Creation: yea or nay?

There are a lot of missing links? Where? Why do you think they are called missing links?

 

What?
For every modern species there is, there is a link whether found or not from where we can say started down a different path of evolution. We have found some but not the one linking humans and apes.

I'm sorry did you ignore my whole rant and nitpick instead?

 

A single mutation wouldn't doom a species Rosie. These aren't synchronized, not every member of the species mutates the same exact way at the same exact time. A few mutate, and if the mutation creates a creature better suited to its atmosphere, then that creature is better able to survive and breed, and thereby pass on its mutation. After awhile, if the mutated creature's line is extremely successful, it may pose a danger to the parent species, via competition for resources, but this rarely happens, as can be seen by the number of sub-species that exist in the presence of a more basic species. More often than not the mutation allows the new species to thrive in that particular terrain, but lessens it's overall adaptability, which is why when two regions both have geese, one region will be home to a particular type of goose that cannot easily adapt to the other region.

 

alright, i can agree with that. so how do scientists think humans evolved all the way from apes? in fact, how did anything sentient evlove out of slime in the first place? in my mind, that could have only happened with divine intervention.

 

So because you cannot conceive that small changes over time might lead to larger, more dramatic differences, you're going to posit an even more complex and unexplainable being and blame everything on that?

You're not solving anything with divine intervention; you're just bringing up new and more impossible problems.

 

And perhaps this is a problem we aren't meant to be able to explain, Canis. It is possible. However, it's long been established that accepting that in science leads only to an impasse in learning. Perhaps we can't solve this problem, but it doesn't mean we stop trying. And if all our effort is in vain, then at least I'll have gotten a few paychecks out of it before I die.

 

uh huh.

I sure am glad creationists are less interested in the history of language etc, than they are in evolution. It would be really annoying to see a bunch of textbooks getting edited to include the tower of babel as the root of all languages. I'd love to see some ass hole try to provide archaelogical proof of the tower of babel.

I don't know why I felt the need to mention this, but there it is.

 

I think the Tower of Babel is a great story; it shows what a jealous and malicious S.O.B. Jehovah really was. Take this quote from Genesis 11:

'And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; and nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." '

Great stuff. Not quite as good as the genocide of the Canaanites, or the mass murder of Egyptian children by the Angel of Death, or the obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah due to intolerance of their lifestyle, but still worthwhile when examining what kind of god these people worship - it helps explain why many of them are so mean.

 

That is an acceptable explanation only if you wish to disregard science and reason.

 

No, we haven't found any. Where are you getting this information from? The only supposed "missing link" that has been found is the "evolution of the horse" that has already been debunked. I like how you evolutionists are able to ignore the fact that there is no proof in the fossil record of evolution. Oh sure, there's supposed proof of different organisms living in different strata (the strata dating method is notoriously innacurate - read about what the strata looked like after Mount Saint Helens), but no fossils of a rat turning into a bat.

 

By who? Creationists? As you said, where the hell are you getting your information?

Bats aren't descended from rats.

 

I'll post links to the websites I studied up on, as well as some actual books, when I locate them.

I know. I was using it as a hypothetical.
None of your comments provide insight into where the missing links are.

 

You could have delayed posting until you actually had any information. I'm calling your bluff.

a) That wasn't hypothetical; that was wrong and misleading.

b) I don't need to do any such thing, as the information is freely available in the scientific literature. Creationists, on the other hand, have never met the burden of proof on this issue; that is why creationism is still considered a silly fantasy. If you have proof, by all means present it to the scientific community for review.

And about your precious bats: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996647

 

Oh god. So you call my bluff because you've never read that before, then refuse to provide your own literary proof.
Hypocrisy?

Creationism has just as much proof as evolution: none.
Evolution is just that much harder to swallow, for me. I've seen wierd things happen that can only be explained by the presence of some sort of supernatural (whether it be "God" or something else), but I've never seen one animal evolve into another. Keep in mind that I'm denying the existence of macroevolution (one species into another) not micro (small genetic changes over time that can be seen in humans, for example, but do not result in the development of a different species). Maybe it was neither evolution or God, but something that none of us understand. Maybe the universe just came into being of it's own accord.

That's pretty hard to believe, no? Then again, isn't that what the Big Bang theory is all about? Since when does a massive explosion/expansion of matter result in an enormous complexity and variety of life?

Another thing I've heard from alot of evolutionists (I think this view was expressed here as well, but I'm not going to bother checking) is that just because a creationist doesn't believe in evolution it means that he "doesn't believe in science." This is simply not true. I don't know Christians that refuse to accept any other facet of science, only the evolution aspect. And don't even try to say "evolution is the cornerstone of modern science" because we all know it isn't. What does evolution have to do with physics or mathematics? Nothing. I believe in gravity and friction and the atom and all that just as much as the next educated individual. But evolution doesn't have to be a part of it.
And where does the story of Christians saying that "gravity doesn't exist, the world is held together by the will of God" come from? I've never heard that before, and I grew up in the church. I don't think anyone believes that.

 

I'd just like to say that in my opinion, fossil records and darwin's studies suggest evolution. To me, creationism is totally out of left field.

Can you imagine some cave men standing around looking at some squirrels and some chipmunks, and other similar creatures and one says "Well, I guess they're different, but they've got some similarities, but they can't breed together... or can they? I wonder if their parents were related?"

After a few minutes the other cave man (who is slightly paranoid) suggests that "May be some mighty being made them out of mud and clay... and made us too... and may be he made the whole earth!?! May be he's watching us right now! What if he's making moral judgements based on all of our decisions in life? What this explains what happens when we die? What if we burn forever if we're bad??"

The first cave man says "Whoah, calm down man, are feeling alright? That sounds a little nuts, I don't some almighty being made us from clay, I mean, look at me! I'm made of meat! There is probably a ,uch simpler..."

The second cave man: "YOU DOUBT HIS POWER???? YOU'LL DAMN US ALL!!!!" (bashes first cave man's skull in with a rock)

This makes me laugh.

Sorry, I was sort of going out of my way not to post here, because this subject really annoys me, but sigurd's post inspired these thoughts, and they made me laugh. So I shared them. I hope they make you groan and close your browser.

 

The point was that evidence of evolution and the fossil record are easily available to any who choose to look. Your little creationist theories are completely lacking in evidence (as you admit), and when your only sources are other creationist musings it doesn't exactly help your case. I wasn't even the one who brought up the fucking fossils; I was just commenting on your bizarre remarks about horses and bats.

What have you seen that suggests the supernatural? God forbid you should look beyond your own limited existence and accept that things happen on a larger time scale.

Because men are egocentric little pricks who can't accept that they are part of nature and subject to the laws thereof. Oh no, they must be divinely created, because they're so much better than the goddamn banana slug. Evolution is the last barrier to total scientific victory. Everything else has been accepted as fact, and now it's only a matter of time before the rest of you Dark Age thinkers come around. Either that, or you'll drag civilization back with you.

It's a slippery slope. If you reject science and reason in one area, there's no end to it. You could very well be equally ignorant and subject to the whims of the divine in every other aspect of life. How do you know anything, if your deity is all-powerful and surely capable of fooling you? It's science and reason, or religion and fantasy. They cannot coexist.

There's no point arguing with creationists. That's why they call it faith. "Where's the evidence?" "Here." "That's not evidence. Show me a new species emerging right before my eyes, for I am the divine." "...." "Blow up that car over there and show me a new universe emerging." "...."

No end to it at all.

 

We are in a race to the bottom with Europe/the Middle East. The U.S. is sinking down into fundamentalist Christianity as fundamentalist Islam takes over the Middle East and conquers Europe by immigration and high breeding rates. I am appalled when I think about what the world will be like in 60 years. Hopefully I won't live to see it.

The hope of mankind will probably be a scientific and atheistic/Buddhist China by the end of the 21st century. I suspect the U.S. and Islamic Europe will have had a nuclear exchange by then, assuming the U.S. is not also infiltrated by Muslims with the remnants of Western civilization being eaten away from the inside like they are/will be in Europe.

As usual it is women who will suffer the most when Western liberal values go down the toilet.

 

The spice must flow!

 

This is pretty funny, considering that historically we have deviated far from our Christian roots. This country becomes less and less freindly to Christianity every year.

Where? I'm not saying this to be a flippant jerk, I'm being serious. Like I said, the only "fossil evidence" anyone has ever given me (evolutionist friends and biology teachers) has been the "evolution" of the horse, which is why I brought it up. I need more, like maybe one fossil of something starting to become something else. It's relentlessly idiotic and hypocritical for you to continue to say that "evolutionary evidence is common knowledge" when you don't even have any examples.

 

HAH! What is a "liberal value"? Clearly, according to November's elections, "liberal values" are already on the way out, thank God.