Creation or Evoloution? Big Bang or Big Belief -- which is it?

[jwocky]

Let me tell you a story, Lego. It was in WWII. The standard German fighter was the BF-109 but the fighter-workhorse was the Fw-190. At some point, after the Battle over England, the Germans, chronically in trouble to produce the number of BMW- and MB-engines they needed, found themselves with not enough of those engines but a big number of Jumos from the reduced bomber program. So what they did was to make the Fw-190s nose longer and built a Jumo in there. The Fw-190D or just Dora was the most successful version of that plane ever built and the reason she was built was mere accidental, an adaption to the situation. That is technical equivalent to a mutation in organic creation. Some mutations are successful, they hang on and are the base for the next generation. You haven't seen a baby F-16, but you have seen an F-18? Or, to bring an example where a "mutation" didn't work out, an F-22?
The real point here is, the evolution theory is based on the idea, that some "changes" are successful, others are not. Which is the same thing as we see in technical development. And changing conditions in the environment change the parameters of what changes will be successful and which will be not. That is kind of the same for evolution in an organic life form or the development of a technical product like a plane. Mathematically, you can describe those things in the same model and that is exactly where the things come together. Planes don't have organic babies, you are right. And therefore, they don't mutate. When a development of planes goes to the next stage, it is an act of intention, planing, design, manual labor and a lot of logistics. And still, the process follows on a generic level the same parameters, we can find in nature in connection with evolution. Even the relation between successful and not so successful variants remain almost constant for a similar weighed paradigm shift (we are talking about a variant of the mathematical game theory here). Which in essence proves, change by "mutation" and change by "intent" are over the logn term equal and it is in the hindsight almost impossible to determine if a change was naturally filtered in (evolution) or an intended act by some kind of external force, call it God, call it the flying spaghetti monster. Mathematically, you can't exclude divine intervention in the development of life but neither can you prove it.

[IAHM-COL]

I was thinking along the same lines as JWocky indicated here. One can definitely talk about aircraft evolution. And the idea is not so wild -- independent on the point that since aircrafts technically don't have babies. --well, its just not "biological" evolution. But it definitely behaves organically.

[MIG29pilot]

The problem is that the plane has an intelligent designer.

[LesterBoffo]

I think what is being argued here is the 'God of the Gaps in our knowldge', since we can't understand it all, there must be an invisible celestial clockmaker somewhere to make up for the inconsistencies and lack of further data.

I find this rather ludicrous.

As you get older you'll get to understand more, ( hopefully, you're interest in flight and aerodynamics is a good sign..)

[legoboyvdlp]

I'm not quite sure of your exact point.
Is it that there is no God?
Over the centuries, the gospel message has been vilified and ridiculed. Roman rulers threw first-century Christians to the lions, and 20th-century dictators sent believers to prison camps. It is estimated that 70 million Christians have been martyred since the church began—and 40 million of those were in the 20th century. Yet today Christianity has more adherents than any religion, and numbers are growing in many parts of the world. Our faith is spreading because it is the truth—and history shows that when this truth is mocked and scorned, it actually spreads faster!
(Copied from an online site, as I have no time right now... have to go shortly)
How then do you say there is no God, if you are?
Then again, look at the Creation. If you look at a diagram of the eye... smell the roses...see the butterflies... see how Earth is in precisely the place most suited to life (not near supernovae, not near black hole, among other things...)... look at man, and how we can take to the skies in gravity-defying machines. We are not mere dogs that can think. We are special.


By the way, whoever voted no beginning no end, this directly contradicts the Laws of
Thermodynamics, since energy is not infinite, and cannot be created. Eventually, the energy available runs out. The sum total of Energy pĺus MATTER never changes. But there is less and less energy. Thus, an infinite Universe is scientifically impossible.

[MIG29pilot]

I will show you some gaps--hang on a minute

[MIG29pilot]

Here is a good booklet from my science course




















And if that doesn't work http://imgur.com/a/kbWIr/all

[IAHM-COL]

I'm not quite sure of your exact point.
Is it that there is no God?

Hi Lego. I suggest you to step back and reconsider.
No one here is bound to reveal you their faith. The best policy is don't ask, don't tell.
If he tells you: good for you. Otherwise.... what is the need to ask?
The question you ask is not only general, but it is confusing to the point that there is not question. But if in doubt, take more time reading my previous comments

Our faith is spreading because it is the truth—and history shows that when this truth is mocked and scorned, it actually spreads faster!

Well.. I am glad you copy this from other website, and it is actually not the result of serious thought.
A question that is totally rhetorical *yes... I do not need your answer* is: Do you think the truth, as it is understood in religious doctrine, is a matter of a popularity contest? --again, just think this for yourself, and I appreciate you do not give me your answer.

How then do you say there is no God, if you are?

He didn't say that. And again, it is purely a matter of belief. You believe there is. Others belief, there isn't. It must stop there.
Look. You and MiG29Pilot are 13 and 14 y.o. kids. Your parents will be all together very upset if they were to feel, understand, or misinterpret that in this forum there is a group of aged men trying to convince you of whatever they are educating you in religion is not true. So. It really must stop there. No one can/should tell you anything about your belief. And that creates a pact. You are not to tell us about ours.

Keep in mind, this is a cooking pot of International personae. You are likely to find muslims, jews, catholics, christians, agnostics, who knows. Arising conflicts are historical and these will make the FGMEMBERS vs FGDATA fight seem just a picnic with your girlfriend in the forest. There is no need to outlay how christians, early or not had been victimized. I better advise you go and study a bit more history: Holocaust, Crusades, Inquisition ... to just name a few. Learning the past should be here a good lesson to think twice about such actions. It really should!

No one is going to be giving you an answer to this question anyways. As JWocky points, this is a major question for humanity. Origin of the universe, origin of life, etc.
Whether Science and Religion conflict, I advise you to re-study Dr. David's answer above. It is the answer of a real scholastic.

Earth is in precisely the place most suited to life

Cough! cough!
You have a very deep knowledge of the rest of unknown universe.

gravity-defying machines

Cough! cough!
This one we may give you better answers. But airplanes don't defy gravity. Gravity is one of 4 forces they are bound to as indicated by basics of aerodynamics. Believe me, of everything written in this thread, this is one of only two topics worth to continue. The first one being evolution of the aircraft.

By the way, whoever voted no beginning no end

No idea who voted that. But the problem is, you can't run amok against anyone that gives you an answer here. It's quite an invalid post to begin with. But you are not their science teacher anyways, and there is not a correct answer --not even remotely-- on those options you post (so I find).

The law of thermodynamics you call... or better how you call it, I find it a manipulated way. Just as much as Mig29Pilot usage of statistics as an instrument of faith.

But to understand all that you are bound to study of Nuclear Physics. Serious business, my friend.

[IAHM-COL]

@MIG29Pilot

Thanks for sharing. Really an enlightening document. (I am not speaking on Irony)
[The link works. The embeded images are illegible]


I will definitely share it with my wife, who by the way is an educator.

[jwocky]

Oh my ... first of all, knowing a lot of engineers in real life, the assumption that any design work by an engineer is inevitably "intelligent" is just that, a rather dubious assumption. We knew in history people who tried to invent the octagonal wheel, revolvers firing around corners and real life planes started with enormous rubber bands. To bring up an example from our world, there si a reason, any new plane model needs so much testing under such extreme safety precautions because you can't rely on the assumption engineers don't do stupid things. And then the definition of stupid depends also strongly on what you define as "smart". Id an autopilot system that prevents pilot intervention "smart"? So, engineers and "intelligent design" are not necessarily the same.

About the question whether Earth is the only place where life could thrive. Given, we have about 100 billion stars out there and for each, there is a mathematical chance to have at least one planet in a life-supporting range (given the possibilities of life forms based on Si instead of C, there are theoretically two or three of such zones around a star), the conclusion can only be that the probability of life on planets other than Earth is actually well beyond what we would consider a statistical certainty because most peptide chaining reactions take only a few seconds, the "probability of number of stars multiplied by number of reactions per time unit multiplied by number of reaction sets" would reach a value of beyond 1 in less than a year. Of course, faster, if the assumption of average one habitable planet is too conservative. Thus, the assumption, Earth is the only place that can carry life is wrong. However, if you claim, Earth is the only place you want to live ... that is entirely legit.

About the existence of God ... well, here is the point. We can't by any pure scientific methods prove the existence of God, BUT we also can't prove the non-existence of God. The same has to be said about any other deity and in the rare cases, in which for example the fossile record indicates some kind of intervention, we can't be sure who, when or if we just missed a parameter. Maybe in some hundred years, someone finds something, but for now, we can neither prove nor dismiss the existence of any form of higher or higher developed being. Therefore, God, Allah, Buddha, Shiva, Ixtipochtli, Amun and whatever deities people chose to believe in are still a matter of FAITH, not knowledge. The exception from the rule is the person usually labelled as Jesus Christus whose historical existence can be proven by unrelated secondary literature, but then this would be a mere prove of existence, not so much a real prove of his sacred origins which would be still out of the range of our possibilities (see Flavius Josephus, see the apocryph gospels of the Codes Sinaicus, Codex Tchako and Nag Hammadi in comparison to the Irenaeus edited forms of the canonical gospels).
So the bottom line is, we don't know. We believe, or we don't. And since we don't know, there is no gain in trying to take other people's faith away from them. Which is, weird enough, what organized religions do as a standard group behaviour (Atheism in that consideration fits the bill of a religion in this aspect the same as many social or political ideologies with tendencies to assimilate every aspect of human life). Thus, excuse me, I tend to avoid any form of organization that wants me to force the organization's view on other people. Aside of that, there is always a difference between the person in the pilot seat and the ground personal ... just saying.

Most values of Christianity (for reasons of space, I limit this to Christianity here) are also the same as dictated by other value concepts of civilized life. "You shall not kill" is for example a rule we all can adhere, even we get this idea from different sources, be it religion, philosophy or law. "You shall not kill" and if you do, the law comes after you, not the family of the victim is already part of the Code of Hammurabi, which stems from about the time between 1792 to 1750 b.C., which makes it not only 1750 years older than the origins of the New Testament but also roughly 1150 years older than the Babylonian Talmud (aboutish 600 b.C) which appears to have been the main source for the Old Testament. So the values, we find in the Bible are not exclusively to the Bible. We maybe today think, we inherited those values in our social ground net from Christianity, but in fact, they are older, so much older. That doesn't mean, anything, the Bible tells you is wrong or it is automatically right. The commandments are pretty clear and aside of their orgins, there is not much to discuss about them. But all other conclusions, for example from the "more likely a camel goes through needle's eye than rich one into heaven" (sorry, my Bible is a German one, I translate her on the fly) are based on texts that were originally written in languages not fully translatable (ancient Greek, different dialects of Aramaeic), then were three times edited to fit political situations (Irenaeus of Lyon, the Council of Constantinople and later for King James and Martin Luther versions and how many others there are) and then interpreted by mere mortals like you and me in a way that fit their thinking. The chaos is beyond description. Just an example how things happen. The Greek word "homos" means "man" in the same sense as in English. As in mankind, as in every human being. However, there is this second meaning. "homos" can also refer to a male, even the word "aner" would be more common in texts actually written in Greece while "anthropos" would be more common for "general human being". However, the ancient Greek written by so-called educated people had its little variants or you can call it glitches. By all means, only a few of those were native speakers in ancient Greek and for sure, John, the Gospel writer was none of them. Unfortunately, the "scholars of theology" at the Councils of Constantinople (there were at least three) were obviosuly also no native speakers and thus, they translated "homos", the already idiomatic wrong word again wrong and made it male in their "scholarly" interpretations. Which is the reason, the Catholic church has still trouble with the idea of female priests. So, personally, I take every conclusion made by mortals like me based on texts that were three times adapted to political demands and at least two times sloppy translated with a biiiig grain of salt. But then, it is not that easy for a normal person to get back to the original sources or at least as far as copies remain from the past. A relative simple (about 36,000 word) Aramaic dictionary costs well over $200 ... ouch, that hurts, and the White translation of Flavius Josephus still will set you back for easily $150 ... ouch, that hurt too. And then you read the thing and find, that good old scholar Dr White also sloppied a little around in his interpretations because he lacked some detail knowledge for example in ancient seafare and therefore connects Josephus story of being ship wrecked in the Eastern Mediterranean to Petrus and judges it as intentional lie instead of seeing what it was, common practice that led commonly to ship wrecks with 500 or 600 people drifting in the sea. He just didn't know better and he trusted his subjective perception instead of doing more research. So even with such well-reputated translations, one has always to second guess. It's a lot of work, a lot of money, but if you want to make up your mind for sure, you have to dig. Because if you take the Bible as it is, you don't really trust in God's word, you rather trust in the personal interpretations of a hundred politicians and bad translators. Nobody said, translators and editors are unable of "design" and that such a design would be necessarily "intelligent", right? And even the gospel authors themselves ... well, Mark wrote about thirty to fifty years after Jesus death (which pretty sure happened in 33 or 34 a.C. because Pilatus returned in early 35 to Rome). So Mark may had a chance to speak to eye witnesses. The other three authors of the canonical gospels were too late to have that chance. And John obviously didn't live in Jerusalem or anywhere in Galilee or Judaea. He shows in his own writing, how unfamiliar he was with Jewish rites and traditions andf, eve3n more important, with the political circumstances at the time of Jesus in the realm of Herodes and the Roman government which had replaced the Tetrarchy. He also wrote in ancient Greek and his choice of words proves, he was no native speaker in that either. So you can take John for the gist of it, but never for the single word. So yes, that is a short overview over the most significant problems with using modern Bibles and I stop now before I bore people to death.