Apoptosis

Is it just me or did nobody notice the article is from 2003? It's kind of old, we do this kind of stuff almost everyday now in biomedical research labs. The hundreds of intelligent minds and years of scientific research is used to find out how it happened over the million to billions years and present it in a form on a time scale that is more familiar to human reality, which is on the scale of years and decades. The number of people and the amount of time spent on this is still nothing compared to the geological time that Nature had to tinker to produce the effect that we call life. By saying that these scientist could not reproduce something in decades that nature achieve in billions of years is evidence of the existance of a creator is a fallancy at logic. In fact, if you gave these scientists just a few more decades (a microsecond on a geological time) im sure they would achieve what nature could not in a few million years.

The Big bang is the expansion of space, if matter is also in that space, then it will expand with it. This is why every point in the universe can be seen as the center of the universe. (picture an expanding bread with chocolate chip inside.) Example: When we observe other galaxies, we will see that every one of them is moving away from us as if the milky way is the center of the universe, but if you were living on Andromeda or the dwarf galaxy of Pegasus, you would observe the same thing. Note: Space is not matter or light, expansion of space can be faster than the speed of light, think like when you are running on a moving cart, the cart (representing space) is allowed to move faster than the speed of light, but YOU are not allowed to move faster than the speed of light in relation to the cart. So the object you observe in the night sky can be futher away from you than the age of the universe. The Big bang according to current quantum theory arose from random disturbances of "branes" of extra dimensions, that is when 2 branes collide, this causes a ripple effect and produce a "hole" in a new spacetime. This hole is proposed to be much like the opposite of a black hole, and creates space itself in the new spacetime, from it spews out matter and energy whose quantity and type depends on the vibration of the branes/strings that collided. This bigbang-creating disturbances may have happened countless times to create other universes, but new universe and its corresponding spacetime is exclusive to other universes and will not interfere and appear almost completely invisible to us. The values of the universal constant like force of gravity, or strength of the strong nuclear force may also depend on the very moment of collision of the branes, the vibration of the branes and corresponding strings dictate heavily on what type of energy/force or how much of each force will be present in the newly created universe. I another word, we are in a universe that supports life because we're merely the product of luck, there may have been billion of not trillions of other universes with different constants that are outside our current perception.

I can't remember who said this, but they certainly made a good point: secular totalitarian states like the USSR and China generally replaced God with their leader. I think that was me, but it was shared among most atheists and especially Sam Harris.

Uh, no, I did back it up, you just fail to study world history. These places are at war since the beginning of time, so they were at some form of war for some reason before and after enlightenment. The point was, because we are now enlightened, the enlightened countries are now at peace such as the countries in europe. For example, countr A, B, C, and D were always at some form of war since beginning of recorded history. However, because of rationality and enlightenment, country A, and C stopped fighting for example, colonial wars and became peaceful. But while B and D is still at war for various religious, nationalistic, or ethnic reasons. However, dispite the fact B and D is still at war, this still means there is an overall decrease in warfare and bloodshed in history. You view the world to have more conflicts because 1: You did not pay attention to world history in other places and you assumed these other places were peaceful before you heard from them. 2: You are now bombarded with news about world conflicts through the media, and you believe these conflicts and war never occur before now. Just because you can be easily informed with modern media doesn't mean these war did not occur much earlier on. Ease of access to information doesn't mean the body of information grew, it just means more ease of access.

Yes, they are genetically identical, unless the embryo somehow mutated beforehand.

Your statements provoke, but your wisdom consists of wind. You are stirring up tension where tension is not needed. Please discontinue. You are either here to learn or here to make a fool out of yourself. Decide Hey, I didnt say Horse Hockey, and you should check up on facts before you label somebody's wisdom as wind. Your only provoking fights which is unnecessary. You have shared no wisdom with us to label. All you have said is antagonistic. If I check up on facts are they your facts? certainly not so one may conclude that it is not your wisdom. I shall call you parrot hence forth. If you really want to sink to name calling, I think the "parrot" would be more fitting on you bible qouters. Are you implying that citing facts is being a parrot? If I write a research paper based on other written works, then I am a parrot? All academics must be a parrots then. One big flock. I don't really see an alternative; maybe we should just make facts up, so that they are our "own wisdom", as you seem to be suggesting... The problem is he [Apoptosis] is merely repeating what he's read on other sites. The reason we know this is I answered both of his objections and received nothing in return. Why is this? Simple, he didn't study the issue in order to take it to a deeper level, he is merely repeating whatever he's read or heard from someone else. This should be obvious to anyone who has read it. I am always surprised at how unfair atheists are in debates and discussion, that when one of their colleagues is caught in a mishap they rarely admit the colleague was wrong. Far from the academic honestly that you seem to brag about. 1: I'm not a He 2: Yes, im sure living there 6 years of your life, learned to speak fluent chinese, and having a parent from Communist China before their supposed modernization means you have no idea what the political and cultural climate is like. Give it up, I doubt you even have a passport. You're the one thats all heresay, not me.

LOL!!! BillylovesDarin, He ran out of points, had to make one up. Well of course Hitler would kill lots of people, he sure had a nice modernized army at his command. Do you really think Ghenghis Khan would have killed less people if he had machineguns? Or the Germanic tribes for that matter, or the Crusaders, or the English, or the French, or the Spaniards, or the Indian Princes. Guess what, these people stopped fighting eachother!!! Europe is pretty peaceful, you cant say that 500 years ago. Okay, the borders of israel are pretty dangerous, and many of those other small countries too, but you know, Israel is pretty small, how long did you think the Roman borders were? And how oftend did you think they were raided? And did you really think these small backwaters of civilization werent fighting before this? Take any country and I can show you its past were a lot more bloody than the present. Japan: Shogunate civil war, almost constant. China: Change in dynasty, usually comes after a civil war. India: Princes fight among themselves, almost constant. I never said there were no conflicts, just less of them.

Please show me examples of the evolving eye in the fossil record. Eyes, being soft tissue, does not survive in fossil records, the animals with lower forms of eyes usually do not evolve a skull, theyre mostly worms and mollusks. We cannot give you fossil evidence, but we can give you something better, living things right now with these kind of intermediary type of eyes that did not evolve because their enviroment never changed to cause them to go exstinct if their eyes did not evolve. In another word, there were no selective pressure for many of these animals to evolve the eye, so they didn't. Okay, I'll accept that you are more worried about their well being Evolution is not our god, he does not explain the universe, just what happened after the first replicating molecule came into being. We would reject evolution the minute we find a bunch of dinosaurs and humans coexisting, with the wrong carbon dating, and in the wrong geological strata. Natural selection applies to societal animals, when an animal evolved the ability to form social groups, the overall fitness of the animal both as individual and as a species is increased. Safety in numbers if you will for the simplest explaination. I had only played fancy ASSUMING if it was heritable, a hypothetical question. Youre taking the assumption as fact. Even if it was heritable, there would be explainations why its frequency is kept constant and was never selected out because homosexual trait tends to keep male groups and female groups together. Humans are very pack oriented animals, its not completely out of the question that slight homosexuality tendencies helped you to admire and obey the leader of the male or female pack. (this is a conjecture, you should not accept this statement from me since we do not even know if it is genetic related.) Second is while it might be genetic, the homosexuality trait could arise by sponaneous mutation. This is the case for many genetic disease that doesn't seem to run in families. And since its sponaneous, selection is unable to act on it to change its frequency. No, the fact that we develop altruism doesnt imply Evolution has a goal of some sort and is guided by something, this is the same road of mistake following the IC and Watchmaker arguement, you are presupposing that altruism must be a goal. Altruism is a character of all social animals but rarely a character of "antisocial" animals. Being social gives a selective pressure for altruistic actions because the group of animals you live with will generally return your altruistic actions, and even if you could not produce, your altruistic actions will benifit the group in the way to let them produce. Since you are also likely to be related to these group, by your own sacrifice, youre also making sure that your genes will be passed on indirectly. I don't agree with that, I personally think without God you become responsible for what you do, you are responsible for your own future. Your achievements are yours, and so are your failures. You end up with more responsibility because you no longer could blame say the Devil, or works of "evil" man, or that you were not faithful enough. I don't think thats true, I think the social injustices of the ancient world is dwindling. We no longer have slaves, and we view each individual equally, Womens are no longer mere objects, these are all social changes that indicating we are becomming more enlightened. We're no longer driven by paranoia and fear to conduct witch trials and not as easily swayed by false arguements to be manipulated for the wrongful actions. I believe we have much less murder and killings compared to the ancient world, but we have no records, so thats just a hypothesis. But I do know we have less wars, you may disagree, but I think we tend to think there are more wars because information about it is so much accessable to us now. During the time of the Roman empire, and even the Pax Romana, there were countless border skirmishes that left towns burned and villages destroyed, at least we no longer have that.

No, I don't believe you that that Chinese government is really a form of religion. The Chinese people believed that Mao Zedong was the savior of their country, the rallies in Tianmen square consisted of people screaming in unison of "Long Live Chairman Mao" (literally "ten thousand years, ten thousand year, ten ten thousand years of long life") with the sentences akin to when they had a theocratic emperor ruling over them in the Chinese emperial era. The party consisted of radical young people who turned in their parents for anti-revolution charges because they believed that everything Mao Zedong said was the absolute truth. All of them carried a red book called Mao's little red book and would hold it up to proclaim that they believe in chairman mao and that this book is the word of truth and believed that their belief in communism should be spread around the world to all people that are capitalist. The Government held trials akin to the witch trials of europe and america for political rivals and people who did not share their common view. People who questioned the truth of Mao and the Communist parties was sent to prison purely on the charge that they did not accept the truth that was communism. People proclaimed that they would die for Chairman Mao if he merely commanded because his words was absolute. Thousands of people were executed on charges like using Opiums, prostitution, and being homosexual because they believed these were immoral conducts as dictated by Chairman Mao and The Party, these executions today we would view as cruel and unusual punishment. They believed the teachings of Mao and his radical revolution towards communism and executed land owners, businessmen, and intellectuals because Mao's Communism had deemed them Evil and Counter revolutionary. You don't have to believe its really a Religion, but it certainly reeks of characters of the dogma of religious fundamentalism.

Your statements provoke, but your wisdom consists of wind. You are stirring up tension where tension is not needed. Please discontinue. You are either here to learn or here to make a fool out of yourself. Decide Hey, I didnt say Horse Hockey, and you should check up on facts before you label somebody's wisdom as wind.

Why dont you? You're obviously much more in touch with God, aren't you curious why he doesn't heal amputees?

I guess Jephthah and Josiah doesn't exist in the bible. And I guess you dont believe me that they have this glass coffin of Mao Zedong in Tianmen Square?

How come he doesn't heal Amputees, a lot of them are very faithful, is it a sin to be an amputee or something?

Well if you read scriptures, you would know that He performed thousands of healings and miracles! He also used words in a powerful, magnificent way...being the Truth and all! Thats heresay from people 2 thousand years ago, and with no more evidence than just a book mind you, I need to see it for myself, at least more evidence, like abnormal magnetic field on a peice of bone on a person that Jesus just happen to heal, or the inability of the skeleton of a healed individual to be broken by any modern means.

Okay, lets entertain the idea that Homosexuality was indeed heritable. Now, lets entertain the fact that you believe in evolution and that these traits can only be passed on via mating. We know you don't like Homosexuality... so there is something I dont understand here... Why are you so against them from marrying? You realize, SUPPOSE that it is inheritable trait, once you stop them from marrying, or outlaw homosexuality, you are promoting them to get married to the opposite sex and reproduce, which LEADS to the propagation of these traits that you deem so Evil. You are infact, promoting homosexuality by inhibiting them from having their relationships that wont produce offsprings. So if you are anti-homosexuality, anti-gay marriage stance is against what you really want to achieve. Are you just not thinking?