GokuDBZ3128 wrote:

I am religious and I beleive in evolution. It is perfectly natural. God himself does not upgrade us, we do, ourselves. We adapt to our own enviorment. The world is getting more complex, so us humans get even smarters. A baby being born is pretty much evolution (fetus stage, that is). Also, when you get older, like old-old, you shrink.

"smarters".

Heh.

Being born, then growing is not evolution.

Well, evolution as in the sense we are talking about here.

Evolution (in this context): Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species.


Anyway, I don't quite understand. In what way is the world getting more complex? You mean machines, computers, etc.? We aren't adapting to computers- we're making them.

Ter13 wrote:

They still managed to show equal intelligence to many homonids, yet their brain was what, 2/3 the size?

...and we learned this from the video cameras modern scientists had sprinkled around the pre-historic landscape? ^_^

~Kujila

Well, that's what religion kind of involves. Religion is science, theory, law, politics, and porn all rolled into one. Er... well, maybe not so much porn...

Point is, Religion is kind of like old world science, God was their reasoning for how things worked. At the time, it made sense to "everyone", because A: You didn't question those that could kill you, and B: Those that prevail write history, and those that didn't believe neither wrote from fear of being killed, or were in fact killed.

I could plausibly believe in "god", but in a different sense, I could see "god" as everything. "god" would be the law that governs the cosmos in my mind. After all, even madness has it's own method. Though, I could never see it as a sentient entity... heh, blasphemy...

In that case, why don't we just throw out all the history about the revolutionary war too, oh, and why not prove that lincoln wasn't assassinated, or how about this? The constitution is a lie! We didn't videotape the second congressional convention! We don't know if it happened! THe universe was created six thousand years ago!

I feel a new game inspiration coming on for someone in the crowd. >.>

I can give you the points about our mental changes... Those aren't genetic alterations (and I believe I made a side note mentioning that these sorts of changes are more socially driven than naturally driven)...

However, maximum body size is genetically coded (or at least it would seem to be)...

Humans don't just keep growing for their entire lives... They reach a cut-off point and stop... All animals do...

Therefore, there must be some internal limit that says when we stop growing, and even how fast we get there...

It's not even a magical age (18-ish seems to be the popular conception for the end of the growing period)... But people all stop growing at different ages (granted, there's not much variation, but it is enough to rule out age as the deciding factor)... Which leaves us with having to find another factor... Some other internally tracked limit... The stopping of production of growth hormones by some system designed to shut them off at a specific time (which is unique for each of us)...

And pretty much the only way for that to be "programmed" into our system is for it to be genetically coded (unless you want to argue that lifestyle factors play a larger role... but if that were the case, I'd expect to see a far greater amount of variation... the stopping point is still very similar for each of us, but not exactly the same...which again, points to a certain genetically programmed system that is very similar, but has some variation, which is the case for our entire genetic structure...)

And if it has changed, then the genes controlling it must've changed...

And it certainly has changed, or at least it strongly appears that way...

It can't have anything to do with living longer (in the sense that, "since we have more time to grow, we can grow larger", anyways), because many younger individuals are far larger than their elders... If it were purely a matter of having more time, the older members of the species should have been growing larger all along... Always remaining ahead of their younger offspring... And again, since there is an internal maximum size limit, time doesn't play a role (in dictating the limit, anyways)...

Whether or not it is an evolutionary advantage is irrelevant... Not all changes are advantages, even the ones that "stick"... But heck, I'm not even really trying to say that our species has evolved in that direction... Just that the change in our genetic structure has arisen; microevolution... It'll take far too long to see if it pans out into macroevolution...

So yeah, it's not "evolution"... It's an example of one of the types of variations that occur in a species that can lead to evolution, if it proves to be a change that results in more successful breeding (or more successful survival, anyways) for those that have made the change...

As for living longer, I suppose that can be attributed in part to lifestyle, medical, and social changes... But again, I believe that genetics plays a very large role in dictating the time limit placed on bodily performance and its decline... In fact, I'd say that our advanced way of life only has the power of decreasing the effects of the decline...not putting it off... It will come when it is designed to come; we just have the ability to ignore it longer now... But regardless, it seems to be hitting us later than before...

Yes, many previous humans died sooner in life than we do simply because of (then incurable) diseases and other "unnatural" causes... But barring those, an otherwise healthy human would die much sooner of natural causes, as well, than we do today...

We reach our peaks further down the line than we used to... Which suggests that the genetic limit has moved...

And you can't contribute it to improved health care or diet, really... I never visit the hospital or a doctor... I've never even had a prescription in my entire remembered life (I may or may not have had one as an infant... but in the span of my memory, I've never had one)... I probably eat worse than my ancestors (in terms of junk food and whatnot...)

But I'm in much better shape for my age than previous generations... At one point in the past, someone my age would already be sliding down the hill into invalidity and death... But here I am, beating my body to death, doing very little upkeep, and still with a LOT of mileage left...

That simply can't be attributed to lifestyle... It must be some internal difference...

Add hair there you go

~Kujila

Loduwijk wrote:

Dang it, don't take half of what I say out of context.

Context is a tricky game to play when you start talking about "true meanings". Although I consider myself an agnostic, I agree with many of your basic premises regarding the nature of Christianity--yet still I draw the line at rewriting the English language, however imperfect it is in its present state, in order to accomodate such a perspective. "The Church" can refer to (among other things) a specific ecclesiastical hierarchy in one context, or it can refer to all Christian believers in another context; linguistically there is not a "right meaning" and "wrong meaning" here. Similarly, "secular" can either be used to refer to a person's lack of affiliation with an established ecclesiastical body, it can be used to mean a lack of faith, or it can be used in several other ways which are not immediately relevant. Again, these are both valid meanings, in spite of the fact that they can sometimes contradict one another. The medieval Catholic hierarchy (at least in many of its upper branches) was secular by definition--but it was also by another equally true definition not secular. If you don't want to be taken out of context, you should take more care to use wording that doesn't create conflicting contexts; "secular" can be used either to denote an individual seperate from the established church or to describe a non-religious person, but there are other terms which more specifically denote just one thing or the other. Which wording makes more sense?:

"The corruption rampant in the medieval Catholic organization led to many clergymen being worldly and ungodly in spite of their ecclesiastical position; in contrast, Galileo was devoutly religious, even though he was a layman."

"The corruption rampant in the medieval Catholic organization led to many clergymen being secular in spite of their being non-secular; in contrast, Galileo was non-secular, even though he was secular."

The latter is a technically accurate rewording of the former*; "secular" is inserted in place of synonyms for secular, and "non-secular" is inserted in place of antonyms of secular. Despite being technically correct usage, however, it's still completely senseless. Obviously your posts aren't anywhere near this bad, but they can still potentially create some confusion.
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*I'm not sure that "non-secular" is standard English, but the meaning is no less clear than the word "secular" itself is, and at any rate it's beside the point. And for that matter, in spite of all the miscommunication here, "secular" is a fairly clear word in a pretty messy language.
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Evolution cannot be slowed. It continues onward always. The only way that evolution can be slowed if genes aren't swapped. We continue to evolve --albeit we continue to evolve backwards. We allow the weaker portions of our species to pass on their traits, thus you seem to think we aren't evolving? No. We are evolving WITH their traits. Forward evolution is as much evolution as lateral and backwards evolution.

Loduwijk wrote:

My dictionary says nothing about ecclisiastical positions making one any less secular. I would be interested to see the exact definition that you are looking at, though at that point it is more out of my curiosity and not so much proving a point since this is all just conflict of presice definitions and not that of ideals.

Merriam-Webster's 10th Collegiate dictionary defines it as follows:

secular adj
1 a: of or relating to the worldly or temporal
b: not overtly or specifically religious
c: not ecclesiastical or clerical
2: not bound by monastic vows or rules; specifically: of, relating to, or forming clergy not belonging to a religious order or congregation
3 a: occuring once in an age or century
b: existing or continuing through ages or centuries
c: of or relating to a long term of indefinite duration

The explanatory notes for this volume state that numerals indicate different senses of a word; lowercase letters indicate different "subsenses". 3 obviously is a completely different sense of the word "secular" (interestingly, from an etymological standpoint it appears that this is the most literal sense of the word, but that's neither here nor there). 2 is a very specific sense that refers to a distinction within an ecclesiastical hierarchy, or rather, the lack thereof; if I'm reading it right, this would be the sense that would be used to refer to "lay ministers", or those that lead a congregation without being appointed or ordained by any central authority. 1a and 1b represent "secular" in your usage, but note also 1c, which I think is fairly explicit; in this usage, secular = !ecclesiastical. Just in case there's any dispute, excerpted from the same dictionary:

ecclesiastical 1: of or relating to a church especially as an established institution

...and on the subject of "church":

church 1: a building for public and especially Christian worship
2: the clergy or officialdom of a religious body
3: a body or organization of religious believers: as:
a: the whole body of Christians
b: DENOMINATION
c: CONGREGATION
4: a public divine worship
5: the clerical profession

dictionary.com isn't quite as clear; its primary entry on "secular" (from The American HeritageŽ Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition) reads mostly like a more succinct version of Merriam-Webster, but it does include the definition "Not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body: secular music." Whether or not this pertains to the usage I speak of depends on your definition of a "religious body"; unfortunately, at this point the entries from the American Heritage Dictionary start to become rather circular.

About "rewriting the English language" to change the meaning of church, I am not doing that. Many modern people are the ones rewriting it, and I simply do not accept the new definition that many people attempt to attribute to it. I find it annoying that some people attempt to change the language and expect others to simply accept it when such a change is not needed. To butcher words in this way is what causes much of the confusion regarding words with multiple meanings and multiple words to a meaning. If you want to talk about a building where people meet for religious purposes, call it that - a building- or if you must, a temple.

The problem is that this meaning of "church" is not at all new; it's been around for hundreds of years bordering on thousands. dictionary.com brings up an entry from Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary does note that the original Biblical wording is consistent with the usage you hold and does not use it to refer to a building or place of worship, but adds that "in post-apostolic times it early received this meaning."

On a whim I did a quick search, and sure enough, Shakespeare used it as such:

King Henry VI, Part I: Act 1, Scene 2

DUCHESS Tut, this was nothing but an argument
That he that breaks a stick of Gloucester's grove
Shall lose his head for his presumption.
But list to me, my Humphrey, my sweet duke:
Methought I sat in seat of majesty
In the cathedral church of Westminster,
And in that chair where kings and queens are crown'd;
Where Henry and dame Margaret kneel'd to me
And on my head did set the diadem.

(The search engine I used turned up quite a few more hits than this, although obviously not all use "church" to refer to a building of worship).

Language is an arbitrary system by which people relate thoughts. People can create languages, and they can alter them if need be. But alterations should not be made that do nothing but degrade the language, and the new added definitions of church do just that which is mostly why I do not accept them. I am not alone in this either, as a large number of true Christians believe the same way. It is our term after all, so why can't we decide to disown the new extra meanings?

Unfortunately the body of U.S. law is largely silent on the issue of linguistic ownership. There's nothing stopping you from using the term "church" however you wish; on the other hand, though, there's similarly nothing stopping anyone else from using it however they wish. Christianity as a whole--the body of all those people who believe themselves to be followers of Jesus, regardless of whether their practices maintain any rational connection to Jesus' teachings--is not a homogenous body of individuals who share the same moral and religious code, but contains within it many disparate groups, some of whom would likely be offended if you insisted that the building they congregate in for services was not a church. Many of them, particularly the more devout, do indeed like speaking of "the church" in the sense you prefer--but that doesn't always stop them from also speaking of "the church" as that building down the street that they go to every Sunday. Does that mean that they're not true Christians? Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't; although I support the notion that there are some (perhaps even many) people who claim to be Christian and perhaps even think of themselves as Christians but discard many fundamental notions of Jesus' teaching, I don't even begin to claim that I'm in a position to judge exactly who qualifies as a true Christian. In either case, however, don't they still have the right to adopt and to disown their own terms in regards to their non-true-Christian faith? For that matter, how do we even determine which group has the proper claim to the real definition of "true Christians"? Is it determined by majority consensus? Historical precedent? Relative degrees of literal orthodoxy? Individual devotion to whatever particular interpretation they follow?



I kind of hate how far off track this has gotten, as my point here isn't really to nitpick your wording so much. As I noted, your usage is technically accurate--the problem is that it also leads to interpretations which are also technically accurate but which mean something quite different than what you meant when you wrote it. I'm all for language reform--as noted, English is a messy language. If you take a word that's commonly used in multiple ways, and want to pick just one definition and stick with it, I say go for it--however, it does not help the cause of clear writing if you do not at least acknowledge the fact that other usages exist, even if you only do so in order to state your disagreement with them.

Back to my original point, though, I feel that this particular sort of reform is largely unneeded--English may be sloppy, but one facet of its sloppiness works in its favor, because it ends up with a lot of words that have similar but not quite identical meanings. It already has many words for describing specific, subtly different qualities; removing "excess" connotations from words hampers its ability to express nuance. "Secular" can be used to describe someone with no religious beliefs, or it can be used to describe someone with no affiliation to any religious congregation or order, but it generally implies both. If all English-speakers got together and agreed that "secular" should no longer be used in regard to someone's status with any organized religious group, then what word do we use to differentiate between people who are "secular" in its new, specific, strictly singular sense but either do or do not belong to a religious congregation?

Again this isn't to say that you have to use any particular word in any particular way; that's kind of the opposite of the message here. I'm just saying you can avoid a lot of misunderstanding if you make your context more clear and explain upfront why you believe that a particular usage of a word should not be used.