Did God Create Man?

I've just realised something. all life is intelligent life. If we find life, we find intelligence.

If hawking was using this planets occupants as a factor to determining intelligence ratios, then he was wrong. Life is an explosion. It makes no sense that there can be such a thing as unintelligent life.

dumbassdrummer said:

First, I wasn't high when I wrote that, nice try. Second, I'm say that spiritual experience is more than enough evidence for someone to embrace spiritual concepts - if the spiritual concept of God reflects their spiritual experience, then yes, that is evidence of God. The difficulty is that such evidence is of no evidentiary value to others, but it does not need to be for someone to reasonably claim that God does exist. The tricky part is that with such evidence it IS unreasonable to demand others to embrace the belief in God.

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Firstly, I didn't say you were high when you wrote that, I said I must be as I didn't understand what you were getting at.

Secondly, the mind plays tricks on us all the time. People can 'see' God everywhere, but the reason is because they're trying to, or wanting to believe they did. The fact is, people see shit all the time, and this is in NO WAY proof of God, not even to the person who supposedly witnessed it.

And having a spiritual experience with the use of drugs... need I even answer why this is an insane idea?

"We will not find intelligent life, but we will be able to create new life as we conquer the stars. it is WE that are god. We worship only ourselves. Which is the reason we need to believe that when we die we somehow live forever afterwards, while EVERY SINGLE other animal on the planet just SIMPLY dies.

Why is this?"

You tell me, you made the assertion. To say that we are God - perhaps, depending on what you mean (ie, if you mean that we are God as the Sufi's claim, I can see such a claim as being reasonable, though I've not the experience to embrace such a view myself). To say that we worship ourselves, yes, I think the majority of the world does, whether they realize it or not, though I dont think such a generalization can be applied to all people.

"I've just realised something. all life is intelligent life. If we find life, we find intelligence.

If hawking was using this planets occupants as a factor to determining intelligence ratios, then he was wrong. Life is an explosion. It makes no sense that there can be such a thing as unintelligent life."

When Hawking uses the term "intellegent life" he means life with an intellect comparable to our own. As for life being an explosion, I'm not sure I agree, though I would like to know what you mean by "explosion".

And sure unintellegent life makes sense. Bacteria, for example.

"Secondly, the mind plays tricks on us all the time. People can 'see' God everywhere, but the reason is because they're trying to, or wanting to believe they did. The fact is, people see shit all the time, and this is in NO WAY proof of God, not even to the person who supposedly witnessed it."

I didn't say "see" God. Now, do you mean to say that spiritual experience is the result of people wanting to have this experience so, as a result, they interpret usual physical experience as spiritual? How could you possibly discount all spiritual experience? Such experience is entirely personal, there is nothing you can know of it past that a person claims to have had such an experience. Further, spiritual experience is plenty of evidence for God if the experience supports the existence of God, it's just not evidence to anyone other than the person who had the experience. Spiritual experience is not "seeing" God, it is the experience thereof. Empirical evidence.

"And having a spiritual experience with the use of drugs... need I even answer why this is an insane idea?"

I too think that supposed spiritual experiences had under the influence of intoxicants is absurd and could not be spiritual. To be high, drunk, ect and have such an experience - well, even IF the experience was indeed spiritual, the intoxication necessarily distorts the experience, thus the experience has no value to the practitioner, apart, perhaps as being evidence that such spiritual experiences are possible in the first place.

I understand where you're coming from. But the fact is, the mind can do incredible things in certain situations. Even if a person had such a spiritual experience, yes, they may believe it to be proof of the existence of God, but the fact is, you cannot always trust what you see/hear/fee, as your mind can and does play tricks on youl.

If i dreamt of a 30ft pink rabbit, it doesn't mean I'm going to believe it to be real, or start to worship the almighty 30ft pink rabbit. These spiritual experiences people claim they had can be triggered by a number of things and by no means is the working of a God.

dumbassdrummer said:

"We will not find intelligent life, but we will be able to create new life as we conquer the stars. it is WE that are god. We worship only ourselves. Which is the reason we need to believe that when we die we somehow live forever afterwards, while EVERY SINGLE other animal on the planet just SIMPLY dies.

Why is this?"

You tell me, you made the assertion. To say that we are God - perhaps, depending on what you mean (ie, if you mean that we are God as the Sufi's claim, I can see such a claim as being reasonable, though I've not the experience to embrace such a view myself). To say that we worship ourselves, yes, I think the majority of the world does, whether they realize it or not, though I dont think such a generalization can be applied to all people.

"I've just realised something. all life is intelligent life. If we find life, we find intelligence.

If hawking was using this planets occupants as a factor to determining intelligence ratios, then he was wrong. Life is an explosion. It makes no sense that there can be such a thing as unintelligent life."

When Hawking uses the term "intellegent life" he means life with an intellect comparable to our own. As for life being an explosion, I'm not sure I agree, though I would like to know what you mean by "explosion".

And sure unintellegent life makes sense. Bacteria, for example.

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What makes you think bacteria isn't intelligent life? So you define intelligence as what? The building of society, perhaps? Then look no further than ants, they even have their own tribes and will carry out raids on each other. Do we assume that these ants will not evolve socially? Can we communicate with them to find out? How do we know what they think? Sorry to ask such obvious questions.

Life is an explosion. Where there is the capability for life you will find all types of creatures wanting to live. Even bacteria needs to feed off something. I agree, we may stumble across a planet that is just starting to come alive. What if we are god, because we are the first. We have sent probes to mars before, I believe these are for more than just collecting data, I believe we are trying to instigate a Mars genesis.

"I understand where you're coming from. But the fact is, the mind can do incredible things in certain situations. Even if a person had such a spiritual experience, yes, they may believe it to be proof of the existence of God, but the fact is, you cannot always trust what you see/hear/fee, as your mind can and does play tricks on youl.

If i dreamt of a 30ft pink rabbit, it doesn't mean I'm going to believe it to be real, or start to worship the almighty 30ft pink rabbit. These spiritual experiences people claim they had can be triggered by a number of things and by no means is the working of a God."

And I understand where you are coming from as well, I used to make the same argument (nearly verbatim), but such an argument has problems. You are right when you say that you cannot always trust your senses and experiences; however, with such experiences, we are not necessarily talking about a single experience - what of the Buddhist monk who has been practicing for 60 years? Who are you to say his spiritual experiences are not authentic?

The belief in God is entirely reasonable, it's the assertion that there is a God that is unreasonable. Does this clarify my position any?

"What makes you think bacteria isn't intelligent life? So you define intelligence as what? The building of society, perhaps? Then look no further than ants, they even have their own tribes and will carry out raids on each other. Do we assume that these ants will not evolve socially? Can we communicate with them to find out? How do we know what they think? Sorry to ask such obvious questions."

Hehehe, bacteria as intelligent life. If the organism lacks a brain, the organism, necessarily, cannot be intelligent. Even your example of ants is full of holes - they are simply not complex enough to rationalize (which also happens to be an implied answer to your question - the ability to reason denotes intellect, and the degree of intellect can be judge by the complexity of the creature's reasoning powers - which is why monkeys are intelligent, just to an extremely slight degree when compared to humans, the most intelligent example of life known to us). As for social evolution, or the ability to evolve at all - that is a moot point. So what if an organism can evolve? The ability to, at some point, develop a particular characteristic is no reason to consider a creature to have already developed a particular characteristic. And, I love questions.

"Life is an explosion. Where there is the capability for life you will find all types of creatures wanting to live. Even bacteria needs to feed off something. I agree, we may stumble across a planet that is just starting to come alive. What if we are god, because we are the first. We have sent probes to mars before, I believe these are for more than just collecting data, I believe we are trying to instigate a Mars genesis."

Again you say that life is an explosion, but I'm unclear on what you mean. If you mean that life necessarily begets competition, sure, I can go with that. As for being God because we are the first to arrive at another planet, I'm not sure I follow. How does being the "first" make one God, or god for that matter. As for a Mars genesis, perhaps, but technologically we are far, far away from being able to even land a man on the planet, much less establish some form of life there.

Ok. And the difference between ants and chimps is? I cannot think of one, except that chimps look more like us.

Genetically we are not so different than the common house fly. Why do you think this is so? Did we all start from one single strand of protein? When I say we, I mean all life. Just as the universe is exploding from a singularity, could not the same be said for life?

All life on this planet is basically the same. There is not a separate gene that gives US our mind. If you try to kill an ant it will run. At one time in history we had no more of a brain than the ant. Who's to say that the ant won't become number one on the planet. too small? How big are we in relation to the dinosaurs?

dumbassdrummer said:

Again you say that life is an explosion, but I'm unclear on what you mean. If you mean that life necessarily begets competition, sure, I can go with that. As for being God because we are the first to arrive at another planet, I'm not sure I follow. How does being the "first" make one God, or god for that matter. As for a Mars genesis, perhaps, but technologically we are far, far away from being able to even land a man on the planet, much less establish some form of life there.

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Forgive me, often i am rushed and do not explain myself as clearly as I'd like to.

I believe we are god, and that we are the beginning of life's journey into the universe. I believe that all life on this planet evolved from a single strand of protein. The 1st creature would have been an amoeba, that duplicated itself etc. As different amoebas lived in slightly different climates, maybe some fell into the sea, they evolved different things to enable their better survival. Hence the explosion of life.

i see nothing unbelievable in us shooting numerous types of life to mars to see what happens. it may be single celled organisms but i see no reason why this is not possible. who's to say it hasn't already been done. maybe that's what the rover is looking for.

fdd2blk said:

i see nothing unbelievable in us shooting numerous types of life to mars to see what happens. it may be single celled organisms but i see no reason why this is not possible. who's to say it hasn't already been done. maybe that's what the rover is looking for.

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Yup. we're making a new home. All I can say is we better speed that baby up.

What better way to test how life first started than to do it ourselves on a barren planet? These ice caps they've just noticed. Coincidence? I believe mars is going through this process, this explosion of life as we sit here now.

I believe so. Its in our nature to worship something. There are a group of people right now worshipping a huge rock or something because they have never heard the GOOD NEWS^^^^^^^^^^^^

fdd2blk said:

i see nothing unbelievable in us shooting numerous types of life to mars to see what happens. it may be single celled organisms but i see no reason why this is not possible. who's to say it hasn't already been done. maybe that's what the rover is looking for.

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The Mars rover was destroyed only hours after it landed.

Erniedytn said:

The Mars rover was destroyed only hours after it landed.

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Maybe it wasn't designed to last. It lasted long enough to plant what needed to be planted.

skunkushybrid said:

Maybe it wasn't designed to last. It lasted long enough to plant what needed to be planted.

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I highly doubt that NASA would develop something to send to Mar's for it not to last. It was sent there to photograph the landscape, and after a few hours it went offline never to return. The same thing happened with "Phobos"......this was the Russian satelite sent to take pictures of Mars' moon. It snapped one picture and then poof...gone. Something else scientists have noticed too.......Mars moon is now missing as well. Very strange............

Erniedytn said:

I highly doubt that NASA would develop something to send to Mar's for it not to last.

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If they had an alternate reason for sending the probe they would.

something stomped on it.

I thought this was pretty funny:

"Ok. And the difference between ants and chimps is? I cannot think of one, except that chimps look more like us."

Ants and chimps? Chimpanzees (which are not even the most intelligent monkeys - we have recently document some, cannot recall which species, using rocks to smash nuts open - they are using tools) are by far more intelligent than ants. Ants build colonies and work together because they follow various instinctual and chemical directions. Chimpanzees are mammals, ants are insects, they have entirely different diets, life cycles. The chimpanzee is simply a more complex organism than the ant (ant of any sort.

"Genetically we are not so different than the common house fly. "

By what standard? We have enough genetic differences to cause the obvious and striking differences between humans and the house fly. I'd say that makes us genetically different to a fairly good extent.

"Did we all start from one single strand of protein? When I say we, I mean all life. Just as the universe is exploding from a singularity, could not the same be said for life?"

A single strand of protein? Perhaps, though I do know we all indeed come from the same bunch of matter that once constituted a particular singularity which became our universe. As for the universe "exploding" from a singularity, that is a terrible misconception. The "Big Bang" was an unbearably slow process, one that still continues, at an ever increasing rate. It took billions of years for stars to even begin to form.

"All life on this planet is basically the same. There is not a separate gene that gives US our mind. If you try to kill an ant it will run. At one time in history we had no more of a brain than the ant. Who's to say that the ant won't become number one on the planet. too small? How big are we in relation to the dinosaurs?"

All life is basically the same in that it is all carbon based - past this fact, life is extremely diverse. High school biology should have taught you this much.
No, there is not a single gene that provides us our minds, but there are a number of genetic factors that allow humans to reproduce and consistently conceive humans with a brain far, far more advanced than any other brain on the planet. As for ants running - so what? Ants do not write literary masterpieces, they do not have art of any kind, they lack rational thought altogether. No matter how many similarities we might share with other creatures, our differences are notable enough to classify us in a species seperate from other living things - just as other living things are different enough to be classed in species apart from other non human living things. Why do you think we have such classifications if significant differences do not exist between the species? Our evolutionary predecessors does not change the facts regarding our species, nor does the possible evolutionary development of ants make an ant anything more than it is. As for the size of a living thing, we changed that mold - our advanced brains are so far developed that we have overcome physical disadvantage to the point where we can absolutely dominate all other living things (with the exception, of course, of living things not yet encountered or only recently encountered).

"Forgive me, often i am rushed and do not explain myself as clearly as I'd like to.

I believe we are god, and that we are the beginning of life's journey into the universe. I believe that all life on this planet evolved from a single strand of protein. The 1st creature would have been an amoeba, that duplicated itself etc. As different amoebas lived in slightly different climates, maybe some fell into the sea, they evolved different things to enable their better survival. Hence the explosion of life."

No need to apologize, I love this stuff.

What do you mean exactly by "we are god"? Also, you use "explosion" again and, while perhaps more appropriate in this case than in reference to the big bang, still seems odd to me considering that the process of evolution has taken place over, perhaps more than a billion years. That's quite a long time, even from a universal perspective (the universe is probably not much older than 40 billion years - at least that was the general scientific consensus last time I studied this stuff).