[Kohrs93]

(sorry if this is in the wrong section, wasn't sure where to put it. move it if needed please)


Just got done reading this article and found it very interesting. Thought I would share it with you guys. DO NOT LET THIS THREAD TURN INTO AN ARGUMENT ABOUT RELIGION!


Hasn?t Evolution Been Proven True? - Answers in Genesis

[101fng]

it is interesting, but i think the author tries a little too hard to disprove evolution with biblical "evidence." from what i gathered, one of his main points was that there is no evidence of any transitional species (missing links). that's a good point, i guess. but i think it's pretty easily explainable. they call them missing links for a reason. because we haven't found them yet, thus, they're missing. homo sapien evolved from homo erectus. between homo sapien and homo erectus is homo antecessor and heidelbergensis. if you want the transitional creature between those, you may find them, but it's a lot like the dichotomy paradox where you'll never arrive at point B from point A as you must always get halfway there, and half of the half, and half of that half, and so on.

[brokenweasel]

Coors, if that interested you there is a guy by the name of Ken Ham who I have heard speak. Check out Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics, interesting stuff.

[Kohrs93]

Very good point drew. I expected more people to be interested in this lol... And ill definitely check that out when I get home tonight broken.

[nileppezdel77!]

"if there is no God, then there are no rules—no commandments, no God-given rules which we must obey. We can therefore live our lives as we please, for according to evolutionary philosophy, there is no God to whom we have to give an account... This is called relative morality."

Wh-what? You mean, I can do as I please and there are no repercussions? No social or psychological or philosophical or even legal ones? There are plenty of godless moral philosophies; in fact, our own legal system is a function of a few of them including utilitarianism and basic natural law (that has evolved through civilizations, go figure). Fun fact: Athiests make up 8% of the US population and only .2% of the prison population. Maybe we're just better at not getting caught because we don't care, you know because the 80% of the prison system that identifies Christian just turned themselves in because of an internal conflict with their beliefs.

I'll get back to you on the rest of this article (that is, obviously, devoid of citations, seeing how factually inaccurate it is in its attempt to portray evolutionary biology/chemisty and quantum mechanics as facile) tonight. This one line rubbed me the wrong way.

[SNmustang95]

subbed. but shutting my mouth.

[Kohrs93]

Awaiting a reply nile! Interested to hear what you have to say. BTW... use stupid person language. I had to read that like 4 times to understand it

[nileppezdel77!]

I forgot about this thread, but I'll try to get back to it tomorrow. I've got work in the morning, if I get a break like earlier, I'll get to it.

[nileppezdel77!]

I'd like to focus on the big bang aspect of the article since that it the part that I feel most people have difficulty wrapping their heads around (I know I do) since it involves math orders of magnitude more complex and long and difficult than just about anyone is willing to imagine.

First of all, I should mention that I'm not a rocket scientist by any means. I don't know how to do the math involved in these discoveries, so I can't submit mathematical proofs myself. I am relying on knowledge I've gained on the subject from books and articles I've read and lectures I've attended by people who know more than me and tried to dumb it down for the audience.

Ultimately, the difference between scientific explanations of origins and biblical ones lies in the fact that one of them is falsifiable. Religious dogmatism is non-falsifiable since it relies on a number of logical inconsistencies to make its point including circular reasoning and of course a reliance on non-empirical evidence. It's not testable, observable or proveable, it just is. Science relies on observation, experimentation and empirical proof to make claims, so it's certain up to the abilities of scientists and observational technology of the time. This is why 500 years ago we didn't know the Earth revolved around the sun and 100 years ago we didn't know that the universe was constantly expanding at accelerated rates among the hundreds of other scientific discoveries that were proven wrong or expanded on by better math and science and tech years later. For some reason, people believe this to be a fault with science, but it's really just a fault with our ability to observe phenomena. We get better and better at this stuff, so we get better and better at figuring out how stuff works. The answer "God did it" is unsatisfactory since it amounts to saying "we don't know how it happened (since God is unproveable and unknown) and we don't care enough to find out." It's intellectually unstimulating. Even if our science is totally wrong, it is the building blocks upon which we make new, more accurate predictions.

To the article: "the Bible teaches that “in the beginning God created” and the evolutionists teach, in essence, that “in the beginning nothing became something and exploded.”

This is an oversimplification. First of all, yes, it relies on the notion that "nothing" became something, but I'll get to that in a second. The issue here is that it's not just an explosion. It's an expansion. This is difficult to describe without props or drawings, but I'll do my best. We know definitively, from visual proof from the Hubble space telescope that the universe is expanding in every direction more and more rapidly. An explosion implies that some degree of energy was expelled in the creation of the universe, but in reality, it's not lost like in an explosion, but continues to exist. Most of that energy is actually in the space between everything and while observable inside protons, not much is known about it and it's referred to as "dark matter." It's what the Large Hadron Collider is trying to create/observe.

"All logic predicts that if you have nothing, nothing will happen. It is against all known logic and all laws of science to believe that the universe is the product of nothing."

This logic is the result of evolution which trains our brains to believe that there is a cause and effect that must be obvious. That's besides the point though. Think about this scientific fact: 90% of the mass of a proton is made up of empty space. That empty space is the dark matter I just referenced. How can "nothingness" weigh something? We simply don't know yet, science hasn't had enough time to come up with an answer. We know that theoretically, it's possible to create something from nothing with 0 total energy and quantum fluctuations (some hopefuls speculate that the LHC will actually do that and create tiny universes or black holes) and that we must observe and examine the dark matter to do it. The very existence of it is straining our current understanding of the universe and hopefully it will be a catalyst for a new breakthrough.

What we do know is that our science can bring us back 13.72 billion years to the beginning of the universe. We know it's that old from calculations made based on the current expansion of the universe today. We can also observe the heat from the condensed beginning by looking 100,000 light years away and seeing the effects of the heat. At the very least, we are abundantly aware of the fact that a rapid expansion of the universe occurred at that time, "caused" by quantum fluctuation.

"This means that not only is all the physical material of the universe the product of nothing, but also other things. For example, we are forced to accept that nothing (which has no mind, no morals, and no conscience) created reason and logic; understanding and comprehension; complex ethical codes and legal systems; a sense of right and wrong; art, music, drama, comedy, literature, and dance; and belief systems that include God."

Yes. It happened completely by chance. It's not even a significant issue, really. Think about all the infinitesimally small chance happenings in your life from meeting people, stubbing your toe, getting on this website, finding that article. All of it could have happened a second sooner or later and it would have, drastically or not, changed your life and the lives of others. There's infinite possibilities, and so out of those infinite possibilities, the notion that we exist in this space and time 13.72 billion years after the origin of the universe is about as infinitely unlikely as the origin of the universe happening as a result of those quantum fluctuations. They happen an infinite number of times and presto, it works on time. This seems a bit like a cop out, and you could easily just substitute God into the equation, but then, you'd be forced to submit that God didn't have any choice in the matter since this is the only possible way these infinite possibilities could have churned out the world we live in. Wrap your mind around the fact that if our entire galaxy didn't exist, it would literally change NOTHING about the rest of the universe. We represent such a minute part of the universe that our existence is meaningless. Why the hell would God create a universe in which we are basically the most meaningless part anyway?

The question what caused the big bang pushes our capacity to understand since we only know how to talk about things in terms of time and space, but that didn't actually exist before it, well, existed. There is no cause and effect in a world where there is no matter and time to speak of. So while science can't answer all the possible questions, throwing it to the wayside in favor of dogmatism is silly. We need the openness of scientific thinking and learning and exploration to push the boundaries of understanding and then one day in the future, we'll be able to create a more complete picture. Right now, the only thing that is absolutely certain is that there is far more that we don't know compared to what we know.

"There is no demonstrable evidence for the big bang"

I hope that I've explained some of it in this well enough that you can be sure that this line is absolutely incorrect.

[sikedsyko]

Another major problem for the chemical evolutionist is the origin of the information that is found in living systems. There are various claims about the amount of information that is found in the human genome, but it can be conservatively estimated as being equivalent to a few thousand books, each several hundred pages long. Where did this information come from? Chance does not generate information. This observation caused the late Professor Sir Fred Hoyle and his colleague, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of Cardiff University, to conclude that the evolutionist is asking us to believe that a tornado can pass through a junk yard and assemble a jumbo jet.

This is just flat wrong. It's like saying no one ever wins the lottery because the odds are too high. Just because there's a 100billion to 1 chance of an occurrence happening, doesn't mean that it can't.

The problem with the author's argument is that he can't wrap his head around the immense amount of time 4.5 Billion years is.

I'm sure I could retort more of his claims, but in all honesty I've fought that fight before and no one has ever been convinced to change their feelings.

[01Lightning]

My biggest problem with the Bible is how people take it as gospel.

Remember that game you used to play as a kid, telephone, where one person whispered a word, and as it went down the line of 20 or so people it ended up completely different. That's essentially what the Bible is. It was translated into so many different languages so many different times. Not to mention the fact that when the Bible was rewritten it was often altered by the people who wrote it to achieve some personal means, like the Church did during the Middle Ages, they dictated to the people what the Bible says.
(Let's play a game to telephone, only it has to be translated by hand several dozen times over the course of 2012 years, lets see what we end up getting)

Also: I've debated with Christians who say "If you don't find/believe in Jesus you go to Hell." I asked him if someone who is selfless, charitable, and good intentioned, but not a Christian would go to Hell, I asked him if the Dolly freaken Llama would go to Hell, he said yes, but a cereal killer who "finds Jesus" will go to Heaven.
Also, I thought it was against Christian belief and practice to judge others, yet it occurs so often.

Disclaimer: I have no problem with any religion. I am simply saying that proven science and facts must be accepted. Religion is great, to an extent, and it is one thing to politely inform others of your faith, but it's another thing entirely to cram it down someone's throat and tell them "you're going to Hell".

I've had some one tell me that the Bible is the ultimate love story (god to people) I responded, "Yes, and that's exactly what it is, a story..." lol

Sorry for my rant, but It's just astounding how people can look science and reason in the face, and say that a book is always true, even when it's proven wrong time and time again... so aggravating. (but religion practiced to an extent in cohesion with reason and logic is a great thing, but it's rare)