I think we're probably stuck here to be honest. I've been trying to construct feasible propulsion systems for a sci-fi RPG setting and frankly the rocket equation is a bitch and the speed of light limitation an absolute swine.
Yeah - unless you're building a generation ship (which probably means that the descendants of the original crew forget why their ancestors headed off in this direction, and spend all their time doom-scrolling space Instagram instead), you're pretty much stuck with some kind of hyperspace / space-folding / space-warping thing if you want to get anywhere.
There are a few sci-fi plots that basically consist of forgotten colonists on sleeper ships finding that thousands of years after they left and were forgotten about FTL travel was developed and their distant decendents overtook them and got there first.
I think we're probably stuck here to be honest. I've been trying to construct feasible propulsion systems for a sci-fi RPG setting and frankly the rocket equation is a bitch and the speed of light limitation an absolute swine.
Yeah - unless you're building a generation ship (which probably means that the descendants of the original crew forget why their ancestors headed off in this direction, and spend all their time doom-scrolling space Instagram instead), you're pretty much stuck with some kind of hyperspace / space-folding / space-warping thing if you want to get anywhere.
There are a few sci-fi plots that basically consist of forgotten colonists on sleeper ships finding that thousands of years after they left and were forgotten about FTL travel was developed and their distant decendents overtook them and got there first.
Or alternatively the descendants of the colonists forget about technology altogether and view the ship and its mechanisms as something akin to magic.
The Parousia originates in the mind of God, who is not a part of creation. At some point it obviously will need to be communicated to the created beings who are involved in it, but we have no effective way of getting God to do that on our own schedule. We can't spy on him, we can't compel him, and requests so far are getting a "no." Until he's ready to communicate more, we're left with what we've already been told and a lot of speculation.
But this is your religion's mythology, yes? You speak of it as if it's not -- as if it's an actuality that's as matter-of-fact as any old thing.
It's an event. You may call it an event in fiction, mythology, or whatever you want. Trusting the authority of the one I learned about it from, I consider it to be an actual event. I am not obliged to use your framing, anymore than you are obliged to use mine.
It's an event. You may call it an event in fiction, mythology, or whatever you want. Trusting the authority of the one I learned about it from, I consider it to be an actual event. I am not obliged to use your framing, anymore than you are obliged to use mine.
To me this looks like you are mixing/muddling up two things.
First you are offering a philosophical/theoretical position that by it's nature cannot be proven, as you say it has not even happened yet. So like every other philosophical/theoretical position, the only recourse you have to solving this problem is with argument and rhetoric. I do not think this is framing, this is just how ideas work.
Second you are asking how one could use science to show/prove your convoluted philosophical position. Which you think you ought to be able to do because in your mind this fiction is a fact, albeit one that has not yet happened.
The solution to the second of these is to do what sci-fi writers have always done when faced with a speculative problem: you invent an answer. This is not being cynical, that's literally what you do.
If one was to postulate a multi-dimensional panoply of universes and it matters to you that it is tested scientifically then you postulate a multi-dimensional universe detector.
It's an event. You may call it an event in fiction, mythology, or whatever you want. Trusting the authority of the one I learned about it from, I consider it to be an actual event. I am not obliged to use your framing, anymore than you are obliged to use mine.
The Parousia originates in the mind of God, who is not a part of creation. At some point it obviously will need to be communicated to the created beings who are involved in it, but we have no effective way of getting God to do that on our own schedule. We can't spy on him, we can't compel him, and requests so far are getting a "no." Until he's ready to communicate more, we're left with what we've already been told and a lot of speculation.
But this is your religion's mythology, yes? You speak of it as if it's not -- as if it's an actuality that's as matter-of-fact as any old thing.
There is an enormous amount of truth in mythology - don't dismiss it.
When a donkey turns around and complains about being struck, the words the author of the story uses to convey the attitude of the donkey may be truthful indeed, but on this planet, in this reality, donkeys do not speak.
When a donkey turns around and complains about being struck, the words the author of the story uses to convey the attitude of the donkey may be truthful indeed, but on this planet, in this reality, donkeys do not speak.
Unless exceptions, such as miracles, occur, which is what the story of Balaam and the ass (which is what I assume you refer to here) is believed to be by those of us who believe it.
First you are offering a philosophical/theoretical position that by it's nature cannot be proven, as you say it has not even happened yet. So like every other philosophical/theoretical position, the only recourse you have to solving this problem is with argument and rhetoric. I do not think this is framing, this is just how ideas work.
This is so much about framing. The idea of anything being "just how" an abstract concept "works" is itself a framing.
Second you are asking how one could use science to show/prove your convoluted philosophical position. Which you think you ought to be able to do because in your mind this fiction is a fact, albeit one that has not yet happened.
Within the context of the framing she uses, Lamb Chopped's position is far more coherent than most of the rest of us manage.
And you can try telling someone their framing is wrong if you like, but my personal experience is that it doesn't get you very far. (Let alone being disparaging about someone else's framing.)
Yeah - unless you're building a generation ship (which probably means that the descendants of the original crew forget why their ancestors headed off in this direction, and spend all their time doom-scrolling space Instagram instead), you're pretty much stuck with some kind of hyperspace / space-folding / space-warping thing if you want to get anywhere.
There are a few sci-fi plots that basically consist of forgotten colonists on sleeper ships finding that thousands of years after they left and were forgotten about FTL travel was developed and their distant decendents overtook them and got there first.
Or alternatively the descendants of the colonists forget about technology altogether and view the ship and its mechanisms as something akin to magic.
A variation I've read more than once is that this is intentional - that the colonists are (for example) genetically altered and given a societal narrative that disposes them to accept their space-going vehicle as their entire world and to maintain a stable population over however many generations it takes to reach their destination, at which point a genetic switch is flipped.
When a donkey turns around and complains about being struck, the words the author of the story uses to convey the attitude of the donkey may be truthful indeed, but on this planet, in this reality, donkeys do not speak.
This, as a position, is not incompatible with faith. That people of faith choose to believe that myths are accounts of lived reality is entirely their choice, but to my mind it obfuscates rather than clarifying. Trying to make all fruit into oranges doesn't stop some of it from being apples, bananas etc, it just means that you will be constantly disappointed by the things that aren't in fact oranges.
I think some people are talking past each other because they are using different eschatological terms. There is such a thing as realized eschatology where the future isn't "later" it's already breaking in now. The Parousia isn't mythology or a scientific claim. It's a reality grounded in God's action that shapes the present.
For me, the Parousia is happening through the Church's impact on the world.
So Christian theology developed assuming a cosmology and biology that doesn't match what we now know.
And, we’re back to the OP. Look — donkeys don’t talk, and donkeys have never talked. We know better, now, and that’s okay. Apply that treatment to any of the fantastical myths of the Old Testament and it’s still okay. What is the point of extending the notion that these things actually took place? Is it self-soothing? Avoidance?
Is there a reason why you have to be so snide so often? When you start sneering instead of arguing I usually leave the thread, as there's no point in trying to answer someone who's mocking. I don't know how others feel about it, but to me, that means the thread is basically over. And that's a shame, because there are interesting things that could still be said--but I'm too tired and too close to surgery to take on a mocker who doesn't really care at all.
So Christian theology developed assuming a cosmology and biology that doesn't match what we now know.
And, we’re back to the OP. Look — donkeys don’t talk, and donkeys have never talked. We know better, now, and that’s okay. Apply that treatment to any of the fantastical myths of the Old Testament and it’s still okay. What is the point of extending the notion that these things actually took place? Is it self-soothing? Avoidance?
For me the jury is out on whether the donkey spoke, or whether the story should be read as some kind of parable. TBH, since I do believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, I am unwilling to rule out, a priori, the idea that a donkey might speak.
I confess I'm in a place where I doubt if Balaam existed at all, being inclined towards the view that when the "Book of the Law" was found in the Temple spring cleaning the ink was suspiciously damp. It's one of the ways I cope with some elements of OT (im)morality in general and the Joshua genocides in particular, so I'm relieved that a good proportion of scholars take a similar position. Every culture invents origin myths for itself and I don't see why the ancient Israelites would be any different.
Consequently I'd find a faith position that depended on OT events being literally true untenable, and morally undesireable. It sounds almost oxymoronic but faith has to be able to survive my scepticism.
If there's little fundamental difference between believing something and knowing something, from a particular person's point of view, I suspect they'll have a significantly different relationship with faith and skepticism, compared to someone who views believing something and knowing something as being two distinct categories.
If there's little fundamental difference between believing something and knowing something, from a particular person's point of view, I suspect they'll have a significantly different relationship with faith and skepticism, compared to someone who views believing something and knowing something as being two distinct categories.
Believing and knowing are different for me.
Believing and thinking something is true (albeit with an arbitrary level of confidence) are absolutely the same thing for me. I don't know what it would even mean to believe a proposition I didn't think was true - it would be like a square circle.
I don't think "true" and "false" are words I would use for beliefs, which is one of the ways in which "believe" and "know" would be different.
Putting it another way, as we've been here before, I think I still have trouble understanding what you mean when you say you believe something.
It's very simple. When I say I believe something, I mean I think it's true. For example, I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster because I don't think there's a massive unknown animal in Loch Ness. If I say I believe in God it means I think - to an uncertain level of confidence - that God exists. I could just as easily say "I don't think the Loch Ness Monster exists" and "I think it's possible God exists but I don't know how sure I am about that" and they would mean exactly the same things.
This also reminds me that I don't treat "I believe (that)" and "I believe in" as being equivalent.
If I said "I believe the sun will come up tomorrow", I wouldn't be saying that I consider it to be true, but that I consider it to be quite likely. So I'd be more likely to say "it's likely" or "it's probable" (that the sun will come up tomorrow).
These days, I wouldn't say "I believe/don't believe in God" (nor "I believe/don't believe that God exists"). I might say something like "I believe that believing in God is [something or other]". About God's existence, I would probably say, "I know that God is, or is not".
This also reminds me that I don't treat "I believe (that)" and "I believe in" as being equivalent.
If I said "I believe the sun will come up tomorrow", I wouldn't be saying that I consider it to be true, but that I consider it to be quite likely. So I'd be more likely to say "it's likely" or "it's probable" (that the sun will come up tomorrow).
These days, I wouldn't say "I believe/don't believe in God" (nor "I believe/don't believe that God exists"). I might say something like "I believe that believing in God is [something or other]". About God's existence, I would probably say, "I know that God is, or is not".
If you are comfortable with saying that God is of is not (which presumably maps onto exists or does not exist) that seems to cover all eventualities.
A bit like saying that I know the moon is, or is not made of cheese.
If you are comfortable with saying that God is of is not (which presumably maps onto exists or does not exist) that seems to cover all eventualities.
A bit like saying that I know the moon is, or is not made of cheese.
On one level, it's a straightforward statement that could be made of any number of things. But I think it opens up a wider range of possibilities to the issue of God's existence than the options of theist/atheist/agnostic, with agnosticism often being seen as something of a catch-all for "neither of the above", rather than a committed position.
…
I think that's probably in line with how most people use the word. Equivalence of "believe that" and "believe in" is context dependent.
For me, saying "I believe in" typically indicates a greater degree of commitment to a statement (having more skin in the game or putting more on the line). For example, there's a difference between someone saying:
"I believe that Andy Burnham is leader of the Labour Party"
and
"I believe in Andy Burnham as Leader of the Labour Party"
That's partly just language and English understatement. When you say "I believe you know Mrs Smith?" What you really are indicating is that you know that they know Mrs Smith and you would quite like to unload responsibility for her onto someone else at the cocktail party.
Some days, although less and less frequently, this kind of hair-splitting seems reasonable to me, and even interesting. Other days, which seem to be the unfortunate case more and more, I find it most resembles an avoidance technique.
Is there much of a difference at all between flat-earthers and those who allow for conversational speech by a barnyard animal?
Of course not. We're exactly the same. Oh, and my PhD came out of a cereal box. We couldn't possibly have a real reason for believing anything that sounds to you absurd.
Some days, although less and less frequently, this kind of hair-splitting seems reasonable to me, and even interesting. Other days, which seem to be the unfortunate case more and more, I find it most resembles an avoidance technique.
Is there much of a difference at all between flat-earthers and those who allow for conversational speech by a barnyard animal?
Yes, there's an important difference.
For the earth to be flat a whole bunch of things would have to be true which are already established not to be. Gravity would have to work differently to how it does. Light would have to move differently to how it has been observed to move. And lots of people would have to be lying about what they have seen and done.
For Balaam's ass to have spoken, it is required that there is a being capable of doing something that contradicts the laws of nature. We have no proof such a being does not exist.
So it's the difference between believing in the unproven and believing in the disproven.
Some days, although less and less frequently, this kind of hair-splitting seems reasonable to me, and even interesting. Other days, which seem to be the unfortunate case more and more, I find it most resembles an avoidance technique.
Is there much of a difference at all between flat-earthers and those who allow for conversational speech by a barnyard animal?
I have seen some remarkable things in my life. One of my favourite things to do is to go to a geology museum to gawp at the variety of life. I was recently at one that had a collection of fossils in amber. Millions of years old, preserved in amber.
So if you are asking me whether any specific thing is possible then the answer is always going to be yes. A chicken the size of a house? Yes. A deep sea fish which creates its own illumination? Yes.
A creature that can converse with humans? Yes.
Is it likely? No. There would need to be a whole lot of highly unlikely adaptions to the normal functioning of the donkey's face and bones and diaphragm for this to be possible.
In contrast is it possible that the earth is anything other than a roughly spherical shape? No chance at all.
There's no way that the earth is a few thousand years old, no chance that the moon is made of cheese and so on.
Even if one takes the story of Balaam's ass as a report of a historical event (which I don't), one misses the point if one believes asses can speak. The story relies on the audience knowing that in the general way of things it doesn't happen.
Some days, although less and less frequently, this kind of hair-splitting seems reasonable to me, and even interesting. Other days, which seem to be the unfortunate case more and more, I find it most resembles an avoidance technique.
Is there much of a difference at all between flat-earthers and those who allow for conversational speech by a barnyard animal?
Hostly beret on
@The_Riv no one is forcing you to read this thread if the subject is not of interest to you, and you are risking derailing it for the people who are interested. This is starting to look like trolling.
Did it happen? If course not. It's nonsense of a similar kind to mermaids and centaur. Could they exist? Yes. Did they? No.
Ackshully - no they couldn't.
Well, not on this planet.
Centaurs are hexapods. They could only evolve on a world where their body plan existed. We would expect there to be many other hexapod groups. And we certainly wouldn't expect any species to so closely resemble two completely unrelated tetrapods - humans and horses. A Centaur would exist completely outside the phylogenetic hierarchy. They would be a victory for Creationists.
Mermaids are also problematic. We'd have to first re-evolve tails - many of the genes are probably still in our genome so it's plausible. That would then need lots of mutations to become a muscular propulsion organ in an aquatic human subgroup. And then we'd also need our legs to become reduced and eventually lose any external aspects. Our current respiratory apparatus is all wrong for this though - we can only hold our breath for a few minutes - so that's more changes that are needed. So I don't see mermaids as particularly possible either.
Some days, although less and less frequently, this kind of hair-splitting seems reasonable to me, and even interesting. Other days, which seem to be the unfortunate case more and more, I find it most resembles an avoidance technique.
So what am I avoiding?
More generally, criticising revelatory theism from the outside is easy - you have nothing to lose. Having at least some degree of commitment to the beliefs seems more … positive.
Did it happen? If course not. It's nonsense of a similar kind to mermaids and centaur. Could they exist? Yes. Did they? No.
Ackshully - no they couldn't.
Well, not on this planet.
Centaurs are hexapods. They could only evolve on a world where their body plan existed. We would expect there to be many other hexapod groups. And we certainly wouldn't expect any species to so closely resemble two completely unrelated tetrapods - humans and horses. A Centaur would exist completely outside the phylogenetic hierarchy. They would be a victory for Creationists.
Mermaids are also problematic. We'd have to first re-evolve tails - many of the genes are probably still in our genome so it's plausible. That would then need lots of mutations to become a muscular propulsion organ in an aquatic human subgroup. And then we'd also need our legs to become reduced and eventually lose any external aspects. Our current respiratory apparatus is all wrong for this though - we can only hold our breath for a few minutes - so that's more changes that are needed. So I don't see mermaids as particularly possible either.
Strange things happen, see all the varieties of biological life.
In regard to the donkey--you might consider that this is an angelic encounter, and quite a few of those are said to take place in visions. I can't recall anything about this particular story that would rule out the possibility of this being a vision--and if so, there's not a reason in the world a donkey can't talk inside a vision.
In regard to the donkey--you might consider that this is an angelic encounter, and quite a few of those are said to take place in visions. I can't recall anything about this particular story that would rule out the possibility of this being a vision--and if so, there's not a reason in the world a donkey can't talk inside a vision.
That is true. Strange things happen, stories are told, they morph and sometimes even mind-altering substances are taken to intensify the experience.
Could I reccommend a recently published book pertinent to this thread?
'Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics and the search for deeper Explanation' by Emily Qureshi-Hurst. It has a good review ib the 'Curch Times'.
Could I reccommend a recently published book pertinent to this thread?
'Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics and the search for deeper Explanation' by Emily Qureshi-Hurst. It has a good review ib the 'Curch Times'.
Could I reccommend a recently published book pertinent to this thread?
'Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics and the search for deeper Explanation' by Emily Qureshi-Hurst. It has a good review ib the 'Curch Times'.
In regard to the donkey--you might consider that this is an angelic encounter, and quite a few of those are said to take place in visions. I can't recall anything about this particular story that would rule out the possibility of this being a vision--and if so, there's not a reason in the world a donkey can't talk inside a vision.
That is true. Strange things happen, stories are told, they morph and sometimes even mind-altering substances are taken to intensify the experience.
This also relates to the nature of objective reality, and our perception of it.
Could I reccommend a recently published book pertinent to this thread?
'Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics and the search for deeper Explanation' by Emily Qureshi-Hurst. It has a good review ib the 'Curch Times'.
What's interesting (she got a mention earlier in this thread) is that she's an atheist herself.
From what I've read of her thesis, that doesn't come as much of a surprise.
I would say her commitment is to dialogue between science and religion/faith.
Is there a reason why you have to be so snide so often? When you start sneering instead of arguing I usually leave the thread, as there's no point in trying to answer someone who's mocking. I don't know how others feel about it, but to me, that means the thread is basically over. And that's a shame, because there are interesting things that could still be said--but I'm too tired and too close to surgery to take on a mocker who doesn't really care at all.
This.
And people in the past knew donkey's didn't have the ability to talk. That was what made it a miracle in the first place. Ditto the Virgin Birth, etc.
Is there a reason why you have to be so snide so often? When you start sneering instead of arguing I usually leave the thread, as there's no point in trying to answer someone who's mocking. I don't know how others feel about it, but to me, that means the thread is basically over. And that's a shame, because there are interesting things that could still be said--but I'm too tired and too close to surgery to take on a mocker who doesn't really care at all.
This.
And people in the past knew donkey's didn't have the ability to talk. That was what made it a miracle in the first place. Ditto the Virgin Birth, etc.
I also left this thread for a week or two.
The style of 'debate' had become (not on my and believer's side) eristic.
Comments
Can't be any worse than the Star Trek magic mushrooms.
There are a few sci-fi plots that basically consist of forgotten colonists on sleeper ships finding that thousands of years after they left and were forgotten about FTL travel was developed and their distant decendents overtook them and got there first.
Or alternatively the descendants of the colonists forget about technology altogether and view the ship and its mechanisms as something akin to magic.
But this is your religion's mythology, yes? You speak of it as if it's not -- as if it's an actuality that's as matter-of-fact as any old thing.
To me this looks like you are mixing/muddling up two things.
First you are offering a philosophical/theoretical position that by it's nature cannot be proven, as you say it has not even happened yet. So like every other philosophical/theoretical position, the only recourse you have to solving this problem is with argument and rhetoric. I do not think this is framing, this is just how ideas work.
Second you are asking how one could use science to show/prove your convoluted philosophical position. Which you think you ought to be able to do because in your mind this fiction is a fact, albeit one that has not yet happened.
The solution to the second of these is to do what sci-fi writers have always done when faced with a speculative problem: you invent an answer. This is not being cynical, that's literally what you do.
If one was to postulate a multi-dimensional panoply of universes and it matters to you that it is tested scientifically then you postulate a multi-dimensional universe detector.
There is an enormous amount of truth in mythology - don't dismiss it.
Unless exceptions, such as miracles, occur, which is what the story of Balaam and the ass (which is what I assume you refer to here) is believed to be by those of us who believe it.
Within the context of the framing she uses, Lamb Chopped's position is far more coherent than most of the rest of us manage.
And you can try telling someone their framing is wrong if you like, but my personal experience is that it doesn't get you very far. (Let alone being disparaging about someone else's framing.)
Sometimes, they're just lied to.
This, as a position, is not incompatible with faith. That people of faith choose to believe that myths are accounts of lived reality is entirely their choice, but to my mind it obfuscates rather than clarifying. Trying to make all fruit into oranges doesn't stop some of it from being apples, bananas etc, it just means that you will be constantly disappointed by the things that aren't in fact oranges.
For me, the Parousia is happening through the Church's impact on the world.
And, we’re back to the OP. Look — donkeys don’t talk, and donkeys have never talked. We know better, now, and that’s okay. Apply that treatment to any of the fantastical myths of the Old Testament and it’s still okay. What is the point of extending the notion that these things actually took place? Is it self-soothing? Avoidance?
For me the jury is out on whether the donkey spoke, or whether the story should be read as some kind of parable. TBH, since I do believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, I am unwilling to rule out, a priori, the idea that a donkey might speak.
Consequently I'd find a faith position that depended on OT events being literally true untenable, and morally undesireable. It sounds almost oxymoronic but faith has to be able to survive my scepticism.
Believing and knowing are different for me.
Believing and thinking something is true (albeit with an arbitrary level of confidence) are absolutely the same thing for me. I don't know what it would even mean to believe a proposition I didn't think was true - it would be like a square circle.
Putting it another way, as we've been here before, I think I still have trouble understanding what you mean when you say you believe something.
It's very simple. When I say I believe something, I mean I think it's true. For example, I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster because I don't think there's a massive unknown animal in Loch Ness. If I say I believe in God it means I think - to an uncertain level of confidence - that God exists. I could just as easily say "I don't think the Loch Ness Monster exists" and "I think it's possible God exists but I don't know how sure I am about that" and they would mean exactly the same things.
This also reminds me that I don't treat "I believe (that)" and "I believe in" as being equivalent.
If I said "I believe the sun will come up tomorrow", I wouldn't be saying that I consider it to be true, but that I consider it to be quite likely. So I'd be more likely to say "it's likely" or "it's probable" (that the sun will come up tomorrow).
These days, I wouldn't say "I believe/don't believe in God" (nor "I believe/don't believe that God exists"). I might say something like "I believe that believing in God is [something or other]". About God's existence, I would probably say, "I know that God is, or is not".
If you are comfortable with saying that God is of is not (which presumably maps onto exists or does not exist) that seems to cover all eventualities.
A bit like saying that I know the moon is, or is not made of cheese.
"I believe in school uniforms" means I think they're beneficial.
"I believe in democratic socialism" means I think it's the way I'd like to see my country governed.
"I believe in God" means I think God exists.
"I believe in aliens" means I think aliens exist.
I think that's probably in line with how most people use the word. Equivalence of "believe that" and "believe in" is context dependent.
I wouldn't use "know" or "don't know" of God because it's an unknown.
For me, saying "I believe in" typically indicates a greater degree of commitment to a statement (having more skin in the game or putting more on the line). For example, there's a difference between someone saying:
"I believe that Andy Burnham is leader of the Labour Party"
and
"I believe in Andy Burnham as Leader of the Labour Party"
Is there much of a difference at all between flat-earthers and those who allow for conversational speech by a barnyard animal?
Yes, there's an important difference.
For the earth to be flat a whole bunch of things would have to be true which are already established not to be. Gravity would have to work differently to how it does. Light would have to move differently to how it has been observed to move. And lots of people would have to be lying about what they have seen and done.
For Balaam's ass to have spoken, it is required that there is a being capable of doing something that contradicts the laws of nature. We have no proof such a being does not exist.
So it's the difference between believing in the unproven and believing in the disproven.
I have seen some remarkable things in my life. One of my favourite things to do is to go to a geology museum to gawp at the variety of life. I was recently at one that had a collection of fossils in amber. Millions of years old, preserved in amber.
So if you are asking me whether any specific thing is possible then the answer is always going to be yes. A chicken the size of a house? Yes. A deep sea fish which creates its own illumination? Yes.
A creature that can converse with humans? Yes.
Is it likely? No. There would need to be a whole lot of highly unlikely adaptions to the normal functioning of the donkey's face and bones and diaphragm for this to be possible.
In contrast is it possible that the earth is anything other than a roughly spherical shape? No chance at all.
There's no way that the earth is a few thousand years old, no chance that the moon is made of cheese and so on.
Hostly beret on
@The_Riv no one is forcing you to read this thread if the subject is not of interest to you, and you are risking derailing it for the people who are interested. This is starting to look like trolling.
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
Ackshully - no they couldn't.
Well, not on this planet.
Centaurs are hexapods. They could only evolve on a world where their body plan existed. We would expect there to be many other hexapod groups. And we certainly wouldn't expect any species to so closely resemble two completely unrelated tetrapods - humans and horses. A Centaur would exist completely outside the phylogenetic hierarchy. They would be a victory for Creationists.
Mermaids are also problematic. We'd have to first re-evolve tails - many of the genes are probably still in our genome so it's plausible. That would then need lots of mutations to become a muscular propulsion organ in an aquatic human subgroup. And then we'd also need our legs to become reduced and eventually lose any external aspects. Our current respiratory apparatus is all wrong for this though - we can only hold our breath for a few minutes - so that's more changes that are needed. So I don't see mermaids as particularly possible either.
More generally, criticising revelatory theism from the outside is easy - you have nothing to lose. Having at least some degree of commitment to the beliefs seems more … positive.
Strange things happen, see all the varieties of biological life.
It's highly unlikely, but possible in some sense.
That is true. Strange things happen, stories are told, they morph and sometimes even mind-altering substances are taken to intensify the experience.
'Decoding the Cosmos: God, Physics and the search for deeper Explanation' by Emily Qureshi-Hurst. It has a good review ib the 'Curch Times'.
I was thrilled recently that a WIMP (dark matter) particle seems to have showed up at last.
See: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01985-9?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=9803e5de03-nature-briefing-daily-20260902&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-51109188
What's interesting (she got a mention earlier in this thread) is that she's an atheist herself.
It was a single high energy event, one of the experimental physicists explicitly says "We are not claiming this is dark matter" before the fade out.
From what I've read of her thesis, that doesn't come as much of a surprise.
I would say her commitment is to dialogue between science and religion/faith.
This.
And people in the past knew donkey's didn't have the ability to talk. That was what made it a miracle in the first place. Ditto the Virgin Birth, etc.
I also left this thread for a week or two.
The style of 'debate' had become (not on my and believer's side) eristic.