Quote from Oh_Man

They don't need ten commandments, just two:
1. God exists.
2. If it appears that God does not exist, refer to 1.

The commandments are moral presets, and are not just serving a purpose to prove God exists. Your comment doesn't really make sense.

Quote from Roy

Quote from Oh_Man

They don't need ten commandments, just two:
1. God exists.
2. If it appears that God does not exist, refer to 1.

The commandments are moral presets, and are not just serving a purpose to prove God exists. Your comment doesn't really make sense.

You call them moral precepts I call them orders. Like "thou shall have no other God before me", that isn't a moral statement to me, that is an order.

Even the wording 'commandment' - to command. It gives commands and you are to obey. Hence the 1 + 2 joke.

Quote

Wait, what is this law for again??

Why does it have to be "for" something? That's like asking "what is the sum of the numbers on the left side of a calculator being 12 for?" It could be the entirely incidental result of the mechanics in a system.

Quote from K_A

Quote from Sacrieur

[quote]I also have a a beef with the entire concept of entropy in general, it states that entropy can increase in a closed system, which is physically impossible.
It's impossible to have a perfectly closed system other than the universe, and I dare you to give me a situation in which entropy can increase.

You're misunderstanding fundamental concepts. Entropy is a measure of how evenly energy is spread across a system.

In thermodynamics, a system is different from normal vocabulary. A system is a a precisely defined area of space. The edge of this system is called a boundary which may be physical or non-physical. Beyond that there are the surroundings, which is everything outside of the boundary.

That said, I too have misused fundamental terms.

In an open system, energy and matter may flow freely in and out of the boundary.

In a closed system, no mass may be transferred in and out of the boundary; however, the transfer of heat and work can be exchanged across the boundary.

In an isolated system, no interaction across the boundary takes place.

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I was incorrect when I said, "In a closed system, entropy will always increase." Correctly, it should read, "In an isolated system, entropy will always increase."

You would be correct in saying that there exists no true isolated system except the Universe. To say that this is useless, allow me to quote Thomas Leland, Jr.:

Quote from The Basic Principles of Classical and Statistical Thermodynamics

Everyone realizes of course, that molecules are not actually inert rigid masses. The forces of attraction and repulsion which we ascribe to them are in reality the consequence of variations in the quantum states of a deformable electron cloud which fills practically all the space occupied by a molecule so that when we represent it as a rigid mass we are constructing a model which allows us to apply classical mechanics to relate its energy changes to changes in its microstate properties. For example, an effective model for a complex molecule is to regard it as a group of rigid spheres of various size and mass held together by flexible springs. The only justification for this model is that calculations of its energy, when properly averaged, give good agreement with values of energy per molecule obtained from experimental measurements using bulk quantities of the substance. Constructing models is important in all aspects of thermodynamics, not only for individual molecules, but also in describing the behavior of bulk matter.

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Since entropy can decrease in an open system, such as Earth, evolution can occur.

Quote from Oh_Man

Quote from Roy

Quote from Oh_Man

They don't need ten commandments, just two:
1. God exists.
2. If it appears that God does not exist, refer to 1.

The commandments are moral presets, and are not just serving a purpose to prove God exists. Your comment doesn't really make sense.

You call them moral precepts I call them orders. Like "thou shall have no other God before me", that isn't a moral statement to me, that is an order.

Even the wording 'commandment' - to command. It gives commands and you are to obey. Hence the 1 + 2 joke.

The ten commandments are not in any way attempting to prove that God exists, so exchanging them with "God exists" really makes no sense. Looked at differently, the ten commandments are intended to be rules designed to promote moral behavior, whereas "God exists" is unrelated to that, and again makes no sense.

Making snide remarks to belittle the beliefs of other people works better if said remarks are at least coherent.

Dear Anonymous, you would do well to pay attention to what the more charismatic people on SEN do, and follow those examples.

Quote from Sacrieur

I was incorrect when I said, "In a closed system, entropy will always increase." Correctly, it should read, "In an isolated system, entropy will always increase."

You would be correct in saying that there exists no true isolated system except the Universe. To say that this is useless, ...

Quote from Azrael.Wrath

The ten commandments are not in any way attempting to prove that God exists, so exchanging them with "God exists" really makes no sense. Looked at differently, the ten commandments are intended to be rules designed to promote moral behavior, whereas "God exists" is unrelated to that, and again makes no sense.

Making snide remarks to belittle the beliefs of other people works better if said remarks are at least coherent.

This is why Sacrieur is and Azrael.Wraith are not on my list.
In other words, I am not biased against anyone because of their beliefs, but because they conduct themselves in ways that view as unnacceptable.

As for the topic at hand:
I agree that evolution is an extremely credible theory, and I am inclined to think that it is happening all around us right now. I do however, also happen to believe that there is a God who created the universe. I think your belief that evolution disagrees with my beliefs is unfounded and offensive. It is equally offensive that you seek to use this thread as a means in which to criticize, slander, and otherwise disrespect the beliefs of the other members of this site. It is not civil, and I personally think such posts should be moderated and/or removed from serious discussion. I would even go so far as to say that you are behaving in such a way in an attempt to make us believe that that unevolved forms of human life exist, and are capable of making bad jokes about the Ten Commandments on SEN.

Quote from FaZ-

Quote from Sacrieur

We form a hypothesis before gathering evidence.

This is what they teach you in high school but in true research it's frowned upon as it can lead to forming biased results in an attempt to support the null hypothesis.

I never stated it was the most correct scientific thinking, just that it was scientific thinking.

But thank you for making that distinction.

New dinosaur fossils showing the earliest evolution of feathers:
http://news.discovery.com/animals/dinosaur-feathers-amber-photos-110915.html

Quote from Roy

Quote from Oh_Man

They don't need ten commandments, just two:
1. God exists.
2. If it appears that God does not exist, refer to 1.

The commandments are moral presets, and are not just serving a purpose to prove God exists. Your comment doesn't really make sense.

Yea, why would a leader of a then nomadic tribe that he was swiftly losing control of seek a way to control them through simple rules that anyone who followed him could understand?

Quote from Fire_Kame

Quote from Roy

Quote from Oh_Man

They don't need ten commandments, just two:
1. God exists.
2. If it appears that God does not exist, refer to 1.

The commandments are moral presets, and are not just serving a purpose to prove God exists. Your comment doesn't really make sense.

Yea, why would a leader of a then nomadic tribe that he was swiftly losing control of seek a way to control them through simple rules that anyone who followed him could understand?

Are you discussing the legitimacy of evolution, or the legitimacy of the ten commandments? If the latter, you're going off-topic.

Quote from K_A

I agree that evolution is an extremely credible theory, and I am inclined to think that it is happening all around us right now. I do however, also happen to believe that there is a God who created the universe.

I'm glad that you see the credibility in evolution, and that you recognize that evolution is not oriented towards disproving any religion. Am I correct in assuming you mean this only for microevolution and not macroevolution? Do you only oppose macroevolution because of the assertions it makes on common ancestry?

Quote from K_A

I think your belief that evolution disagrees with my beliefs is unfounded and offensive.

The discussion should not necessarily be with what evolution agrees or disagrees, but simply the fact of its existence. With the exception of one or two people in this thread, nobody's been trying to disclaim your beliefs. Evolution is more of a "how we got here today," and not "how we started/why we exist/etc."

Quote from K_A

I would even go so far as to say that you are behaving in such a way in an attempt to make us believe that that unevolved forms of human life exist, and are capable of making bad jokes about the Ten Commandments on SEN.

I keep rereading this, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Are you saying that our attitude is disproving evolution? Or are you making a joke (unintelligent -> unevolved)?