Rand's position on evolution - split thread

[Crashland]

Well I just cut it on and I guess I just caught the last question. It was about evolution. Rand said we obviously evolved.

Well that's not going to go over well with fundamentalist Christians, but not like he was going to get that vote anyway. So Rand believes in theistic evolution then, acknowledging both evolution and God. He's pulling the Francis Collins. I like this position because it is something that most religious skeptics (such as myself) and most religious believers can accept.

[Brett85]

I'm a fundamentalist Christian, and Rand is certainly going to get my vote. I disagree with him on evolution, but I realize this really isn't a political issue. Rand understands that any political aspect of the issue would be handled locally. Also, Rand's position on this makes him much more electable in a general election. Unfortunately, most Americans care about non issues like this. But I know that someone with my views on these kind of issues could never get elected President in our country today.

[simon1911]

I'm a fundamentalist Christian, and Rand is certainly going to get my vote. I disagree with him on evolution, but I realize this really isn't a political issue. Rand understands that any political aspect of the issue would be handled locally. Also, Rand's position on this makes him much more electable in a general election. Unfortunately, most Americans care about non issues like this. But I know that someone with my views on these kind of issues could never get elected President in our country today.

Same here. I was disappointed with his answer on evolution. He will lose votes over this and may end up costly in a crowded field. I had hopes that Ted Cruz will eventually bow out and endorse Paul.

[hells_unicorn]

Same here. I was disappointed with his answer on evolution. He will lose votes over this and may end up costly in a crowded field. I had hopes that Ted Cruz will eventually bow out and endorse Paul.

The evolution question is a stumbling block that is regularly used on Republicans in order to cost them votes in early primary states. I'm not a Fundamentalist, but I'm 100% opposed to the idea that one can be a Christian and fudge the Pentateuch, particularly in its historicity. I'm not sure whether Rand actually believes what he gave as an answer, but if he does I am disappointed in him, not that it will impact my vote since every other person running for office is running afoul of the entire Christian religion both morally and spiritually.

The only early state where this may cost him some votes is in Iowa, however, given that most Mid-Western evangelicals are rabidly Dispensationalist, I doubt he would have gotten their votes given his moderated views on Israel, and I know for a fact that Ron Paul got extremely little support from them in 2012 and came close to edging out a victory in the popular vote. People in New Hampshire and Florida tend to be fairly irreligious or cosmopolitan in their views (basically the same thing) so Rand probably helped himself in those states, and South Carolina I've pretty much written off as winnable since all they care about is the spilling of blood.

Keep in mind that John McCain prevailed in the 2008 primary by taking a fictional synergistic view of Genesis and Darwinism. American, all too American.

[Sola_Fide]

From a purely electoral perspective, Rand should keep his evolution opinions to himself.

As a Christian who actually thinks, I'm perfectly fine with a liberty person in government being even a hardened atheist. Whatever is fine for me. But the problem is there is a large portion of the primary electorate that is unthinking and will focus on things like this.

And I already know what someone is going to say. "Well screw them, we don't need them." Uh, yeah we do.

[Sola_Fide]

Same here. I was disappointed with his answer on evolution. He will lose votes over this and may end up costly in a crowded field. I had hopes that Ted Cruz will eventually bow out and endorse Paul.

Agree. It was a dumb answer by Rand. Mark my words, this will be used against him. He screwed up.

[nikcers]

From a purely electoral perspective, Rand should keep his evolution opinions to himself.

As a Christian who actually thinks, I'm perfectly fine with a liberty person in government being even a hardened atheist. Whatever is fine for me. But the problem is there is a large portion of the primary electorate that is unthinking and will focus on things like this.

And I already know what someone is going to say. "Well screw them, we don't need them." Uh, yeah we do.

We need everyone to vote for Rand, its okay to have a different opinion than the guy you vote for. Especially when its philosophical differences and not where should we plant our military force and what should we force our citizens to do and should we get a warrant to monitor and create a digital fingerprint for. Especially when the digital fingerprint can be edited and you have no power or right to fight to get it changed. The new politics of online trolling in order to create policy and control the population needs to stop.

[Sola_Fide]

How difficult would it have been for Rand to say "I don't know about the issue of evolution. I'll let the experts deal with that." .....or something along those lines?

Why did he make himself so absolutely strident in his answer? Not a smart move.

[nikcers]

How difficult would it have been for Rand to say "I don't know about the issue of evolution. I'll let the experts deal with that." .....or something along those lines?

Why did he make himself so absolutely strident in his answer? Not a smart move.

Why should he be dishonest if that's what he absolutely believes? I trust him much more because of this. Every non politically expedient but honest move makes me want to fight for him more.

[Sola_Fide]

Why should he be dishonest if that's what he absolutely believes? I trust him much more because of this. Every non politically expedient but honest move makes me want to fight for him more.

Beliefs are fine. Evolution and theistic evolution like Rand expressed, are beliefs that are not based on evidence.

There are many unthinking people out there who would go for Cruz or Huckabee instead of Rand just on this one issue. There was no reason for Rand to be so absolutely strident on this issue.

[Sola_Fide]

The evolution question is a stumbling block that is regularly used on Republicans in order to cost them votes in early primary states. I'm not a Fundamentalist, but I'm 100% opposed to the idea that one can be a Christian and fudge the Pentateuch, particularly in its historicity. I'm not sure whether Rand actually believes what he gave as an answer, but if he does I am disappointed in him, not that it will impact my vote since every other person running for office is running afoul of the entire Christian religion both morally and spiritually.

The only early state where this may cost him some votes is in Iowa, however, given that most Mid-Western evangelicals are rabidly Dispensationalist, I doubt he would have gotten their votes given his moderated views on Israel, and I know for a fact that Ron Paul got extremely little support from them in 2012 and came close to edging out a victory in the popular vote. People in New Hampshire and Florida tend to be fairly irreligious or cosmopolitan in their views (basically the same thing) so Rand probably helped himself in those states, and South Carolina I've pretty much written off as winnable since all they care about is the spilling of blood.

Keep in mind that John McCain prevailed in the 2008 primary by taking a fictional synergistic view of Genesis and Darwinism. American, all too American.

You are absolutely right that this issue could affect him in Iowa.

[nikcers]

Beliefs are fine. Evolution and theistic evolution like Rand expressed, are beliefs that are not based on evidence.

There are many unthinking people out there who would go for Cruz or Huckabee instead of Rand just on this one issue. There was no reason for Rand to be so absolutely strident on this issue.

This is where we disagree i guess. To me its the unpolitical things he does like filibuster for my privacy and his blunt honesty on safety nets that make me want to vote for him. Yeah advocating for changes to the safety net will yield negative votes from people who use safety net services, but they get people like me out to change peoples minds because i know he is advocating for change because he passionately feels that its broken and if its not fixed it will cause generations of poverty.

[Sola_Fide]

This is where we disagree i guess. To me its the unpolitical things he does like filibuster for my privacy and his blunt honesty on safety nets that make me want to vote for him. Yeah advocating for changes to the safety net will yield negative votes from people who use safety net services, but they get people like me out to change peoples minds because i know he is advocating for change because he passionately feels that its broken and if its not fixed it will cause generations of poverty.

Filibustering the Patriot Act is an "unpolitical thing"?

[nikcers]

Filibustering the Patriot Act is an "unpolitical thing"?

If you think fighting the surveillance state, while everyone in his party is trying to expand the surveillance state and grow terrorism in the middle east by funding radical Islam is a good idea then you didn't understand the reason why he did it in the first place. You probably are one of the people who thought he submitted his AUMF and defense budget because he wanted to be one of them too.

[hells_unicorn]

You are absolutely right that this issue could affect him in Iowa.

It will, but the question is to what extent, and will it be a short-term sacrifice for goals in future states. With Huckabee and Cruz vying for the folks from the Fundy crowd (and possibly Perry and Carson), Paul will be angling for the so-called moderate Christian types (aka the lukewarm majority of American monotheists). I think that Rand's answer is wrong objectively, but from a practical political standpoint, this may make him easier to sell to the blue blood types that are usually creeped out by Christians who actually believe in Christianity.


How difficult would it have been for Rand to say "I don't know about the issue of evolution. I'll let the experts deal with that." .....or something along those lines?

I see a campaign ad or even a billboard with one of the photos that shows Rand Paul looking confused, with a headline reading, "Rand Paul is a doctor who doesn't know what evolution is. Call him and tell him to get a 6th grade science textbook".

There is a down-side to every answer, and the only thing worse than Rand either going full Darwin or full Genesis would be to try playing ignorant. Herman Cain made a habit of saying he'd defer to the experts, and the media had everyone believing he was a boob unfit to be the mayor of a ghost town.

[Sola_Fide]

If you think fighting the surveillance state, while everyone in his party is trying to expand the surveillance state and grow terrorism in the middle east by funding radical Islam is a good idea then you didn't understand the reason why he did it in the first place. You probably are one of the people who thought he submitted his AUMF and defense budget because he wanted to be one of them too.

No. You equated a truly unpolitical thing like the belief in evolution to a truly political thing like Filibusteringthe Patriot Act. Obviously they are not the same kind of issues.

Please don't presume to know about my views of the surveillance state or any state for that matter. I don't believe that the state should exist. I was merely giving my opinion on electoral politics as it exists today. And if you don't think this will come back to Rand, just keep watching.

[nikcers]

No. You equated a truly unpolitical thing like the belief in evolution to a truly political thing like Filibusteringthe Patriot Act. Obviously they are not the same kind of issues.

Please don't presume to know about my views of the surveillance state or any state for that matter. I don't believe that the state should exist. I was merely giving my opinion on electoral politics as it exists today. And if you don't think this will come back to Rand, just keep watching.

I think its going to help him politically and I will put my money where my mouth is and donate to him specifically for saying this.

[Sola_Fide]

It will, but the question is to what extent, and will it be a short-term sacrifice for goals in future states. With Huckabee and Cruz vying for the folks from the Fundy crowd (and possibly Perry and Carson), Paul will be angling for the so-called moderate Christian types (aka the lukewarm majority of American monotheists). I think that Rand's answer is wrong objectively, but from a practical political standpoint, this may make him easier to sell to the blue blood types that are usually creeped out by Christians who actually believe in Christianity.



I see a campaign ad or even a billboard with one of the photos that shows Rand Paul looking confused, with a headline reading, "Rand Paul is a doctor who doesn't know what evolution is. Call him and tell him to get a 6th grade science textbook".

There is a down-side to every answer, and the only thing worse than Rand either going full Darwin or full Genesis would be to try playing ignorant. Herman Cain made a habit of saying he'd defer to the experts, and the media had everyone believing he was a boob unfit to be the mayor of a ghost town.

There may be billboards like that, but there are many doctors who don't believe in evolution, or don't have a strong view on it. Not all are Christians either. It works both ways.

[Sola_Fide]

I think its going to help him politically and I will put my money where my mouth is and donate to him specifically for saying this.

So you vote and support politicians based on their view of evolution? Yep, that's nuts. But thanks for making my point that many people like yourself, on both sides of the issue, unflinchingly vote based on the answer to this question.

[nikcers]

So you vote and support politicians based on their view of evolution? Yep, that's nuts. But thanks for making my point that many people like yourself, on both sides of the issue, unflinchingly vote based on the answer to this question.

Yep I voted and donated all i could for his dad because he had the guts to say stuff that wasn't politically expedient and that he believed even when i disagreed with him on evolution.

[hells_unicorn]

There may be billboards like that, but there are many doctors who don't believe in evolution. Not all are Christians either. It works both ways.

Oh sure there are, but Democracy is about numbers, and the numbers are on the side of the mutant fish-frog, not Genesis, ESPECIALLY when it comes to doctors. Similarly, the average voter at home may not be a hardened anti-theist, but between America's rabid cultural dogma of universal acceptance of religious viewpoints and the pervasiveness of Darwinism in public education, even moderate Christians will think that someone who says "I don't know about the evolution issue" is either lying or a dunce.

In accordance with your own words regarding "Christians who actually think" being an exception, the same holds true for most non-Christian American voters. Universal suffrage necessitates the mass participation of unthinking people. Perception is basically everything and reality is a social construct/side effect. There is a reason why Pragmatism is an American creation.

[Sola_Fide]

Yep I voted and donated all i could for his dad because he had the guts to say stuff that wasn't politically expedient and that he believed even when i disagreed with him on evolution.

So now you're saying that you don't vote for politicians based on their view of evolution. But 2 posts ago, you said you did. So, which is it?

[nikcers]

So now you're saying that you don't vote for politicians based on their view of evolution. But 2 posts ago, you said you did. So, which is it?

I vote for people who I feel are being honest with me and not trying to pander to the biggest electorate just so they can just so they can get elected. Whether they believe in ancient aliens or Elmo.

[Sola_Fide]

I vote for people who I feel are being honest with me and not trying to pander to the biggest electorate just so they can just so they can get elected. Whether they believe in ancient aliens or Elmo.

So why don't you vote for Bernie Sanders? He is very honest and consistent and believes very strongly in his opinions. He doesn't pander as much as the other ones either.

[timosman]

I think its going to help him politically and I will put my money where my mouth is and donate to him specifically for saying this.

and this is how real people talk ! This really is going to change something ;-) #fakeactivity

[Sola_Fide]

and this is how real people talk ! This really is going to change something ;-) #fakeactivity

Please go away. The adults are talking.

[nikcers]

So why don't you vote for Bernie Sanders? He is very honest and consistent and believes very strongly in his opinions. He doesn't pander as much as the other ones either.

I don't believe in socialistic governments, i grew up in a country that enjoys the fruits of labor and capitalism. I think he is pandering to people who want free stuff which is the biggest electorate. Can you give me a harder question please?

[Sola_Fide]

I don't believe in socialistic governments, i grew up in a country that enjoys the fruits of labor and capitalism. I think he is pandering to people who want free stuff which is the biggest electorate. Can you give me a harder question please?

Nah, it's ok.

[timosman]

Nah, it's ok.

Real adult talk, I was hoping for a bot fight ;-) #fakeactivity

[Rudeman]

Just curious, to those that have a problem with his position on evolution why does it bother you? What's wrong with someone believing in evolution? Like I get it from the other standpoint because then they label you as anti-science/non-intellectual but why is it a problem with the religious segment for someone to believe in evolution? Not an attack just curious to why it bothered people.

Personally to me I don't care what a person's evolution position is because it is completely irrelevant to the job they are running for.

[Sola_Fide]

Just curious, to those that have a problem with his position on evolution why does it bother you? What's wrong with someone believing in evolution? Like I get it from the other standpoint because then they label you as anti-science/non-intellectual but why is it a problem with the religious segment for someone to believe in evolution? Not an attack just curious to why it bothered people.

Personally to me I don't care what a person's evolution position is because it is completely irrelevant to the job they are running for.

I agree that your view of evolution is not relevant to politics. But as Nikcers showed in this thread there are many people who vote for politicians based on this one issue, so it has relevance electorally.

As far as why macro evolution is wrong, it is wrong because it contradicts the Bible.

[Rudeman]

I agree that your view of evolution is not relevant to politics. But as Nikcers showed in this thread there are many people who vote for politicians based on this one issue, so it has relevance electorally.

As far as why macro evolution is wrong, it is wrong because it contradicts the Bible.


Ah I see, that makes sense. Personally I consider myself Christian/Catholic (maybe others wouldn't and I really don't know enough about religion to know the differences between each Christian sect) but I don't believe everything in the Bible and view it as more of a guide than a book of facts, but I respect those that take a stricter view.

[nikcers]

I agree that your view of evolution is not relevant to politics

http://cdn.makeagif.com/media/5-30-2015/3aP2Q5.gif (http://makeagif.com/3aP2Q5)

[BuddyRey]

Maybe I'm not the most observant or Scripturally literate Believer, but I've never seen any Bible verse that rules out evolution. Why are evolution and intelligent design always treated as if they are mutually exclusive possibilities? Just because it took millions of years for us to reach this form doesn't mean there wasn't a Creator guiding the process, nor does acknowledging God mean one has to dismiss the last hundred years of science and pretend carbon-dating doesn't exist.

[DevilsAdvocate]

As far as why macro evolution is wrong, it is wrong because it contradicts the Bible.

My friend, there is much in the bible that should not be taken literally. Ask yourself, do you believe the story of Adam and Eve is a literal interpretation of events? Or is it a beautiful allegory for the dawn of Man? Do you believe the entire world was flooded for 40 days? Or is this a symbolic piece of historical folklore which has been passed down from father to son for nearly 10,000 years? Do you believe that David vanquished Goliath with a single rock to the head? Or is this a chidren's story intended to teach a lesson that the small can overcome the great?

I'm just saying, that you shouldn't reject the logic and evidence for the Theory of Evolution because of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It makes sense. Besides, how do you know how God intended to reach out to man with the words in the Bible? Perhaps they aren't all meant to be taken literally. If God gave you your logic and reasoning faculties, building you in His image, separating you from the animals. Don't you think He wants you to use this greatest of gifts to it's highest potential? Don't you think He'd want you to apply these gifts and learn as much as you can about the world you've been born into, so that you may fully appreciate God's design?

[randomname]

I'm a fundamentalist Christian, and Rand is certainly going to get my vote. I disagree with him on evolution, but I realize this really isn't a political issue. Rand understands that any political aspect of the issue would be handled locally. Also, Rand's position on this makes him much more electable in a general election. Unfortunately, most Americans care about non issues like this. But I know that someone with my views on these kind of issues could never get elected President in our country today.
It's a moral issue and as politics are mostly about morals, it actually is political as well. People are more likely to vote for people who they believe are on their team / share their morals.

[Brett85]

Just curious, to those that have a problem with his position on evolution why does it bother you? What's wrong with someone believing in evolution? Like I get it from the other standpoint because then they label you as anti-science/non-intellectual but why is it a problem with the religious segment for someone to believe in evolution? Not an attack just curious to why it bothered people.

Personally to me I don't care what a person's evolution position is because it is completely irrelevant to the job they are running for.

I think it's a problem to believe in evolution for religious people because it's entirely unbiblical. It completely contradicts the Bible. But I agree that it's irrelevant to the job that Rand is running for, and it doesn't affect my vote. But with some of Rand's other recent statements like seeming to be somewhat nonchalant on the abortion issue, he certainly runs the risk of alienating evangelicals in early states. He at least needs to get some of them to vote for him.

[hells_unicorn]

My friend, there is much in the bible that should not be taken literally. Ask yourself, do you believe the story of Adam and Eve is a literal interpretation of events? Or is it a beautiful allegory for the dawn of Man? Do you believe the entire world was flooded for 40 days? Or is this a symbolic piece of historical folklore which has been passed down from father to son for nearly 10,000 years? Do you believe that David vanquished Goliath with a single rock to the head? Or is this a chidren's story intended to teach a lesson that the small can overcome the great?

I'm just saying, that you shouldn't reject the logic and evidence for the Theory of Evolution because of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It makes sense. Besides, how do you know how God intended to reach out to man with the words in the Bible? Perhaps they aren't all meant to be taken literally. If God gave you your logic and reasoning faculties, building you in His image, separating you from the animals. Don't you think He wants you to use this greatest of gifts to it's highest potential? Don't you think He'd want you to apply these gifts and learn as much as you can about the world you've been born into, so that you may fully appreciate God's design?

Two points on this:

1. The rationale for both Neo-Darwinism and Classical Darwinism positing a ridiculously old earth and, consequently, universe is because of speculative postulation, logic and evidence played an ancillary part in both Linnaeus and Darwin's thoughts on this topic at best.

2. You are correct that there are parts of the scriptures that are not to be taken literally, and they are the specific parts where scripture states that it is using figurative language or where such an inference can be made based on corresponding points via the patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and the apostles. An example being the analogy of "the hand of God" and Jesus' own words qualifying that a spirit lacks physical/material attributes, thus resulting in said statement being an allusion to God's action and power, not a fleshy member. There are no such passages to be found in scripture stating that this is true of the opening Genesis narrative, nor in any corresponding viewpoint in any Christian prior to Linnaeus, and I don't put much stock in him being orthodox. The closest anyone comes to arguing for an "older earth" is by taking the "hyper-literal" approach that you are criticizing and apply it selectively to Psalms 90:4 and the corresponding citation in the NT in 2 Peter 3:8, which is a metaphorical statement of the distinction between eternity and temporal existence, not a numerology-based code.

This won't affect my vote for Rand, but theistic evolution is a heterodox understanding of Genesis, and no amount of rationalizations are going to change that.

[Peace&Freedom]

Maybe I'm not the most observant or Scripturally literate Believer, but I've never seen any Bible verse that rules out evolution. Why are evolution and intelligent design always treated as if they are mutually exclusive possibilities? Just because it took millions of years for us to reach this form doesn't mean there wasn't a Creator guiding the process, nor does acknowledging God mean one has to dismiss the last hundred years of science and pretend carbon-dating doesn't exist.

Just because a general concept of God can be merged with a generic concept of evolution, doesn't mean the God of the Bible can be honestly reconciled with the modern scientific view of evolution, that rules out any designer being behind the process. Jesus was NOT a thiestic evolutionist, he believed in the historicity of Adam, Noah, the Flood, etc. Evolutionary scientists DO NOT accept teleology (a Designer) as part of any legitimate evolutionary model. You have to deal with reconciling these specific sides, not invent an abstract version of both views that few people actually subscribe to.

It's like saying "the Ron Paul movement is not mutually exclusive with having a pro-Fed, pro-war mindset, since you can find certain supporters who are pro-Fed and pro-war." Would anybody here accept that as a honest merging of two clearly opposed camps? The issue is not merging generic notions, but with specifically reconciling the historicity of the Bible with naturalistic evolution. That specific merge is impossible, without both rejecting the Bible, and the current non-telological scientific model of evolution.

To throw the "mutually exclusive" issue back the other way, why is the creation-evolution issue falsely defined as one of religion vs science, when the evidence can be (usually better) interpreted in an intelligent design context, and when evolution has religious aspects that are not subject to verification by the scientific method? Why paint the creation view and science as being mutually exclusive, and just admit there are alternate ways to account for the data? IAW, sauce for the goose, and drop the other shoe.

Why do the same people who insist that people must be open to the legitimacy of theistic evolution, decline to be open to a scientific defense of creation? Being open in this direction means acknowledging there are physical processes that point to a recent creation, not just the "long ages" ones (like c-14, based on faulty assumptions) the evolutionists want to talk about. Are the advocates of "being open," open to acknowledging there are scientific difficulties with evolution? And so on.

[Peace&Freedom]

I think it's a problem to believe in evolution for religious people because it's entirely unbiblical. It completely contradicts the Bible. But I agree that it's irrelevant to the job that Rand is running for, and it doesn't affect my vote. But with some of Rand's other recent statements like seeming to be somewhat nonchalant on the abortion issue, he certainly runs the risk of alienating evangelicals in early states. He at least needs to get some of them to vote for him.

While my Christian and creation science view of the matter is clear (see previous post) as a practical political matter, this is a minor ding to Rand. Since it was on Chris Matthews or MSNBC, a network few people watch, it may not get out to many evangelicals at all to hurt him in the primaries. And as a matter of triangulation, it may be viewed as a Sista Souljah moment showing "Rand can stand up to his party base" and thus not alienate independents.

[specsaregood]

./

[acptulsa]

And as a matter of triangulation, it may be viewed as a Sista Souljah moment showing "Rand can stand up to his party base" and thus not alienate independents.

Murdoch's Fox has a very specific m.o. which is obvious to anyone and everyone who actually pays attention and is not in denial. That operative method is simple: Convince Republicans that anyone who is rational enough to win the general election is somehow unworthy of their primary votes.

[Peace&Freedom]

In his answer, Randal actually went out of his way to not rule out any designer. Personally, I'm pleased with his answer to that question.

But as a matter of truth, it still evades the reality that the God of the Bible and modern evolution science are not reconciliable. Not ruling out a designer in a generic way, simply softens Rand's specific rejection of the Bible, which was the actual substance of the exchange.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Two points on this:

1. The rationale for both Neo-Darwinism and Classical Darwinism positing a ridiculously old earth and, consequently, universe is because of speculative postulation, logic and evidence played an ancillary part in both Linnaeus and Darwin's thoughts on this topic at best.

2. You are correct that there are parts of the scriptures that are not to be taken literally, and they are the specific parts where scripture states that it is using figurative language or where such an inference can be made based on corresponding points via the patriarchs, prophets, Christ, and the apostles. An example being the analogy of "the hand of God" and Jesus' own words qualifying that a spirit lacks physical/material attributes, thus resulting in said statement being an allusion to God's action and power, not a fleshy member. There are no such passages to be found in scripture stating that this is true of the opening Genesis narrative, nor in any corresponding viewpoint in any Christian prior to Linnaeus, and I don't put much stock in him being orthodox. The closest anyone comes to arguing for an "older earth" is by taking the "hyper-literal" approach that you are criticizing and apply it selectively to Psalms 90:4 and the corresponding citation in the NT in 2 Peter 3:8, which is a metaphorical statement of the distinction between eternity and temporal existence, not a numerology-based code.

This won't affect my vote for Rand, but theistic evolution is a heterodox understanding of Genesis, and no amount of rationalizations are going to change that.

So I guess Adam and Eve committed incest then? That's really what you're saying.

I'm sorry if that statement sounds harsh or hateful, but these views you're clinging to are really childish. You are belittling yourself trying to argue such a thing as a rational person. This sort of thing is the reason religion is being rejected altogether by many modern people.

The entire purpose of the Christian theology is to moderate social interaction between human beings. Anything separate from that is sideshow nonsense. Relgion lives between human beings, in relationships and feelings and emotions. In the personal sentiments that accompany the human condition. Trying to take moral teachings and bundle them with incorrect scientific statements, and then base the validity of your moral code on the validity of those same scientific statements...is just crazy. It's bonkers man! (For example: I am only right if pigs can fly. Pigs can't fly, therefore....)

People need religious teachings. The role in society is too important to let it go. They are of monumental benefit for all the people of the Earth. From the downtrodden poor person, to the temptations of the rich person. Advancements in science have accompanied advancements in technology, in the same way advancements in religion have accompanied advancements of civilization. And in my view, all of this is being sacrificed because many Christians can't grown up and let go of their childish points of view.

[Jan2017]

Back in 2007 in Iowa - the week after the first GOP debate . . .


DES MOINES, May 11 — Mitt Romney expanded on his belief in evolution in an interview earlier this week,
staking out a position that could put him at odds with some conservative Christians, a key voting bloc he is courting.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/romney-elaborates-on-evolution/?_r=0

Ex-Governor Huckabee is a hand-raiser in that old debate question -
the first debate at The Reagan Library in Simi Valley back in May 2007.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Cc8t3Zd5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Cc8t3Zd5E

.

[Mr Tansill]

Just curious, to those that have a problem with his position on evolution why does it bother you? What's wrong with someone believing in evolution? Like I get it from the other standpoint because then they label you as anti-science/non-intellectual but why is it a problem with the religious segment for someone to believe in evolution? Not an attack just curious to why it bothered people.

Personally to me I don't care what a person's evolution position is because it is completely irrelevant to the job they are running for.

I don't have a problem with his position on evolution either.

Evolution is a scientific argument that he apparently buys. Which I think shows that he is a critical thinker. The problem I have with people who don't accept it, is that I think it shows either an inability to accept a critical argument, or a willingness to ignore certain facts about the universe - neither is a quality I want in a person in charge of anything. And while a view on the subject is irrelevant (in a direct sense) to the job they are running for, holding a position that the world was created a few thousand years ago is similar to holding the view that the Earth is the center of the universe, post Copernicus. Such views, which are contrary to observable reality, raises other important questions about their ability to act rationally.

[Mr Tansill]

Just because a general concept of God can be merged with a generic concept of evolution, doesn't mean the God of the Bible can be honestly reconciled with the modern scientific view of evolution, that rules out any designer being behind the process. Jesus was NOT a thiestic evolutionist, he believed in the historicity of Adam, Noah, the Flood, etc. Evolutionary scientists DO NOT accept teleology (a Designer) as part of any legitimate evolutionary model. You have to deal with reconciling these specific sides, not invent an abstract version of both views that few people actually subscribe to.

It's like saying "the Ron Paul movement is not mutually exclusive with having a pro-Fed, pro-war mindset, since you can find certain supporters who are pro-Fed and pro-war." Would anybody here accept that as a honest merging of two clearly opposed camps? The issue is not merging generic notions, but with specifically reconciling the historicity of the Bible with naturalistic evolution. That specific merge is impossible, without both rejecting the Bible, and the current non-telological scientific model of evolution.

Excellent distinction...

[Sola_Fide]

I don't have a problem with his position on evolution either.

Evolution is a scientific argument that he apparently buys. Which I think shows that he is a critical thinker. The problem I have with people who don't accept it, is that I think it shows either an inability to accept a critical argument, or a willingness to ignore certain facts about the universe - neither is a quality I want in a person in charge of anything. And while a view on the subject is irrelevant (in a direct sense) to the job they are running for, holding a position that the world was created a few thousand years ago is similar to holding the view that the Earth is the center of the universe, post Copernicus. Such views, which are contrary to observable reality, raises other important questions about their ability to act rationally.

No. Evolution is a non-observational religious viewpoint that is assumed before any evidence is examined. There is no such thing as a "fact" that is just out there and true. What you think the "facts" are and how you interpret the "facts" is governed by your underlying presuppositions.

[acptulsa]

No. Evolution is a non-observational religious viewpoint that is assumed before any evidence is examined. There is no such thing as a "fact" that is just out there and true. What you think the "facts" are and how you interpret the "facts" is governed by your underlying presuppositions.

Evolution is a process. To equate evolution with the theory that all life evolved from a single zygote that somehow formed by accident in the primordial soup is to once again try to win an argument not by making sense, but by redefining all the words in your opponent's statements until he either seems to agree with you or seems like a complete fool.

I realize that a great many fundamentally-minded religious zealots consider this a perfectly logical, valid and reasonable tactic. I just don't agree.

And these are just a few of the zillions of facts that your underlying suppositions can never change.

[Brett85]

But as a matter of truth, it still evades the reality that the God of the Bible and modern evolution science are not reconciliable. Not ruling out a designer in a generic way, simply softens Rand's specific rejection of the Bible, which was the actual substance of the exchange.

You're absolutely correct. I support Rand for President but certainly wouldn't want him to be the pastor of my church.

[nikcers]

zillions of facts

See that's just my problem with any belief system, my lizard brain just goes crazy when i start thinking about infinite, hell even numbers larger then my brain can process break reality to me. Maybe I fell and hit my head when I was a kid or maybe I'm living in a simulation. Chances are I'll never really find out who's right on this argument and I'll die scratching my head trying to wrap my head around infinite. To me trying to argue your belief system over the internet is just a form of mental masturbation.

[Mr Tansill]

No. Evolution is a non-observational religious viewpoint that is assumed before any evidence is examined. There is no such thing as a "fact" that is just out there and true. What you think the "facts" are and how you interpret the "facts" is governed by your underlying presuppositions.

Your equating evolution to a religious viewpoint is your own personal narrative used as a strawman to validate your own deeply religious outlook on the world, necessary because you don't see anything outside the goggles of religion; that is fine with me. I explained what is actually out there in order to present a viewpoint that mirrors reality as succinctly as possible, not to convince deeply religious people that science is not religion.

Evolution is (first) observation, followed by inference.

Religion is (first) declaration, followed by argument.

[Sola_Fide]

Your equating evolution to a religious viewpoint is your own personal narrative you use as a strawman to validate your own deeply religious outlook on the world.

Evolution is (first) observation, followed by inference.

Religion is (first) declaration, followed by argument.


Evolution is observed? Where has it EVER been observed that one kind of animal becomes another kind of animal?

[Peace&Freedom]

Evolution is a process. To equate evolution with the theory that all live evolved from a single zygote that somehow formed by accident in the primordial soup is to once again try to win an argument not by making sense, but by redefining all the words in your opponent's statements until he either seems to agree with you or seems like a complete fool.

I realize that a great many fundamentally-minded religious zealots consider this a perfectly logical, valid and reasonable tactic. I just don't agree.


And neither do supporters of creation accept the dogmatic secular zealots who think there is only one valid way to critically evaluate the available evidence. Macro-evolution is an alleged process that is not being observed or replicated today. To say it is just like the creation view, in that it is thus not subject to the scientific method (which requires current observation and replication), does not twist any words, it's just stating the reality. BOTH sides rely on suppositions applied to interpreting historical data, so attempts to frame one side as "science" and the other "religion" are wrong.

[hells_unicorn]

1. So I guess Adam and Eve committed incest then? That's really what you're saying.

2. I'm sorry if that statement sounds harsh or hateful, but these views you're clinging to are really childish. You are belittling yourself trying to argue such a thing as a rational person. This sort of thing is the reason religion is being rejected altogether by many modern people.

3. The entire purpose of the Christian theology is to moderate social interaction between human beings. Anything separate from that is sideshow nonsense.

4. Relgion lives between human beings, in relationships and feelings and emotions. In the personal sentiments that accompany the human condition.

5. Trying to take moral teachings and bundle them with incorrect scientific statements, and then base the validity of your moral code on the validity of those same scientific statements...is just crazy. It's bonkers man! (For example: I am only right if pigs can fly. Pigs can't fly, therefore....)

6. People need religious teachings. The role in society is too important to let it go. They are of monumental benefit for all the people of the Earth. From the downtrodden poor person, to the temptations of the rich person.

7. Advancements in science have accompanied advancements in technology, in the same way advancements in religion have accompanied advancements of civilization. And in my view, all of this is being sacrificed because many Christians can't grown up and let go of their childish points of view.

1. Adam and Eve committing incest presupposes that they were brother and sister, that is never stated nor otherwise implied in the Genesis narrative. They are recognized as man and wife, and as far as I know, brothers and sisters don't arise from the ribs of one another. You might have a point if you wish to argue that their children committed incest, but the biblical prohibition on incest does not occur until the giving of the Levitical Law, which occurs after Genesis. Furthermore, one has to question whether incest is possible if there are no existing alternative mates to one's siblings, which is how we qualify the distinction between incest and normal marital relations. The only way you can presume that incest occurs prior to it being enunciated via a prohibition and the alternative being possible is that there is a standard higher than God's Law and, consequently, God himself, which is nonsensical.

2. What you've said isn't necessarily hateful or harsh, but it is wrong and also fairly stupid.

3. These are the words of a skeptic rewriting revelation based on his own whims, not of a Christian.

4. In other words, you are a humanist, hence you are not a Christian. That's fine, just don't lie about it.

5. Is that you talking or Richard Dawkins? I don't recall stating anything about pigs flying, that's nonsensical hyperbole that border on the spaghetti monster cliche, a non-sequitur and quite boring to be honest.

6. So in other words, we need to make up a fictitious God in order to control people? That doesn't make any sense.

7. I'm still waiting for you to actually address my points about the current taxonomy model used for the earth's age is speculative, and I have a feeling that I'll be waiting for a very long time, all the malarkey about what "you think" religion and science happen to be not withstanding.

[Mr Tansill]

Evolution is observed? Where has it EVER been observed that one kind of animal becomes another kind of animal?

The fossil record:

When you look at the plethora of fossils we have dug out of the ground, it becomes apparent that there have been species that have shifted from one, to another. It's like looking at a time-lapse series of photographs. The same argument is used to point out that at one time, South America and Africa were once united as part of the same continent - in fact, similar species were found on both continents, which eventually evolved into others once the plates drifted apart, adding credence to the argument that the environment shapes the development of a species.

DNA:

Modern technology has been able to provide us with a profound insight into the interrelatedness of different species of animals. These connections and similarities have been able to show us connections between species that we didn't realize were there previously.

Galapagos islands:

Different climates on each of the islands lead to different kinds of plants as the majority. These plants (being the dominant food source) in turn, drive certain adaptations among the animal set that live on each of the islands. A notable example are the different tortoises that make the islands their home. On one island, there is a food source that requires the tortoise to be able to reach very high - this has led to the adaptation (speciation) of having a shell which juts upward right at the tortoise's neck - allowing the animal to reach that previously unobtainable food source. This is an easy one, but you can literally look at any animal species as an example, since they are all subject to the same forces.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm attempting to present a few facts and arguments to people who are stuck on a story. Now, it's up to you to turn your question against your belief system: When has it ever been observed that an entire ecosystem sprung into existence spontaneously, and completely - operating in perfect harmony?

[Mr Tansill]

1. Adam and Eve committing incest presupposes that they were brother and sister, that is never stated nor otherwise implied in the Genesis narrative. They are recognized as man and wife, and as far as I know, brothers and sisters don't arise from the ribs of one another. You might have a point if you wish to argue that their children committed incest, but the biblical prohibition on incest does not occur until the giving of the Levitical Law, which occurs after Genesis. Furthermore, one has to question whether incest is possible if there are no existing alternative mates to one's siblings, which is how we qualify the distinction between incest and normal marital relations. The only way you can presume that incest occurs prior to it being enunciated via a prohibition and the alternative being possible is that there is a standard higher than God's Law and, consequently, God himself, which is nonsensical.

According to the Genesis story, you are correct that Adam and Eve never committed incest themselves, but the remaining question, is where did offspring come from that were not part of that original DNA set? By necessity, either Adam and Eve had to mate with their offspring, or their offspring had to mate with each other - which is the critique actually leveled against that story. I felt it necessary to provide it for you explicitly.

The tactic you use (which is a standard religious retreat), is to return to scripture and argue that the definition of incest didn't exist yet, so it was all good - which of course ignores everything we know about genetics and science.

The overall trend in the world is to less religion, which is a godsend. The imposition that the ultra-religious among us make is that we must submit to their view of how the world is - which is based on an old book, and stories passed down over hundreds (if not thousands) of years. This is the ultimate form of power abuse and is the theme of George Orwell's book, 1984: X is true, because I say X is true. I control reality. I control your reality. Don't you dare say you believe in evolution because you will lose my vote.

IMO, it is long past time that we (rationals) jettison our attachment to gaining the base of the republican party. There is a legitimate, justifiable, and rational base for having a conservative or libertarian outlook on the world, and our association with those people who hold dearly to ridiculous assertions is a liability in the long run. You are right, in the short run, he may lose votes, but the libertarian ideal is more than about just Ron or Rand Paul. In short, what is happening, it the movement is evolving to the changing landscape - which is a good thing because it means it may survive.

[hells_unicorn]

The fossil record:

1. When you look at the plethora of fossils we have dug out of the ground, it becomes apparent that there have been species that have shifted from one, to another. It's like looking at a time-lapse series of photographs. The same argument is used to point out that at one time, South America and Africa were once united as part of the same continent - in fact, similar species were found on both continents, which eventually evolved into others once the plates drifted apart, adding credence to the argument that the environment shapes the development of a species.

DNA:

2. Modern technology has been able to provide us with a profound insight into the interrelatedness of different species of animals. These connections and similarities have been able to show us connections between species that we didn't realize were there previously.

Galapagos islands:

3. Different climates on each of the islands lead to different kinds of plants as the majority. These plants (being the dominant food source) in turn, drive certain adaptations among the animal set that live on each of the islands. A notable example are the different tortoises that make the islands their home. On one island, there is a food source that requires the tortoise to be able to reach very high - this has led to the adaptation (speciation) of having a shell which juts upward right at the tortoise's neck - allowing the animal to reach that previously unobtainable food source. This is an easy one, but you can literally look at any animal species as an example, since they are all subject to the same forces.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm attempting to present a few facts and arguments to people who are stuck on a story. Now, it's up to you to turn your question against your belief system: When has it ever been observed that an entire ecosystem sprung into existence spontaneously, and completely - operating in perfect harmony?

1. Sola_Fide is not talking about shifts in species or speciation, he's talking about shifts in type/genus, which are not observed, and so-called transitional species accounting from these changes in genus in the fossil record are, at best, speculative evidence given the massive gaps between them, ergo no evidence for the so-called gradual transition over time that is being inferred.

2. The DNA record, like the periodic table, tells us that all organic life is interrelated. This does not itself presuppose a common ancestor for all types/genus groups, that part is wholly speculative.

3. Again, we are not talking about speciation, whether it be in plants or animals, which could simply be pre-programmed adaptations based on an existing genetic schematic if one takes any type of a "design" position. Show me an oak tree that can be observed morphing into a cactus when it is planted in a desert and you'll be closer to the absurdity being presupposed by what macro-evolution implies.

[acptulsa]

Furthermore, one has to question whether incest is possible if there are no existing alternative mates to one's siblings, which is how we qualify the distinction between incest and normal marital relations.

So remember, children, incest is only incest if there's someone besides an immediate family member to fuck. If there isn't, then it might be incest, but just because it is incest doesn't mean it's incest.


The only way you can presume that incest occurs prior to it being enunciated via a prohibition and the alternative being possible is that there is a standard higher than God's Law and, consequently, God himself, which is nonsensical.

Remember, children, smoking marijuana was not smoking marijuana prior to 1937, because obviously no one could smoke marijuana before smoking marijuana was prohibited.

[nikcers]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR0nB6F86tE

[hells_unicorn]

1. According to the Genesis story, you are correct that Adam and Eve never committed incest themselves, but the remaining question, is where did offspring come from that were not part of that original DNA set? By necessity, either Adam and Eve had to mate with their offspring, or their offspring had to mate with each other - which is the critique actually leveled against that story. I felt it necessary to provide it for you explicitly.

2. The tactic you use (which is a standard religious retreat), is to return to scripture and argue that the definition of incest didn't exist yet, so it was all good - which of course ignores everything we know about genetics and science.

3. The overall trend in the world is to less religion, which is a godsend. The imposition that the ultra-religious among us make is that we must submit to their view of how the world is - which is based on an old book, and stories passed down over hundreds (if not thousands) of years. This is the ultimate form of power abuse and is the theme of George Orwell's book, 1984: X is true, because I say X is true. I control reality. I control your reality.

1. This was covered in my answer, which you were too busy formulating a contrived answer for to actually full comprehend. Accepting the Genesis narrative means accepting that God exists and that creation is governed by his laws, ergo incest does not exist as a concept or a prohibition until it is put into effect in time. Furthermore, you can not have incest without the existence of potential mates outside of the nuclear family, which did not exist. Your entire argument is based on a fallacious premise, your "scientific" tone not withstanding.

2. The definition of incest didn't exist, unless you have historical evidence of it existing prior to it being committed. You can yammer all day about what you think religious people do, but I'm personally more interested in your lack of qualification for you assertions.

3. What if I told you that I don't give a rat's ass what George Orwell thinks on the topic of religion, or the general trend of "enlightened" thinkers? Just throwing that out there for you to chew on.

[DevilsAdvocate]

No. Evolution is a non-observational religious viewpoint that is assumed before any evidence is examined. There is no such thing as a "fact" that is just out there and true. What you think the "facts" are and how you interpret the "facts" is governed by your underlying presuppositions.


Evolution is observed? Where has it EVER been observed that one kind of animal becomes another kind of animal?

THIS is what I was talking about in my previous comment. You sound sort of idiotic when you say stuff like this.

Observed fact: Different individual animals have different traits, which are passed from parent to offspring
Observed fact: Different traits correspond to better or worse survivability in any given environment.
Logical fact: Animals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, meaning later generations have a greater likelyhood to inherit those traits.
Logical extension: Over time, the genome will shift gradually to match environmental conditions.

God gave you a brain, he demands that you use it. I'm sure He doesn't want you to intentionally fool yourself and blind your own eyes to the world around you. That doesn't sound like God, that sounds a little like the fella downstairs to me.

Now if you said that perhaps God had a hand in setting up the system, and possibly guided it along it's way, hey man you might have something there. But if you just flat out reject it, well then you close the ears of everyone with a brain. You are actively working to shrink Christianity by saying stuff like this. I'm sure you'll agree with me that Christianity holds great benefits for people, and could lead to a better world. Well then why are you fighting so hard to make more atheists?

This is such a low level argument, it's Jr. High School stuff.

[Sola_Fide]

The fossil record:

When you look at the plethora of fossils we have dug out of the ground, it becomes apparent that there have been species that have shifted from one, to another. It's like looking at a time-lapse series of photographs. The same argument is used to point out that at one time, South America and Africa were once united as part of the same continent - in fact, similar species were found on both continents, which eventually evolved into others once the plates drifted apart, adding credence to the argument that the environment shapes the development of a species.

DNA:

Modern technology has been able to provide us with a profound insight into the interrelatedness of different species of animals. These connections and similarities have been able to show us connections between species that we didn't realize were there previously.

Galapagos islands:

Different climates on each of the islands lead to different kinds of plants as the majority. These plants (being the dominant food source) in turn, drive certain adaptations among the animal set that live on each of the islands. A notable example are the different tortoises that make the islands their home. On one island, there is a food source that requires the tortoise to be able to reach very high - this has led to the adaptation (speciation) of having a shell which juts upward right at the tortoise's neck - allowing the animal to reach that previously unobtainable food source. This is an easy one, but you can literally look at any animal species as an example, since they are all subject to the same forces.

Once again, I'm not trying to convince you. I'm attempting to present a few facts and arguments to people who are stuck on a story. Now, it's up to you to turn your question against your belief system: When has it ever been observed that an entire ecosystem sprung into existence spontaneously, and completely - operating in perfect harmony?

Not one of these is an example of an observation of macro evolution. Every one of these is an example of the presupposition of evolution being imposed on the evidence, rather than the other way around like you said.

[hells_unicorn]

1. So remember, children, incest is only incest if there's someone besides an immediate family member to fuck. If there isn't, then it might be incest, but just because it is incest doesn't mean it's incest.

Remember, children, smoking marijuana was not smoking marijuana prior to 1937, because obviously no one could smoke marijuana before smoking marijuana was prohibited.

Tsk tsk, still struggling with the difference between making an argument and being a snarky douche bag, eh? Keep working at it, you'll figure it out eventually. ;)

[Sola_Fide]

THIS is what I was talking about in my previous comment. You sound sort of idiotic when you say stuff like this.

Observed fact: Different individual animals have different traits, which are passed from parent to offspring
Observed fact: Different traits correspond to better or worse survivability in any given environment.
Logical fact: Animals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, meaning later generations have a greater likelyhood to inherit those traits.
Logical extension: Over time, the genome will shift gradually to match environmental conditions.

God gave you a brain, he demands that you use it. I'm sure He doesn't want you to intentionally fool yourself and blind your own eyes to the world around you. That doesn't sound like God, that sounds a little like the fella downstairs to me.

Now if you said that perhaps God had a hand in setting up the system, and possibly guided it along it's way, hey man you might have something there. But if you just flat out reject it, well then you close the ears of everyone with a brain. You are actively working to shrink Christianity by saying stuff like this. I'm sure you'll agree with me that Christianity holds great benefits for people, and could lead to a better world. Well then why are you fighting so hard to make more atheists?

This is such a low level argument, it's Jr. High School stuff.

What you describe in this post is change within species, which everyone accepts. You haven't proved (and can't prove because it is a non-observational religion) that animals become other animals.

Let's really think about who sounds dumb here. Rand sounded dumb.

[juleswin]

No. Evolution is a non-observational religious viewpoint that is assumed before any evidence is examined. There is no such thing as a "fact" that is just out there and true. What you think the "facts" are and how you interpret the "facts" is governed by your underlying presuppositions.

Is someone confusing evolution with abiogenesis again? remember folks we have enough evidence for evolution for anyone who is able to listen, its abiogenesis that we don't have full evidence for.

[hells_unicorn]

What you describe in this post is change within species, which everyone accepts. You haven't proved (and can't prove because it is a non-observational religion) that animals become other animals.

Let's really think about who sounds dumb here. Rand sounded dumb.

The only thing I disagree with here is that you left out the full qualification of why Rand sounded dumb, which is because he stated something even dumber than what the atheistkult types here are saying, namely that Christianity and Darwin are compatible. I have more respect for people who actually don't hide their contempt for religion than those who try to mix materialism with Christianity.

[hells_unicorn]

Is someone confusing evolution with abiogenesis again? remember folks we have enough evidence for evolution for anyone who is able to listen, its abiogenesis that we don't have full evidence for.

You are confusing Abiogenesis with Macro-evolution, they are not the same thing. Abiogenesis tries to argue how organic life came about from inert carbon matter via environmental causes, Macro-evolution posits how a singular type became all other types via adaptation to environmental influence.

I don't even believe in this crap and I can still keep my definitions straight.

[Mr Tansill]

1. Sola_Fide is not talking about shifts in species or speciation, he's talking about shifts in type/genus, which are not observed, and so-called transitional species accounting from these changes in genus in the fossil record are, at best, speculative evidence given the massive gaps between them, ergo no evidence for the so-called gradual transition over time that is being inferred.

2. The DNA record, like the periodic table, tells us that all organic life is interrelated. This does not itself presuppose a common ancestor for all types/genus groups, that part is wholly speculative.

3. Again, we are not talking about speciation, whether it be in plants or animals, which could simply be pre-programmed adaptations based on an existing genetic schematic if one takes any type of a "design" position. Show me an oak tree that can be observed morphing into a cactus when it is planted in a desert and you'll be closer to the absurdity being presupposed by what macro-evolution implies.

Such a demonstration is not possible, but such demands levied against the theory of evolution are the standard means of the religious attempt to undermine it: i.e. prove the impossible!

Massive gaps? There is a nearly continuous picture that is painted by the fossil record. At best, your critique that there are gaps in the record is simply a statement the we humans do not possess full knowledge - which is tautologically true, and is hardly a criticism. "You don't know everything!!"...yeah, no shit.

I am not an evolutionary biologist, and I don't claim to be one. What is going on though (writ large), is a lack of (honest) investigation on part of those religious types to actually see if there is evidence that contradicts their story of how the world is. Of course there are (seemingly) "scientific" attempts to undermine the science - such as attacking C14 dating etc, but there is no actual science on the side of a spontaneous ecosystem springing into action out of nothing - the religious claim.

[acptulsa]

Tsk tsk, still struggling with the difference between making an argument and being a snarky douche bag, eh? Keep working at it, you'll figure it out eventually. ;)

Tsk, tsk, still struggling with the obvious fact that redefining words to mean something they don't, or saying words have no meaning in the early days before the word was invented, as if we make up words and then do what they say, instead of making up words to more easily think and talk about what we have already observed, is valid debate, eh?

And still accusing people of using your own fallacies, whether they are or not, because you have your head so far up your own ass that you can only see your own shit, too? Too bad--they might be committing fallacies of their own, and if you could only open your eyes long enough to see their fallacies, instead of ignoring their fallacies and falsely accusing them of committing your favorite fallacies, you might actually be able to win an argument.

And still purposely trying to piss people off, so if they get pissed off you might stand a chance of winning, and if they don't get pissed off, you can say you regret that you are pissing them off, and use it as an excuse to declare victory and run away? How many times do you expect that rather childish tactic to work?


What you describe in this post is change within species, which everyone accepts. You haven't proved (and can't prove because it is a non-observational religion) that animals become other animals.

Well, let's see who is glorifying God and who is dissing God, shall we?

God invented the sabretooth tiger, figured out that wouldn't work, and fixed his mistake by making the sabretooth extinct and coming up with an improved model.

Or, God invented the sabretooth tiger for the express purpose of evolving into better cats that could survive.

No contest. Intelligent design glorified God. Creationism accuses God of being a damned fool.

[juleswin]

What you describe in this post is change within species, which everyone accepts. You haven't proved (and can't prove because it is a non-observational religion) that animals become other animals.

Let's really think about who sounds dumb here. Rand sounded dumb.

We've had this argument a million times now. That is not how evolution works, you cannot witness the change from one thing to another because it takes a lot of time to happen and also its like a spectrum where the change is very gradual and the changes blend to the point you can tell of a new species by looking way back in time.

You are thinking about this with your heart but Rand is thinking with his head and I don't consider any of the approaches dumb

[Sola_Fide]

The only thing I disagree with here is that you left out the full qualification of why Rand sounded dumb, which is because he stated something even dumber than what the atheistkult types here are saying, namely that Christianity and Darwin are compatible. I have more respect for people who actually don't hide their contempt for religion than those who try to mix materialism with Christianity.

Agree.

[Sola_Fide]

We've had this argument a million times now. That is not how evolution works, you cannot witness the change from one thing to another because it takes a lot of time to happen and also its like a spectrum where the change is very gradual and the changes blend to the point you can tell of a new species by looking way back in time.

You are thinking about this with your heart but Rand is thinking with his head and I don't consider any of the approaches dumb

So, macro evolution cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting that. Other people in this thread have said it is observational.

[Mr Tansill]

1. This was covered in my answer, which you were too busy formulating a contrived answer for to actually full comprehend. Accepting the Genesis narrative means accepting that God exists and that creation is governed by his laws, ergo incest does not exist as a concept or a prohibition until it is put into effect in time. Furthermore, you can not have incest without the existence of potential mates outside of the nuclear family, which did not exist. Your entire argument is based on a fallacious premise, your "scientific" tone not withstanding.

2. The definition of incest didn't exist, unless you have historical evidence of it existing prior to it being committed. You can yammer all day about what you think religious people do, but I'm personally more interested in your lack of qualification for you assertions.

3. What if I told you that I don't give a rat's ass what George Orwell thinks on the topic of religion, or the general trend of "enlightened" thinkers? Just throwing that out there for you to chew on.

1. Exactly right. You must accept (as a premise) the truth of a non-scientific work that has existed for well over a thousand years - against the overwhelming evidence on the other side. I responded exactly as I intended, and pointed towards the Orwellian tactic continuously used on your side, which is to redefine, or in the present case, deny the existence of, concepts. In this case, you are denying the concept of incest (at least in the past).

3. It would make complete sense to me. Discarding critical thinking when it upsets a world view is the standard retreat of those who want to remain comfortable - out of sight, out of mind.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Such a demonstration is not possible, but such demands levied against the theory of evolution are the standard means of the religious attempt to undermine it: i.e. prove the impossible!

2. Massive gaps? There is a nearly continuous picture that is painted by the fossil record. At best, your critique that there are gaps in the record is simply a statement the we humans do not possess full knowledge - which is tautologically true, and is hardly a criticism. "You don't know everything!!"...yeah, no shit.

3. I am not an evolutionary biologist, and I don't claim to be one. What is going on though (writ large), is a lack of (honest) investigation on part of those religious types to actually see if there is evidence that contradicts their story of how the world is. Of course there are (seemingly) "scientific" attempts to undermine the science - such as attacking C14 dating etc, but there is no actual science on the side of a spontaneous ecosystem springing into action out of nothing - the religious claim.

1. Are you saying that it is impossible for one type to become another by shifting the environment? If so, I agree with you.

2. Human beings not possessing full knowledge is a given, and was not what I was arguing. What I was arguing is that the fossil record tells us nothing about the development of life outside of the species box. It is just as plausible that each type/genus had a specific starting point in time and came pre-programmed with the necessary internal biodiversity to account for all the variations in species over a smaller length of time, but when this is proposed, thin-skinned Darwin cultists start whining about religion and invisible spaghetti monsters.

3. I'm not an evolutionary biologist either, but I'm a former atheist that was schooled in evolutionary theory being "rational" throughout my primary and intermediate education, ergo I received the same basic indoctrination that you have. My parents hold the same view of evolution and Christianity that Rand Paul does. Tell me, where is my lack of investigation? I've read a fair amount on the topic from both Neo-Darwinist and Classical Darwinist thinkers, including Dawkins' "Selfish Gene", and I find none of it convincing. Am I lacking diligence? Or are you just upset that I'm not reaching the same "rational" conclusion as you?

[acptulsa]

So, macro evolution cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting that. Other people in this thread have said it is observational.

So fossils cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting you think that. Now we've all seen that your dogma causes blind spots in your vision.

[Mr Tansill]

Not one of these is an example of an observation of macro evolution. Every one of these is an example of the presupposition of evolution being imposed on the evidence, rather than the other way around like you said.

You rely very heavily on the word presupposition, yet ironically, never seem to notice that you take the bible for granted...

[Sola_Fide]

You rely very heavily on the word presupposition, yet ironically, never seem to notice that you take the bible for granted...

Yes, I do presuppose the propositions of Christianity. Everyone has presuppositions that determine how they interpret the "facts". I understand this, you don't yet.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Exactly right. You must accept (as a premise) the truth of a non-scientific work that has existed for well over a thousand years - against the overwhelming evidence on the other side. I responded exactly as I intended, and pointed towards the Orwellian tactic continuously used on your side, which is to redefine, or in the present case, deny the existence of, concepts. In this case, you are denying the concept of incest (at least in the past).

3. It would make complete sense to me. Discarding critical thinking when it upsets a world view is the standard retreat of those who want to remain comfortable - out of sight, out of mind.

1. So man-made science is the only god worth following. That's all you had to say. I don't accept the premise, and quite frankly, I think it will do humanity a world of good if the current intellectual elite that pushes this worldview loses a good amount of the power that they've amassed over the past century. It's ironic you keep bringing Orwell into this discussion when you consider which party has control of the schools and is pushing their agenda with the thinly veiled threat of a failing grade. Think about it.

3. Indeed, which is why you should knock it off and start critiquing the "court educators" that are controlling the narrative, aka the Darwinists. ;)

[Mr Tansill]

So, macro evolution cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting that. Other people in this thread have said it is observational.

To be clear, it is not observable in the span of a human life - which is one reason people have difficulty accepting it. It is observable when examined through the lens of the fossil record, however.

[juleswin]

You are confusing Abiogenesis with Macro-evolution, they are not the same thing. Abiogenesis tries to argue how organic life came about from inert carbon matter via environmental causes, Macro-evolution posits how a singular type became all other types via adaptation to environmental influence.

I don't even believe in this crap and I can still keep my definitions straight.

This is weird, I swear I just read a post where Sola conflated the 2 definitions but I have just read the whole thread she did not do it. Thanks for the post that made me look back and check and apologies to Sola

[Sola_Fide]

So fossils cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting you think that. Now we've all seen that your dogma causes blind spots in your vision.

Macro evolution, one kind of animal becoming another kind of animal, has never been observed and will never be observed. There is no way to know that a set of bones you look at in the ground had any offspring at all.

Secondly, you don't believe Jesus. You think Jesus is a liar, because Jesus affirmed Adam and Eve.

[hells_unicorn]

So fossils cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting you think that. Now we've all seen that your dogma causes blind spots in your vision.

Nope, the fossils don't tell us macro-evolution, that's where you guys like to get imaginative. ;)

[Sola_Fide]

This is weird, I swear I just read a post where Sola conflated the 2 definitions but I have just read the whole thread she did not do it. Thanks for the post that made me look back and check and apologies to Sola

I'm a man, bro.

[acptulsa]

Yes, I do presuppose the propositions of Christianity. Everyone has presuppositions that determine how they interpret the "facts". I understand this, you don't yet.

He understands. He understands your valid point that the theory that all life evolved from one single zygote is just as much a religion as what you believe. And he might just agree.

And he understands something you don't. He understands that some people are able to look at facts without clouding them with presuppositions, or that they can discard the presuppositions if the facts contradict and disprove them. These people are called scientists, and they are very different from the "scientists" that you prefer to focus upon when you want to rail on the fossil record for disproving your silly presuppositions.

[Mr Tansill]

Yes, I do presuppose the propositions of Christianity. Everyone has presuppositions that determine how they interpret the "facts". I understand this, you don't yet.

I do, and is a point I like to make - we all start from some set of axioms, or assumptions. My point is that those religious people are starting with a story book that is over a thousand years old, and that the scientific among us start with observation, and ultimately work towards inference, followed by a logical, testable theory about the world which they are willing to modify in the face of contradiction, which is the ultimate basic difference between the two sides - one is subject to questioning, the other is not.

This basic difference doesn't bother me from the individual rights or choice standpoint because I think we all have the right to believe as we choose. It does bother me from a human standpoint however, when I see fellow human beings cling so vigorously to something that is so obviously arbitrary.

[nikcers]

http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/your-brain-on-prayer/

Here is why you guys cant agree, your brains are literally different so your realities are different.

[DevilsAdvocate]

1. Adam and Eve committing incest presupposes that they were brother and sister, that is never stated nor otherwise implied in the Genesis narrative. They are recognized as man and wife, and as far as I know, brothers and sisters don't arise from the ribs of one another. You might have a point if you wish to argue that their children committed incest, but the biblical prohibition on incest does not occur until the giving of the Levitical Law, which occurs after Genesis. Furthermore, one has to question whether incest is possible if there are no existing alternative mates to one's siblings, which is how we qualify the distinction between incest and normal marital relations. The only way you can presume that incest occurs prior to it being enunciated via a prohibition and the alternative being possible is that there is a standard higher than God's Law and, consequently, God himself, which is nonsensical.

2. What you've said isn't necessarily hateful or harsh, but it is wrong and also fairly stupid.

3. These are the words of a skeptic rewriting revelation based on his own whims, not of a Christian.

4. In other words, you are a humanist, hence you are not a Christian. That's fine, just don't lie about it.

5. Is that you talking or Richard Dawkins? I don't recall stating anything about pigs flying, that's nonsensical hyperbole that border on the spaghetti monster cliche, a non-sequitur and quite boring to be honest.

6. So in other words, we need to make up a fictitious God in order to control people? That doesn't make any sense.

7. I'm still waiting for you to actually address my points about the current taxonomy model used for the earth's age is speculative, and I have a feeling that I'll be waiting for a very long time, all the malarkey about what "you think" religion and science happen to be not withstanding.

It's very interesting how you sort of explained away the "incest" issue there. I'd never heard an argument addressing that before. And Richard Dawkins is an immature A-hole who gets into petty online trolling wars, but if a guy like him can garner supporters, you have to wonder whether maybe your arguments have a couple issues that need to be addressed. You shouldn't hate your critics, thank them for deconstructing your weak arguments so that you can find stronger ones.

Christianity has a branding problem. What really, desperately needs to happen is for them to disconnect from making positive scientific statements about the nature of the universe, and instead focus more on interpersonal questions of morality, decency, and consciousness. You're distracting people from what being a Christian is SUPPOSED to be about with all this gobbeldeygook nonsense!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Many times in science, particularly the fields of Particle Physics and Quantum Mechanics, the "truth" is arrived at inductively, using many pieces of disconnected evidence that point to, but don't necessarily outright prove, a certain law or theory. It's like the universe is screaming at you "yes, yes, THIS is the way it is!" Often the solution is so beautiful and simple, you know it must be correct, because it just makes so much sense.

The fact that religion, in particular Christianity, works so well at producing a productive, safe, happy society is not proof that it's the correct "truth". But it's a major hint! It's like the universe is screaming, "This is it! This is it! This is the way things are supposed to be!" It isn't proof of the Christian God, but it's a heck of a hint that they're close to some sort of higher truth. We're on the right track for sure. At least, that's my view. You can put any labels on me you want (humanist?).

[acptulsa]

Macro evolution, one kind of animal becoming another kind of animal, has never been observed and will never be observed. There is no way to know that a set of bones you look at in the ground had any offspring at all.

You're changing the subject. As usual.


Secondly, you don't believe Jesus. You think Jesus is a liar, because Jesus affirmed Adam and Eve.

Well, I've pointed out where you've called Jesus a liar often enough that I don't blame you for being desperate to tar me with that same brush. But your tar won't stick.


Nope, the fossils don't tell us macro-evolution, that's where you guys like to get imaginative. ;)

And changing the subject, then saying that your completely unfounded, off-topic claim is what 'you guys' believe, is where you get imaginative. And off track. And pwned.

[Mr Tansill]

1. So man-made science is the only god worth following. That's all you had to say. I don't accept the premise, and quite frankly, I think it will do humanity a world of good if the current intellectual elite that pushes this worldview loses a good amount of the power that they've amassed over the past century. It's ironic you keep bringing Orwell into this discussion when you consider which party has control of the schools and is pushing their agenda with the thinly veiled threat of a failing grade. Think about it.

3. Indeed, which is why you should knock it off and start critiquing the "court educators" that are controlling the narrative, aka the Darwinists. ;)

I don't think that every social agenda that is pushed in schools is the right idea - for instance the normalization of homosexuality. I do think, however, that attempting to critique an agenda is made far more difficult when you are speaking from the side that uses a blind appeal to authority (i.e. the bible) in order to argue against such agendas.

In many ways, you do your own cause a disservice by speaking. If a rational basis for opposing the "social agendas" could make it to light, without being immediately lumped in with the bible-thumpers, there would be hope for preserving some of our grounding as a society. But when it is so easy for the "social engineers" to undermine every argument that comes up against them (because they are all invalid), it hurts the ultimate cause - hence my dissatisfaction with the religiously "loud" among us.

[hells_unicorn]

He understands. He understands your valid point that the theory that all life evolved from one single zygote is just as much a religion as what you believe. And he might just agree.

And he understands something you don't. He understands that some people are able to look at facts without clouding them with presuppositions, or that they can discard the presuppositions if the facts contradict and disprove them. These people are called scientists, and they are very different from the "scientists" that you prefer to focus upon when you want to rail on the fossil record for disproving your silly presuppositions.

It's amusing to see you guys gush over scientists as though they are pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying. Here are some cold, hard facts that you might not want to hear. Scientists do both number 1 & 2 when they go to the bathroom, they are just as capable of being loony ideologues as the rest of us (see the whole Anthropomorphic Global Warming thing for an example), and also funded largely through coerced taxation.

Forgive my bluntness, but scientists kind of suck a little too much to be on the pedestal that you've erected for them.

[acptulsa]

It's amusing to see you guys gush over scientists as though they are pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying.

And here's a perfect example of what I mean when I say that you have your head so far up your own ass that you can only see your own shit. You gush over Pharisees as though they were pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying. And then you quote a passage wherein I specifically differentiate between true scientists and "scientists" who work backward from their theories and try to bend the evidence to suit them and accuse me of gushing over all scientists.

I might have fallacies in my arguments that someone could use to prove me silly. I might. But you'll never get those logs out of your eyes long enough to find them.

Hell's bells. You haven't even slowed down on your posturing and hyperdefensive nonstop bloviating long enough to figure out if I'm a believer in the Theory of Macroevolution as Creation or Intelligent Design. I don't know why God wasted His time giving you ears.

[Sola_Fide]

It is observable when examined through the lens of the fossil record, however.

No it isn't.

[Mr Tansill]

Christianity has a branding problem. What really, desperately needs to happen is for them to disconnect from making positive scientific statements about the nature of the universe, and instead focus more on interpersonal questions of morality, decency, and consciousness. You're distracting people from what being a Christian is SUPPOSED to be about with all this gobbeldeygook nonsense!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Many times in science, particularly the fields of Particle Physics and Quantum Mechanics, the "truth" is arrived at inductively, using many pieces of disconnected evidence that point to, but don't necessarily outright prove, a certain law or theory. It's like the universe is screaming at you "yes, yes, THIS is the way it is!" Often the solution is so beautiful and simple, you know it must be correct, because it just makes so much sense.

The fact that religion, in particular Christianity, works so well at producing a productive, safe, happy society is not proof that it's the correct "truth". But it's a major hint! It's like the universe is screaming, "This is it! This is it! This is the way things are supposed to be!" It isn't proof of the Christian God, but it's a heck of a hint that they're close to some sort of higher truth. We're on the right track for sure. At least, that's my view. You can put any labels on me you want (humanist?).

Bravo, excellent post and points. Science has a long history of slowly and surely wrenching away bits and pieces of "reality" from the church. The best early example is the revision of the earth-centric model of the solar system, to the Heliocentric model. The most current version is the battle currently going on between evolution, intelligent-design, and creationism. One side is about a 1000 wins and no losses...it's only a matter of time before it becomes a 1001...

[hells_unicorn]

I don't think that every social agenda that is pushed in schools is the right idea - for instance the normalization of homosexuality. I do think, however, that attempting to critique an agenda is made far more difficult when you are speaking from the side that uses a blind appeal to authority (i.e. the bible) in order to argue against such agendas.

In many ways, you do your own cause a disservice by speaking. If a rational basis for opposing the "social agendas" could make it to light, without being immediately lumped in with the bible-thumpers, there would be hope for preserving some of our grounding as a society. But when it is so easy for the "social engineers" to undermine every argument that comes up against them (because they are all invalid), it hurts the ultimate cause - hence my dissatisfaction with the religiously "loud" among us.

1. What's blind about special revelation in its written form? It gives a pretty clear, understandable account of what it is and where it comes from. You may be surprised to learn that it comes with a number of historical and epidemiological qualifications that have been hashed out since the early days of the post-Apostolic era. Scripture doesn't forbid an understanding of nature, it simply subordinates it to a singular concept of truth.

2. In other words, I'm beneath you and I need to shut up, and I have nothing to say on the matter. That's the logical conclusion of this nonsense regarding "bible thumpers", a derogatory term that does not necessarily apply to the whole religious contingent, and I would assert does not apply to myself.

[Mr Tansill]

It's amusing to see you guys gush over scientists as though they are pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying. Here are some cold, hard facts that you might not want to hear. Scientists do both number 1 & 2 when they go to the bathroom, they are just as capable of being loony ideologues as the rest of us (see the whole Anthropomorphic Global Warming thing for an example), and also funded largely through coerced taxation.

Forgive my bluntness, but scientists kind of suck a little too much to be on the pedestal that you've erected for them.

You are mistaking the reverence we hold for the nature of scientific inquiry with reverence for individuals. It is your position and habit to make idols out of men, not mine.

[Sola_Fide]

You're changing the subject. As usual.


What subject? What did I change it from?



Well, I've pointed out where you've called Jesus a liar often enough that I don't blame you for being desperate to tar me with that same brush. But your tar won't stick.


Yes but your accusations were ridiculous because you're not a Christian and don't understand Jesus' words, so you misinterpret them. Jesus affirmed the Genesis account of Adam and Eve. There's no way around it. You don't believe Jesus.


changing the subject, then saying that your completely unfounded, off-topic claim is what 'you guys' believe, is where you get imaginative. And off track. And pwned.

"Changing the subject"? The subject is macro evolution. The entire thread is about it.

[Sola_Fide]

You're changing the subject. As usual.


What subject? What did I change it from?



Well, I've pointed out where you've called Jesus a liar often enough that I don't blame you for being desperate to tar me with that same brush. But your tar won't stick.


Yes but your accusations were ridiculous because you're not a Christian and don't understand Jesus' words, so you misinterpret them. Jesus affirmed the Genesis account of Adam and Eve. There's no way around it. You don't believe Jesus.


changing the subject, then saying that your completely unfounded, off-topic claim is what 'you guys' believe, is where you get imaginative. And off track. And pwned.

"Changing the subject"? The subject is macro evolution. The entire thread is about it.

[hells_unicorn]

1. And here's a perfect example of what I mean when I say that you have your head so far up your own ass that you can only see your own shit. You gush over Pharisees as though they were pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying. And then you quote a passage wherein I specifically differentiate between true scientists and "scientists" who work backward from their theories and try to bend the evidence to suit them and accuse me of gushing over all scientists.

2. I might have fallacies in my arguments that someone could use to prove me silly. I might. But you'll never get those logs out of your eyes long enough to find them.

1. The Pharisees didn't write the New Testament dopey, they actually incited the Romans to torture and kill people for disseminating it a while back. Who has their head up their ass here? If you meant to say that I listen to the words of the Apostles/Prophets as they are inspired by The Word and accept them as truth, then you are correct, and I'd argue it's the exact opposite of having your head up your ass since it requires intellectual effort to comprehend such things without making mistakes.

2. The bible sucks, but paraphrasing it to suit your own purposes seems just fine and dandy. And you wonder why I am always sarcastic when I respond to you on this topic?

[nikcers]

What no one wants to rebutt the video I posted that clearly shows that atheists cant see god and theists see god as clearly as if they were looking or talking to someone when you scan their brain? If you guys wanna argue with someone lets stick to the subject of whether or not you are arguing with yourself or not?

http://www.sciencechannel.com/tv-shows/through-the-wormhole/videos/your-brain-on-prayer/

[hells_unicorn]

You are mistaking the reverence we hold for the nature of scientific inquiry with reverence for individuals. It is your position and habit to make idols out of men, not mine.

1. God isn't a man, and the human nature of Christ is not an object of worship. Try again.

2. Acptulsa did not complement scientific inquiry in itself, he complemented scientists, so my response to him is valid.

[Sola_Fide]

What the hell?!

I come back to this thread to read more reaction to this awesome interview and instead I wind up in a battle over evolution?! That whole exchange was less than a minute. Who cares?

Besides, what you should take from that exchange is that the left will have to use some other trap question to scare their base on social issues because that one didn't work.


Time to move on.

I've moved on...but the Republican primary voters will come back to this time and time again. Mark my words. Rand made a mess for himself for no reason.

[Mr Tansill]

What the hell?!

I come back to this thread to read more reaction to this awesome interview and instead I wind up in a battle over evolution?! That whole exchange was less than a minute. Who cares?

Besides, what you should take from that exchange is that the left will have to use some other trap question to scare their base on social issues because that one didn't work.


Time to move on.

You are correct. My original intent was to make the point that Rand is taking a step in the right direction by taking a scientifically-based stance on an issue that has really been a ball and chain latched onto our cause. Migrating from the point of view that we have a young Earth, that Adam and Eve populated the planet, and that the Sun revolves around the earth will cost us some votes. I think those are votes that we don't need, but are better given to the Rick Santorums of the world. Rand has done a good thing for our party by beginning to move from the blind appeal to power that justifies certain world views.

[Sola_Fide]

4 pages and about 120 131 posts mostly about evolution, which kind of makes me wonder why this thread keeps devolving.

I loved this interview. thought he nailed it. disappointed they didn't talk more about patriot act and this weekend though. i'm selling Rand in the cool Washington, and interviews like this one will help.

If anything, 4 pages of evolution debate should show you how divisive this subject truly is, which is the exact reason Rand should have answered differently.

[acptulsa]

And here's a perfect example of what I mean when I say that you have your head so far up your own ass that you can only see your own shit. You gush over Pharisees as though they were pinnacles of benevolence and incapable of lying. And then you quote a passage wherein I specifically differentiate between true scientists and "scientists" who work backward from their theories and try to bend the evidence to suit them and accuse me of gushing over all scientists.

I might have fallacies in my arguments that someone could use to prove me silly. I might. But you'll never get those logs out of your eyes long enough to find them.

Hell's bells. You haven't even slowed down on your posturing and hyperdefensive nonstop bloviating long enough to figure out if I'm a believer in the Theory of Macroevolution as Creation or Intelligent Design. I don't know why God wasted His time giving you ears.


1. The Pharisees didn't write the New Testament dopey, they actually incited the Romans to torture and kill people for disseminating it a while back. Who has their head up their ass here? If you meant to say that I listen to the words of the Apostles/Prophets as they are inspired by The Word and accept them as truth, then you are correct, and I'd argue it's the exact opposite of having your head up your ass since it requires intellectual effort to comprehend such things without making mistakes.

2. The bible sucks, but paraphrasing it to suit your own purposes seems just fine and dandy. And you wonder why I am always sarcastic when I respond to you on this topic?

Uh huh. And arguing about whether the church fathers you revere are Pharisees, or if only Roman-era Jews could ever again be Pharisees, and putting words in my mouth, and calling me names, and accusing me of believing the Bible sucks with no evidence whatsoever, and assuming a thousand other facts not in evidence are all things that you assume will distract people from the gist of what I actually said.

We'll see.


Acptulsa did not complement scientific inquiry in itself, he complemented scientists, so my response to him is valid.

You are a baldfaced liar. I complimented scientific inquiry itself and went out of my way to point out that not all scientists adhere to the proper principles of it, as anyone can clearly see. And as a result, anyone can also see that I'm not wrong when I call you a baldfaced liar.

Dopey.

Want to keep dragging this conversation deeper into the mud? Do you have a choice--are you even capable of doing better?

[hells_unicorn]

What the hell?!

I come back to this thread to read more reaction to this awesome interview and instead I wind up in a battle over evolution?! That whole exchange was less than a minute. Who cares?

Besides, what you should take from that exchange is that the left will have to use some other trap question to scare their base on social issues because that one didn't work.


Time to move on.

I stepped into this side-discussion primarily because my conscience does not allow me to stand by and let someone get mobbed by a group espousing a common narrative. If the moderators decide to chop this part of the discussion out and move it to the "religious" forum, it would be a prudent move. From a practical political standpoint, Rand did the right thing by answering this question the way he did, though it may cost him a few votes among Evangelicals. However, I think that Rand is objectively wrong in his views on Christianity being compatible with Darwinism, and for purposes of the side-discussion, I have rejected Darwinism, and particularly Neo-Darwinism, in all its claims outside of speciation.

Anyhow, this side discussion is the inevitable result of slimy ideologues like Chris Matthews posing this question in a political context. It is inevitable, but it's also contemptible.

[Mr Tansill]

1. God isn't a man, and the human nature of Christ is not an object of worship. Try again.

2. Acptulsa did not complement scientific inquiry in itself, he complemented scientists, so my response to him is valid.

1. Jesus was a man. Christians say Jesus was God. Christians worship Jesus. Therefore, Christians worship a man.

2. You responded to "you guys," not Just Acptulsa. See response #123 above for clarification.

[EBounding]

Rand should add to his response to the "evolution question" that salvation doesn't come from believing (or not believing) in certain scientific theories. Salvation comes from Jesus Christ's death and Resurrection.

[specsaregood]

If anything, 4 pages of evolution debate should show you how divisive this subject truly is, which is the exact reason Rand should have answered differently.

I thought he answered it perfectly: honestly. As usual, the thoughtful, moderate and reasonable answer just serves to incite the radicals on both sides of all issues.

[hells_unicorn]

Uh huh. And arguing about whether the church fathers you revere are Pharisees, or if only Roman-era Jews could ever again be Pharisees, and putting words in my mouth, and calling me names, and accusing me of believing the Bible sucks with no evidence whatsoever, and assuming a thousand other facts not in evidence are all things that you assume will distract people from the gist of what I actually said.

We'll see.

Facts are fine, using speculative theory in order to set them at war with truth is not, that is the gist of my argument. Likewise, Pharisees are a specific group from a specific time that have more in common with modern Judaism and Judaizing Legalists in the American Fundamentalist movement. I don't identify with either group, and you are contradicting the idea that I'm the one redefining terms here.

We may or may not see, but it's a foregone conclusion that we do not see the same at present.

[Crashland]

Just because a general concept of God can be merged with a generic concept of evolution, doesn't mean the God of the Bible can be honestly reconciled with the modern scientific view of evolution, that rules out any designer being behind the process. Jesus was NOT a thiestic evolutionist, he believed in the historicity of Adam, Noah, the Flood, etc. Evolutionary scientists DO NOT accept teleology (a Designer) as part of any legitimate evolutionary model. You have to deal with reconciling these specific sides, not invent an abstract version of both views that few people actually subscribe to.

The modern view of evolution does not rule out a designer being involved. The theory of evolution makes NO claims about the existence or non-existence of God. Just because the majority of evolutionary biologists might not accept the God of the Bible doesn't mean that all evolutionary biologists reject it. Evolution and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. The issue of "How God did it" (whether through the process of evolution, or magically creating Adam out of dirt and Eve out of his rib) is a tremendously trivial issue when you consider that the entire message of the Bible. But no, clearly, the method that God used to create life in Genesis 1 is critical in order to understand and accept God's message about sin and salvation....

[hells_unicorn]

1. Jesus was a man. Christians say Jesus was God. Christians worship Jesus. Therefore, Christians worship a man.

2. You responded to "you guys," not Just Acptulsa. See response #123 above for clarification.

1. The orthodox position is that worshiping Christ's humanity is idolatry. Christ's divine nature, which is in hypostasis with his human nature after the incarnation, is the object of worship, and is spirit, not flesh. Christ was worshiped in the Old Testament as The Word before he was a man. This is all pretty well established in the first few verses of John's Gospel. I'm not a Unitarian, learn the difference.

2. So what? You can say definitively that acptulsa is the only one who talks that way? My experience on Youtube alone could provide you hundreds of cases to the contrary. Saying "you guys" is not necessarily the same as saying "all you guys".

[acptulsa]

Pharisees are as universal and timeless as humble publicans and good Samaritans. The only reason you want ot define them as an extinct species is because it helps you deny to yourself that you are one.

[hells_unicorn]

Pharisees are as universal and timeless as humble publicans and good Samaritans. The only reason you want ot define them as an extinct species is because it helps you deny to yourself that you are one.

Didn't say they were an extinct species, I said it has a very time specific definition that needs to be applied properly. Describing ultra-orthodox Jews that won't flip a light switch during the OT Sabbath period or a rabid Pentecostal nut from Appalachia who thinks eating pork will cause one to be possessed by the devil is an applicable analogy. Myself, as an orthodox subordinate of the New Testament faith, am the mirror opposite of a Pharisee.

If you don't like how I talk and that I won't back down for fear of being mocked by the "enlightened majority", you could actually use a word that accurately conveys that sentiment, such as calling me a jerk, or even by calling me stubborn, though I'd personally use the word tenacious.

[Brett85]

But no, clearly, the method that God used to create life in Genesis 1 is critical in order to understand and accept God's message about sin and salvation....

It is. The book of Genesis is essential to the gospel message. The gospel message is that Adam sinned, and that through his sin death entered the world. The wages of sin is death, and all of us will face the penalty of eternal death if we don't accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Christ came and shed his blood on the cross so that we could have the opportunity to live with him forever on a restored earth. But the concept of death entering the world after Adam sinned is crucial, and the theory of evolution contradicts that as the theory teaches that animals and human beings lived and died for billions of years.

[Crashland]

It is. The book of Genesis is essential to the gospel message. The gospel message is that Adam sinned, and that through his sin death entered the world. The wages of sin is death, and all of us will face the penalty of eternal death if we don't accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. Christ came and shed his blood on the cross so that we could have the opportunity to live with him forever on a restored earth. But the concept of death entering the world after Adam sinned is crucial, and the theory of evolution contradicts that as the theory teaches that animals and human beings lived and died for billions of years.

If animals/humans had lived and died for billions of years, I don't see why that has to automatically negate the concept that the wages of sin is death, or that Jesus died to save us from sin and death. Yes, it would mean that the narrative story didn't play out exactly as it is described in Genesis, but I don't understand why that piece is so important. If you believe in theistic evolution, you can still believe that humans would not exist without God, that people are created in God's image, that humans are guilty of sin and deserve death according to God's judgment, and that Jesus died as a sacrifice to restore the relationship between humans and God for all who accept it. If you believe those things then that makes you a Christian as far as I'm concerned, even if you reject or never heard of the entire rest of the Bible.

[Peace&Freedom]

The modern view of evolution does not rule out a designer being involved. The theory of evolution makes NO claims about the existence or non-existence of God. Just because the majority of evolutionary biologists might not accept the God of the Bible doesn't mean that all evolutionary biologists reject it. Evolution and Christianity are not mutually exclusive. The issue of "How God did it" (whether through the process of evolution, or magically creating Adam out of dirt and Eve out of his rib) is a tremendously trivial issue when you consider that the entire message of the Bible. But no, clearly, the method that God used to create life in Genesis 1 is critical in order to understand and accept God's message about sin and salvation....

From Wikipedia: "...teleological explanations in science tend to be deliberately avoided in favor of focus on material and efficient explanations. Final and formal causation came to be viewed as false or too subjective....Statements which imply that nature has goals, for example where a species is said to do something "in order to" achieve survival, appear teleological, and therefore invalid. Usually, it is possible to rewrite such sentences to avoid the apparent teleology. Some biology courses have incorporated exercises requiring students to rephrase such sentences so that they do not read teleologically."

To Christians and Bible believers, GOD IS NOT OPTIONAL, and is critical to understanding everything. To current evolutionary science, God IS at best only optional, and any suggestion that there is design or purpose behind anything in nature is something to be purged from its rhetoric. Christianity and evolution are not reconcilable, they are trains going in different directions.

[Sola_Fide]

Pharisees are as universal and timeless as humble publicans and good Samaritans. The only reason you want ot define them as an extinct species is because it helps you deny to yourself that you are one.

A Pharisee is a person who thinks they can be right in the sight of God by following God's commands. You are a Pharisee.

[Sola_Fide]

If animals/humans had lived and died for billions of years, I don't see why that has to automatically negate the concept that the wages of sin is death, or that Jesus died to save us from sin and death. Yes, it would mean that the narrative story didn't play out exactly as it is described in Genesis, but I don't understand why that piece is so important. If you believe in theistic evolution, you can still believe that humans would not exist without God, that people are created in God's image, that humans are guilty of sin and deserve death according to God's judgment, and that Jesus died as a sacrifice to restore the relationship between humans and God for all who accept it. If you believe those things then that makes you a Christian as far as I'm concerned, even if you reject or never heard of the entire rest of the Bible.

Yes it does. In the Bible, sin came before death. It directly contradicts the Bible. Evolution says that death came before sin.

[Peace&Freedom]

You are correct. My original intent was to make the point that Rand is taking a step in the right direction by taking a scientifically-based stance on an issue that has really been a ball and chain latched onto our cause. Migrating from the point of view that we have a young Earth, that Adam and Eve populated the planet, and that the Sun revolves around the earth will cost us some votes. I think those are votes that we don't need, but are better given to the Rick Santorums of the world. Rand has done a good thing for our party by beginning to move from the blind appeal to power that justifies certain world views.

As if an evolution-based worldview hasn't led to tons of blood baths in the last century, from power mad empires presuming they were more evolved than other peoples, such that they should conquer them or ethnically cleanse them from existence. While this is a divisive issue, it's also a single issue voter issue (only a few people's vote will turn on creation vs evolution). And decades of election results have shown that among the single issue people who do vote, the net breakdown reliably runs 2 to 1 cultural conservative---for every social left vote lost due to emphasizing this kind of issue, one picks up two social right votes. Rand has picked the side that is a net vote loser.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/proxy/V%2FlNRoM4xHkS5Fcpt%2BpvjnggRXCZz%2BSgtFetNqV7T69R AFaMh1CbmkUCRZ7mc0oX7Q%3D%3D/image.png

About half the population supports creation or is at least not onboard with evolution, according to the Gallop data. Secularists want to perpetuate the "creation's a minority view" notion, despite decades of polling showing it is widely held, and online trends showing more young people increasingly support the view once they are informed about both sides of the evidence through the internet. The web is circumventing the evolution propaganda grid the establishment wants to maintain.

[Brian4Liberty]

4190

[Sola_Fide]

As if an evolution-based worldview hasn't led to tons of blood baths in the last century, from power mad empires presuming they were more evolved than other peoples, such that they should conquer them or ethnically cleanse them from existence. While this is a divisive issue, it's also a single issue voter issue (only a few people's vote will turn on creation vs evolution). And decades of election results have shown that among the single issue people who do vote, the net breakdown reliably runs 2 to 1 cultural conservative---for every social left vote lost due to emphasizing this kind of issue, one picks up two social right votes. Rand has picked the side that is a net vote loser.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/proxy/V%2FlNRoM4xHkS5Fcpt%2BpvjnggRXCZz%2BSgtFetNqV7T69R AFaMh1CbmkUCRZ7mc0oX7Q%3D%3D/image.png

About half the population supports creation or is at least not onboard with evolution, according to the Gallop data. Secularists want to perpetuate the "creation's a minority view" notion, despite decades of polling showing it is widely held, and online trends showing more young people increasingly support the view once they are informed about both sides of the evidence through the internet. The web is circumventing the evolution propaganda grid the establishment wants to maintain.

Agree.

[Crashland]

Yes it does. In the Bible, sin came before death. It directly contradicts the Bible. Evolution says that death came before sin.

The God of the Bible seems plenty full of paradoxes, I don't see the harm in there being just one more of them. Why does it matter which came first? According to GOD, the wages of sin is death, and we can accept this as making sense regardless of which one came first in our little timeline because GOD says it. (Seems consistent with the reasoning behind the Christian view of morality.) Maybe the curse applies to the entire timeline, or maybe the purpose of the Genesis story is to emphasize God's creation and to emphasize human guilt and need for salvation, as opposed to giving us a real historical account of the first days. Jesus himself liked to teach in metaphors and parables, right? Maybe God does the same in Genesis.

[Sola_Fide]

The God of the Bible seems plenty full of paradoxes, I don't see the harm in there being just one more of them. Why does it matter which came first? According to GOD, the wages of sin is death, and we can accept this as making sense regardless of which one came first in our little timeline because GOD says it. (Seems consistent with the reasoning behind the Christian view of morality.) Maybe the curse applies to the entire timeline, or maybe the purpose of the Genesis story is to emphasize God's creation and to emphasize human guilt and need for salvation, as opposed to giving us a real historical account of the first days. Jesus himself liked to teach in metaphors and parables, right? Maybe God does the same in Genesis.

No, there are no paradoxes in God or in Scripture.

[Crashland]

No, there are no paradoxes in God or in Scripture.

For the sake of argument, I agree with you. Now please address the meaningful part of the post.

[hells_unicorn]

The God of the Bible seems plenty full of paradoxes, I don't see the harm in there being just one more of them. Why does it matter which came first? According to GOD, the wages of sin is death, and we can accept this as making sense regardless of which one came first in our little timeline because GOD says it. (Seems consistent with the reasoning behind the Christian view of morality.) Maybe the curse applies to the entire timeline, or maybe the purpose of the Genesis story is to emphasize God's creation and to emphasize human guilt and need for salvation, as opposed to giving us a real historical account of the first days. Jesus himself liked to teach in metaphors and parables, right? Maybe God does the same in Genesis.

There are no paradoxes in the special revelation of scripture, unless it is improperly understood or misrepresented.

Stating that sin came after death is essentially stating that God is the author of sin since it would be an original part of creation, which flies in the face of his goodness, and consequently the goodness of creation. To conflate sin with the will of God or to warp the relationship between sin and death invites the possibility that death is just a part of God's "good pleasure" in creation and not a consequence of an actual moral infraction. This accepts the premise of atheists who argue that God is a sadistic lunatic who causes suffering because he can, in direct contrast to the Genesis narrative which clearly faults mankind for sin.

P.S. - Whenever God speaks in parables, he says so, no such mention is made anywhere in the Genesis account of creation.

[Sola_Fide]

For the sake of argument, I agree with you. Now please address the meaningful part of the post.

Genesis was not written as an allegory. Read the first chapter of Matthew. Jesus is a descendant of Adam. There could not have been millions of years and evolution. Jesus said that Adam and Eve were real people who were the first people married.

Jesus also said Noah's flood was worldwide and a real event. You cannot be a lover of Jesus, a Christian, and accept macro evolution. Genesis is a real historical account.

[Sola_Fide]

As if an evolution-based worldview hasn't led to tons of blood baths in the last century, from power mad empires presuming they were more evolved than other peoples, such that they should conquer them or ethnically cleanse them from existence. While this is a divisive issue, it's also a single issue voter issue (only a few people's vote will turn on creation vs evolution). And decades of election results have shown that among the single issue people who do vote, the net breakdown reliably runs 2 to 1 cultural conservative---for every social left vote lost due to emphasizing this kind of issue, one picks up two social right votes. Rand has picked the side that is a net vote loser.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/proxy/V%2FlNRoM4xHkS5Fcpt%2BpvjnggRXCZz%2BSgtFetNqV7T69R AFaMh1CbmkUCRZ7mc0oX7Q%3D%3D/image.png

About half the population supports creation or is at least not onboard with evolution, according to the Gallop data. Secularists want to perpetuate the "creation's a minority view" notion, despite decades of polling showing it is widely held, and online trends showing more young people increasingly support the view once they are informed about both sides of the evidence through the internet. The web is circumventing the evolution propaganda grid the establishment wants to maintain.

Thanks for the post. This is another reason that Rand should not have been so strident.

There is this myth out there that just because Darwinism is the established religion in our country that most people believe it. But the truth is that the sides are pretty evenly split....and more young people today are becoming creationists and questioning evolution.

[Crashland]

There are no paradoxes in the special revelation of scripture, unless it is improperly understood or misrepresented.

Stating that sin came after death is essentially stating that God is the author of sin since it would be an original part of creation, which flies in the face of his goodness, and consequently the goodness of creation. To conflate sin with the will of God or to warp the relationship between sin and death invites the possibility that death is just a part of God's "good pleasure" in creation and not a consequence of an actual moral infraction. This accepts the premise of atheists who argue that God is a sadistic lunatic who causes suffering because he can, in direct contrast to the Genesis narrative which clearly faults mankind for sin.

According to the Genesis account, sin existed before mankind, because the serpent was already sinful before Adam and Eve did anything wrong.



P.S. - Whenever God speaks in parables, he says so, no such mention is made anywhere in the Genesis account of creation.

Where did Jesus say that the prodigal son story or the shrewd manager story in Luke 15-16 are parables?

[Sola_Fide]

According to the Genesis account, sin existed before mankind, because the serpent was already sinful before Adam and Eve did anything wrong.




Where did Jesus say that the prodigal son story or the shrewd manager story in Luke 15-16 are parables?

Jesus said that He spoke in parables so that only the elect would understand what He was saying and the others would not.

Also, sin came through Adam, and that is what brought death and decay to the world. Evolution says the opposite.

[hells_unicorn]

1. According to the Genesis account, sin existed before mankind, because the serpent was already sinful before Adam and Eve did anything wrong.

2. Where did Jesus say that the prodigal son story or the shrewd manager story in Luke 15-16 are parables?

1. You are conflating the sin of Satan using the serpent as a vessel after Man was created (see John 8:44-45) and the actual sin of man, which is the result of The Fall. Man is never punished prior to actualizing sin, or for sin simply existing in a hypothetical sense prior to the commission by the object in question.

2. Luke 15:3 states "And he spake this parable unto them, saying,", this is only preceded by a brief description of the setting prior to Jesus speaking. You need to read all the way through a chapter and pay attention to each verse.

[Crashland]

Genesis was not written as an allegory. Read the first chapter of Matthew. Jesus is a descendant of Adam. There could not have been millions of years and evolution. Jesus said that Adam and Eve were real people who were the first people married.

Jesus also said Noah's flood was worldwide and a real event. You cannot be a lover of Jesus, a Christian, and accept macro evolution. Genesis is a real historical account.

Matthew 1 claims that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, not Adam. Regardless though, it is granted that Jesus quoted old testament scripture which obviously includes all of those stories. In terms of being a historical account, even Christians who maintain that Moses penned the book of Genesis (which is already a dubious claim), that would have been 2000 years after the events of Genesis took place. In other words, the best-case scenario is that the historical account of Genesis came from some guy living 2000 years later writing down what he claimed was a revelation from God about the beginning days. But you insist that you can't be a Christian and accept the message of Jesus if you question any of this.

[Sola_Fide]

Matthew 1 claims that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, not Adam. Regardless though, it is granted that Jesus quoted old testament scripture which obviously includes all of those stories. In terms of being a historical account, even Christians who maintain that Moses penned the book of Genesis (which is already a dubious claim), that would have been 2000 years after the events of Genesis took place. In other words, the best-case scenario is that the historical account of Genesis came from some guy living 2000 years later writing down what he claimed was a revelation from God about the beginning days. But you insist that you can't be a Christian and accept the message of Jesus if you question any of this.

No, Matthew 1 says that Jesus is the descendant of Adam. You can read the words on the page, right?

All of the other stuff you said is your secular religion talking, so I can't accept any of it.

EDIT......My apologies, it is Luke's geneology that starts with Adam. Either way, even if you simply read Matthew and the OT, you would know where Abraham came from.

[acptulsa]

1. You are conflating the sin of Satan using the serpent as a vessel after Man was created (see John 8:44-45) and the actual sin of man, which is the result of The Fall. Man is never punished prior to actualizing sin, or for sin simply existing in a hypothetical sense prior to the commission by the object in question.


14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.


2. Luke 15:3 states "And he spake this parable unto them, saying,", this is only preceded by a brief description of the setting prior to Jesus speaking. You need to read all the way through a chapter and pay attention to each verse.

And this qualifies as Jesus saying it's a parable because...? Because Luke is Jesus...?

I don't believe Jesus defined Pharisees as jerks, although they were. I believe Jesus knew them by their hypocrisy.

[acptulsa]

No, Matthew 1 says that Jesus is the descendant of Adam. You can read the words on the page, right?


1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

2 Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren;

3 And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram;

4 And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;

5 And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;

6 And Jesse begat David the king; and David the king begat Solomon of her that had been the wife of Urias;

7 And Solomon begat Roboam; and Roboam begat Abia; and Abia begat Asa;

8 And Asa begat Josaphat; and Josaphat begat Joram; and Joram begat Ozias;

9 And Ozias begat Joatham; and Joatham begat Achaz; and Achaz begat Ezekias;

10 And Ezekias begat Manasses; and Manasses begat Amon; and Amon begat Josias;

11 And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:

12 And after they were brought to Babylon, Jechonias begat Salathiel; and Salathiel begat Zorobabel;

13 And Zorobabel begat Abiud; and Abiud begat Eliakim; and Eliakim begat Azor;

14 And Azor begat Sadoc; and Sadoc begat Achim; and Achim begat Eliud;

15 And Eliud begat Eleazar; and Eleazar begat Matthan; and Matthan begat Jacob;

16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Why, yes. Yes he can. Can you read the words on the page?

[Crashland]

No, Matthew 1 says that Jesus is the descendant of Adam. You can read the words on the page, right?

All of the other stuff you said is your secular religion talking, so I can't accept any of it.

The name "Adam" does not appear in Matthew 1, unless I am missing something. But it doesn't matter, it was just a nitpick.

Well, do you think that Moses penned Genesis and got the revelation from God 2000 years after the events happened? If you believe something else, tell me.

[Sola_Fide]

And this qualifies as Jesus saying it's a parable because...? Because Luke is Jesus...?

I don't believe Jesus defined Pharisees as jerks, although they were. I believe Jesus knew them by their hypocrisy.

Jesus called the Pharisees far worse than jerks. He called them children of the Devil.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Matthew 1 claims that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, not Adam.

2. Regardless though, it is granted that Jesus quoted old testament scripture which obviously includes all of those stories. In terms of being a historical account, even Christians who maintain that Moses penned the book of Genesis (which is already a dubious claim), that would have been 2000 years after the events of Genesis took place. In other words, the best-case scenario is that the historical account of Genesis came from some guy living 2000 years later writing down what he claimed was a revelation from God about the beginning days.

3. But you insist that you can't be a Christian and accept the message of Jesus if you question any of this.

1. Abraham, as a human being, is a natural descendant of Adam. So stating that Christ in his human nature is not descended from Adam because he was descended from Abraham or David (both descendants of Adam) is a logical paradox that is not noted in scripture. Adam is not mentioned in Matthew 1, but this does not positively state that any living man is not descended from Adam. To conclude this would be to conclude that scripture is illogical, particularly when dealing with the collective punishment of sin upon successive generations of Adam. Jesus is not subject to the curse of sin because of being begotten of The Father, not because his human nature is a carnal descendant of Abraham or David via Mary.

2. No it isn't a dubious claim, and no one saw it as such until The Enlightenment, which also gave us such gifts as the precursors to Communism and The French Revolution. History is recorded after it occurs, how long after it takes is immaterial provided that the message itself is unchanged. It is stipulated that Moses received the full Pentateuch from God via inspiration. Suggesting otherwise is to suggest that Christianity is necessarily a false religion as it is based upon a lie.

3. Stating that Jesus was a good person who also happened to throw a bunch of untruths at people is a paradox. Good people don't lie, and why would you follow the teachings of a proven liar?

[Sola_Fide]

Why, yes. Yes he can. Can you read the words on the page?

Read my edit. Then read Luke. Then understand that even if you only read Matthew 1 and the book of Genesis, Jesus is still the descendant of Adam.

[Sola_Fide]

The name "Adam" does not appear in Matthew 1, unless I am missing something. But it doesn't matter, it was just a nitpick.

Well, do you think that Moses penned Genesis and got the revelation from God 2000 years after the events happened? If you believe something else, tell me.

Yes, it's Luke's genealogy that goes to Adam. But even if you only read Matthew, then Jesus is still the descendant of Adam.

Yes, I do believe that.

[Mr Tansill]

As if an evolution-based worldview hasn't led to tons of blood baths in the last century, from power mad empires presuming they were more evolved than other peoples, such that they should conquer them or ethnically cleanse them from existence. While this is a divisive issue, it's also a single issue voter issue (only a few people's vote will turn on creation vs evolution). And decades of election results have shown that among the single issue people who do vote, the net breakdown reliably runs 2 to 1 cultural conservative---for every social left vote lost due to emphasizing this kind of issue, one picks up two social right votes. Rand has picked the side that is a net vote loser.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/proxy/V%2FlNRoM4xHkS5Fcpt%2BpvjnggRXCZz%2BSgtFetNqV7T69R AFaMh1CbmkUCRZ7mc0oX7Q%3D%3D/image.png

About half the population supports creation or is at least not onboard with evolution, according to the Gallop data. Secularists want to perpetuate the "creation's a minority view" notion, despite decades of polling showing it is widely held, and online trends showing more young people increasingly support the view once they are informed about both sides of the evidence through the internet. The web is circumventing the evolution propaganda grid the establishment wants to maintain.

Though I said nothing about wars or blood spilled by either those with or without religious attitudes, your choice to direct the conversation down that tangent is a standard straw-man used (again) to reinforce your own choice in a belief system.

Your Gallup data clearly shows that the trend of belief vs. non-belief are converging. In fact, the total number of people who believe in some form of evolution overtook those who do not in the 1990s - which does make it a majority, in contradistinction to your above claim that we are trying to perpetuate a "myth" - and that is your own data...It is also a safe assumption to posit that those with "no opinion" are more likely to think that there is either some form of evolution OR that we were NOT created in our present form by god because of the social consequences and stigma associated with admitting you are an agnostic or atheist.

The web is doing anything but that...in fact, lots of information published shows that exposure to the internet (i.e. information and different opinions) leads to people abandoning old myths for reality. I don't expect to convince you, but I'll provide some links for others who are interested in the trend:

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526111/how-the-internet-is-taking-away-americas-religion/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/religion-america-decline-low-no-affiliation-report_n_2867626.html
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/03/12/non-believers/
http://www.npr.org/2013/01/15/169342349/more-young-people-are-moving-away-from-religion-but-why
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2597891/Losing-religion-New-research-shows-religion-declined-Internet-use-increased.html

[Brett85]

Maybe the curse applies to the entire timeline, or maybe the purpose of the Genesis story is to emphasize God's creation and to emphasize human guilt and need for salvation, as opposed to giving us a real historical account of the first days. Jesus himself liked to teach in metaphors and parables, right? Maybe God does the same in Genesis.

The problem with that is that Jesus himself referred to Adam as being a real person. So either Adam was a real person or Jesus was lying.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Though I said nothing about wars or blood spilled by either those with or without religious attitudes, your choice to direct the conversation down that tangent is a standard straw-man used (again) to reinforce your own choice in a belief system.

2. Your Gallup data clearly shows that the trend of belief vs. non-belief are converging. In fact, the total number of people who believe in some form of evolution overtook those who do not in the 1990s - which does make it a majority, in contradistinction to your above claim that we are trying to perpetuate a "myth" - and that is your own data...It is also a safe assumption to posit that those with "no opinion" are more likely to think that there is either some form of evolution OR that we were NOT created in our present form by god because of the social consequences and stigma associated with admitting you are an agnostic or atheist.[/url]

1. Doesn't sound like a strawman argument to me, it seems like a perfectly logical conclusion. Darwin inspired Galton, who in turn inspired the eugenics movement, which was a chief influence of National Socialism's extermination policy of feeble-minded people, much as American Union Army general Sherman's total war tactics inspired the Blitzkrieg. Similarly, the synthesis between Enlightenment skepticism and its bastard son Hegelianism, we have the catalyst from the largest succession of genocides since Genghis Khan, who himself was ironically a religious toleration type similar to some of the skeptical French and American revolutionaries. All rivers pour into the ocean of cause and effect.

2. Indeed, and the body count is rising accordingly. Obama's drone policy (a marvel of science and technology no less) has already dwarfed the Spanish Inquisition in terms of collateral damage, and good old Christopher Hitchens pretty well deduced (as I have) that Obama is an unbeliever. No, I admit that atheism is on the rise, I just disagree that it's a good thing based on what it has accomplished over the past century.

[hells_unicorn]

1. And this qualifies as Jesus saying it's a parable because...? Because Luke is Jesus...?

2. I don't believe Jesus defined Pharisees as jerks, although they were. I believe Jesus knew them by their hypocrisy.

1. Luke was an eye-witness, everyone posting on this thread is not, and as an inspired writer, his words are qualified as infallible by The Holy Spirit. Furthermore, if Luke's testimony is in doubt, Luke's entire Gospel goes out the window and the objection becomes a meaningless redundancy. If not being Jesus disqualifies an account, the entire bible goes out the window since he wrote nothing. If you doubt the authenticity or motives of the Gospel authors, all of whom were personally selected by Jesus as followers or were recruited by them directly (save Paul, who was supernaturally converted by the Divine Nature of The Son after his ascension), you are essentially calling Jesus a fool who can not judge the character of his followers. If you think the bible is rubbish, just say it, you need not play games by stating that you like Jesus yet hate his message.

2. I didn't say Pharisees are defined as jerks by Jesus, I stated that you should call me a jerk if you don't like what I'm saying and feel as though I'm being unfair, because it would sound slightly less emotionally driven and irrational than calling me a Pharisee, which is as ridiculous as calling a bird a hamster. I'm having a hard time believing that you are so obtuse that you are not purposefully misrepresenting my words so badly, but if that's the case, your inability to keep your cool is probably the least of your problems.

[acptulsa]

Furthermore, if Luke's testimony is in doubt, Luke's entire Gospel goes out the window and the objection becomes a meaningless redundancy.

If I get on the witness stand and state that the accused said this and that, it is testimony. If I say the accused thought this and meant that, the other attorney objects and the judge tells me to shut up.


2. I didn't say Pharisees are defined as jerks by Jesus, I stated that you should call me a jerk if you don't like what I'm saying and feel as though I'm being unfair, because it would sound slightly less emotionally driven and irrational than calling me a Pharisee, which is as ridiculous as calling a bird a hamster. I'm having a hard time believing that you are so obtuse that you are not purposefully misrepresenting my words so badly, but if that's the case, your inability to keep your cool is probably the least of your problems.

A Pharisee is an extra-special kind of jerk. The hypocrisy is an integral part of it. And don't tell me yet again that there is no such thing. There are no Samaritans any more, but I've been called a good Samaritan anyway. And I actually had sense enough to understand the allegory and not contradict the person who was trying to give me a compliment.

But you're right about one thing. Keeping cool is among the least of my problems. If you had even the slightest ability to keep your head about you, you'd know that. But, of course, you don't, and then (since you weren't listening even before you went off) you have no choice but to accuse me of your own foibles.

Get your head out of your ass and you might be able to see my foibles. But until that happens, I'm plenty safe from the likes of you.

[hells_unicorn]

1. If I get on the witness stand and state that the accused said this and that, it is testimony. If I say the accused thought this and meant that, the other attorney objects and the judge tells me to shut up.

2. A Pharisee is an extra-special kind of jerk. The hypocrisy is an integral part of it. And don't tell me yet again that there is no such thing. There are no Samaritans any more, but I've been called a good Samaritan anyway. And I actually had sense enough to understand the allegory and not contradict the person who was trying to give me a compliment.

But you're right about one thing. Keeping cool is among the least of my problems. If you had even the slightest ability to keep your head about you, you'd know that. But, of course, you don't, and then (since you weren't listening even before you went off) you have no choice but to accuse me of your own foibles. Get your head out of your ass and you might be able to see my foibles. But until that happens, I'm plenty safe from the likes of you.

1. You didn't witness Christ's ministry, take part in it, and you are not an apostle chosen by him with approval of the Holy Spirit or even any valid ecumenical council confirming your account as biblical canon, so you would RIGHTLY be thrown out of court if you tried to give testimony since you have none to give.

2. If you want to call me a hypocrite, demonstrate what I have done that is hypocritical instead of making a cliche allusion to the "mean old Pharisees that won't believe in Darwin's retarded fish-frog" (which is about as much sense as you've been making). If you'd make sense when you talk, we'd be in a very different place right now, and if you feel the need to be "safe from the likes of me", you can add paranoia issues to your growing list of things to work on.

[acptulsa]

A Pharisee is a person who thinks they can be right in the sight of God by following God's commands. You are a Pharisee.

You're the one who can't wrap his head around the Gospel Truth that God's law was made for the benefit of man, and man was made neither to be slave to it nor to be condemned for being unable to always follow the letter of it.


1. You didn't witness Christ's ministry...

Nobody here is talking of me for any purpose except to make a point about what a witness can see and what a witness can't see except you. And you wouldn't be doing it if you had a leg to stand on, and any tactic at your disposal except personal attacks.


...your growing list of things to work on.

Keep shooting blind. If you come up with enough ammo and spew it in enough contradictory directions, you're bound to clip the edge of the target sooner or later.

And, no, you won't keep me in the middle of your passion for arguing over nothing by intimating that I was unspecific about my contentions five pages ago. Anyone who cares can go back and see if you're lying or not.

I've been racking my brain trying to decide if I feel more sorry for you two or your victims. It's a depressing subject to think about.

[hells_unicorn]

1. You're the one who can't wrap his head around the Gospel Truth that God's law was made for the benefit of man, and man was made neither to be slave to it nor to be condemned for being unable to always follow the letter of it.

2. Nobody here is talking to me for any purpose except to make a point about what a witness can see and what a witness can't see except you. And you wouldn't be doing it if you had a leg to stand on, and any tactic at your disposal except personal attacks.

3. Keep shooting blind. If you come up with enough ammo and spew it in enough contradictory directions, you're bound to clip the edge of the target sooner or later. And, no, you won't keep me in the middle of your passion for arguing over nothing by intimating that I was unspecific about my contentions five pages ago. Anyone who cares can go back and see if you're lying or not.

4. I've been racking my brain trying to decide if I feel more sorry for you two or your victims. It's a depressing subject to think about.

1. You must think that God was a total dick for tossing Adam and Eve out of Eden and condemning them to death for the little whoops they made with the forbidden fruit then, since it would seem such a trivial thing to a "rational" person like yourself. You might believe in a god, but it sure isn't the one in the bible, but one that you've crafted based on yourself. When atheists say "God was created", what you are saying is what they project onto scripture.

2. You are not arguing with me right now, you are arguing with Luke. He's the one whom you think is not a reliable witness. The only things I've noted about you personally is your inability to keep your arguments straight and getting bent out of shape when it is pointed out, and frankly it's getting extremely boring.

3. Fair enough, nobody is forcing you to continue talking to me on this subject if it bothers you this much.

4. Your general dissatisfaction with how this debate has turned out has been noted, but apart from that I don't care to dignify is particularly childish statement beyond that.

[Crashland]

The problem with that is that Jesus himself referred to Adam as being a real person. So either Adam was a real person or Jesus was lying.

Where did Jesus refer to Adam as a real person? Jesus did reference Genesis in that God created male and female, but as far as I know he never mentioned Adam and Eve. But even if he did, I don't think I would necessarily call Jesus a liar just because he referenced the old testament, unless he was specific that it is not meant to be metaphorical.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Where did Jesus refer to Adam as a real person? Jesus did reference Genesis in that God created male and female, but as far as I know he never mentioned Adam and Eve. But even if he did, I don't think I would necessarily call Jesus a liar just because he referenced the old testament, unless he was specific that it is not meant to be metaphorical.

Jesus references the murder of Abel in Luke 11:50-51 and Matthew 23:35, if Adam and Eve did not exist, Abel would have no parents and thus would not exist. Furthermore, these quotes reference Jesus saying that the people of his time would be punished for all the events from Abel's murder up to Zechariah's murder. Punishing people over metaphors sounds a bit ridiculous to me. If Jesus knew these things not to be literally true, he'd either be a liar or insane.

[Brett85]

Where did Jesus refer to Adam as a real person? Jesus did reference Genesis in that God created male and female, but as far as I know he never mentioned Adam and Eve. But even if he did, I don't think I would necessarily call Jesus a liar just because he referenced the old testament, unless he was specific that it is not meant to be metaphorical.

I guess it wasn't Jesus who referred specifically to Adam, but Paul.

1 Corinthians 15: 22

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

[Crashland]

Jesus references the murder of Abel in Luke 11:50-51 and Matthew 23:35, if Adam and Eve did not exist, Abel would have no parents and thus would not exist. Furthermore, these quotes reference Jesus saying that the people of his time would be punished for all the events from Abel's murder up to Zechariah's murder. Punishing people over metaphors sounds a bit ridiculous to me. If Jesus knew these things not to be literally true, he'd either be a liar or insane.

Well, punishing people for metaphors does seem ridiculous, but punishing people for bloodshed since the beginning of the world (Abel) seems slightly less ridiculous. If Jesus knew that it was not literally true, maybe it just means he is communicating in the way that the people of the time will be able to understand and relate with.

I will admit, reconciling evolution with the Bible does require a more liberal interpretation of the Bible. But it is not impossible to do this. Even if there was absolutely no way to reconcile it, if Jesus himself had said "Hey you people living 2000 years from now, I tell you the truth, evolution did not happen." -- I don't think that accepting or rejecting this statement would be particularly important to being a Christian. Christians disagree all the time on Biblical things and it is commonplace in Christianity as well as other religions for some schools of thought to selectively de-emphasize some parts of their holy book while other schools of thought selectively de-emphasize other parts. Even if you disagree and think someone is wrong about some way they are interpreting the Bible, if this difference of opinion does not get in the way of the salvation message where the person still acknowledges their sin and accepts Jesus's sacrifice to save them by grace through faith, then it is a peripheral issue and doesn't disqualify someone from being a Christian.

[Sola_Fide]

I guess it wasn't Jesus who referred specifically to Adam, but Paul.

1 Corinthians 15: 22

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Jesus did reference Adam. He quoted the Genesis verse about Adam and Eve being made male and female and being brought together in one flesh.

[Crashland]

I guess it wasn't Jesus who referred specifically to Adam, but Paul.

1 Corinthians 15: 22

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Keep in mind that the term "adam" (or ha-adam) from the Hebrew can also be used to refer to "mankind" in general, and I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of possibility that the person "Adam" when it is referred to by Paul could be just a representation of mankind or early mankind. I'm not saying it was meant that way, just pointing out that it can be looked at that way.

[Sola_Fide]

Keep in mind that the term "adam" (or ha-adam) from the Hebrew can also be used to refer to "mankind" in general, and I wouldn't put it beyond the realm of possibility that the person "Adam" when it is referred to by Paul could be just a representation of mankind or early mankind. I'm not saying it was meant that way, just pointing out that it can be looked at that way.

That's not the way Jesus or Paul used it in the verses we are talking about. They were talking about the man named Adam and the woman named Eve.

[Crashland]

That's not the way Jesus or Paul used it in the verses we are talking about. They were talking about the man named Adam and the woman named Eve.

Jesus did not refer to a man named Adam nor a woman named Eve. But that's besides the point. I'm saying that yes it does require a more liberal interpretation of the Bible than you have, quite obviously. But having a liberal interpretation of the Bible doesn't disqualify you from being a Christian if you believe in those things I mentioned previously. Do I need to ask you the basic question, "What do you need to do to be saved?" Because if your answer doesn't include professing that Adam and Eve were real people, then you've already lost the argument.

[Brett85]

But having a liberal interpretation of the Bible doesn't disqualify you from being a Christian if you believe in those things I mentioned previously.

It doesn't disqualify someone from being a Christian, but it disqualifies them from being a Bible believing Christian, of being someone who has a Biblical worldview.

[Crashland]

It doesn't disqualify someone from being a Christian, but it disqualifies them from being a Bible believing Christian, of being someone who has a Biblical worldview.

Some people would take issue with that, but I might be able to agree with it. Some people really might legitimately interpret all of those passages in the Bible to be metaphorical. Others are happy to just kind of ignore them or ignore any cognitive dissonance they may feel about it. But whether or not your beliefs about our early history is reconcilable with the Genesis account is one issue, and whether or not your beliefs about our early history is reconcilable with having Christian faith is another issue. I was focusing more on the latter.

[Sola_Fide]

Jesus did not refer to a man named Adam nor a woman named Eve. But that's besides the point. I'm saying that yes it does require a more liberal interpretation of the Bible than you have, quite obviously. But having a liberal interpretation of the Bible doesn't disqualify you from being a Christian if you believe in those things I mentioned previously. Do I need to ask you the basic question, "What do you need to do to be saved?" Because if your answer doesn't include professing that Adam and Eve were real people, then you've already lost the argument.

Jesus quoted Genesis 2 word for word. What two people is Genesis 2 about?

[Created4]

As if an evolution-based worldview hasn't led to tons of blood baths in the last century, from power mad empires presuming they were more evolved than other peoples, such that they should conquer them or ethnically cleanse them from existence. While this is a divisive issue, it's also a single issue voter issue (only a few people's vote will turn on creation vs evolution). And decades of election results have shown that among the single issue people who do vote, the net breakdown reliably runs 2 to 1 cultural conservative---for every social left vote lost due to emphasizing this kind of issue, one picks up two social right votes. Rand has picked the side that is a net vote loser.

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/proxy/V%2FlNRoM4xHkS5Fcpt%2BpvjnggRXCZz%2BSgtFetNqV7T69R AFaMh1CbmkUCRZ7mc0oX7Q%3D%3D/image.png

About half the population supports creation or is at least not onboard with evolution, according to the Gallop data. Secularists want to perpetuate the "creation's a minority view" notion, despite decades of polling showing it is widely held, and online trends showing more young people increasingly support the view once they are informed about both sides of the evidence through the internet. The web is circumventing the evolution propaganda grid the establishment wants to maintain.

Thanks for bringing this out. However, I hope Rand did not just "pick the side that is a net vote loser." I hope he spoke what he truly believes, regardless of the social/political consequences. Because of he mis-spoke and actually did believe in biblical creation, which holds to my own view, it would give me no comfort. It would make me question what other views he was willing to compromise on for political gain.

Also, it is a common fallacy that the debate is strictly between science and faith. Darwinian evolution does not have all the science on its side, and one can not hold to the biblical account and still disagree with Darwin. There is a whole scientific field of "intelligent design" that constructs the debate purely on science, and not religion. In fact, there are very few scientists today who hold to all of Darwin's original writings, as many of them are outdated and no longer supported by actual science. Most Darwinians are neo-Darwinians and there is hardly uniformity in their beliefs.

If Rand had wanted to give a purely scientific answer to Christ Matthews, he could have stated that "Lucy" has been proven to be hoax a long time ago. Neither side of the debate should rely on unscientific claims.

[Crashland]

Jesus quoted Genesis 2 word for word. What two people is Genesis 2 about?

Jesus quoted from Genesis 2 in order to make a point about God creating male and female to be united together. The part he decided to quote does not mention a man named Adam or a woman named Eve, nor does Jesus ever mention the name Adam or Eve anywhere in the Bible. But again, you keep focusing on the parts that are beside the point. If you are trying to claim that Jesus knew about the whole story in Genesis that should go without saying.

[hells_unicorn]

1. Well, punishing people for metaphors does seem ridiculous, but punishing people for bloodshed since the beginning of the world (Abel) seems slightly less ridiculous. If Jesus knew that it was not literally true, maybe it just means he is communicating in the way that the people of the time will be able to understand and relate with.

2. I will admit, reconciling evolution with the Bible does require a more liberal interpretation of the Bible. But it is not impossible to do this. Even if there was absolutely no way to reconcile it, if Jesus himself had said "Hey you people living 2000 years from now, I tell you the truth, evolution did not happen." -- I don't think that accepting or rejecting this statement would be particularly important to being a Christian.

3. Christians disagree all the time on Biblical things and it is commonplace in Christianity as well as other religions for some schools of thought to selectively de-emphasize some parts of their holy book while other schools of thought selectively de-emphasize other parts.

4. Even if you disagree and think someone is wrong about some way they are interpreting the Bible, if this difference of opinion does not get in the way of the salvation message where the person still acknowledges their sin and accepts Jesus's sacrifice to save them by grace through faith, then it is a peripheral issue and doesn't disqualify someone from being a Christian.

1. The Old Testament is not concerned with how things appear to modern thinkers, it is both time specific and grounded in a natural logic that is singular and exclusive, and New Testament citations of it reflect this. When people speculate on the meaning of things apart from the intended meaning, they are writing their own revelation, which is essentially what modern thought is. Man is his own god, he is the captain of his soul, and he'll run it aground before entertaining otherwise. This is the experience of so-called American Christianity, which emphasizes the American part and de-emphasizes the Christian part.

2. And that is where your problem arises. Christianity and Liberalism are the two irreconcilable parties, Darwinism is simply an incidental side-effect of it. Speciation and adaptation to environment are not opposed to the biblical narrative, but Karl Linnaeus' speculative taxonomy models, which are the basis for how the earth is currently aged by rationalists and empiricists and also a key component in the ridiculously long amount of time Darwinists believe it takes for genus groups to emerge all by themselves, are quite opposed to it. I don't think any raw data needs to be thrown out the door, only the liberal notions (which are geared towards disqualifying a shorter time table from the equation altogether as it sounds too "Christian" or "Religious") of subordinating truth to man's whims, and believing in a 6 billion year time span is whimsical to the point of absurdity once you unpack all of the lofty language that is often cloaked about it.

3. So what? This simply means that we have a lot of wrong answers with supporters, I see no reason to abandon truth in order to make Unitarians, Seventh Day Adventists and Muslims feel better about their errors. I would doing all of them a MASSIVE disservice by not challenging them.

4. Absent a full repentance of the pagan inclinations that pollute one's understanding, what you are describing is Antinomianism, ergo "I'm saved, so it's no big deal". The Fall and Sin were originally predicated on Adam's unbelief in God's Will, and excusing shades of unbelief is along similar lines to praying for your fellow man on Sunday and then praying on him the other 6 days of the week.

A good rule to live by when approaching Christianity is thus: you are either reforming or deforming. Darwinism is the fetish of atheists, so excusing it will fall into the latter category.

[Sola_Fide]

Jesus quoted from Genesis 2 in order to make a point about God creating male and female to be united together. The part he decided to quote does not mention a man named Adam or a woman named Eve, nor does Jesus ever mention the name Adam or Eve anywhere in the Bible. But again, you keep focusing on the parts that are beside the point. If you are trying to claim that Jesus knew about the whole story in Genesis that should go without saying.

Jesus knew the "story" because He is the God who created Adam and Eve.

[LawnWake]

ITT: People are refering to "microevolution" and "macroevolution" as if they are distinct processes.

ITT: People discount evolution because it's not directly seen, but trust gravity enough to not jump off a cliff.

[acptulsa]

1. You must think...

I must? Why must I? I don't, of course. You're lying about what's going on in my head, as usual. So, if I must, Mr. Thought Police, who is going to make me think that?


You might believe...

I do. And in what is written and true, not what is blathered and contradictory. And there's not a damned thing you can do about it.


2. You are not arguing with me right now, you are arguing with Luke.

I pointed out that reporting what one sees is different from reporting what one thinks in a court of law because someone lied and said that Jesus prefaced his every parable with a big sign that said, 'NOTICE: What follows is allegory and it isn't literally true.' Which still isn't literally true.

Now you're trying to twist that into me calling Luke a liar. Luke wasn't a liar. I wish I could use the same epitaph for you someday, but I won't be able to.

Keep twisting and twisting and lying and twisting until you get a whole pitcher full of lemonade. Don't know what you're going to sweeten it with, though, since your personality seems to be pure vinegar.


3. Fair enough, nobody is forcing you...

I don't suppose you'd care to stop lying your ass off about me long enough that I can take a break from defending myself...


4. Your general dissatisfaction with how this debate has turned out has been noted, but apart from that I don't care to dignify is particularly childish statement beyond that.

No, you just want to be a damned sight more childish and lie about me, put words in my mouth I obviously did not say, make up motivations and assign them to me, cast aspersions without a shred of evidence, respond to reasonable statements with accusations that come within an inch of calling me an idolater, and just basically do unto me everything Jesus told you not to do.

Can you really not hold a conversation with someone without falsely accusing them in every single paragraph?

Carry on. But leave me out of it. Or, if you can't, tell the truth about me. Nah, that won't work, will it--stick to leaving me out of it. Have you ever turned the other cheek in your life? Give it a try.


Jesus quoted Genesis 2 word for word. What two people is Genesis 2 about?

Are you trying to change the subject again? Or are you saying that Jesus is quoted in the Book of Genesis?

[hells_unicorn]

1. ITT: People are refering to "microevolution" and "macroevolution" as if they are distinct processes.

ITT: 2. People discount evolution because it's not directly seen, but trust gravity enough to not jump off a cliff.

1. They are distinct processes, people who say they aren't are either ignorant or lying. One involves an observable form of adaptation and involves speciation, which can be observed in animal and plant cross-breeding. The other involves a 100% speculative notion that genus groups emerged from this process over a ridiculous amount of time and consequently can not be interbred.

2. People discount macro-evolution because there is 0 evidence for it, and also because it relies on a model that in unfalsifiable. Equating the idea that an invisible mutant fish-frog preceded the origin of mammals and the inferred law of gravity from an observable effect of jumping out a window is buffoonery.

P.S. - People discount God because he's not directly seen, but I don't see Darwinists complaining.

[LawnWake]

1. They are distinct processes, people who say they aren't are either ignorant or lying. One involves an observable form of adaptation and involves speciation, which can be observed in animal and plant cross-breeding. The other involves a 100% speculative notion that genus groups emerged from this process over a ridiculous amount of time and consequently can not be interbred.

There is no such thing as a genus in nature.

There is no such thing as a species in nature.

There's no families, no kingdoms, there's no phylums or clades (my prefered nomenclature, by the way). They're labels and distinctions that we made up to categorize organisms, to enable us to communicate better. It's a rulebook we made up for a nature that doesn't play according to our rulebook. So when you say that we don't "see animals turning from one genus into the next", you're falsely mixing up two distinctly different systems and trying to draw a conclusion from that.

We call both Asian and African elephants "elephant", even though they're less closely related to each other than donkeys and horses are. We also call the "woolly mammoth" by a separate name, even though it's more closely related to the African elephant (closer to it than the Asian elephant).

Again, they're just labels.

The words "macroevolution" and "microevolution" only pertain to our systematics of categorizing animals (which, by the way, is based on evolutionary descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics). It's not meant to say that that there are two different processes called evolution. Furthermore, it's really odd that you jump on the terminology "macroevolution" and "microevolution", that is devised by people who specifically make a point about them being the same process on different scales. Yet you tell these very same people who devised the terminology in the first place, that they're wrong about the terminology. You might not wanna use the terms "microevolution" or "macroevolution" since they're not what you want them to be.

While it is true that we cannot "see" evolution, we do not "see" the force of gravity either. What we do see are the effects of gravity. Likewise, we see the effects of evolution (ony any scale). From the fossil record, to genetics and medicine. Just like we see, for example, in avian dinosaurs (aka modern birds) the genes that create tails, toothed and beakless mouths and clawed hands, which are still present in embryological development. Their expression is merely turned off by genes. Geneticists have actually allowed the expression of those genes in chicken embryos and have variously seen chicken embryos with tails and teeth as a result (they are not adding or changing genes themselves, they're only allowing/disallowing genes present in the animal itself). Embryology, a separate discipline from paleontology, is confirming theories that paleontologists have been making for decades.


2. People discount macro-evolution because there is 0 evidence for it

Replace "people" with Americans. Western Europeans are a different story. And it's no surprise that in a place like America, where fundamentalist christianity is politicized to polarize people, that there's still controversy about evolution in the general public. No lawmaker, no politician actually cares. They just like riling people up against each other through "issues" like evolution.


and also because it relies on a model that in unfalsifiable. Equating the idea that an invisible mutant fish-frog preceded the origin of mammals and the inferred law of gravity from an observable of effect of jumping out a window is buffoonery.

There's no fish, there's no frogs and there's no mammals in nature. They're concrete definitions that are trying to categorize very fluid differences. And yes, there are a lot of animals that are within the spectrum of what we categorized as "fish" and "mammals". Just like there is no "cold bloodedness" or "warm bloodedness". There is just a very wide spectrum of metabolic processes and there are a lot of animals (extinct and still living today) that exist on that spectrum. A lot of evidence points towards, for example, maniraptoran dinosaurs (think Velociraptor) to have a metabolism similar to the modern kiwi. An animal with the metabolism that is "more coldblooded" than that of say, a hummingbird, but not as "coldblooded" as of say, a lizard.


P.S. - People discount God because he's not directly seen, but I don't see Darwinists complaining.

When less intelligent people discount God, they do it because he's no directly seen. When more intelligent people discount, or at least don't believe in God, they do it because they don't see any evidence for its existence.

[LawnWake]

1. They are distinct processes, people who say they aren't are either ignorant or lying. One involves an observable form of adaptation and involves speciation, which can be observed in animal and plant cross-breeding. The other involves a 100% speculative notion that genus groups emerged from this process over a ridiculous amount of time and consequently can not be interbred.

There is no such thing as a genus in nature.

There is no such thing as a species in nature.

There's no families, no kingdoms, there's no phylums or clades (my prefered nomenclature, by the way). They're labels and distinctions that we made up to categorize organisms, to enable us to communicate better. It's a rulebook we made up for a nature that doesn't play according to our rulebook. So when you say that we don't "see animals turning from one genus into the next", you're falsely mixing up two distinctly different systems and trying to draw a conclusion from that.

We call both Asian and African elephants "elephant", even though they're less closely related to each other than donkeys and horses are. We also call the "woolly mammoth" by a separate name, even though it's more closely related to the African elephant (closer to it than the Asian elephant).

Again, they're just labels.

The words "macroevolution" and "microevolution" only pertain to our systematics of categorizing animals (which, by the way, is based on evolutionary descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics). It's not meant to say that that there are two different processes called evolution. Furthermore, it's really odd that you jump on the terminology "macroevolution" and "microevolution", that is devised by people who specifically make a point about them being the same process on different scales. Yet you tell these very same people who devised the terminology in the first place, that they're wrong about the terminology. You might not wanna use the terms "microevolution" or "macroevolution" since they're not what you want them to be.

While it is true that we cannot "see" evolution, we do not "see" the force of gravity either. What we do see are the effects of gravity. Likewise, we see the effects of evolution (ony any scale). From the fossil record, to genetics and medicine. Just like we see, for example, in avian dinosaurs (aka modern birds) the genes that create tails, toothed and beakless mouths and clawed hands, which are still present in embryological development. Their expression is merely turned off by genes. Geneticists have actually allowed the expression of those genes in chicken embryos and have variously seen chicken embryos with tails and teeth as a result (they are not adding or changing genes themselves, they're only allowing/disallowing genes present in the animal itself). Embryology, a separate discipline from paleontology, is confirming theories that paleontologists have been making for decades.


2. People discount macro-evolution because there is 0 evidence for it

Replace "people" with Americans. Western Europeans are a different story. And it's no surprise that in a place like America, where fundamentalist christianity is politicized to polarize people, that there's still controversy about evolution in the general public. No lawmaker, no politician actually cares. They just like riling people up against each other through "issues" like evolution.


and also because it relies on a model that in unfalsifiable. Equating the idea that an invisible mutant fish-frog preceded the origin of mammals and the inferred law of gravity from an observable of effect of jumping out a window is buffoonery.

There's no fish, there's no frogs and there's no mammals in nature. They're concrete definitions that are trying to categorize very fluid differences. And yes, there are a lot of animals that are within the spectrum of what we categorized as "fish" and "mammals". Just like there is no "cold bloodedness" or "warm bloodedness". There is just a very wide spectrum of metabolic processes and there are a lot of animals (extinct and still living today) that exist on that spectrum. A lot of evidence points towards, for example, maniraptoran dinosaurs (think Velociraptor) to have a metabolism similar to the modern kiwi. An animal with the metabolism that is "more coldblooded" than that of say, a hummingbird, but not as "coldblooded" as of say, a lizard.


P.S. - People discount God because he's not directly seen, but I don't see Darwinists complaining.

When less intelligent people discount God, they do it because he's no directly seen. When more intelligent people discount, or at least don't believe in God, they do it because they don't see any evidence for its existence.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Evolution. schmevolution... Who really gives a damn and why would ANYONE base a character definition on whether someone believes one way or another?? For the record, I don't believe in evolution... Does that make me a bad person???

[PaulConventionWV]

Agree. It was a dumb answer by Rand. Mark my words, this will be used against him. He screwed up.

You are such a know-it-all when it comes to campaigning and PR.

[PaulConventionWV]

Ah I see, that makes sense. Personally I consider myself Christian/Catholic (maybe others wouldn't and I really don't know enough about religion to know the differences between each Christian sect) but I don't believe everything in the Bible and view it as more of a guide than a book of facts, but I respect those that take a stricter view.

I don't like it when people say "It's wrong because it contradicts the Bible." While I agree that that is the only thing that really should concern a real Christian, macro evolution is also wrong for other reasons as well, including the fact that it's not the least bit scientific, which is what "deniers" should really be focusing on.

[hells_unicorn]

There is no such thing as a genus in nature.

There is no such thing as a species in nature.

Thank you for proving my point on the "lying/ignorant" formula.


There's no families, no kingdoms, there's no phylums or clades (my prefered nomenclature, by the way). They're labels and distinctions that we made up to categorize organisms, to enable us to communicate better. It's a rulebook we made up for a nature that doesn't play according to our rulebook. So when you say that we don't "see animals turning from one genus into the next", you're falsely mixing up two distinctly different systems and trying to draw a conclusion from that.

How can I be falsely mixing things that don't exist in nature? Supernatural means perhaps? lol But seriously, none of what you've stated here makes any sense, and is the consequence of modern thinkers abandoning metaphysics.


We call both Asian and African elephants "elephant", even though they're less closely related to each other than donkeys and horses are. We also call the "woolly mammoth" by a separate name, even though it's more closely related to the African elephant (closer to it than the Asian elephant).

Again, they're just labels.

Again, your objection is not logical. If they are just labels, you shouldn't be upset by me using them as I see fit. They are only for our convenience, and "our" includes "me". Are you seeing the problem with your assertions here?


The words "macroevolution" and "microevolution" only pertain to our systematics of categorizing animals (which, by the way, is based on evolutionary descent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylogenetics). It's not meant to say that that there are two different processes called evolution. Furthermore, it's really odd that you jump on the terminology "macroevolution" and "microevolution", that is devised by people who specifically make a point about them being the same process on different scales. Yet you tell these very same people who devised the terminology in the first place, that they're wrong about the terminology. You might not wanna use the terms "microevolution" or "macroevolution" since they're not what you want them to be.

I'll use them as I see fit, since as you say, they are only for our convenience. Furthermore, if I don't use the terms, I'd have a hard time explaining my position since everybody else uses them. Sorry to inform you, but you are not the boss of me. :p


While it is true that we cannot "see" evolution, we do not "see" the force of gravity either. What we do see are the effects of gravity. Likewise, we see the effects of evolution (ony any scale). From the fossil record, to genetics and medicine. Just like we see, for example, in avian dinosaurs (aka modern birds) the genes that create tails, toothed and beakless mouths and clawed hands, which are still present in embryological development. Their expression is merely turned off by genes. Geneticists have actually allowed the expression of those genes in chicken embryos and have variously seen chicken embryos with tails and teeth as a result (they are not adding or changing genes themselves, they're only allowing/disallowing genes present in the animal itself). Embryology, a separate discipline from paleontology, is confirming theories that paleontologists have been making for decades.

Continuing to run on a false premise, and likewise inferring that speciation leads to genus, which is both unproven and unfalsifiable. Sorry, but continuing to elaborate on an error by pointing to other people making it doesn't change the fact.


Replace "people" with Americans. Western Europeans are a different story. And it's no surprise that in a place like America, where fundamentalist christianity is politicized to polarize people, that there's still controversy about evolution in the general public. No lawmaker, no politician actually cares. They just like riling people up against each other through "issues" like evolution.

Opposing evolution is not unique to America, you might want to avoid hypocritically admonishing me for misrepresenting reality when you yourself seem quite comfortable in doing it for your own purposes. It is true that much of Europe, particularly Sweden and Germany, have a pretty unified support base for Darwinism, it goes with using Fascistic tactics to force government-approved education on Christian families and fill the minds of young people with what you want them to believe. You don't have polarization when you have forced conformity, and I wouldn't brag about something like that if I were you.


There's no fish, there's no frogs and there's no mammals in nature. They're concrete definitions that are trying to categorize very fluid differences. And yes, there are a lot of animals that are within the spectrum of what we categorized as "fish" and "mammals". Just like there is no "cold bloodedness" or "warm bloodedness". There is just a very wide spectrum of metabolic processes and there are a lot of animals (extinct and still living today) that exist on that spectrum. A lot of evidence points towards, for example, maniraptoran dinosaurs (think Velociraptor) to have a metabolism similar to the modern kiwi. An animal with the metabolism that is "more coldblooded" than that of say, a hummingbird, but not as "coldblooded" as of say, a lizard.

Roughly translated: There is no fish, there is no mammal, but due to "cold bloodedness" some fish can also be mammals. Logic is usually on the side of those who avoid obtuseness, and you have the latter in spades.


When less intelligent people discount God, they do it because he's no directly seen. When more intelligent people discount, or at least don't believe in God, they do it because they don't see any evidence for its existence.

When less intelligent people discount evolution, they do it because they don't see it occurring. When more intelligent people discount, or at least don't believe in Neo-Darwinism or those parts of Classical Darwinism that infer what can not be proven, they do it because they put logic above going with the popular pseudo-intellectual clique.

[hells_unicorn]

Evolution. schmevolution... Who really gives a damn and why would ANYONE base a character definition on whether someone believes one way or another?? For the record, I don't believe in evolution... Does that make me a bad person???

According to some, it makes you less intelligent, which to them is technically the same as being a bad person. Personally, I don't consider this issue a high priority in the short-term and I'm not changing my vote for Rand over this, but I got so annoyed by how everybody just decided to gang up on Sola and making fallacious arguments in the process that I decided to join in the debate.


I don't like it when people say "It's wrong because it contradicts the Bible." While I agree that that is the only thing that really should concern a real Christian, macro evolution is also wrong for other reasons as well, including the fact that it's not the least bit scientific, which is what "deniers" should really be focusing on.

This. I'd add that in addition to not being scientific, it's also an indicator of how modern thought has abandoned logic as a binding rule on maintaining categories without confusion.

[PaulConventionWV]

Maybe I'm not the most observant or Scripturally literate Believer, but I've never seen any Bible verse that rules out evolution. Why are evolution and intelligent design always treated as if they are mutually exclusive possibilities? Just because it took millions of years for us to reach this form doesn't mean there wasn't a Creator guiding the process, nor does acknowledging God mean one has to dismiss the last hundred years of science and pretend carbon-dating doesn't exist.

First of all, Genesis literally states that the Earth was created in six days. I think it would be a stretch to assume that the Hebrew word for day somehow meant millions or billions of years when the people who made that word experienced the same days that we do.

Second of all, nobody needs to pretend that carbon dating doesn't exist. If you weren't ignorant, you would realize that carbon dating supports a creationist view and that the dates used to support an old earth are massively flawed. Carbon dating is really quite useless beyond a few thousand years and the very fact that there are still measurable amounts of carbon in rocks suggests that the earth is quite young since that wouldn't be the case if it were millions of years old.

[acptulsa]

Again, your objection is not logical. If they are just labels, you shouldn't be upset by me using them as I see fit. They are only for our convenience, and "our" includes "me". Are you seeing the problem with your assertions here?

The argument of a propagandist: They're just words, so if I call a fish a fowl, or I call the most liberty-unfriendly law to come across Congress' docket in more than a decade the 'USA Freedom Act', I can't be accused of trying to mislead people because they're just labels for my convenience.

Wrong.


Roughly translated: There is no fish, there is no mammal, but due to "cold bloodedness" some fish can also be mammals. Logic is usually on the side of those who avoid obtuseness, and you have the latter in spades.

And how do we roughly translate your 'roughly translated'? As, 'Warning--I'm about to lie outright about what someone said'?

[PaulConventionWV]

My friend, there is much in the bible that should not be taken literally. Ask yourself, do you believe the story of Adam and Eve is a literal interpretation of events? Or is it a beautiful allegory for the dawn of Man? Do you believe the entire world was flooded for 40 days? Or is this a symbolic piece of historical folklore which has been passed down from father to son for nearly 10,000 years? Do you believe that David vanquished Goliath with a single rock to the head? Or is this a chidren's story intended to teach a lesson that the small can overcome the great?

I'm just saying, that you shouldn't reject the logic and evidence for the Theory of Evolution because of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It makes sense. Besides, how do you know how God intended to reach out to man with the words in the Bible? Perhaps they aren't all meant to be taken literally. If God gave you your logic and reasoning faculties, building you in His image, separating you from the animals. Don't you think He wants you to use this greatest of gifts to it's highest potential? Don't you think He'd want you to apply these gifts and learn as much as you can about the world you've been born into, so that you may fully appreciate God's design?

You say "a single rock to the head" as if nobody would expect that to kill a man. You also act like like the idea of a global flood is patently ridiculous the same way you do for evolution itself. Well, the two are deeply intertwined, so how would you know if you've never even questioned the official doctrine of what happened long in the past? The Grand Canyon is excellent evidence for a global flood but its been hijacked by the propaganda machine as evidence for evolution.

[juleswin]

First of all, Genesis literally states that the Earth was created in six days. I think it would be a stretch to assume that the Hebrew word for day somehow meant millions or billions of years when the people who made that word experienced the same days that we do.

Second of all, nobody needs to pretend that carbon dating doesn't exist. If you weren't ignorant, you would realize that carbon dating supports a creationist view and that the dates used to support an old earth are massively flawed. Carbon dating is really quite useless beyond a few thousand years and the very fact that there are still measurable amounts of carbon in rocks suggests that the earth is quite young since that wouldn't be the case if it were millions of years old.

Yea but he did not experience a day like Adam and Eve experienced it? cos he wasn't there. Moses was given the vision or inspiration to write genesis, so depending on his interpretation of the information, it could have meant billion of years. Also he though there were firmaments covering the earth like a dome which we now know was wrong. So he could have easily got him interpretation wrong.

[juleswin]

First of all, Genesis literally states that the Earth was created in six days. I think it would be a stretch to assume that the Hebrew word for day somehow meant millions or billions of years when the people who made that word experienced the same days that we do.

Second of all, nobody needs to pretend that carbon dating doesn't exist. If you weren't ignorant, you would realize that carbon dating supports a creationist view and that the dates used to support an old earth are massively flawed. Carbon dating is really quite useless beyond a few thousand years and the very fact that there are still measurable amounts of carbon in rocks suggests that the earth is quite young since that wouldn't be the case if it were millions of years old.

Yea but he did not experience a day like Adam and Eve experienced it? cos he wasn't there. Moses was given the vision or inspiration to write genesis, so depending on his interpretation of the information, it could have meant billion of years. Also he though there were firmaments covering the earth like a dome which we now know was wrong. So he could have easily got him interpretation wrong.

[PaulConventionWV]

So I guess Adam and Eve committed incest then? That's really what you're saying.

Incest isn't a big deal when you're the only people on the planet. The genetic code wasn't as varied then, so it wouldn't have caused problems like it would today.


I'm sorry if that statement sounds harsh or hateful, but these views you're clinging to are really childish. You are belittling yourself trying to argue such a thing as a rational person. This sort of thing is the reason religion is being rejected altogether by many modern people.

No, the reason it's being rejected is because people like you buy into the dogma that it should be ridiculed as inherently non-intellectual and, well, stupid. People like you literally think Christians are dumb for not accepting the modern "wisdom" that you see on the boob tube.


The entire purpose of the Christian theology is to moderate social interaction between human beings. Anything separate from that is sideshow nonsense. Relgion lives between human beings, in relationships and feelings and emotions. In the personal sentiments that accompany the human condition. Trying to take moral teachings and bundle them with incorrect scientific statements, and then base the validity of your moral code on the validity of those same scientific statements...is just crazy. It's bonkers man! (For example: I am only right if pigs can fly. Pigs can't fly, therefore....)

Speaking of incorrect scientific statements, is it scientific to say that millions of years can turn a rock into a pig even though that's never been observed, tested, repeated, etc...? Can rocks turn into pigs? I'd like to hear what answer you got from a quick google search of what the "scientists" say.


People need religious teachings. The role in society is too important to let it go. They are of monumental benefit for all the people of the Earth. From the downtrodden poor person, to the temptations of the rich person. Advancements in science have accompanied advancements in technology, in the same way advancements in religion have accompanied advancements of civilization. And in my view, all of this is being sacrificed because many Christians can't grown up and let go of their childish points of view.

It's always the religious ones who are "childish". Believe it or not, you were taught this. This isn't a conclusion you reached on your own. You may have been biased toward that view already, but you were most certainly helped along by the public school system, which, wonder of wonders, fully supports the evolution dogma, along with the media.

[PaulConventionWV]

So remember, children, incest is only incest if there's someone besides an immediate family member to fuck. If there isn't, then it might be incest, but just because it is incest doesn't mean it's incest.



Remember, children, smoking marijuana was not smoking marijuana prior to 1937, because obviously no one could smoke marijuana before smoking marijuana was prohibited.

Whether or not it was incest doesn't matter. The fact is that it wasn't a big deal.

[acptulsa]

Can rocks turn into pigs? I'd like to hear what answer you got from a quick google search of what the "scientists" say.

Since when are rocks born? Since when do they procreate and die, and leave it to the next generation of rocks?

Do you think you're making your point or advancing your cause by equating living creatures with minerals?

[acptulsa]

The server is quirky this morning.


Whether or not it was incest doesn't matter. The fact is that it wasn't a big deal.

Whether or not that person was redefining words in order to make up for the fact that certain of their arguments didn't have a logical leg to stand on, however, does matter.

[PaulConventionWV]

THIS is what I was talking about in my previous comment. You sound sort of idiotic when you say stuff like this.

Observed fact: Different individual animals have different traits, which are passed from parent to offspring
Observed fact: Different traits correspond to better or worse survivability in any given environment.
Logical fact: Animals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, meaning later generations have a greater likelyhood to inherit those traits.
Logical extension: Over time, the genome will shift gradually to match environmental conditions.

God gave you a brain, he demands that you use it. I'm sure He doesn't want you to intentionally fool yourself and blind your own eyes to the world around you. That doesn't sound like God, that sounds a little like the fella downstairs to me.

Now if you said that perhaps God had a hand in setting up the system, and possibly guided it along it's way, hey man you might have something there. But if you just flat out reject it, well then you close the ears of everyone with a brain. You are actively working to shrink Christianity by saying stuff like this. I'm sure you'll agree with me that Christianity holds great benefits for people, and could lead to a better world. Well then why are you fighting so hard to make more atheists?

This is such a low level argument, it's Jr. High School stuff.

The problem is where you jump from "observed fact" to "logical extension." What you're basically saying is that we see small changes, so therefore there are no limits and anything can change into anything. How is that a "logical" extension. I think it's a non-scientific extension that completely ignores the definition of science out of convenience.

[LawnWake]

Thank you for proving my point on the "lying/ignorant" formula.

What lie? You don't understand that we made up terms "genus" and "species", since nature does not operate in such absolutes. Organisms exist within a spectrum of each other. When humans categorize them, they do it to simplify something that is otherwise not easily graspable for us. However, you mistake these distinctions as absolutes and base your arguments on them.


How can I be falsely mixing things that don't exist in nature? Supernatural means perhaps? lol But seriously, none of what you've stated here makes any sense, and is the consequence of modern thinkers abandoning metaphysics.

You're infering that human categorization is analogus with natural phenomena -- phenomena that don't work based on human constructs. Evolution isn't about "one species evolving into the next". Evolution states that life is life and that that it adepts to internal and external stimuli.


Again, your objection is not logical. If they are just labels, you shouldn't be upset by me using them as I see fit. They are only for our convenience, and "our" includes "me". Are you seeing the problem with your assertions here?

Who's being upset about you using labels? The problem isn't the use of labels, but a misapplication and misunderstanding of what these labels mean.

I was making a point that our labeling of the "donkeys" and "horses" as different animals in every day language, and describing Asian and African elephants both as "elephants", distorts the reality that donkeys and horses are more closely related to each other than African and Asian elephants are to each other. So the way laymen categorize these animals is not an accurate representation of nature.


I'll use them as I see fit, since as you say, they are only for our convenience. Furthermore, if I don't use the terms, I'd have a hard time explaining my position since everybody else uses them. Sorry to inform you, but you are not the boss of me. :p

Sure, you can use the word if you please. And I can point out and argue that the way you use the word is idiotic.

I would never stop you from proclaiming that 2x2=5. But I can point out that lunacy in doing so.


Continuing to run on a false premise, and likewise inferring that speciation leads to genus, which is both unproven and unfalsifiable. Sorry, but continuing to elaborate on an error by pointing to other people making it doesn't change the fact.

What false premise?


Opposing evolution is not unique to America, you might want to avoid hypocritically admonishing me for misrepresenting reality when you yourself seem quite comfortable in doing it for your own purposes. It is true that much of Europe, particularly Sweden and Germany, have a pretty unified support base for Darwinism, it goes with using Fascistic tactics to force government-approved education on Christian families and fill the minds of young people with what you want them to believe. You don't have polarization when you have forced conformity, and I wouldn't brag about something like that if I were you.

Sure, it's not unique to America. But it has taken on a distinct character within American politics. The uprising of the "religious right" is a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics. Same with the gun debate -- sure there always were debates, but the radicalization is relatively recent.

Without any sort of logical backing, Americans place themselves into one category or the other, accept any position that comes along with that, without considering their logical or philosophical implications. This is why the debate about abortion, evolution and guns is so incredibly polarizing and black white in America. With a distinct lack of nuance from either side. Like Republicans talking good game, but failing to extend that logic to foreign policy because they're "supposed".

Western Europe is not without its problems and other forms of polarization (there's major debates about intigration and immigration in the Netherlands), but they take on a different, distinct form. But in both cases it's simply a divide and conquer tactic of the state.


Roughly translated: There is no fish, there is no mammal, but due to "cold bloodedness" some fish can also be mammals.

That is not what I said. I was explaining an analogue between our labeling of the words "cold blooded" and "warm blooded" and our labeling of animals as being either "mammals" or "reptiles". I was arguing that both of these labels merely describe spectra, and no set points in nature. Likewise, arguing that a "fish can't turn into a reptile" misses the point that there is a giant spectrum of animals in between them -- that both words are merely theoretical absolutes, and no natural category. We call one "fish" and the other "reptiles" for our convenience; but nature does not deal in such absolutes. They're human constructs.


Logic is usually on the side of those who avoid obtuseness, and you have the latter in spades.

If you don't understand a point, it's wiser for you to ask for clarification than to play petty word games and twisting someone's argument.

When less intelligent people discount evolution, they do it because they don't see it occurring. When more intelligent people discount, or at least don't believe in Neo-Darwinism or those parts of Classical Darwinism that infer what can not be proven, they do it because they put logic above going with the popular pseudo-intellectual clique.[/QUOTE]

Ok.

[PaulConventionWV]

Is someone confusing evolution with abiogenesis again? remember folks we have enough evidence for evolution for anyone who is able to listen, its abiogenesis that we don't have full evidence for.

Okay, so the difference between abiogenesis and evolution is that abiogenesis says a rock can turn into a pig. Evolution just replaces the word rock with something like banana and you think that somehow makes more sense?

[PaulConventionWV]

Such a demonstration is not possible, but such demands levied against the theory of evolution are the standard means of the religious attempt to undermine it: i.e. prove the impossible!

Exactly. I rest my case. You can't prove the impossible because the impossible doesn't happen.

[acptulsa]

Okay, so the difference between abiogenesis and evolution is that abiogenesis says a rock can turn into a pig. Evolution just replaces the word rock with something like banana and you think that somehow makes more sense?

I'm not saying it makes sense. But you won't convince anyone by misrepresenting what the evolutionists say. And they do not say what you said. They say the same single ancestor, given billions of generations of divergent evolutionary paths, can begat both a piglet and a banana tree. Which, of course, leaves rocks right out of it.

Not saying it makes sense. But if you want people to see why, you have to address what evolution says, not what you want it to say because that's easier to poke fun at. The evolution-based theory of the origin of life says that all the incredible diversity of life had to come from a single cell, because the odds are astronomical enough against the primordial soup ever producing life without expecting it to do it twice--once, say, for plants and once for animals.

That has enough logical holes for anyone. Why downplay those real, existing logical holes by twisting the facts and trying to make it seem even goofier than it is? All that gets you is the honor of saying you have discredited yourself.

[PaulConventionWV]

We've had this argument a million times now. That is not how evolution works, you cannot witness the change from one thing to another because it takes a lot of time to happen and also its like a spectrum where the change is very gradual and the changes blend to the point you can tell of a new species by looking way back in time.

You are thinking about this with your heart but Rand is thinking with his head and I don't consider any of the approaches dumb

Ah, yes, the magical "time" potion. Just add time and *POOF*, anything is possible! Scientific or not, you better believe it because time!

[PaulConventionWV]

So fossils cannot be observed? Thank you for admitting you think that. Now we've all seen that your dogma causes blind spots in your vision.

The real question is: do fossils allow you to observe the changes you are proposing happened? Think about that one real hard.

[acptulsa]

The real question is: do fossils allow you to observe the changes you are proposing happened? Think about that one real hard.

That who is proposing?

Yes, fossils allow you to see changes. Of course, only a time machine would allow one to see them happen. But if the fossil record ever becomes complete enough (and it isn't, and may never be as petrification is something that only happens when it happens) then we will be able to see that, yes if there's any truth to it. Of course. Are you saying that if I parked a Hundred Dodge vehicles, each from a different model year, in front of you, that you couldn't track the design changes from that? I realize that evolutionary changes and design changes aren't the same thing, but I think the analogy holds anyway.

Denying that evidence is evidence is a losing proposition. It's the kind of denial-fueled behavior that convinces reasonable people that the religious are all idiots. Which more reasonable Christians do not appreciate.

The effective advocate does not deny that evidence is evidence, but asks, what is this evidence evidence of? So, why don't you think about that real hard?

[PaulConventionWV]

To be clear, it is not observable in the span of a human life - which is one reason people have difficulty accepting it. It is observable when examined through the lens of the fossil record, however.

It is not observable and yet it is observable. Thanks for clearing that up.

[hells_unicorn]

1. The argument of a propagandist: They're just words, so if I call a fish a fowl, or I call the most liberty-unfriendly law to come across Congress' docket in more than a decade the 'USA Freedom Act', I can't be accused of trying to mislead people because they're just labels for my convenience.

2. Wrong. And how do we roughly translate your 'roughly translated'? As, 'Warning--I'm about to lie outright about what someone said'?

1. Don't get mad at me, I didn't make this stupid argument, LawnWake is the one you should be arguing with on this.

2. Actually, there is no other way to respond to a self-refuting argument than to mock it and hope that the person making it wises up. What LawnWake is arguing is that words don't exist in nature, those are his words, exactly. If he wants to backpedal and state that what he meant to say is that he was mistaken in placing a redundant wall of separation between thought and reality (which is what he has done), I'll accept that. Nonsense is nonsense, if you don't like it, that's not my problem.

[PaulConventionWV]

You are mistaking the reverence we hold for the nature of scientific inquiry with reverence for individuals. It is your position and habit to make idols out of men, not mine.

The nature of scientific inquiry is only as good as those who use it. There is no "nature" without the beings whose nature it is, and you're presupposing it is their nature not to lie because they adhere strictly to this perfect standard. Yeah... right.

[acptulsa]

1. Don't get mad at me, I didn't make this stupid argument, LawnWake is the one you should be arguing with on this.

I'm not talking about his argument. If it's that stupid, you should be able to refute it without resorting to sophist tricks. There are plenty of ways to refute a 'self-refuting argument' besides using tactics so repugnant to the principles of logic that any thinking person would say you just made those 'self-refuting arguments' look more rational by comparison.

[acptulsa]

And I know you're desperate for me to get mad at you, but I'm not even mad at this quirky server for making me look redundant this morning.

You aren't worth getting mad at. Even if you do appear to be trying to so tarnish the good name of 'Christian' that thinking people become ashamed to wear it.

Jesus did not resort to lies, misrepresentations and sophist tricks. He had more respect for His listeners than that. If we resort to those things in the guise of defending Jesus, even though Jesus had too much respect for us to resort to such things--in other words, if we do these things unto the least of these His brothers--then we are not defending Him, we're disrespecting Him, intimating that His truths cannot stand on their own logical feet, trashing His good name, and turning people away from Him by misrepresenting His love as sophistry and callousness.

[PaulConventionWV]

Yea but he did not experience a day like Adam and Eve experienced it? cos he wasn't there. Moses was given the vision or inspiration to write genesis, so depending on his interpretation of the information, it could have meant billion of years. Also he though there were firmaments covering the earth like a dome which we now know was wrong. So he could have easily got him interpretation wrong.

We know that was wrong? How?

Secondly, all this dancing around is just avoiding the obvious fact that "day" means "day" no matter which human is writing it down. Why would he use that word if he didn't mean an actual day?

[PaulConventionWV]

Yea but he did not experience a day like Adam and Eve experienced it? cos he wasn't there. Moses was given the vision or inspiration to write genesis, so depending on his interpretation of the information, it could have meant billion of years. Also he though there were firmaments covering the earth like a dome which we now know was wrong. So he could have easily got him interpretation wrong.

We know that was wrong? How?

Secondly, all this dancing around is just avoiding the obvious fact that "day" means "day" no matter which human is writing it down. Why would he use that word if he didn't mean an actual day? The Genesis account even makes it abundantly clear by saying "there was morning and there was evening the __th day."

[PaulConventionWV]

Since when are rocks born? Since when do they procreate and die, and leave it to the next generation of rocks?

Do you think you're making your point or advancing your cause by equating living creatures with minerals?

Okay, replace the word "rock" with "banana". Do you think that makes more sense? How about "amoeba"? Getting warmer?

[PaulConventionWV]

Since when are rocks born? Since when do they procreate and die, and leave it to the next generation of rocks?

Do you think you're making your point or advancing your cause by equating living creatures with minerals?

Okay, replace the word "rock" with "banana". Do you think that makes more sense? How about "amoeba"? Getting warmer?

[PaulConventionWV]

I'm not saying it makes sense. But you won't convince anyone by misrepresenting what the evolutionists say. And they do not say what you said. They say the same single ancestor, given billions of generations of divergent evolutionary paths, can begat both a piglet and a banana tree. Which, of course, leaves rocks right out of it.

I didn't say rocks were part of it in that post. The idea that bananas and pigs have common ancestors seems no more reasonable to me than the idea that one came from the other, given that they are both just as unscientific and unobserved.


Not saying it makes sense. But if you want people to see why, you have to address what evolution says, not what you want it to say because that's easier to poke fun at. The evolution-based theory of the origin of life says that all the incredible diversity of life had to come from a single cell, because the odds are astronomical enough against the primordial soup ever producing life without expecting it to do it twice--once, say, for plants and once for animals.

Right, but even leaving abiogenesis out of it, the idea of this macro-scale change that you're talking about is facing just as astronomical odds. The genetic information required for a single-celled organism to evolve into a mammal is ridiculous. It's just as ridiculous as saying you can form a working protein by pure chance out of the primordial ooze.


That has enough logical holes for anyone. Why downplay those real, existing logical holes by twisting the facts and trying to make it seem even goofier than it is? All that gets you is the honor of saying you have discredited yourself.

I don't get it. You seem to be agreeing with me. All I'm saying is that it's pretty goofy. I'm not conflating the two, just showing how absurd they are based on the same scientific reasoning I apply to both.

[acptulsa]

I don't get it. You seem to be agreeing with me.

Praise be to God, the wax fell out of his ears!

So, I can't disagree with your 'debate' tactics unless I disagree with the point you're trying but failing to make? Why not?

[acptulsa]

Two for one post sale today!

[Mr Tansill]

Exactly. I rest my case. You can't prove the impossible because the impossible doesn't happen.

You can rest all you like. The point I was making is that the opposition (i.e. you evolution deniers) will set up a test which is non-falsifiable - which is a logical impossibility (not a physical impossibility, like faster than light travel) that you set up around yourselves and then chuck spears from. When no one can "disprove" the "non-disprovable" you feel comfortable - which is the actual point of your test - so you can feel comfortable holding on to your belief set.

What is funny to me is that the initial question that invited my response is still in "your" court...i.e. where has it ever been observed in nature that an entire ecosystem spontaneously, and instantly sprung into existence from nothing? Which is the claim of the "thumpers" and "intelligent design-ists" have to make. If we're going to ask each other questions, we should at least be able to show how "our" own viewpoint satisfactorily answer them. You may not buy that the fossil record is a demonstration of evolution, or that similar DNA between animals is either - fine, that's your prerogative. IMO, however, you should at least be able to present a hypothetical, testable, alternative theory.

[Mr Tansill]

...duplicate post...

[Mr Tansill]

It is not observable and yet it is observable. Thanks for clearing that up.

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

[Mr Tansill]

The nature of scientific inquiry is only as good as those who use it. There is no "nature" without the beings whose nature it is, and you're presupposing it is their nature not to lie because they adhere strictly to this perfect standard. Yeah... right.

I try to be fair and cordial with those who I respond to on this board, so I have underlined the parts of your post above that I agree with, and which I consider true.

The scientific method has never been presented as a perfect method, but it is in possession of a unique trait (i.e. that it contains a mechanism for self-correction) that is not present in many other fields. There are always philosophical and ontological questions which will exist outside the boundaries of science and will remain unanswerable for as long as we exist - this is a consequence of any logical system, and it cannot be overcome. I will say, however, that those people who choose to exist in this very sterile realm of the "unanswerable" don't have very much to add to that which can be figured out.

Yes, I generally "presuppose" that scientists conduct their research in a fair and impartial manner. Now to give you one, of course there are bad apples out there who fake studies, manipulate data, etc, in order to advance an agenda, but the majority of them are attempting to be impartial. What I think you are missing is that those who do "fake" science, are eventually refuted by those who falsify, or provide counter-examples, to a proposed theory. This is the mechanism I described above - i.e. self-correction. Religion is in possession of no such mechanism, because religion is in its "final" state. Any time the church (you name the church) has changed its tune, it has been the result of an external force.

Now, the position you necessarily hold is that there is some massive conspiracy of "scientists" out there to push an agenda. Not only that, but that there is a conspiracy against letting those people who think differently (i.e. you) into the realm of science to "refute" their "ridiculous" claims and positions. Don't like science? Fine, become one and "disprove" the theories you don't like...just expect to be challenged by fact, logic, and reason.

[Mr Tansill]

...duplicate.

[hells_unicorn]

I'm not talking about his argument. If it's that stupid, you should be able to refute it without resorting to sophist tricks. There are plenty of ways to refute a 'self-refuting argument' besides using tactics so repugnant to the principles of logic that any thinking person would say you just made those 'self-refuting arguments' look more rational by comparison.

You mad bro? I'm sorry, if you need me to spell out how on the one hand someone saying "species and genus don't exist" and on the other saying "you are messing up the definitions of species and genus" is a classic "A is non-A" distortion of logic, I don't see why I should dumb it down for you, it's literally too obvious to bother. Frankly, you've thrown the words "hypocrite" and "sophistry" without even qualifying how they apply to me or my words that I don't really feel obligated to explain anything to you, and I'm beginning to lose interest in even responding to you on this topic.

It's not my problem that "modern science" is more interested in subjective epistemology and imaginative speculation than actually utilizing logic in a consistent fashion, and that consequently "Darwinists" sound irrational when they quote their assorted platitudes and pass it off to me as gospel. I'm a naturally skeptical person, and I need a bit more than what allegedly happened "millions and millions" of years ago being the dominant narrative.

[hells_unicorn]

1. And I know you're desperate for me to get mad at you, but I'm not even mad at this quirky server for making me look redundant this morning.

2. You aren't worth getting mad at. Even if you do appear to be trying to so tarnish the good name of 'Christian' that thinking people become ashamed to wear it.

3. Jesus did not resort to lies, misrepresentations and sophist tricks. He had more respect for His listeners than that. If we resort to those things in the guise of defending Jesus, even though Jesus had too much respect for us to resort to such things--in other words, if we do these things unto the least of these His brothers--then we are not defending Him, we're disrespecting Him, intimating that His truths cannot stand on their own logical feet, trashing His good name, and turning people away from Him by misrepresenting His love as sophistry and callousness.

1. I'm not here just to make you mad, I'm saying what I think, and your annoyance is an unpleasant but unavoidable side-effect.

2. Given some other posts you've made in the "Freedom Through Religion" forum, I doubt there are many orthodox Christians that wouldn't inspire this sort of response from you. You like your Christians to be Deistic and Liberal, that's not my bag and never will be.

3. Still waiting for examples of me lying, misrepresenting or being sophist about anything. And I'm sure he was quite respectful when calling his adversaries "children of the devil" and "a den of vipers". I don't know what Jesus you believe in, maybe that effeminate hippie version that is often seen in Methodist paintings or Da Vinci's works, but frankly I never knew that Jesus. The one I know is the one that was the only begotten Son of God, eternally begotten not made, wholly man and wholly God. I will admit that I am tenacious and rough around the edges, but I'm not in the business of deceiving people by softening the Gospel/Law message so that "modern thinkers" will like it better. Truth is truth.

[Sola_Fide]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

[Sola_Fide]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

[Sola_Fide]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

[Mr Tansill]

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

Do you mean "has not been observed yet" or "is impossible to observe"?

[Mr Tansill]

duplicate.

[Sola_Fide]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

[Mr Tansill]

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

Actually, it occurs to me that the best example of evolution is that of the modern dog - which we have observed, and actually controlled, over the course of the previous 40,000 years. All modern dogs were derived (i.e. evolved from wolves). Some were naturally selected, and others were selected by humans based on certain desirable traits. Now, envision the immense numbers of different dogs that are out there. Wiener dogs, poodles, shepherds, pincers, etc. And this immense diversity occurred in the miniscule time frame of 40,000 years. Now, imagine a time span a THOUSAND times longer than that (i.e. 40 million years, which still doesn't even get us back to the dinosaurs...). Hopefully, you can begin to see the diversity that can arise after 999 more "clicks" on the evolution clock after just the "1" led to every modern dog we enjoy calling "Fido."

Again, I don't hope to convince any individual on this board, I just like presenting the facts, along with a little bit of context that can help others arrive at an understanding, or at least gain some semblance of just how long this process we call evolution has had to work.

In one "tick" we have seen the plethora of dogs take shape - life has been on this planet for 90,000 of those ticks...

[acptulsa]

What is funny to me is that the initial question that invited my response is still in "your" court...i.e. where has it ever been observed in nature that an entire ecosystem spontaneously, and instantly sprung into existence from nothing? Which is the claim of the "thumpers" and "intelligent design-ists" have to make.

Why would a proponent of intelligent design, who is likely to decide that life that evolves is a very intelligent design, have to prove that? And if such a person agrees that life crawled out of the ocean, how do you expect them to access that particular fossil record?


1. I'm not here just to make you mad, I'm saying what I think, and your annoyance is an unpleasant but unavoidable side-effect.

No, it isn't. It is possible to talk with people in such a way that you don't piss them off. People do it every day.

One way to do that is to say something only when you have something to say, instead of filling the gap with, 'Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro?'

[acptulsa]

What is funny to me is that the initial question that invited my response is still in "your" court...i.e. where has it ever been observed in nature that an entire ecosystem spontaneously, and instantly sprung into existence from nothing? Which is the claim of the "thumpers" and "intelligent design-ists" have to make.

Why would a proponent of intelligent design, who is likely to decide that life that evolves is a very intelligent design, have to prove that? And if such a person agrees that life crawled out of the ocean, how do you expect them to access that particular fossil record?


1. I'm not here just to make you mad, I'm saying what I think, and your annoyance is an unpleasant but unavoidable side-effect.

No, it isn't. It is possible to talk with people in such a way that you don't piss them off. People do it every day.

One way to do that is to say something only when you have something to say, instead of filling the gap with, 'Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro?'

[Sola_Fide]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

No, the point is that macro evolution is not observational. You and others have said that it is. It is not. It is a non-observational presupposition that is imposed on the "facts" rather than something that is observed and then induced from the "facts".

[LawnWake]

Out of curiosity.

According to the people who say that there is a practical distinction between micro- and macroevolution:

How far can microevolution go? And why can't it go further than that point?

[Mr Tansill]

Why would a proponent of intelligent design, who is likely to decide that life that evolves is a very intelligent design, have to prove that? And if such a person agrees that life crawled out of the ocean, how do you expect them to access that particular fossil record?

My bad. Depending upon the interpretation of "intelligent design" it may be that a liberal interpretation allows for "evolution guided by an intelligent designer." The "intelligent design" I was referring to was more along the lines of "everything was put into place, and then god hit the 'go' button" type of "design."

In your case, however, I think there are still significant questions that need to be levied upon those who suggest that there is a concious intelligent "designer." For instance, what is it that distinguishes life that is not guided by an intelligent designer from life that is guided by an intelligent designer? IMO, there must be some demonstration of a difference that would exist with or without an intelligent designer, otherwise, the theory/hypothesis is non-falsifiable, and hence, not scientific.

[Mr Tansill]

Why would a proponent of intelligent design, who is likely to decide that life that evolves is a very intelligent design, have to prove that? And if such a person agrees that life crawled out of the ocean, how do you expect them to access that particular fossil record?

My bad. Depending upon the interpretation of "intelligent design" it may be that a liberal interpretation allows for "evolution guided by an intelligent designer." The "intelligent design" I was referring to was more along the lines of "everything was put into place, and then god hit the 'go' button" type of "design."

In your case, however, I think there are still significant questions that need to be levied upon those who suggest that there is a concious intelligent "designer." For instance, what is it that distinguishes life that is not guided by an intelligent designer from life that is guided by an intelligent designer? IMO, there must be some demonstration of a difference that would exist with or without an intelligent designer, otherwise, the theory/hypothesis is non-falsifiable, and hence, not scientific.

[Sola_Fide]

Actually, it occurs to me that the best example of evolution is that of the modern dog - which we have observed, and actually controlled, over the course of the previous 40,000 years. All modern dogs were derived (i.e. evolved from wolves). Some were naturally selected, and others were selected by humans based on certain desirable traits. Now, envision the immense numbers of different dogs that are out there. Wiener dogs, poodles, shepherds, pincers, etc. And this immense diversity occurred in the miniscule time frame of 40,000 years. Now, imagine a time span a THOUSAND times longer than that (i.e. 40 million years, which still doesn't even get us back to the dinosaurs...). Hopefully, you can begin to see the diversity that can arise after 999 more "clicks" on the evolution clock after just the "1" led to every modern dog we enjoy calling "Fido."

Again, I don't hope to convince any individual on this board, I just like presenting the facts, along with a little bit of context that can help others arrive at an understanding, or at least gain some semblance of just how long this process we call evolution has had to work.

In one "tick" we have seen the plethora of dogs take shape - life has been on this planet for 90,000 of those ticks...


You are describing micro evolution. Everyone agrees that there are variation within species. That is not the question.

Where has MACRo evolution ever been observed? Where has it ever been observed that a dog becomes another animal?

[PaulConventionWV]

That who is proposing?

Yes, fossils allow you to see changes. Of course, only a time machine would allow one to see them happen. But if the fossil record ever becomes complete enough (and it isn't, and may never be as petrification is something that only happens when it happens) then we will be able to see that, yes if there's any truth to it. Of course. Are you saying that if I parked a Hundred Dodge vehicles, each from a different model year, in front of you, that you couldn't track the design changes from that? I realize that evolutionary changes and design changes aren't the same thing, but I think the analogy holds anyway.

Denying that evidence is evidence is a losing proposition. It's the kind of denial-fueled behavior that convinces reasonable people that the religious are all idiots. Which more reasonable Christians do not appreciate.

The effective advocate does not deny that evidence is evidence, but asks, what is this evidence evidence of? So, why don't you think about that real hard?

The analogy doesn't hold because either you or someone else has observed every single one of those vehicles being made and they know exactly which came from which and what the first one was and what the last one was and which parts were changed between each one. When you find bones in the dirt, you don't know anything about them, much less if any of them are related.

So which is it, can you observe these purported changes, or do you need a time machine? Because it can't be both. Either you can observe it and it's scientific, or you need a time machine and it's not scientific. We can observe speciation, but we can't observe macro-evolution so it's not scientific to just bridge the gap with your imagination and say "do that enough times and anything can change into anything!" You're assuming there are no limits when you don't know that.

[PaulConventionWV]

You can rest all you like. The point I was making is that the opposition (i.e. you evolution deniers) will set up a test which is non-falsifiable - which is a logical impossibility (not a physical impossibility, like faster than light travel) that you set up around yourselves and then chuck spears from. When no one can "disprove" the "non-disprovable" you feel comfortable - which is the actual point of your test - so you can feel comfortable holding on to your belief set.

The "test" is falsifiable. All you have to do is prove that there are no limits to the genetic code and anything can change into anything in the right conditions. You can't do it because it's "impossible", so I rest my case. It's not scientific.


What is funny to me is that the initial question that invited my response is still in "your" court...i.e. where has it ever been observed in nature that an entire ecosystem spontaneously, and instantly sprung into existence from nothing? Which is the claim of the "thumpers" and "intelligent design-ists" have to make. If we're going to ask each other questions, we should at least be able to show how "our" own viewpoint satisfactorily answer them. You may not buy that the fossil record is a demonstration of evolution, or that similar DNA between animals is either - fine, that's your prerogative. IMO, however, you should at least be able to present a hypothetical, testable, alternative theory.

Now you're talking about origins, which even evolutionists admit is an entirely different debate. I'm talking about evolution. I don't think it's unreasonable to think there might actually be limits to how much the genetic code can change, given that even slight changes from parent to offspring result in mutations and deformities.

[PaulConventionWV]

I almost didn't respond to this one, but because of your dodge of the critique, I feel that it's worth clarifying what I meant for the rest of the people reading this thread, even though I think it would be clear to someone actually attempting to engage in a debate/conversation.

Evolution is not-observable in the span of a human life (i.e. 70-80 years) because the changes that lead to speciation take hundreds of generations (i.e. hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of years) to transpire. It's also not possible to witness the entire lifetime of a star in the span of a human life, so to me your critique is simply that some numbers are smaller than others, therefore that change is not happening.

But that's my point. We don't really know what the life of a star looks like. We assume it is born at some point, but we've never actually seen a star being born. We see spots getting brighter in the sky, but we don't actually know what the life of a star is like. The problem isn't that one single human can't observe the changes during their lives. The problem is that no group of humans has recorded this over any number of generations because it is so far beyond our ability to know that we're supposed to just accept it despite the fact that it's completely unscientific. Science deals with things you can observe and test, but not only has no one ever observed and tested that, but no group of humans has ever recorded this happening over any length of time.


Do you see the frailty of the argument you're making? Because some changes take a very long time, and I didn't see it happen, that means it didn't happen. That is your world.

I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying it's not reasonable to believe it happened or that it's part of science despite the fact that it's obviously not scientific. Your argument isn't that it might have happened. Your argument is that it did happen and it's scientific. I'm saying you don't know that and it's not scientific. Your argument is the frail one. You're posing evolution as the "scientific, modern" argument that comes with a degree of certitude that religion doesn't have even though your belief in it is unscientific.

[PaulConventionWV]

I try to be fair and cordial with those who I respond to on this board, so I have underlined the parts of your post above that I agree with, and which I consider true.

The scientific method has never been presented as a perfect method, but it is in possession of a unique trait (i.e. that it contains a mechanism for self-correction) that is not present in many other fields. There are always philosophical and ontological questions which will exist outside the boundaries of science and will remain unanswerable for as long as we exist - this is a consequence of any logical system, and it cannot be overcome. I will say, however, that those people who choose to exist in this very sterile realm of the "unanswerable" don't have very much to add to that which can be figured out.

Yes, I generally "presuppose" that scientists conduct their research in a fair and impartial manner. Now to give you one, of course there are bad apples out there who fake studies, manipulate data, etc, in order to advance an agenda, but the majority of them are attempting to be impartial. What I think you are missing is that those who do "fake" science, are eventually refuted by those who falsify, or provide counter-examples, to a proposed theory. This is the mechanism I described above - i.e. self-correction. Religion is in possession of no such mechanism, because religion is in its "final" state. Any time the church (you name the church) has changed its tune, it has been the result of an external force.

Now, the position you necessarily hold is that there is some massive conspiracy of "scientists" out there to push an agenda. Not only that, but that there is a conspiracy against letting those people who think differently (i.e. you) into the realm of science to "refute" their "ridiculous" claims and positions. Don't like science? Fine, become one and "disprove" the theories you don't like...just expect to be challenged by fact, logic, and reason.

HA..

The "bad apples" argument.

"Cops are good. There are a few bad apples that ruin it for the rest of them, but for the most part, they're more truthful, more honest, more upstanding than most other professions..."

[PaulConventionWV]

//

[PaulConventionWV]

Do you mean "has not been observed yet" or "is impossible to observe"?

Both. Given that it supposedly takes much long than not only a human lifespan, but the lifespan of collective humanity, I would say it's quite impossible to observe. That said, though, it's not scientific until you observe it, so you can't declare it as "science" until it has first been observed.

[PaulConventionWV]

Actually, it occurs to me that the best example of evolution is that of the modern dog - which we have observed, and actually controlled, over the course of the previous 40,000 years. All modern dogs were derived (i.e. evolved from wolves). Some were naturally selected, and others were selected by humans based on certain desirable traits. Now, envision the immense numbers of different dogs that are out there. Wiener dogs, poodles, shepherds, pincers, etc. And this immense diversity occurred in the miniscule time frame of 40,000 years. Now, imagine a time span a THOUSAND times longer than that (i.e. 40 million years, which still doesn't even get us back to the dinosaurs...). Hopefully, you can begin to see the diversity that can arise after 999 more "clicks" on the evolution clock after just the "1" led to every modern dog we enjoy calling "Fido."

It's one thing to claim that all the dogs came from a common ancesotr... a dog. It's an entirely different thing to say that a dog can change into a non-dog given enough time. One has been observed, one hasn't. You can't just say "given enough time" and magically make it part of science. You are assuming there are absolutely no limits to the amount of genetic variation that is possible, but that's not a reasonable conclusion to draw from what we have observed: dogs becoming dogs. You have to jump to something we haven't observed and say it's true because of what we have observed even though you have to make a logical leap and assume that these changes can amount to completely different changes that haven't been observed.


Again, I don't hope to convince any individual on this board, I just like presenting the facts, along with a little bit of context that can help others arrive at an understanding, or at least gain some semblance of just how long this process we call evolution has had to work.

In one "tick" we have seen the plethora of dogs take shape - life has been on this planet for 90,000 of those ticks...

The magical potion of time does not make a non-scientific belief any more scientific. I'm sorry, but you're just dead wrong on that.

[heavenlyboy34]

QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#36236593)=PaulConventionWV;5885261]Both. Given that it supposedly takes much long than not only a human lifespan, but the lifespan of collective humanity, I would say it's quite impossible to observe. That said, though, it's not scientific until you observe it, so you can't declare it as "science" until it has first been observed.[ QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#25262845)]

I don't want to get into this debate, but just to give you a head's up-the counter to this, I expect, will be the various experiments that have been done with fruit flies. They reproduce extremely quickly, so change over many generations can be observed. The evidence gathered in these experiments, IIRC my biology history, are/were considered sufficient proof that evolution is an observable fact.

[PaulConventionWV]

Out of curiosity.

According to the people who say that there is a practical distinction between micro- and macroevolution:

How far can microevolution go? And why can't it go further than that point?

Nobody's saying it can't. The point is that macro-evolutionists are saying that it can even though they don't know that.

[PaulConventionWV]

My bad. Depending upon the interpretation of "intelligent design" it may be that a liberal interpretation allows for "evolution guided by an intelligent designer." The "intelligent design" I was referring to was more along the lines of "everything was put into place, and then god hit the 'go' button" type of "design."

In your case, however, I think there are still significant questions that need to be levied upon those who suggest that there is a concious intelligent "designer." For instance, what is it that distinguishes life that is not guided by an intelligent designer from life that is guided by an intelligent designer? IMO, there must be some demonstration of a difference that would exist with or without an intelligent designer, otherwise, the theory/hypothesis is non-falsifiable, and hence, not scientific.

I never claimed that ID was scientific. The point is that I admit my view is unscientific and you won't admit that your magical time potion is not scientific.

[PaulConventionWV]

QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#36236593)=PaulConventionWV;5885261]Both. Given that it supposedly takes much long than not only a human lifespan, but the lifespan of collective humanity, I would say it's quite impossible to observe. That said, though, it's not scientific until you observe it, so you can't declare it as "science" until it has first been observed.[ QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#25262845)]

I don't want to get into this debate, but just to give you a head's up-the counter to this, I expect, will be the various experiments that have been done with fruit flies. They reproduce extremely quickly, so change over many generations can be observed. The evidence gathered in these experiments, IIRC my biology history, are/were considered sufficient proof that evolution is an observable fact.

Which is exactly my point. Those fruit flies remain fruit flies no matter how many generations you breed.

[Sola_Fide]

QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#36236593)=PaulConventionWV;5885261]Both. Given that it supposedly takes much long than not only a human lifespan, but the lifespan of collective humanity, I would say it's quite impossible to observe. That said, though, it's not scientific until you observe it, so you can't declare it as "science" until it has first been observed.[ QUOTEhttp://cdncache-a.akamaihd.net/items/it/img/arrow-10x10.png (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/#25262845)]

I don't want to get into this debate, but just to give you a head's up-the counter to this, I expect, will be the various experiments that have been done with fruit flies. They reproduce extremely quickly, so change over many generations can be observed. The evidence gathered in these experiments, IIRC my biology history, are/were considered sufficient proof that evolution is an observable fact.

Fruit flies remain fruit flies. That is micoevolution, not macroevolution.

[heavenlyboy34]

Fruit flies remain fruit flies. That is micoevolution, not macroevolution.

I agree. My point was that the flies are pretty key evidence to Evolutionist theory (as it was explained to me). That the evidence for macroevolution isn't so great (IMHO) is a big problem that evolutionists need to overcome to have a real theory in the scientific sense. I think "hard" sciences like mathematics and chemistry are easier to develop solid theory for, which is why I generally like them better than biology, anthropology, and such "soft" sciences.

[acptulsa]

The analogy doesn't hold because either you or someone else has observed every single one of those vehicles being made and they know exactly which came from which and what the first one was and what the last one was and which parts were changed between each one. When you find bones in the dirt, you don't know anything about them, much less if any of them are related.

So which is it, can you observe these purported changes, or do you need a time machine? Because it can't be both. Either you can observe it and it's scientific, or you need a time machine and it's not scientific. We can observe speciation, but we can't observe macro-evolution so it's not scientific to just bridge the gap with your imagination and say "do that enough times and anything can change into anything!" You're assuming there are no limits when you don't know that.

The first Dodge Brothers car was built in 1914. No living person saw it built, or if they did, they were too young to remember. And the historical record runs only a little bit deeper than this:

'[My brother and I] started building cars because there are millions of Ford owners out there who might someday want an automobile.'--John Dodge

Yet, despite the fact that I have no engineering degree, if I were to have unfettered access to a Dodge from each model year I could probably determine from the engineering involved that Chrysler took Dodge over in 1927, and I could certainly determine that World War II went on from before the fall of 1942 through 1945. Without a time machine.

Do you doubt it? Because if I have to I could tell you how. And any anthropologist would tell you that the sort of clues I mentioned are exactly the general sort of clues they look for.

My first cousin once carved models of every bone in a certain dinosaur as a hobby. And assembled them properly, which is more than the anthropologists working on that particular animal could say. And they agreed that this particular dinosaur was a damned sight more adaptable and more likely to live long enough to get fossilized than they thought, based on their incorrect assembly of their skeleton. And thanked him for helping them out. And are to be credited for being humble enough to consider their knowledge more important than their foolish pride, which allowed them to increase the sum of human knowledge by accepting the truths presented to them by a smart and dedicated amateur who was obviously right despite having the wrong degree.

Nothing would help us correct the historical record better than a time machine would. But since we don't have any of those, we do what we can. And we can do a damned sight more than you seem to think we can. All it takes is a strange an wonderful tool called logic. You ought to look into that stuff sometime.


My bad. Depending upon the interpretation of "intelligent design" it may be that a liberal interpretation allows for "evolution guided by an intelligent designer." The "intelligent design" I was referring to was more along the lines of "everything was put into place, and then god hit the 'go' button" type of "design."

In your case, however, I think there are still significant questions that need to be levied upon those who suggest that there is a concious intelligent "designer." For instance, what is it that distinguishes life that is not guided by an intelligent designer from life that is guided by an intelligent designer? IMO, there must be some demonstration of a difference that would exist with or without an intelligent designer, otherwise, the theory/hypothesis is non-falsifiable, and hence, not scientific.

What is 'non-falsifiable' is not scientific? Seriously? Any scientist worth his salt would give his eye teeth for something that cannot be falsified. Ask one some time.

For my purposes, I am content with my own understanding that an intelligent designer is actually a damned sight more likely, statistically, than the whole world's worth of diversity of life diversely evolving from one single zygote in the primordial soup. At least, I'm content with that until better proof is discovered. It is, to my mind, the best model yet. If you'd care to disagree, feel free.


I don't want to get into this debate, but just to give you a head's up-the counter to this, I expect, will be the various experiments that have been done with fruit flies. They reproduce extremely quickly, so change over many generations can be observed. The evidence gathered in these experiments, IIRC my biology history, are/were considered sufficient proof that evolution is an observable fact.

If you can't be bothered to refresh your memory, then you should have run with your first thought, and stayed out of it. Yes, they don't live long, and a scientist can observe countless generations of them. So, you popped up here--tell us how they tested he fruit flies for adaptability and how the fruit flies that could not adapt to whatever changes of environment the scientists threw at them died off without reproducing.

Come on. You jumped in here with this bit of information like you wanted to enlighten us. Tell us what your prof tried to teach you. Don't be a damned tease. Refresh your memory and say something intelligent and enlightening. I dare you.


I agree. My point was that the flies are pretty key evidence to Evolutionist theory (as it was explained to me). That the evidence for macroevolution isn't so great (IMHO) is a big problem that evolutionists need to overcome to have a real theory in the scientific sense. I think "hard" sciences like mathematics and chemistry are easier to develop solid theory for, which is why I generally like them better than biology, anthropology, and such "soft" sciences.

Psychology is a 'soft science' because the human brain has a damned sight more variables than any psychiatrist can possibly keep track of. Biology is a lot harder a science than you suspect. Anthropology could arguably be considered pretty 'soft'. But this isn't because it is confronted with as many variables as the human brain throws at a bunch of neurotic psychiatrists, but because they have yet to dig enough holes to make a fossil record that doesn't have a bunch of temporal holes in it.

Pray, do enlighten us with a description of how you separate 'hard' and 'soft' sciences in your mind. I'm sure we're all agog to hear where the dividing line is.

[PaulConventionWV]

The first Dodge Brothers car was built in 1914. No living person saw it built, or if they did, they were too young to remember. And the historical record runs only a little bit deeper than this:

'[My brother and I] started building cars because there are millions of Ford owners out there who might someday want an automobile.'--John Dodge

Yet, despite the fact that I have no engineering degree, if I were to have unfettered access to a Dodge from each model year I could probably determine from the engineering involved that Chrysler took Dodge over in 1927, and I could certainly determine that World War II went on from before the fall of 1942 through 1945. Without a time machine.

Do you doubt it? Because if I have to I could tell you how. And any anthropologist would tell you that the sort of clues I mentioned are exactly the general sort of clues they look for.

My first cousin once carved models of every bone in a certain dinosaur as a hobby. And assembled them properly, which is more than the anthropologists working on that particular animal could say. And they agreed that this particular dinosaur was a damned sight more adaptable and more likely to live long enough to get fossilized than they thought, based on their incorrect assembly of their skeleton. And thanked him for helping them out. And are to be credited for being humble enough to consider their knowledge more important than their foolish pride, which allowed them to increase the sum of human knowledge by accepting the truths presented to them by a smart and dedicated amateur who was obviously right despite having the wrong degree.

Nothing would help us correct the historical record better than a time machine would. But since we don't have any of those, we do what we can. And we can do a damned sight more than you seem to think we can. All it takes is a strange an wonderful tool called logic. You ought to look into that stuff sometime.



What is 'non-falsifiable' is not scientific? Seriously? Any scientist worth his salt would give his eye teeth for something that cannot be falsified. Ask one some time.

For my purposes, I am content with my own understanding that an intelligent designer is actually a damned sight more likely, statistically, than the whole world's worth of diversity of life diversely evolving from one single zygote in the primordial soup. At least, I'm content with that until better proof is discovered. It is, to my mind, the best model yet. If you'd care to disagree, feel free.



If you can't be bothered to refresh your memory, then you should have run with your first thought, and stayed out of it. Yes, they don't live long, and a scientist can observe countless generations of them. So, you popped up here--tell us how they tested he fruit flies for adaptability and how the fruit flies that could not adapt to whatever changes of environment the scientists threw at them died off without reproducing.

Come on. You jumped in here with this bit of information like you wanted to enlighten us. Tell us what your prof tried to teach you. Don't be a damned tease. Refresh your memory and say something intelligent and enlightening. I dare you.



Psychology is a 'soft science' because the human brain has a damned sight more variables than any psychiatrist can possibly keep track of. Biology is a lot harder a science than you suspect. Anthropology could arguably be considered pretty 'soft'. But this isn't because it is confronted with as many variables as the human brain throws at a bunch of neurotic psychiatrists, but because they have yet to dig enough holes to make a fossil record that doesn't have a bunch of temporal holes in it.

Pray, do enlighten us with a description of how you separate 'hard' and 'soft' sciences in your mind. I'm sure we're all agog to hear where the dividing line is.

Dude, someone designed the first Dodge truck. No human designed the blueprint for the bones you found in the dirt. If you find bones in the dirt, all you know is that the animal died. Everything else requires a presupposed framework. They don't come with an instruction manual. If you find bones in the dirt and you start pontificating on which ones are related, you can't deduce that from the bones themselves. You have to impose a framework on them in order to make sense of them. You can deduce where a car comes from. You can't do the same with bones.

Either it's science and it doesn't require a time machine, or it requires a time machine and it's not science. It's very simple. You can't have it both ways.

Logic is not your friend. I am using it and you are not.

[acptulsa]

Dude, someone designed the first Dodge truck. No human designed the blueprint for the bones you found in the dirt.

No human did.

I thought you believed God did.

If God did, then there was intelligence behind the design. If there was intelligence behind the design, we can discover it. We might not be smart enough to design it ourselves, but we are smart enough to eventually 'reverse engineer' it.

If we use what God gave us, instead of believing the false prophets who tell us the lie that we have to turn the brains God gave us off to be in right with God.

Think that through 'both ways' and get back to me.


Logic is not your friend. I am using it and you are not.

Using your friends is short-sighted--and therefore illogical. But feel free to continue to use unfounded arrogance, as it is not actually your friend.

[PaulConventionWV]

No human did.

I thought you believed God did.

If God did, then there was intelligence behind the design. If there was intelligence behind the design, we can discover it. We might not be smart enough to design it ourselves, but we are smart enough to eventually 'reverse engineer' it.

You're not getting it. If and until we do successfully "reverse engineer" it, we don't know enough to say how it changed over a vastly longer time period than we've been around. Until then, it's not science. We can reverse engineer the truck, but we can't reverse engineer animals. The very least you need in order to evaluate a change is a before and an after and some kind of connection. With bones in the dirt, we have no before and we have no valid connection except our own conjecture. It's just this mysterious, amorphous "common ancestor" that nobody knows what it really was. We know where the truck came from and we know why, but have no such knowledge of living organisms.


If we use what God gave us, instead of believing the false prophets who tell us the lie that we have to turn the brains God gave us off to be in right with God.

You're the one turning your brain off in order to believe something that requires a time machine in order to be verified is science. The best thing we can do with our brains sometimes is admit that we are ignorant as to how life got here. Most religious people will admit this, but the evolutionists just can't seem to grasp the idea that science can't tell us what happens beyond the history of human existence.


Think that through 'both ways' and get back to me.

Using your friends is short-sighted--and therefore illogical.

What are you talking about?

[hells_unicorn]

1. No, it isn't. It is possible to talk with people in such a way that you don't piss them off. People do it every day.

2. One way to do that is to say something only when you have something to say, instead of filling the gap with, 'Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro? Are you mad yet bro?'

1. Not with you on this subject, it seems. I haven't read your entire post history on the religion topic, but your generally snarky demeanor tells me that if you believe this theoretically, you don't make a habit of putting it into practice. I'll admit that I take a direct approach to things and that I don't believe in compromising when it comes to this stuff, but the rather colorful inferences you've made in previous comments about my influence on others are entirely of your own making.

2. Said that one time, in response to an emotionally charged post out of you that could be best described as angry. I will admit to painting my posts with sarcasm, this is how I tend to react when I deal with people that yammer about "evidence" and "logic" as if they have a monopoly on it and then proceed to side-step or outright break the rules of logic in order to push a 100% conjectural and unscientific viewpoint. I got an earful of this stuff throughout my public education experience, and after successfully deprogramming myself of it (with some help from some very convincing books), I've tended to take a zero tolerance approach to people who spout off academia-concocted mantras verbatim.

[hells_unicorn]

What lie? You don't understand that we made up terms "genus" and "species", since nature does not operate in such absolutes. Organisms exist within a spectrum of each other. When humans categorize them, they do it to simplify something that is otherwise not easily graspable for us. However, you mistake these distinctions as absolutes and base your arguments on them.

The lie is the false distinction between thought and reality. If you truly don't understand this, you would naturally fall into the "ignorant" category. Stating that there are no absolutes is an absolute statement, hence a distortion of logic. Furthermore, a spectrum does not disqualify an absolute, it simply marks nuances between where one absolute ends and another begins.


You're infering that human categorization is analogus with natural phenomena -- phenomena that don't work based on human constructs. Evolution isn't about "one species evolving into the next". Evolution states that life is life and that that it adepts to internal and external stimuli.

It is analogous with natural phenomena because human beings are natural phenomena and it is part of our nature. What is artificial is this wall of separation you are putting between man's rational faculty and existence, which reflects an abandonment of metaphysics, which is the basis of any logical inquiry. Your rhetorical point about evolution's true meaning is theatrical nonsense, if evolution is about adaptation, and adaptation leads to speciation, the transitive property of congruence compels evolution to be about speciation. This is precisely what I meant about abandoning logic, which is what your lofty sounding little statement here does.


Who's being upset about you using labels? The problem isn't the use of labels, but a misapplication and misunderstanding of what these labels mean.

All Darwinists present in this discussion, in case you haven't been following it. There is no misapplication of misunderstanding on my part on this subject, you are another story I fear.


I was making a point that our labeling of the "donkeys" and "horses" as different animals in every day language, and describing Asian and African elephants both as "elephants", distorts the reality that donkeys and horses are more closely related to each other than African and Asian elephants are to each other. So the way laymen categorize these animals is not an accurate representation of nature.

This does not apply to my statement regarding micro-evolution and macro-evolution in any way, shape or form. The issue is the natural properties signified in the label, not the pronunciation or spelling of the title. You are the first person I have ever met who thinks that horses and donkeys seem less related to each other because the English language has a unique phonetic title rooted in slang usage, an example which becomes even less plausible when dealing with how the Latin genus Equus subsumes both the Caballus and Asinus.


Sure, you can use the word if you please. And I can point out and argue that the way you use the word is idiotic.

Whoa, idiotic? What happened to that "who's upset by you using labels" attitude you had previously? lol


I would never stop you from proclaiming that 2x2=5. But I can point out that lunacy in doing so.

Now lunacy, my you've turned over a new leaf here. Nevertheless, since I'm the one who is avoiding the unnecessary contortions in the definition of evolution, the 2x2=5 (I think you meant 2+2=5, which betrays a lack of respect for logic if I may say so) example doesn't apply. Sorry about that.


What false premise?

That speciation leads to distinct genus groups, it was right there in my post for crying out loud.


Sure, it's not unique to America. But it has taken on a distinct character within American politics. The uprising of the "religious right" is a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics. Same with the gun debate -- sure there always were debates, but the radicalization is relatively recent.

Your cavalier attitude towards definitions has led you to do some necessary backpedaling here since in your previous post you bluntly implied that only Americans oppose evolution. You want to know what else is a recent phenomenon? It's called The Myth Of The Flat Earth, and it was created by butt hurt Darwinists to disparage people skeptical of Darwin's inferences from his observations, and it was 100% false, and the people who perpetuated it were either lying about it or completely ignorant of history. If you want to know the reason why I am arguably a bit radical in my opposition to Darwinism (I won't speak for the religious right since I can only be described as nominally related to said group) is because I don't dignify people who try to rewrite history to slander their opponents with respect. If you think that obnoxious lies that are still present in a number of textbooks in Europe won't inspire a reaction, you should think again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth


Without any sort of logical backing, Americans place themselves into one category or the other, accept any position that comes along with that, without considering their logical or philosophical implications.

I'm not the biggest fan of American Evangelical Christianity because of its tendencies towards being ahistorical and overly fundamentalist in demeanor, but this is pure ideologically driven nonsense. You can't even use logic properly and probably haven't read any classical philosophy outside of a philosophy 101 textbook and you have the gall to make a sweeping generalization like this? And you really wonder why I've been on you for perpetuating lies?


This is why the debate about abortion, evolution and guns is so incredibly polarizing and black white in America. With a distinct lack of nuance from either side. Like Republicans talking good game, but failing to extend that logic to foreign policy because they're "supposed".

There is little room for nuance in abortion from a purely logical view, you either kill it or you let it live. There has been a long standing consensus that certain medical exceptions which many Christians wouldn't even count as an abortion are not controversial. Your understanding of this debate is shaped by doing precisely what you accuse Americans of doing, namely not thinking critically, failing to analyze the variables, and simply believing everything some mainline media outlet tells you. The same holds true for evolution and guns, there is reality, and then there is what "Enlightened" moguls in academia and the mainstream media want everyone to think. I grew out of that nonsense about 10 years ago.


Western Europe is not without its problems and other forms of polarization (there's major debates about intigration and immigration in the Netherlands), but they take on a different, distinct form. But in both cases it's simply a divide and conquer tactic of the state.

Nope, immigration is a very real problem in Europe. If you study the crime demographics of various immigrant populations, it's pretty clear what is going on over there, and I would argue that Geert Wilders is far more realistic about this issue than everybody in the Dutch parliament who may well have been secretly hoping that that gunman in Texas would have killed him.

Allow me to spell this out for you in no uncertain terms. I am actually a very big believer in evolution from a micro-evolutionary standpoint, and that includes the evolution of cultures and what happens when you play mix and match with formerly environmentally isolated sub-species of people. Introduce enough old school Muslims to Sweden, and then say hello to Swedestan, currently the rape capital of Europe. This is the true face of statist manipulation, not common people and individual politicians reacting to a mess created by their government as Wilders and others like him are doing.


That is not what I said. I was explaining an analogue between our labeling of the words "cold blooded" and "warm blooded" and our labeling of animals as being either "mammals" or "reptiles". I was arguing that both of these labels merely describe spectra, and no set points in nature. Likewise, arguing that a "fish can't turn into a reptile" misses the point that there is a giant spectrum of animals in between them -- that both words are merely theoretical absolutes, and no natural category. We call one "fish" and the other "reptiles" for our convenience; but nature does not deal in such absolutes. They're human constructs.

So basically, categories don't tell us anything about nature, but they are set up so we can understand nature, and this all makes sense because there is a "spectrum". As I said, this makes no sense whatsoever.


If you don't understand a point, it's wiser for you to ask for clarification than to play petty word games and twisting someone's argument.

Your clarifications are making as little sense as your initial points. I'll lay my problem with all of your points in a single statement. I don't see any reason whatsoever to accept your argument that categories are not natural, and while making a distinction between man's interpretation and the thing in itself may be necessary to point out mistaken observations, stating that there are no categorical distinctions in nature is tantamount to stating that the natural world is not rationally knowable. I understand that Western Europe has been ravaged by post-modern philosophical thought to the point where people struggle to believe what their eyes tell them, but it never fails to astound me when I actually see it in action.

[ChristianAnarchist]

So it seems that some think I'm not "intelligent" because I reject evolution. Sorry, I've seen so many examples of "scientists" "cooking the data" to prove an agenda. Please tell me I'm wrong. Please tell me that there's NEVER been a case of scientists falsifying data to prove a point. I do believe there was a time when "scientists" said that the sun revolves around the earth and it was "heresy" to claim otherwise. Today the "scientists" claim we came from single cell organisms and it's "heresy" to believe otherwise.

Call me a skeptic, call me a heritic, I don't care. My mind is made up. I can't see "evolution" occuring in a lab (takes too much time). I can't see CONCLUSIVE evidence in fossils that it ever occurred in the past so if that makes me an idiot, then in the eyes of those gods of science, I'm an idiot. Ask me if I care...

[PaulConventionWV]

As an example, many evolutionists like to say "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I don't really buy this, but since they use it, let's just say, for instance, that someone came up to me and claimed that dogs were related to bananas. I would think that was an extraordinary claim, and if someone is going to try to convince me otherwise, they have no right to call it science until they prove it to me. Bones in the dirt don't prove anything and they certainly don't live up to the standard of "extraordinary evidence." The idea that I should believe something that I can't observe, test, or repeat is ridiculous enough as it is, but for the same people making this claim to walk around with this holier-than-thou attitude and say we're unscientific if we don't believe this extraordinary claim is just beyond the pale.

[acptulsa]

You're not getting it.

I get it. I said if I had a Dodge from each model year I could make the connections. I didn't say we have enough fossils to connect those chains. I have, in fact, said more than once in this thread that we have yet to find enough fossils to have a complete record. I don't know why you're holding up an if/then as some kind of proof that I think the fossil record in our hands is somehow comprehensive, when anyone who was looking for the truth of the matter (as opposed to playing gotcha games) would have looked at my statement that the fossil record is not comprehensive.


What are you talking about?

Don't worry about it. You'd have to have a sense of humor to know.


1. Not with you on this subject, it seems.

I give as good as I get--and I give as good as anyone in the thread is getting. Lob the first grenade my direction and it's the Fourth of July. Should I turn the other cheek instead? Probably. But I've found that some people don't even realize how obnoxious they are until I give them a taste of their own medicine.

Some of them even grow up enough to thank me for it. Eventually.


The lie is the false distinction between thought and reality. If you truly don't understand this, you would naturally fall into the "ignorant" category. Stating that there are no absolutes is an absolute statement, hence a distortion of logic. Furthermore, a spectrum does not disqualify an absolute, it simply marks nuances between where one absolute ends and another begins.

A wonderful example. That was neither a lie nor evidence of a tenuous grip on reality. For example, take the platypus. Like Pluto the planet which isn't a planet, science has tried to pigeonhole the platypus as a mammal, a marsupial, and whatnot, and after learning more about it, has finally decided that a platypus is just a platypus. No, the pigeonholes are not absolute. They are not of nature. They are just a rickety framework that helps the scientists understand things--until it falls down, but that's all right too, because an open mind can also learn from that.

He wasn't lying to you. But you weren't exactly being honest when you said that there have to be absolutes in species classification because saying there are no absolutes is an absolute statement. The fact is, an absolute statement does mean there are absolutes in the world, but does not in any way logically infer that those absolutes exist among species classifications. Of course, and in fairness, I don't know that you committed this logical fallacy out of a desire to be dishonest. Maybe you just '...naturally fall into the "ignorant" category,' Mr. Nice Guy And Golden Rule-Observing Christian.

Bad sophistry. Means nothing at all. And was delivered in the most arrogant and obnoxious manner possible. What I am doing is holding up a mirror. If you don't like what you see...

[erowe1]

Well that's not going to go over well with fundamentalist Christians, but not like he was going to get that vote anyway.

I don't see why he wouldn't have.

[hells_unicorn]

I don't see why he wouldn't have.

Rand's Achilles Heel with fundamentalists is the perception of his views on Israel and his foreign policy. He may yet still have some appeal to them despite this statement compared to Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, but this demographic is hungry to vote for another guy who speaks their language, and it appears Cruz would be their man.

I'm an oddball because I'm closer to the Reconstructionist position when it comes to Israel, which is neither fundamentalist and is definitely a minority position.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Rand's Achilles Heel with fundamentalists is the perception of his views on Israel and his foreign policy. He may yet still have some appeal to them despite this statement compared to Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, but this demographic is hungry to vote for another guy who speaks their language, and it appears Cruz would be their man.

I'm an oddball because I'm closer to the Reconstructionist position when it comes to Israel, which is neither fundamentalist and is definitely a minority position.

What do you mean? He went to Isreal and wore the obligitory yarmulke, didn't he?

[wizardwatson]

When did Rand ever say he believed the bible? I've looked. The only thing I've found that he ever said was, "I try to follow the tenets of the New Testament".

Rand has never said anything directly about Christ and he certainly hasn't said that he believes any of the scripture in the Old Testament.

Rand is an agnostic as far as I can tell. He sees Jesus as a moral teacher likely and is undecided about God.

[erowe1]

Rand's Achilles Heel with fundamentalists is the perception of his views on Israel and his foreign policy. He may yet still have some appeal to them despite this statement compared to Scott Walker and Jeb Bush, but this demographic is hungry to vote for another guy who speaks their language, and it appears Cruz would be their man.

I'm an oddball because I'm closer to the Reconstructionist position when it comes to Israel, which is neither fundamentalist and is definitely a minority position.

You're right about Israel and a lot of fundamentalists. I don't see how a Reconstructionist wouldn't qualify as fundamentalist, btw.