A mystery to solve, or the mystery that solves.

[johnson1010]

We start with a mystery.

When i toss a stone into the air, it comes back down. That is a mystery.

How do we explain it? The religious explaination would be something along the lines of "It is God's will that the rock comes back down."

Ok. But what does that really tell us? Another way of saying that is, "I don't know. I think somebody else is doing it, because it wasn't me. Lets call him God."

Does that help us in any way?

The scientific approach is to say, "I don't know, but let's study this and see what we can learn."
And it was studied. Thanks to looking at it objectively, as a mystery to solve, rather than a mystery that solves, we know quite a lot about gravity.

we know that the same mathmatics that describe the arc of a thrown base-ball also describe the orbits of the planets. We can create sky-scrapers, huge bridges, and dams that withstand its force. We sent men to the moon, and we sling-shotted a probe out past Saturn. Thanks to our understanding of gravity, earned by use of the scientific method, we have put satelites in orbit and they stay there. Now you can watch television (admittedly a double-edged sword) and grab a phone out of your pocket to speak with someone on a different continent.

What has the religious understanding of gravity given us? Take a few minutes and try to think of something. If you come up with "Absolutely nothing" then i think you have a complete understanding of what religion can offer us in the way of understanding the world.

How can someone look at the everest-like stack of research and experimentation, and say, "Well, that's not what i heard. Somebody told me God did it." and think that is a better answer? And in the end, "God" is just a mystery that throws a blanket over our discoveries and hopes no-one will peak beneath it.

[bleachededen]

Very well illustrated, Johnson. Thank you.

[johnson1010]

Denying evolution.

So, evolution is not real?

how do you explain the boston terrier?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_terrier

That is a dog breed which did not exist only a few hundred years ago. We made it. How did we make it? Like Frankenstein? Cutting a bunch of dogs up and stitching them back together so that we got a particular look, then hitting it with lightning?

No. Selective genetic pressure. We start with an idea in our head of a dog that looks a certain way, acts a certain way, and does a certain job. You then select dogs that are somewhat like the kind of dog you are thinking of, and breed them. Take the offspring and compare them to the ideal. Those that more closely match the ideal are kept in the breeding program, those that do not, are pushed out. After a few generations you can get the kind of dog you were looking for all along.

Just as in any case the environmental pressures pushed the features of this animal in a certain direction. With Boston Terriers the pressures were not whether it could catch a fleeing rabit, whether it worked well in groups to bring down large prey, or whether or not it was well suited to dominate in a competitive breeding environment (snake breeding balls, look it up. Well, actually, i recommend not looking that one up.)

The environmental pressure applied to the Boston Terrier's ancestor was human preference. That is the long and the short of evolution. The environment funnels an animal's traits into a specific type and arrangement based on the success of those attributes.

Evolution is looking you in the face everytime you eat a cheese burger, chicken sandwich, or pet your dog. And everywhere else you look, but domesticated animals are a glaring spotlight to the pupil, when you seek evidence of evolution. Those animals evolved right under our thumb, and at our demand. Our preference guided these animals, but the mechanism, evolution, did not change in the least when we took over applying the pressure. Evolution works the same.

Some will say, "Ok, that might work for animals, but my gramma wasn't no monkey!"

Sounds like a cartoonish sterotype, but i have seen it in print.

What makes us think we are any different than dogs? Why are we exempt from evolutionary pressures? Our skeletons are almost identical, we have the same kind of eyes, hair, spines. The muscles are almost identical, though arranged slightly differently. We both reproduce sexually with a sperm and an egg. We even named one of our methods after them. Our digestive tracts work the same way, the material comprising our cells is identical and the same four letters make up our genetic code as that that makes up their genetic code.

We are animals. Simple as that. We are 98.5% the same as chimpanzees. Understandable with our numerous similarities, but we are also 40-50% the same as cabbage and bananas. The chemistry of our bodies is the exact chemistry that makes up their bodies. The difference comes in how that chemistry is used, when, where, and why.

If your child or grandchild can be so different from you while essentially sharing the exact same genes as you (less than .5% difference) is it so hard to imagine what a full 1.5% difference can make?

Does, "That's not what this book says God did." really stand a chance when put next to objective reality?

[MDuszak]

I agree with the first post fully. However, you must understand that this is nothing to do with 'God', whether one believes in 'him' or not, but mostly with the human interpretation, or rather misinterpretation of 'him'. Humans feel there is more to them, their existence, and to life itself than only what they see in front of them, therefore the need for God, the Mind Power beyond them. They don't necessarily SEEK more detailed explanations, they believe because it helps them to live their lives with a higher meaning, they are not scientists.

The scientist try to EXPLAIN PHYSICALLY the world and how it works, the believers (talking about dogmatic religions here) are satisfied with the SPIRITUAL connection with the world. These are two different branches of life. One is to do with feeling, the other with thinking. Both have their place, depending what type of a person one is.

God, as understood by the major Earth religions, has not much meaning to myself either. Personally, I choose the middle path and follow the study of METAPHYSICS and MYSTICISM, which is the study of things beyond the tangible physical dimension, not limited by what presents itself to science at the moment, but not adhering to any conservative notion of a conservatively-perceived God neither.

In fact, as I believe, Science and Mysticism are one and the same and eventually they WILL meet. The goal of both is the same-Study Of Man, Study of God-God not as the father figure sitting in clouds but as the intelligence principle permeating the entire universe. The whole universe is energy. All physical and non-physical phenomena are just different expression of the same God-Mind intelligence, taking on variety of forms and gaining experience through them (science already meets mysticism in the "new" field-quantum physics). Science and Mysticism, using different methods at times, work towards the same objective, understanding of what universe is, how it operates, and how we can grow utilizing this knowledge. There is no much contradiction between the two for me.

[MDuszak]

I do believe in Evolution as well as in the Intelligence Force (call it God) that moves through the creation...What force you think is MOVING the evolution forward? You cannot deny it is something extremely powerful and intelligent. That something represents God to me, although I prefer not to call it that. It is NOT mysterious something (although yes, it still IS mysterious cause it cannot be fully explained yet) awaiting us to confess our sins to it, it IS, however, the Mind that moved it all into being and is sustaining it as we speak, walk and sleep.

And yes, my belief is we ARE an expression of it, we ARE GOD 'himself' living out 'his' potential through us, through the entire creation and all its processes, those known to mankind, and those still to be discovered. We ARE part animals, as we share the biological factors with the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom too for that matter like the need for light, nutrients etc..but I believe (for the sake of not using the word: KNOW ) that we DO partake in the reality higher than solely the physical biological one. I am talking about the immortal essence within us, the soul u can call it, which carries on its existence throughout the universe(s) and which will never ever perish, and which is not driven by solely animalistis/plantistic (:D) inclinations. We ARE the genes and the brain and the body but also so much more.

[johnson1010]

What force you think is MOVING the evolution forward? You cannot deny it is something extremely powerful and intelligent.

Watch me go.

There is no intelligent agency propelling evolution forward, and no reason to suppose that there is when the processes involved are already well understood to be natural mechanistic processes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA_replication

How genes replicate, and how errors are introduced producing mutation.

A double helix is divided down the middle by an enzyme creating two halves. Each half has a part of a pair of molecuels which form one rung of the double helix running down their length. These half-rungs can only be paired with their opposites. After the two halves of the Helix have been seperated the enzyme grabs additonal nucleotides that float in the nucleus to re-construct the half of the gene which has been seperated. They use cellular proof reading to ensure correct re-construction, though once in a while this process can fail, resulting in a variation in the new gene. A mutation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofreading_(Biology)

This is a natural mechanistic function of biology that does not require intelligent intervention any more than magnets do.

There are other processes involved in evolution besides mutation, the most prevelant being environmentally steered heredity, but none of them require an intelligent agency to function.

If you read up on these topics you will discover that you do not need the god hypothesis to understand them.

[MDuszak]

A double helix is divided down the middle by an enzyme creating two halves. Each half has a part of a pair of molecuels which form one rung of the double helix running down their length. These half-rungs can only be paired with their opposites. After the two halves of the Helix have been seperated the enzyme grabs additonal nucleotides that float in the nucleus to re-construct the half of the gene which has been seperated. They use cellular proof reading to ensure correct re-construction, though once in a while this process can fail, resulting in a variation in the new gene. A mutation.

You call THAT unintelligent then?? You answered my own argument.

[johnson1010]

Indeed.

Your argument has been answered. Do not confuse a complicated set of events for a plan. The gene copying process is entirely mechanistic.

If there is a hill half covered in thick bushes and half covered in smooth rock, when it rains water will travel more freely down the smooth portion of the hill. It is no mystery how the water moves freely on one side and sluggishly on the other. There is a physical reason for the behavior.

Base pairs do not cross-bond. There is only one possible combination during the re-creation of the missing half of the gene. It clicks into place square peg to squeare slot, round peg to round slot. there is a physical reason for ths behavior.

[MDuszak]

Do not confuse a complicated set of events for a plan. The gene copying process is entirely mechanistic

And you don't confuse the universe possessing mechanistic qualities for absence of the force that is making that mechanics possible. I am off for the day. Catch ya later!

[Grim]

Isn't this the very psychosis we trap ourselves into? The anxious defining of the mundane into something that can only be described as universally significant?

To a Buddhist there is no stone.