The Truth (As I see it)

Especially when it contradicts itself.

 

Typically, by limiting my communication to things that others understand. Such as the weather.

 

People that understand more than others shouldn't go around saying how much they understand. That is folly. That is pride, and it's not polite. A wise man says he knows nothing. A fool says he knows everything. By "limiting" your communication to things that "others" will "understand," you're being a spectacular ass. You know you know more than they do, and you patronize them by speaking of the weather, or sports, or porn. Yes, porn. How about you step down from your god-pedestal and speak to us as if you know nothing. Act human, as you are. You are not above anyone simply because of things you believe you can do. In fact, thinking you are above places you below. It is best to be like water, which benefits the ten thousand things and does not contend. Water takes the low place, dwells where the living disdain to dwell. Place yourself below others so that you might serve them better.

 

No doubt, but to distrust those close to you reduces the number of those close to you. Which then begs the question Is anyone really close to you or do you require Proof of everything that your friends tell you?

What? You are claiming that you possess such a clarity of mind that you never mistake non-scientific knowledge as knowledge?

Now what did I say that gives you the idea that I don't value scientific knowledge? I thought my words clearly conveyed the idea that I value ALL kowledge.

Which brings us to another problem with our dialogue. You have no Real idea of what my position is. If you had done your research on what INFJ means, then you might have a clue as to how complex my position is.

Therefore, for the issue of clarity, would you be so kind as to define your understanding of what the word "evolution" means? You have already indicated that I have lumped other forms of knowledge into that catergory by including geology and I would hate to declare that you believe in the form of evolution that I oppose if you do not.

 

You misunderstand me. I don't limit my communication to things that others will understand. But it seems that that is only time when actual communication takes place. I have so many interests that are unnecessary for daily life. And I am surrounded by people who honestly have no use for what I know. Or so their silence tells me.

Consider this, when I have spoken on this forum of such things?

And water when it has gained the heat of the sun rises above all, only to fall again as it gives up of itself to the dry and desolate places. I rise to fall and fall to rise.

I care not for Pride, neither mine nor yours. I consider myself the world's most foolish wise man and the world's wisest fool. This is the nature of God: He-who-rules-Heaven-and-Earth is the world's lowest servant in the form of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, you can neither be higher than nor lower than God. The only place left is to be both equal to God as joint-heir with Christ (Hebrews 8:17) and to each other.

 

The evolution you oppose? Why not accept that the seven days used to make the earth encompassed the billions of years it took for evolution to produce humanity? No one knows how long those days lasted, but I can estimate that it took somewhere between 12 and 15 billion years. The story of Adam and Eve is a poem showing the love of a father, his children disobeying him, and the resulting punishment. Genesis is, like all other religious beginnings, humanity trying to make sense of a world they are too young to have seen created, so something greater must have done it. Oh, wait, it was "revealed" to Moses on Mount Sinai. Like I said before, he may have been eating psilocybin mushrooms. The Tanakh may be the fevered scribblings of a man having a revelatory experience thanks to magic mushrooms.
But the evolution you oppose? The whole universe is evolving as we type here on the forum. It's getting bigger. Things are getting farther away, thanks to the universe ever-expanding faster than light can reach the corners, if indeed there are any. Essentially, you oppose the moment of creation, the big bang. It's the same damn story! In the beginning, there was nothing. Then the big bang happened, expanding from a size smaller than an atom to the current size of the universe in about 15 billion years.
Look at it this way, I know that all humans are closely related. But the bible would imply a whole lot of inter-family scrumping to repopulate the world after the flood, despite incest being wrong. Noah and his family, over and over and over again. Lot and his two daughters. Adam and Eve. Think about that, now. If there was only Adam and Eve, that means their sons had sex with Eve to make children. Are you implying that the Jews are a bunch of inbred hicks?

 

One, Scripture clearly defines its definition of the length of day: "And the evening and the morning were the first day." (Genesis 1:5b)
And have you noticed that its says plants were made the day before the sun was placed in the sky?

Two, The sons of Adam & Eve had sex with the daughters of Eve & Adam. "And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters:" (Genesis 5:4)

Three, Cosmology is no more evolution than geology is.

Four, the story of creation never mentions when water was created. Nor how light shown upon the earth before the sun. The story limits how much it tells us.

Five, the big bang theory is one of many theories being taught in the universities. None are actually treated as anything more than theories because each has their weaknesses and things that they don't explain.


Now, I said Form of Evolution, because there is evolution that I agree with and evolution that I disagree with. Stars die and are born, genetics change, and species adapt. I don't disagree with these limited examples of "evolution."

A donkey and a horse mate and produce the sterile mule. Chickens lay chicken eggs. And scriptures says God commanded things to reproduce "after his kind". The evolution that contradicts these facts is the evolution that I disagree with.

 

This is bullshit. Theory, in the scientific sense, can never become laws. Gravity, germs, atoms... all theories. None of which explain everything, they only explain a specific set of phenomena, as theories do. It sounds like you're confusing Big Bang Theory with String Theory, M Theory, and others. Each of which explains, in its entirety, a specific set of phenomena.

Forms of evolution? There is only evolution. Or are you saying you believe in micro-evolution, yet not macro-evolution? The only difference between the two is time scale. It's like saying you can walk to the fridge to get a snack, but walking to the grocery store is impossible (which probably explains the overwhelming obesity in the bible belt...).

A donkey and a horse may currently interbreed due to being of the same genus, but in time they will become too different. Chickens didn't always come from chicken eggs. Chickens are a product of evolution and came from dinosaur eggs. That's right! That chicken dinner you had was once a Velociraptor! How fucking cool is that?!

Also, wouldn't the fact that donkeys and horses can create mules kind of disproves that Jealous commanded things to reproduce "after his kind"? Sterile animals cannot reproduce and are not created naturally, only through human breeding of related species.

I strongly encourage you to get a proper education in evolutionary biology, cladistic taxonomy, and science in general.

Or just watch the videos by AronRa on youtube for a crash course in the subject.

 

Not all cross breeds are sterile. There are verifiable accounts of mules reproducing, of ligers reproducing, as well as Zorses and Zonkeys.
Oh, and chickens came before the egg. The protein responsible for the formation of the chicken egg did not exist until chickens did.

 

Socrates said he as smarter than everyone else because he knew he didn't know everything. Look where it got him.

 

Yeah! If he's so smart, how come he's dead?

Informal fallacy.

Informal fallacy.


At least we'll be free of loons like this after the rapture.

Yeah! But the chicken responsible for the formation of the protein did not exist until the eggs did! Awh man... This could go 'round in circles, all day! Let's just say God created them both!

 

Yeah! Rabble rabble rabble!

 

Depends what they're telling me. If it's about who they're dating, then I'll probably take it at face value. If it's about how they've invented a perpetual motion machine, or got in touch with the creator of the universe, then I'm going to be sceptical.

So... there are three types of knowledge now? Scientific knowledge, non-scientific knowledge, and knowledge? Seriously, you have got to come up with some different words for these concepts.

I don't see what your Myers-Briggs Type has to do with anything. You can flatter yourself about how you're such a complicated person, and how others just don't understand you, or you could get over yourself and try to put together a coherent argument.

Evolution can be specifically the Theory Of Evolution, which describes how natural selection causes lifeforms to adapt to their surroundings, and in some cases become more complex lifeforms. Or it can be used in a more general sense to describe how something has changed or improved over time in response to external stimuli, e.g. "The evolution of the automobile".

Geology is not covered by either of these, because there is no selection mechanism involved in erosion or tectonic uplift or other geological processes - they're physical phenomena that happen as a result of the way the earth is set up.

 

Just for clarity's sake, since I know this idea used to confuse me as a kid ('Plants grow towards the sun to get light', 'But how the fuck does the plant know?'), it, as I understand it, isn't so much what the connotation of a species adapting to its environment may sound like to some people, but more like an extinction of those species which are not adapted to their surroundings, which I think is a lot easier to understand and accept. I realize it's just a different way of expressing the same thing, but... clarity! If you could get little organisms which could reproduce (which presupposes possible genetic mutation), you could test this in your kitchen. As it is, all the average person has as evidence is the obvious genetic mutations that we observe everyday (showing that it happens) and our savage, untouched-by-God reasoning minds to do the figurin'. Maybe it might be a little hard to understand, rather than to believe, because even my incomplete (though perhaps inaccurate) understanding of it tells me that it seems like one of those ideas that you couldn't possibly think is untrue, once you understand it, unless there was even more overwhelming evidence to the contrary — say, a really old book full of magic and fairy-tales!

I'm open to blatant contradiction, on this, since I know no more about evolution than your average Joe — but only by facts! None of this fallacious appeal to the Bible nonsense that some of you have been doing! I'm looking at you, Zanza!

 

"To beg the question" refers to circular logic, where your answer depends on the same assumptions as the question, Xyle. It is commonly misused to mean "to raise the question" which is how you used it then, which raises the question, have you actually studied formal logic?

 

It's more that the less fit individuals within the species will die out, which causes the species as a whole to gradually change over time due to selection pressure.

You do get the extinction of whole species, but usually this occurs because some time previously the species split in two, and the two sub-species went in different directions, and then one of the sub-species goes extinct, particularly if they are brought back in contact with each other. e.g. red and grey squirrels, or Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis.

Basically, there have to already be lots of species before some of them can start going extinct, so first you need change and divergence. But maybe that bit is harder to grasp initially. I couldn't say.

 

If you ask me, most of the really nitty gritty evolution happened a few billion years ago with the evolution of the eurokaryotic cell. Once the sophisticated machinery of the cell was in place, every other multicellular mutation was just a game of lego.

From a molecule's point of view, mushrooms, dinosaurs and monkeys are practically identical.

 

No! I'm desperately trying to shore up my crumbling world view in the face of Xyle's onslaught of cold hard logic, and you bring up pre-eurokaryotic biochemistry! It's evolution's achilles heel!

 

This is enough isn't it?

We've listened to the idiot for 10 pages, he has systematically read and misunderstood everything we've said, he's not going to a) learn, or b) actually engage in the debate as Wayne and various others present it to him.

Can this end now?

 

If it was the argument, yes. But it's the evidence not the argument; I assumed that you could figure out the argument from the evidence. The argument is that you can't say the Scripture includes the possibility that the days are undefined when Scripture clearly defines the days. And *if* each day was a long duration of time, why would plants be created before the sun? This clearly indicates an incompatibility between literally interpreting and figurative.

Bullshit. As a counter-argument against screwing their mother, the availabity of daughters is more logical.

Too Bad; so sad. The rapture isn't taking place this Saturday. And no self-respecting Christian would believe otherwise.

You won't happen to have a link for this?

In America's school system? <-- This is an attempt at humor.

I took Rhetoric One in High School which taught logical fallacies. But the purpose of logical fallacies in Rhetoric is to use them not avoid them. So needless to say, my attempt the learn the matter was at cross-purposes with how I was being taught so I only got a C in the class. And yes, that was sub-par for me.

To beg the question and begs the question don't look the same to me. But then language has never been my strong suit.

"Charity believes all things." (1 Corinthians 13:7) Do have any idea how hard it is to reconcil two opposing points of view in order to believe them both?