God and control

Christian, i said the CHRISTIAN faith, not all faith.

just the christian one, that is the only one i am well versed in enough for me to say that it is wrong.

For the most part causality has been the premise for every philosophy covered in the summary of most popular ideologies I have read. It is true that the church authorities have slowed the progress of many truths. By the nature of science it is not possible to prove any non existence based on natural perception.

Adam and Eve, are you serious? So we all came from 2 people huh? All of us?

Have you any idea of the elephant man situation we'd be in right now if that were even remotely true. I suppose you think Noah's ark is factual as well.

It's a pity there isn't a God to control you, he might command everyone to try a bit harder for the truth.

Hey Falling Snow, answer me a few questions.

How could Adam and Eve be the first parents of humanity without horrible mutations which we know, from scientific research, is the result of interbreeding of close family lines. Are you seriously saying they let their kids have sex with each other as part of Gods plan?

Give me 3 examples of things on this planet that evolution can't explain (obviously only natural things that are alive).

Falling snow i just, and i mean *JUST* answered all your questions on a different thread... if you have more let me know.

Adam and Eve are two human beings. they odnt have the bio-genetic diversity to produce the entire human race, just a small regiment of elephant men maybe 10 generations in.

I think she ragequit, blinded by the truth.

: )

She deleted her account... none of her posts are showing in this thread.

Yeah I know how it works Brittany. : )

Brittney* :) I know, I was gearing that towards TSI25.

"...really think about it, some one invented a concept several hundred years ago, and people are still revering it as a real entity?"

I don't think anyone "invented" a particular concept of God. From the beginning, humans have always had their mythological Gods, which slowly evolved over time, and are still evolving. The anthropomorphic God is just the concept that has taken hold recently in the west, but it, too, will evolve into something else eventually.

The "myth" that makes the most sense to me is the Chinese philosophy of the "Tao." Tao is not in any way related to the western idea of God, the supreme creator and ruler of the universe. Tao is a self-creating force, sometimes referred to as "the great void" out of which all things arise, flourish, and ultimately, dissolve back into.

I always liked the pagan concept of gaia, that we are all granted life from gaia, and that when we die, our life will return to gaia, and be re used in the life of others.

the cyclical nature of life makes it beautiful both spiritually and physically, because if you think about it, we really are recycled in the cycle of life. bodies decompose, become food and energy for bacteria, plants, worms... these in turn become food for other organisms and so on and so on.

Except that humans try to opt out of the recycling process of nature by embalming their dead. I allude to this in one of my recent poems:"Earth Spirit"

"...Yet, even in death, he gives nothing back -
for he hangs around in toxic mounds
for a thousand years and poisons the ground."

Humans are so excessively insignificant, unless you are implying that we should ignore the millions upon MILLIONS of years of this cycle. we are just a brief and insignificant interlude on that.

With the knowledge we've gained, I'd say our "interlude" was kind of worth it. Who knows maybe one day we could actually re-fuel our sun to live longer - now wouldn't that be an impressive feat? :)

"Humans are so excessively insignificant, unless you are implying that we should ignore the millions upon MILLIONS of years of this cycle. we are just a brief and insignificant interlude on that."

TSI, that may be true, but in your previous post, it seemed you were referring mainly to HUMAN bodies being recycled, since you used the word "we" over and over. "We" generally refers to "me and you" rather than "me and some kind of amorphous bacterial sludge." :)

Human beings may have only been on this planet for a brief time relative to the age of the planet, but considering the amount of damage we are doing and shall continue to do, our brief time here is anything but insignificant IMO.

ABC, I think it would be enough of a feat to just harness the sun's energy, rather than trying to refuel it. Hell, I can't even afford to refuel my car anymore. lol

^ I believe we'll be doing that successfully in the future. One of my friends in school devised and engineers a solar car that stores the sun energy (by charging the batter which can be used for 4-5 hours) and/or run with using it. The car can travel about 80k/hr. His team was invited to join the solar car show in Australia, and was actually televised in my country. The idea is predicted to rapidly be active in the following years.

The car does not produce noise pollution, nor air pollution. It can run even without the sun by using its battery (which can run about 4-5 hrs and is energized by leaving underneath the sun for about an hour or so). With better equiptment, who knows what else this project could influence.

Remember a couple billion years ago when AN OBJECT THE SIZE OF MARS crashed into earth, dislodging a MASSIVE chunk which would later become the moon?

remember the time that a meteor the size of 3 MTD buses crashed into the earth and wiped out NEARLY ALL REPTILIAN LIFE?

remember that time humans came around and started making Styrofoam and cellophane for a couple hundred years?

yeah, no. i think its stupid and most of all arrogant to think that we are destroying this planet. not only has it seen much worse than us, but we seem to judge how well the planet is doing by how well WE are doing. the planet is FINE, the PEOPLE are fucked.

^the planet is FINE, the PEOPLE are fucked.

Tell that to the countless species of fauna and flora that have become extinct in recent years due to over-hunting, over-grazing, over-farming, oil spills, acid rain; destruction of much of the planet's natural habitat and natural ecosystems, rain forest, etc., from pollution of air, water, land, ongoing war, and the continuing human sprawl..

The human side of the equation isn't faring much better, inasmuch as we have been committing environmental suicide, which is tantamount to cutting off our own heads.

But I guess the "planet" is faring well, if you disregard the surface of the planet and focus on the molten inner core. We haven't managed to screw that up... yet.

So in roughly 100-120 years (I may be off here) we have managed to completely destroy the planet, and the Earths natural cycles had nothing to do with any changes? Things go extinct, animals, plants... isn't that going to happen regardless? Natural selection comes to mind.

Well yeah, but the planet will be fine. the planet was here before all earthly species, the planet will be here after all earthly species. we are a temporary blemish.

Britt, I think you are confusing global warming with global pollution and destruction of natural habitat.

Some (mostly on the right) believe that the increase in CO2 and subsequent rise in global temps and melting of the polar icecaps are a result of natural cycles. I don't agree. But what I am talking about here is the destruction of natural habitat, deforestation, pollution, etc., resulting from the plague of human civilization, which is a new phenomenon. It is only cyclical if you believe that humans existed in a previous time, were wiped out, and then came back again a few thousand years ago, which probably goes against your own religious views.

TSI, there you again with the "we." Arrogant as it may sound, I like to consider myself to be in a different category from molds or fungi.

And at some point, the planet will not be fine, regardless of whether humans or any other earthly species still inhabits it. Our orbit will decay, and the earth will burn up in the sun, unless the sun burns out first, in which case, the earth will be a frozen ball of nickel and iron hurdling through space.

We can't deny the fact as a species, we are very much like a virus. As agent smith so excellently put it in the movie "the matrix". We multiply, consume the natural resources and then move to another area and repeat. Our planet can't take it forever.

Thankfully though, the very cause of our potential destruction will probably be the root of our salvation.

Money and need.

We need energy to power our world, and where there is need, there is money to be made. Oil and gas corporations know fossil fuels are running out, they knew it long before most people in the public knew.

Solar power, wind power and even water power will become viable and efficient over the next few decades as Nanotechnology allows these forms of fuel to become efficient and cost effective.

Science will save us from ourselves..it already is, despite being a conspirator in our destruction.

At kiko, well yes, orbit decay or our sun dying would probably be a pretty good termination of earth, however i dont think humans will have that much hand in either case. its not profitable enough at the moment.

at kevin, the green technologies are there, and they will be made more viable in the future. i look forward to these developments, however since we have yet to destroy most life on earth or dislodge something like a 4th of the earths mass, id say we could be doing worse.

i guess i look at it as a spin off of the "white man's burden." where ever white man would go, they would see the need to eradicate local culture and attempt to indoctrinate those people into the white man's own modern way of doing things, because of some inherent belief that their way is better.

whenever we see so much as a cute panda going extinct we say its our burden to try and get it to reproduce so that we can bring it's kind with us into the future, disregarding how screwed it is as a species. maybe its totally nonviable, maybe we dumped several thousands of gallons of oil on its habitat, if its adorable, its our problem to try and save it as a species.
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that is to say that if it isn't adorable, such as the alligator gar, then we will do our best to eradicate it from our river systems, whether it is at fault for anything or not.

The fact is, we westerners have boxed ourselves in and thus are in a lose/lose situation: When the economy is going badly, people are hurting or starving. And when the economy is humming along, we are carving up the landscape to build new subdivisions, which destroys natural habitats and essential ecosystems.

It's not just a western (white-man) phenomenon. The communist countries have a terrible record when it comes to the environment, and we all know about the deforestation in the Amazon rain forest by their locals, etc...

Unless the population of humans on the planet is reduced by 3/4, even science can't help us.

I was likening it to a western, "white man" problem, for the sake of metaphor, not saying that western white philosophy are the only things at fault.
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cant help us do what exactly?

Once all the land has been carved up and parceled off, "science" becomes irrelevant.

Maybe... but we have several quadrillion planets before we start running out of 'land to carve up and parcel off' in the purest sense.

also im pretty sure that science helps us utilize land more efficiently, multi level structures and whatnot.

My only concern is with THIS planet. And once all the verdant land is gone and I am forced to live in a steel tower overlooking a concrete jungle... that's when I'll be reaching for the cyanide.

Ok