What are the chances that in 1000 years English will still be spoken?

There’s no way to sift out the future. BUT a language we light-heartedly call Old English was spoken across much of Europe, Scandinavia, and England until 1066. None of the various versions would be easily understood across a distance of, say, 100 miles. But that parent language was a seamless quilt with no abrupt changes.

France, however, had spoken versions of Latin since before the time of Christ; just the Germanii and everyone north (Scandinavia) didn’t make the switch. On the British Isles that Old German / Old English was common everywhere except Wales, Ireland and Scotland, which the Germanii had dislocated but not dislodged.

As of the Norman Conquest, Old French became the language of the powerful, and Old English began to absorb it. Three hundred years later Chaucer was in high gear (1343 – 1400) and his dialect of Middle English is the one you read in College when you study him. Truth in advertising, his ws one of several hundred little local sub-dialects. His, we saved in written form.

Another two hundred years and we get Shakespeare and the King James Version of the bible, both of which acted like enormous sea anchors. They kept the language relatively stable.

SO – the Norman invasion, Chaucer, Shakespeare, King James—all we need to do is invent a time machine and bring back a thousand copies of the Sun (London) and the Times (New York) from some arbitrary date, same day each year through 3019, and we will know.

Is science a conspiracy?

Science is just too big and robust to be a “conspiracy.” It’s what we call a consensus.

Science is peer-reviewed with one “god” if you will, the god of data. Fudge the data and your sins will find you out. That’s very harsh, if you are that sinner, but also very fair.

Trying to misconstrue science as a faith system or conspiracy is a fool’s mission. I am sad to realize that so many otherwise kind, rational, intelligent people take on this particular “mission: impossible.”

That includes, by the way, folks who disbelieve climate science. It’s science, friends. Once upon a time a laymen with no credentials to make a “non-fiction” movie about the climate tried, but his effort was about as under informed as the folks who reacted against it. Al Gore, you put your foot in it, crying “MEGA PACK OF WOLVES!” when the truth is “Wolf!!”

But GOD has it all understood well in advance. I trust in Him, and whatever avalanche of sea level rise and weather extremes, He loves His children. He also lets them make mud pies–including killing all the ocean reefs and, eventually, losing a lot of very valuable ocean frontage.

What is the destiny of man in God’s creation?

Better to ask what is the destiny, so-called, of creation itself. This universe exists with a fair number of arbitrary constants built into it. Particle physics shows many of them, such as the ratios between the four forces, the relative masses of the proton, electron and neutron, the ratio between mass and energy that determines the speed of light, and so on.

Jiggle one or two by a very tiny amount and stars don’t form, or if they do they don’t fuse hydrogen and helium into new elements.

Or if they do make a table of elements, the properties of the various elements aren’t useful.

But they are useful, to the extent that DNA based life seems to snap together like legos to make things.

THAT is intelligence in design. We live in a universe tailored to the nth degree in such a way that it supports complex life.

Either this is one of an infinite number of parallel universes, each with a very slightly different set of parameters, and this one happens to be the Cinderella case, or a GOD made it (or both – GOD is after all very lavish.) But in any case there was a “LET THERE BE LIGHT” moment for this one, including the invention of time — there was no “before.” Space itself expanded, and for some reason (cosmologists must have an answer to this) the universe didn’t collapse into a massive black hole.

Consider that, if all mass/energy that exists today were to fall back together into a “big crunch” it would almost certainly make a gigantic black hole. Today’s universe is full of black holes. Virtually every galaxy has an enormous black hole at its center.

Given that this universe has an unexplainable beginning and is perfect for the existence of complex life, it appears reasonable that the creator would have a purpose. Getting from “appears reasonable” to “I believe in my heart with a deep faith” isn’t easy.

The three branches of Abrahamic monotheism provide one answer. Human thought has so far come up with no single idea powerful enough to sweep the rest away. Consider that we operate a three-pound chemical computer, most of which devotes itself to keeping the rest of the body whole and healthy, the ability to suss out the purpose(s) a Creator would have for us is weak. We’d need help.

All three of the Abrahamic faiths begin with a Deed of Title, the creation account in Genesis. Personally, the notion that the Creator would commit science to the keeping of a first set of humans is utterly unsupportable. Genesis 1 looks a lot like a tribal litany, a religious statement of GOD creating MAN. Genesis 2 tells the story differently, by the way.

That same Scripture tells us, among many other ways of relating to GOD, that we should look to the heavens to see the glory of His works. In the past century or so we’ve managed to do that, first realizing that our star is a bit player in a vast galaxy, then realizing that our galaxy is a bit player in a vast universe containing so many galaxies it would take ten or eleven decimal digits just to number them all, and that each galaxy’s population of stars would take another ten or more digits to number. We can hear the “echo” of the Big Bang; it’s a three degree Kelvin whisper of background radiation.

That background radiation is easy to characterize as “the still small voice” of GOD that turns up in I Kings 19:12b. The indescribable beauty of the pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope tell us that GOD is vastly more, that Creation is vastly more, than what Genesis hints at.

Only two conclusions seem, to this limited mind, to deserve consideration. First, the universe spoke itself into being, so GOD is a non-concept and human morality has to be made up as we go along. Or second, GOD did create everything, and what we have learned through His communications with mankind is real.

I’m going with the second one.

Why do evolutionists & creationists see their ideas as mutually exclusive? Is the universe like scratch baking? God gave us the ingredients; Darwin showed how they became a cake. Or else; if matter & energy can’t be created; how are we all here?

All the other answers appear to miss the central point. A movement among strict literalists, who read Genesis as history couched in words that GOD carefully chose, take Genesis 1:24 (which says that, once all the species were on hand, each one reproduced its own kind, full stop) to mean that evolution, as an idea, directly opposes both God and Truth.

They have named-and-framed the debate. Doing so, they have dared anyone to argue back, and then slam those poor logic-deluded, fact-ensorcelled fools with some name that makes them Anathema. Us or Them, God-fearing or Heathen.

And all of this comes by way of their insistence that the words GOD used to reveal Himself to a bronze age semitic tribe, should work same-same today.

Yet this same GOD (I choose to cap all three letters) tells us to look into the heavens to see His wonders and glories. What do we find there? A 13.78 billion year old echo of the Big Bang in the form of a universal background radiation of about 3 degrees Kelvin energy, and so many galaxies that just numbering all the stars they contain requires twenty-three or twenty-four digits! GOD’s echo is faint, just 3 degrees Kelvin, but what is that if not the “still small voice” Elijah heard at the mouth of the cave after earthquake, fire and wind passed by? (* Footnote: Simon and Garfunkle’s libretto in the movie Mrs. Robinson, “listen to the sound of silence” is a perfect echo of that passage in I Kings 19:11 – not “still small voice” but “silence” I Kings 19:12b *)

A massive, fabulous working definition of sophistry is there for the viewing in all of the verbiage adduced to claim either a young earth or, barring that, so-called Intelligent Design wherein GOD intervenes at regular intervals to flush out the species that have run their course and pile in some new ones to replace the ones that have gone extinct.

All comedy is tragedy with a painted smile – see all the paint, my friends.

If new knowledge challenges or contradicts an existing theory, why do many scientists try to hold on to the old theories and claim the new ones are bogus?

Reading between the lines, I sense (it’s a gift!) someone who wants not to credit the idea of evolution. Please pick up a New Testament and read Colossians 2:8:

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

Human thinking and science are at opposite ends of the conceptual spectrum. Science is hard knowledge, and human thinking is Wishfulness Inc. Science is not a “spiritual power of this world,” – rather, clumsy attempts to force one’s private need to ignore GOD’s world in order to support a demeaning (to GOD) interpretation of Genesis? That, my friend, is a worldly thing because GOD is Truth, and sophistry never is.

All arguments and cherry-picked / misinterpreted “facts” I’ve ever encountered in a discussion of the validity of evolution have been sheer, tear-inducing sophistry. Hollow posturing, attempts to select a two plus a two plus a two and pronounce it two hundred twenty-two, you name it.

There IS a germ of truth here – plate tectonics had early champions, a father-son team of geologists, in the (I think) third quarter of the 20th Century. They found it a very hard sell. The idea was so sweeping—the solid crust of the planet actually having plastic behavior!?!?!?—the very idea!

But data has this odd trait—it doesn’t go away. Plate tectonics today is settled science with hundreds of careers founded on expanding our understanding of the history of earth’s very plastic crust. And nobody gets to make up any data; just look around, like Sherlock Holmes, and see what you can learn.

So, yes, there are examples of old theories (in this particular example, NOT A THEORY AT ALL—THE ABSENCE OF A THEORY) giving way to (a new) one.

Is it true that, believers in evolution try to give non-believers a guilt trip, by always finding occasion to attribute evolution to the advances in modern day medicine, and biology?

Guilt? For someone aware of what science has done for living on planet earth in ways that King David in his royal palace couldn’t conceive of, it becomes a duty to point out that science also happens to unfold some of the mysteries of the universe, our sun, and planet earth. Views to the contrary amount to sophistry, a spade waiting to be called a spade.

Virtually all attempts to dispute evolution arise from a commitment to a literal reading of Genesis. GOD breathed Himself into Jewish folklore. GOD appeared here in the form of Jesus and died for our sins. But GOD’s vast creation and the unguessable complexity of what science has so far discovered are as real as it gets.

Any and all attempts to construct alternate explanations which pretend to refute what is clearly understood are sophistry. Sophistry is something the Paul warns of – Colossians 2:8

Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.

Human thinking and science are at opposite ends of the mental spectrum; science is hard knowledge, and human thinking is Wishfulness Inc. Science is not a “spiritual power of this world,” – rather, clumsy attempts to force one’s private need to ignore GOD’s world in order to support a demeaning (to GOD) interpretation of Genesis, that, my friend, is a worldly thing because GOD is Truth, and sophistry never is.

I am currently convinced that morality is subjective, so can you give me some of the best arguments by philosophers for morality being objective and morality being the result of biological evolution?

Morality as a result of biological evolution is a decent enough hypothesis, as long as you stipulate that the universe created itself. Now, if GOD really said, “Let there be light,” that would be the Big Bang. It happened a LOOOOOOONG time ago, 13.78 billion years or so, but either GOD did that or there isn’t a GOD.

So if GOD exists, then listen to Him define morality. Also pay close attention; being GOD, he has earned that right as your Maker.

And if not, then morality is just a construct with interesting properties.

What is the Biblical basis that God “cannot” act against his nature?

This question sounds piquant because it trivializes a subtle truth. GOD’s name is I AM. He spoke the universe into being.

We are fallible; we call that “original sin” and if you want to understand this, compare what Mother Theresa would do in any situation you can think up, then hold yourself to that standard.

You lose. QED

GOD is beyond our ability to understand. Ask this dumb question: “Can GOD make a stone too big to roll?” Clearly, YES. “And then can GOD roll it?” Clearly, YES.

GOD is beyond any definition or understanding our little three pound we computer can dream up.

Next question.

Being a Muslim I want to know Christian religion and do they believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

Jesus is, in the injeel of John’s first few verses, the Word, who was both GOD and “with GOD.” Trying to limit the Infinite to modes of being we humans can understand is folly.

Jesus is the human life that the Word inhabited. As a human he had no divine powers other than what the Father gave him ability to do in the moment, such as feed five thousand, walk on water, raise Lazarus from the dead, and much much more.

John goes forward to report Jesus saying things that no human can ever say, such as “I am the First and the Last,” “I forgive you your sins,” and especially, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” That last saying claimed GODhead directly because he used GOD’s actual name, I AM.

Jesus went to the cross of His own volition. He did this to take on Himself the burden of all human sin. The wages of sin is death; Jesus accepted all such wages of all people. Every human still undergoes a bodily death, but the soul can be washed clean of all its sin; this happens when a person apologizes to Jesus, and means it, and asks Him to forgive all his sins.

Because Jesus performed countless awesome miracles, because his death in the most publicly humiliating and painful manner in use at that time is foreshadowed by the 22nd Psalm, and because the faith in Jesus has spread ever since, Jesus is GOD’s final spokesperson (prophet) and my personal Savior.

Can genetic engineering produce new species?

Can a thousand monkeys with typewriters come up with a novel?

Of course – IF they have a tireless editor, among other things.

Species share DNA but also have unique DNA which has arisen over hundreds of thousands of generations. Homo Erectus became Homo Sapiens sapiens over the span of ?? 3 million years hence one hundred to two hundred thousand generations. We separated from Pan Troglodytes (chimpanzee) 5 million years ago.

Each child isn’t an exact copy of half of each parent – starts out that way, but (just me talking, not hard data) two or three copying errors tend to crop up between starting as one fertilized egg and producing valid egg/sperm cells.

Do that at least a hundred thousand times. The ‘useful’ / ‘ neutral’ / ‘harmful’ rates aren’t well established, but it only takes a few well-placed useful’s to make a critical difference.

So many changes took place in that 3 million years between Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens sapiens that they wouldn’t be likely to breed together, any more than we would with a chimpanzee. Out of three billion codons, we differ from chimps by one to four percent, depending on how you phrase the question. One percent of three billion is 30 million, so take a population of 10 thousand, which is tiny, times 3 per generation times 250 thousand generations (5 million years’-worth) and see how many gene changes can take place in the aggregate.

My pocket calculator says “3 times 10K times 250K is 7.5 billion.” And that’s from a joint ancestor, so instead of 30 million apart from the chimp, we’re each 15 million apart from a common ancestor from 5 million years ago. The chimp breeds faster, so maybe us 10 million and the chimps 20 million?

Do “figures lie and liars figure?” Yes The 7.5 billion is just a total number of darts thrown at the board in 5 million years. Getting 10 to 15 million of those 7.5 billion darts to stick? Hardly beyond the limits of credibility.

AH! – THE QUESTION! Please forgive the background information.

Either start with a species that exists today, like a lab mouse, or just turn a computer loose. Moore’s Law (speed and capacity each appear to double roughly every 18 months) still seems to work. Try 18 years from now, and if all goes as suspected we’ll have computers that are four thousand times faster and have four thousand times the memory. As the carnival barker says, “You ain’t see nothin’ yet!” And he’s probably right.

Today there is an artificial intelligence platform which, without ever having seen or heard of a Rubik’s cube, can figure out how to solve one that has been artfully “rearranged” in roughly one second.

Given that metric, a Rubik’s cube has 36 squares with at least three colors while the human genome has 3 billion “squares” with four colors. Doing the same thing as solving the cube in DNA would take vast amounts of computer power, far far beyond the speculative 4,000 multiple above. But let the computer run, not for one second, but a thousand of them running for a year (a year has about a half-million seconds) – that’s 4K times 500K times 1K or 2 times ten to the 12th. A lot, but (trust me) still not in the ballpark.

Creating a new DNA sequence is vastly vastly more complex that getting all the squares on each face of a Rubik’s cube to show the same color.

Vastly.

At the same time there is such an incredible store of working DNA on hand now that simply harnessing the computing power we look forward to having well within the lifetimes of people in mid-career today? It will be not just possible to sic artificial intelligence onto that problem, but eminently practical.

But, as things go, how long will it be before one of these new species is a superbug designed to wipe out everyone on a given continent in a few tens of days? Develop a guard / serum / immunity first, and then – – – –

It’s too late at night!