Is it worth the time? the evolution debate
polycounter lvl 18
A couple of years ago I posted here some critical thoughts about evolution. Since then I revised my views on the topic several times. I have studied philosophy of science and I am now writing my thesis on the body-mind problem. Along with many christian philosophers and scientists I think of the theory of evolution as the most simple theory predicting the data we have and thus the preferable theory. I am also aware of the serious problem of evolution of the mind, but that doesn't refute the theory as a whole, it just limits it's application.
Now recently I read a book by John Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford. He -again- claims to show the many problems of the theory of macro-evolution, citing publications from 1945-now, some in well-known scientific magazines. What I hate about this debate is, that I totally lack the knowledge to evaluate the data upon which both sides build their arguments. While I can talk about ethics, quantum-mechanics, philosophy of law and other problems with the understanding of philosophy I have, I can't talk about palaeontology and other fields needed to evaluate all the arguments risen in the debate. I'm totally lost and I'm not yet sure whether it's worth reading myself into this topic or not.
How do you guys deal with this? Do you care about the debate? Does the debate influence your thoughts about theism?
Now recently I read a book by John Lennox, professor of mathematics at Oxford. He -again- claims to show the many problems of the theory of macro-evolution, citing publications from 1945-now, some in well-known scientific magazines. What I hate about this debate is, that I totally lack the knowledge to evaluate the data upon which both sides build their arguments. While I can talk about ethics, quantum-mechanics, philosophy of law and other problems with the understanding of philosophy I have, I can't talk about palaeontology and other fields needed to evaluate all the arguments risen in the debate. I'm totally lost and I'm not yet sure whether it's worth reading myself into this topic or not.
How do you guys deal with this? Do you care about the debate? Does the debate influence your thoughts about theism?
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
i think i had a stroke while reading what you wrote. loll.
on a serious note, and i'm just throwing dices here, i'm not a religious person but even if i were i would take the darwinistic aproach of things. simple is always the right way to go.
"Do you care about the debate?" In a way I suppose. I care about science and history and such, and have an interest in evolution. That said the actual debate of religion versus evolution I generally find ridiculous.
"Does the debate influence your thoughts about theism?" I'm agnostic, though I was born and raised catholic. So it pretty much influences my thoughts about religions and how theism affects society, but not on a personal level.
Sounds like you are doing some pretty cool studies by the way. Should be an interesting thesis from the sounds of it.
Yeah. All of the rest of the bible is metaphor, and Christians readily accept that. I'm not awfully religious myself, but i don't really understand where the bible says that evolution is impossible? Is it necessary to believe the god literally created the world in a 144 hour period in order to be a good christian?
The evidence for evolution is incredibly strong, it's more than close enough to proven to be accepted by conventional wisdom. If you think a god created all of that, i can't say you're wrong, there's no way to know. But to say a god created all that in a week and that all of our evidence is wrong is a pretty shaky argument.
Arguments against evolution itsself used by lennox are:
-paleontology doesn't show gradual shifts in fossils, instead punctual distribution
-arguments from the theory of information, informations can't be created
-arguments from chance, the chances of the first cell to appear
-argument of irreducible complexity
That's exactly the stuff I know nothing about.
Thanks, it's a lot of fun to work on it :-)
awesome man, can't wait.
or think of reglion as the teapot theory I could tell you a teapot was moving around the sun but we have no telescopes strong enough it see it yet you cant prove me wrong but obviously I am.
The reason why we think just because we dont know something (beginning of time for example) we assume something all powerfull is for hope that we are here for a reason but I mean I except that and Im fine and dandy
sorry got abit carried away there
chris
If the only historical primate remains that paleontologists have found are from various nonsequential time periods, then it would seem unlikely that they'd be able to locate a well-preserved cluster of specimens that spans a wide enough time period and geographic region to contain examples of a more gradual shift in skeletal traits.
But isn't there a fair amount of evidence just looking at the changing appearance of humans throughout recorded history? I always thought people in photos from back when photography was first invented looked a lot different from the way people look today. I mean aside from the obvious differences in fashion and photographic technology, it looks like there have been some fairly large shifts in the facial structure of people. And the average human height has changed too, if I'm not mistaken. Also, it seems like nearly everyone in this era wears glasses or contacts, where corrective lenses used to be the exception. (Though that might just be a difference in how inclined people are to wear them)
For millenia, the world WAS created in 6 days. Then when people started finding that absurd, Judeo-Christianity amended their views to encompass that feeling. Now the views have been reconciled for evolution, hell, even aliens! Do you forget at one point, helio-centricity was heresy!
This will continue as long as religion is around, there is really no point in wasting your time trying to reconcile views. Views will be reconciled by necessity, because so many people hang onto religion, they really don't need feasible theories on how God can get along with science. It is dishonest, disingenuous, and ignores that this has steadily been happening for more than a thousand years.
edit: I'm going to chip in here with something a few folks seem to be ignoring, and that is logical or no, religion helps a hell of a lot of people every day. The need to believe in something bigger than one person or even all people is something that seems to be inherrent in human nature, and is far from the totally negative thing some portray it as
I do belive in his theories, but I am fascinated about how who decides how we evolve
ie I need to have a sharper beak so I will evolve in that direction.
is that the birds subconscious mind affecting its evolution or or is it just preprogrammed to respond and change physically to its environment?
Interesting but ultimately I worry more about where my next meal is coming form
Wouldn't those be social evolution based attributes? Social evolution is something most don't like to think about because of its darker bits.
As an atheist i too have yet to see anything that makes more sense than evolution. You can see it everywhere you look if your looking for it.
Here is a bit of social evolution in crows.
[ame]
And yes Ruz, Rooster is correct. Evolution is not individual based, but rather population based. You don't evolve, your species do. If you are better adapted to the environment then you will live more and better and you will probably have more sons. More than those that can't develop on this environment. After many generations the population is better until some serious change occur on the environment.
I am pretty knowledgeable about the subject from personal research and college classes, but like you I don't work in the field so I have no way to analyze the actual data. I can only analyze the data given to us by the scientists.
I agree that a lot of the anti-evolution debate is rooted in religious beliefs. It really blows because it's hard to debate against evolution without sounding like a religious nut. I believe in God and I'm Catholic but I (and my entire family) have believed in evolution since I was taught about it. The Catholic church even supports evolution and the pope was quoted as saying
Anyways, back on topic. Evolution seems to be the best theory so far as to how we came to be. There is a lot of evidence that supports the theory and so far it makes the most sense. It has flaws, however. The biggest one to me is the fact that we still haven't found any "missing links."
Fly_soup said that he thinks its because there are so few existing fossils, which is the same thing that was said many many years ago when the theory of evolution was introduced. Nowadays, however, we have a massive fossil record compared to when evolution was first introduced and we still have not found a transitional species. A lot of hardcore evolution supporters argue that many transitional species have been found, but their definition of a transitional species is far different from the definition of an unbiased scientist.
The phrase "missing link" is often used to describe the being that was between ape and man, but it really refers to the missing fossils between any species. It seems to me that this is by far the biggest problem considering that we have been through 4 eons yet we can't find one transitional fossil.
I don't have much concern for the theory of abiogenesis because that is something we don't have the ability to figure out right now. We can't dismiss evolution based off the fact that we don't know how life could come from inanimate objects. It's totally possible and we may just not know how yet.
It's an interesting topic and I could go on all day about it. Microevolution is so obvious that it hurts, but macroevolution still has some barriers to overcome. Either way life didn't just pop up out of nowhere.
Ruz: you have to understand back then this was not uncommon it was seen as ok, I mean today peopel worry about fuel emmsions yet we all still drive, same principle
I just think that evolution is natural selection, the one that is better adapted survives like a mutant gene
all I think is that relgion can never be proved or disproved (which is annoying from my side haha) so as someone said earlier why bother argueing none can say what is out there, obviously im am being very hypocritical here but reglion as a whole annoys me and I couldnt help myself(dam im a grumpy git for my age
Haha, you're waaayy off. The basis of most religions is peace, loving, and worshiping your deity. Of course as mankind becomes more civilized things will change.
Back in the days, there was no way to share information quickly to everyone in a country, city, etc. Because of this, any asshole could seize power and use propaganda to gain support. People were generally dumb and accepted this. They would then makes their own rules discerning whether or not things were holy or heretical. It's pretty obvious why they'd make statements concerning science, love, religion, and politics. They didn't want the populace to get smarter and to question anything the king said. Many religious leaders and kings were extremely corrupt and would say anything they wanted in order to gain and hold onto their power. The power behind religion, however, is the grassroots organizing and the message behind the bible and religion. Now our religious communities are no longer filled with corrupt power hungry bastards, so we can focus on the original message and purpose of religion. Also, now that the entire world is able to view scientific progress as it's happening, of course religious figures are going to make statements on discoveries, ideas, feelings, and theories. It's the evolution of mankind and religion.
I wouldn't quite go that far... As long as religions have power or sway over people someone will use it for their own good. Thats just how we socially evolved as a species. Were a long way from getting past the social ideals of your on your own in this life to get what you want.
I really don't get the whole missing link thing. Do they want a skeleton from every 1000 years or something? If so thats not going to happen too many creatures eat bones for a easy natural fossil record of a species. You only get well preserved bones because of odd circumstances at the time of death. Like fell into a cave, tar pit, buried, or wasn't found by something that would eat the bones.
No, people will always be corrupt, and institutions that rely on human grace will become corrupt with them.
Ummm, no. An admirable theory but completely off the mark. 'Back in the days,' ie, in every non-Judeo-Christian religion that comes to mind, the complete opposite was true. Religion was very decentralized and accepting. You are right, information was slow to travel- but that led to less centralization, not more! Practically every square hundred miles in Celtic Gaul worshipped their own deities- the 'greco-roman' gods we learn about are NOT the same gods, there were Roman gods and when the Romans found Greek culture, they 'associated' them, as they did for countless Celtic and Eastern gods. The closest thing to your description is the Imperial Cult of the Princeps, the refusal of worship by the Jews in the 60's AD sparked the Roman War Against the Jews. For every other Roman province and territory and client, they had no problem adding one more god to their log Pantheon- and indeed, the Romans had hundreds of Gods in their own (and wow how their Pantheon grew in members during their conquests!).
Again, no. Another admirable thought experiment but not one backed up with any facts. The problems with religion, like government, spawn from centralization, from trying to govern the lives of individuals and the decisions of countries and communities by people and for interests thousands of miles away. It is not always 'evil' and 'corruption' that spawns bad decision. For much of Christian history, the structure of the religious society and power meant that even good popes made bad decisions and caused untold problems. On the other hand, take a leader like Charle Magnus- very popular in certain areas but less in others, a very Christian individual who commanded great respect from the Vatican, a great king, but on the outlying and contested areas where people did things differently, he ran into more trouble. What you are seeing as the problem with religion in the past is simply stemming from the nature of religion, and is the same problem any centralized power structure has.
Yes, they are filled with paedophiles instead of power hungry bastards.
The problem with religion is that people think religion matters as a problem or non-problem. The problem is with centralized power of any kind, made especially dangerous when it is based on divine pretenses.
I wouldnt align myself with the creationism/intelligent design people though because they get on thier high horse about small scientific discoverys as if they prove God. I dont think people should think of God as filling in the gaps that science leaves, the bible talkes about him being all powerful, Alpha and Omega, why should He be limited by our understanding of His creation?
Chrizz1:"truth is noone knows when Jesus was aroudn or even if he was."
Thats if you completely ignore the bible as a source of truth, there are also some roman records talking about jesus and his followers and also records of many people dying for their belief in him, and all this was only a few hundred years after he walked the earth. It is true there are arguments against God but there are also many arguments for God, please dont make such harsh generalisations.
Its a difficult debate because the same facts can mean completely different things to people with different preconceptions.
For a completely hypothetical example: if science says theres 0.01 % chance that life on earth came about through random events, an athiest might say " well that proves how it happened " whereas a person of faith might just say " well that proves there is a 99.99% chance that something else other than random events could have happened".
I dont really want to go off topic. I dont think people can really be argued into believing in God, its gotta be their own choices and understanding that lead them to Him.
I dont know these websites as I read some books, but they have some of the same material.
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/pliny.html
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexist/tacitus.html
There are also many recods of the early gospels and other kinds of proof, if your genuinely interested there are books like The Case for Christ by Lee Stroebel
[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307[/ame]
-paleontology doesn't show gradual shifts in fossils, instead punctual distribution
weather it is through punchtuated equilibrium..or slow graduate change...that doesn't mean evolution didn't happen.
Plus, there are gradual shifts. It simply isn't all like that. And again VERY few organism will accualy get fossilized
arguments from the theory of information.
what do you mean by information:
http://wiki.cotch.net/index.php/Evolution_of_new_information
argument from chance,
I can't know what the chances,, are but what doesnt it matter if the chances are extremely low. if it happened, it happened. saying something had little chance after it happened isnt' realy an argument. the chance of you waking up at exactly a certain time..doign this exactly this way..and so on....is almost impossible....but that doesn't matter.if thats exactly how and when you carried out your actions yesterday. it happened regardless of how likely it was.
argument from irrducible complexity....is a joke
"This is complicated, i can't figure out how it evolved. So it's irreducibly complex"
and when a real scientist bothers to investigate...the often find out that it isn't.
Look up, the "Discovery" Institute's ireducable bacterial flagellum.
I'm also curious about the evolution of the consciousness and stuff, but because we haven't figured out how it happened..or we can't understand it....yet...it doesn't take away all the rest of the clear evidence pointing at common decent.
and....john lennox isn't exactly a biologist.
As to weather I care. I wish i didn't, but seeing as i felt the need to respond i clearly do.
And it's can't really effect my theism, i don't need to validate or unvalidated anything supernatural as i have no reason to believe in such a thing to begin with.
The dog is a decendant of a relative of wolves. There is also plenty of evidence of mutation as we can track a few species through its different developmental periods. The thing about the fossil record is that fossils though they seem plentiful, aren't very common when compared to how plentiful the species that provided them probably was, and it also requires a specific set of conditions to occur for a fossil to form.
Missing link between what? I know you're refering to the lineage of humans, but theres plenty of evidence of a natural progression of different species within the Homo genus and prior to it, which eventually lead up to Homo Sapiens.
I feel its probably better to read up on these kinds of things, than to come to a conclusion solely from a few people debating about it on the internet. That is unless you happen along a group of evolutionary biologists, anthropologists, chemists, biologists, etc. all arguing...
What about the church I attend is secret? There are ordinary citizens involved in every aspect of its function. Everything people talk about is public and anyone would be more than happy to discuss it with anyone. You act like a church is similar to a government. That was the case many years ago when church and state weren't separated, but it is not true now.
We're all referencing Christianity. I'm pretty sure no one on these boards practices ancient African religions. That makes that entire paragraph void.
You must have had some bad experiences in your life related to religion, because I have been to many different churches and lived in many places and never once has anyone tried to govern my life. They preach to those who willingly come the things that they believe that stem from the core beliefs of Christianity.
Look at how Christianity started. A dude walked around and spread the word of love and peace. It was a grassroots type movement. From then on, corrupt assholes used and manipulated the concepts to their own will. Now religion is decentralized and we've abandoned many of the previous problems.
Again, you lose credibility and your bitterness shows. Yes, there were problems with some Catholic priests. I'm guessing you're one of those people who says "fuck the police" because one cop will go off and beat an innocent black chick.
Feel free to reply to this post, but this is the last one I'm writing on this subject because it's not even related to the thread topic. Anything here even remotely related to religion will always get hijacked by a group of angry religion hating people.
it's the only thing we've got that makes ANY sense. and it explains it the easily and beautifully.
And the thing most people dont' seem to realise. is that fossils are not the only evidence of evolution.
genetics and embryology fields of biology all clearly show evidence of evolutions.
but the fossil record on it's own is still strong enough.
He was trying to ask about the topic in scientific terms, but all the assholes had to come out and shit all over the thread.
Many scientists don't agree with everything involving evolution...
Of course it doesn't mean it didn't happen. All people are saying is that is leaves a hole in the theory. People aren't trying to disprove evolution, they are trying to fill in the gaps to see if it is completely sound or if there needs to be slight alterations.
And no, there aren't any actual gradual shifts BETWEEN species. Yes there are gradual shifts within a species, but that is microevolution and that's a completely different topic.
I completely agree. I hate that argument. The quotes I hear from some people like, "the chances of life evolving are the same as a tornado turning a scrap yard into a fully functional 747." That's such a stupid statement. If you have all of eternity for something to happen and it's possible, it will eventually happen.
Well, that's not what irreducible complexity is, but I guess we'll roll with it.
No, they don't "clearly" show anything.
No, it isn't
On top of that the bible is a translated work, from Hebrew to Latin to English I think. So that adds another layer of splutterfish to the equation. I think it would be useful for you Lord Scottish to find a Latin or Hebrew translation and compare. Heck maybe even a Quran since as far as I know Muslims have the same old testament stories as Christians.
For the anti-bible bandwagon that some of you guys are on, You are entitled to your opinions, But Some things in the Bible (particularly the new testament) I believe can be taken literally, the creation story in the book of Genesis, is not one of those things. Take truth were you find it, I guess.
You said 'back in the day.' I'm explaining to you that 'back in the day' actually goes beyond a couple thousand years. I'm trying to explain to you the nature of religion- Christianity was not the first or greatest religion, try to look at things objectively for a bit and don't automatically write people off as religion hating zealots. I'm trying to have a discussion, and it speaks pretty poorly when you cannot have a reasonable debate without throwing out people's arguments as 'void' without legitimate reason or throwing around insults and questioning motivation.
And I live in liberal Austin in an extremely conservative state. I'm not saying what you experience doesn't exist- in fact, I'm reinforcing your experience, that your local experience of religion is probably great, the problem becomes when the power structure becomes centralized, when it becomes an actual power structure and no longer about religion, which will inevitably happen.
First of all, if you think that is how Christianity started, you need to read some actual history, not just what has gone through 2000 years of doctrinal vetting.
Second of all, the relative lack of problems recently (just don't tell that to those kids who were abused by a widespread and multinational problem you conveniently downplay) has nothing to do with centralization, it has nothing to do with openness, etc. It has to do with the power taken away from religion by society's secularization. Let's face it, people don't want a priest to rule their lives (or their young child's life). People have money, opportunity, choice, a good quality of life. Again, you will need to observe things from outside of your current beliefs and station in life. You have to view history as a whole and back up those views with specific instances.
What?
The discussion hasn't been hijacked, it has been abandoned by you. You feel it has been hijacked because you are unable to defend your views to even the brief and extremely weak critical examination this discussion has provided. If you leave this discussion, fine, but I hope instead of walking away in anger and rejection you will take the time to consider your views, and maybe approach what you believe a little more critically and objectively. At least if you want to engage in debate with someone with different views.
I also hope you see your behavior and this side-discussion as not irrelevant but exactly what the problem is with the discussion in the OP. I encourage you to watch the Rational Response Squad evolution debate videos- and then more importantly, watch the talk shows Comfort and Cameron go on afterwards (especially the Fox ones). The issues aren't discussed, the performance in the debates aren't discussed- what is discussed is 'why do the atheists hate religion!?', and 'they were very angry, I don't know why, I love everyone!' Well maybe they are getting a bit angry, maybe some stuff they said was over the top- but it is pretty sad that even in such a long debate, the proponents of creationism (intelligent design?) have a public forum, unchallenged, to explain their views to a TV audience, and what do they do? Bash the atheists.
So who is the 'problem' here? Who is the one obfuscating, the one rejecting advancement? The evolution 'debate' is more of the same of what has been going on for a thousand years. Someone does something controversial, they are heretics, they are angry, they hate religion and religious people. This whole debate doesn't exist because there is no rationale for creationism outside of religion. As Ged said above, which is one of the things I completely agree with (even the Jehovah's Witnesses that used to come around finally ended up saying the same thing after I spoke to them every Saturday for a couple months), So why bother? Why do you bother attacking people who say creationism has no basis in science? Why do you bother trying to argue it? It is the same thing the Church, the church you say we have gone so far from, has been doing for a thousand years. The stigma of going against God has discouraged so much science and advancement and technology and discovery over the past thousand years exactly because of your behaviour (though much more severe- I don't believe you have the power to execute us for disagreeing with you). And it still does, until you and your ilk understand what you are doing now is no different from when they told Gallileo and his ilk that the Earth didn't revolve around the Sun.
BTW, Josh, the Bible was originally written in Greek.
why should anyone, evolution is based on scientific evidence, not supernatural claims.
many scientists? no...thats a lie...more historians deny the holocaust.
(there can be debate about certain aspects with in evolution, but nearly all biologists accept common decent.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
no one even argued against evolution on ANY kind of religious grounds,
why should anyone? evolution is based in scientific evidence, not the supernatural
transitional fossil videos:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/transitional-fo.html
OBSEREVED instances of speciation.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
"the chances of life evolving are the same as a tornado turning a scrap yard into a fully functional 747.
unfortunately....life does not evolve into existence....life is a prerequisite for evolution to take it's course. (among other things)
and being doesn't reproduce, or mutate.
irreducible complexity:
this cannot function if any single part is removed, therefore it could not have gradually evolved.
It could have functioned as something else.
if you bother to look into them.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01
A discussion about evolution? Religion? Beliefs? At Polycount?
If anyone notices some foul play in this thread, just hit the
Thanks
pre Man (homo sapien), is called homo erectus.(before it fits out definition of homo spient) and the classification before it was homo habilis. and you can keep going back. There are several fossils of each of these stages. what you also need to understand is that within those classifications, there is still some variation. one species does not suddenly just all change to another. (although depending on the environment, it can happen very quickly) and not all of one species will evolve into the other. usually they'll branch off. hence you get stuff like chimps, bonobos, gorillias, and neanderthals...(something alot of people don't uderstand is that, we didn't come from chimps, we share a common ancestor. they are as evolved as us, they simply adapted for different conditioned and went another direction from us)
Mutations themselves aren't that special. It's natural selection that weeds out the ones that aren't as fit to survive.
here is a really nice series of videos i found on you tube a while back. makes it very easy to understand if you are interested.
the theory of evolution made easy:
[ame]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=7w57_P9DZJ4[/ame]
Natural selection made easy:
[ame]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=R_RXX7pntr8[/ame]
Human evolution made easy:
[ame]http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=MCayG4IIOEQ[/ame]
Guys, there is plenty of room for interesting discussion here, and it's one of the first threads i've seen on any forum in a long time where religious people discussed this issue in an interesting and intelligent matter -- how about we read eachother's posts and have a good discussion instead of seeing who can yell louder, or embed more videos?
i'm still unclear what there is to debate about tho....
(>_> i didn't mean to embed those vids i was trying to post them as links...they embed themselves.)
also...i fail to see what someone religion or lack of it really has to do with a discussion's about the validity of evolution.
In my opinion, there is overwhelming evidence that evolution occurs. There is fossil evidence of intermediate forms between dinosaurs and birds, small rodent-like animals that clearly display rudimentary forms of features you see in dogs and cats, fish with feet like fins, so we can deduce that certain features and forms looked different at some point in the past. There is also evidence of extremely fast evolution occurring in bacteria that are growing more resistant to antiseptics and drugs. Since bacteria can rapidly change and adapt, (according to this article, lizards can do the same) it would make sense that other animals evolve as well.
From the Christian side of things, I really don't see what the issue is. Large parts of the bible are very obviously allegories meant to be used as teaching tools or are derived from earlier legends and myths. The creation story that says God created the heavens and the Earth and whatever in six days and the Adam and Eve stories should be treated just like Hesiod's Theogony; not a factual account of what happened, but a story to explain how things came to be for people who did not yet have the means to determine where anything came from. I'd say that there isn't any evidence other than the bible that would persuade me to think that the Earth and all its animals were created in the way the bible describes, so I'm sticking with science for now.
From what I've seen, most people who have a problem with evolution fall into two camps; the scientists who are dissatisfied with the theory and wish to improve it, and the people who take their creation myth as a factual account. The scientists are usually just frustrated at some of the unanswerable questions that evolution raises, and the other people are pissed because the bible and science present two very different pictures and they think that anyone or anything saying anything against their beliefs must be wrong.
To put in my two cents though, I guess logic always wins out for me, I consider myself as a moral, spirtual person, but things that make sense and things that have some sort of scientific proof seem to be easier for me to believe. Call it a lack of faith, or what ever, but I can't ever believe some of the things required to take a religious aproach to life. For me evolution just makes sense. I also think alot into the psychological reasons why someone would believe certain things, which also makes me want to take a more logical approach.
I also belive that evolution and creationism might even be the same thing, almost as if creationism is simply a metephor to explain the same serious of events that took place, and evolution is just simply a more scientific way of expressing things. Its when people start to take the words of their belief litterally that we end up in trouble with this argument, I guess thats because they believe that the more faith they have in the bible the better christian they are, and this leads people to feel the need to believe everything to be absolute.
I'm a Catholic and I am usually fairly up to date on topics with my faith. What are the Vatican secrets that I haven't been keeping up with?
I think that's what your problem is. I know you think you've got this all down because you saw a couple Youtube videos and read a magazine, but I swear to you that many scientists are debating the validity of different parts of evolution and some of the validity of evolution itself.
Also, is English your 2nd or 3rd language? I think you're missing a lot of my points or taking them wrongly.
vermilion: You just have to ignore him. He's going to post something else next that doesn't make sense and requires a response. After that he'll do the same thing over and over and over until you get sick of it, stop posting, and he'll claim victory.
I've lived in and around Austin my entire life. I have no idea what the shit you spewed after that has to do with Austin, but I promise you you're the exception to the rule. I've never met religious intolerance once anywhere from Denton, TX (way more liberal than Austin) to San Antonio.
Haha, I have seen so many documentaries and read a lot about Jesus the man, not Jesus the son of God. In fact, I used to be an atheist and I once gave a presentation on how Jesus started the Christian movement from an atheistic viewpoint.
Sorry, but I'm tired of wasting my time on a douchebag. You attacked religion when the topic didn't even call for it. I could defend my points all day long, but I have better things to do then deal with someone who is intolerant and trying to pick a fight.
By the way, I was raised Baptist, become atheist for many years, then after having a huge debate with some actually intelligent religious people, I decided to pray one night for a sign (if god even did exist). I could type a book about what happened after that, but I wasn't going through any hard times, I wasn't wondering about life after death, I wasn't scared of death, and I loved talking about to and about religious people. So please don't talk to me like I have never debated anyone on this. I have been on both sides in so many discussions I can hardly remember a lot of them.
Haha! That just proves you weren't paying any attention. I don't deny evolution! I'm a computer science major, I almost finished a geology minor and my old roommate was a genetic biology major. I don't accept anything as 100% fact until it's 100% fact. Although I do a ton to help our environment and to decrease carbon emissions, I don't take global warming to be a fact. There are too many holes for me to agree that it's happening for sure. Many scientists are still debating over the different aspects of evolution. I'll agree with every single atheist in the world that nearly all creationist arguments against evolution is complete 100% bullshit. I'm debating the topic from a scientific view.
If anyone cares to carry on this discussion, do it privately.