Moontanman

LEARNING TO CUSS A 6 year old and a 4 year old are raking the yard. The 6 year old asks, "You know what? I think it's about time we started learning to cuss". The 4 year old nods his head in approval. The 6 year old continues, "When we go in for breakfast, I'm gonna say something with hell and you say something with ass". The 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm. When the mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 6 year old what he wants for breakfast, he replies, "Aw, hell, Mom, I guess I'll have some Cheerios". WHACK! He flies out of his chair, tumbles across the kitchen floor, gets up, and runs upstairs crying his eyes out, with his mother in hot pursuit, slapping his rear with every step. His mom locks him in his room and shouts, "You can stay there until I let you out!" She then comes back downstairs, looks at the 4 year old and asks with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?" "I don't know", he blubbers, "but you can bet your ass it won't be Cheerios"..

So far it looks like special pleading wrapped in horse feathers... This is nothing but horse feathers...

So turning water into wine or walking on water can be explained by physics? I know you want to believe this stuff but it has been shown over and over here that you are making claims that cannot be backed up and some such as it has not been refuted are plainly wrong... I have seen the strategy a great many times, this thread in particular but i didn't know it had a name...

The reality I see is testable, I can perform experiment to confirm this and others can do the same experiments and reach the same conclusions. There is no getting around it so get used to it...

To a great extent dark and light skin can be explained by the latitude the people live at. The further north you go the less sunlight you get year round and the less vitamin D your body can make and the this affects reproductive success so light skinned people do better in the long term than dark skinned peoples. This effect is enough to prevent the genes for dark skin from enduring in populations in more northerly latitudes while light skinned people do not do as well in lower latitudes due to skin damage from too much sun light exposure. But other traits such as hair texture occur independent of skin color and can spread freely through the population. You do see light skinned people with kinky hairs and dark skinned people with straight hair and all variations in between... The most important fact is that human populations are not completely isolated from each other and gene flow continues unabated through out the human population with certain genes being favored in different areas for various reasons... Everyone should resemble their parents but still have variation, we can all trace our ancestry back to people who do not resemble us very much as well... Evolution is ongoing right now but humans are not isolated populations, gene flow occurs over time ad those genes that allow better success at breeding tend to be selected for but there is to much similarity between people to say we are different in any really meaningful way due to that constant gene flow...

The process is called abiogenesis, no magic involved although we do not have a complete understanding of the process at this time we do have some good data and hypothesis. It's quite possible we will never know for sure but the idea of a bacteria suddenly appearing is not what happened... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html

This is a case of a African couple giving birth to a blonde blue eyed baby. http://www.essence.com/2010/07/21/black-couple-gives-birth-to-white-baby/ Another good take on the subject, but the essence of it is that we are all related and quite recently, no more than a a few thousand years ago.

I know we are supposed to use videos sparingly but these two are spot on the subject and explain it much better than i can. The idea is that certain characteristics occur in certain populations and tend to persist in the geographical areas they are endemic to and the local gene pool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyknbCLys_8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71piW8lSxw4

It has been an interest of mine for many years as well, I waver back and forth about to some extent, the current data would seem to caution against it but that can be debated i think...

Yes, this is demonstrably true... Yes, I can recommend a good video on this exact subject if you wish to watch it. Yes, if you go back about 2500 years everyone alive then every where was the ancestors of everyone alive today or no one alive today.

If this is true then how can you claim the things you claimed about consciousness? Then it cannot be determined to be part of reality. Millions of people report being abducted by aliens, numbers of people who believe something is meaningless as evidence... If this was a scientifically documented report there should be more than just a "show" about it... I would say mistaken... I see no reason to assume anything else... Those experiences are called hallucinations... Optimism is meaningless but you are welcome to it...

I am going to go with Ed on this one, what I think the universe is or want it to be is meaningless, if it cannot be empirically tested asserting it as reality is dishonest in my view...

You should start a thread, it's an interesting avenue of discussion I think... Especially with the new information we have in the last few decades that show complex organics in interstellar space,,, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interstellar_and_circumstellar_molecules

The objective reality as "seen" by our senses is all we have that can be confirmed, to suggest any other reality is dishonest at best...

If they hybridized their genes with our then the result would be neither one and you would end up with the third species taking over the earth, a lot of trouble just to create more competition for space... You are assuming they would travel specifically to the earth to visit, this would require a lot of assumptions, they would have to be near enough to know we are here, and fast enough to make the trip reasonable, and there is nothing they can get from the earth that is not easier and more available in space debris... There have been some interesting bits of stuff found in meteorites, but nothing conclusive. Are you suggesting interplanetary pan spermia or interstellar pan spermia?

I heard they like to pole them occasionally as well...

Yes, I understand, I still question how you can make that assertion, solipsism cannot be refuted or confirmed, it is not a testable way to describe the world.

The main thing that jumps out at me in the OP was the idea that some how science equals atheism and that the "fight" is between Christendom and science, this is not true, the videos I listed show this very well and the texts are available as well as links to some relevant scientific information. http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/1stFFoC.html

Lots of very good answers here and i do understand the delima of religious indoctrination vs scientific inquiry. I suggest this series of videos to illustrate so many here have written in print, sometimes a visual representation can close the gaps a written description cannot... science is not necessarily atheism and religion is not necessarily creationism, this series of videos illustrates this extremely well, there are 17 of them but they are all only around 10 to 15 minutes long and well worth watching... http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL126AFB53A6F002CC

I asked for evidence, you, like everyone else, are welcome to your beliefs as long as they don't impinge on any one else but you are not welcome to your own facts. Now again, you made a pretty hefty assertion here. All I want to know is how do you know that... all I see is assertions about belief and feelings neither is acceptable as evidence..

Maybe they use only one orifice for everything like this creature, an invertebrate with an internal skeleton...

It's the only system we have... what is your point?

How do you know that?