mattmc
Well-Known Member
if there is a god, he must be gay, cause he hasnt come out of the closet yet.
Evidence fish grew legs much earlier than thought
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Philosophy isnt incompatable with science or even in oppostion, it doesnt require fabrication of dieties and things that dont exist, but rather more a type of psychologial science. That said the majority of philosophy is completely illogical IMO. When philosophers start hitting the drugs it can help to some degree but they can also drift off the track a bit...
Everyone has some sort of philosophy, even scientists, but it doesnt mean they have to make up stories to explain things they cant understand.
Thats because evolution is a real proccess, even if there was some sort of mystical creator, evolution is still occuring and can be seen beyond any doubt for those that bother to look. Someone shooting down weak arguements doesnt make someone touchy either. Its very hard to tell if someone is joking/stirring/fishing on these sorts of topics due to the weird stuff some actually do believe.
To be honest G/god/s creating through evoloution is the only hope they have of staying credible to an educated audience.
How much do you know about god? have you actually asked about it? thought about creation in a different way? Do you wake up in the morning and believe that you were there by chance, just because some ape decided to evolve? Are you like Darwin, who lost a loved one, was let down by the church (hell and heaven crap) and then decided to go on a guessing journey?
I think it's sad man, it's like all these people have no meaning in life... Am I fooling myself? If I am, at least I will live and die with hope, unlike you, who will die thinking that because of some accident he had to be born and suffer in this crap world with it's liars, fakes, opportunist etc. and die with no meaning...
Educated? the smartest people in the world, even professor in the field of evolution, have stepped back and recognized that there was more, that chance was not enough for life to exist...
If ancient structural design is attributed to humans, to whom do we attribute design in nature?
Sir James Jeans (British mathematician, physicists and astronomer) in the light of advancing scientific knowledge said "the universe begins to look more like a great thought then like a great machine". He also stated that "the universe appears to have been designed by a pure mathematician" and that it proves "evidence of a designing or controlling power that has some thing in common with our own individual minds"
"The order of the universe has suggested to many a modern astronomer an element of design."
(Paul Davies, Physicist)
Einstein wrote "The fact that the natural world is comprehensible is a miracle"
So i'm guessing people here are going to say they know better then these few of many i just mentioned?
GeckoJosh
Almost Legendary
D3, Atheism is the preferred belief of the less ignorant, get over it
sara_sabian
Well-Known Member
So true, all us atheists just float around, depressed, waiting to die and embrace an eternity of nothingness. We're such a miserable bunch, going about our lives devoid of meaning and happiness. That must be why we like to shoot down the beleivers, their beaming smiles are too much for us to handle.
Ok i tried to be good, but since I started most of this and some of the questions people asked me went answered (sorry there were so many posts) I will write one more post that hopefully will help people understand... (i'm actually writing it now... almost done) And then to sleep lol
Well I might as well write a semi article on this and then I'm going to leave...
Now...
In the view of many who accept the theory of evolution, life will always be made up of intense competition, with strife, hatred, wars and death. Some even feel that man may destroy himself in the near future. A prominent scientist stated: “We may have only another few decades until Doomsday. . . . the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems will, sooner or later, lead to global disaster.”Even if this did not happen soon, many believe that when a person’s life span runs out in death he is then nonexistent forever. Others feel that, in the future, all life on earth will end. They theorize that the sun will expand into a red giant star, and as it does, “the oceans will boil, the atmosphere will evaporate away to space and a catastrophe of the most immense proportions imaginable will overtake our planet.”
Recoiling from these conclusions are the “scientific creationists.” But their interpretation of the Genesis creation account has led them to claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that the six “days” allowed in Genesis for creation were each only 24 hours long. But does such an idea accurately represent what the Bible is saying? Was the earth, and all its life forms, created in just six literal days? Or is there a reasonable alternative?
In considering questions related to the origin of life, popular opinion or emotion sway many. To avoid this and to reach accurate conclusions, we need to consider the evidence with an open mind. It is interesting to note, too, that even evolution’s best-known advocate, Charles Darwin, indicated an awareness of his theory’s limitations. In his conclusion to The Origin of Species, he wrote of the grandeur of the “view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one,”thus making it evident that the subject of origins was open to further examination.
Before proceeding further, a clarification may be helpful: Scientific achievement is not at issue here. Every informed person is aware of the amazing accomplishments of scientists in many fields. Scientific study has dramatically increased our knowledge of the universe and of the earth and of living things. Studies of the human body have opened up improved ways of treating illnesses and injuries. Rapid advances in electronics have ushered in the computer age, which is altering our lives. Scientists have performed astounding feats, even sending men to the moon and back. It is only right to respect the skills that have added so greatly to our knowledge of the world around us, from minutely small things to infinitely large ones.
It may also be useful to clarify definitions at this point: Evolution, as used in this post, refers to organic evolution—the theory that the first living organism developed from nonliving matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said to have changed into different kinds of living things, producing ultimately all forms of life that have ever existed on earth, including humans. And all of this is believed to have been accomplished without intelligent direction or supernatural intervention. Creation, on the other hand, is the conclusion that the appearing of living things can only be explained by the existence of an Almighty God who designed and made the universe and all the basic kinds of life upon the earth.
When a special centennial edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species was to be published, W. R. Thompson, then director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, in Ottawa, Canada, was invited to write its introduction. In it he said: “As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution”
THOSE who support the theory of evolution feel that it is now an established fact. They believe that evolution is an “actual occurrence,” a “reality,” a “truth,” as one dictionary defines the word “fact.” But is it?
To illustrate: It was once believed that the earth was flat. Now it has been established for a certainty that it is spherical in shape. That is a fact. It was once believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the heavens revolved around the earth. Now we know for sure that the earth revolves in an orbit around the sun. This, too, is a fact. Many things that were once only debated theories have been established by the evidence as solid fact, reality, truth.
Would an investigation of the evidence for evolution leave one on the same solid ground? Interestingly, ever since Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of Species was published in 1859, various aspects of the theory have been a matter of considerable disagreement even among top evolutionary scientists. Today, that dispute is more intense than ever. And it is enlightening to consider what advocates of evolution themselves are saying about the matter.
The scientific magazine Discover put the situation this way: “Evolution . . . is not only under attack by fundamentalist Christians, but is also being questioned by reputable scientists. Among paleontologists, scientists who study the fossil record, there is growing dissent from the prevailing view of Darwinism.” Francis Hitching, an evolutionist and author of the book The Neck of the Giraffe, stated: “For all its acceptance in the scientific world as the great unifying principle of biology, Darwinism, after a century and a quarter, is in a surprising amount of trouble.”
After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “Evolution is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist, said: “The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude of evolutionary biology’s last twenty years has inflamed passions.” He spoke of the “lack of total agreement even within the warring camps,” and added, “things really are in an uproar these days . . . Sometimes it seems as though there are as many variations on each evolutionary theme as there are individual biologists.”
A London Times writer, Christopher Booker (who accepts evolution), said this about it: “It was a beautifully simple and attractive theory. The only trouble was that, as Darwin was himself at least partly aware, it was full of colossal holes.” Regarding Darwin’s Origin of Species, he observed: “We have here the supreme irony that a book which has become famous for explaining the origin of species in fact does nothing of the kind.”
Booker also stated: “A century after Darwin’s death, we still have not the slightest demonstrable or even plausible idea of how evolution really took place and in recent years this has led to an extraordinary series of battles over the whole question. . . . a state of almost open war exists among the evolutionists themselves, with every kind of evolutionary sect urging some new modification.” He concluded: “As to how and why it really happened, we have not the slightest idea and probably never shall.”
Evolutionist Hitching agreed, saying: “Feuds concerning the theory of evolution exploded . . . Entrenched positions, for and against, were established in high places, and insults lobbed like mortar bombs from either side.” He said that it is an academic dispute of far-reaching proportions, “potentially one of those times in science when, quite suddenly, a long-held idea is overthrown by the weight of contrary evidence and a new one takes its place.” And Britain’s New Scientist observed that “an increasing number of scientists, most particularly a growing number of evolutionists . . . argue that Darwinian evolutionary theory is no genuine scientific theory at all. . . . Many of the critics have the highest intellectual credentials.”
Regarding the question of how life originated, astronomer Robert Jastrow said: “To their chagrin [scientists] have no clear-cut answer, because chemists have never succeeded in reproducing nature’s experiments on the creation of life out of nonliving matter. Scientists do not know how that happened.” He added: “Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation.”
But the difficulty does not stop with the origin of life. Consider such body organs as the eye, the ear, the brain. All are staggering in their complexity, far more so than the most intricate man-made device. A problem for evolution has been the fact that all parts of such organs have to work together for sight, hearing or thinking to take place. Such organs would have been useless until all the individual parts were completed. So the question arises: Could the undirected element of chance that is thought to be a driving force of evolution have brought all these parts together at the right time to produce such elaborate mechanisms?
Darwin acknowledged this as a problem. For example, he wrote: “To suppose that the eye . . . could have been formed by [evolution], seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” More than a century has passed since then. Has the problem been solved? No. On the contrary, since Darwin’s time what has been learned about the eye shows that it is even more complex than he understood it to be. Thus Jastrow said: “The eye appears to have been designed; no designer of telescopes could have done better.”
If this is so of the eye, what, then, of the human brain? Since even a simple machine does not evolve by chance, how can it be a fact that the infinitely more complex brain did? Jastrow concluded: “It is hard to accept the evolution of the human eye as a product of chance; it is even harder to accept the evolution of human intelligence as the product of random disruptions in the brain cells of our ancestors.”
Millions of bones and other evidence of past life have been unearthed by scientists, and these are called fossils. If evolution were a fact, surely in all of this there should be ample evidence of one kind of living thing evolving into another kind. But the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History commented: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true.”
Why not? The Bulletin went on to say that Darwin “was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn’t look the way he predicted it would . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.” In fact now, after more than a century of collecting fossils, “we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time,” explained the Bulletin. Why is this the case? Because the more abundant fossil evidence available today shows that some of the examples that were once used to support evolution now are seen not to do so at all.
This failure of the fossil evidence to support gradual evolution has disturbed many evolutionists. In The New Evolutionary Timetable, Steven Stanley spoke of “the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another.” He said: “The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution].” Niles Eldredge also admitted: “The pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist.”
All of this has led many scientists to champion novel theories for evolution. Science Digest put it this way: “Some scientists are proposing even more rapid evolutionary changes and are now dealing quite seriously with ideas once popularized only in fiction.”
For instance, some scientists have concluded that life could not have arisen spontaneously on earth. Instead, they speculate that it must have originated in outer space and then floated down to the earth. But that just pushes the problem of the origin of life further back and into a more forbidding setting. The perils confronting life in the hostile environment of outer space are well known. Is it likely, then, that life began spontaneously elsewhere in the universe and survived under such harsh conditions to reach the earth, and later to develop into life as we know it?
Since the fossil record does not show a gradual development of life from one type into another, some evolutionists theorize that the process must have happened by jerks and starts, not at a steady pace. As The World Book Encyclopedia explains: “Many biologists think new species may be produced by sudden, drastic changes in genes.”
Some adherents to this theory have called the process “punctuated equilibrium.” That is, species maintain their “equilibrium” (they stay much the same), but every once in a while there is a “punctuation” (a big jump to evolve into something else). This is just the opposite of the theory that has been accepted by nearly all evolutionists for many decades. The gulf between the two theories was illustrated by a headline in The New York Times: “Theory of Rapid Evolution Attacked.” The article noted that the newer “punctuated equilibrium” idea had “aroused new opposition” among those who hold to the traditional view.
Regardless of which theory is held, it is reasonable that there should be at least some evidence to show that one kind of life turns into another kind. But the gaps between different types of life found in the fossil record, as well as the gaps between different types of living things on earth today, still persist.
Also, it is revealing to see what has happened to Darwin’s long-accepted idea regarding the “survival of the fittest.” This he called “natural selection.” That is, he believed that nature “selected” the fittest living things to survive. As these “fit” ones supposedly acquired new features that worked to their advantage, they slowly evolved. But the evidence of the past 125 years shows that, while the fittest may indeed survive, this does not explain how they arrived. One lion may be fitter than another lion, but that does not explain how he got to be a lion. And all of his offspring will still be lions, not something else.
Thus, in Harper’s magazine, writer Tom Bethell commented: “Darwin made a mistake sufficiently serious to undermine his theory. And that mistake has only recently been recognized as such. . . . One organism may indeed be ‘fitter’ than another . . . This, of course, is not something which helps create the organism, . . . It is clear, I think, that there was something very, very wrong with such an idea.” Bethell added: “As I see it the conclusion is pretty staggering: Darwin’s theory, I believe, is on the verge of collapse.”
Summarizing some of the unsolved problems confronting evolution, Francis Hitching observed: “In three crucial areas where the modern evolution theory can be tested, it has failed: The fossil record reveals a pattern of evolutionary leaps rather than gradual change. Genes are a powerful stabilizing mechanism whose main function is to prevent new forms evolving. Random step-by-step mutations at the molecular level cannot explain the organized and growing complexity of life.”
Then Hitching concluded by making this observation: “To put it at its mildest, one may question an evolutionary theory so beset by doubts among even those who teach it. If Darwinism is truly the great unifying principle of biology, it encompasses extraordinarily large areas of ignorance. It fails to explain some of the most basic questions of all: how lifeless chemicals came alive, what rules of grammar lie behind the genetic code, how genes shape the form of living things.” In fact, Hitching stated that he considered the modern theory of evolution “so inadequate that it deserves to be treated as a matter of faith.”
However, many advocates of evolution feel that they do have sufficient reason to insist that evolution is a fact. They explain that they are just arguing over details. But if any other theory had such enormous remaining difficulties, and such major contradictions among those who advocate it, would it so readily be pronounced a fact? Merely repeating that something is a fact does not make it a fact. As John R. Durant, a biologist, wrote in The Guardian of London: “Many scientists succumb to the temptation to be dogmatic, . . . over and over again the question of the origin of the species has been presented as if it were finally settled. Nothing could be further from the truth. . . . But the tendency to be dogmatic persists, and it does no service to the cause of science.”
(breathes in)
I hope this is enough, I went through all my available resources just to show the kind people of ASP why I have been so persistent and to also show you my full view point. I am truly sorry if I have annoyed you, i will stop arguing about this now lol.
Goodbye guys, I'm off to sleep.
Now...
In the view of many who accept the theory of evolution, life will always be made up of intense competition, with strife, hatred, wars and death. Some even feel that man may destroy himself in the near future. A prominent scientist stated: “We may have only another few decades until Doomsday. . . . the development of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems will, sooner or later, lead to global disaster.”Even if this did not happen soon, many believe that when a person’s life span runs out in death he is then nonexistent forever. Others feel that, in the future, all life on earth will end. They theorize that the sun will expand into a red giant star, and as it does, “the oceans will boil, the atmosphere will evaporate away to space and a catastrophe of the most immense proportions imaginable will overtake our planet.”
Recoiling from these conclusions are the “scientific creationists.” But their interpretation of the Genesis creation account has led them to claim that the earth is only 6,000 years old and that the six “days” allowed in Genesis for creation were each only 24 hours long. But does such an idea accurately represent what the Bible is saying? Was the earth, and all its life forms, created in just six literal days? Or is there a reasonable alternative?
In considering questions related to the origin of life, popular opinion or emotion sway many. To avoid this and to reach accurate conclusions, we need to consider the evidence with an open mind. It is interesting to note, too, that even evolution’s best-known advocate, Charles Darwin, indicated an awareness of his theory’s limitations. In his conclusion to The Origin of Species, he wrote of the grandeur of the “view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one,”thus making it evident that the subject of origins was open to further examination.
Before proceeding further, a clarification may be helpful: Scientific achievement is not at issue here. Every informed person is aware of the amazing accomplishments of scientists in many fields. Scientific study has dramatically increased our knowledge of the universe and of the earth and of living things. Studies of the human body have opened up improved ways of treating illnesses and injuries. Rapid advances in electronics have ushered in the computer age, which is altering our lives. Scientists have performed astounding feats, even sending men to the moon and back. It is only right to respect the skills that have added so greatly to our knowledge of the world around us, from minutely small things to infinitely large ones.
It may also be useful to clarify definitions at this point: Evolution, as used in this post, refers to organic evolution—the theory that the first living organism developed from nonliving matter. Then, as it reproduced, it is said to have changed into different kinds of living things, producing ultimately all forms of life that have ever existed on earth, including humans. And all of this is believed to have been accomplished without intelligent direction or supernatural intervention. Creation, on the other hand, is the conclusion that the appearing of living things can only be explained by the existence of an Almighty God who designed and made the universe and all the basic kinds of life upon the earth.
When a special centennial edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species was to be published, W. R. Thompson, then director of the Commonwealth Institute of Biological Control, in Ottawa, Canada, was invited to write its introduction. In it he said: “As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution”
THOSE who support the theory of evolution feel that it is now an established fact. They believe that evolution is an “actual occurrence,” a “reality,” a “truth,” as one dictionary defines the word “fact.” But is it?
To illustrate: It was once believed that the earth was flat. Now it has been established for a certainty that it is spherical in shape. That is a fact. It was once believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that the heavens revolved around the earth. Now we know for sure that the earth revolves in an orbit around the sun. This, too, is a fact. Many things that were once only debated theories have been established by the evidence as solid fact, reality, truth.
Would an investigation of the evidence for evolution leave one on the same solid ground? Interestingly, ever since Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of Species was published in 1859, various aspects of the theory have been a matter of considerable disagreement even among top evolutionary scientists. Today, that dispute is more intense than ever. And it is enlightening to consider what advocates of evolution themselves are saying about the matter.
The scientific magazine Discover put the situation this way: “Evolution . . . is not only under attack by fundamentalist Christians, but is also being questioned by reputable scientists. Among paleontologists, scientists who study the fossil record, there is growing dissent from the prevailing view of Darwinism.” Francis Hitching, an evolutionist and author of the book The Neck of the Giraffe, stated: “For all its acceptance in the scientific world as the great unifying principle of biology, Darwinism, after a century and a quarter, is in a surprising amount of trouble.”
After an important conference of some 150 specialists in evolution held in Chicago, Illinois, a report concluded: “Evolution is undergoing its broadest and deepest revolution in nearly 50 years. . . . Exactly how evolution happened is now a matter of great controversy among biologists. . . . No clear resolution of the controversies was in sight.”
Paleontologist Niles Eldredge, a prominent evolutionist, said: “The doubt that has infiltrated the previous, smugly confident certitude of evolutionary biology’s last twenty years has inflamed passions.” He spoke of the “lack of total agreement even within the warring camps,” and added, “things really are in an uproar these days . . . Sometimes it seems as though there are as many variations on each evolutionary theme as there are individual biologists.”
A London Times writer, Christopher Booker (who accepts evolution), said this about it: “It was a beautifully simple and attractive theory. The only trouble was that, as Darwin was himself at least partly aware, it was full of colossal holes.” Regarding Darwin’s Origin of Species, he observed: “We have here the supreme irony that a book which has become famous for explaining the origin of species in fact does nothing of the kind.”
Booker also stated: “A century after Darwin’s death, we still have not the slightest demonstrable or even plausible idea of how evolution really took place and in recent years this has led to an extraordinary series of battles over the whole question. . . . a state of almost open war exists among the evolutionists themselves, with every kind of evolutionary sect urging some new modification.” He concluded: “As to how and why it really happened, we have not the slightest idea and probably never shall.”
Evolutionist Hitching agreed, saying: “Feuds concerning the theory of evolution exploded . . . Entrenched positions, for and against, were established in high places, and insults lobbed like mortar bombs from either side.” He said that it is an academic dispute of far-reaching proportions, “potentially one of those times in science when, quite suddenly, a long-held idea is overthrown by the weight of contrary evidence and a new one takes its place.” And Britain’s New Scientist observed that “an increasing number of scientists, most particularly a growing number of evolutionists . . . argue that Darwinian evolutionary theory is no genuine scientific theory at all. . . . Many of the critics have the highest intellectual credentials.”
Regarding the question of how life originated, astronomer Robert Jastrow said: “To their chagrin [scientists] have no clear-cut answer, because chemists have never succeeded in reproducing nature’s experiments on the creation of life out of nonliving matter. Scientists do not know how that happened.” He added: “Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation.”
But the difficulty does not stop with the origin of life. Consider such body organs as the eye, the ear, the brain. All are staggering in their complexity, far more so than the most intricate man-made device. A problem for evolution has been the fact that all parts of such organs have to work together for sight, hearing or thinking to take place. Such organs would have been useless until all the individual parts were completed. So the question arises: Could the undirected element of chance that is thought to be a driving force of evolution have brought all these parts together at the right time to produce such elaborate mechanisms?
Darwin acknowledged this as a problem. For example, he wrote: “To suppose that the eye . . . could have been formed by [evolution], seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” More than a century has passed since then. Has the problem been solved? No. On the contrary, since Darwin’s time what has been learned about the eye shows that it is even more complex than he understood it to be. Thus Jastrow said: “The eye appears to have been designed; no designer of telescopes could have done better.”
If this is so of the eye, what, then, of the human brain? Since even a simple machine does not evolve by chance, how can it be a fact that the infinitely more complex brain did? Jastrow concluded: “It is hard to accept the evolution of the human eye as a product of chance; it is even harder to accept the evolution of human intelligence as the product of random disruptions in the brain cells of our ancestors.”
Millions of bones and other evidence of past life have been unearthed by scientists, and these are called fossils. If evolution were a fact, surely in all of this there should be ample evidence of one kind of living thing evolving into another kind. But the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History commented: “Darwin’s theory of [evolution] has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true.”
Why not? The Bulletin went on to say that Darwin “was embarrassed by the fossil record because it didn’t look the way he predicted it would . . . the geologic record did not then and still does not yield a finely graduated chain of slow and progressive evolution.” In fact now, after more than a century of collecting fossils, “we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time,” explained the Bulletin. Why is this the case? Because the more abundant fossil evidence available today shows that some of the examples that were once used to support evolution now are seen not to do so at all.
This failure of the fossil evidence to support gradual evolution has disturbed many evolutionists. In The New Evolutionary Timetable, Steven Stanley spoke of “the general failure of the record to display gradual transitions from one major group to another.” He said: “The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with [slow evolution].” Niles Eldredge also admitted: “The pattern that we were told to find for the last 120 years does not exist.”
All of this has led many scientists to champion novel theories for evolution. Science Digest put it this way: “Some scientists are proposing even more rapid evolutionary changes and are now dealing quite seriously with ideas once popularized only in fiction.”
For instance, some scientists have concluded that life could not have arisen spontaneously on earth. Instead, they speculate that it must have originated in outer space and then floated down to the earth. But that just pushes the problem of the origin of life further back and into a more forbidding setting. The perils confronting life in the hostile environment of outer space are well known. Is it likely, then, that life began spontaneously elsewhere in the universe and survived under such harsh conditions to reach the earth, and later to develop into life as we know it?
Since the fossil record does not show a gradual development of life from one type into another, some evolutionists theorize that the process must have happened by jerks and starts, not at a steady pace. As The World Book Encyclopedia explains: “Many biologists think new species may be produced by sudden, drastic changes in genes.”
Some adherents to this theory have called the process “punctuated equilibrium.” That is, species maintain their “equilibrium” (they stay much the same), but every once in a while there is a “punctuation” (a big jump to evolve into something else). This is just the opposite of the theory that has been accepted by nearly all evolutionists for many decades. The gulf between the two theories was illustrated by a headline in The New York Times: “Theory of Rapid Evolution Attacked.” The article noted that the newer “punctuated equilibrium” idea had “aroused new opposition” among those who hold to the traditional view.
Regardless of which theory is held, it is reasonable that there should be at least some evidence to show that one kind of life turns into another kind. But the gaps between different types of life found in the fossil record, as well as the gaps between different types of living things on earth today, still persist.
Also, it is revealing to see what has happened to Darwin’s long-accepted idea regarding the “survival of the fittest.” This he called “natural selection.” That is, he believed that nature “selected” the fittest living things to survive. As these “fit” ones supposedly acquired new features that worked to their advantage, they slowly evolved. But the evidence of the past 125 years shows that, while the fittest may indeed survive, this does not explain how they arrived. One lion may be fitter than another lion, but that does not explain how he got to be a lion. And all of his offspring will still be lions, not something else.
Thus, in Harper’s magazine, writer Tom Bethell commented: “Darwin made a mistake sufficiently serious to undermine his theory. And that mistake has only recently been recognized as such. . . . One organism may indeed be ‘fitter’ than another . . . This, of course, is not something which helps create the organism, . . . It is clear, I think, that there was something very, very wrong with such an idea.” Bethell added: “As I see it the conclusion is pretty staggering: Darwin’s theory, I believe, is on the verge of collapse.”
Summarizing some of the unsolved problems confronting evolution, Francis Hitching observed: “In three crucial areas where the modern evolution theory can be tested, it has failed: The fossil record reveals a pattern of evolutionary leaps rather than gradual change. Genes are a powerful stabilizing mechanism whose main function is to prevent new forms evolving. Random step-by-step mutations at the molecular level cannot explain the organized and growing complexity of life.”
Then Hitching concluded by making this observation: “To put it at its mildest, one may question an evolutionary theory so beset by doubts among even those who teach it. If Darwinism is truly the great unifying principle of biology, it encompasses extraordinarily large areas of ignorance. It fails to explain some of the most basic questions of all: how lifeless chemicals came alive, what rules of grammar lie behind the genetic code, how genes shape the form of living things.” In fact, Hitching stated that he considered the modern theory of evolution “so inadequate that it deserves to be treated as a matter of faith.”
However, many advocates of evolution feel that they do have sufficient reason to insist that evolution is a fact. They explain that they are just arguing over details. But if any other theory had such enormous remaining difficulties, and such major contradictions among those who advocate it, would it so readily be pronounced a fact? Merely repeating that something is a fact does not make it a fact. As John R. Durant, a biologist, wrote in The Guardian of London: “Many scientists succumb to the temptation to be dogmatic, . . . over and over again the question of the origin of the species has been presented as if it were finally settled. Nothing could be further from the truth. . . . But the tendency to be dogmatic persists, and it does no service to the cause of science.”
(breathes in)
I hope this is enough, I went through all my available resources just to show the kind people of ASP why I have been so persistent and to also show you my full view point. I am truly sorry if I have annoyed you, i will stop arguing about this now lol.
Goodbye guys, I'm off to sleep.
mattmc
Well-Known Member
religion = means of controlling the greater population, since science has kicked religion out the door in recent centuries, something else will come up in its place as a means to controll people
climate change for instance.
whats scripted in bibles and dreamt up fables equivalent which almost all read the same or similar cant be compared evolution...i mean, evolution can happen in your own life time...take rabbits in australia...due to their dangerous numbers in australia, scientists developed mixamatosis in the hope to kill off the population, and did so successfully for a few years..but rabbits EVOLVED to develop a resistence to the virus..so the brought in a new one..calisey (spelling?) which they are starting to grow an immunity to it..
thats my 2 cents on evolution..
by the way...this thread has nothing to do with religion and the religous debate, here stands 6 pages of irrelevantness. it was about evidence that fish grew legs around 395 million years ago and were walking on land....soo lets get back on topic. quite the religious crap, unless you religious nuts wish to be flamed to all hell. my 2 cents, that is all,
climate change for instance.
whats scripted in bibles and dreamt up fables equivalent which almost all read the same or similar cant be compared evolution...i mean, evolution can happen in your own life time...take rabbits in australia...due to their dangerous numbers in australia, scientists developed mixamatosis in the hope to kill off the population, and did so successfully for a few years..but rabbits EVOLVED to develop a resistence to the virus..so the brought in a new one..calisey (spelling?) which they are starting to grow an immunity to it..
thats my 2 cents on evolution..
by the way...this thread has nothing to do with religion and the religous debate, here stands 6 pages of irrelevantness. it was about evidence that fish grew legs around 395 million years ago and were walking on land....soo lets get back on topic. quite the religious crap, unless you religious nuts wish to be flamed to all hell. my 2 cents, that is all,
mattmc
Well-Known Member
nice copy and paste job by the way
mattmc
Well-Known Member
"none are more hopelessly enslaved than those that believe they are free"
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1794-1832
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 1794-1832
Matt,
It's a series of quotes and articles that were accumulated, put together to help people understand... The only Copy and pasted parts were the quotes, the rest was written, which isn't much to write cause the whole damn thing is quotes, don't argue over it... it's there, it answers questions, and I don't particularly care anymore what people think... sorry, 2 am lol tired...
If you read what I just posted... then you sound pretty silly saying that... "the truth will set you free" yadidadida...
Just_Plain_Nuts
Very Well-Known Member
D3 pro you are a champ! But no matter how much evidence you give them there are those people who will only believe what they want to...that they are their own God and are not accountable to anything but what the laws limit them to. D3pro and myself are not asking people to just blindly change their views and become religious rather , if they are serious about finding truth, look into it...ALL. Not looking to disprove religion or evolution but to go into it with a truly open mind. This is difficult i know because of our own biases, but it is what I did. I was evolution and science all the way till i was 32, then I decided to investigate the possibility of Gods existence and after years of learning, And i'm not talking about resentingly being stuck at a christian college and closing myself off because the people there were not true to their faith and i didnt want to be there.. I can guarantee that D3pro and myself know more about science and evolution than all the knockers here know about God and the bible. Sorry if that causes offence but I havent seen anyone demonstrate any knowledge of God or the bible other than mainstream misconcieved knowledge.
the_tsar
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SO what made you overwhelmingly see God as a feasable answer to the Truth your seeking.
I also like the way you talk as if you know something we all dont, when ultimately you have as little proof of Gods existence than all of Us. So Im curious how you see "truth" when others admit, there is no real evidence. I have yet to see a froont page newspaper exclaiming, "Debate of Gods existencce Over!!: conclusive proof found, scientists unite in acceptance that God is no longer a philosophical debate but a being that exists". Did I miss an issue of the Australian?
And knowing the bible, isnt going to help an Athiest learn about the phylosophical question of if there is a god or not, as we men of Science see how Religion and God are man made.
And since you religious people cant even sort out what religion best describes our God, I think its dubious that you know something no one else sees as truth.
I also maintain, you know squat about evolution, even know you think you do, you may know details of evolution, but the bigger philosophical ramifications of evolution, I feel you are sorely lacking understanding in.
I have had no Religious person put to me, any observation or philosophy that would shake the truth actual empirical evidence has shown me, from fossils to DNA, to Geography, to even mans history,nothing. What Empirical evidence have you found that makes you certain God exists.
And to this effect, how did you descide what religion represents God, and evidence this is the correct religion, there are many, so we need to get it right, I perplexed that you have done this.
Let Us know.
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