What is the greatest evidence against the theory of evolution...?

[florida2]

In a small church in central Michigan, circa 1978.

Cool story

God listened, and the answer was no. He was ready for her. When your Father calls you, you WILL go home. Death is the penalty for sin, but eternal life is the gift from God. Her pain and suffering are over. If she was a person of strong faith her place in Heaven would make anything on this earth intolerable after a mere glimpse.

I find the whole 'part of his plan' or 'moves in mysterious ways' arguments to be among the most pathetic attempts at justification you'll ever see. If he was an all loving God then people wouldn't die like this anyway. What about innocent children who get cancer and other illnesses? That's a pretty heartless thing to allow. If your child is seriously ill you would do and give anything to make them better, God doesn't seem to bother instead leaving a trail of pain, suffering and grief. Not very loving. If I had the power to instantly cure people of illness I would. Not because I'm an all loving deity but because I'm a half decent human being.

If they happened every day they wouldn't be miracles, would they?
God didn't promise we would escape death in this life. He promised us eternal life with Him after we leave this place.
We're born, we live, we die, and we are judged. If we please the Lord, we will be with Him. If we displease the Lord, we will be apart from Him. I really can't help a person who's mind is closed to the possibility of miracles happening; especially on a website surrounded by people with first hand experience with them. It's a ponderous and sad thing, indeed, to be so blind. You really need our prayers.

That's the best you can do? Maybe you should advise parents not to show love towards their children very often in case they become blasé about it.

My mind isn't closed to the possibility of miracles but I have yet to have any reason to believe a single story. What about miracle stories from people in other religions? Do you believe all of those too?

 

[Hieronymus]

Cool story



I find the whole 'part of his plan' or 'moves in mysterious ways' arguments to be among the most pathetic attempts at justification you'll ever see.

But you can't explain why.

What does this have to do with evolution anyway?
Objecting to God and (physical) life's challenges have nothing to do with it.

I'll give you a hint though:
Birth pains, and the difference between journey and destination.

(not that i don't have problems with the misery in life, because i do.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

But you can't explain why, can you?

He gave clarification in the part that you decided not to quote...

What does this have to do with evolution anyway?
Objecting to God and (physical) life's challenges have nothing to do with it.

I'll give you a hint though:
Birth pains, and the difference between journey and destination.

(not that i don't have problems with the misery in life, because i do.)

Women walk erect. This causes a narrowing of the hips.
As a result, biologically seeing, every human that is born after 9 months of pregnancy is born prematurely. Ideally, it should be 11 months. But humans can't carry a child for 11 months because then it doesn't fit through the narrow hips anymore.

A large part of human birth pains is a result of bipedalism. It's not the result of some "mysterious masterplan".

 

[Hoghead1]

I haven't seen anything from KWCrazy that would qualify as "hate mail" towards you. Especially not in regards to the degree of aggression some people can have on this site. You definitely strongly and persistently disagree, but otherwise, your discussion is quite tame.

True, it actually is quite tame. That's the problem I have. It is boring. I'm sorry, but it is. Is she being "hateful"? Yes, most definitely. She has called me a false teacher. She accursed me of lying about myself when I told her I have a doctorate in theology. And she has made a number of other vicious remarks. But yes, it is tame. Same old, same old. As I said, when I was a graduate student in a Presbyterian seminary, I heard it all from the right wing, actually received phone calls. Being a progressive thinker and in the liberal Christian camp, I am well used to this sort of thing from the right wing. I really wouldn't feel I am doing my job, without it.

 

[juvenissun]

There is considerable evidence from medical studies about brain injuries and deformities and how they effect intelligence and cognition.

Injury should not be a factor in the survey or the correlation.

May be the brain size is a positive factor in the correlation. But we do not know whether it is the cause or is the consequence. Even assume it is the cause, the scale would be way out of proportion when compared with brains of other animals. It is an absolute anomaly among all data of evolution. The only way to interpret the data is: it (human intelligence) is not related to evolution.

 

[PsychoSarah]

True, it actually is quite tame. That's the problem I have. It is boring. I'm sorry, but it is. Is she being "hateful"? Yes, most definitely. She has called me a false teacher. She accursed me of lying about myself when I told her I have a doctorate in theology. And she has made a number of other vicious remarks. But yes, it is tame. Same old, same old. As I said, when I was a graduate student in a Presbyterian seminary, I heard it all from the right wing, actually received phone calls. Being a progressive thinker and in the liberal Christian camp, I am well used to this sort of thing from the right wing. I really wouldn't feel I am doing my job, without it.

With the number of people on here that have lied about their credentials, I wouldn't get worked up about someone accusing you of doing as much. It's par for the course. I'm actually shocked no one has done it to me, but then again, I am a student, not a person that currently has the degree in Biomedical Sciences I am working towards. Wow, come to think of it, I've been a member of this site for about as long as I have been in college.

 

[KWCrazy]

Yes, according to Exod. 20. No, according to Deut. 5. Please read the Bible more carefully. Anyhow, your original claim was that teh tables were quoting the text of Genesis, not just summarizing a point here.

Deuteronomy 5 is Moses talking about the Ten Commandments to his people. The original text of the commandments can be found in Exodus 20:11, and THAT, as I said, was what Moses brought down from Mt Sinai. On those stone tablets carved by the finger of God, it says that the Lord created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Why is it you're the "scholar" and I know this when you do not?

 

[The Cadet]

No. Intelligence has little to do with the physical body.

In terms of neuroscience, this is the kind of wrong that's basically falls under "so wrong it's hard to find a paper that explicitly contradicts it". Intelligence is almost entirely determined by brain size and structure!

 

[KWCrazy]

You are letting your fundamentalist ideology speak for you, not Scripture and certainly not anything near what is appropriate in a theological discussion group.

Earth to Hoghead; I'm the one who posts Scripture.

...I am trying to keep my mind clear of any possible distortions and contaminations of Scripture that are often produced by a too exclusive reliance on man-made religions ideologies.

To the contrary, you seem to prefer man-made religious ideologies to the Scriptures, since you're disavowing the Scriptural text and embracing the teaching of man; like the Pharisees.

Being very old-fashioned and anti-intellectual does work for some.

Careful, there. Calling me unintelligent doesn't bode well for you, since I've outsmarted you with every post. I could ask whether you were in the 98 percentile on your CAT, whether you met graduation requirements on your entrance exam, whether you had an academic scholarship, how many colleges you were accepted to etc, but this isn't about intelligence quotient or which of us graduated on the Dean's List. This discussion is about the best evidence against evolution, which I contend is the word of God. Pretending to be intellectually superior because you hold the same opinion as your professors is a vacuous assertion at best.

The Amish are one example, and the Bible Belt is another.

Mixed metaphor. The Amish are a religious sect, the Bible Belt is a geographic region.

In modern theological dialogues, such as approach is simply viewed as backward, intolerant, , and ill-informed.

I'm not the one pretending to be intellectually superior here. Hint; you're not. All of my positions are backed in the wording of the Scriptures. I defer to the infinite intelligence of the Creator.

I pointed out to you more than enough times that the original Hebrew texts say Elhanan killed Goliath, period.

You've made that claim, but which of us posted the passage from Scripture? Twice? Since you haven't posted any ancient Hebrew texts I haven't seen the evidence to substantiate your claim. The Scriptures are quite clear that the last of Goliath's brothers were killed while David was king. If you were to read the Scriptures instead of interpretive commentary, you might have seen that.

 

[Shemjaza]

Injury should not be a factor in the survey or the correlation.

May be the brain size is a positive factor in the correlation. But we do not know whether it is the cause or is the consequence. Even assume it is the cause, the scale would be way out of proportion when compared with brains of other animals. It is an absolute anomaly among all data of evolution. The only way to interpret the data is: it (human intelligence) is not related to evolution.

Why is injury not a factor? You damage the brain your damage intelligence... send like pretty good evidence.

And disorders that can be demonstrated to interfere with neutral development produce people with less mental capacity. That isn't random less intelligent people mysteriously having less developed brains. We can see the same disorders in animals and with similar results.

If you didn't think intelligence was physical, wht did you carry on with your "can't have evolved" charade?

 

[Justatruthseeker]

...Except that something clearly is wrong with the law. Again, the purpose of the law is to form a general predictive model of what will happen. If what it predicts doesn't happen, the law is falsified. This is like with gravity - if Newton observed an object of known weight moving at 0.99c, he would find that his theory, his natural laws, were wrong. They were falsified and expanded upon. Such an anomaly allows us to refine our models.

Except there is nothing wrong with Newton's Laws or General Relativity. It is simply you keep trying to apply theories made for solids, liquids and gasses to the plasma state of matter. Then when they don't fit a universe 99% plasma shove in 96% Fairie Dust. That's kind of why we have plasma physics - to describe plasma behavior.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Are you kidding me? Have you read Exod. 32? There is absolute nothing that that says Moses brought down a tablet with the creation narrative of Genesis written on it. Where on earth did you get that idea? The Bible makes it clear the tablets contained the 10 Commandments, but that's it. It appears you are the one here twisting Scripture to fit your version of Bible Belt ideology.

You are correct on this point. But then one either accepts the Word of God as the Word of God or one doesn't. There is nothing wrong with the Genesis narrative except incorrect translations and misconceptions about what occurred.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Yes, people without a functioning brain tend to score very low on IQ tests.

Einsteins brain was no larger than the average human brain. In fact, it was a bit smaller than average.

https://www.aip.org/history/exhibits/einstein/einbrain.htm

" (As it happened, the brain was a bit smaller than average; size is not correlated with intelligence.)"

There is no reason at all to suspect a smaller brain will be less intelligent than a larger brain. Cranial and brain size has no direct correlation to intelligence, despite the myths spread about it being so.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

No, the most recent generation in that family tree is most certainly different than the ones preceding it. In case you didn't notice, none of the people in that generation have dark skin, even though that trait is present in the first and second generations towards the middle.

If you can't see the darker skinned female that married into the line, your definitely blind. Or purposefully misstating the facts to support your dogma. I'll let you and others decide which.

Why you refuse to accept that variation never occurs in the species until two infraspecific taxa mate is beyond me, since nothing else has ever been observed in the entire history of observation.

Yes, I know it magically happened that way in the past when no one was there to observe it..... Ah yah, that's it.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

Deuteronomy 5 is Moses talking about the Ten Commandments to his people. The original text of the commandments can be found in Exodus 20:11, and THAT, as I said, was what Moses brought down from Mt Sinai. On those stone tablets carved by the finger of God, it says that the Lord created the Heavens and the Earth in six days and rested on the seventh. Why is it you're the "scholar" and I know this when you do not?

No, the command was to "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." Then Moses gave an explanation of why that day was to be remembered. But the creation account itself was not inscribed upon the tablets. Only the Ten Commandments were inscribed. Nor were the laws given afterwards about clean and unclean foods, etc inscribed on the tablets. This does not void any of them.

Some simply incorrectly translate Genesis to conform to their personal beliefs - and so are unable to reconcile the two in what appear to be different versions of events with one another. All because of the second word of the second verse of Genesis being incorrectly translated to suit the beliefs of past translators. They didn't understand the Works, so incorrectly translated the Word. If the Works and the Word do not fit perfectly together, then one or the other is being wrongly interpreted, since both were penned by the same Author. The problem is some refuse to go back and look at the original Hebrew words, relying instead on those later incorrect translations.

 

[Justatruthseeker]

And evolution doesn't say we should.

Then we should all still be classified as "fish" yes, or the species fish and us came from, yes?

Please refresh your high school biology classes.
Mammals are vertrebrates.

Please refresh yours - vertebrates has nothing to do with species. If I tried to claim that with Kind, you'd be objecting. But it's ok for you to use that strawman, right?????

Are you being serious???

Apparently you are not.

Show me any animal alive that has become anything other than it was without mating with a different infraspecific taxa? No, nothing millions of years ago where no one was conveniently there to observe it and any claim one wants to make can be argued as valid.

Show me an Asian that became anything other than an Asian until they mated with another infraspecific taxa within the human species? African? Mexican?

How about a dog? Show me a Husky that ever became anything other than A Husky? A Mastiff? Chinook? Pug? Bear?

I didn't think so, so why are you claiming otherwise??????? If you understand Asian remains Asian until it mates with an African or Mexican or whatever, why would you think that anything else magically became something different without mating with another infraspecific taxa?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Then we should all still be classified as "fish" yes, or the species fish and us came from, yes?

We ARE still classified as chordata and vertebrates. That's not going to change.

Please refresh yours - vertebrates has nothing to do with species. If I tried to claim that with Kind, you'd be objecting. But it's ok for you to use that strawman, right?????

Mammals are a subgroup of vertebrates, just like modern fish are.
Mammals ARE vertebrates. So are modern fish.

You made a comment about "jumping branches".
Mammals didn't jump any branch. They are descendents of vertebrates. So are modern fish.

Apparently you are not.

Show me any animal alive that has become anything other than it was without mating with a different infraspecific taxa?

I will, as soon as you show me a latin speaking mother that gave birth to a spanish speaking child.

For the bazillionth time: evolution doesn't work that way.
If you are going to argue against a theory, it might be a good idea to first learn what the theory is about.

Evolution is a gradual process that works through small incremental changes. So small that you don't even notice them from generation to generation.

This is why I brought up Latin and Spanish.
Spanish comes from Latin and it did so gradually. At no point in history was a spanish speaking child raised by a latin speaking mother.

Every child that was ever born, spoke the same language as its parents.
Yet, Latin turned into Spanish, Italian, French,...

No, nothing millions of years ago where no one was conveniently there to observe it and any claim one wants to make can be argued as valid.

We don't need to be observe millions of years of breeding in order to determine common ancestry of things alive today.

Just like we don't need to observe your parents having sex in order to determine if they are your biological parents.

Show me an Asian that became anything other than an Asian until they mated with another infraspecific taxa within the human species? African? Mexican?

Not how evolution works.

How about a dog? Show me a Husky that ever became anything other than A Husky? A Mastiff? Chinook? Pug? Bear?

Not how evolution works.

I didn't think so, so why are you claiming otherwise???????

I'm not. You're just engaging in strawmen.

If you understand Asian remains Asian until it mates with an African or Mexican or whatever, why would you think that anything else magically became something different without mating with another infraspecific taxa?

There's no magic in gradual change over generations.

 

[juvenissun]

In terms of neuroscience, this is the kind of wrong that's basically falls under "so wrong it's hard to find a paper that explicitly contradicts it". Intelligence is almost entirely determined by brain size and structure!

No. The correlation you said can only go one way. That is not a correlation at all.
And more seriously, if one axis of the correlation is off-scaled, the correlation effective failed.

 

[juvenissun]

Why is injury not a factor? You damage the brain your damage intelligence... send like pretty good evidence.

And disorders that can be demonstrated to interfere with neutral development produce people with less mental capacity. That isn't random less intelligent people mysteriously having less developed brains. We can see the same disorders in animals and with similar results.

If you didn't think intelligence was physical, wht did you carry on with your "can't have evolved" charade?

Accident have no place in the mechanism of origin. (yes, you may include mutation into it)

 

[KWCrazy]

No, the command was to "remember the Sabbath and keep it holy." Then Moses gave an explanation of why that day was to be remembered. But the creation account itself was not inscribed upon the tablets. Only the Ten Commandments were inscribed.

Let's go back to when Moses received the commandments, lest we make any error.
Exodus 20:
1Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3“You shall have no other gods before Me.
4“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7“You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
8“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9“Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11“For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.
12“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.
13“You shall not murder.
14“You shall not commit adultery.
15“You shall not steal.
16“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

18All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. 19Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” 20Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.” 21So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

Notice that which is in bold. The hand of God carved the Ten Commandments into stone, and with that He explained why the Sabbath is holy. God didn't need a day of rest, but man did, and so it was from the beginning. Moses would later comment that the Sabbath was to honor the God that brought the people out of bondage. It's the same God who created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh.

Nor were the laws given afterwards about clean and unclean foods, etc inscribed on the tablets. This does not void any of them.

Nobody made such a claim.

Some simply incorrectly translate Genesis to conform to their personal beliefs

Yes, we call them Theistic Evolutionists or "evolution believing Christians."

The problem is some refuse to go back and look at the original Hebrew words, relying instead on those later incorrect translations.

Our church had a minister who could read Hebrew. He didn't see any significant difference. The Scriptures were translated by simple men who took their work very seriously; so seriously, in fact, that despite constant adjustments to the language the message remains unchanged.