[Vwing]

Since there is little chance I will read Strata, would you mind spoiling it for us (or me at least) and saying what that scientific creationist theory is? I'm eager to know, considering Christian science, of course, is the most contradictory phrase in the history of the world.

[J m HofMarN]

I think even if Bush and his supreme court decide this the 9th circuit court will EASILY strike it down, and numerous locations outside the south will abolish it due to massive student protest if it occurs. so outside the south and the mid-west we should all be ok.

[WalrusOfPlastic]

I'm not a fan of being in the midwest and yet will continue to live in Michigan for the next two years after which I will likely be moving to Ohio. I guess it's good that I'll be putting my vote in for two major swing states though.

Edit: Wasn't sure what I meant to say the first time.

This post has been edited by WalrusOfPlastic: 30 November 2004 - 08:49 PM

[SimeSublime]

It's a good read, so I don't want to spoil it, but if your not going to read it. SPOILER WARNING.
Strata is set in the future, where humankind has expanded through the galaxy and is terraforming worlds. To try to broaden the gene pool, they terraform new worlds and put settlers there with no technology. So, when their descendents finally reach space travel, hoplefully we will have evolved differently and the like. When making the worlds, they base it on earth, placing fossils and ruins and the like around, so that the descendants can explore and feel like they had a past on the planet. In the end of the book, we find that the universe was just the same thing on a bigger scale. Humans evolved to god-like proportions, then made other universes to inhabit, and filled them with false history so as to give their descendants something to do.

[Madam Corvax]

Sime - I wanted to ask you to recapitulate the Strata, but Vwing was so kind to do it and therefore thank you both.

But... who created the original humankind, the one who leaves settlers?????

[J m HofMarN]

That seems to be a science fiction version of creationism. And it'd take decades, centuries for people to prepare a world like that. And invaritably a coke bottle would get stuck somewhere in paleozoic era rock strata and make people blink. Also I might mention Ocham's Razor but that's Yahtzees place, not mine. And how many times did you use the word "evolve" in a theory that was supposed to replace evolution?

This post has been edited by J m HofMarN: 01 December 2004 - 05:15 AM

[Slade]

Bah, you just need some professionals to do it right. "I did Greenland, you know!" Ok, so that's planets too, but the principle is the same...

[SimeSublime]

That seems to be a science fiction version of creationism. And it'd take decades, centuries for people to prepare a world like that. And invaritably a coke bottle would get stuck somewhere in paleozoic era rock strata and make people blink. Also I might mention Ocham's Razor but that's Yahtzees place, not mine. And how many times did you use the word "evolve" in a theory that was supposed to replace evolution?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They get over the time constraint by having a machine that does a lot of the work. Plus, with medical advances, the only real killer is freak accidents, so people live for a few hundred years and can make a few worlds. That's all just covered by suspension of belief, and makes as much sense as the force or lightsabers. As for the coke bottle, thats actually a major part of the book. The idea is there is always a few things left that don't make sense, to give the people a clue(or just something to wonder about). The idea being that the 'gods' left a world in our universe that is based of what the middle ages people thought our world was like(this is what surned the idea of his discworld novels). On Ocham's Razor, I'm not saying that this is what happend, but just using it as a point that although I don't beleive in it, creationism can have a non-religious background. Though this may fall apart at the 'who created the creator' step, but that's another debate entirely. And finally, I used the word 'evolution' a lot, as I was trying to show that the two theories aren't by definition mutually exclusive.

This post has been edited by SimeSublime: 01 December 2004 - 11:35 PM

[Chyld]

  Though this may fall apart at the 'who created the creator' step, but that's another debate entirely.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There's always another layer of "where did that come from, then?" Its one thing we can lay on religious Creationalism (if we haven't done so already): If God created the world, what created God?

Works both ways too, but I'm too lazy...

[Slade]

Well, the only way for that to work would be if the Creator just came into existance from the Void without any help or intent. When what's-his-face asked God about his (excuse me, "His") existance in the Bible somewhere or other, God replied "I am." He simply exists. Not so much an easy way out as the only way it would work without something else existing previously.

  Though this may fall apart at the 'who created the creator' step, but that's another debate entirely.

Speaking of the debate, what is this one about, anyway...?

[Slade]

Ah, right. The neo-cons are going to try to force their regime further down our throats, people misunderstanding one another on the subject of thermodynamics (Which is the study of the relationships between heat and other forms of energy), reference to an old article by Yahtzee, and we're into evolution. Ok, I'm summed up now.

[Emu]

Many people can accept that a higher power just was there, and wasn't created by anything else, but if that's the case then certainly the matter of the universe could have always just been there as well. But I always wonder, when people ask where the matter or the higher power came from, why does no one really ever wonder where the empty space came from? that is, the emptiness that was there before the matter or the higher power came into existence. Everyone just seems to unquestioningly assume that the nothing was always there, yet they do question the origin of the something that is there. And this probably makes no sense because I am quite tired. Nor does it particularly have a point, it is simply an observation. so there.

[SimeSublime]

People accept that nothing was there, because can you comprehend something that isn't something and isn't nothing.

[Jordan]

I read the above two posts tiwce over, and they made less sense the second time around.

Nothing is something. So nothing really can never exist since it is something. (brain explodes)

[SimeSublime]

Exactly. It's impossible to comprehend what isn't space.