Monkey Men vs. Bible Thumpers (Evolution vs. Creationism)

[Phil. Redmon.]

Not to drag this thread back on-topic or anything, but:

Also if monkeys ever learn to play soccer will they be allowed to use their tails, or would that be like a hand ball?

I'd have to think it'd be allowed, at LEAST in a monkeys vs. monkeys game. I mean, the tail is at waist level, and has no thumbs! Maybe a monkey could pick up a soccer ball with his tail, but I don''t think it could catch one.

Against human opponents, however, like monkeys vs. humans, I think you'd need to rule against tailplay, but you'd have a hard time convincing the monkeys.

Mixed teams is probably the best idea.

CASE CLOSED!

[Justincombustion]

What kind of penalty would Feces Flinging get? Red card?

[thehipcola]

c hack,

Let's assume that one raison d'etre for the Church is/was to control the masses. I think we all have to agree (but maybe don't) that at one time, this was pretty much the deal. My limited reading on the subject has suggested it was in any case... Your best chance at converting non-believers or signing up new devotees would not lie with a faith centred around a figure that has 25 eyes, fangs all over, slimy translucent skin or whatever else you could imagine....and so I figure that has alot to do with people's notion that God resembles humans, and can be gendered as such. Familiarity..an image that inspires hope and promise..that the majority of people can figure out and cling to.

I think the idea of a God that is humanoid (and male or female) is kind of ridiculous too, but I don't find it surprising at all. People like the safety of that imagery.

[Adam!]

This article is pretty interesting.
http://www.primitivism.com/aquatic-ape.htm

I love that theory. An interesting, if not particularly sound, point is that young babies can swim, but lose this ability as they age. This roughly lines up with the trend of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny: if the penultimate stage of our evolution were in fact swimmers then it makes sense that the last stage of the development of a fetus is also a swimmer. Neat.

[Adam!]

...another thing that I'm constantly surprised that everyone doesn't think is stupid: the idea the God has a gender. I mean, anyone who thinks God has a cock and balls -- or tits -- is an idiot. So why do people insist on arguing whether he's male or female?

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

Sounds like cock 'n' balls to me. :shrug:

[deshead]

And with the quote I originally responded to, I wasn't trying to go this direction.

No problem. For my part, I like to raise the point every opportunity I get: folks who think critically about their beliefs are more open to changing those beliefs when new evidence warrants it. I'm sure you know as many people as I do whose beliefs are so set in stone that they lack the ability to even consider dissenting opinions.

I understand there are great differences between Christianity, what I would call a religion, and evolution.

It helps me to remember that the debate in its current form puts the Theory of Intelligent Design on one side, rather than "religion". The ID theorists are well-served to conflate their viewpoint with that of Christian theology, but they're not the same thing. In fact, I'd say half the 'evolutionists' I know consider themselves Christian.

So if you believe that we evolved from single-celled organisms, your belief is based on no less faith than the idea that the world was dreated by a God

Yes, but only one of these beliefs is falsifiable. It's an important distinction for a lot of people.

how else do you explain the big bang?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3077357/

I have yet to meet someone who doesn't think that's silly.

I, sadly, know some folks who subscribe to all the views on this site: http://www.creationists.org/

[Leaf]

...another thing that I'm constantly surprised that everyone doesn't think is stupid: the idea the God has a gender. I mean, anyone who thinks God has a cock and balls -- or tits -- is an idiot. So why do people insist on arguing whether he's male or female?

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

Sounds like cock 'n' balls to me. :shrug:

Beat me to it. The comment, not some immoral act.

[c hack]

Let's assume that one raison d'etre for the Church is/was to control the masses. I think we all have to agree (but maybe don't) that at one time, this was pretty much the deal.

Okay, you've completely lost me right there. There was organized religion just about as long as there was people (look at the cave paintings in Lasceaux, see the one of the shaman). The raison d'etre of religion is NOT to control the masses. Anyone who thinks so is coming from a myopic high-school mentality. The Church naturally evolved out of organized religion, and organized religion naturally evolved out of organized society. You're talking like it's some big conspiracy plan, set up by some elite circle of rich white guys. There's a Dan Brown thread elsewhere if you want to believe that X-Files crap.

Now that's not to say that at times, the Church's (or, more accurately, the high-ranking members of the Church's) main goal was to keep the peasants in line -- i.e. their power corrupted them, but that's a far cry from it being the raison d'etre.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

Sounds like cock 'n' balls to me. :shrug:

Ever think that "image" refers to consciousness?

So if you believe that we evolved from single-celled organisms, your belief is based on no less faith than the idea that the world was dreated by a God

Yes, but only one of these beliefs is falsifiable. It's an important distinction for a lot of people.

Which one do you mean? The idea that we evolved from single-celled organisms is falsifiable, but not with our current knowledge.

how else do you explain the big bang?

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3077357/

Yeah, that's all well and good. The universe always existed, and always will. Still, that doesn't answer the question, "what got it started?" And if you throw out the idea of a beginning, you also have to wonder "what's outside of time?" And further, if you take it all away, what do you have left? And if you say, "nothing," then you have to wonder, what about when you take the nothing away?


ps- ONE SPACE AFTER A PERIOD! <- this will go in a new grammar/style nazi thread

[Leaf]

How can you be so semantical, yet so obtuse at the same time? Are you drinking my water"?"



Everyone knows that religion is a chemcial reaction to viriginity. C'mon. Wake up.


I think the monkeys should HAVE to use their tails. And the humans could only use their heads. This is entertainment. Thereshould also be some pixies with bows and arrows to pick off any players that dive..... and more spaces. More spaces after the "."

[thehipcola]

Let's assume that one raison d'etre for the Church is/was to control the masses. I think we all have to agree (but maybe don't) that at one time, this was pretty much the deal.

...There's a Dan Brown thread elsewhere if you want to believe that X-Files crap.

Now that's not to say that at times, the Church's (or, more accurately, the high-ranking members of the Church's) main goal was to keep the peasants in line -- i.e. their power corrupted them, but that's a far cry from it being the raison d'etre.

Totally fair statement, I used language (raison d'etre), that was far to strong to intimate what you just stated. Agreed. ok, moving forward from the wording to the guts...are you still surprised that people speak as though God is male/female?

Just so you know, I brought up Dan Brown reference earlier as HUMOUR. I wasn't being serious about that X-Files crap. Did you think otherwise? I'm sorry you didn't get it.

[Leaf]

We need a "one time in bandcamp joke" to get this thread back on topic.



errrr.... oh. It IS on topic. Fancy that.

[c hack]

Totally fair statement, I used language (raison d'etre), that was far to strong to intimate what you just stated. Agreed. ok, moving forward from the wording to the guts...are you still surprised that people speak as though God is male/female?

I guess I shouldn't be, but yeah, I am. You just have to think it through for like, 5 minutes to come to the conclusion that God doesn't have white hair and a beard and a cock 'n' balls.

Just so you know, I brought up Dan Brown reference earlier as HUMOUR. I wasn't being serious about that X-Files crap. Did you think otherwise? I'm sorry you didn't get it.

lol, I didn't even realise you mentioned him. Just seems like everyone and their mother really does believe that (which the DaVinci Code didn't help to dispell), and (as you can see) I'm kinda sick of it. No worries.

Also, for the record, flinging feces is well within the rules of monkey soccer.

[deshead]

Yes, but only one of these beliefs is falsifiable. It's an important distinction for a lot of people.

Which one do you mean? The idea that we evolved from single-celled organisms is falsifiable, but not with our current knowledge.

Our current knowledge doesn't bear on the falsifiability of a theory. As long as it's possible in principle to make an observation that proves the statement false, then the statement is considered falsifiable. (This page has examples of how that applies to evolutionary theory. As far as I know, biblical creationism doesn't make any falsifiable predictions. I'm also not sure it ultimately matters, but again, the distinction is important to a lot of folk.)

[Adam!]

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...

Sounds like cock 'n' balls to me. :shrug:

Ever think that "image" refers to consciousness?

No. Why would I? No one interprets the word "image" as "consciousness" unless they are trying to bend the definition to fit their argument.

Instead I think that "image" is just some word in a book. I offer that as an answer to "Why do people think God is male". Many people interpret choice segments of the bible literally, and a lot of these people encourage others to adopt their interpretation.

Remember: People eat blood sausage. People are stupid.

[HeuristicsInc]

Specifically, "image" is a word in a translated version of a book. Does anyone know the original word, in Greek or whatever that book of the Bible was originally written in? My prof for "Myths Dreams and Fantasies" which covered the similarities/differences between creation stories (including the two different ones in Genesis) mentioned a version of the Bible that had a lot of good footnotes on the original meanings of the words and phrases (for scholars). Translation loses a lot of meaning. Language is rich.
One example which may or may not be true is the use of the number "forty." "Forty days and forty nights" back then meant "a whole bunch of days" and was never meant to be an exact number.
-bill

[c hack]

Sounds like cock 'n' balls to me. :shrug:

Ever think that "image" refers to consciousness?

No. Why would I? No one interprets the word "image" as "consciousness" unless they are trying to bend the definition to fit their argument.

The Bible is full of imagery that's not meant to be taken literally. I mean, it's trying to describe something that's by definition undescribable. I would argue that any interpretation is valid *except* that of God actually looking like a man.

Specifically, "image" is a word in a translated version of a book. Does anyone know the original word, in Greek or whatever that book of the Bible was originally written in?

No, but I'm pretty sure the old testament was written in Hebrew, and the new testament in Aramaic.

other stuff

True dat.

[Kapitano]

I'm pretty sure the old testament was written in Hebrew, and the new testament in Aramaic.

Most of the old testament (or torah) was written in Aramaic, and most of the rest of it in Hebrew. The relationship between the two is like the relationship between Spanish and Basque - fundamentally the same, but with so many differences in vocabulary and idiom they can be mutually unintelligible.

Most of the new testament was in Greek - and most of that in Koine Greek, which was a simplified version used for trade and international politics. It was the Business English of it's time.

-----

Someone mentioned translation. Even now, most of the bibles you'll see in bookshops weren't translated directly from the original language. The OT in the King James bible went through the stages:

Aramaic > Hebrew > Koine Greek > Latin > English

[HeuristicsInc]

Aramaic, that was what I was trying to think of.
Yes, thank you.
-bill

[tonetripper]

Personally the whole religious mentality in terms of organization, from my perspective, is based primarily on archetypes. This is where most organized religions lose me. How can there be an archetypal understanding of the universe and God when there is no actual way to truly know whether these archetypes in their various forms actually exist? And if they do exist where is there such evidence to state unequivocably that they exist in whatever form we are meant to believe they were formed in. Meaning: How do we know Christ was white? We don't. There is no evidence to suggest a colour. We also, and this is not according to the bible, don't know if God is a sex, a thing, a non-thing or what have you. This just comes down the pipe of the C. Hack comment about cock and balls and/or tits on God, whatever IT may be.

See for me energy is all around. Take music for example. How is it we create it? Do we in fact create it when so many before us have also created? Are we simply a consciousness of recycling? Or do we start from scratch? I have a hard time believing things start from scratch. The big bang theory or the particle theory are the most interesting scientific concepts of creation from my perspective. Evolution is married with these concepts by virtue of the fact that things need to evolve in order to realize; if that's what you want to call it. To me the need to create or pro-create, as you might have it , is basic human instinct. If there be a "power to be", I know that I think it would be something you would never understand and by virtue of being exposed to it would eliminate you from the equation or marry you in that equation. Quantum physics and chaos theories will argue my opinion on the topic, but I fundamentally think you need an 'A' and a 'B' to make a 'C'. 'C' doesn't just materialize into thin air. It just isn't supported by the way we as humans function, but then again that might be a figment of our consciousness, or mine in specific.

I guess evolution and creationism are concepts, from a scientific understanding, that need one another in order to pull realization from the pool of that understanding. Religion, in the same scheme of these things, is great for manifesting faith, but lousy for understanding the universe according to creationism whereas evolution doesn't really have a foothold on the divine spiritual backdrop. This ofcourse is my tainted perspective of things. I haven't really read any of the posted links, just speaking from the hip. Archetypes in religion are great for transcribing the organization of it all, but also get people of various faiths fighting about what archetypes are real and what are not according to their limited range of, and I have to be careful here, spiritual understanding. Maybe if we all were a bit more into our spiritual consciousness perhaps we might become more aware of what the real archetypes are in the universe. As it is, these days in religion, it's all about words, temples, statues and pictures. Hardly enough to go on considering the lack of facts. Once again this is all opinionated tar tar. But now I have to go evolve and create something.......

[HeuristicsInc]

As it is, these days in religion, it's all about words, temples, statues and pictures. Hardly enough to go on considering the lack of facts.

Religion's like this: you get out of it, to some extent, what you put in to it. If that's all you see, you won't have spiritual experiences there... your statement is a pretty common view of it, though. That's not what it's supposed to be.
-bill

[tonetripper]

You are right on that front, but the same could be said for meditating which can come in all forms. My idea is that religion is what it is supposed to be, but somewhere in the fabric that makes us human, allows us to possibly misconstrue the true concept that would be spiritual understanding and this is due in part to the misconception pertaining to the archetypal understanding of organized religions by certain individuals. I'm not condemning faith as I am condemning archetypes and I don't for a moment feel like I less understand because I haven't put the time in, not that you implied that, but more would like to understand why there are so many religions aspiring similar beliefs yet fighting about the difference in those beliefs. The Israeli-Palistinian conflict is rooted somewhere in my last statement as it is with land. I guess the universe is more ambiguous to me than there is one almighty god and that I should thank him/her (which I think is ludicrous) because I'm here. Who's to say there aren't many? The Greeks certainly did and they ruled society for tons of years. And if there had to be a belief that God was a man or a Woman then my money's on the chick. There the ones that put us out into this crazy world.

[Me$$iah]

it is interesting to note that many scientists today dont believe in the big bang

also M-Theory i somthing that anyone with an interest in religion should look into

but as i can see this thread is about evil-oo-shun vs creation science
and I feel I must point out that there is no science in creation-God did it is not science

But then in my opinion anyone who truly believes in a great sky-daddy is a whack. Grow up. Think about what you believe. I mean c'mon.

The leading exponents of the creation science and I.D. (Hovind, Falwell, Robinson etc.)are all crazies and need to be seriously psycoanalized and maybe even locked up, in order to protect the public (like the do with sociopaths). Bearing in mind that the majority of the public are stupid enough to swallow these lies.

If any one had any real evidence of a creation then the whole world would know it and we'd all be good theists. As it is, we know that evolution played a major part in the development of everything, and this can be proven time and time again in a lab. We can even evolution for practical applications, such as medicine (a huge amount of new cancer drugs are being developed because of the use of evolution), whilst there remains no evidence of a great magic smurf, the unicorn or a creator. And even if god did do it then so what, what practical applications to help mankind can be made from that fact.
And if ya wanna get philosphical about it then who made god
where did it come from
is God an athiest??

and more to the point how can a God be both omnipotent and omniscient.

Jesus, guys --- youve combined my most favorite things in this thread
Music Religion and Politics

and this is religion and politics and Im talking to musicians!!!!

I could go on all night

check out
http://www.infidelguy.com

Im gonna stop now for a bit
but Im sure Ill be back


oops.... I just seen the nazi grandma thread and thought Id better at least correct the glaring spelling mistakes I made