# Belief in evolution?



## WhatIsRubiks (Apr 3, 2014)

I just want to know how many speedcubers believe in evolution?. There are a lot of people who don't believe. Most of the time, it's people who don't understand that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. 

Katt Williams for example, he uses the "how are there apes now?" argument.


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## Stefan (Apr 3, 2014)

Definitely! Dayan etc are quite different from the original Rubik's!


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## WhatIsRubiks (Apr 3, 2014)

Stefan said:


> Definitely! Dayan etc are quite different from the original Rubik's!



You just made my day =D


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## WinterCub3r (Apr 3, 2014)

im not going to state my belifes, because this could quickly turn into a debate that is going to run itself into the ground faster then feliks and matts solving a rubiks cube.


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## Mikel (Apr 3, 2014)

I believe in evolution. I don't see why you wouldn't.


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## Dene (Apr 3, 2014)

Hang on, this thread is actually serious? I was totally expecting a joke or a surprise challenge or something. How can you _"believe"_ in evolution?


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## ~Adam~ (Apr 3, 2014)

If you have looked at the evidence then you should believe in evolution.

Alternatively you could ignore all the evidence and add up the ages of the people in the bible to get to the conclusion that the world is 6,000 years old.


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## Ultimate Cuber (Apr 3, 2014)

Once you completely understand evolution and have seen all the evidence for it, I don't really see why you wouldn't believe it.


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## Stefan (Apr 3, 2014)

Dene said:


> How can you _"believe"_ in evolution?



What do you mean?


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## DeeDubb (Apr 3, 2014)

Stefan said:


> What do you mean?



I think the implication is that evolution is simply a fact, so there's no real "belief". It's like believing that 2+2=4. It's just a fact, so you aren't really "believing" in anything. Just knowing a fact is true.


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## porkynator (Apr 3, 2014)

WhatIsRubiks said:


> [...] There are a lot of people who don't believe.[...]



Wait, is this true? I understand that in third-world countries lacking an education system this can happen, but assuming we are not considering those cases, this scares me. Don't they teach the evolution theory at school? It's like believing the Earth is flat.


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## TDM (Apr 3, 2014)

WhatIsRubiks said:


> Katt Williams for example, he uses the "how are there apes now?" argument.


They evolved differently to humans. A species doesn't just continue evolving in one line. That's one of the worst arguments I've seen.


DeeDubb said:


> I think the implication is that evolution is simply a fact, so there's no real "belief". It's like believing that 2+2=4. It's just a fact, so you aren't really "believing" in anything. Just knowing a fact is true.


For people who believe what the bible says is entirely true, they may not see evolution as a fact; they would think that God created all animals 6000 years ago.


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## patrickcuber (Apr 3, 2014)

I belive in evolution and always will.


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## Haxagon (Apr 3, 2014)

While I also believe in evolution, there are people out there with different view points. Trying to convince some people that evolution is real is like trying to convince people, such as myself, into believing in creationism. People will always have strong beliefs.


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## Consider (Apr 3, 2014)

Ultimate Cuber said:


> Once you completely understand evolution and have seen all the evidence for it, I don't really see why you wouldn't believe it.



Do you think that there is hard evidence that your remote ancestors were microbes ?


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 3, 2014)

porkynator said:


> Wait, is this true? I understand that in third-world countries lacking an education system this can happen, but assuming we are not considering those cases, this scares me. Don't they teach the evolution theory at school? It's like believing the Earth is flat.


Yes, most country's schools teach the theory of evolution, however it directly contradicts most major religions. Therefore, many people still don't believe in evolution, because their parents raised them to believe in their religion. It is just a matter of thinking about the evidence, and finding what you believe, whether that be in some sort of a God, a spaghetti monster on pluto, or evolution.


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## 5BLD (Apr 3, 2014)

Believe in? What do you mean by "belief"?
I kinda consider evolution to be the best possible idea of our existence so far. But for me the word "belief" seems to have an element of faith in it. And it's rather that for convenience I go by it but it's certainly possible it's wrong.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 3, 2014)

To start out, I do not believe in evolution. I am a Christian.

My first question: if evolution is true, how did matter come into existence? Surely there was something that started it all.
I'm not saying I have all the answers (neither does science), I'm just curious in what you guys think.


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## WinterCub3r (Apr 3, 2014)

nothing can come From chaos. how then can a perfect working eco system come from a random explosion and chaos.


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## Stefan (Apr 3, 2014)

5BLD said:


> for me the word "belief" seems to have an element of faith in it



For me, "faith" is less clear than "belief", so I think your attempt to clarify achieved the opposite.



Methuselah96 said:


> I am a Christian.



My condolences.



Methuselah96 said:


> My first question: if evolution is true, how did matter come into existence?



What do those two things have to do with each other?


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 3, 2014)

Stefan said:


> My condolences.


 



Stefan said:


> What do those two things have to do with each other?


I guess it doesn't directly have to do with evolution, but it does have to do with the origin of human beings. I'm basically asking how evolution started (how did the process begin).


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## Phillip1847 (Apr 3, 2014)

Stefan said:


> My condolences.


Lol
I accept evolution as true.
However, the idea that the earth revolves around the sun is absolutely ridiculous. Earth clearly revolves around Jupiter(Zeus).


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 3, 2014)

Phillip1847 said:


> Lol
> I accept evolution as true.
> However, the idea that the earth revolves around the sun is absolutely ridiculous. Earth clearly revolves around Jupiter(Zeus).



I always got a kick out of the Flat Earth Society.


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## kcl (Apr 4, 2014)

Stefan said:


> For me, "faith" is less clear than "belief", so I think your attempt to clarify achieved the opposite.
> 
> 
> 
> My condolences.



This is uncalled for. This forum is not meant for people like you to go around bashing religion, it's for speedcubing. Let's try and keep it that way. 

Anyway, I'm Christian but I still believe in evolution. Believe it or not science and religion CAN get along. 

In my opinion, everything evolves to some extent. Look at cars from the 80's, then take a look at models from this year. Aside from having four wheels and windows, they look almost nothing alike. Same goes for computers, or cell phones, and yes, even living things in my opinion. 

That's just my stance on this, I don't need to argue for it or argue against someone else.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 4, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> This is uncalled for. This forum is not meant for people like you to go around bashing religion, it's for speedcubing. Let's try and keep it that way.
> 
> Anyway, I'm Christian but I still believe in evolution. Believe it or not science and religion CAN get along.
> 
> ...


This is the off-topic forum so maybe we can get a little more rowdy here and not talk about just speedcubing. anyway, I completely agree that Christians can believe in evolution and still be Christians, but I'm just wondering: do you believe that Adam and Eve were real people and how did that work into the evolutionary process? (I'm not trying to argue I'm just curious in your beliefs.)


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## Stefan (Apr 4, 2014)

kclejeune said:


> This is uncalled for. This forum is not meant for people like you to go around bashing religion, it's for speedcubing.



First of all, I suggest you take a dictionary and look up the meaning of _"off-topic"_.

Secondly, I like Nathan and that is simply honestly how I feel, and I believe I expressed it in a rather civilized manner. How is that _"bashing"_?

Thirdly, how is it worse than _"I always got a kick out of"_, with which you apparently have no problem whatsoever at all? (I'm really very interested in your answer to this)


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## kcl (Apr 4, 2014)

Stefan said:


> First of all, I suggest you take a dictionary and look up the meaning of _"off-topic"_.
> 
> Secondly, I like Nathan and that is simply honestly how I feel, and I believe I expressed it in a rather civilized manner. How is that _"bashing"_?
> 
> Thirdly, how is it worse than _"I always got a kick out of"_, with which you apparently have no problem whatsoever at all? (I'm really very interested in your answer to this)



Saying "My condolences" to someone's personal values and beliefs is like a slap in the face. It's just plain rude, which is why I used the term "bashing". 

When did you ever say you got a kick out of a religion here?


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 4, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> I always got a kick out of the Flat Earth Society.





kclejeune said:


> Saying "My condolences" to someone's personal values and beliefs is like a slap in the face. It's just plain rude, which is why I used the term "bashing".
> 
> When did you ever say you got a kick out of a religion here?



I said it. I probably shouldn't have since some people actually do believe this and it's not nice to ridicule somebody on their beliefs. I would argue that a lot of their theories are rather far-fetched, but then again Christianity probably sounds far-fetched to other people as well.


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## Phillip1847 (Apr 4, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> I always got a kick out of the Flat Earth Society.



...so?


kennan said:


> This is uncalled for.


"My condolences" is uncalled for?....
That is 'going around and bashing religion'?
huh.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 4, 2014)

Phillip1847 said:


> ...so?
> 
> "My condolences" is uncalled for?....
> That is 'going around and bashing religion'?
> huh.


While i agree that what Stefan said was rude, it was not uncalled for or bashing. If someone is going to post in a thread like this, they should expect people to argue/be rude, this whole thread is just asking for a huge debate or argument to break out.


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## Phillip1847 (Apr 4, 2014)

Rocky0701 said:


> While i agree that what Stefan said was rude, it was not uncalled for or bashing. If someone is going to post in a thread like this, they should expect people to argue/be rude, this whole thread is just asking for a huge debate or argument to break out.



I agree. I'm saying its not bashing, hence the fail-quotes & question marks. Slightly rude, but as you said, this is a trap for a flame war, even though it should be.


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## Divineskulls (Apr 4, 2014)

I believe that a series of increasingly tiny mice have been furnishing this world all out of a thin rubber material that they secrete out of their fingertips. I deserve time to tell everyone else they're wrong, a cookie, and a special sticker.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 4, 2014)

Divineskulls said:


> I believe that a series of increasingly tiny mice have been furnishing this world all out of a thin rubber material that they secrete out of their fingertips. I deserve time to tell everyone else they're wrong, a cookie, and a special sticker.


I now have a completely new view on life.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 4, 2014)

Saying "my condolences" about someone's beliefs is sort of tongue-in-cheek playfully condescending. However, it depends entirely on your relationship with the person. If it's someone you don't know, then it should be taken offensively by the recipient. Basically you are telling them that their entire belief system is worthy of sorrow and pity. You tell someone "my condolences" when their grandmother dies, or they are diagnosed with a serious illness. Equating something that is believed strongly by someone to condolence-worthy events is absolutely insulting.

However, if it's someone you have a friendly relationship with, then sure, anything goes.


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## Jaycee (Apr 4, 2014)

There was a Religion Thread here in the OT section a few years ago. I spent one night reading every post, and IIRC it had more than 600 posts. It was civil for the most part; but unfortunately the thread was closed. Shame.

Edit: I know evolution doesn't _have_ to deal with religion but this thread sort of went that direction. 

Also: Found it! Reached 586 posts in less than 3 weeks and then was closed.


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## Cubeologist (Apr 4, 2014)

I don't "believe" in evolution. You don't have to believe or have faith in something for which there is proof or evidence. On the same note, I do not believe in gravity or a heliocentric solar system either, I just assume that they are truthful because that is what the evidence suggests.


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## Dene (Apr 4, 2014)

Stefan said:


> What do you mean?



To be honest I find it hard to put into words what I want to express, because saying "I believe in evolution" is completely nonsensical in a Wittgenstein-ian kind of way.


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## ~Adam~ (Apr 4, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> My first question: if evolution is true, how did matter come into existence?



I know it has already been pointed out that this question doesn't deal with evolution but you may like to know that the sum of energy in the universe is ZERO.

That means that matter wasn't magicked into existence but just the other half of a balanced equation.


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## Consider (Apr 4, 2014)

dsbias said:


> I don't "believe" in evolution. You don't have to believe or have faith in something for which there is proof or evidence. On the same note, I do not believe in gravity or a heliocentric solar system either, I just assume that they are truthful because that is what the evidence suggests.


well said, but i think that neodarwinism is the only theory frequently asked for being believed !

“Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality. I am an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian, but I must admit in this one complaint… the literalists [i.e., creationists] are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”
_Michael Ruse, professor of history and philosophy and author of The Darwinian Revolution (1979), Darwinism Defended (1982), and Taking Darwin Seriously (1986)_


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## WhatIsRubiks (Apr 4, 2014)

I am not trying to start a religious argument. I am just asking who believes in evolution. Also, I say "believe" because while there is a lot of evidence for it, it is still just a theory. A very realistic and convinces theory, but still just a theory.


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## Consider (Apr 4, 2014)

WhatIsRubiks said:


> I am not trying to start a religious argument. I am just asking who believes in evolution. Also, I say "believe" because while there is a lot of evidence for it, it is still just a theory. A very realistic and convinces theory, but still just a theory.



What is the evidence of microbe-to-man evolution ?


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## KongShou (Apr 4, 2014)

To people who say how did life start then: look up the miller urey experiment. God is not needed in any part of this process.


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## ~Adam~ (Apr 4, 2014)

WhatIsRubiks said:


> I am not trying to start a religious argument. I am just asking who believes in evolution. Also, I say "believe" because while there is a lot of evidence for it, it is still just a theory. A very realistic and convinces theory, but still just a theory.



IMO evolution is a theory in the same way that gravity could be considered a theory. Especially later evolution where the gaps are being filled in beautifully by predicted specimens.

What is the best alternative to evolution? God did it? Ok. No holes in that theory I guess.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 4, 2014)

Consider said:


> Big annoying picture



Gravity is a theory AND a law.The law of gravity tells us how gravity affects things. The theories of gravity are explanations of why gravity affects things.

The whole point is a scientific THEORY isn't a small thing. There's no such thing as "just a theory" in science. It takes a lot of solid evidence to support something before it can move from being a hypothesis to a theory. It isn't like the way we use "theory" in day-to-day conversation, like the "theory" of who drank the last of the milk and put the jug back in the fridge. It's not a "hunch." It's something that has to have tons of support that simply can't be considered a law.


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## KongShou (Apr 4, 2014)

Evolution has tons of empirical evidence. Religiom has none. NONE. I know which I'd rather believe for a lifetime.

Everything science is just theories, it cannot be proven. Unlike mathematics. But it is the result of all the evidence gathered and is subject to change. This is unlike religion. And so you cannot laugh at us claiming it is more justified than creationism.


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## Consider (Apr 4, 2014)

DeeDubb said:


> Gravity is a theory AND a law.The law of gravity tells us how gravity affects things. The theories of gravity are explanations of why gravity affects things.
> 
> The whole point is a scientific THEORY isn't a small thing. There's no such thing as "just a theory" in science. It takes a lot of solid evidence to support something before it can move from being a hypothesis to a theory. It isn't like the way we use "theory" in day-to-day conversation, like the "theory" of who drank the last of the milk and put the jug back in the fridge. It's not a "hunch." It's something that has to have tons of support that simply can't be considered a law.




This is remarkable because these arguments are fallacious and bankrupt. They tell us much more about the state of evolutionary thought than the supposed truth of neo-darwinism.

Whether the comparison is to gravity, or to any empirical observation, we consider it to be a fact because we can observe it. Whether or not we can explain it, and to what degree we can explain it, has no bearing on the observation itself. So Gould is correct that gravity does not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain it.

But we do not observe humans evolving from apelike ancestors. That is the claim of neo-darwinism, and it is a claim that suffers from substantial scientific problems. That is not a comment on evolution, it is a scientific fact.

Yes darwinists do debate rival explanations for how the species originated, but there is no observation of evolution that “doesn’t go away” during the debate. There is no fact of evolution to fall back on while evolutionary explanations encounter scientific problems.

This fallacy in the Darwinist’s comparison with empirical observations is not subtle. In fact the fallacy is so trivial one is embarrassed for evolutionists. And yet there it is. Leading evolutionists have always and continue to use this utterly ridiculous argument. What is important here is not that the argument fails, but that darwinists believe it is an effective defense of their untenable position. The argument fails in its defense of neo-darwinism, but it reveals how bankrupt and vacuous is evolutionary darwinian thought.


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## ~Adam~ (Apr 4, 2014)

If you don't like the theory of evolution then come up with an alternative which relies upon evidence.

Edit - I am fine with God guiding what looks like evolution. As long as you are looking at the evidence and seeing that the increments in evolution are getting smaller and smaller with new discoveries.


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## mati1242 (Apr 4, 2014)

5BLD said:


> I kinda consider evolution to be the best possible idea of our existence so far.



I have the same opinion.


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## Dene (Apr 4, 2014)

Consider said:


> Yes darwinists do debate rival explanations for how the species originated, but there is no observation of evolution that “doesn’t go away” during the debate. There is no fact of evolution to fall back on while evolutionary explanations encounter scientific problems.



Hang on wut. Where did all the fossils go? Is there some mega-conspiracy going on or something that I'm missing out on?

btw you're being fallacious "too". That is a mega strawman argument you made there. So eat your own words, you lose.


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## Schmidt (Apr 4, 2014)

I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this: 
god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.


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## Consider (Apr 4, 2014)

Dene said:


> Hang on wut. Where did all the fossils go? Is there some mega-conspiracy going on or something that I'm missing out on?


 
The evolutionist zoologist David Kitts interprets the facts presented by the fossil record as a “difficulty” for evolutionists:
" _. paleontology. . . had presented. . . difficulties. . . the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms . . . paleontology does not provide them_."(Walter Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion “Evolution’s Big Bang? Or Darwin’s Dillema?”, WLS Publishing, 1999)

Even if we grant that every fossil looks the way it is reconstructed and that sequences demonstrating evolution really do exist, fossils cannot count as evidence for evolution. They can _merely be __consistent_ with evolutionary theory (*which** they aren’t*!) — not _evidence_ for the theory.
Why is this so?
No-one can know if any fossil is related. And because of this, we cannot know if one particular fossil evolved from another. If we cannot know that one particular fossil evolved from another, we cannot use them as proof that one fossil evolved from another (aka evolution)!

Now some may say that similarities between organisms determine relationships. In other words, similar organisms are probably related. But this reasoning falls flat. Many similarities exist between the *marsupial mouse* and the *placental mouse*.However, evolutionary scientists believe that the placental mouse and the horse are more closely related than the placental mouse and the marsupial mouse. In this instance, and in many others, similarities do not equate to relatedness. The argument from similarity as evidence for relatedness is a dead end.
Revise: Similar Organs (Homology) Evidence For Evolution ?

David Kitts, who studied under George Gaylord Simpson, summed up the fossil argument:

“_Few paleontologists have, I think, ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. The fossil record *doesn’t even provide any evidence in support of Darwinian theory *except in the weak sense that the fossil record is compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary theories, and special creationist theories, and even ahistorical theories_.”
This can be concluded with this very fitting statement:

“_No real evolutionist, whether gradualistic or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution over special creation_.”(Mark Riddley, “Who Doubts Evolution?” _New Scientist_ (Vol. 90: June 25, 1981), p. 831)


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## pipkiksass (Apr 4, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
> god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
> and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.



They had a third son, called Seth.

Not sure how they bred. Remember Jurassic Park, where the frog DNA in the dinosaurs allowed them to change sex and breed with each other? Well maybe that's what happened?!


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## Stefan (Apr 4, 2014)

Dene said:


> To be honest I find it hard to put into words what I want to express, because saying "I believe in evolution" is completely nonsensical in a Wittgenstein-ian kind of way.



Hmm, I don't know what you mean with Wittgenstein-ian kind of way. I guess if you really want an answer to your question _'How can you "believe" in evolution?'_, you'll have to be explicit about why it makes no sense to you. It does make sense to me and I see no problem with it.


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## SenileGenXer (Apr 4, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
> god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
> and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.



Let me preface my answer with this. I am not religious, this is not a christian perspective. I love the book of Genesis. The stories are the briefest - the least filled in. The bare bones of a story. The fewest words possible. They say so little and people fill in the rest with assumptions. The really ancient hebrew that Genesis came from didn't even have vowels or vowel markers, didn't have great noun - verb agreement. It's a series of almost disconnected words on a page. You have to fill a lot in to even read it as a sentence. This bare bones story telling accomplishes a lot. So much of Genesis a Rorschach test that we have to fill in with what we assume. What I really dislike about religion is that they tell you how to fill in the blanks or that reading it a certain way is heretical.

In the religious communities there are two answers to you questions. They are both complete assumptions and not even anything in the text. A) Eve had daughters as well and the story doesn't mention them. B) Her surviving children Cain and Seth went out in the world and found women. Both of these are not satisfactory to the modern mind but there isn't a complete explanation in the text. The complete explanation is what people bring to it or see in it or add to it.


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## TDM (Apr 4, 2014)

Consider said:


> The evolutionist zoologist David Kitts interprets the facts presented by the fossil record as a “difficulty” for evolutionists:
> " . paleontology. . . had presented. . . difficulties. . . the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms . . . paleontology does not provide them."(Walter Starkey, The Cambrian Explosion “Evolution’s Big Bang? Or Darwin’s Dillema?”, WLS Publishing, 1999)


So humans haven't found examples of fossils of absolutely every animal ever to have lived... of course they haven't. There are way too many, and people aren't going to dig up most of the planet to fill in the gaps.


> Even if we grant that every fossil looks the way it is reconstructed and that sequences demonstrating evolution really do exist, fossils cannot count as evidence for evolution. They can merely be consistent with evolutionary theory (which they aren’t!) — not evidence for the theory.
> Why is this so?
> No-one can know if any fossil is related. And because of this, we cannot know if one particular fossil evolved from another. If we cannot know that one particular fossil evolved from another, we cannot use them as proof that one fossil evolved from another (aka evolution)!


I'd say it's more like evidence than proof. But if's that's not good enough for you, can you suggest any proof that evolution is false?


> David Kitts, who studied under George Gaylord Simpson, summed up the fossil argument:
> 
> “Few paleontologists have, *I think*, ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds for the conclusion that evolution has occurred.


He doesn't seem to be sure of what he's talking about. He's guessing what other people think.


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## SenileGenXer (Apr 4, 2014)

Dene said:


> To be honest I find it hard to put into words what I want to express, because saying "I believe in evolution" is completely nonsensical in a Wittgenstein-ian kind of way.



Meaning is use in a Wittgenstein-ian way. While you may desire people to use more precise language to avoid ambiguity you live in a culture where there are not precise singular definitions of words. You understand what was said.

Maybe for you belief is an inappropriate word but for many it expresses the ambiguity of their support for an idea. Perhaps it is one phase, one signifier, of the process of evaluating the evidence and the presenters of that evidence.

If we are getting all Wittgenstein like and you can't put your thoughts into words do you have a thought yet?



Consider said:


> The evolutionist zoologist... ... color ... coded ... to look like a wall ... of links ... fudged ... quotes ... ...



You video was hilarious in a demented Uncle Ruckus sort of way. Nice that it's been subtitled for Saudi Arabia. You trying to convert reasonable people to your cause?

Don't trust them evolutionist over there!
Building their dioramas with such flare!
Dem happy headed evolutionist with their finger on the fossils
Dheir reconstructions do be awful!
Don't trust them evolutionist over there!

You know it is all rhetoric to distrust science and zero offering any evidence to support your own contention. Science is about studying reality not about rhetoric. Your rhetoric is dishonest ... way ... out of context quotes. You got absolutely nothing.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 4, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> I haven't read the bible very much, so I would like a Christian pov on this:
> god created A and E and they had two sons, but where did the rest of mankind come from? Did the two sons breed with their mother? Or does it say that god created more people?
> and why are dinosaurs not mentioned in the bible.



The Hebrew culture is patriarchal so it doesn't trace ancestral lines through women, so women often aren't recorded in Hebrew histories. However, it does mention in Genesis 5:4 that Adam had daughters: "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." The assumption from my pov is that Adam and Eve's children bred among themselves.

As for dinosaurs, I am Old Earth Creationist so I believe that dinosaurs died off before Adam and Eve were created.


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## Dene (Apr 5, 2014)

Consider said:


> Bunch of crap



The argument you put forward is more of a general issue you seem to have with the hypothetico-deductive method of scientific investigation, rather than a specific issue with evolutionary theory. While I might not necessarily disagree with your disapproval of the hypothetico-deductive methodology, there are other ways evolutionary theory can be justified in a scientific way which your horrible arguments don't apply to.

Regardless, you put forward another disgraceful strawman. You're obviously brainwashed, for which I don't blame you (otherwise I'd just call you an idiot). But I don't have any desire to argue this over with you as it would be completely futile.



Stefan said:


> Hmm, I don't know what you mean with Wittgenstein-ian kind of way. I guess if you really want an answer to your question _'How can you "believe" in evolution?'_, you'll have to be explicit about why it makes no sense to you. It does make sense to me and I see no problem with it.



Hmm you haven't read the Tractatus huh? nvm it's not important. I still stand by what I said, in that I find it difficult to explain what I mean, because it would require me to put together words which don't belong together. But if we were to get all epistemological, to say evolution is up for "belief" is to say it is up for belief whether the hands that I see at the end of my arms are actually hands, or just an illusion presented by an evil demon which runs the universe with the sole desire to screw me over (yay Descartes).

Evolutionary theory is not something that can be "believed" in. It is a scientific theory based on observable facts and further supported by enormous advances in science and discoveries since the time of Darwin. Either you agree with it or you don't. You can't "believe" it.



SenileGenXer said:


> If we are getting all Wittgenstein like and you can't put your thoughts into words do you have a thought yet?



hurr total nonsense ^_^


----------



## Cool Frog (Apr 6, 2014)

Dene said:


> But if we were to get all epistemological, to say evolution is up for "belief" is to say it is up for belief whether the hands that I see at the end of my arms are actually hands, or just an illusion presented by an evil demon which runs the universe with the sole desire to screw me over.



That is up for belief. Taking observations as truth is also up for belief. That's an assumption made only once you believe observations are accurate and true.


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## rj (Apr 6, 2014)

No. I'm willing to argue my point, although the debate can never be won.



pipkiksass said:


> They had a third son, called Seth.
> 
> Not sure how they bred. Remember Jurassic Park, where the frog DNA in the dinosaurs allowed them to change sex and breed with each other? Well maybe that's what happened?!



They had more kids, too. Nobody's gonna live 900 years and not have more than 3 kids.


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## Cool Frog (Apr 6, 2014)

rj said:


> They had more kids, too. Nobody's gonna live 900 years and not have more than 3 kids.



I would like to see an experiment that replicates this story. Two people have children, and their children interbreed, etc. I highly doubt that they as a people would last very long.


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## Phillip1847 (Apr 6, 2014)

Cool Frog said:


> I would like to see an experiment that replicates this story. Two people have children, and their children interbreed, etc. I highly doubt that they as a people would last very long.



Not approved by your local ethics board.
On humans anyway. 
We all came from some incest. You have 2^n ancestors(where n is generations), and eventually that number grows over earths population.


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## Cool Frog (Apr 6, 2014)

Phillip1847 said:


> Not approved by your local ethics board.
> On humans anyway.
> We all came from some incest. You have 2^n ancestors(where n is generations), and eventually that number grows over earths population.



Incest affects offspring differently depending on familial distance. It wasn't like two humans, one male and one female, evolved first and then we all came from them.


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## Phillip1847 (Apr 6, 2014)

Cool Frog said:


> Incest affects offspring differently depending on familial distance. It wasn't like two humans, one male and one female, evolved first and then we all came from them.



Clearly. That would have a lot of implications, haha. That was a tidbit that I wanted to add.


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## Dene (Apr 6, 2014)

Cool Frog said:


> That is up for belief. Taking observations as truth is also up for belief. That's an assumption made only once you believe observations are accurate and true.



So what you're saying is the only thing not up for belief is the fact that "I" exist. Everything else is up for grabs. While true, it is completely unhelpful in any scenario other than extreme philosophy. In the real world, observables are not up for belief.


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## Cool Frog (Apr 6, 2014)

Dene said:


> So what you're saying is the only thing not up for belief is the fact that "I" exist. Everything else is up for grabs. While true, it is completely unhelpful in any scenario other than extreme philosophy. In the real world, observables are not up for belief.



Didn't you say in the morality thread that you don't like semantics arguments? That seems to be all this is. You seem to keep having issues with the terminology people use in causal conversation. Your argument against the word "belief" is also largely unhelpful in the real world because it's not how people use the word, clearly.


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## Dene (Apr 6, 2014)

Cool Frog said:


> Didn't you say in the morality thread that you don't like semantics arguments? That seems to be all this is. You seem to keep having issues with the terminology people use in causal conversation. Your argument against the word "belief" is also largely unhelpful in the real world because it's not how people use the word, clearly.



This thread was put forward as belief in evolution vs. belief in creationism (even if not explicitly, that was obviously the point). This is clearly an improper use of the word "belief". I may as well try and get some people thinking properly about science if they're going to try and talk about it.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 6, 2014)

Dene said:


> This thread was put forward as belief in evolution vs. belief in creationism (even if not explicitly, that was obviously the point). This is clearly an improper use of the word "belief". I may as well try and get some people thinking properly about science if they're going to try and talk about it.



Just curious, what evidence contradicts old-earth creationism? I believe in a very old universe and earth that started with a Big Bang initiated by God. Then God created certain other things in different time periods of history. You could almost say, scientifically, that I believe the same thing you do without the macro-evolution. What evidence is there to support macro-evolution as opposed to creationism?


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## Dene (Apr 6, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> Just curious, what evidence contradicts old-earth creationism? What evidence is there to support macro-evolution as opposed to creationism?



None whatsoever. In fact, no evidence contradicts fundamentalist creationism. But these "theories", for want of a better word, are unscientific as they are infallible.


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## JasonK (Apr 8, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> Just curious, what evidence contradicts old-earth creationism? I believe in a very old universe and earth that started with a Big Bang initiated by God. Then God created certain other things in different time periods of history. You could almost say, scientifically, that I believe the same thing you do without the macro-evolution. What evidence is there to support macro-evolution as opposed to creationism?



If by Old-Earth Creationism you mean "the universe works exactly the way we observe it, but God is behind it all", then there is obviously no evidence to support or contradict it. It's an unfalsifiable hypothesis.

Young-Earth Creationism makes testable claims (6000-yr-old Earth, no evolution, etc.) which can be disproven. But what you're proposing can't possibly be tested, which puts it completely outside the reach of the scientific method.


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## LNZ (Apr 9, 2014)

Thankfully in Australia, this is not yet a problem. But the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) does want Creationism / Intelligent Design to compliment evolution in all non government schools. As Australia's PM is Tony Abbott (who also is a climate change skeptic and does not believe in a carbon tax), a devout Catholic, may be considering this. But he has said that only evolution will be taught in government schools.

I love these subjects a lot. I gleefully avoided planned vaccinations at school by my own devices from 1978 to 1982 (age 8 to 12).

Highlight was running across a six laned busy road and getting hit by a car to avoid a planned polio vaccine jab at school in August 1982.

If you change the parties and the subjects, you'll get the flouridation of water debate, the vaccination debate and the climate change / carbon tax debates.

Despite above mentioned childhood deed in August 1982, I love science and the scientific method. I only believe in evolution.


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## Dene (Apr 9, 2014)

LNZ said:


> Thankfully in Australia, this is not yet a problem. But the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) does want Creationism / Intelligent Design to compliment evolution in all non government schools. As Australia's PM is Tony Abbott (who also is a climate change skeptic and does not believe in a carbon tax), a devout Catholic, may be considering this. But he has said that only evolution will be taught in government schools.
> 
> I love these subjects a lot. I gleefully avoided planned vaccinations at school by my own devices from 1978 to 1982 (age 8 to 12).
> 
> ...



Deary me why the hell wouldn't you get vaccinated? Surely not because of the "vaccinations cause autism" thing?

And I assume you support flouridation of water supplies?

Also "complement".


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## ~Adam~ (Apr 9, 2014)

Dene said:


> Deary me why the hell wouldn't you get vaccinated?



Because vaccinations cause autism!!!
Even though when scientifically studied they are shown to have absolutely no link. However people like Jenny McCarthy have very loud voices.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 10, 2014)

JasonK said:


> If by Old-Earth Creationism you mean "the universe works exactly the way we observe it, but God is behind it all", then there is obviously no evidence to support or contradict it. It's an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
> 
> Young-Earth Creationism makes testable claims (6000-yr-old Earth, no evolution, etc.) which can be disproven. But what you're proposing can't possibly be tested, which puts it completely outside the reach of the scientific method.



No, that would be theistic evolution. I believe for example that God created everything over a long period of time. Each of the "days" described in the Bible are long billion year periods of time when created different parts of creation. I do not believe in macro-evolution. So surely there could be something to disprove this theory?


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## JasonK (Apr 10, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> No, that would be theistic evolution. I believe for example that God created everything over a long period of time. Each of the "days" described in the Bible are long billion year periods of time when created different parts of creation. I do not believe in macro-evolution. So surely there could be something to disprove this theory?



When you say you don't believe in "macro-evolution", what exactly do you mean? "Macro-evolution" is not a separate process from "micro-evolution", they are identical processes observed on different timescales.

Genetic variation coupled with limited resources leads to some traits being more beneficial to survival than others. Individuals with beneficial traits pass on those traits to their offspring, while those with detrimental traits do not survive to reproduce. This process leads to small changes on short timescales, and accumulates to result in large changes when given a long time to act.

In order for micro- and macro-evolution to be separate processes, you would need two separate types of genetic material: one shared between all organisms and one which is specific to each organism. But this isn't what we observe - genetics works in much the same way across all life, and genetic material can be fairly trivially transferred from one organism to another.


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## antoineccantin (Apr 14, 2014)

LNZ said:


> Thankfully in Australia, this is not yet a problem. But the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) does want Creationism / Intelligent Design to compliment evolution in all non government schools. As Australia's PM is Tony Abbott (who also is a climate change skeptic and does not believe in a carbon tax), a devout Catholic, may be considering this. But he has said that only evolution will be taught in government schools.
> 
> I love these subjects a lot. I gleefully avoided planned vaccinations at school by my own devices from 1978 to 1982 (age 8 to 12).
> 
> ...



I just don't know what to say...


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## applemobile (Apr 14, 2014)

JasonK said:


> Young-Earth Creationism makes testable claims (6000-yr-old Earth, no evolution, etc.) which can be disproven.



Can it? All out testing and Data may say it disproves it. But if a supreme being create the universe, don't you think they would cover their tracks to stop some pesky mortals unraveling it. Do you not think they would have defined the sciences to work in their favour, and show results to put curious minds off course. You can NEVER disprove creation. "God Did it" is the most flawless argument you will ever come across.


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## JasonK (Apr 14, 2014)

applemobile said:


> Can it? All out testing and Data may say it disproves it. But if a supreme being create the universe, don't you think they would cover their tracks to stop some pesky mortals unraveling it. Do you not think they would have defined the sciences to work in their favour, and show results to put curious minds off course. You can NEVER disprove creation. "God Did it" is the most flawless argument you will ever come across.



You're right, you definitely can't disprove a God which uses his omnipotence to cover his tracks. But from what I've seen of Creationists, this generally isn't what they believe. Most of the apologists I've seen/read have maintained that the evidence really does support their claims.


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## applemobile (Apr 14, 2014)

JasonK said:


> You're right, you definitely can't disprove a God which uses his omnipotence to cover his tracks. But from what I've seen of Creationists, this generally isn't what they believe. Most of the apologists I've seen/read have maintained that the evidence really does support their claims.



Well lets face it, anyone who bases their life beliefs on a book that has been translated and edited a thousand times, without as much as looking at the origional, really isn't the sort of person that uses evidence to back up their claims.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 14, 2014)

applemobile said:


> Can it? All out testing and Data may say it disproves it. But if a supreme being create the universe, don't you think they would cover their tracks to stop some pesky mortals unraveling it. Do you not think they would have defined the sciences to work in their favour, and show results to put curious minds off course. You can NEVER disprove creation. "God Did it" is the most flawless argument you will ever come across.



Flawless circular logic.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 17, 2014)

JasonK said:


> When you say you don't believe in "macro-evolution", what exactly do you mean? "Macro-evolution" is not a separate process from "micro-evolution", they are identical processes observed on different timescales.
> 
> Genetic variation coupled with limited resources leads to some traits being more beneficial to survival than others. Individuals with beneficial traits pass on those traits to their offspring, while those with detrimental traits do not survive to reproduce. This process leads to small changes on short timescales, and accumulates to result in large changes when given a long time to act.
> 
> In order for micro- and macro-evolution to be separate processes, you would need two separate types of genetic material: one shared between all organisms and one which is specific to each organism. But this isn't what we observe - genetics works in much the same way across all life, and genetic material can be fairly trivially transferred from one organism to another.



I guess I'm trying to say that I don't believe that over billions of years a single-celled organism could evolve into a human being. I believe evolution works on a much slower time scale. I guess this is what I mean rather than "macro" or "micro."


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## ChickenWrap (Apr 17, 2014)

DeeDubb said:


> I think the implication is that evolution is simply a fact, so there's no real "belief". It's like believing that 2+2=4. It's just a fact, so you aren't really "believing" in anything. Just knowing a fact is true.



Well, the "fact" that 2+2=4 isn't really a fact. At some point in time, someone came up with the idea of the number 2 to represent a certain quantity of something. The words we use to describe what we know are just things we have made up. Does that make them facts, since they are just random phrases that we have given a certain meaning?

anyway, a lot of people on this thread have said that evolution is a fact, and if you don't believe it, you are either uneducated or flat out crazy. I have looked at this argument from both points of view, and there is plenty of problems with both evolution and creationism (for example, how did Adam and Eve's sons reproduce as there was only one woman, Eve, on the earth?). I am not saying that I don't believe in evolution, because I do, but there can be a balance between a God (from any religion, not just Christianity) and evolution.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 17, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> Well, the "fact" that 2+2=4 isn't really a fact. At some point in time, someone came up with the idea of the number 2 to represent a certain quantity of something. The words we use to describe what we know are just things we have made up. Does that make them facts, since they are just random phrases that we have given a certain meaning?
> 
> anyway, a lot of people on this thread have said that evolution is a fact, and if you don't believe it, you are either uneducated or flat out crazy. I have looked at this argument from both points of view, and there is plenty of problems with both evolution and creationism (for example, how did Adam and Eve's sons reproduce as there was only one woman, Eve, on the earth?). I am not saying that I don't believe in evolution, because I do, but there can be a balance between a God (from any religion, not just Christianity) and evolution.


Yes, i agree that people need to stop saying that it is a fact that evolution/creationism is a fact and begin looking at the situation from both perspectives. I personally believe in evolution, but i believe that creationism is a possibility. As far as what you are saying with 2+2=4 not being a fact, although the symbols and words that we use to represent specific quantity, can we all agree that if you have two of something, and add two more, then you have 4. You can still do math without using numbers making 2+2=4 a fact. Like if you look down at the amount of hands that you have and then combine them with another person's hands, you know for a fact, without using numbers that you have "4", if that makes sense. I remember when i was a toddler, my grandmother taught me single digit adding and subtracting *litterally* before i was able to count. She would put cheerios or something on my high chair and add and subtract them in front of me, and then say the number that she was adding/subtracting aloud. then she would repeat the number to me, i would do the problem, and if i got it right i would get to eat the cheerios. It sounds really dumb, but she taught me this, then taught me how to count later.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 17, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> Well, the "fact" that 2+2=4 isn't really a fact. At some point in time, someone came up with the idea of the number 2 to represent a certain quantity of something. The words we use to describe what we know are just things we have made up. *Does that make them facts, since they are just random phrases that we have given a certain meaning?*



Yes it does make them facts. We only have language to communicate and express our ideas with, and as long as "2" is understood as the quantity in base 10 and nothing else, and "4" is understood as the quanity in base 10 and nothing else, and + and = are understood for what they represent, then "2+2=4" is absolutely a fact.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 17, 2014)

Exactly^


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## Schmidt (Apr 17, 2014)

If you don't believe in bbt/evo:
who/what created god?
what surrounded god before he created heaven and earth?
what did god do before those 6/7 days where god created everything?

as for facts, I know that my mother gave birth to me, and her mother gave birth to her( I have seen these women) and her mother gave birth to her(I have seen a picture of her) and so on. But who the "first" mother was, I don't know/care.
I am therefore I am.


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## bran (Apr 17, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> If you don't believe in bbt/evo:
> who/what created god?
> what surrounded god before he created heaven and earth?
> what did god do before those 6/7 days where god created everything?
> ...



Who caused the Big Bang?
In what medium did everything expand?
What is outside this universe?
What was happening in the space(?) before the Big Bang?


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## applemobile (Apr 17, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> If you don't believe in bbt/evo:
> who/what created god? ...blah..blah...



What did the first ameaba come from? What was around before the "big bang?" Why did birds evolve wings before they could fly. If the universe is finite what is outside it? Why is man so much more 'evolved' than anything else. How do magnets work?


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## Dene (Apr 17, 2014)

ChickenWrap said:


> I have looked at this argument from both points of view, and there is plenty of problems with both evolution and creationism (for example, how did Adam and Eve's sons reproduce as there was only one woman, Eve, on the earth?). I am not saying that I don't believe in evolution, because I do, but there can be a balance between a God (from any religion, not just Christianity) and evolution.



You didn't mention any problems with evolution. I would be interested to hear what you think the issues are.


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## JasonK (Apr 17, 2014)

bran said:


> Who caused the Big Bang?


Why does there have to be a "who"? I'm not a physicist, but my understanding is that quantum fluctuations in the energy-dense early universe were enough to cause the massive inflation predicted by the Big Bang model.



bran said:


> In what medium did everything expand?


It didn't/isn't expand(ing) into a medium, the medium itself is expanding.



bran said:


> What is outside this universe?


It's impossible to detect anything further than about 46 billion light years away, so we will probably never know.



bran said:


> What was happening in the space(?) before the Big Bang?


There was no space or time before the big bang, so asking what happened "before" it is as meaningless as asking what is South of the South Pole.

Disclaimer: I'm a biologist, not a physicist, so my understanding of this stuff could be flawed.

EDIT: Apparently the edge of the observable universe is 46 billion lya, not 14, because of the expansion of space between the Big Bang and now.


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## bran (Apr 17, 2014)

JasonK said:


> Why does there have to be a "who"? I'm not a physicist, but my understanding is that quantum fluctuations in the energy-dense early universe were enough to cause the massive inflation predicted by the Big Bang model.
> 
> It didn't/isn't expand(ing) into a medium, the medium itself is expanding.
> 
> ...



My post was merely a reply to what Schmidt posted. I myself am pretty uneducated in this field so I can't really argue on this topic. 
I should have wrote "who/what" instead of just "who" so that's bad on my part


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## JasonK (Apr 17, 2014)

bran said:


> My post was merely a reply to what Schmidt posted. I myself am pretty uneducated in this field so I can't really argue on this topic.
> I should have wrote "who/what" instead of just "who" so that's bad on my part



And my post was a reply to yours. Your questions were answerable, Schmidt's weren't.


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## bran (Apr 17, 2014)

JasonK said:


> And my post was a reply to yours. Your questions were answerable, Schmidt's weren't.



I don't really find an answer though. 
You said that space isn't expanding in a medium, later on you say that it's impossible to know what's outside the space, doesn't really add up for me as to how you can make a claim about something you don't know/ will never probably know. Again, because it is impossible to know what's outside the Universe how do you know that there was no space or time before the Big Bang? It's possible that there might be a space in which an extremely hot and dense particle exploded and started expanding. 
Once again I might be completely wrong with my arguments and logic (I would love it if someone corrects me) and sorry if I come across as rude or harsh.


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## JasonK (Apr 17, 2014)

bran said:


> I don't really find an answer though.
> You said that space isn't expanding in a medium, later on you say that it's impossible to know what's outside the space, doesn't really add up for me as to how you can make a claim about something you don't know/ will never probably know. Again, because it is impossible to know what's outside the Universe how do you know that there was no space or time before the Big Bang? It's possible that there might be a space in which an extremely hot and dense particle exploded and started expanding.
> Once again I might be completely wrong with my arguments and logic (I would love it if someone corrects me) and sorry if I come across as rude or harsh.



Unfortunately, I don't understand it much more than you do. Particle physics has an annoying tendency to be completely unintuitive.

However, a huge amount of work has been done in these areas by people much cleverer than me, and I believe their observations and their mathematics much more than I believe my own uneducated brain when it comes to questions about the origins of the universe.


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## LNZ (Apr 17, 2014)

Please remember that Jenny McCarthy only appeared in 2002 or so after her son Evan got autism (or not so, depending on personal view) at age 3. 

To this day she believes in Dr Andrew Wakefield's view which was first sighted in 1998. Almost all people have debunked his ideas on the MMR vaccine and autism.

Science and the scienitfic method is under severe attack all over the world by all sort of parties like the religous right in the USA, Islamic fundamentalists in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan and lobby groups like the coal and mining industries and people like Andrew Bolt and Gina Reinhart (in Australia who both are climatew change deniers).

Not good times to belive in science.


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## Dene (Apr 17, 2014)

What does this have to do with you not getting your vaccinations? Please tell me you have since gotten vaccinated.

I was reading something today saying less than 90% of people get their children vaccinated. It's a total disgrace. Parents shouldn't have a choice, and if they don't like it they should have their kids taken away and vaccinated, and then given to responsible parents.


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## Sajwo (Apr 17, 2014)

Didn't know that 1/4 of people there are actually idiots


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## TDM (Apr 17, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> Didn't know that 1/4 of people there are actually idiots


It used to be more than that - it was at least 28% at one point.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 17, 2014)

I have a question for creationists which i have asked multiple times and never gotten a clear answer: If somebody is born with a severe mental illness/deficiency, when they go to heaven, are they automatically able to process information and learn things like other people? Like, do they somehow slowly grow into normal thinking and learning, or do they instantly do it?


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 17, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> If you don't believe in bbt/evo:
> who/what created god?
> what surrounded god before he created heaven and earth?
> what did god do before those 6/7 days where god created everything?
> ...


No one created God.
Nothing.
God created time. God is the absolute beginning of everything.



Rocky0701 said:


> I have a question for creationists which i have asked multiple times and never gotten a clear answer: If somebody is born with a severe mental illness/deficiency, when they go to heaven, are they automatically able to process information and learn things like other people? Like, do they somehow slowly grow into normal thinking and learning, or do they instantly do it?


Once we go to heaven we receive a new body and there will be no more illness or disease. It would be instantaneous.

If people who believe in evolution are actually curious about what I as a creationist believe you could go to reasons.org
Also an interesting debate between Hugh Ross (creationist) and Victor Stenger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOE48P2M-ao
It's more about the creation of everything, which is the real issue that creationists have.


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## Schmidt (Apr 17, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> No one created God.
> Nothing.
> God created time. God is the absolute beginning of everything.



Isn't it just like bbt, but with god instead?


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## MalusDB (Apr 17, 2014)

It is our own self absorbed definition of the Universe that makes us feel a need for it to have a start and a beginning. I always thought physicists were exceptionally wooly at defining our universe.

I think the best way to explain it in laymans terms is to, for one, eradicate the idea that the universe had to have a beginning or an end. The universe THAT WE KNOW had an inception but that is not to say that it hasn't existed before this point as a (possibly) quite different entity. Space, in the truest sense of the word, is the absence of anything, and our Universe is somewhat like a bubble expanding into it.

Now to go further you need to understand entropy, that is, that all systems degrade over time essentially. The degradation is paralleled by the apparent expansion of "our" universe. At some point in its timeline, on a scale almost impossible to imagine in terms of time and space, the expansion will either cease, or the Universe will dissipate entirely into effectively space populated by sparse amounts of matter.

Now I am of the opinion that a continous expansion/contraction occurs, almost with a predictablity that could be graphed and compared to the resonance of a sine wave. The universe has had many rebirths, we just happen to exist in this one. Whether it is due to an omnipotent being that it came to exist (as you may freely believe) or it has been for ever (remember that our constrictions of time need not apply to the Universe, just because we are finite doens't mean we can claim all things are so) the simple fact is that progression of complexity on our little rock in the form of living things has an extremely traceable timeline.

You can deny evolution, but until you can prove there is a more realistic alternative, you are literally just spouting ideas. Science and Religion can mix, just not the way religious people seem willing to accept it.


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## Rubiks560 (Apr 17, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> Didn't know that 1/4 of people there are actually idiots



Are you serious? 
"Ohai he doesn't believe what I do. They are automatically idiots" stupidest thing I've read in a while.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 17, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> Isn't it just like bbt, but with god instead?



I'm cool with a big bang. I'm not cool with us evolving from single-celled organisms.


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## Schmidt (Apr 17, 2014)

How many cells does clay/mud have?


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 17, 2014)

Schmidt said:


> How many cells does clay/mud have?



Clay/mud is not organic and therefore is not made out of biological cells (iirc).


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 17, 2014)

For me, knowing how we got here is much less important than knowing what happens when we die.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 17, 2014)

Rocky0701 said:


> For me, knowing how we got here is much less important than knowing what happens when we die.



Agreed.


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## Dene (Apr 18, 2014)

Sajwo said:


> Didn't know that 1/4 of people there are actually idiots



Na, actually it's at least 75% of people that think evolutionary theory is up for "belief" that are idiots.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 18, 2014)

Dene said:


> Na, actually it's at least 75% of people that think evolutionary theory is up for "belief" that are idiots.



I'm pretty sure everybody here believes in evolution. But I don't think the thread meant evolution. As you yourself pointed out you thought it was a "belief in evolution vs. belief in creationism" which is also not quite accurate since I think most creationists believe in evolution. I think the real question is about the origin of species. I think what is trying to be asked is more of a belief in the hypothesis of the evolutionary history of life (presented here) vs. belief in creationism.


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## JasonK (Apr 18, 2014)

Dene said:


> Na, actually it's at least 75% of people that think evolutionary theory is up for "belief" that are idiots.



It's the one person who insists on arguing over semantics who is an idiot.



Spoiler



ily dene


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 18, 2014)

Another interesting poll would be: Belief in creationism vs belief in athiesm.


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## JasonK (Apr 18, 2014)

Rocky0701 said:


> belief in athiesm



lol


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 18, 2014)

JasonK said:


> lol


Oh haha, i didn't think about that. (Belief in nonbelieving)


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## DeeDubb (Apr 18, 2014)

JasonK said:


> lol



Actually, atheism is quite a strong belief. You have to believe with certainty that there is no God or afterlife. That's actually a pretty strong belief considering all the questions that leaves. Agnostic would be non believing


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 18, 2014)

DeeDubb said:


> Actually, atheism is quite a strong belief. You have to believe with certainty that there is no God or afterlife. That's actually a pretty strong belief considering all the questions that leaves. Agnostic would be non believing


Agnostic's believe that there is a possibility that their is a God or an afterlife, but think that it is a small chance.


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## JasonK (Apr 18, 2014)

DeeDubb said:


> Actually, atheism is quite a strong belief. You have to believe with certainty that there is no God or afterlife. That's actually a pretty strong belief considering all the questions that leaves. Agnostic would be non believing



Er, no. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a deity. There's no requirement to believe anything with any kind of certainty.


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## DeeDubb (Apr 18, 2014)

JasonK said:


> Er, no. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a deity. There's no requirement to believe anything with any kind of certainty.



It depends on your definition I suppose, but Merriam Webster says: "Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a _*positive denial.*_"



Rocky0701 said:


> Agnostic's believe that there is a possibility that their is a God or an afterlife, but think that it is a small chance.



Agnosticism, in its purest form, is simply a belief that the answer is unknowable. This is what I adhere to. There's no way of knowing, so why bother debating it? Why bother telling someone else that you are right and they are wrong? Let people believe what they want to, as long as your belief doesn't impact me or people I care about, I have no problem.

But, agnosticism has also been defined as people who don't believe or disbelieve in God. It's not necessarily about a small or large chance either way.


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## Dene (Apr 18, 2014)

JasonK said:


> It's the one person who insists on arguing over semantics who is an idiot.



Lol <3 you too 

but srsly, it isn't just about semantics. You wouldn't say "I believe 3+4=7". You wouldn't say "I believe when I let go of this rock it wall move in a direction towards the ground without the assistance of any animate being". These are just facts, and it doesn't make sense to say it. In the same way you don't believe in a scientific theory, you either support it or you don't (or parts of it).

Belief only applies to things we can't know or find out (at least given current levels of knowledge and technological limitations).


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 18, 2014)

DeeDubb said:


> It depends on your definition I suppose, but Merriam Webster says: "Critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or divine beings. Unlike agnosticism, which leaves open the question of whether there is a God, atheism is a _*positive denial.*_"
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I completely agree with your views about how people should approach it. I consider myself to be agnostic, and I try to never argue or debate with people, because you are right, there is no way of knowing. If they begin to argue with my views i will argue back however.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 18, 2014)

Dene said:


> Lol <3 you too
> 
> but srsly, it isn't just about semantics. You wouldn't say "I believe 3+4=7". You wouldn't say "I believe when I let go of this rock it wall move in a direction towards the ground without the assistance of any animate being". These are just facts, and it doesn't make sense to say it. In the same way you don't believe in a scientific theory, you either support it or you don't (or parts of it).
> 
> Belief only applies to things we can't know or find out (at least given current levels of knowledge and technological limitations).


But hypotheses about the origin of species are not facts or theories, they are hypotheses.


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## JasonK (Apr 18, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> But hypotheses about the origin of species are not facts or theories, they are hypotheses.



Evolution started out as a hypothesis, or as a collection of related hypotheses. But the mountain of evidence in support of it and the inability of anyone to satisfactorily disprove it lead to it becoming one of the most well-supported theories to ever exist in science.

You can argue over the details of exactly how big a role natural selection (or any other evolution-driving process) plays in the overall scheme of evolutionary history, but the fact that evolution occurs is no longer a subject of reasonable debate.


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## Dene (Apr 18, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> But hypotheses about the origin of species are not facts or theories, they are hypotheses.



I'm going to need some clarification on what you mean by "origin of species", because that is ambiguous in a number of ways. Certainly I never said anything about the origin of species.


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## Methuselah96 (Apr 18, 2014)

JasonK said:


> Evolution started out as a hypothesis, or as a collection of related hypotheses. But the mountain of evidence in support of it and the inability of anyone to satisfactorily disprove it lead to it becoming one of the most well-supported theories to ever exist in science.
> 
> You can argue over the details of exactly how big a role natural selection (or any other evolution-driving process) plays in the overall scheme of evolutionary history, but the fact that evolution occurs is no longer a subject of reasonable debate.


Yes, I agree that evolution occurs. It is how evolution is applied to the origin of life (described below) that I have problems with.



Dene said:


> I'm going to need some clarification on what you mean by "origin of species", because that is ambiguous in a number of ways. Certainly I never said anything about the origin of species.


You're right that is more ambiguous then I intended. I guess I meant the origin of life/common descent that is often attributed to evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#Evolutionary_history_of_life). You may have never addressed this but I think this is the real issue being discussed here.


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## Dene (Apr 19, 2014)

Methuselah96 said:


> I guess I meant the origin of life/common descent that is often attributed to evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#Evolutionary_history_of_life). You may have never addressed this but I think this is the real issue being discussed here.



Hmmm actually you might be right that the originally intended purpose of this thread was to discuss whether life started because of God, or because of the primordial soup. But that is something completely different to evolutionary theory. 

If this thread is indeed about the origin of life rather than evolution, then it is definitely up for belief, as there is no way anyone in our present time could postulate with any certainty about it.


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## Rocky0701 (Apr 19, 2014)

Dene said:


> Hmmm actually you might be right that the originally intended purpose of this thread was to discuss whether life started because of God, or because of the primordial soup. But that is something completely different to evolutionary theory.
> 
> If this thread is indeed about the origin of life rather than evolution, then it is definitely up for belief, as there is no way anyone in our present time could postulate with any certainty about it.


I agree. I think the thread was more just about beliefs about the origin of life. If so, then nobody can know for certain. It would be like trying to work out the equation of Pi times 43 quintillion in your head, except it would be millions of times harder.


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## Dene (Apr 19, 2014)

Funny, I was watching a completely unrelated video on youtube, and in the "featured" section next to the video this was sitting there.


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## LNZ (Apr 22, 2014)

Here's an article that might interest readers in this thread:

Big Bang a big question for most Americans
6:07am April 22, 2014
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/2014/04/22/13/25/big-bang-a-big-question-for-most-americans

While scientists believe the universe began with a Big Bang, most Americans put a big question mark on the concept, a poll as found.

Yet when it comes to smoking causing cancer or that a genetic code determines who we are, the doubts disappear.

When considering concepts scientists consider truths, Americans have more scepticism than confidence in those that are farther away from our bodies in scope and time: global warming, the age of the Earth and evolution and especially the Big Bang from 13.8 billion years ago.

Rather than quizzing scientific knowledge, the Associated Press-GfK survey asked people to rate their confidence in several statements about science and medicine.
On some, there's broad acceptance.

Just four per cent doubt that smoking causes cancer, six per cent question whether mental illness is a medical condition that affects the brain and eight per cent are sceptical there's a genetic code inside our cells.

More - 15 per cent - have doubts about the safety and efficacy of childhood vaccines.

About four in 10 say they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases, that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old or that life on Earth evolved through a process of natural selection, though most were at least somewhat confident in each of those 
concepts.

But a narrow majority - 51 per cent - questions the Big Bang theory.

Those results depress and upset some of America's top scientists, including several Nobel Prize winners, who vouched for the science in the statements tested, calling them settled scientific facts.

"Science ignorance is pervasive in our society, and these attitudes are reinforced when some of our leaders are openly antagonistic to established facts," said 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine winner Randy Schekman of the University of California, Berkeley.

The poll highlights "the iron triangle of science, religion and politics," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
And scientists know they've got the shakiest leg in the triangle.

To the public "most often values and beliefs trump science" when they conflict, said Alan Leshner, chief executive of the world's largest scientific society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Political and religious values were closely tied to views on science in the poll, with Democrats more apt than Republicans to express confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change.

Confidence in evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the Earth and climate change decline sharply as faith in a supreme being rises, according to the poll.

Likewise, those who regularly attend religious services or are evangelical Christians express much greater doubts about scientific concepts they may see as 
contradictory to their faith.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted March 20-24, 2014, using KnowledgePanel, GfK's probability-based online panel designed to be representative of the US population.

It involved online interviews with 1012 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for all respondents.

© AP 2014


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## RedJack22 (Dec 8, 2017)

To everybody who believes in evolution: 

Think about it for a minute. Evolutionists say that all living creatures evolved over time; that is the definition of evolution. I 100% agree in microevolution, that is, living creatures change to their environment. Science has proven that over and over again! 

But macroevolution, that is, one species changing into another? 100% false. How can you expect one animal to turn into another, regardless of how much time is used? The fact is, every living thing has it's own DNA, and no matter how much change (microevolution) an animal goes through (again according to it's environment), it will still have the same DNA.

And to the "Christians" who say they believe in evolution, I strongly doubt your sincerity. The first chapter of Genesis explains God creating the world (and everything in it) in six literal days. Those six days should not be taken to mean what they don't; when it says in Genesis 1:13: "And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.", it means, literally, the third day!

But also, those who believe in evolution, you do realize that by believing in that, you reject God, and you WILL go to Hell. End of story. Those who do not trust Jesus Christ for Salvation will go to Hell, and if you believe in evolution, you obviously don't believe in God's Word, because it clearly says how the earth (and everything/body in it) was created! Trust Jesus for Salvation, and believe in the Word of God! If you have any questions, please, ask! This is without a doubt the biggest decision you can ever make. Period.

More information: https://answersingenesis.org/media/video/evolution/evolution-refuted/


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## cuber314159 (Dec 8, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> To everybody who believes in evolution:
> 
> Think about it for a minute. Evolutionists say that all living creatures evolved over time; that is the definition of evolution. I 100% agree in microevolution, that is, living creatures change to their environment. Science has proven that over and over again!
> 
> ...


I agree with what you are saying howeverwant to ask what you think of Christians who believe in evolution, are they rejecting god if they still accept christ?


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## xyzzy (Dec 8, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> But macroevolution, that is, one species changing into another? 100% false. How can you expect one animal to turn into another, regardless of how much time is used? The fact is, every living thing has it's own DNA, and no matter how much change (microevolution) an animal goes through (again according to it's environment), it will still have the same DNA.



An animal turning into another animal… Sounds like someone's been playing Pokémon!

Speciation as a hard boundary is one of those things actual scientists discarded as a concept long ago, because it turns out that reality seems to prefer fuzzy boundaries over hard ones. DNA between two organisms can be extremely similar, extremely dissimilar, _or anything in between_. Obviously we don't want to consider a parent and a child to be of different species (… caveats apply), but "being of the same species" doesn't have to be a transitive relation. If an organism differs significantly from its (great)^1000-grandparents, why should we consider them to be the same species? 

(Also this is really obvious and I assume you misspoke, but DNA within a species (conservatively defined, because, you know, fuzzy boundaries) _is not uniformly identical_. Individual variation exists, which is what drives "micro"evolution. On a longer timescale, this leads to "macro"evolution.)


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## RedJack22 (Dec 8, 2017)

cuber314159 said:


> I agree with what you are saying howeverwant to ask what you think of Christians who believe in evolution, are they rejecting god if they still accept christ?


 The fact is, while they may believe in Christ, they don't believe GOD'S WORD! The Bible has no mistakes, and if you believe that evolution is true, then you clearly don't believe that the creation account in Genesis is true.

But I suppose I was out of line by saying they CAN'T be Christians. I just personally feel that if you trust in Jesus for salvation, that you should also believe that the world (and everything in it) didn't evolve.



xyzzy said:


> An animal turning into another animal… Sounds like someone's been playing Pokémon!
> 
> Speciation as a hard boundary is one of those things actual scientists discarded as a concept long ago, because it turns out that reality seems to prefer fuzzy boundaries over hard ones. DNA between two organisms can be extremely similar, extremely dissimilar, _or anything in between_. Obviously we don't want to consider a parent and a child to be of different species (… caveats apply), but "being of the same species" doesn't have to be a transitive relation. If an organism differs significantly from its (great)^1000-grandparents, why should we consider them to be the same species?
> 
> (Also this is really obvious and I assume you misspoke, but DNA within a species (conservatively defined, because, you know, fuzzy boundaries) _is not uniformly identical_. Individual variation exists, which is what drives "micro"evolution. On a longer timescale, this leads to "macro"evolution.)



Yes, I did misspeak. Thank you for the correction. However, no matter how much variation between species, the changes in DNA WILL NOT result in a new creature.


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## cuber314159 (Dec 8, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> The fact is, while they may believe in Christ, they don't believe GOD'S WORD! The Bible has no mistakes, and if you believe that evolution is true, then you clearly don't believe that the creation account in Genesis is true.
> 
> But I suppose I was out of line by saying they CAN'T be Christians. I just personally feel that if you trust in Jesus for salvation, that you should also believe that the world (and everything in it) didn't evolve.
> 
> ...


Creationists usually use the term kind as in was on the ark in the 'orchard' but no macroevolution and there had never been observed any increase in genetic information and new kinds require new genetic information


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## RedJack22 (Dec 8, 2017)

Genesis 1, 21-25: 
*So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 
And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." 
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day. 
And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. *

As you can see, God created all living creatures, and that includes their kinds (which Dictionary.com defines kind as: a class or group of individual objects, people, animals, etc., of the same nature or character, or classified together because they have traits in common). So in my eyes, every animal you see now days was on the Ark during the worldwide flood, and unless they died out due to too extreme change (like Dinosaurs, which I think A: were killed off by humans because they would kill us. or B: Died out due to extreme climate change). That being said, since the Bible says that God made all living things, I believe that he made every single variant of every single creature alive, and over the course of time, they have adapted to where they are at (think of a tiger at the zoo. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and there are tigers at the zoo; they adapted to where they are at).

Again, this is my opinion, and I don't have evidence in Scripture to back it up. However, as a believer in a young earth (that is, an earth that is only 4000 - 6000 years old, as opposed to 4.6 Billion years old, or something like that), I believe that the earth didn't evolve, and that we as humans are made in God's Image. Evolution couldn't make as "well-oiled machines" as humans are, from our eyes, to DNA.

Hopefully I didn't ramble on too much; I apologize if I did.


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## Micah Walker (Dec 9, 2017)

does evolution occur? of course, it does. Is that how life and the universe came into being? no... Until I see something magically appear itself into existence, I will continue to believe the world had an intelligent creator.


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## RedJack22 (Dec 9, 2017)

Micah Walker said:


> does evolution occur? of course, it does. Is that how life and the universe came into being? no... Until I see something magically appear itself into existence, I will continue to believe the world had an intelligent creator.





Micah Walker said:


> does evolution occur? of course, it does. Is that how life and the universe came into being? no... Until I see something magically appear itself into existence, I will continue to believe the world had an intelligent creator.


Yes, evolution does occur, but not in the form of changing from one species into another. The fact is, you look at every single thing that happens in the universe, and it clearly points a Creator.


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## cuber314159 (Dec 9, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> Genesis 1, 21-25:
> *So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
> And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
> And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
> ...


Its estimated that only 16000 kinds were necessary for sufficient natural selection to take place afterwards, otherwise there would probably not be enough space.


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## RedJack22 (Dec 10, 2017)

cuber314159 said:


> Its estimated that only 16000 kinds were necessary for sufficient natural selection to take place afterwards, otherwise there would probably not be enough space.


If you mean that there was only room for 16,000 kinds to populate the earth, then I agree. People have breeded dogs for many years (that's a thought I had earlier).


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## mDiPalma (Dec 10, 2017)

@RedJack22

The old testament serves no purpose but to provide theological context and establish the 360+ messianic prophecies, all of which are fulfilled. Take everything else you've ever read from the old testament and completely forget it. Rip it out of your Bible, tear it up, and leave it on the floor on the very edge of the nonfiction section of the library. It is 99% complete trash, and functionally obsolete pursuant the claims of Christ in Mt 5:18 as well as the other synoptic gospels and multiple occasions in the epistles.

The unguided evolutionary fairy-tale that humankind spontaneously (but "slowly", as if that has any bearing LOL) spawned from mud is not false because "it says so on my doctored pseudo-Satanic (protestant) old-testament toilet paper". Rather, it's simply statistically implausible, as is any of the near-infinite number of finely tuned parameters that have been paramount in the progression of the universe into a state conducive to human life as we know it.

I agree that the Catholic God exists and that he is responsible for humankind. However, He is likely laughing that you would quote from an expired almanac (because that is literally what the old testament is) two millennia after His son explicitly told you not to (read Hebrews).


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## cuber314159 (Dec 10, 2017)

mDiPalma said:


> @RedJack22
> 
> The old testament serves no purpose but to provide theological context and establish the 360+ messianic prophecies, all of which are fulfilled. Take everything else you've ever read from the old testament and completely forget it. Rip it out of your Bible, tear it up, and leave it on the floor on the very edge of the nonfiction section of the library. It is 99% complete trash, and functionally obsolete pursuant the claims of Christ in Mt 5:18 as well as the other synoptic gospels and multiple occasions in the epistles.
> 
> ...


Does the Bible not say that anyone who tries to add or take away from the Bible will be punished. Yes Christians don't generally follow all the old testament laws but that doesn't mean we shouldn't read them, that's why I read the Bible cover to cover usually. What happened in the old testament is still history (creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, [Israelites and the prophets], Christ, cross, consummation)


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## RedJack22 (Dec 10, 2017)

mDiPalma said:


> @RedJack22
> 
> The old testament serves no purpose but to provide theological context and establish the 360+ messianic prophecies, all of which are fulfilled. Take everything else you've ever read from the old testament and completely forget it. Rip it out of your Bible, tear it up, and leave it on the floor on the very edge of the nonfiction section of the library. It is 99% complete trash, and functionally obsolete pursuant the claims of Christ in Mt 5:18 as well as the other synoptic gospels and multiple occasions in the epistles.
> 
> ...


First of all, the Old Testament (OT) IS NOT expired! In fact, as cuber314259 said, the OT is still 100% accurate history. Now I get that Christians don't follow the Mosiac Law (that is, the law set in the days of Moses), but one reason to read all those accounts of how to build the Lord's temple is to show how holy and how perfect He is. The OT IS NOT trash, and God has put it in His word for a reason! After all, if it had no reason at all, then God would have ousted it.

Now I'm curious: where does Jesus tell us not to read the OT?

And also, I am not a Catholic. Catholic's are not Christians, and they don't even read the Christian Bible. 

And another thing, why would you even thing that God is laughing at me because I am publicly proclaiming Him and His Word?


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 10, 2017)

cuber314159 said:


> Does the Bible not say that anyone who tries to add or take away from the Bible will be punished. Yes Christians don't generally follow all the old testament laws but that doesn't mean we shouldn't read them, that's why I read the Bible cover to cover usually. What happened in the old testament is still history (creation, corruption, catastrophe, confusion, [Israelites and the prophets], Christ, cross, consummation)


Revelation 22:19 is the verse that you are referring to.

Also, are any of us accomplishing anything by debating this? Because anyone who is willing to post on this thread (including me) will not change there mind on what they believe, so isn't just debating a waste of our time?


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## Gomorrite (Dec 10, 2017)

What is the WR for Bible Speedreading?


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## GenTheThief (Dec 10, 2017)

Gomorrite said:


> What is the WR for Bible Speedreading?


I know that someone read it over the weekend (or in something like a couple days) once.
I think he was an atheist who wanted to know what his christian friends were talking about.

Then there was the guy who read and actually studied it in something like a month, which people usually do in a year.


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## JustAnotherGenericCuber (Dec 11, 2017)

What was the point of reviving this thread? Nothing anyone says will change anyone's mind


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## RedJack22 (Dec 11, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> Revelation 22:19 is the verse that you are referring to.
> 
> Also, are any of us accomplishing anything by debating this? Because anyone who is willing to post on this thread (including me) will not change there mind on what they believe, so isn't just debating a waste of our time?





JustAnotherGenericCuber said:


> What was the point of reviving this thread? Nothing anyone says will change anyone's mind


While I suppose that's true, I see it as an evangelistic opportunity. I want to bring people to Christ, and I can do that by refuting evolution. The only reason why I posted on it was I saw it randomly


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 11, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> While I suppose that's true, I see it as an evangelistic opportunity. I want to bring people to Christ, and I can do that by refuting evolution. The only reason why I posted on it was I saw it randomly


I'm a Christian too, so I understand. But debating won't change anybody's mind. When you debate all you are doing is yelling your opinions at each other. And Christ never debated with the Pharisees, he simply answered their questions.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> I'm a Christian too


I'm a Christian too, and I also don't believe in evolution since there are a lot of problems with it.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

RedJack22 said:


> I want to bring people to Christ, and I can do that by refuting evolution.


But Christians like me and you could debate this better if we had more information about the problems of evolution and the big bang.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> I'm a Christian too, and I also don't believe in evolution since there are a lot of problems with it.


I didn't say there wasn't.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> And Christ never debated with the Pharisees


So what you're saying is that we shouldn't argue just simply answer their questions?



WombatWarrior17 said:


> I didn't say there wasn't.


what do you mean?


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> So what you're saying is that we shouldn't argue just simply answer their questions?


That's what Christ did, and we should be like him, so yeah that's what I'm saying.
If they ask us what the problems with evolution are, you tell them, if they argue with you then that means they aren't actually listening to you.
And some Christians can get so caught up in arguing that they forget what they should be doing.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

Any questions about why some Christians don't believe in evolution?


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## Mastermind2368 (Dec 12, 2017)

I'm a Christian and do not believe in evolution. Why? Simple. Tell me this, what is more likely. A God who can make the Universe, do whatever he wants to, make light, take darkness and turn in into the universe that we have. Or some dust meeting, making bacteria that evolves into fish that evolves into frogs ect... With a religion, you only need one crazy thing, but with evolution, you need to rely on some dust meeting that somehow makes life, then the life turns into slightly bigger life, that makes dinos, monkeys then us. 

Also remember, Charles Darwin didn't expect it to become something this big, this were come some ideas he thought of and by the time he died, he even thought it couldn't work.


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## RedJack22 (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> But Christians like me and you could debate this better if we had more information about the problems of evolution and the big bang.


I do suppose that's true. Thanks for that reminder!


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## TDM (Dec 12, 2017)

Mastermind2368 said:


> Or some dust meeting, making bacteria that evolves into fish that evolves into frogs ect... With a religion, you only need one crazy thing, but with evolution, you need to rely on some dust meeting that somehow makes life, then the life turns into slightly bigger life, that makes dinos, monkeys then us.


There's more to it than that: firstly, there's time. Evolution on a large scale takes _thousands_ of years. You also need to bear in mind the number of opportunities life would have had to start across the universe - with the size of the universe and the time people believe it to have existed for, there's every chance that basic life would have started in multiple places.

The part about the size of the universe is also very important: if you took any random planet in the universe, the chance of there being intelligent life on it (which is able to think about its own origin) is very small. However, we have a biased perspective, as in order to think about this question we need to be on one of those few planets. It may look ridiculous that life could ever have started by itself if we only look at Earth, but looking on a larger scale, it becomes much more plausible.

(of course, this argument can only hold if you assume the universe, and Earth, have existed for billions of years. If you assume that the Earth has existed for 6000 years, then... well, you're assuming that the Earth, and thus humans, were created. So the argument becomes a bit circular.  )


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## cuber314159 (Dec 12, 2017)

TDM said:


> There's more to it than that: firstly, there's time. Evolution on a large scale takes _thousands_ of years. You also need to bear in mind the number of opportunities life would have had to start across the universe - with the size of the universe and the time people believe it to have existed for, there's every chance that basic life would have started in multiple places.
> 
> The part about the size of the universe is also very important: if you took any random planet in the universe, the chance of there being intelligent life on it (which is able to think about its own origin) is very small. However, we have a biased perspective, as in order to think about this question we need to be on one of those few planets. It may look ridiculous that life could ever have started by itself if we only look at Earth, but looking on a larger scale, it becomes much more plausible.
> 
> (of course, this argument can only hold if you assume the universe, and Earth, have existed for billions of years. If you assume that the Earth has existed for 6000 years, then... well, you're assuming that the Earth, and thus humans, were created. So the argument becomes a bit circular.  )


You are however talking about very small chances, like solving a thousands of 33x33s by random turns simultaneously. The only reasonable way to go about this is to assume more universes- stuff you never have and never will have any evidence for, however god's word is true yesterday today and forever and by disbelieving in Jesus you are betting your life on the equivalent of thousands of 33x33s being solved simultaneously. 
( If the Bible is true then the earth is 6000 years old approximately so we don't generally concentrate on proving the age of the earth but the truth in the Bible, it's often claimed that creationists focus on genesis and not the big picture, but by denying genesis 1-11 you are denying the authority of god's word, and far better science than evolutionary says that dead men don't rise and yet Christianity is based off such an event, disprove Jesus rose feom the dead and you have disproved Christianity.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

TDM said:


> (of course, this argument can only hold if you assume the universe, and Earth, have existed for billions of years. If you assume that the Earth has existed for 6000 years, then... well, you're assuming that the Earth, and thus humans, were created. So the argument becomes a bit circular.  )


It's actually circular reasoning to date fossils by the rocks and date the rocks by the fossils.

And evolution technically isn't science, since the scientific method is reliant on being able to observe what you are trying to prove, experimenting, and being able to replicate the results, none of which you can do with evolution.

Evolution is closer to being a religion than it is to being science since you're believing in a force you cannot see nor prove.

And if the universe came from a tiny spinning disk that exploded, why do some galaxies spin in the opposite direction of our own?
That very idea contradicts Newton's first law.

The second law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of any isolated system always increases. Meaning that things will only get worse over time.


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## Raumaan Kidwai (Dec 12, 2017)

It is important to note: Evolution does NOT imply that living organisms weren't created by a higher power in the first place. It simply stipulates that living organisms evolved into new species of living organisms over billions of years. I personally believe that microorganism life was created by [a] God, and evolved according to His plan into us humans as well as countless other flora and fauna.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

cuber314159 said:


> like solving a thousands of 33x33s by random turns simultaneously


and also like shaking up a disassembled 33x33 in a huge container and expecting it to become a normal, fully functional 33x33


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## TDM (Dec 12, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> It's actually circular reasoning to date fossils by the rocks and date the rocks by the fossils.


I didn't phrase that sentence correctly: I didn't mean the religous argument was circular, I meant the argument of religion vs evolution was, because the basis for both arguments relies on something which only one side believes in. "Circular" was the wrong word! I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

TDM said:


> I didn't phrase that sentence correctly: I didn't mean the religous argument was circular, I meant the argument of religion vs evolution was, because the basis for both arguments relies on something which only one side believes in. "Circular" was the wrong word! I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.


Ah, ok.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

This can be a great chance to spread the gospel if we (Christians) can convince that Evolution is wrong and the Bible is true about the six days of creation!!


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> This can be a great chance to spread the gospel if we (Christians) can convince that Evolution is wrong and the Bible is true about the six days of creation!!


It would be great, but that "if" is a big "if".


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> but that "if" is a big "if"


perhaps a strong Christian could help


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## shadowslice e (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> perhaps a strong Christian could help


I consider myself a pretty "strong Christian". However, I also believe that the creation story is largely allegorical especially if you analyse the style of writing.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 12, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> perhaps a strong Christian could help


Dude, you don't need to be rude. I'm just saying that even if you spend all of your time on this thread, people will stay with their beliefs. Because anyone who posts on here will have a very strong opinion, just like you and me.


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## Raumaan Kidwai (Dec 12, 2017)

Raumaan Kidwai said:


> It is important to note: Evolution does NOT imply that living organisms weren't created by a higher power in the first place. It simply stipulates that living organisms evolved into new species of living organisms over billions of years. I personally believe that microorganism life was created by [a] God, and evolved according to His plan into us humans as well as countless other flora and fauna.



Bumping this, since nobody's responded to it yet.

I'll ping some of you who've been actively participating in the discussion:


WombatWarrior17 said:


> Ah, ok.





shadowslice e said:


> I consider myself a pretty "strong Christian". However, I also believe that the creation story is largely allegorical especially if you analyse the style of writing.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 12, 2017)

Raumaan Kidwai said:


> since nobody's responded to it yet


so MIGHT be the end of the thread?


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## JustAnotherGenericCuber (Dec 13, 2017)

cuber314159 said:


> stuff you never have and never will have any evidence for, however god's word is true yesterday today and forever


hmm.


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## cuber314159 (Dec 13, 2017)

I feel I need to say that there is no such thing as a strong Christian you are either for or against Christ, for God or for Satan, there is no in-between, no scale from one to the other.


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## xyzzy (Dec 13, 2017)

TDM said:


> I meant that the argument really comes down to something very different from the plausibility of evolution.


This, pretty much. If one believes the Bible (or some other story book) to be infallible, there is no use talking sense to them.

I guess the only thing that really surprises me is that there would be so many religious people into a stereotypically-nerdy hobby—almost every other online community I've been a part of, of similar nerd levels, has been atheist-majority. (Or if there were fundamentalists among them, most of them sure didn't speak up.)


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 13, 2017)

xyzzy said:


> This, pretty much. If one believes the Bible (or some other story book) to be infallible, there is no use talking sense to them.


This same argument can be said about you too, if you believe that evolution is flawless, then there is no sense in me trying to talk to you or anyone else.
But what it comes down to is: there either is a God, or there isn't a God, neither can be proven wrong, nor right, through the scientific method.
It comes down to how you interpret information, we all have a bias and we all intend to keep them.
So we can yell our opinions at each other all day, but it won't change anything, we all intend to keep believing whatever we believe, evolution or creation, that's why I said before that arguing is useless. We all feel that we are right and the other is wrong, and we feel that the other won't listen, so at the end of the day this discussion will always turn into a debate and what we say won't matter to the other side.


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## One Wheel (Dec 13, 2017)

It's been mentioned here, but it doesn't help anybody to downplay or forget the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. I stake a fair part of my livelihood every year on the truth of microevolution. I'm a dairy farmer, and I spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars every year buying semen from the best bulls to breed my cows, and selling at a loss or slaughtering my poorest-performing cows in hopes of forcing my herd to "evolve" into a more efficient, better milk producing herd. If I do it right someday I'll even have cows or bulls that other people will want to pay a premium price for, to add to their herds. Microevolution has been demonstrated time and again to work, it's mechanisms have been (largely) explained, it's all but scientific fact. 

Macroevolution is somewhere between microevolution and abiogenesis, both of which are basically just extrapolations of microevolution beyond the observable. If you can't observe it, it's philosophy, not science. Creationism and macroevolution are philosophical/religious positions, not scientific ones. It's arguable that science is a religion, but that's another story. 

Re: the above post saying that Catholics are not Christians, I'm sorry but that's silly. I'm a Protestant, but the difference between Catholic and, say, Baptist is really not that much more than the difference between Baptist and Lutheran, or Wesleyan and Presbyterian. The "Catholic Bible" is the same as the "Protestant Bible", except that while most Protestants would see the Old Testament as of lesser authority than the New Testament, Catholics add the Apocrypha as of lower authority still.


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## Micah Walker (Dec 14, 2017)

Wow!! what an interesting discussion! As interesting as this discussion is, however, I think some of the Christians in this thread are losing perspective on a few things.

First: only God can change peoples hearts. Through science, we can disprove MacroEvolution, again and again, but many atheists won't change their minds (Romans 1:20). Only God can bring people out of sin and change their hearts.

Second: Catholics and Christians are very different. Catholics believe in salvation through works + grace. Christians believe in Salvation by Grace alone through faith alone.( Ephesians 2: 4-9) That's a huge distinction!

Third: the discussion of whether or not there is a God is of little importance. Just because you're a theist doesn't mean you're going to heaven. If Jesus said,
 “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me..." (John 14:6) 
then not all theists are going to heaven. Only those who put there faith and hope in Jesus Christ. 

With that said, I love this thread and want to see it continue.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 14, 2017)

I hope that God will help us disprove evolution and also to bring somebody to Christ through this thread.


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## One Wheel (Dec 14, 2017)

Micah Walker said:


> Second: Catholics and Christians are very different. Catholics believe in salvation through works + grace. Christians believe in Salvation by Grace alone through faith alone.( Ephesians 2: 4-9) That's a huge distinction!



I've had precisely this discussion with a few very knowledgeable Catholics, and gotten a very different answer than that. They will point to verses like Ephesians 2:10, James 2:18, and any number of other verses I could look up if my phone battery wasn't running out, and say of course, salvation is by grace through faith, but if we do not have works that is proof positive that we do not have faith, and works in the absence of true faith can build faith. I agree on the first point, and empirically speaking the second appears true as well.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 14, 2017)

Cubed Cuber said:


> I hope that God will help us disprove evolution


Macroevolution has never been proven in the first place.


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## Micah Walker (Dec 14, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> I've had precisely this discussion with a few very knowledgeable Catholics, and gotten a very different answer than that. They will point to verses like Ephesians 2:10, James 2:18, and any number of other verses I could look up if my phone battery wasn't running out, and say of course, salvation is by grace through faith, but if we do not have works that is proof positive that we do not have faith, and works in the absence of true faith can build faith. I agree on the first point, and empirically speaking the second appears true as well.


 Yes, works are proof of faith (I like how you brought up James 2), but I was talking about salvation. Also, I understand that not all Catholics believe the same thing, I was just talking about Catholics in general.


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## Micah Walker (Dec 14, 2017)

WombatWarrior17 said:


> Macroevolution has never been proven in the first place.


your right... Romans 1: 18-23: go read it.


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## WombatWarrior17 (Dec 14, 2017)

Micah Walker said:


> your right... Romans 1: 18-23: go read it.


Exactly.


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## AlphaSheep (Dec 19, 2017)

Normally I avoid responding to threads like these because any discussion about evolution inevitably becomes a religious debate (that in itself is a huge red flag that something is wrong here), and I seriously don't enjoy being involved in religious debates. I was raised in a good Christian home by amazing parents, and I grew increasingly religious and got increasingly involved in a fantastic church through my late teens and early 20s. When I started losing my faith at the age of 23, it was quite traumatic. If you are raised in a religion, it is almost impossible to see that you view the world with the Bible as a filter, and you miss almost everything around you. It's very unsettling when that filter breaks, and you feel betrayed by the world you loved. I hope none of you ever have to go through that, but please, even while you choose to keep that filter up, for the sake of this argument, acknowledge that it's there, and that for someone who is extremely critical who has been questioning everything he believes in, the argument appears very different.

Let me make it clear, that as far as I can tell, there is almost certainly no God, and the Bible is almost certainly a book written by men, for men. Notice my careful use of the words "almost certainly". This is deliberately to emphasise that this is not something I have absolute faith in. I've already had my world shattered once, and I've been very careful about the ideas that I've let replace them. My strong belief in evolution is something I have carefully concluded by weighing up evidence, and reading thoroughly on BOTH sides of the matter.

The vast majority of the arguments against evolution weigh it against religion. If you already dismiss religion, these arguments immediately hold no water. It's frustrating to read through a thread like this and see references to Bible passages. It's like being in an echo chamber with the same meaningless phrases being thrown about with no substance to back them up.

Other arguments all bring up common misconceptions, such as macroevolution vs microevolution. The difference is purely scale - modern society depends on the mechanism of natural selection (or artificial selection, in the case of breeding) in everything from farming and agriculture to medicine and disease control. Natural selection is a mechanism that forms an unstable dynamic system with a positive feedback loop - one of an infinite number of such unstable dynamic systems that have been studied endlessly by scientists and engineers. One special property of all unstable dynamic systems with a positive feedback loop is that, unless some other mechanism interferes, all of them have effects that magnify at scale. I've read the arguments that macroevolution is somehow different in behaviour from microevolution, but not one argument - not a single one - has ever been able to provide a mechanism whereby the process of natural selection would somehow be bounded at scale to maintain the species that we have alive today.

I don't have the time or the patience to refute all of the blatent misconceptions about evolution in this thread, but let me say that I have not read a single argument against evolution in this thread that doesn't exhibit some misconception or well documented flaw.

If you really strongly believe evolution to be false, I encourage you to read Richard Dawkins' Greatest Show On Earth. It is an amazing book by a man who has spent his entire life doing actual scientific research in biology, and he lays out and explains most of your misconceptions, giving well documented counter-examples. Evolution is not at all incompatible with religion - there are many Christians who believe in evolution as a process set in motion by God. If you choose not to read the book, ask yourself why. Are you afraid it may change your mind? Or are you just not interested in reading opposing points of view? 

I still find it absolutely absurd that so many people think it's acceptable to dismiss an entire field of science simply because they think it might disagree with some interpretation of a translation of some book they more often than not haven't even bothered to critically read from cover to cover.


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## One Wheel (Dec 19, 2017)

@AlphaSheep that's a very careful, thoughtful, and impassioned response. Thank you. 

I am not a scientist, I don't have a lot of time to read as many books as I'd like, so perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me. 

You say that there are misconceptions about microevolution vs macroevolution, but in my mind the facts that microevolution is A) repeatable and therefore B) falsifiable are absolutely critical. If faith is belief in the absence of definitive evidence, then the lack of repeatability and falsifiability in macroevolution puts in on a similar epistemological plane as the resurrection of Christ: there is evidence for both macroevolution and the resurrection, but you can't put either one "in a test tube and boil it," as one of my college professors put it. To be clear, I'm not arguing that belief in macroevolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive, nor am I arguing that microevolution and macroevolution operate by different rules. I'm just arguing that both macroevolution and Christianity start with something concrete and at least partially verifiable and falsifiable (microevolution and the Bible, respectively) and extrapolate beyond what reproducible evidence demands.

Personally, I find the evidence for and the implications of the resurrection to be more compelling than the evidence for and implications of macroevolution. I don't believe they are necessarily incompatible, but I'm my mind the simplest explanation is a young-earth creation. Furthermore, inasmuch as my belief in the origin and development of life on earth affects my day-to-day life (very little, I think), I would rather live as though God created the universe and everything in it.


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## TDM (Dec 19, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> @AlphaSheep that's a very careful, thoughtful, and impassioned response. Thank you.
> 
> I am not a scientist, I don't have a lot of time to read as many books as I'd like, so perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me.
> 
> ...


In response to the bolded sentence:

I've heard some good arguments for the resurrection of Christ, and it's something that I personally haven't come to a conclusion about yet. However, I will argue that the part of the Bible concerning Christ and the part of the Bible which describes the start of life are very far from each other, and although they may be part of the same book, I don't think that one part being true implies the other part is true as well. One thing which I've never been sure about is how we can know to take the entire Bible as truth: are we sure it's okay to extrapolate in this situation?


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## One Wheel (Dec 19, 2017)

TDM said:


> In response to the bolded sentence:
> 
> I've heard some good arguments for the resurrection of Christ, and it's something that I personally haven't come to a conclusion about yet. However, I will argue that the part of the Bible concerning Christ and the part of the Bible which describes the start of life are very far from each other, and although they may be part of the same book, I don't think that one part being true implies the other part is true as well. One thing which I've never been sure about is how we can know to take the entire Bible as truth: are we sure it's okay to extrapolate in this situation?


That's a fair criticism. The answer I've heard to that is that multiple passages in the Bible assert that the whole thing is true, and you can't just pick and choose. If the evidence for the resurrection of Christ is compelling, as I believe it to be, then that proves that he was the Son of God, as he claimed. His other claims, most of which presuppose the truth of the Old Testament in one way or another, must then be considered true until proven otherwise, since they were made by a proven reliable witness.


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## cuber314159 (Dec 19, 2017)

Jesus was either
A) an idiot
B) a good teacher
or C) the son of God, as he claimed to be.

An idiot wouldn't say such meaningful, helpful things as he did, would not be able to do miracles and the be willing to be crucified, he could have run away if he chose.
A good teacher wouldn't claim to be the son of God- how is lying about your identity 'good' under anyones morality, it is also very unlikely a good teacher would just allow themselves to be crucified on an unjust trial ( Jewish law forbid trials at night, without legitimate witness and during Passover, all of which happened at his trial according to the Bible)
That leaves us with this situation- what if Jesus was actually who he said he was- if we know that then we can know the rest of the Bible is true, Jesus quoted from many of the writings in the old testament himself, and if Jesus really was who he says he was then we all need salvation in him as no one goes to heaven except through Jesus (John 14:6), all have sinned (Romans 3) and therefore all need salvation. If the Bible is true and you ignore it you will regret it for all eternity so it is worth looking into very carefully.

It is also worth considering that is documented outside the Bible that 11 other 12 disciples were martyred for their preaching and yet they stood firm with it, in the Bible it talks about how they were scattered after Jesus died, Peter even said he didn't know him 3 times (Luke 22) but after the acclaimed resurrection they were willing to preach out to everyone spreading the message as far as Ethiopia, Spain and even India. You can disprove the Bible essentially by disproving the resurrection, the entire Christian faith is based on that one event, because only God can cause someone to rise from the dead.

Mods: please don't delete this thread, I have no intention of saying anything offensive, I have read the terms of service, this may not be cubing related but it is the off topic discussion.


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## TDM (Dec 19, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> That's a fair criticism. *The answer I've heard to that is that multiple passages in the Bible assert that the whole thing is true, and you can't just pick and choose.* If the evidence for the resurrection of Christ is compelling, as I believe it to be, then that proves that he was the Son of God, as he claimed. His other claims, most of which presuppose the truth of the Old Testament in one way or another, must then be considered true until proven otherwise, since they were made by a proven reliable witness.


But what if _those_ parts are the bits we can't trust? 



cuber314159 said:


> Mods: please don't delete this thread, I have no intention of saying anything offensive, I have read the terms of service, this may not be cubing related but it is the off topic discussion.


I haven't seen anything offensive since the most recent bump, and it's not looking like the thread will be locked any time soon unless the discussion starts going in a totally different direction. And yep, it's fine to have discussion like this here - as long as it stays in the Off-Topic forum.


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## One Wheel (Dec 19, 2017)

TDM said:


> But what if _those_ parts are the bits we can't trust?



I was thinking specifically of Jesus' claims, the trustworthiness of which ultimately hinges on the resurrection. If the resurrection is true, there is really no reason to disbelieve the rest. If the resurrection is false the rest is a moderately entertaining fairy tale that may have some historical basis here and there.


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## AlphaSheep (Dec 20, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> @AlphaSheep that's a very careful, thoughtful, and impassioned response. Thank you.
> 
> I am not a scientist, I don't have a lot of time to read as many books as I'd like, so perhaps you could answer a couple of questions for me.
> 
> ...


Macroevolution is actually testable and falsifiable because it can be used to make plenty of predictions in advance, and then we can go out into the world and look to confirm whether or not the predictions are true.

I should probably apologise for such a long post. It has to be long because there's actually a lot of scientific evidence for macroevolution.

I'm going to refer to the fossil record in this post, and I know that dating of fossils is often called into question by young-earth creationists (for obvious reasons). Fossils are typically measured by dating the rocks they are found in, which is typically done by measuring the relative ratios of radioactive isotopes. It's probably worth mentioning that this process is reliable enough that we use the same idea in atomic clocks, and to time signals sent to and from satellites to triangulate positions. This is the basic idea of how GPS works. However, even if you choose to completely ignore the fossil record, I feel there's still more than enough convincing evidence for evolution.

Anyway, here's an attempt at a summary of evidence for evolution as I understand it. This is a very long post, because there is a lot of evidence. It's also not an easy read. I don't expect to change anyone's mind, but I might as well just give all of the information. I've quickly adapted the info here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/. Follow the link for a ton of references and scientific studies which back up the claims I make in this post.

If all life is descended from a single common ancestor, then we would expect functions common to all life to be fulfilled by the same inherited structure. All life is able to perform the tasks of replication, inheritance (ancestors pass characteristics to descendants), catalysis (speed up or slow down certain chemical reactions) and convert energy. What is amazing is that although chemists in laboratories are able to produce hundreds of different polymers (large molecules) that can fulfil these functions, all of known life, be it plants, animals, bacteria or viruses, use the exact same four polymers out of all those available to perform these four tasks. This prediction was made in the mid 19th century and it was only around a century later that we started to be able to look at life on the molecular level. If we'd found a variety of structures, it would have been evidence against a single common ancestor, but we still haven't. It's significant is that all known living organisms share the same genetic code, and this was only shown to be the case three years after it was published as a necessity for the common ancestor idea to be true. We have sequenced the genetic material of tens of millions of species, only one of which needed to be different to falsify the common ancestor idea.
If the species we have now are generated by chance, we expect to see a nested hierarchy between species, with groups of groups, rather than a continuous variation (this can be mathematically proven, not by evidence, but in the same sense that you prove a geometry theorem in your math class). This is why we see definite boundaries between groups of species, and why there is nothing half way between between mammals and reptiles, for example. Of course, anyone could classify species however they want, but cladistic analysis is done objectively in a manner that is completely independent of the process itself. That is, someone can come up with a completely different quantitative method for classifying organisms, and should still be able to classify species into the same hierarchy. There are statistical tests that can be used to measure the probability that a hierarchy was not generated by chance. If we find a single hierarchy within all of taxonomy that showed up as significantly unlikely to have arisen by chance, then evolution would be disproven. Every single hierarchy that has been tested is compatible with ones that would have arisen by random chance.
As I mentioned above, completely independent processes for classifying species should produce basically the same hierarchy if evolution is true. With living organisms, they do. For anything that was designed (cars, computers, etc) or created by natural process (rocks, minerals, atomic elements), they don't, because there's no reason for the to be no oven mark between shared characteristics. What's also impressive is that classifications based on physical characteristics give the same hierarchy as classifications based on DNA, or chromosomal organisation. Had these vastly different process produced different results, it would have been really strong evidence against evolution.
We expect all fossilised organisms to fit into the same hierarchy as living organisms. Of course, I'm sure you are aware that the fossil record is incomplete, so finding fossils that fit into the hierarchy is not strong evidence. The big testable prediction is actually about which fossils we won't find. If you consider the hierarchy of modern species, we can see relationships between the these modern species. We don't expect to find any intermediary between birds and mammals, for example, as birds are far more closely related to reptiles. So while we've found a fairly complete line of fossils showing evolution of birds to reptiles, there is no fossil line between mammals and birds. There are plenty of other examples, but the key is not that we are finding fossils that fill in missing links but that we are not finding any fossils whatsoever for links that are incompatible with the hierarchy we have.
When we do find intermediaries, we expect them to be in chronological order. While the dating of some fossils are not as accurate as we would like, when you arrange large numbers of fossils, you can do statistical tests to be fairly confident in the result. It's just like when you flip a coin and get a heads, it tells you nothing because it could have gone either way, but if you flip a coin a hundred times and get all heads, you can be quite confident that the coin is rigged. If we find a series of intermediaries that statistical tests suggest are in the wrong order, that would be strong evidence against evolution. Statistical tests suggest the probability that we've got the lineage of fossils between birds and reptiles in the wrong order is less than 0.01%.
We expect to see vestigial structures inherited by organisms that their ancestors needed, but are are no longer used, or used for something that far simpler structure would be suited for. For example, wings are highly complex and expensive, yet flightless birds have them and use them for trivial tasks such as balance and courtship rituals. What's more important, we don't expect to see such complex structures if they didn't fulfil some more complex function in an ancestor. If we found an organism with some vestigial structure without an evolutionary explanation, that would be strong evidence against evolution. This also goes down to the molecular level. For example, while our ancestors, like most mammals, could produce their own Vitamin C, primates can't and need to consume it through their diet. It was predicted that primates would still have the necessary genes for this function, but they would not be functional. After this prediction was made, the gene responsible was indeed found to be present in a non-functional state in primates. Further more, the degree of mutation of this genre is exactly as expected given the relationships and ancestry between the primates. Had we not found this gene, it would have again been evidence against evolution.
We expect characteristics that are present in ancestors but absent in parents of a species to reappear from time to time. However, we do not expect characteristics not present in ancestors to suddenly appear. For example, people are very rarely born with tails, whales are very rarely born with legs (even with feet with toes in extreme cases), horses occasionally have extra toes, earwigs which are normally wingless occasionally have wings. It's through this that we've been able to breed dogs with webbed toes or hair instead of fur. But we don't see any characteristics suddenly appearing that aren't present in ancestors (I'm specifically referring to characteristics that appear over a single generation here, not characteristics that while slowly over many generations)
An organism develops by a process that modifies the structures present in its ancestors. As an embryo develops, structures undergo a series of developmental changes that eventually lead to the final animal. The jaws of mammal and reptile embryos start off in the same way, as multiple bones. As the embryo develops in mammals, the lowest bones fuse together and the rest move up and form the hammer an anvil of the ears. In reptiles, most of the bones remain in the jaw which forms a hinged jaw, and they have less complex ears with a single bone. There is also a series of fossils indicating that the bones in mammal ears were adapted from bones originally in the jaw. Mammal and fish embryos both start out with small arched pouches. In fish, these develop into gills, whereas in mammals, they develop into structures such as the sinuses and middle ear. While we expect to see things like the start of gills and hinged jaws in human embryos because those were present in our distant ancestors, we don't expect to see things like nipples or middle ears or hair in any stage of development of fish, amphibian, reptile or bird embryo.
Species are separated by geographic location. The distribution of species should be consistent with where they are located. Recently related species should be found close together. It would be evidence against evolution if the animals found in different parts of the world had no way of getting there. For example, the continents in the northern hemisphere are connected for animals capable of surviving arctic weather. So we find bears and wolves and reindeer across the entire northern hemisphere. The continents in the southern hemisphere are completely separated by vast oceans, so the animals in South America are completely different from the animals in Africa, and the animals in Australia are another thing altogether. Until humans brought them there, New Zealand had no mammals whatsoever since it was never connected by land to the rest of the world. However, similar unrelated animals still fill the niches in the corresponding habitats. For example, most marsupials in Australia have corresponding animal adapted to the same habitat in South America, and a different one in Africa, and in New Zealand, the same habitat would be occupied by a bird. If we found a species native to South America recently related to one native to Australia that could not have gotten there by migration (getting harder to show since humans move so many animals around), this would have been strong evidence against evolution.
We expect this to extend back in time too. For example, the earliest fossils of marsupials indicate that marsupials originally appeared in the Americas. We know from geological evidence that South America and Australia were connected via Antarctica for some time after that, so in order for marsupials to have migrated from America to Australia, they must have gone via Antarctica. And indeed, there are fossils of marsupials in Antarctica, even though they no longer live there today. There's a similar lineage for horses with a practically compete fossil record spanning over 50 million years. We also find fossils along the lineage from apes to humans to together in Africa and its surrounds, and no where else in the world. If we found fossils that did not agree with the spacial location of their ancestors, that would have been strong evidence against evolution.
We expect to see the same body structures adapted to fulfil different functions in different related species - e.g. wings in birds and claws in mammals are the same structure, as are feet in hoofed mammals, whale fins, penguin flippers, and the webbed feet of amphibians. We also see a clear progression in the fossil record from reptile claws to bird wings, and never anything going the other way around. If we were to discover any species such as Pegasus or a dragon, where wings were not adapted from existing limbs, this would be compelling evidence against evolution. All birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals have the same structures. We see the same similarity between all of the insects, all of the molluscs, etc.
What's really impressive is how this similarity goes right down to the molecular level. Animals have adapted similar proteins to fulfil different functions. This could be falsified if we found proteins performing recently evolved functions that were vastly different to other proteins already present. We don't. Proteins for recently evolved functions always appear to be adapted from proteins performing core functions
The other side of the coin is that we expect species from very different lineages with different structures to have adapted different structures to fulfil the same purposes. An example is that desert plants in the Sahara have adapted completely different structures for storing water than American desert plants. The wings of birds and insects are completely different. Another example is that fish, whales, and turtles all have different ways of handling breathing. It would be strong evidence against evolution if we found an animal that had adapted a structure not present in it's evolutionary history, such as a whale with gills or a bird with insect wings. Again, this goes down to the molecular level. For example, creatures with vastly different ancestries use different proteins to facilitate digestion, even though these proteins behave exactly the same.
Structures adapted to fulfil a certain function don't do it in the most efficient manner. An example is that the layout of the respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts in mammals is unnecessarily complex and linked together, so we can't breathe while we are swallowing - we choke. This doesn't make sense from a functional point of view, but it does make sense when we look at lungfish who adapted to breathe on land by swallowing air. There are countless other examples. If we ever found a mammal without a crossed respiratory and gastrointestinal tract, that would be evidence against evolution. Again, this applies on the molecular level too. 45% of our DNA serves no purpose, but are responsible for a large number of illnesses and cancers. There's no reason for us to have those genes now, but all of them can be explained by evolutionary history.
Certain genes responsible for certain essential life functions are found in all living organisms, from bacteria to birds to plants to insects to fungi to mammals and these genes perform the same function, regardless of species. I'm not talking of DNA here, I'm talking of the actual protein molecules that make up DNA, RNA and other genetic material. There are many many different forms of each of these genes that could perform the same function, yet every single living organism that exists has the exact same sequences of genes to fulfil specific functions. There is no reason why this has to be the case - a sequence of genes could easily be replaced with a different sequence that performs the exact same function but that's not the case. The sequence of genes is passed from parent to child, and this is the only mechanism that has ever been observed to pass sequences from one species to another, so sequences of genes suggest a genealogical relationship between all life. If all life did not share a common ancestor then the chances of us sharing the same sequences are astronomically small. If you look at the genes of humans and chimpanzees, and then consider all possible genetic sequences that could have encoded the exact same thing, then the odds of the two matching as closely as they do is 1 in 10^93... Yes, that's like taking 5 scrambled 3x3 cubes, applying some random moves without looking, and having all 5 solved by pure luck. The whole common ancestor idea could be falsified completely if we found a species that used one of the many other possible genetic sequences that perform the same function, or that had a genetic sequence that could not function in any other animal, but this has never been found.
This gets even more remarkable when we look at DNA. For example, we can measure things like how rapidly DNA mutates by comparing DNA of parents to that of their children. We can then put lower bounds on how far back in time we'd have to go to find a common ancestor. The other way works to, if we know how far back a common ancestor is, we can calculate how different we expect the DNA of two species to be. If we found two species whose DNA were too different for the differences to be explained by mutation, it would completely disprove evolution. We have found no such cases.
There are elements of DNA, called transposons which can move around the DNA sequence arbitrarily without affecting the function of the DNA. Transposons have been studied in huge detail in bacteria, yeast, corn, flies, humans and other species are are very well understood. They have a small chance of moving each generation, and when they do, the move and replicate almost at random. The chance of it landing in any given location in the DNA is very very small. The locations of transposons on DNA form patterns which slowly shift over many generations. Because it's so unlikely for two different species to have transposons in the same place, transposon location is a very strong indicator of relatedness. This is the idea behind paternity or sibling testing, and those tests that tell you what mix of breeds your dog is. Since it's so incredibly unlikely for two completely unrelated species to have transposons in the same place, the fact that we do find this consistently suggests that species are related.
Animals carry pseudogenes, which are genes that used to perform a function but have some fault in their sequence that prevents them from functioning. Many animals carry a redundant pseudogene as well as a functional gene that fulfils that same missing function. We have observed the creation of redundant pseudogenes both in the laboratory and in the wild. Since there's no real negative impact of a mutation of a pseudogene on survival, we expect to see a much greater rate of mutation in pseudogenes than in the corresponding functional genes. We do. In addition, we expect the difference in degree of mutation in the same pseudogene between two species to correspond to how closely the species are related. We also expect to see a pseudogene with the specific mutation that made it non-functional in all descendents of the ancestor that first had the pseudogene. If any other species not descended from that ancestor had the same exact pseudogene, or any species descended from the ancestor did not have the pseudogene, then that would be pretty massive blow for evolution. We have found absolutely no such cases for the first, and the only cases found for the second have been in bacteria, which have extremely short generations and efficient means of removing excess DNA.
As above, retroviruses insert themselves into DNA and get replicated along with it. We expect closely related species to have retroviruses in the same places, but we do not expect more distant species to share these retroviruses. This is indeed what we find. It would be evidence against evolution if, for example, a retrovirus present in humans, but not present in apes, were to be found in dogs in the same location as in humans.
Characteristics of species follow genetic change. Genetic changes are heritable and irreversible. Once a mutation of a gene occurs, it can't revert back to its former state except for by the astronomically rare coincidence that a new mutation just happens to undo the previous mutation. This is specifically what allows such drastic changes in organisms to occur over a vast number of generations. There is no mechanism ensuring that species remain the same. This is the unstable dynamic process I spoke of in my previous post.
We expect to see species undergo changes over a number of generations. Practically every type of morphological change (that is, a change in size, shape, colour, or other physical characteristic of an existing structure) has been observed and recorded in nature. This goes beyond just microevolution, because almost all differences between all mammals, amphibians, birds and reptiles are just changes in size, shape and colour of the same structures. This is important because if we found any characteristic which could not change from generation to generation, it would have disproved evolution.
Organisms have also been observed to gain new functions. Important examples are bacteria that have gained the ability to synthesise new amino acids, or developed a resistance to viruses. In laboratory, organisms have been evolved to exclusively use nylon (an entirely man-made material) as their sole carbon source.
As we look further and further back along the fossil record, we expect much greater differences from the species that exist now than in much more recent fossils. If all of the fossils we've found were randomly scattered through rocks of all ages, that would have been evidence against evolution. But what we do see is a strong correlation between the distance of the fossil from modern species and the age of the rock.
If species gradually branch into new species, we expected to see all stages of this in progress today. The stages we see are populations that can interbreed freely, populations that interbreed partially, populations that interbreed with reduced fertility or infertile offspring, all the way down to populations that are genetically incompatible and cannot interbreed at all. What's really fascinating are ring species. This is where you have a continuous line of perfectly compatible interbreeding populations that wraps around a geographical barrier, and the two ends are completely genetically incompatible and function as two separate species. There's a species of salamander that lives around the Californian Central Valley that is like this, and what used to be considered two separate species of gull that live in England that actually can both interbreed with a continuous line that wraps around the arctic.
Humans have successfully bred different separate species of bacteria and several plants, (including maize, radishes, cabbages, hemp, and ferns) as well as in fruitflies, beetles and mosquitoes. Speciation in nature is incredibly rare and is therefore difficult to observe. However, it is possible. Speciation has been observed in house mice several times in the isolated islands of Madeira.
When we look back at evolutionary history, it looks like the rate of change in morphology is unbelievably quick, but it's important to realise these changes happen over a very long time scale. The greatest changes we see in the fossil require changes of size of about 0.06% from one generation to the next. We don't expect that that rate has slowed down in the modern day. We expect the rates of change in shape, size, etc in modern species to be just as fast as it was in the past (in fact, we expect it to be much faster, since evolution is a very inefficient mechanism). If they aren't then evolution would be difficult to justify. When we measure rates of change in the wild we find that the slowest changes are still at least 10 times faster than that of the fossil record. The fastest changes in nature a thousands of times faster than those in the fossil records.
As above, we expect rates of mutation in DNA to in modern species to be fast enough as well. The measured mutation rates in modern species are enough to explain the average mutation rate that we expect from the fossil record i. Mutation rates have been measured in humans and compared to the fossil record, and rate that would be needed to explain the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
The only possible conclusions are either that evolution is true, or that whatever did give rise to all of the species on Earth did so in such a way that by some astronomically unlikely coincidence is completely compatible with evolution.


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## Gomorrite (Dec 21, 2017)

Now I would like to see that evidence on resurrection. Even evidence that Jesus ever existed is very weak.


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## One Wheel (Dec 21, 2017)

@AlphaSheep wow! That's a tome! I read it all yesterday, and you make some very compelling arguments, most of which I don't have any answer for at all. Point #8 is a restatement of "ontology recapitulates phylogeny", which according to that repository of all reliable information, Wikipedia, is an outdated myth. I find your argument about clustered groups and the lack of a "missing link" particularly compelling, though. You're probably right about not changing anyone's mind: for my part you've answered a lot of my questions about evolution, but I still don't see anything in there that couldn't be explained by intelligent design or its subset creationism. I also find the "irreducible complexity" argument used by ID theorists to be very compelling. Ultimately, the philosophical ramifications, not to mention theological ramifications, of macroevolution and abiogenesis mean that for me the evidence would have to be absolutely overwhelming. 

@Gomorrite this may be a bit of a cop-out, but rather than write a tome on my phone I'm going to link the first result that comes up when I Google "evidence for the resurrection." It's actually a very good article. 
I would add that, with regard to the existence of Christ, I've read elsewhere that the sheer number and quality of extant texts (mostly but not entirely biblical) regarding Jesus from that era is unparalleled. I don't recall the exact figures, but the number of texts relating to Jesus that were written within a couple hundred years of when he lived is in the thousands, but the texts mentioning Plato written within 1,000 years of his life are in the dozens, if that. I've read that there is actually better evidence for the existence of Christ than for the existence of William Shakespeare, but I haven't researched Shakespeare extensively.

This article seems to do a fairly thorough job of discussing non-Christian references to Jesus in antiquity, and a few other articles that I looked at seem to concur with the Wikipedia article on the Historicity of Jesus that Jesus was a real historical figure, and at the very least was crucified, consistent with the scriptural account. It is interesting to me that Wikipedia lists Jesus' baptism by John the Baptist as another nearly universally accepted fact of his life. 

I guess on second thought that's getting close to a tome. It's a fascinating subject, thanks for getting me looking at it again.


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## JustAnotherGenericCuber (Dec 28, 2017)

@One Wheel that first article was a very interesting read, but I have some things I want to say about it. 
From the article: Since the disciples could not have been lying or hallucinating, we have only one possible explanation left: the disciples _believed_ that they had seen the risen Jesus because they _really had_ seen the risen Jesus.
The evidence given for the resurrection is that the disciples were not lying and they were not hallucinating. So because these two options are said to be false, the "only other" option is true. (There are passages provided too, but... depends if you believe in the Bible or not)
Then, the resurrection is used as proof for many of the points later on, despite not being indisputably proved itself. Here are some from the article:
Surely you are going to accept the testimony of one who rose from the dead over the testimony of a skeptical scholar who will one day die himself--without being able to raise himself on the third day.

Don't get misled by the numerous skeptical and unbelieving theories about the Bible. Trust Jesus--He rose from the dead.

How are we to know which religion is correct? By a simple test: which religion gives the best evidence for its truth? In light of Christ's resurrection, I think that Christianity has the best reasons behind it.

Jesus is the only religious leader who has risen from the dead. All other religious leaders are still in their tombs. Who would you believe? I think the answer is clear: Jesus' resurrection demonstrates that what He said was true.
the resurrection of Christ proves that God will judge the world one day.

The resurrection proves that those who trust in Christ will not be subject in eternity to a half-human existence in just their souls. It proves that our bodies will be resurrected one day. Because of the resurrection of Christ, believers will one day experience, forever, the freedom of having a glorified soul and body.

Please tell me what you think of my argument, this discussion is so interesting.


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## One Wheel (Dec 28, 2017)

@JustAnotherGenericCuber I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to argue. Are you saying that the options that the disciples were lying, hallucinating, or telling the truth are not exhaustive? Or that just believing that they were telling the truth doesn't mean that they actually were? I think the latter would fall under hallucination, and I'm really not sure what else you would add to the lie-hallucination-truth trichotomy.


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## JustAnotherGenericCuber (Dec 28, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> @JustAnotherGenericCuber I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to argue. Are you saying that the options that the disciples were lying, hallucinating, or telling the truth are not exhaustive? Or that just believing that they were telling the truth doesn't mean that they actually were? I think the latter would fall under hallucination, and I'm really not sure what else you would add to the lie-hallucination-truth trichotomy.


Yeah I was thinking that the options were not exhaustive but I can't think of any others. Thanks.


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## Cubed Cuber (Dec 30, 2017)

One Wheel said:


> I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to argue. Are you saying that the options that the disciples were lying, hallucinating, or telling the truth are not exhaustive?


It would be highly improbable if the disciples just lied because who would even die for a lie they made up for themselves.
And also over 500 people believed in it. It would be very hard for 500 people to say the same lie without changing it.


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## Spock loves cubing (Dec 31, 2017)

Methuselah96 said:


> To start out, I do not believe in evolution. I am a Christian.
> 
> My first question: if evolution is true, how did matter come into existence? Surely there was something that started it all.
> I'm not saying I have all the answers (neither does science), I'm just curious in what you guys think.



Evolution does not treat with the beginning of the universe - for that we must unify general relativity with quantum mechanics first, check quantum loop gravity and string theory if you want to know more - it is about how life evolves and diversifies over time.


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## Ordway Persyn (Jan 2, 2018)

I believe that evolution is the best theory as to how all the different species of life on earth came to be. Could it be wrong? Yes, but everything in science can't be 100% proven, only to percentages that approach 100.

Keep in mind that there are many christians that believe in evolution, the big bang and such other theories that are supposedly against christianity. if you are trying to convince people to become christians by convincing them evolution is fake, it's not going to work well, in fact you are probably going to scare people away.


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## CrystallineCuber (Jan 9, 2018)

Hey y'all! This is my first foray into the true depth of the off topic section. It's cool that we at least aren't insulting each other, hope we can keep that up.

Christian here, passionate scientist, creationist. Someone fill in the hole for me about how micro evolution and macro evolution follow from each other. My logic finds a hidden assumption somewhere but I'm not sure if it's just a limited conception of the data.

Please note I'm not looking for refutations of any theory or religious canon, I just like knowing what everyone believes so I can evaluate it properly.


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