Life began 25 years ago

brdean writes:

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Evolution is a scientific matter, with (please admit it) some faith intersparsed

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But that would be a lie. Why do you want us to admit to a lie? Evolution requires no more faith than anything else in science.Are you saying that gravity requires faith? That if you believed really hard, you might not plummet to the ground after jumping off a cliff?

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Call it eternality, or what you will, either the odds are in my favor or I am one of God's children. Can anyone say one way or the other?

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This is an error in mathematics. You are confusing the likelihood of a specific outcome with the likelihood of any outcome.That is, you think there is something significant about you being here as opposed to someone else when that someone else is just as likely as you to be here. We should not be surprised that it is you, specifically, because we were expecting somebody in general.Suppose I have a standard deck of 52 cards and I draw one?What is the probability of me drawing the Ace of Spades?
What is the probability of me drawing an Ace?
What is the probability of me drawing a Spade?
What is the probability of me drawing a black card?
What is the probability of me drawing a card?Notice that the probabilities keep increasing until the last one reaches certainty. If I have a deck of cards and I draw a card, then the probability of me drawing a card is 1. We are not surprised that I drew a card as the process of me drawing a card requires me to draw a card. The process of your parents having a baby requires that they have a baby.If you were to draw a card, why is there any significance to the fact that you drew the Ace of Spades as opposed to the Four of Diamonds? Each one was equally likely to appear. The only conceivable difference is that you have attached an emotional significance to one of the cards and not to the other. That is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything.We are not surprised to find a process that necessarily requires a result actually produces one.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to me:

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But of course someone would have to inhabit this body, else I be dead.

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You misunderstand. I'm not talking about your consciousness. I'm talking about your body. If your parents had not had sex that particular moment, if another sperm had made it to the egg, if a different ovum had matured during that cycle, if the entire succession of ancestors in your line hadn't had similar once-in-a-lifetime occurrences, then you literally would not be here. Everything about you would vanish.But somebody else with a different body and a different past would be here.When you flip a coin and it lands heads, are you surprised that it landed at all? What would be amazing is if you flipped a coin and it showed up the Queen of Clubs. But since coins only land heads or tails (or in the truly amazing instance, on its edge), we aren't surprised to find that a coin, when flipped, comes up with some result. It has to.

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But the difference is that I have a consciousness and can look out from within.

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Irrelevant. If a whole sequence of amazingly improbable events hadn't happened, you, specifically, would not be here. However, somebody else would. The process still spits out a result. You as a specific result might be highly improbable, but the likelihood that some result comes around is practically guaranteed.

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Consciousness seems to me to exist as a product of individual, well, consciousness.

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Irrelevant. That you can think about it means nothing. If you weren't here, somebody else would be. We are not surprised to find that a process that necessarily gives a result actually produces one.

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My existence is a product of something higher than chance, in other words

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Why? Improbable things happen all the time. In a six-deck shoe (such as one might find in a gambling table at a casino), there are 312! or on the order of 10^644 possible ways to deal it out. And yet, every day, thousands of shoes are dealt out. A truly astronomical outcome appears right before your very eyes, but nobody finds it to be anything special. And to think that in a single casino, you've got at least a dozen such shoes being played at any given moment (on the order of 10^11754 different ways for them to play out). Are you saying that something other than chance is making those cards land the way they do?Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Call it what you will, but I am not the only scientific type to believe in something higher

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Irrelevant.The question isn't about what you believe. It's only about what you can prove. Your argument is one based upon probability: It can't have happened through mundane means because you find it to be too improbable to happen. And yet, you provide no analysis of why it is improbable and make some fundamental errors...such as confusion over what you're trying to calculate in the first place.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to me:

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If you were to draw a card, why is there any significance to the fact that you drew the Ace of Spades as opposed to the Four of Diamonds? Each one was equally likely to appear. The only conceivable difference is that you have attached an emotional significance to one of the cards and not to the other. That is irrelevant and doesn't mean anything.

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In an atheistic evolutionary perspective,

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Just a parboiled second there.What is this "atheistic evolutionary" thing of which you speak? You seem to be under the impression that evolutionary theory starts with the assumption that there is no god. If you would be so kind, could you show me a single paper on evolutionary biology that starts with, "Since there is no god," or concludes with, "Thus, there is no god"?Heck, even the Pope agrees that evolution is the only scientifically valid explanation we have for the diversification of life on this planet. Surely you aren't saying the Pope is an atheist, are you? I'm not saying you need to agree with the Pope's theology. I'm merely asking if you are claiming that the Pope doesn't believe in god.

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there are infinite beings that will always be placed into a body,

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Non sequitur. It doesn't even make semantic sense.

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But your example of the 52 cards is very similar to what I feel,

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So you're saying that when you draw the Ace of Spades, it's because god made you do it?Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to schrafinator:

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but my argument rests on the atheistic evolutionary perspective

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Just a parboiled second there.What is this "atheistic evolutionary" thing of which you speak? You seem to be under the impression that evolutionary theory starts with the assumption that there is no god. If you would be so kind, could you show me a single paper on evolutionary biology that starts with, "Since there is no god," or concludes with, "Thus, there is no god"?Heck, even the Pope agrees that evolution is the only scientifically valid explanation we have for the diversification of life on this planet. Surely you aren't saying the Pope is an atheist, are you? I'm not saying you need to agree with the Pope's theology. I'm merely asking if you are claiming that the Pope doesn't believe in god.

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An atheistic believer in evolution has a million reasons to justify why his body exists, but, correct me if I am wrong, absolutely none to explain his individuality among other beings.

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You assume that this needs explaining. In essence, your argument is that there is a soul. You have not provided any justification for this claim.

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No life is a product of chance alone.
The Theory of Evolution postulates that chance, in the form of random genetic mutation, combined with natural selection, which is the very opposite of chance, is how species change over time.

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Evolution, in other words, does not work by random chance alone. Why did you think it did?

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You stand corrected, the very basis of evolution is the mutation of the reproductive genome, this requires an error in replication, and this error is a product of chance unless one is in a laboratory.

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You stand corrected. Did you even bother to read schraf's reply before responding? You even quoted the most important part, but you seem to have completely missed it:Natural selection.Why are you forgetting about natural selection? You're absolutely right that the only way things can change is to have the genome change, which for all intents and purposes is a random process.But you're forgetting about natural selection: Not all random mutations are created equal. Some get chosen over others.When you roll a die, you get a random result (assuming the die and roll are fair). But before you even roll that die, it has been constrained to land between 1 and 6. You don't roll a die and get the Seven of Hearts. A die roll is random, but not so random as to result in something other than a die roll.

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My body was _sure_ to be born

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No, it wasn't. If your parents hadn't had sex at that time, if a different sperm had made it to the egg, if a different egg had matured during the cycle, if all of your ancestors hadn't had similar once-in-a-lifetime improbabilities happen, then your body wouldn't be here.A different body would, however.Your argument boils down to the claim of the existence of a soul. You have provided no evidence that such a thing exists.

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Let me break it down and say it then, you may not believe in God because by first and foremost concluding arrogantly that he probably does not exist (or if you do leave some chance that he may exist, this statement doesn't apply to you).

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I love people who try to psychoanalyze people over the internet...we always learn such amazing things about ourselves!Your argument boils down to accusing scraf of being insane. Not exactly a basis for a pleasant conversation, now is it?

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This has been my experience

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Who cares? Until you can have somebody else duplicate your experience, it will remain your experience and nobody else's.

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one cannot fathom the idea of God until one has learned to give him a try

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Logical error: Circular reasoning.In order to experience god, one needs to believe in god but you can't believe in god until you experience god.Also, logical error: Affirming the consequent.In the attempt to show the existence of god, one must assume the existence of god which is what one was trying to show in the first place.

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your stating that I have them implies you have none.

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Incorrect.Our stating that you have them implies we don't have the same ones you do. We might have even more misconceptions than you do, but we do not have the ones you have.

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Have many of you considered that God can be the most cool, accepting, and kind friend?

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Have you considered that god doesn't care?Have you considered the possibility that god does exist but not in the way you think?

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the biggest woman chaser, the most honorable

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You do realize that those two traits contradict each other, yes?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean writes:

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The theory of gravity can be witnessed

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No, the fact of gravity can be witnessed. That is, when I drop a ball, it falls to the ground. We call the force that pulls it to the ground "gravity." The theory of gravity seeks to explain that fact by describing its functioning (F = Gm₁m₂/r²).That said, evolution can be witnessed, too.Here's an experiment you can do in the privacy of your own bio lab. It doesn't cost very much and the materials can be acquired from any decent biological supply house.Take a single E. coli bacterium of K-type. This means the bacterium is susceptible to T4 phage. Let this bacterium reproduce until it forms a lawn. Then, infect the lawn with T4 phage.What do we expect to happen? That's right, plaques should start to form and, eventually, the entire lawn will die. After all, every single bacterium in the lawn is descended from a single ancestor, so if the ancestor is susceptible, then all the offspring should be susceptible, too.But what we actually see is that some colonies of bacteria in the lawn are not affected by the phage.How can this be? Again, the entire lawn is descended from a single ancestor. They should all behave identically. If one is susceptible, then they're all susceptible. If one is immune, then they're all immune. This can't be an example of "adaptation" because if one could do it, they all could do it.But since there is a discrepancy, we are left with only one conclusion: The bacteria evolved. There must be a genetic difference between the bacteria that are surviving and those that died.Indeed, we call the new bacteria K-4 because they are immune to T4 phage.But we're not done. Take a single K-4 bacterium and repeat the process: Let it reproduce to form a lawn and then infect the lawn with T4 phage.What do we expect to happen? That's right: Absolutely nothing. All of the bacteria are descended from a single ancestor that is immune to T4 phage. Therefore, they all should survive and we shouldn't see any plaques form.But we do. Plaques do, indeed start to form. How can this be? Again, all the bacteria in the lawn are descended from a single ancestor that was immune to T4 phage, so they should all behave identically. If one is immune, then all are immune. There must be something else going on.Something evolved, but the question is what. What evolved? Could it be the bacteria experiencing a reversion mutation back to K-type? No, that can't be it. Suppose any given bacteria did revert back to wild. It is surrounded by K-4 type who are immune to T4 phage. As soon as the lawn is infected, those few bacteria will die and immediately be replaced by the offspring of the immune K-4 bacteria. We would never see any plaques forming because the immune bacteria keep filling in any holes that appear.So if it isn't the bacteria that evolved, it must be the phage. And, indeed, we call the new phage T4h as it has evolved a new host specificity.There is a similar experiment where you take bacteria that have had their lactose operons removed and they evolve to be able to digest lactose again.You might want to look up the information regarding the development of bacteria capable of digesting nylon oligimers. It's the result of a single frame-shift mutation.Therefore, since we can watch evolution happen right before our eyes, by what justification does one claim that it cannot happen or is unobserved?

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Having faith in evolution is like having faith that a certain man really is guilty of a crime when no one was there to see it and he left no trace at the scene

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So by this logic, we should open up the prisons and let most of the inmates out. Most crimes have no witnesses. In fact, eye-witness testimony is the worst sort of testimony one can have since it relies upon unreliable memories and suffers from people deliberately lying let alone being simply mistaken.Instead, we have this thing called "forensics" that allows us to make conclusions about things even though we weren't personally there to witness them. That's because when physical things happen, they leave physical evidence behind. By examining the physical evidence, we can come to conclusions about what happened.While we can witness evolution right before our eyes, you're right that we didn't witness, say, the dinosaurs. However, the dinosaurs were there at the time and they left remains that we can directly observe those fossils and make conclusions about what happened.

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but we cannot call an unobservable phenomenon "certain".

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Indeed. But since we can observe evolution, not only in the present but in the remnants of the past, one wonders why you would have us deny those observations simply to satisfy your personal distaste.

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What is observable in evolution theory can be accepted (finches, fish, and hummingbirds adapting to their environments),

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No, not "adapting." Evolving. The organisms that come after are not genetically identical to the ones that came before.When your dog gets a thicker coat for the winter, that's adaptation. When his offspring lose that ability (and aren't affected by it because they are living in a much milder climate), that's evolution.

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to say that life came from non-living matter

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Evolution doesn't say that. Could you find me any peer reviewed journal article that says, "Since life started via abiogenesis"?And then, while you're at it, could you explain to me what would be different in evolutionary theory if life were created by god zap-poofing it into existence? Or if life on this planet came from alien seeding or panspermia? Or a rift through space time? Or any other method you could possibly think of?

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humans came indirectly from bacteria, or what have you, and then calling this a certainty--this is bad science.

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Why? It's what all the evidence suggests. Why are you asking us to deny the data? Why are you asking us to lie?

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It may be true, but the chickens have not yet hatched

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Says who? You? Why should we believe you? What journals, articles, studies, experiments, or data are you using to justify your claim?Do not confuse what you know with what everybody else knows.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean writes:

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yes, microevolution

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What is the difference between "microevolution" and "macroevolution"?In biology, "microevolution" is evolution that happens below the species level. "Macroevolution" is evolution that happens above the species level. You will note that the evolutionary processes don't change. In short, "macroevolution" is nothing more than a whole bunch of "microevolutionary" steps.If 1 + 1 = 2, why can't 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 10?

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Now pull a rabbit out of your e.coli-test-tube hat.

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That's what the fossil record is for. Why are you denying the very data that is right before your eyes?But if you want more specific examples of observed speciation, here you go:Observed Instances of SpeciationSome More Observed Speciation EventsIshikawa M, Ishizaki S, Yamamoto Y, Yamasato K.
Paraliobacillus ryukyuensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a new Gram-positive, slightly halophilic, extremely halotolerant, facultative anaerobe isolated from a decomposing marine alga.
J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2002 Oct;48(5):269-79.
PMID: 12501437 [PubMed - in process]Kanamori T, Rashid N, Morikawa M, Atomi H, Imanaka T.
Oleomonas sagaranensis gen. nov., sp. nov., represents a novel genus in the alpha-Proteobacteria.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2002 Dec 17;217(2):255-261.
PMID: 12480113 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]Fudou R, Jojima Y, Iizuka T, Yamanaka S.
Haliangium ochraceum gen. nov., sp. nov. and Haliangium tepidum sp. nov.: Novel moderately halophilic myxobacteria isolated from coastal saline environments.
J Gen Appl Microbiol. 2002 Apr;48(2):109-16.
PMID: 12469307 [PubMed - in process]Golyshin PN, Chernikova TN, Abraham WR, Lunsdorf H, Timmis KN, Yakimov MM.
Oleiphilaceae fam. nov., to include Oleiphilus messinensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel marine bacterium that obligately utilizes hydrocarbons.
Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2002 May;52(Pt 3):901-11.
PMID: 12054256 [PubMed - in process]Ivanova EP, Mikhailov VV.
[A new family of Alteromonadaceae fam. nov., including the marine proteobacteria species Alteromonas, Pseudoalteromonas, Idiomarina i Colwellia.]
Mikrobiologiia. 2001 Jan-Feb;70(1):15-23. Review. Russian.
PMID: 11338830 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Stackebrandt E, Schumann P.
Description of Bogoriellaceae fam. nov., Dermacoccaceae fam. nov., Rarobacteraceae fam. nov. and Sanguibacteraceae fam. nov. and emendation of some families of the suborder Micrococcineae.
Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2000 May;50 Pt 3:1279-85.
PMID: 10843073 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Notice that we have instances of even higher orders of taxa beyond species showing up.So if we can see it right before our very eyes, why would you have us deny it?

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Ok, now test for me with your evolution theory, test I did say, as in, "show me the money", as to the missing links in an evolutionary line such as from a cat to a bear or more simply from Lucy our most recent ancestors.

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Done and done:Transitional Vertebrate Fossils
Fossil HominidsDo not confuse your ignorance with a universal lack of knowledge.

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You cannot test.

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Sure you can. What do you think the fossils are?

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You can postulate and theorize by providing more evidence which just proves there are more missing links.

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Ah, so basically what you are saying is that until you can be shown every single parent-offspring relationship, one cannot make any claims at all. If we know the name of the grandfather and we know the name of the granddaughter, it is impossible to infer the generation between them, is that what you're saying?You know, I don't remember anything about my birth. And yet, even though I don't have any personal recollection of the event, I'm pretty sure I was born. And no, I don't need my parents' word for it. I've never seen any other human being appearing except through birth. Why should I be any different?

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Please check out the previous posts here before jumping to conclusions about my beliefs and "misconceptions"...

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Nope, no jumping required. Based upon this and your previous posts, you have some serious misconceptions about what evolutionary theory is, what it says, and what is used to justify it.This is a typical creationist claim: Because we don't know everything, then that means we know nothing.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to me:

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At which point in this line back from humans, to the monkey-relative were the number of pairs of chromosomes different than 23?

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Dunno. Chromosomes tend not to fossilize.

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And how did the first 23-pair, like us, overcome his chromosome incompatibility with his mate?

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Probably the same way other animals do it. You can cross a common horse (64 chromosomes) with a Przewalski's horse (66 chromosomes) and come up with viable offspring (usually having 65). You are assuming that having a different number of chromosomes is an insurmountable problem.

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I guess our trouble lies in what we call microevolution.

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Not at all. The problem is that you seem to want to put qualifiers on evolution. There is only "evolution." The same processes that lead to changes that do not result in a speciation event are the processes that do.If 1 + 1 = 2, why can't 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 10?

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But, and this is no condemnation, you'll probably never get past the blacklist in science if you mention God at all.

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Incorrect. Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe are both highly devout Christians who have extremely different views on the nature of how life diversified.And both have been published.A person's religious views have no bearing on whether or not he'll get published. What gets an article rejected is its ability to justify its claims. Invoking capricious, arbitrary entities working on the basis of whim is something that cannot be replicated and thus cannot be a justification for a scientific claim.You will note that I didn't mention god. Just as science ignores the action of god, it also ignores the action of you, and we know you exist. If we're doing an experiment on anti-gravity and we find out that the reason the object isn't falling to the ground is because you're holding it up, we have to discard that data. It had nothing to do with anti-gravity: You were doing it.

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All I was saying is as follows:
1. Don't leave God out of the picture

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We have to.To do otherwise is to engage in theology, not science.God must be removed from the picture just as every other capricious, arbitrary influence (such as you) must be removed. Science is the study of things that happen all on their own. If we start allowing a conscious being to change things on a whim, what's the point? The only reason the effect happened is because the inconstant entity decided to have it happened. The next time, it may change its mind and it won't happen.And what, then, have we learned?

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2. Don't put all your eggs in the evolutionary basket

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But if that's where all the evidence points us, why wouldn't we?You seem to have this fear of being wrong. But science has no such fear. It embraces being wrong. It knows that everything we think we know about everything just might be wrong. And that's a wonderful, glorious thing because when we find out we're wrong, we have the opportunity to learn something new and become less wrong. Every new discovery, every new observation tells us something we didn't know before and we get a better and more accurate picture of what is going on. We will never know if we ever get it right because we can never see everything. In fact, even if we are right, we'll never know it. But that doesn't deter us.In science, if you overturn the dominant paradigm, you win the Nobel Prize.

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You'll notice I have no dogma, I am open to all possibilities.

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Except for the one that says your god had nothing to do with it.Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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The proof of the uncertainty is here: Would we even be having this discussion if there was no debate to be had?

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You are confusing your uncertainty with scientific uncertainty.A person who does not understand a subject and is confused is very different from someone who does understand a subject and is confused.If you find two mathematicians arguing over whether or not the six millionth digit of pi is a 2, they are not arguing over whether or not it is an integer.The reason we are having this debate is not because there is uncertainty over whether or not evolution happened. It is because you are uncertain and unfamiliar with the vast amount of information that justifies evolution.You have every right to your opinion, but that right to an opinion does not make it a valid one. You wouldn't ask your tax attorney to do a heart transplant, would you? It isn't because your tax attorney is stupid. It's because he's not a cardiac surgeon. What could he possibly have to say on the subject that would be of any use?If you don't know the fundamental aspects of evolutionary theory, if you are unfamiliar with the data and studies and experiments that are used to justify it, how can you possibly think you are capable of making an informed opinion about it?

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There is division among the population, and this means science has not proved itself adequately on the point.

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Irrelevant.The opinions of those who don't know what they're talking about make no difference.

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Funny, you stated that being honorable to more than 1 woman is not possible for God

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Incorrect. It's the other way around. Remember what you said: In other words, the problem is not that god cannot be honorable to more than one woman. The problem is that being a "woman chaser" is not being honorable. If god wants to be honorable to more than one woman, then he has to stop chasing them and treat them honorably.

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Maybe the rule of where God lives is happiness without shame?

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This has nothing to do with shame. This has to do with honor. That means taking into account the feelings of others. Just because something makes you happy doesn't mean it is an honorable thing to do. Making someone unhappy by treating them poorly is not an honorable thing to do."Woman chasing" is not honorable. It's being a jerk.

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Most men would be eager to have more than one girlfriend, am i wrong?

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Selfish. The question is not what you would want. The question is what others want. Did you stop to consider that the women might not appreciate your behaviour? If you all understand and accept the situation and the rules of the relationship, then go for it. "Woman chasing," however, tends not to do that.

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You think he is going to use and mistreat his lovers?

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That's what "woman chasing" is. Unless you have a different definition, "woman chasing" is typically defined by using women for one's personal satisfaction without regard to the woman's feelings, which is mistreatment.

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God is not our order-taker.

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And that's why science ignores god.Science requires repeatable, testable, verifiable, falsifiable results. If things only happen because a capricious entity is making it happen, then what's the point?Please answer my question:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?As an example, if I take a handful of coins and toss them on the ground, do they land in their final positions all on their own or does god come down and personally, deliberately, and consciously make them land that way?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to me:

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In science, if you overturn the dominant paradigm, you win the Nobel Prize.

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If that is in fact the way it works, I am happy to hear it. It is truly the way which each individual should conduct his own life, and the direction which society in general would do well to aim.

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Well, take a look at what happened regarding Pons and Fleischmann and cold fusion. When they first announced their claim, everybody sat up and took notice. Everybody wanted them to be right. This was such an exciting thing, such wondrous possibilities lay before us if it could be shown to be true, that everybody was hoping that it could be verified.But, they all held back until verification came along, and that's where the trouble started. P&F refused to be forthcoming with their data. When others tried to replicate their work, they failed miserably. It became increasingly obvious that P&F were terribly misguided at best if not outright frauds. The work was rejected.But don't forget the excitement that came along with the announcement. Scientists like it when new things are shown to them.

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Except for the one that says your god had nothing to do with it.

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No, I am open to all possibilities. I accept God as you accept scientific fact.

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Then you're not open to the possibility that your god has nothing to do with it. You have pre-determined that there must have been an action of god involved, that it must be taken into account, etc., etc., even though we have no way of testing for it, no way of detecting, and no agreement as to what this "god" thing is in the first place.

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I have had repeatable proofs

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It isn't repeatable if you're the only one who can do it.Nobody else seems to be able to duplicate your results.

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Since you can obviously see how less understanding I am in the matter, even though it didn't seem to me that I was, I'll have to admit it.

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While my comments could be applied to you, specifically, I was referring to the general person, including myself. If a person does not know the fundamental aspects of a subject, is unfamiliar with the way in which it is derived and justified, how on earth can that person claim to have any sort of valid opinion on it?

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"Woman chasing" is not honorable. It's being a jerk.

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That is, unless the woman being chased is laughing and smiling, and being simply unable to wait until she is caught.

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Ad hoc rationalization.You've gone from "woman chasing" to "flirting." "Woman chasing" is not simply making a person feel good. It is making them feel good only so far as you need them to feel good in order to get what you want out of them and them dumping them as soon as the allure is gone without regard to the devastation left in your wake.Flirting is a part of woman chasing, but it is not all of it. You have forgotten to follow through to the end.Ask women if they find "women chasers" appealing.

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If you don't ever chase your girlfriend around the house, you should start, it's lots of fun.

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Logical error: Equivocation.You have changed the meaning of the word "chasing" from "using women, plural, for one's personal gratification without regard for their feelings" to "physical pursuit."A man who plays tag with a woman is not "woman chasing."

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If god wants to be honorable to more than one woman, then he has to stop chasing them and treat them honorably.

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He does more than be honorable, he loves them greater than comprehension, and they reciprocate.

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...until they get dumped.If god is a woman-chaser, then he is not honorable.Woman chasing is not honorable by definition. It is the use of women for one's personal gratification without regard for their feelings or desires. A synonym would be "womanizer."Ergo, if god is a womanizer, then he is by definition dishonorable.

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open yourself to this new idea that he is not sometimes nice and sometimes a bastard, that everything he does is for good and out of love which will come to benefit anyone bestowed this honor of knowing such a great person.

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Do you not see that your first statement is completely contradicted by the second?A person who is behaving like a bastard is not doing something for good or out of love. That's the definition of what "being a bastard" is. It is behaving selfishly, out of concern only for oneself and one's own personal satisfaction, without regard or care for the consequences as it affects others.Those two qualities cannot exist together.

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Please answer my question:

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Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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Gladly.

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[verbiage deleted for space]

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You didn't answer my question. You went on and on about karma, but I didn't ask about that. Try again:Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?As an example of what I'm getting at: If I take a handful of coins and throw them on the ground, do they land in their final positions all on their own or does god come down and personally, consciously, and deliberately make them land the way they do?------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

brdean responds to me:

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Then you're not open to the possibility that your god has nothing to do with it.

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I would go so far as saying that yes indeed, it is a possibility that all of my experiences proving God are just coincidences. But I find this a very very low probability considering the circumstances.

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You're just proving my point. You aren't open to everything. You are so certain that god has to be that you can't even conceive of the idea that god had nothing to do with it.You are too obsessed with debating the physical form of god that you cannot step back and look at the more fundamental question: Is there even a god at all?

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Besides, did you really find "woman chaser" in your dictionary?

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Dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive. I didn't have to look it up. I know what it means. And I wasn't the only one to question the idea that a "woman chaser" could be considered "moral."

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You didn't answer my question. You went on and on about karma, but I didn't ask about that. Try again:
Is there anything that happens on its own or is god required for everything?

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No, God does not care which side the pennies will land, up or down. I again stated very plainly that God does not interfere with our independence.

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You're avoiding the question. This has nothing to do with humanity. I am not talking about free will. I'm talking about something physical. If I take coins and drop them, do they land all on their own or does god do it?Stop with the poetry and pay attention.This is about a physical process: Evolution.------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!