Do you believe in God(s)?

[blue_tetris]

Twelve, I was gonna say. It's divisible by 2, 3, and 4.

Twelve fingers really would be perfect. Eight isn't bad either. But something that factors into 2 and 5? Odd.

I think incluye figured ten was practical because that's what we already have. "If we didn't have ten fingers, how would we count up to ten in the decimal system that we are using?!"

[Atilla]

Well, if we had twelve, we could count up to ten with fingers to spare. In case one got eaten by the fearsome cannibal hamsters of deepest Suburbia. Take your finger off as soon as look at you, they will.

[origami_alligator]

[sarcasm]nobody should be enough of an idiot to actually be a Christian.[/sarcasm]

For me I just think you should not be blindly led on. If you have your own input on your religion (as in thinking about it for yourself and not what someone else has told you) then fine. But if you're just believing whatever your pastor or preacher or priest in Church tells you to believe, or reading the Bible as a literal statement rather than something to agree and disagree with then there's something wrong. If you end up thinking along the lines of absolute faith then fine, as long as I believe that you have taken the time to think for yourself about your own religion.

Human's weak minds force them to have answers for everything. So when they can't find the answer, they make it up. Religion.

Nah, these days it's String theory. :/
Also, I like not knowing some mysteries. Sometimes it's nice to just sit back and watch the night sky and not know why or how the stars came to be where they are. I don't need religion or science to tell me this, I just need to sit back and enjoy it for what it is.

[blue_tetris]

There is something to be said for not analyzing things which have no impact upon your existence. Studying the composition of the stars is a non-existential venture. Enjoying the stars would suffice, in most people's lives.

[notsteve]

We have 10 fingers because our ancestor way far back had 10 fingers. (non-human ancestor)
Why 10? because if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, 5 is the perfect choice for the number of supporting bones on a fin (fish) or foot

You need one to be in the middle, and two on the outside edges. However, if this appendage gets too large, these bones simply cannot support it, so one is added to each outside edge of the middle bone. this forms a nice supporting middle, along with the actual middle and outside edges - these bones later separated and became fingers
the gene for 6 fingers is actually dominant, but not many people have 6 fingers because the 6th finger is unnesessary

if we didnt evolve, the logical number of fingers would be four! because if someone intelligently created us, they would most likely put two fingers in the middle, and two "thumbs" on the outside edges, which would work much better if we were using rocks and sticks to pick up and use as tools
but no, we have 5 fingers because they all EVOLVED from one single finger.

8 would also be a nice number for counting in, doesn't something important use base 8? or am i making that up

[jean-luc]

I can't think of anything for base 8... base 2 is used in computers (since it can be represented digitally), and by association base 16 (because it's very easy to convert between base 2 and base 16).

[notsteve]

"The Yuki language in California and the Pamean languages[1] in Mexico have octal systems because the speakers count using the spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves[2]."

"At the time when octal originally became widely used in computing, systems such as the IBM mainframes employed 24-bit (or 36-bit) words. Octal was an ideal abbreviation of binary for these machines because eight (or twelve) digits could concisely display an entire machine word (each octal digit covering three binary digits). It also cut costs by allowing Nixie tubes, seven-segment displays, and calculators to be used for the operator consoles; where binary displays were too complex to use, decimal displays needed complex hardware to convert radixes, and hexadecimal displays needed to display letters.
All modern computing platforms, however, use 16-, 32-, or 64-bit words, with eight bits making up a byte."

so if whatever culture we were based on DID count the spaces between their fingers, we would have an octal system
that would be interesting

[otters]

We have 10 fingers because our ancestor way far back had 10 fingers. (non-human ancestor)
Why 10? because if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, 5 is the perfect choice for the number of supporting bones on a fin (fish) or foot

Who says? The pinky is small, weak, and inefficient. Why not just use four fingers?

the gene for 6 fingers is actually dominant, but not many people have 6 fingers because the 6th finger is unnesessary

Hmm...I don't know if dominant genes work that way.

if we didnt evolve, the logical number of fingers would be four!

Hehe.

because if someone intelligently created us, they would most likely put two fingers in the middle, and two "thumbs" on the outside edges, which would work much better if we were using rocks and sticks to pick up and use as tools

Ehhh...not so sure about this one either.

but no, we have 5 fingers because they all EVOLVED from one single finger.

Show me this marvelous one-fingered beast. A single finger would be almost useless except as a poking device.

[乳头的早餐谷物]

but no, we have 5 fingers because they all EVOLVED from one single finger.

Show me this marvelous one-fingered beast. A single finger would be almost useless except as a poking device.

A single nub, perhaps. The end of a limb before separate fingers actually evolved.

[otters]

What would it do, though?

[notsteve]

We have 10 fingers because our ancestor way far back had 10 fingers. (non-human ancestor)
Why 10? because if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, 5 is the perfect choice for the number of supporting bones on a fin (fish) or foot

Who says? The pinky is small, weak, and inefficient. Why not just use four fingers?

the gene for 6 fingers is actually dominant, but not many people have 6 fingers because the 6th finger is unnesessary

Hmm...I don't know if dominant genes work that way.

if we didnt evolve, the logical number of fingers would be four!

Hehe.

because if someone intelligently created us, they would most likely put two fingers in the middle, and two "thumbs" on the outside edges, which would work much better if we were using rocks and sticks to pick up and use as tools

Ehhh...not so sure about this one either.

but no, we have 5 fingers because they all EVOLVED from one single finger.

Show me this marvelous one-fingered beast. A single finger would be almost useless except as a poking device.

1. if you read the further argument, this would be explained. the pinky is used as a support in other animals, look at a bat, the pinky is part of the wing and makes it longer. also seen in fish

2. i guess this was unclear what i meant. the sixth finger is not all that common because not many people have this gene, even though it is dominant. because it is dominate and people with it have six fingers, but the sixth finger makes it awkward, and in ancinet times these people died because of lack of ability to eat and hunt, so they could not reproduce and the gene mostly died out

3. think about it
the pinky is inefficient as you already said. if I designed the human race, i would probably have given them 4 fingers, i dont know about you

4. see above. robots use four 'fingers' sometimes and i dont see any disadvantage to this idea

5. "marvelous one fingered beast" makes it sound like there is an animal that only has one finger/toe. this is because you look at it from a non-evolutionary standpoint. what i am saying is that many many years ago, a FISH with no fins developed. then, one day, a decendent of this fish developed small bones on either of its sides. these allowed the fish to swim faster and eat more, reproducing, until more and more fish with nubs were created. in this same way, the nubs got bigger and bigger until it developed into a whole fin. etc you get the picture splits into 3 fingers and so on

DISCLAIMER: I HAVE NO IDEA IF ANY OF THIS IS CORRECT OR NOT. THIS IS JUST THE FIRST LOGICAL THING I THOUGHT OF WHEN I SAW THE ARGUMENT ABOUT 10 FINGERS. AS SEEN ABOVE, THIS LOGICAL ARGUMENT IS MUCH MORE SENSIBLE THAN THE ARGUMENT "GOD MADE US SO" INCLUYE OVER HERE HAS YET TO MAKE ANY POINTS REGARDING HIS SIDE :P

[Atilla]

Personally, I like the alien number system from Iji, which uses the joints of each finger as digits, and thus allows you to count past 100 on one hand. (┴ = 0, ┼ = 1, ┬ = 2, ┴┴ = 3, ┼┴ = 4, ┬┴ = 5, ┴┼ = 6, etc.)


Anyway, moving along...

The fact that humans (typically) have five fingers may simply be happenstance. The vast majority of humans are also right-handed, and there's not really an advantage to that - aside from the fact that lefties are entirely viable organisms, we have ambidextrous people.

Also, a single finger-like limb can have several functions. For example, one on either side of the mouth can be used to grab food (see also mandibles). It could also be used as a simple fin.

EDIT: Also, random biology! It's not uncommon for cats to have five or six toes instead of four, and it doesn't particularly inhibit them. Somewhat more rarely, cats with extra digits have a working, opposable "thumb" on their front paws. This may actually aid them by allowing acts of manual dexterity which other cats can't perform - notably, picking up objects with a single paw or even operating mechanisms designed for humans, such as door latches.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I can't think of anything for base 8... base 2 is used in computers (since it can be represented digitally), and by association base 16 (because it's very easy to convert between base 2 and base 16).

We only use base 2 in computing because it becomes exponentially more complicated to manage ten voltage differences. Do you know what the voltage difference is across a bit storing a 0? It isn't 0 V. Modern computer hardware already accounts for sensing voltage levels, it's just that using binary bits makes it boil down to sensing presence or absence of (excess) charge. We could just as easily make ternary or quadrinary bits, but the potential for error will be much higher, and it number of issues with logic becoming more complicated and production costs arise.
I don't know where I was going with this, actually.

[blue_tetris]

I think five fingers are probably better for lifting things or resting weight upon than for counting. There are many other modern species with five digits.

[jean-luc]

I can't think of anything for base 8... base 2 is used in computers (since it can be represented digitally), and by association base 16 (because it's very easy to convert between base 2 and base 16).

We only use base 2 in computing because it becomes exponentially more complicated to manage ten voltage differences. Do you know what the voltage difference is across a bit storing a 0? It isn't 0 V. Modern computer hardware already accounts for sensing voltage levels, it's just that using binary bits makes it boil down to sensing presence or absence of (excess) charge. We could just as easily make ternary or quadrinary bits, but the potential for error will be much higher, and it number of issues with logic becoming more complicated and production costs arise.
I don't know where I was going with this, actually.

The issue is not the ease of sensing voltage differences, but the use of logic gates (transistors). logic gates are either on or off as a matter of their design. In order to use varying voltage levels, you'd have to have multiple logic gates with resistors for each 'bit'. This becomes much, much more complex for transistor-based devices.

Early computers (think ENIAC and ERMA) were analog, meaning that they used more than just on and off for processing. However analog computing is not practically possible with transistor-style logic gates, and the devices used for analog computing were very hard to miniaturize.

binary digital computers ('digital' means 'discrete values', or noncontinuous values. it is antonymous to 'analog') could be constructed out of transistors, which were much smaller and more durable than vacuum tubes, and were eventually manufactured in enormous densities on silicon plates, which enabled integrated circuits and ultimately modern computers.

The limitation of binary digital computers is, of course, that they cannot truly work with analog values. in fact, they cannot really work with any value besides on or off. a device called an Analog-Digital Converter or Digital-Analog Converter (ADC or DAC) is thus required to convert analog (continuous) signals to digital (discrete number) signals and visa versa, such as occurs when a binary digital computer works with audio, video, and other analog signals.

Note: it occurs to me that I failed to clarify the distinction between analog and digital systems, a distinction which is commonly misunderstood. 'digital' does not imply 'binary' - non-binary systems can be digital. rather, digital means 'discrete numbers'. The easiest way to explain this is that an analog symbol is a floating-point number, say, 0.385019 or 4.39184 or 8.918238. basically, an analog value can be anywhere from minimum to maximum. that is, analog values occur on a continuum. Digital values, on the other hand, must form discrete numbers. If analog values are floating-point, then digital values are integers. for example, 1, 8, or 3. they occur between minimum and maximum and must be on even increments. They are, therefore, not continuous. Digital systems are often binary, because binary is used by logic-gate based systems (see above).

I hope that wasn't too extremely confusing.

[ladeda]

Hey, anyone remember when this thread was about religion? ANYWAY.

I don't necessarily believe in the idea of a God as much as I believe in the idea of thinking that someone is judging your actions through some one way glass. Killing someone would be pretty bad, wouldn't it? What about stealing? This way I have easy moral guidance through "observers" who judge my actions. By doing this you get a great sense of right and wrong which is essentially what people look for in religion. It's great and makes me think more about actions like how to approach the ladies! FUN!

[Fraxtil]

I personally do not. I am a man of science. Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. The amount of evidence supporting God is virtually nothing. Evolution, however, has loads of proof.

It's ironic... from an atheist's perspective, this statement is true. Conversely, from a Christian's perspective, it's exactly the opposite! I'm not joking. I see evidence of God all the time in my life.

Also, evolution doesn't necessarily disprove God. Moses wrote the book of Genesis based upon visions given to him from God. This means that the book is an eyewitness account. Moses wrote that God created everything in seven "days"- but in Hebrew, the word for "days" could also mean "periods of time" or even "eras." It is a very feasible idea that God created the universe over billions of years, and it's also likely that He allowed much of it to develop naturally.

Does this mean that God let evolution create us? Not necessarily. I believe that God had to do something in particular to spark life- the odds of a basic protein randomly forming in the universe is 1 in 10^113- not to mention the fact that it takes much more than one simple protein to form life.

[Manifest]

I personally do not. I am a man of science. Evolution is not a theory, it is a fact. The amount of evidence supporting God is virtually nothing. Evolution, however, has loads of proof.

It's ironic... from an atheist's perspective, this statement is true. Conversely, from a Christian's perspective, it's exactly the opposite! I'm not joking. I see evidence of God all the time in my life.

Also, evolution doesn't necessarily disprove God. Moses wrote the book of Genesis based upon visions given to him from God. This means that the book is an eyewitness account. Moses wrote that God created everything in seven "days"- but in Hebrew, the word for "days" could also mean "periods of time" or even "eras." It is a very feasible idea that God created the universe over billions of years, and it's also likely that He allowed much of it to develop naturally.

Does this mean that God let evolution create us? Not necessarily. I believe that God had to do something in particular to spark life- the odds of a basic protein randomly forming in the universe is 1 in 10^113- not to mention the fact that it takes much more than one simple protein to form life.

First of all, I commend you for, at least at a glance, seeming to be a rather well thought-out Christian. Most people don't put in the effort, kudos.

Second of all, I have heard the "I see evidence of God" trope many a time. You don't have to share your experiences if you don't want, but I won't take that point seriously if you don't.
I'll grant you the days-eras "Kairos" argument, but I see this not as an argument for God's existence but as an argument that your God is technically possible.
Your protein argument is particularly appealing; but unfortunately also uses misleading terms. The current mainstream definition among cosmologists of a "universe" is what is within a radius around the Earth, a radius equal to how far light can travel since the beginning of the universe. Relatively recent microwave studies show that there's a roughly 99% certainty that the universe is infinite; literally no end. In such an endless plane, everything that is physically possible, not only happens, but happens infinite times. Thus, not only will proteins form, but there are quite a few perfect little blue and green planets out there full of them; they're pretty much one in an octillion, but they happen. Our planet seems improbably and uniquely crafted to serve as a home for intelligent life because this is a rare world where intelligent life can spring up to think about how improbable and unique it is.

[jean-luc]

Indeed, in a universe of infinite size, there's another planet exactly identical to ours, where people exactly identical to us are having this exact same discussion in a metanet forum.

Trippy.

[Zora_S_Kenneth]

This universe is actually finite. The number of dimensions are not. Still, I get both your points. I think that there is a good chance of there being life on another planet, it's just probably not what we expect it to be, maybe it's not even carbon-based.

[notsteve]

1 in 10^13 is not that bad odds considering that there are an estimated 10^21 stars
well i would say that there probably would come at least one place that life emerged.

and after the first life it just kept evolving into what we have today

for all we know, the life on other planets may be completely different than that on ours, so that by our estimates of a planet that could contain life are way off, because we fail to realize how extreme a place that life exists is.

but it would be very weird to see people in some far off place having this exact conversation

[Lightning55]

I had a long thought out process about this before.


God is not a thing, person or anything physical. It is purely a figment of imagination. The human mind is unable to fully comprehend that the world came from nothing and so we put an idea to satisfy our curiosity. There might be some type of alternate universe. This brings me to another thing. What if we are all playing a game (a game inside a game)? When you die in life here, you wake up in the real world. In the real world, it has only been a single minute. That is when you begin to play again. If this is true, then the game must brainwash you every time you play so you can not cheat in this game. Therefore, there is no God, and people created this game we call reality. In reality, our brains are not as comprehensible as the "real" world. Life began due to a freak accident or maybe it was programmed into our game which we call reality. Then we perceive this game and dissect it to figure out what happened. Maybe there are no laws of anything in the real world, but this game demands it and is programmed with physics built in much as N is. Back to God. God was created by the human mind as a way to solve curiosity much as mythology tried to explain weather, the Sun, and much more. The Universe may be infinite much as the computer can go through an infinite loop program, eventually causing a crash. Now doesn't that begin to sound like a computer game? Looping again once you get to one end of the Universe, you somehow reappear on the other side. So many different religions exist. Why is that? Isn't there one God that does everything? There are so many religions because each believes in its own supreme/divine being. If everyone believes it in a different way, then it disproves people ever having contact with God. Didn't Protestantism and hundreds of other religions spring out due to corruption in the Church? The Reformation occurred. Why? Because the Church no longer believed in a God and a good portion of the clergy decided to have fun with their lives and use the Church to earn money and to live their luxuries. There is no proof of a God (though I'm not denying one does not exist), no proof of Heaven/Hell, and much of history can be explained with science. The only problems to this is Easter Island, and the Pyramids of Giza. Both have such meticulous architecture that needs technology that people did not have even 100 years ago. Maybe aliens will come someday and prove these feats, but as of now, people say it was God's creation.

[otters]

Learn paragraphing and linebreaks, and I'll summon the attention span to read that post.

In such an endless plane, everything that is physically possible, not only happens, but happens infinite times.

That's purely speculation, isn't it? We can't test that scientifically, correct, because we would need an infinite amount of time to test an infinitely large area?

[DemonzLunchBreak]

Learn paragraphing and linebreaks, and I'll summon the attention span to read that post.

Word. That's why I included that thing about not making towerposts for no reason in the guidelines.

That's purely speculation, isn't it? We can't test that scientifically, correct, because we would need an infinite amount of time to test an infinitely large area?

It's not speculation, and it's not something that would really need to be empirically tested, it's something that's true by definition. If something is possible, that means that it can happen given some set of conditions. If there are infinitely many sets of conditions, the conditions that produce that outcome would come up infinitely many times.

The only problem I can see with this reasoning is that we have to be completely sure that the universe is infinite in size, which doesn't seem like an easy thing to prove.

[Qix]

Also, evolution doesn't necessarily disprove God. Moses wrote the book of Genesis based upon visions given to him from God. This means that the book is an eyewitness account. Moses wrote that God created everything in seven "days"- but in Hebrew, the word for "days" could also mean "periods of time" or even "eras." It is a very feasible idea that God created the universe over billions of years, and it's also likely that He allowed much of it to develop naturally.

Sigh. Evolution has absolutely nothing to do with God. That's only the case if you refuse to acknowledge that some forms of literature are intended to be metaphorical. The important part of the creation story is not that God created the world in seven days, but rather that he is the creator. Second, the idea that Moses "wrote" Genesis is a myth. It was Hebrew oral tradition until it was written down during the Babylonian Exile.

Does this mean that God let evolution create us? Not necessarily. I believe that God had to do something in particular to spark life- the odds of a basic protein randomly forming in the universe is 1 in 10^113- not to mention the fact that it takes much more than one simple protein to form life.

Again, evolution cannot create life. That is another theory known as biogenesis. The implications of Evolution point to the creation of life some 3.5 billion years ago, but if you want to believe that God started it off, it does not affect the predictions (the most important part of any theory) of the theory of evolution in any way.