A penny for your thoughts on this debate....

[bitsmart]

I'll venture a viewpoint, keep the penny. http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile_wink.gif" border=0>

Creation is a valid force in the Universe. Humans have the ability to create something from nothing (imagination.) I think that most of the people who don't believe in the Creation theory don't believe so because the idea of some omniscient being creating something so vast doesn't fit into the 'commonly accepted paradigm.' Our little monkey brains can't concieve it. Living in a third-density reality, you will create third-density ideas and theories. This goes along with the Flatland explanation, that a 2D creature on a flat, 2D world would be unable to concieve the third dimension, and possible believe that his world originated from a point and spread out 2-dimensionally over time.

The math, the foundations of science that we teach in schools, like geometry, occur throughout the Universe. So many things that are so complex, even we cannot create them with the same perfection as nature. DNA, the double helix, is so astronomically complex, that it could not have possibly just 'happened', like when lightning struck a pool of primordial ooze. Crystallization, rainbows, migration, aurora borealis, luminescent algae, so many wonderous and mysterious things in our existence, and some believe it 'just happened.'

Some people get locked into their beliefs, their dogmas, sometimes even to the point where a logical argument won't convince them otherwise. My experience has been to just let people believe what they want to when discussing topics of such gravity. I just think that the common threads throughout all the cultures on Earth should give some indication of higher forces at work. Science has been the first religion to be anti-deity, as far as I can tell.

I myself am of the logical, rational sort. I used to be atheist, but once I started delving into metaphysics, I could no longer deny the existence of SOMETHING. Events happened to me that convinced me of a higher order working in my life.

bitsmart -
information illumination -
bitsmart@bitsmart.org -

[cainam_nazier]

"I myself am of the logical, rational sort. I used to be atheist, but once I started delving into metaphysics, I could no longer deny the existence of SOMETHING. Events happened to me that convinced me of a higher order working in my life."

You see Bismart that is the problem.  I can only believe what I know, feel, experience, and can prove.  I have had none of these things point me towards creation or god.  It would be so much easier if I could say I was wrong, but I don't feel that way.  My thinking and logic do not allow for things I have not experienced.  And I personally feel there is more evidence for evolution than there is for creation.

David Rogalski
cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.

[steveb]

greetings all,

         I've siad my pennys worth on the other thread so I'll leave it there.

         I did see very funny thing today that i haven't seen before. You know how they put those stickers on cars in the shape of a fish. I believe the fish symbol was used by early christians as a secret sign to acknowledge the presence of another fellow christian.IE: if you were walking along a path and came across someone and you , for example picked up a stick and did the symbol in the dirt, if the other person reconized it, you could then openly talk of things christian.
           Well, on the boot of this car was what looked like a commercialy manufactured chrome fish sign, but in the body of the symbol were the words "darwin", and where the belly of the fish would be were to little legs.
           It looked great, at a set of lights I wound down the window and siad to the driver", love the boot badge mate" , to which he replied, "well your obviously not a christian nutter". We had a bit of a chin wag through the windows and he explianed a few people had taken offence to it. Well, takes all types I suppose.
            Well, hope I didn't bore you, I thought it was brilliant

Regards  Steve

[PeacefulWarrior]

Oh yeah, well I have seen that one too...but I have seen yet another that has the little fish with the legs and then a bigger fish (the Christian one) about to swallow it whole.  So I guess this could go on forever...I think it sort of symbolizes the way the believers and non-believers feel about one another's philisophical views on life.   http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/images/icon_Smile.gif" border=0>

fides quaerens intellectum

[observer]

Why does the concept of creation necessarily negate evolutionary theory?  If you want to accomodate both ideas, you just have to give the Creator credit for creating the rule base by which matter operates.  Evolution is just an execution of the rules.  

However, I could see cainam_nazier saying that the argument then transmutes to the question of the source of the rules.  He would say, prove that the rules are not an accident.   Now he may think I've made a straw man argument here that I've attributed to him, and if so, I apologize.  On the offhand chance that this would be his response, I would say that the question is the problem.  Why assume that the defendable position is to prove that the world is not an accident?   It would seem that it is more likely, from a probability standpoint,  that the rules were created rather than accidental.

- observer

[Joe]

I realise this is a bit late...

I just wanted to highly recommend a book to anyone who wants a brutally honest evaluation and de-construction of their own belief systems and personal lies (eg, why a "God" exists).  It's "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James. It was written 100 years ago, and is now in the public domain (see http://www.csp.org/experience/james-varieties/james-varieties.html for an online copy).  No other single collection of thoughts has been as effective in destroying my belief systems, as that book has. The book is a study in belief system psychology - if read properly and thoroughly, you'll not look at your beliefs or your own mind/heart the same way again, and you'll find that debates on the existence of God are irrelevant.

Why? Because everyone wants a purely objective reasoning for a "God" and a supernatural reality. It doesn't exist!!  If it did, materialists would be proving the existence of God to themselves every day, and there would be no need for debate. The only reasons for a God-myth are subjective (more or less so), and that book shatters such subjective beliefs with devastating effectiveness. People are fond of saying "you create your own reality". The opposite is true - we create our own illusions.

[PeacefulWarrior]

Forgive the coppy format, but I pasted it in and didn't have the patience or time to re-format by hand.  Suffice to say that this is a debate mainly between myself (Daniel) and Cainum Nazier.  I just wanted to see what others had to say about the origins of life and the existence of God.
Much love to all!
-Daniel


Cainum wrote:
                  "When I mentioned creation I really had to be delicate with it, as there was no beginning, there was just an alwaysness. Only the finite mind needs to cling to the idea that there was a beginning, but there was not. People will believe in
infinity from now on, but they cannot accept to have allways been. "
I do not believe that we have always been here.(big bang) And I do not believe that man was created or has always been
here. (evolution) But I believe in the possability that we, humans, have been aware considerably longer than what is
                  generally known. This being recent discoveries that have been made with in the last 5 years. That keep finding things that
                  date back long before what was orginally thought.

                  "So if you do not believe in a creator(s), do you believe in a static omnipotent force that holds everything together? ..in
                  part, where does your energy come from, or the energy force within your pencil? If you believe that there is some major
                  force holding us static and together (whats to keep our molecules from flying apart?) then just dig a little deeper.."


                  Simply life. Life creates life in all forms. I do not believe it was created but rather it just happened one day. Some thing
                  managed to crawl out of the primortal ooz. Maybe we came to be because of a meteor hitting the earth bringing with it
                  the first cells that became life on this planet. Spontaneous combution of a sorts perhaps. The growing and splitting of
                  cells creates energy in a form and hence the energy that binds all life.


                  David Rogalski
                  cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
                  I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.

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    steveb
    Active Member
       

    Australia
    85 Posts
                    Posted - 07 June 2002 :  12:54:56        

                  Greetings all,

                  cainam_nazier wrote ] [quote
                  Simply life. Life creates life in all forms. I do not believe it was created but rather it just happened one day. Some thing
                  managed to crawl out of the primortal ooz. Maybe we came to be because of a meteor hitting the earth bringing with it
                  the first cells that became life on this planet. Spontaneous combution of a sorts perhaps. The growing and splitting of
                  cells creates energy in a form and hence the energy that binds all life.


                  I used to prescribe to the Darwin way of things, but have since changed my way of thinking. The reason I changed my
                  thinking, the "wasp plant'. Well, I think it's called a wasp plant. A few years ago I was watching a documentary on plants
                  and they were talking about how different plants pollinate. They show a close up of the stemen ?(the centre of the flower)
                  , then they show a picture of this wasp that is the only thing that can pollinate this flower. The stenem was a near exact
                  replica of the actual wasp. So I'm looking at it and the what came first ?, chicken or egg conundrum came into play.
                  Did the plant look at the wasp and change to suit,or did the wasp change for the plant?. Now darwins theory works
                  inregards to things like Blind cave fish, there transparent, it's supposed that these fish were trapped in caves for a long
                  time with no light and adapted to suit.
                  I now hold a Darwinistic/Creationist at some point, view. People ask the question sometimes, if you were to die and
                  allowed to ask one question to which the answer will be given,what would be the question. My question , "whats the deal
                  with the wasp plant and the wasp". I've got an idea that when my time comes the question would be of little importance,
                  but if it's not, I hope i would be at the stage were I could comprehend the answer.

                  Regads steve



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    PeacefulWarrior
    Silver Member
         
             
    USA
    254 Posts
                    Posted - 07 June 2002 :  19:08:03                  

                  Hey Tyrone,
                  Before you enlist to enlighten our minds, could you please introduce yourself formally... What do you fo dor a living? IN a
                  nutshell, what are your beliefs? Where are you from? What ethnicity are you? Call me crazy orold fashioned, but I like to
                  know my teachers.

                  -Dan

                  fides quaerens intellectum

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    PeacefulWarrior
    Silver Member
         
             
    USA
    254 Posts
                    Posted - 07 June 2002 :  20:03:05                  

                  I also wanted to mention to David ("Cainam") that I think you are fooling yourself if you don't believe in a higher being. I
                  think if we look around at the organization of the earth, or even at our own physical bodies, and have in a basic
                  understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, etc. one can logically assume that there is an organizer...

                  If one walks down a beach how long would he have to walk before stumbling upon a fine swiss watch? Would a fine Swiss
                  watch ever simply organize itself out of the sand with time? I think not. Not even in a million yeas, nor a billion years, nor
                  a trillion years... How, then, do trillion cell organisms like us just appear from blue green algae?

                  The second law of thermodynamics states that all things run down, in other words everything naturally becomes less
                  organized with time. Nature fights against evolution...even the most die hard darwinian will admit that nothing in
                  evolutionary theory can explain this. The more physicists and biologists delve into the questions of existence, they find
                  that there must be some organizing force or energy. Soon they might even come up with a revolutionary theory that
                  involves....don't jump out of your seat!....GOD! What a revelation!

                  fides quaerens intellectum

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    cainam_nazier
    Silver Member
         

    USA
    301 Posts
                    Posted - 08 June 2002 :  01:32:36          

                  "If one walks down a beach how long would he have to walk before stumbling upon a fine swiss watch? Would a fine Swiss
                  watch ever simply organize itself out of the sand with time? I think not. Not even in a million yeas, nor a billion years, nor
                  a trillion years... How, then, do trillion cell organisms like us just appear from blue green algae? "

                  No naturally something like that would need to be made. However that which is alive and functioning does not need that
                  complex of a creation. You look around nature and everything seems to adapt for a perpose. This is simply seem in all
                  life. There became an over abundance of some kind of fuel (food) or what ever and some thing starts to minipulate it and
                  by doing so starts to change itself. Evolution takes its course and a few thousand generations later you end up with some
                  thing that is able to manipulate the fuel to a far greater extent than its predisessors.


                  "The second law of thermodynamics states that all things run down, in other words everything naturally becomes less
                  organized with time. Nature fights against evolution...even the most die hard darwinian will admit that nothing in
                  evolutionary theory can explain this. "

                  I believe this very simple to explain. Every thing will eventually out live its usefullness. This being as a form of life evolves
                  to manipulate its food source eventually it becomes so good at it there becomes an over abundance of that life form.
                  Then some thing else sees it, or a by product of it as fuel and learns to manipulate it and grow. The chain starts over. Or
                  even they become so heavily over populated that it simply comes to pass that there is no more fuel or food. Unless that
                  form of life learns to adapt if capable then it will die out, and hence become no more.

                  We as humans have probably severly out lived or usefullness but given our ability to adapt we have not perished and
                  continue to thrive. This being because we can and do evolve and continue to do so. But unless we learn a better
                  methode we too will eventually become much more over populated than we are. We will end up chewing up ever last bit
                  of the remaining natural resources and we will perish or be replaced by some thing else. Evolution in full cycle.

                  David Rogalski
                  cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
                  I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.

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    PeacefulWarrior
    Silver Member
         
             
    USA
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                    Posted - 08 June 2002 :  11:30:54                  

                  I disagree wholeheartedly. In regards to the Swiss watch theory, if you want to say, and I quote, "...that which is alive and
                  functioning does not need that complex of a creation" then I guess that I am not going to be able to persuade you. How
                  can you say that a living organism, a creation so complex that we still don't understand how it works nor how to create it, is
                  easier to form than a watch then I think you are percieving reality in an entorely different way than myself. We, as
                  humans, along with all other living life forms, are MIRACLES! Humans can procreate, but even in our most advanced
                  labratories we cannot create life int he true sense of the word. We cannot even come close to creating AI in computers.


                  fides quaerens intellectum

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    cainam_nazier
    Silver Member
         

    USA
    301 Posts
                    Posted - 08 June 2002 :  12:24:35          

                  Ahh, but how long did it take the human to figure out how to make a watch? Or a computer? It is only a matter of time.
                  Just because we can not do some thing now does not make it impossible. Eventually we will evovle and we will be able to
                  do this and then it will be common knowladge. If you told some one 100 years ago that we could fly in space they would
                  have thought you crazy. And now it is done. People used to think that if you went more than 25 MPH in a car you would
                  turn into to liquid. At that time they understood less. And now wecan travel hundreds of miles per hour. We learn more of
                  the human body every day. That is why we can live the way we do now. Medicine, surgery, vent machines, artificial
                  hearts, prostetic limbs, the more we learn the closer we become to being able to create life not just sustain it. We know
                  enough about the nervis system that we can re-attach severed limbs but it was impossible 10 years ago.

                  But I can tell things are starting to get touchy so let me say this. Yes it is possible that I am completely and totally wrong,
                  but you must accept that it is possible that so are you, and that it is possible that WE are all wrong. This all being the
                  wonder of abstract thought.

                  Now let us step back and see what else Tyrone has in store for us. Well Tyrone you wanted to stimulate thought and
                  debate. Well done.


                  David Rogalski
                  cainam_nazier@hotmail.com
                  I am he who walks in the light but is masked by the shadows.

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                  Edited by - cainam_nazier on 08 June 2002 12:28:06
    PeacefulWarrior
    Silver Member
         
             
    USA
    254 Posts
                    Posted - 08 June 2002 :  20:57:26                  

                  Don't worry friend, things aren't getting touchy, I promise. It takes a lot ot get me frustrated or angry, I can assure you that.
                  Anyway, I hear what you are saying. If there's a believer in human potential it's me! I believe man can do all things, there
                  is no limit to our potential...but everything we do is through the power, knowledge and light of the Source, which is God.
                  We can become like God and that's the main reason we are here in this life. I too believe in natural processes, but I
                  believe that's the way God works. I don't want to get into my theories of evolution, Adam and Eve, etc. but I do know that
                  God lives, it's not faith, but knowledge.

                  Like the line below, after faith comes knowledge...

                  fides quaerens intellectum

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fides quaerens intellectum