From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!dadla-b!hutch
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Re: flesh of beasts
Article-I.D.: dadla-b.349
Posted: Fri Feb 18 16:19:59 1983
Received: Sun Feb 20 11:07:54 1983

Actually, Lew, I was referring to an interesting article which I
read back in ?1979? in the CoEvolution Quarterly, and before I get
hashed for reading that magazine, I don't subscribe, it belonged ot
(to) a friend.

The article is very dim in my memory, and perhaps someone can refresh
me on it, but the gist of the article was about how one of the "founding
fathers" of molecular biology was ostracized politically for the heresy
of suggesting that perhaps not all heredity is incorporated in the DNA
and nuclear material.

You can assert all you like that it is rock bottom truth, but I will
reserve final judgement until it is clearly understood exactly what the
roles are of intracellular organelles in the replication of DNA and
other nuclear material.  Do not pretend to know all about how this
works lest we demand that you prove it, and if you do, we'll most
likely put you up for the Nobel prize for your new discoveries.

Actually, what I was trying to say, flamelike, was that dogma is not
restricted to religion, and that any time a hierarchy forms, whether
one of learning, philosophy, government, whatever, you will find tht
(that) people, human beings, egotistical fallible human beings, will
establish dogmas.  They will fight for these dogmas, just as fiercely
as I am being fought for challenging the dogma (actually a wishful
self-image for most of us) that scientists are NOT all open-minded and
fair about everything.   I will further fan the flames by saying that
I think that the whole idea of the permanently open mind is a remarkably
short-sighted one.  The best one can and should strive for is a
periodically open mind, so that opinions, assumptions, and knowledge
can be checked for false assumptions or poor formation.

As for your snipe at Paul, so what if the underlying genetic code of
fish, birds, and men is the same.  (It is NOT, but I allow you your
whimsy for the moment.)   You are taking a passage out of context.
This is a detestable practice, which I fight as vigorously when I
see a Christian doing it as when I see a non-christian doing it.
Paul said (in context):

	" ...But some will say, 'How are the dead raised?
	  And with what kind of body do they come?'
	  You fool!  That which you sow does not come to life
	  unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not
	  sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps
	  of wheat or of something else.
	  But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to
	  each of the seeds a body of its own.  All flesh is
	  not the same flesh, but ther is one flesh of men,
	  ad another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of
	  birds, and another of fish.
	  There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies,
	  but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the
	  glory of the earthly is another... "

This seems to obvious inspection not to be a lecture on biology,
it looks more like an illustration of a point.

The point, in case you want to know, seems to me to be that it
is foolish to speculate on what the post-ressurection bodies
will be like, that they won't be like anything we are familiar
with just as a seed, which "dies" before growing into a plant,
is not the same shape as the plant that comes out of it.

Incidentally, to disallow your whimsical idea that genetic code is the
same "for all flesh", I defy you to go out and get a transfusion of
chicken blood.  I doubt that if you managed to inseminate a giant
lab mouse, that it would bear viable offspring.  Obviously if I used
the same coding SCHEME for construction of a digital watch, it would
not make that watch "the same as" the computer you are reading this
from.

Actually, I do have a real, non-snide comment about genetic coding.
I think that the actual DNA-to-gene-to-chromosome construction process
is slightly more varied than the underlying four-and-a-half (I think)
part coding than the "simple" DNA allows, and I suspect that this is
sufficient to differentiate between one kind of "flesh" and another.

Does the inclusion of the "modern scientific dogma" in discussions
in net.religion mean that there is an attempt at hand to establish it
as a religion??

Steve Hutchison
...decvax!tektronix!tekmdp!dadla!hutch