floor window because it's only a theory. Likewise, we only have a Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection (another theory that makes a mockery of Genesis). We do, however, have oodles of evidence to back that theory up. Theories can be modified if new evidence is supplied. Newton formulated his three Laws of Motion in 1687. They offer a theoretical model of how objects move. Towards the beginning of the 20th Century, it was noticed that these Laws do not hold true if an object is travelling extremely fast (above 50% of the speed of light). Einstein took the inspirational leap to come up with his Theory of Relativity. This reduces to Newton's Laws when low speeds are considered, but makes a correction at higher speeds, matching observations. When it comes to God, we have no evidence. We must therefore assume that the theory is false. If you think you have evidence, provide it. That being said, no science has ever proven religion to be false, and by saying religion is false, you are ASSUMING God is not real, and so you yourself are a hipocrite. (Not a very Christianly thing to say, I know. I am judging people by saying that, but I am human, what can I say? Scientists are not saying that religion is false. They are saying that there is no evidence for God. You are being hypocritical, not I. In any case, evidence for A God, may not be evidence for Your God. Science has yet to prove that the Big Bang actually happened. Science has yet to prove evolution to be on-going. Science has yet to prove how the Earth was actually formed. I would argue this point, but as you go on to say that you believe in the theories up to a point, I'll hold off on this one. I believe God set everything in motion. Matter, energy, the Big Bang, Evolution. And that He had a direct hand in all of these things to create conditions for humans to eventually exist. Ah! This is generally known as the Lazy God. He clicks his fingers and an elegant universe appears out of a bunch of deceptively simple rules. He need do nothing more. It might also be argued that you are referring to the God of the Gaps, the idea that God is apparent in the gaps in human knowledge. Prior to the theories of the Big Bang and Evolution, these were the realm of God. Once these theories had been developed, God was pushed back to just starting the whole thing. Other areas of human ignorance were left to God. There are two problems with this. As science advances, God is left with fewer and fewer things to do (eventually leading to the Lazy God I mentioned above). Secondly, it crushes human imagination as it becomes all too easy to stick a label of "God did it" over something we don't know and forget about it. Newton was guilty of that. He came up with a Law of Gravity that accurately described the motion of the planets and stopped there. He thought his job as a scientist was merely to describe how God had decreed that the universe should work. His curiosity into what causes gravity was stifled. (In any case, we have not yet tied gravity down to a cause. A new fundamental particle, the graviton, has been suggested based on the mathematics, but we do not yet have evidence for it.) Dark Energy is another case. The universe is expanding; we have plenty of evidence of that. What is worrying, is that it is expanding faster than it should. Worse still, it is expanding at an ever greater speed, which according to current theory, it shouldn't. To solve this, we need some sort of force of anti-gravity to push against the force of gravity to accelerate the expansion. This has been named as Dark Energy (the theory is closely linked to that of Dark Matter which is why it is thought to be energy and not something more exotic; and dark because we can't see it or haven't yet). If we follow the God of the Gaps, we might be satisfied with saying that the universe is expanding because God has decreed it to be so. From the point of view of a scientist, this is terribly unsatisfactory. A scientist would go out and start looking for Dark Energy which is exactly what we are doing. DARKNESS WAS OVER THE SURFACE OF THE DEEP. What does that sound like? Sounds like the universe just before the Big Bang to me. ok, so God created the universe with nothing in it. A bit vague if you ask me. It's dark over the surface of the oceans during the night too. "And God said "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he seperated the light from the darkness. God called the light "day" and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day" This was the first BIG step taken. The Big Bang already happened, and the stars have formed and have become seperated from eachother. The planets are forming, gasses are seperating. Light existed before the stars, the stars existed well before planets. Day and night are only apparent to people on the surface of a planet orbiting a star. The story could have been written by anyone who had noticed that it was light during the day and dark at night. I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve by going through one version of Genesis and arguing that it shouldn't be taken literally, particularly given what you say at the end of it: If the Bible preaches about how God created EVERYTHING, even Evolution, AND if the Bible was written between the year 1450 BC - 70 AD, back then, NOONE, knew ANYTHING about evolution. In fact, the theory of evolution didn't even come about until Charles Darwin first published the idea in 1837...EITEEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN AD!! That was ONLY 171 years ago! The Bible says nothing about evolution. It says that the animals and plants were created in a particular order, presumably in their current form. It makes no allowance for even minor changes in a creature that would hint at evolution. Do you want ANY MORE proof? I could talk about the chances of the sun being the size it is, the heat and light it gives off in order to sustain life a planet. I could go further and explain about the CHANCES of a galaxy to be as stable as the milky way is. I could talk about the CHANCES of the PERFECT sized piece of rock being the EXACT PERFECT distance form the PERFECT star in order to support such abundant life. THEN about the chances of that rock having a magnetic core which produces the magnetosphere, combined with the thickness of the ozone layer, which, when in combination of one another, regulates PERFECTLY the amount of radiation coming down to the PERFECT sized rock, that is in the PERFECT postion in space relative to the PERFECT star in order to support abundant life. This is an example of the argument from the anthropic principle - the principle that the Earth is ideal to support life so it must have been planned that way. This argument falls down because humans are hopeless at dealing with the vast scale of the probabilities involved. It has been estimated (based on observations) that there are between 1 Billion and 30 Billion planets in our Galaxy. There are estimated to be over 100 Billion Galaxies in the visible universe (I say "estimated" because no-one has counted them all). Even if we knock a few noughts off, that is still a billion billion planets on which life can start. Even if the chances of life starting are a billion to one against, that's still a billion planets on which life probably started. As we are here to discuss the matter, we must have been on one of those planets. It's also called the Goldilocks principle. One bowl of porridge was too warm, one too cold, one just right. Life started on our planet because it was not too hot, not too cold, but just right. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. If you are on that needle, you don't have to look far. So, in answer to your question, yes, I do want some more proof. Or rather, I want any proof.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 01:02 pm Chances. Science is NOT the lottery. If there is even a chance of something not being 100%...scientists could be 99.999999999% sure something is true, but if it isn't perfectly 100%, then it is only a theory, and will never be considered a scientific law. In a court of law, we are able to convict people provided that the evidence is convincing beyond all reasonable doubt. The same holds for science. That reasonable doubt is usually the fault of an error in the theory. Like Newton's Laws failing to hold at significant speeds, it points to area upon which we should concentrate research. It does not invalidate the theory. As I said before, we only have a Theory of Gravity; I do not advocate testing it by stepping out of a fourth floor window. I would like, if I may, to return to my discussion about respect that I began at the beginning of my first post. To recapitulate, I argued that Christians, Jews and Muslims cannot respect each other's beliefs. The same holds true between theist and atheists. Ultimately, we each think the other is wrong, and are thus unable to respect the other's beliefs. Here is where I get a little worried in posting about religious and philosophical matters. Without respect, discussions such as these risk deteriorating into a bitter argument with battle lines drawn and hatred developing. This can apply to both sides. I assume that this is part of the reason why FarmerBob has a policy of never posting about Religion; a policy which I can certainly respect. However, I can respect people, and I can respect well-argued discussions. As a result, although I think your beliefs are wrong, I respect you as a person for standing up for those beliefs and for arguing cogently for them. I hope that anyone who posts here will take a similar view on the matter and extend to me the same courtesy that I shall endeavour to extend to them.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 08:22 pm hhmm, good arguments all Zet. Like I have said in other posts in other threads, I am not here to try to convert you to Christianity by any means. I would be a hipocrite if I were to do so. A couple of things (which, in all likelyhood, will turn out to be more than a "couple things" lol) Well, the Bible never comes out and explicitly says the word "evolution." When reading the Bible, you have to look MUCH deeper than what the words are. It is much like poetry. In fact, the Bible IS a book of poetry. In poetry, or any kind of rhyme, the words do not mean exactly what they say. There is always deeper meaning in the words. Which is why I used Genesis as an example of this. The order in which God created everything is the exact same order that science says happened in life to have formed. And this, I should not have to remind you, was written WAY WAY before all of these theories even came to fruition. I am all for brand new scientific studies, and research and discoveries. I am very interested in all of that. However, with each huge new discovery, a bit more of the Bible and it's meanings become a lot more clear to those who study both. (I am only 25, and have a lot yet to learn, but what I HAVE learned so far is that science is saying the same thing the Bible says about things if you look at it closely enough) Now, you could compare that to thinking that Nostradamus actually predicted the future by using vague language. I admit, there is a ton of vague language being used in the Bible, and can be open to interpretation any way a person sees fit. The only way for anyone to decide for themselves is to actually open the Book and read what it says. Not just read it, but to try to make sense of every word printed in the Book. I did that with Genesis while I was trying to figure out what to believe myself between evolution and creation. What I have discovered is that...wow! The Bible actually has the order of creation down EXACTLY the order that science says MUST happen. That being said, I want to now skip to your argument about "the Lazy God.": I heard about the Lazy God theory in which any religious person will just say "oh, God did it!" if they themselves cannot understand why things work the way they work. It may have come across that I am one of those people, but I assure you, I am not! The way I see it, is that let's say God is a great computer programmer. Let's say this is just a gigantic video game he programmed for a minute, so I can explain what I believe how he created everything. A video game programmer will use tons of lines of code (In this case, we can call them "scientific laws".) to set out the rules, the tokens, the physics engine, everything, in order to set up the way the game works, and the way the player interacts with the game. So, God created the universe, and all the laws, and physics, and so forth much the same way a programmer would create a video game. You set out all the codes, and rules and so forth before you begin playtesting or whatever. Now, we are the people in this vast giant game. Our scientists would be the students studying how the program works, how it was built, put together, and why it works the way it does. My ultimate question to any religious person, and all atheist scientists is the same question all religious scientists ask: Why does the idea of a God have to be mutually exclusive from the idea of a no-god universe that just kind of "happened."? I think it is a very reasonable assumption to make . I do not want you to think I am only reaching here, because I came to this conclusion only a few years ago when I first became a True Christian (non-denominational). I was raised Catholic, but never truly believed. I had to study on my own, to decide to be Truly Christian, and there are many real scientists who come to the same conclusion eventually. About the whole conflict between the 3 religions thing: My church believes that we do not have any enemies. Muslims are not our enemies. They are human, like us, and so should be given the same respect that all of God's Children deserve. This is something that Jesus taught and preached throughout his life time. Remeber the story of the prostitute, where Jesus to the people that, he who is without sin, should be the one to throw the first rock? The woman was a sinner in the eyes of God, but Jesus came and saved her, without her even asking to be saved. She was very grateful, and followed Jesus for the rest of her life. There is also the story of the Good Semaritan, which is perhaps the best argument made in the Bible about respecting other people of different cultures. We, as Christians, are not to condemn others' because of their beliefs or cultural backgrounds, but we do, even I, simply because of our human nature. As do you. You claim to be completely open-minded, and come close to saying that all Atheists are just as open-minded about other belief systems, such as religions. The truth is, your not nearly as open-minded as you like to think you are. No body in the entire history of the globe, with the exception of Jesus Christ himself, is truly open-minded.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 08:36 pm A few more points I wanted to make: There may not be actualy PROOF as to the existence of God, but neither is there proof AGAINST the existence of God. I just happen to think the EVIDENCE for God is much stronger than the evidence against God. Chances: Yes, there are billions, upon biollions, even trillions of trillions of planets in existence. The chances of life on a planet as abundant on earth is still pretty nil. One other HUGE chance that it took that I never even mentioned before: There is (presumably) only one universe, and this is the only one. (I dunno about all them parallel universe theories. I do not read too much into that.) Now, what are the chances of this universe having the exact right amount of matter in it, for all the laws of physics to work the way they do? I mean, any less matter, and nothing would form. Any more matter, and the universe would only collapse in on itself before anything even has the chance of forming. The scary thing about the universe expandning the way it is, is that there is just as much matter in a larger space, and so things would begin to seperate from one another quicker, thereby speeding up the growing processes of the universe even more. Eventually, everything, the starts, planets...everything, will just completely rip apart, due to too little matter in such a large universe. Thankfully, that is probably billions and billions of years off. If there happened to have been less matter in the universe, everything would already have been blown away. If there was any more matter in the universe, our earth, even after 13.5 billion years, would still have not formed. Even if it would be able to form, the universe would only collapse in on itself before life even has a chance to start, due to the sheer weight of all that matter. (forgot, I had mentioned that we do not have any enemies in my last post. That is false. Satan is The Enemy).
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 10:04 pm Why does the idea of a God have to be mutually exclusive from the idea of a no-god universe that just kind of "happened."? I'm not sure if I understand your point correctly. You seem to be suggesting that it is possible for us to live in a universe that just kind of "happened" without a god, but that this is not mutually exclusive with the existence of a God. Surely, given your references to Genesis, you believe that God created the universe? Or, if God did not create the universe, but still exists, then why worship him? It would seem that he has declared himself King of a universe that he did not create which would be kind of arrogant. I think I must have misinterpreted your point. There is also the story of the Good Semaritan, which is perhaps the best argument made in the Bible about respecting other people of different cultures. Indeed, it is a very good parable that demonstrates the principle of the Golden Rule or Ethic of reciprocity - the idea that you should treat others how you yourself would like to be treated. It appears in one form or another in most religions and codes of ethics (including texts of Hinduism dating back to 8-4th Century BCE, Confucius in the 3rd Century BCE and Ancient Greek philosophers in the 4th Century BCE). We, as Christians, are not to condemn others' because of their beliefs or cultural backgrounds, but we do, even I, simply because of our human nature. As do you. You claim to be completely open-minded, and come close to saying that all Atheists are just as open-minded about other belief systems, such as religions. The truth is, your not nearly as open-minded as you like to think you are. I haven't claimed to be completely open-minded, nor have I suggested that atheists are open-minded about other belief systems. I am, however, interested in understanding why people believe what they believe. I very much doubt it will change my beliefs for I have thought them through very carefully, nor do I expect to change yours. However, it would be nice if we could try to understand how we have ended up on opposite sides of the theism/atheism debate despite both having a keen interest in science. There may not be actualy PROOF as to the existence of God, but neither is there proof AGAINST the existence of God. I just happen to think the EVIDENCE for God is much stronger than the evidence against God. I agree to some extent that there is no proof as to the existence or non-existence of God (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - but then neither is it evidence of existence). I would still like to know what evidence you have in favour of God, and why you think that God is the Christian God. Yes, there are billions, upon biollions, even trillions of trillions of planets in existence. The chances of life on a planet as abundant on earth is still pretty nil. I disagree. Life only has to START once. From then on, Natural Selection can act to create life as abundant and diverse as here on Earth. As I said before, even if we come up with an extremely conservative estimate of the probability (1 billion to 1) there is every chance that life would start somewhere in the universe. As we are the product of that start (and a few billion years of evolution), it is not much of a surprise to find ourselves on a planet that is capable of supporting us. Now, what are the chances of this universe having the exact right amount of matter in it, for all the laws of physics to work the way they do? NOW we're getting somewhere [I suppose I should warn you that I have a degree in physics so I may have an unfair advantage here]. You are beginning to ask challenging questions. I need to re-phrase your question a bit though. Please allow me to explain why. The question should be: Why is the universe made of this amount of matter and not anti-matter, or energy only? This is actually a big question in physics at the moment. It's a bit of a puzzle why the universe seems to be made up entirely of matter when our theories say that there should have been an equal amount of anti-matter at the beginning of the universe. As matter and anti-matter annihilates on contact, if the universe started with equal amounts of each, they should have annihilated leaving only energy. Obviously, in that case we wouldn't be around to discuss the matter (!) but that is hardly a satisfactory explanation - the equivalent of saying that "it is because it is". I would like to have an explanation for why this is, but the truth is we don't (yet) know. Read more here. What's interesting is that, if the universe was made up of anti-matter rather than matter, we probably wouldn't know any different. We have managed to produce an atom of anti-hydrogen, but have not produced any heavier anti-elements. There is nothing to suggest that anti-chemistry (chemistry with anti-particle equivalents) would be any different that chemistry (save the risk of annihilation with normal matter in the lab!). The scary thing about the universe expandning the way it is, is that there is just as much matter in a larger space, and so things would begin to seperate from one another quicker, thereby speeding up the growing processes of the universe even more. Eventually, everything, the starts, planets...everything, will just completely rip apart, due to too little matter in such a large universe. Correct. Eventually all that will be left is a little residual energy spread over an enormous volume. It will take a long time (by 1040 years from now all that will be left are black holes; by 10100 these will evaporate to leave only energy) although it is thought that stars will no longer form after 100 trillion years (1014 years). The Bible actually has the order of creation down EXACTLY the order that science says MUST happen. I've left my response to this to last for my own convenience. Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The Earth didn't form until well after the stars and galaxies. 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Yep, light was there before the Earth too. 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Although light existed before the stars, you need a star (and a planet orbiting it) to make day and night. 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. This happened the other way around too. We had lots of land, and water formed MUCH later. 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. Well, we got bacteria first by a few hundred million years, but they wouldn't have known about bacteria when the Bible was written. 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. The Sun (as well as being a star) would have been created well before the Earth and moon. The Earth did come first though. I am assuming that the lesser of the two great lights refers to the moon, but the moon doesn't actually give off its own light, merely reflecting that of the sun. 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. We'd have got the sea creatures first, but the birds came much later. 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Assuming creeping thing means insect, they would have appeared much earlier. Cattle didn't really come about until we had stopped being hunter-gatherers and settled down to farming, but they could have just been untamed bovines I suppose. 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Hmm, I thought God created Eve from Adam's rib. I guess that must be in the second part of Genesis. Anyway, I hope this has made you think about whether the order is correct. I have another question although it's not directed at you. If there are any Bible-literalists reading, who did Adam and Eve's children procreate with? Is this justification for incest? [MM, I hope you'll forgive that rather tongue-in-check question, it's one that has been bugging me for ages] [Bible quotes taken from the King James Version]
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 03:24 pm Oops, sorry, I read that first line you had posted and went no further. I completely wrote that wrong. I read it, and it still made no sence to me What I mean is, why does the debate of a God that created the universe vs evolution, the big bang theory and all of that good stuff seem to be mutually exclusive in most peoples' minds? Again, sorry, just wanted to clear that up before I start in on the rest of your post. More will likely follow! :P
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 05:08 pm Ok, after getting my first response out of the way, I totally screwed THAT one up! :P I am going down and reading/responding to each of your points 1 by one. "I haven't claimed to be completely open-minded, nor have I suggested that atheists are open-minded about other belief systems. I am, however, interested in understanding why people believe what they believe. I very much doubt it will change my beliefs for I have thought them through very carefully, nor do I expect to change yours. However, it would be nice if we could try to understand how we have ended up on opposite sides of the theism/atheism debate despite both having a keen interest in science." That's actually a very very good point there. I totally agree with you *Shudders* I agree with you on something? Damn!. I think the reason why we end up on opposite sides is simply because we must be interpreting the evidence differently, and God only knows why that is. (lol, yup, only GOD knows! ;) ) "I agree to some extent that there is no proof as to the existence or non-existence of God (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - but then neither is it evidence of existence). I would still like to know what evidence you have in favour of God, and why you think that God is the Christian God." Well, the evidence for God...the Christian/Judeo God, anyway...first is archaeology. They have found pieces of pottery throuhgout the Sinai Peninsula in the Judeo style. There is evidence of a massive world-wide flood all over the world. They have found what could be ancient temples (SOMETHING, whatever it was meant to be, looks very much man-made) off the coasts Japan. Same with the Bimini Road in the Carribean. There have been other archaeological sites around the world for that very evidence. They believe they have found Noah's Ark on the top of....forget what mountain. One of the tallest mountain peaks in the world. They even have satellite pictures of this huge thing that looks like an very large ancient boat on top of the peak. What in the world would a boat be doing on top of a mountain that is 50,000+ feet high? The "spark" of life had to have only come from God. I just do not at all see how a bunch of amino acids and proteins can come together to form life. It just simply makes no sense to me. If it were true, then where would the line between life and non-life be? I don't think I could ever get my head around that. Same goes for the cretion of the god-less universe. One of the biggest laws of physics (I believe was one of Einsteins theory) is that matter is neither created nor destroyed. If that is the case, WHERE would all of this matter come from to begin with? I suppose everything little piece of matter in the universe would, in fact, have to be infinite. Where the universe gets so large, collaspes in on itself, there's a Big Bang, gets too large, collapses in on itself, another Big Bang...etc...That doesn't make much sense to me either. There is more, but I am using these as examples of a few of the evidence that I know of. "I disagree. Life only has to START once. From then on, Natural Selection can act to create life as abundant and diverse as here on Earth. As I said before, even if we come up with an extremely conservative estimate of the probability (1 billion to 1) there is every chance that life would start somewhere in the universe. As we are the product of that start (and a few billion years of evolution), it is not much of a surprise to find ourselves on a planet that is capable of supporting us." even if it were 1 million to one of life starting (it is actually much much more than that), it is still pretty nil. Just because you have trillions of planets, it is still a million to one for it to start in any one place. I am only being an antagonist on this point, simply because, when it comes right down to it, I just simply do not believe it possible without God. We can make points and counter-points on the subject of CHANCE I suppose, but it is anyone's guess. My guess is just as good as Steven Hawkings guess as to the chances of life starting. Actually, come to think of it, http://www.hawking.org.uk/home/hindex.html You HAVE to go to this site. It is a very fascinating site. It is Steven Hawkings own personal site. Check out the lecture called "Does God play dice?" Both Hawking, and Einstein are Christians (well, WAS is a better word for Einstien, but you know what I mean.) Both of them are Christian simply because, in the end, they could not come up with a better conclusion. Those guys are the two most intelligent humans of the 20th-21st centuries. If you want evidence, you'll have to read Hawkings site. I am no where near smart, certified, nor eloquent enough to make these kinds of arguments. "I would like to have an explanation for why this is, but the truth is we don't (yet) know. Read more here. What's interesting is that, if the universe was made up of anti-matter rather than matter, we probably wouldn't know any different. We have managed to produce an atom of anti-hydrogen, but have not produced any heavier anti-elements. There is nothing to suggest that anti-chemistry (chemistry with anti-particle equivalents) would be any different that chemistry (save the risk of annihilation with normal matter in the lab!)." Phew! Wow! That kind of goes over my head! You are right, you'll have a huge advantage over me on this, and I do not want to argue you by any means on this point. I do think that scientists have a chance to figure all this jargon out, I still say that God is THE Great computer prgrammer! LOL "The scary thing about the universe expandning the way it is, is that there is just as much matter in a larger space, and so things would begin to seperate from one another quicker, thereby speeding up the growing processes of the universe even more. Eventually, everything, the starts, planets...everything, will just completely rip apart, due to too little matter in such a large universe. Correct. Eventually all that will be left is a little residual energy spread over an enormous volume. It will take a long time (by 1040 years from now all that will be left are black holes; by 10100 these will evaporate to leave only energy) although it is thought that stars will no longer form after 100 trillion years (1014 years)." LMAO!! That's actually TRUE?? See, I have great common sense. I made that up, because I thought of what happens to a glass of water when you dump it on the ground. I figured the same thing would happen to the universe then it spreads too thinly. Same thing happens to military forces as well. That is why large empires collapse. The whole last part you have posted: The biggest thing that has bothered me as well, is the whole procreation of Adam and Eve's sons. That is precisely why I do not take the Bible literally. The reason the Bible may have been written the way it was in Genesis about creation, I think, is because man would have been incapable of understanding things such as bacteria, and the sun as being a large ball of gas back then. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. "The Earth didn't form until well after the stars and galaxies." The word "heaven" is used before the word "earth." The night-time sky has always traditionally been called "the heavens." So in essence, yes, God DID, in fact create heaven (the stars and galaxies) before the earth. "1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. Yep, light was there before the Earth too." I have already mentioned what happened here. The earth, when it was first formed, was so full of deadly gasses, that the sky, if viewed form a human POV back then, would have been very dark. The sun's rays would not even have been able to penetrate the cloud cover, it was so thick. Look at Venus right now. Then what would have happened was that eventually it started raining, due to all the asteroid strikes (the solar system was VERY young then, and the rocks in the asteroid belt would not have been all sucked up by Jupiter and other planet yet, so every planet is being bombarded at this time). With the asteroids, there could have been water ice on them, and they would be falling to the earth by the thousands. The water would, actually, evaporate. But it would have cooled the earth down quite a bit over billions of years, begin to rain and cool the earth down further. The clouds would eventually dissipate, and light would begin to reach the surface of the earth for the first time. The Bible does not explain all of this, because, well, imagine people sitting there, reading this and scratching their heads. It was much easier to just say "it was just created" as a way to explain where light comes from. "1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. Although light existed before the stars, you need a star (and a planet orbiting it) to make day and night." This goes hand-hand with my above explanation. Before it was all dark, due to massive cloud cover. But since the sun's light is now visible, day-night periods would be noticeable. The Bible talks about day and night being seperated just in order to explain to people why it is so, in a very simplified, dumbed-down version. "1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. This happened the other way around too. We had lots of land, and water formed MUCH later." This means that volcanic activity would begin to decline, and actual solid land-masses beginning to take shape. Billions of years ago the earth was spewing forth all kinds of lava, everywhere. That is where the thick atmosphere came from. As it began to rain due to the asteroids and comets carrying water-ice to the planet, oceans would begin to form. At the same time, volcanic activity would begin to decline, and form real, solid, landmass. That's what "seperating the water from the water" means. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. Well, we got bacteria first by a few hundred million years, but they wouldn't have known about bacteria when the Bible was written." Look at the order in which God brought these things forth. One could interpret grass to = smaller life forms, such as bacteria, and algae. Algae is kind of a grassy-like thing to someone who has looked at both for the very first time. Then you move to a larger life for...herb yielding seed. Life is becoming more complex. Then an even larger life form...and the fruit yielding fruit tree after its kind.....the end-result of plant life! "1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. The Sun (as well as being a star) would have been created well before the Earth and moon. The Earth did come first though. I am assuming that the lesser of the two great lights refers to the moon, but the moon doesn't actually give off its own light, merely reflecting that of the sun." "The greater light to rule the day:" = plants get their energy from the sun, and so begin to use up all the carbon dioxide, and give off oxygen. "and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also." The lesser light governs life as well. The moon controls the tides, which is a HUGE, but lesser, factor in how life works on earth. Also, just because the cloud cover is beginning to lessen, and you can now see the sun, the earth would still be pretty well covered. It would still be pretty hot, but humid. With that much heat and humidity, you would not be able to see the stars quite yet...at least not very well. The earth is beginning to cool, and the humidity dropping. The sky would be much clearer, and so the stars would be seen. "1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. We'd have got the sea creatures first, but the birds came much later." Again, I think your still taking this too literally. The birds could be a metaphore for land-creatures in general. Besides, other versions of the bible talks about the sea creatures, then about "the great beasts," then about the birds. And not just the NIV. I know I have read another version of the Bible that states this. "The great beasts" meaning, perhaps, dinosaurs. There is strong evidence that dinosaurs, particularly the T-Rex, have evolved into birds. "1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Assuming creeping thing means insect, they would have appeared much earlier. Cattle didn't really come about until we had stopped being hunter-gatherers and settled down to farming, but they could have just been untamed bovines I suppose." Well, almost, not too far after, animals began coming to land, insects started to evolve as well. Certainly, by the cattle and (maybe) chimps and other, much smaller, animals came around, insects would have been VERY abundant. "1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Hmm, I thought God created Eve from Adam's rib. I guess that must be in the second part of Genesis." Finally, man kind evolved. I dunno about the whole thing about Adams rib. That could be some metaphore as well, for something or other. And I do believe that "Adam and Eve" were used to simply illustrate the coming of modern humans. Hope this post makes sense. I kind of thought about all this in my own mind a long time ago, but have never actually been able to put it into words, until now. Since you broke it up all nice like that, made it much easier to explain my position.
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 01:15 pm To reduce the amount of scrolling required, I have continued the discussion in a new thread. The new thread can be found here.
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| Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 09:00 pm The forum was pruned some time ago and posts deleted... This thread was actually about and before the Second Golf War.
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| Saturday, August 16, 2008 - 12:40 am Ah! So it was! Sorry...
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| Tuesday, September 19, 2017 - 07:45 pm Still relevant though...
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