I apologize for acting un-Christ like....

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:25 am

dave4shmups wrote:Do you treat everyone that unmercifully??
I should hope not, because you are no more perfect then me or anyone else on that forum. And TWITCH is right; there was no need to be so rude in that thread.

Unmercifully?

This is NOT the first time you've done it. I took your apologies at face value the first couple of times. Now they're meaningless because, hey, you just keep doing it.

If you actually tried to stop and didn't stir up so much drama every few months, I'd accept that. But when you do the same shit over and over and over, you have to expect people to take with a grain of salt.

As for the rudeness in that thread, most of it showed up after people gave you help and linked you to information, and you still persisted without the slightest sign of thanks. At least from my perspective, not only was it a stupid question, but you were being really demanding about it. The rudeness was coming from both sides, and if you can't take a little ribbing for asking a dumb question, then maybe you should get off the internet. I don't think anyone in there meant any harm, and if I say something stupid my friends latch onto it like white on rice. I still hear crap I said five years ago brought up, but I don't take it as some sort of grand insult on me as a person.

In a few months this will happen again, you'll state your hatred for the board, and then you'll come back all apologies again. And it'll mean even less that time. Unless, of course, you prove me wrong, which I'd like to see.

Oh, and by the way, I'm well aware I'm not perfect. The difference is that I don't expect everyone to treat me with eternal patience no matter what I do, and if I routinely went back on my word over and over again (like, for example, if I promised to quit making internet drama), I understand why people would find it hard to trust me.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:36 am

FRO wrote:I'm of the mindset that I find it hard to believe that there isn't a God. After all, despite the terror and horror in the world (caused by man and his bad choices), there is so much beauty & intricacy to our world that I find it harder to NOT believe. I mean, if God didn't create the earth, how could it have come into being? Evolution just doesn't make any sense to me, and the notion of a God who created everything (as expansive as this universe is) seems more plausible than the "Big Bang" or "something from nothing" notions that most evolutionary thought is based upon.

<dons fireproof suit>

I don't understand math, but I'm well aware that it exists.

I can't quite wrap my head around how those little bits of metal in my computer somehow let me play a game where I fly a ship and blow stuff up, but I know it's not magic.

I'm very much of the opinion that just because I don't understand something doesn't mean I can just claim it was created by God. My mind is not the be-all, end-all intelligence in the universe, and I think the difference between agnostics and many (not all) religious people is that agnostics are willing to admit that we don't know everything, and instead of just assigning an arbitrary answer (God) to something we don't get, we try to figure it out from the facts that are presented to us. If that DOES eventually lead us to find that there's a God, then hey, great. But it's not treated as a foregone conclusion.

Oh, and the big bang and evolution have absolutely, positively nothing to do with each other, so I don't know why some Christians decide to lump them together. They're different theories (and a scientific theory is not the same as the general definition of a theory), explaining different things.

And for the record, every single piece of produce you buy in the supermarket is the result of evolution, because they're selectively bred by farmers to produce the best possible crops. Every dog you've ever had is the result of selective breeding (and thus, forced evolution), either directly (purebred) or indirectly (mutt) because over thousands of years they've been bred to be better pets for us humans. There's a reason poodles don't exist in the wild.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:41 am

if God didn't create the earth, how could it have come into being?

http://stardate.org/resources/ssguide/planet_form.html

Evolution just doesn't make any sense to me

"The Galápagos finches provide an excellent example of this process. Among the birds that ended up in arid environments, the ones with beaks better suited for eating cactus got more food. As a result, they were in better condition to mate. Similarly, those with beak shapes that were better suited to getting nectar from flowers or eating hard seeds in other environments were at an advantage there. In a very real sense, nature selected the best adapted varieties to survive and to reproduce. This process has come to be known as natural selection."

Read up

You just gave ammo to every atheist I know who says that religion is just an explanation for what we don't understand.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:45 am

Neon wrote:You just gave ammo to every atheist I know who says that religion is just an explanation for what we don't understand.

Too late!

My biggest problem is that many Christians (not all) who criticize evolution and the big bang theory have absolutely no concept about what they actually are. I mean, they have a general "I saw a show about it at EPCOT in Disney" understanding, but nothing beyond that. If you're going to complain that a scientific theory is incorrect or doesn't make sense, make sure you actually know what you're talking about first. People who've spent their entire lives doing research on these subjects probably have a greater understanding of them than the people who heard about it once on the Discovery Channel in the background while they were cooking dinner.

CMoon · Post by **CMoon** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:11 am

Fro> I'm going to say this as a Biology teacher--which is namely, you don't need an explanation for the beginning of the universe, beginning of the earth or the beginning of life. Although scientists have attempted to find some explanation for those things, I think they remain in the 'jury is still out' catagory, or at lesat, it is the sort of area where bringing in religious explanations are completely acceptable.

Evolutionary theory really does not include the origin of life. Those are seperate theories which are often lumped in, and while I find there is merit behind them, I leave them aside since alternative explanations exist.

However, when we talk about evolution, we talk about both theory and fact. Really, evolution just is the idea of descent with modification. If you believe in genes and their effect upon phenotype (your physical 'form') and you believe that some forms might have a better chance of surviving than others, then you already accept evolution. People who are 'anti-darwinists' are basically saying they don't believe in heredity or that heredity has any effect upon your survival (why have genes if they don't help you?)

Then there is the 'fact' of evolution which involves the geological record. Neon really isn't kidding. The evidence is there in the ground and no satisfactory alternative explanation has yet to be concocted. Things change over time!

Moving into a human time scale, we can see evolution at work. Bacteria and viruses adapt to our 'cures' the same way insects adapt to our pesticides. Artificial Selection is in fact 'old school man-manipulated evolution', so it seems silly to think it doesn't exist. In fact, if you don't believe in evolution, take a moment to pet your ever faithful dog--every dog breed originally came from wolf stock, and yet you might be hard pressed to find the wild and ravenous wolf in your chiahuahua.

I think the thing that bugs people most is what they call 'macro evolution'--namely, how do you get from something like a cell to a fish, or better yet, a fish to a human being (and then there are absolutely rediculous questions like tomato to a human being!!!) Well there isn't really a big or little picture, it is just one continuum of selection going on all the time. Still, there are beautiful examples. The evolution of birds from dinosaurs has really been mapped out elegantly in the last decade, with new evidence showing that some dinosaurs (not 'bird like dinos' ) had feathers. We have clear transitional froms.... Well, and then of course we realize that the big leaps most people assume aren't all that terribly big, and the big difference between a dino and a bird, or a reptile and a mammil is after all a pretty small thing, and there may be less difference between some mammals and reptiles (now extinct) than there are between one group of mammals and another.

*WHEW!* Anyway, the problem is with everything that I've written here is there isn't a single part of it that says 'no God', which is why I don't get the fundies. There are in fact many who feel that God acts behind evolution or that at least it may have been a system of sorts set up by God.

Evolutionary theory (and the geological record) however does say 'no 6 day creation' and it does say 'no literal interpretation of Genesis', but by this late date most Christians have quite reasonably come to treat Genesis's multpile accounts of creation as parable anyway.

In short, believing in evolution or not has nothing to do with one's relationship with God...far too often evolutionary theory is made the scape goat of religious or atheist extremists and well, it just isn't really true. There is no war between science and religion (like some people think there is), just a constant, and unfortunate misunderstanding.

*massive apologies for this dreadfully long post!*

PsikyoPshumpPshooterP · Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:29 am

first dave..now..God..whose next?

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:36 am

PEDRO

(sorry, first thing that came to mind... damn your avatar

)

sffan · Post by **sffan** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:55 am

Thanks cmoon, great post. I'm glad you wrote it all out. I just want to say a few things which you sorta covered anyway:

Evolution is not a theory. It is a fact (living things change over time).

Natural Selection, or the updated "modern synthesis," is a theory that explains the mechanics of evolution, or how evolution happens.

I'm glad you noted how the fundies misrepresent science and show their ignorance when they try to make a point. For example no theory implies that humans evolved from apes. I hate when I hear that. Apes are modern. They have been evolving for as long as we have!

The "argument of personal incredulity" is a common one: "The world is so beautiful and complex that I can't imagine that it just created itself."

Well, it did. And we are the conscious part.

BTW consciousness is still unexplained AFAIK. It's one of those frontiers in science. The fundies like to point out things that science can't explain and say, "Well, we can explain it: It's God!" Therefore religion can do things science cannot, nya nya nya.

The fact of course is science would not exist if everything were known. Scientists are constantly busy trying to make the unknown known. That's their job, and it's those frontiers of knowledge that make life exciting to me. I get all excited when new discoveries are made.

Sorry about the incoherent rant. I've been rambling.

I'll post it anyway, WTF.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 2:56 am

rediculous

ridiculous.

Otherwise, good post!

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:09 am

Great a full fledged religion debate. The guy will soon be apologizing for even mentioning the word Jesus and causing some people to wet their pants. Cut the guy some slack....

shiftace · Post by **shiftace** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:22 am

You can mark me down as an atheist if you like, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong with trying to have logical debates about the veracity of belief systems.

Nuke · Post by **Nuke** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:31 am

shiftace wrote:You can mark me down as an atheist if you like, but I think there's something fundamentally wrong with trying to have logical debates about the veracity of belief systems.

Yeah, Its kinda like telling children to not belive in Santa.....

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:33 am

It's not really a debate about the legitimacy of any religion as a whole, but a debate on the legitimacy of two particular scientific theories (natural selection and the big bang) and how they relate to Christianity.

My only point is that if you know all the facts about evolution and how it works and still choose to believe that it's not true... well, fine. Just don't make claims about the legitimacy of it unless you actually know what it is.

Too many schools in this country don't teach evolution because of societal pressure. I have to wonder how strong a person's faith is in the first place if they're not willing to learn anything about the alternatives (and, as people have already pointed out, evolution isn't an alternative to religion anyway).

shiftace · Post by **shiftace** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 3:52 am

I'd managed to forget there's this big issue about "equal time for creationism," which I strongly oppose, at least in public schools, and especially in science classes. "God did it" may be a valid answer for some questions, but it doesn't really help anyone predict, control, or discover anything, so it's not a useful explanation for much of anything.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:01 am

Offer thanks for WHAT Sethsez??? Advice that's given in a rude manner and people who call a simple question "atrocious"? I shouldn't have used fowl language, that much I admit, but I hardly think it's rude for someone to defened themselves! "a little ribbing" It was a LOT more then that Seth, go back and LOOK at the thread. If wasn't any more then that then WHY did TF close it down??

Whatever, I forgive you; it's over. Life is too short to hold grudges over anyone, much less someone you've just conversed with online. I only ask the same in return. I don't like having my past failures thrown in my face anymore then you do.

And as far as the debate over God's existence goes; the following are two quotes by author and theologian RC Sproul:

-"If we are not creatures made by and related to God, we are cosmic accidents. Our origin is insignificant and our destiny is equally insignificant. If we emerge from the slime by accident and finally disentegrate into a void or abyss of nothingness, then we live our lives between two poles of absolute meaninglessness. We are peeled zeroes, stripped naked of dignity and worth."

-"The notion of something being self-existent is not only rationally possible, it is rationally necessary. Again, reason demands that if anything is, then something must have, within itself, the power of being. Otherwise there would be nothing. Unless something existed in itself, nothing could possibly exist at all."

'Nuff said.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:08 am

-"If we are not creatures made by and related to God, we are cosmic accidents. Our origin is insignificant and our destiny is equally insignificant. If we emerge from the slime by accident and finally disentegrate into a void or abyss of nothingness, then we live our lives between two poles of absolute meaninglessness. We are peeled zeroes, stripped naked of dignity and worth."

Not really. Read the symbiotic universe or somesuch book...or any Hawking

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 4:17 am

dave4shmups wrote:-"If we are not creatures made by and related to God, we are cosmic accidents. Our origin is insignificant and our destiny is equally insignificant. If we emerge from the slime by accident and finally disentegrate into a void or abyss of nothingness, then we live our lives between two poles of absolute meaninglessness. We are peeled zeroes, stripped naked of dignity and worth."

So what you're saying is that people believe in God because it hurts their egos not to? Please, I'd like to think people believe in God for reasons other than "it makes me feel important."

And yeah, I believe we're cosmic accidents. So? The lack of any greater purpose has no affect on my life.

As for your "nobody helped me" crap, mannerbot and Specineff both offered advice (and mannerbot gave you a link) relatively early in the thread.

And don't "forgive" me when I've done nothing that needs to be forgiven. kthx. Just drop it and stop making drama and all will be well.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 5:45 am

I never said no one ever helped me Seth, and I did thank those who did so.

As long as no mods object to a thread I start, which they did not to my question about Bit Torrent, then I really could care less what the rest of you think.

I do not start the drama Seth, it's people like you who act like I've killed a good friend of yours every time I dare to ask a question on this site. So in the future, I will just ignore your rudeness. Like I said, as long as no mods object to a thread I start on this site, that will be the end of the matter.

And this is, hopefully the end of this thread.