Originally Posted by DURANG0 ROM 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 is one of the most peculiar verses of the Bible. Its peculiarity comes from the fact that it is one of the few verses in the Bible an atheist can use to defend his atheism.
The reasoning sounds like this: "Romans 1:20 tells us to understand God from his creation, but an epistemological analysis of this creation tells us that the universe we live in now is utterly indistinguishable from a universe driven by purely natural for forces. So either the deistic concept of god (which is a god who said "let there be a bang", then abandoned its creation... this concept of God is quite atheistic), God is dishonestly decieving us, or there exists no gods".
The atheist reasons further that Christians wouldnt like the idea of God deliberatlely lying to us (if you believe he lies, then you either accept there is no hell, or if Hell exists then God is also evil), therefore deism and atheism are justifyable.
Now, dont accuse me of being an atheist, but that reasoning sounds perfectly sounds to me.
Originally Posted by DURANG0 The butterfly is an example of Gods handiwork. If you examine the life cycle of the butterfly you will see that creation with design and purpose is the only reasonable means for the existence of this insect.
The butterfly hatches from an egg that has been stuck to a plant and a larva crawls out and starts to munch out on the leaves. After a while he grows into an adult caterpillar with distingue markings on his body. These markings aid in his camaflage or makes him look undesirable and thus help him survive. The caterpillar at this time has 12 segments to his body and a skin that does not grow which must be shed a few times in this cycle. After a while the mature caterpillar hooks onto a twig and using a liquid from his spinneret attaches to a twig or leaf . The pupas thorax swell and splits his skin. Wave like motions then roll the skin off towards the rear. This exposes the soft front parts of the pupa. The rear of the pupa body is still covered with skin which is called the cremaster . The pupa then slips out of the cremaster and attaches firmly to the silk button without falling. To accomplish this amazing feat the pupa must grasp the old skin between folds in his body. Then the pupa pulls the cremaster out swings it up to catch the silk button and then straightens out his body. The pupa now has a bare body that is quickly formed over with a hard shell. (Just imagine if the pupa missed one of those steps, that would mean no caterpillar. How did this evolve?)
During the metamorphosis the pupa turns into a “jelly like substance” and the structure then changes into a butterfly.
After a while a winged insect with a head thorax and abdomom crawls out and flys away. The butterfly then lays eggs and the cycle repeats itself.
On the surface the butterfly looks simple enough, but anybody knows that he is quite complex. Some of the stumbling blocks for the evolutionist is how did the caterpillar evolve? By this question I mean what kind of mutations would allow the caterpillar to go through his metamorphosis? How did he learn how to make his cocoon so quick and so precise when a incomplete partially evolved cocoon/process would not work properly. This would then lead rather quickly to his extinction before he even had a chance to become a butterfly. Now, somewhere along the line the DNA coding had to change in order for the caterpillar to turn to into a “jelly” like substance. Next more DNA changes thru mutation would have to occur in order for the “jelly” like substance to know how to turn into a body with wings, legs, brain, heart etc.
If the mutation wasn’t complete or fully evolved the butterfly could not exist. How would the “jelly” like substance know what to change into?
The butterfly has to go through 4 complicated life cycles changing from one style to another. It’s obvious that there is way to much going on here for evolution to work.
The logical conclusion is that the butterfly with all of its odd characteristics was created with purpose and design by an intelligent being.
*sigh*
I know you went through a lot of work composing your post, but I think you need to hear this: The 5 arguements against evolution that should
never be used are
1. Evolution has never been observed
2. There are no transitional fossils
3. Evolution violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
4. The Earth is 6.000-20.000 years old for [insert YEC argument here] and
5. some systems are Irreducibly Complex.
Those are the 5 absolute weakest arguments against evolution, yet they are the ones you'll come across most often.
Your "metamorphosis is too complex to have evolved" argument is an example of #5.
These are places where your reasoning went wrong:
1. You use the word "complex", however you are judging "complexity" by human standards. That is called the Argument from Incredulity. See
Argument From Incredulity.
2. Your last statement is "the logical conclusion is that the butterfly with all of its odd characteristics was created with purpose and design by an intelligent being". I'm sorry, but that is not the logical conclusion, that conclusion is utterly non sequitor to all of your above information. See
Irreducible Complexity Indicates Design.
3. Your argument is based on Irreducible Complexity. However, you have a mistunderstanding of what that is. Irreducibly Complex does not mean "this system will not evolve", it means "if any given 'part' of a system fails to function within a biological system, the entire biological system fails". Irreducibly Complex systems can and do evolve, see
Irreducibly Complex Systems Prohibit Evolution and
Evolution Demystified.
4. You are claiming what we dont understand (which we do) is evidence of the existence of God. This kind of reasoning restricts God down to what we cant explain (in your post, you claim that we dont know how something evolves - although we do - that it is evidence of God), that kind of reasoning is rather self-defeating (in fact, that kind of reasoning - to reduce God down to simply "the unknown" - is an atheistic concept). If God is what we dont know, the what we call "God" is getting smaller and smaller everyday.
5. The first thing you say is "that creation with design and purpose is the only reasonable means for the existence of this insect", however you ought to be aware of something. If there was a Designer, it did intend suffering. From
Richard Dawkin's Book "River Out of Eden":
Charles Darwin lost his with the help of another: "I cannot persuade myself," Darwin wrote, "that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars." Actually Darwin's gradual loss of faith, which he downplayed for fear of upsetting his devout wife Emma, had more complex causes. His reference to the Ichneumonidae was aphoristic. The macabre habits to which he referred are shared by their cousins the digger wasps, whom we met in the previous chapter. A female digger wasp not only lays her egg in a caterpillar (or grasshopper or bee) so that her larva can feed on it but, according to Fabre and others, she carefully guides her sting into each ganglion of the prey's central nervous system, so as to paralyze it but not kill it. This way, the meat keeps fresh. It is not known whether the paralysis acts as a general anesthetic, or if it is like curare in just freezing the victim's ability to move. If the latter, the prey might be aware of being eaten alive from inside but unable to move a muscle to do anything about it. This sounds savagely cruel but, as we shall see, nature is not cruel, only pitilessly indifferent. This is one of the hardest lessons for humans to learn. We cannot admit that things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous-indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose.
6. It seems to me like you have not attempted much outside reading on the subject. One Google search of "evolution of metamorphosis", and I immediately found a number of useful reading material:
MadSci - Evolution of Metamorphosis Evolution of Metamorphosis in Insects Insect Evolution Washington.edu - Hormones key to Insect Metamorphosis TalkOrigins - Evolution of Metamorphosis
7. Your criticisms of metamorphosis (everything from "how did the caterpillar know to spin a cocoon" to "how did the jelly known to turn into wings") is nothing but a vast lack of understanding of metamorphosis, the questions are nonsensicle. Also, butterflies dont spin cocoons, its the Moths who spin cocoons (while caterpillars do have spinnerets, they use their silk to support themselves from a twig). For butterflies, the outer skin the pupa hardens into a shell called the chrysalis. You mistake the inner tissue of the pupa to be a "jelly substance", that is an incorrect assumption, either that or the author of whatever the source of your information over-simplified metamorphosis to such a degree that it borderlines on incoherency.
To sum up all at once: Evolution has no problems explaining metamorphosis.
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