[QUOTE=jasong;274708]Have you no imagination?[/QUOTE]

I have plenty of imagination. However, imagination on its own doesn't get you very far in science. Science demands evidence.

[QUOTE=xilman;274750]I'm certainly aware that yeasts are alcohol tolerant. I don't know whether jasong would classify them as "germs". I certainly would not.

Paul[/QUOTE]
Then what the heck is a yeast infection? :smile:

[QUOTE=imwithid;274723]If anything, Mother Theresa has been well documented (more so than the veracity of Jesus and his life's story translated from a language over two millennia old - how is your Shakespeare?) as being sinless[/QUOTE]
Don't know where you got the idea that Mother Theresa was sinless. Her sins might not have been documented, but I guarantee she was a sinner. The Catholic church makes a lot of false claims, beginning with their premise that the Pope is somehow set apart as a special man. The ranking works like this in real life: Jesus is at the top, then there's everybody else incredibly far away in righteousness.

[QUOTE=xilman;274727]Actually, jasong is proposing an evolutionary argument in rather pure Darwinian terms here. If some organisms have a propensity to survive a hostile enviroment sufficiently for them to reproduce when others do not, the survivors are better fitted to their enviromnent and will reproduce, passing on their resistance to their offspring. It's good to see jasong accepting evolutionary theory and using it to make a reasoned case.

I've no idea (because I haven't investigated) whether any "germs" have evolved genes which code for alcohol resistance but many other organisms have. Examples include fruit flies, humans, crows, pigs and elephants. Each of them eat rotting fruit and so naturally ingest alcohol. All of them have closely similar ADH genes which code for alcohol dehydrogenase, the protein associated with the first step of ethanol metabolism.

Paul[/QUOTE]
I don't totally discount evolution as a possibility, my problem is with the notion of life coming about from absolutely nothing from random actions. God originally created the world to be sufficient for all eternity, it shouldn't be surprising if if the broken down machinery continues to try to repair itself. It's like the notion of radically extended life, the Bible obviously documents people living for hundreds of years. My own hypothesis is that when the Great Flood happened something better than the ozone layer got damaged and began to deteriorate. A lot of the problems concerning old age and cancer probably extend from being exposed to components of sunlight we were never meant to encounter. I believe God left it that because of his idea that a sinful man shouldn't possess the key(knowledge? Key was the term used in the Bible I read) to eternal life.

[QUOTE=xilman;274750]I'm certainly aware that yeasts are alcohol tolerant. I don't know whether jasong would classify them as "germs". I certainly would not.

Paul[/QUOTE]
My mental illness occurred when I was 16 or so, so there are some huge gaps in my knowledge, both with memories and normal education. Schizophrenia generally lowers a person's IQ about 10-15 points below where it was at before they got sick. In my case, it either didn't happen or I was way smarter than anybody realized when I was younger. I know that makes me sound conceited. To be honest, I think my shizophrenia is God's method of making sure I don't return to my old habits. Kind of like living in a cabin on a rock instead of a mansion on a sandy beach. If and when the spiritual Katrina comes, the cabin's the place to be.

I withdraw my comment about the alcohol-resistant germs. I never realized it before, but I believe I was mixing my definitions up. Probably had something to do with learning about alcohol-based disenfectants around the time I learned about antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

My bad.

As a side comment which I nonetheless believe is on topic:

The devil is a liar, but his lies don't come out of thin air. Most if not all of his lies are connected to some nugget of truth. It's like with the idea that Mother Theresa was sinless. I'm sure she was a great woman, but it only takes one sin to rip you incredibly far from Jesus. If the devil can start with a mild misunderstanding, than that's something he can and will build upon.

Maybe I was hasty with ET's(right user?) post when I accused him of using straw men attacks. I do understand the definition and from my point of view I felt he was making baseless assumptions. Perhaps I owe him an apology.

I've felt for a long time that Mersenne Forum was a hostile environment for a lot of people. The reason I come back is because I believe my attackers believe they are doing the right thing by rebuking me, and therefore it's not pure malice. If someone's culture teaches them bloodletting(for example) is a good thing, than a doctor can't be faulted for harming a patient.

I know I'm making a lot of posts in a row, sorry about that. I wanted to respond the claim that the Christian Church tends to be sexist.

Now, obviously, there are lot of people that are Christians who are also sexist, and obviously if you look at the Old Testament they were sexist to the point where women were property. Not cool.

The problem with extending that to today is that, while Jesus teaches that man is supposed to be head of the household, He doesn't actually say that the man is better or more important than the woman. It's the exact opposite, Jesus teaches that a married couple is like one body in two parts, each part is exactly as important as the other. The man leads because two heads is only better than one if there's a leader to the heads. I'm not 100% why the man always leads, it might extend back to Adam and Eve, not really sure. But, either way, Jesus states that the wife and the husband are of exactly equal importance. Her needs are his needs and vice versa. The man doesn't lead because he deserves to lead, he leads because Jesus instructed him to do so.

[URL="http://www.profduepuntozero.it/2009/01/08/dai-tempo-al-tempo/"]Q°elet[/URL] [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecclesiastes"]|[/URL] [URL="http://blogstorico.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/lo-scheletro-del-ragazzo-ross-parry.jpg?w=468&h=671"]anonymous[/URL]

This old thread, I need to admit, had my unpleasant, undignified and downright offensive nationalist feelings in overdrive. "Where else in the democratic world," I asked myself, "can you expect something like the Creation Museum masquerading as Science other than in the U.S. of A?".

Now I've been mildly and appropriately humiliated, not to say gob-smacked, to read in The Guardian that there is something quite similar in my own country of origin, in the city where I spent most of my childhood no less. In this case it's a zoo which encourages school trips.

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/wont-go-back-to-creationist-zoo-bristol"]"Why I won't be going back to Bristol's creationist zoo"
[/URL][QUOTE]I left knowing that I wouldn't want my children to go on school trips there. Why do I feel such strong antipathy? I'm pleased to live in a country where people are free to express their opinions, so why do I care so much about a few posters in a zoo? It's because, like [URL="http://www.theguardian.com/science/dawkins"]Richard Dawkins[/URL], I believe that religious fundamentalism has the potential to ruin scientific education. Apart from obscuring scientific facts, it teaches a way of thinking that is incredibly rigid.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Brian-E;361546]This old thread, I need to admit, had my unpleasant, undignified and downright offensive nationalist feelings in overdrive. "Where else in the democratic world," I asked myself, "can you expect something like the Creation Museum masquerading as Science other than in the U.S. of A?".

Now I've been mildly and appropriately humiliated, not to say gob-smacked, to read in The Guardian that there is something quite similar in my own country of origin, in the city where I spent most of my childhood no less. In this case it's a zoo which encourages school trips.

[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/wont-go-back-to-creationist-zoo-bristol"]"Why I won't be going back to Bristol's creationist zoo"
[/URL][/QUOTE]
The problem's what it's always been, Christians believe a dude came to Earth, never sinned, then died and was resurrected. And others simply don't believe that happened.

Surely it's not hard to understand if someone believes they know the nature of God, that pleasing Him would be considered more important than doing things like determining where some old bones came from, among other things.

Plus, it's like I said, Christians aren't anti-science, we just disagree about some of the conclusions. Calling us ignorant and stupid just makes us not want to interact with you. Doesn't make us change our minds, just makes us want to avoid you.

You guys ever think that maybe the reason Christians tend to not go into scientific fields is because of all the douchebags who will be using every opportunity to attack their beliefs?

[QUOTE=jasong;361552]You guys ever think that maybe the reason Christians tend to not go into scientific fields is because of all the douchebags who will be using every opportunity to attack their beliefs?[/QUOTE]

They avoid science because they are afraid that they might start questioning their own beliefs.

I know many Christians that are very afraid of the idea that god doesn't exist. If god didn't exist, then their life would have no meaning.