Do you believe in evolution?

[Boblekonvolutt]

Not very well, apparently

Care to elaborate?

[Smegma]

Well he claims religious people never try to think there is no God. He says they should truly "drop their faith" and consider atheism. However, its easy to say you tried and do something, but dropping their faith is pretty much equivalent to him becoming part of the faith.

Is he?

[BondJamesBond]

Toby, I won't even bother quoting that astoundingly poor post.

Of course you won't because I just /pwnt you all over the place.

Thank you 8th account. You said that which I couldn't find a way to express correctly.

Gee Mangled. You're just not cut out for it so you let people like 8th Account and The Geologist do all the dirty work and you essentially just say "yeah, what he said" afterwards.

I don't think you should call yourself an Atheist anymore Mangled* because they would probably be embarrassed by the stupidity you spread around on behalf of Atheism. In fact, you're like some kind of nazi just throwing off people's arguments as irrelevant or straight out wrong without any rebuttal of your own. You hate it when people share their opinions based on religion, but it's ok when you're opinion is shared.

Captain Ben put it.. nicely sort of:

mangled you fecked it from the start because all of those people said their meanings, yet you disapproved them and then stated your own meaning and then go all EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN MEANING LOL YOUR STEEL SHIELD IS PAPER

---

But unfortunately, I've turned this thread into another prove bible thread which never gets anywhere... but here we go:

-- Geo's first post:
I'm not here to prove complete factual/credibility of the Bible. It all began here: "Because it's backed up by centuries of research and observations. The fact that I can't think of a single provable argument against it and you probably can't either." Throughout the thread I've followed that thought to support religion. In fact, didn't it used to be: "just because you can't disprove God, doesn't mean He exists"? And here is Mangled*, "you can't disprove evolution, so it exists". You might say evolution is proved but the theory still has its fair share of flaws... Just as the Bible does.

But I'll have to take a hit... I took it too far, didn't I. In the end I don't think anyone can really prove the Bible factually. I have... to... give you....... that. The Bible is not completely factually accurate

--- 8th Account:
1) The New Testament was written not only by many authors, but over a long period of time. How could so many people who lived in totally different generations get together and conspire something like that?
2) I gave my points on proof he was resurrected... Empty tomb, missing gaurds, seeing Christ after his death. (I'll get into it more later here)
3) Graverobbers did not shove a 2 ton boulder up a slope, completely revealing the cave while extremely disciplined guards stood on duty.

The accounts and records of the Resurrection seem sketchy to us today... Because they're old. Is that all? Because it happened so long ago, now maybe it's not true anymore. What if in a few hundred years later, documents of the studies in evolution were dug up? We know them today as legit observations and extremely well-researched topics.

A few centuries later... Hmm... The theory seems solid... I don't really see anything wrong with it. Some good studies have been made. Some fair observations and records... Oh but these were conducted in 2002 people back then.. not so.. not so smart were they? They didn't really have the technology for this data to be fully proved. Yeah, I don't know if we can trust these thousands of scientists. And check out this Darwin guy. Probably some frustrated kid who failed classes and needed some way to make themselves a livin'. Yeah it makes sense now, it's all one crazy conspiracy which caused so many (high paying) jobs in science to be created on some epic lie.

--- Psycho
 it's like this. Maybe my life was changed for the better when I took up this faith. Even if God isn't real, I am still happier in believing He is, so why give it up?

[Vilho]

I haven't read all what you have claimed but I must give a comment here.

Even if Jesus existed, he wasn't the only one who got crucified, turned water into wine, had 12 disciples not to mention, had done all he did and now we're talking about centuries and thousands of years. There have been several sons of gods who have been born on the same day as Jesus, died around the same age as he and which have everything in common. Jesus is one of the many Messiah's, and he just happens to be our time's Christ.

[LtKillroy]

I don't seem why evolution seems so far fetched to you. Its not like "There was a monkey, and one day it gave birth to a human" It's more like "There were a group of monkeys that were often attacked by other animals, so all the ones that were slow were killed, the fast one lives. They have babies, and of those babies, only the fast ones of them survive. Eventually, to be faster, they start to give birth to babies that walk slightly more erect, to be faster, climb higher, etc. At the same time, the ones that use sticks to fish out ants survive more, so they have babies more apt to do that. Over the course of billions of years the slightly taller/standing more erect/smarter apes resemble what you would call cave men. These people start using rocks instead of sticks, stand more erect, etc. Basically a rinse repeat happens, getting to what we are today."

[tehsnipah]

Meh, Kingdom Bacteria, Kingdom Protista, Kingdom Plantae, Kingdom Fungi, and Kingdom Animalia.
They all have different body organization and others. And yes if you check each of the Phylum group of each, you will notice the evolution.

I don't know if this makes sense to you, but it does to me. Sorry I have a sucky explanation.

Also, geological isolation, survival of the fittest, and natural selection can also prove the evolution.

[frogboy]

serious question, assuming god is all-powerful, why doesn't he limit free will so that evil can't happen? i think i ended up confusing myself last time i tried thinking about it, but for example, world war 2, the holocaust was so terrifying that nobody could ever imagine the scale of it, what if god just stopped people from thinking like that, it would still appear to be free will since nobody knows of the possibility that doesn't exist

and for the hell of it a blatant troll, what was that bible quote that's all like, "don't pray on the street like those jewish hypocrites you should do it in your own home", what of that one

[8th_account]

--- 8th Account:
1) The New Testament was written not only by many authors, but over a long period of time. How could so many people who lived in totally different generations get together and conspire something like that?
2) I gave my points on proof he was resurrected... Empty tomb, missing gaurds, seeing Christ after his death. (I'll get into it more later here)
3) Graverobbers did not shove a 2 ton boulder up a slope, completely revealing the cave while extremely disciplined guards stood on duty.

1) Maybe they rewrote the Old Testament and expanded the stories? No one knows for sure, which is another reason that the resurrection cannot be proven as of today. There's too much uncertainty.
2) Your proofs were specific interpretations out of many that you just assumed to be facts. Or did I misinterpret the meaning of your 2nd statement? Please elaborate it then.
3) Another assumption. You cannot know for sure. Even assuming what you said is true, it goes against some other equally unreliable documentation.

The accounts and records of the Resurrection seem sketchy to us today... Because they're old. Is that all? Because it happened so long ago, now maybe it's not true anymore. What if in a few hundred years later, documents of the studies in evolution were dug up? We know them today as legit observations and extremely well-researched topics.

The records are unreliable because:

Going against the historical uncertainty that there ever was a resurrection, and going against the historical uncertainty that there were eyewitnesses of the purported resurrection, and going against the probability of those eyewitnesses not being subjective, and going against the uncertainty of the purported events not growing and getting altered until they were documented, and going against the lack of available and objective historical documents covering those, at best, second or third hand reports

This is not an examplary way to preserve the validity of facts for the future. They originally weren't even trying to, if barely. And there weren't really any place to store or globalize such information unlike today. As an example, the library in Alexandria, was the largest library in the ancient world when it burnt down. There weren't a lot of redundancy back then. When it burnt down, a lot of history went lost forever. If the largest library burnt down in present age, it wouldn't be as large of a blow, since the same books are all over the world, and a lot of the data is probably stored on harddrives and avaliable on the internet.

A few centuries later... Hmm... The theory seems solid... I don't really see anything wrong with it. Some good studies have been made. Some fair observations and records... Oh but these were conducted in 2002 people back then.. not so.. not so smart were they? They didn't really have the technology for this data to be fully proved. Yeah, I don't know if we can trust these thousands of scientists. And check out this Darwin guy. Probably some frustrated kid who failed classes and needed some way to make themselves a livin'. Yeah it makes sense now, it's all one crazy conspiracy which caused so many (high paying) jobs in science to be created on some epic lie.

Today scientists use the Scientific method in order to make sure that only a phenomena that stands up to a list of strict criterias, which would dismiss, for instance, a subjective observation from getting filed as a fact. Basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, thereby allowing other researchers, be it now or in a hundred years, the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them.

Darwin documented his findings and explanations well. The modern evolutionary synthesis is a refinement of Darwin's explanation of evolution. This modern synthesis is currently the most accepted explanation of the fact of evolution.

[The Geologist]

serious question, assuming god is all-powerful, why doesn't he limit free will so that evil can't happen? i think i ended up confusing myself last time i tried thinking about it, but for example, world war 2, the holocaust was so terrifying that nobody could ever imagine the scale of it, what if god just stopped people from thinking like that, it would still appear to be free will since nobody knows of the possibility that doesn't exist

and for the hell of it a blatant troll, what was that bible quote that's all like, "don't pray on the street like those jewish hypocrites you should do it in your own home", what of that one

Isn't that a bit of a paradox?  I may be using the word in the wrong context, but it seems like limiting free will would mean that it wouldn't technically be free will.  Can't remember if this was said in this topic or the most recent evolution topic, but an analogy was made to God giving creating a stage for us to act life out upon.  Limiting us to all things good would be like saying you can only exit stage right (dextral vs sinistral, how's that one for ya?).

But you do raise an interesting point about the whole "not knowing of evil" issue.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems too unbalanced to last.  No shadows without light, and other such sayings.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Even if Jesus existed, he wasn't the only one who got crucified, turned water into wine, had 12 disciples not to mention, had done all he did and now we're talking about centuries and thousands of years. There have been several sons of gods who have been born on the same day as Jesus, died around the same age as he and which have everything in common. Jesus is one of the many Messiah's, and he just happens to be our time's Christ.

Um.  What? Where did you hear this?

serious question, assuming god is all-powerful, why doesn't he limit free will so that evil can't happen?

Simply put, because then it wouldn't be free will.  If we worshiped God because we had to, what's the point?

and for the hell of it a blatant troll, what was that bible quote that's all like, "don't pray on the street like those jewish hypocrites you should do it in your own home", what of that one

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

Basically, if you're praying to get attention, don't bother praying.

[Mangled*]

Captain Ben put it.. nicely sort of:

mangled you fecked it from the start because all of those people said their meanings, yet you disapproved them and then stated your own meaning and then go all EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN MEANING LOL YOUR STEEL SHIELD IS PAPER

Well so much for consistency then, that quote isn't even from this topic.

The phrase clutching at straws springs to mind.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Well so much for consistency then, that quote isn't even from this topic.

Heaven forbid that a quote be relevant without being from the same topic.

[frogboy]

of course it's not actually free will, but if nobody knows it's not free will, wouldn't people believe that there still is free will?

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

of course it's not actually free will, but if nobody knows it's not free will, wouldn't people believe that there still is free will?

If we worshiped God because we had to, what's the point?

God would know that we didn't have free will, even if we aren't aware of it ourselves.  If people obey you because they have to, it's significantly less satisfying than if they obey you because they choose to do so.

[BondJamesBond]

8th Account
Unfortunately we are caught at the typical hick white trash christian vs uptight soulless MIT scientist argument.

"Bible are facts"
"No Bible are lies"


I'll keep going though

You say the Bible was not very 'globalized' and well preserved, but over 24000 partial and complete texts of the New Testament were discovered between the first known manuscript and when the document was authored (about 25 years?). You can compare this to Homer's Iliad which had about 600 texts within 500 years. In fact the rapid globalization of the Bible has been a popular argument by Christians in support of the Bible.

There was more than one author of a long period of time who wrote the Bible - and hundreds of witnesses to support a few events mentioned in the Bible. Can't this be seen as a primitive form of the scientific method?

---

Now a few more thoughts:
The Bible was altered during its authoring stages and today is still being altered (altered here means changing metaphors, and implications). The Bible continues to be researched not only in meaning but validity. It is still not a solid, reliable historical book.

The Theory of Evolution also continues to be altered today. Various experiments and even observations have further approved the theory. ... But is it solid yet? Is it completely flawless and is no further study needed to validate the Theory?

In the end, I still believe it comes down to age.

--

Mangled* your last five posts have not even been arguments. You disregarded my entire post by calling me my first name... You have yet to show me why my deductions about your logic are false. (Sure you did once, and then bam I came right back like a good debater with a solid case would do, right?).

So you can keep sitting there caught in your own delusion that you have even the slightest knowledge about the topic at hand... Or you can leave and save yourself further embarrassment.

Oh and by the way, sorry for the quote from outside the topic. I had no idea you changed character and personality from one thread to another - that's totally inconsistent on my part.

[Graham]

I think many christians are afraid to seriously sit down and contemplate the fact that there might not be a god. Not just "yeah I can see what you mean" but really, letting go of the faith for a second to look at the matter. It's so hard since when you first have been convinced of something (no matter how far-fetched) It's very hard to let go, or even think objective.

And yes, I've done the opposite.

All Christians hit this wall at one point. God is not a physical being so many times it does get hard to believe. Since naturally we try not to accept things until we touch or see them.  The time when someone questions God being God comes at many point, say something horrible just happened and someone wants answers or maybe someone was just sleepless and started to wonder if God was real. Myself I have questioned God before. God isn't afraid of that because without questions you don't get answers.

[Captain Ben]

Captain Ben put it.. nicely sort of:

mangled you fecked it from the start because all of those people said their meanings, yet you disapproved them and then stated your own meaning and then go all EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN MEANING LOL YOUR STEEL SHIELD IS PAPER

Well so much for consistency then, that quote isn't even from this topic.

The phrase clutching at straws springs to mind.

the phrase you don't know shit about nothing comes to mind

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

I think many christians are afraid to seriously sit down and contemplate the fact that there might not be a god. Not just "yeah I can see what you mean" but really, letting go of the faith for a second to look at the matter. It's so hard since when you first have been convinced of something (no matter how far-fetched) It's very hard to let go, or even think objective.

And yes, I've done the opposite.

Well, since you've apparently considered that God might exist and ultimately refused that point of view, why can't Christians have considered that no God exists and decided that it was incorrect?  If you didn't change your beliefs through introspection, why should anyone else? And why do you assume that people who have a particular belief have never questioned it?

And yes, I've done the opposite.

Not very well, apparently

Is the implication here that introspection isn't successful unless you change your beliefs? Why can't it reinforce your beliefs?

[Psycho]

Well he claims religious people never try to think there is no God. He says they should truly "drop their faith" and consider atheism. However, its easy to say you tried and do something, but dropping their faith is pretty much equivalent to him becoming part of the faith.

Is he?

I used to believe in god, so I think I've been there yes.

[Cookie.]

Toby, I won't even bother quoting that astoundingly poor post.

Of course you won't because I just /pwnt you all over the place.

Thank you 8th account. You said that which I couldn't find a way to express correctly.

Gee Mangled. You're just not cut out for it so you let people like 8th Account and The Geologist do all the dirty work and you essentially just say "yeah, what he said" afterwards.

I don't think you should call yourself an Atheist anymore Mangled* because they would probably be embarrassed by the stupidity you spread around on behalf of Atheism. In fact, you're like some kind of nazi just throwing off people's arguments as irrelevant or straight out wrong without any rebuttal of your own. You hate it when people share their opinions based on religion, but it's ok when you're opinion is shared.

Captain Ben put it.. nicely sort of:

mangled you fecked it from the start because all of those people said their meanings, yet you disapproved them and then stated your own meaning and then go all EVERYONE HAS THEIR OWN MEANING LOL YOUR STEEL SHIELD IS PAPER

---

But unfortunately, I've turned this thread into another prove bible thread which never gets anywhere... but here we go:

-- Geo's first post:
I'm not here to prove complete factual/credibility of the Bible. It all began here: "Because it's backed up by centuries of research and observations. The fact that I can't think of a single provable argument against it and you probably can't either." Throughout the thread I've followed that thought to support religion. In fact, didn't it used to be: "just because you can't disprove God, doesn't mean He exists"? And here is Mangled*, "you can't disprove evolution, so it exists". You might say evolution is proved but the theory still has its fair share of flaws... Just as the Bible does.

But I'll have to take a hit... I took it too far, didn't I. In the end I don't think anyone can really prove the Bible factually. I have... to... give you....... that. The Bible is not completely factually accurate

--- 8th Account:
1) The New Testament was written not only by many authors, but over a long period of time. How could so many people who lived in totally different generations get together and conspire something like that?
2) I gave my points on proof he was resurrected... Empty tomb, missing gaurds, seeing Christ after his death. (I'll get into it more later here)
3) Graverobbers did not shove a 2 ton boulder up a slope, completely revealing the cave while extremely disciplined guards stood on duty.

The accounts and records of the Resurrection seem sketchy to us today... Because they're old. Is that all? Because it happened so long ago, now maybe it's not true anymore. What if in a few hundred years later, documents of the studies in evolution were dug up? We know them today as legit observations and extremely well-researched topics.

A few centuries later... Hmm... The theory seems solid... I don't really see anything wrong with it. Some good studies have been made. Some fair observations and records... Oh but these were conducted in 2002 people back then.. not so.. not so smart were they? They didn't really have the technology for this data to be fully proved. Yeah, I don't know if we can trust these thousands of scientists. And check out this Darwin guy. Probably some frustrated kid who failed classes and needed some way to make themselves a livin'. Yeah it makes sense now, it's all one crazy conspiracy which caused so many (high paying) jobs in science to be created on some epic lie.

--- Psycho
 it's like this. Maybe my life was changed for the better when I took up this faith. Even if God isn't real, I am still happier in believing He is, so why give it up?

As someone who studies evolution, tell me a flaw with it.

Anyways Darwin married his cousin and collected seagulls.
-=Edit
My god I just disproved evolution right there.

-=Edit2
Why is pigeons filtered into seagulls

-=Edit3


-=Edit4
The modern synthesis makes evolution essentially factual, otherwise all modern biology is messed up O_o