God steals your $10

[W3ird_N3rd]

So http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16956 got me thinking.

One day you open up your Paypal account to find that God has taken $10.00 from you. If you don't have a Paypal account or don't believe in God pretend for a second you do.

You read the message and it says the following:

I've taken this as a punishment for spending money on closed source software.

What do you do?

[deanjo]

God is closed source. I doubt he would punish you for supporting the way he works.

"He works in mysterious ways."

Now if he was opensource, he wouldn't be so mysterious now would he?

[W3ird_N3rd]

God is closed source. I doubt he would punish you for supporting the way he works.

"He works in mysterious ways."

Now if he was opensource, he wouldn't be so mysterious now would he?
Maybe he doesn't like competition.

Even so, just as you said, he works in mysterious ways, so who knows what he'll punish you for. ;)

[L33F3R]

well my obvious option would be to accept the loss. If god wants to take my money he can, after all, HE'S GOD!!!

[curaga]

No-one can overthrow Paypal :p I'd open a dispute, get my money back, and get God some bad PR in the process (for claiming I'd have wasted money on that, when I haven't)

[bridgman]

I think they have a disclaimer which makes them not responsible for Acts of God.

[d2kx]

God is closed source. I doubt he would punish you for supporting the way he works.

"He works in mysterious ways."

Now if he was opensource, he wouldn't be so mysterious now would he?

This.

@bridgman: oh really? :D

[deanjo]

This.

@bridgman: oh really? :D

Well people have been trying to reverse engineer His work from the beginning of time.

There can only be one conclusion. Since God only practices closed source then Richard Stallman has to be the anti-Christ.

[Wyatt]

Man, that's just not cool. Punishing me for buying games and actually rewarding devs for the fruits of their efforts? That's just uncouth. World of Goo is worth $30 just as much as it is $20, but injustice is injustice. :(

And that's just the tip of the iceberg-- console games are software, too. :)

[kraftman]

God is closed source. I doubt he would punish you for supporting the way he works.

"He works in mysterious ways."

Now if he was opensource, he wouldn't be so mysterious now would he?

No, He is definitely open, but some people have closed minds :> We just sometimes don't understand the Source.

And GPL is the most Christian license.

Btw. openness is something natural. For example we can read DNA sentences.

[DanL]

God doesn't want money; he wants spiritual fruit.

[Darkfire Fox]

No, He is definitely open, but some people have closed minds :> We just sometimes don't understand the Source.

And GPL is the most Christian license.

Btw. openness is something natural. For example we can read DNA sentences.

Well said! I think Yahweh is the most open and least mysterious of all the "gods" out there; it's just us thick-headed humans who have trouble paying attention! :cool:

To answer the original question/poll, If I could determine beyond any possible doubt that really *was* God who took my 10 bucks, I would beg for forgiveness. :D

However, I've never heard of Jesus rummaging through people's bank accounts uninvited.............. :rolleyes:

[Zhick]

Well said! I think Yahweh is the most open and least mysterious of all the "gods" out there; it's just us thick-headed humans who have trouble paying attention! :cool:

To answer the original question/poll, If I could determine beyond any possible doubt that really *was* God who took my 10 bucks, I would beg for forgiveness. :D
Uhm... does anyone else see the irony in this? ;) You know, a christian wanting to determine something beyond any possible doubt before believing it...

[tmpdir]

God is closed source. I doubt he would punish you for supporting the way he works.

"He works in mysterious ways."

Now if he was opensource, he wouldn't be so mysterious now would he?

Didn't know opensource projects their ways where that logically either :D

[L33F3R]

Uhm... does anyone else see the irony in this? ;) You know, a christian wanting to determine something beyond any possible doubt before believing it...

ders alot of viewpoints about God and several religions thus. To take this very far would be to question another's religion in 1 way or another which i dont believe is a safe call. People can get offended.

[MartjeB]

Btw. openness is something natural. For example we can read DNA sentences.
Reverse engineer, yes :). Or do you have the documentation?

[DanL]

BTW, the correct hack for this is, "I go to church, steal $10, ask for forgiveness, get struck by lightning on my way home, survive, and live the rest of my days with super powers."

[Darkfire Fox]

BTW, the correct hack for this is, "I go to church, steal $10, ask for forgiveness, get struck by lightning on my way home, survive, and live the rest of my days with super powers."

LOLz :D

ders alot of viewpoints about God and several religions thus. To take this very far would be to question another's religion in 1 way or another which i dont believe is a safe call. People can get offended.

I gave up being offended a LOOOOOOONG time ago. :D
It wasn't worth it.

Uhm... does anyone else see the irony in this? ;) You know, a *christian* wanting to determine something beyond any possible doubt before believing it...

Why is this ironic? What, you think **all** Christians are backwoods, inbred hicks who can't spell their own names? :p

Standing on the Bible doesn't mean giving up logic and reason. Unfortunately, most Christians just accept whatever their parents or pastors teach them without logically examining anything. Hence, many Christians believe things that AREN'T in the Bible.



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WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!!! This thread is turning into a powderkeg of potential flamebait. Is it safe to assume we're all mature enough to NOT throw insults and profanity? :cool:

*scurries away to safety, dodging the many missiles of doom*

[kraftman]

Reverse engineer, yes :). Or do you have the documentation?

DNA sentences can be a source. :> Don't you know there are always problems when comes to documentation? Otherwise noboby will understand it ;)

[zhark]

Why is this ironic? What, you think **all** Christians are backwoods, inbred hicks who can't spell their own names? :p


Short version: No

Long version: To believe in something without *any* evidence to support it, to the point that some are willing to kill, mutilate and torture (war) is a bad thing for a given person, and for the world in general. Even if one doesn't participate or condone these actions, one still is a (however small) part of the movement legitimizing it. And what exactly makes christians, muslims, scientologists, mormons, or others so sure that exactly their version of the Truth(tm) is true (after all, a staggering portion of believers inherits their beliefs from their parents)?

[Zhick]

Short version: No

Long version: To believe in something without *any* evidence to support it, to the point that some are willing to kill, mutilate and torture (war) is a bad thing for a given person, and for the world in general. Even if one doesn't participate or condone these actions, one still is a (however small) part of the movement legitimizing it. And what exactly makes christians, muslims, scientologists, mormons, or others so sure that exactly their version of the Truth(tm) is true (after all, a staggering portion of believers inherits their beliefs from their parents)?
Argh... I so badly want to join in on the flaming (which I admittedly kind of started)... But yeah, that's just not gonna lead anywhere as Darkfire Fox already pointed out.

[kraftman]

Short version: No

Long version: To believe in something without *any* evidence to support it, to the point that some are willing to kill, mutilate and torture (war) is a bad thing for a given person, and for the world in general. Even if one doesn't participate or condone these actions, one still is a (however small) part of the movement legitimizing it. And what exactly makes christians, muslims, scientologists, mormons, or others so sure that exactly their version of the Truth(tm) is true (after all, a staggering portion of believers inherits their beliefs from their parents)?

To do a thing you have to believe what you're doing is correct, smart, useful, good... If you want evidences you've got to be a Christian (usually), but faith, no evidences, matters when comes to religions. Atheists have very limited view of the world and they believe there's no God. Your examples concern mainly fanatics which aren't real Muslims, but just people who misinterpreted Koran (or they just use it for some politics reasons). Btw. those examples you gave can concern single persons from each group etc. Many people believed when they becomed adult, so your last sentece is really a flamebyte.

P.S. The Bible which is very reliable historic source may be evidence.

[t.s.]

heheh...
I'll go download some software illegaly then to make up my loss.
$10 is a hard-earning on my country ;)

and I agree with deanjo. God IS close source.

[d2kx]

To do a thing you have to believe what you're doing is correct, smart, useful, good... If you want evidences you've got to be a Christian (usually), but faith, no evidences, matters when comes to religions. Atheists have very limited view of the world and they believe there's no God. Your examples concern mainly fanatics which aren't real Muslims, but just people who misinterpreted Koran (or they just use it for some politics reasons). Btw. those examples you gave can concern single persons from each group etc. Many people believed when they becomed adult, so your last sentece is really a flamebyte.

P.S. The Bible which is very reliable historic source may be evidence.

Well, if god, whatever that term exactly means (a person? creature? consciousness?), existed and would only allow those that either Christians, or maybe Muslims, whatever, to enter the next part of the game and would send the others to, let's call it hell. Then I wouldn't want to accept or have anything to do with that thing you call god.

[kraftman]

Well, if god, whatever that term exactly means (a person? creature? consciousness?), existed and would only allow those that either Christians, or maybe Muslims, whatever, to enter the next part of the game and would send the others to, let's call it hell. Then I wouldn't want to accept or have anything to do with that thing you call god.

It's not exactly like this. He is always the first who calls you, faith is a gift not our merit. I believe we must look for Him and be open to really meet Him. If someone (for example tribal from forgotten village) believes sun or wind is a God, because (and) he never heard of Christianity he doesn't go to hell if he's a good man. There are many ways I think, but Christianity is a height. I am a Christian, so that's what I believe.

[DanL]

God IS close source.
God is a binary blob. There are 10 types of people in this world; those who understand binary and those who do not.

[zhark]

To do a thing you have to believe what you're doing is correct, smart, useful, good... If you want evidences you've got to be a Christian (usually), but faith, no evidences, matters when comes to religions. Atheists have very limited view of the world and they believe there's no God. Your examples concern mainly fanatics which aren't real Muslims, but just people who misinterpreted Koran (or they just use it for some politics reasons). Btw. those examples you gave can concern single persons from each group etc. Many people believed when they becomed adult, so your last sentece is really a flamebyte.

P.S. The Bible which is very reliable historic source may be evidence.

We are all atheists, non-believers only go one god further than the rest ;)

I also have to add that I respect the opinions, and right to have them, of my fellow men/women. I don't want to flame, only to express my view of the matter.

[kraftman]

We are all atheists, non-believers only go one god further than the rest ;)

Atheists are those who don't believe in God, so not everyone (I suppose you just assumed there's no God). However your faith must be really strong :) You don't base on anything, science isn't helpfull either, because it can't in any way proof God doesn't exist.

[thefirstm]

God has no need for earthly money. He has much better things to do than commit petty theft.

[suokko]

Atheists are those who don't believe in God, so not everyone (I suppose you just assumed there's no God). However your faith must be really strong :) You don't base on anything, science isn't helpfull either, because it can't in any way proof God doesn't exist.

Proof God exists: "Assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater. Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality." :rolleyes:

[nelson01]

I think they have a disclaimer which makes them not responsible for Acts of God.

[grantek]

I don't think God is closed-source (see the argument on DNA), I think He's just obfuscated, like the nv driver.

Actually, if God can't be described by science, and the universe is all that can be described by science, doesn't that make God more akin to something like DRM? ie. Something that affects the way you use your content and can punish you arbitrarily... so God may be GPL2-compliant, but the universe has a bit of Tivo-isation happening :/

[zhark]

Atheists are those who don't believe in God, so not everyone (I suppose you just assumed there's no God). However your faith must be really strong :) You don't base on anything, science isn't helpfull either, because it can't in any way proof God doesn't exist.

Well, the point still stands, if I were christian I still wouldn't believe in ~99% of the available Gods out there. Atheists make that an even 100. :)

Regarding evidence, I'm looking at it the other way round, I don't need evidence to not believe in something (yahweh, allah, klendathu, the flying spaghetti monster, the existence of black holes), I need evidence to believe. I "believe" in the scientific method (it's proven to work!), which after all is one major reason we are living in a modern post-industrialist society and not the dark ages. ;) I need proof before I want to accept the existence of a higher beeing, and believe it or not, but there are absolutely *no* solid proof of a supreme beeing, thereby requiring blind *faith*.
Religion wants us to take the most important questions on faith! Is that really how one want's to live, to just take for granted that what you are beeing told is the whole and full truth.
Science uncovers mystery after mystery previously thought to be in the domain of god, the evidence are right there, well documented, for everybody to look at and to dispute.
While religion wants us to not question His work and doesn't encourage us to look deeper to find real understanding and meaning of the world.

[MartjeB]

Yes, zhark. I agree.

More and more Gods are taken out by science (Zeus the thundergod, anyone?). The christian God is just very vaguely described, so science can't negate it.

Same thing the other way around; Christians can't prove Gods existence.

[kraftman]

Same thing the other way around; Christians can't prove Gods existence.

There's probability to proof this, but there's no probability to proof He doesn't exist.

@Zhark

When comes to science it's limited only to our nature and our limited view of the world. Imagine, even aliens can be something we're not able to notice. Years ago people looked in the sky and they believed God is there. Right now, we're trying (or we just started to dream about it) to 'look' into other dimensions.

As I mentioned before 'we' have proofs, but those proofs are sometimes only personal. You can read about many miracles, for example La Salette etc. However masons don't sleep and they lie

[MartjeB]

As I mentioned before 'we' have proofs, but those proofs are sometimes only personal.
So it's no proof..

[kraftman]

So it's no proof..

For me it is, for you it probably wouldn't :) To be this proof for you, you'll have to be on my place.

[lordmozilla]

I guess the whole thing revolves around faith...

Here's to maybe finding mine. After all the problem with being an atheist is that theres no point in anything... So believing in something - even if false must give you a nice sense of belief.

Being an atheist you start questioning stuff. I mean why do we reproduce? Whats the point in the whole surviving thing just for the hell of it? Since I enjoy reproducing so much with as many females as possible (which is what hormones tell us to do...) why don't i just do it and not bother with the whole relationship thing?

So i can understand why they made these gods so that we would continue to reproduce and hence survive. Why well, you'd have to ask the people who invented the whole god idea. Lets be honest - christianity was invented by a roman emperor for crowd control...

I'm not saying god doesnt exist. I'm just saying if he does then the roman emperor is just a very insightfull man. Now as for other gods well maybe they have more proof but christianity is laughable... I mean look at the latest bible they found which is well uhm different....

[Darkfire Fox]

I need evidence to believe. I "believe" in the scientific method (it's proven to work!), which after all is one major reason we are living in a modern post-industrialist society and not the dark ages. I need proof before I want to accept the existence of a higher beeing, and believe it or not, but there are absolutely *no* solid proof of a supreme beeing, thereby requiring blind *faith*.


Dear Zhark, I appreciate you taking the time to explain your position; allow me to explain mine.

The problem in this debate is not "Science versus Religion". I'm sorry, but that axiom is not valid and needs to be discarded. Let's examine what science is and is not.

Please open Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the American Language (or equivalent for your language). Look up "Science". What was the original meaning for the word science? It meant knowledge. In a more modern sense, science would be the logical, systematic pursuit of knowledge. This is the essence of the Scientific Method: ask a question, do some research, design an experiment with a predictive hypothesis, draw a conclusion from said experiment that either supports or refutes your hypothesis' prediction, and then report your results to the world. As you might expect, operational science can only operate in the present. It can make predictions about the future, but cannot make predictions about the past, because the past is unrepeatable. Unless someone else can repeat your experiment, your results are worthless.

Let's examine everyone's favorite TV controversy: evolution. Before I begin, I need to clarify something important. Evolution has TWO primary definitions.

The first simply means "change". Natural selection, genetic drift, adaptive radiation, and speciation all represent simple changes in a population's DNA, and these phenomena are indisputably supported by empirical evidence. In other words, these are FACT. No intelligent creationist will argue these phenomena don't exist. This definition is sometimes called "horizontal evolution" or "micro-evolution". The Scientific Method supports this definition of evolution.

The second definition of evolution represents something radically different. Sometimes called "vertical evolution" or "macro-evolution", this definition represents the upward transformation from simple organisms to complex organisms over millions of years. You see, here we have a problem. No scientist has ever observed an event spanning millions of years. No experiment can actually emulate macro-evolution accurately (sorry, computer programs don't cut it).

To make matters worse, the is no natural mechanism that increases genetic information in the wild. Natural selection, as its name suggests, can do nothing except select against undesirable phenotypes in a given population, thereby deleting the underlying genotypes from the gene pool. Mutations -- the only possible source for new information -- are no help either. There are only two types of mutations: neutral or bad. Due to the Law of Entropy, the vast majority of mutations are biologically corruptive. Our cells are in a constant state of war against entropy, and our cellular machinery often fails to catch every mutation to our DNA. (ask a cancer patient what he or she thinks about mutations)

Of course, there are indeed instances where a mutation can be beneficial. In parts of the world plagued with malaria, a human possessing a heterozygous mutation for sickle-cell anemia actually has a selective advantage against an otherwise "normal" human. You see, the malarial plasmodia infecting the person's red blood cells are automatically destroyed when those red blood cells spontaneously implode. Sickle-cell anemia is the result of a biologically corruptive mutation. But, in that particular environment, a "bad" mutation can produce a selectively "good" effect.

Let's have a thought experiment. Consider a hypothetical winged beetle on a hypothetical windy island. The population is kept low because most beetles are blown out to sea while flying and drown. Now imagine one beetle has a mutation that removes her wings, forcing her to trod along the ground. Coincidentally, all her offspring also hatch without wings. You now have a booming population of wingless beetles that have adapted to a new environment, new food supply, and new predators. In essence, we now have a new "species" of beetle.

But hang on, if the loss of a physical trait is described as "evolution in action", how did those beetles actually acquire those wings and learn to fly in the first place? The information necessary to encode fully functional wings, the information necessary to encode fully functional muscles and tendons, the information necessary to encode all the proper neurological connections, AND the information necessary to program that beetle's little brain for proper insectoid flight MUST be present and selectively adventageous all at the same time, through each and every step of that beetle's supposed evolution from a lower life form. I'm sorry, but that's less likely than a hurricane blowing through a junkyard and assembling a fully functional, fueled, painted, ready-to-fly Boeing 747.

We have a problem, folks. The problem is worldview. The problem is not Science versus Religion, but rather Religion versus Religion. This is likely going to offend 99% of the Phoronix userbase, but Secularism is not science. Secularism is a religion. Without any basis in the Scientific Method, the secular worldview is just another worldview. I'm sorry, but there is no escaping it. Secularism provides a philosophical framework upon which macro-evolutionary biology, plate tectonics geology, and big bang cosmology can be built upon. You see, every single "evidence" for macro-evolution or its siblings is already interpreted through the secular framework.

Take the fossil record, for example. Empirically speaking, a fossil is just a bone or other object buried in sedimentary rock. One fossil in one layer of rock will likely have other fossils in other layers directly above it or below it. How do we interpret the layered fossils? If you believe in Uniformitarianism -- the belief that the past can only be interpreted through mechanisms operating in the present -- then you would likely come to the conclusion that the fossils in "lower" strata are significantly older than fossils in "higher" strata. But someone with a different starting assumption can see the exact same empirical data and come to a totally different conclusion.

Someone may want to come to the rescue argue that radiometric dating "proves" uniformitarianism and billions-of-years. Let's examine that. First, we need to know how radiometric dating operates. Since the rates of radioactive decay are presumed to be constant, we can supposedly measure the "age" of a fossil or igneous rock by measuring and comparing the quantities of the "parent" materials with the "daughter" materials. It sounds simple enough, but radiometric dating is riddled with arbitrary assumptions. First, you have to know the exact quantities of parent/daughter material the fossil or rock started out with. Second, you have to know that there was positively no parent/daughter material leeched out or contaminated into the fossil or rock during the course of its existence. There are other assumptions involved, but those are the most significant.

Fun fact: dinosaur bones, or any other fossil presumed to be more than one million years old are never carbon-dated. Why? Carbon-14 has a half life of about 5000 years. After about 500 000 years, Carbon-14 is completely undetectable. A dinosaur bone "should" give an "infinite" age under carbon-dating. But no one ever carbon-dated Sue the T-rex, or any other dino bone for that matter. Why is that? I guarantee you that if a dinosaur bone was ever carbon-dated, it would give an age of only a few thousand years. Good luck finding an evolutionist who will do the procedure, though.

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My entire point here is to debunk the myth that Secularism somehow enjoys a privileged position over Christianity or any other religion. Macroevolution, plate tectonics, and the big bang are requirements of Secularism, but are not requirements for understanding operational science (the simple pursuit of knowledge).

As you might imagine, I become slightly irritated when some evolutionist on TV or some scientific journal dismisses me as a "moron", "imbecile", "idiot", or launches some other insult because I don't subscribe to a Secularist viewpoint.

As a Seventh-Day Adventist Christian, I stand firmly on the Bible for my worldview, and I'm man enough not to ridicule someone who subscribes to a different view of the universe's history. As a Christian I believe all viewpoints about God and our universal past can and should be tolerated -- whether monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, or atheistic. So which worldview, if any at all, is the "correct" one?

I'm not attacking anyone here on Phoronix. I think most of us are mature enough not to "devolve" into petty trolls who fling insults and profanity when their worldview is questioned (at least, I sincerely hope that). I'm sorry I used evolution as my main exibit, but it was all I could think of on short notice.

This is my last post in this thread, so if anyone wants to interview me on this subject, please PM me.

Now please excuse me, I need to go hide under a rock until further notice. :D
(And pray I don't get ban-hammered)

[bridgman]

I'm going to disagree with a couple of points... and one of them is your "Fun Fact", so you probably have to keep posting ;)

Secularism is defined in a number of different ways, but the general idea is separating *government* from religion, not *denying* religious beliefs. There may be an interpretation of the word which includes actively denying the existence of a higher power but I haven't run into that yet.

Dinosaur bones have been carbon dated many times; the problem is how to interpret the results. General consensus seems to be that carbon-14 dating is useful to 50,000 years or so... maybe 100,000 but you're getting deep in the noise.

In general the proportion of carbon-14 remaining in dinosaur bones has been negligible, but that could be because of their age or because the living material was generally replaced during the fossilization process. In some cases the carbon dating process has indicated a much lesser age, typically 15,000-20,000 years, but again this just results in more debate about whether that came from background radiation, contamination, or whether there really were dinosaurs stomping around that recently.

I don't see any conflict between science and religion personally, if you are willing to accept that religious faith is a doozy of a hypothesis, which has not yet been proven but which also has never been *disproven* and is therefore perfectly reasonable even for the purely scientific mind. Our modern world runs on technology and applied science which was largely developed based on unproven hypotheses; sometimes the proof comes later, sometimes it doesn't.

I agree completely with your comment that the problem is Religion vs Religion, but I probably don't use the words the same way. We have multiple religions being practiced in the world today, some of which are generally compatible with other religions and some which seem to be defined in a mutually exclusive way, depending on whose translation you believe. It would be nice if the original tenets for the major religions had all been written in the same language :D

Secularism is more about being free to follow your religious beliefs but not free to use the power of government to *impose* your beliefs on others. The danger is going too far the other way and using the power of government to *deny* religious beliefs, which is probably even worse.

[zhark]

..

Carbon dating is indeed thought to be valid for a much longer time than a simple 5000 years as bridgman pointed out, the wikipedia article explains this and you will find plenty valid sources of which the article refers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating).

I have another point to make, about evolution. Simply because you can't observe the evolution of the species doesn't mean you can't possible know it's true. This is a surprisingly common misbelief. Don't you believe that Sokrates existed simply because you can't observe him exist? There are plenty evidence of large-scale (macro) evolution. Nr.1: Fossile records! There are millions upon millions of dug up bones which in _detail_ show how many species evolved into multiple others. Nr.2: And this is also a BIG one! DNA. The DNA between all living organism have a *striking* resemblance. The closer the species are related the more DNA base-pairs they have in common. Together fossile records and DNA is the nail in the coffin against any direct (rational) opposition of evolution. Every organism on Earth are indeed related, and have all evolved from a single (possibly few) simple organisms. If one wants to put God somewhere, high in the sky completely out of reach, by all means. But don't mess with evolution, which is indeed a fact (and should be honored accordingly). :cool:

[zhark]

I guess the whole thing revolves around faith...

Here's to maybe finding mine. After all the problem with being an atheist is that theres no point in anything... So believing in something - even if false must give you a nice sense of belief.



Wow man. Just look around you, take a walk in nature. Look up in the sky. Go on a date and, if you're lucky, have sex with a beatiful woman. The real world is extraordinary, man ;) You don't need no religion telling you the "Earth is flat" and that fear of God is the highest of virtouses to be happy, quite the contrary.

[Darkfire Fox]

Dinosaur bones have been carbon dated many times; the problem is how to interpret the results. General consensus seems to be that carbon-14 dating is useful to 50,000 years or so... maybe 100,000 but you're getting deep in the noise. In general the proportion of carbon-14 remaining in dinosaur bones has been negligible, but that could be because of their age or because the living material was generally replaced during the fossilization process. In some cases the carbon dating process has indicated a much lesser age, typically 15,000-20,000 years, but again this just results in more debate about whether that came from background radiation, contamination, or whether there really were dinosaurs stomping around that recently.

My work has prevented me from reading every single article out of every single issue of Science and Nature, but I have never, ever read any article from an secular source describing the carbon-dating of dino bones. Still, the fact that Carbon-14 is still detectable is astonishing. Again, the problem is worldview and interpretation, as an evolutionist simply cannot accept such "young" dinosaur bones


I don't see any conflict between science and religion personally, if you are willing to accept that religious faith is a doozy of a hypothesis, which has not yet been proven but which also has never been *disproven* and is therefore perfectly reasonable even for the purely scientific mind.

My entire point, or at least a chunk of it, was to point out that inherently religious teachings, like "In the beginning, God created..." or the position that we all evolved from primordial soup, cannot be empirically proven via the Scientific Method. Science operates in the present; special creation and macro-evolutionary biology describes events in the past.


I agree completely with your comment that the problem is Religion vs Religion, but I probably don't use the words the same way.

I was more leaning "Worldview vs Worldview", as in Theism vs Atheism, but I wanted to be more forceful.

Carbon dating is indeed thought to be valid for a much longer time than a simple 5000 years as bridgman pointed out, the wikipedia article explains this and you will find plenty valid sources of which the article refers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating).

I clearly stated that the half-life of Carbon-14 was 5,000 years. Carbon-14 should be undetectable after 500,000 years. Please re-read what I typed


I have another point to make, about evolution. Simply because you can't observe the evolution of the species doesn't mean you can't possible know it's true. This is a surprisingly common misbelief. Don't you believe that Sokrates existed simply because you can't observe him exist?

I have another point to make, about creation. Simply because you can't observe God creating the universe way-back-when doesn't mean you can't possibly know it's true. This is a surprisingly common misbelief. :p

I believe Socrates exists because the are verifiable records attesting to his existence.

There are plenty evidence of large-scale (macro) evolution. Nr.1: Fossile records! There are millions upon millions of dug up bones which in _detail_ show how many species evolved into multiple others. Nr.2: And this is also a BIG one! DNA. The DNA between all living organism have a *striking* resemblance. The closer the species are related the more DNA base-pairs they have in common. Together fossile records and DNA is the nail in the coffin against any direct (rational) opposition of evolution. Every organism on Earth are indeed related, and have all evolved from a single (possibly few) simple organisms.

I'm sorry, but your nails are rather blunt and rusty.

Millions and millions of dug-up bones are still just bones. They are incapable of speaking anything. Their existance must be explained through some ideological framework, whether theistic or atheistic. Similarities in 2 different fossils in 2 different geological strata do not automatically declare an evolutionary heritage.

Of course our DNA is similar, our cells share much of the same basic functionality! Again, just because I share 97% of my DNA with a chimpanzee does not automatically mean we share a common ancestry. It can just as easily be because of a common Designer, if your worldview allows such things.

But don't mess with evolution, which is indeed a fact (and should be honored accordingly). :cool:

I myself believe in evolution as fact -- the empirically verifiable bits! Natural selection, genetic drift, adaptive radiation, and speciation are all empirically verified phenomena. Remember, natural selection only operates on traits already in the gene pool! Macro-evolutionary ideology remains empirically unverified and empirically unfalsifiable.

You don't need no religion telling you the "Earth is flat" and that fear of God is the highest of virtouses to be happy, quite the contrary.

I totally agree! Fortunately for myself, nowhere does the Bible describe the earth as being a flat, 2-D plane. The bits regarding the "pillars of the earth" (Job 9:6, Psalms 75:3) and the "four corners of the earth" (Isaiah 41:9, Revelation 7:1, Revelation 20:8) are used quite poetically and are used to demonstrated God's magnificence, not describe Earth's shape.

In Isaiah 40:22, Earth actually *is* described as a sphere. The Hebrew word used here for "circle" in that verse can also mean "ball" or "sphere"

And you score again, friend, because if I was living in fear (terror) of God, I wouldn't be very happy now, would I? For me, the very point of being a Christian is to let the spirit of Christ live inside of me. Read the Gospels, starting with John. Letting Jesus live within us is truly an astonishing thing! It's an incredible high, something no chemical intoxication can match.

The primary reason most Christians are unhappy is because they're trying to keep God's commandments under the force of their own willpowers. What a travesty! Such a thing will only lead to miserable failure. But if we let God live inside of us, commandment-keeping becomes automatic, an afterthought! Jesus is God. God is love. God's 10 commandments are about love. Both the Old and New Testaments declare this over and over again. I am nowhere near a sinless individual, but you couldn't believe the strides I've made (God's work, actually) in my 3 years of being a Christian. Trust me, three years ago, I was a truly detestable person! :D

This is a terrible analogy, but think of Christianity as a bit like the General Public Licence. The GPL may seem to restrict some freedom (the inability to use GPL code in proprietary software) ; but, in my opinion, the end-user benefits granted by the GPL far outweigh the costs. Similarly, God's commandments may seem to restrict some freedom (what, I *HAVE* to love my neighbor? Have you *MET* him?! :p ) ; but, in my opinion, the end-user benefits of Christianity FAR outweigh the costs.

Again, terrible analogy, but I think it fits.


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Yeah, OK, just ignore that line in my last post saying that was my last post. I'm not going to edit it. :cool:

Remember, all opinions expressed within my posts are just generic statements and should not be construed as direct attacts against anyone in particular.

Well, I think I've overstayed my welcome here! Goodbye! :D

**runs away**

[highlandsun]

My entire point, or at least a chunk of it, was to point out that inherently religious teachings, like "In the beginning, God created..." or the position that we all evolved from primordial soup, cannot be empirically proven via the Scientific Method. Science operates in the present; special creation and macro-evolutionary biology describes events in the past.

Actually, it is possible to prove that it was possible for life to evolve from primordial soup, it will just take a long time to duplicate the process. Early experiments have produced enough building blocks (amino acids, RNA) to demonstrate that complex molecules can spontaneously arise out of simple chaos. Nobody alive today will be around to see the results of an experiment that actually runs long enough to create a living, reproducing microbe. But that doesn't mean it can't be empirically proven, it just means you won't be around when the proof arrives.

[grantek]

Anyway, if God decided to intervene in human affairs on such a scale, I'd demand they take the $10 from everyone who's paid for CS software and use it to build a giant orbiting plasma cannon to take out any country's patent offices that allow software patents. FOSS would be so much easier if it weren't for the threat of patent license fees.

[Darkfire Fox]

Actually, it is possible to prove that it was possible for life to evolve from primordial soup, it will just take a long time to duplicate the process. Early experiments have produced enough building blocks (amino acids, RNA) to demonstrate that complex molecules can spontaneously arise out of simple chaos. Nobody alive today will be around to see the results of an experiment that actually runs long enough to create a living, reproducing microbe. But that doesn't mean it can't be empirically proven, it just means you won't be around when the proof arrives.

Even if scientists manage to create a fully functional cell in a laboratory, all that will prove is that it took intelligent designers to create that cell. ;)

Unfortunately, basic chemistry gets in the way of a naturalistic origin for the first cells. At the very least, cells need RNA, DNA, and Protein.

Ribose and deoxyribose are sugars, and protein is made of amino acids. Left to themselves, sugars and amino acids will spontaneously destroy each other. They won't co-exist long enough in an aqueous solution in order to form RNA, DNA, and protein. Our cellular machinery prevents this. Machinery made of protein and encoded by RNA and DNA ...

In addition, all amino acids created "in the wild" (abiotically) are racemic. They have equal proportions of the right-handed and left-handed mirror forms. Life on Earth uses the left-handed variant aminos exclusively. Otherwise, the alpha-helices and beta-pleats of our protein chains would have side chains sticking out all over the place, ruining them.

Similarly, all sugars created "in the wild" (abiotically) are also racemic, having equal proportions of the right-handed and left-handed mirror forms. Life on Earth uses the right-handed variant sugars exclusively. Otherwise, starch and cellulose would have the same side-chain problem as proteins.

Lastly, on a presumably anaerobic primordial earth, the primordial oceans would have relatively high concentrations of divalent iron, calcium, and magnesium. If you bathe/shower with "hard water" then you are probably quite familiar with soap scum! Nucleic acids, amino acids, and fatty acids would likely be precipitated out of solution before they could do anything useful.

(Also, an oxygen-less early earth would have no ozone. No ozone means lots of UV radiation, further ruining my ancestral pond water. The first life trying to develop near an underwater volcano [a pet favorite for many biologists] would suffer the same problems as above, and the added heat would speed up the destruction ;) )

[Darkfire Fox]

Anyway, if God decided to intervene in human affairs on such a scale, I'd demand they take the $10 from everyone who's paid for CS software and use it to build a giant orbiting plasma cannon to take out any country's patent offices that allow software patents. FOSS would be so much easier if it weren't for the threat of patent license fees.

LMAO times NINE THOUSAND !!! :D :D :D

LOL, wouldn't that be great? I'd object to the probable loss of life in the bombardment, but otherwise I support your agenda! ;)

[highlandsun]

Even if scientists manage to create a fully functional cell in a laboratory, all that will prove is that it took intelligent designers to create that cell. ;)


If you accept the hypothesis that their working cells simply reproduce the environment of earth some millions of years ago, then no. But you could of course argue that their hypothesis about earth is wrong, or that it took a designer to create the earth. Whatever.


Unfortunately, basic chemistry gets in the way of a naturalistic origin for the first cells. At the very least, cells need RNA, DNA, and Protein.


DNA is not a requirement, there are self-replicating organisms based solely on RNA (e.g. some viruses).


Ribose and deoxyribose are sugars, and protein is made of amino acids. Left to themselves, sugars and amino acids will spontaneously destroy each other. They won't co-exist long enough in an aqueous solution in order to form RNA, DNA, and protein. Our cellular machinery prevents this. Machinery made of protein and encoded by RNA and DNA ...

In addition, all amino acids created "in the wild" (abiotically) are racemic. They have equal proportions of the right-handed and left-handed mirror forms. Life on Earth uses the left-handed variant aminos exclusively. Otherwise, the alpha-helices and beta-pleats of our protein chains would have side chains sticking out all over the place, ruining them.

Similarly, all sugars created "in the wild" (abiotically) are also racemic, having equal proportions of the right-handed and left-handed mirror forms. Life on Earth uses the right-handed variant sugars exclusively. Otherwise, starch and cellulose would have the same side-chain problem as proteins.

Lastly, on a presumably anaerobic primordial earth, the primordial oceans would have relatively high concentrations of divalent iron, calcium, and magnesium. If you bathe/shower with "hard water" then you are probably quite familiar with soap scum! Nucleic acids, amino acids, and fatty acids would likely be precipitated out of solution before they could do anything useful.

(Also, an oxygen-less early earth would have no ozone. No ozone means lots of UV radiation, further ruining my ancestral pond water. The first life trying to develop near an underwater volcano [a pet favorite for many biologists] would suffer the same problems as above, and the added heat would speed up the destruction ;) )

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/43723/title/How_RNA_got_started

It's already been proven that RNA can form spontaneously. Given millions of years, it's possible for all the ideal conditions to exist in some pocket of the environment, even if the environment in general is not conducive.

You're also overlooking the demonstrated mechanisms for spontaneous formation of cell membranes - these don't require complex proteins to form, they just require a difference in viscosity between two regions of liquid, like oil+water. Once you have that you have the possibility for molecules to continue reacting/evolving inside a "cell" independent of changes in the environment.

[justsumdood]

isn't it quite possible that man created God in his own image?

[King InuYasha]

isn't it quite possible that man created God in his own image?

That is very possible, however, don't tell people that.

People are very touchy about God, and they might kill you for saying that....

[d2kx]

That is very possible, however, don't tell people that.

People are very touchy about God, and they might kill you for saying that....

Haha :p

Or is it sad because it might be true for some people.

[nanonyme]

If you accept the hypothesis that their working cells simply reproduce the environment of earth some millions of years ago, then no. But you could of course argue that their hypothesis about earth is wrong, or that it took a designer to create the earth. Whatever.Typical of an engineer to run away when the work is done so he won't end up doing customer service.

[Mistyrious]

Accept the loss.

[saberbits]

What is the point of stealing just $10?

[nanonyme]

What is the point of stealing just $10?Yeah, don't gods usually want the soul?

[RealNC]

That's what your soul's worth, I'm afraid.

[nanonyme]

That's what your soul's worth, I'm afraid.Maybe the value of the souls are based on supply and demand and since we're killing each other so fast, the value of a loose soul reduces. :o