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My answers.
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Apr 8, 2025, 7:15 PM
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No, we shouldn't be doing it.
Whatever we call it, it isn't a resurrection. Nothing is being brought back from the dead. It is a "test tube baby" type thing.
And, yes, it is just a matter of time before we decide we should "create" human beings for the purpose of things like "medical research" and "organ donors."
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Clemson Icon [25916]
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Re: Speaking of Resurrections...
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Apr 9, 2025, 1:18 AM
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Cute puppies, no question about it. Expensive. Elon might buy one. George will spray paint it.
We have been speaking of resurrections. As you know, this is not that. Some articles about this have used that word, but of course cloning or genetic engineering creates a new animal, and cannot resurrect one. So, sure, what we call it is more than a distinction. Modifying DNA is one thing: creating it is totally different, and not yet in danger from us. Those pesky angels with flaming swords, yikes. They won't even let us know how it got here.
The ethical discussions usually concern the effect on humanity. As legit as that issue is, it seems too self centered. The important issue, I think, is the poor guy produced by a lab. IVF places a human baby with its parents, but what do we do with the guy from 7000 years ago? How do we ensure that he/she has the same emotional rearing, care and future that we promise our offspring? We can't. IMO, it would be cruel beyond description to bring one of them to life. Same with genetic engineering of our current species. Solving those issues seems more difficult than the technical process, and you cant know whether you solved them until it is too late. The guy/girl becomes the lab. That's actually illegal already: my adoptive grandchild came to us because his birth parents were legally declared that inept.
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Ultimate Clemson Legend [101827]
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I'm having trouble keeping myself straight with God. It's an ongoing thing.
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Apr 9, 2025, 7:18 AM
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Really, I got my hands full. I'm going to try and quit straightening out others, I don't have the primary memory to handle a program that size. I'm back to running an 8 bit processor with a 16 Kb chip. Can you say 8088?
Basically, all that resurrection stuff is above my paygrade. I'm focusing on my relationship with God.
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Dynasty Maker [3484]
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Re: Speaking of Resurrections...
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Apr 9, 2025, 7:40 AM
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I heard a preacher say a couple weeks ago in his sermon that we can not add a second to our life. Well we know that’s not true. It’s scientifically proven that certain things extend and certain things decrease your life expectancy. Not to mention, doctors have the ability to put you on life support and literally keep you alive in certain situations.
So I’m not surprised that things like cloning and resurrecting life are frowned upon by theists. They want their god to be the only one with those powers. But what are the implications that we are able to do these things?
Friedrich Nietzsche said in 1882 that “God is dead”. The Enlightenment had transformed human knowledge to the point that belief in god had come unbelievable. There seems to be a negative correlation with knowledge and belief in god. The more we know the less we have to appeal to a supreme deity. A few thousand years ago thunder meant god was mad. Now we know it is a natural, randomly occurring part of our world.
It seems like it’s inevitable that humans will figure out how to create life and at some point live forever. Not all of us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we are close now. And I believe that would be the final nail in the coffin for “God”. Not to say that we weren’t created, but probably by someone more like us.
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Game Changer [1699]
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Re: Speaking of Resurrections...
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Apr 9, 2025, 8:52 AM
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To further your point (or rather Nietzche's) on "God is dead". I always took that to mean that man no longer needed God rather than God becoming unbelievable. In other words, things we could not explain were automatically attributed to God. So, the smarter we became, the less we needed God.
We know a great deal about the human body. Far from the days of blood letting and leeches. But to date, we still need God to create that. Humans cannot be created from nothing. So, I don't believe it to be a power struggle between science and God.
I have used the example of a rose. We can make things that look like roses and smell like roses. We know the chemical makeup of a rose. We know it's genetics and have mastered the ability alter those genes to create all kinds of different colors, sizes, shapes, growing patterns, etc. But we cannot create a rose from nothing. For that, you need another rose.
Will we ever reach that point? Maybe, probably? Who knows? which leads me to...
My issues with scientist is not their discoveries or even their conflict with religion. My issue is with the total denial of responsibility. From genetics to AI, the attitude has been, "Hey, we just think this stuff up, it's up to someone else to figure out what to do with it". Forgive me for quoting Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park but, we get so caught up with the fact that we CAN do something, nobody ever stops to ask whether we SHOULD.
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Game Changer [1888]
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Re: Speaking of Resurrections...
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Apr 10, 2025, 1:26 PM
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I am totally fine with this. I do have some questions tho. like can these wolves live in the wild? I'm guessing not since theres no parent wolf or pack? So zoo life? Can they breed? How many will they produce? I would actually be more for it if they were bringing back a wild population and that, than a novelty zoo animal
I hear Theres more of these extinct animal resurrections in the works...the Dodo bird, the Mastedon/Mammath, Sabre tooth cats and i'm sure theres more
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Top TigerNet [32158]
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Re: Speaking of Resurrections...
Apr 10, 2025, 2:20 PM
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Yep. We're on the brink of something big. No way to know where it will lead or how we will handle it, but it's coming.
One thing about man...if he CAN do it, he most certainly will, guaranteed.
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Game Changer [1888]
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How should an evolutionist look at this?
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Apr 10, 2025, 6:31 PM
[ in reply to Re: Speaking of Resurrections... ] |
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I have no idea your belief on evolution, so I'm not aksing you specifically.
But, if someone believes in "Darviwnian Evolution"
1. Life was created from non-life through natural processes.
2. This original life reproduced itself.
3. The descendants of this original life evolved into all the species of plant and animal life we see today.
4. Through the proecess of "survival of the fittest and natural selection" weaker species became extinct and stronger species survived.
So, it someone believes that, a couple of questions:
1. Why should we be introducing inferior and weaker species back into existence?
2. Is this not interfering with the evolutionary process and going against nature and the naturalistic worldview?
Just curious how an evolutionist would view this.
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Top TigerNet [32158]
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Re: How should an evolutionist look at this?
Apr 10, 2025, 10:04 PM
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Good questions.
Aside from the evolution debate, it does make me wonder the value of bringing back extinct species who could not otherwise adapt to their environment naturally. I mean, say we bring back Wooly Mammoths, could they survive in the wild today? Is it cold enough? Is there enough food for them, etc.
They did go extinct for a reason, and aside from a catastrophic event (dinos and comets) or man's intervention (dodo birds), would recovered species have a chance in today's environment?
And, what would we do with them? Do we really want dinosaurs running around in the wild again? Would we farm them? Do dino burgers taste better than cow burgers?
It's sort of like going to the moon. We did it, but then stopped for 50 years because "what is there to do on the moon?"
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Dynasty Maker [3484]
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Re: How should an evolutionist look at this?
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Apr 10, 2025, 10:31 PM
[ in reply to How should an evolutionist look at this? ] |
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What do you mean “goes against it”?
The theory of evolution is just an observation of what happens.
There is no reason to favor it over any other worldview. It just is what it is.
The reason to do it it would seem is to save species from extinction.
A better questions to me is why would a loving god allow any species to go extinct, or even die for that matter?
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Orange Immortal [64356]
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Great question ...
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Apr 11, 2025, 2:37 PM
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"A better questions to me is why would a loving god allow any species to go extinct, or even die for that matter?"
This goes back to our concept of God. Traditional thinking has God as a ghostly giant human-like figure with flowing white robes somewhere above the clouds on a throne. This God creates, obliterates, manages, tweaks, observes, decides, kills, reflects, loves, hates, and so on. Just a "God-like" version of us. When we think of God that way, it is natural to ask why such a God would allow a species he created to go extinct or die.
To me, that's where the trouble starts, with that ancient concept of God. Any concept of God that is acceptable to me has to reasonably account for things like that, and things like totally unnecessary evil and suffering, without rationalizing, ignoring uncomfortable truths, abandoning common sense, or dancing in an effort to get around what is written.
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Re: Great question ...
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Apr 11, 2025, 4:42 PM
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Yes, I think the rub is often the concept of 'loving', and what that means, exactly.
There are some conceptions of God that are not 'loving.'
Deism is a classic one, and a I think the religion of Jefferson, maybe. In Deism, God is a creator, and then he kind of walks away; having as much concern for individuals as we might have while looking over a child's ant farm. We built assembled the farm, but once that creation is done, we just watch the ants move about without further interaction.
The ants are born, they live, they fight, they die, and the creator just watches passively.
Another Eastern form of Deism is Taoism, where in effect, God is nature. It's a little more complex than that, because nature is seen as a manifestation of the Tao, which is more of an unknowable force.
Either way, the Tao is not a being, and it has no emotions or intentions, or will. It might best describes as "The Force" from Star Wars.
So there's no real appeal to the Tao if you are 'done wrong' by its impersonal effects. Taoism's advice is just to 'flow' around and through it like a river around rocks.
There are other unloving 'gods' as well. And ironically, one appears in John, or at least kind-of. In John, when Christians speak of the 'Word', they are really speaking of the Greek Stoic concept of the 'Logos.' Like the Tao, the Logos is the manifestation of the unknowable entity that creates it. It might be more considered the "shine" or the "glow" of God.
If God were an incomprehensible lightbulb as a source, the Logos would be the light coming from that lightbulb. The light is just and wise, but it's not loving.
In pure Greek, the Logos is considered to be the impersonal, rationalizing and ordering force of the universe. The thing that separates us from pure chaos. And the Greek word for 'reasoning' is the same root as their word for 'word' and 'rationality.'
But in the Bible, Logos becomes a scrambled mix of Jewish concepts and Greek concepts, and kinda muddled. When John talks of the 'Word', what he's saying is that "God's glow, his Logos, becomes flesh, ie, Jesus.
Here, just replace the word "Word' with glow, and that might help clarify it.
John 1:1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
So John is saying that Jesus is the Logos, the Glow, in the flesh. And of course the great irony of that is that in Greek thought, the Logo is unloving and impersonal, and in Jewish thought Jesus is all-loving.
That's what happens when cultures mix...strange translations.
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Re: Great question ...
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Apr 11, 2025, 5:09 PM
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The idea of a loving God is also deeply rooted in us. We bring the very concept of love to the table, without even realizing it, along with many other concepts.
For instance, if the universe was all rocks, and no life, where would there be love? Or even simple life. Does love even exist in the realm of bacteria, or slugs? It's something that humans feel, but there's no guarantee it's anywhere outside of humans (and maybe certain other life forms like bears and baby cubs etc.)
The point is that we may be extrapolating something that is tightly restricted, to us. We make it universal, when it really only applies to us and life close to us (sorry, paramecium, no Valentines for you.)
Once one really dissects how we think, it's not really surprising how tangled we get. Think of even the concept of a 'beginning' of the universe.
We have all around us examples of things without beginnings. No one stares at a circle all day wondering where the circle "started." It's just assumed that it has no start, or end...it's a circle. Yet, even with that simple day-to-day experience, we somehow feel the universe must have a start, and an end.
It's very unsettling, if not impossible, to imagine a universe without a beginning. Though we have lot of example of other things without a beginning, like a number line, say; -1 -2, -3, etc.
That's why I say we are locked into understanding the universe with our own feeble little minds and senses, like trying to describe a Monet painting using only the words black, and white. It's just not enough to do the job.
"Not only is the universe stranger than you DO imagine, it's stranger than you CAN imagine."
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Orange Immortal [64356]
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Re: Great question ...
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Apr 12, 2025, 4:03 PM
[ in reply to Re: Great question ... ] |
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Rejecting the nonsensical (to me) concept of God as naturally created over time by ancient man, I've tried to come up with something that does make more sense. I've read about and studied, to some small extent, some other religions, and given it all a lot of thought. Seems to me that something didn't come from nothing, and that something that caused or created all of this is what I call God. That is my starting point.
Most people who have "near death" experiences report seeing and being drawn toward some sort of light that gets bigger and brighter as they approach. The light is often described as warm, totally welcoming and accepting, as if wrapped in unconditional, non-judgmental, all-encompassing love. Most say it feels like true home, much more so than life on earth. Many, if not most, believe this is God.
If so, I see God being sort of like the sun, but the center and source of everything that is and ever was, instead of the center of one small solar system. All life is like rays of sunshine, and just like those rays are literally part of the sun, our souls are literally part of God. Each of us is smaller and incomplete, but we carry the spiritual DNA, which is limited, by design, by this physical dimension we have chosen. God's energy is that unconditional love, and everything ultimately springs forth from that. Such pure, powerful love has a very powerful creative energy, and as such, we create for ourselves experiences which aid in our growth and development while benefiting others along their journeys, all in a beautifully synergistic way. The goal of all of it is to fully realize our oneness with God.
Or something like that.
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Top TigerNet [32158]
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Re: Great question ...
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Apr 12, 2025, 6:26 PM
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>The goal of all of it is to fully realize our oneness with God.
That's got a real Eastern feel to it. Which surprisingly comes out a lot in the Book of John of all places:
John 14:20
“In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
That's a far cry from "I Am" (and by extension, "You aren't, lol) in the Old Testament. Middle Eastern religions tend to see God as separate from man, while the Far Eastern religions tend to see us joined, in some way or another.
Hinduism: “Tat Tvam Asi”: “Thou art That”—you are God, or part of God.
Taoism: Humans aren’t separate from the Tao, but expressions of it, like waves are part of the ocean.
Eastern Mysticism: “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
It's amazing to me how varied the human experience can be, and the varied descriptions people have of their existence.
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Orange Immortal [64356]
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I don't think that much of what's written in the bible is "wrong", as I
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Apr 12, 2025, 9:09 PM
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think it contains a whole lot of wisdom and spiritual truth, but it ultimately is a product of humans and reflects their experience and knowledge, or lack thereof. Just like most religions.
I may not understand "I Am" correctly, or as most do, but I think it sums up what God is. We/man has attached all sorts of human qualities to God, which is understandable, as we are created in his image, but I don't think that means that God has arms and legs and grows a beard if he doesn't shave . . . or that God thinks and reflects and wants and has desires and regrets and gets angry and so on. I think we are like God spiritually, like my sun ray analogy or as you put so beautifully here:
Taoism: Humans aren’t separate from the Tao, but expressions of it, like waves are part of the ocean.
I think "I Am" means God is not all of those physical and emotional human things we project onto him, and he doesn't want or desire anything, he just is. He is that original cause that exists outside of time, the spiritual essence of everything that is, in every dimension. He Is. Eastern, Middle Eastern, Western, I don't care. This version of God makes a whole lot more sense to me, and is therefore much more believable than:
A God who for some reason unnecessarily included things he hated in his creation, then got so pissed when things didn't go as he'd hoped that he killed almost everybody and started over, and whose solution to sin is to require a blood sacrifice, which everybody must accept or else burn in the fires of hell for eternity.
I don't consider myself an adherent of any organized religion, even though I was raised Christian and still occasionally attend church and embrace some aspects of it. Sounds like I might be a Taoist? I don't know, I just believe what I believe, which is that God is pure love, and that we should all embrace that and love and forgive above all else.
And I agree, the variety of experience and cultural differences over time that shape different religions is indeed fascinating.
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Top TigerNet [32158]
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Re: I don't think that much of what's written in the bible is "wrong", as I
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Apr 12, 2025, 10:35 PM
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Well said.
I love all the differences and trying to figure out exactly how people account for their experiences. Sometimes people have thought them through deeply, sometimes not. A person can tell you if they are willing, but with texts like the Bible you have to try to figure out what they meant the best you can.
I'm kind of drawn to Taoism myself. I sometimes joke that every religion can be reduced to a super short description, like:
Jews obey
Muslims submit
Christians believe
Buddhists awaken
Hindus liberate
and for Taoists, it's Taoists roll with it.
Someone already beat me to a Tee-Shirt, sadly.
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Orange Immortal [64356]
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Re: I don't think that much of what's written in the bible is "wrong", as I
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Apr 12, 2025, 10:46 PM
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Love the shirt!
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Game Changer [1888]
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Re: How should an evolutionist look at this?
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Apr 12, 2025, 2:37 AM
[ in reply to How should an evolutionist look at this? ] |
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All that is certainly a stretch as to what I believe. If I believed as you say I’d also frown on medications, antibiotics and medical treatments and chalk up anything to survival of the fittest.
I believe in Evolution for sure vs a god created this all.i also appreciate science. But as I said earlier, I do have questions. Bringing back a giant herbivore, or bird is certainly different than a TRex. As for the Dire wolves, I’m assuming they will be zoo animals or is the plan to brew up packs of them? How will that effect our wolf populations now or will they just breed together?
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Dynasty Maker [3484]
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Re: How should an evolutionist look at this?
Apr 15, 2025, 4:39 PM
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That’s a very good point the same people that deny science when it comes to evolution have no problem running to the doctor when they are sick.
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