Re: Newsweek poll: Americans believe in God, reject evolution
Ego_Lost said:
I didnt lose the thread, just havent posted.
I'm just giving you shit, hehe.
Ego_Lost said:
There is not a thought in your head or an action you can take that is not determined by an extremely large if not infinite number of other events that took place before it.
You know we're going to get into it on Saturday, hehe. What about thoughtless actions? Like instinctual reactions? Your extremely large vast source of all cause is just like God, the all-powerful determinate factor. If everything is determined by something previous to it, then you have no control. If you have no control you have an excuse to be a victim. If you have an excuse to be a victim you are justified in your suffering and thusly can accept your "fate".
Ego_Lost said:
Lets pretend for a second that I am right and think of the ramifications.
You pretend that everyday. *wink*
Ego_Lost said:
Every event that ever will, or ever did happen could be traced back to the events that caused them and then to the events that caused those events and so on and so on eventually bottle necking down to the original event. If this is so then you could conceivably know everything that will ever happen based on that first event; in essence everything happened at that one moment. Where does this leave time? Some of us on this page still recognize the existence of time as it is experienced so what exactly are we experiencing?
The Big Bang? How does guessing about the origin of reality accurately predict the future? You say "in essence everything happened at that moment" but your whole premise is that one thing happened at that moment and that one thing caused the chain reaction of events that lead to today. To say that everything happened at that moment would imply infinity. Infinity leaves no room for time or change. You recognize time as the following of observed changes in your environment. The concept of change is defined by the person perceiving the event, ala "time flies when you're havin' fun."
The kicker to all of this is that you will never know that original event, ever. So what good is there in placing your faith, and make no mistake it is faith, in the accuracy of that event and thus the predictability of future events? Furthermore, even if you could predict future events based on the past, how would that change anything about life?
Where do creativity, imagination, intuition and motivation come into play?
Example: You can think of a figure that is totally unique to only you, you can picture it in your mind's eye (which scientifically shouldn't exist), you can manipulate it as you see fit, and you can even try to describe it to someone else. Your description then assists that person in forming the picture in his mind's eye, but you can never know if that picture accurately represents the figure you created. Thus is life.
What caused consciousness? Sticking with your assumption, the anxiety ridden, panic attack having, agorophobics have evolved into what they are. Their behavior and actions are determined by previous events, right? So following our friend Darwin, why would they become weaker and less secure rather than stronger and more secure? Their predecessors survived the hardships that contributed to their nature and demeanor, but somehow they became both mentally and physically weaker because of it? Why are so many maladies passed on? Why are there so many hereditary diseases? To say that they will diminish over the next hundred or thousand generations is a faithful statement. Even Polio still shows up and scientists developed a vaccine for that badboy.
Now, we can take it one step further and move past primative Darwin and into science's new belief, the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. See how they took theory out of there? Clever, eh? But yeah, it's still a theory because the synthesis is a compilation of theories - if the foundation is theorhetical, the conclusion is theorhetical. Anyway, the hinge to this synthesis of theories is the possibility of random mutations through genetic replication. These "mutations" are looked upon by the scientific community as "mistakes" in the DNA replication. Why? Because these "mutations" go against the assumption that the fittest will survive. But here is a contradiction to the theory. So rather than dismissing the theory as false, with evidence as provable if not more provable than Darwin's original assumptions, the faithful scientists attempt to assimilate the new information into their belief system.
Oh yeah, and reproduction is not a need so sex is not a need. It's viral instinct.
See you Saturday, hehe.