Creationist Wolf in Cheap Clothing

I think I'm pretty much done with this "debate," as none of you know enough about evolution to have any ability to honestly discuss it or its shortcomings, and I'm definitely convinced that none of you who doubt it will absolutely ever be willing to entertain the possibility that you might be wrong. There aren't too many of us on the pro-evolution side who are saying that there absolutely isn't a god, but there don't seem to be any of you who aren't saying that there absolutely isn't evolution, so you're pretty much wasting our time.

There is also historical & scientific proof that some of the events in the Bible are false. No worldwide flood ever happened, and the very idea that all remaining species could be saved in one boat is illogical to begin with. Plus the creation account in genesis is provably false thanks to the archaeological record. We haven't found any Tower of Babel, nor would it seem to be physically possible as described. The list goes on and on. Note that I'm not saying that Christianity is false, just that there are things in the Bible that are meant to be allegorical and not taken literally. Certainly there is historical documentation in the Bible as various parts of it were written either by people who lived there at that time or by later people who would still know enough about the history to record it with a fair degree of accuracy.

We don't. We think dark matter might not exist after all, or that it might be quite a bit different from what we expect. Do you think the same thing about God? No, because you're acting on faith and not science. The physical (not supernatural) presence of something affecting planets and observably affecting their gravity has been noticed since the early twentieth century. Einstein is the one who proposed this extra force which we can't see directly because of mathematical and scientific observations, not because he wanted to believe in it. We've since proven that something is out there and having a predictable, natural affect on the universe. It might be dark matter and it might be something totally different, but what we do know so far is that its effects are regularly observable by anyone.

That's the difference between dark matter and your God. Absolutely anyone with a telescope and fairly advanced understanding of mathematics can document the real existence of something (whether it's officially dark matter or not) natural and predictable which is affecting gravity. No one can ever document anything natural or predictable definitively indicating the presence of something that might be a conscious creator.


hasbeen99:
Science and religion have exactly nothing to do with one another. There is absolutely no science whatsoever that supports ID either. And I'd like to note yet again that deism, which is essentially ID and was something many of the founding fathers believed in, was considered heretical and anti-Christian until the middle of the twentieth century. In some quarters (I'm not sure about the Vatican's official position), perhaps it still is.


And for the record, your side will never get ID into schools because you haven't ever learned to actually argue the issue. Granted, I don't think that there is a legitimate argument for teaching non-science as a scientific alternative, but administrators and lawmakers and school board officials get nervous when they sense that you're making a dogmatic attack on something you fear. There is a difference between arguing the facts and attempting to justify your faith. Until you learn that difference, I suspect that both your arguments and your faith will be flawed.

 

I think it is funny you claim to be the most knowledgeable about evolution but I made you backtrack so fast you could have kissed yourself.

 

OK, Mr. we have found the missing link.

Sure - if you take the Bible literally (as in one day there = 24 hours). Notice that I also did not say it is perfect, but there are quite a few things in there that modern science has found evidence of.

And yet you use them literally in the above example.

All you have answered is that you know there is something affecting things. You have not answered what it is. And please do not assume what I will or will not do when a certain set of facts are put on the table.

What you seem to have am impossible time grasping is that none of this is an attempt to justify my faith. I have that regardless. Currently though it fits in very nicely with the scientific facts as we know them.

 

We have something many people consider to be the missing link. Quibble over semantics if you wish, but tchadensis and the other 20+ species we've discovered in Australopithecus, Paranthrapus, and the others all show unequivocally that human evolution did happen. I guess your side isn't pretending that all those fossils are hoaxes anymore, right?

Sure, just as there are in the Qu'ran or pretty much any work of literature that contains documentation of observed events. But for the record, while archaeology has confirmed much of the historical comments from the New Testament, it has also proven many historical comments from the Old Testament to be flawed or downright wrong (and I'm not talking about the Genesis stuff, but rather the early empires stuff). That's also to be expected with any source that was originally an oral history. My point was that you were absolutely wrong to say that "there is historical & scientific proof that most of teh events in the Bible are true." There is proof that some of the events in the Bible are true. There is no evidence that any of the "supernatural" events in the Bible are true, Genesis is completely refuted by science if taken literally, and much of the other Torah portion is also flawed or incorrect.

Correct. That's how we first understood gravity, correct? We observed a regular, predictable, natural phenomenon and yet didn't know what exactly it was or how it operated. Science explored the question and discovered the answer, although our understanding of that answer continues to improve. We're at an early point in the same process when dealing with dark matter. We observed a regular, predictable, natural phenomenon and yet don't know what exactly it is or how it operates.

That's what makes dark matter (or whatever it is) very, very different from "God."

Psychologists would disagree. Attempts to reorder reality and rationalize flawed perceptions are almost always caused by fear of conflict between the observed and desired worlds.

People who aren't paranoid about how evolution affects their faith wouldn't be dogmatically opposing scientific truths. The Christians who don't feel threatened are those that view evolution as yet another intriguing mechanism in what they view as God's universe. As noted repeatedly, the opposition to evolution is in the exact same character and operates for the exact same reasons as the opposition to the "round earth" and the heliocentric solar system.

 

Still ignoring the fact that tchadensis throws into turmoil everything we thought we knew about Australopithecus huh?

 

Yeah, the same way you ignore every one of his very well stated points Sly.

Whatever works.

This one is very well stated:

 

His points, well stated or not, were crushed by the article HE posted. It seems the experts question his version of scientific truths so why shouldn't I?

 

And ID as science is crushed by so many sources it's ridiculous, yet you conveniently ignore that.

 

What part of evolution does ID reject?

 

I'm sorry Harry but I have to call you out on this and your pathetic reading comprehension. I have said, time and time again, in this forum that all I want is the abandonment of teaching incorrect things, like toumai as the missing link for example. If you can't get that through your thick head, there is no help for you.

Your problem with me seems to be you have invented an argument I AM NOT MAKING!