Dear Runner,

Scientists "test" their posits with regard to Creation. The CERN Hedron Super Collider will soon test posits about the fundamentals of Big Bang. If hypotheses are falsified then scientsts will admit it, ASAP. Contrarily, it took Christians over five hundred years to admit Gallileo was correct and that the Sun is indeed the centre of the solar system. Incidently, based on the Sun's ratio of hydrogen to helum, said star, is five billion years old.

If the Church knows humans are Carbon-based and science asserts Carbon can be only be produced in Stars, where is the Church's counter proof that new Carbon-based creatures can be produced spontaneously? Else put, where is the evidence of the process used.

With regards to the Big Bang, Science predicted, before its discovery, the existence of background radiation. Now (tentatively) confirmed to be 2.7 degrees Kelvin.

If Eve was created (say cloned) from Adam's rib, by what process did Eve lose Adam's Y chromosome?

Atypically, for a human gamete, her X chromosome would need to have divided by mitosis, for her zygote to become an adult. If God is the builder; What was Its process? Please explain.

If Adam & Eve were created as adults... How old were they? Well, obviously neonate adults, abosutely. But, relative to us? What thoughts/cognitions did they have as spontneously created adults, with no life-cycle history?



Oly.

Of all the religious fundamentalist arguments, this has to be my favourite, because it sums up the position so beautifully.

It is as simple as:

"If you can't understand it, there must be/have been divine intervention"

The delightful part of this is that it cannot in any way be refuted, simply because the nature of science is the continuous search for new information that will provide greater understanding. At any point, the RF can turn round and say "there you are, you can't prove it, so there must be a God."

The fact that this statement underlines the utter barrenness of their argument never occurs to them.

The same argument must have been used by our ancestors, who watched the sun rise in the east and set in the west, and fell some way short of being able to explain it to each other in scientific terms. Due, possibly, to a singular lack of telescopes.

I suspect - and this is of course only my opinion - that the current fad for RFs to actively attempt to discredit science at every turn, is because the increasing amount of information available to us is slowly eroding the credibility of their "God did it" position.

Very soon - say, another hundred years or so - science will have gathered sufficient information for us to have a pretty good stab at what we are, where we came from, and what will happen to us.

And how would the RF brigade feel about themselves then, I wonder?

<< The same argument must have been used by our ancestors, who watched the sun rise in the east and set in the west, and fell some way short of being able to explain it to each other in scientific terms. Due, possibly, to a singular lack of telescopes. >>

Duh. A giant scarab pushes the sun across the sky to be eaten by the moon, which regurgitates it each morning. We know this is a scientific fact because our god-ancestors told us so.

You only buy this "astrophysics" and "evolution" nonsense because you can understand complex, evidence based information. If you were baffled by complexity and had a paralysing fear of death like I do you'd see the error of your ways.

Oh, and the Bible's claims regarding physics, astronomy and the natural world are all wrong, but make perfect sense from the perspective of an illiterate middle-eastern shephard in the Bronze Age. Therefore the sun god Ra must have done it all.

Ah Poly, but I quoted the Stanley Miller experiment for a good
reason! You Godsquad members seem to be constantly thrown by the
fact that today we have complexity, so as Pericles wisely points
out, "God did it" is all that you can come up with. God of the gaps,
so to speak.

If you, runner, gibo etc were really interested in understanding
evolution, then you would have to invest a bit of time, put down
those bibles and learn at least a tiny bit of what we do know,
which is a mountain of information.

See it as a huge puzzle, there might be a few pieces missing,
but we certainly can see the big picture. Every day adds to filling
in those missing pieces.

Why I mentioned Miller is because what you need to understand is
how life started with incredible simplicity on the planet.
There would have been no need for cells, etc, as there were
no other lifeforms to be protected from.

This is also why reading a bit of Dawkins etc, would do you some
good. He does a good job at explaining how an eye can evolve,
again from simplicity to complexity.

The real problem of course is that you have no interest in taking
some time to understand evolution and why it is taught as science
at every major university on the planet.

As you admit, you are addicted to religion, it makes you feel
good. So evolution is a bit of a thorn in your side.

Let me put it this way. When I travel I tend to go by 747 or
similar, its design based on good science, using our mountains
of scientific information.

You on the other hand are suggesting that people should sit on
your magic carpet or broomstick and that if they have enough
faith, it will surely fly. Ok, great for you gullible,
feelgood types, but please don't expect me to take your nonsense
seriously.

A good working example Yabby.

>>When I travel I tend to go by 747 or similar, its design based on good science, using our mountains of scientific information.<<

I recall the very first time I travelled in a 747.

We had to cross the tarmac to board it, and therefore had a good look at it as we approached. Compared to the aircraft I had previously used, it looked absolutely huge. How on earth would this thing defy gravity, was my first thought.

By the time we were speeding down the runway and approaching rotation, I had decided that the only possible way it could achieve flight was because all 350 passengers "knew" that it would actually take off, despite the evidence of our eyes.

It did, of course, thus reinforcing my conclusion.

It took me many years before I exchanged this belief - that a 747 only gets to take off because every passenger and crew member believed that it would - for a more balanced view, that those guys in Seattle knew what they were doing when they built it.

Of course, whether this will still hold true for the A380...

Well, you obviously had faith that it would take off Pericles.

What values did you derive from the religion that formed from that faith?