Lori, We are apparently applying two different definitions of the word "study". That's the problem with English -- too many homonyms. What I call study is a process of systematic examination through generation of hypotheses and testing their nulls. In other words, "study" in my mind means exploration of the full spectrum of properties and behaviors of a subject. It involves postulating causal links between source and effect. It involves an attempt to comprehend the true nature of an entity. And, it usually involves iteration through many theories, some incrementally different, others revolutionary. What you seem to call study is rote memorization. The 'laws' that are commonly operated with in science are not assumed to be fundamental. On the contrary, there is a constant drive to understand how these very laws arise. For example, you may cite the law of gravity as fundamental -- but why does that force even exist, and why can it act at such arbitrarily large distances on so arbitrarily small bodies, both of matter and pure energy, and why does the gravitational constant (G) in F=Gm1m2/d^2 have the particular value it has, and why, or rather through what mechanism, should matter deform spacetime as Einstein postulated -- and so on, and so forth. The string theory, for example, attempts to unify all the 'fundamental' forces of nature under a common framework, and explain how each force arises out of something governed by even more fundamental and universal laws. So you see, science is not a study of laws; it is a study of properties and fundamental causal relationships. The 'laws' that come out are merely working approximations, or mathematical models of observed results -- not to be taken as the ultimate, fundamental, independent and indivisible true formants of the universe. You see, what you call a 'study' of "spiritual laws" is no study at all in this context. You do not attempt to understand the finer structure of the laws, or how they come about within the universe. You separate them from physical reality (as far as their mechanisms of transmission, effects, and sources); you claim that they simply exist; you claim an untestable source for those "laws", and your claim is not based on a reasoned approach but on somebody else's claims. Anthropology, sociology, evolutionary psychology and biology, on the other hand, can be considered as "studies" of those very same "spiritual laws". The difference should be obvious. Then there is a logical pitfall. You call these laws "spiritual". Does that mean that you believe they do not arise from purely physical processes? But if these laws are not of physical origin or nature, how can they possibly affect physical entities or processes? <hr> Now, for your Luddite remarks. First of all, technology is not trying to "take ownership of natural laws". Nothing can do that; nature follows the laws it does, and there is nothing we could do about it. What we <u>can</u> do is learn about nature's behavior, and take advantage of it to make it do what we want. That's what technology is all about. Technology is development of tools; the very first sticks and stones used by cavemen, and the very first animal skins worn by them, were technology too. Technology (toolmaking) is not intrinsically good or evil, destructive or constructive. It depends on what the tools are designed to do, and how they are designed to do it. Many of the modern tools are indeed destructive to the environment -- but it's not because they break some law; it's because they were designed without consideration for their side-effects. Believe it or not, there really is such a thing as environmentally-friendly high technology, and the world is slowly evolving toward increased harmony between the tools of cultivation and the garden from which we feed. "The planet is being destroyed" not because of a violation of some absolute law. Indeed, if a law is absolute, everything must intrinsically obey it and nothing can violate it. The planet is in fact not being destroyed; only the life that dwells in its biosphere is being affected. And even that is only due to our wasteful habits and lack of <u>environmental</u> awareness, not "spiritual" awarenenss (whatever that means). ------------------ I am; therefore I think. [This message has been edited by Boris (edited September 20, 1999).]
Gamma, Whether Christians were generally heading up the technological advancements, you'll have to ask Boris. He's a walking, talking history book. If I were to guess, I would say yes. Yes, Christians have used technology. Yes, I use technology. And the answer is....if I weren't to use it, then how would I ever convince all of you guys to give your lives to Christ? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's like this gamma, you know there's no use in living your life in a vacuum. Like the Amish for example...how are they reaching the masses? How are they making a difference? How are they spreading the good news? By living their lives in a bubble, or on an island, saying to all of us, we don't like you and we don't want to be near you or associate with you. Yea, they're setting a great example. How about this...if we all had realized from the beginning that this world and we all belong to God, and not to ourselves, then how different would things be? I think that we could accomplish miracles on a daily basis if we only were close enough to God to enact them. For example...God heals. Through faith and prayer, people have been completely physically healed from disease and injury, even terminal patients. I myself have had an ovarian cyst disappear practicly overnight prior to surgery, and have had multiple little kitty healings to boot. No need for medical technology. God provides. Have some faith. It's like we were sooooooo far down the wrong path by the time we were all born that we really have no choice but to live within what we are given. If instead of internalizing the healing process, and making it "of man", we had focused all of our brain power and intent on glorifying God and praying for healing, who knows what we would have today? It's just too far gone to even speculate at this point. And you know what? You can sit here and argue about how if I'm a Christian I shouldn't use a computer, but if I didn't you would make fun of me. I guess what I'm trying to say in a very round about way, is that I'm not arguing the outcome, but rather the underlying assumptions made when deciding on the method. Does that make any sense? ------------------ God loves you and so do I!
Lori, I appreaciate your attempts at enlightenment. After all, that's what this forum is designed to do. And, I wasn't giving any chastizment for using technology. I was only showing that even those who are with God caused some of the very problems that you ascribe to technology. I, personally, believe that technology is only a tool and that our use of the tool dictates the outcome. Technology in itself is not inherently dangerous, with few exceptions such as weapons of various sorts. I myself have seen similar healing events as you have seen. But, would it not be possible for the body to heal itself of these injuries? There is still much that we do not know about the human body due to its complex nature. We heal minor wounds on a constant basis as well as fight disease. I believe that the body is capable of healing major injuries if the soul and mind of the person believe that they are capable. For instance, although this is minor, it can illustrate my point: people with headaches, like I said minor, are usually under stress and other pressures that accelerate the pain caused by the headache. If the individual enters a calm environment, the headache dimishes. If the individual enters a meditative state, they can stop the headache without the aid of medicine. In fact, several Asian traditions use meditation to heal themselves when they are ill. I make fun of few, if any, people. So, if you believed that you did not need technology, that would be your choice. I'm not here to tell people what to think. I'm only here to open posibilities in minds and get some opened to myself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ Peace and Long Life; Live Long and Prosper. --Spock
Gamma, Man, that's a good question about the body healing itself.... I have a question. What of the people who have walked through life with a bitter and cold heart. Say they tried therapy..self help books ect... nothing worked. Then.. out of desperation..or whatever... they yeild and take a step of faith to believe in The one true God. Instantly...the anger and crap all goes away. They begin to see things differently. They are now a changed person in many ways. Their heart and soul are cleaned up. Their mind is clear..and for once at peace. Total peace. Who healed this person? You might say they made a choice to let the crap go.. but, as stated before..they already tried that on their own. There are many stories out there such as this. Lori is a great example. As a shock to myself..I now am as well. Who healed this person?
Now, once again Im tellin U :" You didnt answered on my question, what theories?" All U are tellin me is what people know about DNA or some proteins,..., but I wonder how can we make a simple life form. I know its impossible, but can U give me a theoretical machinery of that process ( like u did for emotion chip). Second: I agree with a fact that spirit cannot live without body. But also, body cannot live without spirit. Or should I say it again, matter and energy ( human body) cannot exists withaout soul. U tellin me to IMAGINE how energy ( or matter) became life. I can`t. I will also answer U here one thing: U cannot see yourself as a "super-computer". Your Pentium cannot hate U, or love U ( it would be great). You must also know that human soul is made by two souls: RUH and NEFS. Now, I cannot explain to You how human think when You dont believe in soul, and wouldn`t take it as a argument. And then we came again to emotions. Third: Somethin interesting. First U said that there is no spirit ( its all energy and matter), and then again U said there is a spirit but it does not exists without physical system. U have to make up Your mind. R.N.Kliss and C.N.Mathews are american scientist. They made thir experiment in 1966. I think I saw it in G.Amaldi`s "The nature of matter" from 1966. As for the evoulution, once again U didnt answered on my question. You said it could be this or it could be that. Maby aliens brought us on this planet ( He,He). You have no prove how we became. I also said that we can use physical world in SOME WAY. But we cannot change the force of gravity, or nuclear forces. We just use it in some process. Im not saying we cannot manipulate the DNA or build proteins. I think that DNA is something fascinating, so simple and so much combinations. And I find manipulating with DNA more fascinating. But we cannot change the essence of life. Im tellin U again, we cannot and wont be able to make the most simple life form. To GammaEridon, First think about flight. What is it? We know some forces, we learned to make a wing which has a function to U S E some forces. But we cannot change that forces. Also for heliocentric system. We know that planets system is organized in that way. But why? I can tell U now at least 10 theories about how it became. But still we have no idea. We cannot manipulate with heliocentric system. We just know how is it working. As for life. we know how its working but we dont know how to make it. God make all, the Universe, the Earth and the other worlds. You know what Tesla said: If physics want to explore the nonphysics phenomenon, it would have bigger progress than it has in last 3 centuries. Sorry for mistakes,...
schredinger, Your own question answers itself! The very same theoretical machinery can completely emulate a living cell. Imagine we could gain knowledge of 100% of all the different compounds present in a typical human sperm and a human egg. We know these compound's exact atomic compositions and bond structures, their locations within the cells, their abundances and their chemical properties (derivable directly from quantum mechanics and bond data.) Now, put all this massive information into a supercomputer, and let the simulated sperm merge with the simulated egg. Let the results interact and brew, and supply them with a simulated uterine wall to attach to. As long as you adequately simulate the ebb and flow of nutrients and waste into and from the uterus, and the growth of the placenta and the embryo -- you've got a complete simulated human being "developing" iside your machine. Now, let the simulation progress for nine months of simulated time -- and you've got a complete, "viable" baby ready to be "born". You can now exume the baby from its simulated uterus, and allow it to further develop within a simulated universe that would interact with the baby's simulated senses just as our universe interacts with ours. The baby would develop and grow (provided proper simulated nutrition and stimulation); eventually it will learn language from its teachers on the other side of reality, and eventually it would develop that very same adult brain which I spoke of simulating earlier. Now, you've got a fully-aware, entirely "human" individual complete with all emotions and functions -- but with obviously no soul (and no corporeal body, either -- at least as far as the programmers are concerned.) But now suppose we can take the complete atomic description of that individual (a snapshot of the simulation, if you will) -- and using a futuristic Star Trek-like technology reconstruct it into reality atom by atom. Now, all of a sudden you've got a whole new complete and entirely physical human being entirely equivalent in all faculties, attributes and behaviors to you and me. And still no soul... The point of this exercise is to see that life is entirely governed by physical interactions between its physical building blocks. No soul drives an HIV virus; no soul exists in an E. coli bacterium, no soul is present in algae, foraminiferae, fish, worms, lizards, or mammals, even including homo sapiens. It's all merely a big continuum of biochemical/biomechanical/bioinformatics complexity. Well, obviously I disagree. Why does a photon or an electron need a soul to exist? And your foot cannot hate you or love you either. Which means there's no soul in your foot. Neither is there a soul in your arms, torso, or skull. Not even in your cortex, cerebellum, brainstem or peripheral nervous system. In fact, no basic part of your body can perform the functions you have described. It is only the aggregate brain that can hate, love, etc. And just as your computer must be designed to compute in order to be able to compute -- so does your brain have to include structures that enable it to feel. A Pentium cannot experience emotions because it has no mechanical faculty for doing so. When I equal myself to a supercomputer, I am not talking about the mundane notion of computing (e.g. word processing or physical simulations); what I refer to is the wider mathematical concept of processing information. What I meant when I said "there is no spirit" is that there is no immortal, immaterial entity attached to our bodies. I never actually said "there is a spirit"; it's simply that what you refer to as "spirit" is merely a product of computation. It is not an essense, or an entity; it is a process and a result. <hr> As for the evolution arguments, it's just as I suspected. You are citing a 1966 study -- <u>anscient</u> by now, and it seems very isolated. It is not uncommon for individual studies to disagree with each other due to varying setups and circumstances. However, eventually a concensus emerges. I suggest you fast-forward about 30 years. <hr> You do not know how exactly the Sun formed; however, from observing the Sun's properties and exploring other stars you can make a very educated guess. Same with evolution. Although nobody can tell precisely where and how it touched off, how it progressed is pretty much a settled deal. Moreover, we can tell in many cases how we definitely <u>did not</u> come to be, thanks to the ever-growing pile of empirical evidence. A while ago in a heated debate with the now-departed "Interested Party", I laid out a logical derivation of evolution based on just the single empirical fact of genetic diversity among species that varies proportionally to the species' age. <A HREF="http://www.exosci.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000040-3.html">Here's a link; look for my post on August 29, 2:27am</A> In fact, if you are interested in debating evolution's validity, I strongly suggest you browse that forum (<A HREF="http://www.exosci.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000040.html">Education and Evolution</A>), as well as another forum not touched for a while now: <A HREF="http://www.exosci.com/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000006.html">Evolution vs. Creation</A>. As for manipulating the physical world -- all matter behaves consistently, including even us. Thus, any and all material effects energetically within our reach are a fair game for replication, study, tinkering, modification, utilization and expansion. And at this point, we could hardly ask for more. ------------------ I am; therefore I think. [This message has been edited by Boris (edited September 21, 1999).]
It amazes me how one with such an imagination and the desire to replicate life so that it may continue (albeit in an altered state) can not be open to the concept of God, the concept of a creator, the concept of evolution after creation or the concept of eternal salvation of the soul. We already have a means to procreate. Although we might not understand all of the properties of the sperm and the egg, we have the ability to create a more perfect "machine" than the one that is described... One that has a soul.
In order to be knowledgable and wise, one must first be able to acknowledge that you don't know everything and don't have an answer for everything. There will always be phenomena and processes in this universe that we will not understand. Many people pass off the fact that we do not know by attributing it to God. For many, that is enough. But, for a good number, it is not. However, to chastize and tell them how wrong they are for attempting to understand the universe around them is inherently wrong and goes against God's gift of free will. Just becuase you may believe that God controls and created all does not mean that we should not find the means by which He did so. Blind faith is one of the major problems of religion. There are many who have genuinely thought about their beliefs. But, many are part of the masses who believe because they have been told to and cling to that without considering possible alternatives. I apologize for those that I offend with this statement. ------------------ Peace and Long Life; Live Long and Prosper. --Spock
Boris, I don't understand your arguements at all. Your quote from another string about science pushing God into the past is ridiculous. People didn't make up God to explain what they did not scientifically understand. As I stated before science is the study of how, and religion is the study of why. Though this brings up the rather scary point that Gamma made, about becoming God by trandscending the universe. You can trandscend all you want to, and you'll never become God, or even a god, a little "g". That is the deception. The alien deception. The new age deception. The end times deception. Consider yourselves warned. And about the studying thing. You are being so obtuse. I am studying the Bible. The very definition that you used "a process of systematic examination through generation of hypotheses and testing their nulls...an exploration of the full spectrum of properties and behaviors of a subject...postulating causal links between source and effect...attempt to comprehend the true nature of an entity." Boris, what in the hell do you think I'm doing out here????? *slap, slap* Have you been paying any attention at all? That is EXACTLY what I do with my religion, with God, and with the Bible. It is extremely clear that you are misunderstanding the power and the reality of God and a spiritual realm. You think that religion is nothing but rote memorization and blind faith. YOU ARE WRONG. I bet you don't hear that often, eh? As smart as you are, you owe it to yourself to admit that the possibility exists, and the potential consequences warrant a life long study. As long as I've been posting out here have you EVER heard me quote scripture? To tell you the truth, I couldn't even list the 10 commandments without looking them up. But I do know the power of prayer, and I do know that God answers me. I hear Him. Do you hear me? Miracles happen, Boris. As a matter of fact, I've seen video tape documentation recently on prime time tv. Tears of blood from a statue. Testing in a lab on a slide under a microscope just like you like it. What you are talking about when you say studyung is quantifying or measuring. What I'm saying is that I'm sure there is a way to quantify everything; you just don't know how. And the fact that you are able to quantify anything, does not negate the fact that God is responsible for creating it. One can study philosophy without quantifying it. Anthropology, sociology, evolutionary psychology and biology are NOT the studies of spiritual laws. I suppose they are all studies of the consequences of them in one form or another. I see the laws not as separate from physical reality, but coming from a spiritual dimension. A different dimension. Our souls interact with this dimension, or are in this dimension. That is why spirits and God can interact with and influence us. The point that you are totally missing Boris is that God is an EXTREMELY testable source. Well, I shouldn't say testable, but how about powerful, reliable, results oriented, and apparent? You just can't measure Him with an instrument, and you can't just see Him with your eyes. And finally, whew, you are correct in saying that there is no inherent good or evil contained within tools. The good or evil, constructive or destructive, effects of the tool are not dependent upon what the tool is designed to do, and not because it was designed without consideration of negative side-effects, and not because the use of the tool or the creation of it breaks some spiritual law. The good or evil effects of the tool are inherent within the intent with which the tool was created and is used; all things should glorify God. A pleasure, as always... ------------------ God loves you and so do I!
Lori, I indeed said something about "science pushing God into the past". The intended meaning is two-fold. First, of course, is the rather snide jab at religion's obsolescence. The deeper meaning is that as various phenomena that constitute the evolution of the universe are increasingly stringed together in a chain of stringent causality, God has no role to play. And thus, any role God ever had to play in the formation or evolution of the universe is continually pushed further and further away from the present, and eventually will likely be pushed all the way out through the starting point of the Big Bang. And people did indeed make up God to explain what they did not understand. A lot of people still don't understand where emotions or self-awareness come from, for example, as can be vividly seen from discussions on this board. So how do they explain these phenomena? Why, through existence of souls and God, of course! We do not understand (or know) whether the universe is finite or infinite, large or small, has three or infinitely many dimensions. So how does the majority address these mysteries? By dumping them all into the three big baskets of divine source , mystical phenomena, and mysterious ways! Religion is not a study of why; it is a fairy-tale of why. Like, why did Moses cross the seabed... The study thing... You may paint your approach as something like a "study", but it is not. All the things I mentioned in my 'definition' basically point toward an empirically-founded exploration from the ground-up. When you start out with more assumptions than facts, your theories are going to be worthless. And with your framework of Christianity, aliens, demons, the end-times and duality of existence, you've probably got more groundless assumptions than there are scientific theories in the world. And the real trouble is, most of those assumptions do not even originate with you; you borrowed somebody else's groundless claims, which is doubly unjustifiable. Not that I deny you the right to pursue whatever captures your imagination -- just don't confuse grounded research with pseudo-science. As for those statues crying blood... Strange, how that only happens around Catholics, isn't it? Besides, I do not want a study to show me that the blood found on the statue was real. I want a study to show how the blood miraculously materializes on the statue out of thin air. Not to mention that television miracle shows are hardly what I consider a source of good research. About your hypothesis of spiritual dimensions... There is only one thing that precludes me from considering existence of souls possible. If they interact with the physical body, they must interact with the physical measuring instruments. It's just that simple. The souls, if they indeed exist, must by necessity physically manifest themselves measurably and reliably for every individual. I have in the past gone over the reductionist approach to the search for the place where soul and body interact; I have shown that no such place could even exist! The hypothesis of souls is just as needless, fruitless and useless as the hypothesis of somnambulism (that the entire existence is just a dream in God's mind.) Not only that, it does not make sense due to the problems of soul-body interaction, number of souls in the universe, transferrence of knowledge or sensory experience from body to soul, etc. Thus, being both useless and highly self-inconsistent, the concept of the soul well deserves a final resting place amidst the Everest-high pile of other useless myths that have been shed by human civilizations over eons. Finally, I should ask you to consider more carefully you own words when you say "God is an EXTREMELY testable source". In my jargon at least, "testable" refers to a proposition that has a negation, the proposition and its negation are mutually exclusive, and the negation can be demonstrably, reliably and repeatedly disproven through pure observation. The proposition of God indeed has a negation -- the inexistence of God. However, that particular negation cannot be disproven in principle -- because even a demonstration of an unexplained phenomenon hints not at God, but at lack of explanation (and hence, lack of knowledge). So you see, God (or religion, in general) is <u>not</u> testable, and cannot be "studied" -- God can only be internalized, or worshipped. ------------------ I am; therefore I think. [This message has been edited by Boris (edited September 21, 1999).]
On the subject of miracles... Since a miracle is an event that is unexplainable by the laws of nature, it is held to be supernatural in origin... an act of GOD. That is why they are called miracles. That is why God sends them every once in a while, so that those who have a hard time believing have the proof that they have so desperately been looking for, so that they can be saved. If studied under a microscope and found to have a scientific explanation, an event would not BE a miracle. Study miracles as you wish, miracles transcend physical science. They exist above and independent of material experience or the universe because they come from God. Miracles are not to be feared. They are gifts from GOD.
Boris, creationism does not exclude or contradict evolution. In fact, the very thing called "evolution" is a statement that things evolved (obviously) and adapted and became better suited to their environment. Now, even in computer programs where they experimented with artificial intelligence beings in a programmed universe, they "evolved" and became better suited to the "environment" that was programmed into the computer. This implies that a software program with algorithms that allowed for ever increasing complexity and learning had to be programmed by someone. Evolution in this world implies that there was a formula "programmed" allowing for this to happen. Do you really think that it happened by mere chance? Evolution, or the push towards better and more complex things, implies an intelligence. Dork
I'd just like to toss into the salad here something that I discussed a while back: The emergence of what appears to be psychic phenomena in some people these days may be something interdemensional, or in some way attached to what religion calls a soul. And I suggest that there is indeed an unseen facet of the universe we don't know about and will have difficulty detecting because we have no means to discover it. Thus, making an instrument to detect it and bring it to our senses would be quite aimless. I have difficulty accepting what you're saying Boris, though I do agree with about 90 percent of your posts. The order of the universe suggests that it's purpose is sentience. An oversight? Lack of empirical evidence for *souls*, You got it!! There will be none! Not until we can open ourselves into the mode of spirit, can we expect to understand anything spiritual. And, of course to cover my ass Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!... ifspirit exists.
Dork:"Evolution, or the push towards better and more complex things, implies an intelligence." yeah, the intelligence is the organism.
Dork, As I said, nobody knows what gave rise to the particular physical universe and behavior that we observe. It could be by design, but it also could be pure chance. Ever heard of the anthropic principle? Or, it could even be a bug in the program that allowes life to form; we could well be an <u>unintended</u> consequence of the "program"'s complexity. All possibilities are still open, and I do not see the grounds for making a choice among them. An intelligent creator is only one possibility out of infinity, and a rather unlikely one at that. JMitch, You contradict yourself. The very fact that we can know about "psychic" phenomena testifies to their physical nature. Otherwise, such knowledge could never make it into our physical memories. Just imagine taking a memory of a psychic experience, recorded, for the sake of argument, as a pattern of synaptic weights in a neural network -- and tracing the emergence of that stored pattern back in time. As we back-trace the cascade of physical events that led to the formation of the memory, we are inevitably led to a sensory (or introspective) perception of some kind). This perception must be accomplished through 100% physical means -- which means that if your brain can perceive it, then so can scientific instruments. Therefore the supernatural aspect of the universe, if any, must indeed be <u>seen</u>; otherwise we wouldn't even know about it. truestory, You are right, of course. Unexplained events are miracles -- until they are explained, of course. ------------------ I am; therefore I think.
This is all I have to say for now: evolution is not some false B.S. Crap thought up by science to combat religion. It is true and it does exist. To evolve is grow, to learn, to adapt and advance as a civilization in order to survive.
You are also right, Boris. And miracles will be explained shortly, I believe, through a heightened awareness of the integration of both physical and spiritual laws.
Boris, I realize now that does sound contradictory. I never said this was not manifesting itself physically, of course if it effects us it is physical. This is what I have said in the past. I was meaning to say that because of the elusive nature of this, and the fact of it being an unknown makes it tricky to detect or to develop instruments to, that is if we don't already have something. I wasn't saying that we absolutely have no way to, or that it is purely spiritual/non-physical. Spirit/Though transfer, may be more physical than we'd like to think. I should have been more clear. [This message has been edited by JMitch (edited September 22, 1999).]
Yaaaawwnnnn, I think I'll go to a new post. :} ------------------ "What is your favorite color?" "Blue...No, Yellow! AAAAAAaaaaaahhh!" Monty Python
