I think Nexxo has pretty much got it. Yes free speach gives us the right to draw Mohammed as much as we want, but when the sole reason for doing it is to wind up and antaganise Muslims, that doesnt stop your motives making you an arsehole, even if the act itself is allowed. As what I would call a pretty relaxed but still strong Christain I have no issue with poeple poking fun at my beliefs, as long as they have no issue with me poking fun and finding flaws in thiers. I start to get annoyed when people insult me because of my beliefs simply because I have beliefs which they dont like. If you have a reasonable point, a logical argumant fine, however, if you like taking the piss to get your kicks, go F*** off.
Exactly, if you can insult one religion (I point out how in the middle east jews are depicted at times by followers of islam) then you should be prepared to have your own insulted. No belief, or lack of belief, should be held above any other. All are open to ridicule.
It's been done. As Spec says, the original conditions of Earth have been more or less replicated in the lab and lo, complex organic molecules and amino acids formed. You struggle with the concept of life "just happening". Life does not 'just happen' any more than a hammer 'just falls'. There's physics involved. The universe is subject to entropy: things decaying from an organised state to a homogeneous disorganised state; energy flowing from concentrated points of organisation to a homogeneous soup of heat radiation. Like water will sink to the lowest point because of gravity, energy flows to the most homogeneous state because of entropy. The chemical and physical processes that we call 'life' happens to be the quickest path for energy to do this. It is like water flowing down a mountain and carving glaciers and rivers. Nobody created those glaciers and rivers. There was no plan (sorry, Slartibartfast). Neither was there 'just happening'. It is the physical consequence of a lot of water rushing to its lowest gravitational point, which is Sea Level. Life is the glaciers and rivers that energy carves in matter on its way to its entropic 'sea level'. It's a stretch, but try and imagine it. We can clone a human. We've cloned sheep (Dolly), cats (CopyCat --yes, really), dogs (a Labrador called Lancelot). They all have consciousness and behave like sheep, cats and Labradors do. We could do humans. There is no mystery about it. But technologically, cloning is complex and most clones still have genetic glitches to do with fractured telomeres and RNA transfering etc. (you don't think that stuffing chromosomes into a stem cell goes without breaking a few strands, do you)? And then there are all those pesky, but understandably necessary laws against human cloning. Now I won't go into what you mean by a 'soul' here because that could be another debate on human consciousness, cognition, epiphenomenological processes and emergence phenomena etc. No disrespect meant, but having what you may think of as a soul has nothing to do with cloning, and is no obstacle to it. Yeah, but who wants to pick the side of an asshole (or in this case, who wants to chose sides between two different assholes)? If people have cloned humans, they have broken the law, so they are not going to be bragging about it. We've got as far as human embryos though, so we know it can be done. The problem here, thehippoz, is that you argue against stuff that you don't understand. Every time a creationist starts a debate with me on evolution, I spend the first hour teaching them about evolution (or rather, that it is not what they assume it is). And correcting all their misconceptions. And filling in all their gaps in knowledge. And then I have to explain about chaos theory: Nonlinear Dynamics and Strange Attractors, Critical Dependence on Initial Conditions; re-iteration, emergence, genetic and non-genetic processes of inheritance, how DNA actually works (and doesn't)... all to someone who has an emotional investment in his own beliefs and is hell-bent on proving me wrong anyway. And all that is just so we can establish a common frame of reference before we start the actual debate itself. Sorry, not doing it again. Whatever flaws you perceive in our scientific knowledge and theories, they are in fact the flaws in your own understanding of them.
Do you think only Sikhs wear turbans? Youve made a racist misconception there I am afraid mate. Lots of people wear them, for different reasons and in different styles. For example they often from part of military uniform or courtly dress.
aye nexxo.. sorry not true on both counts- you can try and stretch it but it's still not true when the day comes either comes true.. I might have to re-examine my own beliefs.. until then why try and bend the facts.. writing a wall of text doesn't make it true.. there was a race at the time cloning was big to see who could be the first.. so now you want me to believe they are hiding clones? I'm up for a good conspiracy theory but really.. and far as having new compounds form in a vat.. that's not life- if they create a new life form from a vat come talk to me.. they've been doing similar experiments since issac newtons time (but they called it alchemy back then) this is what I have a problem with.. your jumping the gun, counting the chickens before they hatch, your talking about flux capacitors when they are talking about a butts capacity, ect.. the whole thing is racist imo.. I mean you have these cartoonists openly riling up a whole group of arabs- the jesus comics are alright because believers aren't prone to cut your head off for something so petty.. I'd leave it alone
Prove it doesn't to be fair you've not missed much ashes to ashes is better as Alex Drake is hotter than sam taylor Ignorance might be bliss or it might not be bliss I tend not to talk to ignorant people so I couldn't comment on that, Sorry. And again I ask you to prove that it doesn't true and if we did know would it finally explain the duck billed platypus to be fair I don't see a problem with cloning a human and if you mean for spare parts etc then Again I don't see the problem with it except the ones that societys own ethicial and moral compass throw up.
Eh, I'm typing this from a Linux live CD while I set up a RAID on a system here at the house, so I don't have access to all of the resources I normally do. While I want to simply side with thehippoz and help the side of Christianity, it's a lot more complex than that. Nexxo, we've debated before, and you know you don't have to trot out the science lesson to me-I'm pretty well versed. Besides, you may enjoy this. I'll posit something here-I can believe in evolution and still believe in creation! I'm not a young earth creationist (while I believe it was possible to God, that doesn't mean that's how he did it) and so the concepts of evolution could easily fit in with what we know about creation (which is admittedly very little.) What i do know about it is that Hebrew lyric poetry and storytelling both emphasized certain aspects over another. As this was intended to be a truthful document the core truths (God created the heavens and the earth, filled it with creatures, put in man, and told him to be fruitful and multiply) are accounted for, but we don't know the mechanism thereof. As it is quoted often both that God's ways are not our ways, and that time is not to God what it is to us, it is completely conceivable that the prime mover of the Big Bang was God Himself. Just because God chose to use natural forces instead of supernatural does not make it any less divine an event. Now, while we have created complex nucleic acids and other important organic molecules, have tinkered with bacteria and other organisms in complex and sometimes disturbing ways, and can clone quite a few things, we have not created life yet. We have altered, copied and gotten a piece down the road, but complete abiogenesis has eluded scientists. Do I believe it's impossible? Yeah, actually I do. Does that mean I will ignore science in the area? No, not really. In fact, I'm fascinated by biology, especially things like cryptozoology and early hominid studies. Do I have answers to every question out there? No, but that doesn't hurt my belief either. My belief is a rational response to the things that I have seen, and the studies I have made in the areas of science, history, archaeology, and logic. If you care to debate that with me, we can start a thread. I'm full of info. Now, as to cloning humans. I'll posit this-it's easy, and people do it all the time. Look at identical twins. They are identical clones of each other, yet they develop distinct personalities as a result of environmental factors and the fact that no two brains are just alike. If you believe that human cloning is impossible because of the question of a soul, I posit this-would it be impossible for God to create a soul for a clone? And, if God did create a soul for that clone, that would be a unique human being, with hopes, dreams, and a destiny that God granted them, as well as the same chance at eternal life He offers all His children. At that point, while they share a genetic code with someone else (and therefore could be quite a help for things like organ donation) they are a separate person, and not a "creation of man." I do believe that clones would have to be afforded the same civil right and liberties as any other human, which would make them equal under our law as well. The concept of soulless clones is just something thought up in a D&D book somewhere. While I believe there was a plan, I have no problem with the concept of God lovingly watching things take their course, shaping here and there to his whim. One of the attributes of an all-powerful God is His ability to sit there and let things go sometimes, I believe. Just because one isn't big enough to step outside the box and look at the plan doesn't mean there isn't one-it may simply mean that we're not big enough to grasp in part or in its entirety.
Sikhs wear lots of different styles of turban. The main thing that would make a "Sikh turban" Sikh, is that a sikh is wearing it!
That is not what I'm saying. I am saying that not having heard of an example of human cloning is not sufficient proof of it being impossible, given that it is basically illegal and hence would not be advertised. But human embyos have already been cloned. It is in the news. To argue that it is impossible because of a soul makes no sense whatsoever until you define In scientific terms what you understand to be a soul. Except that science produced results. Replicating life however is a bit like replicating a good whiskey: it can be done, given 25 years of maturation. Some things just take time because you cannot speed up chemical and physical processes easily. So yeah, we could run the primordial soup experiment and almost certainly get proto-life --if we had a test tube the size of Earth and a few million years of simmering time to let the critical combinations of molecular structures randomly fall into place. Anything else would be cheating and sort of defeat the test. a hundred years ago man was not meant to fly. Sixty years ago space travel was considered impossible. The idea that machines could beat us at certain cognitive tasks, that we could transplant organs... All science fiction, dreams by Babbage and gothic fiction by Mary Shelley. In a century, humanity has gained a better quality of life and a better understanding and control of his environment than it has ever achieved through believing in devine intervention. Sorry, but I know which has a better track record of delivering the goods when it comes to the physical universe. This does not mean that faith has no place or function in the human world, but don't apply it to the wrong domain. After all science cannot not guide us on matters of morality and spirituality. Moreover science does not disprove God. It makes no statements about God --just about how the physical world works. For all we know, as Kayinblack says, this is how God chose to do things (it would certainly be a better testimony to creative genius). But just because something is harder for you to understand than "God did it" does not make it far-fetched or wrong. The results speak for themselves.
Ummmmm in case you did not know: Being a Muslim does not make you an Arab. There are plenty of muslims who do not live in the middle east out there. Also not all Christians are white europeans and not all athiests are like Richard Dawkins.
guess can address this part.. might as well tell you where I'm coming from.. I believe we all have a soul.. if a human was to be cloned and have exactly the same traits as daddy- that would point more to the fact we are superior animals than actually possessing a one of a kind soul (I can't believe I have to explain this but you asked) when they couldn't clone people.. other than body parts with stem cells, I'm talking about a breathing person.. it kind of fit into what I thought was true since I was a kid asking myself why are we all here.. I would be shocked if they could do it considering the dr. evils that were out in international waters trying to do it for years (and imagine if it was possible.. not a really great world to live in) the other stuff.. whatever.. we don't know be honest and the arab thing.. it went over your head I guess.. pointing out the differences- I don't see any sense in killing someone over a drawing- think it's nuts.. someone has to say it
Well yes, you do. Because all rational debate starts with a definition of terms and establishing a common frame of reference. I still don't see what you mean by a 'soul', however. Can you explain what a soul is? As I said: it would be illegal so you wouldn't get to hear about it. But to me, if you can clone a dog, cat or sheep, and a human embryo, then in principle you can clone a human being.
A brief remark on this (in the interest of scientific accuracy): correlation!= causation. It is well-established through research that people are more likely to hold religious beliefs in times of uncertainty and hardship, and less likely to do so in times of prosperity and good standards of living. People living in nations with a violent history are more likely to experience terror, violence and extreme hardship and therefore more motivated and likely to seek comfort in, and make sense of their experiences through religious beliefs. Basically: more 'peaceful' nations have less emotional need for religious beliefs.
one important note is that in science very few things are facts, even gravity is NOT a fact, the theory of gravity states that things fall towards the centre of the earth. the part that is a fact is that things fall downwards if you do look at it why should Muslims get special treatment, if you go by the bible making fun og god is a Death sin and there are plenty of Christians whom get as offended as Muslims when making fun of their god. the only reason why we're not taking it as seriously is because of the amount of jokes made on the Christian god.
