Observer-Reporter forum

freethinker · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:40 pm Post subject:

Cy, one quick question --- "Where did that 'progress'.. Come from..?"
The second law of thermodynamics demands that all open systems approach greater disorder, yet you just demonstrated a violation of this law in scientific evolution... Speak out.... Is the progress random, or is it directed...?
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where-ever you get it - there you have it. - Anon.

ellipses · Mod Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 9218 Location: WashPa!

Cylinsier · Master Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 13229 Location: Oh shi-

freethinker · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:50 pm Post subject:

Then explain how insentient matter, i.e. "dirt" could evolve into a living cell without supernatural help...Oh sorry, I broke the thread
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where-ever you get it - there you have it. - Anon.

Cylinsier · Master Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 13229 Location: Oh shi-

Everything, even sentient beings, are composed of the same basic building blocks at the smallest level. It was just a matter of the right chemicals mixing at the right time. Then you get a molecule, and that molecule becomes a cell, and that cell begins dividing to duplicate itself. It seems unbelievable, but tell me what makes more sense:

A rock breaks open to reveal a flower, or a magic wizard pisses on a rock and breaks it open to reveal a flower? If the system is so unbelievable as is, why is adding another even more unbelievable aspect supposed to make it suddenly okay? Amazing things can happen without something amazing making them happen.
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Brant · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:05 pm Post subject:

Cy, I'm only talking about going back 100 years, not the "dark ages." Somehow I think if folks had the medical advances but could live the lives they did in those days, they'd be pretty happy.
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The priests of the different religious sects dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.

- Thomas Jefferson

Cylinsier · Master Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 13229 Location: Oh shi-

I would commit suicide if I didn't have the internet.
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Cylinsier · Master Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 13229 Location: Oh shi-

That's was a fantastic segment on the Daily Show about peoples' longing for the good old days:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-5-2010/even-better-than-the-real-thing
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freethinker · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 3:16 pm Post subject:

I reply thusly,

Sir Fred Hoyle, who not only coined the term "big bang", but also discovered the details of nucleo-synthesis and proved how carbon is created...(The base of all life forms, as you well know) became a committed spiritualist, and claimed that his discoveries proved to him, that someone had been "Monkeying with the controls of the universe.."
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Dr.Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix, refuses to accept that it arose on its own, and supports a theory of interstellar contamination...
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I could go on, but it would belabor my point....I am free to teach my children of Christianity, without the sufferance of shame
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where-ever you get it - there you have it. - Anon.

Cylinsier · Master Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 13229 Location: Oh shi-

Yes, many great minds were still believers. Yet that does not prove what they believed to be true. While they put significant scientific work into proving their professional theories, their spiritual theories remain unproven as they have always been and as they always will be.

I do not think you should be ashamed to teach your children Christianity, but perhaps you should be ashamed to teach them without a doubt that it is correct. I will teach my kids about the full range of faiths available to them as they grow, and also remind them that they need not feel obligated to subscribe to a single one.
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dick · Journeyman Joined: 28 Jan 2009 Posts: 3134

freethinker · Posted: Tue Jan 12, 2010 11:25 pm Post subject:

thank you, dick...And though you did hurt my feelings when you said i was acting holier than thou, and that I was looking down on others, I guess you were speaking in frustration; Because no words of mine that were used here, could be repeated to defend such an accusation, unless it is attached to an ambiguous and personal assumption...Don't worry, I forgive you, my son....(Yes, the last line was a joke.)
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And Cy, your pride in accumulated community knowledge, and your opinion that it is superior to ancient beliefs, rings hollow to my ears...
If I took you back five thousand years, and dropped you alone in the Alps, would you survive...? I doubt it, not without the accumulated community knowledge of that time period...So, it is not a difference of degree, but a difference in kind...They were just as smart as we
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I stand, still, with my invisible fathers, and sing their Requiem
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where-ever you get it - there you have it. - Anon.

Professor · Apprentice Joined: 03 Dec 2008 Posts: 358

Those longing for the good old days forget that 100 years ago the majority of the working class worked long hours for very little pay and no benefits. If you got sick or hurt and couldn't work that was your family's tough luck and there were no safety standards!
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