i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
Asking genuine questions is the root of knowledge. Deciding that you have the answer before hand and willfully ignoring the time and effort of those who put in the effort you haven't bothered with and then starting to rudely question people's credentials is the root of idiocy. You wont get kumbya and cake from people when you cr*p on their carpet.
Early days though, keep thinky thunking. I wish you the best. Knowledge is an exciting adventure if you take off the shackles of myth based belief.
i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
What sends me into butt clenching apoplectic, incandescent , grunty, panty bunching levels of mild English eyebrow raising is that doubting the evidence from a position of uneducated buffoonery is fine, but then leaping like a gadly on crack to the conclusion that 'I can't understand it therefore God' is absolutely , most definitely not. If Star Trek has taught us anything, and it hasn't, it's that intelligent aliens should rank several bazillion times more likely as the cause of anything unexplained than an invisible megadude with a penchant for torture and finding rich westerners' keys.
Lack of comprehension , however indignantly preserved, is not evidence for a god conclusion.
i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
The average life expectancy has risen rapidly with the onset of modern neonatal care and petro-economy farming. If Lost really wanted to see why that makes a difference (and I'm not convinced Lost actually cares judging by the level of research ) a quick google will supply the needed info. Even in medieval times average life expectancy was low but if you survived childhood , wars and major plagues your life expectancy wasn't too bad (plenty of people made it into their 70s and 80s.) There have been times of population explosion (animals experience the same thing) but these are driven by multiple factors from the land's carrying capacity (how much food it can produce), social conditions (war, economic security, cultural expectations etc.) through to environmental pressures (plagues, intermittent rainfall, how much land has been cleared for farming.) Population explosion always moderates when another factor comes into play (simplistically exceed the carrying capacity of the land = famine, live too closely = communicable disease, surplus people and insufficient resources = war, women's education and rights = family planning etc.)
In short, lots of factors conspire to modify the birth and death rates in local places. Populations grow when conditions are right and decline when they aren't. There is no formula you can blithely apply to all mankind and come out with an expected global population.
Case study: Britain. This planet, and Britain in particular was only exiting an ice age that rendered much of the land's surface unfarmable some 10000 years ago.Britain was covered with thick forest which man started to clear about 5500 BP (before present = 3500 BC) and by 2500BP they had managed to clear half of the land. All that effort produced relatively small amounts of farming land that could support small communities who relied largely on hunter gatherer lifestyles until the Romans introduced larger urban centres and better farming. Farming still remained important but not spectacular and up until the 17th centuary , under 3 field crop rotation, land lay fallow 1 year in 3 across the whole country. In 1730 onwards the British agricultural revolution gradually increased crop yields by 30% and this coincided with the industrial revolution, better medicine, more jobs and much closer living conditions. What drove population growth though? Social change. People married earlier, had more affairs (movement to cities and towns often broke concepts of rural community morality), earned money earlier, didn't serve as many 7 year agricultural apprenticeships and so produced more children (they married 3 years earlier on average and had 6% children out of wedlock up from historical 2% rates). The food, jobs, Poor Law (reducing starvation for the poorest), Benthamite public services, amenities and homes merely provided means to avoid Malthusian predictions of population collapse. During this time (1700 - 1800s) life expectancy rose from 33 to 38 and by 1860 was at 40. Also a very young population became critical to the industrial revolution and so the larger a family the more wage earners there were. This all together caused a doubling of the British population.
ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.
to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.
you can only paint sh*t so many ways.
These are the firesides being given. This sort of thing would have been unthinkable a few years ago:
http://terrylgivens.com/events/
joe - there may well be a small uptick in actual numbers but the church is losing core members unlike before when it was the new, flaky converts. I think the stats for the next few years will be very revealing.
ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.
to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.
you can only paint sh*t so many ways.
Some more info. I'm itching to get the 2012 Uk charity report to see if it reveals the big loss of the year that I've seen. In the meantime:
http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/2011/05/the-church-is-losing-us-how-can-they-keep-us/
Glossary: RM (Returned missionary)
"... Other trends include:
(Most info taken from Ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com and Cumorah.com ):
-The drop-out rate/retention rate among RMs is disturbingly high.
– This year, the church experienced it’s first Stake Shutdown, or First Stake Consolidation In Australia
-The number of actual convert baptisms has decreased almost steadily since the 80′s. This is based on the annual statistical report delivered in Gen. Conference.
-Most of the growth of “The Church” continues to be natural growth, through births rather than conversions. However, baptisms of children-of-record are declining too.
-Growth of Mormonism in the North America and Europe is virtually flat and is actually declining in some countries (prompting the shift from European missions to South American ones.)
- With the exception of new “minority” wards being created in some inner cities, Mormonism is dying off in urban centers, even in SLC.
- Most conversions to Mormonism are in the Third World, and the drop-out rate in those countries is very high. Surveys done in Mexico, Chile, and Brazil indicate that less than 20% of the “members” claimed by “The Church” self-identify as Mormons."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_membership_history
i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
I suspect James is trolling. He has made no attempt to engage in this conversation imo but seems to be having his own dialogue , with himself, and seems to have come to the conclusion ( without the ability to comprehend the facts required to make an opinion) that Hovind is correct. With the exception of once again giving us ( and I mean Cofty and Jgnat ) a good opportunity to show how useful science can be this thread is a three course troll feast.
i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
Sorry....what?
i know anyone who believes in evolution is going to say that there is no 'if' about it.
however.... if man evolved over hundreds of thousands of years ago, why were there only about 200-300 million people alive 2,000 years ago?
surely there'd have been many billions by then?.
If we had no religious texts (written by ancient civilisations who knew very little) we would never look at the evidence and suggest a young earth:
When was the last time we had a magnetic flip? The magnetic compass has been in use since about 200 B.C. Since then it's resolutely pointed North. When molten rock cools magnetite nodules record the magnetic orientation of the earth's field. The number of recorded flips measured by bands of alternating N/S magnetite alignment is in the hundreds. Had the earth's magnetic field flipped every decade or so this would fit the young earth model. We know that this isn't the case and the magnetic flips seems a very slow process. The evidence is simple, the earth is ancient.
ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.
to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.
you can only paint sh*t so many ways.
Sorry never a JW, always Mormon. My LDS life was amazingly good in most cases. It just wasn't authentic. I got tired of acting.
ever since mitt romney turned the spotlight on the lds church a growing tsunami of disaffection has been accelerated and brought to a head.. the lds core faithful members are leaving in increasing numbers such that growth has not simply stagnated in the west but it has actively reversed.
to their credit the church is responding aggressively but not only is it too late, it is an impossible task.
you can only paint sh*t so many ways.
This is my attempt to extrapolate some useful figures. Hope it helps!
Dang - wrong scale on last graph. buggerbuggerbugger.
Also no exact idea why church baptism rate / growth is not clearly linked. Assume that baptism doesn't include baptising children of record (born ins) and so the actual baptismal rate / membership loss through death and resignation is masked. Shrugs.
