Difficult question...

[Minihobbsch]

Yes... I know the question you mean. I don't think there is any way to prove it wrong by traditional methods, but scientifically I don't think there's any plausible way for it to be true. This question is generally used to open peoples' minds up to more complex philosophical ideas.

Oh...well at least I know what it is for now! Thank you for the information.

[Mr_Odwin]

Bard, what if the worship of a God was more for our benefit than ours? Humility and recognition of something greater than yourself is good for the soul (not just in religion either - in every walk of life).

 

Why do you think we feel good about helping others Odwin?

 

Well, while I think there is social conditioning in there to help us to feel good when we help others, I also think that a spiritual part of us is touched by an external influence when we do good. So the pleasant feelings of a clean conscience are magnified (without trying too sound cheesy) by God.

Again, trying not to be too cheesy I think this passage from the Bible really sums up what I think one of the main purposes of life is:

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

[Arragaun]

I don't know, but it just doesn't add up. I'm not saying that I believe in god, man even if he was there, I'd not believe in him just to spite the fucker, but you can't deny the evidence.

Why would you want to spite a god?

[Supergrunch]

Firstly, the heart could not work on pressure alone, it is impossible. You realise that that the amount of cardiovascular muscle alone required to push the blood around the body would be insustainable due to the amound of oxygen it itself would require? So that is out of the question.

Yes, but it could for smaller animals, and then those animals could develop valves as it is more efficient (they wouldn't get tired so quickly), and then these smaller animals could develop into larger ones.

You are dodging the question of fossils, (you really think I don't know that amoeba don't have a skeleton?) There are no fossils, which is the biggest flaw of them all, and you really can't dismiss it, because it alone is the biggest reason why this theory is not sound. The many millions of transition phases there must have been, the many that must have failed, where is the evidence? Especially seeing as we have uncovered many fossils of Dinosaurs. Does it not trouble you, that on current evidence, for evolution to have occured, species must have instantaneously spawned entire organ systems??

I'm 100% sure that the evidence does exist... part of the problem is that fossils of micro-organisms can be very unclear and hard to spot. This doesn't mean that evidence hasn't been found. (I'm not dodging the question, I just forgot to mention it) There are countless examples of "links" between species, especially with higher species simply due to the fact that they leave more obvious evidence of their existence (skeletons). Nobody is sugesting that entire organ systems have instantaneously appeared.

You speak of organs not having to evolve simultaneously, how is that so? The organ systems all depend on each other, for fucks sake, The liver removes toxins, the kidneys reabsorb water etc, it would be ineffective any other way. C'mon, you see people in hospital everyday because their liver is unable to store glycogen, or produce enough insulin etc, which are very small and intricate things, you're telling me that if we can't survive without these small functions, that we can do so without full organ systems?? I call bullshit.

People have problems now because today we're designed (by evolution) to exist with all our organs... we cannot cope with the lack of them.

An example which can demonstrate how evolution works is that of the eye, as proposed by Dawkins.

Imagine a group of normal cells. By a mutation, one of these cells becomes very slightly light sensitive. This is advantageous (for a multitude of reasons), so, over a long time, a group of light sensitive cells develops, as this is better than a single cell. Then the surface that the light sensitive cells are on becomes slightly concave. This allows the animal to sense direction of light. The surface becomes even more concave, as this senses direction even better. Eventually, a spherical dip devolops, with only a tiny, pupil like, hole at the front. This is the beginning of an eye.

Also: "the current balance could have evolved after they were all present." Could it? Could it really? And what are the chances that that is the case? And why would (if that were, by some freak of nature, the case), they evolve to be in that condition in the first place? Seeing as natural selection dictates that the fittest specimen survives, well I find it hard to hee how an organism with incomplete, uncooperative organ systems would be in any better position to reproduce than the average asshole. Well, it seems now that by citing natural selection you voided your own argument.

The chances are very high. Once the organs were all in place, but not working in harmony, a more harmonic use of them would be infinitely beneficial.

Aaaand that leads me to my next point, how the hell did the Reproductive system evolve? Seeing as Amoeba reproduce asexually, this seems a bit of an odd development. Oh wait a second, it seems that we need to reproduce to survive, and funnily enough, the brain releases endorphins when we do have sex, no how could that be a coincidence? To make a task that we need to do in order to survive, enjoyable?? Seems wierd to me.

Here you disprove your own argument- those people who liked reproducing, for whatever reason, reproduced more (surprise surprise), and passed this like of reproduction to their children. Those who didn't reproduce as much died out, by definition.

Then there is: "part of an organ is a lot better than no organ" no shit, but part of an organ is still unable to sustain a living creature of proportional size to the organs to fully function. Sure it could go ahead and not move, ever, and eat, breathe and relieve itself through a tube of some kind, but that kind of state hardly lends itself to reproduction now does it?...and for it to occur for so many species, well it's a ridiculous notion that it's possible, not to mention, scientifically unsound.

See above example. (eye)

I think millions of years of random change would be comparible to a few years of intense experimenting and analysing don't you, besides, Kevlar mimics exactly the structure of the keratin that makes up spider webs but it still isn't quite as proportionally stong?

You might think that if it were not for the fact that the evolution is not utterly random- compare monkeys trying to type Shakespeare by pressing random keys to monkeys who keep their texts the same if (by chance) they get a letter right. This is comparable to evolution because beneficial charateristics are maintained.

And kevlar is very different to spiders web. Spiders web is a protein, so is formed of repeating amino acids (NCC) with disulphide bridges. Kevlar is a polymer formed by benzene and nitrogen atoms... the only forces between chains are hydrogen bonds. The disulphide bridges are about ten times stronger than these hydrogen bonds. (I'm also not entirely sure that spiderweb is as strong as you say... I think it's only a bit stonger than steel, meaning that it has far fewer disulphide bridges than I proposed.

 

I'm not brilliant at arguing the case for evolution because my speciality is biochemistry rather than biology, but I can still see how evolution makes sense.