Do NOT practice Christianity in China..

[sebbie]

Originally Posted by Cheese

No your response was great...but Im tired and grouchy

go pray brother, the lord will give you the stregth to fight this fight.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by FlamesFanInEdm

Im not here to set out to prove a specific religion, I just think that intelligent design makes it hard to believe in no God.

Well you have to believe in God to believe in intelligent design so it's pretty much a done deal for you.

Anyhow, thanks for the links to the wonderful Answers in Genesis site. Now I've got a pretty straightforward question for you.

Do you believe a man who is several hundred years old is capable of building an enormous boat?

[FlamesFanInEdm]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Well you have to believe in God to believe in intelligent design so it's pretty much a done deal for you.

Anyhow, thanks for the links to the wonderful Answers in Genesis site. Now I've got a pretty straightforward question for you.

Do you believe a man who is several hundred years old is capable of building an enormous boat?

Your right, it is pretty much a done deal with me. And I do think it is possible...below is a plausible theory explaining why peoples lifespans could be longer in those days. Remember that an intelligent Creater would logically have created people initially genetically perfect.



"Barring accidental death, one-celled organisms are potentially ?immortal?. A bacterial cell reproduces by dividing into two where there was one, those two then become four, and so on. Why then do multi-celled organisms die? Individual human cells in tissue culture divide some 50 times and then stop -some sort of pre-programmed genetic limit is reached. Human tumour cells, on the other hand, can be propagated indefinitely by division -the DNA mechanism for preprogrammed cessation of division appears to be lacking or damaged in such cancer cells.
In multicellular organisms, once damaged and worn cells can no longer replace themselves, death is only a matter of time as the function of whole organ systems deteriorates. So even without accidents or disease, there is a programmed ?upper limit? on our age, which appears to be 120 years or so as previously stated.
I suggest that our ancestors simply possessed genes for greater longevity which caused this ?genetic limit? to human ages to be set at a higher level in the past.
Suggestive evidence in support of this is the fact that in some other organisms (for example, fruitflies), it has been shown that changes in average lifespans can be bred into or out of populations. Most of us also know of individual family lines in which many successive generations all seem to live to very ripe old ages, with apparently delayed senescence relative to the norm. Reports of entire populations (for example, the Hunzas) living to 100+ far more frequently than is the case in our society (in spite of indulgence in tobacco and alcohol) has caused many to hunt for their dietary secrets. However, genetics would seem to provide an obvious answer.
If this suggestion has merit as the major (if not the sole) cause of greater pre-Flood ages, then the obvious question is how some of these longevity genes were lost. The human population went through a severe genetic bottleneck at the time of the Flood?only eight individuals. The phenomenon of ?genetic drift? is well-known to be able to account for ?random? selectively neutral changes in gene frequencies (including the loss or ?extinction? of genes from a population) which may be quite rapid. Also, loss of genes is far more likely in a small population."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/lifespans.asp
(and the same other doesnt write every article, there are several, all with credentials)

Again, we can never know for sure, but this seems plausible. It may have been this above or another reason but I beleive that it happened. (btw, there is evidence for a global flood outside of the Bible)
________
JUSTIN BIEBER FANS

[Vulcan]

As far as being able to prove if there is a god or not, I've come to this conclusion. My experience with god is very personnel and is not duplicated exactly by others. We are each individuals and so have our own experiences. Some of these we may not even equate as coming from god but I'm sure most of us have had them, even Cheese. If I go for a swim and nobody sees me, does that mean that since I can't prove it, that my swim didn't happen and my experience is of no account? The only way I can show someone close to what I have experienced is to take that person to the ocean and convince them to jump in. This is not always an easy thing to accomplish.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by FlamesFanInEdm

Your right, it is pretty much a done deal with me. And I do think it is possible...below is a plausible theory explaining why peoples lifespans could be longer in those days. Remember that an intelligent Creater would logically have created people initially genetically perfect.



"Barring accidental death, one-celled organisms are potentially ‘immortal’. A bacterial cell reproduces by dividing into two where there was one, those two then become four, and so on. Why then do multi-celled organisms die? Individual human cells in tissue culture divide some 50 times and then stop -some sort of pre-programmed genetic limit is reached. Human tumour cells, on the other hand, can be propagated indefinitely by division -the DNA mechanism for preprogrammed cessation of division appears to be lacking or damaged in such cancer cells.
In multicellular organisms, once damaged and worn cells can no longer replace themselves, death is only a matter of time as the function of whole organ systems deteriorates. So even without accidents or disease, there is a programmed ‘upper limit’ on our age, which appears to be 120 years or so as previously stated.
I suggest that our ancestors simply possessed genes for greater longevity which caused this ‘genetic limit’ to human ages to be set at a higher level in the past.
Suggestive evidence in support of this is the fact that in some other organisms (for example, fruitflies), it has been shown that changes in average lifespans can be bred into or out of populations. Most of us also know of individual family lines in which many successive generations all seem to live to very ripe old ages, with apparently delayed senescence relative to the norm. Reports of entire populations (for example, the Hunzas) living to 100+ far more frequently than is the case in our society (in spite of indulgence in tobacco and alcohol) has caused many to hunt for their dietary secrets. However, genetics would seem to provide an obvious answer.
If this suggestion has merit as the major (if not the sole) cause of greater pre-Flood ages, then the obvious question is how some of these longevity genes were lost. The human population went through a severe genetic bottleneck at the time of the Flood—only eight individuals. The phenomenon of ‘genetic drift’ is well-known to be able to account for ‘random’ selectively neutral changes in gene frequencies (including the loss or ‘extinction’ of genes from a population) which may be quite rapid. Also, loss of genes is far more likely in a small population."

http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v8/i2/lifespans.asp
(and the same other doesnt write every article, there are several, all with credentials)

Again, we can never know for sure, but this seems plausible. It may have been this above or another reason but I beleive that it happened. (btw, there is evidence for a global flood outside of the Bible)

Well you've got guts, I'll give you that. There have been plenty of threads about this kinda thing and nobody has ever actually stepped up and admitted to believing in a literal interpretation of the bible.

I suggest that our ancestors simply possessed genes for greater longevity which caused this ‘genetic limit’ to human ages to be set at a higher level in the past.

That's a hell of a thing for the author to say. I simply suggest that they didn't posess a gene for greater longevity because there is no such evidence that they did and he doesn't present any evidence to support his point other than a bunch of "scientific sounding" gobbledy****. There is evidence -- real tangible stuff -- that humans live longer now than they ever have before.

Oddly enough though, he's talking about organisms (humans and fruitflys in this case) changing over time. That sounds familiar.

[FlamesAddiction]

For the record, I agree with Cheese's opinion that religon should not be mixed into politics.

I just didn't like the peripheral generalizations being made about Christians. Like that they are liars, they are all out to convert people, they are not open minded about science, that they espouse things as absolute truth, etc, etc...

These are huge generalizations about a group of people that number over 1 billion and range from a diverse group of cultures. As a religon, the opinions and practices have more range than probably any other belief system on this planet.

[Vulcan]

In response to F A, I'd say Hinduism is probably more diverse than Christianity. They've made a way of life of appealling to everyone. They'll take Jesus and incorporate them into their beliefs, no problem. They have a bit of a problem with Islam though as they didn't like being converted by the sword.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

In response to F A, I'd say Hinduism is probably more diverse than Christianity. They've made a way of life of appealling to everyone. They'll take Jesus and incorporate them into their beliefs, no problem. They have a bit of a problem with Islam though as they didn't like being converted by the sword.

I would call that versatile, not diverse. Hinduism is still, for the most part, isolated on the Indian sub-continent and is only affected by the local Indian cultures.

There are Christians in literally every place in the world. Africa, the Middle East, Europe, North and South America, East Asia, India - literally everywhere.

To paint them all with one brush is impossible.