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#300634 - 01/16/05 10:18 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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They know much better than to write laws that begin with "Thou shalt not," because no unwanted behavior has ever been eliminated by passing a law against it, not by God, not by Hammurabi, not by Caesar, not by Parliament, and not by the United States Congress.
You show that you know very little about my God when you say that this was his purpose in writing laws for man. That has never been taught from any pulpit of any Christian church I have ever attended or visited. No man or woman, who knew what they were talking about, would preach God's word by saying this was his reason for these laws. I doubt very much you have ever heard this preached. You really need to study the God of Judaism and Christianity a little more before you will understand Him at all.
So your God writes laws that he doesn't even expect will be followed?
Do governments write laws with the expectation that they will be followed? If so, why do they also write penal sections of those same laws for when they are not followed. My God knows that we cannot live up to what He can live up to. He writes these laws to help us realize our sinfulness. He knows that, other than God himself, no one can keep the law completely. These laws, and our failures to keep them, show us that we are not God and that we need him and his Son's sacrifice to bridge the gap that our sinfulness creates between a sinful people and a holy God.
What kind of laws do your "gods" write? Are they only natural laws, like "gravity," etc... that are completely predictable on Earth?
If have other laws besides the laws of science and nature, what are they?
(BTW, if your gods rely on the laws of science, why did they not reveal them fully to man. When we first came to Earth, we did not understand these laws at all. We have been slowly unravelling these mysteries over centuries and in fact continue to find flaws in what we thought were the laws.)
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#300635 - 01/16/05 11:53 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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Do governments write laws with the expectation that they will be followed? If so, why do they also write penal sections of those same laws for when they are not followed. My God knows that we cannot live up to what He can live up to. He writes these laws to help us realize our sinfulness. He knows that, other than God himself, no one can keep the law completely. These laws, and our failures to keep them, show us that we are not God and that we need him and his Son's sacrifice to bridge the gap that our sinfulness creates between a sinful people and a holy God.
You hit on a very good point here. Governments do write the same kinds of laws as your God. Laws that they know will be broken day in and day out. And our reaction every year to the failure of these laws is to write more laws and enforce harsher penalties. We pledge to "send a message" with our enforcement of these laws. But somehow the message never arrives. Your God is the same way. Every once in a while he gets all huffy and puffy and decides to come send us a message (Noah's Ark, for instance), but the message never arrives. Doesn't seem like a very all-powerful God to me.
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What kind of laws do your "gods" write? Are they only natural laws, like "gravity," etc... that are completely predictable on Earth?
In a sense, natural laws are the only real laws, are they not? They're the only laws that are followed invariably. Anything else, to me, isn't really a law, but a practice in futility. Take "Thou shalt not kill," for instance. We all know (most of us anyway) that the correct translation is "Thou shalt not murder." Okay, so now we've got a "law" from your God. But not only is this law violated every day, nobody even really knows what it means. In the abstract (because words are abstract), we know what it means, but half the time we can't even agree on whether a murder has even occurred.
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If have other laws besides the laws of science and nature, what are they?
See above
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(BTW, if your gods rely on the laws of science, why did they not reveal them fully to man. When we first came to Earth, we did not understand these laws at all. We have been slowly unravelling these mysteries over centuries and in fact continue to find flaws in what we thought were the laws.)
What better way to reveal the laws of the universe to man than to put man in the universe? It's written there for all to see, it's clearly not the job of competent gods to sit man down and school him in the laws of the universe. To me, that sounds like the work of small-minded anthropocentric gods, not competent gods. You see, my gods didn't create the earth so man would have a place to destroy while he awaits salvation or damnation. My gods did just the opposite. My gods created man for the earth, a sacred being (just like all the rest) to animate a sacred place. We're not the earth's stewards, we're an expression of the earth.
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#300636 - 01/17/05 12:57 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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Every once in a while he gets all huffy and puffy and decides to come send us a message (Noah's Ark, for instance), but the message never arrives. Doesn't seem like a very all-powerful God to me.
So, you recognize that my God is powerful enough to send a flood that destroys the entire world, but you don't think that He is powerful enough to FORCE his will on you if He chose to do so. He does not choose to do so because of His love for us. Why would a loving God create a world and then FORCE His will on all inhabitants? He sends messages, it is your choice whether to heed them. The fact that you have chosen not to heed the message, does not make Him any less powerful.
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In a sense, natural laws are the only real laws, are they not?
If you are correct, once you have convinced the world to abdicate passing laws or listening to an imaginary god's laws, maybe I'll come by your house for a fight you to the death. This would be OK in the law of natural selection. In fact, the next time you have a significant other, when he/she does something to make you angry. Just walk away--there is not God, there is only chemicals and nature and the laws of each. Or better yet, kill her/him and then walk away to find another significant other. Since we are only subject to natural laws, why not?
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Humanity has known many great scientists whose names and discoveries are familiar to millions of people - Galileo Galilei and the telescope, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone, Isaac Newton and his discoveries in physics. Many scientific discoveries have been named after their discoverer, and some have even been, by implication, attributed to their discoverer e.g. "Newton's laws of physics." Scientists of course however only study and attempt to understand natural laws, God's natural laws, that were written before "in the beginning" of physical time - creation "hit the ground running" as an orderly event, based on scientific laws that God had determined and decreed beforehand. The presence of a creation demands the existence of a single Creator, and the existence of natural laws require the existence of a single Natural Law Maker. If there were multiple "gods" doing this, as you suggest, they would not have created an ordered system of natural laws. And if you say that your "gods" got together with each other to create these remarkably consistent natural laws, all you do is give me evidence for the existence of only one uncreated Creator!
You comments about my God show that you: (1) were taught about him, but never tried to understand Him, (2) were taught by people who did not understand him, (3) you never studied or were taught about Him, or (4) you have forgotten or distorted in your mind everything you were taught about Him. As a result, you have found it necessary to create a gods of your own choosing--gods that make sense to you as you see through a glass darkly.
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#300637 - 01/17/05 12:57 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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When will this thread end??
Why do you care? Really, why?
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#300639 - 01/17/05 02:10 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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So, you recognize that my God is powerful enough to send a flood that destroys the entire world, but you don't think that He is powerful enough to FORCE his will on you if He chose to do so. He does not choose to do so because of His love for us. Why would a loving God create a world and then FORCE His will on all inhabitants? He sends messages, it is your choice whether to heed them. The fact that you have chosen not to heed the message, does not make Him any less powerful.
He sends messages that never seem to get across to the intended recipients. That's my point exactly. Competent gods know better than to put their laws in human language, because they know that anything in human language is subject to interpretation. I again cite the existence of this thread as evidence. I don't doubt the power of your God, I just think he's a bungler.
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If you are correct, once you have convinced the world to abdicate passing laws or listening to an imaginary god's laws, maybe I'll come by your house for a fight you to the death. This would be OK in the law of natural selection. In fact, the next time you have a significant other, when he/she does something to make you angry. Just walk away--there is not God, there is only chemicals and nature and the laws of each. Or better yet, kill her/him and then walk away to find another significant other. Since we are only subject to natural laws, why not?
First off, I'd be terribly surprised to find out that doing any of those things would survive as an evolutionary stable strategy. Such behaviors are observed absolutely nowhere in the living community. That is to say that the law of natural selection has definitively weeded out the practice of randomly starting fights to the death, or killing off ones mates.
And the fact of the matter is that passing a law against killing didn't put an end to it last year, or the year before that, or the year before that, or the year before that, back to the days of Hammurabi. To me, what you're saying here sounds like this: "Once you get all the laws repealed, everyone will go around driving faster than 65 miles per hour on the freeway."
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Humanity has known many great scientists whose names and discoveries are familiar to millions of people - Galileo Galilei and the telescope, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone, Isaac Newton and his discoveries in physics. Many scientific discoveries have been named after their discoverer, and some have even been, by implication, attributed to their discoverer e.g. "Newton's laws of physics." Scientists of course however only study and attempt to understand natural laws, God's natural laws, that were written before "in the beginning" of physical time - creation "hit the ground running" as an orderly event, based on scientific laws that God had determined and decreed beforehand. The presence of a creation demands the existence of a single Creator, and the existence of natural laws require the existence of a single Natural Law Maker. If there were multiple "gods" doing this, as you suggest, they would not have created an ordered system of natural laws. And if you say that your "gods" got together with each other to create these remarkably consistent natural laws, all you do is give me evidence for the existence of only one uncreated Creator!
Are you implying that Newton wrote the laws of physics? Did things fall upwards before Newton came around? Did the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle equal something other than the square of the hypoteneuse before Pythagoras? These people aren't famous for writing laws, they're famous for discovering them. And that's an accomplishment because the laws work so well as to be invisible. Before Newton, nobody thought a ball would roll off the edge of a counter and fall upwards, they just weren't aware that a law was in action.
The presence of speciation doesn't demand the existence of any creators at all. See "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins if you want to understand the processes behind "creation." I think we both know that it is outside the scope of this conversation to remedy the failings of your science teachers in this regard.
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You comments about my God show that you: (1) were taught about him, but never tried to understand Him, (2) were taught by people who did not understand him, (3) you never studied or were taught about Him, or (4) you have forgotten or distorted in your mind everything you were taught about Him. As a result, you have found it necessary to create a gods of your own choosing--gods that make sense to you as you see through a glass darkly.
This is of course not a logical argument, but rather meaningless rhetoric.
What gods have I created? I've repeatedly explained that none of us knows the number of gods, myself included. This is exactly why your religion makes such a big deal out of faith.
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#300640 - 01/17/05 04:17 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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1) MY GOD IS A BUNGLER: You assume that the great flood was a message. Again, you show that you know little about Judaism or Christianity.
2) SURVIVING EVOLUTION: I forgot to mention that once I killed you, I would eat you. That, dear sir, is seen many times in nature.
3) PASSING LAWS DID NOT END KILLING: Do you even read what I write? I have been saying that laws do not necessarily keep anyone from any particular behavior. There are those who are dissuaded by the penalties, then there are those who are not. My example had nothing to do with the preventative nature of a law against killing, but I personally would hesitate to kill and eat you so long as there is (in your version of the universe) a law against it. However, in your created universe, why would I not kill you and use you to feed my family. If you tire of your significant other, why not kill her and eat her. You might argue that the species will not survive like that, but that is not my point, if the gods only gave us the laws of nature and science, then there is nothing "wrong" with my killing and eating you, right?
4) IMPLYING NEWTON WROTE THE LAWS GRAVITY: Do you read what I write? Do you not know the meaning of the word "discovery?" He did not discover gravity...man knew for years that an apple dropped would go down, but gravity is much more than an object falling to earth. And physics involves even more. Their creation/existence and their mastery by man are separate and distinct. Read some of Newton's writings. Newton discovered the "laws of physics."
5) BLINDWATCHMAKER: I don't need your science teachers to tell me about the blind watchmaker theory they have made up to fill in the hole of atheistic evolution. I know, I know, natural selection is the blind watchmaker. This book is more of an argument for atheism that it is about science. You are a theistic naturalist, if I am not mistaken. Sometimes theistic naturalist seem to imply that we should accept the blind watchmaker thesis, no matter how little evidence there may be for it, because some theological principle obliges us to do so. We must believe that natural selection does the creating because otherwise we would be denying the functional integrity of the universe, or proposing a "God of the gaps," or something of that sort. Theistic naturalists try to establish that it is impossible to believe in God even if the blind watchmaker thesis is true. In that case, their reluctance to challenge the thesis probably reflects an assumption that the scientific community simply cannot be wrong about a matter upon which its members are so apparently united and vehement.
"Perhaps the best way to illustrate the blind watchmaker theory's vulnerability is to quote Richard Dawkins' explanation of the evolution of flight:
'How did wings get their start? Many animals leap from bough to bough, and sometimes fall to the ground. Especially in a small animal, the whole body surface catches the air and assists the leap, or breaks the fall, by acting as a crude aerofoil. Any tendency to increase the ratio of surface area to weight would help, for example flaps of skin growing out in the angles of joints.... (It) doesn't matter how small and unwinglike the first wingflaps were. There must be some height, call it h, such that an animal would just break its neck if it fell from that height, but would just survive if it fell from a slightly lower height. In this critical zone, any improvement in the body surface's ability to catch the air and break the fall, however slight the improvement, can make the difference between life and death. Natural selection will then favor slight, prototype wingflaps. When these small flaps have become the norm, the critical height h will become slightly greater. Now a slight further increase in the wingflaps will make the difference between life and death. And so on, until we have proper wings.'
"Perhaps you have already perceived that the wing scenario assumes a lot, and everything it assumes is very doubtful. The first doubtful assumption is that nature can provide a whole chain of favorable mutations of the precise kind needed to change forelimbs into wings in a continuous line of development. For a single mutation to produce wings all at once would be a miracle and, as Dawkins himself says, virtually all mutations large enough to be visible are in fact deleterious to the animal possessing them. The long odds against a statistical miracle are not really tamed, however, by breaking the big change into a vast number (thousands? millions?) of tiny changes. Any single step is easier to imagine, but the price paid for this is that we have to imagine so many changes of just the right kind occurring in sequence.
"In fact, there isn't any way to know whether the hypothetical sequence of favorable micromutations is a greater or lesser miracle than the production of wings in an impossible single-generation jump. The probability of wing evolution by micromutation depends upon (1) the quantity of favorable micromutations required to create wings; (2) the frequency with which such favorable micromutations occur just where and when they are needed; (3) the efficacy of natural selection in preserving the slight improvements with sufficient consistency to permit the benefits to accumulate; and (4) the time allowed by the fossil record for all this to have happened. Because favorable mutations are so rare as to be virtually nonexistent, at least as far as any hard evidence can show, the probability of a continuous chain of wing-building mutations is either zero or incalculable.
"Mutation is far from the only problem with the wing evolution scenario. That natural selection -- i.e. differential survival -- would preserve the mutations even if they occurred is also doubtful. We need not dispute Dawkins' statement that even a tiny step towards flap development could break a leaping rodent's fall enough to make a difference in a very precisely defined situation. A rodent which differed from its fellows in this respect, however, would probably differ in others as well. For one thing, forelimbs in the process of becoming wings would probably lose their usefulness for grasping faster than they gained any utility for gliding or flying. How much survival value would the prototype wingflap have if it coincided with an increased tendency to fall? Moreover, a single gene often influences more that one characteristic of the animal. Given that virtually all mutations having detectable effects upon fitness are harmful, any beneficial effect from a mutation may be canceled by additional effects which are harmful. The rudimentary wingflap may coincide with a thinner winter coat, a lowered sperm count, or reduced resistance to disease. At best the natural selection scenario comes with a heavy reliance on "other things being equal," and there is no reason to believe that the other things will be equal."
6) MEANINGLESS RHETORIC: It is not meaningless rhetoric. If it is meaningless then tell me in detail about your Biblical studies. You choose to call it meaningless rhetoric because you have no answer to my comment that you do not know my God. Either you know about my God or you don't and surely you have shown in your posts that you have no understanding of what I believe about my God. You have no understanding of His stated purposes for any certain acts. I do not expect you to agree with them or think they make sense, but to have an intelligent conversation about my God, you must at least show some compentence in your knowledge, albeit unfaithful knowledge, of Him. You, dear sir, have failed at this!
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#300641 - 01/17/05 05:13 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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1) MY GOD IS A BUNGLER: You assume that the great flood was a message. Again, you show that you know little about Judaism or Christianity.
Okay, so he had to wipe the drawing board clean and start over. Either way, he's a bungler.
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2) SURVIVING EVOLUTION: I forgot to mention that once I killed you, I would eat you. That, dear sir, is seen many times in nature.
Not sure where you're going with this. Laws against eating people didn't stop Jeffrey Dahmer from eating people.
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3) PASSING LAWS DID NOT END KILLING: Do you even read what I write? I have been saying that laws do not necessarily keep anyone from any particular behavior.
No, that's what I've been saying. If that's how you feel about it, I'm glad we agree.
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There are those who are dissuaded by the penalties, then there are those who are not. My example had nothing to do with the preventative nature of a law against killing, but I personally would hesitate to kill and eat you so long as there is (in your version of the universe) a law against it. However, in your created universe, why would I not kill you and use you to feed my family. If you tire of your significant other, why not kill her and eat her. You might argue that the species will not survive like that, but that is not my point, if the gods only gave us the laws of nature and science, then there is nothing "wrong" with my killing and eating you, right?
Is it "wrong" to kill and eat a deer or a carrot? The laws the gods write don't separate "right" from "wrong," they separate the workable from the unworkable. If you can come up with a workable model for cannibalism, bully for you.
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4) IMPLYING NEWTON WROTE THE LAWS GRAVITY: Do you read what I write? Do you not know the meaning of the word "discovery?" He did not discover gravity...man knew for years that an apple dropped would go down, but gravity is much more than an object falling to earth. And physics involves even more. Their creation/existence and their mastery by man are separate and distinct. Read some of Newton's writings. Newton discovered the "laws of physics."
Not sure where you're going with this. Yes, before Newton, people understood that unsupported objects fall to the earth. Newton's most famous discovery was the fact that this was a law. I'm not sure what point you're alleging to make here.
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5) BLINDWATCHMAKER: I don't need your science teachers to tell me about the blind watchmaker theory they have made up to fill in the hole of atheistic evolution. I know, I know, natural selection is the blind watchmaker. This book is more of an argument for atheism that it is about science.
Other than to say that this is a completely false statement, I have no comment on this. If you had read the book, you'd realize what a ridiculous lie this is.
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"Perhaps the best way to illustrate the blind watchmaker theory's vulnerability is to quote Richard Dawkins' explanation of the evolution of flight:
'How did wings get their start? Many animals leap from bough to bough, and sometimes fall to the ground. Especially in a small animal, the whole body surface catches the air and assists the leap, or breaks the fall, by acting as a crude aerofoil. Any tendency to increase the ratio of surface area to weight would help, for example flaps of skin growing out in the angles of joints.... (It) doesn't matter how small and unwinglike the first wingflaps were. There must be some height, call it h, such that an animal would just break its neck if it fell from that height, but would just survive if it fell from a slightly lower height. In this critical zone, any improvement in the body surface's ability to catch the air and break the fall, however slight the improvement, can make the difference between life and death. Natural selection will then favor slight, prototype wingflaps. When these small flaps have become the norm, the critical height h will become slightly greater. Now a slight further increase in the wingflaps will make the difference between life and death. And so on, until we have proper wings.'
"Perhaps you have already perceived that the wing scenario assumes a lot, and everything it assumes is very doubtful. The first doubtful assumption is that nature can provide a whole chain of favorable mutations of the precise kind needed to change forelimbs into wings in a continuous line of development. For a single mutation to produce wings all at once would be a miracle and, as Dawkins himself says, virtually all mutations large enough to be visible are in fact deleterious to the animal possessing them. The long odds against a statistical miracle are not really tamed, however, by breaking the big change into a vast number (thousands? millions?) of tiny changes. Any single step is easier to imagine, but the price paid for this is that we have to imagine so many changes of just the right kind occurring in sequence.
"In fact, there isn't any way to know whether the hypothetical sequence of favorable micromutations is a greater or lesser miracle than the production of wings in an impossible single-generation jump. The probability of wing evolution by micromutation depends upon (1) the quantity of favorable micromutations required to create wings; (2) the frequency with which such favorable micromutations occur just where and when they are needed; (3) the efficacy of natural selection in preserving the slight improvements with sufficient consistency to permit the benefits to accumulate; and (4) the time allowed by the fossil record for all this to have happened. Because favorable mutations are so rare as to be virtually nonexistent, at least as far as any hard evidence can show, the probability of a continuous chain of wing-building mutations is either zero or incalculable.
"Mutation is far from the only problem with the wing evolution scenario. That natural selection -- i.e. differential survival -- would preserve the mutations even if they occurred is also doubtful. We need not dispute Dawkins' statement that even a tiny step towards flap development could break a leaping rodent's fall enough to make a difference in a very precisely defined situation. A rodent which differed from its fellows in this respect, however, would probably differ in others as well. For one thing, forelimbs in the process of becoming wings would probably lose their usefulness for grasping faster than they gained any utility for gliding or flying. How much survival value would the prototype wingflap have if it coincided with an increased tendency to fall? Moreover, a single gene often influences more that one characteristic of the animal. Given that virtually all mutations having detectable effects upon fitness are harmful, any beneficial effect from a mutation may be canceled by additional effects which are harmful. The rudimentary wingflap may coincide with a thinner winter coat, a lowered sperm count, or reduced resistance to disease. At best the natural selection scenario comes with a heavy reliance on "other things being equal," and there is no reason to believe that the other things will be equal."
While I previously declined to remedy your failure to understand the theory of natural selection, I would like to take a part of this fallacious argument and tear it apart.
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A rodent which differed from its fellows in this respect, however, would probably differ in others as well. For one thing, forelimbs in the process of becoming wings would probably lose their usefulness for grasping faster than they gained any utility for gliding or flying. How much survival value would the prototype wingflap have if it coincided with an increased tendency to fall? Moreover, a single gene often influences more that one characteristic of the animal. Given that virtually all mutations having detectable effects upon fitness are harmful, any beneficial effect from a mutation may be canceled by additional effects which are harmful. The rudimentary wingflap may coincide with a thinner winter coat, a lowered sperm count, or reduced resistance to disease.
If the proto-wingflap did coincide with some other genetic change that made the survival value of the animal less than it had previously been, this mutation would certainly have been lost. But if it happened 3 times or 10 or 4,000, and the survival value of the animal with the mutated gene did have better survival value than his predecessors, it would therefore (read: did) survive. Your so-called scientist forgets the scale of time over which these things occur. We're talking about millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of years. This is all explained in Dawkins' book (actually, most of his books explain this point).
one more thing...
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"In fact, there isn't any way to know whether the hypothetical sequence of favorable micromutations is a greater or lesser miracle than the production of wings in an impossible single-generation jump. The probability of wing evolution by micromutation depends upon (1) the quantity of favorable micromutations required to create wings; (2) the frequency with which such favorable micromutations occur just where and when they are needed; (3) the efficacy of natural selection in preserving the slight improvements with sufficient consistency to permit the benefits to accumulate; and (4) the time allowed by the fossil record for all this to have happened. Because favorable mutations are so rare as to be virtually nonexistent, at least as far as any hard evidence can show, the probability of a continuous chain of wing-building mutations is either zero or incalculable.
There's no science here. This is simply making ridiculous statements with big words to try and fool us. To posit an unwinged animal giving birth to an offspring with fully formed wings is intellectual blasphemy. Dawkins' scenario is not only plausible, but observable.
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6) MEANINGLESS RHETORIC: It is not meaningless rhetoric. If it is meaningless then tell me in detail about your Biblical studies. You choose to call it meaningless rhetoric because you have no answer to my comment that you do not know my God. Either you know about my God or you don't and surely you have shown in your posts that you have no understanding of what I believe about my God. You have no understanding of His stated purposes for any certain acts. I do not expect you to agree with them or think they make sense, but to have an intelligent conversation about my God, you must at least show some compentence in your knowledge, albeit unfaithful knowledge, of Him. You, dear sir, have failed at this!
Please stop calling me dear sir. I'm not even British.
That being said, I've made my knowledge of your God clear. That's your problem. See the first question I responded to in this post.
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#300642 - 01/17/05 06:15 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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(I'm neither of the above Anonymous posters...)
Looks like the two of you are the only ones with energy enough to continue this discussion. And no, I'm not going to speculate where that energy comes from - or which of the many "gods" being discussed might've created it. Or allowed it to be created. Or just made it up.
Both of you are great debaters, but you've rambled on just long enough to bore everyone else and keep them off the topic. Personally, I'm suspecting that it's just our friend "P" talking to himself again - and taking multiple sides! How funny is that?
In closing - I do tend to side with the believers of the one TRUE God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Those of you who don't may be in for a surprise!
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#300643 - 01/17/05 02:57 PM
Re: This is the end
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Power Poster
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,990
Cincinnati, OH
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May the God of your understanding bless you all. I'll practice my faith, whatever that may be, my way and you practice your faith your way. I think that's called tolerance and the basis of what some are saying in this post  Have a great weekend all. 
Just remember, if you are too openminded, your brain will fall out. There is such a thing as being too tolerant. Once you become so open minded that there ceases to be objective truths, you no longer believe anything.
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#300644 - 01/17/05 03:00 PM
Re: This is the end
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Power Poster
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,990
Cincinnati, OH
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Likewise, how sad it would be if you dedicated your life to someone you thought loved you, cared about you, sacrificed himself for you, took away your pains for you and promised you a place in a peaceful, wonderful afterlife...only to find out that it was phony. How disappointing would that be?
If it's not true, it really doesn't matter, since you are fertilizer and no longer capable of thought. How many disappointed fallen leaves do you know? If it's not true, there can be no finding out it is phony, there can be no disappointment.
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#300645 - 01/17/05 06:51 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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Okay, so he had to wipe the drawing board clean and start over. Either way, he's a bungler.
And if you have decide to have children, have them, teach them what is right and wrong, let them go into the world when they are adults to exercise their free will, and they choose to do wrong, does that make you a bumbler. Did you not know that this was a possible outcome when you decided to have children? Does that make you a bumbler? Why did you have children in the first place, many of them only disappoint or their lives end up in tragedy? Why would you have children this way? Maybe a better way is to ignore the love inside you that calls you to have offspring. Or you can have the offspring and raise them like slaves and protect their every steps like they are babies. God loves us too much to treat us like slaves or protect us like babies.
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Not sure where you're going with this. Laws against eating people didn't stop Jeffrey Dahmer from eating people.
I am no sure where you are going with this. Are you an anarchist-theistic-naturalist?
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No, that's what I've been saying. If that's how you feel about it, I'm glad we agree.
Laws cannot "make" you obey anymore than a stop sign can "make" you stop. However, laws can show you how to be righteous and for those who choose to strive for righteousness, they are instructive for obedience. Laws can also show you how you fall short of God's glory and that you need a deliverer.
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Is it "wrong" to kill and eat a deer or a carrot? The laws the gods write don't separate "right" from "wrong," they separate the workable from the unworkable. If you can come up with a workable model for cannibalism, bully for you.
Maybe I don't consider it cannibalism. In fact, it is just one animal eating another; there can be no cannibalism in your universe because all animals and man are equal. If there are only natural laws all animals are equally if not equally tasty. There is no sanctity of human life, human life is not precious, human life is not set apart from the beasts. I suppose in your universe, we could allow Peter Singer to pass our laws:
"He argues, for example, that where a baby has Down syndrome, and in other instances of 'life that has begun very badly,' parents should be free to kill the child within 28 days after birth. Here he is in fundamental agreement with Michael Tooley, a philosopher he admires, who states that 'new-born humans are neither persons nor quasi-persons, and their destruction is in no way intrinsically wrong.' Tooley believes that killing infants becomes wrong when they acquire 'morally significant properties,' an event he believes occurs about three months after their birth."
If there is no right and wrong that has always existed with God, then why would it not be acceptable to do this? And so what if it is not a workable model for men? Natural law nowhere says that men must set up workable models. We are free to destroy our selves or to thrive.
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Not sure where you're going with this. Yes, before Newton, people understood that unsupported objects fall to the earth. Newton's most famous discovery was the fact that this was a law. I'm not sure what point you're alleging to make here
OK, before I was convinced that you were not reading my posts. Now, I am not sure you are reading your own posts. You asked me something about whether I was implying that Newton created the laws of gravity. I don't have time to look back and get a direct quote.
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BOther than to say that this is a completely false statement, I have no comment on this. If you had read the book, you'd realize what a ridiculous lie this is.
That is my belief and you may consider it a lie if you want to. I doubt there is ultimate truth in your universe any way, so who is to say what is a lie and what is truth, what is real and what is fantasy? Your god(s) maybe? What have they to say about this?
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While I previously declined to remedy your failure to understand the theory of natural selection, I would like to take a part of this fallacious argument and tear it apart.
I am awaiting the post that does this. Is it forthcoming?
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A rodent which differed from its fellows in this respect, however, would probably differ in others as well. For one thing, forelimbs in the process of becoming wings would probably lose their usefulness for grasping faster than they gained any utility for gliding or flying. How much survival value would the prototype wingflap have if it coincided with an increased tendency to fall? Moreover, a single gene often influences more that one characteristic of the animal. Given that virtually all mutations having detectable effects upon fitness are harmful, any beneficial effect from a mutation may be canceled by additional effects which are harmful. The rudimentary wingflap may coincide with a thinner winter coat, a lowered sperm count, or reduced resistance to disease.
Let's take the eye and let's consider a creature (an ameoba maybe) that has no eye. Which came first: a) the eye socket; b) the optic nerves; c) the retina; d) the eye lid; e) some other part of the eye. With your answer, please tell me why it developed since there were no other parts of the eye developed yet for it usefulness. Any answer to this question is the wrong answer becauset there would be no need for one without the other. Likewise, if you say that these parts all developed simultaneously, that is equally as ridiculous, because that would mean that there had to be some guiding hand, some intelligent maker, making it happen. Otherwise, these parts could not develop like this.
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If the proto-wingflap did coincide with some other genetic change that made the survival value of the animal less than it had previously been, this mutation would certainly have been lost. But if it happened 3 times or 10 or 4,000, and the survival value of the animal with the mutated gene did have better survival value than his predecessors, it would therefore (read: did) survive. Your so-called scientist forgets the scale of time over which these things occur. We're talking about millions and tens of millions and hundreds of millions of years. This is all explained in Dawkins' book (actually, most of his books explain this point).
He did not forget this. Take all the time in the world and this simply isn't going to happen.
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...hypothetical...sequence...favorable...micromutations...is...a greater...or...lesser...miracle...than...the...production...of...wings...in... an...impossible...single-generation...jump...The...probability...of...wing...evolution...by...micromutation...depends...upon...(1)...the...quantity...of...favorable...micromutations... required...to...create...wings...(2)...the...frequency... with...which...such...favorable...micromutations...occur...just...where and...when... they... are... needed;... (3)... the... efficacy... of... natural... selection... in... preserving... the...slight... improvements... with... sufficient... consistency... to... permit... the... benefits... to... accumulate;... and... (4)... the... time... allowed... by... the... fossil... record ...for... all... this... to... have... happened..... Because... favorable... mutations... are... so... rare... as... to... be... virtually... nonexistent,... at... least... as... far... as... any... hard... evidence... can ...show,... the... probability... of... a... continuous... chain... of... wing-building... mutations... is... either... zero... or... incalculable....
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There's no science here. This is simply making ridiculous statements with big words to try and fool us. To posit an unwinged animal giving birth to an offspring with fully formed wings is intellectual blasphemy. Dawkins' scenario is not only plausible, but observable.
Just let me know which big you did not understand and I can send you a Webster's definition. Maybe you did not know what the definition of is is.
BTW, please tell me give me the exact example of Dawkins's theory that is "observable." I want hard and fast evidence, not just something that Dawkins says happened millions of years ago. Fossil records would be great. Thanks.
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Please stop calling me dear sir. I'm not even British.
My dear sir, being called British by someone who is British does not require the speaker to first inquire as to whether the person they are addressing is British.
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That being said, I've made my knowledge of your God clear. That's your problem. See the first question I responded to in this post.
Others may disagree and say that you have demonstrated your mastery of Judaism and Christianity. However, I am not one of them. You started this conversation about how my God fails and your gods are true and real. Please tell me about your studies of the Bible. When did you last read it cover to cover? An answer to that question would be a start. Failing that, just tell me of one book of the Bible you have read recently. You keep telling me who my God is and isn't, how he has bungled this and bungled that, how he intended this and intended that; I am just interested in how you gained your misinformation about his bungling and his intentions. Such knowledge cannot be gained from afar.
I cannot accept your version of the universe; it takes more faith than I could ever muster.
I have enjoyed this discussion, but it does not seem to be getting anywhere. You have been most gracious and more or less have been respectful. Thanks. You may have the last word here and my God can have the last word later.
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#300646 - 01/17/05 07:04 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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May the God of your understanding bless you all. I'll practice my faith, whatever that may be, my way and you practice your faith your way. I think that's called tolerance and the basis of what some are saying in this post Have a great weekend all.
Just remember, if you are too openminded, your brain will fall out. There is such a thing as being too tolerant. Once you become so open minded that there ceases to be objective truths, you no longer believe anything.
I'll remember, thanks. I just believe that we as humans can get pretty hung up on trying to convince others to believe as we do. I respect an individuals strong belief in a particular definition of God and whatever organized religion they belong to and wish that they could do the same when I don't believe as they do. I have boundries to my tolerance, boundries that "keep my brain from falling out", boundries that I can live with.
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#300647 - 01/17/05 07:18 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
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May the God of your understanding bless you all. I'll practice my faith, whatever that may be, my way and you practice your faith your way. I think that's called tolerance and the basis of what some are saying in this post Have a great weekend all.
Just remember, if you are too openminded, your brain will fall out. There is such a thing as being too tolerant. Once you become so open minded that there ceases to be objective truths, you no longer believe anything.
I'll remember, thanks. I just believe that we as humans can get pretty hung up on trying to convince others to believe as we do. I respect an individuals strong belief in a particular definition of God and whatever organized religion they belong to and wish that they could do the same when I don't believe as they do. I have boundries to my tolerance, boundries that "keep my brain from falling out", boundries that I can live with.
I have a mandate from my God to spread the good news about Him to the world. I just deliver the message. I never try to "convince" anyone. In fact, I don't even try to "make" anyone listen to my message. I deliver it voluntarily and those who hear it do so also.
I do enjoy a good discussion with anyone who wishes to participate civilly. (I am the Anon who has been having the discussion with the theistic naturalist Anon above.) If anyone don't want to discuss it, I respect that. I do not think less of them. Do I think they'll spend eternity with my God? No. They may think I am dealing in fairytales and I can live with that. What I can't live with is the thought of not telling everyone willing to listen about this marvelous, wonderful God and his free gift.
Tolerance does not mean that everyone must think alike or that I must think that every alternative is valid. It merely means that I must love you regardless of your religion or lack thereof.
My religion is a personal matter, but because I also truly believe it is THE message of salvation, it cannot be a private matter.
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#300648 - 01/17/05 07:30 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Let's take the eye and let's consider a creature (an ameoba maybe) that has no eye. Which came first: a) the eye socket; b) the optic nerves; c) the retina; d) the eye lid; e) some other part of the eye. With your answer, please tell me why it developed since there were no other parts of the eye developed yet for it usefulness. Any answer to this question is the wrong answer becauset there would be no need for one without the other. Likewise, if you say that these parts all developed simultaneously, that is equally as ridiculous, because that would mean that there had to be some guiding hand, some intelligent maker, making it happen. Otherwise, these parts could not develop like this.
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/Worl...16peepers.shtml
Also, if you want to see an example of natural selection, look out on your lawn in the spring. Are you in an area where dandelions grow? I am. And every year, we spray them with poison, hoping they'll go away. And every year, those that survive to procreate are the ones that can withstand the poison, and so killing the next year's batch of dandelions requires stronger poison, and so on and so on. I don't understand how you can fail to grasp such a simple and eloquent concept.
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#300649 - 01/17/05 07:44 PM
Re: This is the end
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Power Poster
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,990
Cincinnati, OH
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Let's take the eye and let's consider a creature (an ameoba maybe) that has no eye. Which came first: a) the eye socket; b) the optic nerves; c) the retina; d) the eye lid; e) some other part of the eye. With your answer, please tell me why it developed since there were no other parts of the eye developed yet for it usefulness. Any answer to this question is the wrong answer becauset there would be no need for one without the other. Likewise, if you say that these parts all developed simultaneously, that is equally as ridiculous, because that would mean that there had to be some guiding hand, some intelligent maker, making it happen. Otherwise, these parts could not develop like this.
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/Worl...16peepers.shtml
Also, if you want to see an example of natural selection, look out on your lawn in the spring. Are you in an area where dandelions grow? I am. And every year, we spray them with poison, hoping they'll go away. And every year, those that survive to procreate are the ones that can withstand the poison, and so killing the next year's batch of dandelions requires stronger poison, and so on and so on. I don't understand how you can fail to grasp such a simple and eloquent concept.
First, natural selection and evolution of the species do not explain the origination, nor do they exclude the possibility that species were created to evolve. At some point there must be a FIRST, a new beginning, a creation. The "big bang" theory has fallen into disfavor because there are too many scientific problems with it for it to explain the creation of the universe and any life. For years, this assumption was the only explanation atheistic scientists had for creation.
Secondly, while apes and humans have similarities, there is no proof that they were once the same species. This is merely assumption based on the similarities. Even if there were, where do the original species that transformed and evolved into men, monkeys, and apes come from? We have never seen any creature develop so distinctly into a life form from a non living thing. All living things require a seed be planted of some sort, some initial living thing that grows. The variety of living things in the universe can only be explained by a very creative creator. If you don't believe that, explain the platypus!
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#300650 - 01/17/05 08:10 PM
Re: This is the end
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Member
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 80
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Let's take the eye and let's consider a creature (an ameoba maybe) that has no eye. Which came first: a) the eye socket; b) the optic nerves; c) the retina; d) the eye lid; e) some other part of the eye. With your answer, please tell me why it developed since there were no other parts of the eye developed yet for it usefulness. Any answer to this question is the wrong answer becauset there would be no need for one without the other. Likewise, if you say that these parts all developed simultaneously, that is equally as ridiculous, because that would mean that there had to be some guiding hand, some intelligent maker, making it happen. Otherwise, these parts could not develop like this.
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/Worl...16peepers.shtml
Also, if you want to see an example of natural selection, look out on your lawn in the spring. Are you in an area where dandelions grow? I am. And every year, we spray them with poison, hoping they'll go away. And every year, those that survive to procreate are the ones that can withstand the poison, and so killing the next year's batch of dandelions requires stronger poison, and so on and so on. I don't understand how you can fail to grasp such a simple and eloquent concept.
First, natural selection and evolution of the species do not explain the origination, nor do they exclude the possibility that species were created to evolve. At some point there must be a FIRST, a new beginning, a creation. The "big bang" theory has fallen into disfavor because there are too many scientific problems with it for it to explain the creation of the universe and any life. For years, this assumption was the only explanation atheistic scientists had for creation.
Secondly, while apes and humans have similarities, there is no proof that they were once the same species. This is merely assumption based on the similarities. Even if there were, where do the original species that transformed and evolved into men, monkeys, and apes come from? We have never seen any creature develop so distinctly into a life form from a non living thing. All living things require a seed be planted of some sort, some initial living thing that grows. The variety of living things in the universe can only be explained by a very creative creator. If you don't believe that, explain the platypus!
This article centers on the "time" for an eye to evolve. Similarly, we could wait for a monkey at a keyboard to type out the novel "War and Peace" in its entirety. It simply is not a matter of time.
Computer models? ||Sniggle|| Dawkins is so arogant in his ignorance. Don't get me wrong; Dawkins is very intelligent, but he is so enamored with these theories that he'll go to any lengths to defend them. Doesn't this man ever examine certain known conclusions to see where they lead rather than looking at certain known conclustions and re-examining them in light of his theories. This is not science.
The question is not whether there has been enough time for an eye to evolve. A moment is enough time for the miraculous to happen. This would truly be miraculous. None of the parts of the eye have a reason to develop independently with the thought that one day they'd get together and look at something. The problem is that word "thought." There would have to be thought for this to happen and I don't think an animal ever changed itself physically by thinking about something for a millenia. If that could happen every 12 year old boy would be slowly becoming a 12 year old girl because that's all they think about.
Therefore, if the eye were to develop through evolution, there would have to be some outside thinking influence with the power to create an eye.
As far as the dandelion in your front door, the THEORY of evolution, natural selection, and adaptation are three very different things. There is no fossil record of evolution. There is some basis to natural selection. Adaptation surely exists as we have seen it in our own history. Your pesky little dandelions may survive herbicides and explain adaptation, but they can't explain evolution or natural selection. This is common with many things: bacteria with antibiotics, insects with insecticides, and plants with herbicides. Adapting to ones environment and growing an eye where one did not exist before are two totally different things. Back to the drawing board Einstein.
Even a moose would not fall for Dawkins nonesense. I had heard that there was an intelligent argument for evolution going on here. I don't see it? And to think, I came out of hibernation for this. Back to sleep. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
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#300651 - 01/17/05 09:05 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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As I've said, I'm not here to teach evolution. I was having a conversation about the universe and our place in it. Natural selection, however, is exactly what happens when the dandelions in an area develop immunities to poisons. And any cell that has some kind of light sensitivity offers an advantage to its host. And once that is established, those with greater sensitivity to light will survive better than those with less sensitivity. And what you end up with, is what we call an eye, although there are many different types of eyes that have developed independently some 40 times throughout our evolutionary past.
The fact of the matter is that I'm not going to argue science with you on this matter, because science is clearly and definitively on my side. Damn near every scientist in existence accepts natural selection as the solution to the question how did we come to be here.
Michael, I never said it didn't begin with a creator, but natural selection is the explanation that makes sense of the evidence as to how we got here. I draw no conclusion as to how the process began, but I've recommended literature which posits some other plausible explanations.
And let's stop with this junk of evolution or natural selection being a theory. This is absolute nonsense. The word "theory" has 2 entirely different definitions. The scientific definition is: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Creationists always try to muddle things by confusing this definition: An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
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#300652 - 01/17/05 09:19 PM
Re: This is the end
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Power Poster
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,990
Cincinnati, OH
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It doesn't matter which definition you accept, either way, a theory is devised to explain a group of phenomena, and while it is repeatedly tested OR widely accepted, and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena, there is nothing that makes it TRUTH any more than FAITH in biblical terms. The biblical theory is that God created the world, and that every "natural" law was put into place by him. He is above and beyond these laws, and while he lets us play in his sandbox, we might build a castle and say this is a castle, it is all merely sand in a shape of a castle. Yes, we believe that natural selection is the case, but cannot prove that for each natural change God doesn't have a hand. We may believe that we understand the world, but there are examples that clearly show that everything we perceive to be correct is not. Take for example a box of crayons. You start with a piece of white paper, and when you combine all the colors on the page, you get what? BLACK! However, in "scientific theory" BLACK is the absence of all color and WHITE is the combination of all colors. All is not as it seems, it is just the way WE see it.
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#300653 - 01/17/05 09:44 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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It doesn't matter which definition you accept, either way, a theory is devised to explain a group of phenomena, and while it is repeatedly tested OR widely accepted, and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena, there is nothing that makes it TRUTH any more than FAITH in biblical terms. The biblical theory is that God created the world, and that every "natural" law was put into place by him. He is above and beyond these laws, and while he lets us play in his sandbox, we might build a castle and say this is a castle, it is all merely sand in a shape of a castle. Yes, we believe that natural selection is the case, but cannot prove that for each natural change God doesn't have a hand. We may believe that we understand the world, but there are examples that clearly show that everything we perceive to be correct is not. Take for example a box of crayons. You start with a piece of white paper, and when you combine all the colors on the page, you get what? BLACK! However, in "scientific theory" BLACK is the absence of all color and WHITE is the combination of all colors. All is not as it seems, it is just the way WE see it.
You could say that God has a hand in gravity. That every time we jump up in the air, he grabs us and pulls us down to the earth. But since we understand that God doesn't need to put his hand in and pull us down, his assistance is superfluous. Similarly, God isn't necessary to explain the functioning of natural selection. Once you understand the process (which it seems many of you don't), God is superfluous. That being said, I have repeatedly said (without anyone noticing, it seems) that I don't claim to know the number of gods who put the conditions in place to allow natural selection to occur. Just as I don't know the number of gods who made matter in such a way that it is attracted to each other.
As far as your false analogy of crayons, white reflects all the colors. Green restricts the reflection to some span of prismatic rays. That is to say it impedes the reflection of all the other colors except green. It's like a filter. It filters the other colors out. Science has it right on this one. Once you filter out all the colors, you get black, the absence of color.
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#300654 - 01/17/05 10:11 PM
Re: This is the end
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Power Poster
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 8,990
Cincinnati, OH
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You could say that God has a hand in gravity. That every time we jump up in the air, he grabs us and pulls us down to the earth. But since we understand that God doesn't need to put his hand in and pull us down, his assistance is superfluous. Similarly, God isn't necessary to explain the functioning of natural selection. Once you understand the process (which it seems many of you don't), God is superfluous. That being said, I have repeatedly said (without anyone noticing, it seems) that I don't claim to know the number of gods who put the conditions in place to allow natural selection to occur. Just as I don't know the number of gods who made matter in such a way that it is attracted to each other.
As far as your false analogy of crayons, white reflects all the colors. Green restricts the reflection to some span of prismatic rays. That is to say it impedes the reflection of all the other colors except green. It's like a filter. It filters the other colors out. Science has it right on this one. Once you filter out all the colors, you get black, the absence of color.
You could say God allows you to THINK you understand the process, after all, long ago folks used to KNOW the world was flat. Long ago, the atom was the smallest unit, then they decided that there were smaller and smaller particals called the electron, the neutron, and the proton. Then they discovered that there were things called quarks and leptons that made up the protons neutrons, and electrons. You see, science "knows" things, but it doesn't always know the TRUTH. Just when you think you know something, you find out it's just a little more complex than that....
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#300655 - 01/17/05 11:55 PM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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As I've said, I'm not here to teach evolution. I was having a conversation about the universe and our place in it. Natural selection, however, is exactly what happens when the dandelions in an area develop immunities to poisons. And any cell that has some kind of light sensitivity offers an advantage to its host. And once that is established, those with greater sensitivity to light will survive better than those with less sensitivity. And what you end up with, is what we call an eye, although there are many different types of eyes that have developed independently some 40 times throughout our evolutionary past.
The fact of the matter is that I'm not going to argue science with you on this matter, because science is clearly and definitively on my side. Damn near every scientist in existence accepts natural selection as the solution to the question how did we come to be here.
Michael, I never said it didn't begin with a creator, but natural selection is the explanation that makes sense of the evidence as to how we got here. I draw no conclusion as to how the process began, but I've recommended literature which posits some other plausible explanations.
And let's stop with this junk of evolution or natural selection being a theory. This is absolute nonsense. The word "theory" has 2 entirely different definitions. The scientific definition is: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Creationists always try to muddle things by confusing this definition: An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
I agree with you Anon. Evolution has too many holes to call it a theory. I think a conjecture is a much better word.
I can't agree with you on the eye. You have not answered the problems inherent in the development of an eye through natural selection. Neither you nor any scientist has proof of the 40 times you speak of. Science is not on your side, only a fraternity of modern scientist who mock those who dare oppose them and shut them out of jobs.
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#300656 - 01/18/05 02:12 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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Let's apply the scientific method:
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
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#300657 - 01/18/05 02:56 AM
Re: This is the end
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Anonymous
Unregistered
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As I've said, I'm not here to teach evolution. I was having a conversation about the universe and our place in it. Natural selection, however, is exactly what happens when the dandelions in an area develop immunities to poisons. And any cell that has some kind of light sensitivity offers an advantage to its host. And once that is established, those with greater sensitivity to light will survive better than those with less sensitivity. And what you end up with, is what we call an eye, although there are many different types of eyes that have developed independently some 40 times throughout our evolutionary past.
The fact of the matter is that I'm not going to argue science with you on this matter, because science is clearly and definitively on my side. Damn near every scientist in existence accepts natural selection as the solution to the question how did we come to be here.
Michael, I never said it didn't begin with a creator, but natural selection is the explanation that makes sense of the evidence as to how we got here. I draw no conclusion as to how the process began, but I've recommended literature which posits some other plausible explanations.
And let's stop with this junk of evolution or natural selection being a theory. This is absolute nonsense. The word "theory" has 2 entirely different definitions. The scientific definition is: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
Creationists always try to muddle things by confusing this definition: An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
I agree with you Anon. Evolution has too many holes to call it a theory. I think a conjecture is a much better word.
I can't agree with you on the eye. You have not answered the problems inherent in the development of an eye through natural selection. Neither you nor any scientist has proof of the 40 times you speak of. Science is not on your side, only a fraternity of modern scientist who mock those who dare oppose them and shut them out of jobs.
Uh huh. And the earth is flat, but scientists mock those who dare oppose them and shut them out of jobs. And the earth is the center of the universe, but a fraternity of scientists mock those who dare oppose them and shut them out of jobs.
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You could say God allows you to THINK you understand the process, after all, long ago folks used to KNOW the world was flat. Long ago, the atom was the smallest unit, then they decided that there were smaller and smaller particals called the electron, the neutron, and the proton. Then they discovered that there were things called quarks and leptons that made up the protons neutrons, and electrons. You see, science "knows" things, but it doesn't always know the TRUTH. Just when you think you know something, you find out it's just a little more complex than that....
You're absolutely right. But at this point, the only theory that makes sense of the actual evidence observed in the universe is natural selection.
We've moved past discourse, into discussion, and are nearing the point of argument. I see no constructive purpose in continuing, but I will gladly respond to any other comments or questions anyone has.
Thanks to everyone for keeping this civil (despite the repeated threats on my life  )
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#300658 - 01/18/05 01:53 PM
Re: This is the end
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10K Club
Joined: Aug 2004
Posts: 10,321
oHiO
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