Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[gregsensei]

At this time of year, I thought it might be good to remember how similar the teachings of Allah, Abraham, Buddha, and Christ are.

Reading other posts saying "MY RELIGION IS THE BEST" made me depressed. Let's instead talk about what the founders of the world's religions originally taught. They would likely have agreed on many things. I bet they would be friends if they were alive today! And I think they would hate the hate that some of their "followers" have in their hearts.

I don't want to preach here so let's hear what ideas you have.

[philanthropist]

You're right, gregsensei!
I think the world would be a better place in general if we focused more on our similarities than on our dissimilarities.
I mean, we are all human, aren't we? So where's the big difference? Some of us have a lighter or a darker skin, some are tall, some are small, some are thin, some are plump (being slightly ironic here) - but why should this matter?
If we accepted the difference of others instead of imposing our beliefs (esp. religious beliefs) on other people, I think, many conflicts could be avoided...

I wish you all a merry Christmas or whatever you are celebrating

[a_muslim_guy]

yes, Abraham . buddha . christ and these people all tought same things . but years passed and people changed religions .
yes . if they were alive they will be on one word .

They all agreed on God existance .
and i agree on this and also Modern Darwin theory (Not the old one ) agreed on that .

in Darwin�s theory , it proved that all living organisms were evoluted from a unicell organism . and throught millions and millions of years , unicell organisms are evoluted to a more developed organisms according to its environment . but Darwin said that the first unicell orgaanism was created by God . After Darwin died , other scientists said that the first unicell organism was created by chance , and from here people belived him and said that there is no God ! .

Errors in Darwin�s theory and the theory of no God :
the fossils that Darwin found were only related to animals that were the same as current animals . but he didnt find any fossil for the unicell animals or for the first animals . all fossils were related to old animals that were the same as cuurent animals.
it seems from fossils that all kinds of animals all appeared at the same time without evolution , also no one found a link between human and monkeys .
as religions said . animals all appeared at the same time . and later it is disapproved that evolution occeured .
how can these animals appear like that ? there must be a God.
some scientists who belive in Darwin�s theory have made up bones that are not true bones so it seems for people that it was evoluted , but these are all lies.
they found fossils for horses in africa , and the same fossil in europe and asia , and australia , and America . and they all the same and related to the same time , so how did evolution occeur at the same time in diffrent places and gives the same creature , by chance ?!!!
many Modern biology scientists today acknowledge that Darwin�s theory is false , so they acknowledge God existance.
so the Modern Belief is beliving in God .
_________________
C++ Programmer

[gregsensei]

A Muslim Guy said: "it seems from fossils that all kinds of animals all appeared at the same time without evolution , also no one found a link between human and monkeys . as religions said . animals all appeared at the same time . and later it is disapproved that evolution occeured .
how can these animals appear like that ? there must be a God."

You can't say that something is impossible simply because you find it amazing or difficult to understand. Yes, there was an amazing burst of speciation at a certain point in the development of the biosphere. That burst was only "sudden", however, within the vast timeframe of this development: the species explosion actually occurred over millions of years.

By the way, why wouldn't God consider that evolution might be the best way for "His" planet to develop? Why do you think that God could not have come up with this incredibly complex, time-consuming process? You think it's too difficult for a god? I don't. I think that the concept of an infinitely powerful and knowing creator and the concept of evolution are quite compatible!

As far as your comment about "faked" bone discoveries, such incidents are so uncommon as to be virtually insignificant--the fact that there are one or two quacks out there does not have an impact on the HUGE body of research that supports cellular evolution. (Recently it was discovered that a South Korean scientist faked the creation of cloned stem cell colonies. Does this mean that stem cells don't exist? Or that stem cells cannot be used to create new drugs? Of course not.)

Here is what someone has pointed out about creationist critics of science: "[Creationists'] only interest in science is to find areas where scientists see problems to be investigated and then declare that the problems can't be solved except by appealing to a magical being...to make the data fit with somebody's understanding of the Bible."
Harsh? Sorry. I think it's pretty accurate, though.
Check out this page: http://skepdic.com/cambrian.html
and here is some interesting new research:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/08/0810_precociousplants.html

Keep reading!

[a_muslim_guy]

[NanaimoGirl]

Humans didn't evolve from monkeys. Humans and monkeys had a similar ancestor and the ancestor some how 'split'

The devil might of placed bones in the earth to trick you all!

[gregsensei]

What if random genetic mutation over eons was the best way to develop species for a planet?
Would not a god wish to use this method?

This genetic variation is dependent upon chance, but the driving force of evolution is the suitability and survivability of an organism within a given environment. We know that the planet has gone through many different phases where climate, geology, and atmospheric conditions changed greatly. If organisms had no genetic capability to adapt over time, we would not be here today having this discussion on the internet.

Are you saying that God came along every time there was change on the planet and took away the old species and threw in new ones? He or she would have had to do that an endless number of times, sir!

This process, in the final analysis, is not random at all, but dependent on known biologic factors (the KNOWN and predictable process of genetic mutation) and clearly understood environmental pressures.

Here is something from a webpage on this topic (the page is very long so I have saved you some trouble by copying this one part):
Fear of the ordinary sense of chance and random arises largely from a desire to find meaning in the events of the world around us. Science is not the appropriate place to find this meaning. Neither can meaning be imposed upon scientific explanations. Attempts to impose preconditions on science can have, as they did in the case of Lysenkoism, dire consequences, and at the very least they impede science in its search for adequate understanding of the world around us.

It is grindingly, creakingly, obvious that, if Darwinism were really a theory of chance, it couldn't work. [Dawkins 1996: 67]
Darwinism is widely misunderstood as a theory of pure chance. Mustn't it have done something to provoke this canard? Well, yes, there is something behind the misunderstood rumour, a feeble basis to the distortion. one stage in the Darwinian process is indeed a chance process -- mutation. Mutation is the process by which fresh genetic variation is offered up for selection and it is usually described as random. But Darwinians make the fuss they do about the 'randomness' of mutation only in order to contrast it to the non-randomness of selection. It is not necessary that mutation should be random for natural selection to work. Selection can still do its work whether mutation is directed or not. Emphasizing that mutation can be random is our way of calling attention to the crucial fact that, by contrast, selection is sublimely and quintessentially non-random. It is ironic that this emphasis on the contrast between mutation and the non-randomness of selection has led people to think that the whole theory is a theory of chance.

Even mutations are, as a matter of fact, non-random in various senses, although these senses aren't relevant to our discussion because they don't contribute constructively to the improbable perfection of organisms. For example, mutations have well-understood physical causes, and to this extent they are non-random. ... the great majority of mutations, however caused, are random with respect to quality, and that means they are usually bad because there are more ways of getting worse than of getting better. [Dawkins 1996:70-71]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/chance/chance.html

Basically, this is saying that chance is NOT the main thing when it comes to species selection. Okay? So stop using that as a reason to dismiss evolution.

Also try this excellent site from UC Berkeley:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01

I think there IS beauty and symmetry to the development of species. And if chance has played a small, but important, part in our development, that should make us MORE in awe of the preciousness and uniqueness of this planet and ourselves, not LESS.

[asterix]

There is a sort of bedbug that ensures the perpetuation of its genes by a form of homosexual rape.
What kind of God thought that up?

[scipio]