Innocents in Hell, Guilty in Heaven?

There is a specific order by which the cylinders in an internal combustion engine fire ... does that make Henry Ford a god?

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There is an obvious order (which if i might add did not come about, as Gaylord Simpson said, by slight successive changes to an organism) in nature that reveals an orderly creator.

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Ah, so order implies a creator? So, then, the Mandelbrough Set must be a god, because Mandelbrough certainly didn't program all of the intricate detail (he simply ran a basic iterative formula, and the complexity created itself. Are the basic laws of chemistry a god? Because you run them on subzero water, and the simple laws create complex organized structures. Is the standard population equation ( f(x)=kx(1-x) ) a god? Because when you graph the convergence points of the equation over varying values of k, it splits and steadily trees off, diverging to chaos, and then out of the chaos jumps... 3! convegence points... which subdivide and return to chaos (etc). Is the sun a god? Because by following basic physical laws, it can create incredible ordered and yet complex internal behavior that have allowed it to keep a consistant fusion and illumination process over the ages. Fractals, earth's dynamo, Conway's game of life, the weather, you name it: simple rules applied once create simple results, but simple rules applied iteratively often create complex results.You skipped two questions, and your first one doesn't address the subject at hand (how native Americans and others who were not exposed to Christianity were suppossed to be on a level playing field for acceptance of Christ and following his commands, and thus on a level playing field for heaven)Try again.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

I'm only 16, so I'll try and answer as best I can. I am not familiar with most of the items you suggested as gods, so I cannot answer to those items knowledgeably. As far as I can tell, everything in that enormous list you wrote deals according to the laws of nature, which is why if they are repeated again, you would result with the same answer every time. If these things were not ordered, the one testing would generate various answers every time he tested, correct? Does not this show order? If i were to say that order defined a god, I would be acknowledging that everything is a god, which I would not readily admit. If you have time, would it be possible to post definitions and functions of the above listed in common layman's terms? I would be grateful. I will try to devise an asnwer to your other 2 questions and post them asap.Matt
There, I tried again!

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As far as I can tell, everything in that enormous list you wrote deals according to the laws of nature, which is why if they are repeated again, you would result with the same answer every time.

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Actually, with the non-simulated phenomina (simulated phenomina are not subject to quantum uncertainty), you run the same simulation twice, and you get different results each time (such as forming snowflakes). Errors magnify themselves - thus, the order that you get still has chaotic elements. That's the beauty of simple rules applied iteratively. The universe has basic simple rules - and they're applied incredibly iteratively.

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If these things were not ordered, the one testing would generate various answers every time he tested, correct?

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Quantum uncertainty alone accounts for that (i.e., no particle has an *exact* position and velocity, it needs to be represented with a wave function which provides the probability distribution for it being in a certain location with a certain velocity).

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If you have time, would it be possible to post definitions and functions of the above listed in common layman's terms? I would be grateful. I will try to devise an asnwer to your other 2 questions and post them asap.

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Sure. Let's go down the list. I'll point out that I did a mix of mathematical phenomina and natural phenomina that, although based on relatively simple rules at a basic level, the fact that the rules are iterative causes them to produce incredibly complex phenomina.The Mandelbrot Set: The Mandelbrot set is a simply the iteration of a simple equation: P=P^2+C, where P is a complex point (I.e., a point that has the form A+B*i, where i is the square root of negative one; A is the real component, and B is the imaginary component), and C is an arbitrary complex constant. You iterate (i.e., repeat) this equation until it either "diverges" (i.e., the magnitude of point P becomes greater than some arbitrary value), or exceeds an iteration count (i.e., will likely never diverge). For points that exceed the maximum number of iterations, you plot them as black; for all others, you plot as the color a value for the number of iterations it took to diverge. You start out with an image like this; by zooming in, you find all sorts of amazing complexity coming from this incredibly simple equation - including new, slightly different Mandelbrot sets hidden inside the original. Complexity from simplicity. The mandelbrot set is known as a "fractal"; to play around with other fractals of this type, try the program "Fractint". There are many other types of fractals out there, such as IFS (Iterative Field System) fractals - all are complex phenomina created by simple rules.I think you know what the sun is (although you may not be familiar with the complexity (and yet in many cases, amazing order) of its internal reactions. I'm also sure you aware of the complexity of patterns in freezing water. Earth's dynamo is the process which generates its magnetic field. It is simply due to the motion of molten metal in Earth's mantle, but the process is so incredibly complex that it is hard to model. The weather, as you also probably know, is subject to what is commonly called the "butterfly effect" ("a butterfly flaps its wings in brazil, and a hurricane hits the east coast years later when it wouldn't have before"). It's actually worse than this: The universe itself is inherently uncertain, so it doesn't take some arbitrary action of a butterfly to throw off calculations .All natural phenomina are based on four fundamental forces (and we've linked three of them together: Strong, Weak, Electroweak (electromagnetic), and Gravity (there's also some other issues that come into play, but this is the vast majority of the universe here). All of these complex (and yet ordered) phenomina come from these basic forces - no divine intervention keeps snowflakes forming, or keeps the sun burning, etc; it is all explained by basic physics. Now this doesn't mean that a God [i]can't[i] intervene - it just means that it isn't necessary for this complex and yet ordered behavior.Conway's Game of Life is what is known as a cellular automata. You have a flat grid of points which can have a small finite number of states (in Conway's case, two states (on and off)), and a rule is applied at each cycle. In Conway's case, the rule is that if the cell is off and it has three neighbors on, turn it on. If the cell is on and it doesn't have either two or three neighbors on, turn it off. Otherwise, leave it as-is. It creates really neat behavior, such as gliders (cell clusters which move themselves), puffers (which self replicate or expand to infinite, etc. It is Turing-complete, so it can even simulate itself. Read about more complexity in it hereHere's a page about chaos and order in the population (logistics) equation (another very simple equation). Note the period of intermittency that emerges from the pure chaos inherent in the equation.Hmm, did I leave anything out?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-11-2003]

I suspect the original theme has long run its course.The theme of the moment does seem interesting (he says, having only lightly skimmed part of it), but it is way off topic - New topic time?Adminnemooseus

This post has been overhauled to appease the powers that be and quell their wrath. Russ[edited for revision to prevent Adminnemooseus from saying 'off wif 'is 'ed][This message has been edited by apostolos, 12-11-2003][This message has been edited by apostolos, 12-12-2003]

I'm not prepared to comment on this right now. I do need to get away from the computer and get some real work done.Least it trigger a further substantial digression off of the topic, I suggest you take your message to the appropriate topic that I list in my "signature" (I should have listed it in my previous message). Link back to the message in this topic. I will be glad to discuss it further there.Adminnemooseus------------------
Comments on moderation procedures? - Go to
Change in Moderation?
or
too fast closure of threads-----
Added by edit - Further discussion of this can be found starting at http://EvC Forum: Thread Reopen Requests -->EvC Forum: Thread Reopen Requests[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-12-2003]

Apostolos had expressed concern, about this topic being closed, at the "Too Fast Closure of Threads" topic.I believe the topic drift I was concerned about, was after the on-topic postings of Dan and Apostolos, that Apostolos was concerned about.Anyhow, the topic has never been closed. It just fell rather far down the list of active topics. Which goes to show, the AM can kill a topic even without closing it.Cheers,
Adminnemooseus

I did not see how it realy got off topic but i not admin i will not try to be one.I was not led to another topic but i can ask the question if this should be in another topic then it can me made soRei i thank this is a way you could have said it.Apostolos I thank what Rei was trying to ask is, if i take a new born and keep them in a room with no contact to the out side, and as they grow up teach them all i thank they should learn and let them know nothing about any god at all ect.... then kill them could god send them to hell.(i would never do anything like that. They in the box are like the people that live with 0 contact with any people have no way of knowing that the Black Goat is not the real god. So they lack knowledge of God or that of jesus.)

quote: ) Natives around the world before the arrival of western explorers: For millenia, they had absolutely no knowlege of Christ, no contact with Christians, or anything of the sort. Even in this century, there have been isolated tribes that have been discovered for the first time. What kind of loving god would damn entire native nations, some of millions of people, generation after generation for something that they had no capability to deal with?This is a good question and one I have asked many Christian friends
and this is the same for children who don't know of Jesus.God is loving, just and kind, if a tribe have never (and I mean never) heard of Jesus then God would take that into account because they have never heard God's word therefore they can't be blamed.

Henry Ford was an intelligent designer, was he not? I am simply addressing the fact that such order could not come about by a chain of purposeless and mindless events.Matt

There are two problems with this line:
1) It doesn't seem to have a darn thing to do with the topic of this thread.2) It is based on a thoughly irrelavant analogy. Cars in case you haven't noticed don't f**k!

I agree completely with Rei, and I can certainly understand his frustration. All I saw were 4 incredibly long posts that tell you absolutely nothing to how God revealed himself to the natives around the world before missionaries got to them. I read them and reread them many times and I still don't see any answer except "they knew God... they knew God... they knew God..." repeated over and over. In fact, I am frustrated myself. I tried to read carefully the entire thread up till now trying to look for answers to these questions and I still don't see straight forward, non-dodging answers to these questions.Consider me a 12 yr old. Tell me in plain English how natives were supposed to know the Judeo-Christian God without missionaries enslaving them? Tell me in plain English why the natural order of things doesn't prove Zeus or Apollo or Ra or whatever other deities besides the Judeo-Christian God. Tell me in plain English please!

And just curious. Are Rei and I the only ones here that doesn't see straight forward answers to these questions?