Perceptions based soley on religion

[Rhabbi]

I don't think Rhabbi was denying evolution, (I mean, who would except a couple of crazed loons in turbans in the desert biting the Koran).

Tom

Hate to disagree with you, but evolution as proposed by Darwin is bunk. I will even say that if Darwin were alive today he would agree with me that his theories should be rejected. People cling to them, not because they are true, but because the alternative is less acceptable to them. If they have to admit the flaws in evolution they might have to admit that the theologians are right.

Darwin believed in a God that guided evolution, yey those who calaim to believe wht he wrote deny even this, ask yourself why.

Let me be clear about one thing, I totally support the concept of adaptation to environment, but I reject speciation in any form that does not involve a supernatural event. In spite of numerous scientific experiments to try to prove speciation involving fruit flies there is no evidence of a new species developing. There has been no scientific proof that has withstood the scrutiny of peer review that in any way supports speciation.


Yet, in spite of this total lack of evidence, people still prefer to accept evolution as scientific fact. If any other supposed theory had so little evidence supporting it, iot would be rejected out of hand. Evolution is not because the phiosophy behind it is preferrred to the phiosophy behind the belief in Intelligent Design.

Specious philosophical nonsense is an apt description of evolution.

[TomOfSweden]

Tom

Hate to disagree with you, but evolution as proposed by Darwin is bunk. I will even say that if Darwin were alive today he would agree with me that his theories should be rejected. People cling to them, not because they are true, but because the alternative is less acceptable to them. If they have to admit the flaws in evolution they might have to admit that the theologians are right.

Darwin believed in a God that guided evolution, yey those who calaim to believe wht he wrote deny even this, ask yourself why.

Let me be clear about one thing, I totally support the concept of adaptation to environment, but I reject speciation in any form that does not involve a supernatural event. In spite of numerous scientific experiments to try to prove speciation involving fruit flies there is no evidence of a new species developing. There has been no scientific proof that has withstood the scrutiny of peer review that in any way supports speciation.


Yet, in spite of this total lack of evidence, people still prefer to accept evolution as scientific fact. If any other supposed theory had so little evidence supporting it, iot would be rejected out of hand. Evolution is not because the phiosophy behind it is preferrred to the phiosophy behind the belief in Intelligent Design.

Specious philosophical nonsense is an apt description of evolution.

This whole post misses the target by a mile.

Now you're comparing christianity to science as if they are two different faiths. The scientific method is just a method to find the truth. The method in itself doesn't have any answers. It's the the reports that get produced using it that may have. They are many and often conflicting. Chrstianity is only one of many possible scientific models to explain the world. One that desperatly needs evidence to back it up.

Darwin didn't have the complete picture and he wasn't the first person to come up with evolution. He took the untested theories proposed by his biology teacher and tested it scientifically and drew as good conclusions from it as he could. That was the reason why he's famous even though he's somewhere in the middle of the chain. Scientists after him corrected his misstakes. Darwin was not a prophet, only a scientist. His word is not law.

You're own little private theory fails in that god isn't needed for speciasation. The modern model of evolution gives room for it all on it's own. But I guess it would be refreshing if it was true. This idea that god is a being with a very cruel sense of humour is new to me.

At least it's nice to hear that you're not on the Intelligent design team. Those guys scare me.

edit: Regarding your theory about god guiding the creation of species. What's the point? Why would god do it? It makes no sense. If you believe in evolution, we'll get specisation with or without devine intervention. If you want to abondon the very logical theory of evolution and replace it with another one, it should at least hold together logically, right? Why force god into a theory that works fine without it?

The theory of evolution isn't waterproof. There's still plenty of holes in it, but we have lots of evidence and we've got a model and the evidence we do have fit into the model snuggly.

Your theory is as much unsubstantiated guesswork as a theory. The theory of evolution as we have today is pretty fucking far from pure speculation. What do you have to back your theory it up?

Even though we haven't been able to recreate specisation in a laboratory, (which I doubt is even true, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt) we have as far as I know not been able to recreate devine intervention in a laboratory either so that's 0-0. Not much of an argument for your case is it?

[Rhabbi]

Tom,

If you want to have a debate about this, I will be glad to do so on another thread. the fact is though that you are blind and deaf to what I amn saying, evolution is not a scientific theory, it is a philosophy. Scientific theories are emperical, that is they can be tested. To simply chalk something up to random chance, and ignore the statistical odds against it does not constitute science, it constitutes philosophy.

Here is an article written by a scientist, a molecular biologist, that address some of the weaknesses of Darwin's theory. If you want to read something by someone who knows what he is talking about instead of reprters who do not even read the work they are trying to defend, that is.
http://arn.org/docs/behe/mb_dm11496.htm

[TomOfSweden]

Tom,

If you want to have a debate about this, I will be glad to do so on another thread. the fact is though that you are blind and deaf to what I amn saying, evolution is not a scientific theory, it is a philosophy. Scientific theories are emperical, that is they can be tested. To simply chalk something up to random chance, and ignore the statistical odds against it does not constitute science, it constitutes philosophy.

Here is an article written by a scientist, a molecular biologist, that address some of the weaknesses of Darwin's theory. If you want to read something by someone who knows what he is talking about instead of reprters who do not even read the work they are trying to defend, that is.
http://arn.org/docs/behe/mb_dm11496.htm

That whole article is based on accepting his examples, ie "An example of an irreducibly complex cellular system is the bacterial flagellum: a rotary propeller, powered by a flow of acid, that bacteria use to swim. The flagellum requires a number of parts before it works -- a rotor, stator and motor. Furthermore, genetic studies have shown that about 40 different kinds of proteins are needed to produce a working flagellum."

Since Darwins theory takes account of this I don't really see how he manages to draw the conclusions he does. Here's a simple example. A -> B -> C. B dies out, and leaves no trace. We have now no way of knowing how C could evolve the way it did. See, no god needed.

The division of the RNA looks to me and all molecular biologists I've talked to like magic, (and that's been quite a few). It's staggeringly complex. But from there draw the conclusion that it cannot have evolved by itself is just dumb. All we can do is put it on the list of things we hope to figure out in the future. Us not understanding something cannot be used as evidence for anything.

And even if I and Darwin are wrong, that's still no case for christianity. All that would mean is that we still don't know. Intelligent design would still be in the pile of maybes.

I'm only atheist because I think the evidence we have seems to point to it. You are christian because you think most evidence point to it. That's great. I've got no quarel about that. Good luck to you. But having faith in that you are going to heaven is drawing a much too strong conclusion. You don't know. Nobody does. At best you can hope you are right. And if you are I hope god will be lenient with me or I'm fucked

There's much smarter "proof" than that for gods existance. Banach-Tarskis proposition has yet to be disproven. They proved that if the scientific models of the universe we have today would be correct it would by necesity mean that there is an external force.

From this we can draw two possible conclusions:
1) There is a god but we cannot say anything about it at all or it's power. It could have limited power, be omnipotent, be several gods in conflict, lying gods, gods who don't give a rats ass about us, gods that are dumb or no god at all, just a force we don't understand yet.
2) Our contemporary equations are wrong, which may very well be the case.

This is the strongest "proof" any religion has today. But it still doesn't suport any particular religion. It just says something external is needed for the universe to be stable and the laws not break down. That's as good as it gets.

If ICDawg wants me to stop, I'll shut up. This is his thread. I'll respect that.