Who do you "pray" to?

Please nobody take offence at my use of the word worthy, as I ma using it in terms of the worth/value of the senses. If I were blind my senses would have lost value.

Wheras personalities like each of us are spirits which have unlimited worth and value. There are no unworthy personalities, only personalities who find themselves in unworthy circumstances.

I wanted to clarify that as it is an offence to call a person themselves unworthy.

Best Regards,
Greg

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

As long as we're likening the "unworthy" to drunks, let me say this: heightened consciousness has nothing to do with how willing one is to accept that which cannot be detected by the senses. Instead, in my experience, it has everything to do with how gullible one is. Because, even through all of this talk in this thread and the other busy thread right now, there is still nothing concrete to prove your case. These are the sensory equivalents to hallucinations. Moses saw a burning bush that spoke?

So, if I'm a drunk, then believers are tripping (figuratively speaking).

Scientific explanations for the parting of the Red Sea, the 10 plagues, and the burning bush. - By Michael Lukas - Slate Magazine

Again, I'm not being confrontational, I'm just playing point/counter-point.

V/R,

Ogie

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When i compared drunk to unworthy i meant it detracted from the worth of your senses.

Ogie you said that stuff other people observed, that you have not observed must be hallucinations. This is in effect you beliving something that you have not witnessed yourself, which is exactly what you complain christians are doing, beliving something they have not seen.
You have blind faith that what they saw was hallucination, why not just say you dont know.

You cannot assume or say it is a hallucination if you have not seen it.
People everywhere are becoming aware of differnt things that are new to them all the time, and sometimes they become aware of something and they show it to others and the other people do not have the perception or conception of how it works so they dismiss it.
The earth is flat, the earth moves arond the sun etc. etc.....
Where does the next step in heightened senses end and hallucinations/insanity begin?

V/R
Greg

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Originally Posted by GregJDS

Where does the next step in heightened senses end and hallucinations/insanity begin?

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Surely in this thread

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Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Surely in this thread

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your hallucinating

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Originally Posted by ENUF2

Stop for a moment and think if evolution is survival of the fittest why would something that can reproduce itself ever de-evolve to something that needs 2 to reproduce? And since it does take 2 to reproduce how many thousands or millions of years were there between the sexes? And if it were for the betterment of the species wouldn't you think both male and female would more eaually matched instead one one being more dominant?

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Despite your claims to have "studied the data", it's questions like this which make it obvious you haven't. Maybe I should claim to be a honemeister and then ask what the X pattern is.

First, nothing "de-evolves", whatever that is. Second, the origin of sex is well understood. The short answer to why sex is better then no sex (apart from orgasmic bliss, for us at least) is that sex leads to greater genetic diversity and hence survival. For questions like this, which purport to destroy Evolution, the Talk Origins Archive I linked to earlier would help.

I can see that this conversation will lead to us just throwing links at each other, which I have already had ENUF of (pun intended). But I need to say something about Influential Athiest and Renowned Philosopher Anthony Flew.

a) How "renowned" he is is not relevant. Only the content of his ideas are relevant. About those ideas.......
b) His point about complexity is nonsense. He doesn't understand Evolution. Irreducibly complex structures do not exist. (Bacterial flagellum??....Talk Origins!)
c) Einstein was not a theist. He was criticised heavily while he was alive for not endorsing religion. He said that religion is human weakness, and that bible is full of childish legends. I'm unsure in Flew is deliberately perpetuating a myth, or if he has genuinely been taken in.

I just noticed Slartibartfast's custom title "Evolving mitochondrial shaver". Pretty funny!

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Originally Posted by jcd

Some of these questions relate to Abiogenesis (origin of life) and not Evolution (diversification of life); these are two different fields of science. This doesn't invalidate your questions, I only point it out to make it clear that deficiencies in one area would not impact the other.

Abiogenesis:
How life began from non life is unknown. Further, proving that one particular mechanism was the actual one which happened on Earth may be impossible.

However, "unknown" shouldn't be taken to mean "completely clueless about". Abiogenesis is a young science, and unlike Evolution, there is competition within the field about which hypothesis is the correct one.

You have some misconceptions about Abiogenesis (eg. the first life were not cells, simple or otherwise. Also they did not reproduce sexually). You also allude to spontaneous generation, which hasn't been in a scientific theory since the 1700s. (Ironically, religious abiogenesis does have spontaneous generation, cause by an incantation "Let there be...").

I hope this vid is useful:

YouTube - 3 - The Origin of Life Made Easy

Evolution:
"According to the above link, the mitochondrial trail has only been followed back, what was it? 170, 000 years. So, that is as far as the "evidence" goes."
This is not the case. Markers within the genome have been used to create the phylogenetic tree all the way down (billions of years). The female at 170,000 years is simply the most recent common ancenstor on the female line. It's just a lable. It doesn't mean nothing is known previous to her.

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Thanks, that was an informative link, and thanks for your comments.



Perhaps it is semantics, but doesn't the whole part about amino acids, etc, etc forming on their own in the primordial soup count as "spontaneous generation"?

So, there is a sketch in place there about how perhaps RNA formed out of the primordial stew. It goes on the sketch out how lipids, that like to clump together may have made for the protective covering for such simple molecules. It also happens to look quite like a simple cell doesn't it?

That's a pretty good story/theory, and the resemblance to a simple cell is quite attractive, but the lipids are seperate and distinct from the RNA, are they not? And as such, even if a fortunate RNA happened to aquire a clump of lipids around it, it would not be part of that RNA's makeup, and thus not be passed on to the next generation of RNA, which would make that idea bunkum.

Have there been experiments where they've taken a beaker full of RNA molecules, and some lipids and swirled them together? Did they clump onto the RNA?, did they simply clump onto themselves? Has that been conducted experimentally that you know of? I think that would be quite interesting.

If not, then I again refer that explanation "made easy", or not, as hand waving and congecture.



As an aside: why do these vids all contain some degree of hostility? That one targets Kurt Cameron, an actor, and I suppose eager Christian of some sort. Why single him out for ridicule? Is he a reknown expert on religion?

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Originally Posted by GregJDS

When i compared drunk to unworthy i meant it detracted from the worth of your senses.

Ogie you said that stuff other people observed, that you have not observed must be hallucinations. This is in effect you beliving something that you have not witnessed yourself, which is exactly what you complain christians are doing, beliving something they have not seen.
You have blind faith that what they saw was hallucination, why not just say you dont know.

You cannot assume or say it is a hallucination if you have not seen it.
People everywhere are becoming aware of differnt things that are new to them all the time, and sometimes they become aware of something and they show it to others and the other people do not have the perception or conception of how it works so they dismiss it.
The earth is flat, the earth moves arond the sun etc. etc.....
Where does the next step in heightened senses end and hallucinations/insanity begin?

V/R
Greg

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Greg, I'm with you. I don't claim to know anything other than that which can be proven or at least not disproven using scientific method. I claim to be agnostic, but only as it pertains to the possibility that a supreme omnipotent/omniscient being could have something to do with the way the universe works. For example, why are the laws of physics the way they are, and not a different way... like, say gravity repelled instead of attracted. So, it's easy to disprove religion (Bible, Qur'an, etc) using scientific method for all things in history excluding the two following:

1. The first instance of life. That is, the first carbon-based life form out of no life forms. There is some studies that say certain amino acids were formed that gave life the first spark, but there's no way to know for sure because no experiment has replicated it.

2. What triggered the big bang.

Everything else in the existence of the space-time continuum (since we know time is relative), from the beginning of the universe, down to the first few fractions of a second from the big bang, can be explained using the scientific method -- that is, they remain theories that have not been disproved.

Ogie

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Originally Posted by Seraphim

As an aside: why do these vids all contain some degree of hostility? That one targets Kurt Cameron, an actor, and I suppose eager Christian of some sort. Why single him out for ridicule? Is he a reknown expert on religion?

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Kurt Cameron is an out spoken Christian as well as a tv figure from the late 80's and early 90's. Any Christian who will stand up for their faith is a target especially if they are even somewhat well known. Some of his later work includes a show called The way of the Master, He also did a movie series of Left Behind (3 of Them) and last year he starred in the Movie "Fireproof". Right now he and his wife are traveling the nation Speaking in churches at Fireproof your marriage seminars.
If you've never seen the movie here's a link to the trailer

Welcome To FireproofTheMovie.com - DVD IN STORES NOW!

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

Greg, I'm with you. I don't claim to know anything other than that which can be proven or at least not disproven using scientific method. I claim to be agnostic, but only as it pertains to the possibility that a supreme omnipotent/omniscient being could have something to do with the way the universe works. For example, why are the laws of physics the way they are, and not a different way... like, say gravity repelled instead of attracted. So, it's easy to disprove religion (Bible, Qur'an, etc) using scientific method for all things in history excluding the two following:

1. The first instance of life. That is, the first carbon-based life form out of no life forms. There is some studies that say certain amino acids were formed that gave life the first spark, but there's no way to know for sure because no experiment has replicated it.

2. What triggered the big bang.

Everything else in the existence of the space-time continuum (since we know time is relative), from the beginning of the universe, down to the first few fractions of a second from the big bang, can be explained using the scientific method -- that is, they remain theories that have not been disproved.

Ogie

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Back on the thread's topic: Who do you pray to:


So, lets say there was this couple who were told by the medical community (i.e.-scientific evidence) that they were unable to have children, for a number of reasons (not the least of which, the woman was 43 at the time). Not once, not twice, but many times, by many different doctors. Specialists in the field. The test levels are so low that they won't even attempt hormone shots, etc.

So, after that rigamarole, they turn to spiritual guidance in the form of a Christian monastic they knew, who told them to come to her monastery the following week, because as chance would have it a visiting priest was coming with a piece of the True Cross of Christ.

Long story short- they were blessed with The Cross, and a few months later became pregnant, and had a baby boy.

-Perhaps coincidence? Right? One in a million chance. Okay.

In thanksgiving to God a year or so later they go to visit another Christian monastery to speak with the priestmonk there, to share the good news, to thank God, and to ask if they should/could ask God if they could perhaps have another child, and to ask the priest monk for his prayers in those regards.

"Sure, that'd be the most natural thing in the world to ask for..." he says to them.

A couple of weeks later they find out that they are pregnant again.

Coincidence yet again? Or does it start to maybe point toward some evidentiary claims?