Heh, interesting site. It reminds me of a real example of evolution in action: http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/land-crayfish---who-s-digging-in-my-lawn/ From the ocean to fresh water, and now to land... From the link: Land Crayfish - Who's digging in my lawn? Residents of south-eastern Australia, especially of the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne, may find round holes appearing on their lawns. Sometimes if left alone high chimneys of soil grow up from the holes. These structures are the work of land crayfish. Who digs the burrows? Land crayfish (sometimes called “land crabs” although they are not crabs) are relatives of yabbies, Murray crayfish and, more distantly, marine scampi. This group of Crustacea, the Astacidea, is recognised by the possession of a pair of equal large claws and two other pairs of smaller nippers. That is, three of the five pairs of legs are chelate.
From your answer, I think you understand it well. All an environment does is that it makes a finite selection to materialize out of an infinite number of possibilities. For that selection to exist, the infinite number of possibilities must exist too. What our measurements can see is only the selected finite number of objects, because our measurements are carried out within that environment. So, the answer is yes, mathematically, all people who have never been conceived exist, as the source of the selection. (And all the people who died exist too, outside the environment.) In addition to this, the probability theory of quantum mechanics states, that there is nothing to stop every event from unfolding all possibilities of its outcome, each with an independent chance to appear in independent environments. See how very close science is to what our lord Jesus Christ has been saying all along? And as per your description included, evolution is an integral part of all of it.
Nope, I don't get it, and neither is does the assertion about Jesus make sense to me here. I don't think Jesus was ever claimed to have spoken about quantum mechanics.
OK maybe I don't understand the question that you are now asking. But Jesus Christ did talk (partially) about the selection processes that take place outside our environment (i.e. outside our lives).
OK maybe I don't understand the question that you are now asking. But Jesus Christ did talk (partially) about the selection processes that take place outside our environment (i.e. outside our lives).
The 'life' is surviving. Nature ain't selecting. The specimen is the life. Ie.. You are of your previous to the beginning of time. And...... If you do better than your previous for life to live, you enable them all a better life. So them babies are our lives into tomorrow! Let's make sure they evolve into better than we are! Each live in what we do and lives we contribute too, to live longer. Then read matt 16:20. He knew to await. We all know the old knowledge to comprehend, if we read it. Ask yourself if you have actually done the homework. Judge yourself.
Ps......cool posts in this thread. The nut expects an afterlife but don't comprehend what the life is he's fighting for. Light of mass is the life of it. And it ain't going to some utter place. You're in it!
Well, there is quite a bunch of places, for example Matthew 8:12 "But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside", or John 1:1-3 "1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ". The ex-environment deselection from outside the environment, and the environmental selection processes are illustrated here. Also, the gospel of Mary Magdalene is interesting here (although it is not canonical) as Jesus parted the 7(?) wisdoms of "death" on her (John 20:17 "Do not hold on to me").
I don't understand this phrase - The ex-environment deselection from outside the environment, and the environmental selection processes are illustrated here. And because of the limitations of this wonderful ability to transmit thoughts via a keyboard and computer across continents I have to add that I am not being disingenuous or difficult, I would like to try to understand the point.
I understand that you are not difficult, actually it is me that I have never been good at accurately expressing my findings. What I meant was that Jesus equates the idea of the environment with life. That way, God, who is omnipotent both inside and outside the environment, becomes a/the Word when measured from within the environment (life). A person's birth means a similar transformation of the person's existence. At the point of death this "measurement" of the person within the environment (life) terminates, so God will not appear as a/the Word any more, but will appear as it is (God), like it had been before entering the life. Things being "thrown" to various places in the quoted Matthew verse means that some kind of a sorting/selection is taking place at the edges of the environment (life). This is logical, since in the physical sense, when we define an environment such as life (or anything else), we force objects through a selection process when entering the environment. For example, God became the Word as a result of the environmental selection for measuring God from within life, and when we travel backwards out of life, we get the exact reverse process i.e. a deselection, described by the Matthew 8:12 quote. In my humble opinion, Jesus's words to Mary Magdalene in John 20:17 are a summary of this (and a lot more). Jesus wants Mary Magdalene to measure him not from within the environment (life) but from outside it ... which of course must happen later.
Thank you for taking the trouble to explain. I admit I had to read it twice....but I understand your point now.
Good point, and the same can be argued for individual genes, that natural selection and evolution act primarily on them, what's been called the selfish gene theory. The term, 'allelic frequencies' can be used to descibe a given population, or describe a distribution of a particular gene throughout a population or many populations and species. The best example of that are transposons.
Genes such as transposons and many other types demonstrate how individual genes can be in a competition or a struggle with other genes in a single individual to increase their own copies possibly at the expense to this individual's other genes and either to an advantage or a disadvantage of this individual. It is not surprising therefore that only a small fraction of human DNA codes for proteins. The rest of the DNA called junk DNA just sits there doing nothing, but it's a testimony to successful genes, although they are liability to the individual. Hence evolution manifests itself on an extra- and sub-individual level. Once a gene establishes several or many copies of itself in a genome which provide no added benefit but add to a replicative and maintenance (extra histones, repair) burden, in time these genes may mutate to provide an advantage such as three different genes coding for three different types of cones in retina, but which all originated from a single gene.
Well, that's not entirely true. At least some "junk" DNA serves some purpose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncoding_DNA#Functions_of_noncoding_DNA
Sure, junk DNA increases the potential for variation. And if there mutagenic factors in the environment the junk DNA may take the hit instead of the coding DNA.
You must admit though the setup seems fairly wasteful and inefficient and serves the interests of the gene before the individual. It's a symbiotic relationship of sorts between the gene and the individual but leaning towards the gene.
Thy process of evolution is not just limited to the study of animal life ,it is the nature of the universe itself ,so if you care to stick your head out the window and witness 15 odd billion years of evolution ,\change and development ,then you may learn something other then 6000 year old ideas scribbled down by some forgotten humans ,as far as the Link that proves it concerning animal life its called DNA\RNA amino acids .see all life evolved form INORGANIC Matter ,in fact it is inorganic matter delveloping around carbon atoms,making it organic. life on this planet at least IS all based on Carbon,in other places Silicon is a possibility! It comes from Stars exploding in their Evolution . You are an evolving mass of star stuff mixed with History and nothing else, essentially as are we all,and that is the most beautiful connection of all evolution.The OBJECTIVE UNIVERSAL ONE! BTW,when you finally die you are not lost to the Universe you become another form of it as you decay just like the stars that gave birth to you into your constitant elemental and chemical parts.AND IT STINKS as the chemical process continues ,but your mass is still existing ALWAYS for eternity you will exert gravity! So the chronological order is ,that which was befiore the big bang ,to the big bang and the rest as we say is HISTORY of an Evolving Universe to today.It will be different tommorow ,and BTW not a single cell of your body that was you at birth is alive anymore ,NOT ONE. They evfolved into you as you are now ,into other cells that are livingt and dying at the same moment in time . As far as your evolution as human ,well the universe records that development aND ALL THE STAGES IN THE womb ,YES YOU HAD GILLS LIKE AN AMPHIBIAN AND EVEN A MONKEYS TAIL AT DIFFERENT STAGES OF YOU AS EMBRYO AND FETUS. unfortunately some of us don't get full brain development,and think god exists or something !
There certainly are some differences in the brains of believers and non-believers, and that's part of the variation of our kind - the kinds of variation that natural selection normally works on. I doubt that natural selection is favoring one kind of brain or the other very much now, though, so mankind will likely be stuck with atheists and faith-heads alike for ages to come Then there's this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2003/godonbrain.shtml Rudi Affolter and Gwen Tighe have both experienced strong religious visions. He is an atheist; she a Christian. He thought he had died; she thought she had given birth to Jesus. Both have temporal lobe epilepsy. Like other forms of epilepsy, the condition causes fitting but it is also associated with religious hallucinations. Research into why people like Rudi and Gwen saw what they did has opened up a whole field of brain science: neurotheology. ... History is full of charismatic religious figures. Could any of them have been epileptics? The visions seen by Bible characters like Moses or Saint Paul are consistent with Rudi's and Gwen's, but there is no way to diagnose TLE in people who lived so long ago. It's remarkable to think back to Paul's claim of having been struck down while on the road to Damascus, having had a religious experience and even having been struck temporarily blind. Might that indeed have been epilepsy? I think there's been similar speculation about Mohammad, as he would also have such experiences. I know Dostoevsky, the great and famous 19th century Russian author, also documented his experiences with the disease, and he would have very powerful feelings of peace and so on. Very interesting stuff to consider here.
No. I don't believe believers have superior brains: superior Minds Yes.. But brains? No. PS.. Distantly related on-topic: Read: The Two-Mile Time Machine; or, at least a decent review..
