Plain Philosophy Center - Recent Posts http://www.markplain.com/forum/recent.aspx Plain Philosophy Center - Recent Posts en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jitbit AspNetForum Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:39:35 GMT Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:39:35 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=9 Topic "God is a scary word for many people." a message from Mark Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:39:35 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=8 Topic "Darwin’s theory" a message from Mark
Well, rationally speaking, the universe might be infinite. For the past four centuries, virtually every time astronomers and engineers have built larger telescopes, they have found a larger cosmos. Who among us can say, that this trend cannot continue ad infinitum? There is no evidence that rules out this possibility. Our universe might be topless, or infinite in all outward directions. Moreover, if empty space is infinitely divisible, then the universe is bottomless or infinite in all inward directions as well.

If either were the case, all our collective knowledge (which is finite) would have only an infinitesimal insight into this infinite universe. As such, we might be drowning in uncertainties right now and hence unable to determine the probabilities—for us drowning in uncertainties. We simply do not know how much we do not know, vis-à-vis the absolute realm. This includes the grand theory of everything, the size and origins of the universe, the origin of life, intelligent design, dark energy, etc.

The easiest way to collapse these speculations is to ask for the mathematical equation, because if one of the variables is an infinity, then the whole thing becomes indefinable and of no relevant use. If none of the variables in their equation is infinity, then they are ruling out the possibility that the universe might be infinite by premise—therefore unrealistic. They are stuck either way.
I focus my attention on only relevant matters, which means finding solutions to the practical problems of today and tomorrow within our practical realm.]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:32:40 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=10 Topic "...be the best you can be." a message from Mark gorilla in the room, which cannot be ignored—indefinitely. Presently, our best option to tame this beast is to implement an Anonymity Biosphere (AB) solution. This will require a high Filter Threshold (FT) into our first Upper Tier (UT).

After long and careful analysis, I have concluded that we will select only those evaluees who are completely enamoured with angelic love, towards all those who are like-minded—sight unseen. Anything short of that standard is unsustainable in the long-term.
I recognize that angelic love is not everyone’s cup of tea and that it would be politically incorrect, not to lower the bar to “just be a good person” or “be the best you can be.”

Well, most “Titans of Industry” are good people. They are peace-loving, upstanding citizens who volunteer their time and money to numerous charities. However, due to their power cravings, they are the least trustworthy with respect to the Free Crown. Behind the scenes, they have a team of lawyers and lobbyists pedaling influence in various restricted corridors of power. In addition, those flush with venture capital will be the first to come within reach of the approaching Free Crown, because they can afford to fund the research into enslavement-ready technologies.

To think that they are not enticed by the power prospects of the Free Crown merely because they are good people is naive. Consequently, “good” is not necessarily good enough for any UT.
If we happen to be inside one of Gods AB’s, then it is reasonable to assume that his FT level would be at the exact same height for entrance into his UT, aka heaven—despite what the earthly church and our pop culture might dictate.

Matt 7:21; "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.”

Matt 5:20; "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

Matt 16:26; "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The “acid test” for Christianity or any viable UT is:
John 13:34-35; "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
edited by Mark on 11/29/2009
edited by Mark on 11/29/2009]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:30:33 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=3 Topic "Your book - "What has Ultimate Relevance" Sec. Ed." a message from Mark
Van wrote:
I received your book last week in the post and I have just finished reading it. I enjoyed it very much and I can see you spent a great deal of time and thought to arrive at your conclusions. I like how you have presented the existence of God as both scientific and rational.
]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:28:13 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=10 Topic "...be the best you can be." a message from Van
You see God's path as ahead of ours, and directing ours. I agree. Angels exist, I agree. I also believe we will soon be angels ourselves if we hang tight and follow God's simple rules - be the best you can be and die. Heaven awaits those accept Gods laws and are born again - not in some Christian baptism service but as Jesus showed us through death. To enter the kingdom of Heaven you must be born again. These bodies are temporal they are not meant to last forever, we are in the process of evolving and our time in this body is a necessary step in our evolution, but it is not the completed angelic form that awaits us.

I believe there is a time in the near future where we will be offered an opportunity to travel in time, to maintain our bodies longer than their natural course and many people will take that path. But it is not Gods way. God's covenant is to honour God's laws and Time is God's law. Through time - life, death, rebirth, we develop, we evolve, and we prepare ourselves for Heaven. I understand your deep desire to understand life, God and to live forever. And it will be yours, but you must follow God's course. You cannot jump ahead of his plan: Luke 17:33; Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
We do not recognise God but that does not in any way mean he does not exist. The cells on my arm may not recognise me, but without me, they cease to exist. Those little cells can shout from the rooftops that I do not exist, that they are utterly reliant on me and I know it. They are on my arm doing work for me and I in turn give them life - we are in God's world, doing work for God and he in turn breathes life into us - whatever we shout from the rooftops. Man's belief that he rules the universe is misplaced arrogance, when man cannot even control his own heartbeat or breath.]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:25:35 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=9 Topic "God is a scary word for many people." a message from Van It seems to me that Atheism has hijacked science and holds it for ransom. Atheism claims exclusive rights over all scientific data. It seems that if a scientist chooses to explain facts in his field of study as having intelligence in their design, he/she is blacklisted as a ' right wing bible thumping creationist'. It is easier to blacken someone's character than to address their concerns. If you look at current Darwinist theories for life, the world and the universe - anything goes, anything at all, as long as there is no mention of God. Why??? Whenever you hear of 'Intelligent Design' being taught to students, it is presented as right wing Adam and Eve creationist propaganda, but that is not was Intelligent Design is about. It is about trying to understand and tell students, our future scientists, about recent discoveries in molecular biology, genetics and astronomy.

I feel there is something much graver as a consequence of this atheistic view of evolution - undermining morality. If everything is created as a lucky fluke then morality plays no part. Killing, exploiting or cheating others is perfectly fine. In fact, it will help you succeed in your gene pool. It is common to say that more wars have been committed in the name of religion than anything else has - but that is not true. WW1, in which 20 million died, was about a territory. WW2, in which 8 million Jews were killed, was about Darwin's theory of natural selection - Hitler was trying to advance the Aryan race. We know that morality is an essential part of our humanity, yet there is no justification for it in an Atheist world. Why be good, kind, fair, or honest without a higher moral code to justify it? Atheists would say because a whole community can decide what is best for the majority of the inhabitants, which means no murder, no theft of property, etc. By that argument then the Nazis were completely morally right - they were voted in by an overwhelming majority of the German people. Yet we know in our bones they were morally wrong - intrinsically we know we share a humanity that follows a moral code put forth in our scriptures. Our scriptures, whatever our faith, play an integral role in our humanity and treatment of each other and the atheistic world view has no adequate replacement.
So Atheism cannot explain life (by Darwin or any other theory) nor can it justify a moral approach to life - yet we hang on to it! We are told it is the only rational view because there are many careers, institutions and money at stake so maintain the status quo needs to be maintained. No institution wants to give up power or wealth, especially one that jealously guards all scientific facts as their own. It seems to me that we have replaced the priests of the church with the priests of science - only they have access and can interpret the scared knowledge (scientific facts). Even if what they say makes no sense, we must accept their interpretation as truth. It smacks of religious doctrine, but because it is cloaked in 'rational thought', it is unquestionable. Well - crap that! And I am overjoyed to see more and more questioning individuals such as yourself.]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:22:33 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=8 Topic "Darwin’s theory" a message from Van
It seems that the more we learn about biology (on a molecular level), about genetics and the universe, the more we see how incredibly intricate and engineered everything is. Darwin's theory states that as you go back in time, life becomes simpler, less evolved. That was fine in 1859 when he came up with the theory, because our understanding of the cell was very simple - there was jelly inside, but now that we know so much more, we find that the complexities of the cell had to be designed, it couldn't happen by accident.
Darwin’s theory says life developed in a step-by-step process (undirected mutation), as one change proved advantageous to the organism it was adopted until the next change came along (natural selection). But that doesn't explain systems. For example - vision. Vision is not just the eye, but rather a system involving the eye, the optic nerve and a portion of the brain (and lots of other things). For us to see we need each and every component (eye, nerves, brain) to be fully formed and connected to each other before the system will work. We cannot see 'a little' with one or two eyes cells and then see a bit more with a few more eye cells. The whole intricate system has to be in place for any part of it to work. Just like a computer, or a camera, or a toaster - you cannot have a button or a piece of wire and expect it to work as a toaster. A toaster only becomes a toaster when all the pieces are properly arranged. This means there is a blueprint, an engineered design before the toaster is made. We see this in DNA. For the simplest cell to exist there has to be a minimum of 250 specific protein sequences. The first cell also has to be pre-programmed to replicate itself and to show variation in development. We are only able to observe this because of our recent advancements in nano-technology.

Darwin's theory is light on evidence. I mean evolution is fine if you mean 'variation in species', however Darwin theory proposes that 'all life developed from a single cell through the process of undirected mutation and natural selection'. Following this claim, we should find the thousands or millions of mutations in the fossil record, but we cannot find them. Instead, we find distinct organisms, not half-breeds. The fossil records have not supported Darwin’s claim of incremental changes over time. In fact, we find that changes in species happened suddenly and globally - there was life then a big global catastrophe where everything was wiped out, only to be reborn in a more evolved form. This did not happen once but a few times - it is known as 'Punctuated Equilibria'.
Perhaps we would find evidence to support Darwin’s theory in the data we have from 10,000 - 15,000 years of animal husbandry. Animal husbandry is directed mutation and therefore should work faster than Darwin’s theory of undirected mutation. Scientists have found that we can cause some variation within species (bigger cows, woollier sheep) but we cannot ever, not once, bring about an essential change in species so that it is no longer a cow or sheep or even a bit different than a cow or sheep. In fact, whenever there is a mutation that might affect change in species the mutated animal dies, or is ill, or loses the ability to reproduce or is so disabled that it will die shortly. The mutations are never advantageous - ever. It seems that species are so constrained in their design that any fundamental genetic change just messes them up. Yet humans were supposed to develop from apes in 150,000 years - that is just 10 times more than the history we have with animal husbandry. And all those changes from ape to man were supposed to happen accidentally! Our best scientists with all their knowledge cannot affect even one single change across species.
In other words, the evidence to support Darwin’s theory is very thin on the ground and fading fast. It is a nice theory to explain variation within species, and we certainly do see evolution but Darwin's theory is inadequate, how life was created and how it evolved. The theory falls miserably short.
All of this is causing a 'crisis' in molecular biology. Some scientists are hanging onto Darwin’s theory because of the implications of accepting intelligent design - that there is something else out there!]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:19:50 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=3 Topic "Your book - "What has Ultimate Relevance" Sec. Ed." a message from Van Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:06:16 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=2 Topic "Suggestions ?" a message from Mark
Feel free to make any suggestions or comments about these forums. I welcome your requests.

If you are a newbie, please read the faq at the top of the screen, before writing your first posting.

Thank you]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:59:19 GMT http://www.markplain.com/forum/messages.aspx?TopicID=1 Topic "Welcome" a message from Mark I set up these forums to foster an exchange of philosophical ideas that are pertinent to our time. I feel it is important to furnish a relaxed meeting place, where thinkers can converse about finding practical solutions to the pressing problems which we face today. Feel free to present your relevant insights and interesting musings.]]> Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:40:00 GMT