Praying?!? Sorry pal, God's busy with other worlds for the next few centuries, can I take a message?

POSTED BY: chrisisall
UPDATED: Friday, July 10, 2009 17:49
VIEWED: 9477
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BYTEMITE

Friday, July 3, 2009 5:24 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by chrisisall:
(...)is like future generations calling Bruce Lee a Chinese martial elemental in human form.

Please, get over your righteous infallibility.

...He's not?

Although, I like Jackie Chan better. I appreciate his humour and humility, and the way the simple enjoyable plots of his movies just flow without self-grandification. Jackie Chan is never some chosen one, he's the distant relative, or the friend of a friend, or the average Joe Schmoe who also somehow can just kick a lot of ass.

BYTEMITE

Friday, July 3, 2009 5:43 AM

Also, to the conversation about evolution, I respectfully add:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_milk

What the HELL?

However animals came to be, they're just damned WEIRD.

CITIZEN

Friday, July 3, 2009 10:13 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by antimason:
birds have hollow bones. the birds feather has literally NOTHING in common with a scale, it has interlocking barbs, it is designed for flight/insulation, it comes in many varieties.. it is nothing like a reptilian scale. also, birds have unique beaks designed to fill their specific niches.. reptiles dont have beaks, let alone genes capable of the varieties of beaks witnessed in nature. also, birds have lungs that constantly circulate air, so that they have a steady stream flowing through them at any given time. no reptile has a lung system even remotely comparable. i could go on, but its pointless

Dinosaurs aren't like most of the creatures that fall under the class Reptilia. Their bone structure, especially in the later species, is more like that of birds than reptiles. Aerosteon riocoloradensis has been found with hollow bones, the similarities between Bird and Dinosaur's skulls, which I believe are unique to the Avian and Dinosaur categories, is one of the reasons people started theorising that they could be related. Some Dinosaurs even had beaks, and far from your statement that reptiles don't, most reptiles have a beak like tooth to break through the egg, rather similar to the ones new born chicks have. Intermediate stages that have winged feathered dinosaurs, with teeth instead of beaks, have also been found, Archaeopteryx for instance.

In fact some species are so similar to birds that Sinosauropteryx was originally described as a bird when discovered in China, before it was realised that is was a Theropod.

In fact the evidence is that Theropods had lungs that were exactly like those of modern birds.

So, erm, you were saying?

KWICKO

Friday, July 3, 2009 1:02 PM

"Missing link" fossils seem to keep popping up. How about a common ancestor between bears and dogs?

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/130511/prehistoric_beardog_fossil
_unearthed/

Anti makes it sound like fossils should be common. Have YOU ever fossilized anything? It's actually pretty rare for something to be preserved in such a way. How many fossilized humans have you seen? One? Two? Does that "prove" to you that there were only one or two people living in the past? Or does it just illustrate how rare it is to find fossilized specimens of anything at all? The fact that there ARE so many fossils is more a testament to how common and varied life has been, and how many directions it has evolved in (dead ends and all). Think about the fossils of things that are now extinct; those are all branches of the evolutionary tree that DIDN'T work out.

As for other "missing links", there are fish species that have either lungs or limbs. Or both. Lungfish come to mind. Or there's this guy:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0405_060405_fish_2.htm
l

Be sure to post your fossils of "miracles". I'm sure they're even more rare than missing links between species. Guess that proves they don't exist, eh?

See? I can play the same game you're playing: Absence of proof = proof of absence. Except I can actually show proof, where all you've got is a book of contradictory fables.

Mike

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day...
Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

LEADB

Friday, July 3, 2009 1:38 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by antimason:
its quite a concept, that the undirected, chaotic EXPLOSION of the big bang, could create the incomprehensible ORDER and design of the universe. kind of like expecting the nuke dropped on hiroshima to result in a much more improved and ordered landscape

Consider the following possibility:

One day (keeping in mind, that the universe does not exist at this point 'in time', and thus any attempt to define time in a way meaningful to a human being is rather impossible) an entity, I'll call great one (GO) for the moment as a matter of convenience, groks that if he (sex is also meaningless, and 'he' is the indefinite pronoun of the English language, so I'll use that) 'twitches' like so, a thing (I'll call it a Universe) will come into being; this universe having such properties that small, self aware beings capable of free will -might- come into existence, at an approximate probability of one in 10 million.

The next day (again, time doesn't mean much, I could simply say 'later', though that too is an over simplification), GO 'twitches' 1 billion times creating 1 billion universes, figuring that with any sort of luck 10 of these might happen to result in some of these self aware beings.

Consider that from our perception, we are sitting in one of these 'universes'. Our perceptions are limited to this universe due to the physical properties of the universe.

It is possible, in such a scenario, that the 'greatest praise' these self aware entities (in our case, human beings) might give the GO is to spend time and energy understanding.
a) The characteristics of this universe he created.
b) How such a universe like this might have given rise to the self aware creature.

In such a scenario, it is not necessary that GO would be 'obliged' to create a complete fossil record; this is not a game nor a 'complete' puzzle to be worked out. It is simply a fact that the universe exists; we exist in it; and we attempt to understand it.

In my opinion, I've seen sufficient evidence that more recent fossil records show an absence of creatures which existed in older fossil records. The reverse is true as well. There's a few explanations... one is that GO came along and added new species now and then... frankly, a being capable of invoking such a universe into existence should not need to 'meddle' as things are moving along in such a way. I believe, based on the theory of evolution and a 'sufficient' fossil record, that creatures did in fact evolve over time on planet which could come into existence based on the properties of the universe which GO caused to come into existence at what current conventional physics calls the 'big bang'.

In any case, the fossil record is still 'being read'. Holes continue to fill; but as observed previously, your reaction to that is to then ask for the fossil that fits before and after the filled hole; in essence, every time one hole gets filled, you 'create' one hole on either side and demand BOTH holes get filled. I doubt you will ever agree that sufficient evidence exists.

I will note that if the 'greatest praise' is improving the the understanding the physics of our universe, you may well displease GO a great deal by your expressed understanding. On the other hand, perhaps GO will be pleased that your arguments have spurred evolutionary scientist to re-double their efforts (pardon the pun), so might be pleased with your contribution from that perspective...so there is hope for you yet. Thanks for playing your part in our little play.

KWICKO

Friday, July 3, 2009 2:10 PM

Or, to put it another way, Man's job on Earth isn't to worship God, but rather to invent God and then to BECOME God...

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 4, 2009 3:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:

Although, I like Jackie Chan better.

He's funnier, and his use of his environment in fighting is truly inspired. Shanghai Noon RULES!!! & Forbidden Kingdom!!!

Back on topic, Anti seems to have given up due to lack-O-argument.

The laughing Chrisisall

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 4, 2009 3:29 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
Or, to put it another way, Man's job on Earth isn't to worship God, but rather to invent God and then to BECOME God...

I would accept that as an axiom.

The laughing Chrisisall

BYTEMITE

Saturday, July 4, 2009 3:33 AM

We'll see, now that this has been bumped. I haven't seen what exactly he is FOR yet, only what he is AGAINST.

CHRISISALL

Saturday, July 4, 2009 3:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I haven't seen what exactly he is FOR yet, only what he is AGAINST.

Well, he IS "Anti".

The laughing Chrisisall

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