Godscrack: [img99.imageshack.us image 449x524]

Thank you, I needed a Father's Day gift.

mamoru: Corporate Self: To me science's current answer that "a billion monkeys" gave way to the complex coding of life is much less believable than some unknown intelligent entity had a hand in it.

I guess it's convenient that you have no curiosity about the origin of the unknown intelligent entity, and so can ignore any complexities that arise from such questions about that entity. :-/

You are wrong, but I refuse to let science smugly "smooth over the rough spots".

Deal in truth or go home.

Corporate Self: Dan the Schman: Also, you do realize that if given unlimited time, a million monkeys on a million typewriters typing out all of the individual words that comprised the complete works of Shakespeare is a mathematical inevitability, right? I mean, it's not like anyone is saying the monkeys BUILT the typewriters and then started typing.

A few billion years is hardly infinity so your "anything possible will happen" holds little water in the actual argument. Hell, the same concept could be used to argue that spontaneous generation God is an inevitable certainty!

Not one with a set of balls.

Ishkur: To them, its all one thing: Atheism/Evolution/Abiogenesis/BigBangTheory. They see values in terms of package deals (like "liberal" and "conservative") and if you subscribe to one you automatically subscribe to all. They don't differentiate from nuance, and they don't understand how someone can pick and choose their value set based on individual issues rather than blanket "check all" subscriptions.

It doesn't occur to them that the rest of us don't think that way.

Except that the vast majority of religious people (okay, Judeo-Christians - I don't have enough experience to make determinations about other religions and the relevant behavior of their adherents) pick and choose from their sacred texts to suit themselves. So that makes them hypocrites and/or idiots.

Corporate Self: Dan the Schman: Also, you do realize that if given unlimited time, a million monkeys on a million typewriters typing out all of the individual words that comprised the complete works of Shakespeare is a mathematical inevitability, right? I mean, it's not like anyone is saying the monkeys BUILT the typewriters and then started typing.

A few billion years is hardly infinity so your "anything possible will happen" holds little water in the actual argument. Hell, the same concept could be used to argue that spontaneous generation God is an inevitable certainty!

Ignoring everything else in my post doesn't exactly discourage the theory that you're trolling. Comparing the spontaneous generation of a single-celled organism capable of reproduction and adaptation to the spontaneous generation of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Being lends even more credence.

You know what, let's talk gravity, since you care so much about truth and hate that lousy "smoothing over of rough spots". Who are they trying to brainwash with this "graviton" BS, am I right?

Dan the Schman: Corporate Self: Dan the Schman: Also, you do realize that if given unlimited time, a million monkeys on a million typewriters typing out all of the individual words that comprised the complete works of Shakespeare is a mathematical inevitability, right? I mean, it's not like anyone is saying the monkeys BUILT the typewriters and then started typing.

A few billion years is hardly infinity so your "anything possible will happen" holds little water in the actual argument. Hell, the same concept could be used to argue that spontaneous generation God is an inevitable certainty!

Ignoring everything else in my post doesn't exactly discourage the theory that you're trolling. Comparing the spontaneous generation of a single-celled organism capable of reproduction and adaptation to the spontaneous generation of an Omnipotent and Omniscient Being lends even more credence.

You know what, let's talk gravity, since you care so much about truth and hate that lousy "smoothing over of rough spots". Who are they trying to brainwash with this "graviton" BS, am I right?

Another guy that is farking with people.

Forgive me if this is an illogical argument, however...

I always find it interesting when people who do not believe in evolution will own specific breeds of animals. Logically, the selective breeding of the ancestor of dogs has led to many, many breeds that look nothing like each other.



Chihuahua and a Great Dane. Yes, they're still the same species and they COULD still interbreed but dear god, would you want them to? Could they even do so without assistance? A male Great Dane would likely kill a female chihuahua and a male chihuahua would need a stepladder to get to a female Great Dane.
It could also be stated that some breeds of dogs, such as English Bulldogs, can't even naturally breed anymore. A genetic dead end.

The selective breeding for traits we find desirable could be said to mirror what nature inflicts on animals, which eventually leads to a species split where animals can no longer successfully interbreed. We just haven't driven any animals quite that far yet.

/have we?

AdolfOliverPanties: consider the evolutionist's proposition that all of life, all twenty million species of life and all their subsystems and sub-sub systems, originated (says the atheist) from an accidental, random, unpurposed, unplanned conglomeration of chemicals conjoining in a mystical, magical pool of mud, billions of years ago," said author Carl Gallups.

"This pool of mud and its magical mixture has never been observed or replicated ... In over 150 years of human attempts at replicating this accidental process, we have not even come close to doing so - even with OUR intelligent input involved!

Silly WND. It took over 150 years for that "mud" to spawn life. Probably about 250 or even 300 years!

Plus, um, we have in fact replicated it several times. Link, Link, Linkety Link.

The problem with the "but scientists have never observed [x phenomenon]" argument is that, if you're still using that argument 50 years later, it's just gonna make you look stupid since chances are someone heard the argument the first time and went and observed them some [x] for your convenience. Just because the great minds of western science doubted the existence of the platypus and were still legit scientists doesn't change the fact that denying the existence of the platypus now just makes you an ignorant yokel retard.

er, just because the great minds of western science once doubted, rather. Accidentally the whole phrase there.

Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

"Since around 1800, ideas of evolutionism had been denounced as examples of dangerous materialism, which undermined natural theology and the argument from design, threatening the current moral and social order. Such ideas were propagated by lower class Radicals seeking to overturn divine justification of the (aristocratic) social order."

Corporate Self: If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

The light's better here.

eraser8: I read through that who stupid article, and all I saw was an argument from personal incredulity.

That is, because Carl Gallups can't conceive of something, a god must have done it.

I also loved this gem from Gallups: "this notion that somehow the Christian is dedicated to a belief in a magic man in the sky is nothing more than a straw man argument fallaciously set up by the atheist. My book systematically exposes and demolishes this straw man argument."

I would love -- just LOVE -- to hear him explain how that argument is a straw man. I'd love to hear how he "systematically exposes and demolishes" it.

You can dress up your theology all you want, Pastor Gallups -- but if you believe in creationism, you believe in magic. If you believe in a god, you believe in a magic man. Maybe he's not "in the sky." Maybe he's on Titan. Maybe he's in France. Maybe he's not even a "he." But, your view of our existence absolutely hinges on magic. To argue otherwise is patently absurd.

I can guess what his proof is. It is written in the good book, the word of God, so it must be true.

That is what passes for logic with the brainwashed.

Corporate Self: If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

You invented a way to detect small quantities of complex organic molecules from several light years away? Because the rest of us can barely manage to tell if there's a simple three-atom molecule on the moon without creating a giant explosion in the specific area we think exists.

Or are you getting this magical ability to search places outside Earth using your mutant power of teleportation? Because I hate to break it to you, but science doesn't have that either. All we've checked so far for life is a vanishingly small section of a very limited chemical range of an arbitrarily selected bit of Mars and an even smaller bit of the moon. If you want to make stupid assertions about how we've looked everywhere and haven't found anything you're going to have to wait another four or five centuries at minimum, right now we can't even get to most of the planets we know about, much less explore them in detail.

Corporate Self: Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

Those goddamn goalposts WERE JUST HERE!

For future reference, you're a lousy troll. I mean, Bevets is more entertaining than you. You really should be embarrassed. If I didn't have OCD, I would have walked away a long time ago.

A) We currently don't have the technology to determine if planets outside our solar system have life, and even the tech we have for detecting it within our solar system is pretty weak. We have found evidence of life once existing on Mars, though.

B) We have discovered several planets that have environments we deem encouraging for life, which is truly incredible considering there are trillions of planets in the Universe.

C) The Universe is nearly 14 billion years old; dozens of civilizations could evolve and rise and self-destruct in that period, not to mention stray meteors, comets, earthquakes, volcanoes, and literally thousands of other things that can wipe out all lifeforms on a planet.

So there are three, out of dozens, of reasons why we haven't discovered life on another planet in the less than 70 years we've been exploring space.

originated (says the atheist) from an accidental, random, unpurposed, unplanned conglomeration of chemicals conjoining in a mystical, magical pool of mud, billions of years ago,

No evolutionist says this because this is not evolution. This is abiogenesis. Aside from that this statement is not true in another sense, it's not chance or accident, although chance does play a role. Things happen for a reason and in this case that reason is the electromagnetic and biochemical properties of things. There's nothing magic about it. Admittedly its not well understood because it happened billions of years ago over the course of hundreds of millions of years. You'll forgive us if science hasn't quite got the details of that process down yet considering how difficult it is to study.

After that we launch in to the standard stupid age old argument that because science hasn't figured it out yet then it must be because its impossible or beyond science.

Know what I remember? The very first time I heard this argument was how little we understood DNA in spite of all the research. That was a decade before we heard the words "Human Genome Project". The things we now know about DNA would have been called unlikely or impossible to know by people who knew what they were talking about... Within my own life time. That is to say that in the space of my life we have gone from something that was "beyond" the ability of science... to being well understood by science.

By the way anyone who wants to make the claim that because we haven't figured something out yet that the answer is "God Did It", I would like to propose that "Ted Did It", Ted is the name of the alien who created the big bang while trying to make beer in his apartment 14+ billion years ago. You have your unsubstantiated idea and I have mine. (Credit to Thinking Atheist, a Youtube Channel for this line of "thought")

anfrind: Seems to me more like a kludge than a proper patch. Religion is a solution that was devised by people who didn't really understand how the system works (heck, even with modern science we don't fully understand how it works!), and as a result it has a lot of unintended side-effects.

The difference between a kludge, a patch, and DLC?

Marketing.

Corporate Self: Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

Maybe because we've only been able to examine one solar system with seven other planets for life, none of which even have liquid water (life doesn't even exist on this planet with a complete absence of water).

eraser8: But, I still don't see 6,000 years as being sufficient time to make any sort of change that would catch the notice of young earthers.

Link

There can be no argument. Macroevolution has been studied, observed, and repeated in the laboratory. It is as scientific as gravity and heliocentricism. It's not a parlor trick or magick; it's simply watching an organism adapt to environmental pressure.

If anyone can be confronted with evidence and still walk away thinking that it takes longer than 6000 years to make any significant macroevolutionary change, let alone that evolution in its entirety is false, you can safely label them as an idiot.

Nem Wan: [keithpp.files.wordpress.com image 450x502]

Well, I'd like to see CHIMPS build an orbital nuclear weapons platform!

Ishkur: We have NO certain data yet on the likelihood of life's occurrence in the Universe. Learn the god damn Drake Equation and the Fermi Paradox before making such an assertion.

Don't forget the Calvin Paradox

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Here's this entire thread, compressed into three minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

Corporate Self: Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

Oh yeah, well, if God exists, then why haven't I read the Bible?

dennysgod: Man didn't descend from apes, we share a common ancestor, but didn't come directly from apes, if you're going to try to mock or disprove evolution at least have a basic understanding on how it works.

Thank you, yesterday's Reddit thread about the Smithsonian tour.

buckler: Nem Wan: [keithpp.files.wordpress.com image 450x502]

Well, I'd like to see CHIMPS build an orbital nuclear weapons platform!


Nyea!Nyea!

Corporate Self: Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

I believe that you have made a particularly unreasonable assumption about the process in assuming that it has to be commonplace. There is no reason to presume that whatever the processes that occurs during abiogenesis that they need to be common or abundant.

Fury Pilot: Corporate Self: Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

I believe that you have made a particularly unreasonable assumption about the process in assuming that it has to be commonplace. There is no reason to presume that whatever the processes that occurs during abiogenesis that they need to be common or abundant.

And in any case, even if it were common and abundant, that doesn't mean we'd see it more than once in the infinitesimally tiny corner of the universe with which we are (sort of) familiar.

FTFA:

---

I scientifically, logically, irrefutably, and historically PROVE the existence of God. Even the ardent atheist will have a difficult time refuting the evidence with any academic plausibility at all."

---

What irrefutable proof of the existence of God might look like:

Corporate Self: Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

How many other worlds have we really explored? We've taken pictures from orbit of our neighbors in the solar system, and sent rovers to Mars...but, even in our own solar system, that's less than a drop in the bucket. We know of the existence of other planets, including a good number that have the potential to be Earth-like, but as of yet, we have no way to determine whether or not there's life on them, beyond hoping that they use the kind of communications we do. There could be aliens on a planet around the next star over, and there's a good chance that we won't know for a LONG time, if ever.

Wangiss: Can you think of a new name for this advanced human species?

Homo Sapiens Customizens
Homo Sapiens Arbitrensis
Homo Sapiens HowYouDoin

How about "Hetero Sapiens"? Because, thanks to customization, we'll all be *very* different from each other.

Bat people.
Dolphin people.
People with giant brains.
Furries ...



/we already have whale people

BMulligan: Fury Pilot: Corporate Self: Ishkur:
That's not science's current answer. You are arguing from a position of improbability. Science makes no such claim that abiogenesis happens by random chance. It is undirected, yes, but it still adheres to basic fundamental preferences and behaviors in bio-chemical logic.

Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

I believe that you have made a particularly unreasonable assumption about the process in assuming that it has to be commonplace. There is no reason to presume that whatever the processes that occurs during abiogenesis that they need to be common or abundant.

And in any case, even if it were common and abundant, that doesn't mean we'd see it more than once in the infinitesimally tiny corner of the universe with which we are (sort of) familiar.

True.

\ I just couldn't be bothered addressing the second assumption :)

/Not mine.

3_Butt_Cheeks: It boils down to one thing...Micheal J Fox has no Elvis in him.

No, but he can do a pretty decent "Joe Cocker".

jso2897: 3_Butt_Cheeks: It boils down to one thing...Micheal J Fox has no Elvis in him.

No, but he can do a pretty decent "Joe Cocker".

Nah, his voice is too shaky.

Oh.

Corporate Self: Then why have we found no life outside of Earth? Surely if its a natural undirected process, it would be everywhere in the Universe right?

If its so natural and inevitable why is Earth the only place we have found it?

Um, because we have barely explored a tiny fraction of a percent of the universe? Do you think that might have something to do with it?

"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings." ~Richard Dawkins

"Religion leads you to a glorious place. Science leads you to killing people." ~Ben Stein

One was vilified for his statement. Nearly immediately after the other said his, his Christian network interviewer said, "Good word. Good word."

Whose word is truer?

clowncar on fire: The first living form- niether creationists nor evolutionists have an answer.

Stop lying.

Or get educated, one or the other. Either way, you're wrong.