: : : Keeper: I'm in total agreement where evolution is concerned. In fact, I believe that the idea of evolution cannotes progress and is the most meaningful concept to come out of science. So when the fundamentalists attack evolution they are in essence trying to strip science of its meaning. : : : I take the concept, however, into the realm of the supernatural by combining it with the concept of reincarnation or transmigration as it's called in Judaism. This allows for the evolution of the soul. But the evolution of souls does not stop with humans. I do not think we die and go to heaven and become forever the same. I think the cyclic process of birth and death continues in the supernatural realm except that we souls, and hopefully our consciousness, just cycles in higher planes, forever becoming more perfect until we either feed into the godhead as the Buddhists seem to think or become gods ourselves, perhaps the gods of a new universe. : em breaks down. Then we may all be harvested. : : : Regards, : : : Richard David : : : PS: My understanding is that the idea of reincarnation was abolished from Christianity by Emperor Constantine because if his subjects thought that they would be given many chances to attain heaven, they would be much more difficult for the Roman authorities to control. Not going to heaven has been used as a threat by the church ever since.

: : bzrd here; Evolution is, at its essence, an interplay between environmental factors and the genome(s)of the species. Mutations are thought to occur by random as well as any given environmental elements. What evidence is there to lead us to conclude that life originated by a random process? If there is no evidence to support random origination is it not presumtive to assume that there is randomness in its development? : ::::::::::::: : This is a good point bzrd. I don't want to say that I rule out some form of "divine intervention" in the formation of the first life, but Richard Dawkins, in "The Blind Watchmaker" does point out some very logical processes in which randomness CAN produce such. He uses computer models very effectively.

: I'm not saying he is right, (I don't know), but he does put forth very logical models for how it COULD occur.

Question for whom ever may have an answer.... If breakin the speed of light is an impossibility, and all motion is relative to the observer, than if I were traveling at 3/4 the speed of light, (which Einstein allows), and you were coming from the other direction at 3/4 the speed of light, than each one of us would be approaching the other at 1.5 times the speed of light from our own observation. But how can this be? Signed Sleepless