This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity
Occhidiangela,Jan 3 2006, 01:44 PM Wrote:Our puny human brains went from "knowing of" spontaneous generation of frogs from mud to understanding reproduction in frogs.  Time is a variable in understanding.  In time, we may even understand God.  Or we may not...
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Most of the planet cannot comprehend t=0 during the Big Bang, so contemplating t=-1 is philosophical and probably unknowable. And, from a Judeo/IslamoChristian theological POV, unimportant. God is not flesh and bone, and does not get hungry. So often (and here too) the GOD discussion is suffused with anthropomorphisms which we humans resort to even in science when we fail to comprehend.

Addressing the problem from what I'm familiar with, the Christian theological POV one needs only examine Christ, who said he was the son of God. C.S.Lewis points out in "Mere Christianity" that examining that one statement a person needs to conclude either he is who he says he is, is insane, or lying. Christians believe that Christ is who he says he is, and therefore not only does God exist, but an uncomprehensible trinity relationship exists.

For science, I think that even if we discover and can replicate the process of initial life from nucleic acid enriched goo to the initial simple cell, it would not disuade Creationists from the belief in a Creator force that initiated the process, or brought about the right set of circumstances for the process to initiate. So, of course Creationists are going to look for design complexity in their observations of the natural world which indicate to them the validity of their philosophical beliefs.

The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it?
Quote:The Babel fish is small, yellow, leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the Universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it. It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the NON-existence of God.
The argument goes like this:
`I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly disappears in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, "Well, That about Wraps It Up for God."
Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.
I am a person who enjoys the diversity in beliefs, and I see no reason to poke holes into anyones philosophical bubbles. The only danger, as I pointed out above, is in mixing science and non-science philosophy. For me personally, I find that Darwin was partially right. Natural selection is an engine for evolution, but probably not as important as plate tectonics, ice ages, catastrophic weather, or asteroid and meteor impacts. What is amazing to me is that throughout all world history, how flexible, adaptable and persistent life has become on our planet and how the earth heals itself from catastrophe to emerge age after replendent age. As an earthling I may be biased, but the Earth is so beautiful in the macroscopic, microscopic, and even in the 4th dimension. When we look at a field of flowers, the scientist in us might see it as a flamboyant orgy of sex organs yearning for fertilization, but the poet in us might contemplate the dances of gods and goddesses.
”There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio.

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This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity - by Guest - 12-23-2005, 06:39 AM
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This re-instated what passes for faith in humanity - by kandrathe - 01-03-2006, 08:57 PM

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