What are your beliefs on religion, god?

I belong to the Church of Mars. I believe that Martians created the earth.

 

Can't work if you believe in true evolution and age of our solar system. Mars would have evolved at a similar rate as earth. Maybe you need to focus on the church of planet 259

 

if that happend i would definitely take notice

 

There's no reason life could not have first evolved on Mars and then seeded the earth. Life on earth didn't evolve for a long time after it calmed down relatively speaking.

 

It's hard enough to imagine evolution from the first self replicating molecule happening in less than 2 billion years; let alone another civilization advanced enough to seed our earth 3 billion years ago. Mars existed roughly the exact same time as earth. Their evolution would have had to take 1 billion years to be more advanced then we are now.

Yes it could happen; but highly improbable.

 

Don't want to fly too off topic but even the first self replicating molecule coming from chance is extremely hard to imagine for me. Yes 1 x 10 to the 100th power; with all the necessary soup is possible; but to understand the ratio when you add another planet in the same exact solar system is insanely higher. Then you must take into account that mars must evolve into extremely complex organisms like ours; in less than 1 billion years; puts that improbability at least 3 times more unlikely than earth.

 

LOL this is ridiculous. I've never witnessed such an incredibly one sided debate where the loser actually thinks he's the winner. Very fascinating.

 

Hahahaha your opinion is noted. But it's what's expected from a 22 year old that hasn't put anything into this debate but verbal insults. Hehe

Your opinion holds little weight here

 

let's take this tangent for a moment and talk statistics. You are right about the chances might be something like 1E-100 for a single molecule to become what is necessary to start self replication. BUT! That is just one molecule, and you should know there is not just one molecule in the world. There are on the order of 10^23 atoms in a mole of carbon that weighs 12 grams. There are 6E27 grams of matter composing the earth. Which means there are about 1^50 atoms in the world.

With that out of the way, let's now talk about the "birthday bet" or more specifically the odds that NOTHING happens. So the odd of flipping a coin on heads is 0.5, right?
Which is the odds of the coin not flipping on tails which is 1-0.5=0.5 So then let's say the odds you and I both have the same birthday are 1-(364/365[my birthday]*364/365[your birthday]) = 0.0054 or about 0.5% BUT what are the odds that out of 20 people, at least two people have the same birthday? It's roughly equal to:

1-(364/366)[my brithday]*(363/365)[yourbirthday]*(362/365)[person two's birthday]*(361/365)*(360/365)*(359/365)*(358/365)*(357/365)*(356/365)*(355/365)*(354/365)*(353/365)*(352/365)*(351/365)*(350/365)*(349/365)*(348/365)*(349/365)*(348/365)*(347/365) = ~50%

So that means there's only a 50% chance nobody in a group of 20 has the same birthday. The odds of having the same birthday though are 1/365, right? So if 20 people brought the the odds down to 1/2, imagine we go back to our problem about 1/1E100 and 1E50 atoms in the world. That doesn't seem so far fetched because it is nonlinear growth.

tl;dr There isn't just one molecule that might self replicate. There is the odds that NONE of the molecules ever become self replicating. PS there is also some "natural selection" going on too from a chemistry stand point, meaning it's probably not 1/1E100

 

There is an astronomically big difference between 0.5 chance of the coin flipping tales every time than 1^50 to 1^100. That's a difference of 1 with 50 zeros behind it. You can't over simplify math like that. That would mean a 1 and 1 million of a chance to win the lottery. If it was that easy; then we should all play the lottery and assume we have a decent chance of winning.

I mean 1^100th power isn't 100 sides of the coin; it would be more like flipping a coin and factoring how that coin will land 100 different ways in perfect chronological order.

 

"it was just supposed to be a photo shoot" she sobbed

 

Okay, I'll try to do the math for you, but I don't think the common software like excell (I don't own Matlab, Mathematica or the like) can compute permutations of 1E50 or 1E-100. I'll poke around though. I don't think you get that the odds increase by orders of magnitude each time.

 

K make sure that you factor being able to calculate 100 different locations on the table with 100 different types of coins.

 

I think we are talking about two different things here.

So here are the odds that something that happens once in a 1/(10^100) chance if given the chance to happen 10^50 times.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1-%281-%281%2F%2810%5E100%29%29%29%5E%2810%5E50%29

So if the odds of a self replicating molecule were to "evolve" were 1/(10^100) it would take about 10^50 trials to occur in the world. How many seconds or fractions of a second does that take though? So perhaps my math cannot be really applied by me.

 

With Denny's postings of the YouTube comedies regarding religion, I'm surprised he hasn't used galaxy quest and the scene where the aliens told Tim Allen that they reviewed the historical records of the tv show galaxy quest.

 

Mags, first off, props brother. I think it's wonderful that you are open enough to at least debate and discuss your faith. Another few days and we might even bring you over to the dark side

Reading the last few pages I just wanted to mention a few things.


1) Working at OHSU with a bunch of scientists, very few are religious, and even those that are tend to be religious more in name and for family than true belief. I only know two whom I would call very religious and both are Chinese. I don't know why. Also, neither of those scientists are considered good.

2) In science we generally believe or disbelieve what evidence shows. This does not mean that we are correct, new evidence could easily wipe away our current understanding. But, there is no evidence at all, that points to their being a god. There is also no evidence saying there is no god. There is evidence suggesting that many tenets of many religions are bullshit. God may exist, but so may flying penis monsters who breath menthol fog. Until I see some evidence I will believe neither exists, but that does not mean that I close the door on the possibility of existence.

This is why you find scientists who are open to there being god, or even believing in god. There is no evidence to the contrary. However, this is also why there are so few scientists that are “big believers” in religion. I had a discussion with one of the scientists here who is very religious and belongs to a Chinese Methodist church. I asked him how he can believe evolution does not exist. He basically said that God made it look like evolution is correct because he designed everything and he took the blueprint for designing species and used those blueprints to design other species. Ie, similar blue prints for Man and Ape.

But I will tell you, although he has been a scientist for around 15 years, he works on other peoples projects and does not come up with any good ideas. He has basically become a good lab manager or research assistant even though he has the doctorate. In lab meetings, nobody ever turns to him for his view. There are very few scientists who are religious in the way many people think about the religious. Most that are religious, if pressured, will admit that their religiosity is mainly for their family. Especially in the younger generation.

I had some more thoughts, but I’ll leave it there for now.

 

I'd like to chime in one last time and second GOD's props for mags. In all of the many -- MANY -- posts that I've seen on the subject in this circus we call OT, the only poster I've seen who has shown an actual change in viewpoint has been magnifier, who was initially pretty firmly in the Young Earth camp. I take great pride in his "conversion" on that point, and I believe that he has a rational mind buried deep inside that God-fearing heart of his. Regardless, I don't begrudge him his faith. He has shared stories of how Christianity has helped him become a better person, and that is nothing to sneeze at. He's a good guy and a pleasure to debate with.

Cheers everyone -- best of luck to us all in our respective searches for the truth!