Yeah, this is really going off topic now, yes their religion is Jesus based, but my comments are related to your specific claim regarding theists that

their holy books dont go past the Middle East.

Clearly, while still being Christians at the core, Mormons fixate on America both now and in their holy books in much the same way Jews view Jerusalem, or the concept of a "promised land"

Their most important history is based there, and the messiah is supposed to be based there in the future.

zulumoose wrote:Yeah, this is really going off topic now, yes their religion is Jesus based, but my comments are related to your specific claim regarding theists that

their holy books dont go past the Middle East.

Clearly, while still being Christians at the core, Mormons fixate on America both now and in their holy books in much the same way Jews view Jerusalem, or the concept of a "promised land"

Mormonism is just another con job. Smith's beliefs was based on the bible which was based on the Middle East. Jesus only lived there. The concept of where xtian religion started is still the Middle East.

Do Mormon holy books go past the middle east?

zulumoose wrote:Do Mormon holy books go past the middle east?

Smith's fairy tales do but does the core? It is all mumbo-jumbo. Just how many versions of the bible are there? How many dont relate to the Middle East?

My point with Mormonism was that your claim was about theists in general, but you don't even have to go outside Christianity to find holy books that go outside the middle east, both in historical claims and in focus on importance of areas. Step outside the Abrahamic faiths and probably most holy books are outside the Middle East.

Smith's fairy tales do but does the core?

I was wondering if you would admit anything, hence my very direct question. This is as close to an admission of a mistake as I can recall. Merry-go-round averted for once!

zulumoose wrote:My point with Mormonism was that your claim was about theists in general, but you don't even have to go outside Christianity to find holy books that go outside the middle east, both in historical claims and in focus on importance of areas. Step outside the Abrahamic faiths and probably most holy books are outside the Middle East.

Smith's fairy tales do but does the core?

I was wondering if you would admit anything, hence my very direct question. This is as close to an admission of a mistake as I can recall. Merry-go-round averted for once!

I dont know what you are trying to achieve? Honestly I am fed up with people playing trip up and points scoring.
Which xtian holy books are completely based outside the Middle East?

zulumoose wrote:

Theists can never look beyond our planet. In fact their holy books dont go past the Middle East.

I know what you mean, but theists is too general a term for this, you are being specific to mainstream Abrahamic faiths. You only have to go as far as the Mormons to escape the middle east in their literature, never mind theists from other areas of the world and perhaps the most far reaching, Scientologists.

The Bible mentions Russia, Greece, Italy, Sudan and Libya. The reason why Palestine/Israel is so important is because it is so central at the nexus of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Bible refers to the Pleiades and Orion constellations (Job 9:9) as well as the Dog Star. But, again, the Bible is not an encyclopedia...it is a work of theology and, yes, mythology. But myth is a way of expressing truths that cannot be conveyed by scientific observation. When you read poetry, you don't judge it on whether it is literally true. If I say to my wife, "My love for you stretches across the Milky Way", she isn't going to admonish me for saying something ridiculous and unscientific. She knows what I am trying to say but struggling to find words that do justice.

Rumraket wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, any photonic information would probably be too weak a signal input to what it would be accustomed to receiving...such as that for touch or pain.

Prove it.

Well, let's see. What sensory information would nerve cells on the skin have been hitherto receiving?

1. Temperature.
2. Pressure.
3. Taction.

A small cluster of photosensitive cells capable of responding to a few photons would likely not have provided any additional information that wasn't already being received. The signal would not be strong enough without appropriate amplification: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160332/. Also, for it to be useful, the signals sent to the central nervous system would have to be differentiated and treated as new information such as the presence of light or shadow rather than any of the above. This requires a new interpretative mechanism, not just phototransduction. Sorry to burst your bubble.

My words:-

Step outside the Abrahamic faiths and probably most holy books are outside the Middle East.

Scott Response

Which xtian holy books are completely based outside the Middle East?

Point missed completely. Xtian is specifically a subset of the Abrahamic faiths. Abrahamic includes Judaism and Islam, and I was taking about even outside that.

Scott your "Middle East" claim was about THEISTS, which is not confined to xtian, nor even Abrahamic faiths in general.
You are moving the goalposts all over the show.

zulumoose wrote:My words:-

Step outside the Abrahamic faiths and probably most holy books are outside the Middle East.

Scott Response

Which xtian holy books are completely based outside the Middle East?

Point missed completely. Xtian is specifically a subset of the Abrahamic faiths. Abrahamic includes Judaism and Islam, and I was taking about even outside that.

Scott your "Middle East" claim was about THEISTS, which is not confined to xtian, nor even Abrahamic faiths in general.
You are moving the goalposts all over the show.

Depends on your definition of theism. Do you want to go down that road as well? This is just points scoring and tiring.

The name is Scot btw.

Wortfish wrote:

Rumraket wrote:

Wortfish wrote:Moreover, any photonic information would probably be too weak a signal input to what it would be accustomed to receiving...such as that for touch or pain.

Prove it.

Well, let's see. What sensory information would nerve cells on the skin have been hitherto receiving?

1. Temperature.
2. Pressure.
3. Taction.

A small cluster of photosensitive cells capable of responding to a few photons would likely not have provided any additional information that wasn't already being received. The signal would not be strong enough without appropriate amplification: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4160332/. Also, for it to be useful, the signals sent to the central nervous system would have to be differentiated and treated as new information such as the presence of light or shadow rather than any of the above. This requires a new interpretative mechanism, not just phototransduction. Sorry to burst your bubble.

How big would this "small cluster" have to be, exactly, in your esteemed opinion?

Keep in mind that C. elegans has either 959 or 1031 somatic cells (depending on the sex) and the "small cluster" of neurons required to elicit robust phytotaxis appears to be precisely 4.

So, how many would you posit as required in a putative ancestor and why?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652401/#!po=11.5385

Fenrir wrote:

How big would this "small cluster" have to be, exactly, in your esteemed opinion?

Keep in mind that C. elegans has either 959 or 1031 somatic cells (depending on the sex) and the "small cluster" of neurons required to elicit robust phytotaxis appears to be precisely 4.

So, how many would you posit as required in a putative ancestor and why?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2652401/#!po=11.5385

It would certainly help if you have more photosensitive cells than less. But the nematode's phototaxis depends on a robust signal transduction, amplification and interpretation mechanism that is required for it to respond to the presence of light. This allows it to use just four nerve cells, as you say. Anyway, this fact detracts from Rumraket's unsupported assertion that we would have started out with a cluster rather than, as is much more likely, a single light-sensitive cell.

Wortfish wrote: Anyway, this fact detracts from Rumraket's unsupported assertion that we would have started out with a cluster rather than, as is much more likely, a single light-sensitive cell.

Uhhm, no.
If you a) understood what Rumraket was talking about and b) evolution, then this wouldn't be detracting from anything.
Actually try learning what you are being told here, rather than trying to pick everything apart to fit your assumed conclusions.

Sendraks wrote:

Wortfish wrote: Anyway, this fact detracts from Rumraket's unsupported assertion that we would have started out with a cluster rather than, as is much more likely, a single light-sensitive cell.

Uhhm, no.
If you a) understood what Rumraket was talking about and b) evolution, then this wouldn't be detracting from anything.
Actually try learning what you are being told here, rather than trying to pick everything apart to fit your assumed conclusions.

No. He insisted that there would be a cluster of photoreceptors when previously there were none. On the other hand, I maintained that you would start with just one in a Darwinian evolutionary process.

Wortfish wrote:No. He insisted that there would be a cluster of photoreceptors when previously there were none. On the other hand, I maintained that you would start with just one in a Darwinian evolutionary process.

No, no he didn't.
Although that you've gotten completely the wrong end of the stick from what others have said here would be entirely par for the course.

Sendraks wrote:

Wortfish wrote:No. He insisted that there would be a cluster of photoreceptors when previously there were none. On the other hand, I maintained that you would start with just one in a Darwinian evolutionary process.

No, no he didn't.
Although that you've gotten completely the wrong end of the stick from what others have said here would be entirely par for the course.

We have his statements on record as denying that a single photoreceptor would not have originally emerged, but rather a cluster of them through gene duplication. Sorry.

Phytoplankton.

RS

Wortfish wrote:
We have his statements on record as denying that a single photoreceptor would not have originally emerged, but rather a cluster of them through gene duplication.

Where?

Wortfish wrote:

Sendraks wrote:

Wortfish wrote: Anyway, this fact detracts from Rumraket's unsupported assertion that we would have started out with a cluster rather than, as is much more likely, a single light-sensitive cell.

Uhhm, no.
If you a) understood what Rumraket was talking about and b) evolution, then this wouldn't be detracting from anything.
Actually try learning what you are being told here, rather than trying to pick everything apart to fit your assumed conclusions.

No. He insisted that there would be a cluster of photoreceptors when previously there were none. On the other hand, I maintained that you would start with just one in a Darwinian evolutionary process.

Please point out where evolutionary theory says sensitivity to light must have started with a single cell?

Why not all cells then selection down to a "small cluster"?

Why not a change in all cells of a specific type? A pre-existing "small cluster" as it were.

For someone who pooh-poohs evolution and who appears to have very little actual knowledge of it Wortfish sure likes telling evolution what it is and what it can and cannot do.

Wortfish wrote:Science informs us that there are trillions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars. All this shows is that the Creator is more magnificent than ever. And we still don't know the "dark" material he made to get galaxies to form.

You know what it's called when, no matter what science finds, you perform mental gymnastics to claim it as evidence for your imagined creator, right?