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I like how you subliminally fit '-abc-' into your post.

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brilliant.

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The universe is 13 billion year old. Earth formed in a brief period about 4.5 billion years ago. For almost a billion years most of the earth has known some measure of organic life and of that 100 million years ago we saw the first mammal-like critters. Humans emerged less than a million years ago. So up until this moment nothing much happened other than a desolate universe, some life on this world, and a few completely random mass extinctions. Humanity is a completely new phenomenon. We changed from a primate into a tool user, talking, fire wielding animal. Very quickly after that, in a flash in geological terms, we proceeded to breed like locusts and develop a technological civilization. This will culminate almost certainly in a human-technology hybrid, or in a evolutionary leap where a machine intelligence completely displaces humanity as surely as humanity displaced half a million animal species since the end of the pleistocene. Now an animal doesn't feel pity or selfpity. A sparrow can freeze on a branch in the winter and die in anguish, but with no understanding of itself, it's nature, its place in the kosmos, its meaning. The question is - are you like that sparrow, or do you have the ability to selfreflect on your on nature, on implications, on longterm effects, on good, on right, on wrong and on evil. These matters have been regarded as somewhat important by philosophers and scientists - you know, old people - in the past. The question is, what are you, a human or a sparrow.I'd say my world view is based on evolution - becoming smarter, more adept as wielding tools, more resilient and more adaptable. I have good reason to believe this may happen in my lifetime, in bounds most people won't even dare speculate about. And if I do, i will promise I won't drive YOU in exitinction. I will respect you, as a nice example of the human species, and prepare a nice safe reservation for you.I am all about hope. I hope there is something better.

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I'll take that as a long way of saying 'I'm an evolutionist.'Shame. It makes it so much harder to discuss actual science fact with you, when your mind is clouded with a framework, a context and a presumption of pure science fiction."100 million years ago we saw the first mammal-like critters"We saw? Classic indoctrination at work - propaganda to the point where intelligent human beings suspend all doubt, ignore all evidence, forget that there were actually no witnesses, and start to believe that the science fantasy that they're being force fed actually does represent an actual depiction of what really took place. 'We saw' nothing of the sort, and there is still absolutely no evidence to support the assertion that all forms of life are descendent from single celled organisms and the product of chance random processes colliding without conspiring in several trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of gigantic coincidences.When you're talking about the 'rights of life' or 'biological right and wrongs', please try to deal in real-time 'present situation' science fact. I don't need a fantasist telling me that Oompa Loompa's have more right to inhabit the planet than Snozzwangles because they're ten million years older... Not only is your 'history of life' unproven and hotly contested, it is also utterly irrelevent to the discussion of the rank and order of life on the planet, both from a Creationist or Intelligent Design perspective, and evolutionarily speaking. Evolutionary science is nothing but cold and objective, even moreso than this conversation. It doesn't see valid and valuable forms of life, it sees lumps of mobile meat evolved from pond s**t with neither purpose nor function which is not coincidental to the existence of other equally purposeless and functionless pieces of pond s**t-evolved meat."Humans emerged less than a million years ago."Indeed. A lot less."We changed from a primate into a tool user, talking, fire wielding animal."A claim for which there is absolutely no clear evidence whatsoever, the evidence being sparse and entirely open to interpretation within a variety of frameworks and over a variety of timescales."Very quickly after that, in a flash in geological terms, we proceeded to breed like locusts and develop a technological civilization."God, you could narrate the next Hollywood Geo-disaster epic with emotive and inaccurate bulls**t like that. EVERY creature on the planet breeds like locusts relative to 'geological time', and EVERY creature on the planet develops, relatively speaking, its own mechanisms, its own technology, its own dominance or territory within its environment, its own symbiotic relationships. Locusts bred like locusts AND posed a massive, massive threat to other forms of life, according to your 'evolution', long before a human ever went 'ug.'"This will culminate almost certainly in a human-technology hybrid, or in a evolutionary leap where a machine intelligence completely displaces humanity as surely as humanity displaced half a million animal species since the end of the pleistocene."And that's why before its too late they'll send us John Freakin Connor back to destroy Skynet.I balk in amazement at the hysteria amongst devoted members of the evolutionist faith, who believe in this huge vast time span of birth and death, dominance and submission, survival and extinction, survival of the fittest, chance random what-the-hell-does-it-matter-anyway coincidences, to adapt or not to adapt... and then run round in circles crying 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling' because the process that they invented to explain their own existence might possibly keep going, instead of standing still, having arrived at humanity. It amazes me that man runs so far from the idea that he is a created special being (or that any other creature is a created, special being) and then treats himself, and other creatures, like they are created special beings which need nurture and care, and oh God forbid that someone declare such a species 'endangered.'Irrational.They want their religion but don't seem to want to face the realities of their religion. Strictly speaking, all evolutionists should be fatalists and nihilists."A sparrow can freeze on a branch in the winter and die in anguish, but with no understanding of itself, it's nature, its place in the kosmos, its meaning."You've no idea what a sparrow can, or can't, feel..."The question is - are you like that sparrow, or do you have the ability to selfreflect on your on nature, on implications, on longterm effects, on good, on right, on wrong and on evil."I have the ability to use my brain and think without having to adopt a fantasy evolutionist framework by which to govern, restrict and direct my thinking and my worldview. So much so that I can easily recognise that the very concept of 'evil' in a framework of evolution is utterly non-existent. In a universe created by chance random process, in which everything which exists is purposeless, without design or predetermination, is entirely coincidental, there is no right or wrong, no good or evil, except that which human beings irrationally classify and define subjectively in order to generate an artificial order by which they attempt to bypass and avoid the inevitable manifestations of amoral 'evolutionary' process. Under the evolutionary model, humans invented the concept of self-awareness, conscience, and consequence, since 'science' cannot explain why a biological being would ever make such a massive, massive, revolutionary totally out of the ordinary, unplottable, unpredictable, immeasurable, unquantifiable leap from one creature to another. After all, evolution preaches micro changes between all these creatures for millions of years, and then suddenly humanity is totally different in every way from all other animals in ways which necessarily MUST have been instantaneous since consciousness and awareness are much like logic itself, not evolving over long times, but being either on or off, like the psyche."The question is, what are you, a human or a sparrow."According to evolution, the difference should merely be in the arrangement of genetic data, and furthermore, according to evolution I am nothing more than meat on a convenient frame of handy sized sticks.You know, the oddity is that you talk about the sparrow, you intimate that it is emotionless and without understanding of itself, yet you want to anthropomorphologise it by insinuating that it knows the difference between 'dying in anguish' and not dying in anguish. You can't get all evolutionist about nature, and then attempt to transfer human emotions and human awareness onto animals that you claim have no awareness."I'd say my world view is based on evolution - becoming smarter, more adept as wielding tools, more resilient and more adaptable."Oh, OK. No sign that humanity is getting any smarter though, is there? In fact, quite the opposite. Technology makes us appear smarter, but our actually 'smartness' is diminishing. And as for being more resilient and more adaptable, our hysteria toward global warming and changes in the natural environment strongly indicates the opposite."And if I do, i will promise I won't drive YOU in exitinction. I will respect you, as a nice example of the human species, and prepare a nice safe reservation for you."Relevance? Meaning? Context? Application? Purpose?"I am all about hope. I hope there is something better. "You're all about hope but you're an evolutionist? Maybe you're not as rational as you think you are.

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"I would find it very objectionable if human life went out in a whimper."I've seen no evidence that human life is going away any time soon, so your objections appear to be in passionate defence of your own imagination or indoctrination."If I borrow from fictional or speculative sources, all the better."Oh of course, because signing away human freedom, restricting movements and taxing a few extra billions while gaining a stranglehold on the Northern Hemisphere and crushing the Southern Hemisphere just wouldn't be the same without a little fiction and speculation. I'm quite sure that pure fantasy should be behind every mass movement of totalitarianism."I'd suggest you have a look at the 'cosmic engineer' movement to see how this proces works."Yes... I can see how the process is working."I am of the persuasion that evolution as a theory is proven as much as I care to discuss it, and creationism is not."I am of the persuasion that truth will always be found satisfying reality, and will be demonstrable rather than merely assumed to be past and done. If that involves having to embrace the idea that we are not omniscient enough to use our own perceived definition of what is 'natural' in order to exclude from consideration what appears to be 'supernatural' then so be it. I would rather be found to be open mindedly giving due regard to the testimony of eyewitnesses than to be found closed mindedly shovelling down great piles of propaganda which are rooted, founded and built with pure denial, the rejection or dismissal of evidence, and the invention of an implausibly vast scale of a fictional and wholly speculative timeline in order to justify such views, which are then forcibly taught to successive generations in spite of the absence of material proof. See, when you appeal to the 'best guess' argument (that is that 'evolution' and indeed 'big bang' are the best, nearest guesses that we can possibly have given the available evidence - which is in itself a complete fabrication at any rate) I expect to see some professional integrity and I expect to see 'evolution' and 'big bang' sold on exactly that basis - that they are merely guesses, and that students should be taught equally ALL the options and more than that, they should be taught those theories equally either by people who are objective enough to have no 'favoured' bias, or they are taught those theories equally by people who are equally convinced by each. That would at least be honest. However, to concede as you have that the satisfaction that one finds in an individual (or group) of ideas is what affirms it as being true or valid, and that such satisfaction is derived ultimately from one's personal compatibility with the underpinning philosophy or ideological aim of said theory simply illustrates the abhorrence of this 'popular subscriber' method of validating claims with respect to the origins of life, the universe and everything."I could mention what we label in Europe "the american disease", the psychotic delerium in which the US finds itself, with all the creationism and religious fundamentalism but it would be pointless."Rhetoric. You could indeed mention it. You would be remiss to note that Europe in turn appears to manifest what could be labelled 'the Atheist Socialist disease'. But again the issue is not scientific, but purely philosophical. In your judgement this 'american disease' is a psychotic delirium. You've failed to demonstrate why or how it is either psychotic, or delirious, nor even have you defined 'all the creationism and religious fundamentalism.' Or perhaps Europe now represents a continent which has swallowed and bought, with the least resistance, an atheistic, humanistic, perhaps socialistic world view which is far more poisonous to free thinking and personal liberty, while America continues to rage on the right to choose for one's self, and not simply lie down while poisonous agendas are pumped into American veins by agendas controlled by European powers.You seem to miss the point that ANY debate which ultimately involves the history of the universe and the life on this planet is a faith-based debate, and all possibilities are equally religious in nature. Some fit the observable model of science better (intelligent design, creationism) while others (evolution & big bang) fit the desireable model of billions of years of coincidental process in the absence of the existence of God or an intelligent power of Creation or Design better."Odd, I clearly see the evidence before me. I have absolutely no problem with a series of contingencies (or coincidences as you label them) to lead to complex life."'Contingency' denotes intelligent intervention and purpose. 'Coincidence' is more than a label... it would have to be the necessary truth. In human terms, a person could not conceive of the incalculable improbability that one person could win every lottery, every day, in every country in the world for an entire lifetime without ever having bought a single lottery ticket. Strangely enough, there are greater odds of that happening than of chance random process in an exploded universe generating even the most simple single celled organism, and since we can agree that science finds itself unable to practically demonstrate that having produced the single celled organisms (which we still have in profusion today), that the same organisms are in turn naturally and organically capable of turning into any other form of biological life on the planet, we can thus conclude that the assumption of such must be based on exponentially increasing numbers of coincidentally collated coincidences. I find that so implausibly close to 'impossible' that it is barely worth consideration or endless optimism, and that's without comparing that model framework to known, observable and testable science and finding them at odds with each other. On the other hand, the idea that an intelligent being can create something out of common elements for a specific purpose seems to be demonstrated on a daily basis on the planet, so the only 'problem' in extrapolating that model out to a cosmic level is simply one of vastness of scale requiring either faith or imagination, but significantly less faith or imagination given the supporting evidence for Biblical claims, for example, than the belief in trillions upon trillions upon trillions of coincidences."Moreover I don't see any alternative other than contrived, flimsy folklore hyped up into a marketable product."Your expression pertaining to the 'alternative' tells me a great deal about how you have already prejudicially consigned such ideas to irrelevance and derision before having ever even examined the material evidence or the scientific implication or plausibility of such. This is odd considering you have expressed faith, hope and aspiration in a framework built on something so remote as trillions upon trillions upon trillions to one longshots collaborating in trillions upon trillions upon trillions to one longshots, while those who express faith, hope and aspiration in the alternative framework do seem to have a real-time, interactive basis of experience, observation, and visible demonstration upon which to base their belief."Yes one can engineer meaning and hope just as one cooks a dish. "Indeed. But its only a few hours before the meaning and the hope leave you as hollow and empty as the consumed meal, and you need to go looking for another dish to make, in order to sustain meaning and hope.Oddly enough the testament to certain 'drooling religious lunatics' is noted in their ability to maintain both meaning AND hope OUTSIDE of their personal and physical circumstances on the basis of historically recorded events and faith derived from such, and in spite of the most horrendous, life-sapping, hope-crushing and meaningless circumstances."But to the people who are led to believe that there not being innate meaning I suggest you go back to school and read a book. The idea is offensive."It shouldn't be. Its the cold, stark reality of the Evolutionary model. There IS no innate meaning. It CANNOT exist in the Evolutionary model, because innate meaning denotes purpose which transcends the mechanics of physical existence, and in turn could only originate from a source of information and design which must be outside the realm of constructed physicality.Without that objective realisation, claiming that the idea that life is without innate meaning under the evolutionary model is somehow 'offensive' is hypocritically selective and strangely arbitrary alongside your rather visible impassioned derision aimed at those who believe that their innate meaning originates outside the universe."Alleging that those who aren't cursed with a religious psychosis are somehow incapable of making the leap of imagination and select or create a meaning (or ethics) by themselves is very, very insulting. It is prejudiced. I am completely uninterested in your slandering attitude where you automatically assume that those who arent spoonfed a synthetic morality by their brainwashed parents are de facto nihilists."Read through your comments, then go look up the word 'hypocrite.'Then read through my comments previous. And explain to me why your objections to invented and fabricated juxtaposition of fragments of ideas as conveniently misrepresented by you are of any consequence to me. I did not state that all evolutionists and proponents of big bang WERE nihilists and fatalists. I stated that the nature of the model, the implication of the assertions dictated that genuine believers ought to be nothing more than nihilists and fatalists, since the dictates of the 'science theory' behind those fictional ideas is of cold, blunt objectivity, devoid of inherent meaning or value, and therefore was in itself by nature both nihilistic and fatalist (since optimism, aspiration and hope all denote purpose). The irrational nature of your personal reaction to an objective assertion about supposedly objective views of scientific nature only serves to say more about the nature of your belief than it does about mine. It would appear that you feel that your belief in these quasi-scientific framework for your existence is something so inherently personal that an attack upon it, its origin, its nature and its source is an attack upon you as a person. That meets the classic definition of religious belief, really."I am largely a nihilist, but that's beside the point. My values are as selfinflicted as I can manage."A nihilist with hope, aspiration, and cherishing survival. I've never met one before. Mazel Tov."Humanity is leaving traces that won't be eradicated for a billion years, at worst."Really? Which ones. I'm concerned that you're determined to have a discussion in which you clearly divide between religious lunatics and scientific rationalists, and yet with overblown hysterical scientific nonsense like this, you're lining your own case up for defeat. A volcanic eruption can make more impact than the entire human population put together. Waves wash away all trace of humanity, landslides cover it over, the ground opens up and swallows this evolutionary ant, man can be laid in his coffin by a bite from a mosquito, his flesh and his bones disintegrate like every other. His chemicals eventually break down into natural components because he is using nothing that is not chemically and physically comprised of that which occurs naturally on the planet. Why the hysteria?"If we fail and eradicate ourselves, holy s**t, we aste one giant opportunity."Fail in what? Failure denotes purpose, design. If we are coincidental pond s**t evolved into slightly more advanced meat than the rest of the meat here, there is no 'success' or 'failure' there is only what 'is' and what 'happens to be', and our demise will be no more consequential than the demise of a million other creatures, according to Evolutionary Theory. And again - what opportunity? To make chance random coincidental s**t a happier, better safer place to be chance, random coincidental products of 's**t happening?' You say 'evolution' and then you fulfil the stereotype of the hysterical lay evolutionist, strangely confused between scientific indoctrination without genuine understanding of the implications of your professed 'view', and the innate suspicion that there is purpose, function, fulfilment, a higher, greater cause... its an illogical combination, the idea that the instinct to survive could develop spontaneously and by chance is ridiculous enough, but that it would then find its way into a conscious WILL to survive simply beggars belief in a universe which supposedly exploded into chance being, and in which life occurs merely as a coincidental coalescence of random chemicals and energy..."You may regard something like moore's law, exponential growth, the potential of greater than human intelligence (in our lifetime...) to be trivial, but I am awestruck at the sheer luck of being able to witness this which unfolds before me."Odd... you've just stated that in a world exploded into being by chance random processes, on which life exists having coincidentally been ejected from coincidentally occurring pond s**t and coincidentally transforming into coincidentally occurring animals of coincidentally increasing complexity, you've basically just stated that what awes you the most in the midst of all of this randomness,

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