Do you believe in God?

[WildBerry]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I don't believe in a God, but I do believe in a universal harmony built upon mathematics.

So it's a fingerprint of God without the God? I guess you just have to stick to calling them fractals.

Not talking you down in any way, just thought that your view is shared by a great many keen a mind that has seen the depths of the world, but deemed it impossible for any entity to dig so deep.

 

[PFSS]

Re: Do you believe in God?

Krischan brings up another valuable notion: we're talking many many generations. Humans have been traveling around the world. It's not as though we've been separated from other races for tens of thousands of years. I have to bring up again that humans are at the top of the food chain everywhere in the world. There are no other species killing off humans leaving behind only certain ones with benefitial mutations.

There's a few, like Malaria and Sickle Cell Anemia - having a single Sickle Cell gene gives someone an increased resistance to Malaria, which is rather nifty if you live in parts of the world with a lot of Malaria which is why the Sickle Cell gene is much more prevalent among certain races than others.
Sickle Cell Distribution
Places Where Sickle Cell is Useful

I saw another study a while ago, or at least a report on the study, that seemed to find that African Americans had a higher incidence of a particular gene that leads to increased cholesterol, and that this incidence is higher than among the native African population.

The suggested theory for this was that the Slaves who were best able to retain Salt in their bodies were the ones most likely to survive being shipped from Africa to America. It's an awful example where a single 'removal' of those who were 'less fit' from only one generation has led to an increase in prevalence of a genetic mutation.

But these examples are rather small in terms of separation of species.


Ahh - Here's a Link

 

[BobCox2]

Re: Do you believe in God?

There's a few, like Malaria and Sickle Cell Anemia - having a single Sickle Cell gene gives someone an increased resistance to Malaria, which is rather nifty if you live in parts of the world with a lot of Malaria which is why the Sickle Cell gene is much more prevalent among certain races than others.
Sickle Cell Distribution
Places Where Sickle Cell is Useful

I saw another study a while ago, or at least a report on the study, that seemed to find that African Americans had a higher incidence of a particular gene that leads to increased cholesterol, and that this incidence is higher than among the native African population.

The suggested theory for this was that the Slaves who were best able to retain Salt in their bodies were the ones most likely to survive being shipped from Africa to America. It's an awful example where a single 'removal' of those who were 'less fit' from only one generation has led to an increase in prevalence of a genetic mutation.

But these examples are rather small in terms of separation of species.


Ahh - Here's a Link

Are you arguing Jews & Blacks are not human?
Kind of makes me wonder what the next Hitler will be like if he breeds for better traits than blond hair and blue eyes.
What if it's the marketplace making choices with money?
Scary huh - natural forces aren't all that selective ... until things change and then a wild spread of population traits can come in handy.

 

[PFSS]

Re: Do you believe in God?

Are you arguing Jews & Blacks are not human?

Not at all, you can equally look at the gene mutation prevalent in North Europe that leads to people producing hardly any melanin, which IIRC helps with Vitamin D production in areas without much sunlight but causes you to burn when exposed to much more than sunlight dimmed by Fog and increases your risk of Skin Cancer.

I was just saying that even though humans are generally at the top there are still factors, natural and artificial, that lead/have led to particular mutations being more common and that these can be readily observed.

 

[stillman]

Re: Do you believe in God?

^Plus, jewish people weren't even mentioned. Plus, the slave tragedy was decreed an 'aweful example'.

The important thing is that all people are subject to random mutations. Every race is subject to cancer, and this alone should be evidence that our DNA mutates.

Even though those examples can wipe out some people, I don't think it's enough of an impact to cause humans to evolve into separate species and this explains why people are so different yet can still reproduce across races. For instance, the slavery period in America was a fairly short duration--not long enough for speciation to occur. Of course, everyone knows this, but I'm just trying to explain the initial question of why people appear to 'not evolve'. Evolution takes tremendous time and speciation requires barriers. Not all the African Americans were slaves; some escaped via the underground railway for example, so there was no full fledged barrier.

One very interesting thing I saw on the news a little while back is this tribe of people were seen from a helicopter somewhere in a diminishing rainforest. This tribe had been a group of people never seen before by the outside world! They were being exposed due to the deforestation process, and they were wearing body paint and pointing their bows at the helicopter. The most interesting part was when the reporter said in situations like these, if a reporter goes in to communicate with such a tribe, the whole tribe dies from modern world diseases that the tribe was never exposed to. I wonder if such a tribe has been distant enough from the rest of the world's people that a 'barrier' has occured. Could they be forming a new species, incompatable with other people? If someone went into their tribe to reproduce with them, diseases would kill the tribe. Could this be considered similar to two different species' copulatory parts not fitting together or a zygote not forming? Could such tribes have been secluded for enough generations to form a new species?

 

[s4nder]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I'm an agnostic, meaning I'll believe in a god when it's proven one exists. I also agree with a quote from a song: "Mathematics is the language of nature."

I do of course believe in the ancient Estonian pagan war god Taara (taara is also the word for empty beer bottles though :| ).

 

[SnickerSnack]

Re: Do you believe in God?

Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses worship a different deity (despite what they claim), just like Muslims.

I skipped the other posts in this thread (too many pages to read right now), but this stood out.

I'm going to assume that you don't see how arrogant and bigoted and, well, wrong this is. This is perhaps one of the most narrow-minded (read: arrogant, bigoted, ego-maniacal) things I've seen or heard. You sure do think highly of yourself.

 

[buttershug]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I skipped the other posts in this thread (too many pages to read right now), but this stood out.

I'm going to assume that you don't see how arrogant and bigoted and, well, wrong this is. This is perhaps one of the most narrow-minded (read: arrogant, bigoted, ego-maniacal) things I've seen or heard. You sure do think highly of yourself.

I thought it was merely misinformed.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Do you believe in God?

Either Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and probably even Muslims all worship the same deity as Christians or pretty much every religious person worships a different deity.

 

[SnickerSnack]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I thought it was merely misinformed.

That is possible, but the phrase "despite what they say" indicates otherwise to me. He is saying that a very large group of people are either lying about what they believe or are wrong about what they believe.

The first possibility would just be paranoia, and I doubt that's what he meant.

The second possibility can't be an innocent mistake when we are talking about what an adult thinks. Is that other group not allowed to believe in his god? If that is the reason, then that is egomania.

 

[Spinns]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I skipped the other posts in this thread (too many pages to read right now), but this stood out.

Maybe he wasn't talking from the point of view that they are different Gods but rather the characteristics that their followers place upon them. If you look back in the bible and in the Qur'an then you realize that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all worship the God of Abraham but if you look at some of the characteristics that the respective religions place upon them there are a lot of differences and are therefore different Gods (Then again I'm probably wrong and are just spouting non-sense)

 

[Tanooki]

Re: Do you believe in God?

YHWY, to the Christian, is defined by the Creator who came to earth in the form of a man to redeem mankind.

Muslims do not worship this definition of God. They worship the God of Muhammad. Therefore, they do not share a deity with Christians.

If you read the theology of Mormons and of Jehovah's Witnesses you'll reach a similar conclusion about their deities. They are different religions - not denominations of Christianity. JUST LIKE MUSLIMS.

*edit* Maybe that's not clear enough...

I'm not saying they're lying. I'm asserting they don't understand the Christian God, and mistakenly believe they worship the same God as Christians do.

I apologize to anyone who's offended by the idea that they don't worship my God. Don't worry - you probably wouldn't want to worship him anyway.

 

[PFSS]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I'm not saying they're lying. I'm asserting they don't understand the Christian God, and mistakenly believe they worship the same God as Christians do.

Can't it equally be said that it might be that you do not understand the Islamic God and mistakenly believe it to be different to the Christian God?

 

[SnickerSnack]

Re: Do you believe in God?

I'm not saying they're lying. I'm asserting they don't understand the Christian God, and mistakenly believe they worship the same God as Christians do.

That's what I thought, but that seems very arrogant to me. As stated above, the arrogance lies in the fact that you believe that you understand their god better than they understand yours. How do you know that it's not the case that they really do understand god to be the same one you worship, but they choose to focus on different aspects or appeal to different qualities of him? Why can't they disagree with you on what god wants? Or is that what makes your god what he is? Why is it not possible that you're all mistaken on some of the finer points, and are actually pursuing the same end?

It seems to me that Christians (yep, all of the different flavors), Jews, and Muslims are all trying to accomplish the same goal, they just differ on the best way to do it.

 

[Johnny]

Re: Do you believe in God?

Watching reason debate religion is one thing. Atleast you have reason as the concrete party but watching 2 religious partys debate eachother over who is right is so vague on both ends, it's like watching jellyfish wrestle.

 

[SnickerSnack]

Re: Do you believe in God?

reason debate religion

Is that not what we're doing? My questions are epistemological, not theological.

 

[Johnny]

Re: Do you believe in God?

It's one thing watching a scientist debate that the earth is round with a christian that claims that earth is a flat disk on top of 2 turtles standing on an elephant but it get's downright hilarious when you watch a christian debate that the earth is a flat disk on top of 2 turtles standing on an elephant with a muslim that says the earth is a virgin that was smited by allah into a triangle shape, the seas her tears and the land her menstrual blood.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Do you believe in God?

YHWY, to the Christian, is defined by the Creator who came to earth in the form of a man to redeem mankind.

Muslims do not worship this definition of God. They worship the God of Muhammad. Therefore, they do not share a deity with Christians.

If you read the theology of Mormons and of Jehovah's Witnesses you'll reach a similar conclusion about their deities. They are different religions - not denominations of Christianity. JUST LIKE MUSLIMS.

*edit* Maybe that's not clear enough...

I'm not saying they're lying. I'm asserting they don't understand the Christian God, and mistakenly believe they worship the same God as Christians do.

I apologize to anyone who's offended by the idea that they don't worship my God. Don't worry - you probably wouldn't want to worship him anyway.

The tetragrammaton refers to God (the God of the Israelites, in fact), not Jesus. You seem pretty unclear about the theology of Christianity yourself.

 

[PFSS]

Re: Do you believe in God?

It's one thing watching a scientist debate that the earth is round with a christian that claims that earth is a flat disk on top of 2 turtles standing on an elephant but it get's downright hilarious when you watch a christian debate that the earth is a flat disk on top of 2 turtles standing on an elephant with a muslim that says the earth is a virgin that was smited by allah into a triangle shape, the seas her tears and the land her menstrual blood.

It's Four Turtles, Heretic.

 

[Dondrei]

Re: Do you believe in God?

And their master Splinter.