Comments (347)

301. Redem
     November 26th, 2007 | 07:16

     “Did you hear that? He’s saying ‘man has EVOLVED to a higher eminence over women in basically anything he decides to do’.”
     Well poisoning, logical fallacy. His views were fairly enlightened by the standards of the time. On both race and gender.

     And they have nothing to do with the validity of his work.
     And the bible is far worse on both matters.

     “If I can’t convince you how unscientific evolution is, perhaps these following experts can:”
     Appeal to authority is also a fallacy, btw.

     “1. Noble Prize Winner Ernst B. Chain said in reference to the theory of evolution, “I would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation.””
     Got a source for this? I can’t find reference to anything.

     “2. Sir Arthur Keith, the physical anatomist and anthropologist who wrote the forward to Darwin’s Origin of Species 100th Anniversary Edition said, “Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it only because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable.””

     Did he write it after he died? That edition was issued in 1959, he died in 1955. Although he did indeed write an introduction to Origin, in 1928. Later, in 1958, a new author was asked to rewrite the ontroduction. W.R. Thompson.

     Neither Thompson’s, nor Keith’s introduction contained that quote.

     “3. Malcolm Muggeridge, British journalist and philosopher said, “I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in history books of the future.” Although he was Christian, he’s no better than you using a non-Christian source to make a case against Christianity.”
     And finally a quote from a creationist.

     ““Man has said, ‘I will believe in anything as long as it’s not in the bible.’” Unfortunately, that is so true.”
     I merely require you to provide decent evidence that the bible is factual.

     Not too much to ask is it?

     More or less up to date. Apart from The last reply from wah to costa.

     I’ve done enough for one day though

     Anything specific from that post anyone wants me to cover mention it please, and I’ll get back to ya.
     Otherwise goodnight n_n

302. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:05

     “Genocide is immoral by todays standards.”
     By whose standards? Not if you’re talking to dictators in Iraq (Saddam Hussein)

     “Or does it simply become moral because god told them to?
     A case of “Do as I say, but not as I do”?”
     Only if you’re talking about special exceptions, not as a ‘rule of thumb’. That’s one reason why Christians don’t live by the OT anymore.

     “Based on what? If we establish that states don’t need it. Nations don’t need it. Then why the world? Why not simply go the same way as the city/nation?
     And have people setting it. International law, for example.”
     Good idea. The problem is that human int’l laws will never live to to God’s standard. Since the world is held accountable to God for His sin, humans are condemned by the law and our conscience bears witness of our guilt and shame and standing before Him. And unfortunately, according to “revelations” it will be a matter of time before THE ‘anti-christ’ comes to set up his throne upon earth, establishing peace through a one-world religion, one-world world economy, one-world government, one-world court system, all based on carnal standards. Sounds like a conspiracy doesn’t it?

     “So?”
     He was making a case for punctuated equilibrium and evolution, but not as a scientific law.

     “but modern science predates Darwin.”
     Even so, he’s just a naturalist and not a ’scientist’ by today’s terminology of standard, even though him and other people in the ’science community’ were considered ’scientists’ in their time. That was then, this is now.

     “In the sense that they both represent a continuum of evolution, they are similar. But they are opposed in terms of how that continuum progresses.”
     Thus proving my point. But if you wanna get super-technical then sure. whatever.

     “I wouldn’t compare them.”
     If you think that morality is a socio-biological construct, then you have to distinguish it from being a socio-cultural relativism. Otherwise, morality is the latter as well and you fail to see it from an ethnic-cultural perspective due to willful ignorance.

     “Not entirely sure what you’re asking me here.”

     I think that we’ve been looking at the same object from different angles. From a biological scope, it’s obvious that there is relative but no absolute. But you’re not allowing yourself to see it from my POV, an ethnic/cultural view, that relative exists as a result of complacency (not evolution, even though it does, you fail to see it happens from a different POV, you get me?). What you also fail to see from outside of the scientific observatory ‘microscope’, is that the degradation of loose, non-rigidity of the world’s moral standards has held mankind accountable to the Creator of the Universe for his ‘moral irresponsibility’.

     “I don’t consider him to be a decent moral guide. Let alone likely to have existed”
     of course you don’t (Romans 2:5-8). His standards are too high for you. But you’re still ‘not off the hook’. (Romans 2:11-13) So even though you don’t consider his moral guide decent compared to yours, it is not your own standard that will justify you before God but only through Jesus Christ, the one who died for your sins, holding Himself accountable to God on your behalf. (Romans 3:21-26)

     “I would like to know why you think that you thinking something “should” matters.”
     Me thinking something shouldn’t matter to you at all. Neither is why you think something that you say matters should matter to me. What does matter is if it’s possible that it could exist, then it’s possible that your entire view could be shattered as well. And THAT matters, unless what you believe doesn’t matter.

     “I don’t consider us depraved. We’re better people now than we ahve ever been before, and getting better all the time.”
     say that again when you visit the slums of Africa or the tyranny in Iraq, or to thai people who sell children to sex rings on a daily basis. It’s happening as we speak. That’s why it matters to you and I if absolute morality does exist or not, even though it doesn’t exist in the minds of most people on earth (proving my point that we all disagree on morals because we reject the notion of absolute morality). We simply don’t find it from an observatory view because we’re not searching for it or likely deny it while it’s in our face.

     “No. I don’t. Assuming you mean what I think you mean, here. Are you asking if I would like there to be an objective source for morality, if people were totally immoral?”
     Exactly. You don’t care if they live up to a higher moral standard. Because you feel no need for an arbiter to guide people’s moral compass, their value as humans degrade due to the way of life they lead and the quality of life. Therefore, the significance of humanity is decreased because not everyone is equally valuable, even though most of humanity is value by their own standards and quality of live, the small cracks in society blemish man’s standing for God.

     “I know that. But it does mean that I have good reason to not think one exists.”
     Which also means that you can’t be so sure that you could have good reason to think one exists simply because everything around tells you there’s no good reason. Yet, you still ignore the possibility.

303. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:33

     test

304. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:40

     I seem to be having difficulty posting here…

305. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:44

     Sorry it took me so long to get back on here. I havent had a chance to go online for a while now. I also had trouble posting this to the site. It wouldnt let me. You may notice my response looks a little disoriented, that is because I hit on each of your points, and it was a little bit (ok, it was difficult) to connected each of them without sounding like Im jumping all over the place. I guess, if you wanna read what I have to say, youll bear with me…

     You missed the point of what I was trying to say. I dont “deny” what evidence you have found, I find faults in your logic based upon my logic whose foundation is on the principles of ID. Same goes for you and evolution. Make me out to be an idiot who choses to ignore evidence all you want, honestly I think that is a cheap insult to everybody’s intelligence…

     Your bias is just like mine. It isnt backed by science, bias cannot be proven right or wrong. You misinterpreted the word. The evidence is absolute truth pointing to what is ultimately true. How we interpret that evidence is determined by our predispositions. Dont make your bias look nice just because you believe you follow science the way it should! The science exists, and we both look at it. Just because you follow a belief void of a god doesnt mean your interpretations of that science are any better than mine. Yet another cheap insult.

306. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:45

     And now your saying you never denied a god existed?! Are you seriously going to say that? You know you dont believe in God, so why would you say that? What you should have said is that many people have altered their look on theism because they were incapable of logically explaining the attacks on them from people like you. You never claimed God existed, stop using that as protection. Also, where are all these evolution/theists? Ive never met anybody that believed both were true…I admit, that doesnt mean they dont exist. But if they were as numerous as you claim they are, wouldnt you think I would have met one by now? Your talking like it is a commonly known thing! Sure, you can give me credibility, but yet again (as I have said many many times before), credibility is ALWAYS biased. The fact that I, nor anybody I have ever known, has met an evolutionist/theist should be proof enough they dont exist (or are at least few in number).

307. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:46

     Murder is murder no matter where you live. It is true that culture warps morality based on predisposition (changing mostly small things, but having the possibility of changing large things like cutting peoples hands off, of which I thought was considered radical even in a Muslim community…dont watch the news, they have a tendency to show only the bad to you…personally, I have friends that live in such countries and they continue to have “in tact” hands…guess what…they are Christians, too!), but using that to say morality is subjective is hardly solid evidence…

     You are generally right, kin do usually come before others. Im going to tell you the honest truth, though. If I walked in on my brother holding a gun to somebody’s head and I had the ability to stop him without talking through it, you can be sure nobody would have died that day…Regardless of the situation, killing somebody is usually not one of the possible choices to staying alive. For instance, my brother could need to kill that man to pay off a dept he owed him. In his mind (this is a hypothetical, where my brother’s choice had already been made, how he arrived that that choice is not the point), killing the man would relieve my brother of dept and, therefore, save his life. However, most of the time, other possible paths would be taken over killing such as talking it out or falling back on your family to aid you during difficult times. Simply saying kin ALWAYS get priority over others would be easy for an evolutionist to claim, but hard for him to explain. This fact shows that moral choices are made to protect all people, not just kin. Chances are, those other people do not carry any of your genes (personally speaking), but that doesnt mean they are expendable…Protecting those people would, generally, not help you much (in an evolutionist world, that is).

     As you look at extensions to your logic about kin, you start noticing contradictions within. You observe a man 35 years of age (just a random number I guessed, could be any age) who has to care for his parents because they are no longer capable of taking care of themselves. What advantage does that play in evolution? His parents carry his genes, true, but the odds of them passing the genes on again is insignificant. How could they possibly procreate if they cant even take care of themselves?! (Eww, I kinda just grossed myself out…) It doesnt mean the man instantly abandons them just because they possess no “evolutionary strategic” advantage to him. He still loves his mother and father, but to no purpose in evolution. His energy would be best spent either surviving, procreating, or protecting his siblings, offspring, and/or his sibling’s offspring.

308. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:46

     Another contradiction lays in child/parent abuse. Where does this come along in evolution? If evolution were true, a parent abusing his/her children would be suicide! There is always the possibility that abuse from parents could eventually lead to the child’s death without the chance for the child to continue passing on their genes of which arose directly in response to the abuse. You also fail to explain how a child who abuses his parents ends up in a juvenile home instead of continuing to receive assistance from the parent(s). If the parents receive abuse from the child, shouldnt they continue to take care of them simply because they carry the best hope for passing on their genes? After all, what is a little abuse compared to the possible halt of your genes to the overall pool?

     I dont really understand how gene flux has anything to do with kin, but whatever…Mindless (or semi mindless) animals cannot comprehend their existence, let alone understand why encouraging morality would be favorable. You would assume they would slowly change into moral creatures as they grew in intelligence, but lack of a total moral system has virtually no advantage to the creature. You cannot learn parts of morality without understanding all of morality while at the same time maintaining its usefulness. And it isnt like they would experiment to see if not killing each other would be beneficial, that doesnt make any sense. If evolution is when one individual gains a favorable trait compared to the rest of the individual’s species, then you cannot explain how morality survived the test of evolution. If the entire society doesnt follow a moral trend, it has absolutely no value whatsoever! In short, if one individual in a society gained morality (a “favorable” trait), it would put him in a position of being “unfavorable” within the total society. If the passing of “favorable” traits to offspring is the basis of evolution, the initial passing of morality would be that of an “unfavorable” trait, which would result in a backwards motion, huh? Instead of evolving into a “better” creature, you actually evolve into a “worse” creature and then, over an extremely large amount of time, would eventually evolve into a creature who was better than the original…And dont forget, evolving takes a hefty amount of time to accomplish, so this creature would witness hundreds of generations of his own “kin” being at a disadvantage…hmm, doesnt sound very intelligent to me…

     Your “second level” really has no basis, since you really didnt state much more than that neighbors tend to marry each other, thereby helping each other spread their genes. I doubt Im going to marry every one of my “neighbors,” thereby helping the spread of my genes…Eww, that is actually kind of disturbing…

309. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:47

     Your third point actually does hold quite a bit of meaning, as an evolutionist. Helping your fellow species would be favorable (in evolution) compared to helping another species. However, that isnt entirely solid. Say a random person was going to kill a dog for no apparent reason. Would your only choice be that of murder? Would the only way for you to save that dog be to kill the killer? No, not really. Talking is very powerful, and is preferred even within the species. The mere fact that you tried to prevent that dog’s death without the need to hurt your fellow species in the process proves that human morality is not limited to human society in general, but can be extended to the feeling of “I need to protect more than just humans”. Protecting another species has absolutely no value to you. It’s not like that dog can be in dept to you for saving its life, it cant even comprehend that its life was in danger! So yeah, I would kill a dog if it meant a human life would be spared, but such a situation rarely ever happens, as well as the fact that such a possibility doesnt necessarily point to the person protecting its genes by killing the dog.

     And now my final point: How do I justify that nature is…by nature…cruel? Actually, that is a lot easier to explain than morality is…Acording to evolution, we all came from the first microbe that claimed to be “alive”, correct? Ok, lets move up a step (Im going to state this right now, I am by no means an expert on evolution…obviously…I am making general evolutionary statements in order to prove a point, not to say that it happened the way I claim it did…because, frankly, I dont believe it happened that way…duh). The microbe gained a trait, gained a trait, blah blah blah up to a point where it can oficially claim it is not the same species anymore. Can it think? No, it cannot. It cannot think; it cannot comprehend anything. If you were to say that morality was advantageous to it, you would be a small child who was shown a picture of an amoeba that had eyeballs and a mouth…Fact is, even if morality could play a part to that little, one celled creature, there is absolutely no way it could ever learn it. The only thing that matters to that microbe is aquiring food and reproducing. Morality plays no part in it. If it met another microbe (even if it was the same species), there is no way for it to discern it between being dead or alive. The little microbe just goes on living for itself, and itself only. There is proof #1. Creatures without a brain cannot have morality. Therefore, they live in an immoral state where the only thing that matters is themselves.

     Lets continue down the line. We reach the first creature with a brain (which is kinda hard to explain alone, since a brain is a rather advanced piece of hardware regardless of its size or power). This creature is the very first creature capable of forming thoughts in general. This creature is only capable of forming enough thoughts to witness the world around it. Simple thoughts like, “Is this food?” or “Can I reproduce with it” are alone in its brain. Complex thoughts cannot be formed, since its brain is the first of its kind and is, therefore, very basic and simple. It cannot even comprehend enough to tell the difference between water and a rock…how can it possibly think about cooperating with its fellow species to gain an advantage over others? All it can ever know is how to survive and reproduce (traits it gained from its ancestor, the microbe). There is proof #2. Even with a brain, at an early stage, it is impossible for a creature to comprehend morality. Therefore, the only alternative would be to live only for itself, which would be immorality.

310. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:48

     I do have a “proof #3″. However, I have already explained it. Since I really dont feel like rephrasing it, and I see nothing wrong with what I originally said, Im just going to copy paste it: “…if one individual in a society gained morality (a “favorable” trait), it would put him in a position of being “unfavorable” within the total society. If the passing of “favorable” traits to offspring is the basis of evolution, the initial passing of morality would be that of an “unfavorable” trait, which would result in a backwards motion, huh? Instead of evolving into a “better” creature, you actually evolve into a “worse” creature and then, over an extremely large amount of time, would eventually evolve into a creature who was better than the original…And dont forget, evolving takes a hefty amount of time to accomplish, so this creature would witness hundreds of generations of his own “kin” being at a disadvantage…” Look at it as though the creature in question has evolved up to a point where it is capable of forming complex thoughts, such as morality.

     So, is that enough proof? Morality needed to be “acquired” at some point, because absence of morality is, by nature…nature….Yes, these monkeys and various creatures you stated do show a type of morality, but the fact remains that morality itself is too advanced for such creatures to “learn”. The only way for such creatures to display morality would be if they already had the knowledge to do so “genetically predisposed” to them when they were born. I guess I would need to admit that they do display what can be visually observed as morality, but there is much much more to morality than simply living together and benefiting from one another in a society virtually free from “wrongdoings”. Science would have a difficult time proving that the social behaviors of those creatures was indeed morality instead of simply being a predisposition of “not killing one another”.

     There you have it. I kept my end of our little arrangement. I kept an open mind (or as open a mind as a bias person is capable of showing) as I read your response to morality. However, since I did find errors in the logic, I will continue to use my “morality argument” in the future if something like this ever happens again.

311. Darth Arcon
     November 26th, 2007 | 08:49

     As for what Im going to do now, Im sorry but I really REALLY need to drop this and move on. It is quite obvious both sides are equally entrenched in their belief, so there is no point to continuing since I can almost guarentee there will be no third party viewing this debate in the future. Im not saying you cant contradict what I said here. I am quite certain that you can come up with a response to this post using evolution’s logic. While I did enjoy debating with you at first, the debate has reached a point where continuing serves no entertainment or theistic value to me whatsoever. Therefore, I am going to call it quits. This time I really do mean it (hopefully).

     wah, it was a pleasure reading your findings. Costa, it was a pleasure to see my argument from a different perspective. Redem, it seems you have left already, but it was fun going back and forth there for a while. Perhaps I shall meet you all again, but if I dont…have a nice life…

     As for the multiple comments, Im not really sure why, but I couldnt post my entire argument at the same time, so this is what I resorted to. I meant nothing by it…

312. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 09:21

     “Both.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#History_and_origins
     http://www.livingwaters.com/witnessingtool/browse.shtml#darchaeology

     “the existance of London in no way endorses the truth of the harry potter series.”
     Of course not! the historicity of the bible, even though true, doesn’t prove God’s divine truth; that takes faith. The followers claim it’s truth to be truth by faith. Harry potter fans don’t have faith in the ‘truth’ of the series because they don’t claim it to be true.

     “Which one?”
     That was a joke. They don’t exist but only in your mind.

     “What’s this conuntrum,”
     I didn’t say that. So I’m not gonna answer that.

     “This claim is false. I know of no experts who do this, other than creationists.”
     actually it’s true. Lot’s of people mock evolution, biased or not.

     “No one has ever made much of it except creationists.”
     That’s my point. It’s not that science evolution is false or non-existent but that their claim that apes evolve into humans is a joke because they don’t have the actual proof to prove it, except in their minds. Keep at the search boys. Until then, if you don’t find it before your time is up on earth, won’t you stop by a church or talk with a Christian to hear God’s Good News?

     “Fraud by some people looking for a bit of fame, exposed by scientists.”
     You know what evolutionist scientists should do? Plant some fake evidence to prove that apes evolve into humans to get back at the creationists. “THEY MUST PAY FOR WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO US!!”

     “We have over 500 distinct neanderthal specimens”
     yet they are non-transitional. Come back when you find the ’smoking gun’

     “He’s, again, making a case for punctuated equilibrium. Not against evolution.”
     Not against evolution as a natural law but against evolution as a scientific law.

     “He is not happy with this sorta thing.”
     Yea that does suck. But just suck it up and take it like a man. Nothing too serious. It’s a matter of Creationists picking on the nerdy scientists.

     “Possibly, but to understand nature I choose to study nature. Not accept the “wisdom” of bronzeage tribal priests as indisputable.”
     Exactly your predicament. Nature speaks of God’s nature (Romans 1:20). You enjoy what God has created for you to study, yet you fail to recognize God as the one who created that for you (Romans 1:25). You should thank God for that. Read (Romans 1:21-23)

     “Example please.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
     Keyword: COMPREHENSION. not apprehension. Whatever is unexplainable to science is simply ignored or at best, apprehended with a ‘rational’ explanation of the irrational.

     “Again only different in complexity. Apes do both of these… A unique human trait, which proves…”
     Which doesn’t prove apes evolve into humans.

     Think of it like this: picture a small bi-plane and a jumbo 747 jet. They’re both very similar. After all they have co_ckpits, engine, seats, wings, etc. But does that mean the 747 evolved from the plane? Not at all. It just means they have a common designer. The designer used a similar blueprint for each one and the same with us and apes. God the Creator of the world and the universe (Romans 1:20), is our common designer. He simply used the same blueprint when creating the hands and feet and facial expressions of men and apes.

     The real proof, however as you already know, are the fossil records, aka “missing link”, the actual proof. In reality, this is what you actually have: you and the monkey, apes and humans. The “supposed” transitional forms are the “missing links” to prove that apes evolve into humans. But, IMHO, the ’smoking gun’ doesn’t really exist, they’re just in your mind, wanting to justify your theory.

     And we’re all continually told that primates are our ‘relatives’ but airliners will refuse to let them on board to fly with us alongside in the cabin. Personally, I would like to fly alongside with primates (preferably a monkey or chimpanzee) because they’re so cute sitting beside you just chilling, as long as they’re in a relaxed mood, but the airliner workers tell me that they need to be transported to a cargo hold instead, even though universities teach me that we’re all related to primates. The airline bookie chuckles. Funny that.

     “Only differing by complexity”
     Complexity complexity. That’s why we’re not related sherlock.
     I think you’ve been watching one too many “Jungle Book” movies.

     “Unless he doesn’t exist, and such things happened on their own.”
     oh and I suppose this whole comment board just happened on its own as well.

     “Their existence proves nothing.”
     Read Romans 1:19, ROmans 2:15.

     “Well poisoning, logical fallacy. His views were fairly enlightened by the standards of the time. On both race and gender.”
     Nonetheless, that’s how the father of your science thinks of the value of man and women.

     “And they have nothing to do with the validity of his work.”
     Of course not. It just goes to show that you follow a leader who isn’t perfect.

     “And the bible is far worse on both matters.”
     Read Genesis 1:27. God made them equal.

     “Appeal to authority is also a fallacy, btw.”
     Then we’re both on the same boat.

     “I merely require you to provide decent evidence that the bible is factual.”
     If you really want to look for evidence for the bible then look here: http://www.carm.org/bible.htm
     If not, then go to a anti-Christian website.

     “Not too much to ask is it?”
     Is this too much to ask?
     Do you consider yourself a good person?

313. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 10:00

     Yes Darth Arcon. I see these arguments on both sides aren’t really going anywhere. We’re all basically arguing for who’s more clever. It’s not gonna change anyone’s views even through convincing. We’re all wasting our time typing. So why are we all still here? It’s gone four pages. Wow. None of us have anything better to do. LOL. Oh well on with the debate…

314. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 13:09

     Oh. Darth Arcon. Before you leave. Check these out. It’s WAY FUNNY!!

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywh8JNzOmcM&feature=related
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N1wKSVJ-LA&feature=related
     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qsXqa2BoUU
     http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/12-20-06.asp
     ———————————————————-
     And these evolutionary pictures are funny:
     http://www.soulwinners.com.au/images/Charles-Darwin.jpg
     http://www.soulwinners.com.au/images/evolution-joke.gif
     http://www.soulwinners.com.au/images/charles-darwin.gif
     http://www.soulwinners.com.au/images/Lost-sheep.jpg

     ———————————————————-
     One of the mammals’ evolutionary advantages was that they bore their young alive. As research has conclusively shown, animals that bore their young dead generally got nowhere
     http://www.besse.at/sms/flying.gif

     ——————————————
     Scientists and God

     One day a group of Darwinian scientists got together and decided that man
     had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one Darwinian
     to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

     The Darwinian walked up to God and said, “God, we’ve decided that we no
     longer need you. We’re to the point that we can clone people and do many
     miraculous things, so why don’t you just go on and get lost.”

     God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the Darwinian was
     done talking, God said, “Very well, how about this? Let’s say we have a
     man-making contest.” To which the Darwinian happily agreed.

     God added, “Now, we’re going to do this just like I did back in the old
     days with Adam.”

     The Darwinian said, “Sure, no problem” and bent down and grabbed himself a
     handful of dirt.

     God looked at him and said, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!!!!”

315. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 13:43

     This dude is THE most quote mined person in history, gotta be.

     “…one outstanding fact of the fossil record that many of you may not be aware of; that since the so-called Cambrian explosion…during which essentially all the anatomical designs of modern multicellular life made their first appearance in the fossil record, no new Phyla of animals have entered the fossil record.”
     —Steven J. Gould

     Evolutionary biologist and Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University, Speech at SMU, Oct. 2, 1990.

     About Punctual Equilibrium:
     So allow me to get this straight: Punctuated Equilibrium explains the process of speciation ONLY, which is when small populations can adapt by slight variations over a very short period of time. But a lab monkey knows that these variations and adaptations have never been observed in nature or recorded in the fossil record to advance beyond just producing another specie of the parent ‘kind’, which is arguable of its definition. Punctuated Equilibrium does, however, bode well for you because it doesn’t require any fossil evidence to substantiate that evolution perpetually continues on to produce UNLIMITED CHANGE.

     ““Punctuated equilibrium helped to explain why many transitional forms apparently were missing from the fossil record. According to the hypothesis of punctuated equilibrium, transitional forms existed for brief periods of time, and so were unlikely to become fossils.””

     Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History/Department of Paleobiology

     http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/foundation_life3.html

     But regardless of how brief each incremental change lasted, wouldn’t we expect to find JUST ONE fossil that reflects 1/10th, 1/4th, 1/2, 3/4th, or 9/10th of an actual transition in an existing feature? Examples would be:

     * Fins evolving into legs
     * Mouths evolving into beaks
     * Legs evolving into wings
     * Nostrils evolving into blowholes
     * Legs evolving into flippers
     http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/fossil_evidence.html

     “Got a source for this? I can’t find reference to anything.”
     Emeritus Professor of Zoology, Harvard University. Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of an Evolutionist, Harvard University Press: Cabridge, MA, 1988, pp. 529-530.

     “Did he write it after he died?”
     writing forward means writing it before the book is complete or published.

     Can you give an example of JUST ONE fossil that display organisms with features ‘in transition’ instead of fossils that appear to have a natural progression? Examples would be fossils that have PARTIALLY FORMED leaves, flowers, fins, feathers, beaks, legs, hands, fingers, etc., NOT just different sizes and shapes of leaves, flowers, fins, feathers, beaks, legs, hands, fingers, etc.

     This only have I found: That God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.
     -Ecclesiastes 7:29

316. Yosemity
     November 26th, 2007 | 13:43

     The comments these kind of articles get makes good insight to one thing.
     No matter what, people read what they want. If the text says one thing they go to lengths to read into it something they can agree or disagree with. Thereby justifying their own belief.
     I’ve read a bunch of the comments and come across many actual errors of facts.
     Calling ID scientific makes me laugh.
     Calling evolution religion also makes me laugh.

317. Yosemity
     November 26th, 2007 | 13:57

     Sry i fell the need to clarify this..
     “Calling ID scientific makes me laugh.”
     That is ID with the assumption that it is god that did it. Wich as far as i read the comments where the standard.

318. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 14:43

     @Costa200
     “Speciation happens mostly in small populations where mutations get the best chance to accumulate. That is why you may find 100 non transitionals for every transitional. But what does matter is that one transitional makes a gapping whole in your view of things. It is not by repeating that “missing links” stuff over and over again that you will make it so.”
     * Mutations are random and do not ‘build’ on each other toward a specific direction.
     “Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not “try” to supply what the organism “needs.” … In this respect, mutations are random — whether a particular mutation happens or not is unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.”
     http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/mutations_07
     * Mutations are most often harmful and produce an overall genetic weakness in an organism, not an increase in fitness.
     “While it is true that most mutations are either harmful, as suggested by the creationists, or neutral, the creationists gloss over a crucial fact: beneficial mutations do occur, though they are very rare.”
     http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/
     * ‘Beneficial’ mutations do NOT add new instructional information and the overall fitness of the organism most often suffers.
     “All of the beneficial mutations located in my search of the literature involving almost 20 million references were loss mutations and mutations such as sickle cell anemia that have a beneficial effect only in very special circumstances. In most situations they have a decidedly negative effect on the organism’s health. Not a single clear example of an information-gaining mutation was located. It was concluded that molecular biology research shows that information-gaining mutations have not yet been documented.”
     http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp (Scroll to ‘Evidence of Beneficial Mutations’ and ‘Conclusions’)
     * Almost ALL mutations are detected and re-written by miniscule machines that check for errors.
     “The copying is far more precise than pure chemistry could manage—only about 1 mistake in 10 billion copyings, because there is editing (proof-reading and error-checking) machinery, again encoded in the DNA.”
     http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/dna.asp?vPrint=1
     * Only changes in germline cells (cells possessing genetic material that is passed on to the next generation) are relevant to evolution, but mutations in germline cells are rare and have been found to harm overall genetic fitness, not improve it.
     “In short, the notion that molecules of germ cells … are in states of perpetual change is not, in our present understanding of cell biology, tenable. This doesn’t mean that “molecular change” does not occur; only that mechanisms provoking such change in germ cells are likely instantaneous and stochastic and probably often lethal (Maresca and Schwartz 2006) – which will preclude their persistence into future generations.”
     Jeffrey H. Schwartz / Bruno Maresca, “Do Molecular Clocks Run at All? A Critique of Molecular Systematics” (See PDF, scroll to ‘Conclusion’)

     “Some changes, however, to the genetic code cause the message to be changed so that it is no longer understood by the cell: the gene is impaired or faulty. Changes that make the genes faulty are called mutations.”
     Centre for Genetics Education, ‘Changes To The Genetic Code’ Fact Sheet 4, Australasian Genetics Resource Book 2007. (See http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/assets/PDF’s/ChangesToTheGenetic_Code.pdf)
     See below links regarding molecular machines that repair DNA molecules:
     http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/research/Highlights/NaturesMicroscopicMotors.htm
     http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=6671
     http://www.esrf.eu/news/spotlight/spotlight13dnarepair/

     It appears to me that a major change in the phenotype or the appearance of a new or more complex feature can’t be caused by one mutation within a gene. Also, since there can be multiples of genes effecting each feature, a mutation in just one gene may have NO effect on the organism. What they can do is change an existing feature in a slightly positive way, but only through reduced or eliminated functions that always result in some fitness loss in the organism. See Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria below.

     In terms of accumulations of mutations in genes, subsequent mutations that affect the same feature and build something that it had never possessed before is nearly impossible only if mutations are random and have no purposeful direction, which they are. Taken from your POV, I don’t see how or what would make the resulting organism more fit so that natural selection would preserve this new ‘we-have-no-idea-of-what-we’re-going-to-be’ feature?

     @Redem
     “Or more recently the studies with fruit flies and mice and bacteria and such in laboratories.

     We HAVE seen it in action.”
     Yes. We see evolutoin occur. But that doesn’t solidify the entire whole theory of evolution, just some theories. The foundations on which the entire theory of evolution is based on is shaky ground.

     Fruit Flies for instance were able to be engineered by scientists, with a second set of wings, but the wings had no muscles and were non-functional. All sorts of experiments have been done to fruit flies, but scientists have yet to create anything novel in them and, every time, the flies ALWAYS end up being nothing but flies! Basically, wec annot re-create the process of which nature creates, which basically shows that no such thing can happen naturally on its own, let alone the technology we have, can’t even do.
     “In Dobzhansky’s work, numerous varieties resulted from radiation bombardment: fruit flies with extra wings, fruit flies with no wings, fruit flies with huge wings, fruit flies with tiny wings… In the end, however, they were all … fruit flies! Dobzhansky meddled with the genetic code of an organism and effected changes on the organism’s offspring. Nearly all of the changes were detrimental to survival, and none of them resulted in an advantage over other fruit flies.”
     http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp (Scroll to ‘Dobzhansky’s Fruit Flies’)

     @Costa200/Redem
     “What irony that as co-founder of antibiotics he just provided a way to actually see evolution in progress as bacteria evolve to fight antibiotics.”

     Did you know that bacteria can actually lose their ability to metabolize certain chemicals such as antibiotics, thus giving them the ability to survive within their presence? Read other examples of how bacteria can become resistant to bacteria but NOTE that each process involves duplications or losses in coding instructions and, every time, bacteria ALWAYS end up being nothing but bacteria! Which further extrapolates upon my point that humans aren’t simply a result of the accumulation and duplication of mutations and bacteria, respectively, from apes.
     “As a group, the mutations associated with antibiotic resistance involve the loss or reduction of a pre-existing cellular function/activity, i.e., the target molecule lost an affinity for the antibiotic, the antibiotic transport system was reduced or eliminated, a regulatory system or enzyme activity was reduced or eliminated, etc.”
     http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp
     http://www.icr.org/article/14/

     Basically, the theory of evolution has a lot of apparent contradictions.

319. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 14:48

     @Yosemity

     Evolution is hardly scientific. pFFF. More like over-rated story-telling. For instance, ‘we have access to the tips of a tree, the tree itself is a theory and people who pretended to know about the tree and to describe what went on with it, how the branches came off and the twigs came off are, I think, telling stories.’

     Tell me in great significant detail how life evolved from one cell-organism to humans. Take your time.

320. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 15:57

     @darth
     http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ntalband.jpg
     http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/calvinhobbes.gif
     http://www.frankandernest.com/images/archive/98/980802.gif

     http://www.besse.at/sms/descent.html

     Discover magazine’s 1997 April Fool’s article about the discovery of Neandertal musical instruments is pretty funny.

     And here’s my favorite:
     Ancient Tech Support

     The tech support problem dates back to long before the industrial revolution, when primitive tribesmen beat out a rhythm on drums to communicate:

     This fire help. Me Groog

     Me Lorto Help Fire not work

     You have flint and stone?

     Ugh

     You hit them together?

     Ugh

     What happen?

     Fire not work

     (sigh) Make spark?

     Ugh

     You have tinder and kindling near spark?

     Ohhhhhhhhhhh.
     ————————————————-
     The tech support problem dates back to long before the industrial revolution, when primitive tribesmen beat out a rhythm on drums to communicate:

     This fire help. Me Groog

     Me Lorto. Help. Fire not work.

     You have flint and stone?

     Ugh

     You hit them together?

     Ugh

     What happen?

     Fire not work

     (sigh) Make spark?

     No spark, no fire, me confused. Fire work yesterday.

     *sigh* You change rock?

     I change nothing

     You sure?

     Me make one change. Stone hot so me soak in stream so stone not burn Lorto hand. Small change, shouldn’t keep Lorto from make fire.

     *Grabs club and goes to Lorto’s cave*

     *WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*WHAM*

321. Yosemity
     November 26th, 2007 | 16:14

     @wah

     Your post is a perfect example of what i mean. Individuals not pleased with the definitions used by others seeks to bend them to fit there own preferences.
     Saying evolution is not science is a kick in the nuts for all fields of science.
     If you cant get the analogy of the tree i say you are a narrowminded individual.

322. wah
     November 26th, 2007 | 17:24

     “a kick in the nuts”
     ROFL!

     “a narrowminded individual”
     and how am i narrowminded? If i was I wouldn’t even consider looking at the situation from a scientific POV. AS YOU CLEARLY SEE FROM MY POSTS I HAVE. If there was a word to describe me it would be stubborn. So are you but you’re narrowminded. Type to the hand.

323. Darth Arcon
     November 27th, 2007 | 07:51

     Yes, Im back…but, no debating this time. I want to say a few things, but I suppose Ill hold back. Anywho, thanks for the links, wah. Ive been looking for those “Evolution Myth Debunked” videos ever since I first saw them a couple years ago…

     Careful what you say now, though. The moment a creationist busts out funny jokes that are clearly an after dinner candy, they will start flaming you for it…

324. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 08:08

     “By whose standards? Not if you’re talking to dictators in Iraq (Saddam Hussein)”
     By the standards of what most would call “Western civilisation”.

     “Only if you’re talking about special exceptions, not as a ‘rule of thumb’. That’s one reason why Christians don’t live by the OT anymore.”
     It’s an important principle. If what would otherwise be considered immoral suddenly becomes moral because god tells you to, or someone else can convince you that he wants you to, then we all have a problem.

     “Sounds like a conspiracy doesn’t it?”
     Sounds fairly… paranoid.

     “He was making a case for punctuated equilibrium and evolution, but not as a scientific law.”
     No one has claimed he was.

     “Even so, he’s just a naturalist and not a ’scientist’ by today’s terminology of standard, even though him and other people in the ’science community’ were considered ’scientists’ in their time. That was then, this is now.”
     During the voyage he might have been considered a naturalist, but his subsequent work on the theory of evolution IS science.

     “If you think that morality is a socio-biological construct, then you have to distinguish it from being a socio-cultural relativism. Otherwise, morality is the latter as well and you fail to see it from an ethnic-cultural perspective due to willful ignorance.”
     Apples and oranges.

     The two are not related in anyway.

     Comparison is meaningless.

     “But you’re not allowing yourself to see it from my POV, an ethnic/cultural view, that relative exists as a result of complacency (not evolution, even though it does, you fail to see it happens from a different POV, you get me?)”
     I’ve not been saying your views (in this specific instance) aren’t consistant with the evidence. Just that they’re not a conclusion based upon that evidence, and not a conclusion one might reach by studying the universe.

     “What you also fail to see from outside of the scientific observatory ‘microscope’, is that the degradation of loose, non-rigidity of the world’s moral standards has held mankind accountable to the Creator of the Universe for his ‘moral irresponsibility’.”
     Degredation? I see no degredation. I see a near constant improvement of the human condition.

     “His standards are too high for you.”
     Heh, no. Too low for me. He is a thief afterall
     (Mark 11)

     “So even though you don’t consider his moral guide decent compared to yours, it is not your own standard that will justify you before God but only through Jesus Christ, the one who died for your sins, holding Himself accountable to God on your behalf.”
     Mine is the standard by which I judge his actions, and I find him wanting.

     “What does matter is if it’s possible that it could exist, then it’s possible that your entire view could be shattered as well. And THAT matters, unless what you believe doesn’t matter.”
     Many views are possible… not many are plausible.

     “say that again when you visit the slums of Africa or the tyranny in Iraq, or to thai people who sell children to sex rings on a daily basis. It’s happening as we speak.”
     Yes. And far less often than it used to. Those people are being found and caught in many places, and the children rescued. By no means all, but it is still happening. And in the western world especially, those sorts of crimes are extremely difficult to get away with.

     “Exactly. You don’t care if they live up to a higher moral standard. Because you feel no need for an arbiter to guide people’s moral compass, their value as humans degrade due to the way of life they lead and the quality of life.”
     I never said that. I said I have no desire for an outside imposition of some arbitrary “morality” as absolute.

     “Which also means that you can’t be so sure that you could have good reason to think one exists simply because everything around tells you there’s no good reason. Yet, you still ignore the possibility.”
     I don’t ignore it. But the fact that I have no good reason to think it means I don’t believe it. There are many thing that are possible that I don’t believe in. The same with you.
     Your religion is one of many.

325. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 09:35

     “I also had trouble posting this to the site. It wouldnt let me.”
     Same. Sometimes. I think it miiiiight be post length?
     only happens with me with huge posts.
     I’m not sure, but since I started responding to individuals one at a time, rather than in one giant message.

     “You may notice my response looks a little disoriented, that is because I hit on each of your points, and it was a little bit (ok, it was difficult) to connected each of them without sounding like Im jumping all over the place. I guess, if you wanna read what I have to say, youll bear with me…”

     I do envy people who can respond to things without having to cut up the toher post into tiny pieces >_>’

     Something I totally fail to do and makes my replies look.. terrible.

     “You missed the point of what I was trying to say. I dont “deny” what evidence you have found, I find faults in your logic based upon my logic whose foundation is on the principles of ID. Same goes for you and evolution.”
     Logic has been seen as universally true by every thinker in history. Theist and non-theist alike. I cannot… really see how it could be otherwise.

     If you’re talking about the implimentation of logic, then fine. But logic itself? That would remove all possibility for anyone to agree on anything, ever.

     “Dont make your bias look nice just because you believe you follow science the way it should! The science exists, and we both look at it. Just because you follow a belief void of a god doesnt mean your interpretations of that science are any better than mine.”
     Actually it does.
     You’re adding in an unscientific assumption, and starting with a conclusion. No matter how you want to cut it, your position is not scientifically supported because you are not going about things following the scientific method.

     “And now your saying you never denied a god existed?!”
     I never denied the possibility. Assuming this is a reply to me… which it mgiht not be… um…

     *Cough*

     Anyhoo moving on.

     “You know you dont believe in God, so why would you say that?”
     A different thing from denying the existance of one. An important distinction, I feel.

     “Also, where are all these evolution/theists? Ive never met anybody that believed both were true…”
     I dunno them off the top of my head. They usually are the less… vocal… religious types.
     But about 40-50% of professional scientists in the US are religious.
     That you’ve never met any might simply be a amtter of geography and because on a subject like this many people shy away from mentionning any views that mght be considered “moderate” for fear of abuse from both extremes.

     “The fact that I, nor anybody I have ever known, has met an evolutionist/theist should be proof enough they dont exist (or are at least few in number).”
     heh
     How about this as proof?
     Poll results of people who accept evolution far exceed the amount of the population that could be considered nonreligious.

     “Murder is murder no matter where you live.”
     Unless it’s execution. Or he’s on your property. Or he’s the wrong colour/religion.
     Plenty of exceptions have been made throughout history.

     “but having the possibility of changing large things like cutting peoples hands off, of which I thought was considered radical even in a Muslim community…dont watch the news, they have a tendency to show only the bad to you…personally, I have friends that live in such countries and they continue to have “in tact” hands…guess what…they are Christians, too!”
     Those are usually religious courts. they tend to only apply their laws to muslims. And even then it’s rare. Just like few people were burned at the stake as witches in Christian history, but it did happen.

     “Simply saying kin ALWAYS get priority over others would be easy for an evolutionist to claim, but hard for him to explain. This fact shows that moral choices are made to protect all people, not just kin.”
     it’s fairly easy to explain, Kin are most like you genetically. So most of your genes still pass on if you put kin ahead of strangers. This applies to larger groups, like tribes, states, nations as well, though to lesser and lesser extents.

     “Chances are, those other people do not carry any of your genes (personally speaking)”
     Actually they do. Almost all of them in almost the same combination.

     “Protecting those people would, generally, not help you much (in an evolutionist world, that is).”
     Actually it would. Consider it as an example of game theory.
     One stable point would be as you assert, everyone out to look after themselves and no one else. But it’s not the highest stable point.
     The highest stable point is when people assume that other people won’t betray them, and don’t betray other people, and that those who DO betray people are dealt with harshly enough to act as a deterrant. You still get people acting bad, but not too many.
     Essentially what we have now.
     The society which reached the highest stable point would be the one who succeeded.

     “As you look at extensions to your logic about kin, you start noticing contradictions within. You observe a man 35 years of age (just a random number I guessed, could be any age) who has to care for his parents because they are no longer capable of taking care of themselves. What advantage does that play in evolution?”
     Elderly parents is a modern phenomenon. The life expectancy of people pre-modern age was about 35.
     It’s not been a problem long enough for there to be any significant evolutionary preassure involved.

     And again you mistake the issue. As long as morality exists individual results of this need not be beneficial, they’re just side effects of the overall benefits of the system.
     Same with the rest fo the examples given.

326. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 09:57

     “Another contradiction lays in child/parent abuse. Where does this come along in evolution? If evolution were true, a parent abusing his/her children would be suicide! There is always the possibility that abuse from parents could eventually lead to the child’s death without the chance for the child to continue passing on their genes of which arose directly in response to the abuse. You also fail to explain how a child who abuses his parents ends up in a juvenile home instead of continuing to receive assistance from the parent(s). If the parents receive abuse from the child, shouldnt they continue to take care of them simply because they carry the best hope for passing on their genes? After all, what is a little abuse compared to the possible halt of your genes to the overall pool?”

     Again, side effects of mostly beneficial systems. Such as the human brain being intelligent, when that system breaks, usually due to environmental rather than genetic problems, problems arise. But it’s rare, and has no significant impact on the evolution of the species as a whole.

     “You cannot learn parts of morality without understanding all of morality while at the same time maintaining its usefulness.”
     Oh?
     It seems to me that morality is more or less instinctive, and needs no understanding at all. Animals do instinct quite nicely. Us for example.

     “If evolution is when one individual gains a favorable trait compared to the rest of the individual’s species, then you cannot explain how morality survived the test of evolution. If the entire society doesnt follow a moral trend, it has absolutely no value whatsoever! In short, if one individual in a society gained morality (a “favorable” trait), it would put him in a position of being “unfavorable” within the total society. If the passing of “favorable” traits to offspring is the basis of evolution, the initial passing of morality would be that of an “unfavorable” trait, which would result in a backwards motion, huh? Instead of evolving into a “better” creature, you actually evolve into a “worse” creature and then, over an extremely large amount of time, would eventually evolve into a creature who was better than the original…And dont forget, evolving takes a hefty amount of time to accomplish, so this creature would witness hundreds of generations of his own “kin” being at a disadvantage…hmm, doesnt sound very intelligent to me…”
     Morality isn’t a gene thing. So it doesn’t work as described here.
     It’s a part of brain structure, which does develop slowly and with advantages along the way. morality comes from social interactions. So social animals simply learn to cooperate to mutual advantage first and foremost. Morality then develops to counteract individuals who… take advantage of such cooperation without really contributing.
     At a basic level it’s simple reciprocating. If I help you get food, and thne you don’t share it with me, I won’t help you in future.

     Your strawman version treats morality like hair colour, or soemthing equally genetically based. Something that is there or not. Something that needs to be in everyone to be an advantage.

     “There is proof #1. Creatures without a brain cannot have morality. Therefore, they live in an immoral state where the only thing that matters is themselves.”
     Surely “armoral” would be a better term? “immoral” just doesn’t work when we’re talking about things that are essentially organic machines. No more “immoral” than a falling rock.

     Also, this point seems to be unrelated to the question you are discussing.

     “There is proof #2. Even with a brain, at an early stage, it is impossible for a creature to comprehend morality. Therefore, the only alternative would be to live only for itself, which would be immorality.”
     Again I don’t see your point? Theydon’t really think at this stage, they just… react. The brains just route information around a bit.

     Your third point I dealt with already. So um…

     yeah.

     Basically you are trying to define morality in such as way as to make it impossible for anything to be moral toher than us.
     That is why science would have trouble identifying it. You define anything that we observe as simply not “real” morality.

     The definition of morality you are trying to use necessitates conscious thoughts. Thus making it impossible for anything that does not think to be moral. Not a definition I am prepared to use. Morality is not thought. I do not THINK before I step in to help my friends, or to give my little sister a hug if she needs it.

     So by YOUR definition these are not moral actions, just predisposed behaviours. I can only act morally if I sit back and compose a minor thesis in my mind on the subject of morality.

327. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 10:50

     ““Both.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity#History_and_origins
     http://www.livingwaters.com/witnessingtool/browse.shtml#darchaeology

     Those fall under the “the existance of London in no way endorses the truth of the harry potter series.” I rpeviously mentionned.

     “That was a joke. They don’t exist but only in your mind.”
     My reply was a joke too
     Because there are hundreds of transitional fossils representing the transition between humans and ancient primates. As well as thousands more representing extinct cousins.

     “actually it’s true. Lot’s of people mock evolution, biased or not.”
     Yes, No doubt. But the claim is still false, I can find NO experts who make that claim. And, yes, I did look. Just like a researched the other factual claims made.

     “That’s my point. It’s not that science evolution is false or non-existent but that their claim that apes evolve into humans is a joke because they don’t have the actual proof to prove it, except in their minds.”
     This one fossil was never used to support the claim of common ancestry… so it not being hominid is unrelated entirely to the point you just claimed to be making…

     The fossils we use to support the common ancestry are the ones that were actually earlier hominids…

     “Until then, if you don’t find it before your time is up on earth, won’t you stop by a church or talk with a Christian to hear God’s Good News?”
     Better things to do on a sunday

     ““Fraud by some people looking for a bit of fame, exposed by scientists.”
     You know what evolutionist scientists should do? Plant some fake evidence to prove that apes evolve into humans to get back at the creationists. “THEY MUST PAY FOR WHAT THEY’VE DONE TO US!!””
     The implication seems to be that this was desperation on the part of the scientific community because they eneded some fossils…

     That’s just a lie dude. Bearing false witness is not very nice :p

     “yet they are non-transitional. Come back when you find the ’smoking gun’”
     I never claimed they were. I simply corrected the picture you were painting of a small number of neanderthal specimens.

     “Not against evolution as a natural law but against evolution as a scientific law.”
     No one was making that claim though…

     “Yea that does suck. But just suck it up and take it like a man. Nothing too serious. It’s a matter of Creationists picking on the nerdy scientists.”
     Quote mining is not simply “picking on” scientists. It’s abusing their words to try to make it look like they said something they didn’t, in order to trick people into thinking worse of evolution than the full quote would have. It’s lying.

     “Exactly your predicament. Nature speaks of God’s nature (Romans 1:20). You enjoy what God has created for you to study, yet you fail to recognize God as the one who created that for you (Romans 1:25). You should thank God for that. Read (Romans 1:21-23)”
     Which only matters if you’re already a believer. Doesn’t help me at all.

     These are a aprt of the thing that I do not believe in, remember.

     “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural
     Keyword: COMPREHENSION. not apprehension. Whatever is unexplainable to science is simply ignored or at best, apprehended with a ‘rational’ explanation of the irrational.”
     No claimed supernatural phenomenon has ever stood the rigeurs of scientific testing.

     “Which doesn’t prove apes evolve into humans.”
     I never claimed it did. it shows only that those traits are not uniquely human, as was claimed.

     “Think of it like this: picture a small bi-plane and a jumbo 747 jet. They’re both very similar. After all they have co_ckpits, engine, seats, wings, etc. But does that mean the 747 evolved from the plane? Not at all. It just means they have a common designer.”
     Actually yes. Just not biologically. The designs evolved over time :p

     But your analogy fails because planes don’t reproduce or mutate. Life does.

     “The designer used a similar blueprint for each one and the same with us and apes.”
     Does that include retroviral insertions at the exact same points in our DNA? Weird design parameters.

     “The real proof, however as you already know, are the fossil records, aka “missing link”, the actual proof.In reality, this is what you actually have: you and the monkey, apes and humans. The “supposed” transitional forms are the “missing links” to prove that apes evolve into humans. But, IMHO, the ’smoking gun’ doesn’t really exist, they’re just in your mind, wanting to justify your theory.”
     Hard to find something that is defined by it’s non-existance. We have, however, found plenty of ancestral hominids showing transitions towards humans. What exactly are you looking for? We have fossils from clearly not human apes, not even hominids, all the way to humans. I’m not entirely sure what more you want here.

     “The airline bookie chuckles. Funny that.”
     Very droll.

     “Complexity complexity. That’s why we’re not related sherlock.
     I think you’ve been watching one too many “Jungle Book” movies.”
     never seen any, actually.
     And we are realted, we simply have a more complex brain. There is nothing unique about us, the differents are quantitative, not qualitative.

     “oh and I suppose this whole comment board just happened on its own as well.”
     Nope, but as with your plane example, message boards don’t reproduce and mutate.

     “Nonetheless, that’s how the father of your science thinks of the value of man and women.”
     You want to examine some of Newton’s views? They’re far worse. Does that mean all of motion is stained by them? I don’t think so.

     Or shall we examine the views of the early church leaders? Why not go further back? To the views of the founders of your church? Or those of the founders of Judaism? Shall I recite liviticus versus?

     “Of course not. It just goes to show that you follow a leader who isn’t perfect.”
     Who has ever claimed he was perfect?
     And no one “follows” him.

     “Read Genesis 1:27. God made them equal.”
     And then recinded it immediately, apparantly. He certainly doesn’t treat them equally.

     “Then we’re both on the same boat.”
     When did I make an appeal to authority fallacy?

     “If you really want to look for evidence for the bible then look here: http://www.carm.org/bible.htm”
     Again this doesn’t meet the London test. Nothing here proves anything that under contention.

     “Do you consider yourself a good person?”
     Reasonably.

328. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 11:34

     ““…one outstanding fact of the fossil record that many of you may not be aware of; that since the so-called Cambrian explosion…during which essentially all the anatomical designs of modern multicellular life made their first appearance in the fossil record, no new Phyla of animals have entered the fossil record.”
     —Steven J. Gould

     Evolutionary biologist and Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University, Speech at SMU, Oct. 2, 1990.”
     What of it?

     “So allow me to get this straight: Punctuated Equilibrium explains the process of speciation ONLY, which is when small populations can adapt by slight variations over a very short period of time.”
     No. It represents the idea that a lot of differentiation can occur in a geologically short period of time, given the right circumstances.

     “But a lab monkey knows that these variations and adaptations have never been observed in nature or recorded in the fossil record to advance beyond just producing another specie of the parent ‘kind’, which is arguable of its definition.”
     Arguable indeed. You can define it as loosely as you like, without ever having to conceed defeat. Gotta love language like that.
     And it is untrue, the rest of your claim. We have fossils of these, you’ve been linked to some already, and simply ignored them.

     “Punctuated Equilibrium does, however, bode well for you because it doesn’t require any fossil evidence to substantiate that evolution perpetually continues on to produce UNLIMITED CHANGE.”
     Actually it does require evidence. And there was enver a claim fo unlimited change.

     “But regardless of how brief each incremental change lasted, wouldn’t we expect to find JUST ONE fossil that reflects 1/10th, 1/4th, 1/2, 3/4th, or 9/10th of an actual transition in an existing feature?”
     Actually no, given how sparse fossils are. We have a single full example of a TRex, for example. and those lived accross a span of millions of years.

     Luckily we do have them.

     *Fins evolving into legs
     http://home.entouch.net/dmd/04_Acan_flesh_reconstruct.jpg
     http://home.entouch.net/dmd/transit.htm

     * Mouths evolving into beaks
     This one doesn’t even require much imagination, dude.
     http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/archaeopteryx/info.html#cranial-features

     * Legs evolving into wings
     More of an arms than legs thing, but I digress.
     See above. The acheo’s wings are not like those of modern birds.

     *Nostrils evolving into blowholes
     I don’t think soft tissues fossilise in water, so I doubt there’s much to find. Not much of a leap fo the imagination though.
     But just about anything you wanna know on whale evolution can be found here.
     http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/babinski/whale_evolution.html

     * Legs evolving into flippers
     Again the soft tissue thing. We’re essentially talking about webbing, that’s the main different between the two.

     “writing forward means writing it before the book is complete or published.”
     I’m aware of that. I was being sarcastic.
     To be blunter, that quote was fake.

     “Can you give an example of JUST ONE fossil that display organisms with features ‘in transition’ instead of fossils that appear to have a natural progression? Examples would be fossils that have PARTIALLY FORMED leaves, flowers, fins, feathers, beaks, legs, hands, fingers, etc., NOT just different sizes and shapes of leaves, flowers, fins, feathers, beaks, legs, hands, fingers, etc.”
     Define “partially formed”.
     Rudimentary leaves are still “full formed” leaves. Fully formed fins are still “fully formed”. You seem to be asking for some sort of crippled freak.
     Earlier versions of all of those are in the fossil record.

     “Careful what you say now, though. The moment a creationist busts out funny jokes that are clearly an after dinner candy, they will start flaming you for it…”

     Your definition of funny is vastly different from my own. It’s certainly mockery, but mockery isn’t necessarily funny. It all seems so… strained. Mockery for the sake of mocking, rather than for it being funny.

329. karlito31
     November 27th, 2007 | 19:27

     “Think of it like this: picture a small bi-plane and a jumbo 747 jet. They’re both very similar. After all they have co_ckpits, engine, seats, wings, etc. But does that mean the 747 evolved from the plane? Not at all. It just means they have a common designer.”

     That if you belive both of them materialized out of thin air somewhere in 1970s.
     LOL, is that “Young aviation” proposal?

     Any other way around this is perfect evolution case.
     Once, someone threw a rock ….

330. wah
     November 27th, 2007 | 21:48

     @karlito31
     LOL. you got it all backwards. Planes can’t materialize out of thin air. It was built from the ground up by a designer and builder. It had a purpose. And so is life. You think evolution can logically explain how the animal phlya popped into existence in the Cambrian Explosion, fully formed, besides a comet? I don’t think so.

331. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 22:15

     Someone asked for a single example of someone who accepted evolution and was religious.

     Kenneth Millar.

     http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/darwinanddesign.html

     Check “The Flaw in the mousetrap” section of this for something written by him.

332. Redem
     November 27th, 2007 | 22:24

     http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/

     Ken Miller’s own website is a better source methinks.

     “LOL. you got it all backwards. Planes can’t materialize out of thin air. It was built from the ground up by a designer and builder. It had a purpose. And so is life. You think evolution can logically explain how the animal phlya popped into existence in the Cambrian Explosion, fully formed, besides a comet? I don’t think so.”
     Yes. For two reasons. One, the explosion was a period of 40 million years or so. Only short on geological time scales.
     Two, because not all phyla originated in that time period,
     Eleven of thirty two metazoan phyla appear during the Cambrian explosion. One appears before it, and eight after it. Twelve have no distinct fossil origin.

     The most likely reason for it was simply that the earth was just coming out of the biggest ice age it had ever experienced. Suddenly there was a huge amount of free space and resources for creatures to exploit, with little direct competition, except from predation which also exploded at that point.

333. Wah
     November 28th, 2007 | 13:34

     @Redem
     “Heh, no. Too low for me. He is a thief afterall
     (Mark 11)”
     You’re kidding right?

     “I said I have no desire for an outside imposition of some arbitrary “morality” as absolute.”
     So you’re basically saying you don’t need God. In a nutshell.

     “Your religion is one of many.”
     What do you think about comparative religions?

     “Because there are hundreds of transitional fossils representing the transition between humans and ancient primates. As well as thousands more representing extinct cousins”
     That maybe so from the evolutionists’ POV, but the hands-on paleontologists and ‘the data that they have accumulated tell a very different—and more objective—story.’

     Below is an article on Tim Wallace’s rebuttal of Mark Isaak’s “Five Major Creationist Misconceptions About Evolution” concerning paleontology’s qualifications of “transitional fossils.
     http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp#fossils
     It’s a controversial issue that basically argues that there are no transitional fossils because of the evolutionists’ qualifications for “transitional fossils” contradict with the qualifications for “transitional fossils” of the paleontologists, morphologists, archaeologists, among other leading evolutionists and the ones who actually dig up the bones, including inconsistencies found in certain scientific claims with their theories and methods. Interestingly enough, here is an article of Wallace’s response to Wayne Duck’s “critique” of the previous article: http://www.trueorigin.org/ca_tw_02.asp

     “Define “partially formed”.
     Rudimentary leaves are still “full formed” leaves. Fully formed fins are still “fully formed”. You seem to be asking for some sort of crippled freak.”

     Partially formed like the transitional forms you find between wolves and dogs but with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla in the Cambrian Explosion some 550 million years ago.

     “Earlier versions of all of those are in the fossil record.”
     Which earlier versions? The ones where all the animals suddenly appeared out of nowhere?

     “But the claim is still false, I can find NO experts who make that claim. And, yes, I did look. Just like a researched the other factual claims made.”
     What ‘ya talking about? Experts from both sides always make claims, true or not.

     Lucy is taught in publics schools that it’s the perfect missing link between apes and people. All the elementary kids learn about Lucy. What is Lucy? Grossly ape-like features. 3 1/2 feet tall. Skull with very ape-like features, not even human-like. In fact, critical and analytical evolutionists don’t even claim that. Lucy had long arms, almost carried the knuckles on the ground. Strong muscles attached to the shoulders indicating Lucy was good at swinging in trees. curved fingers which are grabbing on tree limbs. Curved toes indicating that it was good at swinging in trees. But no, evolutionists like Donald Johanson, the one who discovered Lucy in the ’70s, said, “oh but look there’s one angle in the hip joint, another in the knee joint that indicates that MAYBE Lucy spent a part of her time walking upright.” and that’s as strong as the evidence gets that that thing’s related to humans. It’s SHAMEFUL. Leading anatomists agree that that Lucy was probably much better at swinging in trees than she was ever walking upright. and BTW, chimps walk upright too. Personally, if you ask me, I think the “Lucy’ bones are exaggerated.
     http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1176152801536&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
     http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0606454104v1
     http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19125703.300&feedId=human-evolution_rss20

     So, IMHO, human evolution is BAD NEWS, alright? If you look CRITICALLY. If you wanna believe evolution you’ll always find things that will prop up your beliefs. But if you think uncritically for yourself you’re not gonna see it. And there’s a lot of embarrassing moments in the history of human evolution as well.

     http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/images/nebras/nebraska.jpg
     Nebraska Man, okay? They basically imagined a drawing of what kind of a skull, skeleton, meat, long hair, and a club-in-the-hand would look like all from a single tooth. That’s all they discovered from the fossil. Apparently, they were also able to figure out what his wife looked like too. This was considered serious evidence and revolutionary back then, but a decade later they found it to be a pig’s tooth, which fooled the science community for almost a decade. Now, I’m not saying this to say that the science community is out there to hoodwink the public. I think they’re mostly honest people — they’re deceived. But they’re so desperate to lay hands on something that looks like an intermediate between an humans and apes, they’ll sometimes lay hold of things that are absolutely foolish. IMO, your missing links are missing in the millions.

     Back in the late 1970s scientists started coming out of the closet admitting these things. Note Gould’s quote: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils.”

     So even Gould said “the evidence is not in the fossils themselves but rather in the INFERENCE. IOW, how good is your ‘imagination’ to ‘imagine’ these missing links between these types of organisms,”. And this is true in the so-called human record where humans and apes have been found in fossil records (Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, Cro-Magnum, etc which I think are sons and daughters of Adam, then there’s Australopithecus which I think are grossly ape-like more than human) but as far as the ‘in-between’ forms we find in public school textbook pictures, that’s simply not true. They exaggerate ape-like features of the former and exaggerate human-like forms of the latter.

     And referring back to Gould’s quote about the evolutionary tree in textbooks, you should probably already know that paleontologists even stopped using that “evolutionary fossil tree” because it was bunk. (http://www.dhushara.com/book/evol/trevol.jpg)
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_Explosion
     Why? Based on geological sedimentary rock records using the Early Cambrian time scale, all the fully formed creatures, clams, fishes, inverberates, corals, phylum, don’t even have a hint of an ancestor below the lowest layers, underneath the earth’s crust. As we all know they call that the Cambrian Explosion because it looks like as if life just exploded into existence, as if God CREATED it that way. Now the evolutionists have drawn ‘dashed’ lines joining the base of these lines that supposedly connects all the radically types of organisms, thinking as if they have one common ancestor, which basically means they’re basing this strictly on faith. They don’t have those missing links. IOW, abruptive appearances of these fossils and stasis is what we see: ‘non-change with time’.

     The simple fact is that the transition series are pure fantasies. They are basically ‘guesswork’ based on a presupposition of evolution and a comparison of specific body parts while ignoring others. Evolutionists have faith that mutations have gradually made biologists out of bacteria, or Adam from an amoeba. Bottom line, my gist on evolution is that it takes as much faith in your line of work as it does for me.

     “so it not being hominid is unrelated entirely to the point you just claimed to be making”
     Whether that one fossil was used to support the claim of common ancestry or not, my point boils down to “educational guesses” nonetheless.

     “The fossils we use to support the common ancestry are the ones that were actually earlier hominids…”
     If you’re talking about Neanderthals, Cro-magnums or early human tribes, etc, then sure they’re related to us. But the relation between us and apes are still guess-work.

     “Better things to do on a sunday”
     Then go on another day. It’s not like salvation is only available 12 hours a week.

     “That’s just a lie dude. Bearing false witness is not very nice”
     Then do it on April Fool’s Day! :p

     “It’s abusing their words to try to make it look like they said something they didn’t, in order to trick people into thinking worse of evolution than the full quote would have. It’s lying.”
     And so is making exaggerated scientific claims that humans came from apes based on evolutionary presuppositions and educated guesswork.

     “Which only matters if you’re already a believer. Doesn’t help me at all.

     These are a aprt of the thing that I do not believe in, remember.”
     Well how unfortunate for you.
     Read Anthony Flew’s (atheist) parable: [Once upon a time two explorers set out on unchartered jungle after several days of hacking their way through the dense undergrowth of vines, they emerged to much of their surprise, in the clearing and in the middle of the clearing was a gardener. One explorer says to the other, "This is a remarkable discovery! We gotta find the gardener. Well he says, "Well we don't see any evidence for this gardener but they decided to camp their just the same for a few nights. No gardener shows up. First guy says, "Well maybe this is an invisible gardener. We need to setup a scientific trap for him by setting up a fishing line around the perimeter. That way when this invisible gardeners comes to tend his crops at night, we'll have scientific evidence for his existence." and they run this experiment with negative results and the first explorer goes, "Well wait a minute! Maybe he's not just invisible. Maybe he's an immaterial gardener as well, like a spirit being." By this time, the other investigator says, "every time I challenge the existence of this mysterious gardener of yours you give me a different qualification of this being. First you say, 'he's invisible.' Then you say, 'he's immaterial'. I ask you, 'What's the difference between immaterial gardener and no gardener at all?'"] The parable was meant to strife Christians or push them into a corner. Now I know you’re going to remain close-minded about this but I always delight myself in trying to answer the question that there’s abundant evidence for God’s existence. So I’d appreciate if you’d entertain the idea for a brief time. IOW, you don’t have to agree.

     Anthony Flew believes like most people that the universe and all it’s complexities is like a complex garden. all of it began as an explosion. All the universe and matter was compressed into a tiny egg and somehow this thing blew up. And from this expanding cloud of hydrogen and gas you got stars all by accident. and planets just happen to form by chance and on this one little chunk of rock called Earth, chemicals got more complex spontaneously. and oh the first life crawled out of the warm pond and the first single-cell creature it became spontaneously multi-cellular. This bacteria turned into something like a sponge or clam, some primitive organism. and over the course of many generations it grew into a fish and a fin grew into a group of fins into fishes and eventually conquered land and grew legs and the apes swung down from the trees to turn into people. and we’re the first creatures to look back on this glorious heritage and not only that but man is still evolving and man’s next evolutionary step will be an awakened consciousness and man will realize he is god himself. So it all fits together you see. All a wonderful story. However I would submit to you there’s not a shred of science that would indicate matter left to itself will organize itself spontaneously. Anthony Flew’s idea meets a challenge when we look at nature. For example, the morpho butterfly.
     http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/15.html
     MARVELOUS creature! If you’re in Central America you’ll see a brilliant flash of blue. he’s got no pigment in his wings but structural color. IOW, if you look at the wing under a microscope, here’s what you see: thousands of these microscopic scales in blue. On each of these scales are ridges that stand up vertically like this. On each of these rums and the spacings of those rums is so precise down to their wavelength of light that when white light strikes the surface of the butterfly wing there’s a thing called destructive interference and only the perfect shade of blue can escape from the surface of this butterfly wing and I look at something like that and I say, “That takes precision engineering!” alright? That gets my attention. As somebody who believes in the Lord I say, “My God! How great thou art?! Not only that you would create a butterfly but you would go out of your way to generate this structural color!” And peaco_cks feathers have the same effect. Many fish reptiles and birds have this property called iridescent structural coloring. Remarkable, isn’t?! But yet Anthony Flew and all our public school children and so on are taught that this is the result of undirected purposeless processes. That’s what I wanna challenge by looking at things of science.

     “No claimed supernatural phenomenon has ever stood the rigeurs of scientific testing.”
     Exactly my point. Supernatural phenomenon is basically out of the realm of science. That’s why they fail. Have you ever tried explaining yourself to an ant?

     “I never claimed it did.”
     But the evolution theory does.

     “But your analogy fails because planes don’t reproduce or mutate. Life does.”
     Actually they do. Planes are mass-produced. Planes are revised to improve features and better models.

     “Does that include retroviral insertions at the exact same points in our DNA?”
     You’re talking about God here. If he can create the cosmos by scratch I’m sure he can figure SOMETHING out.

     “We have, however, found plenty of ancestral hominids showing transitions towards humans. What exactly are you looking for? We have fossils from clearly not human apes, not even hominids, all the way to humans. I’m not entirely sure what more you want here.”
     Sure if you’re talking about early human tribes (Neanderthals, etc). But no smoking gun that once and for all irrefutably and truthfully factualizes the theory. And most transitions may ‘appear’ transitional when it may not even be. In fact, when you say ‘we’, in general terms, do you mean evolutionists, paleontologists or geologists? Because I can tell you right now that paleontologists and geologists say one thing but evolutionists say another about the evidence.

     “And we are realted, we simply have a more complex brain. There is nothing unique about us, the differents are quantitative, not qualitative.”
     No we’re not related. We can coherently talk. And that’s qualitative not quantitative. Certain primates are said to have the intelligence of a 5 year old child but they can’t talk. They can go, “oo oo oo oo ah ah ah ah ah” But they can’t talk like we can. Parrots can ‘talk’ like we can but even they can’t coherently produce intellectual thought and reason with verbal speech and cognition into sentences, paragraphs and long-winded speeches. A 2 year old child can talk. Humans ARE unique. We are special. You are special. I don’t see why evolutionists have to ‘degrade’ ourselves down to animals. You guys are droll.

     “Nope, but as with your plane example, message boards don’t reproduce and mutate.”
     Again, they do. Message boards can be copied and modified.

     “Or shall we examine the views of the early church leaders? Why not go further back? To the views of the founders of your church? Or those of the founders of Judaism? Shall I recite liviticus versus?”
     I don’t really care about them. If you want to pick a real fight then try this: Charles Darwin vs Jesus Christ.

     “And then recinded it immediately, apparantly. He certainly doesn’t treat them equally.”
     Prove it. Take me verse by verse.

     “When did I make an appeal to authority fallacy?”
     The fact that you used Gould’s quote to illustrate your point, whether it was right or not.

     “Again this doesn’t meet the London test. Nothing here proves anything that under contention.”
     Yes it does. You’re probably too lazy to sift through the tons of proof that is there. The difference between harry potter and the bible is that in harry potter, there’s no historical evidence (written documents, artifacts, etc) to reasonably conclude that Harry fought a dragon in London. It’s just a purely fictional story or event whose setting is in a real place. The bible has stories (exaggerated or not) where the people and places can be reliably verified to actually happen in real history through written accounts/testimonies and archaeological verifications of items, biblical events and places. Look it up.

     “Reasonably.”
     Reasonably enough to pass Judgment Day?

     “What of it?”
     Just admit that the lack of fossil evidence and the dearth of transitional forms composing a reasonably minimum continuum means that the fossil record is a disaster for the theory of evolution so evolutionists just go on to more interesting ways to deny the truth, like Gould’s theory of “punctuated equilibrium”, as evidence against the “gradualism” that Charles Darwin expected, being simply an excuse for the absence of fossil evidence or like this:
     “Students may very well wonder why the fossil record has so many seeming holes in it. If so, the opportunity should be seized to show the value of mathematics.”
     The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Educational Benchmarks, (F) Evolution of Life
     http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/ch5/ch5.htm#F

     “No. It represents the idea that a lot of differentiation can occur in a geologically short period of time,”
     Yes it does explain that. Even though you are essentially correct from a general perspective, your answer basically explains how the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise in a short period of time, speciation. And because the fossil record doesn’t accommodate the slow gradual process expected by Darwinism, an alternative explanation called Punctuated Equilibrium was offered to explain the sudden appearances of organisms. Yet a scapegoat to account for lack of gradual fossil evidence.

     “given the right circumstances.”
     And what right circumstances are those? Just curious. Because even geologists admit that changes in the fossil record are trivial, particularly in cases of fossil types like an ammonite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonite (I’m sure you can find diagram links of fossil changes), where you see in the next layer up you can see two different ammonites slightly different than the others and the next layer they’re slightly different and sometimes you can even see 20 different ammonite zones in a single section of a rock, you can trace those things (they really do occur). But notice something, you start with an ammonite and you end with an ammonite. Are you turning one creature to a totally different creature? No. The differences among these things are trivial! We’re not talking about big changes here. This tells something very important to geologists that the sedimentary rock record is capable of preserving the kinds of changes you’d be expected of evolution if it did really occur. But it seems like it’s missing. The problem is that geologists don’t see no changes in the sedimentary rock record that indicates where creatures are changing step-wise and stage-wise into fundamentally different kinds of creatures. If Geologists saw something like that then they’d be persuaded to believe that apes turn into humans but they’re not.

     “And it is untrue, the rest of your claim. We have fossils of these, you’ve been linked to some already, and simply ignored them.”
     Nope again. My claim is true because the links you pointed me do not really account for the apparent missing gaps, which backs up the claim that the absence of these variations and adaptations have never been observed in nature or recorded in the fossil record. IOW, the complete gapless observations from crustaceans to humans are non-existent.

     “Actually it does require evidence.”
     Only if it’s used to explain rapid changes within a short time. Then you need fossil evidence to back that up. What I’m saying is it can be used to explain something when there is no evidence. Since, punctuated equilibrium was made up because there was no gradualistic fossil evidence, it is mostly used as an excuse to explain any abruptive appearance of new species that gradualism can’t account for, like when there’s NO EVIDENCE. Essentially, it can use evidence but it doesn’t really need it.

     “This one doesn’t even require much imagination, dude.”
     VERY questionable proof, dude. Half-reptile and half-bird. It sort of looks that way. Seems more like bird than reptile. I dunno. This is the kind of like the kind of evidence where you have to tilt your head at a certain angle and do more squinting than you have to, you know? My question is how come you can’t find a full succession of one creature turning into another fundamentally different kind of creature? If that’s out there somewhere, I wanna know about it. I’m interested in truth. But I don’t think it exists, alright?

     In addition to Archaeopteryx being debatable, evolutionist spokespeople tend to exaggerate these claims when the hands-on experts like the paleontologists, morphologists, etc have a different interpretation of supposed “transitional evidence.” ‘It should also be mentioned here that full-fledged crow-sized bird fossils have been found in strata believed by evolutionists to be 75 million years older than Archaeopteryx (and as old as the oldest fossil dinosaur), making the “transitional” nature of Archaeopteryx (between dinosaurs and birds) less defensible than ever before.’ [Tim Beardsley (evolutionist), Nature 322:677 (1986); Richard Monastersky (evolutionist), Science News 140:104-105 (1991); Alan Anderson, Science 253:35 (1991)]

     “but I digress”
     I digress as well. LOL

     “I don’t think soft tissues fossilise in water, so I doubt there’s much to find. Not much of a leap fo the imagination though.
     But just about anything you wanna know on whale evolution can be found here.”
     Very interesting. Thanks. But sadly it’s a gray area due to the fact that whale phylogeny can sometimes be contrived from how little substance, as a result of forcing data through an imaginative and speculative matching process, based mainly on hypothetical presuppositions

     “To be blunter, that quote was fake.”
     No, it’s true. Well it could be true as much as it could be fake. There are no absolutes remember?

     ——————————————————
     @Redem/Costa200
     If you will, I’d like to share some verses with you because I think they’re poetic. (OK. that sounded queer.)

     “IN THE beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1)

     “God said, Let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the [tame] beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth” (Genesis 1:26)

     “Who else has held the oceans in his hand?
     Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers?
     Who else knows the weight of the earth
     or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale?
     God sits above the circle of the earth.
     The people below seem like grasshoppers to him!
     He spreads out the heavens like a curtain
     and makes his tent from them.
     Look up into the heavens.
     Who created all the stars?
     He brings them out like an army, one after another,
     calling each by its name.
     Because of his great power and incomparable strength,
     not a single one is missing.” (Isaiah 40:12,22,26)

     “Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1: 19-20)

     @Redem
     “Genocide is immoral by todays standards.”

     Okay. That’s an interesting point you’re trying to make but what you should be referring to is war, not genocide. Let us compare today’s standards with the standards back in the bible days by observing how the Ten Commandments apply to you today. But before we move on, I must address the following:

     Back then, it was immoral for the Israelites to break any of the ten commandments. It was NOT immoral as far as the rest of the world was concerned, but it was. The Lord holds all humans accountable for their actions according to His moral standards, which is absolute and objective perfection. Evolutionary biology observes that only relative morality exists because man’s moral standards have always changed, including fluctuations across the globe and through out history, and that not everyone holds the same moral standard. Because of that, only relative morality have always existed within the lives of human beings and that I agree to be absolutely true. However, even from back in the bible days to now, God’s moral standard is unchanging (Isaiah 41:4, Psalm 18:31, Numbers 23:19, Malachi 3:6; James 1:17), perfect, let alone His nature (Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 18:30, Psalm 19:7, Psalm 119:96, Matthew 5:48), and absolute (Isaiah 44:6; Acts 17:24-25). And even though today’s standards have changed, we all still firmly believe that God’s morals don’t apply to us today, that it only applied to the Israelites in ancient times. But the 10 commandments were and is NOT used as a rule guide for any one to abide by, including the Israelites and Christians because if we all lived by the 10 commandments we will never be innocent because we will always break them; after all we’re still human. The gist is that the 10 commandments are simply used to show us that 1) we are guilty before God, 2) His moral standard (of being perfect before Him) still applies to everyone, everywhere and every time and 3) we need to look somewhere else other than the commandments to have our sins forgiven (Isaiah 59:2, 1 John 4:10). Now on to the show!

     Let’s go through each of the 10 commandments to see how you do. Keep in mind that the first 5 deals with our relationship with the Lord, God the Creator. The other half deals with our relationship with others.

     http://www.livingwaters.com/good/ (Please go through the entire presentation.)

     If you actually went through the whole test then you should realize by now that the claim that absolute morality doesn’t exist is absolutely absurd because you know in your heart that at least one of those commandments is absolutely immoral for anyone, anywhere, at any time. To say otherwise would mean that someone out there hasn’t broken any of those rules, thus making them perfect. But we know there is not one person who is perfect or blameless (Romans 3:9-13, 3:23, 5:12).

     Does all that mean the ‘10 commandments’ are the strict rules for everyone to live by? Of course not! The law cannot save us from condemnation; it simply shows us that we are imperfect beings who are guilty before our Lord. The rules of man do not apply to you because no man is perfect. But if there is any ‘arbiter’ to hold us accountable for our actions on an absolute/objective basis, it is simply the Lord.

     What should personally matter to you outside of this discussion is your standing before the Lord. But that is a personal matter…

     @Costa200

     “Thou shalt have no other gods before me
     Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
     Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
     Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
     (THESE are used to give credibility)

     Honor thy Father and Mother
     Thou shalt not murder*
     Thou shalt not commit adultery
     Thou shalt not steal
     Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
     Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house
     Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife”

     I find it ironic that you used the 10 commandments to justify that only relative morality exists.

     Back then, it was immoral for the Israelites to break any of the ten commandments. It was NOT immoral as far as the rest of the world was concerned, but it was. The Lord holds all humans accountable for their actions according to His moral standards, which is absolute and objective perfection. As you have pointed out, evolutionary biology observes that only relative morality exists because man’s moral standards have always changed, including fluctuations across the globe and through out history, and that not everyone holds the same moral standard. Because of that, only relative morality have always existed within the lives of human beings and that I agree to be absolutely true. However, even from back in the bible days to now, God’s moral standard is unchanging (Isaiah 41:4, Psalm 18:31, Numbers 23:19, Malachi 3:6; James 1:17), perfect, let alone His nature (Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 18:30, Psalm 19:7, Psalm 119:96, Matthew 5:48), and absolute (Isaiah 44:6; Acts 17:24-25). And even though today’s standards have changed, we all still firmly believe that God’s morals don’t apply to us today, that it only applied to the Israelites in ancient times. But the 10 commandments were and is NOT used as a rule guide for any one to abide by, including the Israelites and Christians because if we all lived by the 10 commandments we will never be innocent because we will always break them; after all we’re still human. The gist is that the 10 commandments are simply used to show us that 1) we are guilty before God, 2) His moral standard (of being perfect before Him) still applies to everyone, everywhere and every time and 3) we need to look somewhere else other than the commandments to have our sins forgiven (Isaiah 59:2, 1 John 4:10).

     Now let’s go through each of the 10 commandments to see how you do.

     http://www.livingwaters.com/good/ (Please go through the entire presentation.)

     If you actually went through the whole test then you should realize by now that the claim that absolute morality doesn’t exist is absolutely absurd because you know in your heart any one of those commandments are absolutely immoral for anyone, anywhere, at any time. To say otherwise would mean that someone out there hasn’t broken any of those rules, thus making them perfect. But we know there is not one person who is perfect or blameless (Romans 3:9-13, 3:23, 5:12).

     Does all that mean the ‘10 commandments’ are the strict rules for everyone to live by? Of course not! The law cannot save us from condemnation; it simply shows us that we are imperfect beings who are guilty before our Lord. The rules of man do not apply to you because no man is perfect. But if there is any ‘arbiter’ to hold us accountable for our actions on an absolute/objective basis, it is simply the Lord.
     ——————————————————
     @Redem
     I know the thread is pretty lengthy and considering that many people on this board have a short attention span I’ll make the sacrifice to dumb down the ‘jargon’ if you will so that it’ll be much much easier to comprehend the terminology. I’m not in anyway condescending anyone since there are all sorts of people on this board. Basically, I’m going to use VERY basic terms to describe things with as much accuracy in meaning as possible so bear with me I’m behind and need to get things done. However, I will be extremely critical and analyze things on a most basic elementary level that you’ve probably not used to. For instance, for evolution I will say ‘big bang’ instead of explaining the process of Cambrian Explosion. or fish, monkeys and men instead of invertebrates, primates and humans. Or bones instead of fossil transitional records. Basically, I’m going to be simply blunt, straight-forward and telling it like it is. I’m going to keep things very simple here. No differential calculus. No quantum mechanics relativity. Just math and physics. If the discussion is too ’simple’ for you and not enough intellectual then I’m sorry I can’t do anything about it. Been having PC problems lately, behind the posts, too many things to do.

     I’m gonna do a little Scripture first.

     I’d like to start with Romans 1:16 and this is Paul’s exposition of the gospel. Very important passage in here particularly for scientists. Paul says this, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”” And I say that I’m very glad that somebody was not ashamed of the Gospel several years ago in my life because I was someone who was lost, even though I felt like I was king of the world. And to be lost means what? You don’t know where you came from. You don’t know where you’re going. And you don’t know where you at. It’s a scary thing when a kid gets lost in a department store or walking through a suburban neighborhood where every house on every street and corner looks exactly the same or something like that. It’s even more frightful when it’s an adult and you know you’re lost and you don’t know what to do about it, alright? Believe me, I was very glad for verse 17. It says, “For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” IOW, even though I know there’s a GOD up there who’s holy and I know I’m not holy and my consciences tells me that DAILY…I can have a right standing with that holy god on the basis of faith and come to Him on that basis is me! That’s good news to someone who was lost. Continuing on with Paul’s exposition of the Gospel, which is perfectly logical, verse 18 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,” It says that God’s ANGRY..at people who are holding the truth or suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. It’s kinda like pushing a beach ball in water and this thing’s wanting to come up…and people are holding it down and it says all the godless, everyone, is guilty of this crime. That’s the context of this passage here. What is this ‘truth’ that’s being held back? Go to verse 19, “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.” That’s very interesting. IOW, whatever this truth is God’s the active party revealing this to man. Verse 20, “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.” What does all that mean? You pick up a blade of grass and you say, “There’s no God!”……..you’ve just condemned yourself…not because of anything that says in Scripture because NATure itself TESTifies of GOD that His existence is WRITTEN throughout nature all around about…Now if that’s the case, if that’s really true..:hmm:..that really says something to scientists. Because a scientists does what? He studies the things that are made, doesn’t he? He studies the things of nature…Scientists….I’m sorry…are without excuse. If they say, “There is no God…” ABOVE ALL people, they’re without excuse. That’s not my opinion. That’s what Scripture seems to be saying. Now, again, if that’s the case we should be able to go to science, go to the things that are made and see perfectly clear evidence for His existence IF this passage is true and let’s see if we can have some fun here. :p

     Say you’re a Geologist and like looking at rocks.
     http://www.mutha.com/oldmanmountain.jpg
     That’s “Old Man of the Mountain”. Geologists can explain that shape for us that it’s really random erosion and jointing in the the rock face and cracking. You can get that as a result of time and chance. How about you showed me another rock that looks like this:
     http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/2429/vlcsnap12124418ja8.png
     Can you I get a rock like that by time and chance? What would I say if you told me that a theory that just random process over a long ages may have produced that rock. Because it is a rock BTW. What would I say to your theory? Obviously it’s BUNK right? Obviously we can see the sharp edge, the point, we can see the base, obviously it’s an arrowhead, we might say that the invisible Indian is clearly seen being understood by the things that is made even his ingenuity and dexterity so that the archaeologists won’t have an excuse if he says that thing happen by chance. Basically, that’s the application of Roman 1. What I wanted to say earlier was we know what time and chance produces – we know what plan and purpose produces.
     http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/7629/vlcsnap12126450pm6.png
     So what is to forbid us from using that same kind of reasoning when we look at the biological world around about us? Can we do that as scientists? alright? I THINK we can do that. and so on we go.

     “Natural Selection” (This topic seems to be untouched. So I want to share my personal thoughts on it. If you can bear try to keep an open mind.)
     You can look at dogs (another arguable topic as well). You can get lots of different varieties of dogs through breeding. You can get many different species; fox, wolf, coyote, many domestic dogs, long hair, short hair, small, big dogs, smart and stupid dogs, all kinds of dogs. But can you keep breeding dogs by selection and get a porcupine or something radically different? No! Everybody knows you can’t do that. Every farmer knows this who breeds animals. Because there seems to be a brick wall, you can only go so far and you get this much variation and that’s it! But as we all know natural selection is what’s claimed to overcome some of these hurdles. I use to have these nice German co_ckroaches in the kitchen cupboard, and every time I get up to get a drink of water I’d hear crunch-crunch under my toes and you know it’s time to call the insecticide people. Boom! They set off a chemical bomb and come back a few days later and sweep up all the dead coc_kroaches, right? Now conceivably (but I moved out) you can find some live coc_kroaches that have survived this chemical bomb that are resistant to that type of pesticide that you exposed to that population to. Now what’s just happened? Have you just evolved a super-coc_kroach in your cupboard? Is that what’s happening? Some people will tell you that because of the stress from that chemical those coc_kroaches went uuggnh and they produced a super-coc_kroach. No. Chances are that natural selection is taking place. IOW, you’ve eliminated the 99% of the population to which that pesticide was lethal to and you identified the 1% which was there all along that had the in-built ability to resist that pesticide. IOW, God made coc_kroaches, believe it or not, with LOTS of variations among them, ok? And some could do better in different circumstances than others, ok? This is called natural selection. NOTICE that the coc_kroaches are multiplying into super-coc_kroaches.
     So natural selection is nature selecting one variant of the population over another. But natural selection has no creative ability whatsoever. It CANNOT create anything new. It can only select from variants already present in the population. So it’s very very important for you to realize that natural selection can’t create anything. So when Darwin wrote his book on ‘Origin of Species by Natural Selection’ he made a big mistake because every biologist knows you can’t create anything new by that means. This is where mutations comes in.

     Now we know that mutations generally represent copy errors on the genetic code. They’ve been bombarding these fruit flies w/ harmful radiation for years now to see what kind of results you get and what do you think you get? You get a defective fruit fly is what you get.
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Antennapedia.jpg
     Here is a normal drosophila fruit fly on the left and a mutant fruit fly on the right with an extra pair of legs protruding from its forehead. Well you might think it’ll help me run faster. But..no. In fact, it’s absolutely fatal to that organism, if you don’t keep him alive in the laboratory he’ll perish. Not much of an evolutionary future in a fly like that. It turns out mutations in every single case that we know of in multi-cellular animals are taking creatures to ever increasing complexity and design and marvelous new creatures. Everybody knows…They’re taking creature to ever-increasing levels of disrepair of degradation. They’re taking creatures downhill, not up. You show me a man who understands the human genome and I’ll show you a man who is pessimistic about the future of the human race because we’re building mutations at such a rate that there’s no hope, naturally speaking, apart from the Lord, in the future of man. In human populations we call mutations birth defects. I don’t know any mother who wishes that she could have lots of birth defects to evolve a better human. This is a mutant fruit fly also: http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/1320/vlcsnap12015382mm1.png
     Now I don’t know what part of the fruit fly you’re looking at there but that’s what mutations will do for you, alright?

     This is where mutations and natural selection work together.
     http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodpecker/woodpecker.html
     http://www.carm.org/evolution_archive/transitionals_b.htm
     http://www.creationism.org/heinze/Woodpecker.htm
     http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/woodpecker.htm
     Now before you get too excited about responding to this section, I’m already aware that this is a very old creationist vs. evolution debate going on for a very long time online. In fact, the above links are creationist and evolutionist sites containing information concerning mostly about the tongue anatomy of the woodpecker and how one says it’s in the nostrils and the other says it’s in the back of the mouth or head that the tongue is simply elongated due to mutation, in terms of its evolutionary capability and ‘transitionality’. Well, it seems to me that the Evolutionist site is more accurate and technical when it comes to explaining the intricacies of the woodpecker’s tongue and how it could evolve. Very insightful and interesting because I’ve read on both sides. However, I’d like to present my personal views on it if you will. And I hope you’ll find it interesting to see this from my side.

     I’m gonna take this rare opportunity to take it from an evolutionists POV: Let’s imagine how an ordinary bird evolves into a woodpecker. Ordinary bird’s flying through the woods one day and ZAP! It gets hit with a cosmic ray. Miracles of miracles it develops a favorable mutation. No one’s ever seen such a thing. For the sake of argument, let’s just say this bird is evolving. It’s on it’s way into turning into a woodpecker, alright? When we look at a woodpecker, we’re looking at a very specialized sort of critter here. When you hear that tap-tap-tap in the woods, you better believe he’s coming down on that wood real hard about 4-5g’s gravity. IOW, he’s really pounding when he does that. An ordinary bird beak would crumble under that pressure. In fact, the woodpecker has a lot of special designed features. He’s got shock absorbing tissues to keep the brain from getting rattled. He’s got a specially re-enforced skull around the back to make sure the beak doesn’t go out the back end when he hits the wood. He’s got other features including a stiff tail that props up against the tree and a very stable kind of drilling platform. He’s got eyes that blink every time he hits the wood. Every tap-tap-tap they see this in slow motion photography. The eyes blink just before he comes down. Some people say maybe it’s to keep wood chips from flying in his eyes. I think it’s to keep his eyeballs from flopping outside his head. And then he’s got one other feature that’s very important because when he drills these holes because he wants to snatch up these insects that live in there, you see. He’s got a long sticky tongue on the woodpecker. So you could really reach in there to snatch up insects. And where do you store a long sticky tongue if you’re a woodpecker? He’s got a special retracting case that wraps around the backside of his skull inserted through the right nostril (hotly debatable – see above links for anatomy of tongue). So you can really pull that tongue in and out. This, IOW, is another highly specialized bird. So let’s try to imagine this from the view of the evolutionist, here’s your ordinary bird flying through the woods, get hits by a cosmic ray, develops a long sticky tongue (didn’t have this before), but this bird doesn’t yet HAVE the other shock absorbing tissue in the skull, the blinking eyes and all the other features yet because these mutations don’t come along every day. And so you can imagine this bird that doesn’t have a case to store its tongue in yet so it’s walking around tripping over its tongue or else flying through the woods with the tongue flapping in the breeze behind him and it catches on a low branch. Down he goes. There’s not much of an evolutionary future for a bird like this. Now this is meant to be a homely example, to make a point, alright? In order for that ordinary bird to evolve into a highly specialized woodpecker you don’t need just an occasional favorable mutation, you need MULTIPLE favorable mutations all at once like you’ve never seen before in order to do this kind of thing. The chances of that happening are very slim. IOW…the evolutionist must believe in miracles. He’s got lots of faith, you see. If you can believe that woodpecker could happen by mutations and natural selection (and that’s all you’ve got) you’re BELIEVING in miracles. But…that’s just my perspective.

     “One, the explosion was a period of 40 million years or so.”
     I was thinking more of a cosmic scale. But such idea is also arguable to the least to Young-Earth Creationists (which I don’t hold fast steadily) to which I could compare its views from. For instance, ask almost any Geologists, and they’ll tell you they’ve never seen a rock with a little tag on it that says, “I’m 200 million years old.” Because radio-isotope dating is very theoretical, it has major problems with its dating, which they say is the ONLY way for the Earth to be measured 40 and a half billion years old. Folks they’re not ‘measured’ the age of ANY rock to be millions of years old; scientists can only interpret the age of rocks and their interpretations are only as good as the ASSUMPTIONS that go into those methods. So here’s what you got with radio-carbon. We got artifacts written records and so on and it says, “singed by the Alexander the Great.” or something like that. Well you can send it and have it radio-carbon dated and you get a pretty good correspondence between the historical date and the radio-carbon date. But here’s the funny thing that happens, according to geologists, when you get further and further back in history, you get pretty good correspondence and then you get even further back, right around 3,000-4000 B.C. when we start running out of historical records, the difference between the historical and radio-carbon dates start increasing enormously. You’d expect that as you get further back the method would breakdown IF there was a global flood in the not too distant past. The bible talks about a global flood and if a global flood really happened then it would really upset the equilibrium that radio-carbon dating method depends upon. so scientists do NOT trust most radio-carbon dates when you have no calibration standard to compare it to like historical records. The efforts have been made to use tree rings to calibrate it with, or leg sediments and all kinds of methods but they all break down. No one wants to admit that it’s guess work when you get back to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of years, which some don’t think it’s real. I hope to share with you very briefly, how or why a young-earth creationists adopts this particular view, but not in detail as I prefer not to get into a young/old earth debate because I’d rather lean towards an old-earth view myself. Maybe if you’d like to hear their views from a young-earth POV so that the next time you get into a debate with them you come in with an informed opinion, that is, if you’re not too bored with all this. Anyhoo, is there any reason to think the Earth might be much younger than billions of years old? Well, if you’d like to go to the ocean, they’ve got some horrible news for Christians. The rate of sediment being delivered to the oceans by the big muddy rivers like the Mississippi, the Nile, Congo, Amazon, 27 million tons of dirt is being dumped into those ocean basins. IOW, they’re filling in with sediments at an alarming rate. You can do the arithmetic and let’s assume the oceans are 1 billion years of age, even though scientists tell us they’re much older, but let’s assume their 1 billion. At that rate of input how thick would be the sediment layer be on the ocean floor? 100,000 ft. IOW, the thickness sediment layers in deep ocean basins is about 200 ft. IOW, if there was such a massive layer out there it would displace the oceans on top of the continents and we’d have another ‘global’ flood on our hands, right? Obviously, there’s no such deposits out there. It LOOKS like those ocean basins are a whole lot younger than billions. So they have no problem believing the Earth is on the order of 6,000 – 10,000 yrs old, just like the bible SEEMS to be suggesting when you read it at face value. Still, young-earths maintain the age of the earth has not been proven to be 4.5 billion years – it may be much much younger than that. They hold steadily fast that evolution, fossils, earth history doesn’t seem to be happening in the present world or in the millions scientists are assuring us of.

     “Two, because not all phyla originated in that time period,
     Eleven of thirty two metazoan phyla appear during the Cambrian explosion.”
     There’s not much consensus in these theories. So here’s an alternative theory that I think should shine light on the integrity of the controversial subject which claims the abrupt appearance of almost all classes of plants and animals that known to have existed. http://www.whoisyourcreator.com/assets/PDF’s/Cambrian_Explosion.pdf
     “The Cambrian explosion in animal evolution during which all the diverse body plans appear to have emerged almost in a geological instant is a highly publicized enigma. Although molecular clock analysis has been invoked to propose that the Cambrian explosion is an artifact of the fossil record whereas the actual divergence occurred much earlier, the reliability of these estimates appears to be questionable. In an already familiar pattern, the relationship between the animal phyla remains controversial and elusive.”
     “The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution,” Eugene V Koonin, National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, in Biology Direct 2007, 2:21.
     http://www.biology-direct.com/content/2/1/21

     Smile!
     http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/ksm0648l.jpg
     It’s Humpty Dumpty! LOL When he was on the wall, he fell and started to go from order to disorder very quickly. To go from the opposite direction that’s a nasty job. The king’s horses and his men couldn’t put Humpty together again. This illustrates something around about us. You buy a new car. Does it get more shiny with time or less shiny? Does the engine operate more efficiently or less efficiently if you leave it to itself? Does your room get spontaneously ordered to disordered if you leave it alone? To get order in the room, you gotta put the socks in the drawer, the trash in the bin, you have to interfere with the natural system. Naturally things tend toward disorder. We know it’s true in galaxies. We know it’s true in molecules. In fact, there was a German scientists named Ludwitz Boltzmann. He said this: “You take a box of marbles, red and white marbles. You pull out the divider that separates the two compartments. You shake that box – how long’s it gonna take before you get a disordered mix of marbles?” Not very long right? “How long would you have to keep shaking that box to get all that red on one side and the white on the other?” You’d be shaking for a long time wouldn’t you? Pfft. :p Believe it or not that’s what scientists do, ya know? He said this is a fulfillment of what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics, one of the best known laws of physics. IOW, there IS a tendency towards disorder. To get order takes something radically different , you have to interfere with nature to generate order. You have to infuse it with intelligence, right? EVERYBODY knows this, who knows information theory (and I’m gonna talk about it later on). Science predicts that machines will always go from a state of order to disorder and they do. But the opposite never happens. But just think about this for just a moment………..Evolution claims what? In the beginning all there was is hydrogen gas, that’s all there was. And from this expanding Cloud of hydrogen Gas, you just give it enough time and it turns into people. And they tell you that with a straight face…That flies in the face with at least one basic law of physics that i know that says nature left to itself goes downhill, not up. and so you’ve got a decision to make: are you gonna believe science that says one thing (things are tending toward disorder) or are you gonna believe evolutionists that says the exactly the opposite? You can’t believe both. BTW, the second law of thermodynamics fits very well with my biblical world view because the Scripture seems to indicate that God made everything good. And after that, something catastrophic happened to his creation. It went downhill very fast and it’s been going downhill ever since. And that fits very well with my scientific world view. I have no problems with that.

     Okay! I’m aware I’ve tackled this before but I wanna solidify my views on this and I don’t care too much if anyone technically disagrees with it.
     The history of science and in the history of science we learn that men like Newton, Boyle, Keplar, Pascal, Maxwell, Faraday. The greatest names of science. Guess what? They love the Lord. Yeah. They were bible-believing Creationists. I’m sorry. The founders of nearly discipline of science you can name was a bible-believing Christian. You can read quotes like these in Newton’s ‘Principia’ (it’s a little old flowery old-fashioned language): “All sound and true philosophy (IOW, science) is founded on the appearances of things; and if these phenomena inevitably draw us, against our wills, to such principles as most clearly manifest to us the most excellent counsel and supreme dominion of the All-wise and Almighty Being, they are not therefore to be laid aside because some men may perhaps dislike them.” I think scientists were a little more courageous back then than they are today. IOW, even if our science leads us towards a conclusion we don’t like personally we dare not cast it aside because we don’t like it. Now contrast that quote right there wiht a modern day quote 1985, Richard Dawkins “The Blind Watchmaker”, he said this: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having design and purpose.” Now Dawkins is an evolutionist and an atheist. Basically he says even though there’s an appearance of design or there’s an appearance of purpose. He says it’s merely an illusion because evolutionists explain these things. But DON’T miss the titanic shift that’s happening in the history of science from the days of Isaac Newton to the days of Richard Dawkins. IOW, biologists MUST acknowledge that there’s an appearance of design in that morpho butterfly. “It really LOOKS like it was designed. It really LOOKS like it’s got purpose. But it’s ALL an illusion. Nature’s really fooling you.” is what Dawkins is saying. And that’s what ALL the other evolutionists are telling you. That there’s a grand deception out there. Amazing! The times we live in today that people would SAY that, right? The founding fathers of nearly every discipline of science were bible-believing creationists. Isn’t that interesting? You can go to the universities for decades and never hear that being taught. Amazing. Do you think science began in Hindu, India? or Buddhist, China? Africa? or some other place? No. It began in Europe where systematic science is where it got going and it was on the heels of what? The Reformation which was a biblical revival. Essentially it was an outbreak of Christianity in Europe and that’s where these men of science came out of.

     Enough about biology (no offense) and let’s talk about computers. Yes computers. They’re very important because we live in the information age. Computers are made up of two components: the hardware and the software. Software is the stuff we call information. You can get information in many different forms, like a book’s message or my computer can decode that message and I can understand it. You can read and pick up information from the radio broadcast, can’t you? In fact, you can get information in many different forms: there’s another kind of information that occurs on every cell in your body, which is called the DNA molecule. If the DNA molecule were to be written out in a human language form it would fill dozens of sets of encyclopedias. To bluntly put it, it’s a biological super-microchip and it’s a coded language that gives actual instructions on how to build your cells, how to stack the proteins this way to form a cell membrane, how to do this and that and all these detailed instructions are written out on these biological super-microchips which is on every cell of your body. I have a question for you: information. Does it ever happen by chance? How about if I say to you, “I read the message in this book and maybe the ink molecules arranged themselves randomly on the page?” What would you say to that kind of theory? Rubbish, no? Right? Or you walk along the beach and you see written in the sand ‘John Loves Mary’ with a heart around it? Or MAYBE the wind and waves pushed those sand grains into that fine pattern? What would you say to my theory? You KNOW that information never happens by chance. You have to deny all of information theory to say that it could. The DNA molecule is that kind of a thing except it’s taken to the hundredth degree. Remember Carl Sagan? He was the book author behind that movie, “Contact”, with Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. He used to say, “We need to build more of these radio telescopes because if there’s any intelligent alien out there that wanna speak to us we wanna make sure we’re listening.” A very noble idea. And he had his criteria set, “If we get any kind of coded information coming from space, even a simple morse code signal, that would be irrefutable evidence that it came from an intelligent being from space.” Though he had his criteria set, any information automatically is an indication that it came from an intelligent being. Yet Carl Sagan would look at that DNA molecule, which represents information and it’s loaded with this stuff. And he’d said that DNA molecule happened by chance and there was no intelligence involved there whatsoever. I think Carl Sagan had a double-standard. He can SEE the signs of intelligence. He knew information automatically speaks of intelligence but he would look at that DNA molecule and say, ‘no intelligence there. it happened by chance.” He had a double standard and was a hypocrite. He was a man, I think, like many people today who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. He didn’t like the idea of being held accountable to some intelligence up there and so he suppressed and pushed it aside. AFWK, he took his atheism with him to his grave. One of my personal friends once knew people who confronted him with this very argument on his death bed. And as far as we know it he never received it. So…coded information never happens by chance. It’s always the result of intelligence and that DNA molecule in every cell in your body, does it just suggest that there’s a creator? No. It demands it. Scientifically there MUST be a creator. There’s NO escaping it. You have to deny all of reality around about you to say that DNA molecule happened by chance. I don’t see where any biologists have no answer to that. So we know that time and chance produces and we know that plan and purpose produces. In regards to Anthony Flew’s parable and the morpho butterfly and so on, it REALLY speaks of genuine design. Genuine purpose. And so people say, “well that’s very nice. You share your quaint little views with us wah and that’s nice. C’mon! Do you really believe all the leading scientists are fools or they’re deceived or something like that and your little band of creationists have the truth? Is that what you’re really saying?” And my answer is always the same: “NOW, you’re beginning to understand teh level of darkness in the world today. I KNOW! I was in that darkness.”
     http://www.live365.com/stations/garrett137 (Listen to while you read below)
     And you know that it’s very very natural, if there’s a holy god up there and if what the bible says is true that we’re created with his image and likeness we have something in common with our creator. Think about that. If that’s the case and if I’m a fallen creature and if the bible’s also true when it it says all men are in a state of rebellion before their creator, it’s the most natural thing in the world for me to run as fast as i can away from any kind of accountability to God. It’s NATURAL ya know. I KNOW. I’ve DONE IT! But you know what the good news is this: you don’t need to run from God anymore. YOU KNOW THAT GOD EXISTS. Everyone here knows that. You don’t need to run away from Him anymore. YES He’s a holy god and you’re not holy. But you know what? He POURED OUT THE WRATH that you and I deserved on His own son on that cross. That’s the Good News. If we come to Him on faith and ask Him to be our lord and savior, He’ll radically change our lives. I believe that with all my heart. He did for me. And that’s what I call the Good News. That’s it. There’s really nothing religious about the Good News. It’s true, alright? It’s Good news that it changed my life. And I hope it’s profitable for you if you ever make that step of faith.

     “Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.” -Winston Churchill

     The ID vs Evo Debate:
     My personal views on it. It’s a spiritual battle. The ID movement has been going strong in the past few decades. But that’s coming against the same challenges that ICR people were having in the 70s and 80s: same kinds of barriers “Separation of Church and State”. I think there are major flaws in the logic of all that but people don’t want to see that they’re being inconsistent. In Romans chapter 1 where it says the suppression of truth that’s going on to say that men will believe a lie rather than the truth and ANY kind of foolishness to escape the idea of a accountable god and I think evolution provides man with that kind of figley thickened to hide behind. And that’s why it’s the center piece of our public education system – they’re not gonna give that up so easily.

334. karlito31
     November 28th, 2007 | 17:49

     “LOL. you got it all backwards. Planes can’t materialize out of thin air. It was built from the ground up by a designer and builder.”

     nah,
     youll get it eventually.

335. Redem
     November 29th, 2007 | 07:49

     “:lol: You’re kidding right?”

     Nope. Not in the least.

     “So you’re basically saying you don’t need God. In a nutshell.”

     We don’t.

     “What do you think about comparative religions?”
     I don’t think about them at all.

     “That maybe so from the evolutionists’ POV, but the hands-on paleontologists and ‘the data that they have accumulated tell a very different—and more objective—story.’”
     That is from the paleontologists point of view.

     “Below is an article on Tim Wallace’s rebuttal of Mark Isaak’s “Five Major Creationist Misconceptions About Evolution” concerning paleontology’s qualifications of “transitional fossils.”
     What about it?

     Essentially he is painting disagreements on where exactly fossils should lie into some sort of lack of transitional fossils. It’s the complete opposite, there are too many for some areas of the fossil record, so that it is difficult to place them in order correctly. Because specimens do not fit into any current groupings, it can be difficult to classify them properly, that is where the disagreements come from.

     “Substantial differences exist between such systems as breathing, vision, circulation, locomotion, etc., both in general configuration and in the critical details. Faced with the absence of empirical evidence for transitions in these systems, few evolutionists bother to speculate on how these systems could have successfully “transitioned” from one to the other, or how an intermediate version could possibly provide the needed functionality for either the “original” or the “descendant” system during the alleged transition.”
     Here for example he makes the same error as you did previously. Thinking that transitional forms must have crippled systems that don’t work properly while they are being modified. And is also ignoreing that like they should, true scientists are discussing what they can study. Bones and teeth are the only things that really fossilise. Discussions of the evolution of soft tissues would be mostly speculative, and would not fit in with those doing hard science. Although the evolution of those things is discussed.

     “Steven Stanley, highly-respected authority from Johns Hopkins, has this to say on the lack of a transitional fossil record—where it matters most, between genera and higher taxa (in other words, immediately above the [often arbitrarily and subjectively defined] species level and upwards):”
     This part is simply wrong. It is preciesly the transitions between major taxa that are easiest to place and study, and which are most abundant.

     And I suspect a lot of these quotes are quote mined. It seems to be usual in these cases. The gould quotes especially.

     I could go on, but… it’s a little long to work through point by point.

     Also…
     ” * Evolution has never been observed.

     * Evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

     * There are no transitional fossils.

     * The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance.

     * Evolution is only a theory; it hasn’t been proved. ”

     The first is a lie. The second is just stupid. The third is a lie. The fourth is a complete strawman, and the last is just plain stupid, again.

     No source claiming these can be considered credible.

     “Partially formed like the transitional forms you find between wolves and dogs but with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla in the Cambrian Explosion some 550 million years ago.”
     Those are not partially formed though, not in the sense you seem to be asking for. If you mean in the same sense that earlier dogs were “partially formed dogs”. Then an and all ancestral species would be examples of what you are looking for.

     Check the page I shows you previouslly on whale evolution for a detailed series of examples.

     “Which earlier versions? The ones where all the animals suddenly appeared out of nowhere?”
     They don’t though.

     “What ‘ya talking about? Experts from both sides always make claims, true or not.”
     People make claims. We were talking about experts, which is another matter entirely.
     I’ve not been able to find anything resembling that claim on anything other than creationist websites.

     “Lucy is taught in publics schools that it’s the perfect missing link between apes and people. All the elementary kids learn about Lucy.”
     They also learn about “orbiting electrons”. These are simplified versions of events for children.

     “What is Lucy? Grossly ape-like features. 3 1/2 feet tall. Skull with very ape-like features, not even human-like. In fact, critical and analytical evolutionists don’t even claim that. Lucy had long arms, almost carried the knuckles on the ground. Strong muscles attached to the shoulders indicating Lucy was good at swinging in trees. curved fingers which are grabbing on tree limbs. Curved toes indicating that it was good at swinging in trees.”
     Lucy looks nothing like that. For a start we cannot see her facial features, except in very vague detail.

     “One of the most striking characteristics possessed by Lucy was a valgus knee, which indicated that she normally moved by walking upright. Her femoral head was small and her femoral neck was short, both primitive characteristics. Her greater trochanter, however, was clearly derived, being short and human like rather than taller than the femoral head. The length ratio of her humerus to femur was 84.6% compared to 71.8% for modern humans and 97.8% for common chimpanzees, indicating that either the arms of A. afarensis were beginning to shorten, the legs were beginning to lengthen, or that both were occurring simultaneously. Lucy also possessed a lumbar curve, another indicator of habitual bipedalism.”
     From the wiki.

     “Personally, if you ask me, I think the “Lucy’ bones are exaggerated.”
     And what of the other 150 of the same species?

     “So, IMHO, human evolution is BAD NEWS, alright? If you look CRITICALLY.”
     If you look “critically” enough, you can deny just about anything.

     “And there’s a lot of embarrassing moments in the history of human evolution as well.”
     At least as far as the creationists are concerned.

     “Nebraska Man, okay?”

     See my previous comments on this. Basically, this was NEVER used to support or develop the evolution of men. It was simply an error by some scientist and quickly corrected.
     Only creationists ever bother to mention it.

     “IMO, your missing links are missing in the millions.”
     No fossil species exists in the millions. Even those lasting millions and millions of years.

     You’re asking for an unreasonable level of evidence.

     “Note Gould’s quote:”
     Already dealt with.

     “So even Gould said “the evidence is not in the fossils themselves but rather in the INFERENCE. IOW, how good is your ‘imagination’ to ‘imagine’ these missing links between these types of organisms”
     You have a problem with inference then? No, inference is not about imagination. It’s about extrpolating the evidence.

     “They exaggerate ape-like features of the former and exaggerate human-like forms of the latter.”
     Proof please.

     “Why? Based on geological sedimentary rock records using the Early Cambrian time scale, all the fully formed creatures, clams, fishes, inverberates, corals, phylum, don’t even have a hint of an ancestor below the lowest layers, underneath the earth’s crust. As we all know they call that the Cambrian Explosion because it looks like as if life just exploded into existence, as if God CREATED it that way.”
     See my previous refutation of this claim.

     Also, if god created them all of a sudden in the cambrian explosion… so what?
     They still evolved from there.

     “Now the evolutionists have drawn ‘dashed’ lines joining the base of these lines that supposedly connects all the radically types of organisms, thinking as if they have one common ancestor, which basically means they’re basing this strictly on faith. They don’t have those missing links. IOW, abruptive appearances of these fossils and stasis is what we see: ‘non-change with time’.”
     Except we do see change with time. So unless god continually replaces dead species with similar ones… you’re simply wrong.
     The dashed lines are simply extrapolations. Just like if we look deep enough there would be a dashed line representing unknown ancestors in your family tree. That does not mean they don’t exist.

     “Bottom line, my gist on evolution is that it takes as much faith in your line of work as it does for me.”

     Nice claim, but.. you have no evidence to support yours. And we have quite a lot of it (understatement) to support us.

     “The simple fact is that the transition series are pure fantasies. They are basically ‘guesswork’ based on a presupposition of evolution and a comparison of specific body parts while ignoring others.”
     Is this is true, then why do so many different lines of evidence match up? fossil records, genetic analysis, biochemical similarities, behavioural and anatomical similarities, etcc…
     There is no reasonw hy these should all agree, if they were wrong, and yet they do.

     “If you’re talking about Neanderthals, Cro-magnums or early human tribes, etc, then sure they’re related to us. But the relation between us and apes are still guess-work.”
     No, I was talking of actual ancestors like Australopithicus or Homo ergastor.

     “And so is making exaggerated scientific claims that humans came from apes based on evolutionary presuppositions and educated guesswork.”
     Unless we’re supported by evidence. Which we are.

     “And from this expanding cloud of hydrogen and gas you got stars all by accident. and planets just happen to form by chance and on this one little chunk of rock called Earth, chemicals got more complex spontaneously”
     I prefer the term “gravity” myself. Which makes all of that inevitable, not chance.

     The same with the next claim. It’s just chemistry, not chance. The rules of chemistry are inevitable.

     “not only that but man is still evolving and man’s next evolutionary step will be an awakened consciousness and man will realize he is god himself.”
     Now, even more than the rest of that, this is just plain ridiculous. That in no way resembles anything approaching anyone’s actual opinion.

     “That’s what I wanna challenge by looking at things of science.”
     Any particular reason why you think it’s impossible for that to happen without conscious direction?

     “Exactly my point. Supernatural phenomenon is basically out of the realm of science. That’s why they fail.”

     No. They have not failed because they are supernatural, they have failed because they turned out not to be.

     “But the evolution theory does.”
     No, only your strawman version of it does.

     “Actually they do. Planes are mass-produced. Planes are revised to improve features and better models.”
     neither of which is reproduction or mutation.

     But if you want to go down that road, they the Jet did evolve fromt he BiPlane.

     “You’re talking about God here. If he can create the cosmos by scratch I’m sure he can figure SOMETHING out.”
     And thus we reach the unfalsifiability again.
     Assuming that god does exist and did design all of those creatures. Then the only possible reason for retroviral DNA insertions is to fool us. So you’ll have to forgive us for being fooled.

     “Because I can tell you right now that paleontologists and geologists say one thing but evolutionists say another about the evidence.”
     Not really, no. Only if discussing different points.

     The smoking gun you demand simply does not exist. We have creatures with human and non-human features. What else could you possibly want?

     “Certain primates are said to have the intelligence of a 5 year old child but they can’t talk. They can go, “oo oo oo oo ah ah ah ah ah” But they can’t talk like we can.”
     No. They don’t have the vocal cords we have. They can be taught sign language though. Which is just as good, just not vocal.
     They can clearely understand words and ideas and concepts. But no matter how smart they are, they cannot speak unl;ess they have voice boxes and speech centres capable of producing speech.
     You’re being unfair to them, again.
     Deliberately defining intelligence in such a way as to make it impossible for something to be intelligent unless it can hold a conversation in the usual human manner of speech.

     “I don’t see why evolutionists have to ‘degrade’ ourselves down to animals.”
     We are animals by any reasonable definition of the word animal.

     “Again, they do. Message boards can be copied and modified.”
     Then again I will say that they evolve.

     “If you want to pick a real fight then try this: Charles Darwin vs Jesus Christ.”
     Sure. Why not. Darwin never asked peple to hate their families, or to leave them to fend for themselves in bronzeage Israel. Or stole a horse, that we know of.
     Or has 4 mutually exclusive accounts of his death.

     Also we can be fairly sure he actually exsited.

     “Prove it. Take me verse by verse.”
     Let’s seeeee… Apparantly he deliberately gave women painful childbirth, and that’s in pre-anaesthetic days, and all he gave adam was um.. the adam’s apple?

     Not very nice of him.

     He also made them prizes of war for his conquering soldiers to “take”.

     As for versus, meh. Google it. It’s not exactly a secret.

     “The fact that you used Gould’s quote to illustrate your point, whether it was right or not.”
     Errr… that’s not appeal to authority. That’s quoting what someone said.

     Appeal to authority is when you claim, or imply, they’re right simply because they’re famous.

     “The bible has stories (exaggerated or not) where the people and places can be reliably verified to actually happen in real history through written accounts/testimonies and archaeological verifications of items, biblical events and places. Look it up.”
     And the parts that can be verified are not the parts that are under contention.

     “Reasonably enough to pass Judgment Day?”

     Depends on the qualities needed. Afterall, faith is also required, and I don’t have any of that. Nor would I have faith even if I had belief.

     “Just admit that the lack of fossil evidence and the dearth of transitional forms composing a reasonably minimum continuum means that the fossil record is a disaster for the theory of evolution”
     But it isn’t true. Why would I admit it something that is untrue?

     I have linked you to the transitional forms before, and you never paid any attention to them.

     ““Students may very well wonder why the fossil record has so many seeming holes in it. If so, the opportunity should be seized to show the value of mathematics.”
     The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Educational Benchmarks, (F) Evolution of Life”
     Not sure why you quoted this, it merely explains that fossils are rare. Which they are.

     “Yes it does explain that. Even though you are essentially correct from a general perspective, your answer basically explains how the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise in a short period of time, speciation. And because the fossil record doesn’t accommodate the slow gradual process expected by Darwinism, an alternative explanation called Punctuated Equilibrium was offered to explain the sudden appearances of organisms. Yet a scapegoat to account for lack of gradual fossil evidence.”
     refining a theory to account for evidence is a good thing, not a bad thing. No matter that you wish to paint it as one.

     “And what right circumstances are those?”
     I stated earlier actually. When this subject was first raised.
     But essentially in periods of lower competition, for various reasons, diversity increases rapidly.

     “Because even geologists admit that changes in the fossil record are trivial, particularly in cases of fossil types like an ammonite”
     And why exactly does the opinion of people who are experts on rocks matters over the opinions of those who are experts on fossilised animals? Just curious.

     Also, cite me a source showing that geologists, as a whole, claim this please.

     The lack of major change in some species is not a problem for evolution, dunno why you’re implying that it would be. Just means that they’ve not physicially changed much.

     “The differences among these things are trivial!”
     No, they’re not. The changes are enough that they are very different species. They are highly adapted to their niche, which has not changed much over the years.

     “Nope again. My claim is true because the links you pointed me do not really account for the apparent missing gaps, which backs up the claim that the absence of these variations and adaptations have never been observed in nature or recorded in the fossil record. IOW, the complete gapless observations from crustaceans to humans are non-existent.”
     You seem to demand that we have every single creature that ever livbed fossiliesed before you’ll be happy. And then you’ll probably ask us to fill in the gaps between parent and child.

     “it is mostly used as an excuse to explain any abruptive appearance of new species that gradualism can’t account for, like when there’s NO EVIDENCE.”
     No. It is used to explain why there are long periods of stability with short periods of change, when that was not what is expected.

     “My question is how come you can’t find a full succession of one creature turning into another fundamentally different kind of creature? If that’s out there somewhere, I wanna know about it. I’m interested in truth. But I don’t think it exists, alright?”
     This entire species is represented by 8 specimens.
     That is why you will never get a “full succession”, because the fossils are too rare.

     But this is clearly not a bird, it has non-avian features. And clearly not a reptile, it has non-reptilian features. It is a transition between the two.

     It is does not fit into either of the two groups.

     It is one of what you claimed earlier do not exist. A transition between higher taxa.

     “‘It should also be mentioned here that full-fledged crow-sized bird fossils have been found in strata believed by evolutionists to be 75 million years older than Archaeopteryx (and as old as the oldest fossil dinosaur), making the “transitional” nature of Archaeopteryx (between dinosaurs and birds) less defensible than ever before.’”
     it may not be directly ancestral of all modern birds, but that was never the claim. Just that it was a transitional species. More likely it was a cousin lineage to ancient birds, that died out.
     Regardless, it clearly shows the development from reptilian features to avian ones.

     “No, it’s true. Well it could be true as much as it could be fake. There are no absolutes remember? ”
     Oh, there are absolutes. And if it is real, cite me a decent source for it.
     It would be a matter of historical record.

     “Who else knows the weight of the earth”
     Ummm… the ancient greeks did, I think. Not exactly correct, but close enough. Modern man has measured it extremely accurately though.

     *Innocent smile*

     “Okay. That’s an interesting point you’re trying to make but what you should be referring to is war, not genocide.”
     Fighting against someone is war. Murdering their children is genocide. Raping and enslaving their young women and girls is just sick.
     All were sanctioned.

     “http://www.livingwaters.com/good/ (Please go through the entire presentation.)”

     Ummm.. what was the point in that?

     I think I passed number 2 though
     Go me.

     “If you actually went through the whole test then you should realize by now that the claim that absolute morality doesn’t exist is absolutely absurd because you know in your heart that at least one of those commandments is absolutely immoral for anyone, anywhere, at any time.”
     At least one? Hmmm… which?
     None of them seem absolutely immoral at all places and times.

     “If the discussion is too ’simple’ for you and not enough intellectual then I’m sorry I can’t do anything about it.”
     it’s only a problem when the simple version is wrong.

     The simple idea most poeple ahve of a scientific law is that it is absolutely true. But they’re not. They’re mostly mathmatical relations or abstractions. For example, the laws of thermodynamics describe how an ideal gas acts with regards to heat, preassure and volume. That’s it. They’re not even “absolutely correct”.

     If they were then the universe would be a diffuse cloud of hydrogen with a bit of helium in it. It’s not.

     The laws are useful, but they’re not “correct”.

     That is why I often be more specific than you, because the simple descriptions are often incorrect in detail, even if they are useful abstractions.

     “you’ve just condemned yourself…not because of anything that says in Scripture because NATure itself TESTifies of GOD that His existence is WRITTEN throughout nature all around about…Now if that’s the case, if that’s really true..:hmm:..that really says something to scientists. Because a scientists does what? He studies the things that are made, doesn’t he? He studies the things of nature…Scientists….I’m sorry…are without excuse. If they say, “There is no God…” ABOVE ALL people, they’re without excuse.”
     If it is written there, it is not in a language I can read.

     There are two main problems here. No matter who you are, study of nature will not lead you to christianity without a christian convinceing you of it. It’s simply inconceivable to think otherwise. There is nothing about christianity to distinguish it from any other religion, even if you could be convinced of the general idea of a desginer in the universe. There is nothing about that design which specifies the christian one must be it.

     And secondsly, I see nothing in the universe which needs an intelligent creator. Nor do I see a necessity of the unniverse itself needing one.

     “Can you I get a rock like that by time and chance? What would I say if you told me that a theory that just random process over a long ages may have produced that rock. Because it is a rock BTW. What would I say to your theory? Obviously it’s BUNK right? Obviously we can see the sharp edge, the point, we can see the base, obviously it’s an arrowhead, we might say that the invisible Indian is clearly seen being understood by the things that is made even his ingenuity and dexterity so that the archaeologists won’t have an excuse if he says that thing happen by chance”

     The way nature works, such an artefact is implausible tio have happened naturally, because erosion does not make shapes like that. It blunts, rather than sharpens because it hits raised areas, like edges, easier than anywhere else. Simply maths.

     You are of course making an alalogy with life. But it doesn’t work because the way nature works DOES allow life. It’s just chemistry.

     “So what is to forbid us from using that same kind of reasoning when we look at the biological world around about us? Can we do that as scientists? alright? I THINK we can do that. and so on we go.”
     But we don’t really.

     What we know is what the natural world does. And what it does is make rocks smooth by eriosion, and make them flake apart by “onionskinning” And various other things. None of which make arrow heads.
     So we know that arrowheads are not made by nature.

     We also know how life works, because it is just chemistry. Nothing more than that. And life is possible.

     “But can you keep breeding dogs by selection and get a porcupine or something radically different? No!”
     Actually, yes. Given sufficient time.

     But since we would kill anything that wasn’t sufficiently canine looking… no.

     “Because there seems to be a brick wall, you can only go so far and you get this much variation and that’s it!”
     because they’re trying to breed a better animal, not a different one.
     Also, there is no brick wall as such. Just that the traits we desire from the animals is costly to them, so the preassures we exert are less and less able to overcome that cost.

     Diminishing returns really.

     “IOW, God made coc_kroaches, believe it or not, with LOTS of variations among them, ok?”
     Or mutations, more likely. Given that we have observed them occuring we know they happen. A lot. And that they alter biochemistry enough to allow some individuals to survive thing that are lethal to others.

     “But natural selection has no creative ability whatsoever. It CANNOT create anything new.”
     Of course not. Mutations do that. Natural selection is what eliminates the bad traits and advantages the good.

     “So when Darwin wrote his book on ‘Origin of Species by Natural Selection’ he made a big mistake because every biologist knows you can’t create anything new by that means. This is where mutations comes in.”
     He didn’t know the source of variability, that was discovered later by other scientists. It changes nothing though.

     “In fact, it’s absolutely fatal to that organism, if you don’t keep him alive in the laboratory he’ll perish. Not much of an evolutionary future in a fly like that.”
     Which would be eliminated by natural selection.

     Evolution in action.

     How is this a problem? Only beneficial mutations would spread.

     “Everybody knows…They’re taking creature to ever-increasing levels of disrepair of degradation. They’re taking creatures downhill, not up.”
     Not true. The mutation that generated nylonase is an extreme advantage to the nylon-bug.

     As is the mutations that increases resistance to malaria in humans. Unfortunately it also causes sickle-cell anemia. Which is why the latter is more common in areas where the former is a problem.

     “The chances of that happening are very slim.”
     it doesn’t happen all at once though.
     Many of these things are presnt in birds already. You, for example, blink when you hit your head. Most animls probably do.
     So that’s not something new.

     The beak, tongue, and protective tissues, all would probably evolve concurrently. That is, slowly as a result of many mutations. No single mutation will give a normal bird a long sticky tongue. But a short sticky tongue would be useful anyway. As would being able to hit into soft wood lightly to get bugs out. Thus not needing a lot of padding or a super long tongue.

     But those who do have the hardest beak can break into harder trees, and get more food than other kinds. So that’s an advantage, leading to a continual arms race in stronger beaks, and better brain padding. This is the sort of thing evolution is best at, competition.

     Nothing miraculous about it.

     “Because radio-isotope dating is very theoretical, it has major problems with its dating”
     Very theoretical? No.

     Not in the least. They’re the single most reliable thing we know of. All of our most accurate clocks are based on the decay rates of radioactive atoms, because the rates are a constant. This is due to the reason why they decay in the first place, which is due simply to probability. Nothing more complex than maths. The inside of an atom is as shielded as it gets, from everything except at super high temperatures. So the inside of an atom is stable to a specific degree, and in radioactive substances this leads to a specific half life of the substance.

     And we are talking precision that is not known elsewhere. There is no instance of any substance ever decaying at a rate other than it’s half life. And we have been looking.

     That was all before we learned more about subatomic physics of course. The more we learn the more certain we can be about it.

     We can calibrate it by other processes of constant rate, emzyme rates for example. Or against objects of known age.

     They check out.

     Not “very theoretical” as you put it.

     “But here’s the funny thing that happens, according to geologists, when you get further and further back in history, you get pretty good correspondence and then you get even further back, right around 3,000-4000 B.C. when we start running out of historical records, the difference between the historical and radio-carbon dates start increasing enormously.”
     As far as I can tell this is untrue. Evidence please.

     “You’d expect that as you get further back the method would breakdown IF there was a global flood in the not too distant past.he bible talks about a global flood and if a global flood really happened then it would really upset the equilibrium that radio-carbon dating method depends upon.”
     And I fail to see how this even enters into it, to be honest.

     What does flooding have to do with it?

     “You can do the arithmetic and let’s assume the oceans are 1 billion years of age, even though scientists tell us they’re much older, but let’s assume their 1 billion. At that rate of input how thick would be the sediment layer be on the ocean floor? 100,000 ft. IOW, the thickness sediment layers in deep ocean basins is about 200 ft.”
     Assuming that your math is correct, and the last time I actually checked a claim like this it was woefully off, that was the moon claim btw, about it’s recession.

     A) You’re assuming a constant rate of deposition. B) You’re assuming that silt only enters the oceans, and doesn’t leave it. For a start the weight would depress the oceans in respect to the land, secondly, such deposits are compressed into sandstone. That’s why they’re called sedimantary rocks.

     “Naturally things tend toward disorder.”

     *Twitch*
     Oh god you had to go here. >…<

     Life is simple, at base. Just tiny little molecular machines that make copies of themselves. No more than that.
     The reactions themselves are not all that complex either.
     The complexity itself comes from the massive number of reactions that affect other ones. Called emergent complexity. Even incredibly simple systems result in highly complex actions. Actually an interesting area of computing… but that’s way off topic…

     “YOU KNOW THAT GOD EXISTS”
     No. I don’t.
     And if I did, frankly to hell with him. I don’t like your god all that much.

     “The ID movement has been going strong in the past few decades.”
     By moving beyond all that silly science and just appealing to the public. And trying to infiltrate schools.

     Silly scientists, and their need for logic and reason and evidence.

     “And that’s why it’s the center piece of our public education system – they’re not gonna give that up so easily.”
     As far as I know, it’s a minor module of a not particularly well taught subject. Hardly the “centre piece of our public education”.

336. for the LOLs
     November 30th, 2007 | 14:09

     hey Mr.X post this also for the lols
     What.The.Bleep.Down.The.Rabbit.Hole.2006.LIMITED.DVDRip.XviD-iMBT
     http://www.mininova.org/tor/442725

337. wah
     December 3rd, 2007 | 10:26

     It doesn’t matter if I agree with your logic or not since you’ve failed to understand mine. Because you argued point by point from the lack of analyzing my whole argument in its broader context, your responses consequently contradict the logic of your thinking. I’ve come across many of you biologists and don’t know why you are so adament in trying to prove the General Theory of Evolution on the basis of the Biological Theory of Evolution with your irrational illogical fallacious conflations – it’s undeniably futile. Until all your theories of everything becomes irrefutable fact, science will never satisfy its ultimate goal, you’ll never have enough evidence as it is to factualize the ToE, let alone GTE until you know absolutely everything there is to know, no matter how much more you have than anyone else’s and if you’re so sure the rest is out there, then that’s where your faith lies, okay? We have enough reliable evidence and more upcoming because that’s all is needed, even as we rest completely on the Lord’s faithfulness. IME, I find many evolutionary propagandists who are guilty of the deceitful practice of equivocation, that is, switching the meaning of a single word (evolution) part way through an argument. A common tactic, “bait-and-switch,” is simply to produce examples of change over time, call this “evolution,” then imply that the GTE is thereby proven or even essential, and creation disproved. You are a materialistic scientist, a uniformitarian of philosophical naturalism, a perfect example of the atheistic bias present within the scientific community, and a typical biological historical evolutionist who uses the common logical fallacy of conflation, whose logic unfalsifiably presupposes the GTE is fact (when it is just a theory) simply because biological evolution refers to common descent and is true (which I don’t have a problem).
     —————————————————–
     “it’s only a problem when the simple version is wrong”
     Well, it’s also a problem when the reader has tunnel-vision or has a habit of conflating two totally different things or debates for the GTE when a degree in evolutionary biology curriculum is completely lacking in any courses in philosophy of science, logic, critical thinking, or any other coursework which teaches the students the basis of logic and logical fallacies.

     “Nope. Not in the least.”
     Then the joke’s (burden of proof’s) on you, unless you can show me verse by verse how your interpretations fit with the context.

     “Darwin never asked peple to hate their families, or to leave them to fend for themselves in bronzeage Israel. Or stole a horse, that we know of. Or has 4 mutually exclusive accounts of his death. Also we can be fairly sure he actually exsited.
     Apparantly he deliberately gave women painful childbirth, and that’s in pre-anaesthetic days, and all he gave adam was um.. the adam’s apple? Not very nice of him. He also made them prizes of war for his conquering soldiers to “take”. Murdering their children is genocide. Raping and enslaving their young women and girls is just sick. All were sanctioned. As for versus, meh. Google it. It’s not exactly a secret.”
     ROFL! Those accusations are so silly I’m not gonna even waste my time dignifying them with a proper correction, especially the Jesus hating their families – that’s one of the most weakest Jesus attacks I’ve seen. You know it’s not a secret that people grossly misinterpret the bible and publish their works via books, internet, etc because of their lack in philosophy. It apparently appears that since you are an evolutionist fundamentalist you seem to be an expert at taking allegory as literal, reading the Bible as if it was written yesterday for you personally, in English, using inappropriate generalizations, overgeneralizations, arguments from ignorance, contextual error, misinterpretation, ideology, and even strawman, and exegetical fallacies.

     “There is nothing about christianity to distinguish it from any other religion”
     Yes there is. Jesus Christ died for our sins. BTW, your erroneous conclusion is yet another one of the common logical fallacies of linking Christianity with other religions: universalism.

     “what was the point in that?”
     If you’re serious, you’re conscious is seared my friend.

     “Depends on the qualities needed. Afterall, faith is also required, and I don’t have any of that. Nor would I have faith even if I had belief.”
     Quality needed: perfection. There is no other way to pass JD but through JC (John 14:6).

     “You seem to demand that we have every single creature that ever livbed fossiliesed before you’ll be happy. You’re asking for an unreasonable level of evidence. What else could you possibly want?”
     Well that’s the kind of unreasonable evidence that the GTE demands. Even if you’ve found all 99,999 puzzle pieces (out of 100k) together, the last one makes all the difference.

     “That is from the paleontologists point of view. And why exactly does the opinion of people who are experts on rocks matters over the opinions of those who are experts on fossilised animals?”
     The changes you’d expect from evolution produces effects on bones and rocks. So there HAS to be a collaboration between different experts if you want to validate the science communities’ consensus of a theory that implies changes in rocks and bones.

     “Basically, this was NEVER used to support or develop the evolution of men.”
     And I NEVER argued that it was but to SHOW you how DESPERATE these men really ARE.

     “It was simply an error by some scientist and quickly corrected.”
     That’s an understatement. It may have been quickly corrected by him but the science community was FOOLED for almost a DECADE. A DECADE! and not just them – the public too.

     “See my previous refutation of this claim.”
     If it’s not based on geological sedimentary rock records then your refutation is invalid. Paleontologists have stopped using the tree long ago.

     “Oh, there are absolutes…”
     I wasn’t arguing against the absence of absolutes. By that you admit the possibility of absolute knowledge, truth, and morality. You can’t be absolutely sure about that either because your statement is not absolute (if you deny absolute knowledge) you don’t know everything, which leaves that possibility open for you.

     “You’re being unfair to them, again. Deliberately defining intelligence in such a way as to make it impossible for something to be intelligent unless it can hold a conversation in the usual human manner of speech…We are animals by any reasonable definition of the word animal.”
     I believe YOU’RE being unfair to US by melding us with them. You’re deliberately defining the significance of something based on something else that is less significu_nt.

     “But it isn’t true. Why would I admit it something that is untrue? I have linked you to the transitional forms before, and you never paid any attention to them.”
     I didn’t say ‘complete’, which means it’s still valid and you should admit it. And yes I did. There are gaps in them.

     “None of them seem absolutely immoral at all places and times.”
     I wasn’t arguing against that either. Keyword: ANY. And it doesn’t matter if every single one is absolutely immoral. It just takes ONE to break them all. In fact, the WHOLE commandment (in general) is absolutely IMMORAL because everyone but God fails at least once.

     “No source claiming these can be considered credible…I’ve not been able to find anything resembling that claim on anything other than creationist websites…Also, cite me a source showing that geologists, as a whole, claim this please…And if it is real, cite me a decent source for it…Evidence please…You’re asking for an unreasonable level of evidence.”
     Most of what you’re asking for can simply be found in pro-creationist sources or pro-evolutionary sources. Obviously you’re looking for something contrary to evolution so you should know where to look. Show me the actual bones and I’ll give you what you want. It’s not so much too ask for, is it?

     “Nothing here proves anything that under contention.”
     Evidently, you’re contenting your critique of the bible on so many common exegetical fallacies all at once: the evidential or superior knowledge fallacy are just a couple. You should read up on higher criticism and bible hermeneutics before attempting to properly criticize it.

     “Proof please.”
     Look in the school textbooks yourself. The ‘in-between’ forms ARE the exaggeration. In the end, the burden of proof is on you to prove your GTE.

     “Appeal to authority is when you claim, or imply, they’re right simply because they’re famous.”
     It’s not famous. It’s authority, knowledge and position (Romans 2:1).

     “From the wiki.”
     ‘The claim that Lucy walked upright was largely based on the appearance of the leg and hip bone. However, like all australopithecines, Lucy has long forearms and short hind legs. Australopithecines also have curved finger and long curved toes. Curved fingers and toes in extant primates are readily recognized as having no other purpose other than full or part time arboreal (tree-dwelling) life. It should also be noted that bipedal walking is common among living Gorillas and some Chimpanzees. However, this mode is not truly bipedal, and is more accurately referred to as knuckle-walkers. Living nonhuman primates and australopithecines are probably analogous in this regard and neither can therefore be considered any closer to humans than the other. ‘Charles Oxnard, former director of graduate studies and professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California Medical School, who subjected australopithecine fossils to extensive computer analysis stated: “The australopithecines known over the last several decades from Olduvai and Sterkfontein, Kromdraai and Makapansgat, are now irrevocably removed from a place in a group any closer to humans than to African apes and certainly from any place in a direct human lineage. All this should make us wonder about the unusual presentation of human evolution in introductory textbooks, in encyclopedias and in popular publications. In such volumes not only are australopithecines described as being of known bodily size and shape, but as possessing such abilities as bipedality and tool-using and -making and such developments as the use of fire and specific social structures. Even facial features are happily (and non-scientifically reconstructed.”. (The Order of Man: A Biomathematical Anatomy of the Primates, p332.) Another challenge to Lucy was discovered in the Tugen Hills of Kenya in the year 2000. The specimen was alleged to show capability for walking upright — and was dated 3 million years earlier than Lucy.’ From the Creationwiki. I don’t trust wiki or Evowiki that much, esp when they have logical fallacies in their own “list of logical fallacies.”

     “Now, even more than the rest of that, this is just plain ridiculous. That in no way resembles anything approaching anyone’s actual opinion.”
     Exactly. It’s ludicrous, isn’t it? But THAT’S the road evolution is approaching.

     “The smoking gun you demand simply does not exist.”
     That smoking gun is the GTE’s smoking gun. I didn’t demand it because it doesn’t exist, except in your mind.

     “Evolution in action.”
     While that proves evolutionary biology, that doesn’t prove the GTE.

     “No fossil species exists in the millions.”
     I know that. It’s to make a point that you’re missing so much. But if you want to get technical like you have a habit of doing, then it would be true if I was talking about molecules, or less.

     “Then the only possible reason for retroviral DNA insertions is to fool us.”
     Absurd! That’s the same as “The only possible reason for being born on Earth is to fool us the sun was revolving around us.”

     “No. It is used to explain why there are long periods of stability with short periods of change, when that was not what is expected…..refining a theory to account for evidence is a good thing, not a bad thing.”
     It was simply created as an excuse for lack of evidence while the explanation was added on LATER to justify its usage, when its creation was justified on absence of evidence.

     “Ummm… the ancient greeks did, I think. Not exactly correct, but close enough. Modern man has measured it extremely accurately though.”
     You weren’t reading the entire poem in context. It seems you are having a problem reading things in perspective. If that’s case, most of your responses was out of false assumptions.

     “No, I was talking of actual ancestors like Australopithicus or Homo ergastor.”
     Ooh. So you’re talking to sound like it’s true when it’s really not but you’ve simply convinced yourself. I see.

     “Not sure why you quoted this, it merely explains that fossils are rare. Which they are.”
     Rare fossils = opportunity to exaggerate claims based on numbers.

     “Here for example he makes the same error as you did previously. It’s about extrpolating the evidence.”
     the only error made is pointing out that the theory of evolution, mind you it’s called theory, is ultimately speculation and presuppositions.

     “Any particular reason why you think it’s impossible for that to happen without conscious direction?”
     Any particular reason why you think it’s impossible to debate without using a loaded question?

     “It’s simply inconceivable to think otherwise.”
     That’s another fallacious statement because you’re using a double standard.

     “Silly scientists, and their need for logic and reason and evidence.”
     True scientists don’t conflate totally different things.

     “representing unknown ancestors in your family tree…And then you’ll probably ask us to fill in the gaps between parent and child.”
     Yet you’re conFLATING a human family tree to the EVOLUTIONARY TREE, AGAIN!

     “It’s about extrpolating the evidence. The dashed lines are simply extrapolations.”
     More like logical fallacies from exaggeration out of desperation. Conflating biological evolution and the general theory of evolution. It SOUNDS meaningful but it doesn’t.

     “Unless we’re supported by evidence. Which we are.”
     My statement takes your evidence into account as well. Basically, you’re evidence doesn’t solidify the GTE. So what do you do? You make an exaggerated guess on what you actually have. IOW, you actually have enough only to prove evolutionary biology, but what you actually don’t have, which is only in your mind, of which you need in order to prove the totality of evolution, you use to try to prove the GTE. You’re conflating it.

     “Is this is true, then why do so many different lines of evidence match up? fossil records, genetic analysis, biochemical similarities, behavioural and anatomical similarities, etcc…
     There is no reasonw hy these should all agree, if they were wrong, and yet they do. And we have quite a lot of it (understatement) to support us.”
     That’s like saying: “There is a great deal of evidence for biological evolution. Therefore the general theory of evolution is true.” Your conflating it again through logical fallacy there my friend.

     “It is a transition between the two. Regardless, it clearly shows the development from reptilian features to avian ones.”
     They’re older than most of its alleged ancestors, which is a BIG problem for you. Sounds like another case of wishful thinking and illogical conflation.

     “Nothing miraculous about it…Life is simple, at base. Just tiny little molecular machines that make copies of themselves. No more than that.”
     Your objection to my perspective doesn’t really mean anything since you’re using a tautology fallacy to connect things where there’s already a connection to an obvious conclusion. I’m sorry but your lack of critical thinking prevents you from recognizing anything beyond the basics of simplicity. IOW, for someone who studies the scientific intricacies and complexities of theories and laws of evolutionary life, you’re unable to see anything past the narrow framework of which the science of evolutionary biology as indoctrinated you into. Where as you see a baby’s conception as just a natural biological result from sexual reproduction, which is obviously true, I also see it as a miracle from God. Metamorphically, that’s no different from you seeing a carnival as machines, electrical bulbs, woodwork and fabric, I see the amazing colorful bright lights, smell the food in the air, and feel the fun atmosphere. Even for a pessimist I can be optimistic. But for someone who studies life you sure do take it for granted. I guess you see life in monochrome as opposed to me seeing it in vibrant colors. Different strokes for different folks.

     “The way nature works, such an artefact is implausible tio have happened naturally, because erosion does not make shapes like that….So we know that arrowheads are not made by nature.”
     But it didn’t, you see? Of course not. That’s common knowledge and doesn’t really mean anything. You see, I never argued that it was made by nature, as was the previous comment above. It’s made by the Lord. You may try to explain it away with rationality and logic but the almighty Lord is able to ‘bend’ the rules of science; He made it after all. It’s so evident that since you were arguing against me for the same thing as I was, you’re weren’t reading it context and that’s why you ended up tautologizing. Wow. You need to learn more about critical reading and writing, let alone thinking.

     The above two comments indicates that (1) in both of my original statements, I was advocating the same thing, that God was the ’special causation agent’ behind it all in both cases. (2) Both of your tautology responses contradict your logic because in your first response, you were arguing that it’s just nature and how things normally work (nothing special). Then, in your next response, you argue it’s not nature. Well it’s either nature or not nature in both cases. You can’t choose both otherwise your logic is flawed. This indicates that you have failed to read them in the proper context. Because of that, you apparently have at least one logical fallacy in your entire logic, inconsistency.

     “Which makes all of that inevitable, not chance. It’s just chemistry, not chance. The rules of chemistry are inevitable…It’s just chemistry. the way nature works.”
     That’s just another tautology fallacy. But I agree with you in the sense that is not simply chance, as the atheistic evolutionists hold in respect to the GTE’s view on creation. It seems you are more interested in the natural flow and processes of life rather than its actual causation. That is what the atheistic evolutionists claim in the cosmic sense before the creation of anything, by chance, not purpose. Unless you don’t adhere strictly to all these logics, your line of reasoning, atheistic world view, biological evolutionary world view and GTE world view could all well be contradicting each other. While biological evolution makes no claim as to the origin of life and allows for the possibility that it was originally created, the general theory of evolution claims that life originated by chance through abiogenesis, a speculation for which there is neither evidence nor comprehensive explanation. Further, while biological evolution says only that life changes over time, but allows that some biological diversity may be the result of creation, the general theory of evolution holds that this change occurs without limits, and that all biological diversity is due to evolution, another speculation for which there is neither evidence nor comprehensive explanation. I was referring to a broader perspective. Open your mind. However, my analogies pushes the ’cause in question’ beyond your straw man logic, which is also flawed once again because you’re attempting to justify a regress argument within an infinite regression. IOW, your answer basically pushes the question further back into a topic eventually outside of which evolutionary biology does not simply have a falsifiable theory, which is the ultimate cause of existence [and then on to nature, chemistry, matter, life, etc.] The first is covered by philosophical arguments beyond this debate such as ontological, cosmological, teleological and the anthropic principle, which BTW advocates that the crucial steps in the evolution of Homo Sapiens is so improbable that the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and so incinerated the Earth before it would occur and the odds against the assembly of the human genome are between 4 to the -180(110,000)th power and 4 to the -360(110,000)th power! But such assertions, accurate or not, are not up for debate.

     “If you look “critically” enough, you can deny just about anything.”
     Aspiring PhDs in evolutionary biology programs are not taught anything of the nuances of philosophy of science, logic, logical fallacies, critical thinking, or metaphysics. What you are taught is a great number of facts about evolution, and in order to pass your exams, you must be able to repeat all the facts about evolution you have been taught. You need not think critically. You need not evaluate analytically. You need only repeat what you have been told. What critical thinking does occur (in your dissertation research, for instance) is always done within the materialistic and evolutionistic paradigm. You may think critically, but not too critically. And when you graduate and face creationists on the field of philosophy of science, you are steeped in the ideas of evolution, convinced it is the truth and science, and become infuriated by creationists who have not earned a PhD who somehow feel entitled to question your dogmas. Many philosophers of science, even evolutionists, recognize this problem, and frequently point out the foolish arguments made by even the most prominent evolutionists. That’s on the order of, Homer Simpson’s “facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!”

     “This part is simply wrong…The first is a lie. The second is just stupid. The third is a lie. The fourth is a complete straw man, and the last is just plain stupid, again…They don’t though….Lucy looks nothing like that…Except we do see change with time….Nice claim, but.. you have no evidence to support yours…No. They have not failed because they are supernatural, they have failed because they turned out not to be…No, only your straw man version of it does…neither of which is reproduction or mutation…Not really, no. Only if discussing different points…Then again I will say that they evolve….No, they’re not…Actually, yes…..Or mutations, more likely….Not true….Not “very theoretical” as you put it……”
     I bluntly disagree with ALL those points. I am not going to argue on them because not only is your logic emphatically flawed in some of your responses (just to name some like non sequitur, tautology, circular reasoning, double standard, manufacturing facts from a theory), I’d simply be stating the opposite for the rest. But that’s not to exempt creationists, such as myself, from logical fallacies as well, like proof of assertion (only because either it was first used by you or the burden of proof was on me, or vice versa). As for biology students, IME they appear to learn a great deal about grant-writing, but absolutely NOTHING about philosophy of science and it is clearly evident throughout your argument (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science). All your logical fallacies, while not entirely yours, have rendered your entire position in vain which is expected coming from someone of your background. So stop trying to lure me to the ‘dark side’ or convince me that the GTE is fact. Arguing with me will not hide the light which has already exposed your denial. Personally I’d agree to disagree altogether.

338. wah
     December 3rd, 2007 | 12:53

     “Not in the least. They’re the single most reliable thing we know of…physics of course. The more we learn the more certain we can be…against objects of known age. They check out.”
     Of course it’s reliable when you’re talking about the comparable measurement of things that are already known but that doesn’t mean anything when you’re using the radiocarbon dating for the purpose of measuring the unknown age of dead bones and rocks. While you’re correct in what you actually said, they’re both totally different and conflating both of them will not help your case. I find it surprising that many scientific authors cite their agreeable determinations as ‘proof’ of their beliefs considering the way radiocarbon method is generally used to yield inaccurate and unreliable results, gross discrepancies, uneven and relative chronology and selected dates actually being accepted dates, all in the field of the GTE science (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Basically, radiocarbon dating is a joke when it comes to the GTE because many times scientists contradict themselves with collected data, or even worse in Gould’s case, become inconsistent in what they actually say rather than what the evidential data states. There are many examples where geologists, paleontologists and archeologists who physically test the evidence found in the field and then onto the lab themselves whose data reflects differently than that of the evolutionists’ interpretations. That is why we get one group of scientists who work behind the desk come to a different conclusion and tell the public schools that this means that proves everything versus the other group of scientists who actually work with the evidence and corrects them and says no this only means that but not everything. At McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic, carbon-14 tested the blood of a seal, freshly killed, and showed the seal had died 1,300 years ago. Carbon dating results stated that a lake Bonney seal, known to have died only a few weeks before, had died between 515 and 715 years ago. Carbon-14 dating showed that the hair on the Chekurovka mammoth was 26,000 years of carbon-14 age but the peaty soil in which is was preserved was only 5,600 years of carbon-14 age. Two Hawaiian lava flows, which happened only about 200 years ago in 1800 and 1801, was measured by scientists to be 164 million and 3 billion years. The shells of Melanoides tuberculatus snails living today in artesian springs in southern Nevada are indicated to have an apparent age of 27,000 years by it’s Carbon-14 contents. If you base your argument upon those kind of dates on unknown things and theories instead of laws, it would be wise to ignore them because they simply imply pervasive contamination and ancient variations in carbon-14 levels.

     Does science prove there is a Creator or no Creator? The answer to both is an astounding ‘no.’

339. Redem
     December 6th, 2007 | 08:26

     “It doesn’t matter if I agree with your logic or not since you’ve failed to understand mine.”
     I can understand it, and pick out it’s flaws. Which is the problem you seem to be having.

     “Because you argued point by point from the lack of analyzing my whole argument in its broader context, your responses consequently contradict the logic of your thinking.”
     Responding to individual points brought up, to expose their flaws for the msot part.
     There is no real overall context needed when the points are wrong.

     “I’ve come across many of you biologists and don’t know why you are so adament in trying to prove the General Theory of Evolution on the basis of the Biological Theory of Evolution with your irrational illogical fallacious conflations – it’s undeniably futile.”
     What is the “General Theory of Evolution” and “Biological Theory of Evolution”?

     Seems another pointless creationist distinction based on what you can no longer deny

     “you’ll never have enough evidence as it is to factualize the ToE, let alone GTE until you know absolutely everything there is to know, no matter how much more you have than anyone else’s and if you’re so sure the rest is out there, then that’s where your faith lies, okay?”
     Again, the use fo the word “faith”. For someone who dislikes conflation so much, you do a lot of it yourself.

     There is a difference between “faith” as used to describe my faith that reality is real and that my chair won’t suddenly turn into a chicken, and religious faith.

     “A common tactic, “bait-and-switch,” is simply to produce examples of change over time, call this “evolution,” then imply that the GTE is thereby proven or even essential, and creation disproved.”
     That is evolution. That is what the term means. Change over time, or more technically the change in alelle frequency ina given population over time.
     That is what the word means, so when we observe this in the field, or a lab, or int he historical records, we can safely say that it is a fact that species evolve.
     From there we can look at all of the historical data, and see how life evolved from extremely primitive forms into the modern day.

     “You are a materialistic scientist, a uniformitarian of philosophical naturalism, a perfect example of the atheistic bias present within the scientific community, and a typical biological historical evolutionist who uses the common logical fallacy of conflation, whose logic unfalsifiably presupposes the GTE is fact (when it is just a theory) simply because biological evolution refers to common descent and is true (which I don’t have a problem).”
     Yes, damn those scientists and their logic. Evidence and reason is such a chore when you have a reality you want to deny.
     You also conflate secular and atheistic. Shame on you.

     “a degree in evolutionary biology curriculum is completely lacking in any courses in philosophy of science, logic, critical thinking, or any other coursework which teaches the students the basis of logic and logical fallacies.”
     What university would this be? They all have different courses, afterall. So I’ll need something to support this claim as being representative of at least the majority.

     “:) Then the joke’s (burden of proof’s) on you, unless you can show me verse by verse how your interpretations fit with the context.”
     Just read it dude. It was a joke mostly, and I can’t be bothered to go into it.

     “Those accusations are so silly I’m not gonna even waste my time dignifying them with a proper correction, especially the Jesus hating their families – that’s one of the most weakest Jesus attacks I’ve seen.”
     Not really an attack, so much as things he said/did.

     “taking allegory as literal”
     So it’s not an historical record then? Goood. Glad we agree

     “Yes there is. Jesus Christ died for our sins. BTW, your erroneous conclusion is yet another one of the common logical fallacies of linking Christianity with other religions: universalism.”
     That only matters if we first assume it’s true. Which I’m not gonna. So again, there is nothing to distinguish yours from everyone else’s. Your religion is linked with othe peoples, in so much as they are all religions. That’s not a fallacy dude.

     “Well that’s the kind of unreasonable evidence that the GTE demands. Even if you’ve found all 99,999 puzzle pieces (out of 100k) together, the last one makes all the difference.”
     So you admit to demanding an unreasonable level of evidence. Nothing in science has that kind of evidence, not even the existence of gravity. Not even the reality of reality is proven to that level.

     “The changes you’d expect from evolution produces effects on bones and rocks. So there HAS to be a collaboration between different experts if you want to validate the science communities’ consensus of a theory that implies changes in rocks and bones.”
     Not really, unless physicists need to agree with biologists on the workings of mitochondria before we can accept cell theory. Which is a moot point, your claim is unfounded, as well as irrelevent.
     Evolution makes no changes to rocks, it just requires them to be dated properly. That’s the geologists contribution to it.

     “And I NEVER argued that it was but to SHOW you how DESPERATE these men really ARE.”
     But they’re NOT. They, at that time, had many fossils. They did not require one, and did NOT present this one as some sort of human ancestor.

     “That’s an understatement. It may have been quickly corrected by him but the science community was FOOLED for almost a DECADE. A DECADE! and not just them – the public too.”
     And this part’s just a lie.

     Or you were lied to, either/or.

     “If it’s not based on geological sedimentary rock records then your refutation is invalid. Paleontologists have stopped using the tree long ago.”
     You really should go read it.

     “I believe YOU’RE being unfair to US by melding us with them. You’re deliberately defining the significance of something based on something else that is less significu_nt.”
     By your definition people who cannot talk are not intelligent. This shows your argument is flawed.

     “There are gaps in them.”
     There are gaps between you and your parents, that doesn’t mean you’re not descended from them.

     “because everyone but God fails at least once.”
     God killed many many people. So he fails them too.

     “Most of what you’re asking for can simply be found in pro-creationist sources or pro-evolutionary sources. Obviously you’re looking for something contrary to evolution so you should know where to look. Show me the actual bones and I’ll give you what you want. It’s not so much too ask for, is it?”
     Yeeesh, a mixed bag of quotes there. You want the bones? How about the fossils? They’re good enough. A basic overview is easily available in any biology text or website.

     So um. do you have any responses to my actual points there or are you just conceeding them?

     “Look in the school textbooks yourself. The ‘in-between’ forms ARE the exaggeration. In the end, the burden of proof is on you to prove your GTE.”
     Been there, done that. You’ve had your evidence, and admitted that no amount of evidence is good enough for you.

     “From the Creationwiki.”
     uh-huh…

     “Exactly. It’s ludicrous, isn’t it? But THAT’S the road evolution is approaching.”
     It’s not though. It’s a made up claim of where it’s going, it in no way resembles the reality of it.

     “That smoking gun is the GTE’s smoking gun. I didn’t demand it because it doesn’t exist, except in your mind.”
     bah. It doesn’t exist because you define it out of existence. You define it as a single piece of evidence, while at the same time repeatedly stating that no single piece of evidence is enough, you need huge amounts of it.
     It doesn’t exist because your definition of it ensures that it could never exist.

     “While that proves evolutionary biology, that doesn’t prove the GTE.”
     Which only exists in your mind

     “Absurd! That’s the same as “The only possible reason for being born on Earth is to fool us the sun was revolving around us.””
     I fail to see how the two are in any way connected.

     “It was simply created as an excuse for lack of evidence while the explanation was added on LATER to justify its usage, when its creation was justified on absence of evidence.”
     There is evidence though, as I have said repeatedly. Mostly between higher orders, and not at the species level, which is where punctuated equilibrium is dealing with.

     “Rare fossils = opportunity to exaggerate claims based on numbers.”
     Or it represents how rare fossils are.

     Which is the more parsimonious explanation, I wonder.

     “Any particular reason why you think it’s impossible to debate without using a loaded question?”
     Because they’re useful at times.
     Now answer the question please.

     “That’s another fallacious statement because you’re using a double standard.”

     Really? So if you had never seen or read a bible, and had never spoken to someone about one or in any way been exposed to that material ro those who believed in it, how would studying the universe lead you to Christianity?

     It’s a ridiculous idea.

     “More like logical fallacies from exaggeration out of desperation. Conflating biological evolution and the general theory of evolution. It SOUNDS meaningful but it doesn’t.”
     Good thing that fossil finds fill in those gaps then, isn’t it?

     The tiktallik, for example.

     might be spelt wrong.

     “you use to try to prove the GTE. You’re conflating it.”
     Only you make any distinction. I’ve never heard a scientist use the term “General theory of Evolution”.
     Seems that you’ve split the theory fo evolution into two parts, and then accuse us of conflating the two. Nice trick.

     “Your conflating it again through logical fallacy there my friend.”
     No difference between the two, answer the question or conceed.

     “They’re older than most of its alleged ancestors, which is a BIG problem for you. Sounds like another case of wishful thinking and illogical conflation.”
     Older than what?
     You seem to be talking nonsense here.

     “Metamorphically, that’s no different from you seeing a carnival as machines, electrical bulbs, woodwork and fabric, I see the amazing colorful bright lights, smell the food in the air, and feel the fun atmosphere. Even for a pessimist I can be optimistic.”
     It is coloured lights and machines and such. And if we were discussing how a carnival works, I would be discussing those things, at another time i might just enjoy it. Same with life, I can both discuss how it works and enjoy it. The discussion moves towards somewhere where discussion of what life is at the molecular level and you turn this into me not enjoying life, somehow.

     “But for someone who studies life you sure do take it for granted. I guess you see life in monochrome as opposed to me seeing it in vibrant colors. Different strokes for different folks. ”
     You guess wrong. I simply don’t look at it from behind your comfortable blinders

     “Wow. You need to learn more about critical reading and writing, let alone thinking.”
     Agreed, you do.

     lol

     I can do it too.

     “I never argued that it was made by nature”
     No, you made an argument based on the appearance of design, ignoreing that the only real hallmark of design is that it defies the natural order of things, and that’s not conclusive. Life does not defy any natural order, and thus the argument from perceived design fails.

     “Well it’s either nature or not nature in both cases. You can’t choose both otherwise your logic is flawed. This indicates that you have failed to read them in the proper context. Because of that, you apparently have at least one logical fallacy in your entire logic, inconsistency.”
     Again you fail to comprehend.
     Rocks do not erode into such shapes, thus intelligent intervention is encessary. Life is merely chemistry, thus none is needed.
     No fallacy, just your lack of understanding.

     I think you need to learn the meaning of the word “tautology”.

     “But I agree with you in the sense that is not simply chance, as the atheistic evolutionists hold in respect to the GTE’s view on creation.”
     They don’t think that though.
     Again with the conflation of atheism and evolution. *Sigh*

     For someone who seems to have found a new wod to throw around a lot, you make a lot of fallacies yourself. For example this strawman, and most of the following paragraphs.

     “the general theory of evolution claims that life originated by chance through abiogenesis”
     Care to cite a source for this?

     ‘cos… seems to me.. you’re making this all up

     Evolution and abiogenesis are seperate theories in no way connected, except in the trivial manner that all theories are connected.

     Then we have some more confusion with your “GTE”, and various other things. Ho-hum.

     “IOW, your answer basically pushes the question further back into a topic eventually outside of which evolutionary biology does not simply have a falsifiable theory, which is the ultimate cause of existence [and then on to nature, chemistry, matter, life, etc.]”
     No, I think your reasoning is to keep pressing back until you find a nice gap you can push the word “god” into. No mine.

     Mine is to answer things as best we can.

     “The first is covered by philosophical arguments beyond this debate such as ontological, cosmological, teleological and the anthropic principle, which BTW advocates that the crucial steps in the evolution of Homo Sapiens is so improbable that the sun would have ceased to be a main sequence star and so incinerated the Earth before it would occur and the odds against the assembly of the human genome are between 4 to the -180(110,000)th power and 4 to the -360(110,000)th power! But such assertions, accurate or not, are not up for debate.”
     pah! None of those make any such advocacy. And I find your numbers suspect, care to prove them?
     Then care to explain why a low probability matters? I can make big numbers too, if you like, toss a coin a thousand times. The chances of you getting that particular order is incredibly low, does that mean god specifically chose it for you? Not low enough? Toss one a million times, the numbers will be astronomical then.

     Also, would you like to explain why you miss the point of probabilities? To predict the unknwon. The REAL probability for life being exactly as it is now is 1. It’s a known.

     The 3 argument you mentionned have been the subject of debate for hundreds of years, and they’re no stronger now than when they were first uttered. All of them fail to do what they set out to do, prove the existence of god. As for the anthropic principle, I really doubt you understand it.

     “Aspiring PhDs in evolutionary biology programs are not taught anything of the nuances of philosophy of science, logic, logical fallacies, critical thinking, or metaphysics.”
     P{ossibly true, they would have learned that in previous years and should really have studied those on their own anyway. If you want to enter a field some independant research is expected of PhD students.

     But again, I doubt it. Critical thinking is pushed hard in all science degree courses.

     “I bluntly disagree with ALL those points. I am not going to argue on them because not only is your logic emphatically flawed in some of your responses (just to name some like non sequitur, tautology, circular reasoning, double standard, manufacturing facts from a theory)”
     pah. I didn’t expect much, but a little honesty would be nice.

     A large section of counter points you decide you dont want to (or can’t) deal with. Which you decide to simply blanketly dismiss. I could do that too, I suppose, but I value honesty a little too much.

     “So stop trying to lure me to the ‘dark side’ or convince me that the GTE is fact.”
     Ya know I would love to know more about this “GTE” you seem so afraid of.
     Sounds like an interesting strawman, probably burns quite nicely. We could make anight of it! A few beers some bbq, and a big heap of burning fallacy!

     “Personally I’d agree to disagree altogether. ”
     Nah. I don’t think so. I’m not interested in a draw

     “radiocarbon dating is a joke”
     Proof please.
     Unless it’s used improperly, it is very reliable.

     Of course creationists love to use it improperly, so that they can then crow about how it didn’t give the right answer. When used properly there is no documented case of it being “wrong”.

     “At McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic, carbon-14 tested the blood of a seal, freshly killed, and showed the seal had died 1,300 years ago. Carbon dating results stated that a lake Bonney seal, known to have died only a few weeks before, had died between 515 and 715 years ago.”
     As I said, if not used improperly. Like these cases.
     You can’t use it for recent things, because the amounts of C-14 on earth have been changed massively by both atomic bombs and by the burning of fossil fuels.

     “Carbon-14 dating showed that the hair on the Chekurovka mammoth was 26,000 years of carbon-14 age but the peaty soil in which is was preserved was only 5,600 years of carbon-14 age.”
     This one threw me for a bit, but given the numbers, I think you mean the Vollosovitch or Dima mammoths. In which case this is a known case of creationist lies.
     Unless you don’t mean this case, so um.. feel free to cite a source.

     “Two Hawaiian lava flows, which happened only about 200 years ago in 1800 and 1801, was measured by scientists to be 164 million and 3 billion years.”
     Another case of improper use of dating methods.
     For a start the lava itself was NOT dated, but the xenoliths within it, which contain excess Argon. Secondly the lava itself was known to be too young for K-Ar dating to give accurate results.
     The lava “can be said to contain no measurable radiogenic argon within experimental error.”

     Accurate results could have easily been obtained via intellectually honest methodology.

     “The shells of Melanoides tuberculatus snails living today in artesian springs in southern Nevada are indicated to have an apparent age of 27,000 years by it’s Carbon-14 contents.”
     again with the misuse of carbon dating. It’s fun isn’t it
     And very close to nuclear testing sites too.

     “it would be wise to ignore them because they simply imply pervasive contamination and ancient variations in carbon-14 levels.”
     Or you could date them properly.

     “Does science prove there is a Creator or no Creator? The answer to both is an astounding ‘no.’”
     has anyone been claiming that it did?

340. WAH
     December 6th, 2007 | 23:27

     “What is the “General Theory of Evolution” and “Biological Theory of Evolution”?”
     You don’t know the difference because you’ve been indoctrinated into believing that biological evolution (fact) is the same concept as the theory of evolution (theory).
     http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/origines/myth.htm
     The theory is formally known as GTE, derived from atheistic, naturalistic presupposition, although some theists now espouse the idea. The theory encompasses the processes of biological evolution, the origin of life, and aspects of cosmic evolution via the Big Bang. The GTE holds to the following historical claims: BB, Abiogenesis, Com. Desc. Cosmic Chronology. The GTE should not be confused with biological evolution, which is simply the process whereby characteristics change within a population over time (natural selection, speciation, genetic diversity). While this process is a demonstrable, repeatable, observable fact acknowledged by both creationists and evolutionists, the theoretical aspect of common descent is an unfalsifiable historical claim based on unfalsifiable philosophical assumptions, and is disputed by creationists as a non sequitar logical fallacy.

     “Seems another pointless creationist distinction based on what you can no longer deny”
     I never denied that theory is theory and fact is fact. Theory and fact aren’t the same and it appears you don’t want to deny that truth. What I’ll deny is the evolutionary atheistic worldview and the theories that go along with that, except for what is largely accepted as fact from a Christian theistic worldview.

     “Again, the use fo the word “faith”.”
     Faith is only good as in what the object is being placed in. You have faith that life came from non-life w/o external intervention or that the theory will be proven someday. I have faith in that God did create life and already sacrificed Himself for us on the cross to give us eternal life.

     “From there we can look at all of the historical data, and see how life evolved from extremely primitive forms into the modern day.”
     It shows how life evolves. That’s no dispute. Just don’t use all that scientific data as historical proof that life ultimately came from non-life.

     “You also conflate secular and atheistic.”
     That’s hardly detrimental compared to evolutionists who do the same thing and tell everyone else that fact and theory should be treated as one concept.

     “So I’ll need something to support this claim as being representative of at least the majority…Critical thinking is pushed hard in all science degree courses.”
     http://www.biology.ucsc.edu/eeb/grad/phddegree.html
     But not hard enough. The course that comes closest, Scientific Skills, is described as follows: “Exposes graduate students to teaching skills, understanding the scientific method, searching and organizing literature, grant proposal writing, data management and presentation, and scientific speaking. Students are evaluated on their participation and the quality of a written research proposal.” The students appear to learn a great deal about grant-writing, but absolutely nothing about philosophy of science. The vast majority of evolutionary biology programs are similar to this one. Harvard’s program is even less structured than this one, and like this one, requires no coursework in philosophy of science, logic, or critical thinking.

     “So you admit to demanding an unreasonable level of evidence. Nothing in science has that kind of evidence, not even the existence of gravity. Not even the reality of reality is proven to that level.”
     What I admit to is demanding the same amount of evidence that the theory demands to be proven fact and no longer a theory. If that day arrives where the theory is no longer unfalsifiable and officially called a fact or law, then there would be no more experiments to test in that particular field. It’s not so much as I’m demanding that much as it is that the theory claims that life spontaneously came into existence from nothing, so, in essences, we have to test an experiment to create life in order to observe the theory in action. The demand of evidence (or conceivable experiments) speaks for itself in the theoretical claim.

     “Evolution makes no changes to rocks, it just requires them to be dated properly. That’s the geologists contribution to it.”
     Sedimentary rocks contains fossils and ammonites species found in them haven’t been found to reflect evolutionary changes, unless you want to use punctual equilibrium as an excuse to explain that. Nonetheless, the fossil record does not support the theory of evolution as much as special creation.

     “and did NOT present this one as some sort of human ancestor.”
     But they sure made up a picture of it and its wife to make it look like or imply it’s human-like. “Well, we’re not gonna present this one as some sort of human ancestor but we’ll draw a picture for you that makes it look like it’s part human and we’ll let the public decide for themselves based on our speculation.” Seems like passive-aggressive suggestion.

     “And this part’s just a lie. Or you were lied to, either/or.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebraska_man
     Until the correction was made official, some parts of the community and the public was generally uninformed of the new correction and remained ignorant. Still, it was 8 long years that had passed until the mistake was revealed and another 2 years to publicly make it official. Basically, it was an official mistake that took ten years to officially correct, even though the science community generally knew it was a mistake after 8 years of its discovery.

     “You really should go read it.”
     I have. And it doesn’t matter because paleontologists who have any sense dropped the evolutionary tree.

     “By your definition people who cannot talk are not intelligent. This shows your argument is flawed.”
     Not really. Monkies aren’t people.

     “There are gaps between you and your parents, that doesn’t mean you’re not descended from them.”
     There are no gaps between child and parent. They’re a direct physical link between each other. You can’t get any closer than that.

     “God killed many many people. So he fails them too.”
     God can’t contradict His own nature, even His morals. The Lord has to carry out justice to punish the wicked as just as a court judge who has justified authority to sentence a child molester or crime offender to death/prison by the law.

     “Been there, done that. You’ve had your evidence, and admitted that no amount of evidence is good enough for you.”
     i’ll admit as soon as you admit there’s no evidence for the theory of evolution. Where? I don’t see anyone creating a perfect fully functional human hand from nothing or mutating a fish into a human. Admit that the Lord will not allow man to be god.

     “It’s not though. It’s a made up claim of where it’s going, it in no way resembles the reality of it.”
     actually it does. Experiments to prove the theory of evolution that life can evolve from non-life means scientists will have to conduct an observable experiment where we can create life. IOW, be god ourselves. In fact, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis#Human_attempts_to_create_life
     tells us that man is attempting to create life to support abiogenesis, an evolutionary origin of life model that’s one of the historical claims of the theory of evolution. Creationists believe that only God can create and give life for in Jesus Christ, He has already given us everlasting life through His death on the cross for those who willingly give their life to Jesus they will receive life, for those who keep theirs will lose it.

     “Care to cite a source for this?”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
     Lee Strobel in his book, A Case for Faith quotes William Bradley, “The optimism of the 1950’s is gone. The mood at the 1999 International Conference on Origin of Life was described as grim-full of frustration, pessimism and desperation.”
     The thing is – scientists do not see either abiogenesis or intelligent design instantly creating life in front of their eyes happening in nature when observations take place, but rather what is attempted to see abiogenesis is through controlled expirmentation. Controlled expirementation which has not to date ultimately produced what is consistent with the evolutionary origin of life model. What this implies in the context of both origin of life models, abiogenesis and intelligent design by God for evolution and creationism respectively are no more scientific than the other. Each have a profound reliance on faith since neither can be observed in nature by science and neither have been succesfully been shown to work through expirementation. If indeed the process of abiogenesis is formed in the lab and life creates, it’s plausibility and actual manifestation of a mechanism for the origin of life was only possible through deliberate design of intelligent minds. There will still be no known process acting naturally producing life from non-life, abiogenesis cannot be considered scientific in anymore of a way than a supernatural act even if expirementation produces results consistent with abiogenesis. IOW, despite repeated attempts under every reproducible circumstance, atheistic scientists have been unable to reproduce a reasonable method for the origin of life without a creator, nor do they have a clear understanding of the chemistry involved. Believe it or not, many evolutionists have now chosen to remain agnostic on the actual origin of life, and will frequently try to dodge the issue by claiming that abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.
     When the theory was formally known as GTE, it was coupled with abiogenesis officially but now they are dodging it and replacing and mixing biological evolution with common descent. The history of evolutionary theory never makes up its mind. Too wishy washy.

     “Really?”
     Yes. You’re charging that someone coming to saving knowledge of Christianity is inconceivable but in the OT there have been non-Christians who were directly approached by the Lord Himself and upon acting upon their faith in the God of Isreal without knowing anything about Him, Christianity or Judaism they were declared righteous in God’s eyes. When God came down and chose the Israelites to be His people and used them to sanctify them from other people and religions. When the Holy SPirit came down on Paul to spread the Good News. That’s observable fact according to historical-legal-documentation. Historical claims backed with historical evidence. Its reliability tested as well. On the other hand, the GTE makes an historical claim that life came from non-life and over time life evolved from particles to humans by natural means is conceivable if we travel back in time to see it actually happen in natural observance but that concept of falsifiability fails since anyone can think of anything subjectively. Instead, an experiment needs to be conducted to test the idea on an objective basis but even trying to prove a historical claim by scientific method is not effective as providing a solid witness to testify its claims. Even evolutionists admit that fossil records don’t’ support the theory. So that leaves experiments to be tested to prove or disprove it. Thus making the theory reliable scientific knowledge or not. The GTE has many obstacles to jump over. It seems you’re getting closer to proving it in the near future but God won’t allow it and this theoretical paradigm will fade away. Christianity has been around for thousands of years while modern science has been around for no more than
     a few centuries. The book of Daniel prophecies the time when people increase in knowledge, and so the Scientific Revolution happened around a biblical revival in Europe and Christianity’s influence upon it. Of course now modern science in the days of Richard Dawwkins has deviated science from its original meaning of God’s creation to a new way of thinking that is perfectly fits well with atheism.

     “bah.”
     yah. For the GTE to be falsifiable you need to ‘conceive’ the experiment but that’s only subjective because one person may conceive it today but tomorrow another person may not. OR, more preferably, conduct an experiment under today’s scientific knowledge, not yesterdays’ or tomorrow’s. So far, the theory is being scientifically tested but inconclusive to make it fact or otherwise false. Either way, the smoking gun is in your head as in theoretical thinking and not empirically observable like biological evolution.

     “Which only exists in your mind….There is evidence though, as I have said repeatedly. Mostly between higher orders, and not at the species level, which is where punctuated equilibrium is dealing with.”
     Evidence supporting biological evolution, not the theory. I don’t see the natural creation of life from nothing without external intervention. You seem to conflate evidence for biological evolution as supported evidence for the GTE and insist that very same evidence supports the theory. The evidence you need to support the theory falls outside of the realm of evidence in fossils. It needs to be repeatedly observable in nature (or in a controlled experiment) that life came from nothing and all life came from a slimy pond. To this day, no one has been able to scientifically prove the theory of evolutionary origin of life model or special creation for that matter, so evolutionists ignore the ‘evolutionary origin-of-life story’ by ‘playing dumb’. Aside from the ‘creation accounts’, particularly from the bible, there has not been any legal-history-records documenting a story so consistent with the description of God’s nature and divine plan for human kind uniquely found in Scripture.

     “rare fossils are”
     rare fossils are rare and it certainly proves species evolve into different varieties of its species kind but don’t treat it as if it proves the entirety of GTE. The GTE is more like a philosophical world view that challenges the Christian world view rather than a scientific theory, even though it’s heralded as one.

     “Because they’re useful at times.
     Now answer the question please.”
     A loaded question is a logical fallacy and the answer won’t prove anything, unless you want to answer it yourself to make a meaningless point.

     “Good thing that fossil finds fill in those gaps then”
     fills in the gaps for the former not the latter.

     “No difference between the two, answer the question or conceed.”
     There is a difference. There are matches because the process of biological evolution exists but since that is not the same as common descent, in its ultimate evolutionary conclusion, or even abiogenesis, it doesn’t support the theory one bit. They’re not the same. You’re trying to conflate the two as if they are the same. You’re saying: “There is a great deal of evidence for biological evolution. Therefore the general theory of evolution is true.” This argument is fallacious, because while biological evolution makes no claim as to the origin of life and allows for the possibility that it was originally created, the general theory of evolution claims that life originated by chance through abiogenesis, a speculation for which there is neither evidence nor comprehensive explanation. Further, while biological evolution says only that life changes over time, but allows that some biological diversity may be the result of creation, the general theory of evolution holds that this change occurs without limits, and that all biological diversity is due to evolution, another speculation for which there is neither evidence nor comprehensive explanation.
     By conflating biological evolution with the general theory of evolution, these evolutionists make arguments that sound meaningful, but are actually meaningless. They note changes in the size of finch beaks, and infer (without evidence) that bears can evolve into whales. They note superficial changes in structure change by natural selection, and infer that the structure itself evolved by the same mechanism. Or, more generally, they prove biological evolution (an idea nobody disputes), fail to provide evidence for the general theory of evolution, and then claim that their evidence for biological evolution supports the general theory.
     http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/08/true_or_false_darwinian_evolut.html

     “I’ve never heard a scientist use the term “General theory of Evolution”.”
     G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (Oxford, UK Pergamon, 1960), p 157. The idea is ancient in origin, being held by Greek philosophers such as Anaxagorus, but was recently revived in Europe and America during the secularization of the 19th century.
     Darwin observed changes in the shape and size of the beaks of finches. From this observable and very minor example of biological evolution, he created a general theory of evolution, that all species diversity is a result of biological evolution. As he stated in The Origin of Species: “In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale. (On the Origin of Species (1859), original edition, p. 184)” Darwin omitted this story in other editions of Origin (because it was received as preposterous), but regretted his revision: “I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear’s mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits. (”More Letters of Charles Darwin,” 1903, page 162).

     “No, you made an argument based on the appearance of design, ignoreing that the only real hallmark of design is that it defies the natural order of things, and that’s not conclusive. Life does not defy any natural order, and thus the argument from perceived design fails.”
     Then you’re really arguing against Richard Dawkins because I was simply pointing out that he made that argument which he himself basically says that biologists must admit that there is a design, falsely made by nature. But you and I knows it’s absurd even though evolutionists tell us that in public school by inference. Your views basically contradicts his, thereby inconsistent with your own logic.

     “Again you fail to comprehend.
     Rocks do not erode into such shapes, thus intelligent intervention is encessary. Life is merely chemistry, thus none is needed. No fallacy, just your lack of understanding. I think you need to learn the meaning of the word “tautology”.”
     No I have not. We simply have different views of the metaphysical underpinnings of evolution: you are a deterministic evolutionist. After life begins then everything naturally flows without any external intervention. It’s all part of how life works and chemistry. I know you don’t want to push the question further back into an area that is just theoretical according to evolution: like life does not just come into existence without some kind of intelligent intervention. So you must admit that it’s possible that life is created by external intervention.

     “Mine is to answer things as best we can.”
     Creationism has an answer for that which biological evolution doesn’t. But the theory of evolution is now being used in an attempt to provide an alternative answer. A new answer that is philosophically inferior to the answer given by the Christian world-view.

     “They don’t think that though.
     Again with the conflation of atheism and evolution.”
     Think again. It’s not a conflation by my opinion. It’s a fact that atheism and evolution are a married couple since their views are very similar. That’s why they make a good couple. The scientific community, above any other subgroup of the population, has become overwhelmingly atheistic. According to a 1998 report in Nature, a survey by Edward Larson found that, “among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever; almost total”. Interestingly, the biologists in the National Academy of Sciences were found to possess the lowest rate of belief of all the science disciplines, with only 5.5% believing in God.http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v394/n6691/full/394313a0.html This decline in belief in biologists strongly indicates the nature of the cause, and the ability of the teaching of evolutionary biology to turn people away from a belief in God. The views of the general population over the last couple of decades remain largely unchanged with regard to creation vs. evolution. Also the number of people becoming atheists or agnostics in the USA has not changed in the last ten years according to social researchers. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_25_121/ai_n8583017 However, a Gallup Poll found a clear trend demonstrating that higher education, and belief in evolution as the source of human existence were concurrent. From these statistics it would appear that higher education, and particularly specialization in the natural sciences will indoctrinate students into naturalism or an atheistic view of the world. http://library.thinkquest.org/29178/gallup.htm
     Shown here is the percentage in each country which responded that “they believe there is a god”.
     http://creationwiki.org/pool/images/thumb/3/3e/Europe_belief_in_god.png/150px-Europe_belief_in_god.png Education in these naturalistic philosophies, and the pervasive teaching of evolution is almost certainly the principal influence affecting the rise of atheism in our scientific community. Evolution may be better called evolutionism as it is considered a religion by many. Evolution is the champion theory of secular humanism, and a scientific community now totally under the control of an atheistic majority. Sounds like an agenda don’t it?

     “pah!”
     yah! Look up Barrow and Tipler yourself. Life can never happen until God adds the last ingredient. From then on the rest is cake. Tons upon tons of prophecies was fulfilled in Jesus Christ but scientific study showed that just 8 prophecies would take a scientific probability of 1 in 10 to the 27th power. Look up H. Harold Artzler’s review of Peter W. Stoner’s ‘Science Speaks’. The sources are certainly not without its criticisms or unbiased reviews. But that’s mostly a physics debate which is a different story….

     “The 3 argument you mentionned have been the subject of debate for hundreds of years, and they’re no stronger now than when they were first uttered. All of them fail to do what they set out to do, prove the existence of god. As for the anthropic principle, I really doubt you understand it.”
     Obviously. And the rival arguments failed to do the opposite. You don’t know every crack in the universe so you can’t disprove it. But these arguments haven’t failed as much as modern man’s failure to acknowledge God. They appeared around the time when Christian skepticism began but a century more or less before modern atheism as it is known today arrived on the scene. As for as anthropic principle I know a great deal on it more than you think and I don’t care about proving it to you either. Sorry no treats for you this time. You’re gonna have to take my word for it or just simply ignore what I just said. And by saying, “Ignored.” is not a form of unacknowledgment either.

     “pah. I didn’t expect much, but a little honesty would be nice. A large section of counter points you decide you dont want to (or can’t) deal with. Which you decide to simply blanketly dismiss. I could do that too, I suppose, but I value honesty a little too much.”
     Yah. You calling me a liar now? You should critique your own comments. They’ll show you. And all those comments are simply “No” or “yes” coupled with an opposite answer for a response. So it’s futile. IOW, it’s like you saying, “No. There is no God.” and you can figure what I would respond to that.

     “Proof please.”
     Considering that it can be used improperly and IS by both sides is proof.

     “Of course creationists love to use it improperly, so that they can then crow about how it didn’t give the right answer. When used properly there is no documented case of it being “wrong”.”
     Even creationists use radio-carbon to date the DSS’s. The objects on which it is tested on determines the reliability of the test more than the method itself. That’s why historical documents are more reliable for a certain range of years, after that it becomes unreliable.

     “because the amounts of C-14 on earth have been changed massively by both atomic bombs and by the burning of fossil fuels.”
     Too bad that’s not the only reason why it is so.

     “Unless you don’t mean this case, so um.. feel free to cite a source.”
     “Dry bones and other fossils” by Dr. Gary Parker
     LOL. And that’s a kids book too! It’s elementary common scientific knowledge. Everybody should know that, unless they’re a hermit hiding in a cave. LOL. I can’t believe I’m referring you to a pre-school kids book. My Gosh REDEM. are you that uninformed?! haha.

     “Another case of improper use of dating methods…again with the misuse of carbon dating.”
     Actually, no. Improper use can give inaccurate results but doesn’t mean it’s not possible to get inaccurate results from proper use since it’s been recorded. Seems like that would the case as well as using the improper use of methods to explain away the unreliability of dating. It was properly applied according to Radiocarbon Journal, Vol. 8, 1966. and Alan C. Riggs, Scbuience, vol 224 (1984) 58-61

     “So it’s not an historical record then? Goood. Glad we agree”
     Some stories are allegorical. The bible is mostly an historical record.

     “That only matters if we first assume it’s true.”
     We don’t have to assume it’s true to recognize its uniqueness because no other religion makes that exclusive claim that is supported by more historical-legal-documentation. IOW, even if it’s not true, for the sake of discussion, it is still unique in its claims.

     “So again, there is nothing to distinguish yours from everyone else’s. Your religion is linked with othe peoples, in so much as they are all religions. That’s not a fallacy dude.”
     It’s a fallacy to link Christianity with other religions because essentially at its core it is not so much a religion as it is having a personal relationship with God the Creator through the person of Jesus Christ, the One who died for us on the cross, resurrected and conquered death and gives eternal life for anyone who believes on Him. He is God descending to become man, and saving His people through a selfless death and resurrection that lifts him up to Lordship over the heavens and the earth. That story is unique. The life, death and ressurrection of Jesus of Nazereth doesn’t compare to any other religion on the same theologically divine level. If we would say that Christianity is not unique just because two or more religions have similar images or themes, one must have come from another, then we simply can’t explain the history of religion. These connections and themes are literally global. People making this argument against Christianity would really, eventually, have to argue for one common mother of all religions, but that wouldn’t really work very well with the rest of their worldview. But people can and do make Christianity into a religion though but if you look closer and hear what God is really saying to us in the bible is that He desires a relationship with you, not a religion. That’s what distinguishes it from all other religion unless you can theologlically point out the exact same set of traits without sounding too ignorant.

     “Nah. I don’t think so. I’m not interested in a draw”
     oh. I’m sorry. Does one of us HAVE to agree with the other? I didn’t call for a stalemate if that’s what you’re implying. We simply are on different sides of the spectrum. You’re an atheist (or agnostic) and I’m a biblical theist. Evolution and creationism can’t reconcile, even though that’s what the whole ID is vying for but I personally don’t buy that. I’d rather stay where I’m at and have you come over to our camp so you can enjoy God’s salvational blessings and be the person that God has called you to be but I think that’s never going to happen ever. Neither am I going to concede into a life of hopelessness and meaninglessness driven by atheistic and secular evolutionism views that we are biological machines rather than the creation whom God deems worthy to His calling. So where do we stand now? Where we stood before this online charade. Why we’re both stubborn. Luckily I have the Lord on my side (and you could too of course) and if I’m with Him then who can be against the Creator of the Universe? know what i mean green jelly bean?

     “Just read it dude. It was a joke mostly, and I can’t be bothered to go into it.”
     Lol. Yea. sure. You weren’t kidding. Not in the least. right? If you can’t be bothered to go into something like the bible then why am I bothering myself to go into evolution? Just bear with me here it’s not that difficult to endure. Mark 11 is basically about God’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. So the Lord came down to Earth in the flesh, in the person and life of Jesus Christ, and calling upon those who will believe on Him to be used for His purposes. Since it’s rather long and arduous I’ll take the liberty of allowing an intermission for the time being and will further address this message last in conclusion after your next rebuttal, to which I will try to respond in one lump proceeding the final comments from you of this. I feel it’s more edifying in ministering to speaking people through the heart rather than the mind. Like it or not pal you’ve opened ‘a can of sweet n’ sour fruits’ .

     “So um. do you have any responses to my actual points there or are you just conceeding them?”
     bones and fossils don’t support the theory that humans actually did evolve from apes; it just proves how life evolves, the process of biology. Keep on fooling yourself. LOL. I concede that you are determined as I am, maybe more. As for responses to any of your actual points: I’ll just flat out deny them all and say, “No!” LOL. because honestly they don’t really speak to me internally but it gives me an external headache — too many intellectual thought that’s vain, it doesn’t hit home at all one bit. I’m sorry man. Arguing with you on your points that you make, is fruitless, lifeless and blessless and brings no joy to my heart at all but death. I only concede to the notion that you are more ‘enlightened’ or ‘edified’ or even ‘entertained’ from this experience than I because it appears you’re enjoying this more on a egotistical level. I’ve never seen so many smugs in one line of conversation in my life. LOL.

     Dude. No matter what you say I’m gonna say exactly the opposite. You say the sky is blue. I’ll say it’s green or aqua. LOL. I imagine us running around in circles chasing our own tails. Hehe. Do you actually enjoy this? I know what you’re going to assert next in your responses; something that will correct my *quote* mistakes *unquote* right? And guess what I’m gonna respond next after that? Yes that’s right i’m going to say something that will in turn correct what you said to make me look right and then you’re gonna say something back to make yourself sound right. You don’t see it? We’re just throwing ideas of opposing worldviews out to see which one of us has more determination. It’s a game of who’s going to back down first or the last one to get the last word. LOL. Anything you will ask of me further like proof, sources, information, inquiries, etc, etc I’ve decided at this moment I’m no longer liberated to entertain you because I won’t, not because I can’t. Every other question or statement that denies or contradict my views will be ignored because my response to that would be quite the opposite. And no, it’s not a matter of honesty. Me choosing to disagree with you on all your statements in one blanket or refusal to answer your questions isn’t a matter of integrity or giving up; it’s a question of “should we continue, or why are we, to waste our time?” Maybe I have too much free time on my hands. Maybe you don’t have much of a social life. Maybe I need to get out more. Maybe you don’t have any friends. I don’t know. Through all of this, have you learned from me anything beneficial for you personally? I hope so but I really doubt so. Because I haven’t learned anything substantial or edifying for that matter from you either, at least anything that changes my views on things. We need to end this “thing we have” soon because it looks like we’re wasting our time on each other.

341. Redem
     December 7th, 2007 | 09:41

     “The GTE holds to the following historical claims: BB, Abiogenesis, Com. Desc. Cosmic Chronology. The GTE should not be confused with biological evolution, which is simply the process whereby characteristics change within a population over time (natural selection, speciation, genetic diversity).”

     So basically you define “GTE” as the entire history of the universe, as opposed to other people, who don’t.
     Ok for you I suppose, but no one else uses those terms in that way, this is probably where a lot of your confusion comes from.

     “http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/cosmos/origines/myth.htm”
     You link to another creationist who seems to have been the one to coin the term, and not a scientist using the term. I think this is proof enough of what ths term is for.

     “the theoretical aspect of common descent is an unfalsifiable historical claim based on unfalsifiable philosophical assumptions, and is disputed by creationists as a non sequitar logical fallacy.”
     Except for the pesky fossil record which could falsify common descent, but instead supports it entirely.
     Also, all philosophical assumptions are unfalsifiable, fyi.

     “You have faith that life came from non-life w/o external intervention or that the theory will be proven someday.”
     Actually, no. I simply see no reason to say that it hasn’t been. I’ve not been advocating any theory of abiogenesis in here, afterall.
     I can accept “I don’t know yet” as an answer, I don’t need to fill those gaps with the word “god”.

     “It shows how life evolves. That’s no dispute. Just don’t use all that scientific data as historical proof that life ultimately came from non-life.”
     It’s not, I think I said a few times that none of this has anything to do with the origin of life. Indirectly, admittedly. We are discussing the theory of evolution here, with some religion sidelines, not the origin of life.

     “That’s hardly detrimental compared to evolutionists who do the same thing and tell everyone else that fact and theory should be treated as one concept.”
     I’ve seen no one say that.

     “The students appear to learn a great deal about grant-writing, but absolutely nothing about philosophy of science. The vast majority of evolutionary biology programs are similar to this one. Harvard’s program is even less structured than this one, and like this one, requires no coursework in philosophy of science, logic, or critical thinking.”
     Nor do the physics or chemistry faculties, I checked.
     Seems that these things are covered in the science skills section, under the scientific method.

     And also, grant writing is an important skill all scientists need to learn. They can do no work without a grant.

     “What I admit to is demanding the same amount of evidence that the theory demands to be proven fact and no longer a theory. If that day arrives where the theory is no longer unfalsifiable and officially called a fact or law, then there would be no more experiments to test in that particular field. It’s not so much as I’m demanding that much as it is that the theory claims that life spontaneously came into existence from nothing, so, in essences, we have to test an experiment to create life in order to observe the theory in action. The demand of evidence (or conceivable experiments) speaks for itself in the theoretical claim”
     That’s not a claim of the theory of evolution, however.
     So why would any scientists in that field be interested in “proving” it?

     The theory of evolution is falsifiable, and has not been despite continual rigorous attemps to do so.

     “Sedimentary rocks contains fossils and ammonites species found in them haven’t been found to reflect evolutionary changes, unless you want to use punctual equilibrium as an excuse to explain that.”
     No need to. This is simply wrong.

     There are no changes because they didn’t change, evolution doesn’t require them to.

     “Nonetheless, the fossil record does not support the theory of evolution as much as special creation.”

     Only in the sense that it is possible that every fossil was the result of god continually replacing species that die out with new ones that look similar to them, but not quite exactly like them. it does not support an explicit biblical genesis account. Noah’s flood and all that.

     “But they sure made up a picture of it and its wife to make it look like or imply it’s human-like.”
     An artist working for a non-scientific magazine equals “they” now?

     “Basically, it was an official mistake that took ten years to officially correct, even though the science community generally knew it was a mistake after 8 years of its discovery.”
     Did you read your own link?
     The man who discovered the tooth and made the initial wrong classification called the drawing “a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate”
     And later it says “Although the identity of H. haroldcookii did not achieve general acceptance in the scientific community, and although the species was retracted after ten years of its discovery, creationists are using this episode as an example of the scientific errors that they say undermine the credibility of palaeontology and hominid evolution.”

     It was in NO way an “official” mistake, and was never widely accepted by the scientific community, who didn’t care much about it, let alone be desperate to promote it as a “missing link” as you claimed earlier.

     “I have. And it doesn’t matter because paleontologists who have any sense dropped the evolutionary tree.”
     By which you mean “Those who agree with me”.

     “Not really. Monkies aren’t people.”
     Your definition of intelligence is flawed.

     “There are no gaps between child and parent. They’re a direct physical link between each other. You can’t get any closer than that.”
     Really? So you can look at two bodies and easily see if they are parent and child?
     No.
     You cannot.

     “God can’t contradict His own nature, even His morals. The Lord has to carry out justice to punish the wicked as just as a court judge who has justified authority to sentence a child molester or crime offender to death/prison by the law.”
     You’re avoiding the issue. Which is that by his own defintions and laws he is a sinner.
     Of course you will say he is not bound by those rules, but I’ve never considered “do as I say, not as I do” to be a particularly laubible trait.

     “i’ll admit as soon as you admit there’s no evidence for the theory of evolution.”
     But there is

     Lots of it.

     “I don’t see anyone creating a perfect fully functional human hand from nothing or mutating a fish into a human.”
     Neither of which are should be possible under the theory of evolution, so why their lack is a problem I dunno.

     “Experiments to prove the theory of evolution that life can evolve from non-life means scientists will have to conduct an observable experiment where we can create life. IOW, be god ourselves.”
     That’s abiogenesis, not the thoery of evolution.

     And it is a work in progress, yeah. It’s really just a technical problem though, there’s no conceivable reason why it won’t work eventually, it is just chemistry afterall. We have managed artificial viruses, a good start.

     “In fact, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis#Human_attempts_to_create_life
     tells us that man is attempting to create life to support abiogenesis, an evolutionary origin of life model that’s one of the historical claims of the theory of evolution”
     That article needs serious editing.
     But anyway, most of those were not “human attempts to create life” but were studies in creating organic molecules from non-organic processes.

     In the next bit you respond to me question by linking to the abiogenesis wiki page. I had asked you for a source showing that abiogenesis was a part of the theory of evolution. This wiki page does nothing of the sort, it merely explains abiogenesis.

     Try again?

     Also, please note the 2nd law of thermodynamics section, it supports on of my earlier refutations >.<
     A really annoying one.

     “What this implies in the context of both origin of life models, abiogenesis and intelligent design by God for evolution and creationism respectively are no more scientific than the other.”

     They’re still not equal though. As abiogenesis is a science in which experimentation is done and hypothesis discarded/supported in the process. ID does no research, and creates no hypothesis to test.

     “If indeed the process of abiogenesis is formed in the lab and life creates, it’s plausibility and actual manifestation of a mechanism for the origin of life was only possible through deliberate design of intelligent minds.”
     Nothing we do in labs would be impossible outside of them. That’s kinda the whole point.

     It would show quite plainly that no supernatural intervention would be needed for life to exist. And there would be a difference between two different kinds of experiments. Those where we engineer new life forms, and those were we simulate pre-biotic relicating biochemical machines to see how they act in various environments. The former not supporting abiogenesis much but showing that life does not require a supernatural creator, and the latter showing that it is explicitly possible for it to have happened in nature.

     “IOW, despite repeated attempts under every reproducible circumstance, atheistic scientists have been unable to reproduce a reasonable method for the origin of life without a creator, nor do they have a clear understanding of the chemistry involved.”
     Every reproducable circumstance? There’s been how many, a dozen that I know of, experiments ont he subject. hardly every possible circumstance. And if, as you say, we don;t fully understand the chemistry involved, then how can we know if that is all of the possible circumstances?

     Obviously we cannot and have not exhausted the possibilities.

     “Believe it or not, many evolutionists have now chosen to remain agnostic on the actual origin of life, and will frequently try to dodge the issue by claiming that abiogenesis is not part of the theory of evolution.”
     It’s not though. It’s in YOUR special definition that includes the big bang and a few other scientific theories all rolled into one, but it’s not included in the one scientists use.

     The clue is in the title. Theory of evolution, the explanation for how life changes.

     “You’re charging that someone coming to saving knowledge of Christianity is inconceivable but in the OT there have been non-Christians who were directly approached by the Lord Himself”
     Well that kinda breaks the “no knowledge” clause of my question, in that they were led towards christianity by someone. That is not what I asked.
     Without any sort of knowledge, do you really think someone would become a christian?

     “That’s observable fact according to historical-legal-documentation. Historical claims backed with historical evidence.”
     There is historical evidence for the holy spirit visiting paul now? This I gotta see.

     “Either way, the smoking gun is in your head as in theoretical thinking and not empirically observable like biological evolution.”
     The smoking gun is defined as to be non-existent. While you stick with taht, the rest of the world will move on with the real evidence.
     I would consider the entire mountain of supporting evidence to BE the smoking gun
     And to repeat again, the theory of evolution is entirely falsifiable, you just gotta do so, and earn yourself a nobel prize.

     “Evidence supporting biological evolution, not the theory.”
     Not the theory you’re talking about, but the one everyone else is talking about.
     The theory of evolution.

     “rare fossils are rare and it certainly proves species evolve into different varieties of its species kind but don’t treat it as if it proves the entirety of GTE. The GTE is more like a philosophical world view that challenges the Christian world view rather than a scientific theory, even though it’s heralded as one.”
     On the matter of common descent, to describe the ancestors of whales as being the same “kind” of animal is to stretch the definition to absurdity.

     “You’re saying: “There is a great deal of evidence for biological evolution. Therefore the general theory of evolution is true.” This argument is fallacious, because while biological evolution makes no claim as to the origin of life and allows for the possibility that it was originally created, the general theory of evolution claims that life originated by chance through abiogenesis, a speculation for which there is neither evidence nor comprehensive explanation.”
     To repeat myself, I have always been talking about the theory of evolution, not your “GTE”, I’ve made that clear through repitition, and explicitly stating it. So no, I haven’t been saying anything like that.

     “They note changes in the size of finch beaks, and infer (without evidence) that bears can evolve into whales. They note superficial changes in structure change by natural selection, and infer that the structure itself evolved by the same mechanism.”
     Short term, relatively small observed changes are proof of concepts. The larger scale of the fossil record is where support for larger changes is found.

     ““I’ve never heard a scientist use the term “General theory of Evolution”.”
     G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (Oxford, UK Pergamon, 1960), p 157. The idea is ancient in origin, being held by Greek philosophers such as Anaxagorus, but was recently revived in Europe and America during the secularization of the 19th century.”
     I doubt the term is greek in origin, it’s not in greek for a start, and uses fairly modern terminology. Perhaps the idea that you are talking about is, that of a naturalistic history of the universe, but that’s another matter entirely, and not something anyone but you has been talking about.

     “Darwin observed changes in the shape and size of the beaks of finches. From this observable and very minor example of biological evolution, he created a general theory of evolution, that all species diversity is a result of biological evolution.”
     No. From that and many other observations and experiments he derives the theory of natural selection, and derived the common descent of species from that and from the fossil record.

     “As he stated in The Origin of Species: “In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale. (On the Origin of Species (1859), original edition, p. 184)” Darwin omitted this story in other editions of Origin (because it was received as preposterous), but regretted his revision: “I still maintain that there is no special difficulty in a bear’s mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits. (”More Letters of Charles Darwin,” 1903, page 162).”
     Which is not the same as saying that whales evolved from bears.

     Also, I agree with him. There is no special difficulty with his view of how things could go for a bear.
     Seems entirely reasonable.

     “Then you’re really arguing against Richard Dawkins because I was simply pointing out that he made that argument which he himself basically says that biologists must admit that there is a design, falsely made by nature. But you and I knows it’s absurd even though evolutionists tell us that in public school by inference. Your views basically contradicts his, thereby inconsistent with your own logic.”
     Nope. I agree there is an appearance of complexity which may be mistaken for design by some people, and is. And that the appearance in no way means it was designed.
     This is in no way contradictory.

     “So you must admit that it’s possible that life is created by external intervention.”
     Yes, as I stated before. But whether it did or not has no bearing on the subject at hand, how live changed over time.

     “Creationism has an answer for that which biological evolution doesn’t. But the theory of evolution is now being used in an attempt to provide an alternative answer. A new answer that is philosophically inferior to the answer given by the Christian world-view.”
     Not all answers are equal. Some are based on things like evidence, and some are based on the make-believe of cattle-sacrificing israeli primitives.

     “Think again. It’s not a conflation by my opinion. It’s a fact that atheism and evolution are a married couple since their views are very similar. That’s why they make a good couple.”
     All of science is related to atheism in the same way that evolution is, in the “this is how the world works” sense.

     “The scientific community, above any other subgroup of the population, has become overwhelmingly atheistic. According to a 1998 report in Nature, a survey by Edward Larson found that, “among the top natural scientists, disbelief is greater than ever; almost total”. Interestingly, the biologists in the National Academy of Sciences were found to possess the lowest rate of belief of all the science disciplines, with only 5.5% believing in God.”
     This is a surprise how? Religious people in america tend to grow up with the notion that evolution is evil or wrong implanted in their minds by pastors and parents. Many won’t be able to overcome these ideas and study the evidence with a clear mind. Science in general, but evolution in particular. Religious people select against themselves in high level science positions.

     “This decline in belief in biologists strongly indicates the nature of the cause, and the ability of the teaching of evolutionary biology to turn people away from a belief in God.”
     Or is a symptom of the creationists rejection of modern biology.

     “From these statistics it would appear that higher education, and particularly specialization in the natural sciences will indoctrinate students into naturalism or an atheistic view of the world.”
     Or would indicate that smarter children are less likely to buy into the creationist rhetoric and lies.

     “Evolution may be better called evolutionism as it is considered a religion by many.”
     All of those “many” are creationists.

     “Sounds like an agenda don’t it?”
     No, sounds like paranoia, to be honest.

     “Life can never happen until God adds the last ingredient.”
     Oh? Proof of this claim please.

     It seems to me that we have never found any “magical” ingredient that makes life special.

     “Tons upon tons of prophecies was fulfilled in Jesus Christ but scientific study showed that just 8 prophecies would take a scientific probability of 1 in 10 to the 27th power.”
     LMAO, no.
     Many many messiah figures arose in the world over time, many also claiming to fulfill a lot of the same criteria as Jesus. He is by no mean unique, or even the first.

     And the odds cited here are supported by what exactly?

     “You don’t know every crack in the universe so you can’t disprove it.”
     Even if we did, you would simply claim that god was undetectable by our senses. Hence totally unfalsifiable.

     “As for as anthropic principle I know a great deal on it more than you think and I don’t care about proving it to you either.”
     Oh, it needs no proof, I agree with it totally. I just think you don’t understand it

     “IOW, it’s like you saying, “No. There is no God.” and you can figure what I would respond to that.”
     For some fo them that might hold, but not for them all. Besides which my claims are rarely specific enough to warrant actual citations.

     “Considering that it can be used improperly and IS by both sides is proof.”
     Proves nothing more than some people misuse it for various reasons.

     “LOL. And that’s a kids book too! It’s elementary common scientific knowledge. Everybody should know that, unless they’re a hermit hiding in a cave. LOL. I can’t believe I’m referring you to a pre-school kids book. My Gosh REDEM. are you that uninformed?! haha. ”
     Maybe, or maybe the text is wrong. Google has no records of it either.

     Also, I’m not american, so chances are we grew up with different text books.

     “We don’t have to assume it’s true to recognize its uniqueness because no other religion makes that exclusive claim that is supported by more historical-legal-documentation. IOW, even if it’s not true, for the sake of discussion, it is still unique in its claims.”
     No more unique than any other sufficiently complex religion.

     “It’s a fallacy to link Christianity with other religions because essentially at its core it is not so much a religion as it is having a personal relationship with God the Creator”
     Uh-huuuuhhhh…

     Nah, it’s still a religion. Attempts to redifine it notwithstanding.

     “Jesus Christ, the One who died for us on the cross, resurrected and conquered death and gives eternal life for anyone who believes on Him. He is God descending to become man, and saving His people through a selfless death and resurrection that lifts him up to Lordship over the heavens and the earth. That story is unique.”
     Only in the irrelevant details. Apart from that it’s a reitteration of ealier messiah claimants, like Krishna or a few dozen others.

     “oh. I’m sorry. Does one of us HAVE to agree with the other? I didn’t call for a stalemate if that’s what you’re implying.”
     That was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, really.

     “I’d rather stay where I’m at and have you come over to our camp so you can enjoy God’s salvational blessings and be the person that God has called you to be but I think that’s never going to happen ever.”
     All I ask is a little.. proof. If that’s too much then… *shrug*

     “Neither am I going to concede into a life of hopelessness and meaninglessness driven by atheistic and secular evolutionism views that we are biological machines rather than the creation whom God deems worthy to His calling.”
     I would prefer the ugly brutal truth to a comfortable lie any day of the week.

     “Lol. Yea. sure. You weren’t kidding. Not in the least. right?”
     Kidding in the sense that it was amusing to say it, and isn’t something I particularly wanna debate. A throw away comment, rather than a joke, if you prefer that phrasing.

     “I feel it’s more edifying in ministering to speaking people through the heart rather than the mind. Like it or not pal you’ve opened ‘a can of sweet n’ sour fruits’ .”
     And I prefer to speak to people’s minds, trusting them to use it.

     “bones and fossils don’t support the theory that humans actually did evolve from apes; it just proves how life evolves, the process of biology.”
     What are we missing? We have the fossils of transitional forms from early apes to modern humans, a whole long series of them. We have the knowledge that animals evolve. We know our genetics and biochemical and anatomical and behavioural similarities. The only reasonable conclusion is that we share a common ancestor with modern apes.

     “I only concede to the notion that you are more ‘enlightened’ or ‘edified’ or even ‘entertained’ from this experience than I because it appears you’re enjoying this more on a egotistical level.”
     Trust me I am not in the least entertained by these posts. They’re a chore to be honest, especially given the clumsiness of the medium.

     “Through all of this, have you learned from me anything beneficial for you personally? I hope so but I really doubt so. Because I haven’t learned anything substantial or edifying for that matter from you either, at least anything that changes my views on things. We need to end this “thing we have” soon because it looks like we’re wasting our time on each other.”
     Learned nothing more than how easy it is to deny the obvious
     Irony notwithstanding.

342. wah
     December 8th, 2007 | 05:28

     “I don’t need to fill those gaps with the word “god”.”
     The natural world that biology and the other scientific disciplines describe is part of God’s revelation to man, with or

     without gaps.

     “I agree there is an appearance of complexity which may be mistaken for design by some people, and is. And that the

     appearance in no way means it was designed.”
     I believe some people mistake the appearance of complexity and design for randomness.

     “I’ve seen no one say that.”
     I have.

     “I simply see no reason to say that it hasn’t been.”
     And I see no reason it has.

     “Your definition of intelligence is flawed.
     Not so. My intelligence does not originate from apes. Maybe yours do.

     “as the entire history of the universe”
     correction: entire theoretical history

     “You link to another creationist who seems to have been the one to coin the term, and not a scientist using the term.”
     creationists are scientists

     “supports it entirely.”
     except for its ultimate evolutionary conclusion.

     “Seems entirely reasonable.”
     ..philosophically…

     “We have the fossils of transitional forms from early apes to modern humans, a whole long series of them.”
     Incomplete succession.

     “There are no changes because they didn’t change,”
     So you admit. Evolutionary changes never took place.

     “Proof of this claim please.”
     And why would an atheist need that sort of proof if he doesn’t believe in God at all?

     “Seems that these things are covered in the science skills section, under the scientific method.”
     The course that comes closest to those things, Scientific Skills, is described as follows: “Exposes graduate students to

     teaching skills, understanding the scientific method, searching and organizing literature, grant proposal writing, data

     management and presentation, and scientific speaking. Students are evaluated on their participation and the quality of a

     written research proposal.” I don’t see anything in that that sufficiently teaches them the philosophy of science, logic,

     logical fallacies, critical thinking, or metaphysics.

     “So why would any scientists in that field be interested in “proving” it?…most of those were not “human attempts to create

     life” but were studies in creating organic molecules from non-organic processes….in creating organic molecules from

     non-organic processes.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis#Human_attempts_to_create_life
     Essentially, they are attempts to create life from non-life. IOW, “create life.” That’s just roughly.

     “On the matter of common descent”
     The philosophical notion that human life historically originated or began (to evolve) from lifeless cells is simply

     unobservable and untestable. Even when you consider Darwin’s “tree of life”, which is not borne out in scientific

     observation, abiogenesis, and morphological gaps in the fossil record.

     “evolution doesn’t require them to.”
     A fossil is by definition a rock or mineral. It is not essentially a rock, it is a rock. Fossil changes = rock changes.

     “it is possible that every fossil was the result of god continually replacing species that die out with new ones that look

     similar to them, but not quite exactly like them.”
     Unless you’re looking at it from a baraminological POV, despite its criticisms from the scientific community.

     “Really? So you can look at two bodies and easily see if they are parent and child?”
     You’re using a non-sequitur fallacy because one comparison is the link between two or more totally different species while

     the other comparison is the link between two human beings within one species.

     “this is probably where a lot of your confusion comes from…..Theory of evolution, the explanation for how life

     changes…..Not the theory you’re talking about, but the one everyone else is talking about. The theory of evolution…..We

     are discussing the theory of evolution here….That’s not a claim of the theory of evolution, however….Only in the sense

     that it is possible that every fossil was the result of god continually replacing species that die out with new ones that

     look similar to them, but not quite exactly like them….But there is Lots of it…..Neither of which are should be

     possible under the theory of evolution, so why their lack is a problem I dunno…That’s abiogenesis, not the thoery of

     evolution…..This wiki page does nothing of the sort, it merely explains abiogenesis…..just chemistry afterall….in

     creating organic molecules from non-organic processes….I have always been talking about the theory of evolution, not your

     “GTE”,….Perhaps the idea that you are talking about is, that of a naturalistic history of the universe, but that’s another

     matter entirely, and not something anyone but you has been talking about….Not all answers are equal. Some are based on

     things like evidence….All of science is related to atheism in the same way that evolution is, in the “this is how the world

     works” sense…..Religious people in america tend to grow up with the notion that evolution is evil or wrong implanted in

     their minds by pastors and parents. Many won’t be able to overcome these ideas and study the evidence with a clear mind.

     Science in general, but evolution in particular. Religious people select against themselves in high level science

     positions…..Or would indicate that smarter children are less likely to buy into the creationist rhetoric and lies.”
     Personally, I don’t really have a problem with the theory in and of itself, because, as you suggested that it is simply an

     explanation for how life changes. However, it is by the theory’s support of those ideas and advocacy from the atheistic and

     secular community that has created this ‘general worldview’ of what evolutionary theory represents and how evolutionists

     perceive reality and the natural world to be different the theistic worldview. The term refers to those ideas that the

     evolution theory implies. They are not the same, aren’t part of each other BUT that’s what evolution theory is basically

     saying in a nutshell. On the surface, evolution theory doesn’t claim them but ultimately, if you think critically about the

     implications of evoluton theory, it explains an alternate universal truth to the naturalistic history of the universe

     contrary to Scripture, thereby supporting those ideas. Beneath the surface, the theory of evolution advocates the idea of

     origin of life, among the other claims listed, because what other explanation does it have? None. So the logical explanation

     is to say the origin of life came from non-life by chemisty or natural law. IOW, life originally came from nothing because

     where else did nature and chemistry originally come from? the big bang? singularity? You see, none of that is evolutionary

     theory but that is the only alternative to explain how Evolution (capitol ‘E’) came into existence. And while they are not

     evolution theory, they are exactly what the theory evolution is implying. But since there’s no historical evidence, fossil

     record or testable experiment to suppot those claims, evolutionists simply circumvent these ramifications by refining the

     theory and denying that evolution theory claims them. Nevertheless, the evolutionary theory’s worldview, coupled with

     atheistic influence, advocates, if not based on, those ideas. Basically, this ‘evolutionary faith’, for lack of a better

     term, is an extrapolation of the hypothetical speculations within the scientific community’s naturalistic assumptions about

     how the world is understood, understood to be damnable heresy by Scripture. It goes back to the roots of evolutionary theory

     in the former centuries, when it was revived in naturalistic opposition to the Christian worldview around the biblical

     revival in Europe. That is an example of man rejecting the truth of God for the truth of science and now in modern day

     science has become the ulitimate validation in social discourse or, IOW, the supreme social authority for truth and today,

     despite the menace of H-bombs and serious ecological problems, social trust in science as a way of salvation does not seem

     about to disappear. It is considered ‘good’ but God’s truth ‘evil’, which is illustrated by……..

     “I would prefer the ugly brutal truth to a comfortable lie any day of the week.”

     ……..Romans 1:18-23. Paul addresses this to naturalist philosphers (who were considered scientists back in their day),

     “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in

     unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation

     of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power

     and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were

     thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became

     fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed

     animals and creeping things. In verse 25 Pauls goes on to say they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped

     and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Radical ain’t it? What God was speaking

     to the Greeks through Paul then is what He is now speaking to you. To all atheistic evolutionists and secular scientists. To

     all mankind. Today. That we have turned our backs to God and have looked to the evidences. The things of this world. Away

     from the One who created these very same things for our enjoyment. We have looked to them for a truth that makes us feel

     comfortable. As long as it’s away from sin. Away from our accountability to God. He’s speaking to you now that you are guilty

     of sin before the Almighty Lord who personally created you in your mother’s womb. We have separated ourselves from God. No

     longer in communion with Him. No longer enjoying His blessings. No longer being —- in a personal – intimate – spiritual –

     relationship with God. We’re living by our flesh. We’re living by our OWN rules our OWN ways our OWN pleasures. And that’s

     what sin is: not being with God. Whatever separates us from Him. That’s what it is. ANd because the wages of sin is death,

     spiritual death now in this life and after, we ARE held accountable to God through Judgement Day. Whether you believe it or

     not. But He – WANTS – you – back. God wants to reconcile you back to Him. To restore the relationship to what He originally

     planned for you. And God made that possible by sacrificing His Son to pay for your sins. John 3:16 says that “For God so

     loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting

     life.” God Himself became flesh — in the person of Jesus Christ and sacrificed Himself *on that* cross so that YOU can be

     given life. So that YOU can receive His blessings of peace and assurance that HE HAS conquered death when He ressurected and

     so too will we be renewed in newness of life. IF – you believe on the Lord. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the roots of the theory

     of evolution. It also goes back when once after the theory was officially adhered to such claims but have abandoned them due

     to their unfalsifiabilitiness, among other criticisms. By this, the theory became falsifiable by default. Modern

     evolutionists deny that the theory ever claimed such things but that is exactly what the theory supports, not IS, but

     implies. It is by these structures of scientific thought that shape your current understanding of the world as well as

     evolution’s original meaning and modern idea of how life works. But the evolutionary theory you know now is still speculation

     based on naturalistic assumptions, both entirely fallible, since those unscientific claims, although dropped from it, are

     already ingrained into the ideology that’s behind evolution theory, exasperated by the atheistic and secular community. THIS

     IS the scientific worldview many have placed their trust, belief (or faith) on. The theory and inherent idea of how the

     modern science community is “innocent until proven guilty” itself, yet guilty itself for being intolerantly dogmatic of

     alternative ‘paradigms’ as opposed to the tolerance of the fathers of nearly every discipline of science. But scientific

     knowledge does not monopolize Truth in any sense. I do not accept evolution as dogmatic Truth (with a capitol ‘T’) and if

     you’re a responsible person, or a scientists in any respect, you should concede that it isn’t. Now how do you explain life

     outside of Evolution? That includes chemistry, matter, nature, etc.

     “Also, please note the 2nd law of thermodynamics section, it supports on of my earlier refutations”
     Actually, it doesn’t, if you were refuting that the entropy of the law is equivalent to disorder. Although it mentions that

     critics have a misconception that ‘entropy in thermodynamics is equivalent to a popular conception of “disorder”‘, it does

     not specifically state that creationists use that strawman. AFAIK, entropy is not the same as disorder, but entropy is

     logarithmically related to disorder. Entropy can be considered a measurement of disorder in the way that the Richter Scale is

     a measurement of earthquakes or decibels are a measurement of sound. The theory of evolution requires some extremely large

     increases in order and therefore an extremely large decrease in entropy. Order from chaos requires energy to be applied to

     the system in an organized manner. The problem for evolution is that it lacks a mechanism for applying energy in an organized

     manner, and this is particularly the case with regard to the origin of life.

     “The man who discovered the tooth and made the initial wrong classification called the drawing “a figment of the imagination

     of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate””
     Read the website again, critically. Cook discovered it in 1917 and mistakenly classified it *BUT* that false identification

     was NOT revealed *until* 1925, AND, it says “its identification as an ape was retracted in the journal Science in 1927.” What

     does that mean? It means the tooth was classified as an ape for 8 years UNTIL 1925 AND it was considered by the journal

     science to be scientific knowledge – revolutionary knowledge — UNTIL 1927. That means the science community generally

     accepted the original classification for 8-10 years. Now, it goes on to imply that the science community rejected the

     original classification AFTER its retraction in 1927 BECAUSE the statement (the statement that the science community did not

     generally accept it, the retraction after 10 years and creationists’ undermining it) takes place AFTER the fact that the

     tooth was thought to be from an ape. So, for 8-10 years, everyone was fooled. Just concede my original claim, that these men

     made a mistake out of desperation. BTW, the one who rejected the drawing, Osborn, did not discover it.

     “Nothing we do in labs would be impossible outside of them. That’s kinda the whole point. It would show quite plainly that no

     supernatural intervention would be needed for life to exist. And there would be a difference between two different kinds of

     experiments. Those where we engineer new life forms, and those were we simulate pre-biotic relicating biochemical machines to

     see how they act in various environments. The former not supporting abiogenesis much but showing that life does not require a

     supernatural creator, and the latter showing that it is explicitly possible for it to have happened in nature.”
     Not really. IF that was the case that life was created in the lab, it, as well as your hypothetical assertions, still does

     not provide a sufficient answer for the cosmic origin of life. That would be on the same level as humans creating life

     through sexual reproduction in nature, which, in fact, still pushes the cosmic question further back. Therefore, the

     hypothetical situation should not automatically dismiss the notion of a possible supernatural intervention outside of nature.

     “All I ask is a little.. proof. If that’s too much then…”
     The bible calls us to walk by faith, not by sight.

     “Attempts to redifine it notwithstanding.”
     It’s not a subjective redefining of it. That’s what Christianty *really* is at its core: an agape relationship with a

     personal intimate god who speaks to you spiritually through your conscience to your heart. Categorically, it’s a religion

     just like Catholicism. But essentially, it’s not religious like Catholicism or Buddhism, where you do endless chants, 50 hail

     mary’s, mantras, repetitive tasks, empty prayres or the look and feel of religiousity. It’s the spiritual presence of the

     Holy Spirit that one can actually feel if your ’spiritual antenna’ is up. It’s subtly MOVING!

     “Even if we did, you would simply claim that god was undetectable by our senses. Hence totally unfalsifiable.”
     Actually no. We have an extra sense: it’s called spiritual sense. And that’s outside the realm of scientific –

     naturalistic worldview. And AFAIB, science is not the arbiter of Truth.

     “it does not support an explicit biblical genesis account. Noah’s flood and all that.”
     All depending on what literary device you use.

     “No more unique than any other sufficiently complex religion….. Only in the irrelevant details. Apart from that it’s a

     reitteration of ealier messiah claimants, like Krishna or a few dozen others.”
     LOL. Another typical skeptical response. It seems you’re just grasping at straws. Sure all religions are different from one

     another. Each is like no other. In fact, their cores contradict each other. Now Christianity is unique in the sense that it

     is superiorly different. For instance, the Christian God is personal while others are impersonal. Jesus was perfect and

     sinless. He was a perfect God who became fully man and dwelled with us until He ascended into heaven. Other messiahs were

     imperfect men who became perfect gods. The list goes on but the major doctrine and theology is far inferior to Christianity.

     That’s why it’s the most popular world religion in the world. Even compared to Islam Buddhism or Confucianism. It’s unique in

     its grand story of redemption to mankind that God the Creator is intimate and personal and keenly interested in the affairs

     of mankind. Furthermore, the bible is the only religious book on Earth that teaches that space and time and matter had a

     beginning and that God as a being which is fully independant of the space time domain never began but is eternal. The easter

     religions essentially teach at its deep core that the universe is infinite in age, that god is the universe, the universe is

     god, matter, space and time is god. I’m god. you’re god. the chair’s god. the trees are god. Shirley McClaine’s god.

     Everybody’s god. The following website contrasts Christianity with other religions although it is theologically unbiblical.
     http://www.comparativereligion.com/god.html

     “Many many messiah figures arose in the world over time, many also claiming to fulfill a lot of the same criteria as Jesus.

     He is by no mean unique, or even the first.”
     That is simply false and a typical answer from a skeptic, unless you can show me some historical proof that they are exactly

     the same as Jesus theologically AND that their historical documentation and reliability is sufficient enough compared to New

     Testament documents. These kinds of arguments were popular in so-called “history of religions” circles until several decades

     ago, but they were generally abandoned. Atheistic fundamentalists and some people who took older religious studies classes

     still haven’t caught up entirely. The thesis was basically that Christian theology took its primary components from preceding

     traditions rather than from events which occurred in Jesus’ life. Usually it works this way: Jesus preached an inner kingdom

     of hippie social justice, but Paul put Jesus in the framework of a “mystery religion” (a category of pagan cult contemporary

     with early xianity). It turns out that you have to read those pagan cults using the terms of Christian theology in order to

     make that case, but obviously if you’re using the terms of Christian theology to read pagan cults then the thesis that the

     terms of Christian theology are basically lifted out of the mystery religions is false.

     Consider the first paragraph on the website
     http://www.pocm.info/getting_started_pocm.html:

     “What the ancient evidence will show you is that ancient western culture had a conceptual model of reality, and ancient

     Christianity adopted that model. Ancient Pagans believed in various levels of divinity, with miraculous powers, coming down

     and going up to its home in the sky. Divine beings cared about people, listened to and answered their prayers. Gave them the

     power to prophesy. Even gave them a better deal in the eternal life that comes after death.”

     So the facts are:
     1. They believed in some sort of non-human beings.
     2. They beleived that non-human beings had non-human powers.
     3. They believed that non-human beings lived in places that humans don’t.
     4. They believed that non-human beings interacted with humans.
     5. They believed that non-human beings could provide humans with non-human knowledge and power.

     Obviously these are so vague that we would only be surprised if there weren’t people all over the world who believed these

     kinds of things. This is basically on the order of, “Many people believed things fell from the sky in ancient times, so

     Newton must have gotten his laws of motion from them.” (There exist much better examples than this website, but…)

     Leithart offers the interesting epigram, “The Devil has no stories.” In other words, because only God can create out of

     nothing, whenever we make anything it will always be derivative in nature, so any story we write will unavoidably reflect the

     story, God’s story. Hence we get posts like some of those above.

     So, are there similarities? Sure, but not any kind of similarities that show that the fundamentals of Christian theology were

     derived from the mystery religions as opposed to the life of Jesus.

     C.S. Lewis, who argues along similar lines; that is, that each of these myths in some way foreshadow or give a glimpse of the

     fullness of the Gospel. Most pre-christian pagan myths contain, at some point or another, a god-man that dies and comes back

     (in some form or another). Lewis argues that these are prepatory to the actual coming of the true Messiah. This is one of the

     ways you can understand the bit about whole of creation groaning for a saviour. Even pagan religions are looking for someone

     to destroy death.

     They get aspects of the story right, use similar images and characters, and they set forth the problems really well; in the

     end, though, their solution is always skewed in a way.

     Take The Oresteia for example. Aeschylus uses very biblical imagery to describe justice (blood thick in the ground, crying

     out for vengeance). Yet at the end of the story, the problem is solved with an appeal to Athenian judicial procedures, and

     Athena is able to use rhetoric to convince the Furies to calm down. What is the message of this story? On one level, yes,

     that murder requires payment in blood. On another, though, it’s that politics and rhetoric are what saves us from this

     vicious cycle of death.

     it seems like the details of many of these early myths were a little more explicit than just generalizations – like they

     believed their god was born of a virgin birth, or specifically crucified, even called the ‘Lamb of God’… I mean those are

     some pretty exact details – and thats really what gets my interest. but you’re going to find two things the more you study

     it:

     1) Christ still looks quite a bit different in other ways. He really does come looking like their gods, but completely

     defying the mold at the same time. He is God descending to become man, and saving His people through a selfless death and

     resurrection that lifts him up to Lordship over the heavens and the earth. That story is unique.
     2) If we would say that just because two religions have similar images or themes, one must have come from another, then we

     simply can’t explain the history of religion. These connections and themes are literally global. When we are making this

     argument against Christianity we would really, eventually, have to argue for one common mother of all religions, but that

     wouldn’t really work very well with the rest of your worldview.

     “The Horus Heresy.”

     I remember watching a video doco on comparisons between Jesus and Horus. And it seems many skeptics use this character to

     dismiss Jesus as ‘just another messiah’.

     First off, sunset is not a reference to “Set.” I worry about anyone who made it past that part of the video. I’m pretty sure

     “horizon” doesn’t come from “Horus is risen,” but I’m confident “Sunset” is not a reference to Set. That set off huge bells.

     Horus was not crucified. I think that’s the part where I became livid, not necessarily because I was religiously offended,

     but intellectually. It’s hard when someone is just spouting lies to me directly.

     Horus was not born to a virgin in the vast majority of the myths I’ve heard. At one point, he was regarded as Isis’ husband.

     But one of the most established myths is that he was regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis – so he was not born of a virgin.

     In most stories of this well-regarded paramount of Egyptian storytelling, Osiris was dismembered, then put back together by

     his wife, who copulated with him, his detached phallus, or a stand-in for his phallus.

     On top of that, I’m not sure “Meri” or “Mary” was ever a name attached to Isis. I’m also fairly sure Horus wasn’t born in

     what became our December. Other sun-gods may have been, but not Horus. A big bell also went off the video asserted Horus was

     born in a cave or a manger similar to Christ – he was born in a swamp.

     This video was the first time I heard the assertion (without proper documentation) that Horus had twelve disciples – I doubt

     this claim greatly. There are tales of an inner circle coming to him for guidance and advice in warfare, etc. but not a

     specific number twelve, and not ones that followed him around in an earthly ministry.

     I was shocked by how poor the scholarship is – besides many outright lies in it, the narrator/creator shows little to no

     grasp of the concept of shifting incarnations of divinity that the Egyptian religion had. I can go into further detail if

     anyone requires, but do yourself a favor and ignore “new age beliefs” from “Zeitgeist” – or use its blatant falsehoods to

     kindle an interest in Egyptian mythology.

     In fact, here was a list I made myself:

     HORUS (3000bc egypt)
     born dec 25
     born of virgin
     star in east appeared at birth
     adorned by 3 kings
     teacher at 12
     baptised at age 30
     had 12 disciples
     performed miracles
     known by ‘the lamb of god, the light, good shepard’
     crucified
     dead for 3 days
     resurrected

     Compare the Wikipedia article on Horus with the POTM website’s claims. Notice that they don’t describe Horus as somebody who

     lost an eye that was then restored, or associated with the Falcon, or that his eyes represented Sun and Moon, or that semen

     was the weapon of choice in a major battle with Set — even though these are central features to Horus. Notice that his

     “virgin birth” (say, reproduction by masturbation) and “death and resurrection” (closer to reincarnation, if anything) are

     nothing like the “virgin birth” or “death and resurrection” of Jesus. Obviously what’s going on is that somebody is looking

     for little data points that can be given labels that sound like the labels we give to parts of Jesus’ life.

     Even so, let’s see which looks better — that the stories about Jesus came from the Old Testament or from mystery religions.

     born dec 25 — Jesus wasn’t born Dec 25

     born of virgin — unique births commonly appear for special people in OT (e.g., Isaac)

     star in east appeared at birth — Perhaps they’re thinking of Magi (people) from the east who followed a star? East is first

     prominent at the beginning of Genesis, when Adam & Eve are kicked out of the Garden.

     adorned by 3 kings — There weren’t 3 kings who adorned Jesus

     teacher at 12, baptised at age 30 — This is on the level of, “Started driving at age 16.”

     had 12 disciples — 12 tribes of Israel

     performed miracles — Moses, Elijah, etc.

     known by ‘the lamb of god, the light, good shepard’ — “Light” motif starts in Gen 1. Lamb of God is Passover Lamb. Good

     shepherd appears in the famous Psalm 23.

     crucified, resurrected — death and resurrection is the hope throughout the Prophets

     And I didn’t even have to take things out of context.

     There are also many ideas out there among Christian circles of why so many of these ancient myths talk about virgin births,

     sons who die and resurrect, fullfilled prophecies, etc and I highly recommend you actually read the stories. To describe

     these things in terms of “virgin births” and “resurrection” which are prophetic BTW makes it sound like there is a strong

     similarity, sure, but if you were just reading the stories it would never ever occur to you to use those terms. E.g.,

     somebody goes to the Greeks’ Land of the Dead, does some stuff down there, and then leaves — would you call this

     “resurrection”? Only if you were trying to make it sound like the story of Jesus. If you read the stories you’ll probably

     actually start laughing at these claims.

     “Without any sort of knowledge, do you really think someone would become a christian? There is historical evidence for the

     holy spirit visiting paul now? This I gotta see.”
     If anyone becomes a Christian it is because the Holy Spirit initially draws them nearer to God to willingly hear what the

     Lord needs to speak to their hearts and their responding to God’s invitation. John 6:43-45 states: Jesus therefore answered

     and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will

     raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’Therefore everyone who has

     heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” Paul became a Christian without being preached to by any human but the Holy

     Spirit spoke to him and he responded in obedience. Because of Paul’s submission to God, the Holy Spirit changed Saul to Paul

     for the better. To know that the Holy Spirit visited Paul you should understand that Paul’s radical conversion is testimony

     that the Holy Spirit not only visited him but changed his life. He was anti-Christian before but then something happened to

     Paul (he was visited by the Holy Spirit) and later he eventually became the founder of Christianity. IOW, Saul became Paul.

     He changed. His testimony testifies the radical changes Paul experienced in his personal life. Any Roman history textbook

     describes Paul’s life before (Saul of Tarsus) and after (apostle Paul), while Acts 9 explains Christ’s postressurection

     appearance to Paul (visited by the Holy Spirit), the turning point in Paul’s personal life. So basically, the bible is

     historical proof that the Holy Spirit visited Paul because the Book of Acts describes Jesus’s spirit (Holy Spirit) visiting

     Paul.

     “Of course you will say he is not bound by those rules, but I’ve never considered “do as I say, not as I do” to be a

     particularly laubible trait.”
     That is because you are lawless. Wouldn’t a parent forbid a child from doing certain things that they do anyway, like staying

     up late, smoking, sex, drinking, cursing, etc?

     “Which is that by his own defintions and laws he is a sinner.”
     It is not a sin for God to take someone’s life. It is a sin for a human to take another’s life. The fact of the matter is

     that God isn’t human, He isn’t bound by the covenant stipulations that were given to Israel. He is bound by His end and He

     keeps up His end despite all of the times we break our end. He isn’t under the Law. He causes tsunamis that kill countless

     innocents. He encourages Satan to persecute Job, a righteous man. He killed the first born of numerous people in Egypt. Some

     must have been infants who couldn’t have covered the door if they wanted to. Innocents put to death by God. We, as humans,

     are NEVER to do such things to our fellow humans. God does not follow the same rules we do because He isn’t human. He is the

     Lord God Almighty. We SIN by breaking the law. God isn’t under the law and thus isn’t sinning when He does things that would

     be wrong if we did them. We as humans, because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, are no longer under “the law” either. We are

     under grace. Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. So right there

     we must throw our ideas of law out the window. It is not a set or rules, but a life dedicated to following the Father

     wherever He leads us. Sin becomes not breaking a law, but disobeying whatever God has commanded of you. God does not have a

     list of rules that He follows. The father has control over life and death of every one of us. It is wrong for us to murder

     because that is taking authority where the authority has not been given us. Murder is done often out of revenge, and God said

     that Revenge is His. If the Father was under the law, then He could not take revenge, as it would be breaking His own law.

     However He DOES take revenge, pour out wrath, and punish the wicked. He has commanded us to forgive those who hate us, yet if

     those who hate go to their death hating God… He sends them to hell. He does not forgive them of this treachery, even if

     they beg Him.

     “Yes, as I stated before. But whether it did or not has no bearing on the subject at hand, how live changed over

     time….Trust me I am not in the least entertained by these posts. They’re a chore to be honest, especially given the

     clumsiness of the medium….Learned nothing more than how easy it is to deny the obvious Irony notwithstanding.”
     Call the media! Report this to the news papers! We finally agree on something.

343. wah
     December 8th, 2007 | 05:29

     “I don’t need to fill those gaps with the word “god”.”
     The natural world that biology and the other scientific disciplines describe is part of God’s revelation to man, with or without gaps.

     “I agree there is an appearance of complexity which may be mistaken for design by some people, and is. And that the appearance in no way means it was designed.”
     I believe some people mistake the appearance of complexity and design for randomness.

     “I’ve seen no one say that.”
     I have.

     “I simply see no reason to say that it hasn’t been.”
     And I see no reason it has.

     “Your definition of intelligence is flawed.
     Not so. My intelligence does not originate from apes. Maybe yours do.

     “as the entire history of the universe”
     correction: entire theoretical history

     “You link to another creationist who seems to have been the one to coin the term, and not a scientist using the term.”
     creationists are scientists

     “supports it entirely.”
     except for its ultimate evolutionary conclusion.

     “Seems entirely reasonable.”
     ..philosophically…

     “We have the fossils of transitional forms from early apes to modern humans, a whole long series of them.”
     Incomplete succession.

     “There are no changes because they didn’t change,”
     So you admit. Evolutionary changes never took place.

     “Proof of this claim please.”
     And why would an atheist need that sort of proof if he doesn’t believe in God at all?

     “Seems that these things are covered in the science skills section, under the scientific method.”
     The course that comes closest to those things, Scientific Skills, is described as follows: “Exposes graduate students to teaching skills, understanding the scientific method, searching and organizing literature, grant proposal writing, data management and presentation, and scientific speaking. Students are evaluated on their participation and the quality of a written research proposal.” I don’t see anything in that that sufficiently teaches them the philosophy of science, logic, logical fallacies, critical thinking, or metaphysics.

     “So why would any scientists in that field be interested in “proving” it?…most of those were not “human attempts to create life” but were studies in creating organic molecules from non-organic processes….in creating organic molecules from non-organic processes.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis#Human_attempts_to_create_life
     Essentially, they are attempts to create life from non-life. IOW, “create life.” That’s just roughly.

     “On the matter of common descent”
     The philosophical notion that human life historically originated or began (to evolve) from lifeless cells is simply unobservable and untestable. Even when you consider Darwin’s “tree of life”, which is not borne out in scientific observation, abiogenesis, and morphological gaps in the fossil record.

     “evolution doesn’t require them to.”
     A fossil is by definition a rock or mineral. It is not essentially a rock, it is a rock. Fossil changes = rock changes.

     “it is possible that every fossil was the result of god continually replacing species that die out with new ones that look similar to them, but not quite exactly like them.”
     Unless you’re looking at it from a baraminological POV, despite its criticisms from the scientific community.

     “Really? So you can look at two bodies and easily see if they are parent and child?”
     You’re using a non-sequitur fallacy because one comparison is the link between two or more totally different species while the other comparison is the link between two human beings within one species.

     “this is probably where a lot of your confusion comes from…..Theory of evolution, the explanation for how life changes…..Not the theory you’re talking about, but the one everyone else is talking about. The theory of evolution…..We are discussing the theory of evolution here….That’s not a claim of the theory of evolution, however….Only in the sense that it is possible that every fossil was the result of god continually replacing species that die out with new ones that look similar to them, but not quite exactly like them….But there is Lots of it…..Neither of which are should be possible under the theory of evolution, so why their lack is a problem I dunno…That’s abiogenesis, not the thoery of evolution…..This wiki page does nothing of the sort, it merely explains abiogenesis…..just chemistry afterall….in creating organic molecules from non-organic processes….I have always been talking about the theory of evolution, not your “GTE”,….Perhaps the idea that you are talking about is, that of a naturalistic history of the universe, but that’s another matter entirely, and not something anyone but you has been talking about….Not all answers are equal. Some are based on things like evidence….All of science is related to atheism in the same way that evolution is, in the “this is how the world works” sense…..Religious people in america tend to grow up with the notion that evolution is evil or wrong implanted in their minds by pastors and parents. Many won’t be able to overcome these ideas and study the evidence with a clear mind. Science in general, but evolution in particular. Religious people select against themselves in high level science positions…..Or would indicate that smarter children are less likely to buy into the creationist rhetoric and lies.”
     Personally, I don’t really have a problem with the theory in and of itself, because, as you suggested that it is simply an explanation for how life changes. However, it is by the theory’s support of those ideas and advocacy from the atheistic and secular community that has created this ‘general worldview’ of what evolutionary theory represents and how evolutionists perceive reality and the natural world to be different the theistic worldview. The term refers to those ideas that the evolution theory implies. They are not the same, aren’t part of each other BUT that’s what evolution theory is basically saying in a nutshell. On the surface, evolution theory doesn’t claim them but ultimately, if you think critically about the implications of evoluton theory, it explains an alternate universal truth to the naturalistic history of the universe contrary to Scripture, thereby supporting those ideas. Beneath the surface, the theory of evolution advocates the idea of origin of life, among the other claims listed, because what other explanation does it have? None. So the logical explanation is to say the origin of life came from non-life by chemisty or natural law. IOW, life originally came from nothing because where else did nature and chemistry originally come from? the big bang? singularity? You see, none of that is evolutionary theory but that is the only alternative to explain how Evolution (capitol ‘E’) came into existence. And while they are not evolution theory, they are exactly what the theory evolution is implying. But since there’s no historical evidence, fossil record or testable experiment to suppot those claims, evolutionists simply circumvent these ramifications by refining the theory and denying that evolution theory claims them. Nevertheless, the evolutionary theory’s worldview, coupled with atheistic influence, advocates, if not based on, those ideas. Basically, this ‘evolutionary faith’, for lack of a better term, is an extrapolation of the hypothetical speculations within the scientific community’s naturalistic assumptions about how the world is understood, understood to be damnable heresy by Scripture. It goes back to the roots of evolutionary theory in the former centuries, when it was revived in naturalistic opposition to the Christian worldview around the biblical revival in Europe. That is an example of man rejecting the truth of God for the truth of science and now in modern day science has become the ulitimate validation in social discourse or, IOW, the supreme social authority for truth and today, despite the menace of H-bombs and serious ecological problems, social trust in science as a way of salvation does not seem about to disappear. It is considered ‘good’ but God’s truth ‘evil’, which is illustrated by……..

     “I would prefer the ugly brutal truth to a comfortable lie any day of the week.”

     ……..Romans 1:18-23. Paul addresses this to naturalist philosphers (who were considered scientists back in their day), “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. In verse 25 Pauls goes on to say they exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” Radical ain’t it? What God was speaking to the Greeks through Paul then is what He is now speaking to you. To all atheistic evolutionists and secular scientists. To all mankind. Today. That we have turned our backs to God and have looked to the evidences. The things of this world. Away from the One who created these very same things for our enjoyment. We have looked to them for a truth that makes us feel comfortable. As long as it’s away from sin. Away from our accountability to God. He’s speaking to you now that you are guilty of sin before the Almighty Lord who personally created you in your mother’s womb. We have separated ourselves from God. No longer in communion with Him. No longer enjoying His blessings. No longer being —- in a personal – intimate – spiritual – relationship with God. We’re living by our flesh. We’re living by our OWN rules our OWN ways our OWN pleasures. And that’s what sin is: not being with God. Whatever separates us from Him. That’s what it is. ANd because the wages of sin is death, spiritual death now in this life and after, we ARE held accountable to God through Judgement Day. Whether you believe it or not. But He – WANTS – you – back. God wants to reconcile you back to Him. To restore the relationship to what He originally planned for you. And God made that possible by sacrificing His Son to pay for your sins. John 3:16 says that “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” God Himself became flesh — in the person of Jesus Christ and sacrificed Himself *on that* cross so that YOU can be given life. So that YOU can receive His blessings of peace and assurance that HE HAS conquered death when He ressurected and so too will we be renewed in newness of life. IF – you believe on the Lord. Now where was I? Oh yeah, the roots of the theory of evolution. It also goes back when once after the theory was officially adhered to such claims but have abandoned them due to their unfalsifiabilitiness, among other criticisms. By this, the theory became falsifiable by default. Modern evolutionists deny that the theory ever claimed such things but that is exactly what the theory supports, not IS, but implies. It is by these structures of scientific thought that shape your current understanding of the world as well as evolution’s original meaning and modern idea of how life works. But the evolutionary theory you know now is still speculation based on naturalistic assumptions, both entirely fallible, since those unscientific claims, although dropped from it, are already ingrained into the ideology that’s behind evolution theory, exasperated by the atheistic and secular community. THIS IS the scientific worldview many have placed their trust, belief (or faith) on. The theory and inherent idea of how the modern science community is “innocent until proven guilty” itself, yet guilty itself for being intolerantly dogmatic of alternative ‘paradigms’ as opposed to the tolerance of the fathers of nearly every discipline of science. But scientific knowledge does not monopolize Truth in any sense. I do not accept evolution as dogmatic Truth (with a capitol ‘T’) and if you’re a responsible person, or a scientists in any respect, you should concede that it isn’t. Now how do you explain life outside of Evolution? That includes chemistry, matter, nature, etc.

     “Also, please note the 2nd law of thermodynamics section, it supports on of my earlier refutations”
     Actually, it doesn’t, if you were refuting that the entropy of the law is equivalent to disorder. Although it mentions that critics have a misconception that ‘entropy in thermodynamics is equivalent to a popular conception of “disorder”‘, it does not specifically state that creationists use that strawman. AFAIK, entropy is not the same as disorder, but entropy is logarithmically related to disorder. Entropy can be considered a measurement of disorder in the way that the Richter Scale is a measurement of earthquakes or decibels are a measurement of sound. The theory of evolution requires some extremely large increases in order and therefore an extremely large decrease in entropy. Order from chaos requires energy to be applied to the system in an organized manner. The problem for evolution is that it lacks a mechanism for applying energy in an organized manner, and this is particularly the case with regard to the origin of life.

     “The man who discovered the tooth and made the initial wrong classification called the drawing “a figment of the imagination of no scientific value, and undoubtedly inaccurate””
     Read the website again, critically. Cook discovered it in 1917 and mistakenly classified it *BUT* that false identification was NOT revealed *until* 1925, AND, it says “its identification as an ape was retracted in the journal Science in 1927.” What does that mean? It means the tooth was classified as an ape for 8 years UNTIL 1925 AND it was considered by the journal science to be scientific knowledge – revolutionary knowledge — UNTIL 1927. That means the science community generally accepted the original classification for 8-10 years. Now, it goes on to imply that the science community rejected the original classification AFTER its retraction in 1927 BECAUSE the statement (the statement that the science community did not generally accept it, the retraction after 10 years and creationists’ undermining it) takes place AFTER the fact that the tooth was thought to be from an ape. So, for 8-10 years, everyone was fooled. Just concede my original claim, that these men made a mistake out of desperation. BTW, the one who rejected the drawing, Osborn, did not discover it.

     “Nothing we do in labs would be impossible outside of them. That’s kinda the whole point. It would show quite plainly that no supernatural intervention would be needed for life to exist. And there would be a difference between two different kinds of experiments. Those where we engineer new life forms, and those were we simulate pre-biotic relicating biochemical machines to see how they act in various environments. The former not supporting abiogenesis much but showing that life does not require a supernatural creator, and the latter showing that it is explicitly possible for it to have happened in nature.”
     Not really. IF that was the case that life was created in the lab, it, as well as your hypothetical assertions, still does not provide a sufficient answer for the cosmic origin of life. That would be on the same level as humans creating life through sexual reproduction in nature, which, in fact, still pushes the cosmic question further back. Therefore, the hypothetical situation should not automatically dismiss the notion of a possible supernatural intervention outside of nature.

     “All I ask is a little.. proof. If that’s too much then…”
     The bible calls us to walk by faith, not by sight.

     “Attempts to redifine it notwithstanding.”
     It’s not a subjective redefining of it. That’s what Christianty *really* is at its core: an agape relationship with a personal intimate god who speaks to you spiritually through your conscience to your heart. Categorically, it’s a religion just like Catholicism. But essentially, it’s not religious like Catholicism or Buddhism, where you do endless chants, 50 hail mary’s, mantras, repetitive tasks, empty prayres or the look and feel of religiousity. It’s the spiritual presence of the Holy Spirit that one can actually feel if your ’spiritual antenna’ is up. It’s subtly MOVING!

     “Even if we did, you would simply claim that god was undetectable by our senses. Hence totally unfalsifiable.”
     Actually no. We have an extra sense: it’s called spiritual sense. And that’s outside the realm of scientific – naturalistic worldview. And AFAIB, science is not the arbiter of Truth.

     “it does not support an explicit biblical genesis account. Noah’s flood and all that.”
     All depending on what literary device you use.

     “No more unique than any other sufficiently complex religion….. Only in the irrelevant details. Apart from that it’s a reitteration of ealier messiah claimants, like Krishna or a few dozen others.”
     LOL. Another typical skeptical response. It seems you’re just grasping at straws. Sure all religions are different from one another. Each is like no other. In fact, their cores contradict each other. Now Christianity is unique in the sense that it is superiorly different. For instance, the Christian God is personal while others are impersonal. Jesus was perfect and sinless. He was a perfect God who became fully man and dwelled with us until He ascended into heaven. Other messiahs were imperfect men who became perfect gods. The list goes on but the major doctrine and theology is far inferior to Christianity. That’s why it’s the most popular world religion in the world. Even compared to Islam Buddhism or Confucianism. It’s unique in its grand story of redemption to mankind that God the Creator is intimate and personal and keenly interested in the affairs of mankind. Furthermore, the bible is the only religious book on Earth that teaches that space and time and matter had a beginning and that God as a being which is fully independant of the space time domain never began but is eternal. The easter religions essentially teach at its deep core that the universe is infinite in age, that god is the universe, the universe is god, matter, space and time is god. I’m god. you’re god. the chair’s god. the trees are god. Shirley McClaine’s god. Everybody’s god. The following website contrasts Christianity with other religions although it is theologically unbiblical.
     http://www.comparativereligion.com/god.html

     “Many many messiah figures arose in the world over time, many also claiming to fulfill a lot of the same criteria as Jesus. He is by no mean unique, or even the first.”
     That is simply false and a typical answer from a skeptic, unless you can show me some historical proof that they are exactly the same as Jesus theologically AND that their historical documentation and reliability is sufficient enough compared to New Testament documents. These kinds of arguments were popular in so-called “history of religions” circles until several decades ago, but they were generally abandoned. Atheistic fundamentalists and some people who took older religious studies classes still haven’t caught up entirely. The thesis was basically that Christian theology took its primary components from preceding traditions rather than from events which occurred in Jesus’ life. Usually it works this way: Jesus preached an inner kingdom of hippie social justice, but Paul put Jesus in the framework of a “mystery religion” (a category of pagan cult contemporary with early xianity). It turns out that you have to read those pagan cults using the terms of Christian theology in order to make that case, but obviously if you’re using the terms of Christian theology to read pagan cults then the thesis that the terms of Christian theology are basically lifted out of the mystery religions is false.

     Consider the first paragraph on the website
     http://www.pocm.info/getting_started_pocm.html:

     “What the ancient evidence will show you is that ancient western culture had a conceptual model of reality, and ancient Christianity adopted that model. Ancient Pagans believed in various levels of divinity, with miraculous powers, coming down and going up to its home in the sky. Divine beings cared about people, listened to and answered their prayers. Gave them the power to prophesy. Even gave them a better deal in the eternal life that comes after death.”

     So the facts are:
     1. They believed in some sort of non-human beings.
     2. They beleived that non-human beings had non-human powers.
     3. They believed that non-human beings lived in places that humans don’t.
     4. They believed that non-human beings interacted with humans.
     5. They believed that non-human beings could provide humans with non-human knowledge and power.

     Obviously these are so vague that we would only be surprised if there weren’t people all over the world who believed these kinds of things. This is basically on the order of, “Many people believed things fell from the sky in ancient times, so Newton must have gotten his laws of motion from them.” (There exist much better examples than this website, but…)

     Leithart offers the interesting epigram, “The Devil has no stories.” In other words, because only God can create out of nothing, whenever we make anything it will always be derivative in nature, so any story we write will unavoidably reflect the story, God’s story. Hence we get posts like some of those above.

     So, are there similarities? Sure, but not any kind of similarities that show that the fundamentals of Christian theology were derived from the mystery religions as opposed to the life of Jesus.

     C.S. Lewis, who argues along similar lines; that is, that each of these myths in some way foreshadow or give a glimpse of the fullness of the Gospel. Most pre-christian pagan myths contain, at some point or another, a god-man that dies and comes back (in some form or another). Lewis argues that these are prepatory to the actual coming of the true Messiah. This is one of the ways you can understand the bit about whole of creation groaning for a saviour. Even pagan religions are looking for someone to destroy death.

     They get aspects of the story right, use similar images and characters, and they set forth the problems really well; in the end, though, their solution is always skewed in a way.

     Take The Oresteia for example. Aeschylus uses very biblical imagery to describe justice (blood thick in the ground, crying out for vengeance). Yet at the end of the story, the problem is solved with an appeal to Athenian judicial procedures, and Athena is able to use rhetoric to convince the Furies to calm down. What is the message of this story? On one level, yes, that murder requires payment in blood. On another, though, it’s that politics and rhetoric are what saves us from this vicious cycle of death.

     it seems like the details of many of these early myths were a little more explicit than just generalizations – like they believed their god was born of a virgin birth, or specifically crucified, even called the ‘Lamb of God’… I mean those are some pretty exact details – and thats really what gets my interest. but you’re going to find two things the more you study it:

     1) Christ still looks quite a bit different in other ways. He really does come looking like their gods, but completely defying the mold at the same time. He is God descending to become man, and saving His people through a selfless death and resurrection that lifts him up to Lordship over the heavens and the earth. That story is unique.
     2) If we would say that just because two religions have similar images or themes, one must have come from another, then we simply can’t explain the history of religion. These connections and themes are literally global. When we are making this argument against Christianity we would really, eventually, have to argue for one common mother of all religions, but that wouldn’t really work very well with the rest of your worldview.

     “The Horus Heresy.”

     I remember watching a video doco on comparisons between Jesus and Horus. And it seems many skeptics use this character to dismiss Jesus as ‘just another messiah’.

     First off, sunset is not a reference to “Set.” I worry about anyone who made it past that part of the video. I’m pretty sure “horizon” doesn’t come from “Horus is risen,” but I’m confident “Sunset” is not a reference to Set. That set off huge bells.

     Horus was not crucified. I think that’s the part where I became livid, not necessarily because I was religiously offended, but intellectually. It’s hard when someone is just spouting lies to me directly.

     Horus was not born to a virgin in the vast majority of the myths I’ve heard. At one point, he was regarded as Isis’ husband. But one of the most established myths is that he was regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis – so he was not born of a virgin. In most stories of this well-regarded paramount of Egyptian storytelling, Osiris was dismembered, then put back together by his wife, who copulated with him, his detached phallus, or a stand-in for his phallus.

     On top of that, I’m not sure “Meri” or “Mary” was ever a name attached to Isis. I’m also fairly sure Horus wasn’t born in what became our December. Other sun-gods may have been, but not Horus. A big bell also went off the video asserted Horus was born in a cave or a manger similar to Christ – he was born in a swamp.

     This video was the first time I heard the assertion (without proper documentation) that Horus had twelve disciples – I doubt this claim greatly. There are tales of an inner circle coming to him for guidance and advice in warfare, etc. but not a specific number twelve, and not ones that followed him around in an earthly ministry.

     I was shocked by how poor the scholarship is – besides many outright lies in it, the narrator/creator shows little to no grasp of the concept of shifting incarnations of divinity that the Egyptian religion had. I can go into further detail if anyone requires, but do yourself a favor and ignore “new age beliefs” from “Zeitgeist” – or use its blatant falsehoods to kindle an interest in Egyptian mythology.

     In fact, here was a list I made myself:

     HORUS (3000bc egypt)
     born dec 25
     born of virgin
     star in east appeared at birth
     adorned by 3 kings
     teacher at 12
     baptised at age 30
     had 12 disciples
     performed miracles
     known by ‘the lamb of god, the light, good shepard’
     crucified
     dead for 3 days
     resurrected

     Compare the Wikipedia article on Horus with the POTM website’s claims. Notice that they don’t describe Horus as somebody who lost an eye that was then restored, or associated with the Falcon, or that his eyes represented Sun and Moon, or that semen was the weapon of choice in a major battle with Set — even though these are central features to Horus. Notice that his “virgin birth” (say, reproduction by masturbation) and “death and resurrection” (closer to reincarnation, if anything) are nothing like the “virgin birth” or “death and resurrection” of Jesus. Obviously what’s going on is that somebody is looking for little data points that can be given labels that sound like the labels we give to parts of Jesus’ life.

     Even so, let’s see which looks better — that the stories about Jesus came from the Old Testament or from mystery religions.

     born dec 25 — Jesus wasn’t born Dec 25

     born of virgin — unique births commonly appear for special people in OT (e.g., Isaac)

     star in east appeared at birth — Perhaps they’re thinking of Magi (people) from the east who followed a star? East is first prominent at the beginning of Genesis, when Adam & Eve are kicked out of the Garden.

     adorned by 3 kings — There weren’t 3 kings who adorned Jesus

     teacher at 12, baptised at age 30 — This is on the level of, “Started driving at age 16.”

     had 12 disciples — 12 tribes of Israel

     performed miracles — Moses, Elijah, etc.

     known by ‘the lamb of god, the light, good shepard’ — “Light” motif starts in Gen 1. Lamb of God is Passover Lamb. Good shepherd appears in the famous Psalm 23.

     crucified, resurrected — death and resurrection is the hope throughout the Prophets

     And I didn’t even have to take things out of context.

     There are also many ideas out there among Christian circles of why so many of these ancient myths talk about virgin births, sons who die and resurrect, fullfilled prophecies, etc and I highly recommend you actually read the stories. To describe these things in terms of “virgin births” and “resurrection” which are prophetic BTW makes it sound like there is a strong similarity, sure, but if you were just reading the stories it would never ever occur to you to use those terms. E.g., somebody goes to the Greeks’ Land of the Dead, does some stuff down there, and then leaves — would you call this “resurrection”? Only if you were trying to make it sound like the story of Jesus. If you read the stories you’ll probably actually start laughing at these claims.

     “Without any sort of knowledge, do you really think someone would become a christian? There is historical evidence for the holy spirit visiting paul now? This I gotta see.”
     If anyone becomes a Christian it is because the Holy Spirit initially draws them nearer to God to willingly hear what the Lord needs to speak to their hearts and their responding to God’s invitation. John 6:43-45 states: Jesus therefore answered and said to them, “Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me.” Paul became a Christian without being preached to by any human but the Holy Spirit spoke to him and he responded in obedience. Because of Paul’s submission to God, the Holy Spirit changed Saul to Paul for the better. To know that the Holy Spirit visited Paul you should understand that Paul’s radical conversion is testimony that the Holy Spirit not only visited him but changed his life. He was anti-Christian before but then something happened to Paul (he was visited by the Holy Spirit) and later he eventually became the founder of Christianity. IOW, Saul became Paul. He changed. His testimony testifies the radical changes Paul experienced in his personal life. Any Roman history textbook describes Paul’s life before (Saul of Tarsus) and after (apostle Paul), while Acts 9 explains Christ’s postressurection appearance to Paul (visited by the Holy Spirit), the turning point in Paul’s personal life. So basically, the bible is historical proof that the Holy Spirit visited Paul because the Book of Acts describes Jesus’s spirit (Holy Spirit) visiting Paul.

     “Of course you will say he is not bound by those rules, but I’ve never considered “do as I say, not as I do” to be a particularly laubible trait.”
     That is because you are lawless. Wouldn’t a parent forbid a child from doing certain things that they do anyway, like staying up late, smoking, sex, drinking, cursing, etc?

     “Which is that by his own defintions and laws he is a sinner.”
     It is not a sin for God to take someone’s life. It is a sin for a human to take another’s life. The fact of the matter is that God isn’t human, He isn’t bound by the covenant stipulations that were given to Israel. He is bound by His end and He keeps up His end despite all of the times we break our end. He isn’t under the Law. He causes tsunamis that kill countless innocents. He encourages Satan to persecute Job, a righteous man. He killed the first born of numerous people in Egypt. Some must have been infants who couldn’t have covered the door if they wanted to. Innocents put to death by God. We, as humans, are NEVER to do such things to our fellow humans. God does not follow the same rules we do because He isn’t human. He is the Lord God Almighty. We SIN by breaking the law. God isn’t under the law and thus isn’t sinning when He does things that would be wrong if we did them. We as humans, because of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, are no longer under “the law” either. We are under grace. Rom 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. So right there we must throw our ideas of law out the window. It is not a set or rules, but a life dedicated to following the Father wherever He leads us. Sin becomes not breaking a law, but disobeying whatever God has commanded of you. God does not have a list of rules that He follows. The father has control over life and death of every one of us. It is wrong for us to murder because that is taking authority where the authority has not been given us. Murder is done often out of revenge, and God said that Revenge is His. If the Father was under the law, then He could not take revenge, as it would be breaking His own law. However He DOES take revenge, pour out wrath, and punish the wicked. He has commanded us to forgive those who hate us, yet if those who hate go to their death hating God… He sends them to hell. He does not forgive them of this treachery, even if they beg Him.

     “Yes, as I stated before. But whether it did or not has no bearing on the subject at hand, how live changed over time….Trust me I am not in the least entertained by these posts. They’re a chore to be honest, especially given the clumsiness of the medium….Learned nothing more than how easy it is to deny the obvious Irony notwithstanding.”
     Call the media! Report this to the news papers! We finally agree on something.

344. Redem
     December 8th, 2007 | 10:15

     “I believe some people mistake the appearance of complexity and design for randomness.”
     Randomness certainly can look complex, and vice versa.

     “creationists are scientists”
     Not as the term is usually used. Most creatioists have never gone beyond highschool science.

     “except for its ultimate evolutionary conclusion.”
     By which you mean abiogenesis, I assume.
     And again I must repeat, that no more matters to the theory of evolution than who pushd the rock matters to the the study of how a rock falls.

     “Incomplete succession. ”
     Without every single living thing being fossilised, it could not be otherwise.

     “So you admit. Evolutionary changes never took place.”
     Well, no massive physical changes. Assuming your characterisation of the fossil record for them is correct. Which I’ve not checked.

     “And why would an atheist need that sort of proof if he doesn’t believe in God at all?”
     It bears on the validity of any future experiment that might create living things via nano-assembly of one. Which should be possible inside 20 years or so, given how our progress goes.

     It should be noted that that would not prove abiogenesis, merely that life requires no magic ingredients.

     “I don’t see anything in that that sufficiently teaches them the philosophy of science, logic, logical fallacies, critical thinking, or metaphysics.”
     “Sufficiently” is fairly subjective. I would think that it covers it in the sense that they will have to undertake coursework that will be judged for flaws.
     The scpeticism part of science.

     “Essentially, they are attempts to create life from non-life. IOW, “create life.” That’s just roughly.”
     The early ones, yes. Based on nothing mroe than a hunch about how the early earth was like.
     Later ones are much simpler, creation of organic from inorganic. I think we’ve created all known amino acids now using these methods. At least most of them.

     “The philosophical notion that human life historically originated or began (to evolve) from lifeless cells is simply unobservable and untestable. Even when you consider Darwin’s “tree of life”, which is not borne out in scientific observation, abiogenesis, and morphological gaps in the fossil record.”
     The notion that if life can branch out through evolution into different forms, that it is probable that it did so in the past. And thus the fossil record is arranged into the “tree”.
     It can be observed “scientificially” through the fossil record. And has nothing to do with abiogenesis, except in the sense that if you extrapolate back far enough you reach a single line.

     “A fossil is by definition a rock or mineral. It is not essentially a rock, it is a rock. Fossil changes = rock changes.”
     But we differentiate between the fossil and the rock surrounding them. They’re formed in different ways. The rock by.. whatever it is forms that particular rock, and the fossil by mineral dsposition.

     “Unless you’re looking at it from a baraminological POV, despite its criticisms from the scientific community.”
     Whaddaya know! I actually LEARNED something from conservapedia XD

     new term to me :p

     Essentially this is the tree of life with the deeper branches cut off :p

     The problem for young earth creationists is that (ignoreing all the fossil and other evidence of common ancestry) yhey then require “super-evolution” in order for the “kinds” to diversify in such a short length of time. Evolution that rapid would be lethal to the species.
     For old earth creationists there is another problem, they, essentially, agree entirely with the theory of evolution, and with common descent, and only disagree with the idea of universal common ancestry. Thus their objections to the theory of evolution itself come accross as… schizophrenic.

     Also, disagrements on what “kinds” mean is amusing.

     “You’re using a non-sequitur fallacy because one comparison is the link between two or more totally different species while the other comparison is the link between two human beings within one species.”
     Actually it would be reduction ad absurdum, no a non-sequitur. In that I am extrapolating the idea of smaller and smaller gaps to show why it is not necessary to have an entirely smooth lineage to represent things, because gaps are only a problem if they’re too large.

     “Personally, I don’t really have a problem with the theory in and of itself, because, as you suggested that it is simply an explanation for how life changes. However, it is by the theory’s support of those ideas and advocacy from the atheistic and secular community that has created this ‘general worldview’ of what evolutionary theory represents and how evolutionists perceive reality and the natural world to be different the theistic worldview.”
     The basic idea of a scientific theory is like this. After you first make the theory, you use it to understand more about the universe, the practical use to which science is put. From your use of the theory you gain more knowledge and can then refine the theory further, or revise it entirely if you must. In the worst case, you discard entirely. Repeat until infinity.
     What you are objecting to is not the theory, but the use to which it has been put, that is the study of the traces of ancient life, using this theory and others, to paint an image of how life used to be.
     The image is necessarily patchy, but is as complete as it can be made currently.
     You object to that picture because it disagrees with that which your religion paints.

     “On the surface, evolution theory doesn’t claim them but ultimately, if you think critically about the implications of evoluton theory, it explains an alternate universal truth to the naturalistic history of the universe contrary to Scripture, thereby supporting those ideas. Beneath the surface, the theory of evolution advocates the idea of origin of life, among the other claims listed, because what other explanation does it have? None.”
     I agree entirely, the rational conclusion of the study of life in this manner is that of a naturalistic explanation. Not the only possibility, but certainly the most parsimonious one.

     Basically you don’t object to the theory, you object to the conclusion. Thus you reject the theory.

     “IOW, life originally came from nothing because where else did nature and chemistry originally come from? the big bang? singularity? You see, none of that is evolutionary theory but that is the only alternative to explain how Evolution (capitol ‘E’) came into existence.”
     Yes, I agree. Those all together form what might be termed “the natural history of the universe”. You would prefer I stick the word theory in there somewhere probably.
     But anyhoo, those are all completely separate theories in a scientific sense. Abiogenesis, baryogenesis, etc..
     As for the iltimate cause of the big bang… *Shrug*
     I don’t know. That level of physics is beyond me, but to those who do study such things, there is little evidence to study, and little to go on, other than mathematical models. As we delve further into the nature of the quantum universe we may find more, but for now the only answer is “I don’t know”.
     Could have been something that matches the Chrsistian deity, or some other one. Or the Deist’s God. Or Spinoza’s. Or could have been nothing at all that we can comprehend.

     “Basically, this ‘evolutionary faith’, for lack of a better term, is an extrapolation of the hypothetical speculations within the scientific community’s naturalistic assumptions about how the world is understood, understood to be damnable heresy by Scripture.”
     But none of this is related to evolution, so another term should be used. And again, all of science is naturalistic, it is the search for an explanation, and all the possible explanations science can come to are naturalistic by definition. Anything that wasn’t natural couldn’t be studied.

     “IOW, the supreme social authority for truth and today, despite the menace of H-bombs and serious ecological problems, social trust in science as a way of salvation does not seem about to disappear. It is considered ‘good’ but God’s truth ‘evil’, which is illustrated by……..

     “I would prefer the ugly brutal truth to a comfortable lie any day of the week.””

     The only solutions to both nuclear weapons and ecological devastation will be scientific. I doubt you care for the distinction, but the problems of ecological harm are caused by industrialisation and the drive to lower costs, not by science.

     I never called your religion evil, btw, I just don’t think it is true. Although people have certainly used it in a way that I, in my subjective morality, would call “evil”.

     “Whether you believe it or not. But He – WANTS – you – back. God wants to reconcile you back to Him. To restore the relationship to what He originally planned for you.”
     Perhaps. But seeing as I don’t believe in him…

     It is not a matter of “wanting” to believe, it is a matter of being convinced of it. And I am not.

     “God Himself became flesh — in the person of Jesus Christ and sacrificed Himself *on that* cross so that YOU can be given life. So that YOU can receive His blessings of peace and assurance that HE HAS conquered death when He ressurected and so too will we be renewed in newness of life.”
     And that whle thing just seems so… nonsensical.

     “The theory and inherent idea of how the modern science community is “innocent until proven guilty” itself, yet guilty itself for being intolerantly dogmatic of alternative ‘paradigms’ as opposed to the tolerance of the fathers of nearly every discipline of science.”
     Of course scepticism can appear as hostility, especially to those not prepared for the rigorous doubt that scientists are trained in.
     The simple fact is, it is hard to get the scientific community to accept any explanation, if one is propsed they set out to destruct-test it. That is they set out to prove it wrong, and in the process they learn new things about the unvierse.

     Probably another reason why the orthodox religious are underrepresented in the scientific community, such a level of scepticism is hard for something which relies on no testable evidence to survive.

     “But scientific knowledge does not monopolize Truth in any sense. I do not accept evolution as dogmatic Truth (with a capitol ‘T’) and if you’re a responsible person, or a scientists in any respect, you should concede that it isn’t.”
     I have never claimed that it was.

     “Now how do you explain life outside of Evolution? That includes chemistry, matter, nature, etc.”
     Are you asking for me to explain what I called above the natural history of the universe? That’s.. a lot of information to type out merely to even describe it all, let alone support.

     “if you were refuting that the entropy of the law is equivalent to disorder. Although it mentions that critics have a misconception that ‘entropy in thermodynamics is equivalent to a popular conception of “disorder”‘, it does not specifically state that creationists use that strawman. AFAIK, entropy is not the same as disorder, but entropy is logarithmically related to disorder. Entropy can be considered a measurement of disorder in the way that the Richter Scale is a measurement of earthquakes or decibels are a measurement of sound.”
     Entropy bears no resemblance to “disorder”, even in a logarithmic sense.
     It is simply, as stated in the article, energy not available for work.
     The superficial resemblance to disorder follows only in terms of the following example.
     Imagine a specific volume, with all of the air molecules concentrated in one corner but not at absolute zero, after a period of time the molecules will be spread out randomly throughout the volume.
     However, think of a glass of sugar water. Over time the 2nd law implies that the sugar would crystalise out fo the water. Most people would classify the glass with the crystals in it as more ordered than the one with the sugar randomly dispersed throughout the liquid, yet it has a higher entropy.
     “The theory of evolution requires some extremely large increases in order and therefore an extremely large decrease in entropy. Order from chaos requires energy to be applied to the system in an organized manner. The problem for evolution is that it lacks a mechanism for applying energy in an organized manner, and this is particularly the case with regard to the origin of life.”
     And yet evolution obviously occurs.
     The problem is in the added baggage that the word order carries from the english language when it is used very specifically in the above example I gave, that gives rise to such misunderstandings.

     There is also the problem that the 2nd law only applies to closed systems. Like the above example. Energy from outside allows entropy to decrease. There is the additional problem that when we talk about entropy like this, we are talking about the total entropy, the entropy at any given point can go up or down as much as it likes, as long as the entropy in total increases.

     “Cook discovered it in 1917 and mistakenly classified it *BUT* that false identification was NOT revealed *until* 1925, AND, it says “its identification as an ape was retracted in the journal Science in 1927.” What does that mean? It means the tooth was classified as an ape for 8 years UNTIL 1925 AND it was considered by the journal science to be scientific knowledge – revolutionary knowledge — UNTIL 1927.”
     As I said before, it was a minor fossil that the scientific community never paid any attention to, or accepted as a whole. The final analysis wasn’t released until someone actually identified the fossil. In fact, Osbourne’s work contain no references to it being anything other than a primitive ape, and no mention of it being an ancestor of man.

     “That means the science community generally accepted the original classification for 8-10 years.”
     The article specifically states that it never gained any real acceptance in the scientific community.

     Also, from what I can see, was it Osborne who misidentified it first? That would be in 1922, and so it was revealed to be a mistake just 3 years later.

     “BTW, the one who rejected the drawing, Osborn, did not discover it.”
     True true, he was the dude who first misidentified it, my mistake.

     “Therefore, the hypothetical situation should not automatically dismiss the notion of a possible supernatural intervention outside of nature.”
     I was trying to be careful in my wording as to say exactly that. I’ll try again. If we create an entirely artifical life from, we shown only that life does not NEED a divine spark to come from non-living matter.

     “The bible calls us to walk by faith, not by sight.”
     I will not. Such claims lead people to follow blindly with anything their are brought up to hold dear. That includes your religion, yes, but also all of the other ones, and any number of political/social ideologies.

     “It’s the spiritual presence of the Holy Spirit that one can actually feel if your ’spiritual antenna’ is up. It’s subtly MOVING! ”
     lol. Nice imagery there.

     But I’m sure those in other religions would make similar claims about the core of it being a relationship with god, even if not in those exact words. Their theologians would probably describe the chants and repitition as being a traditionalised ritualised representation of the worship that goes with that relationship. The “keeping holy” part f the third commandment.

     “And AFAIB, science is not the arbiter of Truth.”
     Granted. Just the best method for discovering it.

     “The list goes on but the major doctrine and theology is far inferior to Christianity. That’s why it’s the most popular world religion in the world.”
     And I’m sure the sword and gun had nothing at all to do with that

     “Furthermore, the bible is the only religious book on Earth that teaches that space and time and matter had a beginning and that God as a being which is fully independant of the space time domain never began but is eternal.”
     I doubt this to be honest, though I’m not aware of any unrelated text that is like this.
     Tried reading through some, and… no. Not making that effort, not at 8am >.<

     “That is simply false and a typical answer from a skeptic, unless you can show me some historical proof that they are exactly the same as Jesus theologically AND that their historical documentation and reliability is sufficient enough compared to New Testament documents.”
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_claimants
     Take your pick. Obviously none of the others have a bible written about them, but the evidence of their existence is about as independalty viable as Jesus’ extra-biblical support.

     Some less so, some more so.

     “The thesis was basically that Christian theology took its primary components from preceding traditions rather than from events which occurred in Jesus’ life.”
     You gotta admit, the similarities between the stories of jesus and many other religious figures are… interesting.
     Details differ of course, but the themes remain.

     “So, are there similarities? Sure, but not any kind of similarities that show that the fundamentals of Christian theology were derived from the mystery religions as opposed to the life of Jesus.”
     You just described them as derived from christianity, kinda. The life of Jesus at least. So you admit the correlation at least, if not the direction of causation.

     “1) Christ still looks quite a bit different in other ways.”
     Both similar and different. The same could be said of the rest of them, though.

     “2) If we would say that just because two religions have similar images or themes, one must have come from another, then we simply can’t explain the history of religion.”
     There si a difference between one religion coming from another, as in christianity from judaism, and the myths of one area spreading around to other areas, before developing into a seperate religion.

     “I’m pretty sure “horizon” doesn’t come from “Horus is risen,” but I’m confident “Sunset” is not a reference to Set. That set off huge bells.”
     I’m no etymologist, but I suppose it should be easy to check those assertions. Look at when the terms came into use, if it was in ancient times then… there’s a fair possibility, if it’s only recently then I really doubt it.

     “So basically, the bible is historical proof that the Holy Spirit visited Paul because the Book of Acts describes Jesus’s spirit (Holy Spirit) visiting Paul.”
     All that is required is the belief, not the actuality of a visit by a holy spirit to change someone’s life.
     Thus a mere fever dream or drug induced hallucination could make someone believe strange things. Of course nowadays we are aware of the effect these things can have, and can protect ourselves from them with that knowledge, but in the past?
     Possibilities for why people may think they were visited by a holy presence, or force, or demonic force for that matter.
     Did this happen? I dunno, maybe. maybe he was visited by the holy spirit as you claim, or it could be something else neither of us thought of. It could even be a case of lies. All of these are possible, and with the info I have available I can make no choice between them.

     “That is because you are lawless. Wouldn’t a parent forbid a child from doing certain things that they do anyway, like staying up late, smoking, sex, drinking, cursing, etc?”
     A bad parent would forbid them doing something and declare it to be a “sin”, and do it themselves.
     A good parent would lead by example, and explain things.

     “We SIN by breaking the law.”
     Thus a sin is not a moral “wrong” but a broken rule.

     Would you agree that his actions are immoral in those cases you describe?
     Given that you think morality is objective.

     “Call the media! Report this to the news papers! We finally agree on something. ”
     We probably agree on a lot more than you think, just little that has come up much so far.

345. wah
     December 15th, 2007 | 18:53

     “Actually it would be reduction ad absurdum, no a non-sequitur.”
     Either way it does not follow, including the extrapolation of the idea.

     “Entropy bears no resemblance to “disorder”, even in a logarithmic sense…..There is also the problem that the 2nd law only applies to closed systems. Like the above example.”
     No I’m sure it does; as long as you have a competent physicist and/or mathematician who can properly apply the correct logarithmic calculations and mathematical functions (inverse) to measure entropy logarithmically.

     “Most creatioists have never gone beyond highschool science.”
     I’m certain that all the creation scientists out there who’ve earned college degrees would disagree with that. There are plenty of people in this world who have quite a bit of scientific training who believe in a young/old earth. Most atheists or secular people or ‘evolution enthusiasts’ have never gone beyond highschool science either.

     “The article specifically states that it never gained any real acceptance in the scientific community.”
     Only after the fact. Only after the entire fiasco because according to the sentence it said creationists made fun of this event and since that didn’t happened within those 10 years but AFTER, then that concludes that the scientific community not accepting the tooth was AFTER that fact. Get it? Read the sentence again, in context. That would mean from 1922 to 1927 many scientists publicly rejected it by publishing works dismissing Osborn’s other findings but as for the Nebraska man tooth it was accepted by a prominent portion of the community until 1927. It may seem like this showed science’s best at correcting mistakes and their ability to implement a ’self-correcting’ system but it also showed that experts in science community make mistakes on something so trivial. In fact, such a mistake was easily distinguishable that it was either the incompetence of scientists or the expertise of the verification process. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the science community encountered a ‘harder-to-reveal-mistake’ that passed ‘under their radar’ if you catch my meaning. On top of that, between 1917 and 1922 it’s highly probable that rumors spread around that a tooth belonging to an ape-man was supposedly found but wasn’t verified. Many scientists were hoping that it was true even though when asked they’d respond with very skeptical answers. The entire fiasco only proved that scientists are only good at correcting mistakes as much as being susceptible to a ‘trojan horse.’

     “As I said before, it was a minor fossil that the scientific community never paid any attention to, or accepted as a whole.”
     I beg to differ. Since it was discovered, I’m sure it turned people’s heads, asking “Could this be real? We don’t’ know but we should wait until it’s classified.” So however long it took to verify, it was during those years that they really hoped that it was real. Even though they weren’t sure or some may have already assumed it was true or some may have already dismissed it before any initial classification but I know the heart of a scientist in that situation. There would be speculation about it being true OR NOT and it would still spread. And there was a period where it was falsely classified as an ape but that mistake wasn’t revealed until years later. So for that time being, however many years it was, I’m sure a large part of the community accepted it as much as there were credible experts who rejected it. Let’s be realistic here. It wasn’t something people ignored. I mean if this thing was really true then I’m certain the entire community would’ve been excited about this and talking and gossiping whether this is true or not because this discovery had the potential to revolutionize science, even if it was a hoax but it wasn’t. it was a genuine attempt at finding out if it was true or not. And all this fiasco took years to figure out. So even if it wasn’t accepted as a whole, it couldn’t be initially ignored.

     “Also, from what I can see, was it Osborne who misidentified it first? That would be in 1922, and so it was revealed to be a mistake just 3 years later.”
     Um. Not as I see it. The page should be re-edited. It says that the mistake was revealed in 1925 but that was the year the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ happened but I don’t think it had nothing to do with the mistake being revealed at all unless there are more non-biased sources confirming that, considering wiki’s record. It should be noted to that “as a Marxist in his views and prominent member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Osborn was aware that plans were being made by the union to challenge the Christian-backed legislation that forbade the teaching of evolution in American schools. He likely saw the tooth as precious evidence for the 1925 ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’ but the tooth was not brought in as evidence it was dismissed by the judge.” So in this case, the tooth wasn’t used to support evolution, which I never argued in the first place but that the science community gave their hopes up on this one since it was ’special’. But I admit, evolutionists do try to play this down as if it was nothing. Yeah. Right. If I was a scientist back then, even being skeptical of the tooth being from an ape-man, I’d be ‘Darn. That’s too bad it’s a mistake. We’re hoping it was really an ape-man. Oh well.” You see? Not only that, “a further search was made at Snake Creek, the site of the original discovery, and by 1927 it was begrudgingly concluded that it was from a pig. These facts were not considered generally newsworthy but did appear in “Science” (1927, 66:579). The fourteenth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1929, 14:767) coyly admitted that a mistake had been made and that the tooth belonged to a ‘being of another order’. The burden of embarrassment was thus eased for the now retired Henry Fairfield Osborn.” I’m not sure the mistake was revealed in 1927 either. But whether the initial classification lasted for 3 or 5 years that still says to me that any other scientist out there today could make the same mistake he did but on a much less trivial scale if you catch my meaning.

     “In fact, Osbourne’s work contain no references to it being anything other than a primitive ape, and no mention of it being an ancestor of man.”
     But that doesn’t mean he didn’t believe that the tooth was related to man at one time or another. According to Sir Arthur Keith’s, “The Antiquity of Man, Vol. II,” Williams and Norgate, London, p. 475, 1925, “Then on Saturday, 25 February 1922, Cook contacted Dr Henry F. Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. ‘I have had here, for some little time,’ Cook told Osborn, ‘a molar tooth from the upper or Hipparion beds, that very closely approaches the human type.’ When Osborn received the tooth, he excitedly dashed off a note to Cook. ‘The instant your package arrived’, he said, ‘I sat down with the tooth, in my window, and I said to myself: It looks one hundred per cent anthropoid … . We may cool down tomorrow, but it looks to me as if the first anthropoid ape of America had been found’.” Both Dr W.K. Gregory, a tooth authority, and Osborn, then, believed that the Nebraskan tooth was an upper molar from an anthropoid. They believed this indicated the first find of man’s ancestors in America.” Now some claimed that Osborn didn’t say or believe so by using Osborn’s quote: “I have not stated that Hesperopithecus was either an Ape-man or in the direct line of human ancestry, because I consider it quite possible that we may discover anthropoid apes (Simiidae) with teeth closely imitating those of man (Hominidae),… Until we secure more of the dentition, or parts of the skull or of the skeleton, we cannot be certain whether Hesperopithecus is a member of the Simiidae or of the Hominidae.” That was Osborn’s rejection against Gould’s charge that Osborn himself thought the tooth to be from an ape, which basically means Osborn’s quote was simply in denial or setting Gould up to use a strawman. But the fact of the matter is, however, that Osborn did believe that the tooth was clear evidence of human evolution from apes. If he did not believe this, then why did he chide Williams Jenning Bryan, the prosecutor for the ‘Scopes Monkey Trial’, by saying, “This little tooth speaks volumes of truth, in that it affords evidence of man’s descent from the ape.” even if he simply said that in support of the evolution case? In fact he wrote the following in the press concerning Bryan, “The earth spoke to Bryan from his own state of Nebraska. The Hesperopithecus tooth is like the still, small voice. Its sound is by no means easy to hear… This little tooth speaks volumes of truth, in that it affords evidence of man’s descent from the ape.” So your statement maybe true or not. I don’t know. I highly doubt that though. BTW, Osborn shunned the drawing not because he didn’t believe the ape belonged to an ape-man but because the drawing didn’t meet scientific standards of what an ape-man would like look like. The wikipage needs to be re-edited heavily with my comments. For sure. Now here’s my point: even if you are right in everything you still admit it was an quick and easy mistake that was quickly and easily corrected in the span of 3-5 years. BTW, the mistake wasn’t corrected because it was examined and scrutinized by other scientists; more bones were simply discovered. If you can look at a tooth’s pig and mistake it to be an ape-man how much easier would it be to mistake a fossil, that looks 99.99% identical to an ape-man, to be ape-man, but not quite? IOW, despite it showing that science’s ability to correct mistakes coming its way, how much harder is it to detect a ‘trojan horse?’ We can rely only so much that our science is really good at correcting mistakes but we must admit that that mistake was way too easy to correct. The fiasco reaffirms the flaws of man’s nature no matter how much we improve and refine our methods, standards and worldview. That leads me to believe that there’s no good reason to remove any doubt that the bones we have may in fact be what we claim it to be. Facts and evidence are only as good as the logic behind it.

     “Anything that wasn’t natural couldn’t be studied…And that whle thing just seems so… nonsensical…which relies on no testable evidence to survive….You object to that picture because it disagrees with that which your religion paints.”
     Well, the Christian should presuppose that God has been actively involved with His creation. Therefore, what is commonly referred to as supernatural, is really completely natural, but it is simply divine. Anyway, my big problem with theistic evolution is that it borrows faulty naturalistic presuppositions. When we look at the universe, it only appears to be billions of years old if we presuppose things occurred naturally. The only reason we would have to explain away why stars appear to be millions of light years away if we presuppose that the light had to come to earth naturally. As a Christian, I should reject that sort of presupposition. Why? Because they’re contrary to what I believe. If I don’t believe the earth was created through natural means, why would I look to the universe using naturalistic presuppositions? It doesn’t make sense. Its like playing a “what if” game in my mind and then letting my mind get the best of me. And I’m not certain how making predictions about the age of the universe is in the same ball park as looking through a telescope and realizing the sun is in fact not the center of the universe. Further, I’m really not concerned with explaining why figurative language shouldn’t be taken literally or why a book written 2000 to 3000 years ago doesn’t conform to 21st century western science textbook standards. And most Christians reject certain evolutionary theories and other scientific explanations because they come from secular science rather than Scripture. Sure I can interpret Genesis to be figurative, but if I do so I’m doing so because of secular science not because the Bible does so. I’m letting science interpret Scripture instead of letting Scripture interpret science.

     “Basically you don’t object to the theory, you object to the conclusion. Thus you reject the theory.”
     Well I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater if that’s what you’re implying. But in the general sense, I shun the theory! Why would I take extremely fallible science that has been determined by a mere human observing a cursed universe and take that idea and adding it to the Bible, the infallible word of God? Why should I tell God what he did with our “great” science and not listening to what He is saying? The issue is over deciding what will be my final authority for my beliefs. Is it scripture? Or is it science? If I believe all scripture is the true word of God and is my FINAL authority, then I know as told by Moses, that man was made from the dust of this earth. And when we die we shall return. Which is what happens.

     1 The soul leaves the body at death
     2 The flesh decays
     3 bones are exposed and depending on how long you give it, those will decay and crumble into dust.

     “It can be observed “scientificially” through the fossil record…..it is not necessary to have an entirely smooth lineage to represent things, because gaps are only a problem if they’re too large….The basic idea of a scientific theory is like this…”
     The fossil record is not the scientific method. And that goes just to show you that evolution is a theory, not a fact really. Pure speculation and hypothetical assumption about the world. The theory of evolution has more holes in it than the back-nine at Augusta. I know that the theory of evolution violates every single one of the laws of physics, mechanics, thermodynamics, etc. In fact,and it’s really very sad, actually… a decade ago Johnson and Behe pointed out these interesting holes (via irreducible complexity, among other micro/macro issues dealing with different roles mutations play) in evolutionary theory, but drew all these really strong conclusions from such small observations. Then these proved to be somewhat interesting areas for research, and there are dozens of papers giving reconstructions of how we might reduce the complexity of these apparently irreducibly complex organs per cited instance of irreducible complexity. But now that all these papers have been published they’re not being recognized by the proponents of irreducible complexity, and the same arguments about “No one has tried to answer these questions…” are getting tossed around. Irregardless, I’m not going to get into another pointless debate about that since people who believe in evolution are generally closed-minded to the idea of creation and that they also contort the evidence to fit their theories. So, I’m not going to enter into a debate that would prove pointless. Furthermore, for something to be a valid scientific theory, it must meet three criteria:

     1. It must be observable.
     2. It must be testable.
     3. The tests must be repeatable with the same outcomes resulting.

     Yes, we know the biological mechanism of evolution occurs. No doubt. We have fossil records to support that idea. Now —- when we’re talking about a complete full successive gapless fossil record clearly and irrefutably showing that the first non-living cells to evolve to a human being all in one straight line without any room for ‘imagination’, in every single step there is to absolutely know, then evolution meets none of those requirements in that sense. Depending on who you listen to (Dawkins or Gould, for example), evolution is either too slow to observe, or too fast to observe. How convenient. Other than what I already know, I don’t know of any other model or theory that says so in which I can really put my trust in. Continuing on with the same scenario that I was referring to earlier, evolution, in its universal sense, is also an untestable theory that cannot be replicated in either the laboratory or in the field. Basically, the universal theory that explains the naturalistic history of the universe, which BTW is the consensus worldview for science AND evolution theory as well, is a nice, tidy, little story that atheists made up to explain how the world could have created itself without any help from God.

     Furthermore, if we look at this from a theological perspective, the evolutionary worldview does not exactly qualify as a scientific theory. Hear me out: in order to become a theory, a hypothesis must be verified by consistent repeatable experiments. The “Theory” of Evolution, in its naturalistic worldview of the universe, has not been documented and indeed cannot be documented in this fashion or the previous notion of a perfect fossil record. Remember, evolution is explains the idea of NATURAL selection, etc, so even if scientists were to force some kind of evolutionary process in a lab, then it would just be a case of someone playing God. However, there are obviously external ramifications that conflict with this theological perspective of the former fashion in which I personally feel I should deal with the next two points:
     (1) While I admit that the former fashion is a very elementary understanding of what a theory is and that the vast majority of trained scientists (even biased Christians who believe in creation, like myself) regard evolution as a scientific theory, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with that understanding of it and in addition I think these scientists are hardly unbiased. It would be very difficult to try to hold onto the intellectual and rational high ground if they admitted that their “theory” didn’t actually meet the criteria to be a scientific theory. Even so, one should still rethink their position on such. The “theory” of evolution, in its naturalistic worldview of the universe, is nothing more than a plausible explanation of what happened given the limited information we have, which hardly makes it worthy of being a theory. The word has simply been redefined (as it has been alluded) to make it fit the explanation. It’s no surprise that the majority of trained scientists accept evolution as theory, is it? After all, they all have so much invested in it. There’s really only two choices: God’s Word or man’s word. Is it really a surprise they choose the latter, given their almost universal anti God bias?.
     (2) On the other hand, despite that a fairly common definition of theory among scientists is that a theory is a systematic, logical, testable, predictive explanation or expression of all previous observations pertaining to a given system — ‘a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; “theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses”; “true in fact and theory”‘ it would still seem to me that in order for something to be considered a theory you don’t actually have to prove anything but rather just build up a large enough body of work in order to come up with plausible, rather than accurate, explanation, only because I see people on this board claiming that evidence proves the theory of evolution presumably that they interpret the theory of evolution based on a naturalistic worldview of the history of the universe. It seems to me that the definition of theory has “evolved” over the years to “lower the bar” so to speak, as to what a theory is, even though I understand that one of the stronger points for the theory of evolution, taken as a whole, is that it must stand the scrutiny of repeatable experiments with consistent results. Sorry about the pejorative tone, but I suppose I am just tired of the dogmatic tone of many “scientists” concerning evolution.

     Even so personally, as a Christian, I’m not really that bothered over the theological problems with the theory of Evolution as I am on the actual scientific evidence – or the lack thereof, referring to the gapless record. The book of Genesis tells us that God created man last of all the creatures. Evolution seems to be telling us the same thing – man is a major recent creation in relation to the rest of the world. Every single piece of so-called evidence for evolution can be interpreted to support special creation. Scientists see what they want to see, and not necessarily what is really there. Moreover, and I don’t mean this to undermine evolution theory itself at all since it’s not really that evolutionary theory accounts for the world naturalistically but to somebody like you who is already committed to naturalism that evolutionary theory accounts for the world naturalistically anyway, but it’s just peculiar that there’s simply too much info that the evolution’s worldview of the naturalistic history of the universe cannot account for, like the odd absence of numerous missing links, considering that we’ve searched for the human missing link for years when there should be thousands/millions of fossilized missing links between multiple species that simply aren’t being found – even if we take into account the fossilization process, the rarity of fossils, the discovery of transitional fossils, the fact that fossils are being found all the time and these missing links may be found years from us – EVERY single species should have a missing link with its ancestor I think. We have fossils of the things that are called ancestors and we have the current species today. Why, pray tell, would there not also be fossils of the missing link? Fossils are not all that hard to make. Nevertheless, even if you make a valid point to explain this, it sure is taking a while though.

     “If we create an entirely artifical life from, we shown only that life does not NEED a divine spark to come from non-living matter.”
     I don’t see it your way at all unless it takes place from that point onward then life at that point forward doesn’t need a divine spark as long as the creation of free will and a soul isn’t required. Otherwise, IMO, it only shows us that life requires an intelligent mind/being to intervene to create that spark so that nature, chemistry or other natural mechanism can begin to work to create life. That’s it. Whether that intelligent mind is a natural being within the realm of nature or a supernatural being outside of the realm of nature is a whole another matter when you’re talking about the absolute sense of life’s prerequisites. Extrapolating your point further won’t change my views in the absolute cosmic sense of things. Since I take the doctrines of Creation or Incarnation seriously, I don’t need any idea of “supernatural”. In fact, I’m not slightly at all threatened by the fact that evolution theory (in and of itself) accounts for the changes of life on earth since it doesn’t account at all for the idea of the origin of life without the direct intervention of the supernatural. And since you seem to suggest the latter, your problem is your interpretation of Evolution based on a naturalistic worldview of the history of the universe.

     “The problem for young earth creationists…For old earth creationists there is another problem…Randomness certainly can look complex, and vice versa.”
     They’re no more problematic than the flaws scientists find in evolution. Creationists move from theory to theory, just like anyone else. They even debunk their own arguments. For example the refutation of Setterfield’s C-decay cosmology or Gentry’s Po interpretation. IMO, the entire young earth / evolution debate is a huge waste of time. The age, old or not, of the earth doesn’t seem, to me, to invalidate any of the Scriptural creation account, regardless of how literally you read it. God did not create a baby man or baby animals; why should He have created a baby planet? The only way that an “old earth” science threatens Christianity is if we falsely read into the creation account that God’s creation of the Earth entailed the creation of a “new” planet. This is why I do not think it is ever fair to consider it folly to believe in a young earth with no evolution as well. If you looked at the first humans born on Earth (assuming a literal Genesis account), you would conclude that all humans start as babies and then grow, but this would be false because Adam and Eve did not. The same could easily be true on a global scale. When God created the world, it had the appearance of age. Adam and Eve, for example may have appeared to be in their 20’s, when in fact they were 1 day old. 100-foot tall trees would have also had the appearance of age, when in fact they also were a couple of days old. When God created the stars, He made it so that we could see them even though they are billions of light-years away. Again, this is only the appearance of age. Even apart from that notion, still, at first blush it seems quite possible. E.g., when Jesus turned water into wine I’m sure that the wine “appeared” to have gone through a long process of fermentation, etc. When we experience the world he created, we are getting a glimpse of the creativity of God. God is revealed in the beauty of His creation, in the wisdom of His creatures, in intricacies and complexities of living things and the interactions between them. That’s what matters, not the question of how long it took. As a Christian, I really enjoy learning about science. The more I learn about science the more awe I feel. So I’m very thankful to science for discovering so many of the wonders of the world that God created. For me, learning more about the natural world is a worship experience. I don’t see ‘faith’ and ’science’ as opposites. As a Christian, I don’t have to be afraid of being open-minded, because God is real, and the more I experience, the more real He will be to me. I don’t need to be afraid of doubt, and I don’t need to try to believe without questioning, because my faith is strong enough to survive the questions (and if it isn’t, it’s not worth much anyways, and losing it is a step forward). Few things disgust me more than Christians who behave like our faith is a lie, an elaborate facade that we have to keep up just by refusing to expose ourselves to anything that makes us question our beliefs. God is real; I don’t need to feel threatened by science or evolution theory (in/of itself). The ramification is when people interpret Evolution based on naturalistic assumptions. But there are much deeper questions to be asked by both evolutionists and creationists. For instance, what kind of naturalistic assumptions go into science, and how can we work to do a non-naturalistic science? How do the structures of scientific thought shape our understanding of the world, and how should we reshape them? Since science has had such terrible, unexpected side effects, how can we work to cultivate a scientific humility that will help us avoid these ill effects? Etc. And I could be judging the naturalistic worldview in light of the actions of some of its adherents, since the same angle could be taken on religion, and quite specifically Christianity but I doubt anyone will deny that there are two sides to every technological coin. E.g., American television allows for speedy mass-communication, but it also pushes simplistic, quippy, emotive discourse. The Internet now allows for loads of user participation, but its cyber-communities also engender 1337 and text-message lingo. Nonetheless, we’ve benefited a great deal from discoveries made by those with naturalistic views, and suffered a great deal. Same is true for those with Christian views (I don’t see why I would have any more vested interest in the views of Deists than I would Secular Humanists) who have shaped national policies and public morality.

     “It is not a matter of “wanting” to believe, it is a matter of being convinced of it….”
     That’s called obstinate unbelief. We “want” from our heart but we are “convinced” through our mind. Mark 8:16-18 records the Pharisees’ and Herodians’ needing to be convinced. “And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.” But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?” These mens’ hearts were so hardened that they had to be convinced through their minds. It didn’t matter to “want” as much as it was to be convinced. If you were convinced, you wouldn’t want to I reckon. IOW, the heart precedes the mind. The heart is where your emotions, wants, feelings and desires are and the mind is where your logic, reasoning, conscience and thinking are. And we know that from a biological, physiological, and evolutionary perspective that the “emotional part” of our brain is hardwired to be more “controlling” than the thinking part of the brain. So even if Jesus Christ Himself showed you supernatural miraculous signs doesn’t mean you’d want to. John 12:39-41 records the Jews’ unbelief, “But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: “ Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, Lest they should see with their eyes, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them. These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him.” Basically, it’s more of a matter of “wanting” than being convinced. Unless you want to but is not convinced. If you do then what’s stopping you? Evidence? But I highly doubt that. You see, God doesn’t “convince” or “persuade” people into believing or loving Him. God works through the hearts of men. He draws them to Him by causing them to want and desire from their hearts. Christians don’t convince people to convert. They lead them to the truth of God through the Gospel and the Holy Spirit speaks to their hearts through the Word of God. The only way you can be convinced is by yourself, not by anyone. There were many people who sought out to disprove the Bible but ended up Christian because of the overwhelming evidence for it so they were convinced not by God but through their own research. And so it was the Holy Spirit that caused that desire in their hearts by speaking to it after the fact. In such case, God works that way as well as Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.” Now, I can do pre-calculus. The tress outside can not. So, its a really big leap for me to go from speciation with plants to speciation with mammals. You don’t see why its a HUGE leap to go from slight changes in plants to humans (who were able to land on the moon, create computers and the internet) came from apes? This is a very large leap. If you can show significant changes in animals then you might start sound convincing to me. How about an example of an animal giving birth to an animal with a different number chromosomes? What I’m getting at is the idea of an animal giving birth to an animal of a different species (different genetic make up). Is there an example of a dog giving birth to a new species? A dog that gave birth to a new creature which is very similar to a dog except it can’t reproduce with dogs (which calls into question how this new species would continue to exist.)

     “Such claims lead people to follow blindly”
     In such cases, that may be true but that’s not how Christianity really works by “blind faith”. As a Christian my faith is not “blind” as you put it. That is a Kierkegaard idea. Personally, my heart can’t rejoice in what my mind rejects. My heart and head were created to work and believe together as harmony. Christ commanded us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind“. When Jesus Christ and the apostles called upon a person to exercise faith, it was not a “blind faith” but rather an “intelligent faith.” The apostle Paul said, “I know whom I have believed”. Jesus said, “You shall know [not ignore] the truth, and the truth shall make you free”. The belief of an individual involves “the mind, the emotions, and the will.” I like the way F.R. Beaatie puts it: “The Holy Spirit does not work a blind and ungrounded faith in the heart.” Paul Little wrote, “Faith in Christianity is based on evidence. It is reasonable faith. Faith in the Christian sense goes beyond reason but not against it.” So faith is the assurance of the heart in the adequacy of the evidence. And I don’t see why it wouldn’t fit well with “walking by faith, not by sight.” For those mentioned above who sought out to disprove Christianity but ended up Christian, Christianity was not a “leap into the dark,” but rather “a step into the light.” They took the evidence that they could gather and placed it on the scales. The scales tipped in favor of Christ as the Son of God, resurrected from the dead. The evidence so overwhelmingly leans toward Christ that when they became a Christian, they were “stepping into the light” rather than “leaping into the darkness.” Psalm 119:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” You should read “Evolution: The Great Debate.” Best unbiased presentation of both sides of the Evolution story in relation to Christianity. In my opinion.

     “Take your pick. Obviously none of the others have a bible written about them, but the evidence of their existence is about as independalty viable as Jesus’ extra-biblical support. Some less so, some more so.”
     Nice try. None of those claimants come close to Jesus as Horus does and there’s absolutely nothing about Horus that would signify that Jesus’s historicity and divinity derived from him or any other claimants past or future. But since I wasn’t arguing against other making claims to be messiahs, the list doesn’t really prove that they are theologically EXACTLY 100% the same as Jesus. Now when I say theologically, that takes into account the translations of the words in question, interpretations of the literary devices used to describe the historical events and the dietical implications. So you really have to study all of each person in the list, get a right interpretation and then compare them with Jesus. Basically, how do you know if Jesus, or any particular one for that matter, stands above all in uniqueness? Its effect and impact on the world and history. Ask any historian who is the most controversial person (or figure) who is written most about in history and they’ll tell you its Jesus Christ. You couldn’t visit each continent, or country for that matter, without someone bugging you about Jesus Christ. Sure, you’ll find teachings about Buddha, Allah and other ‘false messiahs’ (as portrayed in the list you linked) around the world, but not on the same scale as Jesus. That in itself isn’t what makes Jesus unique even though it’s one way used to measure someone’s uniqueness but it’s those specific claims that Jesus made and the overwhelming number of His fulfilling prophecies over all others that goes under rigorous scrutiny but unrefuted. All those so-called messiah made their claims with a big bang or a whisper, they died, the historians recorded their life but that’s as far as their impact goes for the rest of the world. They went out with a whisper. But Jesus left His mark on history. A mark no one fails to acknowledge. Goodness gracious Redem you’re comparing Jesus to THOSE people on the list? LOL. You spend lots of time on the internet. Google each person in that list and compare the hits and the impact each has made on history. Haha..

     “Details differ of course, but the themes remain”
     Small details can make a big difference as much as it can’t. And the themes? Themes don’t take away His uniqueness, really. The universal themes of good vs evil, God and the Devil, savior, virgin birth, death, resurrection, salvation, sin redemption, grace, mercy, justice, holiness, creation, immortality, etc. No other religion compares to Christianity in any combination of all these themes. All of them are basically inferior in the appealing sense that Christianity provides a universal answer that makes the most sense, is more powerful and consistent with the nature of God, and presents all those themes in a way the world has never heard or seen. It basically stands out from the rest of them in terms of all these themes. You’re gonna have to take my word for it because what else religion is equally as unique as Christianity in that sense? Hm?

     “All that is required is the belief, not the actuality of a visit by a holy spirit to change someone’s life.
     Thus a mere fever dream or drug induced hallucination could make someone believe strange things. Of course nowadays we are aware of the effect these things can have, and can protect ourselves from them with that knowledge, but in the past?
     Possibilities for why people may think they were visited by a holy presence, or force, or demonic force for that matter.
     Did this happen? I dunno, maybe. maybe he was visited by the holy spirit as you claim, or it could be something else neither of us thought of. It could even be a case of lies. All of these are possible, and with the info I have available I can make no choice between them.”
     Possible. Though it is speculation at best when you’re dealing with a history book. But – either way any critical history skeptic must take this at face value. Considering the extant copies are closer and more you should apply the same skepticism to ancient writings of Plato, Aristotle, or Homer to Acts or any other NT book. The Book of Acts, besides being one of the most powerful books of the bible, is really more of a history book than anything else and AFAIK it’s never been refuted. It’s basically a historical narrative that records the ministry of the early apostles. The Holy Spirit spoke to and visited many other numerous people recorded in Acts either privately, in pairs, small groups to large groups and there’s no historical evidence that I know of to suggest that Paul or any other people in Acts were under a mass hallucination either OR that all of them could be lying. Keep in mind that the people weren’t all in like one little village. These events took place throughout the middle east area from Egypt to Macedonia. Even then, hypothetically, how does the ‘power’ of these events historically compare with other so-called supposed ‘non-Christian encounters’ in or away from the middle east, not that I’ve personally heard of writings documenting such?

     “A bad parent would forbid them doing something and declare it to be a “sin”, and do it themselves. A good parent would lead by example, and explain things.”
     If the rules only apply to them and don’t apply to you and you establish the stipulations (by explaining to them why you can and they can’t) then there shouldn’t be a problem.

     “Thus a sin is not a moral “wrong” but a broken rule.”
     No. The law is not a list of rules. God’s moral law is revealed to us in our conscience so that we sense what is right and wrong. According to your conscience, whatever you deem is moral or immoral is the law, God’s law. IOW, if you commit an immoral act, inwardly or outwardly, you have sinned against God. Why? Because God, through your conscience, has beared witness to His law. Ever hear “that little voice” in your head that tells you you should or shouldn’t do this or that? That’s it right there. Every time we feel guilty or we do something immoral without ourselves knowing it.

     “Would you agree that his actions are immoral in those cases you describe? Given that you think morality is objective.”
     I agree in the sense that His actions are generally immoral for humans.

346. Wah
     December 23rd, 2007 | 14:32

     “isn’t something I particularly wanna debate.”
     Then we shan’t. Just listen to what my point has to say — if you have ears to hear and a willing heart.

     We were in Mark chapter 11 where you made a smugly joke about Jesus stealing so I’ll tell you what the opening of the chapter is suppose to be really about which is a more important matter than a trivial issue as ‘borrowing’. This passage of scripture is known as the triumphal entry and we actually know the exact date and time in which this passage took place it took place in the Hebrew calendar on the 10th of Nissan according to the Jewish calendar or according to our calendar it would be Sunday, April 6 32 AD. Four days before the Jews were to have their Passover and what a beautiful picture that Passover is of Jesus Christ and the work that he did. In Exodus Chapter 12, it tells us it was to be a male Lamb. Why? because in Romans 5 it says, “Through the one man’s sin, referring to Adam, sin entered the world, but through the One-Man, righteousness, referring to Jesus Christ, all became righteous.” Also it’s to be one year old which was the peak of a lamb’s strength. Without spot, a perfect lamb, no bones broken, clearly it wasn’t a struggle it wasn’t a fight but He GAVE His life. In John 10 Jesus says, “no man takes my life but I give it willingly. I lay it down. And. I also have the power to raise it up again.” No bones were broken. There was no struggle. He laid down his life. Why I find it very interesting here in Chapter 11, it says, “when they drew nearer to Jerusalem” this is then a six-month trek leading the northern part of Israel heading towards the southern part of Israel now they’ve just been in Jericho in the chapter previous they wind it up that old Roman road for us today they came up into the very top peak there that they would be able to see Jerusalem on the Mount of olives. There’s several little villages up there. Couple of them: one is Bethpage and the other is Bethany. Remember Bethany’s where Lazarus, Jesus’s good friend, was raised from the dead. And at that Mount of Olive area the whole region, He sent two of his disciples and he said to them “Go into the village opposite you; and as soon as you have entered it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it.” Now, if anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it,’ and immediately he will send it here.” So they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it AND some of those who stood there said to them “What are you doing, loosing the colt?” And they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded. So they let them go.

     Wow! Rather an interesting scenario because the Lord had not gone into that city. He just now has arrived but He says, “Guys, we’re stopping here. You go on up over to the city the opposite of us on the other side of the hill and as soon as you come in you’re gonna find a colt. It’s a donkey but it’s a new donkey. A baby one that has never been ridden on and you’re to get it and bring it here” Boy, it reminds us that God knows everything. God knows the beginning. And God knows the end and everything in between. And if God knows where donkeys are tied up in their ages in that they never been ridden on before God knows about you. So we might say “He knows about the donkeys then, He knows about all the donkeys now.” But how much more? Man. The Bible tells us that, God knows us SO specifically, that he knows every……hair upon your head by number. God knows you intimately, which is radical because we began to understand……..that when a person is called by God, like this mule, to be used, it’s something that God knows in advance a matter of fact the Bible tells us in many different times in many different ways a matter-of-fact in Ephesians chapter 1 it says, “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” It tells us in 2 Timothy 1:9 “Who has saved us? Who has called us with the holy calling, not according to our works but according to His own purpose, AND grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began”…. Before the first second ever clicked on any clock. The Lord knew the beginning and all the way to the end. And God saw you within time. It tells us in Acts chapter 13. It tells us that, “and when the Gentiles heard this, the Jews had rejected Paul and Barnabas, and he said “well, then as the Scripture says, ‘We’ll be a light unto the Gentiles.”‘ and when the Gentiles heard it, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and it says, “as many as been appointed to eternal life, believe. as many who had been appointed to eternal life they believed.” It tells us in John chapter 6 Jesus said “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up, at the last day.”……….. The Bible makes it clear… That it’s not a random haphazard accidental thing.. When somebody sees their sin is repentive of their sin and wants God to be the Lord of their life… It was a sovereign plan of God…

     Now we find in this story, that the Lord specifically had planned out, a mule he didn’t have to go to the city he didn’t have to go search around and try to pick one out. Because the Bible tells us that this had been a preordained plan, before the foundation of the world. God knowing that man would sin. God had already MADE the plan that He would be man’s savior…..and to demonstrate His love towards man in this way. A matter-of-fact in one of the minor prophets you might want to write this down and look it up later on your own but in Zachariah chapter 9 verse 9, it says “Rejoice greatly oh daughter of Zion! Shout oh daughter of Jerusalem! Behold! your King is coming to you. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding on a donkey, a cult and the full of a donkey.” Radical! Hundreds of years in advance…. It named that their Messiah would be coming in. To Jerusalem. He would be bringing SALVATION with Him. And He wouldn’t just be upon a donkey but a colt of a donkey. And now here we see at this appointed time, Jesus Christ is coming on the scene, and He is in control He knows what’s happening. Now you say “W-what’s the point of this?.. The point is this… In 4 days they’re to take of the Passover supper, in the upper room, and then it’s gonna seem as if, ALL of life goes chaotic. Now Jesus had said to the disciples, MANY times “‘guys we’re gonna get to Jerusalem I’m gonna get taken. I’m gonna be arrested I’m gonna be beaten I’m gonna be crucified and on the third day I’m gonna raise again.” They never could hear it. they never could get it. And here they’re heading they’re almost at Jerusalem and we saw the chapter previous in James and John says “now! when you’re in your glory can one be on your right and one be on your left?” heh. They’re still thinking, that the Lord’s gonna come and take over Jerusalem there’s gonna be this supernatural empowering and God’s kingdom’s gonna be established and…they can’t get it. and in their scheme of things. All of a sudden, these guys came to arrest Jesus and what ’s going on and Peter whips out his sword and ‘no way it’s not gonna happen’ and Jesus says, “Stop it Peter! I can call all the angels out of heaven and stop this. Leave it alone.” And, all of a sudden He seems completely, powerless like any other man like a criminal…..who really was justly being beaten. Justly being wronged and it eventually crucified next to a couple of other crazy guys like himself. Unchangeable criminals. It was gonna LOOK like defeat. It was gonna LOOK like, there was no purpose for His life no real, meaning to all the things He had said and done….. Until, he rose again….

     But here’s the great thing about this story… Jesus. Comes. Now, in his triumphal entry. You see it would’ve made total sense to me — thunder! the rock moves… Jesus comes out. Radiating! Resurrected! Beaming! zhzhhzhzhz [electric buzz sound] Everybody’s like, “What’s that bright light?” you know, let’s go find it — you know it’s like one of those lights that go wooosh in the sky and go find out and it’s a car sale or something. So here it is. Here’s this BEAMING coming OUT! “What’s happening, you know?!” And all they come and there’s Jesus. And NOW they have the triumphant entry – from, the tomb – into, Jerusalem, through – the – eastern gate and He – rules and rains upon the throne. That makes SENSE to me – because, the kings in this day, when they went to war and they, won the battle, they would have a parade that it’d first set up they would take all the gold and the silver all the spoil and it would be paraded through town of all the great things they had collected in the battle. Then they would have the predominate kings and princes and the nobleman they had captured and there they have ‘em chained up and beaten up and they would march them thru the city. And then finally, the king would come, ON a donkey usually a white one. That was their, you know, Rolls-Royces of the day and people would began to – shade him in and lay down palm branches and shake them in the air and in his name, as he would go through the city, saying, “he’s the king who has conquered!”

     But Jesus at this point, HASN’T conquered. Jesus at this point is gonna look like – he didn’t win the battle at all – it’s gonna look like he was totally defeated! So why now?! Why is the triumphal entry now? I believe it’s the Lord showing us the pattern of His mind….. That it’s by – the triumph of God – that we are saved. its by FAITH in Him – that we can NOW – rejoice. That NOW we can go ahead, and claim the victory and believe the victory! hold your fingers there in Mark and look at 2 Corinthians Chapter 2. It tells us there in verse 14: “Now thanks be to God who-” what? “ALWAYS leads us in triumph IN Christ, IF you are in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of HIS knowledge in every, place…” Now look to four chapters later in 2 Corinthians Chapter 4: verse 7 “For we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God, and NOT of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed. We’re perplexed. ‘Man. Can’t figure this one out. Why is God allowing this?’ But we’re not in despair. We’re persecuted. ‘Man. I’m trying to bless you. Why are you thinking I’m doing you evil?’ But we’re not forsaken. We’re struck down, but we’re not destroyed. Always carrying about in the body, the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the LIFE of Jesus also, may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but – life in you.” Now listen to verse 13 here. “since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore we, speak, [why?] knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus WILL[, not has, but WILL,] also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. For ALL things [ALL things] are for your sake, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.” So all things – that are happening – what things? – being hard-pressed to being perplexed to being persecuted to being struck down. All of these things as the dying of the Lord Jesus is happening in us, all these things are a part of the life of Jesus being in others. And knowing that He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead He will ALSO raise – us – from – the dead. At the very beginning, of Jesus’s ministry, He cleanses the temple – and, they came out and said “what gives you the right to do this?” and in John chapter 2, Jesus said, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” And they said, “It took us 46 years to build a temple and you’ll build it up back in three days?” and the disciples made a note, He was referring to the temple of His body, that after He was raised from the dead, they believed……. Jesus knew…..crushing, was coming. Jesus knew, He was gonna be struck down. Jesus knew it was gonna be perplexing. “Father, if there’s any way for this cup to pass, but not my will, thy will be done.” As blood began to mingle with the sweat and drop to the ground….. But at the same time, He already had His triumphal entry. Why? Because it’s a done deal. You know a matter-of-fact it tells us in Revelation 13:8 it says “and their names who were not in the book of life, of the Lamb who was slain, before the foundations of the world.”

     Radical. You see in God’s mind, it was a done deal. The crucifixion AND the resurrection of Christ – before time – ever began. Again, why is this so significant? Because right here, we know that all things, he says, all things – are for us. Remember another verse very similar to that in Romans 8:28? We know, we don’t feel, we don’t think, but we KNOW – that all – things – work – together – for good. Is there a period there? Nope, it goes on. We know that all things work together for good, to those who LOVE God and to those who are CALLED, according – to His purpose…. You see, if you were here today and if you have chosen to LOVE God, [well, how do you love God? Jesus said "you love me if you keep my commandments." What is His commandment?] To believe on Him whom the Father has sent. To believe that Jesus Christ is Lord – that He has come into human flesh, to take your sin upon Himself to PAY for the penalty, of your sin and to raise again from the dead that He might be able to give you as a GIFT. Forgiveness of sin. To be able to write your name joyfully in the Book of Life. And to cause you to share His heaven for all of eternity. He WANTS to do that for you. You’re not worthy….. and nine out of ten other people wouldn’t think the same thing – I agree. But the Lord thinks that of you. That He wants you to be forgiven of your sin. And it’s MORE than just that. That this very MOMENT that you would be called – according to His purpose…. You see it was just – a donkey…..it was just a..colt – in a little city, sort of unknown – tied up, outside by the city gate. To you and to me it had no great significance. It saw thousand different donkeys in the course of the day. But to the Lord He – knew – as His eyes go to and fro throughout the earth, it landed upon that colt, that God had saw before the foundations of the world. And the Bible tells us the same thing – about – you. A matter-of-fact if you would turn to Ephesians Chapter 2 verse 8. “For by grace you’ve been saved through faith and that not of yourself [you can't save yourself guys. You can't forgive your own sins. It is a gift - of - God.] Not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them.” Do you hear that? We’re saved by grace. We’re saved as a gift of God. Why? Because we are CALLED unto His purpose. He has made us a workmanship. That word in the Greek is the word ‘poema.’ We get our word ‘poem,’ from that Greek word. It literally means, “a work of art,” “a UNIQUE piece of work of art.” And here it tells us, that this UNIQUE piece of work of art – that’s what you are – that God has created you just like that colt – He created you — *look at this* — for good works which God – prepared – before hand….that you should walk in them. Do you guys get this? You’re not just some RANDOM ——–creation — of some – random evolutionary chain ——— and there’s no real significance —- of your life —- you live — you breathe — you die – that’s all there is to it. GOD tells YOU today. that before time began – and for all of eternity, He knows you…And that within this span of time — that God would come, and start knocking on the door of your heart. That God would start saying to you – you are a sinner, and you’re hurting yourself and you’re hurting others. You would have that emptiness – that feeling of insignificance. That they’re supposed to be something significant happening, but it’s INsignificance that’s happening. I keep grasping at this, thinking THAT will make me significant, owning this, or making this much money or being married or having kids or being famous or whatever it might be…..And every time you’ve attained to that thing, you’re just as empty. Every time you grasp that next thing you feel JUST as insignificant…… And it’s GOD calling you unto Himself, why? Because GOD TODAY and TOMORROW and the NEXT DAY, [if you receive Him into your life,] He – has – your – day – planned. He has words for you to speak. He has people for you to show His love to. He has steps for your feet to walk in. He has thoughts for your mind to think. GOD has a purpose to utilize you. Isn’t that radical? That every day would be an adventure. That every day would be – a radical experience of God speaking to your heart. Speaking to you through the Word. Speaking to you from His spirit to your spirit and utilizing your life – good works that He’s preordained – ahead of time that you could (it doesn’t say you WILL. But you SHOULD) walk in them if you’re yielded. And then when the crucifixion comes. When the persecution comes and we’re struck down. When we’re crushed. When all these things happen, we know, “Hey! There’s no coincidence in God’s kingdom.” God has a purpose in EVERY flat tire. God has a purpose in EVERY hair that falls out of my head. God has a purpose for every —– chair my, toe bumps into. God has a reason in ALL THINGS – are working together for good to those who have loved God and called – according – to serve His purposes. You say, “But – here’s the problem Wah….I’m stubborn. I’m thickheaded. I’M unyielded!” Really? You just described… .. a donkey. LOL hehehe

     And this is why this passage is so significant for you. [Well you were the one who picked out Mark 11 before. Or maybe that it's the Lord who drew you near to this passage of Scripture. That He put it in your heart to think of something that lead you to Mark 11. That He especially picked you that day and wants to speak to you today if you're willing to have ears to hear and an open heart to know. Speculation. But this is what Scripture seems to be speaking to the reader, me and I'm just relaying to you what God reveals to us through His living Word.] Now I don’t know a lot about donkeys or horses. But I DO know this much: I do NOT want to ride one that has never been ridden on before. But Jesus picked one that had never been ridden on before. At first you say, “Alright! One has never been used. He gets the first use. That’s a sign of —-” What’s the Lord saying here? That when the master – has a hold of the reigns — the yieldedness comes….You see. ALL of creation IS in obedience to God. In churches, we sing songs before the message begins where there is opportunity to lift our hands and worship but not all of us do. It is pride. It’s stubbornness. Maybe a lack of the knowledge of God’s Word where God says to lift our hands unto His name. But if you walk outside, you’ll see all the trees. LOL. Their hands are lifted to His name. We have opportunities to clap our hands in church music time before the sermon. The Bible says “clap your hands and shout to the Lord, with the voice of triumph.” But you go into the woods and listen. And the trees are clapping their hands — as the one limb hits another. The oceans clap their hands as the water hits against the rocks. The birds sing to His praises. All of creation is submitted to God and in obedience to God and worshiping God and yielded to God BECAUSE they don’t have what we have! And THAT – is – a – free – will. You see, as much as God desires you to be saved (the Bible says God wishes ALL men to be saved! But the Bible also tells us not all men will come.) NOT ALL men will yield themselves. Men would rather hang onto their pride in their own way, their own purpose, their own desire, their OWN pleasures. But you haven’t been made for that. YOUR pleasures are destroying you! YOUR way is selfish! YOUR purposes are insignificant! And all they are is to consume it upon your OWN life’s self-centeredness….THAT’S NOT why you been made and you’re not in harmony with God, you’re not in harmony with Man, you’re not in harmony with nature. Because until your first in harmony with God you can’t be. And what has to happen is that *surrender.* “But I’m such a — big jackass!” I understand. I feel the same way. First Corinthians 1 says, “look at your calling brethren and not many noble, not many mighty, according to the flesh”. [But what?] God’s chosen the foolish things, the weak things. The despised things of this world. God has chosen — that He might confound the wise with His wisdom. When you hear that donkey speaking, you’re going, “It didn’t come from him.”….When you SEE the character and the *love* and the godliness and the *self-control*. You go, “Th-that donkey doesn’t have that ability of himself.” It says in first Corinthians 1, “so when men glory, they will glory in God and not in you – because they’ll KNOW it couldn’t have come from you. It HAD to have come from God! and I *love* that. That God, in a time, in a place, has chosen – a bunch of donkeys. But you *have* to give him the reins of your *life* …..The Lord today is coming and wanting to loose you from where you’re at and Satan’s stepping in saying, “HEY! whad’ya doing buddy?!!” ….And the Word is the Lord has …. need — of you. *Did you guys know that?* *God needs you.* Well, how is that? He has CHOSEN to use man. I mean God can do anything He wants. He could speak something out of nothing if he chose but God has said, “I will use man, period.” The Bible says, in Romans 10, “how will men believe unless they hear? how will they hear unless somebody preaches to them.” So without you, God won’t……BUT — without God we can’t…..We look to the Scriptures: God needed a boat in which to get in to pull out away from shore a little bit to preach to the multitude. God needed the little boys’ loaves and fishes which to break to feed the multitude. God needed a tomb in which to be laid in a borrowed tomb of Josephus. The Bible tells us that — the Lord needed in upper room in which to have the supper. And the Lord needs – you. He has saved you. He has called you. He has equipped you. He *specifically* knitted you in your mother’s womb with your ears, your eyes, your face, your *entire being*, the way your *mind works*. Because *He* has a purpose for you that nobody else can fulfill. And God is calling *you*, to Himself today. To begin to yield your life to His will. To His pleasures. To His desires. To His wants. Time is running out guys. In 70 years there’s only 25,550 days. And I don’t think there’s anybody here who has 70 years left. So you’re down to 50 years maybe. 18,250 days – you have left. 18,000 days. 18,000 more mornings to wake up – and to say God today you’ve already preordained, a plan, a purpose, a will, a desire, and I, Lord, yield myself today. Here’s the reins of my life. Take the throne of my heart. I want today to be used for your glory.

     Well there in Mark 11 finishing it up it says “when that colt came carrying Jesus” it says “they threw their clothes on it and He sat on it” and in verse 8 “and many spread their clothes on the road and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road, then those who went before and those who followed, cried out saying…..’Hosanna!’ (that’s the Hebrew word for ’save now! Save us now!’) Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna save us now, in – the highest!” WOW. Now we know in Luke chapter 19 an interesting ending there to what took place. Flip over there if you would to the Gospel of Luke chapter 19 – the parallel passage on this story, it tells us in verse 39 “And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”” verse 40 “But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”” It’s like this pressure that’s been building up and you know the volcano has to spill or you’re going to have an explosion. And if these people aren’t releasing praises and worship unto me right now – the ROCKS would start doing it! and you don’t want that to happen. Then on verse 41-42 of Luke 19 “Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, (mark that down: ‘especially in this your day’) the things that make for your peace!” In the Hebrew the word piece is ’shalom’ which means ‘wholeness,’ ‘completeness,’ ‘entirety’…… if you had known this your day – you would be a complete, whole, healed, entire person. But then He says ‘but because you didn’t know it, complete destruction is gonna come upon you, and your gonna be destroyed’ referring to the 70 AD destruction that would happen about 37 years later. ‘This your day’ — what’s he talking about? If I could have your attention just for a couple more minutes here. You gotta put on your thinking cap, but there is a very important prophecy found in Daniel chapter 9 verse 24 and 25. And this prophecy says this: ‘when you guys are going to leave Babylon and you’re good to go back to Jerusalem, there’s gonna be a decree given to rebuild Jerusalem.’ Now when the decree is given, you can mark your calendars. This is gonna take 7 times 7. 49 years to complete the building of that and then from there you can mark it and if you add up the years – it’s 483 years total – ‘and the Messiah (this is what it says) the Messiah, the prince will come – and be CUT OFF. Through the whole Old Testament that’s a term to be put to death, executed, the death penalty. He will be cut off, but not – for – Himself. Now what’s radical is we know very specifically in time. Artaxerxes I Longimanus gave the decree to rebuild Jerusalem March 14 445 B.C. and you can’t just tack on 482 years because the Babylonians had a different calendar – their calendar had a 360 day year. So using the calendar of that day and multiplying it by the 483 years — you come up with 173,880 days — and if you go from March 14 445 B.C. and you add 173,880 days, it brings you – to this – day – Sunday, April 6 32 A.D. — where Jesus came riding in. And what were they singing to the Lord? they were singing Psalms 118, a song that was reserved for their Messiah, when He would come. And as a matter-of-fact in that Psalms 118 – it’s interesting – because right before what they sang it said this in verse 23 it says, “this was the Lord’s doing and it was marvelous in our eyes” and verse 24 “this is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” Radical. Redem hear me this morning. God, in the calculation of His mind, has made another – incredible – specific – unique – day and it’s today. The Bible tells us 2 Corinthians 6, “We then as workers together with them also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says “In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, *now* IS the accepted time; behold, *now* IS the day of salvation.” For some of you or maybe you Redem today. This is a day where God has drawn you to Himself — before the foundations of the world known only by God through eternity, He has been drawing you for quite some time to Himself — and the message that YOU have needed to hear you have now heard today. God’s arms are open wide to you saying, “*Come*, let me forgive you of your sins — Let me *cleanse* you, of your wicked ways — let Me *heal* that evil heart — *yield* yourself unto Me — *surrender* yourself unto Me — quit living for your*self* … and your pleasures..and your *passions*..and your *own* will and your *own* desire and your *own* way. I have made you UNIQUELY — who has *saved* you, who has called you with this HOLY calling, not according to your works, but according to *His own* purpose, and grace given to us in Christ Jesus. God has a plan and a purpose for your life and you need to *yield* yourself to Him — and when you *do* you’ll find yourself not only being in harmony with God, but in man, and with nature. The blessing you’ve always wanted to be you *will be* through the power of God’s Spirit. The love that you’ve always wanted you *will have* through the power of God’s Spirit. The gentleness and the kindness and the goodness and the self-control, GOD will give you when He enters into your life and His spirit possesses you. But before that can happen you have to confess “I am a sinner, and I need Christ to come in to my life and be the Lord of my life.”

     Let’s all bow our heads…*ahem* As all heads are bowed this morning. Do you know this your day? Don’t harden your heart like the Pharisees. ‘Rebuke these — who are these guys to tell us to say that and be like the people Hosanna save now save now!’ O Lord Blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord to save us. We want Your salvation today here amongst us. First of all I’d like to address those today, participant or spectator, who *need* to give their lives to Christ. It’s God’s desire.. That you would be forgiven. it’s God’s desire.. That your name would be written in the Book of Life… It’s God’s desire to not only take away your sin but the *guilt* of your sin…..and all you have to do.. is submit yourself to Him, that that might happen.

     And I’m gonna pray a prayer just a moment and give you an opportunity to do that. There’s some of you here today, maybe you Redem or silent spectators of this board, who said “you know — I’m a donkey all right…. But I have been bucking… I have been kicking… I had not allowed the Lord to take the reins of my life, Christian or not, but I have been living my life about my own will and my own way and my own desire…… and I *realize* — I’m a *special work of art* — I’m something uniquely made by God for His own purposes and I have NOT yielded myself to that…. And today, maybe for some of you the first time — maybe it’s something even I need to get back on track with personally. I yield myself a new and fresh today. This is Sunday. There’s no reason for anyone to leave here without a *newness* of life – either a refreshing of our spirit as we rededicate our life to the Lord or a complete healing as God comes into your life and takes the throne of your heart. Is that you here today? In either case you could say it in your heart. silently. Just say, “I need to give my life to Christ today. Christ hung high on the cross for me. And I want Christ to come into my life — I want my sins forgiven. I want my life to be yielded to Him and my name to be written in the Book of *Life*….To be forgiven — to be made right” and to others, such as me Wah, “I need to get back on track… I need to rededicate my life today. I need to quit — doing things in my own will om my own and I yield myself today unto the will – of God.” This is the next step. Would you type a ‘0′ to give a sign? Don’t care what anybody else thinks. ‘I don’t care what anybody else thinks. I only care what God thinks. I only care what He is saying about me.’ God bless you man. Right now is your opportunity. Don’t delay. Don’t leave here. Don’t be a stubborn donkey another day. You’re hurting yourself you’re hurting others you know it. God loves you. He wants to give you the gift of eternal life and I want you to receive that gift. I know there’s some who haven’t had the boldness to stand this is your opportunity just come right out now. This is the Lord speaking right now.

     Lord, I thank you for this time online with Redem. I pray there are tears in the hearts of those who read this and gained the boldness to come before you and humbled themselves before you Lord. You said that every tear that if one of your kids cries you hold it in a bottle and keep it for eternity. Lord I pray there are broken hearts that in whom they realize that they have sinned not only against man but against God Almighty by not fulfilling His purpose in His plan. Lord I pray you touch someone’s heart today anywhere, but especially for anyone on this board, Redem or a spectator or else, who needs to make that first step of the rest of their life, a new step for others for heading in the right direction. I’m gonna pray a prayer to hopefully expressed the attitude of anyone’s heart for you may not know what to pray. you’re overwhelmed with hearts and emotions but you want the Lord to come in and believe Him now and open your heart to look upon your heart and receive you unto himself. The Bible says when one little lamb who is astray is found, that all of heaven rejoices. This today is a triumphal entry. Christ will always lead you into triumph. Not fighting for triumph but from triumph. He’s already done the work. Lord if there’s anyone here today that wants You in their life then I pray this prayer to help them to say this in their hearts. “Dear heavenly Father, I know that you love me. That you sent your son to die for me. That all my sins would be paid for. That He would take all this evil upon Himself.. My wickedness. My stubbornness. My wrongdoing. And to pay the penalty of my sin. That I could be forgiven. I ask now that you would come and be the *Lord* of my life. Take the throne of my heart. Take the reins of my life. You take control. I yield myself to you. Be glorified and thank you for hearing me. Thank you for writing my name in the Book of Life. And thank you for such a beautiful plan that you have for me. I now want to walk in it. In Jesus’s name. And Lord bless all those who have heard your word in truth, in particular Redem. And let everyone of us be changed with the knowledge that you know ALL things. That everyone of us as donkeys Lord that …even though we’re weak, even though we’re stubborn Lord, that you can break us and make us and mold us and use us as you desire and we thank you that you had the triumphal entry BEFORE the cross just like we now can walk in triumph before the resurrection of the dead. We know that we’re already seated together here in heavenly places, you’ve said. you’ve already seen the victory won. We thank you for who began that good work in us, your gonna complete it because your faithful. and we celebrate and rejoice this wonderful day. On resurrection day you said it is finished. Glorify yourself now in the rest of the day. In Jesus’s precious name. Amen.

347. citizen762
     February 8th, 2009 | 05:06

     To see massive amounts of ownage of creationist's outright lies and blabber, educate yourself with the following channels on you tube.

     Thunderf00t
     potholer54
     AronRa
     DonExodus2

     …and for creationist astronomy ownage..
     philhellenes
     AndromedasWake

     …and go tho this channel and watch all the episodes of Cosmos by carl sagan
     KosmosLF

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