Quote Originally Posted by Rhabbi View Post
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.