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Shall we start with the pancreas?
Real science, working on real evidence, might say that the beta cells of pancreases are subjected to new environmental stresses that were not a part of the life of the hunter-gatherer human 20,000 years ago, namely that when people get obese and put huge demands on their pancreases to produce large amounts of insulin they start to wear out: Type 2 diabetes is the result, and the early raised glucose levels are toxic to the beta cells, hastening the condition. We have never had such access to food, being evolved to seek out whatever pickings the savanna can provide us, but not supermarkets full of stuff that we do not have to run and hunt for.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition with genetic precursors, probably triggered by an immune response to a virus, that becomes an immune response to beta cells because they look the same to the immune system. Adult-onset Type 1 diabetes is becoming much more prevalent, indicating perhaps something about the prevalence of such viruses.
This is a case of natural selection providing us with a perfectly good pancreas but us changing the environment / having the environment change faster than we can adapt by evolutionary change. Of course humans lived shorter, more brutal lives up until quite recently in history, but it is still clear from the diets and lifestyle habits of different cultures around the world that we have changed our world faster than we can adapt physiologically.
What can a fundamentalist christian say about dying beta cells? YECs have no mechanism for the change that has increased the incidence of diabetes because, like ignoramuses or liars, they believe the earth was created AFTER the agricultural revolution. While modern science has an amazingly detailed grasp on why people submit to various diseases, many fundies simply attribute it all to “sin” or “the fall” or some other medieval nonsense. To tell someone he has Type 2 diabetes because of lifestyle factors is fair, but for someone with Type 1 diabetes it is just nasty to blame that on sin. Why would it be that a just god delivered diseases at random, regardless of the piety or otherwise of the sufferer?
Science can say with a high degree of confidence why the man has diabetes. What is the diagnosis of the preacher?
Stuart
Science can say with no degree of confidence if the universe/metaverse was created by someone, something, or has always existed but as a non-living entity or thing.
Q: What does the preacher say?
A: God.Q: What does Stu and many scientists say?
A: Dunno mate! But A is preposterous.Um Stu, are not B & C preposterous, and if you think A is, then you are forced to believe in something preposterous as the candidate, which makes you preposterous.
Whereas, those who believe in a creator/God do not believe that A is preposterous. They have confidence in the first question of science. You have no confidence about anything and yet you rant on about this is wrong and this is right.
Tut tut. Are you not being very naughty?
t8
Quote Science can say with no degree of confidence if the universe/metaverse was created by someone,
Metaverses, like the fantasy world of the biblical literalist, ARE fictional creations of people. That is something any scientist could be very confident about, while a christian must be confused about whether what he believes is a representation of reality or just another story that is of exactly the same nature as the story of the scientologist or of the astrologer.Quote something, or has always existed but as a non-living entity or thing.
…or, what are you saying, t8, are you suggesting it is or isn’t some kind of pan-universal Gaia that going on? I suppose someone who thinks a man walked again after he died should have little problem thinking any fantasy story is reality.To: Science can say with a high degree of confidence why the man has diabetes. What is the diagnosis of the preacher? you answer:
Quote Q: What does the preacher say?
A: God.Q: What does Stu and many scientists say?
A: Dunno mate! But A is preposterous.
While the man suffers the symptoms and risk of eventual coma and death of what might be untreated diabetes, your preacher diagnoses ‘god’? What a murderous fool he is. The placebo effect has not been shown to be effective in this condition.Quote Um Stu, are not B & C preposterous, and if you think A is, then you are forced to believe in something preposterous as the candidate, which makes you preposterous.
Now you are not even stating what it is that is preposterous. I shall have to fill in A, B and C for you since you don’t say what they are.A. Believing men walk again after they are judicially executed
B. Believing that you can know anything about a god that is outside the world of our knowing
C. Believing that the word ‘god’ can trump the best care modern medicine has to offer.The first two are just mad. The last is what you christians would call evil.
Quote Whereas, those who believe in a creator/God do not believe that A is preposterous. They have confidence in the first question of science. You have no confidence about anything and yet you rant on about this is wrong and this is right.
Tut tut. Are you not being very naughty?
I am providing detailed explanations, with evidence where necessary. It is not me who is ranting from no basis in reality whatever.Stuart
Quote (Stu @ April 05 2009,06:03) A. Believing men walk again after they are judicially executed
B. Believing that you can know anything about a god that is outside the world of our knowing
C. Believing that the word ‘god’ can trump the best care modern medicine has to offer.Stuart
I have seen miracles and I have been part of them too. This just shows me that no sign is given to those who do not believe. In saying that, I don't abstain from medicine or leave my car keys in the car. I don't need God to do everything so that I don't help myself, rather I rely on him for things that I cannot provide. e.g., I have a job and pay the bills and feed and clothe my family. I am not so silly as to think I can buy a lazy boy chair and expect God to do everything.The point you make about medicine I think is irrelevant because it was God that made the medicine or the plants from which they are derived in the first place.
There is also a saying that goes: “prevention is the best medicine”. So while the rest of the world had little or know appreciation of hygene for health, God's law gave such to the Jews even if they didn't understand what those laws were for.
Leviticus 11 is one example of this, describing the types of food that the Israelite people were and were not allowed to eat. Animals were divided into two categories “clean” and “unclean”. Other various types of uncleanness are specified in the Mosaic law and washing was often prescribed.
Even in eighteenth century London (thousands of years later) the connection between personal hygiene and good health was not really understood.
don't you have to be judged worthy to receive any sort of assistance from God?
I beleived for miracles, my faith was noted as most overwelming.
I was diligent an followed all instructions understood, I benefited an changed within my being hitting a peck of unselflessness, where my life and circumstance God did not change into reward, God did not answer my requests, and the oldest trick in the book overcame my sincere efforts…being….the lies that blind, the blindness causes helplessness, reward stayed in the hands of the perpetrators, whom enjoy the befits of an estate, where wasted time would have been better to be spent in excepting the things that cant be changed, and changing the things that are within science and power to change, instead for some to continue after healing is to be driven by no mercy and a tolerance for greed….God is time.t8
Quote I have seen miracles and I have been part of them too.
No you haven’t.Quote This just shows me that no sign is given to those who do not believe. In saying that, I don't abstain from medicine or leave my car keys in the car. I don't need God to do everything so that I don't help myself, rather I rely on him for things that I cannot provide. e.g., I have a job and pay the bills and feed and clothe my family. I am not so silly as to think I can buy a lazy boy chair and expect God to do everything.
So, in other words these ‘miracles’ are do-it-yourself miracles.Quote The point you make about medicine I think is irrelevant because it was God that made the medicine or the plants from which they are derived in the first place.
Science says natural selection provided the plants (and animals) with the chemicals, many of which arose as defense mechanisms for that species. You dismiss this with a simplistic ‘goddidit’, citing neither reason nor evidence. I dismiss your claim, again with the evidence required to do so, ie none.Quote There is also a saying that goes: “prevention is the best medicine”. So while the rest of the world had little or know appreciation of hygene for health, God's law gave such to the Jews even if they didn't understand what those laws were for.
Sure, they wrote what they discovered about food, things that must have been known for many tens of thousands of years before the ancient Jews codified them. Shame those laws did not tell you how to avoid all cancers, or tuberculosis or malaria. Shame there is no hint that microorganisms cause disease and washing your hands would go a long way to avoiding food poisoning. You are going out on quite a self-negating tangent to claim that they would not have understood these things, because that is your argument for god not providing a proper cosmology in Genesis isn’t it? Why would he write things people would not have understood? Pretty slack physician and educator this yahweh.Quote Leviticus 11 is one example of this, describing the types of food that the Israelite people were and were not allowed to eat. Animals were divided into two categories “clean” and “unclean”. Other various types of uncleanness are specified in the Mosaic law and washing was often prescribed.
And tell me how the ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ laws apply today. Is there any scripture today telling us that salmonella in chicken is killed by proper cooking? The very best you can say is that it is old food hygiene regulations that do not apply to the modern kitchen. But then the whole of the OT is mythology that does not apply to our modern understanding. Unless you distort it completely out of shape to make it look like our modern understanding.Leviticus also demands people be stoned to death for various victimless demeanours. Do you think that makes good health policy too?
Quote Even in eighteenth century London (thousands of years later) the connection between personal hygiene and good health was not really understood.
And as people have become less enamoured with scriptural mythology, standards of hygiene have improved no end. I think there is a causal link there, which is to do with the rolling back of christian hegemony by the enlightenment.Stuart
Quote (Stu @ April 14 2009,10:05) Sure, they wrote what they discovered about food, things that must have been known for many tens of thousands of years before the ancient Jews codified them. Shame those laws did not tell you how to avoid all cancers, or tuberculosis or malaria. Shame there is no hint that microorganisms cause disease and washing your hands would go a long way to avoiding food poisoning. You are going out on quite a self-negating tangent to claim that they would not have understood these things, because that is your argument for god not providing a proper cosmology in Genesis isn’t it? Why would he write things people would not have understood? Pretty slack physician and educator this yahweh.
They may or may not have known the significance, but the point is that thousands of years later other cultures didn't know. That either made the Jews way ahead of their time because their science in this area was a world beater, but it also supports the view that they got the info by revelation.Quite often, revelations are not fully understood, and sometimes they are not understood at all.
Quote (t8 @ April 14 2009,10:25) Quote (Stu @ April 14 2009,10:05) Sure, they wrote what they discovered about food, things that must have been known for many tens of thousands of years before the ancient Jews codified them. Shame those laws did not tell you how to avoid all cancers, or tuberculosis or malaria. Shame there is no hint that microorganisms cause disease and washing your hands would go a long way to avoiding food poisoning. You are going out on quite a self-negating tangent to claim that they would not have understood these things, because that is your argument for god not providing a proper cosmology in Genesis isn’t it? Why would he write things people would not have understood? Pretty slack physician and educator this yahweh.
They may or may not have known the significance, but the point is that thousands of years later other cultures didn't know. That either made the Jews way ahead of their time because their science in this area was a world beater, but it also supports the view that they got the info by revelation.Quite often, revelations are not fully understood, and sometimes they are not understood at all.
And what does that tell you about the competence of the revealer?Stuart
Quote (charity @ April 14 2009,10:32) I think I can see why Mary Magdalen was completely over looked by the disciples now! 
xx
Were the disciples gay do you think?If St. Paul was not mad enough already, that would have been enough to send him over the edge.
Stuart
Quote (Stu @ April 14 2009,10:50) Quote (charity @ April 14 2009,10:32) I think I can see why Mary Magdalen was completely over looked by the disciples now! xx
Were the disciples gay do you think?If St. Paul was not mad enough already, that would have been enough to send him over the edge.
Stuart
interesting..enjoying this………xx
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