This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Inherently Evil
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
345586
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
345586
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Laihendi
Believing in something without proof is what faith is
And what do you call believing in something with no evidence indicating that it is true?
I am not going to debate about this simply because it is a never ending argument. All I can say is there is no more proof of evolution than there is a creator. Not adaptation, but macro-evolution. Going from one species to another. But like I said earlier which is basically all you said in this post. Evidence in a sense
is
proof. Faith is believing in what cannot be proven.
It is impossible to prove either beyond any possible doubt, but it's undeniable that there is a tremendous amount of evidence indicating that evolution is real, whereas there really isn't any indicating that creationism is real.
Post by
MyTie
It is impossible to prove either beyond any possible doubt, but it's undeniable that there is a tremendous amount of evidence indicating that evolution is real, whereas there really isn't any indicating that creationism is real.
Notice no references, examples cited, or 'why' answered. This is a typical Laihendi argument. If you present unrefutable counter arguement, he will just ignore you for a while.
Laihendi, you're on your own on your debates from now on. Trying to speak logically with you is like trying to teach a ham sandwich chess.
Post by
Laihendi
Which I discussed, bringing up how it may not have been God's intention, and how it was very progressive inhibitations on slavery for the time, and brought up other passages that show how the Bible is obviously not all about slavery. The bible is supposed to be the word of God. If it says it's ok to beat your slave as long as he/she doesn't die, you can't just say "oh well God didn't really want that to happen". If the bible
really
taught timeless values, then you wouldn't be able to say that is was progressive "for it's time".
Address what I say when you are debating with me, or expect that you will be ignored by me in the future.
uh oh
Speaking of ignoring arguments...
Wow, does Laihendi really need to post references for evidence indicating evolution is real? How about you open a biology book and figure things out for yourself.
Post by
Tyristrasz
Faith is believing in what cannot be proven.
I think that after a certain point,
foolishness
is believing in something that cannot be proven.
Post by
Skyfire
Man, you two just don't stop. Back and forth and back and forth. It's like @#$%ing Pong.
Post by
85162
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
184848
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Laihendi
We live, we are constantly told, in a scientific age. We look to science to help us achieve the good life, to solve our problems (especially our medical aches and pains), and to tell us about the world. A great deal of our education system, particularly the post-secondary curriculum, is organized as science or social science. And yet, curiously enough, there is one major scientific truth which vast numbers of people refuse to accept (by some news accounts a majority of people in North America)--the fact of evolution. Yet it is as plain as plain can be that the scientific truth of evolution is so overwhelmingly established, that it is virtually impossible to refute within the bounds of reason. No major scientific truth, in fact, is easier to present, explain, and defend.
Before demonstrating this claim, let me make it clear what I mean by evolution, since there often is some confusion about the term. By evolution I mean, very simply, the development of animal and plant species out of other species not at all like them, for example, the process by which, say, a species of fish gets transformed (or evolves) through various stages into a cow, a kangaroo, or an eagle. This definition, it should be noted, makes no claims about how the process might occur, and thus it certainly does not equate the concept of evolution with Darwinian Natural Selection, as so many people seem to do. It simply defines the term by its effects (not by how those effects are produced, which could well be the subject of another argument).
The first step in demonstrating the truth of evolution is to make the claim that all living creatures must have a living parent. This point has been overwhelmingly established in the past century and a half, ever since the French scientist Louis Pasteur demonstrated how fermentation took place and thus laid to rest centuries of stories about beetles arising spontaneously out of dung or gut worms being miraculously produced from non-living material. There is absolutely no evidence for this ancient belief. Living creatures must come from other living creatures. It does no damage to this point to claim that life must have had some origin way back in time, perhaps in a chemical reaction of inorganic materials (in some primordial soup) or in some invasion from outer space. That may well be true. But what is clear is that any such origin for living things or living material must result in a very simple organism. There is no evidence whatsoever (except in science fiction like Frankenstein) that inorganic chemical processes can produce complex, multi-cellular living creatures (the recent experiments cloning sheep, of course, are based on living tissue from other sheep).
The second important point in the case for evolution is that some living creatures are very different from some others. This, I take it, is self-evident. Let me cite a common example: many animals have what we call an internal skeletal structure featuring a backbone and skull. We call these animals vertebrates. Most animals do not have these features (we call them invertebrates). The distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates is something no one who cares to look at samples of both can reasonably deny, and, so far as I am aware, no one hostile to evolution has ever denied a fact so apparent to anyone who observes the world for a few moments.
The final point in the case for evolution is this: simple animals and plants existed on earth long before more complex ones (invertebrate animals, for example, were around for a very long time before there were any vertebrates). Here again, the evidence from fossils is overwhelming. In the deepest rock layers, there are no signs of life. The first fossil remains are of very simple living things. As the strata get more recent, the variety and complexity of life increase (although not at a uniform rate). And no human fossils have ever been found except in the most superficial layers of the earth (e.g., battlefields, graveyards, flood deposits, and so on). In all the countless geological excavations and inspections (for example, of the Grand Canyon), no one has ever come up with a genuine fossil remnant which goes against this general principle (and it would only take one genuine find to overturn this principle).
Well, if we put these three points together, the rational case for evolution is air tight. If all living creatures must have a living parent, if living creatures are different, and if simpler forms were around before the more complex forms, then the more complex forms must have come from the simpler forms (e.g., vertebrates from invertebrates). There is simply no other way of dealing reasonably with the evidence we have. Of course, one might deny (as some do) that the layers of the earth represent a succession of very lengthy epochs and claim, for example, that the Grand Canyon was created in a matter of days, but this surely violates scientific observation and all known scientific processes as much as does the claim that, say, vertebrates just, well, appeared one day out of a spontaneous combination of chemicals.
To make the claim for the scientific truth of evolution in this way is to assert nothing about how it might occur. Darwin provides one answer (through natural selection), but others have been suggested, too (including some which see a divine agency at work in the transforming process). The above argument is intended, however, to demonstrate that the general principle of evolution is, given the scientific evidence, logically unassailable and that, thus, the concept is a law of nature as truly established as is, say, gravitation. That scientific certainty makes the widespread rejection of evolution in our modern age something of a puzzle (but that's a subject for another essay). In a modern liberal democracy, of course, one is perfectly free to reject that conclusion, but one is not legitimately able to claim that such a rejection is a reasonable scientific stance.
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/essays/courtenay1.htm
Post by
345586
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Laihendi
Human Genome Shows Proof of Recent Evolution, Survey Finds -
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0308_060308_evolution.html
Post by
184848
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Laihendi
Comparison of the Human and Great Ape Chromosomes as Evidence for Common Ancestry
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html
Edit: Fail link. Here's what it said
Below, I have assembled a series of references and abstracts that document striking evidence for the common ancestry of humans and the great apes independently of the usual paleontological, morphological, and molecular phylogenetic data that we usually see. I first became aware of this through some postings on the internet of Clark Dorman and Don Lindsay.
When one looks at the chromosomes of humans and the living great apes (orangutan, gorilla, and chimpanzee), it is immediately apparent that there is a great deal of similarity between the number and overall appearance of the chromosomes across the four different species. Yes, there are differences (and I will be addressing these), but the overall similarity is striking. The four species have a similar number of chromosomes, with the apes all having 24 pairs, and humans having 23 pairs. References 1 and 2 each contain high resolution photomicrographs and diagrams showing the similarity of the chromosomes between the four species (ref. 1 only covers humans and chimpanzees, ref. 2 covers all 4 species). Furthermore, these diagrams show the similarity of the chromosomes in that every one of 1,000 nonheterochromatic G-bands has been accounted for in the four species. That means that each non-heterochromatic band has been located in each species. (I hope to add a scan of the full sets of chromosomes for all four species in the very near future. In the meantime I'll have to make do with a couple of examples of the most rearranged chromosomes that Don Lindsay has posted.)
Creationists will be quick to point out that despite the similarities, there are differences in the chromosomal banding patterns and the number of chromosomes. Furthermore, they will claim that the similarities are due to a common designer rather than common ancestry. Let's address the differences first, and then we will see if we can tease apart the conflicting scenarios of common ancestry vs. a common designer.
The following observations can be made about similarities and differences among the four species. Except for differences in non genetic heterochromatin, chromosomes 6, 13, 19, 21, 22, and X have identical banding patterns in all four species. Chromosomes 3, 11, 14, 15, 18, 20, and Y look the same in three of the four species (those three being gorilla, chimps, and humans), and chromosomes 1, 2p, 2q, 5, 7 - 10, 12, and 16 are alike in two species. Chromosomes 4 and 17 are different among all 4 species.
Most of the chromosomal differences among the four species involve inversions - localities on the chromosome that have been inverted, or swapped end for end. This is a relatively common occurrence among many species, and has been documented in humans (Ref. 8 ). An inversion usually does not reduce fertility, as in the case I have referenced. Don Lindsay provides a diagram of the chromosome 5 inversion between chimpanzees and humans scanned from ref. 1. Note how all of the bands between the two chromosomes will line up perfectly if you flip the middle piece of either of the two chromosomes between the p14.I and q14.I marks. The similarity of the marks will include a match for position, number, and intensity (depth of staining). Similar rearrangements to this can explain all of the approximately 1000 non-heterochromatic bands observed among each of the four species for these three properties (band position, number, and intensity).
Other types of rearrangements include a few translocations (parts swapped among the chromosomes), and the presence or absence of nucleolar organizers. All of these differences are described in ref. 2 and can be observed to be occurring in modern populations.
The biggest single chromosomal rearrangement among the four species is the unique number of chromosomes (23 pairs) found in humans as opposed to the apes (24 pairs). Examining this difference will allow us to see some of the differences expected between common ancestry as opposed to a common designer and address the second creationist objection listed above.
There are two potential naturalistic explanations for the difference in chromosome numbers - either a fusion of two separate chromosomes occurred in the human line, or a fission of a chromosome occurred among the apes. The evidence favors a fusion event in the human line. One could imagine that the fusion is only an apparent artifact of the work of a designer or the work of nature (due to common ancestry). The common ancestry scenario presents two predictions. Since the chromosomes were apparently joined end to end, and the ends of chromosomes (called the telomere ) have a distinctive structure from the rest of the chromosome, there may be evidence of this structure in the middle of human chromosome 2 where the fusion apparently occurred. Also, since both of the chromosomes that hypothetically were fused had a centromere (the distinctive central part of the chromosome), we should see some evidence of two centromeres.
Post by
Tyristrasz
I can easily agree with that. Does not mean believing in a creator is foolish though
To a certain point.
Post by
184848
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
345586
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Tyristrasz
I'm not saying that religion is the cause of all things evil, I'm simply saying that to assume that it's the shining beacon of light in an otherwise dark world is lunacy.
At best, it can be seen as a crutch for one to find his/her way through the darkness. People have died in regimes for not following the beliefs of their leader, and people have died in the religious crusades for not believing in the beliefs of another leader.
In the end, this all feeds into my human beings are inherently evil. We fear that which we do not understand, and we have an overbearing need to conquer all that which is different.
It's disgusting.
Ending with that all I can say is I put my Faith in God not humanity.
God created man in his own image.
Though I am embarrased by what some so called "Christians" have done in the past
I dunno if it works like that. It may, and correct me if I'm wrong, but... I think that nearly everything we have today is just a crude bastardization of what we had in the past... including religious items.
Edit:
Biblical reference, miscellaneous comment.
Post by
345586
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Tyristrasz
We are all human.
And therein lies the problem.
With everything.
The thing that I absolutely do not like about Christianity over prolly every other religion I've ever even heard about, is that it completely denounces every other religion as false. Who is to say that Christianity is the one true religion? Who is to say that there wasn't a Dog-headed god of the underworld, or a collective pantheon of gods?
I'm quite a bit more likely to lean to the polytheistic beliefs over the monotheistic one because frankly, the idea of a single almighty being with power over everything is uncomfortable, if not wholly impossible to accept.
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.