I almost choked to death on pizza!

[metis]

I chose window #3.

I believe it is impossble to know with any certainty whatsoever that there is "intelligent design" but that doesn't mean there cannot be God(s).

To put it another way, between atheist, theist, and agnostic, if one looks at this totally objectively, the most logical one is the latter, imo. However, I'm a theist, but for a different reason.

 

[Lain]

How do you account for fossils?

It's the preserved remains (or trace) of a living thing that died. I don't think my account of fossils differs from anyone else who was taught about them in school. I do not deny that things die, I deny that God made death, made a corrupted world, or that death comes through anything but sin, which is a necessary result of our theology concerning Christ (St. Athanasius lays this out with perfection).

 

[firedragon]

Please let us consider decay-prone-teeth along with the one-holed throat passage way being used as part of the respiratory system and digestion system to be so flawed, we should seriously doubt any designer (unless the designer were an awfully bad designer) would have come up with that set-up of people choking to death on food. . Of course, tooth decay along with a one-holed throat passage way being used as part of the respiratory system in common with being used as part of the digestion system are not usually lethal flaws before or during a human being's reproductive life, so most persons are able to generate offspring perpetuating their genes well before this bodily flaw would kill them off.

You didnt understand my question.

Nevermind. So you had a bad experience and you think if people dont have that same experience humans would be "perfect" or just "better"? It looks like you would say "perfect" because this was your yardstick. But what would be your thought?

I conceptualize evolution as simply significant enough gene pool changes occurring within a species changing over the course of many generations resulting in organisms having genetic traits different enough from their distant ancestors; so that there'd be no possible sexual reproduction occurring between somebody who were to have distant ancestral genetic traits with anybody living in the current population

Thanks for that explanation, but that does not really answer my question.

 

[firedragon]

I am legally Latter-day Saint and can be Raelian in ways the LDS Church gives me permission to be.

How does that work where LDS church gives permission to be raelian as well? Im just asking because I dont understand.

 

[robocop (actually)]

How does that work where LDS church gives permission to be raelian as well? Im just asking because I dont understand.

So I'm primarily LDS.

When it doesn't contradict the LDS Church I can be Raelian and it makes me happy when I do that.

My LDS bishop and parents approved, but the Raelians don't care because LDS believe in God so they don't acknowledge me, even though I wish I could become an honorary Raelian.

 

[Revoltingest]

Are you sure?
You may just be on another Continuum?
How can one tell?

Dirty laundry was where I left it.

 

[firedragon]

So I'm primarily LDS.

When it doesn't contradict the LDS Church I can be Raelian and it makes me happy when I do that.

My LDS bishop and parents approved, but the Raelians don't care because LDS believe in God so they don't acknowledge me, even though I wish I could become an honorary Raelian.

But dont they conflict at fundamental levels?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's the preserved remains (or trace) of a living thing that died. I don't think my account of fossils differs from anyone else who was taught about them in school. I do not deny that things die, I deny that God made death, made a corrupted world, or that death comes through anything but sin, which is a necessary result of our theology concerning Christ (St. Athanasius lays this out with perfection).

Do you understand that all of the scientific evidence tells us that you are wrong and do you understand what that implies about your version of God?

 

[exchemist]

It's the preserved remains (or trace) of a living thing that died. I don't think my account of fossils differs from anyone else who was taught about them in school. I do not deny that things die, I deny that God made death, made a corrupted world, or that death comes through anything but sin, which is a necessary result of our theology concerning Christ (St. Athanasius lays this out with perfection).

OK so, given that the rocks in which these fossils are found can be tens or hundreds of millions of years old, this shows there was death before Man existed.

Furthermore, you presumably recognise that many of the animals actually eat other animals or plants. How could that be without causing death to the things they eat?

You need to think these things through. The error is to think that physical death = corruption. Physical death is just part of the order of nature. (Just as sex is - but that's another issue.)

 

[Suave]

You didnt understand my question.

Nevermind. So you had a bad experience and you think if people dont have that same experience humans would be "perfect" or just "better"? It looks like you would say "perfect" because this was your yardstick. But what would be your thought?



Thanks for that explanation, but that does not really answer my question.

Of course, I don't expect anybody to be totally perfect. I understand traumatic experiences can and will probably occur to me. I consider myself as being very fortunate to still be alive. I just wish if there were a designer of the human body, this work of the creator would not contain so many mistakes with there being all the fatal design flaws of the human body.

 

[firedragon]

Of course, I don't expect anybody to be totally perfect.

Right. So how would you define a "perfect" human being?

 

[Lain]

OK so, given that the rocks in which these fossils are found can be tens or hundreds of millions of years old, this shows there was death before Man existed.

Furthermore, you presumably recognise that many of the animals actually eat other animals or plants. How could that be without causing death to the things they eat?

You need to think these things through. The error is to think that physical death = corruption. Physical death is just part of the order of nature. (Just as sex is - but that's another issue.)

As I said, show Patristic evidence that this is the case for your last claim, for I know they most certainly do not claim that physical death is not some form of corruption, and sex (in our mode) is a thing that came after the Fall, I can also provide evidence for this from them.

I recognize that many animals eat other animals and this is yet another sign of the world we ruined to me, or the death of plants also.

As for the history of the fossil record I know it doesn't show that simply due to the hierarchy of truths and sciences in the world.

 

[Lain]

Do you understand that all of the scientific evidence tells us that you are wrong and do you understand what that implies about your version of God?

No to the first "do you," and I understand what others think it implies in the second.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No to the first "do you," and I understand what others think it implies in the second.

Then you should study the sciences a bit. Creation "scientists" even prove it every day when they dodge a more than reasonable question. If God cannot lie then one cannot read Genesis at all literally.

 

[robocop (actually)]

But dont they conflict at fundamental levels?

They are very similar in understanding.

 

[Lain]

Then you should study the sciences a bit. Creation "scientists" even prove it every day when they dodge a more than reasonable question. If God cannot lie then one cannot read Genesis at all literally.

I am not a creationist, and I am sure they do dodge. God can not lie and truth doesn't contradict truth, amen. I am just beginning my investigation from within now rather than without is all, I used to be TE but then resigned as I saw the view came from without, so now I am in no-man's-land for the most part.

 

[firedragon]

They are very similar in understanding.

Okay okay. Thank you so much Robocop.

 

[Suave]

Right. So how would you define a "perfect" human being?

I would consider humans as being closer to perfection if they were to have two passage ways, one for air travelling from the nostrils to the lungs that'd facilitate breathing and another separate passage way for food travelling from the mouth to the stomach that'd facilitate the digestion of nutrients, this in contrast to the one-hole throat passage way used for part of the respiratory system in common with being used for part of the digestion system, which poses an obvious hazard of food blocking air from getting to the lungs causing bodily oxygen depravation and death. Also, I would consider humans being closer to perfection if people were to have longer lasting teeth or regenerative teeth growth in order to replace damaged or missing teeth. This would enable people to better chew their food and consequently reduce the risk of them choking to death on food.

As a choking victim survivor, I'd like people to know about the Heimlich maneuver or other courses of action they could do in order to save somebody from choking to death.

 

[firedragon]

I would consider humans as being closer to perfection if they were to have two passage ways,

SO just "closer to perfection". Not perfect!

I asked you "So how would you define a "perfect" human being?".

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I think if God wrote down all nuances of every situation and of every point of life, we wouldn't have enough room on this world to hold it all.

So, who is there to tell the baby what to do, Ken? Who is there to inform the baby to chew a certain number of times each bite of food that enters its mouth? This IS pertinent to the discussion here... since you indicated that human understanding should necessarily augment the "intelligent design" of the human body. Who among the "designers" seems to have cared about the babies and how they might handle their solid foods in this respect, Ken?

What I believe is pertinent, is that how one eats or treats his/her body has nothing to do with intelligent design, which was the posters point. It has to do with how one eats and treats his/her own body.

I believe the original poster's point was that, were the body designed differently (perhaps a little more intelligently?) we wouldn't have a concern like a piece of food obstructing our airway and potentially causing our demise. Your point about "being ignorant of the number of times one should chew" does not, at all, speak to the supposed flaw in the design. All it does is pass the responsibility on from the designer onto the one needing to utilize the design. And believe me, I understand why you have to do this... because the "designer" cannot, in any way, speak for himself/herself on the matter. I just (again) hope that you also understand why you have to do this on his/her behalf.

But just think of it this way... if I were to be given a bicycle that had no handle bars, and I learned to ride it that way, by balancing my weight to one or the other side to affect wide turns, and keep myself level otherwise, if I thought about it and realized that if I could control the front tire in some way I would have a much easier time of the whole ordeal, and then I were able to install handle bars and then ride that way (subjectively a much better experience) might I not look back on that earlier design as somewhat inferior? Perhaps even wonder why someone didn't think of this type of thing before? And all those times people would have crashed their initial bikes trying to learn to keep balance and control with their weight - we could, I suppose, blame all of those crashes on the user of the bike. But then, with the advent of handle bars, wouldn't some of those people look back and lament that if they only had the handle bars to begin with, then there wouldn't have been all that crashing and hurting happening all over the world? Is that such a crazy thought for a person to have in that situation? Not necessarily "blaming" the designer... but realizing that the design isn't "the best" it could be, and that if the "designer" is supposedly so very, very intelligent and amazing at his/her job, wouldn't one also then easily wonder why they, themselves, could think of a modification that would make it better? Is that so outlandish?