davidH

Sojourner,

As you have seen, I have switched back to the original topic here. But I'll answer your question on this post - then if you want to carry it on further create a post and then let me know here and I'll debate it there with you.

Let me explain from another perspective what those verses you have given mean. You are correct in some of them but others have a different meaning.

I don't actually see what this has to do about them not believing in Jesus but I'll explain it anyway.
Jesus used this situation to teach the people there a lesson.
Note he doesn't say "They aren't my mother or my brothers." But he asks a question out loud ,"Who are my mother and my brothers?"
He then answers it "...whoever does God's will."

All he is getting across is the point that everyone who does the will of God is a spiritual family. - Maybe a difficult concept to understand but I'll move on to the other verses now.

Yeah this is true.
Let me explain why and maybe you will understand.
The people of his hometown where not rejecting Jesus because he was a fake, couldn't do miracles or wasn't filled with wisdom.

v2 "When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed."
"Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles!."

The people of his town weren't rejecting him because he was a fake - the verses I have shown to you show that they didn't deny his wisdom or the miracles that he did.
Why then did they reject him?

I think the reason is this;
The verse you have shown shows the people saying, isn't this mary's son and aren't his brothers and sisters here with us etc. Then the Bible says that they took offense at him.

The people of his town knew Jesus, many had probably grown up with him, visited his carpenter shop and given him things to repair.
I have no doubt that the people where angry and jealous, they saw no reason to believe that Jesus was anything special - he was just a commoner like the rest of them, why should he have been given such a special gift etc etc.
It's hardly surprising that they took offense at him.
If you think about it - the president of the US isn't treated as the president of the US by his own family and those he grew up with.

This is a vivid hyperbole - basically to get the message across that Jesus must be loved even more than your immediate family. You cannot be free to love and serve God if you aren't willing to put him first in your life.

I disagree entirely with the interpretation of this verse.

1. It's amazing that Jesus wasn't consumed by self pity and agony, yet he always thought of others. He was taking care of the future of his mother as he was in immense pain on the cross - that is how other-centred Jesus was.
How can that verse be taken to mean that Jesus didn't care or love his mother? Surely providing his mother with a future after he was gone is proof enough of his love for her.

2. If you study the crucifixtion you will see that even speaking caused immense agony to the person on the cross.
cause in order to breath the person on the cross had to push down upon the nails though his feet inorder to release the pressure on his chest so he could draw in air. Breathing enough in to utter those words to his mother would have been agony.

Doubt this very much - there were many many people who believed in Jesus.

The promise of salvation by mystery religions - interestingly what if they were actually worshipping God? Even though they had not heard about him from the Israelites, what if God himself had revealed himself to them?
That could be a thought to retain, - though I am not saying that that is the case.

So is that just his opinion of it? You see I would have to examine the evidience so that I could make up my own opinion - following someone elses without the facts is not something I would want to do.

Interestingly enough the snake is a symbol for the devil and evil in the Bible. Hard to imagine that they could have got ideas from them.

Some of the further ones u have described sound very much like the eastern religions.

Sounds like the African tribal religions involving demon worship here. But I see the point you are trying to make here, and the information is extremely interesting.

However even if this was and is so, the Christian religion stems back to the time of Abraham etc. There's no evidience to suggest that our religion is from there's. Maybe another way to look at it is to say that they could well have originated from the Early Jewish tradition.
But again I have insufficient source documents to see and read up on to given a satisfactory answer.

I have to head on here, but I'll leave you with a thought.
How is any religion proved to be the true religion - bearing in mind that I believe that Satan has powers too and can to a certain extent perform miracles.

theyeti

It's not your fault, David, but this sort of thing just doesn't belong here. Obviously, Sojourner didn't see my previous post where I made it clear that this sort of topic belongs in the BC&A or MRD forums. Thanks.

theyeti

DNAunion

DNAunion: Did you even bother to read my post above where I said the thing about my editing posts making me a liar? If anything, the post was PRO evolution, aimed against the statements expressed by someone else who was battling against evolution. Or have you and I now switched sides?

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: DNAunion ]</p>

David Bowden

I think this question deserves its own <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=45&t=000282" target="_blank">thread</a>.

-Wanderer

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: wide-eyed wanderer ]</p>

Sojourner553

I did move this to a new thread under BC&A.

Do the moderaters have the function to move the previous messages over too?

(You can tell I'm new to this site.)

Sojourner

theyeti

No, we can only move whole threads, and since the first several pages of this one are of a different topic, it wouldn't be appropriate. However, you can just copy and paste the posts that you're interested in into new posts in the new thread. Just start a post with something like, "DavidH said: &lt;paste previous post&gt;". Then your next post, "And so I said: &lt;paste post&gt;", etc.

theyeti

davidH

Yeah I know about the plasmid transfer and all.
Though are you saying that any mutation in a bacteria (not referring here to a antibiotic resistant one) that is an addition, or a duplication (even of the part of a chromosome) won't put that bacteria at a disadvantage? I am assuming here that the mutation is neutral.
I would assume that this wouldn't be the case especially where duplication is involved.

You see, that if the complexity of an organism is to increase as it had to if evolution is correct then information had to be gained without losing much of what it previously had. so it stands to logic that the majority of mutations had to be addition mutations.
Since the odd of an addition mutation immediatly producing a benefit in a bacterium is massive, you have to assume that the mutation was at least neutral and not harmful.
However it being neutral puts it at a big disadvantage to the other bacterium that are competing with it. Therefore the chances are that the bacterium will be removed by natural selection and that neutral mutation will actually have proved harmful to the bacterium.
Now is this a correct assumption to make?

That's what I asked you a while back and so according to your answer even a small addition will cause the bacterium to be removed by natural selection. That's why what you said got me thinking - cause if it applies to those antibiotic resistant bacteria even though it is a whole plasmid - the same thing should also apply to the point I was making.

Just why is evolution so slow? - Just thought about that and realised I didn't actually know the explanation behind it - I've never read it anywhere to my knowledge.


Also I have been doing a bit of research and I have realised that the mutations that cause the antibiotic resistant bacterium are actually mutations that have caused a "fault" in the bacterium.

For some it is a change in the structure of a cell wall - it only becomes an advantage when antibiotics are present however, when there is no antibiotic there it becomes a servre disadvantage and causes it to be out competed by other bacteria so resulting in it being removed by natural selection.

Other antibiotics require the bacterium to take it inside before it can destroy the bacterium. There are sophisticated chemical pumps in bacteria which can actively pump nutrients from the outside through the cell wall. Those that are most efficient at doing this are therefore killed, however a bacterium that has a mutation that has caused an error which interferes with the efficiency of the pumping mechanism - causes that bacterium to survive the antibiotic.
In everycase i have seen there seems to be some disadvantage to the bacteria that causes it to survive only in the prescence of the antibiotic where most other competition is removed.

Do you know of any that have actually gained information? Most it seems to me, have actually only lost information which has enabled them to survive.

Again it's late and I want to get on to bed.

davidH

You still there theyeti?
I'll just wait until u reply before putting up anymore stuff.

Quetzal

DavidH: I just saw your last questions to me. I've been out of town for the last 10 days, and have just gotten around to catching up on my reading. I have asked my staffer in Slavutych to walk over to the Radioecology Lab to get definitive answers, but IIRC there has been no change in plant species diversity over the 15 years since the accident (other than the pines that were killed outright). There have been deleterious mutations and decreasing population densities of certain animal species (e.g., the European barn swallows), but no significant changes in plants. This would be expected, actually, since plants as a kingdom appear to have a much higher overall resistance to environmental mutagens. I'll let you know what my staffer finds out.

Interesting questions in their own right...

davidH

Right, thanks a lot Morpho.

Out of interest why where the pines killed outright?