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Originally posted by finneganWell just so we are on the same page I'm not a Creation Science guy, there is just
You have been arguing above that Genesis and the argument from design is a better explanation than evolutionary biology for the characteristics of the diversity of living species. Are we now to take it that it is a better explanation for the distances between planets and suns or the qualities of subatomic particles?
I have faith that space flights have ...[text shortened]... its wisdom far behind you, because nothing in the bible makes this technology even conceivable.
science and there is creation! One is a study of what we can see, measure, and so on,
while the other is faith, it isn't blind, but it can never be proven.
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Originally posted by C HessIf I could prove it, it would not be faith, blind has nothing to do with that!
If you can't prove it, it is blind faith.
If I had no reason to believe based in reality, but believe anyway regardless of what is in
front of me that would be blind faith. As I have been pointing out to you, I do have
reasons for believing what I do, you may not agree with them, but they are there.
Originally posted by KellyJayIt is one thing to declare your faith in creation without demanding empirical evidence.
Well just so we are on the same page I'm not a Creation Science guy, there is just
science and there is creation! One is a study of what we can see, measure, and so on,
while the other is faith, it isn't blind, but it can never be proven.
It is quite another thing to denounce evolutionary biology as false while batting away all evidence.
The first may be sincere but the second cannot be sincere.
Originally posted by finneganI think the universe abounds with evidence for creation as I pointed out to another! The
It is one thing to declare your faith in creation without demanding empirical evidence.
It is quite another thing to denounce evolutionary biology as false while batting away all evidence.
The first may be sincere but the second cannot be sincere.
whole thing from it largest to the smallest objects, to the forces in play all have rules/laws
in place, if things were arranged differently, or the forces in play were just a little stronger
or weaker life would never happen.
I do not denounce evolutionary biology, I believe in evolution, just not the common
ancestor part of the story some hold as true.
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Originally posted by KellyJayNot just some, but every single evolutionary biologist in the world. Or do you know of something I don't? And how in the world can you accept evolution and not common ancestry? Common ancestry is like the big bang, the only logical conclusion from observed evidence.
I do not denounce evolutionary biology, I believe in evolution, just not the common ancestor part of the story some hold as true.
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Originally posted by C HessReally every single evolutionary biologist in the world...is that almost like say every single
Not just some, but every single evolutionary biologist in the world. Or do you know of something I don't? And how in the world can you accept evolution and not common ancestry? Common ancestry is like the big bang, the only logical conclusion from observed evidence.
Christian believes in God? How I can accept evolution and not a common ancestor is that
I believe in small changes, I don't believe in them mutating from a single life form over a
very long period of time into the vast array of life we see today. I believe that established
life forms, from the more complex, to the single cell can be altered but they will remain
some version of what they are, because they are established. So a dog changing will
always remain a dog, a bird a bird, and so on.
Those changes are observable, it isn't a matter of faith, I don't have to take a fossil
record and interject what I think could have happen, I don't take some dating method and
assume what I'm looking at is an ancestor of some living life form. Those are things you
do with the distant past not me.
You have also never observed the big bang either, yet you act like you have!
Originally posted by Proper KnobMine is it was designed that way.
BUMP FOR MR JAY.
Again, details. I'm after details Kelly.
I want you to offer a counter explanation of how the eye came into existence. Much information has been presented in this thread as to how the eye came about by slow incremental changes due to natural selection. What do you have to offer as an alternative?
I argue that, because I don't believe the story put forward would or could happen the way
it has been presented. I believe it was created that way perfect, and as time and evolution
got a hold of it, defects started to appear.
Originally posted by finneganDr Patterson had written a book for the British Museum simply called Evolution. Creationist Luther Sunderland wrote to Dr Patterson inquiring why he had not shown one single photograph of a transitional fossil in his book. Patterson then wrote back with the following amazing confession which was reproduced, in its entirety, in Sunderland’s book Darwin’s Enigma:
It is one thing to declare your faith in creation without demanding empirical evidence.
It is quite another thing to denounce evolutionary biology as false while batting away all evidence.
The first may be sincere but the second cannot be sincere.
‘I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic licence, would that not mislead the reader?’
He went on to say:
‘Yet Gould [Stephen J. Gould—the now deceased professor of paleontology from Harvard University] and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. … You say that I should at least “show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.” I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.’
http://creation.com/that-quote-about-the-missing-transitional-fossils
Originally posted by C HessYes I have the building blocks all around me, just as the both of us have the means to
I'm asking you first, how can you tell the difference between complex molecular structures forming incrementally, rather than instantenously? It seems to me that if you have all the building blocks in abundance all around you, and only in certain places do they form complex bonds, and we can demonstrate under what conditions those bonds form naturally, and we ...[text shortened]... t to that bears the hallmark of concious design? Complexity or interdependence clearly won't do.
type on keyboard and produce text each other can read. Why, because something was
put in place to give us this means, and with respect to life, it is supported right now due a
huge number of things that all have to be just the way they are or else.
I don't believe in life coming about through some incremental means, mainly because to
many things could have gone wrong and end it all. Natural processes we see, what you
are talking about when supposedly life was just starting, was a series of events that had
to just right with nothing going wrong for a very long time, I've never seen that as part of
what I'd call life in all of its natural glory and processes. We see earth quakes, heat
waves, droughts, starvation, ice ages, and so on this place can be quite nasty. I think if
you cannot get to where we are by small changes over time what do you have left?
Originally posted by KellyJayThings went wrong all the time.
I don't believe in life coming about through some incremental means, mainly because to
many things could have gone wrong and end it all. Natural processes we see, what you
are talking about when supposedly life was just starting, was a series of events that had
to just right with nothing going wrong for a very long time,
The vast majority of species are now extinct.
And those surviving are far from perfect.
Your perception of evolution having a goal (us) is what causes
you to think it improbable/impossible. You are correct. An intelligence
looking at life on Earth a billion years ago would logically say that
the chances of that evolving into us highly unlikely. Virtually impossible.
[b]BUT[b] they would surely believe that it would evolve into something
complicated and potentially intelligent.
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Originally posted by wolfgang59Your comclusion:
Your perception of evolution having a goal (us) is what causes
you to think it improbable/impossible. You are correct. An intelligence looking at life on Earth a billion years ago would logically say that the chances of that evolving into us highly unlikely. Virtually impossible.
[b]BUT[b] they would surely believe that it would evolve into something complicated and potentially intelligent.
BUT they would surely believe that it would evolve into something complicated and potentially intelligent.
I do not see that as a logical conclusion following from your premise.
Originally posted by KellyJayCreation is open to many different interpretations. Many Christians accept the findings of Science and see this as an exploration of God's creation. For example, evolution to them is an example of His wondrous qualities.
I think the universe abounds with evidence for creation as I pointed out to another! The
whole thing from it largest to the smallest objects, to the forces in play all have rules/laws
in place, if things were arranged differently, or the forces in play were just a little stronger
or weaker life would never happen.
I do not denounce evolutionary biology, I believe in evolution, just not the common
ancestor part of the story some hold as true.
To argue that the Bible gives a better account of things flies in the face of the fact that, in virtually every respect, the Bible is silent. For example, when Newton produced his account of gravity, there was nothing in the Bible to indicate that Relativity could give a more accurate and richer account, let alone pointers beyond to a unified theory. No, the Bible is silent and with that as our guide we would never even ask the interesting questions let alone get answers.
But then it is absurd to hope that our ancestors, thousands of years ago, just emerging from primitive life, would be able to write down in the books of the Bible scientific knowledge to compare with the product of precisely thousands of years of human ingenuity. It is also absurd to think that philosophers and scientists would have taken thousands of years to work out knowledge of the world when it was all sitting in Genesis all that time, waiting to be noticed. It is not like nobody was reading the Bible all that time! People have been reading it obsessively since it was compiled and failing to find, for example, that the earth was in orbit around the sun, something even you will presumably accept.
If you insist that the Bible is intended to be taken literally and that it is our best available account of the universe, then you are accusing its authors of stupidity. Most people - most Christians even - do not place such demands on the Bible.