On Dec 12, 12:07 pm, Randy Yates <ya...@ieee.org> wrote:> Yeah, it's just words, huh Greg? No need to get hung up about them...Exactly, Randy. Peace be with you.
Ron Bracewell Passed Away in August
Started by ●December 5, 2007
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
On Dec 12, 8:06 am, Greg Berchin <gberc...@sentientscience.com> wrote:> On Dec 8, 12:17 am, robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> > wrote: > > > i can think of worser wastes of money than SETI. > > Taking this even further off-topic, I wonder: Given the current > denial of scientific evidence for evolution, global warming, etc., IF > we actually found extraterrestrial intelligence, would anybody believe > it?i don't think that's the problem. we have all sorts of nutcases who've been abducted by ET visiting our planet. i fear that some non- conclusive evidence (something we receive via radio signal that *looks* at first blush to be ETI but, upon closer scutinizing, is not) that the popular bandwagon will be to say it's ET. r b-j
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Randy Yates wrote:> I think the people who defend [whatever] are using the issue in an > attempt to deny what they know must be true out of their utter hatred > for it.I think that borders on paranoia. Think about all that it implies. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Randy Yates wrote: ...> Why don't we see any 1969 Kimball Swinger electronic organs sitting in the middle > of the forest? I mean, it's been billions of years, anything is possible, > right? And it's MUCH less complex than a human body.Imperfect self-replication is a necessary condition for evolution. Since nothing [outside Heaven] is perfect anyhow, self-replication alone is sufficient. Those Swingers capable of self-replicating may well evolve. Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes:> Randy Yates wrote: > >> I think the people who defend [whatever] are using the issue in an >> attempt to deny what they know must be true out of their utter hatred >> for it. > > I think that borders on paranoia.My statement holds. You are free to hold whatever opinion you want. I am SICK of the flaming liberals and evolutionists spreading their agenda as if it were the truth, tilting as if to windmills at anyone who dare oppose their perspectives and world-views. I champion these self-appointed Thought Police. -- % Randy Yates % "My Shangri-la has gone away, fading like %% Fuquay-Varina, NC % the Beatles on 'Hey Jude'" %%% 919-577-9882 % %%%% <yates@ieee.org> % 'Shangri-La', *A New World Record*, ELO http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Randy Yates wrote:> Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes: > >> Randy Yates wrote: >> >>> I think the people who defend [whatever] are using the issue in an >>> attempt to deny what they know must be true out of their utter hatred >>> for it. >> I think that borders on paranoia. > > My statement holds. You are free to hold whatever opinion you want. > > I am SICK of the flaming liberals and evolutionists spreading their > agenda as if it were the truth, tilting as if to windmills at anyone who > dare oppose their perspectives and world-views. I champion these > self-appointed Thought Police.I doubt that anyone has dispassionately told you that you weren't entitled to believe in creationism, however strongly they may disbelieve it. You, on the other hand, claim that I hold to evolution not from conviction, but from spite and hate. *My* statement holds. If I may ask, how old does your view take the solar system to be? Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
robert bristow-johnson wrote:> On Dec 12, 8:06 am, Greg Berchin <gberc...@sentientscience.com> wrote: >> On Dec 8, 12:17 am, robert bristow-johnson <r...@audioimagination.com> >> wrote: >> >>> i can think of worser wastes of money than SETI. >> Taking this even further off-topic, I wonder: Given the current >> denial of scientific evidence for evolution, global warming, etc., IF >> we actually found extraterrestrial intelligence, would anybody believe >> it? > > > i don't think that's the problem. we have all sorts of nutcases > who've been abducted by ET visiting our planet. i fear that some non- > conclusive evidence (something we receive via radio signal that > *looks* at first blush to be ETI but, upon closer scutinizing, is not) > that the popular bandwagon will be to say it's ET.I guess an abstract question asks how belief in ETs affects belief in God and a biblical account of Creation. (Either account; I don't care. There are two and they differ in some key details.) Is there any research on the subject? Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Randy Yates wrote:> Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes: > > >>Randy Yates wrote: >> >> >>>I think the people who defend [whatever] are using the issue in an >>>attempt to deny what they know must be true out of their utter hatred >>>for it. >> >>I think that borders on paranoia. > > > My statement holds. You are free to hold whatever opinion you want. > > I am SICK of the flaming liberals and evolutionistsAh, labels, eh. Do they necessarily run together? Arr ethey flaming because they are liberals, or liberals because they are flaming? I tend to think of evolutionists as a fairly conservative lot. I keep forgetting that "liberal" is a deeply pejorative term in your country. Whereas in the UK it is the name of a political party I tend to vote for. I thought the USA was supposed to be the "land of the free"? Isn't that a synonym for "liberal"? spreading their> agenda as if it were the truth,They don't. They merely claim it as the best ~demonstrable~ testable explainable "truth" we have so far. About as truthful as the speed of light and whether anything can exceed it (people argue about that), the nature of gravity (people argue about that), the age of the universe (people argue about that), how many universes there are(...) and love as something other than a purely physiological state (people argue ~endlessly~ about that, including me). It all depends on numbers always having the same meaning, so that 2+2 = 4 was as true on "the first day of creation" as it is now. We rely on numbers to count, measure and compare everything from the trajectory of an electron to our income tax to the age of the universe; and to the theory of evolution. Same numbers, all the way down. Which leaves unanswered the question of who or what created the numbers in the first place, and whether that being/entity would ever be happy for them to be treated as a deception or part of the dreaded "liberal agenda". Doesn't stop numbers being regarded symbolically though (as in all the religious texts I can think of, 3 and 7 especially, 40 and 22 quite a lot too), or formulas being called "beautiful" (why should it matter?). Either numbers are "sacred" or they are not. If they are, we must accept the evidence they present. Or we prove that numbers cannot be trusted. So where do you stand on the truthfulness of numbers? "If ten people agree on the truth, it means only one of them is doing the thinking". The day we all agree about "truth" is the day we stop thinking and start dying (and definitely stop evolving!). Richard Dobson
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes:> Randy Yates wrote: >> Jerry Avins <jya@ieee.org> writes: >> >>> Randy Yates wrote: >>> >>>> I think the people who defend [whatever] are using the issue in an >>>> attempt to deny what they know must be true out of their utter hatred >>>> for it. >>> I think that borders on paranoia. >> >> My statement holds. You are free to hold whatever opinion you want. >> >> I am SICK of the flaming liberals and evolutionists spreading their >> agenda as if it were the truth, tilting as if to windmills at anyone who >> dare oppose their perspectives and world-views. I champion these >> self-appointed Thought Police. > > I doubt that anyone has dispassionately told you that you weren't > entitled to believe in creationism,Read about three messages back and you will find at least an innuendo that those who don't believe in evolution (and global warming) aren't scientific enough to recognize evidence of alien intelligence if it were presented to them. This is but one example of many, many attempts by the evolutionists to cast anyone who doesn't think like they do into a bad light.> You, on the other hand, claim that I hold to evolution > not from conviction, but from spite and hate.Stop attacking my beliefs first, and I might be a little more restrained in attacking yours.> If I may ask, how old does your view take the solar system to be?At least 49 years - I have no freaking idea. To know that a carburator didn't evolve from an ore deposit doesn't mean that I know how one works. -- % Randy Yates % "I met someone who looks alot like you, %% Fuquay-Varina, NC % she does the things you do, %%% 919-577-9882 % but she is an IBM." %%%% <yates@ieee.org> % 'Yours Truly, 2095', *Time*, ELO http://www.digitalsignallabs.com
Reply by ●December 12, 20072007-12-12
Jerry Avins wrote: ..> I guess an abstract question asks how belief in ETs affects belief in > God and a biblical account of Creation. (Either account; I don't care. > There are two and they differ in some key details.) Is there any > research on the subject? >Somewhat depends on what you accept as "research". While belief 3 does seem to imply belief 2, there are no other dependencies. I personally know people who: * believe in ETs but not in God nor Biblical Creation (BC) * don't believe in ETs, believe in God but not in BC * don't believe in any of them * believe in ETs and God (in some somewhat abstract definition), but not in BC * believe in God, ETs, and BC but only when read in the original Hebrew, Coptic, etc. I assume there must be people who believe all three, but I haven't met any of them. The Bible says little or nothing about ETs as such, but there are plenty of non-corporeal non-terrestrial beings scattered through its pages. And there are plenty of people who say it does describe aliens and spaceships. Some people channel messages from ETs but not Jesus or God; some channel from Jesus (one of the "Ascended masters" together with Mary, "The Tibetan", Saint Germain and assorted others, etc; apparently Jesus has a lively sense of humour) Some channel directly from God ("Conversations with.." etc) but not from ETs, there is probably only so much channeling one person can cope with (some cosmic Shannon limit presumably). Personally, I channel on a daily basis from the sacred archangel Mellotron (not to be confused with Metatron, who has no sense of humour at all). Ther are others who channel from dolphins and whales (head about them just the other day); and/or the plant "devas" made famous by the Findhorn community; and even my mum got a plant to flower after years of not doing so, by threatening it with destruction, so there you are). Above all, I see no logical relation between belief in ETs and any of the others; in particular I do not see that belief in ETs excludes any of the others (though one would have to ask if the ETs were created before or after the Earth), and there is no obvious reason why the one should affect the other. ETs probably have their own conceptions of God (definitely, according to the channelers I know, and in a much more advanced way than we are mostly capable of), and presumably sacred texts. The "Biblical account of Creation" is a very moot point, as the Bible is just about the only instance on the planet where avowedly Christian "believers" are happy to accept not just a translation, but a translation of a translation. As modern scholarship has shown, pretty inadequate translations at that. This includes the words of jesus, who of course spoke in Aramaic, and said things the Greeks really understood not at all. One would have thought Christians would not be prepared to tolerate bad translations, and who regard it as a matter of honour and principle to seek out the best source they can. Oh well. There is no excuse today, as so much research has been done, and published. So you have to qualify the question by asking in what langauge people believe in it. Do they know for example that the first line of Genesis: "Bereshith bara Elohim, eth ha Shamaim, w'eth ha Aretz". Should more properly be translated based on this mapping: Bereshith: in principle, in archetypal form bara : moved from unknown to known Elohim : "the Being of Beings" ("Elohim" is plural) Shamaim : the World of Vibrations (also plural) - light, sound as signifying life, but also "exalted and shimmering waters" Aretz : Compressed Stuff, stability and Stasis, Limitation My favourite translations of this include, most simply: "in the beginning, God created the Wave and the Particle". Well, someone must have done, anyway! YMMV Richard Dobson
