Hi Giornale

I hope that you have enjoyed reading our debates and conversations ~ they have been very interesting for me.

You make a lot of points, here ~ many that I have read before ~ and this discussion, if pursued, is likely to take the thread kind of off-topic, as far as the Christmas connection goes. But, then, it's all inter-connected, really.

The Adam and Eve story was just one example of beliefs and tales that I do not accept as anything other than folklore and / or mythology. 'Noah's Ark' is another such tale; 'Jonah and the Whale' another, etc.

Yes, I accept the 'Adam and Eve' story as an allegory for the beginning of life on Earth.

But I most certainly do not accept that science is a god.
Science is science and has nothing to do with religion or god ~ except as an occasional counter to certain beliefs.

Actually, no-one knows how life began. Certain believers have mythological creation stories, but they are ancient, based on the limited knowledge available at the time, and cannot be accepted as truthful, without employing a lot of blind faith ~ which has no place in science and learning.

Some scientists do have some hypotheses about the beginning of life, which are based upon scientific knowledge.

Here is a really good presentation on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg

We are made from 'stardust'. Stardust provides the chemicals, required for us to exist. 'Stardust' is chemicals. These chemicals could be called a 'muddy soup', I suppose. I don't see a problem with that, provided the term is not used in a dismissive or derisive manner.

If we take these chemicals as the 'muddy soup', then of course it is rational to accept that we came from this 'muddy soup' ~ because we, self-evidently, are made from these chemicals.

It is not so rational to believe that a woman was made out of the rib of a man ~ but it is rational; to say that new life ~ babies ~ can come from existing life ~ parents.

It is not so rational to say that a man was moulded out of clay or earth, either ~ but it is reasonable to say that the elements that make up the Earth also make up us.

Thus, Genesis is a good allegory, but is not literally true.


I keep hearing this one ~ or versions thereof ~ and it is simply untrue. It is fundamentalist Christian propaganda.

As for scientific theories, I don't think that too many people have a problem with the theory of gravity, or with various mathematical theories. It is important to note the difference, though, between a scientific theory, a scientific hypothesis and the general 'theories', 'hypotheses', ideas and suggestions that may be put forward by non-scientists ~ or even the ill-educated.

If you study the writings of scientists, you will find that 'scientific theory' is as 'factual' as a scientist is ever likely to be.

Good scientists are aware that new knowledge may change their conclusions, but, based upon all of the knowledge currently available, and all of the scientifically plausible likelihoods, the best minds, the most intelligent specialists, the most highly educated experts, the most highly qualified scientific minds in the world ~ past and present ~ have come up with the 'Theory of Evolution'. That's good enough for me.

The Theory of Evolution' makes sense to me, without me having to be as knowledgeable, on that particular subject, as the experts are. As a non-scientist, I respect their learning and their expertise. I also know that this theory may have to be 'tweaked' to allow for new information. That's fine; that's science.

As a historian, I understand about the need to ascertain truths about ancient documents, but the Bible could be ancient and unchanged, with associated proofs of its age and reliability, without it ever being evidence of anything more than the existence, history, beliefs, hopes, etc, of an ancient tribe. It would not be evidence or proof that the mythology and religious beliefs of that tribe were true.

I respect everyone's right to their own beliefs ~ but I believe that the facts should always be taken into account.

Faith is faith. Religious beliefs are based in faith. I dare say that certain scientists sometimes act on faith. But science is science and is not a religious faith.

Thanks for your thought-provoking comments, Giornale, I wish you well too, in your own quest, and hope that you will keep reading.

Here is Richard Dawkins speculating on life's origins ~ and it is, and has to be, 'speculation':
'Richard Dawkins on the origins of life'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa55s9Gs_Eg

This is interesting, too:
'Stephen Hawking - How Did Life Begin?'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1R8-E71wAc

But we have certainly traveled a long way from the similarities between Santa and Satan or even Santa and Jesus

I keep trying to draw away but the discussion is interesting.

That said:



I agree and also that any additional discussion on the matter of our last exchanges should be moved elsewhere. The topic "Santa Unscrambled = Satan" is interesting enough all on its own without competing discussion about the origin of life

Accordingly I will shift to that area and post if I think any contribution might be of interest there.

Before doing so, however, one point to which I would like to respond.





How sure are you "...it is simply untrue. It is fundamentalist Christian propaganda?????

Let me illustrate why it was not as inappropriate an analogy as you thought. As to whether or not it represented "fundamentalist Christian propaganda" - I had no such thought in mind when I wrote it.

But before I do, a word about pre-animate earth or an earth that "stardust" seeded the planet with RNA or celestial DNA.

The scientific community now understands, that the early Earth's atmosphere was full of oxidants such as CO2 and N2. An oxidizing atmosphere is essentially neutral, even hostile to even simple organisms and does not permit organic chemistry to occur.

Also, if oxygen was not present there would be no ozone layer around the planet and ultraviolet radiation would annihilate any "life" whether indigineous or deposited by an asteroid! As well, the chemical "building blocks" of proteins (RNA/DNA) would also face a quick death whether in the air, on land, or in water from ultraviolet radiation.

So the "stardust" orgin of life on earth has major challenges to overcome if it is to be found credible.

Now to the "proof" that the analogy of an F5 tornado rummaging around in a trash dump for encyclopedic material was not sucn an inappropriate or even "untrue" analogy to make.

Let's say you took the little building blocks we all played with as children that had letters (A, B, C, etc) or numbers (1, 2, 3, etc) on all four sides (although many only had alpha/numeric on two sides (two blank sides) or three sides (one blank side).

For our example, we have twenty-seven little play blocks and they are the ones with alpha/numeric on three sides (leaving one side blank). Let's restrict the printing on the three sides just to alpha characters only (no numbers).

We throw all the twenty-seven little blocks into a bucket large enough to hold all of them but larger still to allow for them to move around a bit. A bucket like we used to take to the beach to play in the sand, build castles, hold sea water into which we placed our discoveries, etc.

The letters on three sides of our twenty-seven play blocks are like that "anagram", that "scrambled" sentence construction presented in "The Da Vinci Code" movie. Our letters if properly assembled in order from our blocks would spell out "the theory of evolution".

Now that the "building blocks" of our experiment have been assembled...how many tries would you say it would take...removing one block from the bucket at a time....and then have the letter or blank side facing you (without turning the block)...to correctly spell out in the exact word/space order as it appears in the following sentence - "the theory of evolution"???

Here is what would have to happen.

Each letter on each block plus one space has a 1 chance in 27 chance (the total number of our play blocks) of being displayed in the correct sequence for each word (and space) of our sentence to be assembled in sequence as it's called for.

In other words, no "scrabble"-like assembling of the words after all the letter are drawn. The letters/spaces have to appear in the exact order necessary to construct each word and space as they sequentially appear reading from left to right in the completed phrase "the theory of evolution".

Since there are 20 letters and 3 spaces in our phrase ("the theory of evolution") following the scenario just described would result in only one success in 8.3 attempts times 10 to the 32nd power!

At that rate, the correct assembly of letters and spaces would result in one successful completion of the phrase "the theory of evolution" only once in 25 billion years and even if the earth is as old as scientists tell us it is (approximately 5 billion years) then the random combining of all the necessary elements to create life on earth as evolutionists and scientists (and many in this type of discussion) emphatically state it happened...whether from that primordial soup I mentioned last post or seeded from meteorites...it would not have time to happen on an earth 5 billion years old given a 25 billion year developmental cycle!!!

Returning to my little analogy of the F5 tornado and the trash dump...surely the possibility of an F5 tornado emerging from investigating all the paper and related materials necessary to construct a bound set of encyclopedias in a trash dump will fare no worse mathematically speaking than creating the phrase "the theory of evolution" from play blocks emerging randomly from a bucket...much less what it takes to bring the even more unlikely scenario of the position scientists take on how "life" came to be to maturity.

Just a little something to ponder (and perhaps add to that "unsure" list agnostics maintain [[no sarcasm meant]] )

I've decided to throw this up (somewhat redacted) as a Forum Topic just to see what discussion it will generate (and steel myself for the endless debates sure to follow).

Respectfully submitted,

Giornale

Yes, as we are off topic, I shall respond ~ after pondering ~ in your new thread

But re the encyclopedia story ~ sorry, I cannot accept that one.