Why I don't believe in evolution...

Humble_Disciple said:

If there's no clear line of demarcation that can historically and definitively be drawn for fully evolved humans, it seems to undermine the sanctity of human life. I think David Berlinski would agree with me on this.

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I think there's a difference between whether or not there is a clear line between human and not human, and our ability to define that line.

Just because we couldn't say when people came to be in an evolutionary sense (was it on a Tuesday or Wednesday for example), doesn't mean that God could not draw a line or that there is no line.

Humble_Disciple said:

The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor, and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved, morally conscious, and spiritual beings.

This doesn't mean, however, that I believe earth is less than 10,000 years old, which isn't taught anywhere in the Bible. Christian geologists discovered the earth's antiquity before Darwin was even born.

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And, I disagree with the first paragraph here, but personally don't feel the need to beat the dead horse so I'll move on to the second paragraph.

As most people well know, the problem with accepting an old earth while rejecting the evolution is that it's logically irrational to accept that earth is old based on things like geologic superposition, but then to turn and reject the existence of the fossil succession, because the two, the geologic column and the fossil succession, directly correlate to one another.

Alternatively, if the fossil succession is accepted, then we have the 1:1 correlation between the fossil succession and things like DNA phylogenetics, cladistics of comparative anatomy, cladistics of ERVs, cladistics of paleogeography, cladistics of protein structures, cladistics of morphology etc.

If you accept that the fossil succession exists, the only rational conclusion that follows is evolution. And if you reject the fossil succession, then it would beg the question of why you think the earth is old to begin with.

And maybe you don't see the topic this way, but if you continue to investigate, it will become clear with time.


And this is why so many Christians scientists accept evolution in our current age.

Humble_Disciple said:

The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor, and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved, morally conscious, and spiritual beings.

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Estimates for the number of living animal species run between a few million and upwards of 100 million. Let's take 10 million as a reasonable value for discussion. Estimates of the number of animal species that have lived run up into the billions.

In both cases, that's a lot of species. You reject evolution because the evidence for evolution of one, just one, of these millions and billions of species is, allegedly, a bit flaky. You may not be surprised to learn I wasn't sure what to make of your anthropocentric focus, thinking it fell somewhere between amusing and mildy offensive, but have settled on ridiculous. If you want to reject evolution you have to reject it in its entirety, or be honest and say that it is only human evolution you have a problem with.

Humble_Disciple said:

The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor, and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved, morally conscious, and spiritual beings.

This doesn't mean, however, that I believe earth is less than 10,000 years old, which isn't taught anywhere in the Bible. Christian geologists discovered the earth's antiquity before Darwin was even born.

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Whenever any "holy text" (the bible, the quran, the baghad vadgitta,etc) contradicts science, that's too bad for the "holy text".

driewerf said:

Whenever any "holy text" (the bible, the quran, the baghad vadgitta,etc) contradicts science, that's too bad for the "holy text".

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Science isn't always right... The Expanding Earth theory is just one example.

Landon Caeli said:

Science isn't always right... The Expanding Earth theory is just one example.

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You are correct. But science always corrects science. And science always corrects faith. Faith never corrects science.

Humble_Disciple said:

The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor,

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Where is the evidence that the bible is correct?

and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved,

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There is no such thing as fully evolved. All living species are constantly evolving/changing.

morally conscious,

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There was no line. It was gradual like everything evolution.

and spiritual beings.

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Where is the evidence for the spiritual?

Clizby WampusCat said:

You are correct. But science always corrects science. And science always corrects faith. Faith never corrects science.

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As far as theories go, I suppose you're right... However in the realm of morals, religion quite often corrects science, it's why eugenics went out the window.

Landon Caeli said:

As far as theories go, I suppose you're right... However in the realm of morals, religion quite often corrects science, it's why eugenics went out the window.

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Eugenics went out the scientific window because it doesn't work.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Eugenics went out the scientific window because it doesn't work.

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It can work. We can manipulate genes.

...But it's immoral.

The eugenics debate isn't over – but we should be wary of people who claim it can fix social problems

Landon Caeli said:

It can work. We can manipulate genes.

...But it's immoral.

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Manipulating genes isn't the same as saying that stupid people mating with stupid people leads to stupid babies, which is what eugenics claimed.

Genetic manipulation is a much broader thing and has many different things for it.

Landon Caeli said:

Science isn't always right... The Expanding Earth theory is just one example.

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Yeah. Science has the intellectual integrity to say "we were wrong" when it is needed. Something I still need to see from regilionists.
And when science is proven wrong it doesn't come because of reading a holy book. It comes from its continuous self investigation.

Landon Caeli said:

Science isn't always right... The Expanding Earth theory is just one example.

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Expanding Earth Theory never had broad support among Earth scientists. Indeed it cannot realy be credited with the appellation "Theory". It was a hypothesis, no more than that.
So, to claim that science thought Earth's structure and history were determined by an expanding Earth, is simply wrong. It seems, ironically, Landon Caeli isn't always right.

Humble_Disciple said:

The two main reasons why I don't believe in evolution, other than the lack of evidence, are that the Bible says we were created from the dust of the ground, not from an ape-like ancestor, and because there's no way to draw the line of when humans became fully evolved, morally conscious, and spiritual beings.

This doesn't mean, however, that I believe earth is less than 10,000 years old, which isn't taught anywhere in the Bible. Christian geologists discovered the earth's antiquity before Darwin was even born.

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The bible contains the genealogy and age of death of everyone from Adam to Christ which shows the earth to be about 6000 years old.

Landon Caeli said:

As far as theories go, I suppose you're right... However in the realm of morals, religion quite often corrects science, it's why eugenics went out the window.

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Eugenics wasn't (actually isn't) a scientific theory. As it never described the physical world. It was more a political program. It was based on a poor understanding of science but was never as theory itself.

Bob_1000 said:

The bible contains the genealogy and age of death of everyone from Adam to Christ which shows the earth to be about 6000 years old.

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If the bible says so, then the bible is wrong.

driewerf said:

If the bible says so, then the bible is wrong.

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How so? What do you base the age of the earth on?

Bob_1000 said:

How so? What do you base the age of the earth on?

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I don't even have to know the age of the earth for that. Plenty of other things that are much older than 6000 years.
The cave paintings of Alta Mira, for example are 36000 years old.
Cave of Altamira - Wikipedia

driewerf said:

Eugenics wasn't (actually isn't) a scientific theory. As it never described the physical world. It was more a political program. It was based on a poor understanding of science but was never as theory itself.

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Also even as a application of evolution it fails as so often what people think is fit is not, and arbitrary blond hair blue eyes and other things.

driewerf said:

I don't even have to know the age of the earth for that. Plenty of other things that are much older than 6000 years.
The cave paintings of Alta Mira, for example are 36000 years old.
Cave of Altamira - Wikipedia

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This is footnote 1 from the Wikipedia bible. They base that age on uranium-series disequilibrium dating. Check it out here Dating - Uranium-series disequilibrium dating

It's a matter of which bible do we choose to believe, God's bible or man's bible.

1. A. W. G. Pike et al., "U-Series Dating of Paleolithic Art in 11 Caves in Spain", Science 336, 1409 (2012), doi:10.1126/science.1219957. "We present uranium-series disequilibrium dates of calcite deposits overlying or underlying art found in 11 caves, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo, and Tito Bustillo, Spain. The results demonstrate that the tradition of decorating caves extends back at least to the Early Aurignacian period, with minimum ages of 40.8 thousand years for a red disk, 37.3 thousand years for a hand stencil, and 35.6 thousand years for a claviform-like symbol. These minimum ages reveal either that cave art was a part of the cultural repertoire of the first anatomically modern humans in Europe or that perhaps Neandertals also engaged in painting caves." Table 1: Ages are corrected for detritus by using an assumed 232Th/238U activity of 1.250±0.625 and 230Th/238U and 234U/238U at equilibrium.