The meaning of life

[sivael]

It was said by Steven that there is nothing after death. So He believes that there's nothing after death. You need to quote/read things in context:)

If You don't believe anything in particular (or so You think), I can assure You that somewhere deep You have various beliefs that are not based on logical and rational thinking:P

I know the theory of evolution *very* well - I needed to choose between the evolution and the alternative - creation. And believe me that I studied the topic from various angles. Since the evollutionists' theory about how the first cell has appeared has sooooooo many holes in it I decided not to believe in it and faced with the arguments of Bible I close this belief system as the one being unflawed. And either I'm yet to find these flaws or it's really a work of God.

PS. The evolutionists themselves say there's no proof to support the evolution theory:P

[syedhs]

PS. The evolutionists themselves say there's no proof to support the evolution theory:P

Well I have read quite a lot of postings from people who are knowledgeable in the realm of science (they are all science professors) - in summary, all of them stresses about two points:-

1) Most creationist (basically anti-evolutionist) dont know things deep enough and there quite many flaws in their arguments. The flaws are probably because they first choose what to belief in, and then defend. And their arguments are simply coming from other creationists' arguments, they can't really comprehend the subject by their own. And this is just a general statement, and not intended for anyone here.

2) The lack of proof in support of evolutionist can be compared to lack of scientifical proof that smoking causes cancer. Statistically, smoking is shown beyond any doubt to cause cancer, but scientifically speaking - no.

And regarding the belief, maybe Pascal's Wager can help a little. It is a good reading anyway.

My belief regarding this is the fact is in between - but I don't have time to articulate this on this post. Okay maybe I myself are still not clear about this.

[offtopic]
Nikki,
Hehe I always find that Trump's hair is a little amusing, more so when he has a bad hair day. It is time to move on, so I ditch Samurai Jack for now.
[/offtopic]

[haffax]

If You don't believe anything in particular (or so You think), I can assure You that somewhere deep You have various beliefs that are not based on logical and rational thinking:P

Oh I am aware that I have lots of positive beliefs. And I obviously harbour many beliefs I am not aware of.

I know the theory of evolution *very* well.

No you don't. I am sorry, but this is so obvious even from the little you say here. Self reflect about it. For once you don't seem to know that the theory of evolution doesn't consider the "first cell" at all. How it came into being, either by chemical evolution (not the same!), Pansperma or maybe even by divine intervention is meaningless to it. When you don't even know this much, then you know next to nothing about it.


You also don't seem to understand what a theory is at all:

PS. The evolutionists themselves say there's no proof to support the evolution theory:P

There is this "proof" word again. As said: Evidence is presented in my last post. Your choice to ignore it or not. And that "evolutionists" don't say there is proof, is just because there is no proof for anything in the outside world. No one can prove the truth of the bible either. Philosophically speaking I can't even prove that you exist. Proof is a meaningless word in this context.

And as with most creationst claims, there is a talkorigin FAQ entry about it: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA202.html

[jacmoe]

Proof is another word for belief.

We all agree that 1 + 1 = 2. But that is not proof that it really is.

Science is like religion, but with more verbose arguments.

[reptor]

It is interesting that sivael said that we have to believe in something. Isn't this the "looking for an answer, something that explains" thing. Sivael is looking for something to comfort him or her, something to make him or her feel safer. Sivael says we have to believe in something. Why?

It is the lack of understanding the bigger picture of things (note, I said earlier that it is impossible for us to understand) and wanting something to explain it all which drives these people to religions. They want to feel safe, and religions provide that feeling for them. They don't need to understand, it is enough for them to believe that they have found the answer.

And it is OK for me. I am not going to take that feeling of safety away from anyone even though I might think they are believing in something which is not provable in any way.

"God created it" is a very easy answer. Just believe in it and you will not have to work any more to understand. It is, as I see it, a way too easy answer and a very lazy approach. I choose to go the more difficult road instead of just taking God and bible as The Truth which shall not be questioned.

[Kojack]

Science is like religion, but with more verbose arguments.

And less invisible men floating in the sky.

[jjp]

Proof is another word for belief.

We all agree that 1 + 1 = 2. But that is not proof that it really is.

Science is like religion, but with more verbose arguments.

No, 'proof' is not another word for 'belief'. A proof shows that a statement is true, within the world in which the set of axioms on which the proof stands is true. Now the axioms or initial assumptions are a matter of belief, derived from empirical observation or whatever. But a proof has still nothing to do with belief.

And I couldn't agree less that science was like religion. In a nutshell science is about making falsifiable statements that can be used to generate useful predictions about something and trying to disprove them. Which is something very very different than religion.

[syedhs]

Okay I couldn't resist any more Here is my take on science vs religion:-

1) Religion is more from up-to-bottom approach. It gives the direction, only to be realized of the advantages (hundreds) years later. Science is observe first, think and drive your own deduction. Then come the hypothesis, theory, theorem blah blah. So science is the reverse: going from most basic to more complex ie bottom to up. Therefore, if both the religion and science are true, they should meet at some points in the middle.

2) Science is ever more needed to complement religion because in this modern world, more people are becoming more skeptic and less blind adhering bunch. It is a lot like what John Carmack said about programmer - a low level coding satisfies programmer's soul.

3) In regard of (1), I have read about many scientist use religion to 'drive' their experiment ie dont start from zero, rather your experiment skew toward the 'religion knowledge cloud' - you will have a lot more success that way. In other word, religion provide general guidance, science fill up the rest. Of course this is not conclusive, but you have got the feeling it is true...

4) There is a good reason why religion is a faith because otherwise, God will present His chosen and correct holy scripture in such way that it is the undisputed religion. You can probably picture a big giant holy scripture mounted on the highest peak, with gold letters crafted all over in it. And the scripture has a pair of angelic kind of wings that keep flapping forever. With such undisputed proof, all 7 billion people will bow down and subscribe to one religion without any doubt of whatever. I know this is just a hypothetical but if it ever happened, then it is not a faith anymore - it is handed on a silver platter.

So, the summary is this: you are being tested..

[_tommo_]

No, 'proof' is not another word for 'belief'. A proof shows that a statement is true, within the world in which the set of axioms on which the proof stands is true. Now the axioms or initial assumptions are a matter of belief, derived from empirical observation or whatever. But a proof has still nothing to do with belief.

And I couldn't agree less that science was like religion. In a nutshell science is about making falsifiable statements that can be used to generate useful predictions about something and trying to disprove them. Which is something very very different than religion.

Huge quote... you can't really say that science is like religion...
there's a "little" difference, in that science doesn't pretend to be perfect, and in fact a good scientist will scrap his ideas if they are proven false.
Instead, you can't change the mind of a faithful person... if you prove him wrong, you are just infidel

And, for the evolutionism theory... you have to understand that nowadays it's a problem ony to you US people!
In the rest of the world everyone knows the value of the evolution law, not theory... even the pope admitted it's proved validity.
In fact it's a bit strange for me that a scientific country like the US is going so backwards on these things...
hey, it's the first country that discovered OGMs... how do you do that without evolution?

[haffax]

In the rest of the world everyone knows the value of the evolution law, not theory... even the pope admitted it's proved validity.

What's wrong with theory? Of course it is. There is no "credibility ladder" theory -> fact -> law. Those three terms each mean a distinct thing, different from each other. In case of law vs theory, one could say that a theory may encompass a set of laws. E.g. the Standard Model encompasses all the quantum mechanics laws. Gravitation theory Newton's inverse-square law etc. In case of evolutionary theory, it is hard to come up with laws but one is the fundamental theorem of natural selection.

Fact is something different too, but still one could say evolution is a fact. Simply because we can check the definition of evolution against observations and and if there are observations that can be subsumed to the definition we have the fact.
"Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations." And it has been observed hundreds of times (for instance here). So there is the fact. And the mechanics and rules that drive this evolutionary process are described in the evolutionary theory.

[_tommo_]

Strange... they told me that a "theory" is unverified, is a thesis, while a law has been generally accepted as true, so yes, law >> thoery.
In fact, evolutionism, relativity, are called theories while talking, but really they are laws.
At least they told this to me

[sivael]

Evolution has been greatly extended to cover even the genesis of the universe so don't tell me the origins of the cell are not there. Simply read more about it. One of the prime voices of evolutionists stated "on the air" during an evolutionist<>creationist debate that they have no *evidence* [I still don't see the difference between the proof and evidence but I'm from Poland - english is not my primary language xD] to support their theory.

Well... I've worked the topic over and over and I've noticed one single truth about all the evolutionists: Their theory is a religion of it's own. Why? Simple:

If the evolution is to be true, we need to find the "missing links" to show the development of human from an ape. This has never been found. Lucy has been proven to be an ape(the ribcage and hipbone are clearly of a shape that is present in every ape today - and as such does not enable the creature to walk straight. Analysis of the bone structure showed another nice thing: Lucy was suited to walk on the trees.

There's more. Look for it.

Evolution of one specie to another, as in adding more genetic information:
natural selection by default lessens the amount of genetic information thus taking away diversity(within population) rather than adding genetic information.
Mutations modify existing strings of DNA, in 100% of cases it's effect has been null, or it has caused diseases. Still this doesn't cause any new genes to appear.

Geoevolution:
States that coal was created over a long period of time. And there's a
"coaled"(no idea what's the proper term for that:P) tree buried vertically and it pierces a few geological structures - it's top was supposedly few hundred thousand years older than it's bottom - when we use the geological dating evolutionists support.

Measuring the age of fossils:
1. The fossils found in the geological structure determine it's age.
2. Age of the fossils is determined by the geological placement.

Circular reference... right?

Finalization:
Most people assume that religion takes away the rational thinking. Well... religion does. Bible - doesn't. It's like... when You take the Bible and try to match the world to it - it's wrong. When You take the world and try to match Bible to it - it's wrong. You need to open Your thoughts to all both have to offer.
And they're amazingly speaking the same voice. For example : the theory of The Young Earth is amazingly accurate and consistent with the findings of scientists.
So just try to understand both.

There's much more, but I'll stop there and let You do the digging

I never said that everybody has to believe in something - I just stated that everybody does - whether he/she knows it or not

PS: Oh... and I'm a He xD

[_tommo_]

*

Come on... this is a completely useless speech... your points are age old, and don't take into account new discovers and updates to the theories...

Well, at least you proven wrong the original '800s theory

To reply quickly:

-Evolution doesn't cover other topics than evolution, whoever told this to you has been wrong... evolution covers only the dynamics in DNA-based organisms; if you "force" it in other fields, it's not scientific anymore.

-Missing links between apes and humans are constantly found, and now we have a very clear map of all the branches of human evolution.
There was also an internet project that mapped the origin of the people who submitted their DNA, confirming all the suppositions.
Just read wikipedia for this.

-About genetic information: you simply don't understand the mechanisms.
New information is constantly created thanks to random processes like cross-over and epigeneis. In fact, the DNA isn't the only source of evolution, and natural selection isn't the only source of selection... you have a very simplicistic view of the evolution theory, IMHO.

-The coal thing is nonsense...

In the end, you proved me that religion takes away rational thinking... if you weren't so interested in defending your position, you could understood better many things...
A small proof of evolution:

Why do you think that bacteria and viruses like flu change each year, and become resistent to past antibiothics?
Maybe there's a chinese factory that builds them every year?

Today sustaining creationism is like sustaining that Earth is flat... the proofs are under the eyes of everyone... each single medicine contains the notions of evolutionism.

[haffax]

Evolution has been greatly extended to cover even the genesis of the universe so don't tell me the origins of the cell are not there.

Says who? Not my Evolution textbook anyway or wikipedia, or talkorigin, or...
The concepts of biological evolution have been abstracted and in a similar kind been applied to other fields. But this is nothing that matters for biologist and the theory of evolution.

One of the prime voices of evolutionists stated "on the air" during an evolutionist<>creationist debate that they have no *evidence* to support their theory.

There probably is a divergence between what this ominous person actually said and what creationist though he/she said. Someone somewhere said something, any possible way to make this statement more vague? Who exactly said what exactly and how does it matter after I presented a list of evidence with full references? Did you even take a look at it?
You value the hearsay about what someone you don't know said somewhere, higher than an actual body of text presenting a comprehensive argument with references you can actually check? Why?

Well... I've worked the topic over and over and I've noticed one single truth about all the evolutionists: Their theory is a religion of it's own. Why? Simple:

You seem to use the word "truth" in a very loose way. Anyway, why I quote this conclusion is because it is a big Non-sequitur regarding the premises you present afterward.


Ok, I'm not going to answer all these claims myself. They all have an entry to the catalog of creationists claims, so I just link the response from there. No need to duplicate effort, more so that these guys know it better than me anyway.
For reference, here is the complete index: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

If the evolution is to be true, we need to find the "missing links" to show the development of human from an ape. This has never been found. Lucy has been proven to be an ape(the ribcage and hipbone are clearly of a shape that is present in every ape today - and as such does not enable the creature to walk straight. Analysis of the bone structure showed another nice thing: Lucy was suited to walk on the trees.

CC200. There are no transitional fossils
CC080. Australopithecus was fully ape, closer to chimp

Evolution of one specie to another, as in adding more genetic information:
natural selection by default lessens the amount of genetic information thus taking away diversity(within population) rather than adding genetic information.
Mutations modify existing strings of DNA, in 100% of cases it's effect has been null, or it has caused diseases. Still this doesn't cause any new genes to appear.

Actually all of section CB900 should be read in response.
CB910. No new species have been observed
CB904. No entirely new features or biological functions have evolved
Also, this is rather new so not covered in the index, the long-term experimental evolution project I linked above recently revealed a new stem of ecoli that
has aquired a new food source in aerobic environment. Here is a nice article about it and why it matters: http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2008/06/02 ... lution.php

Geoevolution:
States that coal was created over a long period of time. And there's a
"coaled"(no idea what's the proper term for that:P) tree buried vertically and it pierces a few geological structures - it's top was supposedly few hundred thousand years older than it's bottom - when we use the geological dating evolutionists support.

Polystrate fossil trees show tree trunks passing through many layers and several meters of sediments.

Measuring the age of fossils:
1. The fossils found in the geological structure determine it's age.
2. Age of the fossils is determined by the geological placement.
Circular reference... right?

This doesn't have an entry. It is wrong insofar as fossils are not the only way to date geological structures. Radiometric data is used to date those.
Maybe you are not convinced by this either, so read up on the whole CD section, maybe there is a topic or two that interest you.
CD. Geology

the theory of The Young Earth is amazingly accurate and consistent with the findings of scientists.

No it isn't. See the whole catalog, actually see the whole talkorigins site. It is written by scientists, btw.

[Kojack]

Why aren't the greek gods still worshipped? If I was going to devote my life to worshipping make-believe deities, I'd rather choose the greek gods over the current boring choices. Zeus knew how to party!


(this thread is doomed now, as I knew it would be as soon as religion appeared. Neither side will convince the other)

[sivael]

OK. Every time I talk about things like that anywhere(forums, chats, etc...) people accuse me of not having enough knowledge for speaking up against their belief system. It's quite remarkable how fiercely it's defended

In order to see the whole image unbiased You'd have to be at the point where You don't believe either the Bible, or the scientists. And that is very hard to come by. We are indoctrinalized at schools to believe in evolution and as I see it - You believe it too.
I'm a debugger. I find errors and fix them. The same thing I apply to the evolution theory, and the same I apply to the Bible.

I know, that I haven't written everything about the evolution or creationism and I know that some of the statements I have made as for the scope of evolution may or may not be accepted by every evolutionist out there.
But I have carefully checked every piece of evolutionist material and after confronting this with other - nonevolutionist materials I've found evolution to be false.

I can't really explain everything here. I just encourage to learn and judge by Yourselves what is true and what isn't.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/

I guess this site is quite complete in providing an alternate viewpoint of the facts that we all can see.

There are scientists who believe in creation as well as there are scientists that believe in evolution. And they're both very educated, they work on the same fossils and use the same programs to process it. They simply apply the (biblical|evolutionist) model of the (flood, creation|progressive evolution), etc... to the world and see if it fits.

PS. Leaving all the arguments as to how(if?) the evolution was done. The first cell, the "simplest" one has yet to be discovered/developed. There have been no evidence as to the creation of life from the non-living matter. The simplest cell (developing a theory of a forementioned simple strand of DNA as a selfreplicating machine and providing it as a proof is absurd - a cell in itself is much more complex and it's irreducibly complex. Take one part - it all falls apart. Show me one and I'll believe. ) can not simply appear from the non-living matter, and as such, the origins of life are unexplained.

I think that I've said enough for now - the truth will speak for itself.

[haffax]

Sivael, your response is very disappointing. I made an effort to answer all your questions, if I didn't catch something please point it out.
But all you provide in return is more of the same again? Why don't you answer specifically to what I posted?

If you are so thoroughly educated about evolution as you propose, it should be a snap for you to point out my erroneous ways then.

Every time I talk about things like that anywhere(forums, chats, etc...) people accuse me of not having enough knowledge for speaking up against their belief system.

No. I "accuse" you of not knowing about evolution because of what you said specifically about evolution. It was demonstrably false in many regards. This has nothing at all to do with religion.



PS: The AiG site I know of course, though when I was last there it didn't yet have this web2.0 look. The content didn't change though.

PPS: I guess I don't have to link to the specific topics about your PS.-claim either. It will go unanswered anyway. Just know that they are there and you know where to look up and whom to ask.

[haffax]

Why aren't the greek gods still worshipped?

This reminds me of something. I recently read Bertrand Russel's A History_of_Western_Philosophy (Highly recommended, a fun read) and in there Russel also discusses Epikur, a very influential greek philosopher with many modern ideas, that just didn't stuck at that time. He was rather anti-religious in many ways, but still believed in gods. Why? Because there was no other way he could explain the widespread belief in deities.

So if no one beliefs in them anymore they cease to exist?

[steven]

@Steven - That means that You believe in Your theory just like others believe there's God and afterlife.

Nope
If you read my first post I am agnostic.
I don't know if there is something or not and both are ok with me!

However if I have god in face of me I would hit him to have created: malformation, death babies, illness, sterile persons, etc etc.

What would you think of a human who invented those?

I personally choose to believe Bible - it's quite a remarkable book.

Kuff... Did you read it?
Why was the grand-son of Noah condemned for the drinking of Noah?
etc. But I will not continue it will degenerate.

[EDIT]LOL ... at his answer to this: see mine later [/EDIT]

[jjp]

Strange... they told me that a "theory" is unverified, is a thesis, while a law has been generally accepted as true, so yes, law >> thoery.

Well, you can't ever completely verify a theory That is one of the key concepts of science. So the expression "laws of nature" for example is not really correct. Gravity or whatever you take isn't a law. But there are strong theories and weak theories and practically one treats the extremely strong ones like they were law.

Evolution for example is a very good theory; countless things we can observe support the theory and it can be used to generate useful predictions.

Creatonism on the other hand isn't a scientific theory at all. It can't be used to make useful predictions, it isn't falsiable and it violates Occam's razor. To name a few points.

By the way: "truth" is completely irrelevant to science.

[sivael]

@haffax I haven't explained and fought on arguments because it is pointless. It never leaves(in this form of course) anyone smarter/better than he was before. All has already been said and all is public knowledge. I simply encourage to look at it.
It's not a snap because it involves looking up all the tiny details and pictures to provide You with answers. And there are sites which do that for me already.
I stated what I believe in and why, and since I have provided the means for the people to find out more about my point of view, I think it's enough.

@Steven - Sorry then, I seem to have missed that If You knew the Bible, you'd know that this wasn't the God's creation. Sin has caused all these things, and hat sin was brought upon the human race by Adam - the first human created.

Yes, I read it.
His grand-son? A curse has been placed on Cham for entering his father's tent and seeing him naked. If You'd read more of it You'd know, that there's no sin without the knowledge of the sin. And apparently Cham knew what he was doing.

@jjp - read some about the young earth theory. It's much more consistent with the data from other areas of science than evolution and "old earth" theory. And the standard methods of dating the geological structures have given the small - 4000-6000 years - ages and have been adjusted to give large results.

Besides - how will You explain findings of gold lockets and goblets in coal if this coal is x million years old

[reptor]

But I have carefully checked every piece of evolutionist material and after confronting this with other - nonevolutionist materials I've found evolution to be false.

That is quite a bold statement, don't you think.



Thank You, it made me smile.

Someone who claims he or she has checked *every piece* is already going the wrong way. One of the important first steps when you study something is to acknowledge how little you know, so you will become open for learning. One who thinks he already has checked everything, has nothing left to learn.

My experience is that the more I read the more I realize how little I know.

[Kojack]

Sorry, can't help it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpA47o8E46U

[haffax]

Besides - how will You explain findings of gold lockets and goblets in coal if this coal is x million years old

Like this: CC131. An iron pot was found encased in Carboniferous coal

How are such reports credible anyway? It is the same with this:

One of the prime voices of evolutionists stated "on the air" during an evolutionist<>creationist debate that they have no *evidence* to support their theory.

I ask again: How is this credible and in anyway meaningful? Who said when what?

[volca]

It seems ridiculous to me - All that creationism/intelligent design does is it comes up with a pseudo-theory that should align well with a book originally meant to teach people good manners, which is not to be taken as something describing ancient times most of the time. It does not predict, it does not align well with evidence material found (well it does in sort of a twisted way - if I say everything has some hidden attribute nobody can find anything about, nobody can say I'm wrong).
Even high representatives of religion agree that evolution theory is true. There are countless scientists with strong belief in god. Is this middle ages? Secularization already happened a long time ago, or so I thought.

Interesting to hear, one person, which does not agree with evolution theory and instead says the creation theory is right, also tells me there was no middle-age torture happening, etc. I don't think it is a coincidence - It is dangerous to mix reality with personal beliefs like this.