April 23, 2005

Science on Verge of Creating Life

A common objection to evolution is that scientists have proven unable to create life from scratch - therefore, they don't understand enough about it in order to say that it could have developed naturally. Creationists seem to believe that their god can somehow be preserved so long as scientists cannot create life - but if that is the case, then their god may not exist much longer.

The Sun-Sentinel reports:

… [M]ore than 100 laboratories [are studying] processes involved in the creation of life, and scientists say for the first time that they have just about all the pieces they need to begin making inanimate chemicals come alive. Unlike any other technology invented by humans, creating artificial life will be as jarring to our concepts of ourselves as discovering living creatures on other planets in the universe would be. It also would bring into sharper focus the age-old questions of "What is life?" and "Where do we come from?"

[T]he first artificial life also is likely to shock people's religious and cultural belief systems. "People from many different backgrounds have special views about what life is: how it originates, the special sanctity it has, the special dignity it deserves," Bedau said. "The ability to make new forms of life will perturb all of that. We need to think through the implications and how we are going to react to them."

What makes life possible, scientists believe, is the natural tendency of atoms to assemble into molecules, and for molecules to assemble into increasingly complicated structures. All of the basic elements of life--the amino acids that make proteins and the nucleotides that make DNA and its sidekick RNA--have been produced in the laboratory from chemicals thought to have been present on primitive Earth: hydrogen, methane, ammonia, formaldehyde, cyanide, thiols and hydrosulfide. Some of these elements are so easy to self-assemble that amino acids are found on meteorites originating at the beginning of the solar system. The Murchison meteorite, for example, contains a wide variety of chemicals, including simple amino acids and fats called lipids. When put in water, lipids spontaneously form bubble-shaped membranes that resemble cells….

There are many who still believe that there is some irreducible, non-mechanical essence that separates life from non-life. This may be a soul of some sort or it might not, but whatever it is there may be some difficulty in maintaining belief in such a thing when humans are creating life from scratch. This will show that life doesn't need supernatural or mysterious origins to exist - and that may post problems for people with especially narrow and rigid religious views.

Creating Life

 Scientists in Rockville, Maryland, are on the verge of creating life, according to the magazine Science. The research team has been investigating the simplest free-living organism there is, Mycoplasma genitalium. This bacterium only has just over five hundred genes and the research team found that only three hundred to three hundred and fifty of them were necessary for life. The technique to discover this involved knocking out each gene in turn to find out whether this affected the bacterium’s growth. The head of the team said that a third of the essential genes for life had been unknown before.

Having discovered the basic genes, the researchers can now propose the creation of life using man-made genes and chromosomes. They would insert these elements into a chemical ‘soup’ in which the genes would create a new life form.

The proposal to create new life has provoked an urgent discussion between bioethicists who say the research brings up questions relating to the meaning of life and whether new life forms should be created which might be used in biological weapons.

The question of what is human and what is not is put in question if all forms of life share the same set of basic genes.

Saturday 2^nd April 2005

The Pope Died Today...

April 10, 2005

Is a Lacks Rupee worth more than a dollar? Anyway I found a site that coincidentally has the same 5000 monetary unit challenge as jesusisborg.com

http://tarksheel.com is the website of the Indian Tarksheel Society, who are dedicate to freeing India from ridiculous superstitions.

They challenge all pretenders …I mean portenders of the supernatural to perform miracles on a list that includes:

Walk on water

Stand stationary on burning cinders for half a minute

Stop breathing for thirty minutes

Convert water into petrol or wine

There seem to be a lot of these challenges popping up on the net. You would think individuals who actually could perform supernatural tricks would be snatching up prizes left and right, but so far not one prize has been won.

http://tarksheel.com is a good reminder to all rational Trinidadians that things could have been worse here. A lot worse.

May 30, 2004

The Raelian Revolution, the world's largest non-profit UFO related organization.

There is one thing I like about them though. They are involved in some useful work. 

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of people burned at the stake or tortured by the Inquisition for alleged sorcery, all apostates were burnt to death as well … and their possessions were confiscated by the Catholic Church.
If you are an atheist, or you have changed religions or you are simply not in agreement with the Catholic religion. You have the right, or even the duty to make the Catholic institution know that you do not want to be counted among its members anymore.

Visit the website but click on the "actions" link before you sink knee deep.....

Parents Outraged Over Church's 'Scream House'

PEMBROKE PINES, Fla., 4:07 p.m. EST October 31, 2003

One South Florida church's attempt to scare Halloween revelers straight backfired after parents who took their kids to the church's haunted house left screaming ... screaming mad.

The Scream House was advertised in newspapers and on the Web as a typical haunted house, complete with a bounce house and rock climbing wall. But some who visited the attraction said the real intention of the attraction was to help keep people from going to hell -- literally.  The subhead of the Scream House, which was sponsored by the Abundant Living Ministries, is "It'll Scare the Hell Out of You."

 In fact, the house features graphic scenes of suicide and drug overdose. The images are intended to shock viewers and, organizers say, keep their souls out of hell.  That doesn't sit well with some who went to the Scream House on Sheridan Street near Interstate 75, including some parents who charge the "in your face" presentation scared and traumatized their kids.  "We left at the part where the husband was choking the wife and calling her worthless," one irate parent told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. "As we were leaving, I heard a gun go off."

August 27, 2003

MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) -- Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended Friday pending the outcome of an ethics complaint for defying a federal court order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Supreme Court building.

Read more here.

April 25, 2003

Pundit commits suicide over male friend.

Pundit Kalicharan Dass shot himself as worshipers gathered at a temple in Trinidad.

The pundit was apparently upset over people’s reaction to a close relation he had developed with a man. :)

One worshiper claimed that the pundit was not gay but sometimes acted like a woman and seemed to have a split personality. He said he believed the pundit’s strange behavior was because of ”the power” that he possessed. The alleged supernatural power is said to have come after a blessing from a holly man and allowed Dass to perform miracles.

It all started when the pundit allowed the man to stay in the temple and reportedly became very close to him. The man was then thrown out by the pundit’s wife after which the pundit started therapy to get over the loss of this close friend.

The incident was triggered by the return of the man to the temple and the reaction or the temple worshipers.

       Jesus Christ Action-Star

Mel Gibson says his latest film “The Passion”, a film detailing the final hours and crucifixion of Jesus Chris is the ultimate action movie. Gibson is confident his new project, starring James Caviezel as Christ, will find a wide audience, despite its deeply religious content. He said "There is no greater hero story than this one. The Passion is the biggest adventure story of all time. God becoming man and men killing God - if that's not action nothing is."

The film is in Post-production and set for release in 2004.

U.S.: Troops Killed at Least 7 Civilians

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer

DOHA, Qatar - U.S. troops in southern Iraq shot and killed seven women and children in a van Monday when the driver failed to stop at a checkpoint as ordered, U.S. Central Command said.

An American journalist who was at the scene said 10 Iraqis were killed, including five young children.

The soldiers were from the 3rd Infantry Division, which lost four soldiers Saturday at another checkpoint when an Iraqi soldier dressed as a civilian detonated a car bomb in a suicide attack.

Elsewhere, the Central Command said, an Iraqi prisoner was shot to death after he reached for a Marine's weapon while being questioned. Lt. Cmdr. Charles Owen, a spokesman for the command, said Tuesday he had no other details.

Monday's fatal shooting at the checkpoint happened along Route 9 near Najaf, about 20 miles north of the site of Saturday's suicide bombing.

The Central Command said initial reports from the confrontation indicated the soldiers followed the rules of engagement to protect themselves.

"In light of recent terrorist attacks by the Iraqi regime, the soldiers exercised considerable restraint to avoid the unnecessary loss of life," the statement said.

However, Monday's deadly shooting near the southern Iraqi city of Najaf is likely to stoke opposition to the U.S.-led invasion among Iraqis in the Shiite Muslim region, where Washington had hoped for a popular uprising against President Saddam Hussein.

Instead, U.S. forces have faced stubborn resistance by Saddam's forces in Najaf and other cities in southern Shiite strongholds.

According to an account by the Central Command, the van approached the U.S. Army checkpoint Monday afternoon. Soldiers motioned for the driver to stop but were ignored. They then fired warning shots but the vehicle moving toward the checkpoint. Troops then shot into its engine. As a last resort, the military said, soldiers fired into the passenger compartment.

Two other civilians were wounded at the checkpoint on a highway near Karbala, according to a Pentagon official and Central Command. The military is investigating.

"They tried to warn the vehicle to stop, it did not stop," Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace said on PBS-TV's "The News Hour with Jim Leherer." "And it was unusual that that vehicle would be full of only women and that the driver was a woman. So we need to find out why it was that they were acting the way they did."

The military statement said 13 women and children were in the van. But The Washington Post, whose reporter is embedded with the 3rd Infantry, said 15 people were in the vehicle and 10 were killed, including five children who appeared to be younger than age 5. One of the wounded was a man not expected to live, the Post reported on its Web site.

The newspaper described the vehicle as a four-wheel-drive Toyota crammed with the Iraqis' personal belongings.

In its description of the shooting, the Post quoted a 3rd Infantry Division captain as saying the checkpoint crew did not fire warning shots quickly enough.

The Post describes the captain watching through binoculars and ordering the soldiers by radio to fire a warning shot first and then shoot a 7.62 mm machine-gun round into the vehicle's radiator. When the vehicle kept coming, the captain ordered the soldiers to "stop him!"

About a dozen shots of 25 mm cannon fire were heard from one or more of the platoon's Bradley fighting vehicles, the Post said.

The captain then shouted over the radio at the platoon leader, "You just expletive killed a family because you didn't fire a warning shot soon enough!" according to the Post.

"It was the most horrible thing I've ever seen, and I hope I never see it again," Sgt. Mario Manzano, 26, an Army medic with Bravo Company of the division's 3rd Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, told the Post.

U.S. medics evacuated survivors of Monday's shooting to allied lines south of Karbala, according to the Post. One woman was unhurt. Another, who had superficial head wounds, was flown by helicopter to a U.S. field hospital when it was learned she was pregnant, the Post said. U.S. troops gave three survivors permission to return to the vehicle and recover the bodies of their loved ones, the newspaper said.

Medics gave the group 10 body bags, the newspaper reported, and U.S. officials offered an unspecified amount of money to compensate them.

Sexual Mutilation

On Wednesday March 5th 2003, the Trinidad Express ran a full page story on page 28 entitled “Stop Female Circumcision.” The focus of the article was the effort being made in Senegal to eradicate the practice of mutilating female children.

On the question of whether a clone will have a soul: Embryo cloning is similar to the natural processes that generate identical twins. Members of some religious groups believe that a soul enters the body at the instant of conception, and that the fertilized ovum is in fact a human person with full human rights. Dividing that "baby" in in half during an embryo cloning procedure would interfere with God's intent. Yet, with the exception of the ancient Hawaiians, nobody questions whether both identical twins have souls.