Can Nothing Exist?

Don't feel bad, Mike, I'm getting a headache, too.

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What's the chance of it raining today? Will rain come into existence, or will it remain nothing?

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But the rain wasn't "nothing" before it was rain. The rain was water vapor held in the atmosphere before it was rain.

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Nosy, why is it that you think you need to mother me as where to post and what to say and believe? Why don't you stick to refuting specific statements with which you desagree and get off you're high horsey attitude toward those who don't think exactly like you?

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Well, I can't speak for Ned, but I think the inclination to tell you what arguments you can and cannot address comes from your dogged insistance on ignoring the information and corrections people who are more informed on a subject than you are, provide for you. This tends to reinforce the idea that you pull a lot of what you say straight out of your backside.Of course, you seem to have that disease of not being able to admit that you don't know something or are wrong, no matter how much evidence or logic is stacked against your views.I may be completely off base, but I have this image of you, Buz, as the self-righteous patriarch of your family, ruling supreme, almost nobody in your clan contradicting anything you say. At least they don't bother trying to disagree with you anymore (even though some tried from time to time), because they know that you will never admit to not being right about averything, nor will you admit to not knowing something. I also imagine you as looking down your nose at advanced "book learning", and if anyone in your family went on to get a higher education, you regularly grumble about it if what they learned was contrary to anything you have decided is true.Do I have that about right, or am I completely wrong?

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Most of you are dogmatic evos, but decent folks to debate, cuss n discuss the issues with.

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Well, thanks. You are actually rather pleasant compared to many Creationists. For example, you haven't condemned any of us to eternal hellfire yet, so that's good. I do object to the term "dogmatic", though. I do not accept the evidence for the ToE dogmatically; in other words, just because someone told me I had to believe it.It's true that I have several biology courses under my belt, a pretty strong background in philosophy of science, and about 20 years of independent study on the subject, including having read what is supposed to be the best Creationist evidence out there from numerous sources.I accept that the idea of descent with modification is extremely well-supported and is the best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet that we have come up with so far. This is similar to other major theories of science, such as the Heliocentric Solar System and the Germ Theory of Disease.Some evidence could come forth to suggest that the planets do not, in fact, revolve around the sun, but for now, it seems like the ciurrent model explains things pretty well. The ToE works exactly the same way.If other, better, more compelling evidence came to light, I would certainly be willing to replace the ToE with it. So far, this hasn't happened.This makes me scientific, not dogmatic. Religion is dogmatic, because one belives it no matter what evidence is out there which contradicts it.------------------
"Evolution is a 'theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge."

Ha! I knew it. I hit the nail on the head, didn't I?Just kidding. You're right, of course, I'mm terribly off topic.Maybe I'll let you answer me in the free for all forum.

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'Well, thanks. You are actually rather pleasant compared to many Creationists. For example, you haven't condemned any of us to eternal hellfire yet, so that's good. '

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can you point out who condemned you for me?

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Well, there have been at least a couple of dozen nice Christian folks who have told me that I am going to hell over the years on this and other discussion boards. Let's see, I think that the most recent has been Jet, but that was a while ago.Anyway, that was kind of a joke, anyway.

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'This makes me scientific, not dogmatic. Religion is dogmatic, because one belives it no matter what evidence is out there which contradicts it.'

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show me the all conquering evidence? yawn, cos so far its the usual boring ape to man sketch!

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There's much, much more than an "ape man sketch", Mike. There's actual bones to look at. And millions of fossil animals. And at least a dozen dating methods. And observable mutation resulting in phenotypic change. And a great deal more evidence which has been accumulating for 200 years.It's all out there, waiting for you to read it and learn about it.You could do a lot worse than TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution ControversyThere you will find very good basics as well as more technical evidence for evolution. The thing is, it takes a bit of effort and work to learn and understand what is a very large and diverse body of evidence. If you want to know the basics and the details of the ToE, you are going to have to do some real studying.I would also recommend reading the following short essays about what science is and what creationism is WRT science.science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com
creationism and creation science - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.comThe good news is that Evolutionary Biology is really freaking cool, and there are a lot of super interesting things to learn about.------------------
"Evolution is a 'theory', just like gravity. If you don't like it, go jump off a bridge."

Excellent, Buz. I agree that Talkorigins is large, but the other two links shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to read.Anyway, how can you be too busy to read for an entire summer? I mean, I really can't go for more than a couple of days without reading, but I guess that's me.