Diver Dan you can still shout your vitriolic antigay comments at the footy, though you will be thrown out of the Oval!! :)

Well of course it does, Dan S de Merengue.

>>In evolutionary terms, life evolves without a teleological view, with no purpose or end in mind<<

It is the question that is the problem, not the answer.

>>The original question came from Brian Rosner, "To what end is my sense of justice and my yearning for transcendence, and so on, in purely evolutionary terms?"<<

By asking "to what end", the assumption has already been made by the questioner that there is indeed some form of purpose. Hence, by definition, your need for a teleological answer.

Another way to pose the same question might be, "what in the evolutionary process caused humans to develop a sense of justice, or allows us to experience wonder at our surroundings?"

This requires no teleology, but instead makes no sense without acceptance of the fact that we have evolved, rather than have been created fully formed.

Both may therefore be described as circular arguments. You need to refer to your Bible to support your argument, I use evolution as my reference point.

For me, teleology is a self-serving set of philosophical concepts that relies entirely on the fact that there is a specific objective to our life on earth.

I don't agree that there being some purpose to our existence is a necessary condition of life on earth. I simply don't need there to be one, in order to experience the awe and wonder of my surroundings, and in the process being profoundly pleased that - given the odds - I exist at all.

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Dear diver dan,

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I rarely take the time these days to sit on fences. I did it occasionally when I was a boy wandering about in the bush with my uncle on fishing weekends. The silence was deafening. It used to bore me to death waiting for hours for something to happen, a fishing rod in my hands. I preferred shooting at anything that moved with my old army 303.

Quite frankly, I see no point in worrying about who marries who or why so long as they do no harm to anybody. I am happy to let them get on with their lives. If they are happy, so am I. If boy loves boy and girl loves girl, that's fine with me.

I see no reason why they shouldn't adopt children or conceive them by artificial insemination or some other appropriate, legal and medically controlled method, raise a family and live happily ever after. In fact, I would be delighted if they did.

I see this as much more beneficial to humanity than the incestuous relationships that thrive in far too many heterosexual families. Wife bashing is also fairly common practice, in some cases, until death ensues.

Perhaps I have a twisted mind, but I, personally, consider that heterosexual practices such as these are more to be condemned than two people of the same sex falling in love and wanting to get married. If they do happen to end up fighting each other, at least they will be boxing in the same category.

In my opinion, heterosexual couples are not in a position to give lessons of morality to same sex couples. As somebody said: " And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?". Don't look now, diver, but are you sure your doorstep couldn't do with a good sweeping?

The AFL ads you mention indicate that homophobia in Australia is more serious than I imagined. Mind you, we have always been a bunch of matchos in the sporting world.

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>>If you want to take your literalist view of the words, then we all die, and some are more deserving of that death than others.<<

Well obviously we all die: we're human: homo sapiens sapiens. Within the phylum chordata and - as far as I know - all known chordates cark it eventually. We all are aware of our own mortality and most people begrudgingly accept it. But as for this idea that some people deserve death more than others: harsh, dude. If someone was to say to you 'I don't think you should be killed because the 5th commandment is very clear on that subject but I still think you deserve to walk under a falling piano tomorrow. Even if you're a really nice guy who's led a largely blameless life you still deserve to buy the farm because a talking snake convinced a bloke and his missus to eat a piece of fruit.' would you regard that as a kind Christian sentiment?

>>You still can't deal with that outside of Paul's theology of original sin, and death being a factor in the world being a consequence of that sin.<<

People don't die because of original sin. They die for more reasons than I can think of but I don't think you'll ever find a death certificate with 'original sin' listed as the cause of death.

>>you essentially agree with my interpretation of the passage.<<

That people expire because a talking snake convinced their forefather and his missus to eat a piece of fruit? And that homosexuals, fornicators, people who are disobedient to their parents, liars and even debaters along with many others deserve to die if they don't seek redemption through Christ? No I don't agree with that. And furthermore: harsh, dude. Did you know that kindness is one of the seven heavenly virtues?

TBC

>>As for those archaeologists who claim to have found human remains over 190,000 years old? Well, that is one way to look at it. But I know they weren't there at the time to write those things down.<<

And we all know that we can only have knowledge of something if there was somebody there to write about it at the time.

And now for a rare on-topic comment: if you look up into a clear starry sky you might just be looking at the Andromeda galaxy which is 2.5 million light years away. The light we see from Andromeda has taken 2.5 million years to reach us so when we look up at it we are looking 2.5 million years into the past. That fills me with awe.

Cheers,

Tony

Dear Tony:

You wrote: And now for a rare on-topic comment: if you look up into a clear starry sky you might just be looking at the Andromeda galaxy which is 2.5 million light years away. The light we see from Andromeda has taken 2.5 million years to reach us so when we look up at it we are looking 2.5 million years into the past. That fills me with awe.

Does that actually fill you with awe or do you feel you really should have a sense of awe on looking into the sky?

According to "Origins" the noun, awe, (Middle English aghe) comes from Old Norse agi, akin to Old High German agison, to frighten, Gothic, agis, fear, and old German, I am afraid,old Irish, I fear, and, more remotely, Greek, akhos, distress, pain.

Usage defines words rather than etymology, but the etymology is quite interesting.

I accept the scientific view of the formation of the universe along with the various celestial bodies and life forms. It's a much more fascinating account than the biblical fairy tales. I have to admit my awe quotient is low. I have seen new-born babies whose existence I was partially responsible for. I was shocked to behold them.

One of those bits of squirming life is now a middle aged man who wants to explore our past together. He is much more interesting to me now than when he was a squirming bit of fresh flesh.

I have read books on embryology to find out about the process by which he came to be. I have read books and studied physics and the biological sciences to find out how stars, fungi and humans formed.

Rather than awe I am inspired to the pedestrian (but marvellous) activity of reading a book.