religion

[paulgiamatti]

You guys need a handkerchief? If you want to stop arguing we can stop beating up your ridiculous nonsensical worldviews. The choice is yours.

[iruinedyourday]

I've actually wanted to post something about that before, but I figured it was too easy.

I contribute to class discussion and server chat a lot. Sorry im not just an RnF troll like you fucking dipshits.

[Eliseus]

You guys need a handkerchief? If you want to stop arguing we can stop beating up your ridiculous nonsensical worldviews. The choice is yours.

Everything we said is nonsensical to you. You keep finding random big words to throw out, and then go through 50 pages of using the same word. First it was grandiose. Now it's nonsensical.

[iruinedyourday]

And keep in mind you dipshits have over a thousand pots in this fucking thread alone.

Also Zadrian, you're welcome for the help I gave you to have an animated sig in server chat.

[Eliseus]

I think we should put bets on the next word.

[G13]

You guys need a handkerchief? If you want to stop arguing we can stop beating up your ridiculous nonsensical worldviews. The choice is yours.

/point

/laugh

You're an embarrassment. Your arrogance blinds you. Pride is a weakness. Evolutionists and Atheists have already lost the argument. They just don't know it. They constructed a bunch of glass houses around them that are methodically being ripped down.

Evolution is a lie

Let's just talk probabilities

What are the odds this is purposeful engineering and design or random chaotic chance?

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/0b/12/ba/0b12ba2c293d219b43e172b28de4d0bd.jpg

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/nautilus_section.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--rJC4FAZh--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18f8hbfn5ag1yjpg.jpg

Random chaotic chance? Really?

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/16/e2/b1/16e2b1110f2ba121ca4b522210363133.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jK8mM56hfdg/UCuVpa7OPwI/AAAAAAAAF4E/IpuWwkT8cJ0/s640/golden_ratio01.jpg

Even in The Universe

http://www.odec.ca/projects/2010/josexg2/fibonnaciWhirlpoo.jpg

[leewong]

Says the guy with massive TLDR copy/paste posts within this very thread

Comical and embarrassing

And why did I post the copy/pasted text. Was it an actual attempt at dialogue or was it to mock Robot? Go back and look at what I said before I spammed copy/pasted text for 3 pages.

Context dumbass. Know what you are talking about before opening your trap.

[iruinedyourday]

What are the odds that...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Nicolas_Cage_2011_CC.jpg

http://content8.flixster.com/rtactor/40/33/40334_pro.jpg

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzMDM4Nzk2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTcwNjExOQ@@._ V1_SY317_CR1,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

http://susers.thatsmyface.com/s/sakuyukisan/Nicolas_Cage_fg_93sb66lvJk.fg.side_7aa926c4.jpg

http://www.ultimatetop10s.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Nicolas_Cage_as_Gandalf.jpg

http://4everstatic.com/pictures/674xX/people/actors-and-actresses/nicolas-cage,-actor-136209.jpg

http://nicolascage.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Infinite-Cage.jpg

http://img2-3.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/04/23/con-air-nicolas-cage-2_400.jpg

http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/article/908/908074/nicolas-cage-20080905025038648-000.jpg

...pretty conclusive to me.

[Glenzig]

When the other side descends to self-pity and character assassination, by the way, you can be pretty sure who's winning the debate.

I thought you took your debate and went home a while ago now?

[Eliseus]

And why did I post the copy/pasted text. Was it an actual attempt at dialogue or was it to mock Robot? Go back and look at what I said before I spammed copy/pasted text for 3 pages.

Context dumbass. Know what you are talking about before opening your trap.

Yeah! No matter how relevant your garbage is, it is incorrect no matter what! So shut your mouth! I agree with you leewrong! I want to be 1-sided with you. Where do I join??????

[iruinedyourday]

in the time it takes me to click a bunch of image searches, yall motherfuckers have posted 3 times each again.

[Glenzig]

What are the odds that...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Nicolas_Cage_2011_CC.jpg

http://content8.flixster.com/rtactor/40/33/40334_pro.jpg

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTUzMDM4Nzk2MV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTcwNjExOQ@@._ V1_SY317_CR1,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

http://susers.thatsmyface.com/s/sakuyukisan/Nicolas_Cage_fg_93sb66lvJk.fg.side_7aa926c4.jpg

http://www.ultimatetop10s.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Nicolas_Cage_as_Gandalf.jpg

http://4everstatic.com/pictures/674xX/people/actors-and-actresses/nicolas-cage,-actor-136209.jpg

http://nicolascage.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Infinite-Cage.jpg

http://img2-3.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/04/23/con-air-nicolas-cage-2_400.jpg

http://starsmedia.ign.com/stars/image/article/908/908074/nicolas-cage-20080905025038648-000.jpg

...pretty conclusive to me.

Nick Cage has to be omnipresent. That's the only way to explain how he is in 50 movies per year.

[leewong]

Yeah! No matter how relevant your garbage is, it is incorrect no matter what! So shut your mouth! I agree with you leewrong! I want to be 1-sided with you. Where do I join??????

Says the guy that cannot even answer the simplest question I asked of him.

"it is incorrect no matter what!

Comical. Calling me one sided right after that sentence.

BTW, I notice you have nothing to say about Robot's copy/paste from a creationist debunking website. Notice that NEITHER of you caught it. You dont even know what it was arguing for. You simply swallow any tripe that comes your way as long as you think it is pro-creationist.

[Eliseus]

Says the guy that cannot even answer the simplest question I asked of him.

"it is incorrect no matter what!

Comical. Calling me one sided right after that sentence.

BTW, I notice you have nothing to say about Robot's copy/paste from a creationist debunking website. Notice that NEITHER of you caught it. You dont even know what it was arguing for. You simply swallow any tripe that comes your way as long as you think it is pro-creationist.

What the fuck is your problem. I just asked how I joined your side and you don't help me out. Fuck you dick. I want to be friends.

[G13]

And why did I post the copy/pasted text. Was it an actual attempt at dialogue or was it to mock Robot? Go back and look at what I said before I spammed copy/pasted text for 3 pages.

Context dumbass. Know what you are talking about before opening your trap.

You're not fooling anyone Bozo

All of you cowardly lying frauds are the same. You think you know the way of this world when you don't know your asshole from the hole in the ground. Most dumb motherfuckers like you are more interested in the latest football game or sitcom episode than the Truth of this world and your existence.

You're trying to insinuate Robot was being deceptive when it's the exact opposite. This is what lying fucking frauds like other dipshit tried to do as well. You know you're backed in the corner, so you try to find any manufactured crumb you can to weasel your way out.

are you claiming Darwinism and Atheism had no influence on Marx/Engels/Stalin/Hitler/Pol Pot/Mao ect ect ect?

Yes or No

[leewong]

...

"You think you know the way of this world when you don't know your asshole from the hole in the ground."

Says the man claiming he knows exactly how the world was made. Science and I have never claimed to have all the answers. I even explained in one post that as soon as you answer one question you create 50 more. I even said that was the part of science I enjoyed the most.

BTW, I dont watch or even own a TV. Once again, who is the jackass assuming things?

"You're trying to insinuate Robot was being deceptive when it's the exact opposite."

Was I? I thought I was pointing out that he is a copy/paste idiot that doesnt even understand what he is copy/pasting. Then I gave a VERY good example. He posted text from an ANTI-CREATION site. He wasnt being deceptive...he was being the same fool he has been all along.

As for your yes/no question. It is irrelevant. I have explained it about 10-15 times now that science is no more to blame for something done in it's name than you are responsible for an abortion clinic being bombed in the name of Christianity. If you want to try and demonize the scientific method then be my guest. You only make yourself look ignorant though.

[G13]

As for your yes/no question. It is irrelevant. I have explained it about 10-15 times now that science is no more to blame for something done in it's name than you are responsible for an abortion clinic being bombed in the name of Christianity. If you want to try and demonize the scientific method then be my guest. You only make yourself look ignorant though.

Dipshit hello

Darwinism isn't science bozo

Can't be reproduced in the field

Is not observable

You're a dumb motherfucker

[Whirled]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_hate.htm

A man told his grandson: "A terrible fight is going on inside me -- a fight between two wolves. One is evil, and represents hate, anger, arrogance, intolerance, and superiority . The other is good, and represents joy, peace, love, tolerance, understanding, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, and compassion. This same fight is going on inside you, inside every other person too."
The grandson then asked: "Which wolf will win?"
The old man replied simply: "The one you feed."

[G13]

As for your yes/no question. It is irrelevant. I have explained it about 10-15 times now that science is no more to blame for something done in it's name than you are responsible for an abortion clinic being bombed in the name of Christianity. If you want to try and demonize the scientific method then be my guest. You only make yourself look ignorant though.

It's not irrelevant

You're just blind and stupid

[Eliseus]

"You think you know the way of this world when you don't know your asshole from the hole in the ground."

Says the man claiming he knows exactly how the world was made. Science and I have never claimed to have all the answers. I even explained in one post that as soon as you answer one question you create 50 more. I even said that was the part of science I enjoyed the most.

BTW, I dont watch or even own a TV. Once again, who is the jackass assuming things?

"You're trying to insinuate Robot was being deceptive when it's the exact opposite."

Was I? I thought I was pointing out that he is a copy/paste idiot that doesnt even understand what he is copy/pasting. Then I gave a VERY good example. He posted text from an ANTI-CREATION site. He wasnt being deceptive...he was being the same fool he has been all along.

As for your yes/no question. It is irrelevant. I have explained it about 10-15 times now that science is no more to blame for something done in it's name than you are responsible for an abortion clinic being bombed in the name of Christianity. If you want to try and demonize the scientific method then be my guest. You only make yourself look ignorant though.

You refer to Science as an entity lol. Also, why the fuck are you arguing like you do have all the answers if you just opening admitted you don't have the answer. Backwards logic there. "I know evolution is real' "I never claimed evolution was real".

[leewong]

....

'Can't be reproduced in the field"

It has you just ignore the evidence.

"Is not observable"

It has you just ignore the evidence.

"You're a dumb motherfucker"

It's pretty obvious I am about 40-60 IQ points above you.

[G13]

'Can't be reproduced in the field"

It has you just ignore the evidence.

"Is not observable"

It has you just ignore the evidence.

"You're a dumb motherfucker"

It's pretty obvious I am about 40-60 IQ points above you.

It's obvious you're a dumb brainwashed indoctrinated dumb mothefucker

When has a change of kinds ever been observed in the field?

When has entirely new and never before seen functioning genetic code ever spontaneously come into existence?

Let me help you. Never

Darwinism isn't true Science. It's a religion

[leewong]

You refer to Science as an entity lol. Also, why the fuck are you arguing like you do have all the answers if you just opening admitted you don't have the answer. Backwards logic there. "I know evolution is real' "I never claimed evolution was real".

Evolution is a testable fact. Do I have every answer to every question ever asked? No. I dont see how the two statements are mutually exclusive. Then again I am not a dumbass that lacks reading comprehension so it may appear that way to you.

Still no response about Robot's copy/paste asshattery. Just gonna stick your head in the sand and act like it didnt happen, eh? Classic...

[G13]

Evolution is a testable fact.

Lie

Absolutely 100% false

Hilarious how stupid you are

[Glenzig]

Well, let’s examine one of the patron saints of our modern epistemological cartel, Charles Darwin. Technocrats, elitists, racists, and Freemasons surrounded Darwin. Such men shaped Darwin’s thinking and, in turn, his theories. As Miguel De Cervantes put it in Don Quixote, “Tell me what company thou keepest, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” Proffering a form of elitism that was now premised upon biology, Darwinism affirmed this maxim.

Darwinism represented an attempt to scientifically dignify a Weltanschauung that was politically and socially expedient to the elite. Darwin sculpted his theory along the contours of his own Weltanschauung, which was strongly influenced by several questionable ideologues like T.H. Huxley (a racist, a Freemason, a fellow of the Masonic Royal Society, a member of an oligarchical dynasty, and one of the individuals responsible for the formation of the Rhodes Round Table Groups), Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather, a Freemason, a member of the technocratic Lunar Society, and a supporter of the radical, Illuminist-bred Jacobins), Harriet Martineau (a Comtean sociocrat, Positivist, an apologist for the corporate interests of the Whigs, and an advocate of eugenical regimentation), and Herbert Spencer (a theoretician of the technocratic social sciences and an advocate of Britain’s genocidal colonial warfare). All of these individuals acted as hosts for ideational contagions that were endemic to the ruling class. They, in large measure, shaped Darwin’s thinking. I guess you could characterize it as a memetic transmission belt of sorts.

Adrian Desmond and James Moore most eloquently synopsized the results of this hideous ideational amalgam:


“Social Darwinism is often taken to be something extraneous, an ugly concretion added to the pure Darwinian corpus after the event, tarnishing Darwin’s image. But his notebooks make plain that competition, free trade, imperialism, racial extermination, and sexual inequality were written into the equation from the start–“Darwinism” was always intended to explain human society.”

Darwinism was always meant to be a social theory, not a scientific one. The type of society that it was designed to explain was that type of society that Darwin saw continually advocated by the dominant sociopolitical interests of the time, which were purely oligarchical in character.

Of course, the historical tide of Darwinism did not rise in a completely organic fashion. There was a conspiratorial element behind the dissemination and popularization of Darwinism. The Masonic Royal Society would bestow Darwinism with institutional accreditation, which is the secular equivalent of a religious blessing. Now, one could consider the Royal Society a collection of naïve Baconians who believed in an oversimplified epistemology of empirical science devoid of intention, devoid of hypotheses (Newton’s hypothesis non fingo). However, there was an inner circle within the Royal Society, which Adrian Desmond and James Moore characterize as “a sort of masonic Darwinian lodge, invisible to outsiders.” This inner circle was the X Club. Its members wielded a substantial amount of influence over every famous scientist at the time. All of its members except Herbert Spencer were secretaries or presidents of “learned societies.” T.H. Huxley presided over the group, which would manipulate the scientific press.

One of the most prevalent examples of the X Club’s media manipulation was its obfuscation of the Bathybius haeckelii. When it was discovered that Bathybius haeckelii was gypsum and not the missing Monera in Ernst Haeckel’s phylogenetic tree, the X Club suppressed almost every revelation of the debacle. Remember, the X Club was presided over by T.H. Huxley, a Freemason and a participant in the formation of the Rhodes Round Table Groups. The Round Table Groups were devoted to the formation of a British-ruled socialist totalitarian world government. Out of the Round Table Groups would come the Royal Institute for International Affairs. The RIIA would establish a stateside branch here in the United States known as the Council on Foreign Relations. This organization has acted as America’s premiere foreign policy cartel and a major catalyst for globalization. Globalism, in the words of the late Malachi Martin, qualifies as “sociopolitical Darwinism.” It is premised upon the belief that global governance is the natural corollary of man’s alleged political evolution.

Mind you, T.H. Huxley was instrumental in establishing the organizational infrastructure that would lead to the modern network of institutions devoted to the promulgation of sociopolitical Darwinism. Given his Freemasonic heritage, Huxley probably embraced many of the technocratic Utopian ideas of the Enlightenment. He and many others probably viewed Darwinism as the scientific foundation for the oligarchical vision that they were hoping to tangibly enact. The crusade for a New World Order is neo-Gnostic in character. All modern sociopolitical Utopians seek to realize the Gnostic vision of an immanentized Eschaton. Communists, fascists, socialists, Transnationalists, Internationalists, and the like constitute secular Gnostics who envision an Eschaton (‘end of days”) within the ontological plane of the physical universe. Darwinism promised to edify the adherents of this vision. Darwinism functions as a Gnostic myth, affirming the Gnostic claim of “self-salvation” with the metaphysical claim of “self-creation.”

By the way, metaphysical claims have always been the province of religion. The theme of “self-creation,” which is encapsulated within the Darwinian thesis of abiogenesis, can be found in other older occult belief systems. For instance, the Kabalistic legend of the golem presents a living man that arises from dead matter. As Albert Pike pointed out in Morals and Dogma, Kabbalism was one of the occult belief systems that formed the core of Masonry. Given the considerable number of Masonic personages surrounding Darwin, it is very possible that occult concepts like the golem found its way into Darwin’s thinking and his theory.

[leewong]

....

"When has a change of kinds ever been observed in the field?"

You mean species not kinds. You mean a chicken giving birth to a rabbit. Doesnt happen. Already explained it 5-10 times in previous posts. What makes you think explaining it again will do for you? My post history is there for you to dig through if you missed the answer to this question.

"When has entirely new and never before seen functioning genetic code ever spontaneously come into existence?"

That's not how it works, fella. I cant help it if you cannot grasp the concept of gradual change over time. Completely new genetic code spontaneously appearing wouldnt be gradual would it? See the problem with your question?

"Darwinism isn't true Science."
No, darwinism is a term used by dipshit creationists. The study of evolution encompasses many fields from geology to DNA analysis. Your ignorance gives me a headache.

[leewong]

Lie

Absolutely 100% false

Hilarious how stupid you are

Prove it, stud. Overturn 170+ years of scientific data that clearly supports the claim.

[Eliseus]

Evolution is a testable fact. Do I have every answer to every question ever asked? No. I dont see how the two statements are mutually exclusive. Then again I am not a dumbass that lacks reading comprehension so it may appear that way to you.

Still no response about Robot's copy/paste asshattery. Just gonna stick your head in the sand and act like it didnt happen, eh? Classic...

What do you mean you are waiting for a comment? A comment for what? How he gave you responses you are looking for, but you are pissed that it may of been copy/paste? So that makes you mad?

[Eliseus]

Prove it, stud. Overturn 170+ years of scientific data that clearly supports the claim.

You have the burden of proof, claiming it is real, which you haven't. "But I gave contradicting examples, and youtube videos of people claiming 'chances are'".

[Neyphlite]

To anyone calling for proof of evolution. Please provide proof that the bible is a true story.

[RobotElvis]

When the other side descends to self-pity and character assassination, by the way, you can be pretty sure who's winning the debate.

I guess I win I have done neither. Just posting relevant facts.

[leewong]

What do you mean you are waiting for a comment? A comment for what? How he gave you responses you are looking for, but you are pissed that it may of been copy/paste? So that makes you mad?

Let me remind you then since you have already stuck your head in the sand:

" I dont even think Robot has read or understood some of the copy/pasted text he slapped up. Take this post for instance:

http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...&postcount=901

Guess where that post comes from. It comes from here:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumvie...ments-debunked

Notice the title of the article? 18 Creationist Arguments DEBUNKED. That's right. Your hero Robot copy/pasted from THAT site. Apparently, he doesnt even read the titles of the articles nor does he understand what they are actually saying. He thought he was providing more evidence but he was only showing what a fucking lazy and dishonest idiot he was.

So tell me...why am I suppose to debate with him?"

[leewong]

I guess I win I have done neither. Just posting relevant facts.

I am glad you think the article 18 Creationist Arguments DEBUNKED had some relevant facts. The only facts you have posted so far...but still.

[Eliseus]

To anyone calling for proof of evolution. Please provide proof that the bible is a true story.

I guess this makes sense. "I claim evolution is real, you can't prove the Bible is real. Therefore evolution is real." LOL

[G13]

"When has a change of kinds ever been observed in the field?"

You mean species not kinds. You mean a chicken giving birth to a rabbit. Doesnt happen. Already explained it 5-10 times in previous posts. What makes you think explaining it again will do for you? My post history is there for you to dig through if you missed the answer to this question.

"When has entirely new and never before seen functioning genetic code ever spontaneously come into existence?"

That's not how it works, fella. I cant help it if you cannot grasp the concept of gradual change over time. Completely new genetic code spontaneously appearing wouldnt be gradual would it? See the problem with your question?

"Darwinism isn't true Science."
No, darwinism is a term used by dipshit creationists. The study of evolution encompasses many fields from geology to DNA analysis. Your ignorance gives me a headache.

Lol this is hilarious. How did a chicken gradually change into a new, never before seen species gradually over time? Where is the fossil record of this gradual metamorphosis? It doesn't exist in the fossil record dumdum.

DNA is like software. Kinds are like body plans. Blueprints. Schematics. Dog and Wolves are still canines. Same "Kind". Cats and lions = same kinds. Are you getting it now? Give me an example of one "kind" magically changing into another that has never before been seen. You can't because they don't exist.

Want to know why chickens and cats can't procreate? Not the same "kind". It's genetically an impossibility so what magical force triggered this "gradual BS" you keep spewing?

Cite one example of ANY NEW (never before seen genetic code) coming into existence and being legible, ordered and working. There are no examples that can be given. Not even that fraud Dawkins can provide one example. If Evolution was real, there would be countless examples that could be given. There are so many holes in this BS theory from back in the 1800s than swiss cheese.

You also just contradicted yourself and admitted it's not observable because of this magical belief of "slow changes over time" (that don't exist). It is not something that can actually be observed and tested in the field, yet you claimed it was testable.

GG dumbass

[Neyphlite]

I guess this makes sense. "I claim evolution is real, you can't prove the Bible is real. Therefore evolution is real." LOL

Im not taking sides lol. I actualy do believe in a higher power. I just find it hilarious that die hard religious people want some hard proof about evolution while using a book that was supposedly written many many years ago and also rewritten many times as proof of there own arguments.

[RobotElvis]

/point

/laugh

You're an embarrassment. Your arrogance blinds you. Pride is a weakness. Evolutionists and Atheists have already lost the argument. They just don't know it. They constructed a bunch of glass houses around them that are methodically being ripped down.

Evolution is a lie

Let's just talk probabilities

What are the odds this is purposeful engineering and design or random chaotic chance?

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/0b/12/ba/0b12ba2c293d219b43e172b28de4d0bd.jpg

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/pseudo/nautilus_section.jpg

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--rJC4FAZh--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/18f8hbfn5ag1yjpg.jpg

Random chaotic chance? Really?

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/16/e2/b1/16e2b1110f2ba121ca4b522210363133.jpg

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jK8mM56hfdg/UCuVpa7OPwI/AAAAAAAAF4E/IpuWwkT8cJ0/s640/golden_ratio01.jpg

Even in The Universe

http://www.odec.ca/projects/2010/josexg2/fibonnaciWhirlpoo.jpg

I wonder if they will claim that Fibonacci is part of your " conspiracy theories" G?

I wonder if they would know who Fibonacci is without googling him?

[leewong]

I guess this makes sense. "I claim evolution is real, you can't prove the Bible is real. Therefore evolution is real." LOL

I think it was to point out that you asshats have gone on for 100+ pages about how evolution has no proof (nonsense) but somehow miss that point that you have ZERO evidence to support creationism. Not even a single scientific paper.

Why dont we find cat fossils back in the Cambrian age for instance? That would surely be the nail in the coffin for evolution if such a thing was found but alas...you got squat.

[RobotElvis]

I am glad you think the article 18 Creationist Arguments DEBUNKED had some relevant facts. The only facts you have posted so far...but still.

So when did I post from that site?

I've never posted from a creationist site, I don't read creationist sites.
They are to irrational.

[Glenzig]

The desire to worship the creation instead of the Creator is certainly nothing new. The adherents of many orthodox religions, particularly the traditional Abrahamic faiths, assign this desire a very specific and pejorative designation: idolatry. The Bible is replete with case studies in idolatry, even within the very nation through which the Lord would bring His salvation. Of course, the invocation of such a designation typically invites mockery and contempt from the anti-theist. Yet, in their religious veneration of the universe, anti-theists level a similar charge against traditional theism. A commonly reiterated mantra among anti-theists is that belief in a transcendent Creator devalues the creation, which is regarded with reverential awe in spite of its axiomatic contingent nature. This denunciation is exemplified by the words of Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:


I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!

In other words, belief in God constitutes a corrupting “otherworldly hope” that robs the world of its supposed divinity. The infidels (i.e., traditional theists and adherents to orthodox religions) must be allowed to expire by the “poison” of their own beliefs. Once they have been expunged, the earth can be redivinized. Nietzsche tacitly promotes an inverted interpretation of idolatry. Through Nietzsche’s interpretative lens, devotion to the allegedly untenable belief in a transcendent Creator qualifies as idolatry. In this sense, Nietzsche is advancing some form of immanentism as the one true religion. Therefore, the legitimacy of the charge of idolatry is not what is in question. Instead, the question is, “What qualifies as idolatry?” If St. Paul’s criteria for defining idolatry holds sway, then it is the naturalistic outlook and its closely aligned anti-metaphysical beliefs (e.g., scientific materialism, pantheism, immanentism, etc.) that satisfies all of the prerequisites.

Man’s idolatrous impulse did not recede with antiquity, as is evidenced by the deified portrayal of the natural order promoted by the Enlightenment and several modern men of “science.” The sciences did not banish this anthropomorphism to the realm of superstition. Instead, under the guidance of certain theoreticians, the sciences have actually enshrined the worship of nature. At this juncture, it is most elucidating to revisit Guenon’s observations concerning “anti-metaphysical errors.” Guenon contends that the adoption of such errors “shuts out all ‘transcendence’ and so also shuts out all effective spirituality” (The Reign of Quantity 288). The anti-metaphysical interpretation of transcendence is one case in point.

Within the framework of such anti-metaphysical outlooks, there is no longer any ontological transcendence. Instead, transcendence is redefined as moving beyond the constraints of finitude (e.g., time, space, death, etc.) while still indwelling the confines of immanent experience. Such a false transcendence has been advanced through the new immortality narratives of scientific materialism, which reduces the soul to an information pattern that is contained and fragmentarily transmitted through genes. Simultaneously, all organisms are portrayed as mere survival mechanisms for genes. The perpetuation of a species means the perpetuation of genes. In turn, the perpetuation of genes means the perpetuation of the information pattern that constitutes the soul. Herein is the newly defined immortality for the anti-metaphysical age of modernity. In The Selfish Gene, ardent anti-theist Richard Dawkins distills this new immortality narrative:


Individuals are not stable things, they are fleeting. Chromosomes too are shuffled into oblivion, like hands of cards soon after they are dealt. But the cards themselves survive the shuffling. The cards are the genes. The genes are not destroyed by crossing-over, they merely change partners and march on. Of course they march on. That is their business. They are the replicators and we are their survival machines. When we have served our purpose we are cast aside. But genes are denizens of geological time: genes are forever. (The Selfish Gene 35)

Interestingly enough, the chapter of the book where Dawkins exposits this reductionist conception of zoe (i.e., eternal life) is entitled “Immortal Coils.” Since genes transcend death, humanity enjoys genetic immortality without God. Once again, there is no ontological transcendence. Instead, there is just some vague circumvention of finitude through the impersonal agency of genes. Interestingly enough, Dawkins, who is a stalwart evolutionist, characterizes pantheism as “sexed up atheism” (The God Delusion 40). The New Atheists, who have swept the bestsellers lists with their literary works and championed a rallying call for the waning paradigm of Darwinism, appear to be the missionaries of evolutionary pantheism. Fleshing out the definition of pantheism, Dawkins writes: “Pantheists don’t believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings” (40). It is ironic that Dawkins, who fiercely advances a dysteleological outlook, would acknowledge the “lawfulness” intrinsic to the natural order. Such an acknowledgement bespeaks a distinctly teleological outlook.

Dawkins is not the only New Atheist who has invoked distinctly teleological language in regards to the material cosmos. Examining Spinoza’s pantheistic outlook, Daniel Dennett uses terms like “Design” and “creation” to describe the natural world (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea 520). Obviously, such terms are inherently teleological. Yet, simultaneously, Dennett makes appeals to dysteleological “mindless purposeless forces,” citing them as the ultimate causative agencies behind the universe (520). In short, Dennett presents a grand narrative of human origins that attempts to blend the mutually exclusive philosophical views of teleology and dysteleology. Dennett argues that this cosmological myth is rendered coherent by Darwinism and that the alleged divinity of the universe, which he dubs “The Tree of Life,” is worthy of religious veneration:


Spinoza called his highest being God or Nature (Deus sive Natura), expressing a sort of pantheism. There have been many varieties of pantheism, but they usually lack a convincing explanation about just how God is distributed in the whole of nature… Darwin offers us one: it is in the distribution of Design throughout nature, creating, in the Tree of Life, an utterly unique and irreplaceable creation, an actual pattern in the immeasurable reaches of Design Space that could never be exactly duplicated in its many details. What is design work? It is that wonderful wedding of chance and necessity, happening in a trillion places at once, at a trillion different levels. And what miracle caused it? None. It just happened to happen, in the fullness of time. You could even say, in a way, that the Tree of Life created itself. Not in a miraculous, instantaneous whoosh, but slowly, over billions of years.

Is this Tree of Life a God one could worship? Pray to? Fear? Probably not. But it did make the ivy twine and the sky so blue, so perhaps the song I love tells the truth after all. The Tree of Life is neither perfect nor infinite in space or time, but it is actual, and if it is not Anselm’s “Being greater than which nothing can be conceived,” it is surely a being that is greater than anything any of us will ever conceive of in detail worthy of its detail. Is something sacred? Yes, say I with Nietzsche. I could not pray to it, but I can stand in affirmation of its magnificence. This world is sacred. (520)

Dennett’s veneration of Darwin as the theoretician responsible for scientifically dignifying pantheism’s distribution of divinity “in the whole of nature” is well-founded. While several atheists and neo-Darwinians might raise objections, there is a body of evidence that suggests Darwin was exposed to occult ideas, particularly pantheistic concepts that circulated in Freemasonic circles at the time. In turn, exposure to these ideas tainted the interpretative lens through which Darwin would view his “evidence.” Once Darwin had systematized his data, the resultant theory would be appropriated as affirmation for the new secular gospel of an intra-mundane god.

Erasmus Darwin is responsible for developing “every important idea that has since appeared in evolutionary theory” (Darlington 62). No doubt, orthodox evolutionists contend that these ideas originated with dispassionate, objective scientific observations. Yet, Erasmus’ organizational affiliations suggest that he was exposed to certain occult and pantheistic ideas, which, in turn, shaped his thinking. William Denslow’s 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J, Part One states that Erasmus was “made a Mason in the famous Canongate Kilwinning Lodge No. 2 of Edinburgh, Scotland” (285). Having established Erasmus’ Masonic pedigree, it becomes necessary to contextualize the early evolutionist’s ideas within the corpus of the occult beliefs pervading some strains of Masonry.

In Morals and Dogma, 33rd degree Freemason Albert Pike claims that the brotherhood is a retainer of the occult beliefs espoused by the pagan Mystery cults of antiquity, albeit in a fragmentary and imperfect form. He boldly proclaims: “Though Masonry is identical with the ancient Mysteries, it is so only in this qualified sense: that it presents but an imperfect image of their brilliancy, the ruins only of their grandeur . . .” (23). Therefore, it must be understood that Masonry advances a flawed and possibly embellished facsimile of the Mysteries. While some elements of the original Mystery religion might remain intact, they are probably buried beneath layers of errant interpretation and extraneous doctrines. Yet, Masonry, which is permeated by a form of spiritual elitism akin to Gnosticism, has never encouraged modesty among its members. It is not uncommon for Masons to arbitrarily lay claim to either authorship or stewardship of ancient traditions and supposed repositories of mystical wisdom. Not surprisingly, Pike characterizes Masonry as the “successor of the Mysteries” (22). However, whether or not Masonry’s philosophical and spiritual lineage can be directly or indirectly traced back to the ancient Mysteries is inconsequential. Instead, it is important to determine the extent to which Masonry’s reformulated version of the Mysteries might have informed the evolutionary ideas of Erasmus and, in turn, Charles.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica contributor William L. Reese, the Mystery religions “stressed types of mystical union that are typical of pantheistic systems” (“Pantheism and panetheism in ancient and medieval philosophy”). This pantheism seems to have remained intact within Masonry’s reformulated version of the Mystery religions. In The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, Thirty-third Degree Mason Manly P. Hall likens the Lodge to the cosmos and characterizes the various natural kingdoms as the constituents of some sort of pantheistic homogeneity. Hall contends that the apprehension of this pantheistic analogue is a prerequisite for becoming a “mystic Mason”:


Every true Mason has come into the realization that there is but one Lodge–that is, the Universe–and but one Brotherhood, composed of everything that moves or exists in any of the planes of Nature… He realizes that his vow of brotherhood and fraternity is universal, and that mineral, plant, animal, and man are all the included in the true Masonic Craft… The mystic Mason, in building the eyes that see behind the apparent ritual, recognizes the one-ness of life manifesting through the diversity of form. (63)

Masonic scholar Albert Mackey states that the advanced Degrees concern themselves with the “doctrines of Philo, the Gnostics, and the Cabalists” (324). All of these doctrines, according to Mackey, included the theory of emanations (324). Mackey relates this theory to the idea of anima mundi or “spirit of the world” (324). Various Renaissance philosophers viewed this pantheistic world-soul as the “unifying principle” at work throughout the “hierarchical order in the cosmos” (“Agrippa Von Nettesheim: Philosophical Magic, Empiricism, and Skepticism” 126). At this juncture, it is interesting to recall the fact that Rennaissance-era humanists co-opted the operative Mason guilds, thereby birthing speculative Freemasonry. Given the Renaissance’s preoccupation with the concept of anima mundi, it is possible that the aforementioned humanists introduced some form of pantheism to the corpus of Masonry. Such an outlook certainly seems to be espoused by several pieces of Masonic literature. One case in point is Masonic historian John Sebastian Marlowe Ward, who writes:


The unknown Pantheistic deity hinted at in masonry is a matter of vital importance, both to those who desire to know what F.M. [Freemasonry] teaches, and also to those who hope by means of hints in our present ritual to rediscover something of our past history. (44)

While the British Grand Lodge contends that Ward’s work represents his own private interpretations and not the Brotherhood as a whole, his statements concerning Masonic pantheism appear to be supported by the preceding observations of other Freemasons. After examining a variety of other Masonic authors, Martin L. Wagner also concluded that pantheism comprises a large portion of Masonic teachings. Wagner states:


The Masonic view of the revelation of God, in the lower degrees, is deistic, but in the higher degrees it becomes pantheistic. The writings of Garrison, Buck, Pike, and other eminent Masons show this unmistakably. It is this peculiar pantheistic conception of deity which has passed from India through the secret doctrines of the Kabbalah into modern speculative Freemasonry, as Buck intimates, that constitutes the secret doctrine of the institution. In Masonry, a God distinct from the life of nature, has no existence. (309-310)

Given this thread of pantheism running throughout the secret doctrine of the Brotherhood, it is possible that Erasmus Darwin, as a Freemason, was exposed to the belief that “a God distinct from the life of nature, has no existence.” Such a pantheistic conception of the Divine is insinuated through the title of Erasmus’ popular poem, The Temple of Nature. Implicit in the title is the contention that nature is due religious veneration because it possesses causative powers reserved for divinity. In the poem, Erasmus delineates the alleged progression of life from the infusoria that populated primordial oceans to the upright man who presently occupies the highest tier of evolution (Herrick, The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition 121). In the preface, Erasmus candidly discloses the ancient inspiration for the outlook that he is about to poetically distill:


In the Eleusinian mysteries the philosophy of the works of Nature, with the origin and progress of society, are believed to have been taught by allegorical scenery explained by the Hierophant to the uninitiated, which gave rise to the machinery of the following poem. (The Temple of Nature ii)

According to Ron Leadbetter, the Eleusinian mysteries were a series of initiatory rites and festivities held by an Athenian Mystery cult in veneration of Demeter, a Greek goddess of fertility and grain (Eleusianian mysteries). The very nature of this deity suggests the cult’s implicit adherence to pantheism, as is evidenced by Demeter’s inextricable relationship with grain. Grain is, of course, a product of nature and it plays a central role in the fertility-laden symbolism of the harvest. Through the interpretative lens of pantheism, fertility can be viewed as nature’s ability to create and perpetuate itself. Thus, nature becomes a self-originating deity. The pantheism implicit in the veneration of Demeter provides some context for Eramus’ characterization of the Eleusinian mysteries as “the philosophy of the works of Nature.” Erasmus makes it clear that this pantheistic outlook, which was allegorically conveyed to neophytes by the Eleusinian priesthood (i.e., Hierophants), supplies the source material for “the machinery of the following poem.” Thus, one could argue that The Temple of Nature presents the pantheistic outlook, albeit re-envisioned through the purely physiological optic of biology.

Erasmus’ biologicized formulation of pantheism pervades several of the verses of this lengthy poem. A deistic disjunction between God and creation, an immanent cosmos peopled by causative forces symbolized by ancient deities, the supposed mutability of species, and the religious primacy of nature are among the themes communicated throughout the text. All of these themes emerge in some of the early stanzas of the poem, where Erasmus writes:


GOD THE FIRST CAUSE!–in this terrene abode

Young Nature lisps, she is a child of God.

From embyron births her changeful forms improve

Grow as they live, and strengthen as they move…

Ere Time began, from flaming Chaos hurl’d

Rose the Bright sphere, which form the circling world

Earths from each sun with quick explosions burst,

And second planets issues from the first.

Then, whilst the sea at their coeval birth,

Surge over surge, involv’d in shoreless earth, Nurs’d by warm sun-beams in primeval caves

Organic life began beneath the waves. (26-27)

While Erasmus correctly identifies God as the First Cause, he immediately situates the Creator at an unbridgeable ontic distance from His creation. With God arbitrarily deemed an absentee landlord, nature becomes the sole causative force from which “changeful forms” are birthed. Erasmus’ characterization of all organisms as “changeful forms” bespeaks his belief in the mutability of species. In a statement that foreshadows the evolutionary hypothesis of his grandson, Erasmus claims that the developmental journey of all species “began beneath the waves” of the ocean. During this early stage of its evolutionary ascent, organic life was nurtured by “warm sun-beams in primeval caves.” The ontic exile of God and the enthronement of nature lays the groundwork for the reorientation of man’s epistemic compass towards what philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “immanent frame.” Taylor describes the view from this immanent frame and the corresponding form of social order it implies:


And so we come to understand our lives as taking place within a self-sufficient immanent order; or better, a constellation of orders, cosmic, social and moral…

At first. the social order is seen as offering us a blueprint for how things, in the human realm, can hang together to our mutual benefit, and this is identified with the plan of Providence, what God asks us to realize. But it is in the nature of a self-sufficient immanent order that it can be envisaged without reference to God; and very soon the proper blueprint is attributed to Nature. This change can, of course, involve nothing of importance, if we go on seeing God as the Author of Nature, just a notational variant on the first view. But following a path opened by Spinoza, we can also see Nature as identical with God, and then as independent from God. The Plan is without a planner. (543)

Thus, the immanent frame either marginalizes or rejects God, thereby hypostatizing the immanent order and elevating nature to the status of a deity. Meaning and purpose, which were initially derived from the transcendent beyond, are transplanted within the immanent present. The corresponding societal model implied by this outlook is inherently technocratic. The ontological confines of the physical universe have been deemed the totality of reality itself. In aggregate, material agencies and natural processes are viewed as the sole principle of creation. The physical, visible cosmos is viewed as the product of spontaneous generation.

Erasmus expresses the concept of spontaneous generation and its corollary metaphysical doctrine, pantheism, in the following verses:


Hence without parent by spontaneous birth

Rise the first specks of animated earth,

From Nature’s womb the plant or insect swims,

And buds or breathes, with microscopic limbs. (30)

In a later philosophical footnote to his poem, Erasmus posits an impersonal “central chaos” as the chief causative force out of which worlds such as this one emerge:


Thus all the suns, and the planets, which circle round them, may again sink into one central chaos; and may again by explosions produce a new world, which in the process of time may resemble the present one, and at length again undergo the same catastrophe! These great events may be the result of the immutable laws impressed on matter by the Great cause of Causes, Parent of Parents, Ens Entium! (The Temple of Nature 196)

Astute readers will automatically identify a logically unsustainable narrative that attempts to invoke the mutually exclusive philosophical views of teleology and dysteleology. Erasmus is positing meaningless, purposeless forces as the progenitors of meaning and purpose. Such a narrative is echoed by some of today’s New Atheists, such as Dennett and Dawkins. The only point of departure is Erasmus’ invocation of an ontically exiled Creator, who set the immutable laws responsible for the generation of life into motion. The origin of being is no longer transcendent, but strictly immanent. Erasmus advanced the same narrative in his famous book, Zoonomia, which was “a massive medical treatise arguing a straightforward evolutionary hypothesis” (Herrick, The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition 121). Arguably, both Zoonomia and Temple attempt to systematize a purely biological process by which divinity is distributed “in the whole of nature.” That process is evolutionary.

At this juncture, it is important to define the term “evolution” as it is invoked by both Erasmus and Charles Darwin. Clarity of definitions is especially important in the evolution debate. Some proponents of Darwinism have deliberately promoted terminological confusion concerning evolution so as to allow themselves an expedient degree of interpretative elasticity with the term. If the term is invoked to denote a process by which ontologically immutable species adapt to their respective environments, then that definition seems reasonable enough. However, such is not the case with Darwinism. Darwinism is a variety of transformism that challenges the ontological fixity of species by advancing a process in which simple life-forms metamorphose into complex life-forms through random mutations. In addition to the fact that no mutation has ever given rise to advantageous adaptations, this grand narrative descends further into incoherence by proposing that such an irreducibly teleological system is driven by dysteleological forces. Supposedly, the telos (i.e., end) of this system is a perfected species.

Yet, despite its ostensibly high hopes for man, evolutionism expresses a profound anthropological pessimism not unlike that of Gnosticism. The transfiguration to which the evolutionist aspires stems from a tacit dissatisfaction with humanity in particular and the created order in general. Hence, the appeal of some variety of transformism to the evolutionist. Transformism’s portrayal of an inherently mutable man affirms the evolutionist’s aspiration to see the eventual transcendence of biology and the Nietzschean abolition of humanity. Upholding this anthropological pessimism, Darwinism presents a bloody and pragmatic struggle for survival through which man will eventually be transfigured. Because that transfiguration is strictly biological and divorced from a transcendent, personal Creator, the end of this secular theodicy is the apotheosis of the organism. Not surprisingly, evolutionary theory became the centerpiece of a comprehensive religious outlook for Erasmus Darwin. James A. Herrick reiterates:


Erasmus Darwin believed that life evolves toward higher levels of complexity and happiness, a commitment that became for him a virtual religion. As one biographer notes, Darwin “weaves his evolutionary ideas into a wider philosophy of organic happiness.” Thus, “evolution was no casual speculation’ for Erasmus Darwin, “but a belief he lived with for thirty years and one which moulded his whole philosophy of life.” (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition 121)

A perusal of certain excerpts from Zoonomia will help to define the contours of Erasmus’ “philosophy of organic happiness.” While it is a separate literary piece from The Temple of Nature, Zoonomia arguably qualifies as a companion to that work. Thematically, both works intimate a pantheistic outlook, which attains the semblance of scientific legitimacy through the concepts of spontaneous generation and progressive biological development. That which Temple expresses poetically, Zoonomia distills theoretically. According to James A. Herrick, both books promote the concept of fluid materialism, which holds that all animate nature, including plants, possess complex emotions and sensibility (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition 121). Erasmus believed that this sensibility originated from a purely material source, namely an obscure ether or fluid within the body and nerves (The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Religious Tradition 121). One case in point is the following excerpt:


From thus meditating on the great similarity of the structure of the warm-blooded animals, and at the same time of the great changes they undergo both before and after their nativity; and by considering in how minute a portion of time many of the changes of animals above described have been produced; would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all the warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation of its posterity, world without end? (397)

Again, Erasmus correctly cites God as the First Cause, but immediately places Him at an ontic distance from His creation. This deistic disjunction provides the premises for the apotheosis of matter. Endowed with a transformative faculty, the first cell possesses the ability to procure new components and “improve by its own inherent activity.” These improvements are transmitted through heredity, the chief mechanism of transcendence within the new immortality narrative of scientific materialism. While this new definition of transcendence is invoked within a philosophical framework that is inimical to any formulation of substance dualism, it nonetheless echoes the Gnostic frustration with the limitations of time and space. Moreover, it bespeaks an aspiration to overcome finitude without any divine assistance, thereby upholding the Promethean hubris that man can eventually facilitate his own transfiguration into superman and affirming the profoundly juvenile desire to enjoy eternity on one’s own terms.

Erasmus’ invocation of heredity as an imperishable agent of immortality presages Dawkins’ bold proclamation that “genes are forever.” In fact, Erasmus concludes his synopsis of this new immortality narrative with a conspicuous allusion to Ephesians 3:21. Within the context of Erasmus’ narrative, the Biblical phrase “world without end” no longer refers to a divinely redeemed world that is no longer susceptible to Entropy. Instead, Erasmus reinterprets the phrase as a reference to a self-sufficient immanent order. Once more, the material world is hypostatized and contingent agencies are imbued with causative powers reserved for the Divine. Reiterating this portrait of a self-sufficient immanent order, Erasmus writes:


The late Mr. Hume, in his posthumous works, places the power of generation much above those of our boasted reason; and adds, that reason can only make a machine, as a clock or a ship, but the power of generation makes the maker of a machine; and probably from having observed, that the greatest part of the earth has been formed out of organic recrements; as the immense beds of limestone, chalk, marble, from the shells of fish; and the extensive provinces of clay, sandstone, ironstone, coals, from decomposed vegetables; all which have been first produced by generation, rather than created; that it, it might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings, increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by Almighty fiat–What a magnificent idea of the infinite power of THE GREAT ARCHITECT! THE CAUSE OF CAUSES! PARENT OF PARENTS! ENS ENTIUM! (400-401)

Erasmus’ citation of Hume is quite appropriate, especially in light of the late Enlightenment theoretician’s pantheistic conclusions. In hopes of avoiding any overtly teleological terminology, Erasmus eschews the verb “create” in favor of “generation.” Yet, the evolutionary process posited by Erasmus is irreducibly teleological. Its telos is the collective apotheosis of all organisms, whose respective evolutionary ascents are comparable to the sort of transfiguration posited by Gnosticism. Where the ancient Gnostics contended that man rediscovers his own intrinsic divinity through gnosis, the evolutionists contend that the cosmos rediscovers its intrinsic divinity through the perfection of all species. The point of departure is evolutionary pantheism’s elevation of the immanent to the detriment of the transcendent. Such an ontological disparity would be inimical to Classic Gnosticism, which promoted a docetistic attitude towards the material world. This disparity notwithstanding, evolutionary pantheism and Classic Gnosticism share a common telos: apotheosis.

By assigning virtually omnipotent causative powers to the immanent order, Erasmus merely reiterates Hume’s pantheistic contention that the material world encompasses the “principle of its order within itself” and, therefore, qualifies as God. His cheap semantic gymnastics notwithstanding, Erasmus actually advances an immanent creatology. Within the framework of Erasmus’ incoherent cosmology, evolution is the process by which a strictly immanent divinity channels and expresses itself throughout the ontological confines of the physical universe. As the receptacles of that immanent divinity, each individual species ascends an evolutionary hierarchy towards perfection. Thus, the eschaton of history arrives when the totality of living organisms populating the immanent cosmos reach the final tier of their evolution.

[RobotElvis]

I think it was to point out that you asshats have gone on for 100+ pages about how evolution has no proof (nonsense) but somehow miss that point that you have ZERO evidence to support creationism. Not even a single scientific paper.

Why dont we find cat fossils back in the Cambrian age for instance? That would surely be the nail in the coffin for evolution if such a thing was found but alas...you got squat.

The bible is historically accurate.

The bible is scientifically accurate.

The bible is prophetically accurate.

Three lines of proof.

[G13]

I think it was to point out that you asshats have gone on for 100+ pages about how evolution has no proof (nonsense) but somehow miss that point that you have ZERO evidence to support creationism. Not even a single scientific paper.

Why dont we find cat fossils back in the Cambrian age for instance? That would surely be the nail in the coffin for evolution if such a thing was found but alas...you got squat.

Nobody is arguing changes within existing kinds

Try again

[Glenzig]

I wonder if they will claim that Fibonacci is part of your " conspiracy theories" G?

I wonder if they would know who Fibonacci is without googling him?

The Fibonacci sequence is really just a copy/paste job.

[leewong]

So when did I post from that site?

I've never posted from a creationist site, I don't read creationist sites.
They are to irrational.

Lol, man you are dense. It is from a pro-science website and the name of the article is '18 Creationist Arguments Debunked". Pay attention.

Here is your post:
http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...&postcount=901

And here is the website:
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumvie...ments-debunked

Too funny.

[Eliseus]

Im not taking sides lol. I actualy do believe in a higher power. I just find it hilarious that die hard religious people want some hard proof about evolution while using a book that was supposedly written many many years ago and also rewritten many times as proof of there own arguments.

Are you saying you don't want proof? When someone claims something, just believe it?

[iruinedyourday]

this thread is so fucked up i dont even know who i dont hate and hate anymore.

[RobotElvis]

Let me remind you then since you have already stuck your head in the sand:

" I dont even think Robot has read or understood some of the copy/pasted text he slapped up. Take this post for instance:

http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...&postcount=901

Guess where that post comes from. It comes from here:

http://www.chess.com/groups/forumvie...ments-debunked

Notice the title of the article? 18 Creationist Arguments DEBUNKED. That's right. Your hero Robot copy/pasted from THAT site. Apparently, he doesnt even read the titles of the articles nor does he understand what they are actually saying. He thought he was providing more evidence but he was only showing what a fucking lazy and dishonest idiot he was.

So tell me...why am I suppose to debate with him?"

This is news to me ice never heard of that site or that article.

[RobotElvis]

Lol, man you are dense. It is from a pro-science website and the name of the article is '18 Creationist Arguments Debunked". Pay attention.

Here is your post:
http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...&postcount=901

And here is the website:
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumvie...ments-debunked

Too funny.

Your links are broken

[leewong]

Nobody is arguing changes within existing kinds

Try again

Would a cat giving birth to a snake be a gradual change? Is evolution gradual or instant? You cant even grasp the theory let alone argue against it.

[Neyphlite]

Are you saying you don't want proof? When someone claims something, just believe it?

Im Saying That This Argument Is A Lose/Lose. You Can Not Prove Without Doubt That The Bible Is A True Story Nor Can Anyone Prove Without Doubt That Evolution Is What Brought Us Here today

[Glenzig]

I found the Fibonacci sequence described on a creationist site. Fibonacci=debunked.

[Glenzig]

Lol, man you are dense. It is from a pro-science website and the name of the article is '18 Creationist Arguments Debunked". Pay attention.

Here is your post:
http://www.project1999.com/forums/sh...&postcount=901

And here is the website:
http://www.chess.com/groups/forumvie...ments-debunked

Too funny.

Could it be that more than one source has the same info? Nah. Probably not.

[leewong]

Your links are broken

Then google the damn phrase "18 creationist argument debunked" and look at your post 901 from this thread. I am feeling lazy.

[Eliseus]

Im Saying That This Argument Is A Lose/Lose. You Can Not Prove Without Doubt That The Bible Is A True Story Nor Can Anyone Prove Without Doubt That Evolution Is What Brought Us Here today

Aww I see.

[RobotElvis]

To go from AARDVARK to BASEBALL, six micro-steps took place in between the two real words. However, the first six “words” could be labeled as A-species, while the last word could be labeled as a new B-species (based off of the first letter of each “word”). Therefore, A-species to B-species could be considered a macro-evolutionary step, while the little “in-between” steps are micro-evolutionary.




Here we see an example of ignorance in action.
To understand this analogy you must concede the fact that letters imply design and intelligence. You also must concede the fact that a certain pattern or order will be maintained to go from one word(animal) to another word (animal) all while not disrupting the pattern that takes you from one to the other.

This is a fatal flaw in the argument against teleology in Darwinian evolution.

Order and final cause must on some level be maintained for the finite result of AARDVARK to BASEBALL.

If not then using these eight letters we would have a nearly infinite number of possibilities to reach point B from point A.

Is this the post you sre speaking of?

[Misto]

The Fibonacci sequence exists in nature.

God created nature.

Therefore, God created the Fibonacci sequence.

[RobotElvis]

Then google the damn phrase "18 creationist argument debunked" and look at your post 901 from this thread. I am feeling lazy.

Yeah I think you are confused.

The first paragraph was copy/pasted from a previous copy paste spam bomb that you yourself made.

The second is my rebuttal, not copy/pasted btw.

You can't remember your own posts?

[Eliseus]

Im Saying That This Argument Is A Lose/Lose. You Can Not Prove Without Doubt That The Bible Is A True Story Nor Can Anyone Prove Without Doubt That Evolution Is What Brought Us Here today

Well you have to also read the beginning of the thread. Eventually paul and leewrong turned it into a God vs Science debate, but the beginning was laughs at paul for being hypocritical in his views that we are aloud to teach our children one fabrication, but not aloud to teach our children another fabrication, because it would hurt his feelings.

[leewong]

Could it be that more than one source has the same info? Nah. Probably not.

No, it is a direct copy/paste from a pro-science website that he clearly didnt understand. He thought it was debunking evolution. Too funny.

[Eliseus]

No, it is a direct copy/paste from a pro-science website that he clearly didnt understand. He thought it was debunking evolution. Too funny.

I'll copy and past some stuff for you also.

Can we prove that evolution is false without using the Bible? Certainly we can! Evolution is a scientific theory that stands or falls on the physical evidence. In fact, one can be an atheist, a person who doesn't believe in God, and still not believe in evolution!

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as taught at school, is a biological explanation of how creatures have supposedly "evolved" or developed progressively through natural selection and variation (now known as mutation) over eons of time from the tiny cell to the largest creatures on earth today. What is taught in classrooms is not mere micro evolution—small changes within a species—but macro evolution, the change from one type of creature to another quite distinct life form.

What many evolutionists are trying to convince you of is that there is no need for a Creator since, as they say, evolution can substitute as the mechanism for creating and transforming life. They teach that life arose from non-life and evolved from simpler creatures to more complex life forms. In other words, the tiny cell eventually became an amoeba, then a lizard, then a monkey, and finally— you !

In order to remember key points that disprove Darwinian evolution—the "molecules to man" theory—we'll use the acronym FALSE. (A few of these points also disprove the compromise of theistic evolution—the notion that God employed macroevolution over eons in forming the creatures we see on earth today.)

F for Fossils

A fossil is the preserved remains of a living thing. The fossil record around the earth extends an average of one mile deep. Below this level we come up with a blank slate as far as living, complex creatures are concerned.

I collect fossils of what are deemed the earliest type of complex creatures with hard bodies—trilobites. No previous ancestors of these arthropods have been found. Similar to some marine "bugs" we see today on the seashore that disappear into the sand when the waves retreat, trilobites had hard shells, all the basic organs, and complex eyes like those of flies, with hundreds of sophisticated lenses connected to the optic nerve going to the brain. Trilobite fossils are found around the earth, and in all cases the level of rock beneath them does not reveal other creatures with similar features.

As one source states: "The dominant life form was the now-extinct sea creature known as a trilobite, up to a foot long, with a distinctive head and tail, a body made up of several parts, and a complex respiratory system. But although there are many places on earth where 5,000 feet of sedimentary rock stretch unbroken and uniformly beneath the Cambrian [layer], not a single indisputable multi-celled fossil has been found there. It is 'the enigma of paleontological [fossil studies] enigmas,' according to Stephen Gould. Darwin himself said he could give 'no satisfactory answer' to why no fossils had been discovered. Today's scientists are none the wiser" (Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe , 1982, pp. 26-27).

Question: If, after almost two centuries of digging beneath all the world's continents, no previous ancestor of this first hard-bodied creature has been found, how then did the ubiquitous trilobite evolve? There should be some previous ancestor if evolution were true.

It's like finding an exquisite watch on the seashore and yet never finding any previous primitive models of the watch on earth. If you reasoned as an evolutionist, you would deny there was a need for a watchmaker at all, maintaining that time, water, sand, minerals and actions of the elements are sufficient to producing a fully functional watch that runs. This is part of the reason it takes more faith to believe in evolution than in a Creator!

Further important evidence from the fossil record is the absence of transitional forms between species. Darwin was concerned that the thousands of intermediate stages between creatures needed to prove his theory were not in evidence, but he expected they would eventually be found. Yet those thousands of missing transitional forms are still missing!

Another reference explains: "If throughout past ages life was actually drifting over in one continual stream from one form to another, it is to be expected that as many samples of the intermediate stages between species should be discovered in fossil condition as of the species themselves … All should be in a state of flux. But these missing links are wanting. There are no fossils of creatures whose scales were changing into feathers or whose feet were changing into wings, no fossils of fish getting legs or of reptiles getting hair. The real task of the geological evolutionist is not to find 'the' missing link, as if there were only one. The task is to find those thousands upon thousands of missing links that connect the many fossil species with one another" (Byron Nelson, After Its Kind , 1970, pp. 60-62).

The absence of transitional forms is an insurmountable hurdle for theistic evolutionists as well. It also fits with our next point.

A for Assumption

When there is no real evidence, evolutionary scientists simply make assumptions.

If evolution were true, then where is the evidence of different types of animals now "evolving" into other types? Where is the evidence of cats, dogs and horses gradually turning into something else? We do see changes within species, but we do not see any changes into other species. And, as mentioned, we see no evidence of gradual change in the fossil record either. Yet evolutionists continue to assume that transitional forms must have existed.

In Darwin's landmark book On the Origin of Species there are some 800 subjective clauses, with uncertainty repeatedly admitted instead of proof. Words such as "could," "perhaps" and "possibly" plague the entire book.

Evolution is still called a theory—a possible explanation or assumption—because it is not testable according to the scientific method, as this would require thousands or millions of years. Evolutionists will counter that a theory is not a mere hypothesis but is a widely affirmed intellectual construct that generally appears to fit all the facts. Yet evolution in no way fits all the facts available. Evidence does not support it—and in many respects runs counter to it.

L for Life

The law of biogenesis as taught in biology class states that only life can produce life.

You've probably heard the famous question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It's a real dilemma for an evolutionist to answer. An egg comes from a chicken, yet the chicken comes from an egg. How can there be one without the other?

To complicate matters even more, the chicken has to come from a fertilized egg that has the mixture of two different genetic strains from both its parents. So the problem of the origin of life and initial reproduction is still a mystery that evolutionary science cannot adequately answer.

Yet for someone who believes in special creation by a Creator, there is no dilemma here. First God made the male and female chickens, which produced the first fertilized egg—and the rest is history.

S for Symbiosis

When one living thing needs another different living thing to survive, it's called a symbiotic relationship.

A good example of this is the relationship between bees and flowers. The bees need the nectar from some types of flowers to feed while these flowers need bees to pollinate them. Both depend on each other to exist and survive. The question for evolutionists is: How did these plants exist without the bees, and how did the bees exist without these plants?

Again, atheistic scientists are stumped. Theistic evolutionists are perplexed as well. Yet if you believe in a Creator who specially created the various forms of life on earth, the answer is simple—both were created at about the same time.

E for Engineering

All living things are exquisitely engineered or designed. Qualitatively, a bacterium is as majestically built for its purpose as a human body is for its function. Yet evolution says it's only an illusion of design—that there is no real designer behind it. Reality is not an illusion! Living things are multi-functional, which means they do many complex things at the same time, something evolution with its step-by-step process has never been able to demonstrate.

One example of a living thing with exquisite engineering is the tree. It provides breathable oxygen for us while processing carbon dioxide, which would in high amounts in the air be toxic to us. It supplies wood, housing for birds, roots to limit erosion, fruit and seeds to eat, is biodegradable and gives shade. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "A healthy tree provides a cooling effect that is equivalent to 10 room-size air conditioners operating 20 hours a day." How could something so complex arise from a random, undirected evolutionary process?

Again, you need more "faith" to believe in blind evolution than in an all-knowing Creator who designed the marvelous tree in the first place.

Now you have five proofs that evolution is F-A-L-S-E and that special creation is true—and we didn't even use the Bible. Remember the acronym FALSE when you read or hear about evolution—and do take time to read our Creator's great book of truth! It has much to say regarding origins.

[Zadrian]

I contribute to class discussion and server chat a lot. Sorry im not just an RnF troll like you fucking dipshits.

"Contribute" is a bit of a stretch. All I've seen is tired rhetoric. As far as being an RnF troll, I am hardly that. Most of my posts are outside of RnF, and those that are within RnF are hardly trolling. There's some saying about a pot meeting a kettle.

And keep in mind you dipshits have over a thousand pots in this fucking thread alone.

Also Zadrian, you're welcome for the help I gave you to have an animated sig in server chat.

False, I do not have a thousand in this thread alone. Thanks for playing.

And also, "wut?"

[G13]

Would a cat giving birth to a snake be a gradual change? Is evolution gradual or instant? You cant even grasp the theory let alone argue against it.

Your buffoonery is hilarious

What magical force creates this "gradual change" and writes completely new, legible and working existing code. What magical force has new, never before seen "kinds" forming from existing kinds. You're aware that there is ZERO evidence beyond you religious fanaticism that it exists right?

Where are the endless transitional fossils which show this gradual change? I'm not talking about the numerous hoaxes like Piltdown Man that have been debunked over the years

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

this thread is so fucked up i dont even know who i dont hate and hate anymore.

You are a SJW you hate yourself and project that hate upon everyone else.

[RobotElvis]

No, it is a direct copy/paste from a pro-science website that he clearly didnt understand. He thought it was debunking evolution. Too funny.

How does that crow taste bro?

A little tough to swallow?

[iruinedyourday]

You are a SJW you hate yourself and project that hate upon everyone else.

Kaga spelled his username wrong. What an idiot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysi-nccXCa4

[G13]

You are a SJW you hate yourself and project that hate upon everyone else.

You're a lying fucking fraud with zero credibility

Hilariously you tried to claim to have a personal connection the Sandy Hook victims

What a lying fucking fraud you are

[paulgiamatti]

Thank you, Nephylite. It's good to see at least one creationist that doesn't disqualify themselves from the subject right off the bat.

[capco]

So what are the odds this gets to 200?

Is anyone taking plat bets?

[Eliseus]

I can't believe what I posted has been completely ignore. WTF is going on. I thought paul and leewrong would attack the shit out of it......

[RobotElvis]

Thank you, Nephylite. It's good to see at least one creationist that doesn't disqualify themselves from the subject right off the bat.

In Masonluktan Esinlenmeler (translated Inspirations from Freemasonry), Master Mason Selami Isindag synopsizes this occult faith:

Masonry is not godless. But the concept of God they have adopted is different from that of religion. The god of Masonry is an exalted principle. It is at the apex of the evolution. By criticizing our inner being, knowing ourselves and deliberately walking in the path of science, intelligence and virtue, we can lessen the angle between him and us. Then, this god does not possess the good and bad characteristics of human beings. It is not personified. It is not thought of as the guide of nature or humanity. It is the architect of the great working of the universe, of its unity and harmony. It is the totality of all the creatures in the universe, a total power encompassing everything, an energy. Despite all this, it cannot be accepted that it is a beginning this is a great mystery.

[iruinedyourday]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25736152/EQ/sad.gif

[G13]

Thank you, Nephylite. It's good to see at least one creationist that doesn't disqualify themselves from the subject right off the bat.

You disqualified yourself from this conversation a long time ago

I thought you took your ball and went home? Back for another throttling?

[Patriam1066]

Lol I googled SJW....Does that really mean social justice warrior? I thought it was going to be something quite different.

Also I didn't read all 30 pages that you guys pump out in a day, but I saw Leewong call Hitler a devout catholic.

Hitler couldn't tell Germany, which at the time was still Christian, that he and Himmler / other Nazi leadership were occultists who believe in probably Odin as much as anything...

Either way, it's laughable that you think Hitler believed his messiah was jewish
Whether he completely modified christianity into a new form... Possible, how the fuck should I know. But I doubt he was worshipping the God of Abraham... IE the first Jew on earth

[Patriam1066]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25736152/EQ/sad.gif

LOL
HAHAHAHA God damn that's funny

[Toofliss]

I'm not sure why I came back to read countless more pages of shit slinging. At the end of the day there are some people who remain open minded and others who have closed down to opposing thoughts.

I stated many pages back that I've spent many years as someone who was confident there was no God. My schooling (college included) led me to an arrogance that we as a species were just that fucking good that we could figure it all out (or even worse, we had it figured out). Since that time I went through some serious searching, doubting, and looking at things for myself.

While the die hard posters here likely won't be convinced one way or another, I'd simply ask the others that you give my view a bit of a look. Take some time to be quiet. Look with an open mind and a desire to understand everything that happens all around us. From the smallest functions of life to the biggest feats of the universe. Take time to digest everything that is taking place.

Can you honestly still say all of the rules, all of the amazing things that operate in harmony, and the wonderful interconnection between all of this that makes our world possible is all just coincidence? The incredible details with such small tolerances for error just happen to be exactly what they needed to be?

If you're able to make that decision, then I see no other word to describe your view than faith. When I look at the exact same amazing coincidences, it all points to an overwhelming abundance of evidence. It wasn't until I was truly willing to challenge what I had been taught the first few decades of my life that I started to see things differently.

Maybe you'll see things in a different light, maybe you won't. I felt I owed it to myself to explore all options, even if they seemed improbable (hell, impossible when I started). I don't post in threads like this to try and prove you guys wrong. Instead, maybe someone else is lurking and perhaps they're someone like me.

Now you may continue with the shit slinging -- if you want to contact me, private message or in game works best. I won't be back to view countless pages of attacks.

[Eliseus]

Can you honestly still say all of the rules, all of the amazing things that operate in harmony, and the wonderful interconnection between all of this that makes our world possible is all just coincidence? The incredible details with such small tolerances for error just happen to be exactly what they needed to be?

This is actually one reason that some devout Atheists that have studied DNA strands have changed their perspective on life. Not that they are claiming God and Jesus Christ are the supreme rulers of this World, but the idea that a superior being doesn't just probably exist, but must.

[Sidelle]

Lol I googled SJW....Does that really mean social justice warrior? I thought it was going to be something quite different.

Also I didn't read all 30 pages that you guys pump out in a day, but I saw Leewong call Hitler a devout catholic.

Hitler couldn't tell Germany, which at the time was still Christian, that he and Himmler / other Nazi leadership were occultists who believe in probably Odin as much as anything...

Either way, it's laughable that you think Hitler believed his messiah was jewish
Whether he completely modified christianity into a new form... Possible, how the fuck should I know. But I doubt he was worshipping the God of Abraham... IE the first Jew on earth

Oh damn. I didnt even think of checking google. I just thought it stood for Senior Jizz Whore.

[paulgiamatti]

Can you honestly still say all of the rules, all of the amazing things that operate in harmony, and the wonderful interconnection between all of this that makes our world possible is all just coincidence? The incredible details with such small tolerances for error just happen to be exactly what they needed to be?

No reasoned atheist is suggesting that this is the case. We're simply saying that rejecting any idea that jumps to the conclusion of a divine, unfaltering supernatural entity being the creator of it all is a much more rational and logical stance to take.

[Nihilist_santa]

Lol I googled SJW....Does that really mean social justice warrior? I thought it was going to be something quite different.

Also I didn't read all 30 pages that you guys pump out in a day, but I saw Leewong call Hitler a devout catholic.

Hitler couldn't tell Germany, which at the time was still Christian, that he and Himmler / other Nazi leadership were occultists who believe in probably Odin as much as anything...

Either way, it's laughable that you think Hitler believed his messiah was jewish
Whether he completely modified christianity into a new form... Possible, how the fuck should I know. But I doubt he was worshipping the God of Abraham... IE the first Jew on earth

You are spot on. Hitler was influenced by occult publications like Osatra magazine. They pretty much followed a strange form of theosophy from Madame Blavatsky and mixed it with some of the ideas from the Thule society and their weird space brother nonsense.Then this was peppered with nationalistic German paganism probably due to the romantics and people like Wagner influencing these guys growing up. Many of these people running these groups were defrocked monks and Jesuits like Himmler and Lanz Von Liebenfels. I don't think Hitler believed much of this after taking power and once Hess flew to England (he really believed in astrological readings)and was captured Hitler tried to put an end to many occult practices. I always laugh when people think Hitler and his cronies were Christians.

[RobotElvis]

No reasoned atheist is suggesting that this is the case. We're simply saying that rejecting any idea that jumps to the conclusion of a divine, unfaltering supernatural entity being the creator of it all is a much more rational and logical stance to take.

So you believe in/accept a supernatural force?
An impersonal one i mean.

[paulgiamatti]

That's antihistorical garbage. In Mein Kampf, Hitler declares several times that he's doing god's work by exterminating the Jews. Furthermore, the Vatican refused to ban this outrageously anti-Semitic propaganda when they were in the business of banning any literature that they didn't deem appropriate at the time. In the SS, when you took your compulsory oath to the Führer, you were expected to say, "I swear by almighty god, undying fealty." On your belt, if you were soldiered in the Nazi army, you had to wear a buckle that read, "Gott mit uns"; German for "God on our side".

Like every other form of totalitarianism and fanaticism, this was religious in and of itself.

[Toofliss]

No reasoned atheist is suggesting that this is the case. We're simply saying that rejecting any idea that jumps to the conclusion of a divine, unfaltering supernatural entity being the creator of it all is a much more rational and logical stance to take.

So how about a super intelligent entity being the creator of it all? Is that rational and logical to you? Remove divine and supernatural -- would you conclude that evidence points toward these rules being established by some entity?

Or the ship has already sailed and no matter how hard you look at this scenario, someone putting all these laws and rules into place is simply impossible?

[RobotElvis]

You are spot on. Hitler was influenced by occult publications like Osatra magazine. They pretty much followed a strange form of theosophy from Madame Blavatsky and mixed it with some of the ideas from the Thule society and their weird space brother nonsense.Then this was peppered with nationalistic German paganism probably due to the romantics and people like Wagner influencing these guys growing up. Many of these people running these groups were defrocked monks and Jesuits like Himmler and Lanz Von Liebenfels. I don't think Hitler believed much of this after taking power and once Hess flew to England (he really believed in astrological readings)and was captured Hitler tried to put an end to many occult practices. I always laugh when people think Hitler and his cronies were Christians.
Me too if they only knew all that stuff.

No doubt the Catholic Church made a pact with him to remain in the seat of their western empire. What that was Germany?!!! some will say. Yes it was.

But no doubt when the church had served their purpose the would have also felt the rath of the third riech's Final Solution.

He had no vested interest in the Church.

[paulgiamatti]

So you believe in/accept a supernatural force?
An impersonal one i mean.

No. I believe the existence of a supernatural realm is unlikely, and there is not enough evidence to support such a claim. I am not definitively claiming it doesn't exist either; that would also be an unsubstantiated claim.

[RobotElvis]

So how about a super intelligent entity being the creator of it all? Is that rational and logical to you? Remove divine and supernatural -- would you conclude that evidence points toward these rules being established by some entity?

Or the ship has already sailed and no matter how hard you look at this scenario, someone putting all these laws and rules into place is simply impossible?

There is no instance on the natural world where design does not implicate intelligence.
And intelligence implicates personality.

If there is consistent design in nature, then it comes from an intelligent source, that is an immutable consistency.

If there is an intelligent source then it has a personality of its own, that to is an immutable consistency.

[paulgiamatti]

So how about a super intelligent entity being the creator of it all? Is that rational and logical to you? Remove divine and supernatural -- would you conclude that evidence points toward these rules being established by some entity?

No, not in the least. To believe such a claim to be true, we would need huge, irrefutable, massive, undisputed evidence.

You simply contemplating The Big Questions in life, looking carefully at the universe and thinking, "Hmm, this seems designed!" is not enough evidence. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am saying it's illogical and irrational to definitively believe that this is the case.

[RobotElvis]

God does not always mean the god of Christians.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

So how about a super intelligent entity being the creator of it all? Is that rational and logical to you? Remove divine and supernatural -- would you conclude that evidence points toward these rules being established by some entity?

Or the ship has already sailed and no matter how hard you look at this scenario, someone putting all these laws and rules into place is simply impossible?

That's stillman explanation without evidence. It's akin to claiming that Thor exists because lightning.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

That's stillman explanation without evidence. It's akin to claiming that Thor exists because lightning.

Still an.

[Toofliss]

No, not in the least. To believe such a claim to be true, we would need huge, irrefutable, massive, undisputed evidence.

You simply contemplating The Big Questions in life, looking carefully at the universe and thinking, "Hmm, this seems designed!" is not enough evidence. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I am saying it's illogical and irrational to definitively believe that this is the case.

When I started out, it wasn't me looking for design. I started by just observing all of the things taking place. Orbit of the planets, cells and building blocks of life, physics and all of the natural laws, you name it. Countless months just contemplating questions that came to mind after observing the world in which we live.

After a while I started to look at how perfect it all was. While I don't believe anyone can perfectly calculate the odds of all of these laws, all of these coincidences, I know that the odds are ridiculous. When I think about the probability of all of these things just happening by chance, I rule that as impossible. When I removed the impossible, what remains is the truth (in my mind of course).

When I came to the conclusion that a creator of some sort must exist then I started going back to revisit the various religions. Could any of them have any truth? Keep in mind the first 3 decades of my life said absolutely not. I'm currently a Christian - probably a toddler, maybe even an infant in my faith. If I'm unable to reconcile some of my current struggles with the faith then I'll move on and look at other religions for answers.

[Eliseus]

No. I believe the existence of a supernatural realm is unlikely, and there is not enough evidence to support such a claim. I am not definitively claiming it doesn't exist either; that would also be an unsubstantiated claim.

[Toofliss]

That's stillman explanation without evidence. It's akin to claiming that Thor exists because lightning.

Some might look at your analogy, "Thor exists because lightning" and be able to look past some of the holes (faith) and believe it.

You are able to look past some of the holes in evolution and believe it. Countless pages have danced around this very point. There are gaps in the theory of evolution, but some are willing to look past those gaps. I know, because I did too...for a long time.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

When I started out, it wasn't me looking for design. I started by just observing all of the things taking place. Orbit of the planets, cells and building blocks of life, physics and all of the natural laws, you name it. Countless months just contemplating questions that came to mind after observing the world in which we live.

After a while I started to look at how perfect it all was. While I don't believe anyone can perfectly calculate the odds of all of these laws, all of these coincidences, I know that the odds are ridiculous. When I think about the probability of all of these things just happening by chance, I rule that as impossible. When I removed the impossible, what remains is the truth (in my mind of course).

When I came to the conclusion that a creator of some sort must exist then I started going back to revisit the various religions. Could any of them have any truth? Keep in mind the first 3 decades of my life said absolutely not. I'm currently a Christian - probably a toddler, maybe even an infant in my faith. If I'm unable to reconcile some of my current struggles with the faith then I'll move on and look at other religions for answers.
You clearly didn't read my reply to you last night otherwise you wouldn't be speaking of "chance" from a position of authority.

There is no such things as chance/luck, they are human concepts. Probability/odds, yes.

[G13]

That's antihistorical garbage. In Mein Kampf, Hitler declares several times that he's doing god's work by exterminating the Jews. Furthermore, the Vatican refused to ban this outrageously anti-Semitic propaganda when they were in the business of banning any literature that they didn't deem appropriate at the time. In the SS, when you took your compulsory oath to the Führer, you were expected to say, "I swear by almighty god, undying fealty." On your belt, if you were soldiered in the Nazi army, you had to wear a buckle that read, "Gott mit uns"; German for "God on our side".

Like every other form of totalitarianism and fanaticism, this was religious in and of itself.

If you're seriously trying to claim Hitler was a Christian than you're even a bigger moron than previously thought

Hitler stated National Socialism and religion could not coexist. He considered religion an invention of the Jew. The Swastika is symbolism for the black sun. Hitler was heavily influenced by Blavatsky

There are many books out there reveal a lot of Hitler's private thoughts on Christianity and Religion. You're too lazy and stupid though to actually try and learn something

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Some might look at your analogy, "Thor exists because lightning" and be able to look past some of the holes (faith) and believe it.

You are able to look past some of the holes in evolution and believe it. Countless pages have danced around this very point. There are gaps in the theory of evolution, but some are willing to look past those gaps. I know, because I did too...for a long time.

This is Christian apologetics at its finest.
"Evolution has holes" omitting the fact that more and more goes are filled with each new discovery across various fields.
"Faith also has holes" omitting the fact that the more we learn about the universe, the more holes are found in faith based ideologies across the board.

[G13]

You clearly didn't read my reply to you last night otherwise you wouldn't be speaking of "chance" from a position of authority.

There is no such things as chance/luck, they are human concepts. Probability/odds, yes.

Probability does not work in Evolution' favor

Quite the contrary actually

You lying fucking fraud

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

This is Christian apologetics at its finest.
"Evolution has holes" omitting the fact that more and more goes are filled with each new discovery across various fields.
"Faith also has holes" omitting the fact that the more we learn about the universe, the more holes are found in faith based ideologies across the board.

Gaps not goes

[Toofliss]

You clearly didn't read my reply to you last night otherwise you wouldn't be speaking of "chance" from a position of authority.

There is no such things as chance/luck, they are human concepts. Probability/odds, yes.

"While I don't believe anyone can perfectly calculate the odds of all of these laws, all of these coincidences, I know that the odds are ridiculous."

So did you read my post? My whole decision for believing in a creator was examining the odds. What are the odds that all of this came about in just the perfect way? Each law requiring such exact perfection with such low tolerance for error. The odds are so ridiculous that I just can't believe that we live in that 1:(hugefuckingnumber) that came through.

[paulgiamatti]

When I think about the probability of all of these things just happening by chance, I rule that as impossible. When I removed the impossible, what remains is the truth (in my mind of course).

Ruling that out as impossible is jumping to a conclusion without sufficient evidence. I'm not saying it's true by pointing this out to you, just that it's not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

Just because you believe something to be true in your mind doesn't mean it's true in reality. Something is either true or it isn't, regardless of how much you want to believe it to be.

[radditsu]

Probability does not work in Evolution' favor

Quite the contrary actually

You lying fucking fraud

Oh hi r00t.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Probability does not work in Evolution' favor

Quite the contrary actually

You lying fucking fraud

That's an extraordinary claim. Do you have any extraordinary evidence to back it up?

[Eliseus]

This is Christian apologetics at its finest.
"Evolution has holes" omitting the fact that more and more goes are filled with each new discovery across various fields.
"Faith also has holes" omitting the fact that the more we learn about the universe, the more holes are found in faith based ideologies across the board.

Makes claim. Doesn't have anything to support claim.

[paulgiamatti]

[QUOTE=paulgiamatti;1624002]just that it's not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

*just that ruling it out is not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

[Eliseus]

That's an extraordinary claim. Do you have any extraordinary evidence to back it up?

Lmao, look at my above post. All you do is claim with no "extraordinary evidence".

[G13]

That's an extraordinary claim. Do you have any extraordinary evidence to back it up?

Which claim?

That probability doesn't favor evolution or that you're a lying fucking fraud?

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Lmao, look at my above post. All you do is claim with no "extraordinary evidence".

What extraordinary claims? The ones backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research?

[Toofliss]

Ruling that out as impossible is jumping to a conclusion without sufficient evidence. I'm not saying it's true by pointing this out to you, just that it's not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

Just because you believe something to be true in your mind doesn't mean it's true in reality. Something is either true or it isn't, regardless of how much you want to believe it to be.

There is no definitive answer. You look through a lens and apply your thoughts and you come up with (shit, I dont even know what exactly you claim to believe).

On the other hand, I look at the world around me and the facts available to me, apply my thoughts and I come up with a different opinion. I can provide steps on how I got here and why it's not completely absurd. Somehow though, I'm immoral in my thoughts because I came up with a different answer.

I swore I wouldn't stick around for this stuff. I honestly don't care if you change your mind. I just don't think it's asinine or immoral to reach my conclusion.

[iruinedyourday]

I'm not sure why I came back to read countless more pages of shit slinging. At the end of the day there are some people who remain open minded and others who have closed down to opposing thoughts.

I stated many pages back that I've spent many years as someone who was confident there was no God. My schooling (college included) led me to an arrogance that we as a species were just that fucking good that we could figure it all out (or even worse, we had it figured out). Since that time I went through some serious searching, doubting, and looking at things for myself.

While the die hard posters here likely won't be convinced one way or another, I'd simply ask the others that you give my view a bit of a look. Take some time to be quiet. Look with an open mind and a desire to understand everything that happens all around us. From the smallest functions of life to the biggest feats of the universe. Take time to digest everything that is taking place.

Can you honestly still say all of the rules, all of the amazing things that operate in harmony, and the wonderful interconnection between all of this that makes our world possible is all just coincidence? The incredible details with such small tolerances for error just happen to be exactly what they needed to be?

If you're able to make that decision, then I see no other word to describe your view than faith. When I look at the exact same amazing coincidences, it all points to an overwhelming abundance of evidence. It wasn't until I was truly willing to challenge what I had been taught the first few decades of my life that I started to see things differently.

Maybe you'll see things in a different light, maybe you won't. I felt I owed it to myself to explore all options, even if they seemed improbable (hell, impossible when I started). I don't post in threads like this to try and prove you guys wrong. Instead, maybe someone else is lurking and perhaps they're someone like me.

Now you may continue with the shit slinging -- if you want to contact me, private message or in game works best. I won't be back to view countless pages of attacks.

Im just curious but why haven't you found that the pursuit of knowledge and science is the best way to find the answers you are looking for?

The way you talk about it, Toofliss. You make it sound as though you think the universe is a marvelous place and that there is many things to be discovered about it.

yet you seem to reach to the church, who have offered no evidence while it insists you stop searching for the truth and simply have faith, to wait to die, to find the answers to whats out there.

I am only saying the truth that you seek cannot be found by a person who knows nothing more than whats outside of his church.

If you want the answers, I would wager the people actually going to space are the people that you should be looking to.

Exploring your inner self is as important as the universe but when claiming to have real concrete answers as to where we are from or where we are going, you can listen to people who have evidence to back their claims, or people who ask you to simply believe them.

for myself, I choose the former.

If it isn't a coincidence, maybe in a thousand years science will figure out what the answer is. Maybe not. Religion, barring the arrival of the lord and savior (or whatever the fuck it is) will never.

[G13]

What extraordinary claims? The ones backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research?

Like Global Warming where they've been caught over and over fudging data?

Or like Piltdown Man and other Evolution Hoaxes?

[Eliseus]

What extraordinary claims? The ones backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research?

This post is backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research? Dannnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Like Global Warming where they've been caught over and over fudging data?

Or like Piltdown Man and other Evolution Hoaxes?

Oh look he's a climate change denier too. Why am I not surprised?

[RobotElvis]

When I started out, it wasn't me looking for design. I started by just observing all of the things taking place. Orbit of the planets, cells and building blocks of life, physics and all of the natural laws, you name it. Countless months just contemplating questions that came to mind after observing the world in which we live.

After a while I started to look at how perfect it all was. While I don't believe anyone can perfectly calculate the odds of all of these laws, all of these coincidences, I know that the odds are ridiculous. When I think about the probability of all of these things just happening by chance, I rule that as impossible. When I removed the impossible, what remains is the truth (in my mind of course).

When I came to the conclusion that a creator of some sort must exist then I started going back to revisit the various religions. Could any of them have any truth? Keep in mind the first 3 decades of my life said absolutely not. I'm currently a Christian - probably a toddler, maybe even an infant in my faith. If I'm unable to reconcile some of my current struggles with the faith then I'll move on and look at other religions for answers.

You have just described the model of critical thinking.
I applaud you.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

This post is backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research? Dannnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!

Technically longer. Science wasn't invented in the days of Darwin. I'm only concentrating on the immediately relevant research to this specific sub-topic.

[paulgiamatti]

You have just described the model of non-thinking.
I applaud you.

Fixed.

[Eliseus]

Spontaneous generation - is a principle regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent(s). Falsified by an elegant experiment by Louis Pasteur—where apparently spontaneous generation of microorganisms occurred, it did not happen on repeating the process without access to unfiltered air; on then opening the apparatus to the atmosphere, bacterial growth started.

Transmutation of species, Lamarckism, inheritance of acquired characteristics - first theories of evolution. Not supported by experiment, and rendered obsolete by Darwinian evolution, Mendelian genetics and epigenetics (although some elements of Lamarckian evolution are coming back in the area of epigenetics).

Mendelian genetics, classical genetics, Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory - first genetical theories. Not invalidated as such, but subsumed into molecular genetics.

Maternal impression – the theory that the mother's thoughts created birth defects. No experimental support (a notion rather than a theory), and rendered obsolete by genetic theory (see also fetal origins of adult disease, genomic imprinting)

Miasma theory of disease – the theory that diseases are caused by "bad air". No experimental support, and rendered obsolete by the germ theory of disease.

Preformationism – the theory that all organisms have existed since the beginning of life, and that gametes contain a miniature but complete preformed individual. No support when microscopy became available. Rendered obsolete by cytology, discovery of DNA, and atomic theory.

Recapitulation theory – the theory that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny". See Baer's laws of embryology.

Telegony – the theory that an offspring can inherit characteristics from a previous mate of its mother's as well as its actual parents, often associated with racism.

Vitalism – the theory that living things are alive because of some "vital force" independent of nonliving matter, as opposed to because of some appropriate assembly of nonliving matter. It was gradually discredited by the rise of organic chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology, fields that failed to discover any "vital force". Friedrich Wöhler's synthesis of urea from ammonium cyanate was only one step in a long road, not a great refutation.

Out of Asia theory of human origin – The majority view is of a recent African origin of modern humans, although a multiregional origin of modern humans hypothesis has much support (which incorporates past evidence of Asian origins)

Caloric theory - the theory that a self-repelling fluid called "caloric" was the substance of heat. Rendered obsolete by the mechanical theory of heat.

Classical elements - All matter was once thought to be composed of various combinations of classical elements (most famously air, earth, fire, and water). This was finally refuted by Antoine Lavoisier's publication of Elements of Chemistry, which contained the first modern list of chemical elements, in 1789.

Omg getting tired of copy and paste. So much peer-reviewed stuff that was proven false later. What you really are saying is until proven otherwise, we must accept it. Peer-reviewed or not.

[radditsu]

*****s postin in a troll thread btw

[RobotElvis]

[QUOTE=paulgiamatti;1624002]just that it's not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

*just that ruling it out is not intellectually honest or a sound and rational conclusion to reach.

But that's part of the scientific method

[iruinedyourday]

for the record kaga is right about most of whats going on here, though i havent read any of the posts on this shit thread.

[RobotElvis]

Fixed.

You do smart

[radditsu]

I bet i know his stance on gay marriage

[radditsu]

Also its the guy who fucks tralina

[Toofliss]

Im just curious but why haven't you found that the pursuit of knowledge and science is the best way to find the answers you are looking for?

The way you talk about it, Toofliss. You make it sound as though you think the universe is a marvelous place and that there is many things to be discovered about it.

yet you seem to reach to the church, who have offered no evidence while it insists you stop searching for the truth and simply have faith, to wait to die, to find the answers to whats out there.

I am only saying the truth that you seek cannot be found by a person who knows nothing more than whats outside of his church.

If you want the answers, I would wager the people actually going to space are the people that you should be looking to.

Exploring your inner self is as important as the universe but when claiming to have real concrete answers as to where we are from or where we are going, you can listen to people who have evidence to back their claims, or people who ask you to simply believe them.

for myself, I choose the former.

If it isn't a coincidence, maybe in a thousand years science will figure out what the answer is. Maybe not. Religion, barring the arrival of the lord and savior (or whatever the fuck it is) will never.

The universe IS a marvelous place. So much so, that it's so incredibly perfect in so many different aspects, that it became statistically impossible in my mind that it came about through chance. I didn't look to religion to come to this realization. I looked carefully at the world around me. Scientists used to do this same thing. Look at the world around them and come up with their own hypothesis on why something was. I chose to do the same thing rather than believing what I was told. Challenge everything and look at ALL options.

AFTER I came to that realization, that someone/thing put all these rules into place, then I started looking for more answers. Having given 10+ years to definitively believing there was no God (or super intelligent creator), I figure I deserve to at least give a little segment of my life to investigating the other possibility. Mind you that this was the furthest thing from possible in my earlier years.

Science wants to rule out a creator because we simply can't wrap our minds around it being a possibility. It's a tough pill to swallow. Equally tough to swallow is the concept that with the odds being ridiculously against all of this happening by chance, that we are the biggest powerball winners ever.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

You have just described the model of critical thinking.
I applaud you.

You have just conflated critical thinking with logical fallacy.
I abhor you.

[RobotElvis]

This post is backed up by 170 years of peer-reviewed scientific research? Dannnnnnnnnnggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!

Because Darwin was peer reviewed!

Oh wait didn't exist then nm

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

The universe IS a marvelous place. So much so, that it's so incredibly perfect in so many different aspects, that it became statistically impossible in my mind that it came about through chance. I didn't look to religion to come to this realization. I looked carefully at the world around me. Scientists used to do this same thing. Look at the world around them and come up with their own hypothesis on why something was. I chose to do the same thing rather than believing what I was told. Challenge everything and look at ALL options.

AFTER I came to that realization, that someone/thing put all these rules into place, then I started looking for more answers. Having given 10+ years to definitively believing there was no God (or super intelligent creator), I figure I deserve to at least give a little segment of my life to investigating the other possibility. Mind you that this was the furthest thing from possible in my earlier years.

Science wants to rule out a creator because we simply can't wrap our minds around it being a possibility. It's a tough pill to swallow. Equally tough to swallow is the concept that with the odds being ridiculously against all of this happening by chance, that we are the biggest powerball winners ever.
There's that word again.

[RobotElvis]

You have just conflated critical thinking with logical fallacy.
I abhor you.

Oh I guess critical thinking is belief in peer revied textbooks my bad.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Oh I guess critical thinking is belief in peer revied textbooks my bad.

Nope. But I've come to expect you to not understand at this point.

[Eliseus]

There's that word again.

Really? Ignoring the fact that I pointed out a outrageous amounts of "peer-reviewed" scientific theories that are later proven to be either completely wrong, or just wtf were people thinking with these theories? The ones I gave are only the tip of the iceberg. You really think there isn't any fallacies just based off the fact so many scientific theories have been discredited over the know history of people creating scientific theories? This one is just right no matter what? Even more considering the amount of evidence to prove on the contrary? I have to say, at least the one thing God has going for him, he has never had anyone that can prove he doesn't exist, which the belief in God has been around since the discovery of known history.

Basically, if I was a betting man, in inconsistency among people that are supposedly "the most intelligent people" would not be getting my money based off of historical inaccuracy.

[capco]

Let's assume God exists, and that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

-An omnibenevolent being would want to prevent all evils.
-An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence, and knows every way in which those evils could be prevented.
-An omnipotent being has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
-A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
-If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists.

However, there is evil in the world.

Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

[Patriam1066]

Let's assume God exists, and that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

-An omnibenevolent being would want to prevent all evils.
-An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence, and knows every way in which those evils could be prevented.
-An omnipotent being has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
-A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
-If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists.

However, there is evil in the world.

Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

Ever heard of Deism?

[Toofliss]

There's that word again.

You keep trying to misconstrue my posts.

(powerball) Your chance of winning the lottery on a single ticket is one in 175 million.

Oh shit, I used the word chance. Would you prefer me to substitute the word odds?

The odds of all this world coming about in the perfect combination is 1 in a hugeeeeeeeeeeee fucking number. So what is that chance?

[Patriam1066]

Also its the guy who fucks tralina

Lol

[Patriam1066]

Yeah radditsu is right we all just got troleld the fuck out of for 139 pages

When G13 is 10 pages of a thread it's time to shut 'er down

[RobotElvis]

Let's assume God exists, and that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

-An omnibenevolent being would want to prevent all evils.
-An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence, and knows every way in which those evils could be prevented.
-An omnipotent being has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
-A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
-If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists.

However, there is evil in the world.

Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.
Thatvruns on the assumption that said being would not allow free will of his creations but control their actions.

Also that he is in charge of the world we live in.

[RobotElvis]

Yeah radditsu is right we all just got troleld the fuck out of for 139 pages

When G13 is 10 pages of a thread it's time to shut 'er down

But it's so fun!

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

The odds of all this world coming about in the perfect combination is 1 in a hugeeeeeeeeeeee fucking number. So what is that chance?

A huge number that's still much smaller than the number of stars in the universe, still smaller than the number of stars that have planets.

[Toofliss]

Let's assume God exists, and that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

-An omnibenevolent being would want to prevent all evils.
-An omniscient being knows every way in which evils can come into existence, and knows every way in which those evils could be prevented.
-An omnipotent being has the power to prevent that evil from coming into existence.
-A being who knows every way in which an evil can come into existence, who is able to prevent that evil from coming into existence, and who wants to do so, would prevent the existence of that evil.
-If there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God, then no evil exists.

However, there is evil in the world.

Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

That's been tried before:

The Architect was constructed by other machines in a human image to understand the nature of humans. He created the first Matrix as a utopia for the humans whose minds inhabited it to keep them subdued while their body heat was used as energy by the Machines. However, the human minds rejected this first attempt as a perfect world and beta 1 of the Matrix crashed.

[Toofliss]

A huge number that's still much smaller than the number of stars in the universe, still smaller than the number of stars that have planets.

It is? Could you provide either of those numbers for me?

[Archalen]

I'm not sure why I came back to read countless more pages of shit slinging. At the end of the day there are some people who remain open minded and others who have closed down to opposing thoughts.

I stated many pages back that I've spent many years as someone who was confident there was no God. My schooling (college included) led me to an arrogance that we as a species were just that fucking good that we could figure it all out (or even worse, we had it figured out). Since that time I went through some serious searching, doubting, and looking at things for myself.

While the die hard posters here likely won't be convinced one way or another, I'd simply ask the others that you give my view a bit of a look. Take some time to be quiet. Look with an open mind and a desire to understand everything that happens all around us. From the smallest functions of life to the biggest feats of the universe. Take time to digest everything that is taking place.

Can you honestly still say all of the rules, all of the amazing things that operate in harmony, and the wonderful interconnection between all of this that makes our world possible is all just coincidence? The incredible details with such small tolerances for error just happen to be exactly what they needed to be?

If you're able to make that decision, then I see no other word to describe your view than faith. When I look at the exact same amazing coincidences, it all points to an overwhelming abundance of evidence. It wasn't until I was truly willing to challenge what I had been taught the first few decades of my life that I started to see things differently.

Maybe you'll see things in a different light, maybe you won't. I felt I owed it to myself to explore all options, even if they seemed improbable (hell, impossible when I started). I don't post in threads like this to try and prove you guys wrong. Instead, maybe someone else is lurking and perhaps they're someone like me.

Now you may continue with the shit slinging -- if you want to contact me, private message or in game works best. I won't be back to view countless pages of attacks.

You seem to have a true investigative mind. I would say the most rational conclusion to "what does it all mean; how did it all start" is to humbly admit that "I don't know."

When you see beauty in the world, you can feel that emotion in the context of the inspiring mystery that the universe is. You don't have to fill that mystery with "it must be this or that god, and this or that religion." It took a lot of courage for me to finally admit that I would probably never find the big answers.

My view is that there will always be mysteries that the scientific method will probably never have an intelligible model for. I even hope so. However, it doesn't seem particularly useful to immediately fill gaps in knowledge with supernatural ideas.

[iruinedyourday]

A huge number that's still much smaller than the number of stars in the universe, still smaller than the number of stars that have planets.

this is just science trying to use its current knowledge to make a guess for people who want to know, Toofliss, but on February 2, 2011, the Kepler Space Observatory Mission team released a list of 1,235 extrasolar planet candidates, including 54 that may be in the "habitable zone."[8][9][10] Based on these latest Kepler findings, astronomer Seth Shostak estimates that "within a thousand light-years of Earth" there are "at least 30,000 of these habitable worlds."[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_planet

Also the Drake Equation!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Usefulness

[Patriam1066]

this is just science trying to use its current knowledge to make a guess for people who want to know, Toofliss, but on February 2, 2011, the Kepler Space Observatory Mission team released a list of 1,235 extrasolar planet candidates, including 54 that may be in the "habitable zone."[8][9][10] Based on these latest Kepler findings, astronomer Seth Shostak estimates that "within a thousand light-years of Earth" there are "at least 30,000 of these habitable worlds."[11]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldilocks_planet

Also the Drake Equation!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation#Usefulness

Seriously last post since this thread is going no where but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

We should've encountered some of these *****s by now. Where dey at?

[G13]

Oh look he's a climate change denier too. Why am I not surprised?

Oh you call it Climate Change now since The whole Global Warming thing was exposed as a scam

Got it :D

[Eliseus]

Climate does change. He is correct. It is about to snow here.

[RobotElvis]

A huge number that's still much smaller than the number of stars in the universe, still smaller than the number of stars that have planets.

“Try to imagine phase space… of the entire universe. Each point in this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a ‘pin’ — which is to be placed at some point in phase space… Each different positioning of the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator’s aim depends on the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be relatively ‘easy’ to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. But in order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy — so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics — the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result?”

Lennox goes on to cite Penrose’s answer:

“His calculations lead him to the remarkable conclusion that the ‘Creator’s aim’ must have been accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123, that is 1 followed by 10 to the 123rd power zeros.”

As Penrose puts it, that is a “number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”

[Archalen]

Climate does change. He is correct. It is about to snow here.

That is incorrect. Within the context of your remark, you are referring to "weather," not "climate."

[iruinedyourday]

come on, you guys are free to believe in god or whatever but you're gonna be stubborn about environmental science too? Like what you don't believe tree's grow from seeds next? or clouds arnt gaseous plumes of water? Jeeze.

[Eliseus]

That is incorrect. Within the context of your remark, you are referring to "weather," not "climate."

Myyyyy baaadddddddddddd

[iruinedyourday]

I bet the earth is flat, and the moon landing didnt happen, cus really the moon is just flat too.

the sun is really small too compared to earth, its about as big as a quarter.

[Eliseus]

I bet the earth is flat, and the moon landing didnt happen, cus really the moon is just flat too.

the sun is really small too compared to earth, its about as big as a quarter.

All scientific theories that have been proven false. Just saying.

[iruinedyourday]

you cannot prove the sun is not the same size as a quarter, have you ever been to the sun? no duh, didnt think so.

its as big as a quarter.

[radditsu]

I bet the earth is flat, and the moon landing didnt happen, cus really the moon is just flat too.

the sun is really small too compared to earth, its about as big as a quarter.

Nope. But the moon is a giant mechanical construct about to destroy us when we hit a certain population/technological level. Because our hot blooded male energy is too powerful for the universe.

[Eliseus]

you cannot prove the sun is not the same size as a quarter, have you ever been to the sun? no duh, didnt think so.

its as big as a quarter.

Are you saying science is wrong now?

[iruinedyourday]

Nope. But the moon is a giant mechanical construct about to destroy us when we hit a certain population/technological level. Because our hot blooded male energy is too powerful for the universe.

Holy shit this is the truth, i belive this now cus i feel like it!

fuck we are FUCKED OMG PLEASE DO SOMETHIG ABOU TIT I DONT KNOW IMPEACH OBAMA I CANT EVEYN TYPE RN IM SO SCARE

[iruinedyourday]

Are you saying science is wrong now?

YES IT WRONG TEH MOON IS GONA KILL US!

[capco]

YES IT WRONG TEH MOON IS GONA KILL US!

[radditsu]

http://dreager1.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/20091220130259kamina.jpg


DEAL WITH IT

[Eliseus]

YES IT WRONG TEH MOON IS GONA KILL US!

[iruinedyourday]

http://dreager1.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/20091220130259kamina.jpg


DEAL WITH IT

holy shit kaga just came.

[radditsu]

holy shit kaga just came.

He don't like that anime. Hes wrong tho.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Nope. But the moon is a giant mechanical construct about to destroy us when we hit a certain population/technological level. Because our hot blooded male energy is too powerful for the universe.

http://dreager1.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/20091220130259kamina.jpg


DEAL WITH IT

holy shit kaga just came.

Kaga hates that anime. He's a bit of a connoisseur though.

[radditsu]

Kaga hates that anime. He's a bit of a connoisseur though.

Besides one poorly drawn episode its great. The OVA isninspired.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Besides one poorly drawn episode its great. The OVA isninspired.

I don't actually hate it. I enjoyed it, it had all of the sci-fi tropes I liked. Doesn't mean I'm going to pretend it wasn't a really stupid show. What I hate about it is the fandom that thinks it's the best shit ever. The same people who refuse to watch Madoka because they are scarred it'll threaten their "manliness".

So yeah, even though I enjoyed the ride. Fuck that show.

[radditsu]

I don't actually hate it. I enjoyed it, it had all of the sci-fi tropes I liked. Doesn't mean I'm going to pretend it wasn't a really stupid show. What I hate about it is the fandom that thinks it's the best shit ever. The same people who refuse to watch Madoka because they are scarred it'll threaten their "manliness".

So yeah, even though I enjoyed the ride. Fuck that show.

My sister told me to avoid madoka iirc ( im old). I tend to follow her advice. She knows i hate prepubescent girls. Its why i avoid sailor moon and that stupid witch series everyone loved. I have no need or want to perpetuate some weird collective Japanese male fetish.

[iruinedyourday]

Radditsu rolls in and all the suden this fuckn thread gets interesting.

[radditsu]

Radditsu rolls in and all the suden this fuckn thread gets interesting.

RNF hero we need.

[Daldolma]

i think it's important that i go on record and officially state that honey mustard is a perversion of science and probably the best evidence that a benevolent deity exists and hates poor people

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

My sister told me to avoid madoka iirc ( im old). I tend to follow her advice. She knows i hate prepubescent girls. Its why i avoid sailor moon and that stupid witch series everyone loved. I have no need or want to perpetuate some weird collective Japanese male fetish.

It has as much to do with magical girls as fight club has to do with soap. ;)

[Glenzig]

“Try to imagine phase space… of the entire universe. Each point in this phase space represents a different possible way that the universe might have started off. We are to picture the Creator, armed with a ‘pin’ — which is to be placed at some point in phase space… Each different positioning of the pin provides a different universe. Now the accuracy that is needed for the Creator’s aim depends on the entropy of the universe that is thereby created. It would be relatively ‘easy’ to produce a high entropy universe, since then there would be a large volume of the phase space available for the pin to hit. But in order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy — so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics — the Creator must aim for a much tinier volume of the phase space. How tiny would this region be, in order that a universe closely resembling the one in which we actually live would be the result?”

Lennox goes on to cite Penrose’s answer:

“His calculations lead him to the remarkable conclusion that the ‘Creator’s aim’ must have been accurate to 1 part in 10 to the power of 10 to the power or 123, that is 1 followed by 10 to the 123rd power zeros.”

As Penrose puts it, that is a “number which it would be impossible to write out in the usual decimal way, because even if you were able to put a zero on every particle in the universe, there would not even be enough particles to do the job.”

http://replygif.net/209

[Glenzig]

http://replygif.net/i/209.gif

[Glenzig]

Nope. But the moon is a giant mechanical construct about to destroy us when we hit a certain population/technological level. Because our hot blooded male energy is too powerful for the universe.

http://replygif.net/i/922.gif

[Glenzig]

Seriously last post since this thread is going no where but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

We should've encountered some of these *****s by now. Where dey at?

http://replygif.net/i/92.gif

[leewong]

How does that crow taste bro?

A little tough to swallow?

Just arrived home and to see this...

I was wrong. Sometimes I make a mistake and I humbly apologize. I wasnt paying close enough attention. /shrug

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Just arrived home and to see this...

I was wrong. Sometimes I make a mistake and I humbly apologize. I wasnt paying close enough attention. /shrug

Admitting a mistake? What are you, a fucking scientist?

[leewong]

Admitting a mistake? What are you, a fucking scientist?

No, but I do own a massive telescope :P

[holsteinrx7]

then why does satanism rule you?

[iruinedyourday]

Admitting a mistake? What are you, a fucking scientist?

:D

[leewong]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.

[iruinedyourday]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

No, but I do own a massive telescope :P

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvvZxnyIEAAcjiW.jpg
So you are one of those crazy radical atheists eh?

[G13]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvvZxnyIEAAcjiW.jpg
So you are one of those crazy radical atheists eh?

Obvious lying fucking fraud is obvious

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Obvious lying fucking fraud is obvious

You got me. I'll spill, there's no such thing as a radical atheist. I know it's surprising to you and all but it's the truth.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/720f40e9f9f097c1df347e41c8b5f497/tumblr_myxmxf9JnL1sopmy4o1_500.gif

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

http://replygif.net/i/92.gif

I don't remember this scene (at this angle and with Riker doing this) Is this from outtakes?

[iruinedyourday]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Goats don't grow from seeds. Colts don't grow from seeds. Worms... what does the bible say about worms, I don't even remember, maybe they grow from seeds... :eek:

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.

The response they come up with is going to be priceless though. I'm grabbing my popcorn.

http://i.minus.com/imPbGE26mLprh.gif

[iruinedyourday]

The response they come up with is going to be priceless though. I'm grabbing my popcorn.


yeah lmao on this we agree, kaga.

[iruinedyourday]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqaDf2fuUH8&list=UUpZ5qUqpW4hW4zdfuBxMSJA

Damn.. I thought glass was super cooled liquid.. welp, science, you learn new things that you thought you knew every day!

you will not learn that creationism was correct after all though knuckle heads.

Although the value in religion I can see now. If I was the church I could just preach about how this guy is full of shit and glass is in fact what I grew up thinking it was cus I wanted it to be.

[G13]

You got me. I'll spill, there's no such thing as a radical atheist. I know it's surprising to you and all but it's the truth.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/720f40e9f9f097c1df347e41c8b5f497/tumblr_myxmxf9JnL1sopmy4o1_500.gif

You're a lying fucking fraud

Proven

[G13]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.

Hilarious

How did all life originate from one cell

It's not about a horse giving birth to a squirrel dipshit. You toss around these pathetic strawmen without a clue. It's comical and embarrassing. Animals cannot reproduce outside of their kinds.

You grasp this basic concept yes?

Please provide one example of one completely new and unique kind spontaneously coming into existence from another. Just give one example if you can. Completely new genetic code never before seen, chaotically and spontaneously sprouting into existence from either nothing or existing genetic code

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

How did all life originate from one cell

It's not about a horse giving birth to a squirrel dipshit. You toss around these pathetic strawmen without a clue. It's comical and embarrassing. Animals cannot reproduce outside of their kinds.

You grasp this basic concept yes?

Please provide one example of one completely new and unique kind spontaneously coming into existence from another. Just give one example if you can. Completely new genetic code never before seen, chaotically and spontaneously sprouting into existence from either nothing or existing genetic code

You can't argue against scientific study using psudo-scientific nonsense. I know that you don't get it but I'd feel bad if I didn't point that out anyway.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

I'll give you two points for being the first one to put your feet in the water though. You totally failed on the delivery.
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll288/Genuine_D/Azumanga%20Daioh/934921027-mundoemoti-azumanga-daioh.gif

[G13]

I'll give you two points for being the first one to put your feet in the water though. You totally failed on the delivery.
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll288/Genuine_D/Azumanga%20Daioh/934921027-mundoemoti-azumanga-daioh.gif

Nonsensical gibberish

You're aware that you're a laughable lying fucking fraud right? Only a sick twisted POS would lie about their supposed connection to Sandy Hook "victims". It's not surprising that you're an atheist. You lie with impunity because you have no moral code.

Like anything you say one ANY topic has any credibility. Go ahead. Show me proof of all the gradual changes that led to a fish becoming a bird. It certainly doesn't exist in the fossil record. Show me all the gradual changes that shows new legible genetic code written chaotically and randomly that is orderly and functional.

Go ahead. Try it. Show us all how smart you are.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Nonsensical gibberish

You're aware that you're a laughable lying fucking fraud right? Only a sick twisted POS would lie about their supposed connection to Sandy Hook "victims". It's not surprising that you're an atheist. You lie with impunity because you have no moral code.
Wrong thread.

Like anything you say one ANY topic has any credibility. Go ahead. Show me proof of all the gradual changes that led to a fish becoming a bird. It certainly doesn't exist in the fossil record. Show me all the gradual changes that shows new legible genetic code written chaotically and randomly that is orderly and functional.

Go ahead. Try it. Show us all how smart you are.
Fish becoming a bird, Squirrel becoming a horse. You still don't get it. I'd be sorry but I'm not.

[G13]

Wrong thread.

Dodge noted

Why did you lie about your connection to Sandy Hook victims?

Why are you are a lying POS? Knowing that you're a proven liar, wtf should anyone ever give a flying fuck about anything you post on these forums ever again?

Fish becoming a bird, Squirrel becoming a horse. You still don't get it. I'd be sorry but I'm not.

Don't get what? You can't just come back with "You just don't get it". You sound like a religious zealot. Give me concrete examples. You don't have an answer to any of those questions. Since you don't have any answer to any of those questions how about these?

Where did Matter come from?

Where did the Laws of the Universe come from? Gravity ect.

Where did the energy that would have been needed to create The Big Bang come from?

How do you explain The Cosmological Constant? Purely random chance? Hahaha ...

Hpw did the first living cell come into existence? You understand how complex a cell is right? How about a plant cell? How did a plant cell come into existence? They are extremely complex. How did gradual changes over time and random chance create a plant cell?

How does Time cause Evolution? You guys keep preaching this false gospel of "gradual changes over time" but you never provide the force/energy/mechanism for these changes. Natural Selection just means the unfit do not survive. It doesn't cause an Evolutionary process where a new and never before kind comes into existence from another. We're supposed to have faith because your BS theory cannot be tested or reproduced using The Scientific Method.

Just give me one example of a new kind coming into existence. An entirely new kind of creature coming into existence and defying Entropy.

Do you understand how complex and advanced DNA is? How did gradual changes over time and random chance create DNA?

You want to believe in Evolution because you don't want to be held accountable for your actions. You want to do shit like LIE with impunity and assume there are no consequences to your actions. You buy into whatever BS this corrupt world feeds you because you are spiritually weak and easily misled.

[KagatobLuvsAnimu]

Dodge noted

Why did you lie about your connection to Sandy Hook victims?

Why are you are a lying POS? Knowing that you're a proven liar, wtf should anyone ever give a flying fuck about anything you post on these forums ever again?

Again, wrong thread. Why don't you bump the thread where I had provided all of the necessary information? Information you hadn't addressed which is why I disregard you so easily.

Don't get what? You can't just come back with "You just don't get it". You sound like a religious zealot. Give me concrete examples. You don't have an answer to any of those questions. Since you don't have any answer to any of those questions how about these?

They are malformed questions. Asking me how a fish became a bird or a horse becomes a squirrel aren't sensical within the context of which you ask your questions.
Let me give you an example. Would you think it silly of me if I were to ask a theologian to explain to me how the Virgin Mary saved us from our sins? It's a nonsensical question.

The thing is, I know exactly what you are trying to ask, but I also know your troll persona so unless you ask the question correctly I'm not going to answer you and invite you to play your little word games in an attempt to get me to clarify myself needlessly because by the time I get to it I'll be at work on my phone and at that point it's just not worth it.

Where did Matter come from?
A malformed question as well since there's no way (currently) to determine if existing matter in the universe came from anywhere.

A better question to ask that scientists might actually bother entertaining would be "is there a way to determine if matter had a starting point?"
This is also a question that no scientist would currently be able to answer because human understanding of science has not progressed enough to answer it. It may never get to that point. The key difference is that Scientists don't cop out and insert their magical answer to everything to fill the gap (god) just because. There's a reason that supernatural is synonymous with magical because both are fictitious.

You would of course only reach such a conclusion if you subscribe to logic. For all I know you think logic is some sort of hoax as well.
Where did the Laws of the Universe come from? Gravity ect.
This is also a malformed question similar to the one above, the difference is that it insists upon some creative force. They laws did not 'come from' anywhere, they simply are.

As far as we can tell due to background radiation and a few other things that are way beyond me the laws have existed since the beginning of time. Before you say it, yes I'm taking Stephen Hawking's word for it, if you don't like it, spin on it.

Where did the energy that would have been needed to create The Big Bang come from?
This "where.... come from" stuff, if I keep having to modify your questions to make them logical and you don't realize why I have to do so it's going to get pointless fast so after this one I'm going to skip any other "where.... come from" questions. I hope you don't think that's unfair.

That said, the correct way to ask this question is to ask Where could the energy that was released during the big bang come from? Which would have a plethora of answers that honestly don't matter in the context of this discussion.

How do you explain The Cosmological Constant?
Explain... what exactly? How it works? Where it came from? Is it bunk? It's relation to gravity? The question is simply too open ended (and I'm not evading, I would be happy to address a more specific question though I'd have to do some research since theoretical physics is less than a passing fancy to me)
Purely random chance? Hahaha ...
This is a bad word and you know it. You get a ruler to the knuckle for that one.
Hpw did the first living cell come into existence? You understand how complex a cell is right? How about a plant cell? How did a plant cell come into existence? They are extremely complex. How did gradual changes over time and random chance create a plant cell?
No. Stop with the random chance crap, the universe doesn't function that way. You just asked about cosmological constants and now you are talking about chance. Please understand how self-defeating this is.
Regardless, I don't touch abiogenesis, like I had asked before "what's stopping a creator from creating life forms that are capable of evolution in order to survive and flourish on an ever-changing world?". Only one other poster even responded to the point seriously, you simply went on another "evolution is bunk" rant.
How does Time cause Evolution? You guys keep preaching this false gospel of "gradual changes over time" but you never provide the force/energy/mechanism for these changes. Natural Selection just means the unfit do not survive. It doesn't cause an Evolutionary process where a new and never before kind comes into existence from another. We're supposed to have faith because your BS theory cannot be tested or reproduced using The Scientific Method.
This is another malformed question. Time is a measurement. Time causes evolution the same way speed causes driving.
Just give me one example of a new kind coming into existence. An entirely new kind of creature coming into existence and defying Entropy.
First, "kinds" is not scientific jargon, it's creationist jargon which is unique to the bible. Animal biology deals with classifications and sub-categories (Fish, anphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals etc.. then jawed/jawless for fish, marsupials etc.. for mammals).
Secondly entropy is a law of thermodynamics, if you can give me a concise reason as to why you conflate thermodynamics with evolutionary biology I'll begin to entertain it, in the meantime the only honest reaction I can have to it is "wat".
Do you understand how complex and advanced DNA is? How did gradual changes over time and random chance create DNA?
You used those words yet again... This is becoming frustrating. You are also again asserting that time is a force. To add insult to injury you are now stating that complexity implies design. It does not. Malformed is an understatement for this one.

You want to believe in Evolution because you don't want to be held accountable for your actions. You want to do shit like LIE with impunity and assume there are no consequences to your actions. You buy into whatever BS this corrupt world feeds you because you are spiritually weak and easily misled.
This is simply unnecessary ad-hominem with an implication that I don't want to be 'accountable' for actions, what actions? I have no idea.

Evolution is, simply put, the most plausible explanation for how life on Earth came to be the way it is today. It's not only the prevailing theory with the greatest amount of evidence to back it up, it's literally the only theory that has any evidence to back it up.

I realize that you and I have different definitions for the word "evidence", yours is simply incorrect. If that makes you angry, all the better, because at least there's some response that's been elicited so there's potential that for the first time, you may use logic to come to a conclusion.

[RobotElvis]

Again, wrong thread. Why don't you bump the thread where I had provided all of the necessary information? Information you hadn't addressed which is why I disregard you so easily.



They are malformed questions. Asking me how a fish became a bird or a horse becomes a squirrel aren't sensical within the context of which you ask your questions.
Let me give you an example. Would you think it silly of me if I were to ask a theologian to explain to me how the Virgin Mary saved us from our sins? It's a nonsensical question.

The thing is, I know exactly what you are trying to ask, but I also know your troll persona so unless you ask the question correctly I'm not going to answer you and invite you to play your little word games in an attempt to get me to clarify myself needlessly because by the time I get to it I'll be at work on my phone and at that point it's just not worth it.


A malformed question as well since there's no way (currently) to determine if existing matter in the universe came from anywhere.

A better question to ask that scientists might actually bother entertaining would be "is there a way to determine if matter had a starting point?"
This is also a question that no scientist would currently be able to answer because human understanding of science has not progressed enough to answer it. It may never get to that point. The key difference is that Scientists don't cop out and insert their magical answer to everything to fill the gap (god) just because. There's a reason that supernatural is synonymous with magical because both are fictitious.

You would of course only reach such a conclusion if you subscribe to logic. For all I know you think logic is some sort of hoax as well.

This is also a malformed question similar to the one above, the difference is that it insists upon some creative force. They laws did not 'come from' anywhere, they simply are.

As far as we can tell due to background radiation and a few other things that are way beyond me the laws have existed since the beginning of time. Before you say it, yes I'm taking Stephen Hawking's word for it, if you don't like it, spin on it.


This "where.... come from" stuff, if I keep having to modify your questions to make them logical and you don't realize why I have to do so it's going to get pointless fast so after this one I'm going to skip any other "where.... come from" questions. I hope you don't think that's unfair.

That said, the correct way to ask this question is to ask Where could the energy that was released during the big bang come from? Which would have a plethora of answers that honestly don't matter in the context of this discussion.


Explain... what exactly? How it works? Where it came from? Is it bunk? It's relation to gravity? The question is simply too open ended (and I'm not evading, I would be happy to address a more specific question though I'd have to do some research since theoretical physics is less than a passing fancy to me)

This is a bad word and you know it. You get a ruler to the knuckle for that one.

No. Stop with the random chance crap, the universe doesn't function that way. You just asked about cosmological constants and now you are talking about chance. Please understand how self-defeating this is.
Regardless, I don't touch abiogenesis, like I had asked before "what's stopping a creator from creating life forms that are capable of evolution in order to survive and flourish on an ever-changing world?". Only one other poster even responded to the point seriously, you simply went on another "evolution is bunk" rant.

This is another malformed question. Time is a measurement. Time causes evolution the same way speed causes driving.

First, "kinds" is not scientific jargon, it's creationist jargon which is unique to the bible. Animal biology deals with classifications and sub-categories (Fish, anphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals etc.. then jawed/jawless for fish, marsupials etc.. for mammals).
Secondly entropy is a law of thermodynamics, if you can give me a concise reason as to why you conflate thermodynamics with evolutionary biology I'll begin to entertain it, in the meantime the only honest reaction I can have to it is "wat".

You used those words yet again... This is becoming frustrating. You are also again asserting that time is a force. To add insult to injury you are now stating that complexity implies design. It does not. Malformed is an understatement for this one.


This is simply unnecessary ad-hominem with an implication that I don't want to be 'accountable' for actions, what actions? I have no idea.

Evolution is, simply put, the most plausible explanation for how life on Earth came to be the way it is today. It's not only the prevailing theory with the greatest amount of evidence to back it up, it's literally the only theory that has any evidence to back it up.

I realize that you and I have different definitions for the word "evidence", yours is simply incorrect. If that makes you angry, all the better, because at least there's some response that's been elicited so there's potential that for the first time, you may use logic to come to a conclusion.
Those arguments you just used showvthatbyou have no grasp on the doctrine of evolution.

Time is not a force?
Then resist it it should be easy. Phase out if time.

You don't know what time is, is it linear? Is it static? How can you say it's not a force.

You also do a piss poor job of trying to explain the difference between speciation and the actual evolution of a new category or class of animal.

The evolutionary concept of speciation happens all the time it's more simply called adaptation, this has never been observed to cause a new class of animals unable to procreate with the class that it came from.
But yet that is what evolution hinges upon.

Slow change over time, this causes speciation, this cause the emergence of a new class distinction of animals different than it's predecessor.

That is a much simpler way to put it for you.
I get the process it's not confusing, simply not observable , testable , and repeatable.

[paulgiamatti]

Ok, I'm going to try to cut through the pretense of 145 pages of condescension and moral indignation and try a different approach to this.

We, us secular atheist non-believer folks, we don't know how the hell the universe happened. We have absolutely no idea. We really don't. I'm not being sarcastic or smarmy or anything right now. I'm being honest. We are completely at a loss as to how all of this came to be.

That's all we're trying to say. That's all we're trying to convey in 145 pages of boring, pseudo-intellectual rhetoric on a 1999-era emulated EverQuest server's Rants & Flames forum.

Forget evolution for a minute. Forget creationism for a minute. I mean, really. Just stop for a second and take a few breaths, and relax. Okay.

Now, here's where we're at. Creationists, and please correct me if I'm misrepresenting creationism here, think it's absurd that the universe came into being by sheer, unadulterated random chance. And you know what? That's totally fine. I have absolutely no problems with that.

However, I get this feeling that this is what the perceived atheistic worldview entails. I get the feeling that this is what creationists think us atheists believe about the origins of the universe - that it's random chance. This isn't what we believe! We are not saying the universe came into existence by sheer, random chance!

We are saying we have absolutely no idea how the thing came into existence! That's all we're saying! We don't know! We really, truly, inescapably do not know!

Us saying we don't know does not mean we think it was random chance. It just means we don't know. That's what science and evolutionary theory is predicated on. Not knowing anything for certain. All we're doing, in essence, is not knowing things. This is why scientists go out and conduct experiments, and find evidence, and develop hypotheses, and theorize about things. Because we don't know. Because we don't know and we really, truly want to know.

Because we can't simply accept that since it might not have been random chance, that it must have been a creator! We don't know that either! A creator being the explanation makes the exact same amount of sense to us as random chance does. That's all we're trying to say. We don't know! We seriously have no clue.

Was it a creator? Was it random chance? We don't know! But being an "atheist" doesn't mean siding with or against either one of these things. It really, truly doesn't. Atheism is just a word that describes unbelief in deity or deities. That's all it is. It's nothing more, nothing less.

Please accept this as an honest explanation of at least one atheist's worldview.

[RobotElvis]

Ok, I'm going to try to cut through the pretense of 145 pages of condescension and moral indignation and try a different approach to this.

We, us secular atheist non-believer folks, we don't know how the hell the universe happened. We have absolutely no idea. We really don't. I'm not being sarcastic or smarmy or anything right now. I'm being honest. We are completely at a loss as to how all of this came to be.

That's all we're trying to say. That's all we're trying to convey in 145 pages of boring, pseudo-intellectual rhetoric on a 1999-era emulated EverQuest server's Rants & Flames forum.

Forget evolution for a minute. Forget creationism for a minute. I mean, really. Just stop for a second and take a few breaths, and relax. Okay.

Now, here's where we're at. Creationists, and please correct me if I'm misrepresenting creationism here, think it's absurd that the universe came into being by sheer, unadulterated random chance. And you know what? That's totally fine. I have absolutely no problems with that.

However, I get this feeling that this is what the perceived atheistic worldview entails. I get the feeling that this is what creationists think us atheists believe about the origins of the universe - that it's random chance. This isn't what we believe! We are not saying the universe came into existence by sheer, random chance!

We are saying we have absolutely no idea how the thing came into existence! That's all we're saying! We don't know! We really, truly, inescapably do not know!

Us saying we don't know does not mean we think it was random chance. It just means we don't know. That's what science and evolutionary theory is predicated on. Not knowing anything for certain. All we're doing, in essence, is not knowing things. This is why scientists go out and conduct experiments, and find evidence, and develop hypotheses, and theorize about things. Because we don't know. Because we don't know and we really, truly want to know.

Because we can't simply accept that since it might not have been random chance, that it must have been a creator! We don't know that either! A creator being the explanation makes the exact same amount of sense to us as random chance does. That's all we're trying to say. We don't know! We seriously have no clue.

Was it a creator? Was it random chance? We don't know! But being an "atheist" doesn't mean siding with or against either one of these things. It really, truly doesn't. Atheism is just a word that describes unbelief in deity or deities. That's all it is. It's nothing more, nothing less.

Please accept this as an honest explanation of at least one atheist's worldview.
I accept that although it's more agnostic than atheist. Athieism is the rejection of God/gods.

Here is the problem I have with your posts so far in this thread.
You don't know I don't know how the universe started.
So I reach a conclusion that like yours must be faith based and I am perceived as immoral compared to you.

I have a problem with that.

[paulgiamatti]

Agnosticism is atheistic by definition. It's still the unbelief in deity.

What conclusion have I reached? I don't know how the universe came into existence. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I haven't reached a conclusion. No reasoned atheist has, either.

[paulgiamatti]

And regardless of what you or anyone else thinks, no other human being knows how the universe came into existence either. The big bang theory isn't an irrefutable fact, and that in no way detracts from its credibility in the scope of science and rationality. It's the best we've got. It's the best any believer or non-believer has, even if they don't realize it themselves.

As I said earlier, something is either true or it isn't. Just because you think, with all of your might and intellect that something is true, that doesn't make it true. It's either true or it's false. Just because you had a crazy dream, or a vision, or you contemplated the universe for decades in an isolation chamber, doesn't mean you have the answers to anything. Something is either true, or it isn't. If you can't accept this, then you are simply intellectually dishonest, and this lays the bedrock for immorality.

[Eliseus]

We, us secular atheist non-believer folks, we don't know how the hell the universe happened. We have absolutely no idea. We really don't.

Sit back and shut the fuck up then.

[paulgiamatti]

Try and make me.

[Eliseus]

Try and make me.

I hope anyone reading this knows you are preaching out of your ass. You just admitted that you don't have a fucking clue about anything. Let the big boys handle this convo. See you next year.

[paulgiamatti]

I had made the same admission from the very beginning of the thread, the fact that your reading abilities were unable to pick up on it is only indicative of your poor reading abilities.

Ah, but now that I dumbed it down to a 5th grade reading level it's all perfectly clear, isn't it?

[Eliseus]

I had made the same admission from the very beginning of the thread, the fact that your reading abilities were unable to pick up on it is only indicative of your poor reading abilities.

Ah, but now that I dumbed it down to a 5th grade reading level it's all perfectly clear, isn't it?

You are either some attention hungry little Bitch (don't even need this post to support this idea, but it definitely helps), or you are an idiot. I feel you tried to claim honesty to try and get some sort of sympathy and gain followers based off your "honesty". You don't fucking argue one side then admit that you have no fucking idea about shit. Not only does that destroy AND credibility you have, but anyone with half a brain will not take you serious AND will most likely use it against you.

Mock anyone's reading capabilities all you want. Stop trying to deflect from your own ignorance. You are the fucking idiot that is still in this thread arguing, not only after the several goodbyes you gave like you won some kind of war and won't be coming back, but after fucking admitting you don't have a clue.

[RobotElvis]

Agnosticism is atheistic by definition. It's still the unbelief in deity.

What conclusion have I reached? I don't know how the universe came into existence. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I haven't reached a conclusion. No reasoned atheist has, either.

Well agnosticism and atheism are differen. An atheist denies the existence of god outright.

An agnostic leaves room for god existing but in different forms, force is one such form.

[paulgiamatti]

Again, anyone with half a brain (not you, clearly) will easily pick up on the fact that every admission I made in that post, I had already made in earlier ones. I just simply laid it out with much more lucidity so as to cater to the comprehensive abilities of readers such as yourself, which are at approximately a grade-school level.

[Eliseus]

Again, anyone with half a brain (not you, clearly) will easily pick up on the fact that every admission I made in that post, I had already made in earlier ones. I just simply laid it out with much more lucidity so as to cater to the comprehensive abilities of readers such as yourself, which are at approximately a grade-school level.

So you are saying that you have been a fucking idiot the entire time? Congratulations.

[paulgiamatti]

Well agnosticism and atheism are differen. An atheist denies the existence of god outright.

An agnostic leaves room for god existing but in different forms, force is one such form.

Then I wouldn't exactly say I'm a bona-fide agnostic, but capable of having agnostic qualities.

[paulgiamatti]

And really, Eliseus, your vitriol is a pretty clear indication that you're grasping some of the things I'm saying and perhaps wrestling internally with the realization that maybe you've been misled for quite some time now. If that is indeed the case, then I actually do apologize for being nasty towards you.

Everyone can be misled. I've been misled plenty. It sucks. I don't think anyone here is a bad person, and I have a bad habit of trying to make examples out of people, so if you've been victimized by me in that way then I'm sorry.

[radditsu]

I don't remember this scene (at this angle and with Riker doing this) Is this from outtakes?

Its the aliens made the shitty casino book episode.

[Eliseus]

And really, Eliseus, your vitriol is a pretty clear indication that you're grasping some of the things I'm saying and perhaps wrestling internally with the realization that maybe you've been misled for quite some time now. If that is indeed the case, then I actually do apologize for being nasty towards you.

Everyone can be misled. I've been misled plenty. It sucks. I don't think anyone here is a bad person, and I have a bad habit of trying to make examples out of people, so if you've been victimized by me in that way then I'm sorry.

No. You CLEARLY argued point of views that you ADMIT you have no idea what you are talking about. You didn't "accidentally" do any misleading of the sorts. You argue valid points, sure valid points that were struck down, but valid points none-the-less. If you don't know shit and are "seeking" some answers. Don't argue like everyone else in here is some kind of moron and only your opinions are valid. HENCE the sit back and shut the fuck up. You didn't present anything in some type of question format like "here is what X says, what do you guys think, or what counter arguments do you have." and listened. You argued "here is what X says, show me your counter arguments, they are irrelevant, they don't matter, I'm right, you are wrong." and try to "disqualify" people from the conversation that disagreed with you. I've been here arguing since the beginning of thread. To argue that that isn't what happened is completely fabricated like your intelligence.

To also make it clear. I think you are a bad person. I think you are a horrible person. Not only are you very clearly 1-sided. You have already admitted to basically opening your doors to religious people just for the sake of ridiculing them. Who fucking cares if what they do or don't believe is true. You treat other humans in general like shit, and it's quite obvious from your posts. You try to act like a reasonable person after going through pages upon pages of shit posting, just to end up doing......... more shit posting. Then you act like you never did anything wrong. Your opinion is the only one that matters. This isn't a science vs religion debate. This is you fucking showing that anyone that disagrees with you in general is wrong. You have implied it very strong. I would like to say I don't know this or I'm wrong, but I think 150 pages of you is actually quite evident of the matter.

[radditsu]

No. You CLEARLY argued point of views that you ADMIT you have no idea what you are talking about. You didn't "accidentally" do any misleading of the sorts. You argue valid points, sure valid points that were struck down, but valid points none-the-less. If you don't know shit and are "seeking" some answers. Don't argue like everyone else in here is some kind of moron and only your opinions are valid. HENCE the sit back and shut the fuck up. You didn't present anything in some type of question format like "here is what X says, what do you guys think, or what counter arguments do you have." and listened. You argued "here is what X says, show me your counter arguments, they are irrelevant, they don't matter, I'm right, you are wrong." and try to "disqualify" people from the conversation that disagreed with you. I've been here arguing since the beginning of thread. To argue that that isn't what happened is completely fabricated like your intelligence.

To also make it clear. I think you are a bad person. I think you are a horrible person. Not only are you very clearly 1-sided. You have already admitted to basically opening your doors to religious people just for the sake of ridiculing them. Who fucking cares if what they do or don't believe is true. You treat other humans in general like shit, and it's quite obvious from your posts. You try to act like a reasonable person after going through pages upon pages of shit posting, just to end up doing......... more shit posting. Then you act like you never did anything wrong. Your opinion is the only one that matters. This isn't a science vs religion debate. This is you fucking showing that anyone that disagrees with you in general is wrong. You have implied it very strong. I would like to say I don't know this or I'm wrong, but I think 150 pages of you is actually quite evident of the matter.




This guy is mad about something.

[paulgiamatti]

You CLEARLY argued point of views that you ADMIT you have no idea what you are talking about.

Still falling into simplistic conflation, just like from the very beginning. Demonstrating intellectual honesty, which is what I just did, doesn't invalidate any of my arguments. Again (I've never had to say "again" so many times), every admission I made in the last few posts I had already made earlier in the thread. Science doesn't jump to conclusions; creationism, and every immoral subset underneath it, simply does. This creates inherent, intrinsic immorality and I will not apologize for pointing this out, and I will reiterate it as many times as is necessary.

And just so you know, I wasn't saying I misled you. I wasn't trying to lead you anywhere, but rather show you how to think in a morally acceptable way. I am saying that you've been misled, probably by most of the people you think are your friends. No one develops a psychology like yours alone. I've seen it too many times to not know better.

Now, if you want to rebut with some actual points about how I've contradicted myself, then go right ahead. I can assure you I haven't, because I've been intellectually honest with you all from the start.

And I'm done now. I have actual real things to attend to - you know, like contributing to a secular society that has come about because of science.

[radditsu]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0736946543/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0736946543&linkCode=as2&linkId=GDXM3FC5USVWSAKQ&redirect=true&ref_=as_li_tl&tag=natdee-20

[RobotElvis]

I am going to explain evolution again for the creationist here. More than likely will regret this decision in 30 pages or so.

Creationist admit to small changes in a species. What they have trouble with is speciation. "A dog will always be and always has been a dog", they say.

http://i57.tinypic.com/2eztkjt.jpg

With small changes over time you can end up with completely different species.

http://i58.tinypic.com/96yhlj.jpg

The individual symbols on this picture dont represent a single animal. They represent a species as time progresses. The amount of time between each snapshot is irrelevant for this explanation. Feel free to imagine a thousand millennia or a million years.

Creationist believe the blue symbol (pictured above) would produce the purple star symbol in a few short generations. The illustration above is a nice but it doesnt show the hundreds or thousand of generations with smaller changes BETWEEN each symbol. Each of these generations would be a small step closer to looking like the next symbol in the picture. This is micro-evolution in action and the sum total is called macro-evolution. The same exact mechanism is responsible for micro and macro.

Honestly, if I thought horses gave birth to squirrels or that blue symbols gave birth to purple stars then I wouldnt believe the shit either. That isnt what the theory claims though.
Pretty colors!

This explains perfectly slow change over time and speciation.
But in order to prove the transition into a different kind of color green would have to become an entirely new and in seen color, not one that is in the same color spectrum as itself.

[leewong]

How did all life originate from one cell

First, I would state it arose from a colony of cells not a single cell...a colony. We have examples living today of fungi that form simple sets of four identical cells stuck together, others that form balls of 32-64 not quite identical cells with some specialized functions, up to full-blown multicellular organisms with 50,000 highly specialized cells, including reproductive germ cells.

Here is a possible theory. It is all hypothetical but shows just how easy early animals could evolve from just a single colony of cells:

1) A species of single celled organisms began forming aggregates of cells stuck together by a glue of secreted proteins and sugars (we can see species which do this today). All it takes is a few mutations to produce this effect. These cells have an advantage over other cells in some environments.

2) It is important not to forget these cells didnt live in colonies BEFORE the mutation that started gluing them together. These single cells developed flagella BEFORE a mutation started gluing them together. Now, a mutation appears that orients the flagella in the same direction, so that most of the flagella could work together to control the swimming direction of the colony.

3) Now you have a mutli-cellular colony that is fully mobile. It is important to remember that these cells are developing multiple mutations simultaneously. It isnt just one mutation at a time. During that same period this group of cells could be also developing mutations that allow chemical signals to be sent from one cell to another or to detect light.

4) It isnt hard to imagine from here how this colony could develop into a more sophisticated one later. A little mutation here, a little mutation there, and the cells are able to become ever increasingly complex and specialized. Small steps...

One thing you also have to consider. This isnt just one colony but trillions of colonies all mutating randomly from one another. Nature then determines which will survive an which will perish after each new mutation. You may have a handful of colonies all developing the proteins that glue them together simultaneously or thousands of years apart. Some colonies may not have had flagella for instance when the gluing protein mutation arose. Some colonies wouldnt ever produce the gluing mutation. It all depends on the random mutation and the environment selecting for it.

[RobotElvis]

First, I would state it arose from a colony of cells not a single cell...a colony. We have examples living today of fungi that form simple sets of four identical cells stuck together, others that form balls of 32-64 not quite identical cells with some specialized functions, up to full-blown multicellular organisms with 50,000 highly specialized cells, including reproductive germ cells.

Here is a possible theory. It is all hypothetical but shows just how easy early animals could evolve from just a single colony of cells:

1) A species of single celled organisms began forming aggregates of cells stuck together by a glue of secreted proteins and sugars (we can see species which do this today). All it takes is a few mutations to produce this effect. These cells have an advantage over other cells in some environments.

2) It is important not to forget these cells didnt live in colonies BEFORE the mutation that started gluing them together. These single cells developed flagella BEFORE a mutation started gluing them together. Now, a mutation appears that orients the flagella in the same direction, so that most of the flagella could work together to control the swimming direction of the colony.

3) Now you have a mutli-cellular colony that is fully mobile. It is important to remember that these cells are developing multiple mutations simultaneously. It isnt just one mutation at a time. During that same period this group of cells could be also developing mutations that allow chemical signals to be sent from one cell to another or to detect light.

4) It isnt hard to imagine from here how this colony could develop into a more sophisticated one later. A little mutation here, a little mutation there, and the cells are able to become ever increasingly complex and specialized. Small steps...

One thing you also have to consider. This isnt just one colony but trillions of colonies all mutating randomly from one another. Nature then determines which will survive an which will perish after each new mutation. You may have a handful of colonies all developing the proteins that glue them together simultaneously or thousands of years apart. Some colonies may not have had flagella for instance when the gluing protein mutation arose. Some colonies wouldnt ever produce the gluing mutation. It all depends on the random mutation and the environment selecting for it.
Once upon a time..........

Good story really it is.

Ok so that sounds simple enough I can imagine that happening honestly I can.
Now all we have to do is gather some of those cell colonies that still exhibit those properties and Boom! We have the proof.

You should ask oxford for a grant.

[capco]

Once upon a time..........

Good story really it is.

Ok so that sounds simple enough I can imagine that happening honestly I can.
Now all we have to do is gather some of those cell colonies that still exhibit those properties and Boom! We have the proof.

You should ask oxford for a grant.

Can you even begin to fathom the immensity of time that is 5 BILLION years?

[RobotElvis]

Can you even begin to fathom the immensity of time that is 5 BILLION years?

Time! The God of evolution. Can't prove a hypothesis in a lab? Just not enough time.

[capco]

I'll take that as a no.

[leewong]

Pretty colors!

This explains perfectly slow change over time and speciation.
But in order to prove the transition into a different kind of color green would have to become an entirely new and in seen color, not one that is in the same color spectrum as itself.

No idea what you are trying to say here. Please clarify. I will try to explain what I think you were getting at but could be wrong about your question.

You are stating that the green symbol would have to become a entirely new color itself, correct? As I tried to explain there are hundreds or thousands of generations between each symbol that arent shown in the picture. Each generation slowly progresses to the next symbol. There is no need for a large influx of new traits or for a blue symbol to give birth to a purple star.

Let's say the blue symbol represents a wolf's closest ancestor and the green square represents a wolf. Over the course of thousands of generations the wolf ancestor would have many small mutations that slowly progressed toward the end result...a wolf. For instance, the ancestor may have developed thicker hair, grown taller, etc until it finally displayed all the characteristics of a wolf. The name wolf is just what we call the animal at a stage in time. In essence, it is still the ancestor...with a lot of traits that have been added and subtracted over the millennia.

The wolf ancestor doesnt have to give birth to a wolf. It gives birth to something that is .0001% more like a wolf and it proves to be an advantage so nature selects for it. That .0001% wolf ancestor gives birth to an animal which is .0001% closer to a wolf too (not immediately but eventually a generation will produce the mutations needed) so now you have an animal which is .0002% closer to being a wolf. It carries on like this for many, many, many, many generations until a few hundred thousand or millions years have passed and the end result is the ancestor is no longer a wolf ancestor but it is in fact what we label as a wolf.

Hope that answers your question.

[leewong]

Once upon a time..........

Good story really it is.

Ok so that sounds simple enough I can imagine that happening honestly I can.
Now all we have to do is gather some of those cell colonies that still exhibit those properties and Boom! We have the proof.

You should ask oxford for a grant.

Why do you think those EXACT same colonies would still be around today? As I pointed out, we do have examples of colonies that form like this today. Note, these are not the same colony as the one in my hypothetical but they are a great example that colonies can display these traits.

[Whirled]

https://richardsfoodforthought.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/813.jpg

PvP religion?

[RobotElvis]

Why do you think those EXACT same colonies would still be around today? As I pointed out, we do have examples of colonies that form like this today. Note, these are not the same colony as the one in my hypothetical but they are a great example that colonies can display these traits.

Fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.
Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space, 1981, p. 8. Letting the Fossil Record Speak, Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

[RobotElvis]

Why do you think those EXACT same colonies would still be around today? As I pointed out, we do have examples of colonies that form like this today. Note, these are not the same colony as the one in my hypothetical but they are a great example that colonies can display these traits.

So the hypothesis just failed the test of science.

[RobotElvis]

No idea what you are trying to say here. Please clarify. I will try to explain what I think you were getting at but could be wrong about your question.

You are stating that the green symbol would have to become a entirely new color itself, correct? As I tried to explain there are hundreds or thousands of generations between each symbol that arent shown in the picture. Each generation slowly progresses to the next symbol. There is no need for a large influx of new traits or for a blue symbol to give birth to a purple star.

Let's say the blue symbol represents a wolf's closest ancestor and the green square represents a wolf. Over the course of thousands of generations the wolf ancestor would have many small mutations that slowly progressed toward the end result...a wolf. For instance, the ancestor may have developed thicker hair, grown taller, etc until it finally displayed all the characteristics of a wolf. The name wolf is just what we call the animal at a stage in time. In essence, it is still the ancestor...with a lot of traits that have been added and subtracted over the millennia.

The wolf ancestor doesnt have to give birth to a wolf. It gives birth to something that is .0001% more like a wolf and it proves to be an advantage so nature selects for it. That .0001% wolf ancestor gives birth to an animal which is .0001% closer to a wolf too (not immediately but eventually a generation will produce the mutations needed) so now you have an animal which is .0002% closer to being a wolf. It carries on like this for many, many, many, many generations until a few hundred thousand or millions years have passed and the end result is the ancestor is no longer a wolf ancestor but it is in fact what we label as a wolf.

Hope that answers your question.
Ok so a wolf ancestor(?) becomes a wolf. Slowly over time. Starting with something that is not a wolf and ending with what we currently( and always have) called a wolf.

So the too could not interbreed. They are separated by millions/billions of years and thousands of generations.

They are distinctly different kinds or classes.

Green is in the same spectrum as blue, yellow, red , orange and all other colors.

They can mix (interbreed).

So we need an example that shows slow change over time (skip the gaps I don't care) that shows green becoming a color it cannot mix with.

That is evolution.

[RobotElvis]

Why do you think those EXACT same colonies would still be around today? As I pointed out, we do have examples of colonies that form like this today. Note, these are not the same colony as the one in my hypothetical but they are a great example that colonies can display these traits.

Exhibit the same properties.

Exact.

Not the same thing.

[Glenzig]

Can you even begin to fathom the immensity of time that is 5 BILLION years?

I can fathom that if time was the only real roadblock to observing evolution, that this would essentially be a cop out excuse. If all of these random and unguided mutations occurred millions and billions of years ago, then great. It take millions and billions of years for biological change from one species to another. The thing is, we are further along in the evolutionary timeline than any of those organisms. If all it takes is time, shouldn't we be seeing at least some observable evidence of one kind of anything living changing into another kind of thing?
Not bacteria that's resistant to certain antibiotics. I'm talking about real change. Alligators or sharks, some of the oldest known living things. Shouldn't they be changing in some observable way after all this time? Its been millions of years for them.

[G13]

Again, wrong thread. Why don't you bump the thread where I had provided all of the necessary information? Information you hadn't addressed which is why I disregard you so easily.

Has nothing to do with the thread. Has everything to do with you. You fucking lied and you're still lying about it. You provided jack shit besides a school name when all you need to do is provide the names which are public record. Provide the names and prove your claims you lying POS or come clean. No more games.

They are malformed questions. Asking me how a fish became a bird or a horse becomes a squirrel aren't sensical within the context of which you ask your questions.
Let me give you an example. Would you think it silly of me if I were to ask a theologian to explain to me how the Virgin Mary saved us from our sins? It's a nonsensical question.

Laughable buffoonery. You just aren't very smart. Instead of deflecting how about answering the question? If evolution is "proven science" there should be thousands of examples you could cite that would prove it's true.

DNA is 4-bit 3 dimensional code. There is no junk code contained within it. It has to be EXACT for each type or kind of animal which are limited to their genetic kinds. Species can work with pre-existing code within their genetic types/kinds, nobody is disputing that, but a dog's genetic coding can only work within other breeds of dogs. It won't work in a cat. Just like EQ source code would never work in WOW. They are two entirely different packages of software.

There is no genetic code within a dog that can turn it into a cat. It's like claiming a virus/malware (mutation) rewrote EQ source code and turned it into WOW. Not only that, but this happened purely by random chaotic chance. How did that code come into existence from nothing? How did it write itself (for each type/kind) by chaotic and unpredictable random chance?

http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/dna-strand-blue-tgac-640x353.jpg

We're also losing code as time goes on because time = entropy. We're a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy over generation after generation. You're aware that we're losing species right? Probably at least 1k a year (mostly ocean life). DNA is weakening and degrading over time. If Evolution were true why aren't there any new species popping into existence? Why isn't there new and improved genetic code being written spontaneously from nothing?

The thing is, I know exactly what you are trying to ask, but I also know your troll persona so unless you ask the question correctly I'm not going to answer you and invite you to play your little word games in an attempt to get me to clarify myself needlessly because by the time I get to it I'll be at work on my phone and at that point it's just not worth it.

I've been on these forums FAR longer than you. You're not going to be able to weasel your way out of this by calling me a troll. The "it's my phone" excuse is absolutely pathetic and desperate. What a hilariously small and weak person you are and a fucking lying fraud to boot.

A malformed question as well since there's no way (currently) to determine if existing matter in the universe came from anywhere.

It's a malformed question if you don't know the answer? Hahaha I thought it was settled science? We gotta have faith right?

A better question to ask that scientists might actually bother entertaining would be "is there a way to determine if matter had a starting point?"
This is also a question that no scientist would currently be able to answer because human understanding of science has not progressed enough to answer it. It may never get to that point. The key difference is that Scientists don't cop out and insert their magical answer to everything to fill the gap (god) just because. There's a reason that supernatural is synonymous with magical because both are fictitious.

Pure gobbly****. Scientists already acknowledge that Matter/Time/Space was created with "The Big Bang".

You would of course only reach such a conclusion if you subscribe to logic. For all I know you think logic is some sort of hoax as well.

Hahahahahahahaha ...

This is also a malformed question similar to the one above, the difference is that it insists upon some creative force. They laws did not 'come from' anywhere, they simply are.

They simply are? You sound like a religious zealot. The laws of the universe created themselves? How did the laws of mathematics create something let alone itself? Go ahead Einstein, tell us all how it was done. Grabs popcorn.

As far as we can tell due to background radiation and a few other things that are way beyond me the laws have existed since the beginning of time. Before you say it, yes I'm taking Stephen Hawking's word for it, if you don't like it, spin on it.

Time/Space/Matter started with "The Big Bang" according to science. Where did the Matter and Energy to produce/power this Big Bang come from? Hawking is a human being just like anyone else. Flawed and corrupt. He doesn't know everything about everything. He wasn't there when it happened.

This "where.... come from" stuff, if I keep having to modify your questions to make them logical and you don't realize why I have to do so it's going to get pointless fast so after this one I'm going to skip any other "where.... come from" questions. I hope you don't think that's unfair.

You're trying to hide behind this pompous BS and the only thing you're accomplishing is looking like a total moron. You can't answer the questions. You're a religious zealot.

That said, the correct way to ask this question is to ask Where could the energy that was released during the big bang come from? Which would have a plethora of answers that honestly don't matter in the context of this discussion.

If there was "Nothing" before "The Big Bang" where did it come from? I thought you were logical?

Explain... what exactly? How it works? Where it came from? Is it bunk? It's relation to gravity? The question is simply too open ended (and I'm not evading, I would be happy to address a more specific question though I'd have to do some research since theoretical physics is less than a passing fancy to me)

Why don't you do some research and learn about what it is? Hint: Do you play guitar? Tune it. Each note is a specific frequency. The Universe is fine tuned this way so precise the odds that it's random chance are far beyond absurd.

This is a bad word and you know it. You get a ruler to the knuckle for that one.

Random Chance. Random Chance. Random Chance. Random Chance.

What word should be used? Creation? Design? Which one. Mutations are random chaotic chance. There is no Structure or Order to them. They are also 99.9999999999999999% harmful and destructive. Go sit in radiation for a few hours. See if you mutate into a superhero.

No. Stop with the random chance crap, the universe doesn't function that way. You just asked about cosmological constants and now you are talking about chance. Please understand how self-defeating this is.

Oh you mean Evolution is a BS theory? You finally coming around?

Regardless, I don't touch abiogenesis, like I had asked before "what's stopping a creator from creating life forms that are capable of evolution in order to survive and flourish on an ever-changing world?". Only one other poster even responded to the point seriously, you simply went on another "evolution is bunk" rant.

Wait ... hold the phones. You won't touch abiogenesis and are now floating a theory that a "Creator" created the process of Evolution (which is random chaotic chance)? Lawl

Why would a Creator "create the process of Evolution" when all He would need to do is create DNA?

This is another malformed question. Time is a measurement. Time causes evolution the same way speed causes driving.

So what causes the gradual rewriting or spontaneous new genetic code to come into existence over time? If the theory is true, where is the evidence to support this assertion?

First, "kinds" is not scientific jargon, it's creationist jargon which is unique to the bible. Animal biology deals with classifications and sub-categories (Fish, anphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals etc..) then jawed/jawless for fish, marsupials etc.. for mammals.

Jawless fish are still fish

Marsupials are still mammals

Kinds/Types

Their genetic code can only work within their respective genetic types. The Bible is 100% accurate in it's description btw. This was a book that written thousands of years before that idiot Darwin and his finches. How was it able to explain and have the foreknowledge of how life is genetically structured in this Universe when not even a microscope existed? In Darwin's time, cells were just blobbed. The entire premise of Darwin's theory rested on cells being simple. Not these complex and vast microbiological genetic cities with the most amazing real time error checking/debugging systems (not to mention self replicating) that make our latest technology look like legos.

Secondly entropy is a law of thermodynamics, if you can give me a concise reason as to why you conflate thermodynamics with evolutionary biology I'll begin to entertain it, in the meantime the only honest reaction I can have to it is "wat".

I already have multiple times. You're just too stupid to understand it. Everything decays and becomes more disordered over time naturally. It doesn't randomly structure and order itself by random. The Universe is a closed system. Not our galaxy. The Sun adds to this decay over time. Look at the roof of some cars and houses for examples that your tiny brain can grasp.

You used those words yet again... This is becoming frustrating. You are also again asserting that time is a force. To add insult to injury you are now stating that complexity implies design. It does not. Malformed is an understatement for this one.

I wasn't the one that asserted time is a force. You religious zealots are the ones that are asserting magical "gradual changes over time".

This is simply unnecessary ad-hominem with an implication that I don't want to be 'accountable' for actions, what actions? I have no idea.

Fact actually. You fucking lied about having a personal connection to victims of Sandy Hook to try and shut down debate. You tried to hide behind an emotional lie because you are a lying fucking coward and low life POS. You need to start doing some personal reflection and make some badly needed changes. Your smug arrogance can no longer hide your lack of character and ethics.

Evolution is, simply put, the most plausible explanation for how life on Earth came to be the way it is today. It's not only the prevailing theory with the greatest amount of evidence to back it up, it's literally the only theory that has any evidence to back it up.

Wait, so Evolution has gone from "settled and tested science" according to you bozos to now "the most plausible explanation"? Based on what? Certainly not Fossil or genetic evidence. So then what? Faith?

I realize that you and I have different definitions for the word "evidence", yours is simply incorrect. If that makes you angry, all the better, because at least there's some response that's been elicited so there's potential that for the first time, you may use logic to come to a conclusion.

You wouldn't know logic if it stomped you in the face

[leewong]

Fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.
Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution From Space, 1981, p. 8. Letting the Fossil Record Speak, Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

"Fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning."

Yes they do. You are conflating abiogenesis with evolution. What you want is the precursor to cells and cell colonies which you will probably never find (in the fossil record). Such material doesnt fossilize well. Granted it is a hole in our knowledge but we know that certain strands of molecules can reproduce and from there it isnt impossible to arrive at cellular life.

Maybe a divine being placed the first cells, maybe an alien seeded the planet, maybe a comet from mars carried the life, maybe they evolved from much simpler chains of protein. Who knows? You dont and neither do I. That's why we investigate and experiment.

What we can clearly demonstrate is that life in the fossil record shows simple life was on the planet 3.5 billion years ago. We dont ever find a rabbit or fish fossil lodged in geologic layers from that time. We only find the simplest organisms. As time progress the geological record shows that organisms became more and more complex. First there are colonies of cells, then there are simple organisms, then there are complex organisms.

If all life arose on the planet at the same time then we would find rabbits, proto-fish, dinosaurs, wolves, apes, etc. all sandwiched in the same geological layers together.

[Glenzig]

"Fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning."

Yes they do. You are conflating abiogenesis with evolution. What you want is the precursor to cells and cell colonies which you will probably never find (in the fossil record). Such material doesnt fossilize well. Granted it is a hole in our knowledge but we know that certain strands of molecules can reproduce and from there it isnt impossible to arrive at cellular life.

Maybe a divine being placed the first cells, maybe an alien seeded the planet, maybe a comet from mars carried the life, maybe they evolved from much simpler chains of protein. Who knows? You dont and neither do I. That's why we investigate and experiment.

What we can clearly demonstrate is that life in the fossil record shows simple life was on the planet 3.5 billion years ago. We dont ever find a rabbit or fish fossil lodged in geologic layers from that time. We only find the simplest organisms. As time progress the geological record shows that organisms became more and more complex. First there are colonies of cells, then there are simple organisms, then there are complex organisms.

If all life arose on the planet at the same time then we would find rabbits, proto-fish, dinosaurs, wolves, apes, etc. all sandwiched in the same geological layers together.

"“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”—In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, pp. 116-117

Henry Gee supports the theory of evolution.

[leewong]

So the hypothesis just failed the test of science.

No, what you fail to understand is life forms go extinct or they continue to evolve and eventually become a new species. There is no stop button on evolution. The first colonies I described have long since died out or they have evolved on to something else. Finding them in the world today would go against the theory of evolution because that means they DIDNT evolve. No organism on earth can avoid the random mutation of genes.

Populations can stay relatively the same for long periods of time but there is always genetic drift. It's environment will eventually change and that species will begin to have selective pressures placed upon it again.

[leewong]

"“To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.”—In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, pp. 116-117

Henry Gee supports the theory of evolution.

Not sure if you know this or not but scientists can be wrong.

[Glenzig]

"The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms."--Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, p. 249.

[RobotElvis]

No, what you fail to understand is life forms go extinct or they continue to evolve and eventually become a new species. There is no stop button on evolution. The first colonies I described have long since died out or they have evolved on to something else. Finding them in the world today would go against the theory of evolution because that means they DIDNT evolve. No organism on earth can avoid the random mutation of genes.

Populations can stay relatively the same for long periods of time but there is always genetic drift. It's environment will eventually change and that species will begin to have selective pressures placed upon it again.
But what I said was find the cells that exhibit the same characteristics, use them in a lab experiment to prove your hypothesis. Not the SAME cells.

[leewong]

"The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms."--Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, p. 249.

May I present to you...fossilized bacteria:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/bacteriafr.html

Just one of the many examples of fossils we have that are single celled organisms...not multi-celled. Try again.

[Glenzig]

Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms. ◾Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, 1979, p. 97.

◾The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history. ◾Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, 1979, p. 97. Letting the Fossil Record Speak, Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

Seems very contradictory.

[leewong]

But what I said was find the cells that exhibit the same characteristics, use them in a lab experiment to prove your hypothesis. Not the SAME cells.

First, you have know the exact mutations that took place and at what stages. You would also need to know the exact environment that gave rise to and selected for these traits. We have incomplete data on both so it isnt as easy as stepping in a lab with a a handful of cells.

[Glenzig]

May I present to you...fossilized bacteria:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/bacteria/bacteriafr.html

Just one of the many examples of fossils we have that are single celled organisms...not multi-celled. Try again.

I think you misunderstood the quote.

[Glenzig]

No, what you fail to understand is life forms go extinct or they continue to evolve and eventually become a new species. There is no stop button on evolution. The first colonies I described have long since died out or they have evolved on to something else. Finding them in the world today would go against the theory of evolution because that means they DIDNT evolve. No organism on earth can avoid the random mutation of genes.

So all the "living fossils" that are still around today go against the theory of evolution?

[RobotElvis]

First, you have know the exact mutations that took place and at what stages. You would also need to know the exact environment that gave rise to and selected for these traits. We have incomplete data on both so it isnt as easy as stepping in a lab with a a handful of cells.

So it can't be proven. That was my point.

It was a good story though.

[leewong]

Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms. ◾Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, 1979, p. 97.

◾The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history. ◾Robert Jastrow, Red Giants and White Dwarfs, 1979, p. 97. Letting the Fossil Record Speak, Life—How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

Seems very contradictory.

Robert is proposing a hypothesis based on observation of the fossil record. It is a guess but one built from massive amounts of circumstantial evidence.

"Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms."

Which would infer the further you traveled back in time the simpler life would be. How long would it take for life to go from strands of replicating proteins to cells by his guess would take a few billions years. We already know for a fact that the first cells appeared around 3.5 billion years ago. So proto cells would have to form much earlier.

We dont have really any fossil remains from 4billion years ago so it remains a hypothesis.

[Neyphlite]

I can fathom that if time was the only real roadblock to observing evolution, that this would essentially be a cop out excuse. If all of these random and unguided mutations occurred millions and billions of years ago, then great. It take millions and billions of years for biological change from one species to another. The thing is, we are further along in the evolutionary timeline than any of those organisms. If all it takes is time, shouldn't we be seeing at least some observable evidence of one kind of anything living changing into another kind of thing?
Not bacteria that's resistant to certain antibiotics. I'm talking about real change. Alligators or sharks, some of the oldest known living things. Shouldn't they be changing in some observable way after all this time? Its been millions of years for them.

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-2013-top-new-species-01652.html

Heres some new species just discovered in 2013...New species are found every year. Walking sharks, flying squirrels, all kinds of shit goin on. As for Aligators and sharks...They are 2 of the most alpha predators on earth. Has it ever occurred to you that they have evolved to the point where there is no need for them to evolve any further with there spot in the food chain so secured? The only thing that actively hunts sharks and gators are humans.

[RobotElvis]

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-2013-top-new-species-01652.html

Heres some new species just discovered in 2013...New species are found every year. Walking sharks, flying squirrels, all kinds of shit goin on. As for Aligators and sharks...They are 2 of the most alpha predators on earth. Has it ever occurred to you that they have evolved to the point where there is no need for them to evolve any further with there spot in the food chain so secured? The only thing that actively hunts sharks and gators are humans.

Species, kinds, classes, all the same thing right?

So sharks and gators pressed the stop button on evolution.

Thought that was impossible.

[Neyphlite]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19213_7-animals-that-are-evolving-right-before-our-eyes.html

http://listverse.com/2011/11/19/8-examples-of-evolution-in-action/

[leewong]

So it can't be proven. That was my point.

It was a good story though.

No, it hasnt been proven with 100% certainty. Nothing ever is. Not sure how that negates the thousands of fossils we find, DNA results, etc that all point to evolution being an undeniable fact though.

Perhaps, you could explain why the fossil record shows a clear progression from simple proto-life to the complexity we see today. Why dont we find rabbit fossils in the Precambrian era for instance?

[Glenzig]

http://www.sci-news.com/biology/science-2013-top-new-species-01652.html

Heres some new species just discovered in 2013...New species are found every year. Walking sharks, flying squirrels, all kinds of shit goin on. As for Aligators and sharks...They are 2 of the most alpha predators on earth. Has it ever occurred to you that they have evolved to the point where there is no need for them to evolve any further with there spot in the food chain so secured? The only thing that actively hunts sharks and gators are humans.

So those species just popped up recently? Or were they just recently officially documented? And Leewong already said that there are no species that are immune to random mutation. I was working off of his statement.

[Neyphlite]

By the way, as I said before im not against religion. I do believe in a higher power but unfortunately the only thing I can provide as "proof" of that is quoting a book written thousands of years ago and reads like fiction. There is way more concrete proof of evolution existing then that of a singular god who created everything around us.

[RobotElvis]

No, it hasnt been proven with 100% certainty. Nothing ever is. Not sure how that negates the thousands of fossils we find, DNA results, etc that all point to evolution being an undeniable fact though.

Perhaps, you could explain why the fossil record shows a clear progression from simple proto-life to the complexity we see today. Why dont we find rabbit fossils in the Precambrian era for instance?

Because You don't find vertebrae fossils of any magnitude period Precambrian.

The Cambrian explosion works against the slow process of evolution.

Geologists have discovered many unaltered Precambrian sediments, and they contain no fossils of complex organisms.
Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould and Sam Singer, A View of Life, p. 651.