quote: Nothing "starts flying". Wings, or partial wings, are believed to have come first, followed by the specialized skeletal system, followed by the proper feathers (if you are going for birds).
You know, while I *might* be able to see the eyes developing, I find this one a wee bit harder to believe. I am so in awe of the complexities of our bodies. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I think what gets me, in the end, is the beginning of the existence of everything. Those who don't believe in a creator think that it's illogical to believe that a god started it all, mainly because it is unscientific.
But take Big Bang, for instance. The theory states that in the beginning all matter is confined to a singularity, and a singularity is a point at which all the laws of physics break down. That's not really scientific either, if you think about it.
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quote: Richard Dawkins illustrates this point fully in his book "The Blind Watchmaker".
As a counterpoint, I would also recommend reading "Darwin's Black Box" by Behe. He's a proponent of intelligent design.
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I'm glad you like to debate, Telp. I hope you understand that while part of my questions are based on my opinions, part are based on genuine ignorance. maybe I should have made each clear at the beginning.
Warning! I do not know what I'm talking about here!
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quote: But take Big Bang, for instance. The theory states that in the beginning all matter is confined to a singularity, and a singularity is a point at which all the laws of physics break down. That's not really scientific either, if you think about it.
I know! Faith.......
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quote: But take Big Bang, for instance. The theory states that in the beginning all matter is confined to a singularity, and a singularity is a point at which all the laws of physics break down. That's not really scientific either, if you think about it.
...and it isn't ET, either. I, too, know what I'm talking about.
quote: You know, while I *might* be able to see the eyes developing, I find this one a wee bit harder to believe. I am so in awe of the complexities of our bodies.
Would you like me to go into more detail?
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As long as they have scientific words to describe something, they can believe it's science. We need a scientific way to describe God.
"God is a singularity at which the laws of physics break down. He is a point in space, and having no size, is able to span the reaches of the universe at any given moment in time."
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Sure, HRE. Feel free to explain. I have thought about it though, and I have not personally come up with an explaination that actually makes more sense than an intelligent creator guiding the process.
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quote: But if there were no Star Trek Transporters or Faster Than Light travel, where would mankind come up with the concept? Need I continue?
I guess, since I see a vast difference in a pop culture meme and a far-reaching, all-encompassing basis for existence that nearly everyone that exists adopts. See, signs point to the fact that it was atheism that cropped up in history, not theism.
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Exactly, PSI. I am not trying to prove the existance of God. I don't think God wants to be proven, personally. I can see where someone can imagine a universe with no God. I just don't understand the statement that a universe with no God makes more sense than a universe with a God.
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But PSI, scientists do not claim that the singularity loves us, or that it is concerned for our growth and maturation, or that it might support us in a war against the terrorist hordes.
They posit one brief moment of "Just what in the hell is this thing?" apologize for the assumption, feel terribly embarassed about it, and then try to get on with it. They don't try to imbue it with all sorts of mystical and continuing self-contradictory properties.
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PSI, in any local, non-closed system (a star, a continent, a human cell), order CAN arise, but it ultimately requires an infusion of energy from outside the system (sugar, geothermal energy, hydrogen). The 2nd law only says that a closed system will TEND to chaos, but doesn't say it will happen quickly; it depends on the qualities of the system.
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I have to ask, SS. Do you believe in an objective morality?
quote: They posit one brief moment of "Just what in the hell is this thing?" apologize for the assumption, feel terribly embarassed about it, and then try to get on with it. They don't try to imbue it with all sorts of mystical and continuing self-contradictory properties.
In other words, they ignore it? That's how science deals with things it doesn't understand?
Edit: Or rather, I should say, with things that don't fit the theory?
quote: But PSI, scientists do not claim that the singularity loves us, or that it is concerned for our growth and maturation, or that it might support us in a war against the terrorist hordes.
So, is this the part that non-believers find hard to swallow? Or is it something else about God that seems unlikely?
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Okay, I may be way off here, but I have a question for Bev. You suggested that maybe God had a hand in the direction of evolution at critical points. Okay, it's my understanding that in most religions God is perfect (infaliable (sp?)). So how could He possibly need to direct evolution? Or do you believe that every life form has free will, and thus needs God's little nudges every once in a while? I'm not arguing that what you believe is wrong, I just want to understand here how the ideas mesh (and indeed, if they even need to).
My personal belief? Maybe there is a god, maybe not. But if there is, I tend to drift toward the thinking that he/she/it set things in motion and has been hands off ever since. I would tend toward the idea that a supreme being would basically be someone who can predict with absolute certainty what will happen forever and thus can set things in motion to be exactly how he/she/it wants them to be for all time. But then, I don't really believe that there is any such thing as free will, just that the universe is so complex that anyone short of an all knowing supreme being would never be able to fully comprehend it to the smallest detail.
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I would think that, since God is perfect and has a perfect will that we can't understand, that his plans for the evolution of species on earth fits right in. Not so much that he helps evolution out, but that he made it go that way in the first place.
I actually kinda agree that God is a bit hands-off, at least at this point in history. There's a place in the Bible that talks about God "giving men over to the evil desires of their hearts" or something like that, and I'm afraid we may actually be at a point like that today.
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Wonderful questions! (I love good questions.)
I believe in a perfect God. I believe that this perfect God values free will a great deal. I believe this God gives the universe its freedom to be chaotic and do what it wishes--except where His will requires otherwise.
Yes, I do believe in a "nudging" God rather than a "controlling" God. And yet, I believe because He is perfect, He is never out of control. If anything disobeys Him, it is to its own detriment, not God's.
To explain further, I believe that the elements *always* obey God. Without fail. Only we, his children, can choose to go against God's will.
posted
The commonly accepted lineages of the evolution of flight are either the ground-up lineage or the trees-down lineage. The evolution of flight in birds (from the Berkely University site, they can do better at explaining than I) follows:
The most diverse group of flyers ever to evolve are the birds (the clade Aves). Birds show a marvelous diversity not only of species but of flight adaptations. Compare the hummingbird with the albatross, and you'll get a good picture of how differently animals can fly. As is discussed in our bird origins exhibit, current theory holds that birds had a common ancestor with dromaeosaurid dinosaurs during the Late Jurassic period (about 150 million years ago), if not earlier. Birds remained of relatively low diversity until the Cretaceous period.
The earliest known bird is Archaeopteryx. Its form shows us that it was a true flyer, although not as skilled as most modern birds, since its sternum was flat, or at best only slightly keeled, and later modifications of the wrist bones were not present. It is this first bird and its closest relatives that we must consider when discussing the origin of flight in birds, because later birds are more modified in structure, and hence are inaccurate models for understanding the origin of flight in the avian lineage. In support of Archaeopteryx as one of the model ancestral birds, there is a line of later transitional forms during the Cretaceous period -- forms such as Confuciusornis and Sinornis that show the rapid evolution of flight in birds, quickly approaching the structure seen in most modern flying birds.
Dromaeosaurs, Archaeopteryx, and early birds such as Sinornis, then, are the animals that we must consider to understand the origin of flight in birds. Dromaeosaurs were all bipedal, fairly cursorial, and terrestrial. There is no persuasive evidence indicating arboreality in dromaeosaurs, although that negative evidence does not preclude arboreality altogether. Many modern birds are arboreal, but modern birds have had 150 million years of evolutionary separation from their origin, so they are poor analogs for the origin of flight in birds (as Dr. Padian {1985} says, "To study the origin of flight is not to deal with why modern birds live in trees, but how ancient birds got into the air. Post hoc arguments are not acceptable [p.419 -- see sources in the Introduction to Flight exhibit])."
Dromaeosaurs such as Deinonychus, the model for the "raptors of Jurassic Park, were fierce predators that used their forearms in a motion that was very similar in unusual ways to the flight stroke of used in birds. Professor Kevin Padian and Dr. Jacques Gauthier (then a student at Berkeley and now a professor at Yale University) first showed this in 1985. More recently, Dr. Alan Gishlick, a research associate at UCMP, explained in more detail how this stroke evolved. See New Perspectives on the Origin and Early Evolution of Birds, edited by J.A. Gauthier and L.F. Gall (Yale Univ. Press, 2001)
Birds have flight adaptations similar to those of pterosaurs: hollow but strong bones, keeled sterna (shown above) for flight muscle attachment, short and stout humeri, and feathers (analogous to pterosaur wing fibers). However, unlike the pterosaur wing, the bird wing (shown above) is primarily supported by an elongated radius, ulna, and modified wrist bones (the carpometacarpus). Among other features, birds have a structure that they share with dromaeosaurs: a fused clavicle (collarbone) called the furcula (wishbone), which serves as a brace during the flight stroke. This feature was probably co- opted in function from the dromaeosaurian function of providing a brace for the shoulder girdle while holding prey.
The phalanges of the bird wing (homologus to those of the ancestral dromaeosaurian hand) follow a trend of reduction and fusion to form the distal part of the wing: dromaeosaurs had large clawed hands, Archaeopteryx had clawed fingers and a more elongate wing, and modern birds have mostly only the second digit of the hand present (at the end of the wing). The same group also shows an evolutionary trend of the reduction of flexion in the wrist, making the flight stroke more rigid and pronounced. Later birds did not have the stiff tail of Archaeopteryx; tails seem to be structures reserved for more primitive flyers.
Birds showed a gradual increase in flying ability during their early evolution -- Archaeopteryx was not a powerful flyer, but it seems it was not much of a glider either. Later birds such as Sinornis, Confuciusornis, and Ichthyornis improved on the basic flight adaptations of their ancestors, becoming better flyers. Some birds found niches that were more suited for flightless birds: Hesperornis was a flightless diving bird in the late Cretaceous period, and in the Eocene epoch (shortly after the demise of the dinosaurs), there were large flightless birds such as Diatryma that may have been the main predators on the early mammals in some areas (a Miocene flightless bird, Phorusrhacos, is depicted below). Penguins and other diving birds do not fly in the air, but use the same basic flight stroke to fly under water. The living ratites (ostriches, emus, kiwis, and the extinct moa) are an ancient lineage of flightless birds. And of course, today we have such adept flyers as the swallows, hummingbirds, falcons, and the soaring albatrosses which demonstrate the great diversity of flight adaptations in birds.
I was thinking that he meant that God had to come along and direct everything, and I just kinda feel like things unfold because God's perfect will has already been determined. Just MO. Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Scientists ignore things that they don't understand?
No. Scientists are trying very hard to figure out what happened at the moment of the Big Bang--and before, if that question continues to make any sense. No good scientist can ignore something they don't understand. They tend to be driven nuts by things that "don't fit the theory." Unless you just don't understand scientists.
Bev,
quote:So, is this the part that non-believers find hard to swallow? Or is it something else about God that seems unlikely?
We've had this discussion before. Tell me what God is, and I'll tell you what about Him seems so unlikely.
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This took a while to type up, and now I see I'm many posts behind, but here we are anyways.
Chaos theory states that in a system in which rules are applied iteratively (over and over again) to a set of data, small irregularities in the data can lead to vast differences in outcome over time. The universe’s data and rules have proofed to be such a system, on both a macro, micro, and super-macro (Universe-wide, I made the word up ) scale. Though the complexities and niceties involved in Chaos theory could fill pages for just what I know of it, and what I know of it is just as an interested laymen, vast quantities of books and papers of been written on the subject, but I think that my summary is the heart of chaos theory.
The fact that there are irregular pockets in the universe, some that are completely void and some that are filled with matter (like out solar system) is a result of this chaos theory. Just as sin (x)*e^(x) is a function that will clearly go to infinity over time, when you’re stuck in the middle of the function you’ll notice the curves and some downward trends along with upwards. This does not mean that the function will not eventually go to infinity, just that there are aberrations along the way. So the universe appears to us, we see pockets of extreme order (like each other) and wonder if the natural trend really is towards entropy. What we see are mere aberrations along an unchangeable path, one that leads in a specific direction, it just doesn’t get there right away. Saying that our current, ordered state is proof that we wont eventually go to entropy, or that there’s something wrong with the laws that say that are like saying that the path from your house to the park wont make it because you’re only half way.
What makes the universe unique is the irregularities in the original data, what caused the universe to take on such a form that after 10-20 billion years (using the widest interpretation of the Hubble constant I know) it produced self-aware creatures? Irregularity is in no way a product of the laws of the universe, and thus no scientific evidence as of yet can be gathered to provide even the slightest explanation of why we are here.
posted
No problem, PSI. We may have different takes on things when it comes to this, and that is OK. I am interested in hearing your POV also. I was just sharing how things seem to me.
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quote: We've had this discussion before. Tell me what God is, and I'll tell you what about Him seems so unlikely.
We have? It seems like most of the times I have tried to discuss my ideas about God on Hatrack, people stop responding. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote: In other words, they ignore it? That's how science deals with things it doesn't understand?
Edit: Or rather, I should say, with things that don't fit the theory?
Science has evolved throughout the centuries by *ignoring* the big questions and concentrating on matters it could solve. And if the experiments contradict the theory, THEN scientists look for another theory. From time to time you get the usual philosophers who try to go outside their time and come up with extraordinary theories... most of which, ultimately are crushed by new, more accurate experiments.
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Scientists are not nearly as egotistical as many people think. They freely admit they do not know everything but are willing to try and learn.
They even admit that knowing everything is nearly impossible, but they want to reach the mortal limit of this knowledge.
So when they take their theories as far as they can be proved, and say "we don't know what goes on from here" some people attack them.
THey say, "Aha. You don't know. See."
And the scientist goes, "duh. We never said we knew everything. This is as far as we can reasonably determine for now."
But the science bashers continue. "Since you can't prove everything, you must be making it all up. See, we can know everything, because everything is right here in our good book."
The big bang is not God. It is all that we mortal humans using scientific principals have determined as the natural limits of the universe.
Most scientists and science fans are not out trying to destroy God, or prove his non-existance. Many are seeking God, finding his fingerprints in the evolution that others scoff at. Most are, however, following their God given curiosity, trying to do the most with the brains and Logic they have been given.
In fact, I think limiting God to just a literal translation of Genesis is doing God a disservice. I vision a much larger God, one who deals in Billions of years, yet manages each second, one who juggles billions of stars, and a billion billion times more electrons, one who orchestrates the evolution of species, but still notice when each sparrow falls.
Of course, such a view of the cosmos is a bit too humbling for many people, especially those who believe that they are important figures who will witness the most important event in the universe--the imminent return of Christ--that they know will happen any day now.
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quote: Of course, such a view of the cosmos is a bit too humbling for many people, especially those who believe that they are important figures who will witness the most important event in the universe--the imminent return of Christ--that they know will happen any day now.
You know, if they decided it was imminent on a geological time scale, than they could rightly claim that the millions of fellows in the past two milleniums that said the same thing were right, also.
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ssywak, you could start by responding to what I said about God being a "nudging" God and allowing free will. Or you could start by asking a specific question.
You don't just say to someone, "OK, tell me everything you learned in calculus." It doesn't work that way.
quote: Of course. Is there something wrong with that?
Nothing at all. But we must recognize that we cannot perceive all of reality through science. We can only observe and continually revise our theories.
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HRE, I don't know what you are thinking about my post, but it was intended to be somewhat alike to what Dan said: while the question 'How did everything start ?' could bug a scientist for his entire life, he's still going to try to prove other things that he thinks might, someday, lead to answering the BIG question. But he doesn't go head first and wait the revelation of the beginning of everything. That's what I tried to say.
And no, there's nothing wrong with scientists looking for a new theory when experiments contradict the previous one. THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING TOO ! I was merely stating the fact... Sorry if I wasn't clear in my first post.
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I thought I'd tackle the odd question in this thread.
Pooka: chromosomal number changes happen all the freakin' time, just due to variations in cell separation. Sometimes they cause problems, but often not, or at least not big ones.
Heck, most plants and a good portion of insects can and do double their chromosomes in a single generation, sometimes creating a separate species (we've seen it in the lab and in nature).
As for the second law, there are several points to address:
1) it only applies to closed systems. The earth is not a closed system. Hence it doesn't apply, and anyone who tells you it does is lying (I've had creationist advocates try to tell me it applies anyways, quite recently in fact).
2) Even in a closed system, it only refers to the total entropy (lack of organization of information/energy). A part of the closed system can have a higher degree of organization, so long as the overall system has a lower degree. For instance, when we convert a food in our stomachs to energy, the organization of the energy we uses increases, but the food substance becomes significantly more disorganized.
There are plenty of avenues to flight. Take a look at flying squirrels, for instance, its quite obvious how those could arise from normal squirrels.
As has been pointed out, there are plenty of examples of how a water dweller might become a land dweller around today. Fins become stubbier allow water animal to survive better when local water dries up by finding a new location, continue until its just able to live on land (and the transition between gill and lung is actually pretty easy as well, or rather between air sac and lung. All it requires is that some of those puddle hopping animals had air sacs better at staying closed, allowing them to hop yet further due to keeping air supply around).
In the multi celled organisms arising from those, its entirely easy to imagine patches arising with particularly light sensitive areas (as still exist today).
Does anyone have any other transitions they'd like covered? I can definitely give plausible paths for any transition that can be named, and I can give example fossils/creatures for most of them. we have remarkably good fossil records of many "transitions". Of course, the whole idea of a transition is relatively human centric. There's no starting point or ending point, really.
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Uh, Hobbes, irregularity arises from uncertainty, which is an intrinsic part of every major competing theory for physics around.
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Disclaimer: It's [EDIT] past [/EDIT] midnight here, if you find that my posts are: 1) incomplete 2) not clear 3) bordering on insanity, know that I've played 2 hours of basketball and that I'm not at my full debating capacity. That being said, after this I'll stop posting until morning. Sadly... 'cause it's an excellent debate...
beverly, in science - at least until now, and I don't see a change coming soon - nothing is 100% proven. As others have said before me in this thread, there's always a doubt. I admit that the thought of not ever having the absolute certainty might prove too much for many people. And I think that's why we humans invented religion in the first place. It was like: we know this and this and this, the rest is a miracle. And then: oh wait, we know this too, strike it from the miracle list ! (sorry for the oversimplification)
The ultimate question is: if we find that God is not needed for a complete theory of this universe, then what ? This is not likely to happen in our lifetime, though, so don't you worry
As for miracles, PSI asked what about them. I've seen a recent article about how probable a 'miracle' is in someone's live, and it's VERY likely IIRC. Unfortunately I'm not able to find the link now, I'll ask the person who brought it to my attention to send it again.
quote: The ultimate question is: if we find that God is not needed for a complete theory of this universe, then what ? This is not likely to happen in our lifetime, though, so don't you worry [Wink]
I thought most people already thought that had happened. They have been thinking that for a long time now. But disproving God isn't going to happen either. The universe will always stretch beyond the bounds of what we can perceive as mortals.
Miracles are not for the purpose of proving God. They only serve to strengthen the faith of those who already have put forth faith of their own. If God wanted to be proven, He would have done so. It's not like it's difficult. Or, of course, you can believe He doesn't exist.
My answer about miracles was for PSI's post from the first page. (search 'miracle') It's not about proving / unproving God, but about the fact that personal miracles - for example, weird coincidences - may happen and very often probabilisticaly speaking. I realize now that I haven't talked about 'natural' miracles. Those are usually considered as only at the surface not conforming to the theory, when in fact the truth is that we did not know all the conditions that concured in order to give that 'miracle'. And if you cannot reproduce it, well, than you can't prove it's a miracle. Kinda hard to argue with something like that, no ? It's because scientists need repeatability of an experiment in order to be sure that they really found all (relevant) conditions to the experiment. Thus, a miracle can induce the search for the full set of conditions, but you'll never convince anyone to try to come up with a new theory just because you saw something that happened only once.
As for 'the ultimate question':
quote: I thought most people already thought that had happened.
Well, many might think it had happened, but I'm not that sure about it. We're still very far from a unified theory of the universe ! Those who say it had happened are basing their assumptions on blind faith.
Huh, I'm starting to write 'thing' instead of 'think'. Time to go to bed...
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As a microbiologist, I obviously believe in evolution. I couldn't do my job otherwise, since it underlies all of modern biology.
But when I say I "believe" in evolution I don't think I mean it the same way that someone who says they believe in god means it. I guess it might be more accurate to say that I think evolution almost certainly takes place, but I don't take it as an article of faith, and if someone had a better explanation I would certainly listen to it, though it would take quite a bit of convincing.
There is one thing I take on faith, and that I believe in the same way that I think religious people believe in god. My creed is "I am in a dialog with nature and she will never lie to me." That last part, she will never lie to me, I take pretty much on faith. I can't prove it, but I believe it and would stake my life (even my soul, if I thought I had one) on it. I stake my reputation on it every day.
Basicly, what I mean by my creed is that the universe operates by laws that don't change. The way I ask a question is by setting up an experiment. I trust that if I phrase my question carefully (that is, design and run my experiment properly) I will get the truth. Now, phrasing the question can be tricky, so I'll often ask the same question over in several different ways to make sure I get the same answer. But I have faith that nature will never just lie to me, and that any differences in the answer I get must be due to small differences in how I phrased the question. Nature can be tricky, but she's not a liar.
At least that's what I believe.
As to the question of god, I've always described myself as an athiest, because I don't think there is a god, but I'm guessing that most people here would describe me as an agnostic, because I'm not absolutely sure about it, and I don't care that much. I think if there is a god he's probably more of the watchmaker variety. I can certainly concieve of some sort of creator behind the big bang, and I don't think belief in that is illogical at all. I don't think it's necessary, but I'll admit it's certainly possible.
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quote: And if you cannot reproduce it, well, than you can't prove it's a miracle. Kinda hard to argue with something like that, no ?
I agree! It is usually impossible to prove something is a miracle. If it were possible, it would have to be some crazy, amazing miracle.
But there are times, I believe, when God has been willing to show His power more fully in order to leave little room for doubt in the people of that place and time. One example would be Christ's life. (This assumes you believe the accounts of His miracles of course.)
So let's just say that Christ healed a man known to have been blind from birth. People say, "Hey, that was a really good trick, but we won't believe it unless you do it again." Christ declines. If they weren't going to believe after the first time, why would they believe after the second? He was interested in finding an encouraging faith, not proving anything.
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For instance, the number of miraculous cures of cancer at various catholic shrines is less than the expected number of spontaneous remissions given the number of visitors.
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quote: Well, many might think it had happened, but I'm not that sure about it. We're still very far from a unified theory of the universe ! Those who say it had happened are basing their assumptions on blind faith. [Wink]
If we did find the Unified theory, would that really mean that we understood everything in the universe? I am thinking no.
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quote: For instance, the number of miraculous cures of cancer at various catholic shrines is less than the expected number of spontaneous remissions given the number of visitors.
I have never thought these sorts of healings were a very good example. Here is why: I believe death and suffering really aren't that big a deal to God. And I believe they won't be to us after we have passed through them either. In fact, they are crucial parts of our mortal experience. So often we think that if God loves us He will give us what we want. None of us want a loved one to die or suffer. Of course we are going to pray to God to not let it happen. And somehow we think if God exists, He is going to let everyone not suffer or die if we request it at His hand. That is illogical.
Miracles to me are any time that God intervenes in the natural flow of chaos in response to His purposes or the faith of another when it is in alignment with His purposes. It would be pretty much impossible to prove most of these. But I do believe there are times when God chooses to "make bare His arm" as the scripture says. But He has to have pretty good reason for it, because it has the potential to destroy the opportunity of others to develop faith. But I think God is pretty good at figuring out how not to work against His own purposes.
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quote: I would even go so far as to say that if you put the same chain of RNA through a human ribosome, it might make different stuff than if you ran it through a pig ribosome. As a for instance.
I don't think anyone responded to this, although it's possible I could have missed it, but I just couldn't let this pass.
The above statement is completely and demonstrably untrue. You would get exactly the same protein from each ribosome. This is true of every animal, plant, protozoan, and the vast majority of bactieria (there are a couple weird ones that use one or two codons differently). It is true of almost all life on earth. The experiments have been done and this is a solved problem and has been for decades.
Now, processing and glycosylation after the protein leaves the ribosome could be a little different.
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quote:Uh, Hobbes, irregularity arises from uncertainty, which is an intrinsic part of every major competing theory for physics around.
Well that's true Fugu, it's irelevant. The fact that irregularity is a certainty due to the Uncertinity princible is in now way relevant to the two big points I raised:
1) Irreuglarity in intial conditions leads to irreugularity through-out the universe, but the chances of that irregularity leading to self-aware creatures... well it requires very specific irregularity for that.
2) This is the more important one, no unified theory ever proposed, or any other theory for that matter, has ever been able to predict the irregularity, or intial conditions of the universe. Meaning the intial conditions are not determined by the laws of the universe but by something external to them.
posted
ssywak, I have made several posts here now about my beliefs about God. When you get a chance, I would love to hear your perspectives on them. Perhaps we can have a really great discussion.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Basicly, what I mean by my creed is that the universe operates by laws that don't change. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have a great deal of faith in this myself. A powerful amount of faith in it, in fact. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beverly, I find it extremely interesting that you say that. Tying in with what you asked earier about what unbelievers find so hard to believe about god, I think that what I find so implausible about much religious belief is that is seems to disobey my "creed." Take miracles, for instance, since we're kind of on the topic already. I always percieved miracles as god "breaking the rules" in a way, making the universe do things that it otherwise couldn't, and the very thought of that is abhorent to me.
What you say about miracles being little nudges of the chaos makes more sense. Mind you, I still don't believe it myself, but it makes me understand a little better how such a belief could be rational.
Posts: 96 | Registered: Jun 2001
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We need a scientific way to describe God.![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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I was merely stating the fact... Sorry if I wasn't clear in my first post.
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