Palin Rally in The Villages, FL 9.21.08

[JSojourner]

I don't have a problem with European citizens or governments voicing their opinions about American politics.  Hell, we Americans are plenty vocal about who the next Prime Minister of this or that country should be.  We try to influence foreign politics any way we can.  And once in awhile, if "foreigners" make a choice we don't approve of, we think it falls upon us to rectify the situation.

So what...they shouldn't be allowed to opine about our politics?

Still, to add some balance to the discussion -- I have to admit to being a bit jingoistic and/or annoyed at some European attitudes toward my country.  I know.  George W. Bush.  Dick Cheney.  Believe me, guys...I know!  I hear you.  A lot of us can't stand them either.  And a lot of us wish we had listened to you all about Iraq... maybe if we had, there'd be tens of thousands of Canadian and European troops fighting with us in Afghanistan instead of the much smaller forces there currently.  

But I get where Jmcfst is coming from.  It's about balance.  Look, if you listen to SOME Americans (and I don't think Jm is one of them), the USA won WW 1, WW 2 and the Cold War single handedly.  Forget Canada and Britain and France and Russia and the German resistance.  Forget China and Australia and New Zealand.  Well, we couldn't have done it without you all.  

But -- to be fair -- listen to some Europeans and America had next to nothing to do with defeating Fascism or Communism.  I wish I could remember the BBC commentator I heard years ago...but he described Operation Overlord as an Anglo-Canadian operation with some American support.  And while Ronald Reagan is hardly my favorite American President, it's just plain unfair to deny the man his due -- for the part he and America played -- in bringing down the Soviet Union.  Again -- some Americans act like Ronald Reagan did it all by himself.  Nonsense.  Lech Walesa, John Paul 2, Vaclav Havel, even the reform-minded Communists like Gorbachev, were HUGE players in the process.

I just hate false choices.  And either/or propositions.  

America is sometimes ugly and evil and tremendously flawed.  She is also often kind and generous and courageous.  Europe and Canada are sometimes arrogant and mistaken and rude.  And yet Europe and Canada are frequently brave and loyal and wise.  

I suggest Europeans visit the cemeteries scattered around the contintent, where American soldiers are buried.  I suggest Americans remember the Canadian intervention to save some of our hostages in Iran...and never fail to forget how immediately our European friends rallied to our aide after 9-11.  I never thought I would see that day when Italian and German aircraft patrolled our skies.  But for a short while, they did.  And I am damn grateful.  Nothing happened, thank God.  But if something had, we would not have been alone.

We need each other folks.  (Even if just to keep each other honest and aware of the other's imperfections.  Sometimes, that's friendship, too.)

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

that's not a scientific statement or conclusion

Neither is yours. It is pretty clear that the theory of evolution is based on facts.

it's a theory based on the interpretation of facts

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It is pretty clear that creationism is completely disconnected from any science.

because science can't create anything

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Science can be wrong on very minor issues, which do not influence us at all.

first, go and study the history of science, then we'll discuss science

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But the general idea is pretty much correct, and leaves no space for interpretation.

tell me you're joking

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Yeah, when we saw Bush was re-elected we were whining. But you are whining now, and we could go ahead saying "told you so". If you have another couple of presidents like this, the US can start filing for bancrupcy.

Subprime lending became fashionable in the mid 1990's, so I highly doubt Bush could have had anything to do with it.  It is NOT the job of the president to establish which credit rating a given derivative should be assigned.  That job is left to entities such as Standard and Poor's, which must share a HUGE portion of the blame.  

[Franzl]

I don't have a problem with European citizens or governments voicing their opinions about American politics.  Hell, we Americans are plenty vocal about who the next Prime Minister of this or that country should be.  We try to influence foreign politics any way we can.  And once in awhile, if "foreigners" make a choice we don't approve of, we think it falls upon us to rectify the situation.

So what...they shouldn't be allowed to opine about our politics?

Still, to add some balance to the discussion -- I have to admit to being a bit jingoistic and/or annoyed at some European attitudes toward my country.  I know.  George W. Bush.  Dick Cheney.  Believe me, guys...I know!  I hear you.  A lot of us can't stand them either.  And a lot of us wish we had listened to you all about Iraq... maybe if we had, there'd be tens of thousands of Canadian and European troops fighting with us in Afghanistan instead of the much smaller forces there currently.  

But I get where Jmcfst is coming from.  It's about balance.  Look, if you listen to SOME Americans (and I don't think Jm is one of them), the USA won WW 1, WW 2 and the Cold War single handedly.  Forget Canada and Britain and France and Russia and the German resistance.  Forget China and Australia and New Zealand.  Well, we couldn't have done it without you all.  

But -- to be fair -- listen to some Europeans and America had next to nothing to do with defeating Fascism or Communism.  I wish I could remember the BBC commentator I heard years ago...but he described Operation Overlord as an Anglo-Canadian operation with some American support.  And while Ronald Reagan is hardly my favorite American President, it's just plain unfair to deny the man his due -- for the part he and America played -- in bringing down the Soviet Union.  Again -- some Americans act like Ronald Reagan did it all by himself.  Nonsense.  Lech Walesa, John Paul 2, Vaclav Havel, even the reform-minded Communists like Gorbachev, were HUGE players in the process.

I just hate false choices.  And either/or propositions.  

America is sometimes ugly and evil and tremendously flawed.  She is also often kind and generous and courageous.  Europe and Canada are sometimes arrogant and mistaken and rude.  And yet Europe and Canada are frequently brave and loyal and wise.  

I suggest Europeans visit the cemeteries scattered around the contintent, where American soldiers are buried.  I suggest Americans remember the Canadian intervention to save some of our hostages in Iran...and never fail to forget how immediately our European friends rallied to our aide after 9-11.  I never thought I would see that day when Italian and German aircraft patrolled our skies.  But for a short while, they did.  And I am damn grateful.  Nothing happened, thank God.  But if something had, we would not have been alone.

We need each other folks.  (Even if just to keep each other honest and aware of the other's imperfections.  Sometimes, that's friendship, too.)

^^^^^^^^^^

JS can always bring reason and thoughtfulness into even the most hateful discussion.

[daboese]

JSojourner: Thanks for your post.
To be honest, I don't think it was Reagan's intention to outspend the Soviet Union to get them bancrupt, also moving much closer to a WW3 scenario. However he did it, and he deserves all the attention and credits for this.
And I am at least as annoyed as you are if I see some pure anti-Americanism showing up in my country.
However, I don't like being called a whiner when I state my opinion about Palin. To me, she appears to be like G.W.Bush. And the more I read and see from her, the stronger my opinion is. And- both Europe and the US- cannot afford another person like this in the white house, being even close to the Presidency.
To be honest, I don't even think that Bush or any President that you have had was a bad or evil person, but the views and discussions I experienced when I studied myself at Rice were just too important for me to ignore these things. And I have a big problem with evangelicals and the deeply religious people in the US, which are, in some ways, as fundamentalist as the muslims are. And thus, I have to have my say if I see such a person, even if I am called a whiner.

jmcfst: Creationism is not even a theory, it is simply a trojan horse by evangelical fundamentalists. It does not help at all in the understanding of anything. It is the same thing as exxon financing people to say that global warming does not exist.
I believe you also forgot about the wars Bush started which have cost you a couple of trillion USD. And that most of the world hates the US now, making terrorist attacks even more probable. BTW- I love you becoming personal when you try to discuss with other people. Do you always do that?

[rockhound]

[/quote]
And probably better than me. But it should still concern you that Obama is supported this much by people with high education. If you think that they are smart, then how could they support someone who is bad for the country?
They usually earn more money and will gain more by the tax cuts proposed by McCain in comparison to the ones by Obama, so they are unlikely to be egoistic.
[/quote]

I believe you need to do a bit more fact checking.  The average level of "intellegence" between the two party's voters tilts way toward the GOP.  Compare for just a moment where the bulk of the voters from the two parties comes from:

GOP--white collar, middle class, business owners
Dems--welfare recipients, government workers, labor

Dems also have huge lead among criminals.

Unlike in Europe whee class mobility is limited, entry into those various "classes" in the US is highly correlated with merit.  Thus, one can assume that the GOP leads substantially in average IQ.

[daboese]

Average, yes.
But those with a University degree strongly lean Dem.

[JSojourner]

The average level of "intellegence" between the two party's voters tilts way toward the GOP.  Compare for just a moment where the bulk of the voters from the two parties comes from:

GOP--white collar, middle class, business owners
Dems--welfare recipients, government workers, labor

Dems also have huge lead among criminals.

[/quote]

I think we have a new troll, joke poster or sock puppet.  Ghostmonkey, is that you, pumpkin?

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

jmcfst: Creationism is not even a theory, it is simply a trojan horse by evangelical fundamentalists. It does not help at all in the understanding of anything.

actually, the laws of thermodynamics are in complete agreement with creationism.  every accepted scientific observation backs that up.  It's such a universally accepted fact, that scientist refer to them as "laws", meaning: "It's like that.  And that's the way it is. HUH!"

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BTW- I love you becoming personal when you try to discuss with other people. Do you always do that?

only when I'm dealing with idiots

[daboese]

Still, creationism does not help in the understanding of anything. Thus, it has no connection whatsoever with science.
The spaghetti monster theory is also in complete agreement with thermodynamics. I can invent hundreds of theories which are. That does not make them model reality.
However, I can see why you like Palin now.

And thanks, you are the first person ever calling me an idiot.
To make it personal- Do you want to compare your and my "book smarts"? Number of publications? Citations? Academic record? Scientific achievements? You're very welcome.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Still, creationism does not help in the understanding of anything. Thus, it has no connection whatsoever with science.y
The spaghetti monster theory is also in complete agreement with thermodynamics. I can invent hundreds of theories which are. That does not make them model reality.

see, this is why you're an idiot:  in your mind, the spaghetti monster carries as much weight as the bible, even though it is scientifically proven that the biblical laws (when practiced) lead to healthier living, both physically and emotionally.

and, back to the point I was making, the scientific laws of thermodynamics, which are backed up by every repeateble scientific experiment ever conceived, require a supernatural creator. 

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you like Palin.

most organisms do

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And thanks, you are the first person ever calling me an idiot.

I didn't know you were so sheltered.  you should venture out more often.

[daboese]

in your mind, the spaghetti monster carries as much weight as the bible, even though it is scientifically proven that the biblical laws (whem practiced) lead to healthier living, both physically and emotionally.

So does any other religion. But what does this have to do with science? The bible tried to explain things 2000 years ago. Do you really believe that Adam and Eve were made that way? Is it scientific?
You know, Palin thinks exactly the same way. God has sent the US troops into Iraq. How different is this from a muslim fundamentalist blowing himself up? Unfortunately, this is the dangerous kind of thinking we are getting into.

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They don't. Thinking of time as just another dimension (which can be bent by matter, as known by the theory of relativity), it is entirely possible that with the big bang time simply started as well. You don't need a creator for that.

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Like living several years in the US/England/Israel? Been there, done that. They still never called me that.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

in your mind, the spaghetti monster carries as much weight as the bible, even though it is scientifically proven that the biblical laws (whem practiced) lead to healthier living, both physically and emotionally.

So does any other religion.

really?  which ones?

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But what does this have to do with science? The bible tried to explain things 2000 years ago. Do you really believe that Adam and Eve were made that way?

yeah, I believe they were made that way, though the account of the way they were made is certainly not exhaustive. 

But, more important and to the point, I believe all those living today are descended from Adam and Eve.  And any Christian who believes otherwise is disregarding the bible, for "accounts" and "parables" are two different things.

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Is it scientific?

well, since science can't create a male and female out of its own dirt, then I would conclude that it is.

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You know, Palin thinks exactly the same way. God has sent the US troops into Iraq.

well, God does set the timelines for all nations, but that doesn't necessarily mean what Bush did was just.

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How different is this from a muslim fundamentalist blowing himself up?

Palin doesn't need to blow herself up, she's already THE BOMB.

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Unfortunately, this is the dangerous kind of thinking we are getting into.

yes, you need to think before you speak

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They don't. Thinking of time as just another dimension (which can be bent by matter, as known by the theory of relativity), it is entirely possible that with the big bang time simply started as well. You don't need a creator for that.

even theories of black holes, which bend time and space back into a singularity, require the obedience to the laws of thermodynamics.

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Like living several years in the US/England/Israel? Been there, done that. They still never called me that.

probably because you've hung around those that share your strawman arguments

[Ban my account ffs!]

Don't have this argument with him.  When he dies and is reincarnated as an E. Coli cell on a fat kid's pepperoni at Chuck-E-Cheeses, maybe he'll realize it wasn't worth using his Bible to rape God's creation.

[Torie]

and running a disposal unit for the rotting bodies of Jews, Christians, blacks, gays, etc, etc...

You know, I was being flippant, and for obvious reasons I'm glad we won and am grateful for the service of the U.S. and Allies in the war.

That said, the crimes of the Nazi regime are not something to be treated lightly and tossed around to make an unrelated point. Just about no one alive today voted for the Nazis, and very few people were around who were adults in the Nazi era.

You didn't liberate Europe, Daboese didn't occupy it, I didn't get persecuted (and neither did my immediate family, while we're at it), and we all share a planet and have to figure out how to move forward without forgetting history. Germany's done a much better job of it than just about any other country on Earth and individuals deserve better than to have this most painful part of the country's history brought up against them without great justification.

Nice post B33. I assume that you appreciate that I am a big fan of yours.

[daboese]

even though it is scientifically proven that the biblical laws (whem practiced) lead to healthier living, both physically and emotionally.

For example Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism do the same. It is scientifically proven. Any religion has the same effect, since IMO they were invented by human beings in order to make it easier for them to live with each other and themselves.

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Ok, you are as anti-science as Palin. Congratulations.

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They can clone human beings. I haven't read that in the bible, and I think it will be hard to explain.

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And *how exactly* does he do this? Is he flying down from heaven, telling Bush or Palin what to do? Is he telling me what to do? And can he be a she?

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They don't bend time and space into a singularity (it is a near-singularity), that is exactly where you are wrong. When time is not existant, the laws of thermodynamics don't hold anymore.

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Well, I would be intrigued to discuss this with you in person. Doing this over the internet is a bit tedious. I have had those discussions many times before (without being called an idiot), and in the end of the day it was fine even for those people, because for most people it does not matter what you believe, but who you are and how you act.
But I am surprised to see a fundamentalistic evangelical here. Do you believe in any other- for most human beings- obscure ideas, like that the world will come to an end at this or that date? I'm just curious.
Anyhow, I will discontinue this fruitless discussion then. I can see that discussing with someone who thinks Bulgaria is in the Carribean is a bit pointless.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

even though it is scientifically proven that the biblical laws (whem practiced) lead to healthier living, both physically and emotionally.

For example Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism do the same. It is scientifically proven. Any religion has the same effect, since IMO they were invented by human beings in order to make it easier for them to live with each other and themselves.

Since Christianity is based upon the old testament, you can’t separate Judaism from Christianity.  And Buddhism and Confucianism and Islam are just bastardized forms of Judaism, with Judaism predating tall of them.

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Ok, you are as anti-science as Palin. Congratulations.

Really?  I didn’t know that science has proven that a common pair of ancestors for all those that are currently living is not possible.  Do you have a link?

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They can clone human beings. I haven't read that in the bible, and I think it will be hard to explain.

Huh?  You didn’t seem to understand my point, let me rephrase:  When science can create a male and a female human out of matter that science itself created out of nothing, then let me know.  Otherwise, my conclusion stands.


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And *how exactly* does he do this? Is he flying down from heaven, telling Bush or Palin what to do? Is he telling me what to do? And can he be a she?

Prov. 21:1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse.

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They don't bend time and space into a singularity (it is a near-singularity), that is exactly where you are wrong. When time is not existant, the laws of thermodynamics don't hold anymore.

Ok, cool.  When you can produce a repeatable experiment which suspends space and time and creates matter/energy out of nothing, which either adds to the total energy to the current universe or creates a separate universe, let me know.

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Well, I would be intrigued to discuss this with you in person. Doing this over the internet is a bit tedious. I have had those discussions many times before (without being called an idiot), and in the end of the day it was fine even for those people, because for most people it does not matter what you believe, but who you are and how you act.
But I am surprised to see a fundamentalistic evangelical here. Do you believe in any other- for most human beings- obscure ideas, like that the world will come to an end at this or that date? I'm just curious.
Anyhow, I will discontinue this fruitless discussion then. I can see that discussing with someone who thinks Bulgaria is in the Carribean is a bit pointless.

[/quote]

If you’d bother checking the context of my Bulgaria comment, you had found that the poster had just informed me that he didn’t live in the Western Hemisphere.  So, if you’re going to seriously conclude that I, jmfcst,.. :
1)   Thought Bulgaria was in the Caribbean, as if I totally forgot the Cold War and had never heard of the communist eastern European block and had never been a fan of sports and never watched any Olympic games of the 70’s and 80’s when Bulgaria was a major force.
2)   Thought the Caribbean was outside the Western Hemisphere, even though I lived on the Gulf Coast all my life and have tracked hurricanes through the Caribbean since I was nine.

…I think any reasonable person, reasonable being the key word, would conclude I was just using my dry humor in response to being annoyingly fooled by someone’s moniker which suggested the poster lived in the United States.  But, hey, to each his own.

From the thread: “Name something you have in common with the preceding poster”:

we both live in the western hemisphere

I actually live in Bulgaria.

Cool!  I've always wanted to visit the Carribean.

Also, my “joke” is just another of my simple modifications of movie lines, in this case, from Rocky6 and DumbandDumber (both Sly and Jim Carrey got their geography wrong, with Sly thinking the Caribbean island of Jamaica was in Europe and Carrey thinking Austria was the same thing as Australia).  But, hey, if I have to explain a joke, including giving all the context and writing footnotes to credit my original movie sources, then what’s the purpose of my existence on this forum?!

But, there is hope: Dibble is advising me on my dry sense of humor.

[angus]

Not to fan the flame but there's always a discussion of this in thermodynamics books.  The evolution of life requires the organization of a very large number of molecules into biological cells.  How the molecules may have evolved in the first place is easy enough to show, as in the Miller-Urey experiment.  But the harder thing is to square the second law with everything else, especially when you start thinking about the formation of living organisms, and whether their formation violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that spontaneous processes always occur with an increase in the total disorder.  I guess you can assume the increase in disorder somewhere else in the universe offsets the increase in disorder in the system under consideration.  That's the usual explanation.  But I agree that it leaves some dissatisfaction.

Or maybe Shiva was simply asleep on the day it all began. 

[daboese]

But the harder thing is to square the second law with everything else, especially when you start thinking about the formation of living organisms, and whether their formation violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that spontaneous processes always occur with an increase in the total disorder.

Oh, that is an easy one: Every living organism has to eat something. You are thus actually increasing the entropy by doing so. That is the reason why it is believed that life began close to hot springs (of cause in the sea), where these organisms utilised the bound sulphur and simply burned it. Later, they were able to harvest the energy which is available in sunlight, also increasing the entropy.

And jmcfst: That Buddhism is a spring-off of Judaism is pretty far-fetched. You can probably also prove that any Indian religion does the same. If you ask me for an experiment to create matter out of nothing, please tell me another experiment that proves that god does create matter out of nothing.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

The Presidency of the United States is, sadly, too important an office as things stand right now to be legitimately chosen by just 5% of the people affected.

All your whines will be lost in time... like tears in rain

someone should make a sig out this, but, unfortunately, I'm already quoting myself in mine

bump

[John Dibble]

And Buddhism and Confucianism and Islam are just bastardized forms of Judaism, with Judaism predating tall of them.

Dude, Buddhism and Confucianism arose independently of Judaism.

Also, if Islam is to be considered a bastardization of anything it's a bastardization of Christianity rather than just Judaism - Jesus is included in their teachings, and IIRC he's considered the Messiah.

[daboese]

Be careful, you will get a quote from the bible thrown at you if you say something like this.

[angus]

Oh, that is an easy one: Every living organism has to eat something. You are thus actually increasing the entropy by doing so. That is the reason why it is believed that life began close to hot springs (of cause in the sea), where these organisms utilised the bound sulphur and simply burned it. Later, they were able to harvest the energy which is available in sunlight, also increasing the entropy.

And jmcfst: That Buddhism is a spring-off of Judaism is pretty far-fetched. You can probably also prove that any Indian religion does the same. If you ask me for an experiment to create matter out of nothing, please tell me another experiment that proves that god does create matter out of nothing.

yeah, I get that.  

But what I'm saying is that the easiest explanation to the problem of, say, the formation of the first cyanobacterium with its fatty membrane enclosing water would be that maybe the formation of the cell was made possible only because the chemical equilibrium shifted due to exothermicity and favored their formation.  Maybe that's your point.  Actually, that seems to be what you're saying as well.  My point is that forcing yourself to think about it is an interesting exercise because it emphasizes the fact that the Second Law doesn't say that the disorder in the system must increase, only that the processes is spontaneous if the overall disorder in the system and all possible surroundings increase.  Much of this line of argument depends on making the assumption of exothermicity, though.  

Your example is interesting, though, because sulfur plus oxygen yields sulfur dioxide, and a mole of sulfur dioxide has a greater entropy of formation than the sum of a mole of sulfur and a mole of oxygen gas.  But sulfur dioxide is also the gas that diffuses out of freshly-sliced onion and combines with the water in your eyes to make sulfurous acid.  (Brimstone is an old English word for sulfur.  Fire and brimstone makes your eyes water, an old way of describing combustion of sulfur to produce sulfur dioxide, and we also associate fire and brimstone with witches.  Eye of newt, double double, toil and trouble...  All that stuff.  I just thought it was particularly apt to pick the ultimate in sacreligious elements to make your point.)

Okay, jmfcst is a biblical literalist.  You may not encounter biblical literalism much.  I'd never heard of it till I had graduated college.  But I have read polls that as many as a third of Americans are biblical literalists, so it isn't uncommon here.  He starts with the premise that the first five chapters of the book of Genesis amount to non-fiction.  So even though he's a sensitive, well-educated, informed, thoughtful individual with a good sense of humor and a keen understanding of economics, mathematics, and thermodynamics, you won't win this argument.  Most folks would let you get away with the quantum singularity, for example, that had to occur 12.7 billion years ago in order to form the first neutrons, if you wanted to explain the standard Hot Big Bang model of the origin of the elements of the universe.  Right?  Even though we're not quite sure how that infinitely dense ball of neutron material got there in the first place.  But people don't mind because, if they were so inclined, they could just say that their god is that little ignitor that first turned the key.  Not so with jmfcst, because time doesn't begin until much, much later, so the speck of matter came from a place where some equation has a zero in the denominator is just a mathematical abstract.  A fun mental exercise, but simply an exercise not explaining anything.  Just as you may view the first five chapters of the book of Genesis as mythology, he will view the quantum singularity as a frustrating, but interesting, stopping point in an abstract algebra problem.  And you're both probably right.

Also, it is Christianity and Judaism that are imperfect forms of Islam, as I understand it.  In fact, the Qur'an mentions this frequently.  And none of those monotheistic religions have anything to do with the Eastern poly- and atheistic religions.  Judaism was heavily influenced by the ancient religion Zoroastrianism.  And Hindu arose from an ancient Hindu tradition that predates all Western monotheistic forms, even Zoroastrianism.  I could be wrong, but I think jmfcst, who surely knows that Buddhism is a bastardization of Hindusim, not of Judaism, was making a very subtle attempt at humor.  Sometimes it hard to tell.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

And Buddhism and Confucianism and Islam are just bastardized forms of Judaism, with Judaism predating tall of them.

Dude, Buddhism and Confucianism arose independently of Judaism.

Gen 3:15 "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

You do know that Adam and Eve, Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Joeseph, Moses, etc, etc...were all taught about the Messiah, don't you?  So all religions, except the one true one, are a perversion of the truth in one way or another.

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Also, if Islam is to be considered a bastardization of anything it's a bastardization of Christianity rather than just Judaism - Jesus is included in their teachings, and IIRC he's considered the Messiah.

yeah, but Islam borrowed more from Judaism than Christianity,and then mixed a bunch of stuff in to make a society non-functional. 

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

Not so with jmfcst, because time doesn't begin until much, much later

that is NOT what I believe.  Rather I can allow for any amount of time between a) the creation of the heavens and the earth, and b) the creation of Adam and Eve.

the seven days in Genesis 1 can NOT be interpreted as 24 hour days, since day 7 lasted for eternity and days 1 thru 3 didn't even have the Sun to mark the length of the days.

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Also, it is Christianity and Judaism that are imperfect forms of Islam, as I understand it.  In fact, the Qur'an mentions this frequently.

Of course the Qur'an is going to claim that, but there is no trace of Islam prior to 600AD, so it would be a tad difficult for Christianity and Judaism to have barrowed from Islam.

[daboese]

But what I'm saying is that the easiest explanation to the problem of, say, the formation of the first cyanobacterium with its fatty membrane enclosing water would be that maybe the formation of the cell was made possible only because the chemical equilibrium shifted due to exothermicity and favored their formation.

Since they (as any other organism) produce heat, they are favored by the second law.

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If you go through the maths, you will see that the heat that you gain from this process will outset the entropy loss by the molecules. Thus, the overall entropy increases again.

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In Europe, they almost do not exist. That is the reason why the US is so conservative in comparison to the rest of the world. I said before, it is comparable to the political weight that orthodox Jews in Israel have.

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In the model which I explained to him, it is entirely possible that time is just another dimension, which is bent to a curve at that point. This way, you cannot even ask the question what happened before that point, since time did not exist at all.

So all religions, except the one true one, are a perversion of the truth in one way or another.

There are many religions which do not teach a messiah. Bhuddism and Hinduism don't, for example. And how do you know that christianity is the true religion? Why shouldn't it be Judaism, or any other of the major religions that are out there?