PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Randomeyes: I'm waiting for the next Racmanaz post of a cute little video proclaiming the earth is 6000 years old as per Bishop Ussher, or perhaps that all the fossil evidence was put on earth by Satan to confuse us, or that the universe isn't 18.5 billion years old at all.

Nagy: I thought it was 13.8 billion years old. Have you seen a new theory that disputes this?

Racmanaz Loc: Sunny Tucson!

Then just move on and ignore it, you probably didn't even watch it :) Many people care about it, it's NOT just about you so you may want to refrain from your selfish comments :)

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Rac: LOL wow the evolutionist are on a roll with life on other planets lol. "FAIL"

Nagy: You fail even at grammar. The new use of the word "fail," though it mesmerizes you with its "brilliance," is pin fact a hideous error. "fail" is not a noun, but a verb. The correct word in this case is "failure," if you are trying to label the comment you are ridiculing. If you wish to use the verbal form of the word, it must have other parts of speech with it to have any real meaning.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

Randomeyes: Here is quandary for you. You are in a restaurant and you start choking on a piece of chicken, the guy sitting at the next table can do two things for you, he can perform the Heimlich maneuver or he can pray for you. You choose!

Nagy: The question was addressed to Racmanaz. I hope he chooses prayer. His Will be done.

fbluhm Loc: San Antonio, TX

Although I, personally, feel that some superior entity is responsible for this miracle that is the human being - I also believe that one's ignorance of scientific knowledge is not evidence that God exists.

That said, I think it's important to note that the scriptures as we know them in the King James version of the New Testament were written by people who had never met Jesus, or heard him speak. The oldest manuscripts - there were (and still are), no original texts to translate - were written down hundreds of years after the last apostle died. There are over 8,000 of these manuscripts, with no two alike.

The King James translators (8 members of the Church of England in 1611) edited previous translations to create a version their king and Parliament would approve. So, in essence, 21st Century Christians believe the "Word of God" is a book edited in the 17th Century from the 16th Century translations of 8,000 contradictory copies of he 4th Century scrolls that claim to be copies of lost letters written in the 1st Century.

I prefer to let my heart be my bible, and kindness by my philosophy of how to live my life. And I refuse to believe that God created man for the sole purpose of having someone around who will get down on their knees and worship him seven days a week.

UXOEOD

Is your reference to Wikipedia intended to cause me to question my faith? Really, Wikipedia vs the whole library of religious writings, interesting selection of supporting data for your side of the debate.

PNagy Loc: Missouri City, Texas

bertloomis: Please post only photo related stuff on this site.

Nagy: This section is called "General Chti-chat, which by design is open to any non-photogaphic topics. Why are you trying to suppress Racmanaz's right to post the nonsense of his choice here?

kwils Loc: Salem, Ma

If you think that Christians who haven't read the Bible will swallow anything in regards to religion then the same holds true for those who haven't read Darwin in regards to evolution. I hear the Sandworms of Dune.

UXOEOD

I heard that there are no atheists in foxholes, and had the misfortune during Gulf War 1 to personally verify that argument. Some might questioned what the Good Lord was doing, but we all knew He was there.

kwils Loc: Salem, Ma

You must have been pretty pissed off that he allowed that all to happen.

NikonDad Loc: Bothell, WA

I am always looking to better understand other's thinking on this subject Steve has introduced - "Does God exist?"

Steve, what is your rationale (or presuppositions or beliefs) for the above statement?

Jon

steve40 Loc: Asheville/Canton, NC, USA

Darwin was so far off course, he ran aground. I know quite a bit about his theories. He was an atheist, so what do you suppose he would believe. Today his fat is frying in the fire, I bet he wishes he never wrote that crap.

The sand-worms of Dune are fiction, Earth-Worms are for real. :)

andesbill

I'll respond to you, via the video.
He states that because no life other than on Earth has been found in our solar system, no life exists or has existed elsewhere. That Earth is the only place life can exist, because it's in the Goldilocks space.
The fact is, it's still too soon to give up on life elsewhere in our solar system.
We haven't checked out some of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons with potentially oceans beneath the surface.
As for elsewhere in the universe, to draw conclusions from the minuscule amount of planets found thus far is beyond ridiculous.
Mind you, finding life elsewhere in the universe does not preclude a G-d, but then neither does evolution.
While the bonobo, our closest relative genetically is vastly inferior to us in many ways, (a bonobo has yet to write or sing a song as great as "In the Still of the Night, or Poker Face.) the are superior to humans in other ways.
The Bonobo live in an Eden. The do not lack for food. There are no wars, little fighting, and no commuting through mind numbing traffic to a soul sucking job. They have sex all the time, in every way imaginable. They care for each other. So, who is really smarter?

The fact is, each successful species is well adapted to their environment.
Whether we are causing changes to our environment to which we will not be able to adapt is still up in the air.
I have read that intelligence is an evolutionary experiment. It's beginnings in the fossil record go back several million years, but humans as a species are less than 200,000 years old.
It is possible (it's certainly imaginable) that by using our "intelligence" to produce and use weapons such as fusion bombs, to extract resources from the earth,air and water beyond the capacity of our planet to replenish them, will cause our extinction. We will then become just another fossilized record alongside the wooly mammoth and the dinosaurs.

The definition of "species" is a fuzzy one, constantly in flux. It generally means that when different species mate, the offspring will not live.
One of the latest discoveries along these lines is that if the gut bacteria are sufficiently different, than any offspring from mating will not survive (latest Discovery magazine). Different species do mate occasionally. The wolf and coyote, many closely related single cell species (they share their genetic code), various bird species, etc. this hybridization occurs because the species are forced into close relationships due to rapidly changing environments.

The man in the video is using his prejudices to color his conclusions, and even to omit facts that can be interpreted differently.

When I taught this topic in HS, both public and parochial I included this disclaimer: Evolution per se does not disprove the existence of G-d. If there is a G-d (I do not believe in G-d), than he, or she determined the rules of existence including the speed of light in a vacuum and evolution on Earth and perhaps elsewhere, at the moment our universe separated itself from the multiverse of which we are part (according to the latest mathematics).

Of course, none of the above requires the existence of G-d either.

I suggest that you stop trying to prove the existence of something which is unprovable, almost by definition. You have faith that there is G-d. That should be sufficient. That's why it's called Faith.
Bill

silver Loc: Santa Monica Ca.

First of all I did watch your video and it is really silly. It is based on nothing but suppositions and nonsense religious science. Talk about selfish, how about you trying to pander your religious nonsense.

kwils Loc: Salem, Ma

From The Catholic League;

Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago in February, and from the noise coming from some quarters, one would believe that he was an atheist. Nonsense. To be sure, he was a self-described agnostic, but he had no use for militant atheists.

Consider what he said to Edward Aveling in 1881, a dogmatic atheist: “Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind?”

Also, Darwin and the Catholic Church were of the same mind in one very important matter: “It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent Theist & an evolutionist.”

The next time some sage feeds you propaganda about Darwin, tell him to explain these two quotes.