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Evolution vs Creation - Church To Apologise

cydonia

Alfrescian
Loyal
Not at all. The pattern is simple and as clear as crystal.
You do not see the pattern because of your faith.
The stronger your faith, the lesser you will see. :eek:

Yes, i agree. It is hard for people to breakaway from their belief. As this belief have keep them going and motivated for as long as they believed.

As long as the belief system serve you positively, it is good belief. But don't let it become narcissistic.
 

zhihau

Super Moderator
SuperMod
Asset
Darwin never explained that.

Darwin didn't had the idea of genetics back then. in order to find out why Homo sapiens became the "hairless" primates, we need to look at the genetic make-up of man, and even with the complete mapping of the Human Genome, there's still a lot of gaps that needs to be filled.

we need to find out which particular gene was either up-regulated or down-regulate rather "permanently" that resulted in our reduction of bodily hair. we need to look at the developmental stage where we started losing our bodily hair, which makes us distinct from other hairy primates.

i would have to argue that the "hair gene" could still be rather active, as there's still hair growth on our bodies, else beauty salon wouldn't have waxing and other treatments to remove the hair from the arms and legs. thus having said that, we could see that we're not that hairless after all :biggrin:

selection pressure still at work, if we continue to value women with silky smooth hands and legs, our future generations could well become pretty hairless, but a good boost of testosterone is always there to give us guys our hairy legs :biggrin:
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
and the human action of procreation makes you an overachieving Man? Who is better than an underachieving God?

how to compare something that dont even exist ?:biggrin: are you tryingg to compare spiderman and superman to find out who is the most powerful ?
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Try a casual stroll through the slums instead and count the number of people for whom their faith inspires them to make lives better for others

having faith on certain things are good but having a blind faith waiting for answer is hopeless :smile:

we dont need a religion to do good ...we do good deed for mankind because we are surrounded by humans and not god .if we can understand that , we dont need those human that act god to teach us how to behave
 

helicopview

Alfrescian
Loyal
Empirical evidence in history worldwide has shown that in all religious groups there will always be some bad hats, at various times, who attempt to be GOD themselves by instilling fear and/or sowing untruthful lies to their followers. These are the real devils out to achieve their own ulterior motives.

Therefore, its up the individual to discern whether they are dealing with GOD, the HOLY GHOST or SATURN. Amen.

Whether there is god is another issue..depends on individual. So long as with deal with pp around you: show kindness, care, love, compassion, filial, helpful etc, you will be on the right track. Do not believe pp who say that if u believe in their god, you will go to heaven. Idiotic belief. If i do so many good deeds, and just because i dun believe in his god, i go to hell????? You pp judge. Nothing wrong with the religion..just some followers and believers who are too pious,over-zealous and have got 'poisioned brain'..just like the NUS comp sci graduate as mentioned earlier. Dear all, be more macro..
 
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drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
found one? who cares? i know not if God exists or otherwise, and in the same token i do not need to know if God exists or otherwise.

what difference does it makes? to better the lives of others? to better the life of mine? i only know my thoughts, actions and speech would have repercussions and i jolly well take good care of that. does it take faith to figure that out? in order to better my life, i'd rather stop attributing the unknown to any supernatural or made believed entity, for it would otherwise made it easier for me to believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster and/or the Celestial Teapot.

i'm not saying those imaginary entities couldn't have exist, yes in fact they do! the very moment i spell them out, the imagery of these entities takes shape in our minds already. so do you think God exists? why would you even bother? :biggrin: having said that, i will not discount faith. having faith isn't a bad idea, for the faith gives the individual courage and strength in times of need. what most folks failed to realize that this faith is actually originating from themselves and it is merely our primal instincts. the survival instinct.

if folks like to pin this faith to supernatural being, it is also fine with me. i'm sure a lot of us have a lil' lucky charm or whatnot, some what inspiring and calming at the same time. if folks need that kind of spiritual and/or emotional clutch, by all means, use it. i can only be glad i need no clutch of such. needing no clutch of such does not mean i'm a bigoted or super sized egoistic bastard. i know exactly where my limitations are and i'm fully aware of my ignorance of this universe we live in. i'd choose not to lose rational and logical thinking, opposing to the context of leading my life based on blind faith.

i have faith. don't say i don't. but my faith is based on calculated judgment, sensible and logical deduction. it is not based on some imaginary entity or supernatural being. oh well, did it occur to you when you've planted a seed and it failed to bear fruits? i'd blame myself for not understanding how the life cycle of this plant works, i'd blame myself for not taking good care of the plant. i could blame the soil, i could blame the seed, but no. until i've exhausted all possible means of finding out what exactly gone wrong, i'd put the blame on myself first. do you need a God for that? :p

its very important to know that god do not really exist..

1) the money spend on buliding churches and temples will divert to buliding hospitals and schools :mad:

2) you can have your own time , instead of spending on temples and :mad:churches

3) theres no religions war in the world . :biggrin:

4) theres no one to con your money by using god's name :mad

5) theres no strange song to sing and strange uniform to wear :rolleyes:

6) no terrorist :mad:

7) no one will buy paper to burn :biggrin:

8) dont have to talk alone :wink:

9) no one will donate to a cow tooth :biggrin:

10) we will not be talking about this topic now :cool:
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
Not at all. The pattern is simple and as clear as crystal.
You do not see the pattern because of your faith.
The stronger your faith, the lesser you will see. :eek:


The history of saints is mainly the history of insane people.:wink:
 
Z

Zombie

Guest
But don't let it become narcissistic.

If you believe
a) in the existence of something intangible, and
b) that something brought you into existence,

then it forms a circular relationship
and becoming narcissistic is a matter of time. :smile:
 

zhihau

Super Moderator
SuperMod
Asset
its very important to know that god do not really exist..

you've got pretty valid points there, but how to disprove the unknown?

to justify the non existence of an entity is to put forth the hypothesis that the entity has to be there in the first place, thus the anti-thesis would then take its stand, and ultimately creating a chicken and egg situation where there would be no end to it.
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
but how to disprove the unknown?

one ought not to try to prove the obvious via the less obvious. The old axiom that "out of nothing, nothing comes" remains as obvious today as ever. I remarked that I found it an attractive feature of this argument that it allows the atheist as a way of escape, he can always deny the first premiss and assert the universe sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing. I figured that few would take this option, since I believed they would thereby expose themselves as persons interested only in academic refutation of the argument and not in really discovering the truth about the universe. To my surprise, however, atheists seem to be increasingly taking this route. For example, Quentin Smith, commenting that philosophers are too often adversely affected by Heidegger's dread of "the nothing," concludes that "the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing" -- a nice ending to a sort of Gettysburg address of atheism, perhaps.

Let's consider the premiss of the argument. whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause. What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true? It's not self-evident; something is self-evident if and only if everyone who understands it automatically believes it. But many people, including leading theists such as Richard Swinburne, understand this principle very well but think it's false. Many philosophers, scientists, and indeed the majority of graduate and undergraduate students think this principle is false. This principle is not self-evident, nor can this principle be deduced from any self-evident proposition. Therefore there's no reason to think it's true. It is either false or it has the status of a statement we do not know if it's true or false. At the very least, it is clear that we do not know that it is true.

Now suppose the theist retreats to a weaker version of this principle. Suppose the theist says that a weaker version of this principle is, "whatever has a beginning to its existence has a cause." Now this does not say that whatever has a beginning to its existence must have a cause; it allows that it is possible that some things begin to exist without a cause. So we don't need to consider it as a self-evident, necessary truth. Rather, we can consider it to be an empirical generalization based on observation, according to the theists. But there is a decisive problem with this line of thinking. There's absolutely no evidence that it is true. All of the observations we have are of changes in things -- of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence. For example, we have no observations of people coming into existence. Here again, you merely have a change of things. An egg cell and a sperm cell change their state by combining together. The combination divides, enlarges, and eventually evolves into an adult human being. Therefore I conclude that we have no evidence at all that the empirical version of Craig's statement, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause," is true. All of the causes we are aware of are changes in pre-existing materials. In Craig's and other theist's causal principle, "cause" means something entirely different: it means creating material from nothingness. It is pure speculation that such a strange sort of causation is even possible, let alone even supported in our observations in our daily lives.

But the more important point is this: not only is there no evidence for the theist's case, there's evidence against it. The claim that the beginning of our universe has a cause conflicts with current scientific theory. The scientific theory is called the wave function of the universe. It has been developed in the past ten years or so by Stephen Hawking, Andre Vilenkin, Alex Linde, and many others. Their theory is that there is a scientific law of nature called the Wave Function of the Universe that implies that it is highly probable that a universe with our characteristics will come into existence without a cause. Hawking's theory is based on assigning numbers to all possible universes. All of the numbers cancel out except for a universe with features our universe possesses. For example, contains intelligent organisms such as humans. This remaining universe has a certain probability very high -- near to a hundred percent -- of coming into existence uncaused.

Hawking's theory is confirmed by observational evidence. This theory predicts our universe has evenly-distributed matter on a large scale, which would be on scales of super-clusters of galaxies. It predicts that the expansion rate of our universe -- our universe has been expanding ever since -- would be almost exactly between the rate of the universe expanding forever and the rate where it expands and then collapses. It also predicts the very early area of rapid expansion near the beginning of the universe called inflation. Hawking's theory exactly predicted what the COBE satellite discovered about the irregularities of the background radiation in the universe. So a scientific theory that is confirmed by observational evidence tells us that the universe began without being caused. So if you want to be a rational person and accepts the results of rational inquiry into nature, then we must accept the fact that God did not cause the universe to exist. The universe exists because of this wave-function law.:wink:

Now Stephen Hawking's theory dissolves any worries about how the universe could begin to exist uncaused. He supposes that there is a timeless space, a four-dimensional hypersphere, near the beginning of the universe. It is smaller than the nucleus of an atom. It is smaller than 10^-33 centimeters in radius. Since it was timeless, it no more needs a cause than the timeless god of theism. This timeless hypersphere is connected to our expanding universe. Our universe begins smaller than an atom and explodes in a Big Bang and here we are today in a universe that is still expanding. Is it nonetheless possible that God could have caused this universe? No. For the wave function of the universe implies there is a 95% probability that the universe came into existence uncaused. If God created the universe, he would contradict this scientific law in two ways. First, the scientific law says that the universe would come into existence because of its natural, mathematical properties, not because of any supernatural forces. Second, the scientific law says the probability is only 95% that the universe would come into existence. But if God created the universe, the probability would be 100% that it would come into existence because God is all-powerful. If God wills the universe to come into existence, his will is guaranteed to be 100% effective.


based on the ordinary logic of induction that we use in our every day lives. The famous British philosopher John Mackie said that if there's any miracle in the world, it's that so many people actually believe God exists. One of the reasons Mackie thought that this is the case is that Mackie found it obvious that if there's evil in the world, no all-powerful and perfectly good being could have created the world. Consider, for example, the Spanish influenza. In World War I (1914-1918), ten million people died. But in three months, from September to November of 1919, twenty million people died -- just as many as in the plague in the fourteenth century -- from Spanish influenza. Then suddenly, this virus that caused this deadly flu disappeared, and no one has seen it again. So how could this possibly have occurred if God exists? Is God not powerful enough to kill this virus or prevent it from growing? If so, then He's not all-powerful and is not really the god of the Judeo-Christian tradition. He's just a sort of extraterrestrial intelligence. He's just more powerful than us by degrees, just as we are more powerful than ants by degrees. But that is no god; that is a finite being. You would no more worship this being than you would worship ET.:biggrin:

Suppose God is all-powerful and is capable of killing the Spanish influenza virus before it killed off twenty million people. Why didn't He? Is it because He's not perfectly good? Because He does not care enough about human beings? That is no god. Sounds like more an evil being governs our universe. So that's just one example of many gratuitous evils in the universe.

So how do theists respond to arguments like this? They say there is a reason for evil, but it is a mystery. Well, let me tell you this: I'm actually one hundred feet tall even though I only appear to be six feet tall. You ask me for proof of this. I have a simply answer: it's a mystery. Just accept my word for it on faith:wink:. And that's just the logic theists use in their discussions of evil.

In fact, there's a strict disproof of theism that uses the ordinary logic of induction we employ in our everyday lives. If we have evidence that something exists, we say it probably exists. If we see dark clouds approaching, we say it will probably rain. But if we no evidence for something, we admit that it's merely possible that it exists, even though it probably does not exist.:biggrin:
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
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zhihau

Super Moderator
SuperMod
Asset
In fact, there's a strict disproof of theism that uses the ordinary logic of induction we employ in our everyday lives. If we have evidence that something exists, we say it probably exists. If we see dark clouds approaching, we say it will probably rain. But if we no evidence for something, we admit that it's merely possible that it exists, even though it probably does not exist.:biggrin:

so how do we explain consciousness? :biggrin:
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
so how do we explain consciousness? :biggrin:

good question bro , The twentieth-century British psychologist Stuart Sutherland once defined consciousness as a fascinating but elusive phenomenon, it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it. Consciousness is indeed hard to define, but most people have an intuitive idea of what it is. It encompasses two different concepts, the notion of a self, and the feelings of which the self is aware, especially qualia — our raw sensory experiences.

Unconscious vision is not just a neurological anomaly — it occurs even in normal people. If you are driving a car while talking to the person next to you or on a mobile telephone, many parts of your brain are processing enormous amounts of visual information to enable you to negotiate the traffic .:biggrin:
 

zhihau

Super Moderator
SuperMod
Asset
i believe in minor evolution, not major one like our ancestors were monkeys...

that is a gross mistake in the understanding of evolution. no, Darwin did not make the suggestion that we descended from monkeys. the suggestion was that the primates could share a common ancestor, later branch out into several different distinct species.

very much like the distinct groups of Homo sapiens we see today, we see Africans, Caucasians, Asians, Indians, etc... only thing is that members from each distinct group are still able to come together to produce fertile offspring.

unlike the ancestors of other primates and Homo sapiens, the union failed to produce fertile offspring. meaning to say each distinct group have evolved into a distinct species.
 

zhihau

Super Moderator
SuperMod
Asset
good question bro , The twentieth-century British psychologist Stuart Sutherland once defined consciousness as a fascinating but elusive phenomenon, it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it. Consciousness is indeed hard to define, but most people have an intuitive idea of what it is. It encompasses two different concepts, the notion of a self, and the feelings of which the self is aware, especially qualia — our raw sensory experiences.

Unconscious vision is not just a neurological anomaly — it occurs even in normal people. If you are driving a car while talking to the person next to you or on a mobile telephone, many parts of your brain are processing enormous amounts of visual information to enable you to negotiate the traffic .:biggrin:

see what i mean? impossible to define and yet it exists... relatively to you and me and anyone else. :biggrin:
 

drifter

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
see what i mean? impossible to define and yet it exists... relatively to you and me and anyone else. :biggrin:

but there are also things that impossible to define but it still dont exists..:cool: are we on the same track ?
 
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