It seems to me that the creationist argument is just... silly.

[BobRyan]

Watched the whole thing---so now, in order to sidestep the issue of a Creator, the universe is made up of many universes that each had their own "big bang" and so since there are soooo many of them, the odds of having had a Creator have now decreased????----Did I get that right?? So now we are no longer a fine tuned evolutionary wonder, but a run of the mill evolutionary process? And us being simply the virtual reality game of some very highly intelligent beings (who have evolved into that state)is a very distinct possibility??----
They can't even see that they have "evolved" from writing science to writing science fiction.

Thanks for posting this---I was in need of a good laugh! We had been with our main sewer blocked for 5 days--you have no idea of the horrors that entailed!!---but, I must say, this video dishes up more than what we had backing up!!!

You see then what extreme "imaginary lengths" they will go to "to avoid observations in nature" that point to the designer.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

As a creationist, I find it amusing when my biology textbooks say something like: "evolution couldn't leave [this] to chance" or "evolution solved this issue by..."

Evolution is a religion absent a ruler, a Lord.

It's not God the Creator that makes them uncomfortable, it's the King of Kings part.

amen. And Martin Reese, and Leonard Suskind leave no doubt about it.

 

[BobRyan]

Evolution can be observed .

just not in real life.

prokaryotes do NOT become eukaryotes over time and cannot be "made" to do it.

And amoebas do not turn into horses.

And gas dust and rocks do not turn into bacteria.

And they cannot even get the amino acid mix "needed" to start the "thought experiment" much less something in actual - real... life.

 

[Blue Wren]

You see then what extreme "imaginary lengths" they will go to "to avoid observations in nature" that point to the designer.

in Christ,

Bob

Why do "creationists" post YouTube videos, if they have credible scientific evidence, to stand upon??????????

 

[Willtor]

just not in real life.

prokaryotes do NOT become eukaryotes over time and cannot be "made" to do it.

And amoebas do not turn into horses.

Care to take my wager?

 

[BobRyan]

Care to take my wager?

you "imagining" that in the future man will turn rocks into bacteria and then bacteria into amoebas?

Always imagining future success for evolutionism?

What about present day - reading the Bible and believing it over your imagination about tomorrow??

 

[BobRyan]

Why do "creationists" post YouTube videos, if they have credible scientific evidence, to stand upon??????????

Why should we believe Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind when they expose the flaws in evolutionism - when we could just as easily ask a creationist who would be glad to give us a rundown on that same point?

Well #1 - when you raise such issues with evolutionists they tend to discount everybody but atheist evolutionist scientists. So why not go to the high priests of their own religion to get the "frank confessions"??

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

1st. I was not offended, no. I was incredulous.

2nd. A psychology textbook, is it not the same at all as a biology textbook, no.

3rd. LOL. I was taking down the strawman, that you had made, by saying evolution is a religion, with reason. If you think evolution, is a religion, it is logical to wonder, if you also think other scientific theories are religions, yes. .

So then math... physics for example.

Are those guys really going to say "I was duped into accepting and believe in Calculus" or "duped into believing in Gravity"??

are they going to call it "a form of anti-knowledge" but that as an atheist they are stuck with it as the best explanation??

Really?

They going to talk about force vectors and say "stories easy enough to tell but they are not science"???

Really??

I don't think so.

Are they going to ask that they be applauded for "hiding the truth from the public so that the public won't get the wrong idea about Physics" or "about Math"??

I think you only see the leadership in something like "junk science" making those kinds of statements.

brings us back to --- #77


in Christ,

Bob

 

[Audacious]

just not in real life.

prokaryotes do NOT become eukaryotes over time and cannot be "made" to do it.

And amoebas do not turn into horses.

And gas dust and rocks do not turn into bacteria.

And they cannot even get the amino acid mix "needed" to start the "thought experiment" much less something in actual - real... life.

You appear to possess an extremely misinformed understanding of evolution. First of all, you appear to think that it has something with abiogenesis; the two topics are related, but not intrinsically connected. Evolution is merely the idea that genes are inherited, and expressed genes change over time through random mutation and natural selection (a process in which elements of an environment create change over time by eliminating those who possess certain negative traits).

As far as abiogenesis is concerned, how it happened is a somewhat speculative hypothesis, and as soon as there is more evidence for us to hypothesize from, the hypothesis is going to change in some way. It changes all of the time, because that's how science works -- it marches on with the evidence, and makes claims solely based upon empirical data and its analysis.

Your understanding of the Miller-Urey experiment seems to be somewhat poor as well. Have you actually read about it, or did you just discount its conclusions because they didn't create life via magic? It confirmed something very important: that monomers could have formed on Earth via natural conditions. That was one of the points of the experiment.

Since you don't believe in the Miller-Urey experiment, do you have any actual science to back up your claims? I'd prefer real proof, such as scientists with PhDs or results published in peer-reviewed journals.

 

[Blue Wren]

You appear to possess an extremely misinformed understanding of evolution. First of all, you appear to think that it has something with abiogenesis; the two topics are related, but not intrinsically connected. Evolution is merely the idea that genes are inherited, and expressed genes change over time through random mutation and natural selection (a process in which elements of an environment create change over time by eliminating those who possess certain negative traits).

As far as abiogenesis is concerned, how it happened is a somewhat speculative hypothesis, and as soon as there is more evidence for us to hypothesize from, the hypothesis is going to change in some way. It changes all of the time, because that's how science works -- it marches on with the evidence, and makes claims solely based upon empirical data and its analysis.

Your understanding of the Miller-Urey experiment seems to be somewhat poor as well. Have you actually read about it, or did you just discount its conclusions because they didn't create life via magic? It confirmed something very important: that monomers could have formed on Earth via natural conditions. That was one of the points of the experiment.

Since you don't believe in the Miller-Urey experiment, do you have any actual science to back up your claims? I'd prefer real proof, such as scientists with PhDs or results published in peer-reviewed journals.

 

[Willtor]

you "imagining" that in the future man will turn rocks into bacteria and then bacteria into amoebas?

Always imagining future success for evolutionism?

What about present day - reading the Bible and believing it over your imagination about tomorrow??

It's in my sig. Take the wager!

 

[supersoldier71]

1st. I was not offended, no. I was incredulous.

2nd. A psychology textbook, is it not the same at all as a biology textbook, no.

3rd. LOL. I was taking down the strawman, that you had made, by saying evolution is a religion, with reason. If you think evolution, is a religion, it is logical to wonder, if you also think other scientific theories are religions, yes. Saying that evolution is just a theory, shows that you do not understand what a scientific theory is. It is pointless, trying to have a conversation, about science then. It was relevant to your post, yes. That you couldn't get that, that shows another problem, a big one.

Arthur C. Clarke routinely ascribed aspect of what can only be called "will" to the "Cosmos": he'd capitalize the word, in fact.

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit in this one complaint… the literalists [i.e., creationists] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." - Michael Ruse (go 'head, look up his background)

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” - Richard Lewontin (and him too)

Everybody's got a religion. Psychologically speaking, it may be a hardwired imperative (research is still out on that), but a colleague's Thesis is asking a similar question.

Evolution is the "religion" of Naturalism taken to its [superficially] logical ends.

God bless!

 

[Saricharity]

Arthur C. Clarke routinely ascribed aspect of what can only be called "will" to the "Cosmos": he'd capitalize the word, in fact.

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit in this one complaint… the literalists [i.e., creationists] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." - Michael Ruse (go 'head, look up his background)

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” - Richard Lewontin (and him too)

Everybody's got a religion. Psychologically speaking, it may be a hardwired imperative (research is still out on that), but a colleague's Thesis is asking a similar question.

Evolution is the "religion" of Naturalism taken to its [superficially] logical ends.

God bless!

 

[roman2819]

I believe that God created the eath, all the lifeforms and living creatures. However, I do not believe that God created in six days of 24 hours each. In other words the word "day" : in Genesis 1 is not literal but instead, it refers to a phase pr stage. It means that God created in organized stage: First the light, then sun/moon ... land/sea ... then living creatures. How long did this take,whether 10000 or 500000 years, we really don't know.

I was not born a Christian, but when I was not a believer yet, I came across the theory of evolution. To be convinced, it means believing that a simple cell changed very gradually into a little more complex lifeforms, and very gradually over time, they evolved into 10, 20, hundreds .... thousands .... and millions of beautiful plants, creatures and animals that exist today. My question was, and still is: How is this theory more credible than creation? The vague notion that evolution happens by itself over ions of time, without sustainable explanations of how the mechanism of change took place, does not sound any more convincing than creation.

Being a Christian now (and for many years since), I find convincing evidence of God not only from the Bible, not only from overwhelming evidence from creation around us, but also from personal experiences.

 

[Audacious]

Everybody's got a religion. Psychologically speaking, it may be a hardwired imperative (research is still out on that), but a colleague's Thesis is asking a similar question.

Evolution is the "religion" of Naturalism taken to its [superficially] logical ends.

I'm a very, very religious Christian; I read the Bible, I study it, I pray, and, in all things, I (attempt) to worship the Lord. Christianity is my religion; God is my God.

I don't worship evolution in any form. I believe that it is true because that is what the data appears to show; if you read books by biologists and research biology, it is inevitable that you will be inundated by proof of evolution (unless it's a book about creationist biology, of course, e.g. anything published by Apologetics Press.). If there was more data backing up creationism than evolution, I would have no trouble switching 'sides', because this isn't an ideology for me -- it's merely a belief based upon facts.

I don't worship naturalism or empiricism; rather, I trust the scientific method to be an objective method of gathering and analyzing empirical data. Do you suggest that we replace, or modify the scientific method in some major way? What, exactly, are its flaws, that they can be so easily fixed by a layman?

The only major flaw that I can think of is the fact that everyone has natural biases, but the scientific method does a lot to correct for these biases (e.g. repeatable studies, peer-review, etc), and I can't think of a way that would work better than the system we have to correct for that.

The conclusion "scientists just need to trust God more!" is ridiculous, because (1) that isn't remotely empirical or reliable and (2) many, many scientists are Christians, as are many evolutionists.

A good example of a high-profile evolutionist Christian is Francis Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project. He's a biologist who has published books on Christianity and science, and at least one book on apologetics. The guy is obviously a very religious man who believes in evolution because of evidence, and not because of some vague worship of naturalism.

My question was, and still is: How is this theory more credible than creation? The vague notion that evolution happens by itself over ions of time, without sustainable explanations of how the mechanism of change took place, does not sound any more convincing than creation.

The thing is, evolution isn't magic, and abiogenesis (how life began) is not necessarily related. Evolution is merely the idea that (1) traits are inherited and (2) these traits can change through random mutations and natural selection. We understand the mechanisms for evolution rather well, and there aren't a whole lot of gaps in evolutionary theory. It's one of the most-substantiated theories in all of science.

You should read (all of) Wikipedia's Introduction to Evolution if you get the chance.

 

[Papias]

Supersoldier - welcome to this section of the forums!

You wrote:

..Lewontin quote.....

...Michael Ruse quote.....

Evolution is the "religion" of Naturalism taken to its [superficially] logical ends.

God bless!

Um, these are both misused and misleading quotes repeated on creationists sites in misleading ways. You might want to look into them more before repeating them, as taking and repeating quotes out of context is something that atheists point to when they want to show that we Christians are dishonest. So it doesn't help our witness of the Gospel.

Specifically, the Lewontin quote is debunked here:

Thoughts in a Haystack: Failing to COPE

and the Michael Ruse quote here:

Is Darwinism a Religion?[bless and do not curse]|[bless and do not curse]Michael Ruse

Dr. Ruse ends his debunking of his misused quote with:

So the answer to the question "Is Darwinism a religion?" is varied, interesting and insightful. But I bet a million dollars that for the next 10 years it will be the first paragraph and only the first paragraph of this piece that will be quoted and requoted by those who are more interested in using my words for their own ends rather than for understanding what I am really trying to say.​

And following your post, the fact that Jennae swallowed the quotes taken out of context without so much as a blink again reflects poorly on the credibility of creationists.

*************************

Roman - welcome to this area of the forums!

You wrote:

How is this theory (evolution/common descent) more credible than creation?

Simple. Mountains and mountains of converging evidence from many different fields and tests, all giving answers that confirm each other.

The vague notion that evolution happens by itself over ions of time, without sustainable explanations of how the mechanism of change took place, ....

Because that's a strawman. The mechanism is well described as well as being confirmed again through many experiments.

...does not sound any more convincing than creation.

Because you are unfamiliar with the evidence. You could start by taking a college biology class, or reading at sites like this: TalkOrigins Archive: Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy

Being a Christian now (and for many years since), I find convincing evidence of God not only from the Bible, not only from overwhelming evidence from creation around us, but also from personal experiences.

non sequiter. Belief in God is perfectly compatible with evolution, just as belief in God is compatible with germ theory, gravitational theory, or atomic theory. In fact, most of the support for evolution comes from Christians.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[BobRyan]

you "imagining" that in the future man will turn rocks into bacteria and then bacteria into amoebas?

Always imagining future success for evolutionism?

What about present day - reading the Bible and believing it over your imagination about tomorrow??

just not in real life.

prokaryotes do NOT become eukaryotes over time and cannot be "made" to do it.

And amoebas do not turn into horses.

And gas dust and rocks do not turn into bacteria.

And they cannot even get the amino acid mix "needed" to start the "thought experiment" much less something in actual - real... life.

Hint - #1 not every example in the above list is the T.E. much-to-be-feared-by-T.E.s abiogenesis.

#2 - the OP of this thread links Abiogenesis to blind faith evolutionism. Both of them being examples of blind faith.

You appear to possess an extremely misinformed understanding of evolution. First of all, you appear to think that it has something with abiogenesis;

I did not write the OP

Your fear of abiogensis noted. For the atheist evolutionist it is "necessary"

for the T.E. -- he still needs a science text book that says "in the beginning God said let there be bacteria and there was instantly bacteria - after that everything evolved".

the two topics are related, but not intrinsically connected.

Unless you are responding to the OP of this thread?

Evolution is merely the idea that genes are inherited, and expressed genes change over time

False - all that happens without blind faith evolutionism ever showing up to move bacteria into the eukaryote category or amoebas into horses.

It is a story "easy enough to tell" to prop up faith in evolutionism but it is "not science" because it is never observed to produce such a saltation

As far as abiogenesis is concerned, how it happened is a somewhat speculative hypothesis,

As is blind faith evolutionism itself - many-storied but never observed to happen.

Since you don't believe in the Miller-Urey experiment, do you have any actual science to back up your claims?

I don't "Believe"???

Miller-Urey produced nothing to "believe" at all - except that they failed to get the chiral selection needed for an actual building block solution.

What part of this fits your "belief" idea?? Do you "believe" they did come up with that - no matter the science and history to the contrary?

really??

That 60 year old "dead end" is dead for a very good reason.

in Christ,

bob

 

[BobRyan]

Arthur C. Clarke routinely ascribed aspect of what can only be called "will" to the "Cosmos": he'd capitalize the word, in fact.

"Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit in this one complaint… the literalists [i.e., creationists] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today." - Michael Ruse (go 'head, look up his background)

“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” - Richard Lewontin (and him too)

Everybody's got a religion.

Interesting.

Thanks for sharing that - but you realize of course that those frank confessions by evolutionists do not advance the T.E. agenda - right? They may need to be "wished" away.

like Colin Patterson --

==============================

[FONT=&quot]Collin Patterson (atheist and diehard evolutionist to the day he died in 1998) - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history speaking at [/FONT]the American Museum of Natural History in 1981 [FONT=&quot] - said:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Patterson - quotes Gillespie's arguing that Christians [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"'...holding creationist ideas could [/FONT][FONT=&quot]plead ignorance of the means and affirm only the fact[/FONT][FONT=&quot],'" [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Patterson countered, "That seems to [/FONT][FONT=&quot]summarize the feeling I get in talking to evolutionists today. They plead ignorance of the means of transformation, but affirm only the fact ([/FONT][FONT=&quot]saying): 'Yes it has...we know it has taken place.'"[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"...Now I think that many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, [/FONT][FONT=&quot]if you had thought about it at all, you've experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that's true of me, and I think it's true[/FONT][FONT=&quot] of a good many of you in here... [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]"...,[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Evolution not only conveys no knowledge, but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge[/FONT][FONT=&quot] , apparent knowledge which is actually harmful to systematics..." [/FONT]

 

[BobRyan]

non sequiter. Belief in God is perfectly compatible with evolution, just as belief in God is compatible with germ theory,

Until you read the actual bible - for example Genesis 1-2 and Ex 20:11.

Even James Barr will admit to this point - as it is seen clearly by all Hebrew and OT scholars in all world class universities - according to prof. Barr.

 

[Blue Wren]

I'm a very, very religious Christian; I read the Bible, I study it, I pray, and, in all things, I (attempt) to worship the Lord. Christianity is my religion; God is my God.

I don't worship evolution in any form. I believe that it is true because that is what the data appears to show; if you read books by biologists and research biology, it is inevitable that you will be inundated by proof of evolution (unless it's a book about creationist biology, of course, e.g. anything published by Apologetics Press.). If there was more data backing up creationism than evolution, I would have no trouble switching 'sides', because this isn't an ideology for me -- it's merely a belief based upon facts.

I don't worship naturalism or empiricism; rather, I trust the scientific method to be an objective method of gathering and analyzing empirical data. Do you suggest that we replace, or modify the scientific method in some major way? What, exactly, are its flaws, that they can be so easily fixed by a layman?

The only major flaw that I can think of is the fact that everyone has natural biases, but the scientific method does a lot to correct for these biases (e.g. repeatable studies, peer-review, etc), and I can't think of a way that would work better than the system we have to correct for that.

The conclusion "scientists just need to trust God more!" is ridiculous, because (1) that isn't remotely empirical or reliable and (2) many, many scientists are Christians, as are many evolutionists.

A good example of a high-profile evolutionist Christian is Francis Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project. He's a biologist who has published books on Christianity and science, and at least one book on apologetics. The guy is obviously a very religious man who believes in evolution because of evidence, and not because of some vague worship of naturalism.


The thing is, evolution isn't magic, and abiogenesis (how life began) is not necessarily related. Evolution is merely the idea that (1) traits are inherited and (2) these traits can change through random mutations and natural selection. We understand the mechanisms for evolution rather well, and there aren't a whole lot of gaps in evolutionary theory. It's one of the most-substantiated theories in all of science.

You should read (all of) Wikipedia's Introduction to Evolution if you get the chance.