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Athiesm vs Christianity


osusev

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By reading the Old Testament, New Testament, Qu'ran, Bhagavad Gita, Confucian Analects, Zhongyong and Chuang Tzu you can get a whole new perspective on how the world works. Each religion makes sense if you read their texts and look at it from their viewpoint.

 

I agree....and why i think it is all the same God...afterall, there can only be one.....

 

God can manifest in any fashion He wants.

 

If there is no God, well, I haven't lost anything when I die. We die, rot, and become dirt and that's that.

 

If not, then I have padded my chances to move on to whatever it is we do next in whatever level of energy is in store for us next.

 

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I agree....and why i think it is all the same God...afterall, there can only be one.....

 

God can manifest in any fashion He wants.

 

If there is no God, well, I haven't lost anything when I die. We die, rot, and become dirt and that's that.

 

If not, then I have padded my chances to move on to whatever it is we do next in whatever level of energy is in store for us next.

 

What god in Hinduism? It is a god-head. What god in Confucianism? There is no god. What god in Daoism? There is no god. What god in Buddhism? There is no god.

 

You can argue that without god life is absurd, and all the social constructs are meaningless without a god. But isn't religion a social construct as well? This whole thing is absurd.

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So the only people who know what they're talking about vis a vis religion are religious people? That doesn't make sense.

 

One need not be religious, or a believer, to have studied religion, or thought about religion. And one can be religious and have no knowledge, or very limited knowledge, of religion.

 

 

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Thanks for sharing that, 'spec. I was agreeing that atheism can come from many places, just disputing what you said about there being no "well-adjusted" atheists. That's all...

 

Yeah it'll dry up one day, but the fact that He gave us enough to power the world for this long is astounding.

 

If there is someone/something up there who/which had the foresight to make this happen, I applaud him/her/it, but I prefer scientific explanations for things rather than "fate," "destiny," "divine intervention," etc.

 

For me, I'm astounded that people had the ingenuity/intelligence to take this black crap from deep underground and use it for what it is being used for, not that fact that some higher power put it there.

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What god in Hinduism? It is a god-head. What god in Confucianism? There is no god. What god in Daoism? There is no god. What god in Buddhism? There is no god.

 

You can argue that without god life is absurd, and all the social constructs are meaningless without a god. But isn't religion a social construct as well? This whole thing is absurd.

 

 

God doesn't have to manifest as a person so to speak...it can be inner self or whatever you want to call it.

 

It just isn't nothing....void of some supreme being or supreme energy/self.

 

 

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Shoot....I get like that all the time.....why I finally decided to retire....it was getting hard to concentrate....and I needed to do that to be fair, objective and impartial.

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END TIMES- ANNUNAKI ANGELS NEPHILIM) --HOLLYWOODS TAKE ON THE ANGELIC SIDE OF SCRIPTURES

 

Hollywood in this movie is trying to show the flipside of the war in Iraq there is a spiritual war taking place, war parallel the current situation in Iraq and soon will manifest itself for the world to see from the movie, THE DEVILS TOMB

 

it is to be released may 26 2009

 

 

A book about what was found in Afghanistan by our special forces.

 

http://stevequayle.com/books/Longwalkers.chap1.html

 

Check out a special behind-the-scenes look at the conflict between Science and Religion in Angels & Demons - in theaters 5/15/09.

 

 

I always like movies like this, it should be very thought provoking.

 

 

 

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what no other response from the christians in here? T cut and paste some problems with Mithra which are valid but what about all of the others?

 

There really is very little debate about the Osiris story considering the egyptians and their penchant for WRITING history.....

 

Like I said I am a athiest, My mother was a buddhist/Father was a catholic (until he went to war) the Chrisitian religion and especially the jesus story seems awfully familiar to others that well predated his supposed genesis in the middle east.

 

The council of Nicea forced by Constantine suddenly picked between a whole bunch of stories suddenly the "word of god" just seems odd to me. The Christ story as well as the Flood /Ark Story so OBVIOUSLY copied from other religions just completely invalidate any possible legitimacy for me.

 

Personally I think none of us small minded low intelligence beings can possibly begin to truly understand whatever truth of creation and how our universe even started to begin with.

 

 

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If you want to believe in mythology go ahead, this is one religion that was practiced during the great roman times

 

The roots of Mithraism are based on mythical fabrication, they may be paralleled to Christianity but the Old Testament Prophecies were fullfilled by Jesus.

 

 

More copy and paste for you, http://www.carm.org/christianity/bible/doe...istianity-false

I am sure this can be researched very easily the website above shows the scriptures and gives a brief explanation.

 

First of all, Christianity does not need any outside influence to derive any of its doctrines. All the doctrines of Christianity exists in the Old Testament where we can see the prophetic teachings of Jesus as the son of God (Zech. 12:10), born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), was crucified (Psalm 22), the blood atonement (Lev. 17:11), rose from the dead (Psalm 16:10), and salvation by faith (Hab. 2:4). Also, the writers of the gospels were eyewitnesses (or directed by eyewitnesses as were Mark and Luke) who accurately represented the life of Christ. So, what they did was write what Jesus taught as well as record the events of His life, death, and resurrection. In other words, they recorded history, actual events and had no need of fabrication or borrowing.

 

This is good

 

Paul and Mithraism

"St. Paul is attributed with the writing of 13 books in the Bible, 7 by himself and 6 by others in his name. He was born in Tarsus as "Saul" and adopted the Christian name of Paul after converting to what is now "Christianity". He was an early leader of the growing Christian churches around the Roman Empire, and the writings of St. Paul are the earliest existing Christian writings known to historians."

"Paul of Tarsus" by Vexen Crabtree (1999)

 

He mixed the Hellenic Christ theme with the Messiah theme of Judaism, and the result was the theology around the sacrificial nature that the Christ of Christianity has.

 

"Paul mistook the Jewish "Messiah" to mean the Hellenistic "Christ". This happened before anything was written down; it happened during Paul's conversations with people as he was working through what had happened. A messiah is a person who is a great leader who leads your people to freedom. The title was taken by Jews from Persian culture. A christ is a god-king who dies as an offering to some divine being as a sacrifice in return for prosperity, especially agricultural prosperity. Both are anointed with oil as a mystical, sexual rite."

Christos (site down) or Jesus didn't exist (site down)

 

"It was in Tarsus that the Mysteries of Mithras had originated, so it would have been unthinkable that Paul would have been unaware of the remarkable similarities we have already explored between Christian doctrines and the teachings of Mithraism. [Footnote:] Tarsus was the capital of Cilicia, where, according to Plutarch [46-125CE], the Mithraic Mysteries were being practiced as early as 67BCE"

 

http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/mithraism.html

http://www.vexen.co.uk/books/jesusmysteries.html

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well, If you believe in God, if seems perfectly acceptable to me,

 

that the Christian story is a real, witnessed manifestation of

 

what the Mithra ? religion was purported to be.

 

But I don't see that the other religion was necessarily

 

before Christ was born,... although that is the belief

 

stated from whatever source.

 

I would rather figure it's a mocking of the Christian story.

 

But, what do I know, I never heard of the Mithra thing, unless

 

it was in Campbell's book and I have forgotten about it....

 

don't think so...

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But I don't see that the other religion was necessarily

 

before Christ was born,... although that is the belief

 

stated from whatever source.

 

I would rather figure it's a mocking of the Christian story.

Well, the ancient egyptians had statues and writings about Horus, who would later become Osiris. There are a lot of similarities in the story of Jesus.

 

The Bhagavata Purana details the life story and philosophy of the avatar Krishna, which is very similar to the life of Jesus. The text is dated to be at least 900 BCE.

 

I am sure that these are not mockings of the Christian story. The god-man savior story is quite popular among religions.

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Wow.

 

This thread title was certainly misleading. I thought we would be discussing Atheism vs Christianity and not Christianity isn't valid due to 15 other religions forming a man/god/savior story well before it.

 

The only way this theory (that Christianity is a copycat) is legit, is to presume that the other religions stories were valid.

 

Kind of shoots Atheism in the foot.

 

 

To me, Spirituality is the quest to explain the unexplainable and to pursue a working relationship with the knowledge gained. This is the foundation to any scientific, or philosophic method, hypothesis, or thesis. Religion, is man's pursuit to control that relationship.

 

 

*edit* To test the evolution waters a bit:

1. I'm a math kind of guy, but take a physiology course.

 

I can get on board with plenty of micro evolution. Macro I just can't. At all. Regarding the physiology course, it is truly remarkable the mechanisms and systems involved that perform the simplest tasks in the human body. The heart beat (well, what the heartbeat represents) is pretty basic, but clearly important. There is so much that sync's up at precise (micro-nano second windows here) moments to cause this basic body function to occur. One slight shift in any homeostatic balance can represent a whole host of diseases, failures, and syndromes that are too numerous to list. Those aren't very favorable odds in evolutionary-speak.

 

There are also hosts of organisms that have as vast genomes as human beings, yet are simple organisms in terms of phenotype. Organisms that have been in existence much longer than the human record, yet have never expressed any of these "dormant" genes. Natural selection - a theory critical to evolutionary thought - would have removed these unexpressed genes long ago. Yet they are still present in the DNA. Logic Fail.

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Wow.

 

This thread title was certainly misleading. I thought we would be discussing Atheism vs Christianity and not Christianity isn't valid due to 15 other religions forming a man/god/savior story well before it.

 

The only way this theory (that Christianity is a copycat) is legit, is to presume that the other religions stories were valid.

 

Kind of shoots Atheism in the foot.

 

Legacy I am a Athiest because of these logic based problems stemming from organized religions. Christianity is so full of logical issues it would easily fill a large book.

 

Christianity has so clearly copied almost WORD FOR WORD ESPECIALLY THE JESUS and APOSTLES story that well PREDATED it causes people like me to discount the validity of it in the first place.

 

Plageurism is well PLAGEURISM period, its the religous followers who in the face of illogical or contradictory information that befuddle Athiest in general. Its like otherwise intelligent people just mentally shut down.

 

Athiest refuse to shut down critical thinking just because some dogma or collective mythology/stories condensed into a book. Christians on the other hand in the face of logic or proof just well shut down... it does not make any sense to me.

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Well see that's the thing. Our very existence defies logic in a way. We are the NOT dominant species on the planet, yet when you look at some other animals and just going by what would be considered logical to be dominant you would think the animals with more weapons more armor would be the dominant ones, however we come into this world as the most helpless of all mammals, and are just these soft pink sacks of tissue with absolutely no weapons, except.....our brains. And with these brains we have taken over the world.

 

It's friggin' brilliant.

 

BACTERIAL/VIRAL life is the DOMINANT species on earth not us. We in fact are a collection of them anyways, they actually rule us not the other way around. they are more plentiful in numbers and all envirements. That sort of life is more than likely VERY wide spread over the universe.

 

Its that grand ego sense of overblown importance on our species as to why we are so "unique" that gives rise to these religions. Collections of microsopic communities working togeather in massive groups that make up other lifeforms is in all logical liklihood not so logic defying.

 

Besides with all of the verified water sources on Mars/and other planets already "life" in fact is not so unique.

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*edit* To test the evolution waters a bit:

 

Ooh, fun.

 

 

I can get on board with plenty of micro evolution. Macro I just can't. At all.

The thing is, micro and macro evolution are just terms we apply after the fact. Macro evolution is just a whole lot of micro evolution. If you believe micro evolution happens, how can you not believe in macro evolution. micro evolution drives evolution.

 

When I was a kid my mom would only get chocolate milk every once in a while. I love chocolate milk. To make it last longer I would pour half a glass of chocolate milk and half of regular 2%. When it got low I would add some more 2%. Eventually I wasn't drinking chocolate milk anymore, just 2%.

 

 

There is so much that sync's up at precise (micro-nano second windows here) moments to cause this basic body function to occur. One slight shift in any homeostatic balance can represent a whole host of diseases, failures, and syndromes that are too numerous to list.Those aren't very favorable odds in evolutionary-speak.

But there is no goal in evolution, it simply happens for better or for worse. It isn't as if evolution is trying to randomly put together proteins, hoping it comes out as a working heart. Over millions of years the "good heart" genes kept pushing forward, and "bad heart" mutations got killed off. It makes sense.

 

There are also hosts of organisms that have as vast genomes as human beings, yet are simple organisms in terms of phenotype. Organisms that have been in existence much longer than the human record, yet have never expressed any of these "dormant" genes. Natural selection - a theory critical to evolutionary thought - would have removed these unexpressed genes long ago. Yet they are still present in the DNA. Logic Fail.

 

Just because gense are expressed doesn't mean they are removed. Genomes aren't like code who's programmers are trying to make it more elegant, but it just accrues. Natural selection doesn't remove unexpressed genes, it is all about favorable expressed genes.

 

 

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Legacy I am a Athiest because of these logic based problems stemming from organized religions. Christianity is so full of logical issues it would easily fill a large book.

 

Christianity has so clearly copied almost WORD FOR WORD ESPECIALLY THE JESUS and APOSTLES story that well PREDATED it causes people like me to discount the validity of it in the first place.

 

Plageurism is well PLAGEURISM period, its the religous followers who in the face of illogical or contradictory information that befuddle Athiest in general. Its like otherwise intelligent people just mentally shut down.

 

Athiest refuse to shut down critical thinking just because some dogma or collective mythology/stories condensed into a book. Christians on the other hand in the face of logic or proof just well shut down... it does not make any sense to me.

Perhaps we should start with you defining what is illogical about Christianity. Is it the teachings of Jesus? His miracles? Reincarnation? That might help to orchestrate a better discussion.

 

If we are to assume that the story of Jesus is copied, then we would have to assume it was copied for a reason. Beginning with the legitimacy of specific teachings, miracles and the resurrection, we can substantiate (by virtue of replication) that these events are not "illogical." Logic would also explain the unlocking of "an imagination" to dream up the story of Jesus (or which ever story he is copied from). These thoughts are generated by experiences whether real or hidden in the subconscious. Also logical. Therefore it is absolutely illogical to refute an existence of a man/god/savior story whether it be Jesus, Mirthra, Osiris- whomever.

 

It's just as easy to "mentally shut down" and accept that a notion that offers no tactile response/stimulus does not exist as it is to accept a notion that offers no tactile response/stimulus does exist.

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The thing is, micro and macro evolution are just terms we apply after the fact. Macro evolution is just a whole lot of micro evolution. If you believe micro evolution happens, how can you not believe in macro evolution. micro evolution drives evolution.

 

When I was a kid my mom would only get chocolate milk every once in a while. I love chocolate milk. To make it last longer I would pour half a glass of chocolate milk and half of regular 2%. When it got low I would add some more 2%. Eventually I wasn't drinking chocolate milk anymore, just 2%.

Macro= specie differentiation.

Micro= adaptations within a species.

 

Conclusion: You were still drinking milk.

 

 

 

But there is no goal in evolution, it simply happens for better or for worse. It isn't as if evolution is trying to randomly put together proteins, hoping it comes out as a working heart. Over millions of years the "good heart" genes kept pushing forward, and "bad heart" mutations got killed off. It makes sense.

Sure that makes sense, much like in the same way that in Genesis the sky is referred to as "water above the land" because it was blue, and well, water is blue too.

It's much more complex than that. I'm referring to several components of the human body that make up one action. Hyperparathyroidism stimulating osteoclasts that eat away bone causing a surge in blood calcium levels leading to excessive amounts of calcium ion in the heart's T-tubules which their excess presence does not allow the AV node in the heart to depolarize and leads to no heartbeat. Renal failure, cancer cells on the parathyroid gland, hypertension, are all possible causes. Not to mention various traumas. There is absolutely a goal in every mechanism of the body, and therefore evolution, otherwise, it does not exist.

 

 

Just because gense are expressed doesn't mean they are removed. Genomes aren't like code who's programmers are trying to make it more elegant, but it just accrues. Natural selection doesn't remove unexpressed genes, it is all about favorable expressed genes.

Natural selection is about selecting more favorable outcomes. Atrophy and apoptosis are not favorable outcomes. It has notthing to do with removing anything. What isn't expressed (in terms of genotype, not just phenotype) isn't passed on.

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Macro= specie differentiation.

Micro= adaptations within a species.

 

Conclusion: You were still drinking milk.

 

Specieation occurs after enough adaptation within a species occur through different frces including mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift through the founder effect and population bottlenecks.

 

I still was drinking milk, but not the same kind of milk. Take that analogy of chocolate vs white milk and replace chocolate with an australopithecine and white milk with a human, the mixing was genetic drift.

 

Humans and chimpanzees have extremely similar genomes, would you consider them to be the same creature?

 

There is absolutely a goal in every mechanism of the body, and therefore evolution, otherwise, it does not exist.

It may seem like there is a goal in the body, but the body has come to be as it is through millions of years of trial and error. That is why defective bodies don't live long. Mutations can be favorable or unfavorable, and the favorable ones survive to be passed on.

 

Natural selection is about selecting more favorable outcomes. Atrophy and apoptosis are not favorable outcomes. It has notthing to do with removing anything. What isn't expressed (in terms of genotype, not just phenotype) isn't passed on.

 

Apoptosis is crucial for the human body. When telomeres wear down or there is a frame shift mutation and apoptosis can't happen then that person is screwed. It is a natural way of preventing bad mutations. A lot of the time cancer happens because apoptosis doesn't happen.

 

And what isn't expressed is passed on. Meiosis takes copies of both parents genomes. Without that, where does the new individuals genome come from? Either due to the recessive/dominant genes or the epigenome cause traits to not be expressed. Those traits don't magically delete themselves in the formation of haploid cells.

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Specieation occurs after enough adaptation within a species occur through different frces including mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift through the founder effect and population bottlenecks.

 

I still was drinking milk, but not the same kind of milk. Take that analogy of chocolate vs white milk and replace chocolate with an australopithecine and white milk with a human, the mixing was genetic drift.

 

Humans and chimpanzees have extremely similar genomes, would you consider them to be the same creature?

And the holes that exist, as in, the lack of fossil record of transition species? Sure it makes sense in theory, but it's a comparable leap of faith to, well.... you know... <_<

 

And the chocolate/regular & austra/human analogy doesn't work because GD is dependent on the math of chance more so than NS. NS at least presumes a reason for the alteration and acts so as to precipitate a favorable outcome, i.e. your chocolate milk was in short supply, you began conserving & mixing yielding chocolat-ish milk. Also, my understanding is that drift dominates over NS because of the randomness. Any step forward achieved from NS can very quickly reduced and even eliminated with drift.

 

 

It may seem like there is a goal in the body, but the body has come to be as it is through millions of years of trial and error. That is why defective bodies don't live long. Mutations can be favorable or unfavorable, and the favorable ones survive to be passed on.

This is illogical. Trial is born out of necessity. Therefore the implication is that there is a goal.

 

 

Apoptosis is crucial for the human body. When telomeres wear down or there is a frame shift mutation and apoptosis can't happen then that person is screwed. It is a natural way of preventing bad mutations. A lot of the time cancer happens because apoptosis doesn't happen.

 

And what isn't expressed is passed on. Meiosis takes copies of both parents genomes. Without that, where does the new individuals genome come from? Either due to the recessive/dominant genes or the epigenome cause traits to not be expressed. Those traits don't magically delete themselves in the formation of haploid cells.

Yes, they are not removed from those specific haploids (1y), but they don't get passed on to 2y, because they are not expressed. That's the point. We wouldn't have a fixed amount of chromosomes. You'd just keep adding more, according to your theory (Yes I know that 1 gene does not equal 1 chromosome before you go down that road - but over millions of years.......).

 

And thanks for confirming my point regarding goals. Apoptosis, in its current manifestation, is a cellular house/spring cleaning feature that has benefited multi-cellular organisms. Systematic cell death on its own, however, is not favorable, but born out of necessity. How many lysosomes do you think were trial-ed & error-ed before the body realized this organelle needs a membrane around it? (Hint: it begins with a "Z" and ends with an "ero"). The decision to initiate apoptosis can come from the immune system, the specific cell, or surrounding cells. Teamwork/ options implying the presence of goals.

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Lets go back to the origin of the first cell

 

There are three leading hypotheses for the source of small molecules that would make up life in an early Earth. One is that they came from meteorites.

 

Another is that they were created at deep-sea vents.

 

A third is that they were synthesized by lightning in a reducing atmosphere; although it is not sure Earth had such an atmosphere.

 

There is essentially no experimental data to tell what the first self-replicate forms were.

 

RNA is generally assumed to be the earliest self-replicating molecule, as it is capable of both storing genetic information and catalyze chemical reactions. But some other entity with the potential to self-replicate could have preceded RNA, like clay or peptide nucleic acid.

 

Now lets go to

 

Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

 

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 

and in

 

Deuteronomy 4:32 For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, whether there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it?

 

Isaiah 45:12 I have made the earth, and created man upon it: I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens, and all their host have I commanded.

 

 

 

 

 

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And the holes that exist, as in, the lack of fossil record of transition species? Sure it makes sense in theory, but it's a comparable leap of faith to, well.... you know... <_<

 

If you want evidence of transition species, look around you. Every living thing is a transition species. We probably wont find a "missing link" that is half man half ape, or some bizarre half lizard half bird, because what possible advantage could such a creature have? And more importantly, where would that creature come from? Very gradual changes (via "micro-evolution") building up over a long time slowly altered species and eventually specieation happened.

 

And the lack of fossils helps the case of evolution. Fossils are very rare occurrences and take the perfect conditions for them to occur. If there was a great flood as described in genesis it would have created those conditions and we would have millions of fossils to choose from.

 

And the chocolate/regular & austra/human analogy doesn't work because GD is dependent on the math of chance more so than NS. NS at least presumes a reason for the alteration, i.e. your chocolate milk was in short supply, you began conserving & mixing.

It isn't that gene drift caused the milk to become white milk, it is that as I added more and more white milk (mutations or what have you) the glass gradually went from being chocolate milk to white milk. Not all at once.

 

This is illogical. Trial is born out of necessity. Therefore the implication is that there is a goal.

Not trial and error in the engineer's sense, but of natural selection. The mutations that were favorable survived, those that just didn't work died. I sound like a broken record, but that is as simple as it is. It isn't that it was working out the problem, it is just that everything except the perfect one would die.

 

Yes, they are not removed from those specific haploids (1y), but they don't get passed on to 2y, because they are not expressed. That's the point. We wouldn't have a fixed amount of chromosomes. You'd just keep adding more, according to your theory (Yes I know that 1 gene does not equal 1 chromosome before you go down that road - but over millions of years.......).

Okay, it is true that not all genes are passed on from each parent. I agree with that. But it is completely random which genes happen to be passed down. It isn't as if non-expressed genes are weeded out. By meiosis 1 the entire genome is replicated, and by the end of meiosis 2 those copies of the genome have separated into the daughter chromosomes. The genes can still be passed on, they aren't guarunteed to not be passed on.

 

 

And thanks for confirming my point regarding goals. Apoptosis, in its current manifestation, is a cellular house/spring cleaning feature that has benefited multi-cellular organisms. Systematic cell death on its own, however, is not favorable, but born out of necessity. How many lysosomes do you think were trial-ed & error-ed before the body realized this organelle needs a membrane around it? (Hint: it begins with a "Z" and ends with an "ero"). The decision to initiate apoptosis can come from the immune system, the specific cell, or surrounding cells. But then again, it's probably just confused proteins loitering around.

Now how did apoptosis come around? I bet it had something to do with organisms dying because of mutant cells become cancerous and killing the organism while those in which apoptosis did occur the cells were kept in check. It isn't that the lysosomes were "trialed and errored" by the body, but because the bodies that had that mechanism survived to reproduce.

 

 

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If you want evidence of transition species, look around you. Every living thing is a transition species. We probably wont find a "missing link" that is half man half ape, or some bizarre half lizard half bird, because what possible advantage could such a creature have? And more importantly, where would that creature come from? Very gradual changes (via "micro-evolution") building up over a long time slowly altered species and eventually specieation happened.

 

And the lack of fossils helps the case of evolution. Fossils are very rare occurrences and take the perfect conditions for them to occur. If there was a great flood as described in genesis it would have created those conditions and we would have millions of fossils to choose from.

The advantages that the transition species would have would be manifest in the favorable outcomes of the mutations adapted over its predecessor/ancestor. And that's exactly what those gradual changes would be: clearly visable in a transition species. "Slowly altering" in evolutionary speak isn't a 75 yr lifespan of a human. The evidence would be there.

Fossils need an anaerobic environment so that bones (and other mineralized portions of the body etc.) can diffuse into surrounding rock thus preserving the structure. The oxygen rich water found in said flood would be horrible conditions for fossil formations. However, a cataclysmic event such as the flood could provide answers as to why there is no "transitional" evidence. But there would be some that survived - floods typically don't have the surgical precision necessary to isolate and target transitional species with devastation. But I could probably read a little more on them. ;)

 

It isn't that gene drift caused the milk to become white milk, it is that as I added more and more white milk (mutations or what have you) the glass gradually went from being chocolate milk to white milk. Not all at once.

Okay, well then that's natural selection, and not gene drift.

 

 

Not trial and error in the engineer's sense, but of natural selection. The mutations that were favorable survived, those that just didn't work died. I sound like a broken record, but that is as simple as it is. It isn't that it was working out the problem, it is just that everything except the perfect one would die.

And again, this is born out of goal necessity. Distinctions/definitions of "unfavorable" vs. "favorable" outcomes don't exist without a pre-determined function for that system.

 

 

Okay, it is true that not all genes are passed on from each parent. I agree with that. But it is completely random which genes happen to be passed down. It isn't as if non-expressed genes are weeded out. By meiosis 1 the entire genome is replicated, and by the end of meiosis 2 those copies of the genome have separated into the daughter chromosomes. The genes can still be passed on, they aren't guarunteed to not be passed on.
Agreed. But of the 4 daughter zygotes, only 1 joins with the daughter cell of the opposite sex.

 

Now how did apoptosis come around? I bet it had something to do with organisms dying because of mutant cells become cancerous and killing the organism while those in which apoptosis did occur the cells were kept in check. It isn't that the lysosomes were "trialed and errored" by the body, but because the bodies that had that mechanism survived to reproduce.

Right, but I'm looking at the function of the trial and error, not its existence. That's just acknowledging that there is something happening. What I am discussing is that a goal sets out a plan for a series of mechanisms to coexist, collaborate, or fight it out. The organisms that have the right mechanisms can win out, but there is a goal that these mechanisms are being directed by.

 

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The advantages that the transition species would have would be manifest in the favorable outcomes of the mutations adapted over its predecessor/ancestor. And that's exactly what those gradual changes would be: clearly visable in a transition species. "Slowly altering" in evolutionary speak isn't a 75 yr lifespan of a human. The evidence would be there.

Fossils need an anaerobic environment so that bones (and other mineralized portions of the body etc.) can diffuse into surrounding rock thus preserving the structure. The oxygen rich water found in said flood would be horrible conditions for fossil formations. However, a cataclysmic event such as the flood could provide answers as to why there is no "transitional" evidence. But there would be some that survived - floods typically don't have the surgical precision necessary to isolate and target transitional species with devastation. But I could probably read a little more on them. ;)

It isn't the flood waters that create the fossils, but the resulting sediment. You've seen flood water. It's disgusting, very muddy from all the churned up soil. Imagine a flood on a biblical scale. If the flood was powerful enough to carve out the grand canyon, it disturbed a lot of sediment, which buries the dead organisms. That gives you the anaerobic environment that is ideal for fossil formation.

 

One of the reasons it is so hard to find fossils on the humans is that hominoids evolved in the miocene forests. The tropical forests have acidic soil, as well as a host of bacteria and other organisms that decompose the body quickly. Unlike the ancestors of the modern apes, our ancestors were able to leave the miocene forests. We have found a large number of fossils in the great rift valley, where there is a lot of volcanic activity, which can bury remains in ash.

 

And there are some species that we have the entire fossil record for. The pig is one example, and we have used the pig dates from K40-Ar dating, as well as biostratigraphy to collaborate butchered bones with A. Garhi about 2.5 million years ago, which is the first evidence of tool use. Garhi was probably on our lineage. Pretty cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And again, this is born out of goal necessity. Distinctions/definitions of "unfavorable" vs. "favorable" outcomes don't exist without a pre-determined function for that system.

The necessity is determined by the environment, the driving force behind natural selection. If I had a mutation for no gills, and was born underwater then it is definitely unfavorable. If I was born on land, then it would be favorable.

 

 

Right, but I'm looking at the function of the trial and error, not its existence. That's just acknowledging that there is something happening. What I am discussing is that a goal sets out a plan for a series of mechanisms to coexist, collaborate, or fight it out. The organisms that have the right mechanisms can win out, but there is a goal that these mechanisms are being directed by.

As I stated above, the driving force for the goal, or more aptly what is a desirable trait, is the environment.

 

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With dominant and recessive genes, and a major advantage to survival of a lifeform due to a particular dominant gene,

 

the dominant gene would take more and more precedence, yes?

 

Over thousands of generations, given the complexity of dna...

 

the profound complexity of the human body... I hardly think it possible

 

that that profound complexity simply "boinked" intself out of a premordial slime

 

via static electricity.

 

The desire to understand how we came into existence, then turns itself toward

 

the spiritual answer, an answer greater than man, since man could not have created him/her self.

 

But this discussion is very excellent, and Legacy's advanced excellent sophisticated explanations are

 

starting to warp my psyche.

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With dominant and recessive genes, and a major advantage to survival of a lifeform due to a particular dominant gene,

 

the dominant gene would take more and more precedence, yes?

Yep. If it was a dominant/recessive gene, then eventually it would be quite common. But not all genes operate as dominant and recessive. When the human genome project started everyone thought that we would be able to figure out every disease and disorder... but it turns out there is more to it. The epigenome has a lot to do with it, genomic imprinting and the like. While we now know the sequence of the genome, we now to figure out the epigenome, which is quite complicated.

 

There is a NOVA episode on epigenetics called "ghost in your genes." It is really interesting, here is the youtube link for anyone interested.

 

 

Over thousands of generations, given the complexity of dna...

 

the profound complexity of the human body... I hardly think it possible

 

that that profound complexity simply "boinked" intself out of a premordial slime

 

via static electricity.

 

If in fact life started by "boinking" itself (oddly sexual) it wouldn't be nearly as complex as the life we see today. The current estimates from scientists for the first life is about 3.5 billion years ago, so that gives a lot of time for stuff to mutate and adapt. I am no expert on the origins of life or abiogenesis, and I really hated O-chem. So that's all I've got on that.

 

But this discussion is very excellent

 

Yes it is, and I'm really diggin' it.

 

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Can any of these viruses/bacteria destroy a planet?

 

Cause according to global warming alarmists, we can.

 

Do they manipulate the elements around them the way we do?

 

I understand the importance of bacteria in our world, and in relation to our bodies, but it's nowhere in the same sense we exist. Not even close.

 

But nice try though...

 

As far as your plagiarism arguments go its just a funny argument on your point. You want to tear to pieces the reliability of the bible and the dates attributed to when it was written and the authors and everything that has to do with it, yet you accept at face value all these mystery religions of when they were written.

 

It's just pretty obvious your disdain for the Judeo/Christian religion comes more from your interaction with it's adherents than your actual study of the material.

 

But yeah, it's so effin' obvious Christianity is a shame, it's just managed to fool billions of people a large percentage of which are smarter than you and I could ever hope to be.

 

Yeah that's the ticket.

 

BTW, let me know when the next big virus builds the 9th wonder of the world....

 

So because of the mass quantities of humans that are so afraid of the concept of death and the unknown the "truth" of christianity of Muslims or any other religion is absolute.....

Have you ever seen the percentages of scientist who believe in the christian dogma ? http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/211...eve-in-God.html

 

As for my intelligence I think I am in a good "club" that defines me much different than the billions you refer to. I have been a member since I was a child , by definition means I dont fit 98 percent of the population anyways.

 

Inspecta its from the study of Chrisitanity/bible materials that I arrive at my problems with the religion. Unlike most of its adherents I never went in looking at it as an absolute truth,I have extensively studied other religions/histories of many different regions.

 

I like most Christians I meet, we just diverge on how we percieve the unknown and death for the most part.

 

How you are defining importance by human based achievements and their supposed importance and level of development is exactly what I percieve one of the issues that give rise to religions.

 

How is the Rhino virus doing.... and multitudes of other viral life that has adapted (evolved) and continue to take us down? As for manipulation of envirements... Well bacteria does a pretty good job on the scale they exist in.... in fact enough that we employ them and are greatly threatened and affected by them. What they do on a biochemical level we have yet to accomplish equally on our own. As for the way they can affect the world.... specific bacteria can excrete methane or "eat" carbon etc, they may in fact be part of our attempts at finding a solution to a problem we created in the first place. So I think the field of micro biology and other related fields are definately massive growth areas because of the power they employ.

 

Building structures that are wonders.... Well they do in fact help BUILD US and almost ALL forms of life on this planet. I would most definately equate that with some building or bridge in fact in my opinion it greatly surpasses them.

 

I am sorry inspecta I dont see humanity as really all that unique or wonderful. I believe we have our biological place at the table with all the other multitudes of life. Unfortunately like a plague of locusts we are over reaching our desire for consumption and descrating our home.

 

The hubble and the Spitzer show us just a glimpse of the expanse our own galaxy not to mention the universe. We have found Water very plentiful within our own solar system which by proxy means the factor of possible life on other planetoids has exponentially increased to numbers we cant deny. Our own planetary discovery of life that does not need solar exposure to survive proves that life can exist almost anywhere... bacteria can live within what we once though impossible temperatures prove that life does not fit our once narrow ideas.

 

It amazes me that people follow some concepts derived from times that our scientific understanding of the world was so primitive. I think the "flat" earth theory was debunked quite a while ago. Someone should probably let those same people know WE ARE NOT IN FACT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE OR EVEN OUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM. I think the Sun is not a living god or being, and pretty sure Gods are not living on top of a mountain.

 

So these humans who had no idea about DNA/RNA or astrophysics let alone biochemistry/neuroscience or most other advanced sciences were defining this religion and people are still following their conceptual ideas that were were developed then on how we fit in to our biome and universe........ well I am sorry but I have a logical problem following conceptual ideas of the universe who thougt flight was impossible let alone might have burned me at the stake for talking about white blood cells and bacterial life or well the sun is the center of of solar system..

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thanks for the response Inspecta. I never stated I dont believe in a "driving force" Honestly I am part of the I dont know crowd Agnostic but I bend toward the Athiest crowd of denying the idea of Deities.

 

the Big bang itself is a problem because of matter vs antimatter conundrum and also the causation and origin. The problem is so vast for my little mind to comprehend.

 

My father was "spiritual" to him that meant he had a place in a life cycle of the planet that had possible repucussions in time and our universe. That concept definately help shape my feelings and understanding of where I stand. I just never bought into the organized systems that somehow absolutely knew a truth. For me I find truth as an elusive and temporary concept depending on the pretext and time you apply it to.

 

I really REALLY at times am jealous of the peace some religous adherents of any faith seem to have in "knowing" and absolute truth to themselves. My mind unfortunately has never functioned that way and at times I really wish it would.

 

The concept of a vacuam of absolute nothingness scares my concious mind and I wish I could allay that fear with something. Unfortunately there really logically has never been anything that made my reasoning centers say OK that fits or makes sense.

 

 

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