Microevolution: YEA! Macroevolution: BOO!

[Valjean]

I believe it could very well have occurred inside of the animal kingdoms but do not believe it happened with us, humans !! Hope this helps.
Peace

But all the anatomic, physiologic, genetic and archaeological evidence points to our being a part of the system. Why would you think we were somehow exceptional? What alternate mechanism would account for us?

No, sir. I prefer the word of God. God is Holy, all-knowing and never wrong. Kind of blows your institutional argument out of the water.

"Word of God?" You mean the Vedic creation story?

You're "God said it" argument isn't even an argument, it's an unsupported appeal to authority that blows nothing out of the water.

Don't bother telling me how scientists are unbiased people. That's rubbish.

But the scientific process weeds out bias, doesn't it?
What corrective mechanism does religious faith have?

 

[Jose Fly]

Question: Why can't the evolutionary processes inherent in microevolution eventually transcend the boundaries of a single species? Why can't microevolution continue to the point where the resulting organism fails to resemble its parental species so much so that it might be considered a subspecies? AND THEN CONTINUE to evolve to the point where the organism can no longer be considered to be the same species? Just what is stopping the process of microevolution from continuing to this point?

That raises an interesting side question. Some creationists will deny to their last breath that we've seen new species arise, but other creationists (including some creationist organizations) will insist that not only does speciation occur, it occur much more rapidly than science will admit (it's required for their explanation of how, after the flood, we went from a handful of "kinds" to all the species in existence today).

So which is it creationists? Does speciation occur or not?

 

[Altfish]

How nice for you. Do you realize that you have removed yourself from the conversation, that you have nothing useful or interesting to say on this topic?

Unfortunately DavidFirth does this every time that evolution is mentioned. Sticks his fingers in his ears, closes his eyes and shout, "La, la, la, la"

 

[Skwim]

That raises an interesting side question. Some creationists will deny to their last breath that we've seen new species arise, but other creationists (including some creationist organizations) will insist that not only does speciation occur, it occur much more rapidly than science will admit (it's required for their explanation of how, after the flood, we went from a handful of "kinds" to all the species in existence today).

So which is it creationists? Does speciation occur or not?

It is an interesting question. Seems the creationist movement is continuing to splinter. Answers in Genesis even explains its support of speciation in Why Don’t More People Accept the Young-Earth View of Speciation? (I didn't bother to read any of it.)

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[Evangelicalhumanist]

I do not accept the biased opinions of secular institutions as absolute truth. Next.

As opposed to the totally unbiased opinion of religious institutions -- which do, in fact (unlike secular ones) make claims to absolute truth? Yeah, right!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I believe it could very well have occurred inside of the animal kingdoms but do not believe it happened with us, humans !! Hope this helps.

Peace

On what basis? In every way known to science, we ARE animals, and very much a part of the animal kingdom and its classes, orders, phyla and genera.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

No, sir. I prefer the word of God. God is Holy, all-knowing and never wrong. Kind of blows your institutional argument out of the water.

If God is |Holy, all-knowing and never wrong, I put it to you that he could not have knowingly created humans as he did, only to later repent that creation and kill them all, which I'm told it he. That implies that he was wrong on the creation.

And I also put it to you that God killed David's son, slowly and painfully, for David's crime of murdering Uriah. Even being God cannot excuse something as egregious as that -- and any argument you might make (which always come down to "it's right because God did it" is nothing but self-serving drivel.

 

[DavidFirth]

If God is |Holy, all-knowing and never wrong, I put it to you that he could not have knowingly created humans as he did, only to later repent that creation and kill them all, which I'm told it he. That implies that he was wrong on the creation.

And I also put it to you that God killed David's son, slowly and painfully, for David's crime of murdering Uriah. Even being God cannot excuse something as egregious as that -- and any argument you might make (which always come down to "it's right because God did it" is nothing but self-serving drivel.

If you believe the Bible is rubbish, why are you so concerned about what it says? Are you having second thoughts about it?

 

[DavidFirth]

But the scientific process weeds out bias, doesn't it?

You mean like it did with Piltdown Man? Yeah, no bias should ever even be suspected. Rubbish.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If you believe the Bible is rubbish, why are you so concerned about what it says? Are you having second thoughts about it?

Excuse me, but where, I ask you, did I every say "the Bible is rubbish?" Never have, nope. Sorry.

In fact, it's possible I know it (in some sense) almost as well, or possibly even better, than you do. In just the same way that I know so very much human literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, to Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, Rushdie and Hitchens, and even J.K. Rowling and James Ellroy. And much, much more beside. I also know them all for what they are. The works of human imagination, study, thought, wonder, poetry, wisdom, idiocy and more, so much more. Literature is how I know the history and nature of my species.

But you do not take the Bible to be just a part of the literature of your species. That, in my view, is where you are wrong, and where you lose your way in understanding. As I would, if I took any part of all that I've read, and accepted it as infallible. Fortunately for me, I'm smarter than that.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You mean like it did with Piltdown Man? Yeah, no bias should ever even be suspected. Rubbish.

And yet, if you were to do the trivial work of looking it up, you would discover something that you'd hate -- that it was SCIENCE that exposed the hoax. Science has always, always admitted when new evidence forces us to change our theories. Religion? Well, it might one day, but never has so far -- not matter how much harm is done.

 

[DavidFirth]

Excuse me, but where, I ask you, did I every say "the Bible is rubbish?" Never have, nope. Sorry.

In fact, it's possible I know it (in some sense) almost as well, or possibly even better, than you do. In just the same way that I know so very much human literature, from the Epic of Gilgamesh and Inanna and the Huluppu Tree, to Shakespeare, Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, Rushdie and Hitchens, and even J.K. Rowling and James Ellroy. And much, much more beside. I also know them all for what they are. The works of human imagination, study, thought, wonder, poetry, wisdom, idiocy and more, so much more. Literature is how I know the history and nature of my species.

But you do not take the Bible to be just a part of the literature of your species. That, in my view, is where you are wrong, and where you lose your way in understanding. As I would, if I took any part of all that I've read, and accepted it as infallible. Fortunately for me, I'm smarter than that.

Well, if you feel your intelligence and wisdom are so much greater than mine then stop asking me questions. Obviously all you really want is an opportunity to brow beat a poor, stupid Bible believer. So do your browser beating and get it over with. I'll die before I give up my faith so I couldn't care less what you say or do even to the point of death.

So puff up your pride and be done with it.

 

[DavidFirth]

And yet, if you were to do the trivial work of looking it up, you would discover something that you'd hate -- that it was SCIENCE that exposed the hoax. Science has always, always admitted when new evidence forces us to change our theories. Religion? Well, it might one day, but never has so far -- not matter how much harm is done.

Sure. Yet you ignore that it was scientists that perpetrated the hoax in the first place. You know, those non-biased totally neutral guys who belch out your theories without knowledge?

 

[Skwim]

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Well, if you feel your intelligence and wisdom are so much greater than mine then stop asking me questions. Obviously all you really want is an opportunity to brow beat a poor, stupid Bible believer. So do your browser beating and get it over with. I'll die before I give up my faith so I couldn't care less what you say or do even to the point of death.

So puff up your pride and be done with it.

Ouch! That must have really hurt.

.​

 

[DavidFirth]

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.

Ouch! That must have really hurt.

.​

So what is it that happened to make you hate God so much? What is it that you blame Him for that makes you hate Him so?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Well, if you feel your intelligence and wisdom are so much greater than mine then stop asking me questions. Obviously all you really want is an opportunity to brow beat a poor, stupid Bible believer. So do your browser beating and get it over with. I'll die before I give up my faith so I couldn't care less what you say or do even to the point of death.

So puff up your pride and be done with it.

You have me wrong, but I don't think you'll ever understand that.

I am a person who seeks knowledge, not the comfort of belief. It is as difficult for me to understand why anybody would banish all the evidence that contradicts their belief without wishing to understand how it could be that there could even be such evidence -- if the belief were true -- as it is for you to understand why somebody like me doesn't automagically accept all the stuff you were somehow convinced to believe.

There's no pride in what I write. There's my deep fear that we humans are our own (and even "God's") worst enemy, because we can't and won't even try to understand ourselves. Please watch the entertaining dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, or between Delhi and Karachi, if you don't believe me.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Sure. Yet you ignore that it was scientists that perpetrated the hoax in the first place. You know, those non-biased totally neutral guys who belch out your theories without knowledge?

I don't ignore that -- and I think it somewhat silly of you to suggest it. But it was not "scientists that perpretrated the hoax." Charles Dawson was an untrained amateur. But he provided evidence along with his hoax, and to the credit of the real scientists (who did eventually decide it was a hoax), they were compelled to LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE THAT WAS PRESENTED, and then to test it, in all the ways that science does.

I really don't know why you so carelessly insist on flinging unfair and unjust accusations, as you do. Is that a "religious thing? "

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

But you do not take the Bible to be just a part of the literature of your species

Why would a religious person take their religion's sacred texts as just another piece of literature? Of course they're going to see it in a different category.

 

[DavidFirth]

You have me wrong, but I don't think you'll ever understand that.

I am a person who seeks knowledge, not the comfort of belief. It is as difficult for me to understand why anybody would banish all the evidence that contradicts their belief without wishing to understand how it could be that there could even be such evidence -- if the belief were true -- as it is for you to understand why somebody like me doesn't automagically accept all the stuff you were somehow convinced to believe.

There's no pride in what I write. There's my deep fear that we humans are our own (and even "God's") worst enemy, because we can't and won't even try to understand ourselves. Please watch the entertaining dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang, or between Delhi and Karachi, if you don't believe me.

Sir, the word of God is truth whether you or I accept it or not. God's word isn't optional. Heaven isn't a democracy. You either believe it and accept it or you dont. It saddens me to hear you say you know it better than I do yet you do not believe it. If this is true, the greater you have condemned yourself by your own words.

God does not condemn any man, but a man condemns himself by his own heart.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

So what is it that happened to make you hate God so much? What is it that you blame Him for that makes you hate Him so?

This is, of course, the single STUPIDEST question that religious people perpetually ask non-believers. I am sorry for my bluntness, but it ought to take extremely little intelligence to realize that it is impossible to "hate" that which you think does not exist.

I will not try to answer for @Skwim, but will say for myself that I don't "hate God," I hate what the belief in God makes a whole lot of humans do. Like cutting off people heads, or organizing residential schools to "take the Indian out of the child," or burn old ladies whose minds have begun to fray because they might cause your cows to give sour milk. That's easy to hate.