Evolution & Atheism... Is it really more plausible?

[grimsprice]

~4.6 billion years ago certain gases (all of which were present on earth) are struck by ultraviolet light (from the sun) they produce amino acids (the basis of things such as dna, rna, muscles etc). These formed the first "life". This early "life" was a simple collection of dna that absorbed the sunlight and the early gases and made energy. Eventually these formed the first cells and bacteria and began producing oxygen (16x more powerful than early H2S photosynthesis). With this abundance of life a new class emerged, this class was able to eat other life. We call these "sponges". These sponges evolved muscles and a nerve net becoming polyps and jellyfish. These evolved stomachs, hearts, lungs, legs, hands, feet, etc. and created the vast variety of life that populates this great planet of ours.

Alternativley: 6000 years ago a large, immortal deity created life in 7 days, buried all the dinosaur bones and layered out all the rocks so as to make the earth seem really old in order to "test our faith". eventually one of his angels got pissed off, became a snake and told adam and eve to eat an apple from a tree that the deity had placed there the deity got mad and kicked everybody out. Thus humanity came about.

I have layed out the most popular thoeries, the evolution one and the mainstream religions' (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) one. Pick for yourself.

You forgot one thing, it wasn't just a piece of fruit, is was fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

 

[michael_ab]

wait wait lets make something clear, christianity is good, it teaches good values , through good stories.

is christiANS who fuck it up

 

[vampirekid.13]

the "Atheists, It's time to turn the spotlight on you" topic has me ranting. Such quotes as:

xXGeckoXx: "I will raise the child as a scientist. I will not teach him that there is a god. If he tells me that he has heard of religions and wants to know what they are all about i will tell him but I will tell him why it is scientiffically7 implausible. then once he has been told he can choose."

MalthusX: "I will teach them how some people thought the world was made, but I will point out that evolution makes more sense."

Does it really make more sense? Can people really argue this logically for me? Yes, I realize you can't completely disprove or even offer significant evidence against the fuzzy, biased view of the earth's creation by a Christian, but try and offer some real evidence FOR evolution.

aruki: "A fair judge [God] wouldn't tarnish everyone from a family, street, town or country or race for the acts of two individuals from centuries ago. Assuming the bible to be correct that is."

Okay, I know this post wasn't typical post, normally people replied a bit more intelligently than that in the thread. But posts that showed little to no knowledge of the Christian side of the picture were fairly common.

Okay guys... post. Please do so in an intelligent manner (I reserve the right to make fun of every grammatical error found), and, if you directly mention elements of Christianity... make sure you have some idea what you are talking about.

PS: Don't hate me for making a religious thread.

here, if you have a college level education you can visit whywontgodhealamputees.com and read through it for a very thorough explanation of everything regarding religion.

it makes more sense, because there is more evidence.

we see evidence of evolution. we see no evidence of an all powerful being.

also, assuming there is a god why is it that he wont stop wars, deaths, plagues etc.

if he can but wont he's malevolent, therefore not a god.
if he cant, he's not all powerful, therefore not a god.

...

 

[bjj hero]

Now watch as ten people quote lines from my post out of context and point out how I'm wrong.

While I do agree that science and faith do have different ways of looking at things, they can coexist. See Intelligent Design: the theory that evolution is so complicated that the only way it could be possible would be if it were directed by a higher power.

ID says there are things too complicated to have evolved so something (with a strong hint at god) had to have designed it. It directly clashes with evolutionary theory.

ID supporters find something they believe is irreducibly complex (meaning they cant see a function for anything smaller like half an eye) and say it could not have evolved.

No part of ID meshes with evolution or natural selection. It was designed as a way to get creationism taught in biology.

 

[Captain Blackout]

I'm referring to the worship of Chinese rulers.

Lao Tzu NEVER advocated the worship of Chinese rulers. Where did you get this from?

I don't pretend to know much about Taoism. I only meant I advocated their philosophy of equilibrium in all things.

Read "The Tao of Pooh." It's a pain in the butt to find, yes I know it's Winnie the Pooh, but it's worth it.

More importantly, please read at least two different translations of the "Tao Te Jhing" before you make bad claims about it. It's a short book and much easier to find than "The Tao of Pooh."

Why two translations you might ask? Because of one of my favorite commentaries on Taoism: It does not translate well into any language, including the original Chinese it was written in.

By reading more than one translation, you will get a broader perspective and with the Tao that will mean a lot.

 

[grimsprice]

I'm deist, but I believe in the Christian God. Therefore, I don't believe the Bible is as accurate as it's claimed. I'm also into the Intelligent Design idea. So, yeah evolution is plausible, but it had to start somewhere.

Damn, as i rolled past the Deist claim my respect for you was growing (I have an innate respect for Deists, don't ask why) and it hit its crescendo at the Bible line. But then sank through my shoes when you mentioned intelligent design. You should probably know that intelligent design proponents aren't quite the people you think they are.

Here is a cell biologist explaining Intelligent design as we know of it in America. I realize that you probably mean a 'God starts evolution' sort of thing. But as it is known in the scientific communities 'intelligent design' is just creationism in disguise.

http://fora.tv/2008/08/18/Kenneth_Miller_on_Evolution_and_Intelligent_Design

 

[michael_ab]

intellegent design is WRONG!!

INCORRECT!!

look up the case of dover colorado, evolution vs intellegent design, nova did something on it

 

[Doug]

Does it really make more sense? Can people really argue this logically for me? Yes, I realize you can't completely disprove or even offer significant evidence against the fuzzy, biased view of the earth's creation by a Christian, but try and offer some real evidence FOR evolution.

The fossil record and scientific study of genomes. But regardless, we're not scientists, so stop trying to make us trip up on our own words because we aren't fully versed in the exact details of cutting edge theory (by which I mean the latest and best detailed studies of the process)

PS: Don't hate me for making a religious thread.

Don't tell me what to do. These damn religious threads are a plague nowdays.

Hardline Atheist: "GOD DOESN'T EXIST RELIGIOUS SHEEPLE"
Hardline Theist, "GOD WILL POUR FIRE DOWN YOUR THROAT, HERETIC!"
Agnosists and everyone else, "Dudes, calm the hell down"
Hardline Atheist: "HELL DOESN'T EXIST!"
Hardline Theist, "HELL IS WHERE THIS SINNER IS GOING!"

*Sigh* Just get the hell over it, alright? You probably believe in god, Atheists don't, you most likely won't be able to change their minds, they won't be able to change your's, etc.

 

[Silva]

I simply refuse to see this as a two-sided debate.

It's not just atheism versus Christianity. There are other belief systems out there and they are NOT less plausible.

They're all equally implausible on the level of spiritual claims, but this emphasis on the "equal" I have made is demanded by justice.

As for evidence of evolution, it's called the dinosaur. It's called the several skeletons of the so-called "Missing Link" that have been found. It's called scientific consensus.

Some evidence on the non-spiritual side trumps no evidence on the other. Simple.

It comes down to faith that you believe there's more to the origin of life/Earth/the Universe (i.e. a spiritual dimension or parallel) than evolution and Darwinism. But whatever truth there is will coincide with the theory of evolution, on both the macro and micro scale.

 

[michael_ab]

Hardline Atheist: "GOD DOESN'T EXIST RELIGIOUS SHEEPLE"
Hardline Theist, "GOD WILL POUR FIRE DOWN YOUR THROAT, HERETIC!"
Agnosists and everyone else, "Dudes, calm the hell down" <---
Hardline Atheist: "HELL DOESN'T EXIST!"
Hardline Theist, "HELL IS WHERE THIS SINNER IS GOING!"

i could not stop laughing at this, you are so right.. thank you for that

 

[Flying-Emu]

Good night then. But with all due respect you have a very odd notion of happiness.

And with all due respect, stop trolling.

This isn't worth arguing. Micro-Evolution is a bloody fact, and is about as deniable as gravity and Newton's First Law. Macro-Evolution admittedly has holes, but its still the best guess we've got as to how things came about.

Either way. Everyone can have their own beliefs about it, it's not like bickering over the internet is going to change anyone's opinion.

This coming from a Christian Deist.

 

[AhumbleKnight]

While I do agree that science and faith do have different ways of looking at things, they can coexist. See Intelligent Design: the theory that evolution is so complicated that the only way it could be possible would be if it were directed by a higher power.

The problem with Intelligent Design/Creationism (yes, they are the same thing) is that it does not mix science and faith. It supports faith by abusing science. The number of things proposed by ID as 'science' that directly contradicts current scientific understanding is mind blowing. The US supreme court ruled that it was unscientific and was an unconstitutional attempt to force the teaching of God into the science class room using pseudo-science.

 

[Skeleon]

Why do I know evolution to be true?
Because we can see its results. And because we can see it happen.

We can compare various animals to one another, using bone-structure or DNA-analysis to show how similar various animals truly are (chimps are our very close cousins, for example). Then we have vestigial organs that show no use today but are remnants of shared ancestors.
Then there's microbiology, where we can actually see evolution in action with both bacteria and virus changing from generation to generation through mutation and based on selective pressure or through transformation, conjugation and transduction.
We have the endosymbiosis-theory which explains how we got to have mitochondria.

Sorry, but to me, evolution just makes sense. The basic principles are simple and we can test them in the laboratory. The fact that we cannot watch evolution in the macrocosmos is simply because of a lack of time.
But again, that's where comparisons between species and fossils comes into it.

I could never disprove deism (though I certainly don't believe it), but it's without a doubt that evolution took place.
And any serious scientist will say the same thing.
The only ones in the scientific community who still doubt evolution itself are religiously motivated people who try to somehow force gods into this where they aren't needed, which results in funny things such as intelligent design.

 

[smell-of-man]

God and Creationism is "made up" by religious people
Evolution is "made up" by scientists

It all comes down on who you believe the most.
In the Dark Ages the church was at the centre of everything, everything the church said was considered true. Recently (well, some decades ago) this power shifted to the scientists. Now the majority of people consider scientific standpoints to be true... and I think a lot of scientific "facts" will be proven wrong in the future.

If you look at it as unbiased as possible there aren't really facts to prove evolution.
Yes, there are fossils of ancient creatures we know have existed somewhere, but there isn't any proof there is an evolutionary link between them and us. It's just a human condition to want to see causality in everything. For example: Boiling water, we see water boiling at 100 degrees Celsius. It happens every time, so we conclude there is a relation between cause and result, but there isn't any proof the 2 (100 degrees and boiling water)have anything to do with each other... It is still possible (however highly unlikely) this just happens by chance or some other explanation.


I hope my text is understandable for most... it's still early here (I live in Belgium) and my internal English dictionary hasn't kickstarted yet.
Btw: I'm a firm believer of evolution, I'm just watching this from a philosofical standpoint.

 

[Captain Blackout]

~4.6 billion years ago certain gases (all of which were present on earth) are struck by ultraviolet light (from the sun) they produce amino acids (the basis of things such as dna, rna, muscles etc). These formed the first "life". This early "life" was a simple collection of dna that absorbed the sunlight and the early gases and made energy. Eventually these formed the first cells and bacteria and began producing oxygen (16x more powerful than early H2S photosynthesis). With this abundance of life a new class emerged, this class was able to eat other life. We call these "sponges". These sponges evolved muscles and a nerve net becoming polyps and jellyfish. These evolved stomachs, hearts, lungs, legs, hands, feet, etc. and created the vast variety of life that populates this great planet of ours.

Alternativley: 6000 years ago a large, immortal deity created life in 7 days, buried all the dinosaur bones and layered out all the rocks so as to make the earth seem really old in order to "test our faith". eventually one of his angels got pissed off, became a snake and told adam and eve to eat an apple from a tree that the deity had placed there the deity got mad and kicked everybody out. Thus humanity came about.

I have layed out the most popular thoeries, the evolution one and the mainstream religions' (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) one. Pick for yourself.

You forgot one thing, it wasn't just a piece of fruit, is was fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.

Knowledge of Good and Evil. Kind of important to the story.
Want to have fun? You know how some scientists think life didn't originate here? Go back and look at the order things are done in creation. Life starts before the Sun and Moon. Life therefore starts before Earth. I often wonder if the creation story wasn't a metaphor for events unexplainable to the audience of the time. Heck, I wonder if some of the events still aren't explainable (as we don't have the language for them yet)
Why 7 days? Because it was only 6 days, the author was a poet (the creation story has a poetic structure) and the author was looking to order Jewish life into a rhythmic flow.

Sometimes reading the Bible is like reading Pat Robertson's latest piece of crap (God ordered infantcide? Really? Or did Samuel use God to justify genocide?). Other times it can be like... The movie "Contact", the message from the 'Vegans'. There were multiple levels to the message, in order to get as much information into as small a transmission as possible. I suspect a lot of that happened (well, in some of the better written books, anyway)

 

[Flying-Emu]

if he can but wont he's malevolent, therefore not a god.
if he cant, he's not all powerful, therefore not a god.

...

See Loki, Hel, Hades, etc. for why this is oh so wrong.

 

[grimsprice]

jewish zombie rules over all of us.

I actually got the the second jewish zombie line before i realized what you meant. And i proceeded to die of laughter.

 

[Captain Blackout]

To all who say evolution isn't yet proven (even those who believe in it), I wish I could send a box of donuts. I swear. You guys may hate me, but in this crowd of people who think "your a moron!" is an intelligent response, I have to thank you.

Proven? That depends on your standards of proof. If by that you mean "I see it myself" then very little can ever be proven to you. If by proof you mean "the mountain of evidence, plus the hard-core math, followed by excellent deductive and inductive reasoning." then yes, evolution has as much proof to it as all of modern medicine.
If you don't want to be called a moron, don't act like one. And QUIT MAKING MY JOB HARDER!

 

[Skeleon]

if he can but wont he's malevolent, therefore not a god.
if he cant, he's not all powerful, therefore not a god.

...

See Loki, Hel, Hades, etc. for why this is oh so wrong.

I think the original line isn't "no god" but "not worth of worship".
Though that is not really plausible, either, since worship might be the only thing that appeases a malevolent god. That and virgin sacrifices.

 

[Notsomuch]

Creationists and people who just don't get evolution listen up. I could direct you to a bunch of complicated lectures but instead why don't I introduce you to a fellow named Carl Sagan. He'll explain to you the inner workings of the universe and the intricate process' which lead to a build up of complexity in a way that you can understand and that isn't insulting or demeaning. I'm talking about Cosmos!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDxuLldFR9c

All questions presented in this thread can be answered in episode 2... well, most of them.