tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post112265240892229385..comments2024-03-03T18:24:57.251-08:00Comments on Annotated Skeptic's Annotated Bible: The Alpha and the Omega (The Bible and God)Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-43555871032400552202013-05-15T19:33:50.429-07:002013-05-15T19:33:50.429-07:00Hybrids are generally sterile,
Generally, but not...<b>Hybrids are generally sterile,</b><br /><br />Generally, but not always. Tigons and ligers are fertile often enough that they can be further hybridized, producing creatures like li-ligers, and so on.<br /><br />It's my recollection that sterility affects the male hybrids, not the females. Hybridization of this sort usually is confined to zoos and circuses and other artificial conditions, marauder34https://www.blogger.com/profile/00651154474169358422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-87481375333409472122013-01-26T09:01:59.450-08:002013-01-26T09:01:59.450-08:00I think my previous answers in this thread have de...I think my previous answers in this thread have dealt with the view I take of the prime mover argument. <br /><br />I'm guessing this isn't right, but it seems that if the "higher purpose" is being taken from these New Testament verses, they are actually saying that the "higher" in "higher purpose" is nothing to do with worthiness, it's to do with your Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-75069272005299051222013-01-19T01:53:11.533-08:002013-01-19T01:53:11.533-08:00I think I might get what you're saying about G...I think I might get what you're saying about God being "the most unlikely thing possible." I'm not sure I agree, though. Certainly, there are a lot of philosophers/theologians that will drag out the "prime mover" argument, implying that if anything at all exists, there needs to be a supernatural being behind it. While I've never really bought this as an Bruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-59468398918308600282012-11-01T10:52:50.483-07:002012-11-01T10:52:50.483-07:00I want to bring us back to the point I was origina...I want to bring us back to the point I was originally responding to that took us to the present science chat. You equated the unlikeliness of god, to the unlikeliness of the universe. I was pointing out that this is not at all true. God, which is without anything but anecdotal evidence, is apparently granted anything (or by your standards anything within the limits of logic). This makes it by Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-45260962679448498742012-10-19T21:53:16.410-07:002012-10-19T21:53:16.410-07:00Sometimes trying to work out whether something had...Sometimes trying to work out whether something had significance after it happened (in this case, the universe coming into existence) has some strange implications to it. There's a sense in which the answer to "Why is there something instead of nothing?" is really, "If there were nothing, then you wouldn't be here to ask that question!" <br /><br />While Hawking's Bruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-73651464845459768982012-10-03T14:34:45.301-07:002012-10-03T14:34:45.301-07:00I would say that the reason something exists as op...I would say that the reason something exists as opposed to nothing is at most an unknown, as opposed to unlikely - though as a note of interest; taking that we apparently know matter and anti-matter particles are always spontaneously generating and canceling each other out, meaning that there is a net lose/gain of 0, Hawkings suggests that this is how the universe came into being; from this view,Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-85720823047530125412012-10-02T00:01:39.218-07:002012-10-02T00:01:39.218-07:00Sure, metaphysically, there is a sense in which Go...Sure, metaphysically, there is a sense in which God is a highly unlikely being, but there is also a sense in which it is highly unlikely for the universe itself to exist. As many have asked, "Why is there something instead of nothing?" For a large portion of the people on earth, the preference is to believe that there is a higher being or higher purpose that provides a reason for the Bruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-52725113006005046762012-09-20T05:24:35.016-07:002012-09-20T05:24:35.016-07:00Thanks for your impressive in depth response.
As ...Thanks for your impressive in depth response.<br /><br />As I put at the end of your post about morality, the move from omnipotent to quasi-omnipotent only takes you from the most unlikely thing to the most unlikely thing that can exist, whatever that entails.<br /><br />You can talk about the goodness of god without it being conceptually possible for him to do evil, if god is amoral, but you Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-59081479781829719582012-09-20T00:44:51.681-07:002012-09-20T00:44:51.681-07:00You're right about omnipotence being "par...You're right about omnipotence being "paradox ladened". I've discussed it at length in other contexts, but in this blog I tend to skip over deep theological questions in favor of examining the text at hand. Maybe I needed to go deeper here. (I did address it briefly in <a href="http://reannotated.blogspot.com/2005/08/and-so-death-passed-upon-all-men-gen.html" rel="nofollow">thisBruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-72661753800052009632012-09-19T08:34:14.728-07:002012-09-19T08:34:14.728-07:00So you're saying use those characteristics of ...So you're saying use those characteristics of god (the paradox ladened "all powerful", and a definition of "all good" that uses god himself as the sole reference point for what goodness is) to judge his actions in the book, and not his actions in the book to judge him using a more human orientated morality. If you do that, he does nothing that is impossible and nothing Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-59761686542378276492011-12-11T04:28:31.522-08:002011-12-11T04:28:31.522-08:00Hybrids are generally sterile, and the reason for ...Hybrids are generally sterile, and the reason for the drop in human numbers was the eruption of Toba 74,000 years ago sending the world into a 6~10 year volcanic winter.Nahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04613150595253823984noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-1123026384938229132005-08-02T16:46:00.000-07:002005-08-02T16:46:00.000-07:00I'm not sure about that; the Bible records that th...I'm not sure about that; the Bible records that the fountains of the deep broke forth (presumably some sort of seismic activity, if we want to pursue a somewhat literalist meaning), but verses 20-22, while they're quite emphatic about the death toll, make no reference to the creatures that live under the sea.<BR/><BR/>But as you say, we can dicker about that when the time comes.marauder34https://www.blogger.com/profile/00651154474169358422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-1122911812177721002005-08-01T08:56:00.000-07:002005-08-01T08:56:00.000-07:00Thief. ; )When I get to Noah, I'll talk a bit abou...Thief. ; )<BR/><BR/>When I get to Noah, I'll talk a bit about how speciation is only one of many problems. The acquatic species problem is itself more complicated than you think, as, taking the story at face value, you'll find that really the ark was the *only* inhabitable place in the whole world for a brief period of time.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for commenting, though; I was wondering if anyone ever Bruckerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14900114.post-1122683182525065002005-07-29T17:26:00.000-07:002005-07-29T17:26:00.000-07:00Interesting comments about Noah and the Flood, but...Interesting comments about Noah and the Flood, but I've noticed in the past that many of the problems skeptics have with that particular story are self-generated and not inherent in the text.<BR/><BR/>As you note in a separate post, it's incredibly ethnocentric to insist that a taxonomy that doesn't match ours is scientifically flawed and without merit. Yet this is what many people seem to do marauder34https://www.blogger.com/profile/00651154474169358422noreply@blogger.com