A little sanity, at long last!

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
How is it we get from one to the other? Seems to be a 180 and contradictory.
It'll seem that way if you don't understand evolution.

God and evolution aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. One of the biggest misconceptions about evolution is that it's purpose is to disprove the existence of God. But religion and God aren't the same thing, either. Science has caused religion to be cut back further and further, from the four corners of the flat Earth, to being the reason why lions eat people, lightning strikes and illness happens. Now we know that the Earth is roundish, lions are independent creatures that eat meat, lightning strikes are caused by electrical buildup in the clouds and that illnesses are caused by little organisms. But that's religion, not God. Not only does evolution not disprove the existence of God, it doesn't even try. Evolution only cares about what happened and how it happened. Evolution doesn't even address God one way or the other. Evolution is simply a sound scientific understanding of our origins. It doesn’t prove nor disprove a God claim.

Evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. It's really and truly unambiguous and irrefutable. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things. But that's got nothing whatsoever to do with God.

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It's the details the detail the details of religious dogma that Christians are all wrapped up in. They want the Bible to be literal, except the parts they want to be metaphorical or allegorical. But it's that Genesis part that they cannot handle as a metaphor or an allegory. It MUST be literal. Well, except for that part about creating man in God's image. OK, so that's a metaphor, since it can't be literal. As soon as someone says, "In his image MEANS..." this or that, it's no longer literal, especially when you have to ask yourself who the heck literal God was talking to when he said everything he said, especially the part about "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness... ." Who? What? Our? Huh?

The creation of man in Genesis has always been read (interpreted, if you will) to mean that Adam was the first human God created. Why is that exactly? It doesn't state that anywhere. Not once. In fact, what it actually says is that God created humans on day 6 of the creation account in chapter 1, then it says God rested on day 7 at the beginning of chapter 2, then comes the story of Adam's creation. It's nothing more than assumption that says these are two depictions of the same event. If you read it literally.

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Religion is used to fervently oppose science by those uneducated masses who understand neither their own religion or science. The extreme distrust of intellectualism by Christians, throughout the US in particular, is a major block in the advancement of society on a wide variety of fronts, and most often that distrust is manufactured as a form of religious views attacking scientific foundations and research. Evolution is fully compatible with religious beliefs, right up to the point where you try to discount one or the other, or worse, stupidly try to combine them. Science and religion are not an either/or zero-sum game. Science and religion occupy two separate realms of human experience. Demanding that they be combined detracts from the glory of each, and is an insult to both.
 
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layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
"It's the details the detail the details of religious dogma that Christians are all wrapped up in."



Some, not all.

There are many schools of thought, even among "Christians", that differ from the literal adherence to Genesis.

One such school states that the primary drive of Man is to return to his Maker. That school teaches that the study of science will lead Man back to God, since all things come from God.

Some could even say that the "Dogma" of atheism could, and often does, blind many to other possibilities. One could even make a broad comparison between Atheism and a belief in "god" with the relationship between matter and anti-matter.
 

cheri1122

Veteran Expediter
Driver
I believe pot was given the title of a gateway drug because it was readily available and cheap so use among teenagers was much more likely. As prescription drugs have become easy to get in recent years the rate of abuse among teenagers has increased significantly. Take a look at the increase in abuse of over the counter pills like Coricidin or spray paint. If a teenager wants to get high they will and do it as cheaply and easy as possible.



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Pot was given the title back in the days of 'Reefer Madness' [hilarious movie, if you've never seen it], because it was seen as a dangerous drug. We know now that it isn't, [except to waistlines and 'to do' lists, mainly], but the title and perception remain.
My point is that the gateway lies in the brain, not in the substance ingested. The people who go on to coke, heroin, meth, whatever, they probably would have started with the 'hard' drugs, if they'd been able to get any, but pot is easier to find. Drug dealers generally won't sell risky stuff to strangers, so if one wants some cocaine, it makes sense to buy enough pot to build a relationship of trust with a dealer [!] first.
Something I've wondered for awhile: why does our brain even have receptors for opiates? :confused:
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
The receptors for opiates are the mu receptors. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, [like hormones], not a receptor itself.


Maybe I poked it in wrong. I meant to say the the receptors are there for dopamine and that pot, and other drugs, mimic dopamine.
 

Turtle

Administrator
Staff member
Retired Expediter
No, director Richard C. Sarafian did ...

That was a movie about a a drug-fueled car chase through the Nevada desert. About bennies, the other gateway drug. So yeah, in a way it was drugs that got her all nekkid on a bike. :D
 
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