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Re: The Religion Thread

#391
Dinosawer wrote:
Poet1960 wrote: Why is that so difficult for you to believe?
Because I cannot rhyme the world we live in with there being an omnipotent and infinitely good god being in charge.
Like, if god created everything and nothing evolves, why did he create diseases? If design is intelligent, why do we have an intestine that serves literally no purpose but has a good chance of killing us when it gets infected? Why do our food and air tubes come out in the same hole? Why do some people's own bodes attack themselves lethally when exposed to certain everyday substances?
etc etc
I might as well stick my hand in this hornet's nest. \o/
The Church's teaching is that before Original Sin, there was no sickness or death. Adam's sin was the reason for these things coming to be. Thanks, matey. I needed that. :ghost:

--IronDuke
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Re: The Religion Thread

#392
Dinosawer wrote:I didn't say null isn't 0, I'm saying z isn't null, since there is no z to be null.

5*5*z without defining z

(also, deraaaaaailllll)
yeah, true.

Code: Select all

5 * 5 * undefined; // NaN
BUT! We never said this was in 2D space... :V
Just that it was a square, and a square *can* exist in 3D space.
In which case, the z property of the object exists, and is thus not undefined but rather null.
Which multiplies out as zero. :D
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<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: The Religion Thread

#393
IronDuke wrote: I might as well stick my hand in this hornet's nest. \o/
The Church's teaching is that before Original Sin, there was no sickness or death. Adam's sin was the reason for these things coming to be. Thanks, matey. I needed that. :ghost:

--IronDuke
God said "Here have free will, here have curiosity. Here is this tree, on it grows some delicious fruit. In all of creation this fruit is the ONLY thing that is forbidden to you."

And God walked off, and his best mate came along and said "Hey, fat bitch, yeah you, come eat this fruit."

...

Yeah, God *totally* didn't want us to eat that damned fruit.
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<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: The Religion Thread

#394
IronDuke wrote: I might as well stick my hand in this hornet's nest. \o/
The Church's teaching is that before Original Sin, there was no sickness or death. Adam's sin was the reason for these things coming to be. Thanks, matey. I needed that. :ghost:

--IronDuke
Okay, in that case, why am I being punished for something I didn't do? Isn't that pretty much the prime example of injustice?
(aside from the whole "punish people for doing something wrong despite explicitly NOT learning them the difference between right or wrong" thing -
that's like telling a 2 year old toddler not to touch the cookie jar and then putting it open on toddler-accessible height in toddler-sight, which any parent will tell you is a dumb idea)
Further, did Adam create the diseases? He can't have, he's not a god, and diseases are life. Neither can they, by your logic, have spontaneously come into existence.
So, God must've made them when Adam ate the apple.
Which means my question stands.
Silverware wrote: BUT! We never said this was in 2D space... :V
I implied that, cause that was kind of the point with the comparison of time when there's no time
Warning: do not ask about physics unless you really want to know about physics.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#395
Dinosawer wrote:
Silverware wrote: BUT! We never said this was in 2D space... :V
I implied that, cause that was kind of the point with the comparison of time when there's no time
Have you ever known me to follow the point? :V
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WebGL Spaceships and Trails
<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: The Religion Thread

#396
IronDuke wrote:
Dinosawer wrote:
Poet1960 wrote: Why is that so difficult for you to believe?
Because I cannot rhyme the world we live in with there being an omnipotent and infinitely good god being in charge.
Like, if god created everything and nothing evolves, why did he create diseases? If design is intelligent, why do we have an intestine that serves literally no purpose but has a good chance of killing us when it gets infected? Why do our food and air tubes come out in the same hole? Why do some people's own bodes attack themselves lethally when exposed to certain everyday substances?
etc etc
I might as well stick my hand in this hornet's nest. \o/
The Church's teaching is that before Original Sin, there was no sickness or death. Adam's sin was the reason for these things coming to be. Thanks, matey. I needed that. :ghost:

--IronDuke

He's right more or less. In the beginning, there was no sickness or death, Adam's sin brought that into being, they were kicked out of the garden and cursed for disobeying. But you also have a misconception here, nobody says that nothing evolves, at least into OTHER life forms. The ones that were initially created DO change over time as they adapt, whatever, but the basic KINDS of animals do NOT produce other KINDS of animals. There is variation within those kinds though.

The initial world created was made FOR US. It was perfect in every way, our ancestor Adam botched it up, and we have to go through all this stuff now, in order to get us back to where we were. You see, that is the whole PURPOSE of the bible. It is to get us back to the perfect relationship we had with God before Lucifer stuck his nose in it and tricked Eve causing the whole series of events we see played out in history.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#397
BFett wrote:Have scientists been able to construct a living cell through the use of chemicals?

You make it sound very easy to create a cell. If that were the case, scientists should have the ability to create living cells that are extremely simple.
By living I mean capable of reproduction, has gas exchange, and grows.

If scientists haven't been able to create these bacteria out of chemicals then the rest of your argument Outlander, doesn't hold water
I'm a bit late to the party, but well. I believe that Dino addressed most of your questions in a more than satisfactory fashion ( great job Dino! :clap: ), so I'll only add a little bit of information to the biology part.

As others already mentioned, research on origin of the cell is an on-going process. We haven't quite figured it out. However, we managed to achieve:

- a self-replicating ribozyme - basically, a piece of RNA that copies itself given that it has basic materials such as nucleotides (which were present in the primordial soup) - I think that it's not in the free access, though;
- research on self-organisation of lipids is quite extensive, so here's a video of a simulation of the lipid bi-layer self-assembly. It's a course-grain, slowed down simulation; the actual process happens in nanoseconds (although those are lipids optimised for self-assembly; naturally occurring ones take much longer - that is, milliseconds to seconds range;
- this article (earlier cited by Cornflakes) is opened for access; it's a nice review of what has been done by one of the best teams in the field. It's a bit out-dated, but is nonetheless very good;
- there has been an experiment about making a fully synthetic DNA and inserting it into a cell deprived of DNA, creating an 'artificial' organism; however, it's only partially synthetic, and the genes are mostly the same as in the naturally occurring bacteria it was built upon, so I'd say it's an exercise in futility. Cool methods of working with a cell, though - it'll surely come handy in the future, and that's the true worth of that work.

Now, scientists are generally quite reluctant to start unethical experiments such as creating new life or making an AI - the whole 'playing God' thing is uncomfortable, and bioethics department would eat us alive for even thinking about most of this stuff.

Another problem with creating bacterial life from the scratch is about times involved. Now, there are some really long experiments such as in the field of botany where it can take decades, or the Soviet project to domesticate foxes, but leaving some primordial soup to self-assemble into primitive RNA replicators inside lipid micelles and leave it to evolve for a while is on the timescale of many millions of years. Instead, it's better to replicate each step of the proto-cell evolution, and find concrete evidence of the processes that allowed it to change.

So, we aren't magicians, we are only trying our best.

I see this thread grew into an orgy a party again...I'll go read those new pages, maybe there are more things I can address :ghost:

Edit: the main point of my big post on the origins of the cell was to show that life is allowed to appear because of the basic chemical and physical properties of the matter. Whether or not it will appear on a given planet is a question of chance and luck.

People also mentioned alternative biochemistries (silicon-based; there's also ammonia-based) - well, those are closer to the improbable scale, because chemistry limits them much more than us carbon-based folks. They might exist, but are likely to be very, very rare, as they need a very special set of circumstance to arise.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#398
outlander4 wrote:
BFett wrote:Have scientists been able to construct a living cell through the use of chemicals?

You make it sound very easy to create a cell. If that were the case, scientists should have the ability to create living cells that are extremely simple.
By living I mean capable of reproduction, has gas exchange, and grows.

If scientists haven't been able to create these bacteria out of chemicals then the rest of your argument Outlander, doesn't hold water
I'm a bit late to the party, but well. I believe that Dino addressed most of your questions in a more than satisfactory fashion ( great job Dino! :clap: ), so I'll only add a little bit of information to the biology part.

As others already mentioned, research on origin of the cell is an on-going process. We haven't quite figured it out. However, we managed to achieve:

- a self-replicating ribozyme - basically, a piece of RNA that copies itself given that it has basic materials such as nucleotides (which were present in the primordial soup) - I think that it's not in the free access, though;
- research on self-organisation of lipids is quite extensive, so here's a video of a simulation of the lipid bi-layer self-assembly. It's a course-grain, slowed down simulation; the actual process happens in nanoseconds (although those are lipids optimised for self-assembly; naturally occurring ones take much longer - that is, milliseconds to seconds range;
- this article (earlier cited by Cornflakes) is opened for access; it's a nice review of what has been done by one of the best teams in the field. It's a bit out-dated, but is nonetheless very good;
- there has been an experiment about making a fully synthetic DNA and inserting it into a cell deprived of DNA, creating an 'artificial' organism; however, it's only partially synthetic, and the genes are mostly the same as in the naturally occurring bacteria it was built upon, so I'd say it's an exercise in futility. Cool methods of working with a cell, though - it'll surely come handy in the future, and that's the true worth of that work.

Now, scientists are generally quite reluctant to start unethical experiments such as creating new life or making an AI - the whole 'playing God' thing is uncomfortable, and bioethics department would eat us alive for even thinking about most of this stuff.

Another problem with creating bacterial life from the scratch is about times involved. Now, there are some really long experiments such as in the field of botany where it can take decades, or the Soviet project to domesticate foxes, but leaving some primordial soup to self-assemble into primitive RNA replicators inside lipid micelles and leave it to evolve for a while is on the timescale of many millions of years. Instead, it's better to replicate each step of the proto-cell evolution, and find concrete evidence of the processes that allowed it to change.

So, we aren't magicians, we are only trying our best.

I see this thread grew into an orgy a party again...I'll go read those new pages, maybe there are more things I can address :ghost:

Edit: the main point of my big post on the origins of the cell was to show that life is allowed to appear because of the basic chemical and physical properties of the matter. Whether or not it will appear on a given planet is a question of chance and luck.

People also mentioned alternative biochemistries (silicon-based; there's also ammonia-based) - well, those are closer to the improbable scale, because chemistry limits them much more than us carbon-based folks. They might exist, but are likely to be very, very rare, as they need a very special set of circumstance to arise.

That is all quite interesting, however there are a couple of things I would like to point out.

1. You have done a nice job of explaining the mechanics of HOW things work, but failed to show where the initial information that gets replicated comes FROM.

2. Even if they were to step out on a limb and create a living cell, it would only help to PROVE, that without an external source of guidance or intelligence, that life will never self create no matter how long you give it. It NEEDS some initial information, and that information cannot just come out of thin air, it requires an agent to create that information. Information does not just exist, it has to be CREATED, at least initially. After that, then yes, your model works nicely as far as the mechanics go.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#399
Poet, 1 - self-assembly. Ribozymes are like a dozen nucleotides long, they assemble themselves. If you put a mix of nucleotides in and let them assemble randomly, purely by statistics some of them will have a repeating sequences and will bend in shape to become ribozymes, and will start acting upon other molecules.

2 - isn't is the same thing? :ghost:

Also, some random answers to the thread:
0111narwhalz wrote:But I still don't know what the appendix does, at least not for sure.
Dinosawer wrote: If design is intelligent, why do we have an intestine that serves literally no purpose but has a good chance of killing us when it gets infected?
/me puts his medical hat on. Putting that MD to good use, b*tches!

Appendix is a part of the local immune system. Removing it at the early age (like it was done to me FOR NO BLOODY REASON) causes all sorts of problems, such as constantly having intestinal infections from eating raw food, with subsequent diarrhoea, for several years. I'm still very picky about my food because of it. Of course, the downside is a possibility to have a lethal infection strike you. But I suppose running a risk of death vs. being constantly ill pays off. Also, it used to be bigger, and less susceptible to inflammation, and easier to evacuate food from. When we started walking upright, it messed up most of our systems to some degree, and we still didn't adjust to it.

/me takes off his medical hat.
Poet1960 wrote:Have you observed a nuclear reaction? What is needed for it to occur? Have you observed the process that created life? What is needed for it to occur?
Yes, I did, and a lot of things, but in one word - concentration of fissionable fuel should be high enough to start a chain reaction. I believe I answered about life earlier, you failed at reading again so why would I answer it again?
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Re: The Religion Thread

#400
How many are left handed and how many are right handed? Also, if it takes billions of years to accomplish this, how long do these guys live? They live long enough to gather all the little bits and pieces needed to accomplish this? Amazing. How do they store this information to be able to pass it along even though they have no reproductive capability?

They live long enough to make the millions of links required to make a viable living cell? Wow, those guys are amazing.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#401
Poet1960 wrote:How many are left handed and how many are right handed? Also, if it takes billions of years to accomplish this, how long do these guys live? They live long enough to gather all the little bits and pieces needed to accomplish this? Amazing. How do they store this information to be able to pass it along even though they have no reproductive capability?

They live long enough to make the millions of links required to make a viable living cell? Wow, those guys are amazing.
About 1 tenth (8-12%) are left handed.
The rest are right, mixed, or ambidextrous.
Men are slightly more likely to be left handed than women.

This is a genetic trait.

Oh wait, are you asking about people?
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<Cuisinart8> apparently without the demon driving him around Silver has the intelligence of a botched lobotomy patient ~ Mar 04 2020
console.log(`What's all ${this} ${Date.now()}`);
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Re: The Religion Thread

#402
Silverware wrote:
Poet1960 wrote:How many are left handed and how many are right handed? Also, if it takes billions of years to accomplish this, how long do these guys live? They live long enough to gather all the little bits and pieces needed to accomplish this? Amazing. How do they store this information to be able to pass it along even though they have no reproductive capability?

They live long enough to make the millions of links required to make a viable living cell? Wow, those guys are amazing.
About 1 tenth (8-12%) are left handed.
The rest are right, mixed, or ambidextrous.
Men are slightly more likely to be left handed than women.

This is a genetic trait.

Oh wait, are you asking about people?

No, molecular structure.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
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Re: The Religion Thread

#403
Poet, I've explained it all earlier. Yes, RNA is fairly stable. A SELF-REPLICATING (SELF-REPLICATING, CARL!!!!!) ribozyme is two dozens nucleotides long, and that's the one that's really awesome. To start, you don't need anything fancy, replicating with errors is actually preferable as it creates more variety and leads to evolution of new ribozymes, with new functions, e.g. being capable of working with amino-acids (that's like a 5 nucleotide change, really).
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Re: The Religion Thread

#405
outlander4 wrote:
Poet1960 wrote:No, molecular structure.
That's amino-acids. And there are signs that R-ones were used (and continue to be used by some bacteria, for some specific tasks).

Nucleotides are not amino acids.

So chirality is irrelevant? Seems to me, that if you are at the stage where you have RNA, then you already are dealing with a cell. I want to know how you got from some lifeless chemicals to an actual life form. The other thing is, do you know for sure that those amino acids even existed billions of years ago? Or do you just assume that they did because life does exist, and you have no other way of explaining it?
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