George

It is my sincere hope that one day man will find out one way or the other whether God is truly out there and what God is. Not through armeggedon but through science. We do not yet possess the technological and scientific advances to prove or disprove the existence of God but I believe we will some day. Possibly even a few generations from now.

Bottom line, religion world wide is slipping. They are beggining to lose their grip on society and they know it. The catholic church is becoming less and less powerful as more moderate or even secular (though they would never admit it ) people gain power in governments.

From back when the belief that God was "up there" was destroyed when mankind was able to fly to the stratosphere and beyond to our discovery of carbon dating and other methods of uncovering things that the original authors of the bible never dreamed of.

Mankind is in the childhood stages of its overall development growing out of the need to believe in a deity watching over us as we discover things on our own. It's the same as a child leaving behind their favorite security blanket or teddy bear when they discover the world isn't such a scary place afterall. Same thing with mankind as we discover the universe isn't such a scary place.

One day, as we are colonizing another planet, someone will look back and ask "wait... can we have an armeggedon now that mankind is living on multiple planets?". I guess it will be the same as when after mankind gained flight someone asked, "wait... I thought heaven was up here". Those who still want to believe will believe but eventually their numbers will shrink and shrink and society, along with our knowledge, will advance faster and faster.

What we will become, no one knows, but you can bet that as our knowledge increases we will become something very different than we are today just as we today are different from prehistoric man.

Since July 16, 1945, mankind has possesed the ability to destroy itself. That fact seems to have added a sense of urgency to mankind's quest to get off this rock. But there will be many ways for mankind to destroy itself even after we leave the possibility of an earthbound armeggedon behind. What if once we achieve intergalactic travel we meet other beings with the same capability? Will we befriend them or will we not have grown out of our greedy warmongering ways and try to destroy them in an effort to steal their technology for ourselves?

Or will the ultimate destruction of man come when we discover we are truly alone as intelligent beings in the universe and continuously expand our reach until man as we know it fades away into evolution?

Whether we do evolve to do all those great things or destroy ourselves in the process, mankind is not finished evolving by any means. Whether we reach our full potential is up to us. Or is it...?

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Og

Unfortunately, the god hypothesis is mostly drawn as an undisprovable (and therefor, worthless) claim. It can't really be addressed by science in any way. It's an opiate. A disease of the mind that keeps part of the population in drudgery and self loathing.

We need to inspire wonder in the young and manipulate the old in order to get through this transition into the world of science. I think we're moving in the right direction. I think the religious response is loud, but generally lacking in teeth. They pull most of their power from an unmotivated and fickle populus. And their world and lifestyle (things like the internet, cell phones, and other simpler technologies) is built upon technologies that are provided by science.

It's an odd setup, but I think that what we're experiencing now are growing pains. The world is changing unlike ANY time in the history of the world. We are just now acquiring new knowledge about fundamental truths of existence. Things like DNA, evolution, neural basis of consciousness, etc. The computer is just starting to really have an effect on society. We're able to make deterministic tools that can relieve our minds of the drudge work and launch us into beautiful things.

It's a law of nature that systems resist change (think intertia). That's what's going on. It's like when you switch a light off or on at the wall. There's a spark in the gap as the current tries to remain moving or not moving in the circuit. It's like when you turn off water in a hose and water continues to come out of the end for a bit. It's a truism across all physical things.

I think we're just moving through an unparalleled transition period in human history and there will never be another time like this one Enjoy it.

There's a lot of ways to evolve that don't include DNA or natural selection (unless you count how they got us to this point). Anyway, cool stuff.

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The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
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GI

As Agnostics, I think (hope) we all do not discount the notion that there is a God (or Gods)..whatever that 'entity' may be. I am personally convinced that it is not correctly defined by any organised religion and that has only served to attempt to provide security and 'answers' for people but at the same time cause world conflict. I'm not sure science can prove a God (or Gods) but really there is no conflict between science and the notion of a God (or Gods), the Universe shows 'a beginning', DNA clearly demonstrates design (how does a language/code evolve?) and there is no evidence for the Darwinian model of evolution.

May I quote Einstein:

"Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."

and this BRILLIANT one;

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."

Jayhawker Soule

Abusing the term "evolve" in an "Evolution vs Creationism" forum is unhelpful.

Jayhawker Soule

Absolutely. You may also give his credentials on matters of metaphysics and theology.

Og

You are wrong. DNA clearly demonstrates a path of random mutation creating divergence over time. Genetic homology across species is the process of natural selection and mutation written out in genetic code for anyone to read.

And by "written out" I'm not referring to anyone having actually written anything. I'm referring to reading it just like you would read rings on a tree to determine the weather conditions in the years of its life.

And don't mistake religion for theism. Religion is from the latin roots "re" and "ligio". "re" means "pointing back" as in reply, renew, etc. "Ligio" means "linking" as in ligament and ligand. The word means "linking back".. This is the function of religion.. It connects the human being to the human experience.

Don't think that Einstein was trying to reconcile western theism with science. He certainly was not. Einstein had a larger understanding of the way the universe works. Religion MUST come in line with the findings of science. It cannot profess crap as literal truth that doesn't match what science finds. If it diverges from clearly repeatable observation then it's a cult for social control.

DNA does not clearly demonstrate design. And making a statement like that is either willfully ignorant or intentionally malicious. In either case, it can only hurt our understanding of the truth.

Not everyone happens to understand evolution like the scientists who see it verified every day. What are your credentials for making such a claim?

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

El_Mariachi64

awesome response.

Indeed, evolution is solid, all evidence validates it, and all efforts to discredit it have only verified its correctness. Anybody who claims that evolution could be wrong 'cuz its a "theory" clearly has no sense of the meaning of the terminology used. Until evidence arises that undeniably proves evolution wrong, evolution will continue to remain correct.

kjk437

So we doubters of god and believers of science are nothing but the forerunners to how our species will become permanently? I can live with that.

a slave of Allah

There are 7 heavens.
The space is in the first heaven, but God The Glorious is Above every thing.

He is The Lord of Hight. we are low.

God is known through reason, see:

http://www.harunyahya.com/A_tr_preface.php

Og

The irony of your post here is probably hidden from you.

let me quote one of the books YOU linked in my thread on cladistics (interspecies homology).

So this statement is false. But the point is that it calls the theory of evolution an imaginary hypothesis in the context of primitive scientific understanding of the 1800s.

a slave of Allah, your comment above about the 7 heavens is a much more primitive hypothesis that finds expression in the 7 days of the week and the 7 musical notes in a scale. This number of 7 heavens is derived from the 5 visible moving objects in the sky (planets mercury, venus, mars, jupiter, saturn) and the two major celestial objects, the sun and the moon.

Your ancient religion was mapping anthropic principles onto things they clearly had no understanding of. The number of heavens is derived from ancient (pre-historic) myths of the 7 celestial bodies in the night sky.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are