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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Neonotso]
#66516
03/29/06 02:41
03/29/06 02:41
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Marco_Grubert
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Posts: 3,236
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Quote:
For a while now, Kent Hovind has been offering I think it was about a 1/4 of a million dollars to anyone who could prove evolution
Well that would be easy money, but of course Hovind is not looking for proof of evolution, he's looking for a complete explanation of how the universe came into being. From an older "Dr. Dino" page:
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*NOTE:
When I use the word evolution, I am not referring to the minor variations found in all of the various life forms (microevolution). I am referring to the general theory of evolution which believes these five major events took place without God:
1. Time, space, and matter came into existence by themselves.
2. Planets and stars formed from space dust.
3. Matter created life by itself.
4. Early life-forms learned to reproduce themselves.
5. Major changes occurred between these diverse life forms (i.e., fish changed to amphibians, amphibians changed to reptiles, and reptiles changed to birds or mammals).
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind.html
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: Marco_Grubert]
#66517
03/29/06 03:16
03/29/06 03:16
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
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Yea.. that would be easy money.. accept..
Can't really explain how the whole universe came into being.. we're not nearly advanced enough to do anything more than good guessing.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: ICEman]
#66518
03/29/06 03:35
03/29/06 03:35
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 4,959
US
Grimber
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evolotion, like other basis in science is a THEORY. theory based on scientific methodologies of observation. Darwin never said in his theory that man CAME from apes or monkeys. We evolved along SIMILAR lines. We are related, NOT the same. Genetics which is one of the few sciences that is next to impossible to refute results has shown over extensive testing the GENTETIC conections of primates this site covers the science briefly with some nice brief charts on respective gentic relationships http://www.origins.tv/darwin/intro1.htm#Introductionwe are not the result of 2 monkeys 'doing it' in a bush to birth a human baby. it is millions of years of minor gentic changes with wide number of related species dieing out. now, why do christians fear evolution so much? Because it lays direct doubt on the 2 principles of christianity 1. though the death and resurection of Jesus, it provides the 'faithful' thier evidance that man, though human form of christ, is connected to the divine. Greater purpose than our lives on earth, guarenteed immortality. 2. mankind will never acheive that imortality untill ALL of humanity are converted to christianity. i.e. christs 2nd comming to earth, revolations, end of the world, end of time, etc. anything that questions these 2 princilples questions the entire basis of their faith, thier fear. to say we evolved is to say we are not special, not devine. just random chance due to nature and enviroment. defuinatly something a 'christain' would never accept. if as christans proclaim that god knows all, is infinate and 'works in mysterious ways' but it would be apparently unconcivable to christians, that god would work with gentics and let nature takes it course to let the most hardy and adpative of his/her creations survive while the weaker give way to those that survive and adapt having faith does not mean you SHOULD be ignorant. science isn't about truth, its about facts and theories based on facts which are considerd true UNTILL they can be proven (by scientific methodology) to be incorrect. God cannot be proven or disproven. that is a question for truth, not fact. what can (and should be IMO) be questioned is religion, ( im not talking about your faith), but the organization of religion and what it has/does do to manipulate the truth of your religion to keep your connection to that organization. the church is a very powerful economic and political power. anyone that would disagree with that hasn't payed much attention to the past 2000+ years of history. the church has always used the 'fear for your soul' as the basis of its power and connection. any such large power would do anythign to keep and expand on such power. even manipulate the truth, cover ups even outright lie. study not your religion but the history of the church. even today you have many denominations that place their own meanings to various passages and ignore other parts entirely of the so called 'holy word of god'. if it is the holy word of god then it has to be ALL true as-is. anything else, any excuses or interpitation or view point cleary indicats one thing. its not ALL the word of god. it is/has been manipulated by man. but, what parts? how can you belive one part and not another if its not all true? the only way to get the truth is you have to go back BEFORE the alterations. to pick apart 2000 years of manipulated truth is rediculous. the only way to sort past the dogma is combind diciples of sciences to root out the facts in the religion from the centuries falsehoods. such reseach with facts would give more affermation to a TRUE faith then a false manipulated faith. you should also not be ignorant to other relgions. no one religion holds ALL the truths to know of god. if god created everything and everyone, then god would approach each 'group' of people ( tower of bable ring a bell?) and teach them how THEY could understand best. Pride is the assumtion your religion is the RIGHT one. Faith in god and religion arn't the same. faith is your connection to god. religion is a buisness, not faith.
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: NITRO777]
#66521
03/29/06 04:17
03/29/06 04:17
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Joined: Oct 2003
Posts: 4,131
Matt_Aufderheide
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Quote:
I have known doctors and biologists who have degrees up to their elbows which believe in God and are very much convinced of the complete farce of evolution. So please do not come up with these ridiculous, unsupported statements about "all scientist."
In any case, you can find cranks in any discipline. The fact is modern biolgical sciences depend entirely on evolutionary theory.
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and Darwin himself knew that all his theories depended upon finding intermediate fossils which he assumed a later generation would find. We never found them.
Yes we did, and in fact Darwin was triumphantly vindicated 2 years after publication of Origin of Species with the discovery of archaeopteryx, a form connnecting dinosaurs to birds. More recently, we have found many feathered dinosaurs that resemble birds and dinosaurs so closely, that it's difficult to draw a distinction between the groups, and now many scientist consider birds as therapod dinoaurs. This is a fascinating example of how two apparently distinct groups are shown to be closely related to each other, because the latter share derived characteristic with the former. Birds therefore are diapsids, like reptiles. In other words, birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than they are to mammals. The fact that both are warm blooded shows a case of convergent evolution, where the same traits are NOT derived, but evolved seperately.
Darwin predicted early human ancestors, and that the earliest would be found in Africa. It is a common misconception, one you seem to hold, that humans are descended from "monkeys" . This is not the case. Humans and monkeys however, did have a common ancestor. Chimpanzees and the great apes diverged from the human line more recently than monkeys, and in fact Chimps are our closest relatives--morphology and DNA comparisons prove this conclusively.
Obviously you know NOTHING of the fossil record, or do you belive that fossils are all hoaxes? There are a vast number of intermediate fossils, in fact all fossils are "intermediate" in that evolution is not made of discrete steps, and has no inevitiable or directed goal. Evolution IS adaptation. Just for instance, look at the various stem tetrapods, and you can see there is a clear transition between water and land-based forms. All the fossil record can give us are snapshots of an immensely long and gradual process. Howeever, remarkably, ebnough fossils formas have survide to enable us to construct very complete trees of life.
Fos instance, we have have hominind forms, going back in very obvious graduation, to millions of years ago. Look at the Homo Erectus skeleton, it is so very clearly related to us, that one walking down the stree, if cleaned up and in a suit, would probaly not warrant more than a glance.
Homo hiedlebergensis, homo habilis, and are good representatives of close ancestors. Going farther back we have austrolapithicus and so on. There is no other way to undertsand these fossil speacies without evolutionary theory. Exactly what the relationshoips are are still not compo,etely clear, but that humans share derived characteristic with homo erectus is clear. We alos share older derived characteristics with chimps. Characteristics are not convergent, but derived, because the structres are the same.
However, humans and birds are indeed distantly related, because the dinoaurs and mammals had a common ancestor, the amniotes, like A. Cotylorhynchus. These odd creatures had characteristics that eventually are shared by all living reptiles and mammals. This is yet another exmaple of 'intermediate' forms.
The problem is, you expect every possible permutation to be represented in the fossil record. They arent. Only a small number of specias have been preserved, but they are enough.
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However, we can even look at living specias to get an idea of what intermediate forms look like. Consider the lemurs. The lemurs are creatures that resemble, and may actually be ancestral, to all monkeys, apes, and hominids. The lemurs are clearly not monkeys or apes, but have many distinct characteristics that are more distinct in other species.
Lunfishes, for example, while not ancestral to the first land tetrapods, show primitive lungs capable of breathing air. This is an example of evolutionary recursion, in which the same evolutionary step is made more than once.
Look at the coconut crab of the South Pacifc and Indian oceans. This is certainly a crab, or is it? It is in fact not a crab per se, but a derived hermit crab, which is not a true crab. It is a related crusacean, for whom evolution has found a suitable form, that resembles the true crabs. This evidence of recursive convergence clearly supports that evolution proceeds by the process of natural selection, that is, favorable forms are more likely to survive and reproduce than lass favorable forms. That the crab-like is favorable to arthropods is clear. Other arthropods crustaceans have also evolved into a crab-like form.
The coconut crab is also interesting to us, because it has independently developed an air-breathing lung, although not like our lungs. in fact, it still has rudamentary gills also, but these gills dont function very well, and a coconut crab will drown underwater after a few minutes. Interestingly, it is not fully adapted for dry land either, as its "lungs" must be occasionally wetted.
How else do you explain rudamentary gills that dont work well, and lungs that needs some water to function, if you dont accept that the coconut crab is derived from water-living animals?
An interesting form of this recursive convergent evolution can be seen in the "icthyoid" forms, bascially a long, slender, streamlined shape, a single erect dorsal fin, two large fore-fins, and a finned tail. Beginning with icthyosaurs( a giant sea-going reptile), to sharks, and finally dolphins, we can see that this form is apparently so favorable, that three extremely different groups of animals have evolved to almost exactly resemble each other. This is a strong case of a form so succesful, it is almost a case of inevitability. Does this contradict the idea that evolution isnt directed or inevitable? No, because the forms only evolved under similar conditions, and plenty of sea-going species look nothing at all like this.
An existing species bears in its genes marks of its history, as a canyon's walls shows the layers of its making in the sedimentary rocks.
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As i tried to show in as few words as possible, there are clear intermediate cases. Living animals have traces in their bodies of previous modes of living. Very differnt groups come to resembel each other because the form they take is favolrable in the same conditions. But not all forms converge, becaue of randomness, drift, and otehr factors.. showing that evolution is never consistent, and is essentially random. What is tempting to see as design is simply our anthropomorphicizing a very complex and gradual process.
One may argue that science can only show how, not why, something is, and this is true. In its strictest sense, "why" is an anthropic term: i may ask "why do you like blue?", "why did you go there?", but not "why does the apple fall from a tree?". What i really mean is "how did the apple fall?". The apple falls because of physical forces, but it made no choice to do so. "Why?" is a question of behavior, "how?" is a question of mechanics. So in the end, no scientist should ask "why?" but only "how?".
(I'd appreciate it if any biologist would care to comment on my arguements, and make any corrections if needed)
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: NITRO777]
#66522
03/29/06 04:35
03/29/06 04:35
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 535
Michigan
ICEman
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Posts: 535
Michigan
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I agree Grimber, the only real way to get anywhere is to stop treating science and religion as two totally polar perspectives and try to marry the truth within religious reference, with our scientific knowledge. Because both knowledge bases ARE incomplete.. our answer will still be limited, but it will be a more kosher approach than any side has taken so far.
:| Now you're talkin Nitro.
Same thing with the existence or non existence of God. The sooner all sides, religions, and areligions are ready to admit that they dunno any better than any other side that they DONT know the absolute truth..the better off we'll be.
:| To me, what needs to be done is not one side convincing every other side of its viewpoint.. cuz that's never going to happen..what we need to agree upon is a general.. central agreement for all intents and purposes. The conflict and disagreement
To me, in the real world, we dont need to know what created us, what created it, and so on. What we should be digging toward is where we're going..instead of where we came from. in a sense where we come from is a big part of where we're going, but we have yet to approach that question nonpartisanly..and as a result we're no closer to answering where we came from then we were 10,20,200, 2000 years ago.. it's too big a question.
So what we should evaluate is.. what is our condition now.. and what do we do to thrive for the next few millenia.
All truth will reveal itself in time. We just have to be more patient than we have been.. cuz it's not going to come to us right away.
I'm ICEman, and I approved this message.
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: NITRO777]
#66524
03/29/06 08:11
03/29/06 08:11
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 54
AndersA
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Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 54
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Quote:
Quote:
All scientists accept evolution.
What is all scientists? What qualifies one as a scientist in your opinion? Are you talking about people with associate degrees? Probably not.How about people with bachelors degrees? Probably not. How about a masters? Or do we need a Phd to be considered a scientist? Lets just assume that by "all scientists" you mean only people with PhD's. And to further refine our group, lets only choose people that have PhD's with Biological background, because a PhD in law or economics would not help us very much with the study of life.
If you define a scientist as a person who adheres to the scientific method, I think it's safe to state that "[a]ll scientists accept evolution" as a reasonable way to understand life.
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Re: for doubters of God's existance
[Re: AndersA]
#66525
03/29/06 09:02
03/29/06 09:02
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 155
USA San Diego CA
Scramasax
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Member
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 155
USA San Diego CA
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@ Grimber
I agree with you almost 100%, and wouldn't dare split hairs with you're logic.
Science and religion aren't in primary conflict. Christianity specifically is to some degree, because of Genesis, and some other minor points of the bible. This will pass though, in the next few centuries or so. It will simply be considered silly to believe in the Garden of Eden and the 6000 year old earth as time goes on.
A good number of Christians have already moved on, believing that God created the universe in the way he wanted. Time is flexible, according to the laws of relativity, so maybe 7 days were enough to cook up the whole thing. I really can't help on the Garden of Eden thing, but I always look at it as, us regretting becoming conscious beyond that of our animal roots.
Real science doesn't support the creationist theory cause it can't. I think science tried for awhile, but it wasn't working out. Some people claiming to be scientists are simply selling something popular to an ever shrinking group of people, who want to believe in the old ways. I'm sure its good money and good acclaim in its limited scope, but its not really science.
There are galaxies moving away from a single point, and we can see back in time to things much farther away than 6k years. We've seemed to evolve from animals. These are theories, that are based on the parsimonious evidence that are commonly observed.
Darwin was a great scientist, but he was born one hundred plus years ago. Its kind of funny how Christians argue points of the most popular evolutionary scientist, but not the most recent. Even now modern evolutionist smash his old theories and create new ones in an attempt to create better models to represent objective reality. This though, is the key difference. Good science isn't based on what we want to be true, but is a path in finding out the truth.
Last edited by Scramasax; 03/29/06 09:10.
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