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Further proof of Evolution? 4-finned dolphin....

  • Thread starter Clint
  • Start date
  • #101
If I knew what a Taoist was, maybe i'd be one lol.
 
  • #102
Isn't a Taoist like a Daoist ? in the fact that they both seek full understanding in the balances of nature such as yin and yan? Or is it something totally different?
 
  • #103
I understand that there are many different religious beliefs in this forum and I don't think that anyone should feel uncomfortable about it, but I also think that they should be able to put their imput on it as well.

So fight nice guys!
sad6.gif


However I am a Darwinist and I completely believe in evolution. And actually on the news I heard that in the Vatican News Paper the Pope himself wrote that he to believes in evolution.

I have also tried on Christianity but have never believed in it, and still don't. And I, just as my dad had said belive that the Bible is a good story, but still just a story
 
  • #104
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Farmer Dave @ Nov. 08 2006,10:36)]Isn't a Taoist like a Daoist ? in the fact that they both seek full understanding in the balances of nature such as yin and yan? Or is it something totally different?
Taosim and Daoism are the same belief system but differnt spellings based on differnt transliteration systems.(ones pinying(sp?) and the other is the older system wade-giles? i think maybe)

And I just wanted to share a qoute from the Qu'ran a muslim friend shared with me. "Believers, Jews, Sabaeans or Christians - whoever believes in God and the Last Day and does what is right - shall have nothing to fear or regret" (Believers refers to Muslims) I wish more people would take this kind of thinking to hart, this is along the lines of how i feel, its more important that you believe in god and do what is right then it is if you eat meat on fridays or refrain from dancing and drinking. We need to forget the rules of men when dealing with god. I personally am against organized religion i feel it is institutionalized intollerance and is often used to justify crimes against humanity. I also agree with the notion that science and religion need to keep themselves seperate. I dont go to a home improment store to get groceries and I dont get 2x4's at the grocery store. These two areas of human knowledge seek to answer differnt questions. Let them be seperate.
 
  • #105
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Isn't a Taoist like a Daoist ?

Tao is pronounced "Dow". Maybe Daoist is just a phonetic spelling of Tao.
 
  • #106
then yes it is basically the same thing.

Because in World history/ Theory of Knowledge we went over China and the Philosophic/Religious traits that It had and one was Daoism/Taoism, which was thought up by someone named Louz Tiu or somthing like that.
 
  • #107
Supposedly, famous and wise Lao Tzu was leaving China and the guards at the border told him he could not leave until he departed all his wisdom and teachings, which he then wrote down and has been widely distributed and is now known as the "Tao Te Ching." Of course, this is one interpretation of the origin of the literature, and is hotly debated and fought over. Another story of wisdom who's origin is skeptic.

The reason I made my comment about sounding Taoist is because one of the first "lessons" in the Tao Te Ching is about how you cannot have good without evil, you cannot have tall without short, etc. Both are equally important because they need each other to be complete. Taoism essentially is about accepting the moment and realizing the basics. Many people read the Tao Te Ching as relaxation or a meditation or a focusing agent.

Regardless, to get back on topic, when I read and engage in discussions like this I always think about Jesus and the blind man. Forgive me if I do not provide the best recollection of this parable; but, there was a blind man and Jesus found him on the road. It was a Sunday and Jesus cured the man so that he could see. Later many townspeople went to the blind man and asked him if Jesus was a sinner because he worked on the Sabbath to cure him and the blindman responded something like "I do not know if Jesus is a sinner. All I know is that I once was blind but now I can see."

Does a dolphin with four fins prove evolution? I don't know, but I once was blind and now I can see.

xvart.
 
  • #108
Oh, yeah I've always believed everything must be in balance.

Guess i'm a Taoist now. neat.
 
  • #109
That was Deep!

I however believe that there are many reasons to why certain things may happen, I however do not base it on an all powerful being such as 'God'. I believe that they happen because of many other factors such as how every cell acts.


If you think about it there were many different times for some types of life to exist on every planet/moon and I'm sure that some types of 'life' did exist but were not successfully porportioned and because of that they cease to exist. On Earth however everything happened to be 'just' right and so life continues to exist on it. Now if you think of it there are litterally millions of solid areas in space that could possibly be habitable(?) but are't. So it's basically luck that we are alive not that some divine being chose us to be, and If you also think of it , there other 'creatures' that did exist probably looked, acted, and lived much more differently than us, such as some of the animals of earth. So there is no proof that humans are the most important form of life, because it all depends on their point of view.

That is why I do not in any way believe in a divine being or beings, because everyrthing happens because of many other fixed factors that we have no control of.
 
  • #110
The fundamental duality of things is found in so many belief systems it would be hard to list them all. It's by no means a patently Taoist concept.

A few obscure examples, briefly:

Qabalah: (another word with no "official" english spelling)
Jewish mysticism. The "tree of life" diagram used in Qabalah charts the path from nothingness (the realm of the Absolute, also the level of divinity) to somethingness (the realm of the Relative, the level of matter). Something cannot "exist" unless there also exist things that are not that thing. The material world is defined by exclusion... to name something is to differentiate it from everything it is not. The "God" of many belief systems like this one "exists" at the level of the absolute, because it's absurd to imply there are things that the all-encompassing does not encompass (this also puts the entity above locality, time, and consciousness as we understand it). The two sides of the diagram counterbalance each other. One side injects boundless, shapeless energy. The other imposes rigid, structured form (basically disciplining that energy into the capacity for a relative existence). As a creation zig-zags its way down the diagram, it gains complexity and organization until it reaches the material plane.

Hermeticism:
Associated with alchemy. Rooted in ancient Egyptian belief systems (as Christianity is in many ways). Has so much in common with Taoism as far as duality that there's debate over whether one influenced the other somehow. In Hermeticism it's more accurate to call it "polarity" though, because rather than having two binary states, there is an infinite gradient between two extremes (I doubt Taoists disagree with this). Hermeticism also sees the cosmos as a fractal. It's hard to describe, but if you've ever seen a fractal diagram, you know that as you zoom in or out the pattern remains identical. So not only are there these polar extremes, but there are "octaves" of transcendence one traverses on the path to divinity... the different planes echo each other and affect each other, and are each polar as the one above and below are.

Huna:
Hawaiian shamanism. Given a lot of attention because it's considered to be one of the least corrupted ancient belief systems on the planet because it took religious missionaries so long to find out the Polynesian islands even existed. There has still been influence obviously, so people are still unsure of what's truly authentic. Huna has "octaves" as well, in a way. It describes a framework for generating creations on our plane (somewhat like the previous two belief systems) through recognition of the dual nature that things have. You bring something down from the realm above this one by polarizing it into itself and its opposite (on the plane above, it was unified). You lift something up to a higher realm (including yourself) by depolarizing it or unifying it. Presumably the unified entities on higher realms have their own opposites which are reconciled on the next level up, and so on (you could visualize it as an upside-down branching tree). Part of the shaman's power comes from the awareness that something and its opposite are the same thing... the illusion of duality is merely a problem of perspective.

The list goes on and on. It can be amazing how philosophers of various cultures can come to the same conclusions about things. You'll even find some of these themes in esoteric Christianity. In exoteric Christianity, err, well, not so much...

I know these descriptions are somewhat superficial and possibly incoherent... I was busy and had to type it quick. Just trying to give a taste of them. I wanted people to be aware that there are other philosophies out there beyond the ones society beats us over the head with.
 
  • #111
Nep,

I think you missed my point. What I was trying to get at is that your comments about people being close-minded are unjust. You say there is no point talking to the evolutionists because they won't consider creationism. Now I can only speak for myself (but I can guess based on the replies by others). I (we) have considered creationism, the same way you have considered evolution. And I (we) have found creationism lacking, just as you have found evolution to be lacking. So to accuse us of doing exactly what you are doing is not fair or right.

Do you see what am saying.

It might be more appropriate to say that there is no point trying to change our minds because I (we) have already made my (our) own decisions on the matter. And by the same token there is no point trying to change your mind because you have likewise made your decisions. But in making those decisions both I (we) and you have considered the alternative. So to say that either side has not is untrue and unfair.
 
  • #112
I think it is dissappointing how difficult it has become in the modern age to share and discuss ideas because with internet, media, etc. it is easy to access all viewpoints and learn independently about alternative ideas. I believe this adds to the misconception that people don't listen to others simply because they feel they already know enough about the other side. However, the one thing that I think is missing is not the how and the fundementals of the views, but the why and the process people chose to believe in whatever they believe in (evolution or other).

I sometimes find myself saying I know what others are talking about because I consider myself an educated man and do know the fundementals of what others are talking about (which can be misconstrewed about not truly listening). I think it is more important as civic leaders to listen to the stories about others thought processes and motivations.

Anyway, I am reminded by the quote: "Don't hate the hater; hate the game."

Have a good day.

xvart.
 
  • #113
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] You fail to render the other side that science also cannot prove that He does not exist.

Yikes....I haven't gotten all the way through the thread yet, so pardon me if this has been addressed.

There is a problem with this statement. You CANNOT logically proove something DOES NOT exit. Therefore the onus is on the propent to proove that something DOES exist, otherwise it must be assumed not to.

Nevertheless, this debate is intersting - I enjoy reading this stuff....

For anyone else who hasn't had enough, and wants more fun, check out www.cryptozoology.com - there is a whole sub-forum dedicated to evo v/s creat.

FUN!
 
  • #114
I hope you realize I gave alot of thought into Evolution, I really gave it a chance, I still do I listen to new points, I havent blocked it out cause im allways trying to figure out why you guys beleive it.
 
  • #115
lmao the minute i saw this i knew it was gonna look like
angry.gif


PS ha! first use of new smilies..

EDIT: ok definitely not the smily i clicked.
 
  • #116
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I hope you realize I gave alot of thought into Evolution, I really gave it a chance, I still do I listen to new points, I havent blocked it out cause im allways trying to figure out why you guys beleive it.

It's not a matter of belief; that implies that differences in opinion are based on subjective reasons, when in actuality it's about objective evidence, and those willing vs unwilling to accept what the evidence plainly says.

I highly recommend the Talk.Origins FAQ (and associated sub-FAQs), to give a readable, yet in-depth understanding of evolution and a refutation of any and all objections to it. If you have an objection/concern/question, it's in there somewhere.

Mokele
 
  • #117
I just remembered this article too: http://www.discover.com/issues/feb-05/cover/

It's mainly about testing evolution using computer simulations. What's interesting is that all you have to do is allow for things like genetic variation and the passing on of genes to offspring. The organisms don't have to be commanded to evolve in those circumstances. They just do it. You'd actually have to intentionally prevent them from evolving if that isn't the result you wanted.

This of course doesn't prove that a biological lifeform will work the same way, but it does show that evolution is a demonstratable concept.

It also addresses a common creationist argument... that there hasn't been enough time for this much complexity to develop. People who do the math are frequently surprised by just how quickly the process can go, as the people running the simulations were. The number of times the eye has developed from scratch in Earth's history is thought to be somewhere in the 40s. People severely underestimate the power of recursion with a massive number of iterations.

Personally I don't know how one can ask, "What makes life evolve?" In a world where variation occurs, where some traits are more conducive to survival than others, and where selective pressures are commonplace... what stops life from evolving? Why wouldn't it?
 
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