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Old 04-15-2010, 06:09 AM
 
Location: Sango, TN
24,869 posts, read 24,295,801 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by McGowdog View Post
You guys are looking for infinity from the realm of the human mind of form.

The process is outside of time and eternally continuous. It goes on forever, and that is how it has always been. Creation is continuous, always and ongoing. The comings and goings of universes are an illusion of perception. There are no universes arising and passing away inasmuch as there is no such thing as time in which universes or anything else could phase in or out of existence. That is what is meant by the Oneness of Allness. This truth can be realized but not explained.

Is the infinite knowable? The Infinite knows by virtue of the fact that it is All.

Back to the "mind". One eventually comes to the amazing discovery that the "mind" is not really capable of actually knowing anything at all, and that the illusion that it knows is a pretense and a vanity. By analogy, one can ask how a pair of binoculars knows what is seen through it, or how the ear knows music. Does the computer know the software programs? The mind can only "think about" a subject. To actually "Know" it would require being the known. We can think about a cat but only a cat really "knows" what it is to be a cat.

Now, if we want to talk about God and the entire universe, we need to introduce the concept of content vs context;

"Content" is an arbitrary point of focus as is the amount of data or form that is included. "Context" is the totality of all that which is excluded, with implied or specified boundaries, or even with none at all, such as God or the entire universe.

For example, one could select a specific star (star A). Then the rest of the galaxy or the entire firmament, including its evolution over time, becomes the context, which also includes the observer. If another star is then selected for observation (star B), then star A becomes included in the total context of star B. Thus content and context are not separate distinctions nor are they intrinsic qualities but instead reflect the consciousness of the observer.

Thus the terms "linear" and "nonlinear" are categories of thought and points of intellectual reference. Form includes the formless as its substrate and is not separate from it. Consciousness as such is equally present, but the information registered by awareness would be a consequence of focus.

In the ordinary state of consciousness, the "I" of the ego/self/me is content, whereas consciousness/awareness/God/Self is context. Unstated context often has more influence over the outcome than does visible content.

Some words like content, context, self, Self, consciousness, ego, etc. are being thrown around here, and to tie this sort of "spiritual" viewpoint into something concrete, you should open your mind a bit to consider the stream of "consciousness" to be our hardware and our ego or karma to be our "software". God can be looked at as both within and transcendent, both in the realm of unmanifest or "Pure Potentiality" or Godhead... and manifest as That which creates existence... such as our own.

You didn't create me. This much I know.

Some could see God as causing a universe to expand out with every outward breath and causing a universe to contract with every inward breath. Of course this would require some imagination on our part and perhaps might explain the fact that billions of years or millions of years may seem like a day or a microsecond to God from the context of the infinite.

Our minds set up a causality or duality of cause/effect. Our animalistic brains (prior to the formation of humans' advanced forebrain) had to, as surviving animals, be able to recognize enemy from non-enemies and to calculate a spatial relationship between "here" and "there". In reality, nothing requires an explanation. Nothing is caused by anything else. Existence requires no explanation nor does it have any dependence on any other state or quality. This understanding is clarified by the realization that nothing in and of itself has any "meaning". Therefore, neither does it have a "purpose". Everything is already complete and merely self-existent as its own self-identity.

So some have a tendency to ask, when did God do this or do that? In reality, which is timeless and infinite, there is no "when"; neither are there any events or happenings to be explained, nor are there any sequences, durations, or causes.

So what does this have to do with evolution? Science is the authority of the linear domain and the Newtonian paradigm; the mystic is the authority of the nonlinear domain. The mystic knows, experiences, and identifies the Self as both context and content, that is, context is the content.
The only thing I see wrong with what you said, is that there was a "beginning" to our Universe.

We know that, because it is still expanding, and slowing down.

Now, how that all started, thats anyones guess. I've seen theories of multiple universes, one on top of another. When the two touch, it adds another layer between them, with a big bang, which is how we were started. Only time will tell. It could be that a alien species created this universe. It could be a God that did it.
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Old 04-15-2010, 06:11 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,478 posts, read 59,552,077 times
Reputation: 24857
Fortunately evolution and all the rest of the natural processes continue to function weather you or I believe or not. I prefer to study the geological history of the earth than the religious history of man.
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Old 04-17-2010, 12:11 PM
 
353 posts, read 550,558 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Strel View Post


It's been proven many times over. The details of our own, specific evolution within the primate family has been conclusively established via endogenous retroviruses. These genetic "scars" stay in our DNA over the eons, and can (and have) been matched exactly to the same scars found in the DNA of chimps, bonobos and gorillas. That pretty much resolves the issue.
True.



Quote:
That makes no sense. Evolution can be tested and verified in a manner that religion cannot. Religion, and this includes ID, does not lend itself to falsifiable hypotheses that can be tested for validity, and when it tries to do so, it fails.
My point was that evolution does not prove abiogenesis and therefor does not prove the origins of life. I have stated over and over that evolution has been proven. The problem arises when "evolutionists", those that blindly believe, assert that it does.
Religion can be proven. Most locations mentioned in the bible still exist today. Man has worshipped Gods for thousands of years, evidence of religion is all over the place. Does that prove there is a God? NO.
Should proof of God be needed to be religious, I think so.
Does proof of evolution prove abiogenesis? No.
Should that proof be required to believe in evolution. I think so.
I don't see how one can be seperate from the other.
Evolution as it is proven is not at odds with Creation.( unless your a fundamentalist.)
Quote:
Evolution is a fact, you already admitted it (then contradicted yourself). The theory of evolution is merely the explanation of the facts, and this theory has been proven valid over and over again.
I didn't contradict myself. It's not my idea of evolution that's wrong it's the predominate poster on this thread that has it wrong.
My comparison to religion is dead on. Evolution no more proves abiogenesis than religion proves there's a god.
Evolutionist seem to think that religion requires proving there is a god.
If that's the standard then Evolutionist should have to prove abiogenisis.
It's convenient that, even though proving abiogenesis should be required for evolution, it's not. That means that taking evolution back to it's logical conclusion, that every animal on the planet was the same thing at one time, isn't needed to prove evolution is true.
So as far as I'm concerned if science doesn't have to prove abiogenesis to prove evolution then christians don't have to prove there is a god.

Quote:
Some people just do not want to accept it, because of all the things they think it means. Mostly they are wrong.
so true.
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Old 04-17-2010, 12:34 PM
 
353 posts, read 550,558 times
Reputation: 160
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahiahiono View Post
Science has pointed out millions of examples of evolution, and adaption and mutation and natural selection. I'm not going to give you a lesson on evolution. Just look at the finches on the Galapogos Islands, for a start.
Evolution is so accepted by science that it has gone from a theory to the law of evolution. Plain and simple.

MahiAhiOno
I am going to type this really slow so you can understand. I already said evolution within a species or family of animal is proven.
I have said that over and over and over and over and...
What I asked you for is evidence that, as you claim, we evolved from amoebas floating in the ocean. There is NO evidence of that. Science doesn't even claim to have that evidence.
If you have such evidence you should be able to show it to me and the rest of the world.
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Old 04-17-2010, 12:47 PM
 
Location: Victoria TX
42,579 posts, read 86,610,587 times
Reputation: 36642
Infinity is an interesting mathematical concept, in that two infinities are not necessarily equal. The square root of infinity is also infinity, but those two infinities are not the same amount. One is more than the other. If the universe contains an infinite number of stars, the number of stars on one side of earth is infinity, and the number on the other side is infinity, but those two numbers added together (the total number of stars) is still infinity, even though it can be represented as 'infinity times two' to yield an infinity that is twice as big as the other. Which raises the interesting question, "Does infinity divided by infinity equal one?"
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Old 04-18-2010, 04:01 PM
 
46 posts, read 40,469 times
Reputation: 22
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Infinity is an interesting mathematical concept, in that two infinities are not necessarily equal. The square root of infinity is also infinity, but those two infinities are not the same amount. One is more than the other. If the universe contains an infinite number of stars, the number of stars on one side of earth is infinity, and the number on the other side is infinity, but those two numbers added together (the total number of stars) is still infinity, even though it can be represented as 'infinity times two' to yield an infinity that is twice as big as the other. Which raises the interesting question, "Does infinity divided by infinity equal one?"
Or, what if you were on a spacecraft going 1 mph less than the speed of light and you shined a flashlight astern. What would happen tot he light.

What ho,

Bennymaru
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Old 04-19-2010, 03:13 PM
 
Location: Richardson, TX
8,734 posts, read 13,762,825 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Memphis1979 View Post
The only thing I see wrong with what you said, is that there was a "beginning" to our Universe.

We know that, because it is still expanding, and slowing down.
Is it?
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Old 04-21-2010, 12:34 PM
 
7,871 posts, read 10,094,323 times
Reputation: 3240
Quote:
Originally Posted by offthefence View Post

My point was that evolution does not prove abiogenesis and therefor does not prove the origins of life. I have stated over and over that evolution has been proven. The problem arises when "evolutionists", those that blindly believe, assert that it does.
It doesn't try to, nor does it have to to be valid. I think we understand each other, but my concern is that the "evolution doesn't prove the origins of life" argument is usually one cited by Creationists as "evidence" that evolution is false - when in fact evolution has nothing, or very little, to say about abiogenesis, and this really isn't a problem for evolution.

Quote:
Religion can be proven. Most locations mentioned in the bible still exist today. Man has worshipped Gods for thousands of years, evidence of religion is all over the place. Does that prove there is a God? NO.
Should proof of God be needed to be religious, I think so.
Sure it can be proven in that sense, but the metaphysical/supernatural aspects of any religion haven't been proven as far as I know.

Quote:
Does proof of evolution prove abiogenesis? No.
Should that proof be required to believe in evolution. I think so.
Why? Evolution doesn't address abiogenesis. They are separate topics and evolution does not depend on abiogenesis. Evolution only describes what happened AFTER the genesis of life. Evolution is valid whether life appeared on Earth via panspermia, abiogenesis, sneezed out of the Great Arkleseizure, or miracled into existence by God. You create a dependency that does not exist.

Quote:
I don't see how one can be seperate from the other.
Because evolution only describes what happens after life occurred. It does not, and never has, attempted to describe how that happened, only how species developed and diversified afterwards. You are using an incorrect and Creationist-made definition of evolution.

Quote:
Evolution as it is proven is not at odds with Creation.( unless your a fundamentalist.)
Again, for the reasons above. Evolution does not address the genesis of life, only its development after that genesis, however it occurred.

Quote:
If that's the standard then Evolutionist should have to prove abiogenisis.
Why? Evolution might be helpful in determining whether abiogenesis occurred and how, but the validity of evolution has nothing to do with abiogenesis.

Quote:
It's convenient that, even though proving abiogenesis should be required for evolution, it's not.
It's more than just convenient. You are substituting a definition of evolution that science does not recognize, effectively making up this dependency based on...what? Evolution ONLY describes speciation, not abiogenesis. You are falling for a Creationist fallacy here.

By that same token, evolution does not disprove Creation because it makes NO claims on how life began.

Quote:
That means that taking evolution back to it's logical conclusion, that every animal on the planet was the same thing at one time, isn't needed to prove evolution is true.
That is not necessarily true. There is no reason to believe that it was impossible for multiple progenitor species to arise simultaneously...and evidence surrounding the Cambrian Explosion indicates that what we know of DNA today probably didn't exist in the very distant past, leaving the possibility of other configurations. It may or may not be the case that all life here originated from a single progenitor species...it could have been more than one. That is one of the mysteries of abiogenesis, but it has no effect on the validity of evolution whatsoever.

Quote:
So as far as I'm concerned if science doesn't have to prove abiogenesis to prove evolution then christians don't have to prove there is a god.

What does one have to do with the other?
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Old 04-21-2010, 03:39 PM
 
7,871 posts, read 10,094,323 times
Reputation: 3240
CB090: Evolution without abiogenesis

Claim CB090:
Evolution is baseless without a good theory of abiogenesis, which it does not have.

Source:
Mastropaolo, J., 1998 (2 Nov.). Re: The evolutionist: liar, believer in miracles, king of criminals. Evolution - November 1998: Re: The Evolutionist: Liar, Believer In Miracles, King of Criminals.

Response:
1.The theory of evolution applies as long as life exists. How that life came to exist is not relevant to evolution. Claiming that evolution does not apply without a theory of abiogenesis makes as much sense as saying that umbrellas do not work without a theory of meteorology.


2.Abiogenesis is a fact. Regardless of how you imagine it happened (note that creation is a theory of abiogenesis), it is a fact that there once was no life on earth and that now there is. Thus, even if evolution needs abiogenesis, it has it.
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Old 02-22-2011, 01:21 PM
 
1 posts, read 1,122 times
Reputation: 10
Evolution in man's thinking is apparent. From stone tools to geometry and science. But as a student of building and construction evolution I hit a rather large wall, or building as it were. Turns out the most studied building event in the history of man is the great pyramid of Giza. Any freethinking "evolved" person might be able to explain to me how a structure could predict future events! Unbiased examination of Chiops "Khufu's" pyramid is telling. [See Peter Lemersier, the great pyramid decoded.] For evolutionists and creationists? WOW! cy omen
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