Seemed like a question to me ... how was I supposed to know? Ancient Babylon (1780 BCE), well before your book was a thought, seems to be the earliest recorded concept of reciprocity. That is why I provided a link for you, I didn’t need it??? It seems like you don’t have any use for this concept at least as far as anything goes concerning your dogmatic views. There are a lot of good concepts in the bible; they just don’t seem to affect your religious demeanor at all. You have god on your side so anything you cram into your confused mind just has to be true too … and everyone else is wrong just because … the mantra of an incapable person IMO. I think everything you say without proof is funny, in a bad way. Is there actually anything you want to discuss???

I didn't think you did, too bad. The bible says a lot of things that you guys ignore but that is to be expected from the pickers and choosers. In the case of evolutionary theory though, it seems like you want 'us' to treat 'you' and your puerile book the way you treat science and the rest of the actual worldwide knowledge we do possess ... not a problem for sure.

Good enough for me but trying to not comprehend well that is you modus operandi not mine. My mind could be won over quite easily but it requires more than just your say so. You do not appear to be educated enough or even interested in evolutionary theory and you surely are clueless as to how it works. Yet because you have faith in the impossible and the improvable you mock reality with witticisms like “… it just doesn’t work” or “I like forward looking science but not the backwards looking science (whatever that means???)”. I ask for proof and you supply hearsay … I offer proof and you scorn it without even reviewing it (because you just cannot which can only be translated as you don’t want to) because deep down you know what you would find and you are afraid. Sorry for that but it is your problem because the information is available to everyone and ignorance (especially self-induced ignorance) is no excuse at all … but it is all you have besides your faith. The only reason you HAVE to have faith is because you have no proof … you don’t need faith if you have proof and thus your conundrum. Then it all becomes obvious as to what you are doing when you tell me that you don’t even understand the science you are scorning.

Imagine there's a car on your street, and you observe it for a minute.  It's moving very slowly.  You can look at that and project that it will get to the street at that speed in an hour, and then you can come back in an hour and check to see if it is, indeed, at the end of the street.

Evolutionary and origin science would be like examining that, and then trying to say where the car started from an hour before that.  But you and I don't know where the car started from.  An hour before, it might have been 60 miles away or at the other end of the street.  There will never be a way to know that, unless you have someone who saw the car to tell you about it.

Now, science would say that since the car going forward at that speed arrived at the location you predicted for it, that you can then project where the car was an hour before, a year before, etc.  But that's really nonsense and so is evolutionary theory when it looks at origins.  Unless you have someone who was there and saw what happened, or whether the car was there or not, then you cannot say for certain that the car was where it was - even if you can predict with accuracy where the car is now.

The main thing that scientists are doing today that is inaccurate is they are basing thousands of years, and then billions of year, of history on a very small sample size of time, and things may possibly have changed from now to then that we believe are constant do to never having observed any difference.  It all makes perfect sense unless you have a source that says it happened differently.

There was a murder and nobody was there to witness the event. By your surmise, we must let the perk perp (thanx Doc) go because we didn’t see the murder and therefore cannot prove him guilty, just hogwash. Our scientific investigations provided a witness who saw the perk enter the premises, then there was a shot and the eye witness entered and saw the man standing over the victim and nobody else was observed. It was also determined that there was a beef between the two. He was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life. Problem solved to the best of our abilities. Ten years later science develops the techniques of DNA as evidence so we update our scientific whatevers. Re-examining this case, DNA was found and they not only figured out the perk was innocent … they matched the DNA with the actual murderer and a miscarriage of justice was corrected (as best we can) and all without any observers. You believe in miracles and magic regardless of the fact that you have never experienced one that wasn’t personal and isolated to yourself (mental only) … but you believe just because a 1^st century book says so and you do not even know who wrote it or even when.

It was eventually determined that there were other people with a grudge and when our original perk perp entered he saw a confrontation and then saw a shot. He had just gotten to the body when the eye witness entered and although he told all this at his trial, it didn’t weigh as much and he was found guilty. If we had absolute laws, the man would have been murdered for his innocence and martyred when it was found out … but he would be dead nonetheless. Eye witnesses are good for only so much because it is a known fact that eye witnesses see different things and certainly none see everything nor do they have any facts to work with … just their observations.

PS – How old do you claim the earth to be, just curious because I am not going to play with a short lived earth anymore because it is ridiculous.

N/A, sorry for any inconvenience.

PS – Who  is  was trying to communicate here and who is trying not to???

PPS – I have my answer (didn’t catch it at first) thank you very much. As long as you think the earth is 6,000 years old, (I would ask you to prove it but we both know you cannot), there will be no more from me under this ridiculous pretext. Find someone else willing to play your silly games … PLEASE!

Richard Dawkins If Science Worked like Religion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5TUozIJeOc

This absolute rightness, truth, wisdom, knowledge or whatever else that floats the dogmatic boats … is really getting on my nerves. We are all dealing with human beings here and every single religious faction (alone) are the only ones that know and understand these things … EVERY FRIGGING ONE OF THEM … and they are all exclusive. Every click (individually (1 at a time)) poses the only perfect people on earth … give me a break … perfect people on earth, what planet have you been raised on? Take a close look at the map in the video, a good look.

What bugs me is that I have an understanding of the science, and when I criticize it, I am told I don't understand it, and to look at this new piece of it, which fits right in with my understanding of it, but my position is still somehow invalid.  If you say so.

 

Also, that is basically your entire approach to the conversation - nothing anyone else says is valid unless it matches you, and therefore everyone is to be mocked by you and said to 'believe in magic'.  By a book that I know exactly where it came from, but you keep saying I don't know who wrote it.  If you say so.  I'll just keep my knowledge and you can keep your knowledge. 

 

When we look at the timeline of the synaptic gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence (imagine that), we can see the progression and things just get worse and worse for humanity with time but befitting a religion based on an illiterate caveman’s perspective of well everything. Shit like this would force me to disavow it even if it were true, but assuredly not because it isn't.

Jythier, if the truth were as much a concern for you as it is for me, then you would need to be saying the same things whenever something comes up. But you (like Lula) change your 'faithful unchangeable views' to suit the occasion and are seemingly unconcerned or forgetful about these other deceits. Jythier you always say you know ‘this and that’ and whine about my lack of empathy … but it is always “I know this and that” … end of story.

There you go again with your idea of what science can and cannot do??? I know full well how old the earth is hocus pocus and all aside. What ASSUMPTIONS aren't scientific or is this just more of your internal know-it-all stuff that you refuse to reveal for fear of incriminating yourself again? I have no idea at all as to what you would even consider a reasonable response from me because the little time you offer doesn’t give me much to work with at all. The only thing you seem to believe is the bible … oh and other creationists claiming to be scientists. Wonder how their biased conclusions seem to come to you as virtuous as the scriptures themselves … absolute perfection indeed.  The age of the Earth is 4.45 ± 0.05 billion years (± 1%). This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples. What do you offer to this discussion besides it just cannot be true? Ok if it is 6,000 years so be it.

Here is my wild ass guess as to what was happening planet side before the invention of your complete universe (not mine though). If you are going to discuss the timeframe of genesis, then I would have to discuss some of the Cultures that existed on the real earth when your ‘first two’ humans were being poofed from dirt. Like the Badari culture on the Nile (c. 4400–4000 BC), Comb Ceramic culture (also endured the 6th, 4th), Maykop culture, Yangshao culture, Merimde culture on the Nile (c. 4570–4250 BC), Predynastic Egypt, and Proto-Austronesian culture is based on the south coast of China. They combine extensive maritime technology, fishing hooks, nets and gardening. (c. 5000 BC), Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture, Lengyel culture in eastern Europe, Ubaid culture, Cycladic culture—a distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BC, Vinča culture (also endured the 6th, 4th, and 3rd millennia) and Yumuktepe and Gözlükule cultures in south Anatolia. But we aren’t going to go there are we? How am I supposed to even discuss genesis with you???

Yea, i'm sure you really want to have a discussion of the times before the world began.

But it is not just the +/- embellishments; it is the outright fabrications that have been added that confuse me here. Take the adulteress in the gospel of John. It seems to be missing in the earliest manuscripts we have, quite a few of them in fact. I am not sure how an (religious) eye witness can be so absentminded as to have forgotten something that will needs be ‘remembered’ hundreds of years later like in the 4^th century, but of course. Here is a list of the oldest manuscripts of the gospel we have that seem to miss this later addition as they should considering it was just made up.

John's missing ending

 

I think that reality and the truth are synonymous with … to the best of our abilities … assuming honesty. Now religious dogma for some reason doesn't seem to find our abilities useful, at first, except for a few. Credulity is probably the most desired (why children are always sought) because that one is limited only by their imagination and won’t be questioned by the newly dumbfounded. Next I would say is faith, which you have to have when you pretend (your alternate un-reality) you know something but cannot prove a damn thing. Lastly is the unconditional necessity for absolute submission to the church (certainly not to any god). Until one capitulates there are no good pursuits in life (geese) just debauchery and accounting … but after … there is no rational argument they will accept but then miraculously science somehow becomes good … for the few who have already declared the allegiance to god and magic, just like you, go figure. I have cited many christian (even a catholic) scientists who value the truth above all (as I) and have made their peace between reality and god and religion somehow. But even they aren’t good enough for you because you disagree with them too, just because you have faith and are compelled to do so, I suppose.  I wonder how you tell the difference between the good christian scientists and the bad ones, puzzling even if we all know why you do it. It looks like I am discussing things … what are you doing besides telling me what cannot be done as usual??? If my ‘lack of personal opinions’ needs to be expounded upon just give me a yell, otherwise continue on pretending I don’t have any of my own.

PS - Jythier you have noted that this post was filed under ethics ... don't you think it is about time for you find some? Try just being as honest as you can all the time and life is so much easier ... just a godless thought mind you.

I once read a book where one of the main characters had total control over his environment.  He Chose to make it hot and muggy, with mosquitoes constantly buzzing around.  When asked why he made his environment so nasty, he replied (paraphrasing) "you cannot know joy without knowing misery".

Things have been worse.  They may get worse.  But as long as man has individual free will, the capacity to do good will be matched by the capacity to do evil.  It is inescapable.  That is a truism regardless of a belief in a higher power.  The alternative is  the removal of free will.  And while some would consider that a good thing, how would we know what was good?

I never won any beauty contests, so no argument there  - Friend.

Perp?