Meeting in the middle would be like agreeing to meet with a bunch of folks who believed in a flat earth.
You just don't have any really serious science backing your ideas. Sorry, but....
S4
Evolution or creation.....
by searching4? 81 Replies latest jw experiences
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tetrapod.sapien
hooberus,
Responses to many of these claims can be found in a variety of literature. For example, several of them are dealt with in the publication The Biotic Message.
the self-published biotic message by ReMine, and the subsequent argument regarding Haldane's so-called dilemma, has been shown to be based upon erroneous assumptions. i don't think it's a good idea to post "replies" to the talk origins article by Theobald in the Biotic Message, if the Biotic Message, via Haldane's Dilemma has been shown to be erroneous.
here is some material that may help in showing that The Biotic Message by ReMine should not be regarded as authoritative. ReMine himself, an electrical engineer, will only debate evolutionists when the moderators are creationists, and willing to modify and delete posts at will. here is an example: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/encounter_with_remine_rr.htm
here is the material i mentioned:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html
also. the following papers do serious damage to the various claims of creationists who say that because of Haldane's Dilemma, we cannot have shared a common ancestor with apes:
J. C. Fay, G. J. Wyckoff and C.-I. Wu: Positive and Negative Selection on the Human Genome,Genetics 158, 1227-1234. 2001.
and
Sexual Recombination and the Power of Natural Selection
William R. Rice* and Adam K. Chippindale 2001 Science 294:555-559again. the lurkers on this board may not be aware that a website like ReMines Biotic Message, has been refuted. They may take his fallacious assertions at face value. I thought you would want to know this.
TS
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searching4?
Seeker,
Yeah, that is funny that we are both seeking something. You and tetra are extremely intelligent and I have found both of your postings to be fascinating. I obviously don't have the knowledge that the two of you have, but I feel sad that you have no faith in God. I appreciate and respect your views, it just seems so empty and presumptuous to me. I have all the evidence of God that I need, and it's in my heart.
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caz
Searching4................You seem to have opened a can of worms and i have just finished reading all of the replies.....I have a serious brain freeze here! lol!
I think that most of us simple, living folk, need to have a God! I for one am not strong enough to get through the hurdles in my life without my thoughts going out to a God of some kind. ( at least that is where I am at right now).
I do not come close to having the 'brains' that your main repliers ( is that even a word?) have, so I cannot add much to the discussion although I have always wondered about the age of the Earth as evolutionists would have us believe. Hundreds of thousands-----millions of years old?
I ask myself.......if the Earth and mankind himself really were millions of years old, then why did it take Hundreds of thousands of years to go from inventing a wheel to inventing the whole car, when in the past 100 years mankind has invented the car to rocket ships, satelites, computers and all of the new things that we have had brought into our lives in the past 100 years? Am I making any sense? It just seems to me that mankind cannot be that old or all of these things would have been invented long before the 20th century?
( I apologise if I have gone off track with this reply and question)
CaZ
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the_leander
The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject...
Moderator: We're here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des---
(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)
Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?
(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate's kneecap.)
Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!
Scientist: Perhaps it only appears that I broke your kneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke your kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a fresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with your blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn't mean anything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed that way. Certainly, there are some features of the current situation that are inexplicable according to the "naturalistic" explanation you have just advanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you are experiencing right now.
Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!
Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that the random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of this particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this hypothesis implausible --- it just is. Your knee must have been designed that way!
Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!
Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know anything for certain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of view. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis is scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the past, so we can't rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory experiment. Even if we could, it wouldn't prove that I broke your kneecap the previous time. Plus, let's not even get into the fact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence right before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged kneecap-breaking already pre-formed.
Intelligent Design advocate: That's a load of bullshit sophistry! Get me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we'll see how that plays in court!
Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and gentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do not actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe. When it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the scientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations. In fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over supernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the reality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give credence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see on display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the one spouting free-form bullshit; it's so terribly easy and relaxing, compared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical evidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be habit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.
From http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/10/only-debate-on-intelligent-design-that.html -
Seeker4
Searching4?,
Would you feel sorry for me if I'd stopped believing in Zeus? Likely not. It's really the same thing. I too once "knew" that God existed because of the feeling in my heart - which is absolutely no evidence for anything. It was incredibly freeing and empowering to realize that all those "spiritual" feelings of being close to god or one of his favored people are simply a product of the human imagination. Proof of that is that Witnesses teach that only they have a relationship with Jehovah - but those exact same feelings of closeness to god are found in all religions, whether Christian or not, or the "one true faith" or not.
And it is not an empty existence, by any means. The universe takes on a whole new light and beauty when you come to understand the forces that created it. Moving away from the "big daddy in the sky" who will take care of everything for us allows us to take responsibility for really living this life - it's the only one we've got. Mankind created gods out of fear. We wanted some protection from what can often be a fearsome universe, and we created gods in our image - often angry, vengeful, jealous and punishing. Jehovah is a perfect example of that.
Don't feel sorry that I've grownup and no longer fear the boggeyman in the closet - who never existed to begin with.
You lose nothing by expanding your consciousness and worldview, you actually gain a lot. Enjoy your search - I have!
Caz - Your argument doesn't make a lot of sense. It probably takes a bit more time to evolve from amoebas to men than it does to develop technology.
S4 -
Leolaia
because let's face it, this is one thing that can't be proved scientifically, as no one was there to witness it first hand.And ultimately it has to be taken on faith either way you believe...
This is like saying that crimes can never be solved through forensic analysis (which looks at material evidence to discern past events and procedures) because the forensic scientist had to be there to witness the events first hand.
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kid-A
but I feel sad that you have no faith in God
I feel sorry for you that you believe in a god. I believe in reality and the wonders of the natural world and the existence of a fictional deity would add nothing to the wonders that I observe everyday, all around me, in a wonderful, fascinating and challenging godless universe. To me, belief in a god is the same as believing in the Tooth fairy, Peter the rabbit, Santa claus, the giant pumpkin or Bugs Bunny. The lack of real evidence for any of these fairy tales applies equally to all.
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tetrapod.sapien
searching4,
fair enough. i don't usually have problems with people who tell me that they believe in god for subjective, in-the-heart reasons. what can i say to that? i used to myself.
when i was a witness, i used to write a lot of poetry. i had a lot of, what i would classify as, brilliant thoughts. but i did not always have a pen and paper. the thoughts where really cool, but often i would forget them as they assimilated back into my mind. i would pray to jehovah that he would "save" my thoughts on his "hard drive of the cosmos". all of my good thoughts. all of my thoughts. so that someday i would be able to review them again. they were like children to me. after a while i started relying on this system, where i invested a lot of creative energy into just writing poems in my head for jehovah. the thought that he did not exist, and that everything that i thought he was taking care of for me in the back ground, including issues of injustice and heart condition, was something that i just could not fathom.
then my grandfather died. he was an atheist actually. but the thought that he would be gone forever, and a small meaningless blip in the grand history of our cosmos, and that all the good things he did in his life like fight for his country and freedom in europe, would be all but lost in a couple of generations, seemed so cold and cruel to me.
my point is that it was not easy for me to become an atheist at all. i had so much invested in my personal relationship with jehovah and jesus. but one day, i decided to follow all the facts wherever they led me, to their logical and rational conclusions, faithfully assuming that if god existed, it would all come together. it was a terrifying journey of discovery and destruction. at the end of it all, my worst nightmare had been confirmed. no god. no recording. no higher meaning and order. a cold, cruel, indifferent universe. paradox everywhere.
it sucked at first, but i had no choice. i promised myself i would go fearlessly wherever the facts led me, regardless of whether they made me feel better about my short life or not.
however, things do become beautiful as an atheist. you have to learn to trust yourself, and to love yourself. sure the universe may be indifferent to me and my survival. sure i may not be a special creation. but there is beauty everywhere. true beauty. you can only discover it with science, because science is "manifestly real". and that, for the first time in the history of our species, is real beauty.
which ever way you go, i wish you the best.
caz,
very interesting questions.
might i recommend carl sagan? cosmos and shadows of forgotten ancestors. i am happy to answer the questions, and perhaps i will later on today. but you will not regret reading sagan! sagan changed my life in such a positive way. i highly recommend him.
TS
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AlmostAtheist
because let's face it, this is one thing that can't be proved scientifically, as no one was there to witness it first hand.And ultimately it has to be taken on faith either way you believe...
This is like saying that crimes can never be solved through forensic analysis (which looks at material evidence to discern past events and procedures) because the forensic scientist had to be there to witness the events first hand.But if you personally believed that the crime was committed by demons, this would be a likely direction for your arguments to take. Question all the evidence, point out that it is not always collected cleanly, procedures weren't followed, the glove doesn't fit,... and so the most likely explanation is demons.
Dave