The Upper Room

12:32 AM

@TRiG Bahaha. ... Adblock is good.

@TRiG This is almost certainly one of the biggest (if not the biggest) reasons that evolution is so disparaged by creationists.

Related: one of the main things that makes creationism inferior to evolution in my eyes is that it can't make predictions.

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman What, a misunderstanding of the definition of the word theory? What do I say about words, meanings, and contexts?

El'endia Starman

@Alypius At that time, I had actually recently thought about chance. God controls everything so there can be no such thing as random chance, yet we can develop a whole branch of mathematics around the properties of random chance - statistics. So, due to that, the difference between what God does and what His laws would do is negligible the vast majority of the time. (The notable exceptions are, of course, called miracles.)

@TRiG Correct. I don't remember your precise wording about words, meanings, and contexts... :P

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman Words have different meanings in different contexts.

El'endia Starman

@TRiG That is frame-worthy.

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman I think it has been framed here at some point in the past.

El'endia Starman

12:47 AM

@TRiG Probably.

Speaking of different meanings in different contexts, I am actually slowly piecing together a constructed language in my head that would be meant to be a language with great technical detail. One of the features I've already decided upon is that English words with different meanings get different <constructedLanguage> words.

TRiG

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Try distinguishing between alienable and inalienable possession.

(Mentioned in The Power of Babel.)

El'endia Starman

The level of detail would be on the order of the Greek/Hebrew words for "love". English has "love" whereas Greek has agape, eros, storge, and philia, and Hebrew has ahava, lina (?), and dod.

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman shrug. Friendship, affection, desire, ...

..., love, romance, companionship, bros, ...

El'endia Starman

...or a stronger form of 'like'...

TRiG

English has no great dearth of words to describe relationships.

El'endia Starman

12:58 AM

Anyway, the point is that you can use the English word "love" for any and all of these, whereas in <constructedLanguage> you could only use one specific word for each of them.

@TRiG That was funny.

TRiG

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El'endia Starman

1:15 AM

@TRiG ...I feel like I've seen one of his videos before like that.

Stack Exchange

3

Q: How do you handle questions that were good before an edit but off topic after?

This question was recently asked on the site: Did Jesus know how to read and write? The original question was: "Is there any biblical evidence that suggests Jesus read or wrote anything, and was he literate?" Which I think is an appropriate question for this site. It is objective and an...

discussion

TRiG

@El'endiaStarman A friend of mine showed me a video of his a while back, and I saw a few of them and liked them. And recently I've been watching a lot of Teens React on YouTube, and they included some charlieissocoollike, so I've rediscovered him.

wax eagle

@El'endiaStarman the problem is that english words often developed their different contextual meanings naturally. content and content is a good example. content essentially means full which is what you are when you have content :)

TRiG

Linguistics is fascinating.

wax eagle

@TRiG yes

El'endia Starman

1:19 AM

@TRiG Definitely.

@waxeagle Aye. There have been many occurrences where I reasoned out the likely etymology of a word based on one of its other meanings.

Alypius

3:03 AM

@El'endiaStarman Maybe, though I myself feel a bit strange to put an extra device like laws between God and us. I don't see a need for it.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Hmmm...define "successful". If you mean a mutation that has a benefit (to us), then I think there is an example, although I can't think of one off the top of my head. If you mean a mutation that has a benefit for the organisms, we do that by accident all the time with viruses and bacteria versus the drugs we use.

@Alypius I don't think of laws like a layer between us and God, rather, I think of them as something God uses in much the same way that He uses humans to do a great deal of His work.

Alypius

@El'endiaStarman That's what I mean by a layer though. Why would He need to use laws as a sort of tool when He can just do anything Himself?

El'endia Starman

3:18 AM

@Alypius Why are we even doing anything at all? Why do we play a role in bringing others to Christ?

Alypius

at one extreme, the idea suggests that God made the laws and "left them running". It also assigns a sort of "will" or "wilfulness" to laws.

@El'endiaStarman I don't know, but here we are. As for laws, seems (to me) like there's no need of that hypothesis.

El'endia Starman

@Alypius I think that's called Deism.

Alypius

@El'endiaStarman (if you mean, what is our purpose - to obey God, to love and praise Him, to love others - these are all the same, or derive from one another)

@El'endiaStarman Yes. I think a certain idea of laws comes too close to Deism.

El'endia Starman

@Alypius Yes, but you seem to be making the claim that if God doesn't need to do something, then He won't choose to do that thing.

fredsbend

4:31 AM

@El'endiaStarman This chat message to TRiG just up a bit. Viruses are not even living by some definitions. Bacteria are very different from everything else as stated in the chat message above.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend I remember reading about scientists that successfully engineered scientists to grow four wings instead of two.

And there's that whole genetically-modified organisms (GMO) fracas. (The GMO debate revolves around genetically-modified [GM] food, such as corn, wheat, or fish. The anti-GMO-ers believe that humans should not consume any GMOs.)

fredsbend

IMO, not really evidence of macro-evolution and I really don't know why people always want to quote it. Micro evolution is surely fact. Dog breeds, finches, and many others.

@El'endiaStarman ?

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend ...[busts out laughing] FLIES. I meant flies! I could edit it, but I'm leaving it like that for laughs. :P

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman GMO sometimes is dangerous. There is more than safety at stack as well. Companies actually own the food with GMO.

@El'endiaStarman very funny. That is not natural is the point. They have grown thousands of generations of flies and other insects and have seen very little in the way of adaptation. We have no studies that prove macro evolution.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend How big would macroevolution have to be to satisfy your criteria? I know of a couple that watched a new finch species develop on the Galapagos islands over the course of 30ish years.

fredsbend

4:39 AM

Then there's the fossil problem. They just aren't there and resort to bad science saying a whole species of ape existed when they only found one or two bones.

@El'endiaStarman It depends on the definition of species. I was taught that a species is all the organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring. All dogs are one species because they can do this. I know of a squirrel species with sub species that can mate but won't, but are still the same species. Humans and all the races are one species.

Dont know about 30 years new species study

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend I relatively recently (within the past year or so) saw the claim that a number of fossil-record holes have been filled and that paleontologists have and are finding the transition fossils that were missing. Plus, there's the genetic history tree.

fredsbend

The gapalagos finches are a prime example of evolution, but they are still all finches. That is the point.

@El'endiaStarman Genetic history tree?

It just seems like we should have more clearly identifiable link species even living today, but we don't.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend As in, humans are more genetically similar to chimpanzees than any other species, and then the two of them are closer genetically than, say, canines, and these three are genetically closer to each other than they are to fish.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman so what? all life shares 50% or more of the exact same dna. This doesn't mean I am going to say I'm related to a banana. DNA makes proteins therefore it only makes sense that similarly made (molecularly) creatures have more similar DNA. Further, if DNA was not mostly similar then plants and animals would be made of proteins that would be of no use to us.

we could not eat them.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend The key words: more and closer. My DNA is going to be very similar to yours, but how closely are we related? Less so than my DNA closeness to my cousin.

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fredsbend

4:51 AM

@El'endiaStarman But we are the same species. neither side denies a common ancestor for each species.

El'endia Starman

@El'endiaStarman Darn, no thumbnail. Well, that should start at 8:52, which is where Hank Green (@TRiG, you'd like him) talks about direct observation of evolution, including the 30-years-new-finch-species study.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman He says a finch from somewhere else made fertile offspring with a finch from Galapagos. That fits the definition of species. This is all kind of a moot argument with me because I have always said that macro is possible with enough time, but there is the fossil problem. There really are very few, if any good examples demonstrating macro. Interesting good science though on the vid. I love biology. Life never ceases to amaze me.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend The same concept still applies. We humans have more DNA in common with chimpanzees than apes, so humans and chimpanzees will have a more recent ancestor than humans/chimpanzees and apes. All living organisms can be organized into a tree in this way.

@fredsbend Oh, then you'll love this: Crash Course Biology. 40 videos on biology! I considered it well worth my time to watch all of them.

The other Crash Course series are all also excellent. Hank Green did Ecology and is now doing Chemistry. John Green did World History and Literature and is now doing U.S. History.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman This tree of life was derived several hundred years ago from basic taxonomies, which are decided on animal similarities. Similarities are from similar protein structures which are made from DNA. Animal similarities proved DNA similarities before the other way around. btw. we still use physical similarities to classify rather than DNA because it makes more sense. Consider dogs for example.

@El'endiaStarman starred.

thanks

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend I think John Green mentioned that somewhere, that the tree of life used to be based on taxonomic qualities, but is now based on genetic similarity. The two will agree most of the time, that's for sure.

@fredsbend You're quite welcome. Enjoy the learning! :D

fredsbend

5:09 AM

@El'endiaStarman maybe in some circles. Many scientists disagree on certain species names. for some families there are actually two scientific names for the species in it. It is this difference and other reasons that has created this.

@El'endiaStarman I want to go back in our conversations. In your opinion what makes Adam different from his father other than the soul? Why would god pick Adam and not his father? It seems that his father should be different in some way then, but how, without it seeming like he was human too?

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend Well, methinks that the reason God chose Adam over his supposed father would have been like the reason He chose to send Jesus about 2017 years ago.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman instead of some other time? I suppose you are saying that it seems arbitrary to us but God has a reason. Ok. I can buy that, but for me literal creation in genesis is not arbitrary so I will take that. God just doesn't seem arbitrary too often in the Bible so I eliminate it when I can.

El'endia Starman

@fredsbend [nods] A sensible approach.

fredsbend

@El'endiaStarman got to go. nice chat.

El'endia Starman

5:24 AM

@fredsbend T'was nice chatting with you too. Have fun!

Alypius

5:44 AM

@El'endiaStarman I don't follow - why would that be the result of not accepting laws (as you describe them)?

El'endia Starman

@Alypius ...huh? fredsbend seemed to me to be implying that we shouldn't think of God using God-made laws to "do His work for Him" in a sense as that would imply that God was unable to make things happen Himself. In other words, God's omnipotence means that He doesn't need physics laws to "do" stuff. Which is true, but it seems to me that God is choosing to set up the laws of physics and then effectively let them do their thing.

He still reserves His omnipotence though, and displays it through miracles.

Alypius

6:21 AM

I wasn't following the convo with fredsbend. Regarding laws... my issue is with passages like "who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar" (in Jeremiah 31)

@El'endiaStarman these suggest that God does things rather directly

El'endia Starman

6:55 AM

> he who appoints the sun // to shine by day, // who decrees the moon and stars // to shine by night, // who stirs up the sea // so that its waves roar— // the Lord Almighty is his name:

(From the NIV.)

@Alypius A different translation suggests instead that God sets things up and then makes them do their job. If these two slightly different ideas can arise from the same passage, then they most likely do not conflict.

When I use a calculator to evaluate a mathematical expression in the course of solving a problem, am I the one that got the answer or did the calculator get the answer? Both. Looking at the situation this way implies that God uses laws as tools to do what He wants. Why will ultimately come back to His desire for a relationship with us and the actions He will perform for and as a result of that relationship.

Alypius

7:29 AM

@El'endiaStarman God got the answer and made you see it, and made the calculator change, and showed you the calculator as well to begin with :)

(I do understand your question was rhetorical, but that would be my answer)

Alypius

7:46 AM

christianity.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/3463 this edit seems to entirely change the question. It should be up to the author to re-phrase questions (maybe they'd want to ask about a denomination instead), not up to those who answer

fredsbend

8:44 AM

That particular user has questions full of 'do Christians' etc. I think he would be most interested in the 'common' answer. He had over two weeks to change it and didn't. He didn't even try.

TRiG

3:05 PM

I've not read quite all of this yet, but what I have read is excellent: a guide on how to talk to atheists.

Discussion about Islam's view of Juda…

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