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Vic wrote:Please forgive me for being a dense old fart, they have created genetic base pairs and then replicated(?) them for the desired function?

There are only four possible bases used in DNA, at least on earth, they are T G A C. What they did was to take a whole bucket of Ts Gs As and Cs and construct a whole genome from them. They then took a working bacteria and completely removed it's DNA, replacing it with the genome they had built from scratch. The cell then started working as the way the new DNA told it to work. The cell was able to self replicate, producing new functional copies of it's self, just as a normal cell would.

That is just awesome.

IanKennedy wrote:

Vic wrote:Please forgive me for being a dense old fart, they have created genetic base pairs and then replicated(?) them for the desired function?

There are only four possible bases used in DNA, at least on earth, they are T G A C. What they did was to take a whole bucket of Ts Gs As and Cs and construct a whole genome from them. They then took a working bacteria and completely removed it's DNA, replacing it with the genome they had built from scratch. The cell then started working as the way the new DNA told it to work. The cell was able to self replicate, producing new functional copies of it's self, just as a normal cell would.

Technically, one could point out that this was only re-creating existing life, not creating an entirely new life form from scratch.

To be clear, I'm not saying it wasn't impressive in it's own right and a real step towards the kind of thing I brought up -- but to me the actual event doesn't quite agree with the phrase used to describe it.

It certainly pegs out my wow gauge. A slight tangent, didn't a lab (a couple of decades ago) mix some chemicals, zap it with electricity and claim to have created....proteins, or something? Sorry to be so vague about it, bio type stuff is not really an area of interest for me. It was part of an article on how life started on earth.

Captain Picard's Hair wrote:To be clear, I'm not saying it wasn't impressive in it's own right and a real step towards the kind of thing I brought up -- but to me the actual event doesn't quite agree with the phrase used to describe it.

I have to second this statement.

I would disagree, recreating existing life is trivial. Take an adult male and female, feed them and place them in a suitable environment. It works a treat on just about every farm or breading establishment on the planet (with the obvious exception of Pandas who are just plain lazy). What happened here was different from that. The resultant organism was completely new. It had never existed before in that form, the DNA produced was different from any existing organism ever seen on the face of the planet. If that's not new I don't know what is. I take it you've read the part where it says they sequenced an existing bacteria and reproduced that. Well yes, to an extent they did. But they didn't stop there, they spliced in a gene that makes the cell appear blue in colour. This is not something that normally happens in the original bacteria. The new thing here was not only did they produce a cell that generated the blue pigment but the cell, when reproduced in the normal manor, maintained this modification.

I wish I could find the documentary for this, it would make life so much easier.

IanKennedy wrote:with the obvious exception of Pandas who are just plain lazy

I have to defend the giant pandas for a moment. It's not really an issue of laziness. Remember the old Dead Kennedys song "Too Drunk to F**k?" Well, through a bizarre evolutionary dead-end, giant pandas are for the most part too energy-deficient to f**k. It's a sad state that the panda has evolved to eat only a food that is so energy-poor that they have to give up most procreative activity in favor of eating, but there it is.

IanKennedy wrote:I would disagree, recreating existing life is trivial. Take an adult male and female, feed them and place them in a suitable environment. It works a treat on just about every farm or breading establishment on the planet (with the obvious exception of Pandas who are just plain lazy). What happened here was different from that. The resultant organism was completely new. It had never existed before in that form, the DNA produced was different from any existing organism ever seen on the face of the planet. If that's not new I don't know what is. I take it you've read the part where it says they sequenced an existing bacteria and reproduced that. Well yes, to an extent they did. But they didn't stop there, they spliced in a gene that makes the cell appear blue in colour. This is not something that normally happens in the original bacteria. The new thing here was not only did they produce a cell that generated the blue pigment but the cell, when reproduced in the normal manor, maintained this modification.

I wish I could find the documentary for this, it would make life so much easier.

Ah, well I hadn't heard about the "blue gene" part. That does indeed make the whole thing a lot more interesting then.

Mikey wrote:

IanKennedy wrote:with the obvious exception of Pandas who are just plain lazy

I have to defend the giant pandas for a moment. It's not really an issue of laziness. Remember the old Dead Kennedys song "Too Drunk to F**k?" Well, through a bizarre evolutionary dead-end, giant pandas are for the most part too energy-deficient to f**k. It's a sad state that the panda has evolved to eat only a food that is so energy-poor that they have to give up most procreative activity in favor of eating, but there it is.

Mikey wrote:That's a very matter-of-fact analogy which I'd expect from someone who already has a foregone conclusion in the negative about G-d's existence. That's the only problem with these conversations - either side already "knows" the answer.

No, it's not a "foregone" conclusion. It's a conclusion arrived at after approximately two and a half decades (so far) of thinking and reading about it.

I disagree in two ways. First, your Liverpool example is flawed because you are comparing a supernatural embodiment - one which is inextricably involved with unproven faith - with a soccer team. While there may be years in which Liverpool FC requires divine intervention, it is part of the natural, measurable physical universe.

Second, your assertion that G-d's interaction with the world should be measurable wrongly assumes what is perhaps the most prideful idea about G-d that I've ever heard: namely, that we can see and understand the method of G-d's interaction. Like the old priest who drowns in the flood, asks G-d why He didn't rescue his faithful servant, and is told by G-d, "What do you mean? I sent two boats and a helicopter." Here's an example:

But that case makes my very point. If god interacts with this world by sending boats and helicopters, then that is a measurable thing.

You, as an empirical atheist, subscribe to the idea of natural selection as a mechanism of evolution.

Being an atheist and subscribing to evolution are two utterly different things. The majority of people who "subscribe to evolution" are in fact theists, not atheists.

I don't see any reason at all why natural selection couldn't be one of the tools G-d uses d/uses in the pursuit of evolution... which in turn is the method He chose with which to pursue creation.

See, now this is one of those things that sounds reasonable until you actually think about how it would work, and then it falls apart.

Let's use a simple example of natural selection - the fact that it's the slowest Zebra that gets eaten whilst the fastest ones get away. For this to be a tool of god, we would have to suppose that without god, this wouldn't happen. So without god's direct personal intervention... lions would have an equal chance of catching the fastest zebras? Huh? How can that possibly be true? The lions chase the pack, and the slow zebras are the first ones they reach. The only real way god can be responsible for this is if we assume that the natural state of affairs is that the lions would normally run past the slow ones, right up to the fast ones, grabbing a zebra at random along the way. But of course, that's nonsense.

One might suggest that it's god who makes one zebra slower than another - that he's not responsible for selection, but rather variation. But again, think about that. Would you really suggest that it's only god's personal divine intervention that makes members of a species different to one another? If god didn't interfere, you and I and every other human being would be exactly the same in every physical aspect? It's a nonsensical idea.

This is an excellent example of what I mean when I say that science and religion don't need to be in conflict. It never casts in doubt the scientifically accepted ideas about the subject, yet doesn't abrogate any religious tenet (save those of the fundamentalist fruitcakes.)

Unfortunately for religion, if you assume that god does pretty much anything in the natural world, then you're treading on science's toes.

mwhittington wrote:To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

PS: the student was Albert Einstein.

Albert Einstein wrote a book titled God vs. Science in 1921...

First off, do I even have to deal with the brain thing? We have ample evidence that people have brains, including that we've seen them inside people's heads, both directly and via X Rays, etc. Yes those particular people may not have seen that particular brain, but that does not make it a matter of "faith" in any kind of religious sense. Even bringing up such a stupid argument makes whoever wrote that look like an idiot (and I'll bet you a thousand pounds it wasn't Einstein).

Second, the student claims nobody has ever observed the evolutionary process and the professor agrees. This demonstrates only that both of them need to pay a visit to the biology department and do a little learning.

Third, it's rather foolish to say "cold doesn't exist, it's just an absence of heat". If cold is the absence of heat then anywhere there is an absence of heat cold does exist, by definition. (And incidentally, it would be perfectly possible to have constructed physics with a property called "coldness" and define hot bodies as being those that lack coldness.)

And it's a rather poor analogy to good an evil. First off, to call evil the absence of god is at flat variance to the idea that god is omnipresent. If god is omnipresent then there is no such thing as "the absence of god".

Lastly, cold and hot are two points on a scale, much like dim and bright or tall and short. But evil and good are moral classifications invented by humans and applied to actions largely because of why they are carried our and what their consequences are.

Suppose I shoot a man in the head; is that action good or evil? Is god present or is he not? If I shoot a man in the head for my personal pleasure, we may well call it evil. If I shoot a suicide bomber in the head, preventing him from blowing up a busload of nuns, we may well call it good. If I shoot a wounded man in the head to spare him hours of agony before certain death, some would call it good, some would call it evil. What if I torture a terrorist to find the location of a bomb that could kill thousands? What if I torture a man who I only think is a terrorist to find the location of a bomb that could kill thousands? What if I gain sadistic enjoyment from doing it?

To try and summarise morality as "well if god's there it's good and if he's not it's evil" is childish.

Incidentally, Einstein didn't believe in a personal god. He held to the Spinozan view that the unthinking laws of nature, the unconscious universe itself, was god.

GrahamKennedy wrote:No, it's not a "foregone" conclusion. It's a conclusion arrived at after approximately two and a half decades (so far) of thinking and reading about it.

Yes, that's what the "conclusion" part meant. The "foregone" part refers to the time frame of this conversation. I'm nearly as old as you, and may have starting thinking about theology even younger - the statement that (as of this discussion) we both have our foregone conclusions applies equally to both of us.

GrahamKennedy wrote:But that case makes my very point. If god interacts with this world by sending boats and helicopters, then that is a measurable thing.

Yes, and this would apply if you reconstruct my words to say that such interaction is the only means available to G-d. I didn't, and I submitted the joke as a simple anecdote explaining the folly of a human presuming to understand the entire method in which G-d works. Claiming that there is a metric for divine intervention by the logic you propose here is tantamount to saying that the sum total of the power usage in the United States can be read on my electric bill.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Being an atheist and subscribing to evolution are two utterly different things. The majority of people who "subscribe to evolution" are in fact theists, not atheists.

Yes, and... ? I agree, but I'm not sure that I understand what this has to do with anything. I didn't say anything nearly resembling "All evolutionists are atheists." What I said breaks down more like "Atheists tend to be evolutionists," which I firmly believe.

GrahamKennedy wrote:For this to be a tool of god, we would have to suppose that without god, this wouldn't happen.

I'm not going to quote the whole set-up for your example, because this is where it falls down. Why can't the naturally-occurring process be part of G-d's design? Yes, the slowest zebras get eaten and by extension, the fastest ones generally don't; I'm familiar with the basic ideas of natural selection, thank you. But you're arguing against a fundamentalist idea of active, day-to-day divine intervention to which I don't subscribe, and which I never once promulgated. Suffice it say that the act of one using a process as a tool patently does NOT disallow the existence of that process separately.

I'll try to put it more simply. I build a water clock as a project. To do so, I avail myself of the fact that gravity makes water fall from a higher position to a lower position. I don't think you could argue that outside of my water clock, gravity doesn't do the same thing.

GrahamKennedy wrote:One might suggest that it's god who makes one zebra slower than another - that he's not responsible for selection, but rather variation. But again, think about that. Would you really suggest that it's only god's personal divine intervention that makes members of a species different to one another? If god didn't interfere, you and I and every other human being would be exactly the same in every physical aspect? It's a nonsensical idea.

Again, you're arguing against a position which is at best tangential to the one I advanced. I never mentioned anything stating my belief in G-d being some super-sized version of our lares et penates, or in any other way being some entity which only affects the word through direct, day-to-day, conscious intervention. To what you say above, I'd suggest that mutation rather than divine intervention causes genetic variation - as would you, I'd suspect. I would further say that it was G-d who "invented" or designed the process of mutation, the ability of terrestrial DNA to mutate, or even Who just took advantage of the tendency toward mutation. My own mental jury is still out on that score.

GrahamKennedy wrote:Unfortunately for religion, if you assume that god does pretty much anything in the natural world, then you're treading on science's toes.

No, for all the reasons I've explained above. Are you saying that every legitimate scientist in the world is an atheist? If you will put aside the idea that all people of faith are fundamentalists who believe G-d is a bearded guy who lives behind big gates in a castle on a cloud, then I think my viewpoint will be considerably easier for you to understand. The Spinozan idea is much more akin to my beliefs than the evangelical idea, which is funny because I mentioned Spinoza in a correspondence with Pete Brayshay yesterday. I think it is easy to mistake convenience of a linguistic convention with the core of a belief system. I say "He" because it is grammatically incorrect to say "He or She," and there is a context of disdain in using the word "It." Consider it like this: I consider G-d as a gestalt of those qualities of the functioning of the natural world which you mention as the core of Spinoza's philosophy. While I do pray, and I ask for forgiveness for my sins, and I read the Pentateuch, etc., etc.; I have no doubt that all such things are both: a) meant for the good of Man, not of G-d, and b) transmitted and developed in ways different than "Some bearded man named G-d came and wrote them."

Mikey wrote:Yes, that's what the "conclusion" part meant. The "foregone" part refers to the time frame of this conversation. I'm nearly as old as you, and may have starting thinking about theology even younger - the statement that (as of this discussion) we both have our foregone conclusions applies equally to both of us.

Well, I'm more than willing to change my conclusions in the face of evidence or good argument.

Mikey wrote:Yes, and this would apply if you reconstruct my words to say that such interaction is the only means available to G-d. I didn't, and I submitted the joke as a simple anecdote explaining the folly of a human presuming to understand the entire method in which G-d works.

Can you name a way god could conceivably manifest himself in the world that is NOT measurable by science?

GrahamKennedy wrote:Being an atheist and subscribing to evolution are two utterly different things. The majority of people who "subscribe to evolution" are in fact theists, not atheists.

Yes, and... ? I agree, but I'm not sure that I understand what this has to do with anything. I didn't say anything nearly resembling "All evolutionists are atheists." What I said breaks down more like "Atheists tend to be evolutionists," which I firmly believe.

Just making the point since you seemed to equate the two.

Mikey wrote:I'm not going to quote the whole set-up for your example, because this is where it falls down. Why can't the naturally-occurring process be part of G-d's design? Yes, the slowest zebras get eaten and by extension, the fastest ones generally don't; I'm familiar with the basic ideas of natural selection, thank you. But you're arguing against a fundamentalist idea of active, day-to-day divine intervention to which I don't subscribe, and which I never once promulgated. Suffice it say that the act of one using a process as a tool patently does NOT disallow the existence of that process separately.

Yes it does. If that tool is something that happens ALL THE TIME as a matter of absolute day to day normality, then there's no reasonable way to claim that god can cause it.

I'll try to put it more simply. I build a water clock as a project. To do so, I avail myself of the fact that gravity makes water fall from a higher position to a lower position. I don't think you could argue that outside of my water clock, gravity doesn't do the same thing.

And if we saw god using evolution to make things that nature doesn't, that would be valid. Since we don't, it isn't.

GrahamKennedy wrote:One might suggest that it's god who makes one zebra slower than another - that he's not responsible for selection, but rather variation. But again, think about that. Would you really suggest that it's only god's personal divine intervention that makes members of a species different to one another? If god didn't interfere, you and I and every other human being would be exactly the same in every physical aspect? It's a nonsensical idea.

Again, you're arguing against a position which is at best tangential to the one I advanced. I never mentioned anything stating my belief in G-d being some super-sized version of our lares et penates, or in any other way being some entity which only affects the word through direct, day-to-day, conscious intervention. To what you say above, I'd suggest that mutation rather than divine intervention causes genetic variation - as would you, I'd suspect.

I would ask, then, that you be clearer on what it is that you DO mean.

I would further say that it was G-d who "invented" or designed the process of mutation, the ability of terrestrial DNA to mutate, or even Who just took advantage of the tendency toward mutation. My own mental jury is still out on that score.

Okay, now if I'm understanding you then you seem to be leaning towards the Deist position, where god designed all the laws of the universe at the start, and then sat back and did nothing from then on? Is that correct? So god's "intervention" is not in the form of actually acting in the universe, but merely of having set up the rules of the game?

If so then that's certainly a possibility I could accept... but a god like that is indistinguishable in every way from there being no god at all. It's rather like solipsism - it might be true, but I don't really see the point of the belief.

Are you saying that every legitimate scientist in the world is an atheist?

Well I'm not sure what you mean by the question. I think every "legitimate scientist" in the world SHOULD be an atheist, but then I think every single person in the world should be an atheist.

If you will put aside the idea that all people of faith are fundamentalists who believe G-d is a bearded guy who lives behind big gates in a castle on a cloud, then I think my viewpoint will be considerably easier for you to understand.

Well, like I said before, it would be a great deal easier if you'd actually say what your beliefs are, rather than just complaining that I've guessed wrong.

The Spinozan idea is much more akin to my beliefs than the evangelical idea, which is funny because I mentioned Spinoza in a correspondence with Pete Brayshay yesterday. I think it is easy to mistake convenience of a linguistic convention with the core of a belief system. I say "He" because it is grammatically incorrect to say "He or She," and there is a context of disdain in using the word "It." Consider it like this: I consider G-d as a gestalt of those qualities of the functioning of the natural world which you mention as the core of Spinoza's philosophy.

Funnily enough I was trying to explain the Spinozan idea to a friend just recently and she couldn't understand why they don't call themselves atheists since they "don't actually believe in god, so they just take something they know exists and call that god instead". I have to say I don't entirely disagree; if you want to call nature god then fine, it's a free world and all that. But we already have a word for nature, we call it nature. Why use the word god for it, when that word is almost universally taken to mean something that isn't nature? It's no different from my saying that I know god does exist, because to me the sun is god and you can see that the sun definitely exists.

While I do pray, and I ask for forgiveness for my sins, and I read the Pentateuch, etc., etc.; I have no doubt that all such things are both: a) meant for the good of Man, not of G-d, and b) transmitted and developed in ways different than "Some bearded man named G-d came and wrote them."

If you pray and ask forgiveness of your sins from god, then you aren't a Spinozan. Praying to the Spinozan god is no different than asking a hurricane not to strike.

Yes, well, I think that overall we're getting to the point at which a good-natured and well-spoken philosophical dialogue (which I've enjoyed, make no mistake) can easily slide into something messier. I certainly have no desire for that and further, I have no desire that everyone (or anyone) should think like I do. You asked if I could envision a manifestation of G-d which isn't measurable by science; of course I can, that's the root of faith. Anything that is measurable by science is merely nature (which of course can be read as a sephira, divine principle, aspect, deva, bodhissatva, or whatever else you wish.) More importantly, that's the sort of question that atheists ask to beggar believers based on its semantics - there is no way to answer that to someone who has decided not to believe - and is really moot for ascertaining any information and is just used to get someone to say, "no."

I do need to ask, however: you said that you think all people should be atheists. Does that mean that you want all people to be atheists, or merely that you see your viewpoint as right and don't understand why everyone else doesn't see it as well?