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| View Poll Results: Where do you stand: Intelligent Design or Evolution? | |||
| Other |
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4 | 15.38% |
| Evolution |
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12 | 46.15% |
| Intelligent Design |
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10 | 38.46% |
| Voters: 26. You may not vote on this poll | |||
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#21 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 13
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Yes, but you're missing a major detail here. If the Bible is the word of God, why would we believe only parts of it? Once you start undermining one part of it, people start to say, "Well, if Genesis is only symbolic then this part (such as Jesus actually being divine, etc.) must be symbolic too." Then, they can pick and choose which parts of the Bible they actually want to believe. If they don't agree with something, or they are uncomfortable with a certain verse, they can just slip around it. Besides, if God has the ability to create anything, why could he not create the world (and everything in it) in six days? This applies especially to the post above about God being outside of time because if time means nothing to God, he could easily have done it all in just six days.
Also, if you put evolution before Genesis, then you put death and destruction before man's fall (hence the fossil record). We know from the Bible that the world was perfect when it was created with no death or disease or anything else of that nature. I also want to point to the fossil record itself. When you look at it, you never see any "intermediary" forms of animals evolving from one species to another. When an animal dies, it goes through stages of decay, and its remains are generally scattered everywhere and are unrecognizable. There have been cases though, where animals have died and then almost immediately covered by sediment. This seems to preserve whole skeletons and keeps them intact. If you apply this to the Flood, you could say that the flood had the ability to do this very easily. There would most likely be currents flowing through the water, much like the oceans today. This would bury animals right where they stood (or lay or whatever) thereby preserving whole skeletons of, not just one or two animals, but whole groups. Plus, with the currents running to and fro, this would lay down layer upon layer of sediment, creating the different layers of rock we see today and the fossil record. -Eridor |
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#22 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4
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The_Q, how can you say that Christians should only believe parts of the Bible and just blow the rest off? That doesnt make sense. The Bible was written as a book that is supposed to be ALL true. What would be the point of writing a bunch of parts if nobody should believe them anyways?
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#23 |
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Admiral in the Red Army
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Guys, logic tells us that the bible cannot be literally true. The bible is merely a good way to show you how to live your life. Think of it the way you would a greek myth. You don't be like "Wow! Zeus battled his father Chronus after Chronus ate all of Zeus's siblings. Then the Titans came and Zeus kicked their butts too!" No, you simply see it as meaning that tyrany will be punished with a hero who will defeat them. It's the same with the bible.
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#24 | ||
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What about Jesus healing the man born blind in the Gospel of John? Maybe he wasn't physically blind, but "spiritually blind". Jesus "healed his blindness" and brought him to have faith in God. And what about feeding the 5,000? Maybe he "fed" them the Word of God. So, the miracles and signs may never have happened physically as they are portrayed. It sure makes things a whole lot harder to believe....
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#25 | |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 13
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Quote:
Also, the Bible was not written by only one person, nor was it written by a group of people who got together and over a beer (just paraphrasing here ) decide what to write down. These men were all from different places and different cultural backgrounds, so how else would all of the books of the Bible be so closely related except that they were God-inspired. This is especially evident in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) because they all have common elements, but they all have differences as well and are told from different perspectives.Now, you might say, "But how do we know that all of these men actuall existed?" The answer to that is archaelogy.Based on archaeolgoical finds, mainly historical documents, such as records and censuses (what is the plural of census?), we know for sure that Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul (formerly Saul), Thomas, and Peter actually existed, and I'm not including the burial box that says "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" on it because that is still in the "unauthenticated" stage. -Eridor |
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#26 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4
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Who ever said Jesus couldn't do all that stuff like feeding the 5,000 and about a million other things? Jesus is God, and God CREATED the world....so why is it so hard to believe that he could heal a blind man?
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#27 |
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Seen your member
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^^ignor'd. Although I have much to say on the topic, I will say little so that it is read.
Evolution is not all encompassing, and it has been infinitely misused in this thread. There is microevolution and macroevolution. I will leave it to you to reason out which is which. Either way, microevolution is a proven occurence, but whether or not macroevolution is a reasonable explanation for certain phenomena is still under debate. You have also all ignored the existance of genetic drift and other existing non-'natural selection' methods of species transcendance. Also, I need not remind you that this is not yet another discussion about whether the bible is to be interpreted literally or even trusted as much as a science fiction novel. |
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#28 | |
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(The Fat's Sabobah)
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If Jesus is God, then does that make him also his own father?
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--- It's sad to see that the Bible being used as a device which is argued over. Isnt the purpose of the Bible to teach the word of "God" and "Jesus Christ"? And isnt their word one of "unconditional love" and "peace"? Shouldnt we all take this into consideration before we attack it/or attack those who do not believe in it? Whether you believe the Bible literally, or not, isnt it basically a guide to living a good-wholesome life? Religion is supposed to be something that unites one another, not something tears them apart. |
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#29 | ||
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Seen your member
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Quote:
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#30 | |
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FFR Player
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I am a Christian as well....but I believe strongly that the story of creation were like many of the other stories in the Bible...metaphors and fables. Stories that teach lessons rather than actual facts. It is all very faith-based...so your argument doesn't hold much water. |
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#31 |
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Seen your member
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And may just highlights the fact that it is a theory and not a fact. No one is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. It is merely the most reasonable explanation that exists. No one ever pretended that it is fact, because unlike religion, they science is not trying to brainwash you into believing their every word. They only pose the most moddern ideas. Just because science says "may" to be honest about their uncertainty, and religion says "it is so", it does not make their naive certainty truth. Religion does, afterall, target individuals like you, who are not looking for the most factual idea, just the person who best sells it to you.
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#32 |
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FFR Player
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Studies have shown that religious Christian zealots and sheep evolved from the same one-celled organism.
Evolution, because it makes alot of things make sense.
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#33 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Exeter, NH
Posts: 21
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Read Genome, by Matt Ridley, or any genetics textbook, and understand the incredibly straightforward mechanism by which evolution happens. I would have hoped that most of the folks here would insist on taking this beyond this ridiculous, 4th grade textbook understanding of evolution.
For God's sake (sorry), it seems like some of us distrust the very idea of science: but how on earth should we define "facts" other than theories with excellent evidence? Look at the fossil record, look at genetics, and see that the theory of evolution is undeniable fact. OBVIOUSLY: as humanity pursues science, as we "clear the forests of ignorance" around us, we only discover how infinitely vast those forests are. OF COURSE: we don't have all the answers, as Aquinas put simply in his five proofs -- if all things have a cause, there must be an original cause. At that point -- the first cause -- as an Episcopalian, I look to God. Can we religious folk please try to understand God as something meaningful?! As a human idea, as an expression of what makes life worth living -- of love, beauty, and yes, even reason, even science? Please, believe at least in the idea of science. Also, recognize that if a whole lot of very bright, well-informed people take evolution as fact, you probably don't know enough about it to deride it as ridiculous (PICK UP A TEXTBOOK -- THIS "IT'S TOO UNLIKELY" ARGUMENT IS WAY BESIDE THE POINT). Please, just get on living your life in God's love. Appreciate the gift of reason, and then, please exercise it.
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#34 | |||
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 13
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Quote:
What I have not done is say that I just refuse to believe in evolution because it goes against all of my other beliefs. Instead, I have given evidence that contrasts with evolution. Quote:
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-Eridor |
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#35 | ||
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FFR Player
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Exeter, NH
Posts: 21
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Sorry, this thread is the victim of its first reply (from Chromer), which set a tone (adopted by both sides of the argument) that I projected (perhaps unfairly) onto your posts (one more parenthetical for good measure). But still, while you may have "stuck to pure scientific reason", you haven't applied that reason to nearly enough evidence -- what's more, you're applied it to evidence that is factually incorrect. Quote:
You're right, Darwin's Galapagos finches were not a different species from the mainland finches. They were 13 different species of finch, descended from their mainland ancestor: Geospiza magnitrostis, G. fortis, G. fuliginosa, G. difficilis ... the list continues. And I have no idea how your brief description of forces of selection (above) lends to your argument. As for your other vague "very compelling argument" about microevolution being unable to explain macroevolution, you (as I said in my last) need to read a genetics textbook. There is a huge variety of mutational forces at work on our DNA, and exponentially more in less and less complex creatures. These are not just replication errors, not just "old DNA being shuffled around". Go to the NCBI website and search for "mechanisms of mutation" under "books" (they have free textbooks online) and find out how frequently. For starters, mammalian cells have to try to repair several varieties of spontaneous mutations (let alone those caused by transposons, or UV light, or carcinogens) in about 10,000 bases of their DNA in a 20-hour cell-generation period at 37 degrees celsius. Remember that 3 bases codes for a single amino acid. Read more about this, get your facts straight, and make some more compelling arguments. Sorry to be inflamatory, but I'm up to my elbows in a genetics course right now, and this is very much on my mind.
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#36 |
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Hookers and Blow
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I never "victimized" anything. I stated my opinions and thus stand by them. Simple as that.
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#37 | |
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#38 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Exeter, NH
Posts: 21
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Chromer, ayanepuck,
Why on earth would you bother with this if you are only willing to "stand by your opinions"? For the useful contributors here, this is a discussion, where ideas are presented and defended. If you have no explanation as to why you stand by your opinions/beliefs, or are just unwilling to defend them, this forum isn't for you. I hope. People may well change their minds if an argument is reasonably refuted. For instance, for those of you who don't believe in the capacity for genetic material to mutate enough to explain natural selection, I've suggested strong evidence to the contrary. Again, that is the idea of discussion.
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#39 | ||
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FFR Player
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 13
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My point with the finches was that (and I probably should have used genus instead of species) they are still birds. If they had evolved separately, they should be completely different from each other, and yet they have only external differences. Their DNA is the same (by this I mean the same way all human DNA is the same with slight variation). Quote:
"Like an electrical motor, the flagellum contains a rod (drive shaft), a hook (universal joint), L and P rings (bushings/bearings), S and M rings (rotor), and a C ring and stud (stator). The flagellar filament (propeller) is attached to the flagellar motor via the hook. To function completely, the flagellum requires over 40 different proteins. The electrical power for driving the motor is supplied by the voltage difference developed across the cell (plasma) membrane." All of this is made out of protein. I don't see what is simple about that.
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-Eridor |
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#40 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Exeter, NH
Posts: 21
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Eridor,
What sort of genetics course are you taking? I think you're trying to get by with a vague understanding from an intro Bio course. Mutations caused by ... damage to proteins themselves? I hope that was just unelegantly phrased. I'm sorry, but I don't have anything like the patience required to explain this to you. Please, please, go to www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (if you were taking a genetics course, you would already be very familiar with GENBANK) and read at least the first chapter of Modern Genetic Analysis. At least concede your several other logical slips: the genetic code is like any other language (although with only four letters, which form only 20 three-letter words, plus some punctuation). You have to understand that if letters spontaneously change, and quite often, some vqry dityeremt wpdrs are formed. If you did this to the Bible (and again, believe me, there are a lot more interesting mechanisms of drastic mutation than the point mutations you may or may not understand), you could eventually get Tolstoy. That is, in fact, new information by any definition. As for your rebuttal on the finches, you defeat your own argument. You specifically refer to how little DNA has to mutate to differentiate human beings (and birds) from one another -- perhaps you don't understand taxonomy; these different species of finch can't produce fertile offspring when cross-bred. They are about as different from one another as human beings are different from chimpanzees -- we "have only external differences" as you say. But I think you'll agree that they're significant differences, unless you intend to do some terrible things with chimps (which, I'll warn you, are felonies I think). As for your last point ... wow. Definitely aren't learning much in your genetics course -- you know that bacterial genomes only have about 100,000 base-pairs of DNA, while human beings' have 100 million? That sounds a lot less complex to me. Speaking of flagella, ever seen pictures of sperm? Our genomes make those just fine. For God's sake, our genomes assemble trillions of cells into undeniably the most complex creatures on earth, while most bacterial genomes, even with their flagella, assemble a single cell with a 30-minute life-cycle. There are just too many ways to express how ridiculous your last "point" is. I give up. You've made your arguments a lot less compelling, I'm afraid.
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