Evolution Vs Creation

[Guest Mossad]

linch why are we still awake?

[Playaa]

Mossad, that's exactly why they weren't included. They disagreed with the already established word of God so therefore they couldnt' BE the word of God

 

and I have no clue why I'm still awake, it's 4:30 here....

 

linch, I don't believe in Sentient life on other planets, because the Bible says nothing about it.....

[Hambone]

First of all, you said that Creation and Evolution are based on faith. You equate the two, they are unequal. Faith is something human minds create, that is incorporeal and the total foundation for Creation. Evolution is based on facts, hard undebatable facts. Don't make that mistake.

 

Well, Rev, since you didn't like my giraffe example, let me put this on human levels. Easier to understand.

 

Great athletes often aren't made, they are born. This is a fact no one likes, but it's true. Not all babies are born with the same concentration of fast and slow twitch muscle. A champion distance runner was born with loads of slow twitch muscle, ideal for endurance and prolonged aerobic respiration. A champion sprinter was born with loads of fast twitch muscle, ideal for short term results. Another interesting thing is both muscles types give the same output of energy, but only at different rates. Did the Christians know this when they wrote their Bible Creation story? Training does affect this, don't get me wrong. But, not all babies are born with an equal chance of becoming a star athlete. What does this have to do with macroevolution? Lots. You see, as tribes of pritmitive humans migrate, they live in different enviroments. Some humans went to the deserts, some went to the forests, some went to the mountains, some went to the plains, etc. I'll contrast primarily the ones that went to mountains with ones that went to less hostile enviroments. How is a Sherpa different from a fat New York lawmaker? The Sherpa has something that the New Yorker can not get, no matter how hard he tries, he has a larger lung capacity. His lungs are in fact bigger. The Sherpa needs them, he survives day to day in an enviroment where oxygen is less relatively abundant than at lower altitutes. The Sherpa also has slow twitch muscles, designed for long periods of exercise, whereas the New Yorker probably has a relatively equal concentration of both types. The cells of the Sherpa have, by necessity, far more mitochondria than the New Yorker. He can do aerobic respiration for far longer before fermenting lactate. One important thing here is that no matter how hard he tries, the New Yorker can not fully emulate the Sherpa, no matter what he can come up with from exercise to surgery. The Sherpa didn't develop his larger lungs overnight either. The wandering tribes possessed some degree of equity at some point in history. The Sherpa conformed to the enviroment. This, is called macroevolution. An entire organism changing based on situation and competition. A runner producing mitochondria is macroevolution: his structure fundamentally changes suit the rigor of the enviroment. If you want a third arm, you clearly don't understand the principles you are attacking. Humans change, they adapt. Humans are different everywhere throughout the world. You can believe whatever you like about some god creating them all, but situation and tangible principles govern it. Faith is notably lacking from this.

 

-edit-

The other thing that frustrates me slightly is how you pick and choose which points of mine you wish to rebut. I feel like I've made some solid arguments, that you ignore either out of resignation or whatever. Help me out here too, ya?

 

oops, misread, nothing edited by fatty...

[ConGregation]

First of all, you said that Creation and Evolution are based on faith. You equate the two, they are unequal. Faith is something human minds create, that is incorporeal and the total foundation for Creation. Evolution is based on facts, hard undebatable facts. Don't make that mistake.

 

Well, Rev, since you didn't like my giraffe example, let me put this on human levels. Easier to understand.

 

Great athletes often aren't made, they are born. This is a fact no one likes, but it's true. Not all babies are born with the same concentration of fast and slow twitch muscle. A champion distance runner was born with loads of slow twitch muscle, ideal for endurance and prolonged aerobic respiration. A champion sprinter was born with loads of fast twitch muscle, ideal for short term results. Another interesting thing is both muscles types give the same output of energy, but only at different rates. Did the Christians know this when they wrote their Bible Creation story? Training does affect this, don't get me wrong. But, not all babies are born with an equal chance of becoming a star athlete. What does this have to do with macroevolution? Lots. You see, as tribes of pritmitive humans migrate, they live in different enviroments. Some humans went to the deserts, some went to the forests, some went to the mountains, some went to the plains, etc. I'll contrast primarily the ones that went to mountains with ones that went to less hostile enviroments. How is a Sherpa different from a fat New York lawmaker? The Sherpa has something that the New Yorker can not get, no matter how hard he tries, he has a larger lung capacity. His lungs are in fact bigger. The Sherpa needs them, he survives day to day in an enviroment where oxygen is less relatively abundant than at lower altitutes. The Sherpa also has slow twitch muscles, designed for long periods of exercise, whereas the New Yorker probably has a relatively equal concentration of both types. The cells of the Sherpa have, by necessity, far more mitochondria than the New Yorker. He can do aerobic respiration for far longer before fermenting lactate. One important thing here is that no matter how hard he tries, the New Yorker can not fully emulate the Sherpa, no matter what he can come up with from exercise to surgery. The Sherpa didn't develop his larger lungs overnight either. The wandering tribes possessed some degree of equity at some point in history. The Sherpa conformed to the enviroment. This, is called macroevolution. An entire organism changing based on situation and competition. A runner producing mitochondria is macroevolution: his structure fundamentally changes suit the rigor of the enviroment. If you want a third arm, you clearly don't understand the principles you are attacking. Humans change, they adapt. Humans are different everywhere throughout the world. You can believe whatever you like about some god creating them all, but situation and tangible principles govern it. Faith is notably lacking from this.

 

-edit-

The other thing that frustrates me slightly is how you pick and choose which points of mine you wish to rebut. I feel like I've made some solid arguments, that you ignore either out of resignation or whatever. Help me out here too, ya?

Again you fail to make a valid argument. Because the sherpa tribe have larger lung capacity this is a proof for macroevolution? With conditioning that New York man can increase his lung capacity, no? So because of their environment they have a larger lung capacity. This is simple conditioning. Different races are different physically. This is no proof for evolution.

 

A champion sprinter was born with loads of fast twitch muscle

Maybe true. But without conditioning he would never be a champion runner. But you fail to make the case that a champion runner is a different specie. You can only deal within certain guidelines with which can never prove macro evolution. You have no proof of any new specie being formed by evolution. You only look at certain things and base your beliefs on your assumptions. I dont know why you could be so closed minded not to see that. It is logical thinking that you cant seem to grasp. I only argue with you because of your arrogant thinking. You take present day conditions and conclude that they could only have happened by evolution. It is unjust and rude to claim Creation is not possible when you have no more evidence than that.

 

The Sherpa conformed to the enviroment. This, is called macroevolution

 

That is completely off the wall. Environmental effects is a far stretch from macro evolution. You are blinding yourself with strawman arguments. The human body has an amazing ability to adapt. Environment affects everything. Now show me a Three-lung specie and you might have something.

 

Faith is something human minds create

This is how the cynic would view it. How can you be so sure that you are always right? O... I forgot, we are dealing with a teenager. Faith in its inherent nature has to be based in something other than itself. You make blanket statements that only apply to people who give themselves to cynicism. You could be wrong you know.

 

Evolution is based on facts, hard undebatable facts. Don't make that mistake.

 

Again, a blanket statement that you have failed to back up. You are a fine perveyor of rhetoric.

 

The other thing that frustrates me slightly is how you pick and choose which points of mine you wish to rebut. I feel like I've made some solid arguments, that you ignore either out of resignation or whatever. Help me out here too, ya?

 

At first I tried to reason as a gentleman with you. But you were so blatant in your statements that I could not. So eventually I decided to respond to your argument. Something that is fruitless because exchanging arguments like this will produce no real effect. But I couldnt just stand by with all your dogmatic statements based totally on conjecture.

 

You have failed to adhere to the guidellines of this board. Go give them a good read. I debated whether or not to either prune you posts, delete them, or close the topic and start a new one. But all those actions would be perceived as small and that is something I didnt want to project. So I have decided to respond to your arguments. If my words have become more combative in nature it is due to the nature of how you have argued this. I would gladly have discussed this in an enjoyable manner with someone who could approach it with an open mind or even a respect for opposing views.

 

Again, why is there such a gap in the fossil record? Since there is no true evolutionary chain I deem evolutionists as ignorant and evolution as defunct.

[Cyklik]

You will find that prayer does not stop nature. Prayer in itself is incredibly hypocritical in nature. Coaches and players pray before every football game. Does god really care about a diversion, whilst elsewhere in the world some practicing Christian isn't getting 1 meal a day? Most Americans have had plenty of food, clothing and oxegyn their entire lives. So, why would god care if one of their friends got injured in a car accident, while ignoring the prayer of a kid who wonders why his parents beat him? Prayer doesn't restore sight to the blind. Prayer is a placebo. If your prayer is answered, its part of gods divine plan. If it isn't answered, its part of gods divine plan. Setting the two equal gives the equation

It isn't answered = It is answered

This is not true. Two unequal things are not equal. Ever. There's my prayer lecture in a nutshell.

 

Hambone, hambone, hambone. You're not understanding the concept of prayer. God has 3 answers to prayer, not just 1. God will answer us by either saying "Yes," "No," or "Wait." So you see, God answers every prayer, just it isn't always in the way we like. And I think I've seen enough of you bashing my relationship with God, and making Him out to be some idiot. Did you ever think that maybe God created the universe to be the way he did. And let me tell you, He understands the universe far better than you do. It's not like He didn't know exactly what was gonna be happening now way back when he created the universe.

[ConGregation]

Try again without all the junk. God is referred to as male. This means nothing and again you assume way too much.

[Hambone]

Well, I had the foresight to copy and paste my entire post to somewhere else first. It's truly a shame my rhetoric is so painful to you that you would delete an entire post, just because a creative argument decimates all that you believe in. Until then, I leave you with this quote.

God is referred to as male. This means nothing

[Cyklik]

I truly think that this really has gone far enough. Can we not concede that our views will stay the same, and that now at least some of us are a little bit more aggitated with others. I think that much is pretty easy to see. The last thing I want to say in this post is that I believe Jesus Christ died on the cross for me, and for all of you, whether you accept that or not. Because of this, I believe the Bible to be true, and I believe that God created everything in the universe which goes way beyond our little earth. I also believe that this argument will go nowhere because as Christians, we have something that nonbelievers do not, an active relationship with Jesus Christ. I have felt His presence, I have seen Him move in the lives of myself and others, and THAT is what my evidence is. You concentrate on the science portion, but none of that matters to me because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is with me and enables me. I would strongly recommend that this formerly-debate-turned-argument-turned-insult-hurling-session be closed, and that we all accept the fact that people are entitled to their own beliefs. What other purpose has this entire thread acheived?

 

_______EDIT__________

I just saw what you posted. And my only answer is this: The human mind cannot comprehend God. Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, because they couldn't understand the complex principles in any other way. I think of this in the same way. God merely refers to Himself as male because we are not capable of understanding the fullness of His entity.

 

______Goodness how many times must I edit?_____

Hambone, in reference to what you said about that sentence, let me say this. God is a loving God. And because of this fact, He gave us something that we could never thank Him enough for: the ability to choose. He gave us the capacity to love, and likewise with that, the capacity to hate. He knows EVERYTHING that will happen, He knew it before He created the world. But He loves us so much that He would do it all again for just one person to come to Him, OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL. Because that is one of the greatest gifts He's ever given us. Had He created us as robots, what good would we be? It's like creating a group of little machines to constantly bow saying, "All hail Hambone" or something along those lines. But, because of this free will, He also knew that we would end up screwing stuff up. But He considered that the good outweighed the evil. Also Hambone, maybe you didn't know this, but the human eye can only see at 40 frames per second. Considering that, don't you think that God could hide heaven if He wanted to? My thoughts are that Heaven is a place, not in this physical realm, but in the spiritual realm. I'd continue but I have work. So I may have to continue this later.

[Hambone]

Ugh. "Can't we all just agree to disagree"? I can't though. May I ask you a question though? Why does Jesus' death make him atone for all humanity? If my next door neighbor were to kill himself for the sake of humanity, would he be a martyr? If my next door neighbor were to crucify my other next door neighbor for his beliefs, would he be the savior of humanity? Of course not. Men die. Men die who shouldn't have died sometime. Jesus is just a corpse, like everyone else before him. There's nothing special about him, not even science can help him there.

[Cyklik]

OOOOH OOOOH OOOH, let me answer this one before I go!!!! Jesus is perfect pal, something we can never achieve. That's what makes him atone for all of us.

[Hambone]

Why? So, if my neighbor got a couple of his friends to get together and write a book praising him before my other neighbor killed him, then would he be the savior of humanity? If a child born today were to emulate the life of Jesus, would he be the savior and son of god?

[Cyklik]

Jesus was and is the Son of God. When He came down to earth, He was blameless. You can not, nor can anyone, point out a single sin in His life. He did everything right. Because of this, He was able to defeat the Law and free us from it. He died for our sins, and became sin for us. When He was crucified and went to Hell, He fulfilled our sentence. And when He rose again, He defeated death for us. Because of all that, we can live in the hope of seeing Him up in Heaven.

[Hambone]

You didn't answer my original question though.

And, by defeating the law, how is he different from any other anarchist? Or communist?

And if he did everything right, don't you mean he did it all by standards he defined? That's like using the same word in the definition of a word. It's kind of redundant.

[linch]

linch, I don't believe in Sentient life on other planets, because the Bible says nothing about it.....

The Bible also says nothing about my coffee crisp, so does

that mean it's not real? *burp*

 

[Hambone]

Who said that quote? That really is disturbing if people believe that. I'll make my comments about the pure evil of religion some other time.

[Playaa]

hambone, I find it funny that every argument you've given so far to support macro evolution is in fact MICRO evolution, something which Rev and I will both agree exists. But I'd like you to show me a true example of macro evolution.....

tell me how the monkey became the man, give me fossil records, give me real life examples.....oh and don't bother using that nice pretty little picture in your science textbook about the evolution of monkey to man, because, as of circa 1973, every one of those examples was scientifically disproved....

(strange that it's still in textbooks today and taught as fact eh?)

 

 

another question, if I (being an overweight 21 year old male) decided to train my body to be a runner, and I trained and gained muscle and lung capacity, would my children tend to be chubby or fit? They would be chubby unless I made them work, the fact that I would be fit would not transfer to my children because it's not what's in my DNA.

 

well said linch, but I don't think we want to start another argument. Besides (as of right now) the existence or non-existence of life on other planets (sentient life that is) can't be proven or disproven

 

*EDIT*

yes I realize what I said about aliens does sound odd, but it was said wrong. It's not that I don't believe in them because the Bible doesn't mention them, because linch would be right, I'd hafta not believe in Coffee. I don't believe in them because I don't believe in Evolution and without Evolution it would take a Divine act to have other sentient life on planets and if that were the case, God probably would have mentioned something like "Oh, btw, you have some cousins in another galaxy that might come visit you in about 20,000 years"

sorry I didn't expound in the beginning

 

*EDIT 2*

btw Hambone, the English version of the Bible specifically says "from the dust of the ground" meaning we translated like crap, it says it came from the ground, not dust of the air (which is where skin particles float about and the dust that we think of as dust comes from)

 

and why hasn't anyone said anything about my 2 Biblical scientific explanations?

[ConGregation]

Hambone, I have put up with a lot but no more. If you cannot argue Creation vs Evolution without making sacreligous and offensive comments I must ask you desist. This has turned ugly because you persist to be a jerk. Your view which you cannot keep to yourself are offensive. I will continue to delete you posts until you can learn a little respect.

 

IF you persist in this nature I will recommend further action. That said, I welcome all debate that can be civil and respectful.

 

ConGregation.

[Hambone]

Precisely. Your child would be chubby. Unless you got a female with "skinny" genes (I'm not positive which is recessive), your child will naturally have a few extra pounds. But how did that come to be about? Dietary deficiencies, or excessive glutting, over the years will alter your scion. It will not change your DNA, but that doesn't particularly matter. What matters is your sexual reproduction system. Sperm have to be made just like anything else in your body. Sperm are affected by your intake, specifically cholesterol, or other steroids. If an imperfect sperm combines with an egg, the embryo will not be as it should. Plus, only 23 of your chromosomes get tossed over to the woman. That's where the changes happen, for the most part.

 

Well, if you agree microevolution exists, I have no further need to continue this argument. You admit that the story of Creation isn't exactly true, so it evolves, so to speak. Evolution encompasses everything. And, I have given you several sound examples of macro evolution. You guys sure are fossil nuts. Sociology enters the scene too. Animalalian patterns, actions, reproductive habits, are also part of evolution. You can't religiously scream fossils every time you hear the word Evolution. Please prepare for a long post, as I make it.

[Hambone]

Rev, you can delete my post, but not my ideas. I really, honestly don't care if my view conflicts with yours. If you don't like that, please discontinue reading everything and continue with your beliefs. If you want a counterpoint, keep reading. The choice is yours. Your censor and position of moderator will not stop my view from being heard.

 

The Nazis silenced opposition.

[Playaa]

how does micro evolution mean creation isn't true?

the only reason we so devoutly disagree with Macro evolution is because it is in direct contrast with creation, whereas micro (changing within a species for those who don't know) is just a scientific fact. It says nothing about creation because every species on earth today was made during creation. Sure there are variations of species but they are still the same species. Is a Chihuahua a different species from a Great Dane? nope, same species, evolutionary changes to environment.

[Playaa]

The Nazis silenced opposition.

strange then that I'm not allowed (by law) to discuss Creation in public schools.....

 

how old are you btw Hambone?

(I'm not saying anything about age, I just want to know how old you are)

[Hambone]

First of all, you certainly can discuss Creation in public school. Heard of a Compartative Religions class?

 

Second, I am 17.

 

Third, a Chihuaha is quite a different species than a Great Dane. Can you not tell just from the physical appearance of the animal? I was hoping that would be semi-obvious.

[Playaa]

wait wait, I thought they were both Dogs?

 

does the fact that I'm a fat white male mean that a thin asian female is a different species than me?

[Hambone]

A Color Wheel Metaphor for the Evolutionary Process

To fully appreciate the problem of reconstructing the past, let us use the image of a "color wheel" to help us visualize how life might evolve over time. We will arbitrarily divide time into intervals of 100 million years, and assign each interval a color. The last 100 million years will be diagrammed in red, the interval from 200 to 100 million years ago in orange, from 300 to 200 million years ago in yellow, and so on, back to 600 million years ago, which we will choose as the origin of our study. (Note that the earth is much older than this -- about 4.5 billion years old, by current reckoning, and life on earth is at least 4 billion years old.)

We will imagine that some observer is actually keeping track of all life on earth, year by year, and recording all the data. During the period from 600 to 500 million years ago, we focus on one species of a certain type of organism. Its population disperses and becomes very diverse, but even at the end of this period it is still a single species (labeled A on the following diagram.)

Over the next 100 million years, different populations of the primitive species become isolated from each other for so long that they evolve into separate species. By the end of this time there are three recognizably different species (labeled B1, B2, and B3 on the following diagram.) The black lines indicate the different groups of organisms, and the fact that they separate represents the growing differences between them over time.

Another 100 million years goes by. Evolutionary processes continue, and new species evolve. By the end of this era, we find five species (labeled C1-C5 on the following diagram.) One population has only recently separated into two recognizable species (C2 and C3). Another population (C5) is becoming very diverse, but is still a single species.

Over the next 100 million years, further speciation occurs. At the end of this time there are seven species (labeled D1-D7 in the following diagram).

 

Keep reading...

[Hambone]

The next 100 million years brings us to the present. Further extinctions occur. Only three species are present today (labeled F1-F3 in the following diagram).

If we remove the colors, whose function is only to help us visualize the passage of time, we can represent this evolutionary history as a "tree," or a "bush."

But we must remember that there is no observer who has faithfully recorded and reported every nuance of life's history. The "tree" we have created, while logically inescapable, cannot be drawn as an observed fact. Instead, we must try to deduce some of its features from clues, just as a detective must reconstruct a crime not witnessed. How can we do this?

 

We do have two important pieces of data that can help us attempt to reconstruct an evolutionary tree:

Living organisms, which we can study from many perspectives, including anatomy, physiology, DNA sequence, etc.

Fossils, which, when we are lucky enough to find them, typically provide anatomical data

 

One way to reconstruct an evolutionary tree would be to collect as much data as possible about both living and fossil creatures, and then to try to arrange such data in a logically plausible fashion. For example, we could look for progressive development of a particular anatomical adaptation over time: a wing, a hoof, etc.

The biggest problem with such an approach is the lack of fossil data. Imagine, for example, that we were interested in reconstructing the history of our fictional color-coded organisms described above. Let us place some colored balls on our hypothetical evolutionary tree to represent both living organisms and the fossils we can find, as follows:

Each red ball represents a living species. Balls of other colors each represent a particular fossil, color-coded to indicate the age from which they derived. Ideally, we would want to find an unbroken chain of fossils for every branch of our tree. In practice, fossils are few and far between, especially as we explore more ancient evolutionary events.

 

Unfortunately, we don't know the pattern of the evolutionary tree -- that is what we're trying to find out. So to give an accurate picture of what we do know, we must erase the tree's branches, preserving only the representation of the living and fossil organisms that make up our data.

In fact, we are not yet justified in placing the colored balls in any particular pattern. We don't know for sure which organisms are the ancestors of others. Our real data looks more like this:

Here, at last, we are confronted with the real challenge of "doing evolution." We must try to arrange our data in such a way that we can reconstruct a logically plausible evolutionary tree, hoping to capture as many of the branches and dead ends as possible. Here are two of many possible attempted reconstructions of the evolutionary history of our example organisms.

Notice that we are not able to do a very good job of reconstructing the "actual" tree (the one which really happened, whose shape we must infer). At this point we should abandon our metaphor (colored balls are not organisms, after all), and consider the real biological challenge. The fossil record is in many cases better than our example would suggest, and evolutionary trees for many "recent" evolutionary processes (particularly for organisms that leave hard fossil remains, such as bones or shells) have been constructed in some detail.

 

Constructing evolutionary trees from fossil data becomes a much more daunting challenge when we attempt to study prokaryotes. We have almost no fossils to help us reconstruct the history of single-celled life, and even if we did, the prokaryotes are generally so small and lacking in morphological complexity that it is hard to imagine any way of reconstructing their evolutionary history.

 

It would seem, at first glance, that we can never hope to penetrate the mists shrouding life's distant past, and that we can never hope to know how Bacteria and Archaea, in particular, evolved. But there is another way to trace life's history than the use of fossils--we can study the way errors accumulate in information over time.

 

Keep Reading....