Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc (page 8)

LittleToe

Q:

Abbadon - you are no smarter than me ..face it..and I'm no smarter than anyone else.

I beg to differ.
He had the sense to leave a destructive cult, and completely re-examine his beliefs.
That alone earns him a few kudos, in my book

Qcmbr

..unless the JWs are right and then we are all stuffed.

LittleToe

S'ok, on a scale of one to ten they are as right as the Mormons

I am indeed seventeen. Don't worry I get it all the time. I guess I can make up words well eh. And Qc, Abbadon has brung up all types of evidence to back up his claims. And if you still feel he hasn't, well you're in the exact same situation as him since you can not give any conclusive evidence for your cause either.

Qcmbr

LT - they have as much right to be right as the Mormons (course theyre not hehe)

LittleToe

Q:
You're right - they're not

Daunt

Eh my mom just reinforced the ignorance that comes from blind acceptance. "Oh look at all that magnetism going to work, there must be a God." No evidence, no statistical debates to back up her claim, no hundreds and hundreds of tests to figure out if her answer is the truth or not. Just a claim. Much like a scientist on the Discovery Science channel said. "If you choose to ignore these accurances (Photons making light, magnetism from the sun) , They're Magic!" Can have all the opinions you want, but can't choose to facts.

seattleniceguy

LT,

Thanks for your kind words and pointing out that theism and evolution are not mutually exclusive.

tijkmo,

Dave has already answered your question quite well, but I wanted to add a few things regarding what evolution addresses. People coming from a fundamentalist religious background sometimes find it strange that evolution does not address the question of origins. The reason for this, I believe, is that fundamentalist religions try to answer everything. There is no question that such a religion does not answer. Think about the JWs - they had something to say about almost everything in your life, from your spiritual relationship to God to your intimate relationship with your wife.

Evolution is not like that. It does not try to answer every question in the universe. Think of evolution more like you think of electrical engineering. Electrical engineering theory has a great deal to say about how electricity behaves, and it makes extremely useful predictions that help us to build watches, computers, and TVs. However, EE has absolutely nothing to say about how the universe came to be. But that's fine; the question is simply not relevant to the field.

Likewise, evolution addresses the question of how living organisms change over time. We know that they change - evolution takes up the questions of how and why. It is a specific field, and as such does not address all possible questions in the universe. So the fact that it does not address the question of how life got here in the first place really doesn't have any bearing on whether or not it is a useful theory. Evolution also has nothing to say about electrical engineering. But that's fine, because we have another field that does that quite well.

Hope that makes sense. Keep up with the reading and discussion! Cheers!

SNG

tijkmo

hey sng..yeah that makes sense and i will look into it..and im sure you will be well aware that it will unlikely be an epiphany but a long slow process

just one wee point though...do all evolutionists accept that there is no explanation for a beginning because im sure i have heard some theories regarding it...from evolutionists

Daunt

Evolution is not a way of life, well unless that's your profession. Evolution is much like the theory of gravity. We know it's there but we do not base our whole existence on it being there, it's just something that just affects our lives. It's just another step on having a better understanding on what's around us. This is where You as an individual comes in. The JW institution pretty much dismantle people's individualism. They can't believe in themselves they just go along with the crowd. In the real world that's not the case. Every person is diverse. Nobody's ideas or philosophies are the exact same and I haven't found anything on this planet that suggests otherwise. Experience and our interaction with nature and other's make up who we are. Do not label yourself as an evolutionist or a marxist or a whateverist. That's not all of who you are, it will take endless books to sum up who you are and can be.

Evolution is just a stepping stone for your life, it shouldn?t answer all the questions because like seattle guy says, they just aren?t there. It?s quite egotistical (Not saying you are) to think that you know or have to know all the questions to function. Just understand the best you can so your life can go in a path that fits you and nobody else best. Way different than what most religions teach.

So to not go too far off track from your question. There are plenty of theories from the M theory (which really doesn?t involve evolution but it can explain the start as a theory with limited evidence) to the universe always being here coming in and out in a big crunch. Evolution does not deal with the cause, just what happens after the cause. So I don't think there is much of a consensus between evolutionist about them believing in a beginning or not, evidence hasn't really given us a conclusive answer to that.

sorry for some reason i can not make seperate paragraphs.

Evidence for evolution, Installment 5: Lake Tanganyika, etc

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