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nessie1945

Listed below are comments made by nessie1945 between Tuesday, 17th February 2009 and Wednesday, 18th February 2009.

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Evolution vs creationism 04:42am on 18 Feb 2009 Hello Minnesota! I found a word that might work (Finnish):

nuoska: "snowballable" snow

I don't know what that would be in Minnesotan.

It's been a long day, so after blindsiding you - in a friendly way- with one large, slushy snowball I'm going to put on an episode of Band of Brothers and curl up in my blanket.

"To all, to each, a fair goodnight, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light."
Evolution vs creationism 04:19am on 18 Feb 2009 960 - douglasroman - "I say that the odds that mutation and natural selection led to the natural world today as we know it are immpossibly long."

Whereas the odds that there is a supreme being who was just always there (wherever 'there' is) and who created the universe (log onto a site that will show you the vastness of the teeny part we're able to see) has the most remote interest in a troublesome little life form on one of the billions and billions of specks that we call planets? Speaking of impossibly long odds!

Sure there was a lot that wasn't known in the scientific arena in Darwin's day, but somehow he managed pretty well, especially considering that DNA wasn't on anyone's drawing board back then. So the common ancestor between great apes and man... Lucky guess?

Science understands that knowledge (pardon me) evolves while religion demands knowledge remain static.

Earth: "On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam." - Sagan

http://obs.nineplanets.org/psc/pbd.html
Evolution vs creationism 03:25am on 18 Feb 2009 "That comment about toasters was racist against cylons and I regret it."

Do cylons accept apologies? Good luck. You may need it.
Evolution vs creationism 03:15am on 18 Feb 2009 Re: "Nature itself shouts that there is a God."

And with "an inordinate fondness for beetles."*

I used to be told from the pulpit that nature was proof of God's love for mankind. Then I took a closer look.

Tsetse flies, poison ivy, disease organisms, leopard seals, sharks, black-widow spiders, piranha.... Oh, heck the whole predator-prey business. And parasites!

You might read Parasite Rex. It took me a while. I kept screaming and throwing the poor book across the room.

A look into the mind of God.

*Suposedly J.B.S Haldane's reply when asked what his study of nature had taught him about God.
Evolution vs creationism 02:57am on 18 Feb 2009 Re:

"Am I religious? No. I am spiritual. I have hope in something greater than myself and I hope that how I have lived and what I have done with my life has some meaning somewhere for someone."

Yes, I feel that way myself as do many of the BEST people I know.

Dear,aquarizonagal, my deepest sympathy for your loss. I can't say 'I know how you must feel' because it would be presumptuous. Actually there's nothing I can say except how sorry I am.

942 - publiusdetroit:

Walk in beauty.

932 - bere54

"Very good point. And as we've seen lately - survival of having the right pilot in the cockpit when things go wrong."

Survival Of The Incredibly Lucky!
Evolution vs creationism 11:29pm on 17 Feb 2009 892, K4.
"Doesn't the extinction of species whether by man or other creatures follow natural selection, or the evolution?"

Suggested reading: The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind by Richard E. Leakey.

Also you might enjoy learning about mankind's headlong modification of harmful bacteria (other pathogens too) into ever more lethal, non-treatable versions of their former selves. The weak (from a size standpoint) may wind up inheriting the earth (back) from us. Many lovely publications are available. One that's simple enough for me (and apparently, you) is "The Coming Plague - Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance" by Laurie Garrett.

Or maybe you'd rather just retreat back into having "your ears tickled" by the soothing mis-information from your minister?
Evolution vs creationism 11:06pm on 17 Feb 2009 re; "...a lot of the 'Intelligent Design' types appear to be arguing that all they want is open discussion in science class, with creationism taught as well as evolution."

OK, which/how many creation stories would be discussed? If you gave a hearing to all these different legends there would be no time for science. No reputable university would waste time like that. Teach religion in Religious Studies or only. Science requires empirical evidence not a chorus of "I Believe."

I was raised as a good little church member and believed whatever I was told...but when I started studying at university was surprised to see how much sense and logic was there and (this was the biggie) how little it resembled the evolutionary information as mistaught and disparaged by the religious leaders I'd been listening to.

One Sunday, listening to a sermon as I did every week, I had an almost blinding epiphany: "This has nothing to do with me!" I picked up my purse and walked out. To be fair, it wasn't only the difference between religion and logic that got me, the insulting way women were treated peeved me too. But out I went and never looked back.

john-In-Dublin says, "And of course on Sunday, when you've listened to the sermon from your [Christian] priest or pastor, you'll have to listen to sermons from a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, an Agnostic, an Atheist, a Rastafarian, a Pastafarian - and a Devil-worshipper.

If [certain] Christians want their beliefs taught in science class in public schools, it's only fair that they have to listen to everyone else's beliefs in their churches....."

Brilliant point. I might wander back into church just to hand out the smelling salts.... (But with their history of murdering "unbelievers", watch your back, guest speakers!)

As for, "Man did not walk with dinosaurs no matter how much some wish it were so." Oh, but wouldn't the dinosaurs have loved it! Small, weak, slow, panicky prey! Yum!
Evolution vs creationism 10:43pm on 17 Feb 2009 726 bere54, Thank you for your kind comment. I'm sorry for your loss too. Amazing how loss focuses the mind.

JohnyHawx says, "As an evolutionist you must face the fact that somewhere something arose from nothing. When an evolutionists tells me where all matter came from then I will be an evolutionists -till then fellows."

But you WILL accept the leap of faith that God (who came from what?) made matter out of nothing?

By the way, evolution isn't all "survival of the fittest." As we learn more, we also see things like, "survival of being at the right place at the right time" and "survival of the weak but wiley" or "survival thanks to those handy opposable thumbs" and so on. If you're the toughest guy in the valley and get surprised by a flash flood, maybe the little weakling you chased up the hill last night wins.
Show the people the money 02:52am on 17 Feb 2009 Re: "Cajun is a corruption of Acadian. The Acadians were French residents of what is now the Maritime Provinces. They were expelled by the British during the French and Indian War and many ended up in Louisiana."

And thank goodness they did! The FOOD! The incredible, creative, well-seasoned, fantastic FOOD! And the music!

Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Evolution vs creationism 02:34am on 17 Feb 2009 #705. At 00:41am on 17 Feb 2009, seanspa "I just found it interesting to hear myself groaning 'Oh god' as I writhed about like a sissy."

When I was called into a Catholic hospital almost 20 years ago to identify the body that had been my living, breathing husband - he had kissed me goodbye as he went out for the evening only an hour earlier - I wept, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

Then turned and explained politely to the nurse, "You realize that's just a figure of speech?" I had no wish for her to send a cleric in to make my misery even more complete by blithering on about 'God's will'.

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