The Mess Hall

this was a really interesting program to watch and i wanted to share the link to the been iplayer for anyone to watch if they are interested.

b01n8ls6

now the basic premises is that the presenter takes this group with him on a journey to see if he can change their mind on the idea that god (or the christian/jewish/islamic one specifically) created the earth and mankind etc..

if you feel like discussing it also please do its a good topic to discuss, try to keep the conversation civil though

personally i think the evidence is too overwhelming that it didnt all happen in 6 days, the earth is utterly ancient and that humans evolved from a primordial soup (eventually).

i dont have a problem with anyone believing in a diety but to say the earth is 6000 years old (or however old the bible says) is just a bit daft, and that somewhere down the line your uncle bob was swinging from a tree? well i find that more believable than it starting with 2 humans (a genetic impossibility).

I'm totally on the same page as you, but just to play devil's advocate...

Suppose there was a supreme deity that did create Adam and Eve and that other stuff... Is it not also feasible that said deity could just as easily sculpt reality to make it look like evolution was the case?

I mean, planted evidence is not a new concept - just ask coppers behind on their quotas

This scientific evidence to the contrary may simply be God testing humanity's faith...


Christ, someone best move this into the Clan section in case some religious nut job gets hold of it... We don't want arguing against them to be made any harder than it already is.

You sure that shouldn't have gone in the 'stupid Americans' thread instead Sy?

states i throughly encourage any religious zealots to sign up and attempt to have a battle of wits with me.

i aint scared of god, im scared of cholesterol

I certainly don't believe in the bible's version of creation (Genesis).
But I do believe in God.
I have a scientific mind.
But I believe in God.

Thankfully I'm not the only one.
I read in New Scientist a few years ago that chemists, biologists and physicist (it maybe a small group, but it's getting bigger) are taking up religion.

Why do hardcore scientist go this way?

It seems that the deeper they look and the more complex their chosen field, the more they see a certain nature of "intelligent design".

Go back to the big bang. It's believed that EVERYTHING in the universe was created in that instant, well it wasn't (theory), it already existed in a singularity, everything was contained in a tablespoon of matter. This is something physics will never be able to explain. Even theoretical physicists have to take certain things on faith, even if it's a different type of faith. How did it get there? What caused the big bang? How is it that everything we know about everything became into being, and did so with certain uniformity?

Some believe that there were many versions of this "big bang", but this is the only one where life could take hold. That maybe so, but it's such a fine balance it's staggering. Like walking into a tailors, it's not surprising to find a suit that fits. (to quote "a small history of nearly everything - audio-book available on request).

So where does it fall apart?
Gravity - just a difference on 1% in strength - stronger or weaker, and the whole universe falls unravels. 1% more and everything would eventually re-form into the singularity. 1% less and all that would exist in the universe is dust.

Now I'm not so hot on biology, but from what I've learned is that DNA is pretty much the same, it's a marriage of perfection of proteins to create simple molecules into a complex living breathing and intelligent animal. One tiny difference and things could be so very different.

The more in-depth that some scientists get into their research, the more some believe in intelligent design.



But that all being said, who's to say that God wasn't an alien?
Science has dispelled many myths throughout the years, witchcraft, wizardry, and superstition all felt the wrath of science.

Things that we once believed to be miracles, could in time just be advanced science. 1,000 years from now, we could be the Gods creating life elsewhere.

BTW Pud - BBC BBCode is easy: hover over the bbcode and it'll tell you how to use it. In this case it's just

Dazbobaby wrote:So where does it fall apart?
Gravity - just a difference on 1% in strength - stronger or weaker, and the whole universe falls unravels. 1% more and everything would eventually re-form into the singularity. 1% less and all that would exist in the universe is dust.

Now I'm not so hot on biology, but from what I've learned is that DNA is pretty much the same, it's a marriage of perfection of proteins to create simple molecules into a complex living breathing and intelligent animal. One tiny difference and things could be so very different.

I don't especially agree with this I'm afraid Daz.

A slight difference in the strength of gravity would just mean a slight change in the point of equilibrium. Planets orbits would be 1% bigger or smaller, etc.

Sure - things would be different, but a similar state of equilibrium would still be achieved.

Similarly with evolution - there is nothing intelligent about it... It's simply a brute force search through gene-space with natural selection as an evaluation of success or failure.

Read (or get the audio book if there is one) Richard Dawkin's The Blind Watchmaker. It talks exactly about this kind of thing on the evolutionary level...