<p>^<em>whine</em> <em>whine</em> <em>whine</em> <em>whine</em> <em>whine</em>, etc.</p>
<p>So much for irrational dismissal of many perfectly valid points.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m sorry you feel that way.</p>
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<p>It’s impossible for me to make my arguments acceptable to you when you consistently refuse to explain what about them is unacceptable (other than my conclusions).</p>
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<p>Again, nothing much I can do when you cling adamantly to the idea that I reject evolution on religious grounds, in total defiance of my explicit statements.</p>
<p>I accept well-tested theories (like gravity and atoms) as being likely enough to be true as to justify action.</p>
<p>I do not categorically reject any alternative to an unconfirmed hypothesis like evolution, which seems to be what you want me to do.</p>
<p>The mods have outlawed debates, so I suspect that this thread will be locked soon.</p>
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<p>Firstly, you aren’t following this apparent new “no debating” stipulation with such an assertion.</p>
<p>The sum of your denial is a glorious and entirely ill-judged attempt to bolster a theology founded on a personal god that created humanity for a reason and assigned purpose. In doing so, you formulate arguments striving to demonstrate the sterility of evolution. But they are merely reprocessed contentions of the academically stigmatized “scientific” creationists, albeit offered with a deceiving extent of articulacy and artificial persuasion. While you claim to make it out as a non-theological appeal for truth, its nonetheless the same old theological prejudice masquerading as cold objectivity. The genuine difficulty for creationists in not evolutions’ status as science. These critics would never be pleased with evolution as science, but that would not drive the impulse to draft such an abundance of material dedicated to crucifying it in every conceivable sense. The real objection is religion, as clearly embodied by the religious content of your assertions, the statement that the Bible implicitly conflicts with evolutionary science, and your pious rants. The conceit is that the “scientific” creationism model is allied with scientific evidence. But in actuality its bedrock is a literal reading of Genesis, which inevitably produces such intellectually impoverished, inexpert opinions. Within your arguments one finds the usual “gaps in the fossil record,” “there are no transitional fossils,” “mutations are harmful,” “natural selection can merely produce variation within the species,” “microevolution cannot account for macroevolution,” and other old chestnuts straight from any Institute for Creation Research manual. </p>
<p>It’s very ironic how you label evolution as an “unconfirmed hypothesis” – not only in terms of the sheer wealth of scientific evidence demonstrating that to be fatuous and prejudiced assertion, but the intellectually bankrupt creation myth that you personally venerate as a fundamentalist Christian – one of many thousands of cultural imperatives (almost exclusively created before scientific, empirical evidence was derived) that comprise the religious realm. It’s a view of the world that is inherently parochial and teleological, a model that begins with a conclusion that rebukes change, and acceptance of data that are neutral or somehow deviously conformed to support it. Science is not only orthogonal to such an approach but antithetical. It prospers on well-documented, reproducible sets of experimentally-derived data from replicated observations rather than deference to an untestable bevy of dogmatic proposals. We have evidence that common descent has occurred from across the biological disciplines and its interdisciplinary domains, from observed instances of speciation and natural selection, comparative anatomy, paleontology, geology, biogeography, comparative anatomy, embryology, mathematical and computational procedures, developmental biology, cytochrome c, pseudogenes, genomic sequencing, and other substituent features from biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, and genetics, that all corroborate the fact that change has occurred in nature. Consilience among disciplines is a phenomenon that creationists have spectacular trouble with, so they ignore it. So do you. </p>
<p>Moreover, evolution shouldn’t be dishonestly paralleled along with the outmoded and seemingly “scientific” ideas of phrenology and geocentrism or low-minded practices as eugenics. These were established not on actual scientific principles but on philosophical – and yes, often religious or quasi-religious – ideologies with no actual empirical evidence.</p>
<p>Creationism rarely makes a single valid point about science. When it does venture onto scientific turf, its often dedicated to the fanatical trashing of that in which conflicts with its religious ideology. It does, however, embody the simple incredulity, prevailing tendencies, and sectarianism behind the ideology and mindset that deserves to be recognized by all with an interest on the topic. It reflects the despair by many on the Religious Right who feel that something tremendously vital is forfeited with evolution. Unfortunately for many, coping with the reality of evolution is psychologically difficult.</p>
<p>And apparently, you haven’t progressed too far into the (now) 3.34 million scientific papers on evolution that were hyperlinked previously. Posting the URL to those isn’t necessarily provoked by irritation but out of general understanding that one cannot be considered literate in any single field without acquaintance with the relevant literature. That’s especially true when one’s knowledge of a subject is derived from non-objective, blatantly corrosive sources bereft of factual legitimacy, such as those in which you cite when you bother to adduce anything at all. </p>
<p>Note: The following argument and analogy are not my own.</p>
<p>Also, like many creationists, I don’t think you take exception to the reality that the diversity in modern canine varieties is a product of human artificial selection processes. In a matter of hundreds of years (and in some cases, thousands) we have proceeded from wolf to bulldog, chihuahua, dachshund, affenpinscher, and hundreds of other breeds. Yes, a change from wolf to chihuahua isn’t a magnificent transformation on the scale of diversity, but simply ponder the sheer scarcity of time involved in this evolution. If one represents the total time elapsed from wolf to chihuahua by the typical, adult walking pace, how far would it take to return to Lucy and her sort, the most primitive anthropoid fossils that explicitly walked upright? The answer is approximately two miles. How far would one need to walk in order to return to the inception of evolution on Earth? The answer is that one would need to take a stroll from New York to San Francisco. Namely, think of the degree of inherent change in proceeding from wolf to Chihuahua and then multiply that by the quantity of walking paces required to plod all the way from one American coast to the other. That will furnish a basic, intuitive grasp of the amount of change one may expect from genuine organic evolution.</p>
<p>I speak for us all: tl;dr.</p>
<p>An attack on jesus specifically, if he was so great, in terms of being god, how do you explain the ‘holy’ crusades? The inquisitions, the masacres of christians all over the world killing africans, aborigins, Indians, Chinese and latinos who didn’t convert is this how you spread love of a hateful religion?</p>
<p>@OP I wonder how you’re family became christian, I imagine through force?</p>
<p>Yea! Religion vs Science go! If I had a nickle for every thread I’ve seen like this… It just doesnt end does it. I personally see no reason to believe in the existence in the Judeo-Christian god especially with so many contradictions in the Bible itself. I actually <em>want</em> someone to prove me wrong because I don’t want to go to a possible Hell. If someone would address my following points perhaps I could change my faith.</p>
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<li><p>If the Judeo Christian god is indeed all knowing and all loving, why would he create some of us knowing that we would be eternally tortured in Hell? Don’t give me any “We have free will” BS because if like you say, God has a master plan, then everything has already been determined and thus only gives us the illusion of free will (causal determinism). By concluding from his traits, we can effectively say that <em>God created some of us to go to Hell</em>. That doesn’t sound all loving to me.</p></li>
<li><p>In terms of logic, the burden is on the people who claim the existence of God not the people who claim the lack of existence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. All I need is one irrefutable piece of evidence which cannot be explained away by chance or science and that points to a divine creator. I’m just asking for one. </p></li>
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<p>Thanks for taking the time to reply. I’m not doing this to spite anyone, but rather I really don’t want to be eternally tortured because of my all-loving father. Consider it my Christmas gift.</p>
<p>Suffering from insomnia… blahh. I’ll do what I always do in these threads and play devil’s advocate. I myself consider myself to be agnostic (or atheist, depending on your definitions). I’ll see if I can address a few things.</p>
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<p>That’s a non sequitur. Just because the followers of religion did wrong doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, or that God is also evil. It just means that the followers did wrong.</p>
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<p>I’m going to rephrase your questions a bit to help me gather my thoughts. Tell me if I’m rephrasing these wrongly. </p>
<p>“If God knows everything, doesn’t that mean everything is predetermined? And by extension, that free will is an illusion?”</p>
<p>The answer is no, and it all has to do with semantics. If I have free will, it means I can choose between multiple options equally, regardless of anything else. If I wanted to arbitrarily choose something, I could do it. If I wanted to choose a self-destructive option, I could do that too. Now, if God is all-knowing, then he’d already know what you were going to choose. But him knowing what you will choose does not affect your actual decision-making process, and because of this, you retain your free will.</p>
<p>“Why would he create some of us knowing we would go to hell?”</p>
<p>Presumably, because he wanted to give us the choice in making those decisions, instead of just chalking us up for failure and not bothering to go ahead with it. This doesn’t mean that he created some of us to go to hell, just that he knew some of us would end up there. His primary reason in creating us would be to give us the chance to make our own decisions. His primary hope, which plays second to his primary reason, is that we choose to follow him (do good, etc. etc.). Christians believe that God’s decision to allow us to make our own is the ultimate expression of love, even if it means knowing some of us will end up in hell.</p>
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<p>The Catholic Church has relatively stringent requirements and maintains a cautious approach when validating miracles. The incorruptibility of certain religious figures is considered a miracle by the Catholic Church. [Incorruptibility</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorruptibility]Incorruptibility”>Incorruptibility - Wikipedia). Yes, that’s a wiki article. It’s 5am. What’d you expect.</p>
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and I’ll play angel’s advocate. Well, if you certainly can judge the impact of a religion by it’s influences, so for example a religious that insisted on staying 100% spiritual without eating drinking and all, may be called ‘great’, but it wont have an effective role in its followers. </p>
<p>Religion is very complex, and it does not strive to be a scientific calculated in depth story, those who sell it that way are idiots, but religion does offer a lot of context and precepts for morals and values. Even social contracts fail to do so on the same subtlness of religion, again I don’t know about christians, since they change their bible whenever they feel like it, from various kings to different sects formed for the heck of it.</p>
<p>Jewish Bible has been the same for the past 5,000 years, lol but that too bothers me with little room for reform (except in conservative and reformed community)</p>
<p>If we were directly created from God, why did he wait 14 billion years to create us? -_-</p>
<p>Mosby Marion: if not evolution, then how did paralogous pseudogenes come about?</p>
<p>What the whole argument comes down to is that…</p>
<p>Sex is good.
God says sex before marriage is bad.
I am not married.
God says I can’t have sex.
Sex is good.
God is bad.</p>
<p>Ive yet to see evidence of any superior being. I just dont care</p>
<p>I’m not going to read all of the other posts because I don’t have time, so I’m sorry if anything I say is repetitive. </p>
<p>I don’t believe in God because I think that entrusting anything that goes on in this worldin your life or anyone else’sto some higher power you can’t prove exists is just counterproductive. Being an atheist has taught me to take responsibility for my own life and for the world. I have to be a good person not because there’s a God to punish me if I don’t, but because there ISN’T a God to pull us out of this mess if we screw it up. Nobody’s watching over us, nobody’s going to save us, and THAT’S why we all need to step up to the plate and make the world a better place.</p>
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Deists believe that there is a God, and they believe in free will. Who is to say that God did not create the universe and step aside?</p>
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There is the problem with society. People rely on the belief that there is a God and use that as an excuse to treat other people poorly.</p>
<p>Although Stephen Colbert thinks Agnostics are just “Atheists without balls”, Agnostics are actually the only people who cannot lose this debate.</p>
<p>Nobody can prove God exists. Nobody can prove he does not. I will remain an Agnostic until anybody proves that God does or does not exist.</p>
<p>I don’t know if anyone has posted this yet…</p>
<p>“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”</p>
<p>^That has only been posted 6,763,342 times.</p>
<p>^Well may someone answer it? It seems like sound logic to me.</p>
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It might have been answered there, I’m not sure. Anyways, [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/924944-science-religion-wins.html]uberthread[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/924944-science-religion-wins.html]uberthread[/url</a>]. If it isn’t there, you might try Google.</p>
<p>^^ and yes, it has been answered many times, both in the überthread and in real life</p>