Creationists think Evolutionists think like Creationists.

Yes, but that is a rather subjective question isn't it? One person's view of the god of the Bible different from another one's. This is true even of people in the same denomination and church.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

So says you. Atheists and agnostics find a great deal of meaning in this life. Actually I would propose that non-religious people tend to find more meaning in this life because they know it is the only life they have. Yeah, and Christianity is so coherent and unvarying that it consists of 10s of thousands of individual denominations and sects each interpreting Christianity and the Bible in their own way. Or vice versa. Give me some Christian virtues and let's see if any of them predate Christianity or Judaism in ancient literature. I dare you. Meaning can be found in anything including the 5 day old pizza in your fridge. That is the inherent nature of human beings, to find meaning in any and everything. What are you defining as Darwinism. Can you give me a clear definition of it and how it originated? Is this a sociological or psychological term? You are wrong. Many non-believers on this forum, including myself were previous Christians who became disenchanted with the religion for whatever reasons and when honestly confronted with their own research and the facts saw Christianity for the facad it is. I too am a maried, family 37 year old man with a kid, as well as a 17+ year military veteran. Are you going to say that I accepted evolution because I am trying to sexually and/or morally liberate myself? Really!?! Are you saying that the majority of scientists out there that accept evolution as reality are 'young people seeking liberation'? Really? Are you this ignorant?Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

That is because you can't define what a non-materalistic cause is. Please give us an example of a proven non-materialistic cause. We do not need to prove what is already known to exist. There is a tree in my back yard. It grew from an acorn or such. I can plant an acorn and watch it grow into a tree over time. That is a naturalistic cause. Please give me an example of a non-naturalistic cause for which we have evidence. You cannot back up this assertation until you can define and provide evidence for what something non-natural or supernatural is. And no, like I said in another thread, you cannot use personal experience as a credible source, otherwise you would have to accept every other pseudoscientific phenomena for which people claim to be true i.e. astrology, divination, esp, spoon bending, big foot, ufo's, fairies, the lochness monster, etc. Just because you think it is wrong-headed, doesn't make it so. What direction do you want to take this? Is there something better than the scientific method we can use to determine the reality in which we exist? Are you saying we should just take everything at face value without emperical evidence to back up claims? If so than why not accept all pseudoscientific phenomena. Why not believe in astrology etc. Now you are just throwing out terms you do not even understand. What the heck is a metaphysical world. And what is the evidence this exists. Indeed, religious fundamentalism often (though not always) puts a dampner on scientific progress. Cases in point:1. Pope Benedict XVI's 2009 statements claiming that the use of condoms to combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa was ineffective and counterproductive. The World Health Organisation responded at the time by saying that "These incorrect statements about condoms and HIV are dangerous when we are facing a global pandemic which has already killed more than 20 million people, and currently affects at least 42 million."2. Roman Catholic Church's opposition to Heliocentrism and other scientific advances and discoveries by condemning via inquisition, ostricizing imprisoning or even executing those who advocated such views i.e. Galileo Galilie in the 17th century.3. Christian fundamentalism has opposed significant scientific discoverers such as Copernicus, Kepler, Bruno, Galileo, Descartes, Newton and Darwin. Christian fundamentalism has also often opposed the following fields of science throughout history: cosmology, biological evolution, geography, astronomy, geology, anthropology, meteorology, chemistry, physics, medicine, hygiene (germ theory of illness) and psychology.Though I am not as simplistic to say that all religion is opposed to science. I do not believe that to be true at all. It is in fact religious fundamentalism and bigotry that has significantly opposed scientific progress at one time or another throughout history. For example church father John Chrysostom instructed people to "empty your minds of secular knowledge," and in 448 the Christian emperor of the East Roman Empire, Theodosius II, ordered all non-Christian books to be burned.It is not the religious belief itself that stifles science, it is those who take these beliefs to the extreme and let non-rational worldviews impede their ability to rationally observe and investigate the world they live in and then impede the progress of those who are conducting scientific investigation.I am not going to say that you cannot believe in God or anyother supernatural being. However if you want anyone else to understand why you believe what you believe you must bring credible emperical evidence to the table why you think that a supernatural cause/origin exists. Everything we see, touch, feel, detect, experience is what we consider the 'natural' world around us. The burden of proof lies with those who claim that the supernatural world exists not the other way around.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

Incorrect. First off, infinity is not a defined 'number' or a 'property', it is an abstract mathematical concept or process. In fact, the concept of infinity is at the heart of physics itself (because physics is a subset of mathematical knowledge and branches of mathematics such as calculus center around the concept of infinity).Here are a couple of examples.1. The geometry of spacetime is predicted by scientists to be close to flat (at this current time) and infinite (their is no boundary or edge to spacetime/universe).
2. Spacetime itself can be divided infinitesimally into smaller and smaller units.
3. Electromagnetic planewave wavefronts with infinite parallel planes of constant amplitude occur in nature.
4. The absolute unpredictability of the quantum world (i.e. Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) results in an infinite number of ways that phenomena can occur in the universe even with a finite amount of matter and energy.These are just a few. Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

How so? Why? What is this 'something' you are speak of. If you are speaking of spacetime, spacetime is not a 'something'. It is a mathematical model or construct and is not limited out by infinities. Let me clarify, the units I speak of when I said 'spacetime itself can be divided infinitesimally into smaller and smaller units' are not physical units but units of measurement. Why would they not? What parts of an atom are you talking about? Even 1-dimensional strings as proposed by supersymmetric string theory are not infinately small. Furthermore, spacetime itself becomes a 'sea' of unpredictable quantum affects before the level of infintestimal. This of course does not mean that infintestimal subdivisions cannot still occur. However, the term 'parts of an atom' much less matter or energy have no meaning at this level. It depends on how old the skin is and where it located on the body. This is an argument of semantics. Skin is tissue. Tissue is made up of cells. Where skin cells are seperate from the underlying muscular and fat cells is the division between skin and non-skin. So there is a limit to how far we can microscopically go down and distinguish how thick/thin skin is.So the answer is no, skin does not disapear, at least not microscopically. Well it is. You are correct at some point matter ceases to exist the more deeply we delve , but what does this have to do with whether infinities in nature mean that the supernatural exists (whatever the heck that means). Not only is this a false dilemna but it makes no logical sense. If physics and math are wrong by what criteria are we using to determine this????? And how do we live in a world beyond the natural if the very word 'natural' means the reality we live in????I agree with Jar, this is a sophomoric word salad. You have little to no concept of the words you are throwing together. This is like Einstein arguing with a 3 year old on the concept of relativity.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

What do you mean by the term "smallest unit"? Do you mean unit of measurement or a physical substance? Either way we do not know if there is such a thing as the 'smallest unit'. What do you mean by 'disapear'? If you mean by 'disapear' by human eyes than there there are whole inner worlds that are not visibile by the naked eye. If you mean by our strongest electron and scanning micrscopes, there are still smaller bits of matter that exist that we cannot physically 'see' or 'detect' using these intruments. Further, quarks and other subatomic particles exist which we can deduce based on indirectly observation of their interactions with other particles. And since light waves themselves are larger than many of the subatomic particles, the term 'disapear' has no meaning. Still smaller 1 dimensional strings and such can be deduced based on fitting in current quantum constructs and theorems. So basically you using the term 'disapear' is rather ambiguous and makes little sense at these quantums levels.In the end, whether something is visible or invisible to the eye or any other detector has no relavence on whether it exists or not. So you are saying all of the quantum world is supernatural. If this is true and the macroscopic world consists of everything in the quantum world than the entire universe is supernatural. If our universe is supernatural than there is nothing that is not supernatural (thus no natural). Good job, you basically just semantically replaced the word natural with the word supernatural (natural=supernatural) without differentiating between the two. So how does this prove God exists? Not it hasn't. You proved nothing except your own ignorance of science, logic and semantics. Good grief

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

'Existance', outer edge' and 'space' at this level does not have the meaning you probably think it does. And what does this have to do with the supernatural or God???

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

God told me you should give me a $1,000,000. Can you prove this false.In other words, good science means that an assertion or claim can be falsified. If not than it is not worthy of being asked much less investigated (scientifically). If you want to discuss such claims in non-scientific i.e. philosophical terms, go ahead. But do not call it science.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

For a supposed religious person you sure are a hypocrite. Do you wonder why other religious people on this forum, such as ICANT, Buzz and others do not back you up in your conflict with Granny Magda. You not only made a fool of yourself on the "When does design become intelligent?" thread, now you are trying to continue your infantile tirade on this thread.Furthermore, it seems you are misconstruing what Dawkin's is talking about in the selfish gene. This is what is called "quote mining" and is an infamous tactic used by creationists to take what scientists say out of context and use it against them. Here is what Dawkins says in complete context: So basically Dawkins is sugesting that the first replicators COULD have consisted of inorganic molecules instead of organic ones, specifically inorganic replicating molecules in clay (not sand) as proposed by organic chemist and molecular biologist, Graham Cairns-Smith. There is no indication there that he actually believed this to be 100% true or correct, just that it was a possibility. In fact, the clay theory of abiogenesis is one of several that have been proposed (but have not been confirmed).Anywho, back to the point. Please provide evidence of an "out of body experience" besides mere hearsay. Or are you going to keep throwing up irrelevent posts in order to defelect your unsubstantiated claims.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

I am going to wave the bullshit flag here. I think you are being deceptive here Bolder.Here is why. Here is what you said here Message 389: Now, using my keen intelect I saw a whole string of people that the movie "Expelled" specifically mentions (yes I watched it). In addition it specifically talked about "academic freedom" legislation being 'protested' and "nazi evolutionary propoganda". It was not until this movie was marketed that all of these people and terms were all put into the exact same context.I googled this same string of names: "Guillermo Gonzalez" "Richard Sternberg" "Caroline Crocker" and the word Nazi. And guess what? Every single reference referred to the movie "Expelled".I very highy doubt you came up with all these people on your own without consulting the movie Expelled (or at least a website discussing the movie) which specifically mentioned all of these terms you mention in your post. Furthermore the movie came out in April 2008, less than a year after Gonzalez was denied tenure in June 2007, yet the movie specifically mentions this event.I am not going to even ask you to show evidence that you pulled this information from somewhere besides the movie (you would have at least heard of the movie second-hand), because I doubt you would entertain this notion and will end up dodging the issue and telling me that I am an evil atheist evolutionist or something stupid like that. However, if you did provide evidence I would sincerely apologize and completely redact my previous statements.You may be asking why I go through all the trouble to do this, and the reason why is that I detest dishonest people whether they be religious or non-religious and several people that came to this board claimed things which I and others knew without a shadow of doubt were lies. Needless to say once they were exposed very few if any dared to reply and some were never to hear from again. Honestly I hope you keep posting (how fun is it to debate others with the same point of view ) and hopefully I am wrong in my assertations but I and others will not stand for outright dishonesty and trying to pull the wool over our eyes.Ok, done with rant. Will get off my soapbox now.

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"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." - Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World