Re: Making money from Java


"Judson McClendon" <judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:98Lnf.6905$kP5.4674@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "Oliver Wong" <owong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> "Judson McClendon" <judmc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> Just consider for a moment. In the Biblical account of Creation, Adam
>>> and Eve were created as mature humans. The plant and animal life was
>>> also created in a state that was already self sufficient. To my mind,
>>> this seems a logical necessity, and consistent, if Biblical Creation is
>>> true. Okay, if this account is true, then man and his environment were
>>> created in a state *as if* they had been there for a long time. The
>>> one-week-old universe had *the appearance of age*. Further, if this
>>> account is true, then there would be *no basis* on which to form
>>> conclusions about processes that may have produced those conditions,
>>> because they never happened. All such reasoning would be fallacious by
>>> definition, therefore pointless, useless, and *almost certain* to be
>>> misleading. This is not a 'trick' to get around scientific theories
>>> about origins, it is just a simple fact that, if Biblical Creation is
>>> true, then human theories about origins *cannot* be based on physical
>>> evidence. Therefore, arguing *against* Creationism with "evidence" that
>>> couldn't possibly be of any value if Creationism is true, is hardly a
>>> rational thing, when you have no idea how else life could have
>>> originated in the first place. The same cannot be said for physical
>>> evidence that argues *for* Creationism, because God very well may have
>>> left evidence to tell us that creation could not have happened by
>>> accident, or by natural processes. I believe such is the case with the
>>> ubiquitous Polonium halos in granite appear to be a kind of 'Divine
>>> Signature' of instantaneous creation. I believe the same thing about the
>>> so-called "Bible Codes". The only thing you can deduce from them is that
>>> it took God to put them there.
>>
>> In this form of reasoning, you're assuming what you want to conclude,
>> and then arrive at the conclusion you wanted. I.e.:
>>
>> 1. Assume the bible is true.
>> 2. [doesn't matter what goes here.]
>> 3. Therefore, the bible is true.
>>
>> The same logic-game can be played the other way too:
>>
>> 1. Assume the bible is false.
>> 2. [ It doesn't matter if God descends from the skies and reveals himself
>> to us once and for all. ]
>> 3. Given the above assumption, we can conclude the bible is false.
>>
>> What CAN be done here, without any "logic tricks" like the above, is to
>> make no assumption about the Bible, and then try to conclude whether the
>> bible is true or false. I haven't done this myself, but from what I
>> understand, other people HAVE tried to do a logical analysis of the
>> bible, and they've found self-contradicting passages, which means that
>> the bible is logically false.
>
> Now, Oliver, who's being 'tricky' here? You know full well that it is
> perfectly valid and acceptable to assume a hypothesis to be correct, in
> order to test the validity of the results. Sometimes, it is the only way
> to test a hypothesis. There is no 'logic trick' in doing this. My point is
> perfectly valid and defensible: If you assume the Bible is correct, then
> there can be no evidence to demonstrate it to be false, because God could,
> by definition, do anything, so any "evidence" we found could simply be a
> Devine artifact. There's no way we could tell.

It's "valid" in formal logic, which is why I call it a "trick", rather
than saying, for example "No, you're wrong."

When you're writing a formal logical deduction, you usually start off
with a few assumptions. For example, we have a whole system of geometry
called "Euclidean geometry" that, for example, tells us (among other things)
that the sum of all the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. Euclidean
geometry is based on 5 assumptions (which I won't list here, you can look it
up if you don't know and are interested), and the "angle in triangle adds up
to 180" statement is only true IF you accept those 5 assumptions.

You usually want these assumptions to be as "obvious" as possible, so
that you don't have to bother proving them. Now what is "obvious" and what
isn't depends on the audience you're addressing. Euclide had those 5
assumptions for his system which he hoped were sufficiently obvious, and for
a long time they were. But recently people have been looking at his
assumption about parallel lines and wondered if it was nescessarily true.
They removed that assumption and derived a new set of rules to form set of a
system collectively referred to as "Non-Euclidean geometry". Not sure, but I
believe the most popular non-euclidean geometry is Lobachevskian geometry,
and it is now believed that on the macroscopic scale (e.g. the size of the
universe), our space-time conforms more closely with Lobachevskian geometry
than Euclidean geometry. In other words, it turns out that the angles of a
triangle don't really add up to 180 degrees in "real life".

What's the purpose of these proofs? To convince intelligent people of
something. Euclides wanted to convince people that (among other things) that
the sum of the angles in a triangle is 180 degrees. He did not start off by
saying "Assume that the angle in the triangles add up to 180 degrees.
Therefore, there cannot exist any evidence that denies that the angles add
up to 180 degrees. Therefore any evidence must SUPPORT the idea that the
angles add up to 180. QED." That is a perfectly "valid" logical argument,
but unfortunately people disagree with the assumptions, so they cannot rely
on the conclusion on being true.

Instead, Euclides start with assumptions like "Assume any two points can
be joined by a straight line". These assumptions were so "obvious" to the
audience that they accepted them without question. And FROM these
assumptions, Euclide derived the rest of geometry.

So yes, there is no logical flaw in your "proof", but it makes an
assumption that people are not willing to accept. If your goal is to
actually CONVINCE people of your position, you need to use a weaker set of
assumptions. Assume something that people can agree on (e.g. "There exists a
point in time which is earlier than all other points in time"), and then
from there, try to derive the existence of God or the correctness of the
bible. You'll convince a lot more people that way.

> But the reverse is not true. If you assume the Bible to be false, there
> *can* be evidence of Creation, either by the expedient of showing that no
> other explaination makes sense, or by finding some phenomena that has no
> other explaination. This is a perfectly logical and correct definition,
> here. If you intend to refute it, you have to do so by showing a logical
> flaw in the above, not by calling it a 'trick'. :-)

Okay, well first of all, from a logical point of view, the Bible *IS*
false. It contains at least one self contradiction, so it is automatically
false. Consider these two sets of statements:

{ A, B, NOT C, D, NOT E, A AND B, C OR D}

This set of statements is self-consistent, so there is a possibility of
it being true (depends on what assumptions you make at the beginning).

{A, NOT A, B, C, D, E}

This set of statements is self-contradicting. There is no possible way
for the statements to be true, no matter what that statement 'A' says. We
could remove statements to make it self-consistent again, in which case
there is a possibility for it to be true, e.g.

{B, C, D, E}

Here, since I don't know wether it was "A" that was true or "NOT A",
I've removed both, and hopefully we can either derive "A" or derive "NOT A"
from the remaining statements (or perhaps not).

So I hope this is clear. The bible is logically false. There is no
getting around that if you want to actually stick to the commonly understood
"rules" of logic.

But now if you want to discuss a *PARTICULAR* statement in the Bible
(e.g. how was the world created?), it's very well possible that one
particular statement in the Bible is true.

I'm not saying every statement in the Bible is false. I haven't read all
of it, but I'm confident there must be at least ONE true statement in there.

>
>> Note that if you have a book with a million true statements and a
>> single false statement, the from the view of formal logic, the book as a
>> whole is said to be false. This might be of some solace to people who are
>> willing to pick-and-choose passages from the bible, or people who decide
>> that the Bible should be taken metaphorically, but it does mean that
>> people who believe that the Bible is literally the word of God and thus
>> infailable are going to be at odds with people who believe in logic.
>
> I follow your logic, but it is based on a false definition: your
> definition of 'infallible' does not necessarily match God's definition. It
> is pretty clear to me, from much study of the Bible, that God's definition
> of "perfect", as in His Word is 'perfect', is far closer to (as He might
> say) "says what I want it to say, and accomplishes what I want it to
> accomplish" than your definition of "doesn't even have any spelling
> errors." A long time ago I became aware of the fact that human ideas of
> perfection (e.g. mine) are far more 'technical' and 'narrow' than God's.
> He sees things from a vastly wider perspective than we do. There is a
> passage in the Bible that says:
>
> "For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return
> there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may
> give seed to the sower And bread to the eater, So shall My word be that
> goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall
> accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I
> sent it." (Isaiah 55:10-11)
>
> See, it's not the technical details like spelling, different phrasing,
> etc. that we would look at to decide if something is "perfect", but that
> it accomplishes what God intends it to accomplish. From that perspective,
> how do we know that God isn't perfectly happy with varying translations,
> or that He isn't making sure that they all wind up saying what He wants
> said, to accomplish what He wants accomplished? Certain phrasing may speak
> to certain individuals, other phrasing to other individuals, all to
> accomplish His will.

Alright, so forget I mentioned "infallible"; the spirit of the statement
still holds: BECAUSE the Bible is self contradicting, people who believe
that every statement in the Bible is true and people who believe that logic
is true will be at odds.

>
>> When you have lots of competing theories, scientists tend to prefer
>> the one that is the "simplest". The term "simplest" here is a difficult
>> one to describe precisely, but one property of a "simple" theory is that
>> it doesn't break all of our existing theories; OR, if it does, it ALSO
>> offers replacements for them that are themselves recursively simpler.
>> This principle is known as Occam's razor:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occams_razor
>
> Oh, were it only so that science truly worked that way! In reality,
> scientists are as opinionated, hard headed and cantankerous about their
> pet theories as anybody else. There is a medical doctor in England who has
> been saying since the 70's that ulcers were caused by bacteria, and thet
> he was having great success treating them with antibiotics. Was he
> listened to? Did those open minded academics check it out? Ha! The poor
> family doctor didn't have "The Right Credentials", and he was widely
> censured and castigated as a fruitcake in medical circles until the 90's,
> when Lo and Behold, the man had been absolutely right from the beginning.

I don't see here any indication of my claim that "scientists prefer
simple explanations" was violated. It seems like you're using the "Strawman"
tactic: I made a claim about scientists, you point out that scientists have
been wrong in the past, therefor my claim about scientists must be wrong.

> Do you have any idea how many ulcer sufferers paid the price, including
> death, for that kind of blind arrogance? My dad suffered from ulcers
> almost his whole life, but in the 90's he took *four* doses of antibiotics
> and never had another ulcer. During the 90's it was announced that doctors
> had finally discovered by using thermocouples that menopausal women having
> hotflashes did, in fact, have a skin temprature increase. All I can say
> is, I've been married to a woman who had hotflashes, and anyone in the
> same situation who *did not* know there is an abrupt skin temprature
> increase either suffers from whole body numbness or is a nitwit. Since
> this condition has been around as long as women, I have been searching in
> vain how to describe a medical profession that can be so obtuse as not to
> know this until the 1990's. I was born after WWII, in which there were
> literally millions of burn victims.

This tactic is called "Appeal to emotion", and is a logical fallacy.

> Yet the conventional medical wisdom of whether you should, after a burn,
> immediately place your (whatever was burned) into warm or cold water has
> changed *three* times.

Maybe the science behind what should be done after a burn is
complicated. I'm not a medical doctor, so I don't know. The nice thing about
the scientific process is that it encourages scrutiny, and is willing to
change itself when it finds out it is wrong. This is in contrast to many
religions, which prefer blind faith and are willing to deny logical
consistency in favour of maintaining their initial beliefs.

> Once again, a scientific community that cannot determine, after millions
> of trials, something as simple and testable as that, defies description.

What are the alternatives to science for treating a skin burn? Does the
Bible have something to say about what to do in those cases? Did Jesus, for
example, tell people to always apply cold water when they burn themselves?
Your statement here is reminiscent of the pointy haired boss from Dilbert:
"I don't understand the process, but hey, it's must be easy right? So why
can't my employees solve it on time, on budget, and bug free? Therefore, my
employees are idiots."


> And you want me to believe these people when they tell me they *know* life
> got here without God? Uh, huh. :-)

You emphasized the word "know", as if that was the main problem with
"these people". I.e. you're implying that you would be okay if "these
people" merely "had theories about how life got here that were admittedly
under development and subject to change as new information arrives". That's
strawman again, because scientists DO have theories about how life got here,
and those theories ARE under development, and they are subject to change as
new information arrives.

>
>> Of course, some people would argue that throwing away ALL of science,
>> and just answering every "why?" question with "Because that's how God did
>> it" is the simplest theory of all.
>
> In God's first command to Adam and Eve He said:
>
> Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply;
> fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over
> the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the
> earth." (Genesis 1:28)
>
> It is my personal belief that the command to "sudue the earth" includes
> science. I believe God wants us to study and learn about the universe we
> live in. My objection is that for 200 years, the majority of "scientific"
> study has started with an a-priori assumption of "this must be explained
> without God". This is not true science, true science should not assume
> there is no God, just because it pleases men to think that way. There is a
> word for this, it is "bias".

No, this is incorrect. Science does not assume the existence of God.
This is very different from "Science assumes that God does not exist". As I
mentioned earlier, Scientists tend to prefer simple explanations. Having an
all power being that can change anything at any moment makes things VASTLY
more complicated. So if Scientists have two theories to explain something:

A) Matter has mass, which is a measure of the matter's resistance to
forces. The more massive an object is, the stronger the gravitational fields
around it. Gravity is an attractional force. Two massive objects will tend
to pull each other towards each other. That's how the Moon, composed of
matter, can orbit the Earth.

B) God created things from nothing. Tomorrow, He may change his mind and
everything may revert to nothing again. God also made matter resist forces
applied to it. Tomorrow, he may change his mind and cause matter to boost
any forces it receives, causing a feedback effect and accelerating objects
beyond the speed of light. God wants things to get attract to each other,
and it looks like he wants massive things to attract more than lighter
things. However, maybe tomorrow things will repulse each other instead. Or
maybe the lighter things will exert a stronger force of attraction. It's all
up to His whim. Also, he may go back in time and change the past so that God
never did create anything from nothing in the first place, thus nullifying
this whole explanation. Perhaps there will never have existed a moon.

A is considered by many scientists to be a more attractive explanation
for the natural world than B. That doesn't mean that we are 100% certain
without a doubt that A is true and B is false. If tomorrow, we find out that
gravity has suddenly become a repusilve force, or we find out that we seem
to have the memory of the moon still in our head, but searching through our
archive of written work, we find no recording of a moon ever having been
mentioned, then we may revise our theories and look at B more closely.

When you meet a scientist, ask him (or her) what is the probability that
the Sun will rise tomorrow. If he says 100%, then he is either uneducated as
a scientist, or he is simplifying things (perhaps patronizing you). A
scientist should always be willing to reinvestigate his beliefs upon new
evidence.



>
>> But if you subscribe to the religion of Logic, then this answer is not
>> very satisfying, because an omniscient and omnipotent God leads to a
>> logically inconsistent universe. If you restrict yourself to only
>> theories which are simple AND which don't contradict logic, you get stuff
>> like evolution, the big bang, etc.
>
> Actually, only if I restrict myself to theories that leave out God do I
> get those things. :-)

No, your statement is false because of the "only if" clause. I explained
by in the passage you quoted: "An omniscient and omnipotent God leads to a
logically inconsistent universe". So if you restrict yourself to theories
which don't contradict logic, then "God", if such a being exists, must
either not be omniscient, or not omnipotent. And if you restrict yourself to
"simple" theories, then the "a God of limited knowledge and power did it"
theory becomes less and less attractive.

>
>> I'm digressing here. The point is that I don't think "we don't have a
>> test which satisfy Christians" is a good argument for dismissing theories
>> in science. And for what it's worth, there IS a testable hypothesis on
>> the origin of life. It's called the Miller-Urey experiment.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment
>>
[snip]
>
> I am familiar with those experiments, and they conclusively show that dirt
> can get perhaps as much as a hundred billionth of the way from nonliving
> to living. Sorry, but that does not impress me. The leap from basic
> organic (note, that the classification of 'organic' here is manmade. Since
> they occur in nature, including outer space, without life, they could have
> been as accurately described as non-organic) compounds to a living cell
> with multiple interdependent systems that *all* must be in place for the
> cell to live, is vast indeed from the tiny step of forming compounds. You
> would be extremely better justified in comparing the geological formation
> of a spec of metal ore to a flying 747. The complexity of a single living
> cell is comparable to the complexity of the entire world economy, down to
> the economy of each individual person. Makes a 747 look like a tinker toy.
> :-)

The idea that "complexity" must come from "intelligence" is a strangely
popular misconception. It is even more surprising when it comes from someone
in software development. If you're given two programs which look and behave
identically from the user's perspective, but the source code of one is a
complete spagheti mess and the other is cleanly designed, documented, and
seperated into logical modules, which is more likely to be the result of an
intelligent designer versus a fumbling random designer?

Moving away from the origin life on Earth for a moment, scientists are
also seeking evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Since
it is widely believe that faster than light travel is not possible, there is
little hope in actually making physical contact with other intelligent life,
but perhaps we could communicate with them via electro-magnetic signals
(e.g. radio).

One tactic is to point a receiver dish to random points in the sky and
try to listen in for a signal. Do the people seeking intelligent life look
for the most complex, intricate signal for this search? No, because such
signals occur "naturally" from pulsars and black hole radiation, etc. What
do they seek them? Something simple, like a sine-pulse. Why? Because the
probability of such a signal occuring naturally is extremely small. We know
this, and other intelligent life should know this as well from examining the
same universe. So to distinguish itself from all the random noise, it should
send a clear, crisp signal that is so strikingly artificial, that we could
reasonably conclude it must result from intelligence.

>
> One other thing to ponder. If we sent a probe to Mars and located a single
> fragment of paper with one symbol printed on it, everybody in the world
> would declare that as undeniable proof that some intelligence had placed
> it there. I would agree.

Well, paper isn't know to occur naturally, so I hope you don't mind if I
change your analogy to a carving in stone instead.

And yes, if the carving has obviously simplicity (e.g. ONE symbol), such
as an equilateral triangle drawn inside a circle for example, then most
people will believe that it is in fact the result of intelligent life. But
let's say that the carving is incredibly complex. Perhaps it is composed of
millions of potholes all over the place, placed seemingly at random. Then
most people would probably assume that it was NOT the result of intelligent
life, but perhaps a micro-meteor shower.

> Yet, the structure of living things is complex, almost beyond belief, and
> organized down to the tiniest detail.

This is not true; it seems that the photoreceptors in our eyes were
placed in backwards (oops), leading to blindspots in the center of our
vision.

> The function of a living cell is like billions of tiny nano machines, all
> working together busily to sustain life.

Actually, these nanomachines frequently work AGAINST each other, as if
there was no coordinated grand scheme as to what each machine was supposed
to do. The leaves of plants are supposed to perform photosynthesis to absorb
energy from light. Why then, do they produce green pigments, thus reflecting
the green spectrum of light, reducing the amount of energy they receive?

> The way DNA works just boggles my mind at the incredible intricacy and
> precision of design.

There's the issue of why 97% of human DNA is unused. Commonly called
"Junk DNA", it looks like our DNA strands are mostly "left-over" mess from
our evolutionary ancestors.

> No machine made by man even comes close. Yet, you look at that incredible
> example of obvious intelligent design, designed by an intelligence vastly
> beyond man, and say it got here strictly by accident, all without any
> intelligent design.

"By accident" is another misleading term. For some reason, people
believe that the probability of of something complex coming from something
simple is low, when actually is very high. Again, this should be obvious to
anyone who had to maintain another person's program. A big complex mess is
evidence that the thing was created incrementally over time, not all at one
shot by a single creator with a plan and a unified vision.

>
>> I've heard of a book by Richard Dawkins called "The Selfish Gene". I
>> haven't read it myself, but I heard it gives an argument of how a
>> self-reproducing chemical structure can spontaneously come into existence
>> (the RNA and DNA mentioned in the Wikipedia article above), and how the
>> RNA and DNA can then interact with each other and with their environment
>> to build single-celled life form; and then how these can interact to form
>> multi-celled life forms, and how evolution can occur naturally to produce
>> humans. I believe he further shows how such an occurence is statistically
>> inevitable (as opposed to the misconception that it is statistically
>> improbable).
>
> Every such attempt to explain autogenesis has been a complete failure. It
> has come to the point that, when in a argument with an evolutionist who
> knows biochemistry well, if you mention autogenesis, they will change the
> subject.

It seems to me that Richard Dawkins, mentioned above, might qualify as
"an evolutionist who knows biochemistry well", and rather than avoiding the
subject of autogenesis, he wrote a book about it! And not only that, but he
wrote a second book, "The Blind Watchmaker", to address the criticism that
his first book received. So it seems to me that these evolutionist are not
only not avoiding the topic -- they are diving into it head first.

> Why do you think they came out with the wacky space seed idea? It was
> because autogenesis was so ludicrously impossible, and the more we learn
> about how complex cell biology really is, the worse it gets.

This is akin to your complaint of "A few not-true-Christians do
something bad, and all Christians are to blame". I know that not ALL
scientists accept the "wacky space seed idea". Myself, I haven't decided yet
one way or another as I haven't actually taken a close look at the theory
yet. But assuming for a moment that we do accept it, the life on the seed
must itself have come from somewhere, and if we don't believe God created
it, then we must believe in autogenesis. As such, I don't see how the "wacky
space seed idea" was invented BECAUSE we wanted to get away from
autogenesis. I think the two are completely different topics. One is the
question of whether it's possible for life to come from non-life; the other
is whether life on Earth came from somewhere other than Earth or not.

[snip]

> There is no question that the academic community is generally hostile
> toward the Christian viewpoint. Any Christian who has ever been exposed to
> a secular college or university environment knows this.

Honestly, I think people really don't care what religion you believe in
when you attend a secular university. I don't even know whether the
university I went to our not is a "secular" one, which just goes to show you
how little people care. I don't remember ever hearing the word "Christian"
being uttered in any of my classes. The professors never asked students if
they were Christian, and they never responded to a wrong answer with "Oh,
you must be Christian" or anything like that. I really think the professors
couldn't care less what religion you believe in.

I took an astrophysics class where after the professor explained how he
believed the universe came into existence, someone asked "Do you believe in
God?" Note that there was not specific reference to a Christian God or
anything like that. He responded that the felt that the fact that the laws
of the universal constants are the values that they are is the strongest
evidence for the existence of a God. Note as well that his answer did not
actually state whether he believed in God or not. I believe he was being
extremely diplomatic and neutral with regard to the topic, and I think this
is very normal behaviour for professors.

I have trouble believing that all secular colleges on Earth are hostile
to Christians, as you seem to be saying. No doubt you could pull a quote
from the news saying 2 or 3 or even a dozen professors made anti-Christian
remarks, but the view of that professor does not nescessarily extend to the
university as a whole, and even then, that does not nescessarily represent
ALL secular universities.

I think what universities dislike is when a student demands that
Intelligent Design, for example, be thought in a biology course. Or demand
that a new course on Intelligent Design be established at a university. To
me, that is just as outrageous as my demanding that Java be thought in a
COBOL course, or demanding that Java be thought at a university that doesn't
already have a course for it.

The university is under no obligations to provide the specific courses I
desire. They have a list of courses offered, and I can read that list and
decide if I want to attend that university or not.

[SNIP]

>> There is nothing special about life other than the fact that it's
>> complicated. It's complexity is a question of degree. How complex does
>> something have to be, to be considered life? Most people would agree that
>> I, as a person, am alive. What about my body as a whole? Again, most
>> people would say yes, I possess a living body. And what about the cells
>> that make up my body? We speak of "dead skin cells", so there must be
>> "living skin cells" as well, right? What about the individual DNA and
>> protein that make up my cells? And the molecules that make up the DNA?
>> And the atoms that make up those atoms? At what point do we cross from
>> the living into the non-living? Again, I argue that it's just a question
>> of degree.
>
> I don't think that question is so difficult.

Open any biology textbook, and you'll likely see a passage in the
introduction stating that it is difficult to define what is life and what
isn't.

> Anything that can function, consume nutrient and produce waste, on its own
> (asuming the proper environment of stuff that is not itself) is "a living
> organism".

The traditional definition given in biology is that a lifeform should
exhibit 5 properties: growth, metabolism, motion, reproduction, and response
to stimuli. This definition (the one I just gave, not yours) has problems
however, as mules cannot reproduce and yet are widely considered lifeforms,
and fires and stars also exibit the above 5 properties and yet are widely
NOT considered lifeforms.

Your "consume and produce waste" is essentially the "metabolism"
property, and again fires, stars, black holes, etc. exibit the behaviour of
consuming and producing stuff from and into their environment.

> A "living organism" must be at least partially composed of things that are
> alive (e.g. cells). A bacteria is a "living organism", a human is a
> "living organism", a skin cell may be alive, but is not a "living
> organism". A virus is strange, not a living organism, not alive, but
> capable of interacting with a living cell. I suppose a virus is the most
> complex non-living thing, but even they must have living cells to
> reproduce. All virus would be gone shortly without living organisms.

I don't know why virii do not qualify under your definition. I guess you
don't consider a virus to be "on its own", but what does it mean for
something to be "on its own"? Is it merely isolated from other living
things? Most animals need the presence of other animals to survive (e.g.
they eat other animals). Does this disqualify them from the title of
"lifeform" then?

For the record, biologists are still in debate as to whether a virus
should be considered a lifeform or not.

There are also problems with your definition for "living organism". If
all it takes to be a living organism is to be at least partially composed of
things that are alive, and if a skin cell is alive, then a skin cell plus
one oxygen atom, for example, falls under this definition of a living
organism. Or me plus my computer is a living organism. And me plus the air
around me is a living organism. Etc.

[snip]
>
> Well, this is something you will never accept on anyone's say-so, you
> would have to experience it yourself to accept it. But the reason for a
> true Christian to have faith is not based on logic, and it's certainly not
> blind, illogical believing. The real evidence to a Christian is how God's
> Spirit interacts with our spirit. I *know* God is real, because I can feel
> God's presence inside me. I was 27 years old when I asked God to come into
> my life, and I know full well what it felt like beforehand and what it
> feels like now, and it is *real*. I know what delusions are, and
> imaginations, and fantasies, and this is none of those things. So I have
> complete confidence in my destiny, because I have the testimony of that
> from God's Spirit into my own spirit. No one else can see this internal
> evidence, so it appears from the outside to non believers that Christians
> are deluded, or spouting nonsense. I understand this, but it is
> frustrating.

I just want to point out that earlier in this post, you ridiculed
scientist for claiming they *know* something. Your exact statement was "And
you want me to believe these people when they tell me they *know* life got
here without God? Uh, huh. :-)"

I think a lot of atheist have a similar sentiment towards Christians
(and many religions in general).

I can sympathize with you on the frustration: there are many times when
we "know" something, but can't really prove it. It's probably happened to
all of us: When you're in an argument with someone (in real life, not on
usenet), and you claim that they had said or done one thing, but they claim
that they did not. You *remember* it happening, so you *know* that they are
wrong, but they don't remember it, so they refuse to admit to having done or
said whatever it was. These types of arguments are always very frustrating
because there's no real way to resolve them. It happens all the time when I
argue with my mom. That's one reason I prefer usenet.

>
>> My take on this is "There's no real way of determining which religion
>> (if any) is 'The Right One'. So let's not get worked up over which
>> specific God to worship. It seems like the majority of the Gods like
>> people who do good deeds and avoid bad deeds, so let's all try to do as
>> many good deeds as possible so that when we die, if there IS a God,
>> hopefully he'll forgive us for not believing specifically in him/her/it,
>> take into consideration that we were trying really hard to be good, and
>> let us enjoy the rest of eternity in relative comfort."
>
> I can appreciate your reasoning. I have a suggestion to break the logical
> dilemma: give God an honest test. If you are honestly open to the
> possibility that God may exist, and you simply seek confirmation, then
> tell that to God. Put the ball in His court and see what He does. If He
> does respond, then you have your answer. If He isn't there or He doesn't
> respond, then at least you tried, and you can proceed with greater
> confidence that God isn't there, or doesn't care. Either way, you lose
> nothing. It's a win-win deal.

From the perspective of science, figuring out what experiment to
actually perform is often the hardest part. As an analogy, Stephen Hawkins
knew he wanted to resolve once and for all whether or not information can
escape from a black hole. But how can you come up with an experiment to test
this?

I'm sure a lot of open-minded atheists/agnostics (nevermind the
closed-minded atheists ones for now) are willing to perform this test, if
only they knew how.

- Oliver


.

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