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I've marked the video to watch. In the meantime, I'll try to address your points (although there are a lot of them, so I might have to split up the responses! I've gotten more responses to my OP than I thought - it's hard to keep up with!).
Actually we do have tons of intermediate forms in the fossil record, and we see transitions by the thousands in the genetic record.
The early life forms don't survive. They change. Chemical process after chemical process, going on and on, slowly, very slowly, becoming more complex because of tiny random changes and filtering.
The early "life forms" aren't that fragile - they're very, very simple, and as conditions change, so do they. If they don't, they die. Only the ones that were adapted stayed around.
This is exactly what would be expected. The complex forms that are similar didn't evolve in a bunch of places exactly the same way. Rather, the successful forms reproduced and spread. And in that process, they changed. That means that mistakes (ones that didn't significantly affect an organism's ability to reproduce) also got transferred. One example is that the most common version of the eye has the optic nerve exiting the retina from the inside, producing a blind spot. A properly designed eye would have the nerves leaving the retinal cells from behind, thus avoiding a blind spot. If I remember correctly, the squid has the "correct" version. But ours was good enough, and spread.
I disagree - there are tons of design "mistakes" all over the place, and lists of them can be found online. Examples include the poor design of the eye, mentioned above, the human appendix, poor set-up of the human spine, using the same passage to swallow and breathe, and many, many others, making the whole thing not look intelligently designed, but looking exactly like a "good-enough" product to be expected by a slow evolutionary process.
I'll have to get to the rest a bit later. I can see that all these discussions will be interesting and fun. But a lot of them!
I've marked the video to watch. In the meantime, I'll try to address your points (although there are a lot of them, so I might have to split up the responses! I've gotten more responses to my OP than I thought - it's hard to keep up with!).
Actually we do have tons of intermediate forms in the fossil record, and we see transitions by the thousands in the genetic record.
The early life forms don't survive. They change. Chemical process after chemical process, going on and on, slowly, very slowly, becoming more complex because of tiny random changes and filtering.
The early "life forms" aren't that fragile - they're very, very simple, and as conditions change, so do they. If they don't, they die. Only the ones that were adapted stayed around.
This is exactly what would be expected. The complex forms that are similar didn't evolve in a bunch of places exactly the same way. Rather, the successful forms reproduced and spread. And in that process, they changed. That means that mistakes (ones that didn't significantly affect an organism's ability to reproduce) also got transferred. One example is that the most common version of the eye has the optic nerve exiting the retina from the inside, producing a blind spot. A properly designed eye would have the nerves leaving the retinal cells from behind, thus avoiding a blind spot. If I remember correctly, the squid has the "correct" version. But ours was good enough, and spread.
I disagree - there are tons of design "mistakes" all over the place, and lists of them can be found online. Examples include the poor design of the eye, mentioned above, the human appendix, poor set-up of the human spine, using the same passage to swallow and breathe, and many, many others, making the whole thing not look intelligently designed, but looking exactly like a "good-enough" product to be expected by a slow evolutionary process.
I'll have to get to the rest a bit later. I can see that all these discussions will be interesting and fun. But a lot of them!
Hi grahamsnumber
My name is Occam’s Barber and I am the totally unofficial and absolutely unauthorised meeter and greeter for new atheist members of the Forum .
Firstly – Welcome to CF, The natives are friendly. Within CF you will be restricted to certain areas and will be expected to refrain from criticism of the teachings of various denominations. You are a guest. Please leave the toilet seat down.
For those areas you cannot enter you will be able to look through the bars and watch the Golden Ones at play. Please do not poke the occupants or attempt to feed them.
In the event you run into a Christian while wandering the deep, dank, corridors of CF there is an accepted protocol. With eyes downcast, bend forward in a small bow acknowledging the superior status of your Christian interlocutor. Extend your right hand, palm down. When you feel the Christian licking the back of your hand you can be assured that no attack is imminent. Back away quietly.
There is a group of Superior Beings you may encounter in CF. Known as the Moderators or Mods or They Who Will Be Obeyed, these Divine Creatures came to Earth with Powers and Abilities Beyond Those of Mortal Men/Women. They can be recognised by their blinding radiance and a tiara.
In the unfortunate event you encounter one of these Heavenly Creatures the protocol is strict. Do NOT speak. Do NOT attempt eye contact. Prostrate yourself face down, full length on the floor with arms by your sides. Raise your head and tap it gently but firmly on the floor three times while repeating the following mantra:
“I am the stain beneath your feet. I am the toe jam of your camel.”
If you hear a deep, guttural rumbling sound this is the Magnificent One expressing its approval of your abject abasement. Raise your body slowly and shuffle out backwards on all fours.
Occasionally you will come across gaunt, decrepit individuals dressed in soiled garments and cowering in foetid corners. Do not be afraid. These are your fellow atheists.
OB
Aha... then you are the poster that I should be talking to about:
Do you want to see Intelligent Design taught in universities and schools?
I'm interested in seeing that. Can you post a link please?
Hi & bye ...... you are ignored.
God Evolved
Alpha First Beginning
Isaiah 44:6
“This is what the Lord says— Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God.
Isaiah 48:12
“Listen to me, Jacob, Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first and I am the last.
Revelation 1:8
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 21:6
He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
Revelation 22:13
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
The proof that God exist is in the fact that spontaneous evolution of life is not possible in this universe. God evolved, then He created. From the Subatomic and the primordial Dark Matter. A type of nothing, because it has no atomic bonds to form anything. God created gravity and gravitons to form the atomic elements of this Universe.
Dark Matter is undifferentiated material which has no atomic bonds, this would make it of no particular substance. In other words, it is Nothing. And if you are willing to accept it, it is primordial, and God's store house for creating the universe from "Nothing."
Dark Matter is accepted by the mainstream scientific community. The existence and properties of dark matter are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, on radiation, and on the large-scale structure of the universe. The presence of dark matter in the universe, including gravitational lensing of background objects by galaxy clusters such as the Bullet Cluster, the temperature distribution of hot gas in galaxies and clusters of galaxies and, more recently, the pattern of anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background.
According to cosmologists, dark matter is composed primarily of a not yet characterized type of subatomic particle.
The belief that God created from nothing comes from the Ramban comments on Genesis: www.sefaria.org/Ramban_on_Genesis.1.1?lang=en&layout=lines&sidebarLang=all
Dark Matter: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter
The missing links are missing because life did not evolve in this Universe.
Isaiah 43:10. "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD (Yahwah), "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god formed, nor will there be one after me.
The key is the word "formed." Absolutely anything that has no beginning does not exist. God says that He is the FIRST AND THE LAST. Therefore He Began. That is why His name means "Life Began."
Astronomers detect dark matter though the effect of its gravity on the path that light takes as it crosses the Universe. As light travels through a region of dark matter, its path gets distorted by gravity. Instead of taking a straight line, the light is bent back and forth depending on how much dark matter is passes through.
Astronomers can map out regions of dark matter in the sky just by looking at the distortions in the light, and then working backwards to figure out how much intervening dark matter would need to be there to cause it.
After the creation of the Universe the Earth was later created by God. Before there was a firmament it was a formless body of water. The bible does not state how much time had passed before the creation of the Earth.
God says that no god formed before Him. He also states that none will form after Him, meaning that the element to the forming is no longer available. The word "form" would not have been used if it were not a condition.
A number of authors have done extensive analyses of the UFO phenomenon. What I've seen is that the vast majority are hoaxes or misunderstandings. Humans make incredibly lousy witnesses, to a degree that most people have no idea about. Because of this, stories get exaggerated tremendously, and not on purpose. After repeating a story, we tend to believe it ourselves, even if it contains slight exaggerations. This problem gets repeated over and over, and the story eventually grows on its own. Every time I've seen an investigation of a story, the story turns out to be false. A great example is the so-called Roswell Incident in 1947 (I think). We have a great understanding of what happened there, but over the years the story got exaggerated repeatedly, until in the 70s the story had grown to the point that there were bodies recovered. This continued until the current day, by which time the story in the popular culture is way, way bigger than the original. Another famous case occurred in Ohio some years ago, in which two police officers chased for almost 80 miles an object that turned out to be Venus. The human brain can be fooled very easily once it has decided that what it is seeing is a recognized object, and from then on significant details will be filled in automatically.
A good place to start in UFO discussions is, I think, to look at the details of your favorite case, to establish what the basic facts are.
I've got an alien species in my house! Lettuce that's been in the hydrator drawer since July!An online friend of mine for over three years claims to have met an alien species during his work for the CIA.
I've got an alien species in my house! Lettuce that's been in the hydrator drawer since July!
What about beings from other planets, do you think they visit here?
Yes I do. And I think those who have been permitted to cross over into our world have been doing so for a very long time now (for a very important purpose) as Divinely arranged by Heaven. Since my NDE, because of a few things I was shown, it is now my deep belief that some of the more phenomenal events depicted in the Old Testament (such as the Great flood of Noah, the parting of the Red Sea for Moses, the mass explosion of Sodom and Gomorrah, etc) are not only very true, but were moments in time which were orchestrated and performed by beings of a much higher order and intelligence than our ownwho may have volunteered their technology and understandings or even sent to help guide and shape a culture within humanity during a pressing time within its development and evolution." (Christian Andreason, chapter 2)
Hi, Apostle Joseph. What are Holy Ghost fireworks?
Thanks - I've brought the document up in a browser tab (that's one way to have a to-do list, and will read it. It may take a bit, as things get busy at work (I'm writing this at 12:30 am).
It took me years after I returned from my near-death experience to assimilate any words at all for the Void experience. I can tell you this now: the Void is less than nothing, yet more than everything that is! The Void is absolute zero; chaos forming all possibilities. It is Absolute Consciousness; much more than even Universal Intelligence. The Void is the vacuum or nothingness between all physical manifestations. The SPACE between atoms and their components. Modern science has begun to study this space between everything. They call it Zero point. Whenever they try to measure it, their instruments go off the scale, or to infinity, so to speak. They have no way, as of yet, to measure infinity accurately. There is more of the zero space in your own body and the Universe than anything else!" (Mellen Benedict, near - death. com)
I have a good friend whom I've known for 40 years who was a long-time member of the WWCG, and became very disillusioned after the death of Herbert W. Armstrong.
They don't say AD and BC anymore, they call it the common era or some such.
I know, I'm just saying, they don't see it as before and after Christ even though it is. They want to call it the common era but I haven't seen a lot of reason for that except to remove the name of Christ from the calendar.Yes they changed it it not too long ago. But despite their attempts to remove Jesus' from the calendar it is still based on His birth year.
You are welcome to do so. Have a nice day.May I simply copy and paste this entire response over to:
Do you want to see Intelligent Design taught in universities and schools?
You are welcome to do so. Have a nice day.
Probably brainwashed from watching "MIB" too many times........DennisTate said: ↑
An online friend of mine for over three years claims to have met an alien species during his work for the CIA.
Ha.I've got an alien species in my house! Lettuce that's been in the hydrator drawer since July!
Hi, there. Sort of - I grew up in a house that wasn't religious. My mom was mildly religious, and would have called herself a Christian, but really that was a bit of a stretch; mostly she called herself that just because that was what the American culture commonly "told" you to be. When I was a kid, she took me to a non-denominational church regularly, and I even got prizes for memorizing the most scriptureHi, Graham! Welcome to CF!
Have you been an atheist all your life?
An online friend of mine for over three years claims to have met an alien species during his work for the CIA. Would you like me to send you a personal message with a link to a public post of his on that?
The man happens to write in such an off the scale brilliant manner on so many topics that CIA people would tend to know about.... that I personally take his claim very, very seriously!
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