Different in degree or kind; language (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, December 21, 2014, 15:43 (3404 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: Perhaps you could just briefly explain once more why it is so important for you to make this distinction between degree and kind.
> -Because one of the root issues in evolution is precisely about the difference between degrees and kind. Adaptation is differences of degrees, speciation is differences of kind.- 
> TONY: Well, at least from a biblical perspective, language is part of how we were designed. Apparently "let us make them in our image" included the ability to communicate and speak in a common language with our designer, because, as the story goes, humans communicated with him directly via spoken word in the beginning.
> 
> I'm not quite sure what “in the beginning” implies. According to Genesis there was only one human language to begin with, but now there are estimated to be well over 6000 in use. So either God understands people's prayers in 6000-plus different languages, or we can no longer communicate with him directly. You seem to be implying the latter, which would make a mockery of most church services, let alone those individuals who believe they have direct access. Or have I misunderstood?-Yes, you misunderstood. There was only one human language initially. God directly 'dabbled' to confuse the languages (i.e. that implies that he created the initial other root languages as well). Your statement that we can not communicate directly to him is illogical. There are translators that can speak a dozen languages. Does that mean that if you speak one of the languages that they know, that you can not communicate with them, or does it instead mean that they know more languages than you?

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.