Is there any purpose to this post besides mocking people?

"If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent Him"
Voltaire

As far back as we can trace humanity, we find spiritual beliefs. Be interesting to know when man or what came up with the idea of a God.
Honestly, I find that complex thinking, more than coming up with an idea to explain what you don't know. Throughout the history of man, it has been proven religious tribes were more advanced than non religious.
No doubt advanced minds learned that people could be controlled by religion.


"A man is accepted into church for what he believes
--and turned out for what he knows." --Mark Twain

Can I get an "Amen" to this? Amen!...

<O>

as almost all human cultures have a rich history of storytelling I say that the creation myths developed soon after the development of language. Good question as to when that started.

I'm interested in what you mean by "advanced". Take the Australian Aboriginal culture. Quite religious with its own rituals and deities but until the arrival of Euorpeans, they lived largely the same way they had for 40,000 odd years as hunter gatherer's using Stone Age tools.

Long time ago somebody looked up into the nightly sky and for the first time ever realized that the couldn't grab the stars, but they were there, and that moon and sun were moving over the sky, but he couldn't grab them and keep up with them. That rose questions.

It is widely agreed on that astronomy was the first science that formed up, with metaphysical interpretations of its observations following closely, and thus in many cults you see a close tie between a regional civilization's religious cults, and the observation of the stars and the sun. Later, the meaning of time of year - according to astronomic indices - and farming was discovered, by repeated observation and seeing the repetition of patterns in constellations.

All that could have led to a pantheistic view, where all nature was seen as a divine revelation. It could also lead to a polytheistic model, where objects of individual observations where linked to fantastic heroes and heroines - the god of the corn, the god of wind, the god of the sea. From there it went on with gods and goddesses representing things that were not observed in a scientific, factual manner, but meant qualities that while abstract nevertheless were seen as important: love, skills in craftsmanship, trading, poetry, and so on.

The nice thing was, that these deities all had one thing in common: they were pragmatic business man. If you payed them with sacrifices and prayers, they would deliver you the incident or event that you begged from them. You could also have a deal for a protection insurance, and another deal for temporarily cancel nature's laws of the cosmos on behalf of your interests, or gaining the option to have the future tailored according to your desire. Anything goes when the price is right!

What all this means, is that it represents man'S attempt to add an order to what he perceives, and to erect the illusion of control over a world that by its ways and goings could crush man any moment and makes him aware of how vulnerable and impotent he really is. And that understanding is a tough burden to bear - too tough for many. It is an artificial order that man sorts his perceptions and hopes in, and it did and does change over time. Like in science, where theory serve the same purpose, just on a more abstract, less selfish level: theories are man'S attempt to sort observations in that kind of order that lets them all rest in the same presentation box with the smallest amount of conflicts between them.

I found this to be a very interesting debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK2OcIIkpPo

The problem I have come to realize, in my opinion, with evolution, is that not only is there the question of the missing link, but thousands of missing links. They cannot seem to find anything except fossils that they claim are precursors to various unique species. Another problem I have is in the field of genetics, as it relates to evolution. Evolution, at the present time, would have us believe that genetic code (i.e., genetic information) is a complete accident:
"Biologically and chemically, there is no reason why this particular genetic code, rather than any of millions or billions of others, should exist, scientists assert. Yet every species on Earth carries a genetic code that is, for all intents and purposes, identical and universal. The only scientific explanation for this situation is that the genetic code was the result of a single historic accident. That is, this code was the one carried by the single ancestor of life and all of its descendents, including us."
-http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/li.../l_044_02.html

If we are to extrapolate genetic code according to similar inferences drawn through the same observational methods used to actualize Evolution, one has to ask: Where does "information" come from?
Genetic code is information. It tells a cell how big to grow until it reaches the proper size proportionate with it species, function, etc.. It tells an organism whether to grow a heart, how many hearts, how big the heart should be, etc., etc., etc.. Does information (i.e., genetic code) evolve out of nothing? If we extrapolate from observable references (e.g., ever smaller computer chips that hold ever increasing amounts of information), is it not feasible to note that information only comes from intelligence, or intelligent sources?

While that may be true, it doesn't negate the age of the fossils, which is a key argument for the other side. The question is still very much open and as with any scientific endeavour more information is always needed. It also doesn't answer proponents of the "other" argument still have no evidence at all to support their claims.

First of all, Evolution is a field of science, and as such cannot "have us believe" anything. Some proponents of Evolution make the claime that the genetic code is an accident. That is their belief. In fact there is no way of knowing whether the code is accidental or designed.

That is a good philosophical question, but not a scientific one. No one knows whether that information evolves out of nothing or not. At the present time it can't be shown one way or the other, so it is not a scientific question at all.

It is certainly feasible to believe it. To "note" it? We don't know where intelligence comes from. We don't know where the harmony in the universe comes from. To assume that it has to come from a superior intelligence is still only an assumption.

Genetics: genetic information does not come "as is", but is self-forming and self-emerging. The organism is confronted by an environmental need ore scores a learning success, and the genetic code changes in what appears to be adaptation to said needs, or a recording of said learning success. By that, it then gets copied to later generations.

Species from different eras of the development line of a given genetic lineage, sometimes can coexist, talk is of so-called "living fossils" like coelacanths (Quastenflosser), or whale sharks, or certain very old reptiles and amphibias. Evolutionary development is not always linear or single-line, it can develop in parallel lines, and can even reverse earlier changes and have a species returning to a state close to an earlier phase of its development.

The question is not where the info comes from that is encoded in the genetic code and that it must have come from any form of creator putting it there, because the very essence of evolutionary theory si that it explains why it changes and gets encoded pretty well. The "How" is explained quite well in principles and mechanisms.

What remains is the question of "Why has it started", so you hit the same wall here that you hit when following the Big bang theory. Where has the first genetic ifnromation come from? Was it a primitive sample created by a lucky event like chemical and physical agents and a lightning bolt coming together and traraaa- there you got it; or was it a meteor carrying genetic samples that infested planet Earth after the meteor struck Earth? Where did the genetic material then originated from in that alien place where the meteor picked it up? Science admits that it does not know. Religion claims that it knows, but in fact: nobody knows, so why the claims and fairy tales. Speculations will not answer that question, and we should be adult and mature enough to admit that we just don't know it.

Science itself admits they can't find "origin" although they try. No matter what energy source they find, they end up with another energy source to find.

I find it interesting that man and ape come from a common ancestor, but oddly that missing link hasn't been found. You would think it would be a more common link/fossil since man is a relative new species.

The point is, imagine a primitive man with lil rational logical skills, he is looking all around in his loincloth thinking to himself "how do I explain these things I don't understand". Why would he even need to explain them? So he comes up with an idea, a complex supernatural realm. To me that's advanced thinking.

We know most tribes not connected to each other around the world had beliefs in the supernatural, so I assume the belief formed in mans earliest stages as he left Africa about 70,000 years ago, then evolved as people spread over the world.

I haven't studied it well, but I find it amazing that primitive man could come up with such an idea, an idea that actually was probably needed for the progression of man.

I know Dawkins even hints that aliens could've seeded man and shaped his beliefs. Regardless, it does seem some higher form of life was involved in the process.

Science will never know the origin of life, so they say "I don't know"
Religion claims "origin" is outside the physical realm, it's obvious, so we believe...Either could be right or wrong, but I find it silly that either side would make fun of the other.

There have been several fossils found that "could be" a link, but it's not easy to establish a direct relationship since the DNA is so similar between species. I wouldn't think it would be more common, simply because any connection would have to be so very long ago and despite all the finds that have been made they are still scant compared to the number of "people" that lived during those eons. An equally good question that doesn't get asked nearly enough is that if the finds that have been made are not links of some sort, what are they? Hitherto unknown variant species? If so, where did they come from if they didn't evolve from something else? All the different species of ape-like creatures were all created at the same time, and some thrived while others died out? Possibly, but why? If there were originally equal numbers of each, why haven't more fossils been found of the extinct ones?

There are many questions people don't ask, and I wonder if they don't ask them because their minds are already made up, so they only ask the questions that seem to support their views. Of course I don't know the answer to that one either.

You bring up some good points, but I don't recall ever addressing the "Big Bang" theory. Also, I am in the process of seeking information and asking questions, not trying to convince anyone of anything. So, I didn't feel the hit of any wall.

Sailor Steve, on the other hand, did lend me some help in one of his answers, which is helping me to understand how science (as a study) thinks. That was a metaphor. You don't have to explain that people think.:up:

I was watching a documentary about dogs last week. What I found interesting is that a dogs' genetics is almost identical to wolves in almost every way, except for a scant handful which they say is the result of cross breeding. They even claim that new science indicates that dogs may be more intelligent than first believed, even more intelligent than a Chimpanzee.
I've watched more than one so I don't recall which documentary I saw it in, but I think it was called "The Science of Dogs" or something to that effect. Might have been a National Geographic video.

It actually does make sense.

The ape line of evolution is a successful species as is the human line. The "missing link" it may have been an unsuccessful species. It died out while the other two species survived. There may have been a third or more evolution species that were neither ape nor human that came from this "missing link" that were also unsuccessful and died out.

The bottom line is that the non-observance of the "missing link" neither supports nor refutes the theory that it existed.

1. We may not observe it because it never existed
2. We may not observe it because it existed but died out relatively quickly

Observation, or in this case non-observation can't differentiate between the two. This also applies to the ubiquitous discussion "is there a god?"

I can't observe god. This means one of at least two things

1. God does not exist
2. God exists but is not observable by any capability I currently posses

The fact that I can't observe god does not support or refute either hypothesis.

This is the weakness of using observation as a means of making logical inferences. To quote Ronnie Rumsfeld "absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence".

Dogs and humans are the only species with an inherent ability to interpret pointing.

Most mammals, when a human points, focus on the tip of the finger. Adult humans and adult dogs, have a greater chance of instinctively following the direction of the point. That's a pretty complex thought process.