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I am religious and believe in free will

71 (27.7%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

114 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251

[Loud Whispers]

Putting the primal D in DNA

[origamiscienceguy]

So neandrethals were as similar to homo sapiens as black guys are to white guys?

[TempAcc]

Well, they did have a rather different physical structure, but weren't that different, since apparently interbreeding was possible. In fact, a lot of what we know of neanderthals is going through a steady revision. The only thing we know for sort of certain about them is that they weren't as good as sapiens at making tools and were prob considerably stronger overall. They did eventualy die off, though, with their hybrid children taking their place.

[martinuzz]

So neandrethals were as similar to homo sapiens as black guys are to white guys?

Taxonomically, yes. Or well, almost. Black and white people are of the same subspecies, neanderthal's aren't.
Technically they should rename homo neaderthalensis into homo sapiens neanderthalensis now. (Our current subspecies is homo sapiens sapiens btw)

[Loud Whispers]

Well, they did have a rather different physical structure, but weren't that different, since apparently interbreeding was possible. In fact, a lot of what we know of neanderthals is going through a steady revision. The only thing we know for sort of certain about them is that they weren't as good as sapiens at making tools and were prob considerably stronger overall. They did eventualy die off, though, with their hybrid children taking their place.

Explains why East Asians and Europoors got that deadlift gold

North Korea using that primal D

[TempAcc]

North Korea using that primal D

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[WealthyRadish]

So neandrethals were as similar to homo sapiens as black guys are to white guys?

The differences were much greater. Neanderthals had considerably larger brains than our branch, and a more robust skeletal structure with many key differences that go way beyond modern racial differences. Interbreeding probably wouldn't have been very pleasant, particularly the birth part, though that it was apparently possible does mean that we were close enough to be in the same species. Racial differences are so recent and superficial that it's nowhere close to that sort of a "sub-species" level. If mules weren't sterile, then it'd be closer to use the donkeys/horses example than black/white.

Humans also underwent a bottleneck down to what may have been a single population, which horribly reduced our genetic variation. There can be more genetic diversity between groups of chimps on opposite sides of a jungle than there is between Africans and Polynesians (for example).

[penguinofhonor]

It's notable here that the semantics of species/subspecies aren't very meaningful. There is not a hard biological definition of what different species are - life does not fit into discrete categories that well.

For example, there are bird populations where group A can breed with group B and group B can breed with group C but groups A and C can't interbreed. If your definition of species depends on reproductive compatibility, then A/C are the same species as group B but not the same species as each other.

Whether neanderthals are the same species as us mainly depends on whether we say they are. The evolutionary history will be fuzzy either way.

[wierd]

The "they mated and made fertile babies, so not different species!" argument is fail.


1) there is some pretty compelling data to show that only a single directional crossing produced fertile offspring, and yet more to show that such hybrids likely had a wealth of health problems.

Namely, there is no ancestral MtDNA from neanderthal females in modern human lineages. So, either neanderthal women were so butt ugly that no human males, ever, wanted them (a bold claim!), or there was some kind of circumstance to cause this from happening or for the lineages produced to survive. Even more interesting, is that neanderthal male sex chromosome is likewise not conseved in modern populations. So now you have the mystery of why all the offspring that survived to procreate were female, and born from early modern human women.

In addition, the presence of neanderthal genes has been linked with an increased predisposition to developing various autoimmune disorders.

Together, this suggests quite strongly that neanderthals and early modern humans where right on the edge of being infertile with each other.

2) There are numerous species that are able to produce viable offspring together. See for instance, the greater and lesser prairie chicken.  They are able to be cross bred, and the chicks are not sterile. However, the plumage and birdsong of the hybrids does not attract mates from either pool. They are dead ends.

sorry, but meh.  Bad argument is bad argument.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129542-600-neanderthal-human-sex-bred-light-skins-and-infertility/

[Bohandas]

In what way is being tortured eternally better than being unmade?

If life in the bible days was capable of seeming bearable then it's not totally unimaginable that life in a lake of burning sulfur could eventually seem bearable too

An attempt on the life of Mohammed was made at Khaibar by a Jewish woman named Zainab, who, in revenge for the death of her male relatives in battle, put poison in a dish prepared by her for the prophet. One of Mohammed's followers who par-took of the food died almost immediately afterward; but the prophet, who had eaten more sparingly, escaped. He, however, complained of the effects of the poison to the end of his life.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10918-mohammed

Bishar and Muhammed both ate the poisoned lamb. Bishar died almost instantaneously, turning green, whilst Muhammed who ate lesser amounts of the lamb and poison survived - though he complained of its symptoms until his death. Ibn Sa'd recalls that the people thought it was pleurisy, an illness affecting the lungs that can cause a constant dull ache, shortness of breath and premature death. Bishar turning green would support their speculation that it was a failure of the lungs. Muhammed complained that he felt as if his aorta/jugular vein was severed, an expression used to indicate extreme pain (not literal severing of either).
Off of a very brief search that I'm sure summons the NSA, something like arsenic which was commonly known from Rome to China could in higher concentrations cause rapid death in higher concentrations, green skin discoloration, and in survivors of lower concentrations lead to permanent nerve damage, renal failure, liver failure, chronic respiratory illnesses and a whole host of other symptoms which would kill you later and lead to a premature death.
And that's the most basic bitch of poisons, the Arabian peninsula bordered the Romans and Persians both with their own rich poisoning traditions and the Arabs clearly had access to their own poisons too, as with the assassination of Ali. It is nonsense to see only the possibility of either fatal wounding, perfect health or divine intervention; causing enough damage to the lungs (or the circulatory system and really anything else, no modern medicine to undo what has been done) to ensure death.

By analogy, this just seems to me to be equivalent to if somebody, for example, hacked his leg off at the knee and the Lord stopped him from bleeding out, and then later, after three years of hobbling around on crutches either A.) the stump suddenly started bleeding and he bled out or B.) he fell down the stairs and they wrote it down as complications from losing a leg which would be true in this hypothetical but also kind of a cop out.

[TD1]

A life in Hell is just that  - a life. We don't really know what goes on down there, but if it's torturous then I'd like to think I'd still prefer it to being unmade. My entirety being destroyed. I suppose in that regard my atheistic destruction-at-death view is more unbearable than the hell I'll go to if all the Christians turn out to be telling the truth.

Although, I have problems with fitting the loving father into the personality of the God who condemns me - an alright fellow (I think) no worse than your average Christian - to eternal torture. Even modern day governments tend to be less barbaric. The rebel may not believe in your cause, but that doesn't mean Cameron's going to tear out your guts as revenge.

[Frumple]

Depends on the life, honestly. I'm quite looking forward to an eternity of non-existence after only a few decades on this hellhole of a planet stuck in this fucked up sack of flesh, and I rather imagine when I shuffle off in a few more decades I'll be ready for more than one indefinite state of non-being. A nice infinitely long nap has sounded real damn good for a long damn time.

Honestly, though, most religious afterlives are just kinda' shitty. Boring, more of the same, torturous, personality mangling, or some combination thereof, and that's true for both the heavens and the hells. You can tell the people that thought them up were from the time periods they were.

[Loud Whispers]

I don't like the idea of non-existence because it's just nothing, I can think of nothing more nothing than that

[origamiscienceguy]

Depends on the life, honestly. I'm quite looking forward to an eternity of non-existence after only a few decades on this hellhole of a planet stuck in this fucked up sack of flesh, and I rather imagine when I shuffle off in a few more decades I'll be ready for more than one indefinite state of non-being. A nice infinitely long nap has sounded real damn good for a long damn time.

Honestly, though, most religious afterlives are just kinda' shitty. Boring, more of the same, torturous, personality mangling, or some combination thereof, and that's true for both the heavens and the hells. You can tell the people that thought them up were from the time periods they were.

I don't see how heaven fits into your criteria.

[TD1]

You think a life of enforced happiness wouldn't be personality changing?

You think a you without sin is actually you?

Edit: I just thought of Pullman's Dark Materials. The "Dust" is the sin, and yet without it we are nothing.