Posted on 11/16/2010 9:23:54 AM PST by Sopater
...”You say “there are only two ways...” How do you know this? You don’t. And you’re forgetting the possibility that perhaps the universe has always been — a possibility you implicitly accept by assuming the eternal existence of an god.”...
Science (which it seems is your god) accepts the fact that there was a beginning. If the Universe was eternal all available energy would have been used and the Universe would have already suffered heat death (2nd Law). I do accept the implicitely that God is eternal.... he exists outside of time..... that’s one of the things that makes Him Supernatural.
You forgot a fourth possibility.... matter and energy do not exist. For that you will also have to dive into the realm of philosophy, which is what Evolutionary Theory really is.
When you get right down to it, there are only two real possibilities.... the ones I pointed out.
Science cannot prove Spontaneous Generation either... yet it’s in the textbooks. Is it then Science or Philosophy?
Here’s how it works.... You start by saying “Evolution is true, now let’s look at the evidence without straying from the natural.” What you wind up with is evolutionary philosophy.
Evolution (specifically the macro variety) cannot be proven either..... in fact the fossil record still, when looked at critically, seems to refute it quite soundly. Darwin thought that eventually the fossils would be found.... they haven’t. Yet it is taught in Science class as fact.
Haeckel’s embryos..... proven to be fraudulent long ago are still in the textbooks.... why? Could it be that they’ve got nothing else?
Bill Gates once said that “Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” Can a computer program itself? What makes you think that DNA can?
“How could you be ignorant of these things? I think you need to study some more.”
I think you need to study some more as well. When it comes to Science, the Bible is way ahead of you. A few examples, there are many more, of things the Bible described thousands of years before Science got around to discovering:
The Hydrological Cycle
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
Pathways in the seas
Stars too numerous to count
The expanding Universe
While you’re at it, check out Romans 1:20. It describes you pretty well.
Objectively...Evolution is as big a myth as creation. Given the choice of which of two myths to believe, some prefer to choose the dirt/snake story as opposed to the chimpanzee story. What the heck is the big deal anyway?!!!!!
Hey George -
One other thing I should have mentioned.
Those things that I told you about that were written in the Bible thousands of years before science discovered them.....
They had to have been written by those “Ignorant Nomads” that you mentioned in another post.
Hey Sopater....
I think George took a powder.
The last time I checked in on an Evolution-vs.-ID/Creationism thread, the defenders of science seemed to me holding their own, doing quite well, and putting ID/Creationists on the run.
This time poor GeorgeSaden is holding down the fort all by himself -- with Indians attacking from all sides. ;-)
And the ID/Creationists arguments seem to be rather well thought out and organized, with long lists of reasons why science is really bunk, and their religion is really science.
Yes, indeedy it is... </sarc>
Let me simply point out (again), that: by definition Evolution is science -- that is to say, a natural explanation for the natural world -- while ID/Creationism is not.
Evolution is based on literal mountains of evidence, and now volumes of DNA analyses, accumulated by scientists over centuries.
ID/Creationism is based on, well, the Bible and alleged "holes" in evolution theory.
But those "holes" are often mis-characterized by ID/Creationists, and in no case point directly to an "Intelligent Designer."
Indeed, there is no direct physical evidence for ID/Creationism.
That's why it's not science, among other reasons.
So here's the bottom line: I have no doubt that God created the Universe, and everything in it.
As to how He did it, science has natural explanations, including evolution.
And, whether God, or some other "Intelligent Designer" intervened directly to influence certain key developments (the eyeball is often cited), remains a scientific possibility -- however improbable and currently unsupported by any physical evidence.
But let me suggest something to our religiously oriented thinkers here: while ID/Creationism remains scientifically possible (if evidence were ever found to support it), it will always be theologically impossible!
How can that be, you ask?
Because, for God to intervene in His own creation (the Universe) to miraculously force natural events on the tracks He intended, that would imply the natural Universe was not from the beginning, God's perfect creation -- and that would suggest God Himself is less than perfect.
Well, I'd say this is not only theologically impossible, but contradicted by the Bible which tells us, over and over, that God considers His creation "good."
Please notice I'm talking about the natural world, and not human beings, who are acknowledged by all to be necessarily far from perfect, indeed natural born sinners in constant need of God's guidance and intervention.
And these are just the kinds of things taught in religion-oriented classes.
But they are not science.
Evolution precisely, is the theory that random mutations through natural selection will produce viable new types of creatures, an idea that has never been remotely demonstrated (look at what they've done to those fruit flies and all they've produced was some really effed up fruit flies).
But more important, how is it possible to falsify this theory. If you can't, then it doesn't meet the modern definition of science.
God and I would disagree
God and actually scientists that know the truth would disagree
Adaptation is observable, and it’s built in to the original information that makes up the organism.
Adding new, viable, “better” information to the DNA information of an organism has not been observed.
Oh, and as for “teaching evolution bearing fruit” -
yep, we see that every day in the devaluation of human life.
Right now there’s a thread about some teens who “killed because they were bored”.
Change in a population over time is the definition of evolution.
What most creationists object to is the common descent of species, but they usually don’t know enough about either subject to know the difference between the two.
Evolution precisely has two elements:
Darwin himself did not know that these changes can result from random genetic mutations, he knew nothing about genes, much less DNA. He only knew that offspring are sometimes different from their parents.
Darwin deduced "natural" selection based on his knowledge of human selection of domestic animals. Just as a farmer selects the best looking pig in a litter to breed, so nature "selects" those offspring best suited to survive.
That's it. That's precisely what the word "evolution" means.
Of course, from that many other ideas can be deduced (or debated), but the word "evolution" itself is a very simple and basic scientific theory which can be and has been often studied, observed, and never proved false.
As for the long, long-term emergence of, in your words, "viable new types of creatures", the word "type" is not a scientific category, and might be construed to mean almost anything.
Examples in nature of related species just on the cusp -- so different they can interbreed, but the offspring are sterile -- include horses and mules, along with according to some researchers, Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.
But fossil records, and DNA analysis, show evolutionary time separating horses from mules, or Neanderthals from Cro-Magnon in the million-year plus range.
So clearly, in nature, such changes do not normally happen rapidly.
But nothing known to science prevents many small, incremental evolutionary changes from adding up, over many millions of years, to the development of new breeds, species, genera, families, orders, etc.
So, whether any of these scientific categories (i.e., breed, species, genera, etc.) corresponds to the biblical "kind" or your word "type" is really only a matter of interest, I'd suppose, within ID/Creationist circles.
No doubt, you were talking so loudly yourself, you missed hearing what He said. ;-)
God intervenes every day in the affairs of humans, and the theological explanation is that humans are born with free will, a desire to sin, and a huge need for God's help.
Nature, by contrast, has no "free will" and so can only do what God "programmed" it to do from the beginning.
Since nature is doing what God intended in the first place, there is never a need for Him to make "mid-course corrections."
Of course, as the Bible records, God has intervened in nature, on occasion, but only for the sake of it's effect on humans, never because nature itself was, so to speak, "out of control."
To suggest otherwise is to insult God, I'd say.
Ooooooops. This example should say "horses and donkeys" which when mated produce sterile mules, of course.
Random genetic mutations leading to changes in offspring have certainly been observed.
The effects of natural selection on these offspring has also been observed.
And that's it. That's evolution.
Evolution has not been observed by modern day scientists. The Creation of the Earth has not been observed by modern day scientists.
It was observed by God. Jesus is the Son of God and part of the Trinity. Therefore Creationists have an eyewitness that says the Earth was created and people following the religion of evolution and abiogenesis have no eyewitnesses.
Good luck with duplicating the experiment!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.~ John 1:1
Can ‘supernatural’ events occur, or not? Doesn’t science rule out the supernatural? Well, no, it doesn’t. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Laws of science merely describe things that happen, and those things would happen whether scientists have formulated a law about it or not. It is not our scientific laws that cause things to happen the way they do. Similarly, scientific laws cannot prescribe what cannot happen. Our laws of science can no more cause or prevent something than a map can affect the shape of a coastline.
~ http://creation.com/materialist-defence-of-bible-fails
1. Descent with modification -- meaning offspring are not just carbon copies of their parents, but sometimes contain changes.
2. Natural selection: meaning that those offspring with changes which better adapt them, helping them to survive and reproduce, can pass these changes on to their offspring.
Everybody accepts the idea of speciation. Speciation is not evolution. There is no evidence that the progressive branching of life that evolution espouses could ever occur.
There is no argument that all canines very well could have started with a single variety of dog or all felines could have started with a single variety of cat, but there is no evidence dogs could ever become cats or anything else, through any number of intermediaries.
It's hard to phrase what "type" means in a biological classification sense as that classification is certainly prone to errors as is any other man devised system. My feeling is that type may be generally defined as what is classified as a genus, but may possibly extend beyond that in some instances.
The so called fossil record is meaningless. It's nothing more than starting with a pre-concluded assertion and fitting the data to fit that conclusion. There have so many proven misrepresentations, hoaxes and inconsistencies with the fossil record regarding evolution that I laugh whenever anybody offers it as evidence of evolution. I know you don't agree, but whatever.
Evolution itself has been observed -- descent with modification and the effects of natural selection can be seen by ordinary people every day.
And dramatic changes over short periods have been observed on a small scale.
And the records of large scale changes over very long time periods are found everywhere -- in fossils and DNA analyses.
Yes, no way can we go back in time to observe the creation of our earth.
But we can, and have, looked back in time through telescopes seeing into deep space the "birth" of other new stars and their new planets.
Nor is there any physical evidence suggesting our planet was created any differently from those.
Finally, I'm delighted to see you quoting the Bible to me, just in case anyone had confused your arguments with science.
By your own words, your arguments are religious, and I say, that's wonderful. You can have whatever religious beliefs you want.
Just please, don't call your religion "science."
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