1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

Girl saying the tsunami in Japan is an answer to her prayers.

Discussion in 'Serious' started by Krog_Mod, 14 Mar 2011.

  1. zatanna

    zatanna What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    15 Oct 2010
    Posts:
    132
    Likes Received:
    8
    what fascinates me most about these types of discussions are the reasons we have them in the first place: the search for meaning, the need for community, a basis upon which to make decisions and to make sense of the world and our place in it, a sense of hope.

    coming from a catholic upbringing, i’ve experienced some of the benefits and many of the hindrances that come from indoctrination into a formal religion and a belief in an unseen (sometimes benign, sometimes intervening) “being” imposed on me from birth.

    over the years, the idea of “god” has in turn baffled, angered, comforted, confused, provoked and sorely disappointed me. like julia sweeney in the videos posted above, i was a “doubting thomas” from the beginning, if a silent dissenter in my youth. group conformity and my own introversion, kept me in line and i rationalized all manner of internal and external behavior and circumstances in order to bend them to the accustomed belief scenarios. in my twenties, my questioning evolved into an exploration of other religions in the form of study, and also for a time, practice of other religions, buddhism predominantly.

    ultimately, struggling with the question of a creator has left me a stronger, more resilient person and one who has gradually, and with key “aha” junctures, come to a better understanding of why we invent god (and religion) and how with an interest and continued study of the sciences I’m functional, happy and productive without all the “answers” or resorting to distorted and illogical thinking in order to cope.

    one of the benefits of my spiritual upbringing and exploration of various religions, was meeting a man who became a friend and counselor to me as I was tearing apart the last vestiges of my inherited catholicism and the collateral emotional damage, some deeply buried. rather ironically I think, this man is a catholic priest (in his eighties now) and one of the primary figures in my peace-making quest with my spiritual past. over the course of many discussions, some very much like this thread, we have come to an understanding and acceptance of our differences of thought about god/religion.

    one-on-one and in groups we have talked out some of the awful damage the catholic church, in particular, has inflicted directly or indirectly through the interpretation of its teachings, dogma and hierarchy: sexual abuse of children (he was sexually abused as a child), distortions of human sexuality in general, and of LGBT sexuality specifically, the marginalization of women, war, torture, propaganda and other discriminatory actions & attitudes justified as in keeping with the faith or doing good/godly work. because of his intelligence and sound understanding of science, I wanted to know what motivated him; because of course he could no more prove the existence of god than I could disprove it. his answer? he said it was down to a choice, pure and simple. in the presence of reasonable doubt, he simply made a decision and that is to believe in a creative energy and call it “god.” for him, the idea of the existence of god is preferable, proof or not, scientific theory notwithstanding. for him, it makes the ups and downs of life more palatable and there is a sense of hope and purpose to life for which he has found no other viewpoint as meaningful. because he views his belief as a choice and not an imperative, he’s very tolerant and also keenly aware of his own bias and prejudices. i know scarce few religious leaders/adherents like him.

    as for those of us making a different choice or just coming to some realizations now, I’ll put this video out there:
     
    Nexxo and Krog_Mod like this.
  2. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

    Joined:
    23 Oct 2001
    Posts:
    34,731
    Likes Received:
    2,210
    Indeed. In His Dark Materials there are angels and humans fighting on both sides.

    I could elaborate but that would mean spoilers...
    The story suggests that the entity who calls himself "God" was actually just the first angel to manifest (where from? Nobody knows. The conditions were just right so he did). He lied to subsequent angels that he was their creator because he wanted power and control. Some angels believed him and worshipped him as God. Some rebelled and were cast out (the Fall), and they have been fighting on the side of knowledge, wisdom and freedom ever since. The temptation of Eve was an attempt by those angels at breaking humans free from the Authority (as the pretend-God is referred to).

    Interestingly Philip Pullman leaves it open to the reader's mind whether there is a real creator/creative force, responsible for the universe, angels, humans and everything, or not. He does not argue against it, but in his story, the entity who calls himself God is an impostor.

    Pullman has no issues with faith as such, only with organised religious dogma.

    The problem with that is:
    • Truth is stranger than fiction because it doesn't have to make sense (Mark Twain);
    • Just because it does not make sense to you does not mean it does not make sense. To flip your argument around: there is a lot in various religions that does not make sense whatsoever.

    First, you would have to explain what you define as a "soul". I would argue that consciousness (if that is what you mean) is an emergent property of sufficiently complex networks. Again: Langston's Ant; even very simple systems can exhibit complex behaviour that you cannot infer just from its organisation.

    Second, cloning is tricky for all sorts of reasons, but none have to do with a "soul". It is just really tricky to enucleate (remove the DNA from) an ovum, and extract the DNA from a mature cell suitable for insertion into the ovum because it is already aged and has shortened telomeres. Once you get past those obstacles however (and it has been done), you can pretty much clone anything. As far as we know, human cloning has not yet been attempted beyond the 14 day embryo petri dish stage. Don't believe the urban myths about secret experiments in international waters. They never happened.

    Third, you are assuming that if there is intelligent life on another planet that this would prove life could occur spontaneously. Other people would argue that it was just God, again. The universe is a big sandbox so why should we be his only petri dish? So it proves nothing one way or the other.

    + rep for zatanna.
     
    Last edited: 29 Mar 2011
  3. leveller

    leveller Yeti Sports 2 - 2011 Champion!

    Joined:
    1 Dec 2009
    Posts:
    1,107
    Likes Received:
    24
    Pics, or it didn't happen!

    But seriously, can you elaborate?

    This is the only thing that we need to cross over to the believing side. Evidence!
     
  4. thehippoz

    thehippoz What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    19 Dec 2008
    Posts:
    5,780
    Likes Received:
    174
    :D I still remember the guys trying to clone people- it was tried and is probably still experimented with today.. they can't do it for whatever reason.. no urban myth man- even common sense would tell you that.. with all the people in this world, different governments and noone has tried to clone a person...

    zatanna sound like me except I wasn't brought up in a religious family.. my mom and dad divorced when I was young and then my dad found religion.. oh well, not like this is a debate really- I mean you are guys set in your ways

    I am still stubborn about the athiest view..
     
    Last edited: 29 Mar 2011
  5. Krazeh

    Krazeh Minimodder

    Joined:
    12 Aug 2003
    Posts:
    2,124
    Likes Received:
    56
    And do you have any evidence to support this claim? Or is it just a conspiracy theory?

    How does finding unexpected life on an alien planet do anything more to prove that life can occur spontaneously than the fact that there's already life on this planet? If someone has the belief that God was responsible for the origin of life on Earth why would they not believe the same about the origin of life on any other planet? Why would God only be able to create life here?
     
  6. thehippoz

    thehippoz What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    19 Dec 2008
    Posts:
    5,780
    Likes Received:
    174
    yeah your asking questions I can't answer.. and no it's not conspiracy about the clones- you can probably find the news on the guys who were doing the experiments.. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still doing them today

    think about it too.. why wouldn't they clone people- imagine the money they could make cloning rich people.. a way to live forever.. money, opportunity, it's naive to think someone cloned a person and then stopped at 14 days in a petri dish because of some laws =]
     
  7. thehippoz

    thehippoz What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    19 Dec 2008
    Posts:
    5,780
    Likes Received:
    174
    here's a guy in kentucy.. was like first link I came across

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fertility-expert-i-can-clone-a-human-being-1672095.html

    there's a lot of people who's tried to do it though.. I remember a couple in specific back when dolly was cloned and they were trying in international waters

    it's not a question of whether it's been tried..

    I edited that out before I saw post xD it would make sense if they found like say bacteria on mars, that that bacteria, if extraterrestrial, came from the elements without help.. sure you can stick god in anywhere and say look what he did

    but if your looking at it from the point of view- why does that life exist there? what purpose does it have existing there if you were a creator.. there's no reason for it to be

    it would lean way towards life 'just happening' to put it simply.. I mean if your looking at things rationally instead of an agenda, you would have to conclude that maybe life just happens (I don't personally believe that- it sounds silly enough already.. but all the claims made about life, it seems to be the rational explanation in that case)

    also if they were intelligent we could just ask them.. I would ask 'is the buttsecks monkey where you came from?'

    and then 'you can take a few of our men' (show them gaydar.net to browse) 'take them back to your planet for anal probing' xD
     
    Last edited: 29 Mar 2011
  8. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

    Joined:
    14 Apr 2004
    Posts:
    4,955
    Likes Received:
    202
    Are you talking about cloning, or memory transference? Rich people theoretically living forever has nothing to do with cloning.
     
  9. mvagusta

    mvagusta Did a skid that went for two weeks.

    Joined:
    24 Dec 2006
    Posts:
    4,639
    Likes Received:
    523
    Any of these guys seem to have souls?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_that_have_been_cloned
     
  10. thehippoz

    thehippoz What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    19 Dec 2008
    Posts:
    5,780
    Likes Received:
    174
    in body, you know what I mean super.. they've tried and they are still trying
     
  11. mvagusta

    mvagusta Did a skid that went for two weeks.

    Joined:
    24 Dec 2006
    Posts:
    4,639
    Likes Received:
    523
    One of us needs to get some R&R :eyebrow:
     
  12. VipersGratitude

    VipersGratitude Multimodder

    Joined:
    4 Mar 2008
    Posts:
    3,535
    Likes Received:
    837
  13. Quavr

    Quavr Minimodder

    Joined:
    3 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    183
    Likes Received:
    1
    Pretty sure the reason no human has been cloned yet is not because we can't do it, but because it is seen as immoral by many, it is also seen as a breach of human rights and so it is illegal in many countries. That is why there have been researchers who have managed to clone replacement body parts and organs, as this is not illegal in the uk and some other countries, whilst cloning a full human body is.
     
  14. feedayeen

    feedayeen What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    18 Jun 2008
    Posts:
    204
    Likes Received:
    21
    That's just about it, it is illegal in most places so nobody is willing to even try. Even if a group of people do try, they will run into funding problems and by announcing their success, they basically sign their death notices when a fanatical nut firebombs their property.

    Even if somebody does try, cloning still has a few problems. It has a very low success rate, both in terms of producing a viable clone that survives to birth as well as producing a living being that does not show signs of deformities, somewhere around 3% to .1% depending on the species and the experience of those involved. This means, you may have to deal with a thousand before you have a significant chance of producing a baby, and since gestation period for humans is 9 months, and most potential mothers will demand some form of monetary compensation, you are looking at a massive operation requiring millions to fund. These millions will pass though a bio-ethics committee which will see that such an experiment will likely result in a thousand miscarriages and a fair number of children born with crippling disorders then all discussions end.

    In order for human cloning to be acceptably justified, we have to have increase the success rate to around that of IVF which is 40% for healthy women. There is also a problem latter on with cloned species, animals have structures in their DNA designed to absorb damage when duplicating called telomeres, cloned animals keep the same telomeres as their 'parent' thus DNA damage is more probable. In other words, a clone is more likely to get cancer than the parent.
     
  15. Da_Rude_Baboon

    Da_Rude_Baboon What the?

    Joined:
    28 Mar 2002
    Posts:
    4,082
    Likes Received:
    135
    IMO the first human clone is likely to come out of somewhere like North Korea where you have a nut job who thinks he's a god and has absolute control over his people. Technical ability aside I think they would be willing to try it.
     
  16. Cthippo

    Cthippo Can't mod my way out of a paper bag

    Joined:
    7 Aug 2005
    Posts:
    6,785
    Likes Received:
    103
    I'm trying to figure out what difference it would make :confused:

    OK, so, lets say you cloned yourself...

    In 9 months a baby would be born that was genetically identical to you, but would have none of your knowledge, memory, or experiences. just another human being. Likewise, the fetus would have been exposed to different chemicals and sources of radiation in utero and so there would be differences there.

    We already have the technology to select out fetuses based on genetic characteristics, and some day we will have the ability to select for attributes. That's when it will start to get interesting. Until then, cloning is just an expensive way to pop out more humans.
     
  17. Threefiguremini

    Threefiguremini What's a Dremel?

    Joined:
    13 Sep 2009
    Posts:
    521
    Likes Received:
    19
    I'm not sure you understand what cloning means. It would be a different person. SO the rich guy would die and his genetic clone would live on but is a different person. How is that living forever? My sisters are identical twins so they are in effect clones. If one of them died we wouldn't say the other was a continuation of her life.
     
  18. Modsbywoz

    Modsbywoz Multimodder

    Joined:
    14 Oct 2009
    Posts:
    2,778
    Likes Received:
    273
    Can someone explain how we got from TSUNAMI to AEON FLUX?
     
  19. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

    Joined:
    23 Oct 2001
    Posts:
    34,731
    Likes Received:
    2,210
    It's never been tried. The link in question is well-known. The embryos were destroyed before 14 days of age, which is when they normally adhere to the wall of the uterus and start developing into a foetus. It is not possible to keep them alive outside the womb beyond this point. Basically: he chickened out of going all the way. But he could have.

    There is also no point to it. It has a high failure rate, so you'd need plenty of ovums and wombs to grow the baby in. No shortage of that in developing countries, where conveniently, they are also not that tight on human rights. But you need someone rich enough to fund the whole thing and most millionaires, frankly, do not need to resort to cloning to get offspring. Plenty of young, nubile, healthy women prepared to bear their offspring the natural way. There is no market for it like for instance with cloned livestock.

    Understand this, thehippoz: humans are cheap. There's millions of them dying on rubbish heaps (literally) every day. There's a surplus of them. There's too many. If you want cheap labour, slaves, body parts, whatever, you don't need to resort to cloning.

    If you want offspring you can make them yourself in the conventional way --it is much easier, and more fun to boot. Most people want a child with their partner --they want the heredity of both.

    So who would want a clone? The only people who might want a clone of themselves are narcissists. There are plenty amongst the millionaire crowd, but narcissists are essentially selfish. They want to live forever before they want an heir. So they'd be more interested in cloned transplant body parts for themselves than a whole baby as an heir.

    There might be bereaved parents, but they'd have to be very rich bereaved parents. And given that buying a clone would take them in illegal waters, it is still easier to just make a new child the usual way.
     
  20. BRAWL

    BRAWL Dead and buried.

    Joined:
    16 Aug 2010
    Posts:
    2,668
    Likes Received:
    186
    Be nice to see a genetic splicing of both DNA to make a clone of both parents in one body if we could get that right. For those who can't do it the normal way because of defective genetics/other issues though...

    Also... Zoey Deschanel... I'm just... sorry what were we talking about?

    He does raise a point... one day we might very well be able to code the very personality into a child before it is born. That would be amazing and terrifying at the same time. We could make sure every generation had a Picaso or Di Vinci... but we could also make sure every generation had a Mao, Stalin or Hitler. You could create people perfect to work in hospitals... but then you could create perfect people to put people into hospitals.

    The good parts I could understand. Providing these were clones/half-clones/whatever... to create, artists, nurses, surgeons, scientists, biochemical engineers.

    The bad parts... I dunno, creating the Kull Warriors from Stargate is all I can think of, Unthinking, 100% Loyal, Selfless, Nigh unstoppable death machines. Thats a friggin' scary prospect.

    Sorry... the cloning debate always gets me thinking... Cloning and Zoey Deschanel in the same post, Intresting proposal.....
     

Share This Page