Evolution

[keithprosser3]

Given the nature of reproduction and of natural selection isn't evolution inescapable?
How can evolution not happen?

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1199 by kenblogton]

I've addressed this two or three times.

You said "the researchers have identified... brain area... transcend... contact with God"
I said they haven't identified it. This is of course, not in relation to whether or not they believe they have identified it, or whether or not the patients believe it.
This is not misquoting, this is not distortion, this is disagreeing with you

Do you want me to accept prima facie that these (still) anonymous researchers in this (still) unnamed book have identified where people make contact with God? Alright, then there is a God. discussion over.

If you say :I don't believe it, that's fine; if you say that haven't done it, that's a distortion of what I said.
kenblogton

You don't seem to understand.
This is akin to you saying "There is a God", and me replying "No, There probably isn't a God" and you saying I'm distorting what you're saying rather than disbelieving it.

I'm not saying they didn't say they had identified whatever, but that they hadn't identified it because then they'd not only have proven God but they'd done it as a side effect.

If they think they've identified someone talking to God, and it turns out that isn't God, then it's a false positive. They haven't actually identified God.

If you are unable or unwilling to view placing your own views in place of mine then calling them mine as distortion, that is unfortunate. I explained my view clearly; you are free to reject it, but I will not accept your distortions, even if unacknowledged.

kenblogton

[arian]

[Replying to post 1206 by arian]

Way to once again ignore the data, Arian:

People with damage to this part of the brain have problems navigating their way around a room: They actually cannot discriminate between their bodies and the furniture. The researchers discovered that during meditation and prayer, at the moment when the monks were at one with the universe and the nuns felt the presence of a universal spirit, there was reduced activity in the OAA. Like patients with damage to this brain area, their selves became indistinguishable from their nonselves.

This proves that Yoga Meditation to become 'One With The Universe' can be very dangerous, and can cause serious brain damage as you quoted. They will even warn you of this in Yoga. The nuns were obviously praying to either the dead Mary, or a triune-demon god "Legion", in both cases dangerous possession is taking place, like other mediums calling upon the spirits from the supernatural realm.

Demonic spirits are real, just as our Creator God who is Holy and Spirit is. He created these Angels who have disobeyed Gods rules and were cast out of Heaven.

There is this race now trying to identify 'spirit/mind' in the brain, and where it could be located, in which part of the brain? What they noticed is that when the spirit, or spirits take over the brain, there is the 'reduced activity in the OAA', or 'brain activity'. This is the same like all them diviners, mediums like Jane Roberts when she let the demon 'Seth' take over her mind. She was completely relaxed, almost in a comatose state, and then this male divine entity 'Seth' started to speak through her.

But of course if you don't believe in good and evil as a conscious choice of the mind, but an electrical impulse of the brain that evolved over billions of years, then demonic possession makes absolutely no sense to you. You believe it's all just animal instinct. Love one moment, then slowly rape, suffocate, and murder the next, .. it's how this animal-person evolved, right? It's his environment that can trigger these different actions, not his fault. ?? This was pretty convincing in the 70's, "Do as thou wilt!" right?

If damage to this part of the brain makes people unable to distinguish between their body and furniture in the room, then that is pretty telling, don't you think?

Yes, .. brain damage, demonic possession, Yoga meditation can all do this to the brain, like playing with the plug in your computer causing all kinds of electrical surges, it can do some very weird things, anything but what the program supposed to do.

More proof that the mind & brain are inextricable. Any extra-body argument drawn from this is pure speculation, and wish-thinking.

But of course any argument drawn by those in your above quote is scientific fact, right?

The mind operates the brain, if you mess and damage the brain, things start screwing up. If you let a demonic spirit control your mind, he can screw things up also even if your brain is perfectly in tact (no damage), and make the body do things it would never have otherwise done. Just look at serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and Jim Jones? Tell me they were not controlled by some unseen, undetectable forces? The only way to notice was their actions. The difference in their actions from one moment to another?

Come on, .. It's as obvious as looking at your own hands!

Show me evidence (real world examples) otherwise.

All the best,

I did and continue showing you evidence, .. by all the best examples I could find from and in the very world we both share. Now that's science.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 1214 by kenblogton]

I've responded to every accusation you've made over the past couple of pages, and am tired of it.
Hopefully you will get back to the topic at hand rather than make one last response, especially considering you're the one that not only made the demonstrably false claim of a distortion over an abject rejection, but then went on to put it into a more usable rhetoric

You deliberately distorted what I had said to fit in with your preconceptions of what is truth ... I have frequently observed, this is a pattern of your: Restate what the other person says in a way which is in accord with what Jashwell believes.

_{Presumably the third person is to impress the audience}
You then further decided to claim that I was not recognising or ignoring what I've previously said, despite the fact that I've quoted myself as refutations to your disingenuous claims.

I'm not addressing any more claims of distortion and such other rhetorics, but this discussion isn't going to continue if you expect us to acknowledge that God exists in order for us to debate the existence of God. So please do go on to explain how a completely unbiased book called "Why God won't go away" evidences contact with God. I hope you haven't been holding onto that for long, because is as evidenced as we'd expect from a scientific publication, we'll be theists in no time.

[scourge99]

[Replying to post 1179 by Jashwell]

To repeat, "in your posting 1162, you distorted what I'd said in posting 1161. I said that researchers had identified the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God, and you said instead "And no, researchers have not "identified ... the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God", they've probably identified the region where people believe they transcend the physical and make contact with God." which gives you a more convenient straw man to deal with. I stated what the researchers said and you say no, they didn't say that."

I said they had, and you said they hadn't, identified the God-contact area. That is a distortion of what I said. If you want to dispute a point, you can say I disagree, and give some basis for your disagreement, or you can ask for more details on the point I made. To say I didn't say what I said is a distortion plain and simple, where distortion is defined distortion as "the action of giving a misleading account or impression." Your reply makes it seem that researchers had not identified the "God contact spot" when I clearly said they had. One doesn't dispute by misquoting.
kenblogton

Please show your work. Stop complaining about how he distorted what you said, show us that what you said is actually true because at this point it is just a claim made by some guy on the internet.

Can you show that your un-evidenced claim is even true? That might put Jashwell in a bit of a spot. IMO, he is on very safe ground though.

The book is Newberg, A., DAquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WONT GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.
kenblogton

Perhaps you didn't know this but researchers don't publish results in books. They publish them in peer reviewed journals where they are scrutinized by other experts in their field.

If someone is writing a book they are trying to make money, or trying to educate, or sometimes they write a book because their ideas were rejected by journals and other experts.

But let's give these "researchers " the benefit of the doubt. In their book they should cite research that is published in journals. Can you or anyone else produce that research that shows where we have identified a part of the brain that makes contact with god? Because i doubt anyone can. It seems like you or these "researchers" are using these studies to make erroneous conclusions.

[Tidus]

[Replying to post 1 by keithprosser3]

Can any creationist explain to me how we can see starlight from stars billions of light years away? If the universe is only 6,000 years old then logically we should only be able to see stars that are within 6000 light years of Earth. This is because when we look into the night sky, we see not the stars themselves but their light.

Hello Tidus, and welcome to the Forum.

First, you say we are looking at stars billions of light years away, correct? Now can you answer me something? When were the lights turned on on the stars, do you know?
If they were always on, and were close by before they expanded away from us, then it doesn't matter how far away they are, we are still looking at the star.
Now given that if that star burnt up some time ago, IF light has speed as they claim, then it would take us billions of years to realize this.

Every study scientists have done has shown it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light as it would require an infinite amount of energy, so it is absurd to argue that the light could have traveled faster than the speed of light. Therefore, creationists can only somewhat reasonably argue that all the objects we has observed in Astronomy have to be within 6000 light years.

First, lets go with the Big-bang Evolution religious claims, OK?
They say that our 'known, or observable' universe is around 45 billion light years radius, and they say it got to this size in 13.75 billion years. You just said: Every study scientists have done has shown it is impossible to go faster than the speed of light as it would require an infinite amount of energy, since this is simple mathematics even I can do, something is very wrong here, wouldn't you say?

45 billion light year distance from earth (and that's just our observable universe, the actual size they say may be infinitely big) .. in 13.75 billion years. But wait, .. something even crazier is claimed here, they say that right after the Big-bang the universe expanded to the size we have now in just a few minutes, and the rate of expansion is unknown, so they can't know how far ANY star out there really is.

Look, .. if you are looking at a star, considering Big-bang claims, it had to get to that (whatever) distance between a few minutes after the BB, and 13.75 billion years, right?

Then they say that the 'observable universe' is 45 billion light years in radius, which is 90 some billion light years in diameter, right?

Then they say; that the ACTUAL universe may be 'infinitely big', ..

and finally, they say the universe is still expanding. Don't you think that time, and the rate of expansion is critical to know before we can say with any certainty how far something is from us??

Here is their claim in a nutshell; The universe reached infinity in a few minutes after a Big-bang. Nothing in the universe can travel faster than 168,282 m/p/s, which is 5,878,499,817 miles a year, but stars in our observable universe are already 45,000,000,000 (billion) light years away (which would of have to travel 8 times faster than the speed of light to reach that distance). But they claim they can give you a pretty accurate measurement how far stars and galaxies are from earth.

However, what we see is that most of even observable stars by telescope are farther away than that. If you say the current Astronomical way of measuring distance is wrong and argue that we can not know the distance to ET stars or planets because we have not traveled there ourselves, then how come we have measured the distance between Earth and other planets with near 100% precision and this has been proven by the time it takes space probes to get to these planets? Surely if we can get distances in the solar system right we can't be off by a factor of a million to the farthest stars in the Hubble Deep Field?

You see (as I pointed it out) that religion can make their own rules, and claim 100% accuracies because they know we ordinary people will never be able to verify this ourselves.

Why is it that none of the other fields of science that don't contradict the Bible are this wrong by the Creationists viewpoint? Seems like we have to give special pleading to your book to completely and utterly trounce in any new evidence even if significantly overwhelming because it doesn't agree with your holy book.

What doesn't agree with the Bible (or holy moly book if you prefer), .. that anything in the universe can only travel 186,282 m/p/s, yet billions of stars reached infinity in a few minutes? What New overwhelming Evidence that contradicts this holy book are you talking about?

Looking at all the evidence we have compiled from years of cosmology and a little bit of common sense, it is mathematically impossible to hold all the matter we have discovered in such a small area, it would be like holding the mass of the entire Solar System on a small asteroid near Jupiter. And also, how can both Evolutionists and Cosmologists be so wrong? These are two independent fields, how can they both be so wrong?

My friend you are stuck with some religious claims regarding the Bible, the 6,000 years is counted from the fall of Adam, time as we know it did not matter, nor did it even exist 'before the fall' because nothing aged, there was no deterioration. The six Day of Creation has nothing to do with time, or the counting of days where the sun came up and went down, there was no sun or moon yet until the fourth day. it was not based on hours and minutes, there is no time in the spiritual realm, or with God, or in your mind. Eternity is not defined or measured by time, just as infinity is not measured by length.

If you say God somehow distorted the light by making it break natural laws such as the speed of light (proven and tested numerous times, the speed of light is not up for debate) so we could see the entire observable universe (which just happens to be that we can see 13 billion light years away, same time around when the Big Bang happened) why would he do that?

I don't understand where you get a Biblical speed of light distortions, the Biblical Days of creation as certain length of solar time? Look, take two watches, one half the speed of the other, now time the sunrise to sunset with both of them? Now how would you determine which one is accurate and which one is not?

You would do it by your religious indoctrination, yet it is totally irrelevant.

More importantly, how would he do it? What mechanism could a God possibly use to so blatantly distort natural laws? So creationists explain to me, how could the entire science community and both independent fields of cosmology and evolution be so wrong?

God created every speck, every atom, whatever space is made of, and designed it giving each speck, each matter, each atom their individual rules and laws they are to go by. He can distort, add and destroy any part of this creation He choses. Just as easy as you can come up with concepts and change your mind and create a completely new or different one.

Take care, good to have you on this Forum you will love it here.

arian

My apologies, I should have realized that the bible doesn't directly state the age of the Universe, and only does so for the Earth. This shows me that I personally need to make sure I understand all the facts and so not misinterpret before debating.

I imagine the radius of the Observable Universe comes from then movement of multiple objects towards and away from each other, so you can see the light of objects that were once only 13.7 billion light years away from the Earth but are now significantly further than that. Considering that objects are not static and the vast evidence for universal expansion, I see no reason to believe why the current radius of the observable universe is somehow illogical.

One thing I wonder(among many things) about the Bible's creation account is why is there such a gap between him making the universe and making the Earth? This seems completely illogical to me. The way the Bible tends to present it as events that are chronological- that is to say events that don't seem to have such massive gaps between them. If God had such a master plan why such a gap between Universe creation and human creation? Also, if the Bible is the true "word of God" then why hasn't it been able to tell us one important fact that could not possibly have been known back then unless specifically stated by your god?

If you can give me an example of just one important fact or concept not scientifically discovered until thousands of years later( and not predictions, because they can be vague) than I would be much more willing to accept your god. As is, I see nothing to distinguish it from the mumbling of men's brains who "believe" they have connected with God. There is also no evidence of God in nature, so I see no reason why I should believe in this creator.

Something else slightly off topic but still bothersome to me is that I have read earlier that you personally don't believe in time dilation. This isn't just theory, the idea has been put into test and the atomic clock for the astronauts on the ISS for six months has been shown to be just a fraction slower by a few hundredths or thousandths of a second than the same clock on Earth.

These are highly accurate clocks where there has been no or absolutely negligible(billionths of a second) difference between them when placed on two non moving locations on Earth. If you can somehow explain to me why you believe time dilation to be false that would be greatly appreciated.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 1213 by kenblogton]

KenB

Given that the book claims to make a scientific discovery as important as having "found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god", (between the two) don't you think the review that you should lend the most credence to would be the one made by individuals who have actually studied the brain? And not the generic book reviewer?

If I want a review of the next James Patterson novel, I'll trust Kirkus, and not Psychology Today. If I want a review on a book claiming scientific breakthroughs regarding the brain, I'll trust Psychology Today more than I would Kirkus. Why don't you?

All the best,

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 1212 by arian]

Arian:

Post 1212:
No, people acting horrifically is not an example of demonic spirits. Sorry, but Im not going to debate the merits of this argument with you. Nor will I debate the legitimacy of demonic spirits controlling world leaders.

Debate what I said here, and you will see why this idea of Big-bang Evolution is so evil, it is the basis for many of the worlds New Agendas for a world without humans.
Not going to happen. If you cant make your argument without descending into the fantastical realm of evil spirits then that is on you.

Post 1215:

The nuns were obviously praying to either the dead Mary, or a triune-demon god "Legion"
The nuns were possibly praying to Legion? Wow.

But of course if you don't believe in good and evil as a conscious choice of the mind,
Oh, I believe we make choices, whether to act selfishly or not. Some people have more of a choice than others. For all intents and purposes, I do believe we have free will.

then demonic possession makes absolutely no sense to you.
I find this proposition laughable. Sorry.

You believe it's all just animal instinct.
I believe we have impulses, yes, but I also believe we can control them. Hence sentiency.

Love one moment, then slowly rape, suffocate, and murder the next
Um, no, this is a preposterous conclusion to draw, and one that really shows (once again) that you have no idea what evolution entails. Nor do you seem (after all of these posts) to understand the people you are debating with.

It's his environment that can trigger these different actions, not his fault.
Never said this, and dont believe it. Some people have impulses they cannot control and deserve to be treated accordingly. Others behave selfishly and deserve to have society mete out justice.

brain damage, demonic possession, Yoga meditation can all do this to the brain,
Brain damage and demonic possession made with equal emphasis? Good grief. Really?

But of course any argument drawn by those in your above quote is scientific fact, right?
Let me put this very simply for you (and avoid the use of the words Fact and Proof). I am inclined to believe the opinions of those who study the subject for a living, rather then those who do not. Explain to me why this is a bad idea.

Just look at serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, Hitler, John Wayne Gacy and Jim Jones? Tell me they were not controlled by some unseen, undetectable forces?
They were not controlled by unseen & undetectable forces.

I did and continue showing you evidence, .. by all the best examples I could find from and in the very world we both share. Now that's science.
No you didnt. Nothing you wrote could even remotely be considered science. In fact, I guess I should be asking you now, if you know the difference between Science and Science Fiction. Only fair, right?

All the best,

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1179 by Jashwell]

To repeat, "in your posting 1162, you distorted what I'd said in posting 1161. I said that researchers had identified the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God, and you said instead "And no, researchers have not "identified ... the brain area where humans transcend the physical and make contact with God", they've probably identified the region where people believe they transcend the physical and make contact with God." which gives you a more convenient straw man to deal with. I stated what the researchers said and you say no, they didn't say that."

I said they had, and you said they hadn't, identified the God-contact area. That is a distortion of what I said. If you want to dispute a point, you can say I disagree, and give some basis for your disagreement, or you can ask for more details on the point I made. To say I didn't say what I said is a distortion plain and simple, where distortion is defined distortion as "the action of giving a misleading account or impression." Your reply makes it seem that researchers had not identified the "God contact spot" when I clearly said they had. One doesn't dispute by misquoting.
kenblogton

Please show your work. Stop complaining about how he distorted what you said, show us that what you said is actually true because at this point it is just a claim made by some guy on the internet.

Can you show that your un-evidenced claim is even true? That might put Jashwell in a bit of a spot. IMO, he is on very safe ground though.

The book is Newberg, A., DAquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WONT GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002.
kenblogton

Perhaps you didn't know this but researchers don't publish results in books. They publish them in peer reviewed journals where they are scrutinized by other experts in their field.

1. If someone is writing a book they are trying to make money, or trying to educate, or sometimes they write a book because their ideas were rejected by journals and other experts.

2. But let's give these "researchers " the benefit of the doubt. In their book they should cite research that is published in journals. Can you or anyone else produce that research that shows where we have identified a part of the brain that makes contact with god? Because i doubt anyone can. It seems like you or these "researchers" are using these studies to make erroneous conclusions.

Reply to scourge99 1. Academics typically write books when there is an extensive body of work they wish to address, as is the case with Newberg, A., DAquili, E.G. and Rause, V. WHY GOD WONT GO AWAY: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. The authors reference many articles published in refereed journals in their book, including their own.

Reply to scourge99 2. The authors conclusions are based on data they obtained with meditating subjects when they reached a transcendent state, and their descriptions of that state, as I've previously stated "Using a single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) camera, the authors injected radioactive material intravenously then scanned a meditating subjects brain at the moment he notified them that he had achieved mystical transcendence. The finished scan images showed unusual activity in a specialized bundle of neurons known as the posterior superior parietal lobe, which the authors dubbed the orientation association area, or OAA. (3-4)" The authors further state "A neurological approach suggests that God is not the product of a cognitive, deductive process, but was instead discovered in a mystical or spiritual encounter made known to human consciousness through the transcendent machinery of the mind. In other words, humans do not cognitively invent a powerful God and then depend upon this invention to gain a feeling of control; instead, God, in the broadest and most fundamental definition of the term, is experienced in mystical spirituality" The authors conclude, as previously stated "This is the conclusion to which our research draws us; it forces us to ask a provocative question about the ultimate nature of human spirituality: Can all spirituality and any experience of the reality of God be reduced to a fleeting rush of electrochemical blips and flashes, racing along the neural pathways of the brain? Based upon our current understanding of the manner in which the brain turns neural input into the perceptions of human experience, the simplest answer is yes."
As you are no doubt aware, God is not a proper scientific topic, and the authors have not proven the existence of God, but rather have dealt with the experiences of people who believe they transcend the plain of physical experience and make contact with the divine.
kenblogton

[kenblogton]

[Replying to post 1213 by kenblogton]

KenB

Given that the book claims to make a scientific discovery as important as having "found the part of the brain where humans transcend the physical and make contact with god", (between the two) don't you think the review that you should lend the most credence to would be the one made by individuals who have actually studied the brain? And not the generic book reviewer?

If I want a review of the next James Patterson novel, I'll trust Kirkus, and not Psychology Today. If I want a review on a book claiming scientific breakthroughs regarding the brain, I'll trust Psychology Today more than I would Kirkus. Why don't you?

All the best,

Psychology Today is a magazine, not a refereed academic journal, so its pronouncements are not academically authoritative. More importantly, I encourage you to read the actual book, not reviews of the book, and see for yourself the merits of what the authors say. As well, I would remind you that if an atheist reviews a book where people believe they make contact with God, the review will not be favourable.
kenblogton

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 1222 by kenblogton]

Psychology Today is a magazine, not a refereed academic journal, so its pronouncements are not academically authoritative.
Fair enough, though I never thought it was "authoritative".

However, you seem to be missing my point. If I want an opinion on cars, I might go to a magazine like Car & Driver. I'm more inclined to value their opinion on such topics, then I would be for, say, Game Informer or Mademoiselle.

Are you arguing that I shouldn't value Car & Driver magazine's opinions on cars more-so then other magazines not dedicated to that subject? If not, why then should I trust Kirkus just as much as Psychology Today on issues related to the brain?

As well, I would remind you that if an atheist reviews a book where people believe they make contact with God, the review will not be favourable.
Psychology Today is an atheist magazine?

All the best,