Evolution vs Creationism - Page 5

**leejo** · 07-28-2004, 12:08 AM

Dudeman you're correct I had it in my mind that you had made many comments about homosexuality being "unnatural" and inferred things you did not say. I apologize.

You did however just liken being "picked on" as a minority (athiest) to riding on the back of the bus as a black person, did you not? So you brought up that issue, not me.

And yes, I was being sarcastic with the go soak your head, but I wasn't directing it at you. Dudeman, you take so many things personally when I believe the writer didn't have you on their minds at all, as in this case. Other than the crack about tolerating homosexuals, I wasn't thinking of you at all.

**luna** · 07-28-2004, 12:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phyllis

Every species appears fully, not partially developed. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubing that is not 100% complete is no good... neither are partially developed organs.....Think about this a minute.... if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird... it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing

Every LIVING representation of a species is developed. If you are formed without say a complete circulatory system, you die before or shortly after you're born. If you are lacking any of your vital organs in their prime condition, you either die or live with a serious disability. One could easily argue that the reason you don't see "partial" developments is because they do not survive unless the adaptation/mutation is beneficial to the organism.

Fait_Maker · 07-28-2004, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pokerface

What WOULD it take for you to believe, Fait?

I'll take a burning-yet-not-being-consumed-talking-bush any day.

For the record, as I've noted in the past, I was raised Baptist, trained in a Christian school for 3 years, and I have a Baptist preacher for a brother. I'm fairly up on Christian mythology too.

I like Buddhism except for the reincarnation... not a big believer in anything beyond you live, you die. I'm also interested in Wiccan, but alas, they have gods.

**Wyzcrak** · 07-28-2004, 12:54 AM

Leave it to the women in this community to time and again calmly and with humility explain almost exactly how I feel when it comes to issues which people here care to make more noise than intra-education about. Between those with attitudes stinking up threads and those without often expressing pretty much how I feel anyway, it's rarely necessary that I contribute in Sandbox threads anymore. The below, however, it repeated for emphasis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by =luna=

I've also come to the conclusion that I know very little in the whole scheme of things, and to boldly say one thing or another when I can only comprehend a tiny fraction of all there is to know is arrogant of me. I'm totally clueless. I enjoy absorbing everything I can, and do my best not to allow myself to believe that I know something that is at this point unknowable.

I could say more, but the problem here is having faith that people are really listening, much less that a god is.

Fait_Maker · 07-28-2004, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pokerface

I would like to refer you to Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi.

It's not about putting up with abuse; it's about fostering understanding. Tolerance doesn't spring forth magically from intolerance.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but I have met only a few Christians in my lifetime that ever bothered to want to understand me. The Bible tells them I am a heathen, a blasphamer. I have rebuked god and turned away from him. I will go to hell. Why would many Christians want any part of that? I might as well be gay in their eyes.

**Wyzcrak** · 07-28-2004, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eternal

Well for once I have faith......I have faith in the fact you are a woman.

Faith in facts.

Nice touch.

**USN_Squid** · 07-28-2004, 01:09 AM

I am a man of few words, and there is more to my belief in God than this, but here is my .02. And believe me I've gone from believing to not and back again because of the very points made in this thread.

1-So the big bang created the elements necessary to start life. Then what was here before the Big Bang? And before that? And before that?

2-If you don't believe in God, you better be right. Yeah, I know, it's a bumper sticker.

**luna** · 07-28-2004, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phyllis

Spontaneous life (the arrival of life from nonliving anything) has never been observed....every study out therehas shown that life comes only from life....science can create life from other life, but have yet to create any type of living thing, even a single cell from anything non-living....

One more, then I'm going to bed. I'm not replying to tick ya off, Phyllis- just trying to throw some new info out there for everyone to ponder. You don't need to believe or listen to a word of it.

In order for life to occur, we need amino acids (the building blocks of life, as biology calls them). Amino acids CAN be created spontaneously. The Miller-Urey experiment shows that an atmosphere consisting only of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor will give rise to amino acids. [Schlesinger and Miller 1983]. From there, we find simple celled organisms.

Now granted, no life can just suddenly *poof* appear out of nowhere fully formed and ready to take on the world, but no one who supports evolution would assert such a thing.

As for the swirling gas and dust thing, I am not sure where that idea is coming from. I followed you up until you said that no water would occur. Why wouldn't it? Hydrogen and oxygen would create water. Those elements would be included in the swirling pot, wouldn't they?

**Wyzcrak** · 07-28-2004, 01:16 AM

Clearly, there is a god.

http://www.topeuro.co.uk/blagger/the_duel.html

**USN_Squid** · 07-28-2004, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by =luna=

One more, then I'm going to bed. I'm not replying to tick ya off, Phyllis- just trying to throw some new info out there for everyone to ponder. You don't need to believe or listen to a word of it.

In order for life to occur, we need amino acids (the building blocks of life, as biology calls them). Amino acids CAN be created spontaneously. The Miller-Urey experiment shows that an atmosphere consisting only of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor will give rise to amino acids. [Schlesinger and Miller 1983]. From there, we find simple celled organisms.

Now granted, no life can just suddenly *poof* appear out of nowhere fully formed and ready to take on the world, but no one who supports evolution would assert such a thing.

As for the swirling gas and dust thing, I am not sure where that idea is coming from. I followed you up until you said that no water would occur. Why wouldn't it? Hydrogen and oxygen would create water. Those elements would be included in the swirling pot, wouldn't they?

I thought I remember from Science class that SOME or MOST of the Amino Acids necessary could be created by lighting in a bottle, but not all. Am I wrong?

Fait_Maker · 07-28-2004, 01:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phyllis

Evolutionists claim the solar system condensed out of a vast cloud of swirling dust about 4,600,000,000 billion years ago...if that's the case, and the Earth and solar system evolved from a swirling cloud of dust and gas... practically no water would be on Earth(or very little anyway)...how is it that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water ?

Evolution describes how life on earth evolved and makes no claims on how the universe or anything in space came to be.

The dust and gas contained the molecules necessary to combine and make water? I wasn't there, so I really don't know. You don't either.

Question. If the Earth was made for man and contains 70% water, why weren't we created with gills?

Quote:

Spontaneous life (the arrival of life from nonliving anything) has never been observed....every study out therehas shown that life comes only from life....science can create life from other life, but have yet to create any type of living thing, even a single cell from anything non-living....

I don't know. I wasn't there. You don't know either.

Question - if the universe needs a creator why doesn't that rule apply to god as well? Who created god?

Quote:

Every species appears fully, not partially developed. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubing that is not 100% complete is no good... neither are partially developed organs.....Think about this a minute.... if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird... it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing

How do you know this to be true? Have you observed evolution to conclude that it must be a bad leg? Why don't penguins have feathers, being birds?

Quote:

Many single celled forms of life exist...no known forms of life have 2,3,4, or 5 cells...the forms of life that contain 6-20 cells are parasites.... if evolution has/is occuring...why are there no 2-3-4-5 cells forms of life filling that gap between single celled organisms and parasites ?

They were allergic to those numbers? Is there a rule that those cells had to form?

Quote:

To claim life evolved is to demand a miracle...huh?...no way!...miracles are only for religious fools... it takes wayyyyy more faith to think this complex world just kinda fell together over the last few thousand years, than it does to believe that a divine creator put it all together.....

Faith is allowing yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith.

millions.. millions of years.

Quote:

Do people accept evolution for the following reasons......

It is all they have been taught. (kinda like Christians eh ? )

Evolution is proved to be happening this very day, but I don't personally accept that it is the reason there is life here. Maybe aliens made this for us. I don't know. I wasn't here. You don't know either.

Quote:

They like the freedom from God (no moral absolutes, I'm responsible to no one etc.).

I do not feel that a theist can be moral based upon their religious belief. The theist has said that he/she cannot make rational decisions about what is right or wrong and has turned over that right to a god to make those decisions for him/her. You can read more in my essay on morals

Quote:

They are too proud to admit they are wrong.

<sigh>

Lirix · 07-28-2004, 02:37 AM

"Faith is allowing yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith." - Fait

My intellect rejects evolution as a creation theory. Admittedly, I'm not the most scientifically versed person in the world. But I've been told I'm smart enough times that I believe it. Evolution as a working process of maintaining life seems to be at work around us, although most mutations do seem to result in a very short lifespan for that particular mutant.

This is probably of note, I was raised to believe in The Christ. This mostly comes from my mom, because dad still remembers his mom being expelled from church because she stayed home with her husband, who was bedridden from constant work in the coal mines, rather than attending church on Sundays. The practitioners of the faith seem to be the biggest obstacles to joining it. My intellect doesn't seem to be jumping up and down at this prospect either.

Personally, I believe that something created the universe because the laws of the universe(in my limited understanding) don't exactly point to its existance being a permanent thing. In fact, nothing in time and space as we know it should be permanent. Thus, it stands to reason that time and space as we know it is NOT the defining rules of the universe, it is simply the box we get to play in. We won't be able to say anything about the rest of the universe until we figure out how to collect data outside the box. In effect, a semi-logical reasoning of the answer to "why?" using the same answer of (almost) every parent:"Because."

This from an angry young man who refuses to see the world in anything more complex than binary. I guess we all deal with questions in our own way.

**CingularDuality** · 07-28-2004, 03:32 AM

Sorry Phyllis, but this post of yours is horribly inaccurate...

Quote:

Originally Posted by phyllis

Evolutionists claim the solar system condensed out of a vast cloud of swirling dust about 4,600,000,000 billion years ago...if that's the case, and the Earth and solar system evolved from a swirling cloud of dust and gas... practically no water would be on Earth(or very little anyway)...how is it that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered in water ?

It's already been pointed out to you that ocean water is actually made of dust and gas. Basic chemistry.

Quote:

Spontaneous life (the arrival of life from nonliving anything) has never been observed....every study out therehas shown that life comes only from life....science can create life from other life, but have yet to create any type of living thing, even a single cell from anything non-living....

Actually, life was recently created from entirely inorganic compounds: http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/.../note14ref.asp

Quote:

Every species appears fully, not partially developed. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubing that is not 100% complete is no good... neither are partially developed organs.....Think about this a minute.... if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird... it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing

Again, it's already been pointed out by someone else that you're only going to see evolutionary successes. Failed mutations are culled by nature.

Quote:

Many single celled forms of life exist...no known forms of life have 2,3,4, or 5 cells...the forms of life that contain 6-20 cells are parasites.... if evolution has/is occuring...why are there no 2-3-4-5 cells forms of life filling that gap between single celled organisms and parasites ?

If this is true, then I don't know what to say. I wasn't aware of this peculiarity... I don't see how it is evidence that evolution is bunk, though. Can you explain this concept a bit more?

**Pokerface** · 07-28-2004, 03:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fait_Maker

Question - if the universe needs a creator why doesn't that rule apply to god as well? Who created god?

Answer: God is uncreated. God was everything until he started to separate out light from darkness and create "Creation". Bone up on that mythology.

To apply the rules of creation to God is silly.

Quote:

How do you know this to be true? Have you observed evolution to conclude that it must be a bad leg? Why don't penguins have feathers, being birds?

Penguins DO have feathers.

Quote:

Faith is allowing yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith.

Incorrect. Faith isn't the absurd belief in the irrational. Intellect would cause one to reject things shown to be false; faith is belief in things that aren't necessarily proven true.

If I say "Have faith: the Buffalo Bills DID win a SuperBowl in their four straight trips there" then you'd be right. There's proof galore that they made tragedy out of triumph four years running.
Contrast: "Have faith: The sun'll come out, tomorrow!" That statement is as faithful as they come -- a track record as long as the universe is old is still no proof that the sun will in fact come out tomorrow. The truth must be discovered. Neither shown to be true, nor proven false, the postulation is one of faith.

Quote:

I do not feel that a theist can be moral based upon their religious belief. The theist has said that he/she cannot make rational decisions about what is right or wrong and has turned over that right to a god to make those decisions for him/her. You can read more in my essay on morals

But if morals can be independent of religion, why is a theist's belief in the morals laid down by a Christian God a resignation of reasoning? What if said theist arrived at all of the moral conclusions and then took note that Christianity hit the nail on the head?

Quote:

Originally Posted by the essay

God made the 10 commandments. If he had decided to say "Thou shalt murder everyone who looks at your wife wrong" would that murder be correct? Under Christian thinking, YES! "But God wouldn't have said that. Everyone knows murdering is wrong!", you say. Under Christian thinking, it is only wrong if God says it is wrong. And to say "God said 'Thou shalt not murder' because it is right", means that it is a truth and that's why God said it, not it is a truth because God said it. So if God decided on the 10 commandments because that's what he feels is right and not because it is a truth that must be, then God picked those 10 commandments arbitrarily and could have picked a totally different set.

Not really.
Let's assume for the moment that God is perfect.
God then says "Thou Shalt Not Murder."
Here's the big money question: Did God just create truth, or merely declare it? Would He utter as a commandment anything else BESIDES the truth?
Truth, much like God (actually EXACTLY like God), simply IS.
Now, this line of reasoning doesn't necessarily apply to all of the commandments; killing, lying, and marital infidelity are really the big three. The others aren't viewed in the universal light that those three are, and in THOSE an argument could be easily made for some crowd-control measure by the powers-that-were.

Quote:

Originally Posted by the essay

A Christian has to believe that the laws set forth by God are absolute and permanently valid though. Even though we all know that times change. Why couldn't God in all his wisdom not see that?

A Christian doesn't HAVE to do jack squat. :P Free will and all.

Everyone DOES recognize that times change -- like you said, when the last time a stubborn son got stoned to death? The Bible is an historical document just as much as it is a ledger on life, and as such, it chronicles how life used to be, down to the rules that everyone lived by.
As to THAT rule... well, let's compare the sources as they're given in the narrative that is the Bible.
The Ten Commandments, making their appearance in Exodus 20, come directly from God. Deuteronomy as a whole is spoken by Moses after the Promised Land had already been attained. So we get ten lines from the Big Man, and 34 chapters from Moses. I think the reults of this biblical game of "telephone" are clear to see.
God in his wisdom knew that times were subject to change, and so he picked ten things out that were to be held as timeless. You and I can bounce Leviticus 18 back and forth for a while, if you want, but my postulate is that God picked ten that matter, and man made up the rest around it.

**CingularDuality** · 07-28-2004, 03:48 AM

If God is omnipotent, can He make a mountain so immense that even He can't move it?

07-28-2004, 12:08 AM	#61 (permalink)
leejo Join Date: Sep 2003 Age: 39 Posts: 7,839	Re: Evolution vs Creationism Dudeman you're correct I had it in my mind that you had made many comments about homosexuality being "unnatural" and inferred things you did not say. I apologize. You did however just liken being "picked on" as a minority (athiest) to riding on the back of the bus as a black person, did you not? So you brought up that issue, not me. And yes, I was being sarcastic with the go soak your head, but I wasn't directing it at you. Dudeman, you take so many things personally when I believe the writer didn't have you on their minds at all, as in this case. Other than the crack about tolerating homosexuals, I wasn't thinking of you at all.

07-28-2004, 01:09 AM	#67 (permalink)
USN_Squid Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Denver Age: 38 Posts: 3,173	Re: Evolution vs Creationism I am a man of few words, and there is more to my belief in God than this, but here is my .02. And believe me I've gone from believing to not and back again because of the very points made in this thread. 1-So the big bang created the elements necessary to start life. Then what was here before the Big Bang? And before that? And before that? 2-If you don't believe in God, you better be right. Yeah, I know, it's a bumper sticker. __________________ New to TG? Start here!

07-28-2004, 01:16 AM	#69 (permalink)
Wyzcrak Join Date: May 2003 Location: Memphis, TN Posts: 14,148	Re: Evolution vs Creationism Clearly, there is a god. http://www.topeuro.co.uk/blagger/the_duel.html __________________ Steam Community? Add me. \| Join #tacticalgamer \| Search Results Legend \| New Posts Forum Filter \| Postbox Toggle \| Live Thread Review \| One Line Results \| Free Remote, Encrypted Backup Darkilla: In short, NS is pretty much really fast chess. With guns. Apophis: I haven't seen anyone say that SM's are better than non-SMs. Nordbomber: This is THE first server I've seen where either side can comeback from out of seemingly nowhere with the right teamwork. en4rcment: I have NEVER experienced the type of gameplay that I have found here. Nightly I am amazed at the personalities and gaming talent. Root: Welcome to TG. Feel free to punctuate your sentences correctly. Monkerz: Its gonna take all my skills to beat those boys off in the future.

07-28-2004, 02:37 AM	#72 (permalink)
Lirix Join Date: May 2003 Location: Aurora, CO Age: 29 Posts: 173	Re: Evolution vs Creationism "Faith is allowing yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject -- otherwise there's no need for faith." - Fait My intellect rejects evolution as a creation theory. Admittedly, I'm not the most scientifically versed person in the world. But I've been told I'm smart enough times that I believe it. Evolution as a working process of maintaining life seems to be at work around us, although most mutations do seem to result in a very short lifespan for that particular mutant. This is probably of note, I was raised to believe in The Christ. This mostly comes from my mom, because dad still remembers his mom being expelled from church because she stayed home with her husband, who was bedridden from constant work in the coal mines, rather than attending church on Sundays. The practitioners of the faith seem to be the biggest obstacles to joining it. My intellect doesn't seem to be jumping up and down at this prospect either. Personally, I believe that something created the universe because the laws of the universe(in my limited understanding) don't exactly point to its existance being a permanent thing. In fact, nothing in time and space as we know it should be permanent. Thus, it stands to reason that time and space as we know it is NOT the defining rules of the universe, it is simply the box we get to play in. We won't be able to say anything about the rest of the universe until we figure out how to collect data outside the box. In effect, a semi-logical reasoning of the answer to "why?" using the same answer of (almost) every parent:"Because." This from an angry young man who refuses to see the world in anything more complex than binary. I guess we all deal with questions in our own way.

07-28-2004, 03:48 AM	#75 (permalink)
CingularDuality Join Date: May 2003 Location: Dallas/Ft. Worth area of Texas, USA Age: 33 Posts: 17,137	Re: Evolution vs Creationism If God is omnipotent, can He make a mountain so immense that even He can't move it? __________________ Become a supporting member! Buy a Tactical Duck! Take the world's smallest political quiz! "I was touched by His Noodly Appendage." TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

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