Guess who just won the Nobel Peace Prize?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jamesdmanley

im not sure i really follow your argument, but i dont disagree with anything youve said. of course we live in the universe in which it happened. if it happened somewhere else thats where we would be. i certainly dont think we are the only life in the universe. the odds are greatly against that, but i dont think it happens on accident. its just far too complex, precise, and fantastic.

The point of my argument is that if DNA hadn't spontaneously come about by chance on the Earth, then we wouldn't be here talking about it. It doesn't matter, therefore, if it stood only a 1 in a billion chance of happening by chance - we just happen to be in the situation in which it did happen; therefore no matter how unlikely it is to happen by chance, we are the outcome of that vanishingly unlikely event actually happening.

I actually don't believe it's all that unlikely. I don't know if you've read about the experiments people have done, seeing what could have happened through "random chemistry" on the primitive Earth? Basically people have put water, methane, and ammonia (that's what we believe the main constituents of the atmosphere of the very early Earth were) into a pressure vessel, and just let it "cook" for several weeks, passing jolts of electricity through it to simulate lightning. At the end of several weeks, they've analysed the "soup" that's formed to see what's in it. They've found that surprisingly complex organic molecules form, up to the level of amino acids.

If that can happen in a few weeks, imagine doing that, on a planet wide scale, for hundreds of millions of years. Sooner or later, by chance, those amino acids are going to join together to form proteins, and perhaps - who knows? - a random group of proteins will, by chance, come together to form DNA, a molecule with the interesting chemical property of being able to replicate itself, ie "life"? It only has to happen once amongst all the other virtually incalculable number of chemical reactions that don't do anything "useful".

Is life so unlikely given those circumstances? Some people would say not.

[jamesdmanley]

ive heard of these experiments, but with different results. the ones ive heard of yielded no results after months and/or years. sounds fascinating though

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by jamesdmanley

but those are the best to discuss because opinions vary so widely and people are so passionate about them

Those are the subjects likely to have someone draw a gun to your face, the fuel of wars...

[jamesdmanley]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Those are the subjects likely to have someone draw a gun to your face, the fuel of wars...

maybe i like to flirt with danger then =)

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by jamesdmanley

maybe i like to flirt with danger then =)

No kids eh!

[jamesdmanley]

hahah no not yet. not till im done with school

[eumesmo]

I live in the middle of the Brazilian Cerrado(tropical savanna), where global warming isn't means to political power(except that Brazil stands to gain alot from a greener economy ), nevertheless, I'm yet to meet someone who isn't complaining about the heat, who eventually muses about the good old day with 3 good months(almost non existent now) of rain and hot days that were actually tolerable.

I remember listening to a The Teaching Company(or something like it) lecture on Global warming, which opened my mind to the complexity of Climate, things like how polar caps and desert reflect heat back to space, how plants grow faster with increased level of CO2, how a atmosphere with twice more oxygen gave rise to super plant and super animals(dinosaurs), how different gases affect the greenhouse effect, how hydroelectric plants contributes to the greenhouse effect as much as a thermoelectric plant of the same size would(by indirectly producing methane, putrefying matter, with are 20 times more harmful than the CO2 of the thermoelectric plant), how earth would be too cold for life as we know without the Greenhouse Effect, , how water(rivers, lakes, ocean) absorb Co2 from the water, and releases Co2 when there's less Co2 in the atmosphere. So suppose a certain area in the world is at this moment suffering from desertification(as many are), that would actually decrease the world's net heat by reflecting the sun light over that area back to space. The difference between a desert and a tropical rain forest are mere circumstances with give rise to self sustainable rain forest or a self sustainable desert for that matter. Suppose the polar caps sufficiently increased in size, an ice age would be eminent, the ever increasing polar cap would reflect ever more sun light back to space, decreasing the world's temperature.

Well, eventually people will turn to logic, when their AC's break down for example, that's always a comfort to my battered ideological heart.

[Huyggy]

Originally Posted by jamesdmanley

well considering natures natural state is disorder i find it fantastically improbable that the minute complexities of life (just think about how complex dna is) could happen by chance or on accident.

But do you think that the existence of God is more "probable"?
I've seen no real proofs of this (that everybody could see easily I mean, no miracles 2000 years ago), and His simple existence induces more questions than it can answer
(for example: who created God ? Why and what are his objectives by creating humans ? Do we have the same God than the extraterrestrials (if they exist !)? Why did He create the dinosaurs ? Why does He tolerate violence and atrocities on earth although He has all the powers (and do not answer: "because He wants the humans to be free": so His existence becomes useless. )

I don't think that Science has all the solutions and In my humble opinion, if there are questions, whose I can't find proper answers, I prefer to leave them unanswered... for now.

[eumesmo]

Your god, is he anything like Gaia? or Tao? a principle like gravity that makes life possible? a universe that wishes to understand itself? or Plato's "The Good"? or just that Jewish god of war that at some point or another proclaimed himself "the god"? How is he better than Zeus or Athena or Ares for that matter? Please don't tell me the Jewish gods were "the chosen gods" too. Did he just come with the best manual? choose his Lieutenants right? were petty enough so common people could relate? condescend to bestow on humans his image?

Of what interest could we as individuals, as a group, as a nation, as humanity could be to a god? Entertainment, the immense opera written by the devil, in honor and staged for god, where each of us at one time or another sings an aria and then return to the chorus?

[Nate the great]

I knew this would turn out badly. I wish y'all had listened to me.

I also wish I had asked a moderator to lock the post.

[HarryT]

I am a moderator, and I have no wish to lock it - it's an interesting discussion which, by and large, is remaining reasonably polite. The nice thing about MR is that people are civilized enough to be able to discuss interesting subjects without resorting to personal insults as happens so frequently elsewhere.

Nobody who does not wish to is required to participate.

[HappyMartin]

Seems to be at least 3 interesting themes in this. Religious beliefs in the USA, the validity of religious beliefs and global warming. An interesting sub plot to do with bad teeth and the NHS made a brief and to me confusing appearance so I will ignore that.

There are many polls and yes polls can be and are massaged but I have never seen one that indicated that the USA population is not largely religious. After 9/11, sales of Bibles went up 27%. That is not a poll but sales figures and it seems to indicate something even if just religious coping.

As long as religion encourages people to be moral, ethical and good to each other I see no harm in it. Because people do bad things in the name of religion does not make the religion bad, it makes the acts bad. By the way I do not believe in God but do regard myself as religious.

It still seems that the judicious approach to global warming would be to be cautious and conservative. Lets take care of our home and all that live here, not only people

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

Seems to be at least 3 interesting themes in this. Religious beliefs in the USA, the validity of religious beliefs and global warming. An interesting sub plot to do with bad teeth and the NHS made a brief and to me confusing appearance so I will ignore that.

There are many polls and yes polls can be and are massaged but I have never seen one that indicated that the USA population is not largely religious. After 9/11, sales of Bibles went up 27%. That is not a poll but sales figures and it seems to indicate something even if just religious coping.

As long as religion encourages people to be moral, ethical and good to each other I see no harm in it. Because people do bad things in the name of religion does not make the religion bad, it makes the acts bad. By the way I do not believe in God but do regard myself as religious.

It still seems that the judicious approach to global warming would be to be cautious and conservative. Lets take care of our home and all that live here, not only people

The major problem with religion is the Bible. Some people take what is written there literally and think it is ok to do as it says. The Bible is not means to be taken literally. It's mean to convay ideas. But even then, some of the idea you can get from it are not ones we want people acting on. There is plenty of evidence that the Bible causes a lot of people to do things in God's name that a kind and loving God would not want done. Also, a lot of close minded people use the Bible to justify this way of thinking. One good example is gay marriage. Because the bible says homosexuality is wrong, a lot of people int he uSA are against it. It has nothing to do with a person's right to their basic freedom. It has to do with what the Bible says. I look at what's done in the name of religion to our freedoms and think we'd be better off without it. Even our president runs his life based on his religion. We are supposed to have a separation of church and state but we really do not. The Pope thinks it is OK to get involved when he doesn't like something. Politicians use their religious beliefs to ruin the country. The president won the last election because he use his religious belief that gay marriage is bad and got the close minded southerners to go for that bunch of BS. I know 9/11 was caused by extreme religious beliefs. if you look back in history, a lot of wars were caused by religion. And I do think a lot of politicians are a bunch of no good hypocrites. Whatever happened to "Thou shalt not kill"? If you going to run your political career using your religious beliefs to help you make decisions, then you better damned will listen to the 10 commandments and stop all the hate and violence.

[HarryT]

I was rather amused, Jon, to see the other day someone on this site mention a book written by someone who had apparently lived his life according to what it says in the Bible. My immediate thought was to wonder if he really had followed literally all the laws in the book of Leviticus. Would he stone his children to death if they were disrepectful to him? Would he happily sell his sister into slavery (as long as it was to a foreigner)? Would he kill someone who wore mixed-fabric garments? The Bible says that he should.

That's the problem, isn't it? The Biblical laws are based on the culture of the time. The "kosher" food laws are basic common sense for food hygiene if you live in a hot climate with no refrigeration, but they make no sense at all today. Some people today pick out the fact that the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, but those same people (probably) don't kill disrespectful children, nor do they sell their relatives into slavery (the first of which the Bible says that you must do, and the second is condoned). The first part of the book of Joshua is a detailed set of instructions for genocide (all approved by God, of course), against people unfortunate enough to be living in a country "reserved for God's chosen people". Does that mean that God sanctions genocide, as long as it's against the right people?

You can't take the Bible (IMHO) as anything more than a set of guidelines written by - and for - the people of their time. To try to apply them in a completely different society 2000+ years later just doesn't work. I don't mean the basic "moral" stuff - that's still perfectly valid, of course - but the nitpicking detailed stuff that some people love to pick out to justify whatever their own agenda happens to be.

[JSWolf]

I don't want my life run by an outdated set of guidelines that have nothing to do with the way life it today. And yes, you are correct that a lot of people pick out the bits in the Bible that best fits with what their agenda is. It is very hypocritical to say "You cannot marry your partner" yet my I will not kill my disrespectful son. Part of this problem is that religious leaders need to update things for today and not live by outmoded Biblical laws that they pick and choose.

I'm Jewish and not kosher because kosher laws were created for dietary safeness back then. Today, the laws don't apply any longer. So I really don't see the need to live by outmoded laws that no longer have a relevance to society today.