The topic of religious language proves to be exceptionally diverse. One of the reasons that I choose to post on this topic is due to a passage that I read from Jewish Rabbi Harold Kushner several years ago. Kushner was discussing the power of speech and compared it to the concept of perpetual motion within physics. If I wave my hand through the air, the energy that is generated from that movement moves through the universe without ever ending. Permanent energy is therefore created in the universe. He questioned why the concept would be so much different with the use of language. If I speak something into the universe, an energy is created. This energy now exists forever in the universe and I am responsible for it. The importance of language is made manifest in this thought. That the seen and unseen world is created by language as much as anything else. In an article entitled "Glory" by Thomas Dooling he states, "The problem is that we have made words cheap, and in so doing shouldn’t be surprised that they no longer have value." This sentiment is a particularly disturbing one if we consider for a moment that in fact, words create value, and if we have made them cheap then our creation is also cheap.


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Hey paxx, how's you? I dont know much about Voltaire, and MY nose is far from perfect

But I'll give you a billion years, 4 Billion... forever even. shake that bucket around the whole time. Its NEVER gonna me more than a mix of parts rattling around in a pail. Chance will not bring about a working mechanism. Also, regarding chance... evolution theory is basically mutation. Probably 99% of mutations are detrimental to an organism, beneficial mutations (note, not adaptations) rarely benefit a species, further reducing the odds of chance.

A billion ? There are probably that many species of life counting the varieties of those species. With those odds,the deck would have have to be stacked. Quite heavily.

If you believe tbat, Ingui, you have a poor understanding of statistics. A chance of one in a zillion does not equal never. It also does not mean you have to try a zillion times minus one to get to it. It might happen the first time even.

Ingui, lets talk about lotery for a bit. Imagine you have the numbers from one 1 to 100 billions. What are the chances that you would draw the number 1 at every draw? Impossible, right? But now, here's what you do. At every draw, you remove the highest number and rep,ace it with a lower number. You do that billions upon billions of times, you always remove the highest number from the draw and put a lower number instead. In the end, all you're left with is 100 billion number 1's. And from then on, you will pick the number every single time. Tha's basically what evolution is. The least fit dies and the most fit lives on, and in the end, only the fittest still exist.

Hiya craeonics And no, I understand statistics. I didnt say "one in a zillion", I said "never" as I understand the difference. Are you suggesting that the pieces of a watch might actually fall together in the right order and locations, and attach themselves where needed? That any screws would eventually spin themselves into place. The gears , springs , levers all landing and securing themselves in working order?





Ricky says "I dun thin so"

I understand the theory paxx, I still find it hard to believe. Just as many find creation hard to believe. Greyhaze sure picked a , umm, devilishly, irrisistable topic for debate.

sigh.

.......... and I don't think the question is WHO is God, but rather, WHAT is God.........

I wholly agree with that. At what I would call my current stage of belief, I feel that there is no question that God exists. We are within the existing universe full of reason, rules and laws that control our creation and destruction to a degree that is infinite with possibilities.

If your feeling is evolution more than creation, then it still falls to the notion that it could not happen without a set up of rules to create the condition.

If it is creation it too has to be built on laws and understanding. A combination of the 2 still means there is something that had to be set.



I think the real question is if that 'something' is a living thinking creator, or an amoeba life organism that just exists, or finally just a set of circumstances that allow other circumstances to create laws and other creators.


I prefer to believe God is a living thinking creature of total knowledge... but I have no proof of that.

I was going to stay out of this one but here goes my two cents...

I believe we were created..of which there is no proof

I also believe in evolution, but not the "Theory of Evolution"...of which there is also no proof..hence the name..

Everything changes over time to some extent, but the straight line evolution of Homo Sapien from apes to me seems too absurd to be believable. If evolution is genetic mutation over a period of time then I would expect the evolution of man to have taken a very non-linear path..

As for the different species i.e. Homo Habilus, Neanderthal etc..We were probably all around just some had their hey-day at different times. Just because no homo-sapien skull has been found from say 500,000 B.C. doesn't mean it wasn't there.

evolution of Homo Sapien from apes to me seems too absurd

Actually, it's not exactly like that. It's more that apes and us have the same ancestors.

Evolution will always be a theory, because according to the scientific method, it cannot be reproduced under the same conditions (The time required to reproduce it would be too great to observe), hense it will never be a law, even if all the scientists in the World were to believe it to be true.

I think we are monkeys. Just monkeys who have the gift of reason. The ability to make a conscience decision. Genetically we are something like 4% different from monkeys on a DNA level. Why is it so hard to believe we came from them? Here's my take on it and why monkeys still exist. If you take another species where mutations and evolution has known to occured...like the Iguana's from the Galapogos islands. Here you have lizards diving underwater eating algae. No where else in the world will you find an Iguana doing so. So then you have 2 species of the same animal. So here we are...still monkeys...only we lost our hair because we didn't need it anymore, we lost the 'oooh oooh aahh ahh' sounds because we didn't need it anymore...and those monkeys that did not evolve like we did are still there. Make sense?

With the way things are going these days, there won't be many monkeys around in the future.

The bucket of watch parts is a silly analogy.

Chemicals proteins ,molecules and minerals form different combinations fairly easily under the right conditions.OR if acted upon by an'outside' force.

The possibility that these combinations could take on the attributes of life are not that farfetched.It didnt happen overnight.Dosnt mean God had nothing to do with it.
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there is no proof is the whole reason people have "FAITH"

Faith is a poor substitute for reason.God gave you a mind...use it.Its lazy to take things on faith.

Thats funny because if God gave you a mind then you have FAITH that there is a GOD