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I have a question too. We are a science forum, and only deal with the scientific ramifications of religion. Wouldn't Night FM be better served asking these questions of his pastor/priest/rabbi/iman/etc. ? I, for one, am getting tired of faith based questions on a scientific, evidence based forum. There are more appropriate places for these types of inquiries.

"Yug" is a measure of time, 4,320,000 years (12,000 divine years). "Sahastra" is a number, 1000. "Jojan" is a measure of distance, from 4 to 10 miles. Multiplying them does not make a distance, of course. Here is one of their propaganda articles: What is the meaning of line "Yug Shahstra Yojan par Bhanu" which is taken from Hanuman Chalisa? (tutorialspoint.com). Their arbitrary "calculation" goes like this:

In my view, St. Paul has a lot to answer for, when it comes to the historically twisted attitude of much of Christianity towards sexual relations. It is significant, I think, that Christ himself had practically nothing to say on the subject. But in the Old Testament you get a very different picture from that painted by St. Paul. , for example the rather beautiful story about Adam's rib in Genesis 2:23-14 :- "This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh! She is to be called Woman, because she was taken from Man. This is why a man leaves his father and mother and becomes attached to his wife and they become one flesh." What a poetic and non-judgemental way to describe the primal urge for sex. To be fair to St. Paul, he was clearly an advocate of asceticism, which is by no means unique to Christianity. The practice of abstinence and the control of carnal appetites by the intellect, in order to achieve a higher state of spirituality, is practised in many religions. Even St. Paul acknowledges it is not for everyone. (By the way, some of your threads seem to betray a rather unhealthy attitude towards sexuality, for instance, besides this one, the one in which you are preoccupied with incels and the one about the roles of the sexes in society. I confess I am starting to find this a bit creepy.)

Oh indeed. I suspect the point here is that religion offers a way to appeal to the better nature of these youths, guiding them towards prosocial attitudes and behaviour, in a way they probably find fairly natural and acceptable, culturally. Some people think religious teaching is all about forbidding things and retribution, but of course it isn't at all like that really.

As I understand, the mods sometimes let the troll keep trolling long after the trolling behaviour has been spotted, as long as enough members find the topic interesting or worthy enough that they keep bringing up good-quality arguments, as is the case from Peterkin and exchemist.

Read The Selfish Gene. Your statements prove hands down that you're not familiar with the arguments there. And no, there are no genetic theories, as opposed to environmental ones. Genes interact with the environment from the get-go. In fact, they do during the perinatal stage already. You just made that up. It's a bit like saying you've heard an argument about electrostatics based on positive charges and another based on negative ones. Silly to say the least.

Citation needed, or silence. Silence works, too.

Well, np. Everything I am comfortable trusting, has evidence that I, or others, can reasonably reproduce. Religion is, by definition, a belief system based on faith, not evidence, and, as such, hasn't, nor does it require, any evidence. Science is not 'evidenced' by authority figures like the priests of religions. Anyone can do scientific experiments, make observations, and obtain evidence.

What do you mean by "made up"? If you mean did someone institutes laws against murder, then yes, the laws were "made up". But the principles the laws were inspired by (e.x. that murder is wrong) were not made up. So it's a false dilemma.

If god inspired people to institute it, then it is not made up by people. Your reasoning in these many threads may work with children and the religiously inclined but on this site people can see right through your vacuous arguments.

You could do that, but you would have to be an idiot. We have coins with his picture on it. So, all you really did there was show that you don't understand the nature of evidence.

You sure about that?

If trust always has conditions, then it is a better word than faith for science. As Ronald Reagan used to say, "trust but verify". And I wil add, never take it a 100% full face value, because it's not!

Can NdGT be called a scientist in your opinion, given that he's hardly published anything in 30 years? He obviously trained as a scientist but an average practicing astrophysicist publishes more papers each year than he did in his entire career. What's your opinion on the matter? Also, should he be talking about stuff that is outside his area of expertise? I remember him in a YT video about depression saying something like "we already know which chemicals make you happy and which dont", which is wrong since we know very little about what causes depression. Do you know any other situations when he was wrong?

A few things should be added to lay the foundation for further discussions. First gonochorism (the term to describe a sexual system where there are male and female members) does not always have to be linked to sexual dimorphism (the term to describe differences in appearance between male and females of a species). Sexual dimorphism is often a consequence of the respective reproductive strategies. Among hermaphroditic species, one can actually also distinguish between various forms. The one OP is thinking about is considered simultaneous hermaphroditism, i.e. all individuals producing sperm and eggs, but there are also species who are sequential hermaphrodites. I.e. producing egg or sperm at different points in their life. Studies trying to figure out fitness benefits have been investigating closely related species in which all three strategies are found, e.g. in certain worms. Here, it was found that the different species had different reproductive characteristics, that likely have benefits under different conditions. Generally, they found a trade-off between fecundity (how much they reproduce) and survival. Simultaneous hermaphrodites had the highest survival rate, but least fecundity (and smallest eggs, indicative of lower maternal investment), whereas the opposite was found for sequential hermaphrodites. The gonochoristic species was somewhere in-between. Taking that all together (survival rate, reproduction over total life cycle etc.) it seemed that the dichoristic species had overall the highest fitness. They had higher fecundity in the early stages of life cycle. They outperform simultaneous hermaphrodites, which have lower fecundity. While sequential hermaphrodites are more fecund, they are delayed until their female phase, and during the whole life cycle they are not able to compensate the early advantage. Essentially they are able to reach sexual maturity faster, likely as they only need to produce one form of gametes. The disadvantage of that gonochoristic species pay is that they produce males, that cost the same as females (as eggs) but do not directly contribute to future generations (the limiting factors are the eggs). Hermaphroditism is speculated to be a primary advantage when population densities are low and it is difficult to find a mate. There are also evolutionary developmental consideration. Transition from hermaphrodite to gonochoristic species is comparatively easy, as it could be reasonably executed by suppressing the development of one sexual function. Conversely, there are more steps involved in transition from gonochorism to hermaphroditism. I.e. once gonochorism outcompetes hermaphroditism in the evolutionary history of species, it is very unlikely that they hermaphroditism will develop, even if it became more advantageous.

That's basically a conspiracy theory. The idea that rules against murder, theft and such aren't about the observable harm they cause and are part of some secret cabal's desire to "control people" just for jollies is worthy of Alex Jones. "Controlling people" isn't necessary a bad thing, especially if they won't control themselves. That's why we have laws. Right, the larger group of society doesn't accept murder and rape, and the subgroup who commits murder and rape gets outnumbered. That's a good thing. And in reality, that scenario isn't even accurate, as there would likely be plenty of instances where the group making and enforcing the rules is the minority. I'd argue that there are plenty of arguments in the Bible against slavery, so if some are cherry-picking parts of it while ignoring the whole then that's on them. There's nothing within Christianity or the Bible that says similar principles can't exist elsewhere. If anything the ubiquitous of them argues in favor of them being universal. Likewise, the Bible says that sin is "common to man", so I'd argue this further substantiates the idea of universal principles of right and wrong behavior. And while I'm not an expert on Buddhism, whether or not it specifically invokes a God, it more or less argues in favor of ultimate truths about how people should or shouldn't behave. Right, but there are examples of social groups (e.x. drug cartels) who have little to no respect for these rules, and this type of behavior would be easier to justify by holding a purely materialist worldview. Your argument seems to hinge on the idea that "most people don't" commit extremely atrocious crimes, but, in theory, they could justify doing so much easier from a particular worldview.

Well, no, you put it in what you've been told is "evidenced" by authority figures, and only be very specific standards and axioms for "evidence", not what you have actually evidenced yourself. Dreams are "imaginary" but are still real, in the sense that they actually exist. I'm not sure that's a risk worth taking, especially if the consequences exist after death and the only way to "evidence" them would be to return from the dead, or possibly have a near-death experience. There are plenty of cases where the minority overrules the majority, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. For example, in the Jim Crow era the majority of white people may have wanted the minority of black people to use separate water fountains, something which could be overruled by a minority of justices on the basis of Constitutional law. Well, the majority of people in America believe in God, so what if the majority agreed to ban the teaching of evolution in public schools? Not really. It's just as apt an analogy, and nothing's been given to substantiate why one analogy fits but the other doesn't. "I don't believe in evolution for the same reason that I don't believe in green radioactive mutants who eat people's brains".