Theistic Evolution - My Personal Problem with it

[koolair]

Yes, but the analogy is about evolution. And evolution has had, if not quite all, more than half the time in the world. And evolution has no teleological purpose, so your complaint (that it would be absurd for evolution to achieve its purpose in this way) has no force.

On that point, the tragedy is, you believe a purposeless mechanism (earlier posited as Yahweh's method of creation), is responsible for giving everything a purpose for existence.

 

[AV1611VET]

Well, AV1611, your remark about JERD does seem a bit silly ...

That would be JEPD.

... and I honestly wondered just how much literature you have red on the DH.

What does DH stand for?

 

[koolair]

...
There is no evidence to suggest that a God exists. Until then, my position of an agnostic-atheist stands.

I don't know that. Why would I even think that?

OK this might explain things. I thought you were both Christians in a Christian forum.

If you guys are stumped by your need for empirical data concerning the existence of an almighty creator, you guys are stuck on page one. At the risk of derailing this discussion, is it even possible for a maximally great being to exist?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why, because I disagree with you? Is it my fault that you have your own definitions which you've twisted to fit into what you've chosen to believe?
Evolution is a theory of common origins which pretends that all of live began with a single common organism and progressed from there. As a scientific theory it's laughable because it can only be supported by circular reasoning. None of the required biological processes have ever been found to exist. Is there a commonality throughout creation? Certainly. What would one expect when the same Creator using the same elements and the same blueprint for life creates plants and animals with similar related characteristics to live in the same environment.

We have observed that you have a very poor understanding of the theory of evolution. It is not based upon circular reasoning. In fact there are multiple independent lines of evidence that support the idea. In science that is called consilience and is considered extremely strong evidence that an idea is correct. Meanwhile there is no scientific evidence that supports your views.

Knowing that matter cannot be created, that it is not infinite, and that it exists proves that the answer of origination cannot be found within the universe. Science requires an external creator. Of course, the laws of physics have no bearing on your personal definition of reality, do they?

Your physics is a couple of decades out of date. You need to catch up a bit. I would suggest that you watch "a universe from nothing" by Lawrence Krauss on YouTube. I could link it for you if you can't find it.

It's called the First Law of thermodynamics; you know, science stuff; the stuff you ignore while pretending molecules-to-man is scientific.

Yes, and it is not violated by the universe coming from nothing. Once more here is the short version: There is both positive and negative energy. Scientists have measured the total energy of the universe and it appears to be zero. Since there is no total energy in our universe that means coming from nothing leaves us with the same total before and after.

No kidding? I'm impressed! So because something outside of the physical world cannot be tested outside of the physical world, you who have a supernatural soul denies its existence. Boy, are YOU in for a surprise! You can't disprove that the supernatural exists. You doubt it based on your own non-experience. However, many of us have had actual experiences and know it to be true. To us, your claims illustrate foolishness.

Oh my. One more time. He was saying that you cannot test the supernatural. That does not mean that the says that it does or does not exist. And without the ability to test how do you tell the difference between your God and the Invisible Pink Unicorn? There is no valid reason to believe in either.

I do.

No, you don't. Knowledge is demonstrable. We can demonstrate why we know that life evolved. You can't demonstrate the existence of your God.

You are preaching a theory of the origin of species that can't explain the origin of the species and you think I should apologize??

What gave you the crazy idea that the theory of evolution cannot explain the origin of species? It can explain the origin of many species.

Impossible is a word we used to describe things that can't happen.

Yes, and you made a claim without any support. Claims that are handwaved in can be handwaved out Your claims were just refuted. Why not put a little effort into them next time.

Oh, you can explore anything you want, but you can't get around the fact that amino acids cannot create a single protein without manipulation, let alone the minimum of 200 proteins required to form the simplest of living things; let along the problem of chilarity and the insane probability of 200 left handed proteins.

Again, you are about ten years behind the times. This article explains how chirality is a "non-problem":

http://rrresearch.fieldofscience.com/2011/01/solving-unnecessary-problem-chirality.html

When you get done with that we can move on to protein formation.

I don't care.

You should. It shows that you buddies are not honest.

There is no evidence whatever for a magical Frankencell begetting all living things. That's just what someone told you and you believed it. Funny that you can believe a simple cell can create all living things but that a very real God cannot.

You need to learn the nature of evidence. Yes, it is fun to deny facts that are well supported by the other side when you have nothing. I have noticed that eventually almost all creationists expose their ignorance of what is and what is not evidence.


Again, you are all over the place here. If you want to go into any of your errors in depth bring them up one at a time.

 

[Subduction Zone]

OK this might explain things. I thought you were both Christians in a Christian forum.

If you guys are stumped by your need for empirical data concerning the existence of an almighty creator, you guys are stuck on page one. At the risk of derailing this discussion, is it even possible for a maximally great being to exist?

No, please note this area of the forum is open to those that are not believers. I noticed earlier that you misuse the term "solipsism". You probably based that on an errant interpretation of the poster's religious beliefs.

 

[koolair]

No, please note this area of the forum is open to those that are not believers. I noticed earlier that you misuse the term "solipsism". You probably based that on an errant interpretation of the poster's religious beliefs.

I'm well acquainted with the word and its variations thanks.

Do you believe in an almighty creator?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I'm well acquainted with the word and its variations thanks.

Do you believe in an almighty creator?

No.

 

[essentialsaltes]

On that point, the tragedy is, you believe a purposeless mechanism (earlier posited as Yahweh's method of creation), is responsible for giving everything a purpose for existence.

Why would I believe that? I don't believe that.

 

[Hoghead1]

See, this is precisely the problem I have with much of your material. It is customarily written JEDP. It is done so because that is the historical order they are assumed to occur in. In recent years, Friedman has argued from a change here, but his view is not generally accepted yet. Had you studied the subject matter, you would have known that. Also, the term "DH" is a common, household term, so to speak, in discussions on the origins of Scripture. So, in that you have to ask me what it means, that is a huge red flag that you really have no absolutely no real knowledge of concepts such as JEDP and then ought to educate yourself on the basics before you comment.

 

[essentialsaltes]

IIRC, radiometric dating also reveals living snails as being tens thousands of years old.

Not all snails, no.

In one particular situation that we understand, naïve use of radiocarbon dating may yield faulty answers.

As with any tool, radiometric methods need to be used appropriately, if the best results are to be obtained.

 

[koolair]

Not all snails, no.

In one particular situation that we understand, naïve use of radiocarbon dating may yield faulty answers.

As with any tool, radiometric methods need to be used appropriately, if the best results are to be obtained.

My bad I meant to say some living snails. It varies and is not the benchmark for determining reality.

 

[Subduction Zone]

My bad I meant to say some living snails. It varies and is not the benchmark for determining reality.

Yes, that can happen. That is because one can use a test improperly. Kent Hovind dishonestly used papers that explained when you can't use C14 dating and tried to claim that means that you can never use it. You should be able to see the logical error in that.

With C14 one must be wary of the "Reservoir Effect". That is, in some environments there is a lot of "old carbon". For example in the sea. The CO2 in the water may have been dissolved there for hundreds of years or the source of the carbon can be recycled carbon from the sea floor. That will give you a false old age. Radiocarbon dating works best when you have land based plant life that gets its carbon from the air, nearly as well with organisms that eat those plants. It works poorly when there is a source of old carbon. Most sea life cannot be carbon dated and in many lakes dissolved carbon can come from carbonate rocks.

If someone uses a screwdriver as a hammer one does not blame the tool, one blames the user.

 

[KWCrazy]

Look, KW, your post contains one too many personal attacks on me. I don't put up with that and it is against the rules here.

Since I've never attacked you I have no clue what you are referencing. I've made light of some of your posts which are fair game, but they were so helplessly wrong what else could one expect? Seriously, how many times has it been made clear that Genesis 2 is NOT a creation account?

You, on the other hands did post "I also think you should reflect on your education and whether or not it is adequate." That statement is, in fact, a personal attack, directed not at my commentary but at me as a person. Interesting, is it not, that thing you complain about is the very thing you yourself have done? The difference is that I am careful not to direct posts at people. I am not one who calls others ignorant and uneducated because I refuse to believe what so many have swallowed hook, line and sinker.

 

[Hoghead1]

Creation-science people are on of criticizing mainstream science because many measuring instruments have definite limitations. What they don't tell you is that it was the scientists themselves, not creation-science people, who first became aware and pointed out certain difficulties. Another point creation-science people fail to mention is that knowing these limitations, the scientists know well how to compensate for them and avoid contaminated results. Another point to bear in mind is that creation-science people have never proposed any measuring instruments superior to what is currently available in science.

 

[AV1611VET]

So, in that you have to ask me what it means, that is a huge red flag that you really have no absolutely no real knowledge of concepts such as JEDP and then ought to educate yourself on the basics before you comment.

No, thanks.

Most of my comments are on the authority of the AV1611 Bible.

And the only initials I'm really interested in is KJVO, not JEDP.

 

[AV1611VET]

[ deleted ]

 

[Gene2memE]

This is a complete fallacy. Natural selection occurs as a result of fitness.

Partially correct.

Natural selection occurs as a result of differential reproductive success [fitness] brought about due to changes in the heritable traits of a population. The change in traits is due to random variation, acquired via a number of sources, including mutation, reproduction and recombination/immigration.

It's occurance does not validate unguided mutation.

I never argued it did. There are plenty of studies that do validate unguided mutation though:
Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation
A quantitative measurement of the human somatic mutation rate
Estimate of the Mutation Rate per Nucleotide in Humans

 

[dougangel]

I am new to these forums, this is my first post. I've thought about theistic evolution before, and reading through Genesis this verse gets my attention: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so." - Genesis 1:11

Later in Genesis 1:29 it says "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."

My problem then, is if theistic evolution is true, why did fruit trees evolve before animals that would eat the fruits existed? Not only that, but the fruit from the trees were good for eating. Even if the fruit trees somehow evolved seed bearing fruit without animals to eat the fruit, how would the fruit become good as food for animals that didn't yet exist through the process of natural selection?

Joshua 12:1

Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan toward the rising of the sun, from the river Arnon unto mount Hermon, and all the plain on the east:

Psalm 50:1

The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.

Malachi 1:11

For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts.

""The mighty God, even the Lord, hath spoken,""
The suns coming up. A house hold saying. That’s what it looks like to the person. But It’s not scientific

Isaiah 11:12

12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. (KJV)

Won’t get my science from that statement. The earths a ellipse sphere. But we know what they mean “”all the earth”” But did they at the time. Did they think it was a flat earth ???

Job 38:13

13 That it might take hold of the ENDS OF THE EARTH, that the wicked might be shaken out of it? (KJV)

Jeremiah 16:19

19 O LORD, my strength, and my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ENDS OF THE EARTH, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. (KJV)

The earths a sphere and doesn’t have an end won’t get my science from there.

"He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. (From the NIV Bible, Psalm 104:5)"

Sorry the earths moving and it’s not on foundations.

We should not conclude that this way of talking about the physical world is what the Bible teaches as a reality, something in which we must believe in order to believe Scripture. Instead, this is the way ancient people talked about their experience of the world in the absence of any scientific knowledge about the processes at work in the world. Certainly we would describe the world today in much different terms. But then we live 3,000 years later in human history with much more knowledge about the physical world, and a different conceptual model and different vocabulary with which to describe the world.


We certainly affirm that Scripture is fully inspired by God. Yet what is interesting is that even with inspiration, God allowed these ancient ways of looking at the world to stand without correction. In other words, God did not reveal modern scientific knowledge to the ancient Israelites, or correct their ancient views of the way the world works. He let them express marvellous truths about God in the language and culture in which they lived. That incarnational dimension of Scripture is crucial for us to understand if we are to hear adequately the important confessions about God and humanity that Scripture expresses.

http://www.crivoice.org/circle.html

 

[KWCrazy]

Evolution isn't a belief system.

Of course it is.

It's the foundation of biology that is supported by several independent scientific discipline that all come to the same conclusion.

No, it's a DISTORTION of biology; an unprovable theory of origins that takes what is known and extrapolates it into a fanciful but not remotely possible theory of molecules-to-man. Speciation is observable to a point, beyond which sterility always results. Nothing that can be observed in biology would be any different given that all speciation came from base pairs saved from a great flood. It's not my fault you don't know how to evaluate scientific evidence. You just repeat what other people told you. Why not repeat what Christ told you?

Do you know the definition of the word theory in the scientific context?

Yes, since I was about 12. News flash. Evolution has never been observed and repeated attempts to test it have proved it doesn't happen. As the eradiated fruit lies. What happens when the experiments fail? Evolutionists proclaim them a success and herald the experiment as validation of their chosen belief.

I don't think you understand how to use the scientific method.

Ahh. there it is again; the quintessential heart of the condescending diatribe packaged and repeated by self aggrandizing wanna-be's everywhere; you don't believe my lies, so you must not understand my lies. Don't think that the dung you sling hasn't been slung before; especially in academia where those too incompetent to compete in the real world hide in the classroom and try to indoctrinate others into believing things they themselves cannot fully grasp. This is not to besmirch the 15%-20% of good teachers, of course. Education, unfortunately, has yielded to indoctrination and socialization. Thinking in general and free thinking in particular are highly discouraged.

If this is your hypothesis, please tell me what test you can run that demonstrates your hypothesis to be true.

Get off your cloud. We aren't putting forth a theory in Gullible Science Weekly. We are discussing how the world was created. There is one Creator and by His hands were all things made that were made. You stand in the middle of the creation in awe of how it created itself without being willing to take a step back and realize that it absolutely could NOT have created itself. You have a ladder with no first step. You dedicate your soul to the promotion of someone else's theory that you can't possibly demonstrate. For all you talk about testing and falsifying, no experiment has ever demonstrated YOUR theory to be true. In fact, the closest thing to increasing complexity you guys can come up with is a bacteria that adapts its diet.... which is what bacteria do.

Every single discovery science has ever made throughout history turned out to be natural. No God needed.

Wow, did you seriously write that?
Do you seriously NOT KNOW what science is?
Do you know the difference between physical and non-physical?
Do you know the difference between natural and supernatural?

Thermodynamics has nothing to do with evolution.

The laws of thermodynamics demonstrate the impossibility of the auto-origination of anything in the physical world.

Why should I believe something exists if I cannot observe and test it?

Easily tested. Ever feel guilty when you do something you know is wrong? Did you know there is no scientific reason for that? The knowledge of right and wrong is intrinsic. It dates back to Adam. There is no biological explanation for guilt. As for the existence of the human soul, out of body experiences are not particularly rare, but they aren't physically provable. There have been cases of people reporting things that they saw during operations when they could not possibly have seen them, yet they are accurate to the smallest detail. How does this happen without a soul? Curious minds ask questions. Dull minds pretend in never happens.

How has natural causation for life been disproved?

Ever hear of Miller-Urey? They tried to create proteins from amino acids using conditions that could never possibly have existed on the planet. They had some success manipulating things, but in doing so they demonstrated that the odds of even a single protein being formed naturally made it a statistical impossibility. That 200 left handed proteins could natural y form

You don't care that a creationist site is willing to lie about self replicating RNA?

Why is it that whenever someone looks at the same evidence and comes to a different conclusion THEY are lying?
And no, I base my belief on the Bible, not the teachings of men.

It's what the evidence tells us.... It follows evidence to it's logical conclusions.

Believing in impossibilities and teaching them as scientific truth is not a logical conclusion. At least with God you have a supernatural entity beyond the laws of science. Evolution does not.

There is no evidence to suggest that a God exists.

Oh, there is tons of evidence. If you want physical proof you won't have that until it's too late.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Aside from the fact that you're assuming you have all the time in the world, it would be absurd to walk 20 ft 5,280 times with the express *purpose* of getting to work.

Evolution doesn't have a purpose of changing organisms, but rather it is the process by which they change. You walk to work, which is 20 miles away. Describing that journey in 20ft increments is entirely possible.

However, unlike walking a distance, which can result in one getting tired a and having to stop, no limits on mutation or natural selection have been demonstrated to exist that force them to stop. In fact, you can't make evolution stop even if you try.