A question from a Christian

a reply to: GetHyped

Unfortunately for you I don't have the burden of proof in this argument. I don't have to show you that their is no genetic pathway for evolution to operate within you have to show me one exist. I don't have to show you that morphological changes do not occur you have to show me that they can. If you can't show me its not fact. Science works off of observable evidence and then they claim to believe in something that is not observable. Sounds a lot like a creationist to me.

originally posted by: UNIT76

micro-evolution into macro-evolution seems to indicate a speck of dust can become a living thing (with consciousness) and continue evolving to (what?) a type of "godhood" (?)

What?

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: UNIT76

micro-evolution into macro-evolution seems to indicate a speck of dust can become a living thing (with consciousness) and continue evolving to (what?) a type of "godhood" (?)

..we may have heard this before?

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

Are you implying there is such a thing as objective Evil?

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Yes you do. You made the claim. Back it up. We've posted up examples of speciation a million times before on here already. Now show us why it can't happen. What is this magical barrier that stops genetic mutation after an arbitrary point? Care to explain how many mutations can occur before this magical barrier kicks in? give us some details other than "because I said so".

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: UNIT76

micro-evolution into macro-evolution seems to indicate a speck of dust can become a living thing (with consciousness) and continue evolving to (what?) a type of "godhood" (?)

..we may have heard this before?

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

Are you implying there is such a thing as objective Evil?

You know better than that, so don't play coy with me.

I am saying that there are two possibilities:

1. We are subject to the whims of chance and probability

2. Your god is a piece of fecal matter plastered to a hyena's backside.

Evolutionists consider what they call "living fossils" to be rare, the famous Coelacanth fish being the best-known example. The fossils of this fish are found only in rocks older than 70 million years (assuming the standard geologic time scale to be real), but living coelacanths have been found in the Indian Ocean. New cases of so-called living fossils do turn up fairly often. Graptolites have been considered in the past to be index fossils for the Ordovician period, 300 million years old. Yet they recently were found still living in the south Pacific.1 Other famous living fossils include the tuatara (supposedly extinct since the Cretaceous Period until found still living in New Zealand), the Lepidocaris crustacean (only found as fossils in Devonian rocks), the Metasequoia conifer tree (thought extinct for the past 20 million years), the Neopilina mollusk (supposedly extinct for 280 million years), the lingula brachiopod ("extinct" since the Ordovician), and even the trilobite (chief index fossil of the even more ancient Cambrian Period).2 Evolutionists tend to reserve the title of "living fossil" for those animals and plants which had been considered extinct until suddenly they turned up living today. Consequently, the vast numbers of living organisms that were already known to be in the fossil record are generally ignored as examples of living fossils. These even include those organisms supposed to be the most ancient of all. Evolution is supposed to have begun when prokaryotes evolved out of the primeval soup. It is significant, therefore, that: Fossils very similar to living prokaryotes are found in rocks about 3500 million years old.3 Likewise, the primitive one-celled organisms called eukaryotes are supposed to have evolved from prokaryotes. But, these also are still living, essentially unchanged, in the modern world. Simple eukaryotes, resembling living unicellular algae, are first confirmed in the fossil record about 1500 million years ago and first suspected in rocks almost 2000 million years old.4 The most important modern prokaryotes are probably the bacteria and the blue-green algae, and these certainly should be considered living fossils. They have been found in abundance in 3.4 billion year-old rocks from South America. Modern soil bacteria have been found in Precambrian rocks. One wonders why, if evolution really works, these "primitive" organisms have not changed significantly in over a billion years. The prolific evolutionist, Stephen Jay Gould, has insisted that there is no evidence whatever against evolution. Yet he stresses the fact that bacteria have changed little since ancient times. The most salient feature of life has been the stability of its bacterial mode from the beginning of the fossil record until today and, with little doubt, into all future time so long as the Earth endures.5 The same situation applies throughout the geologic column. In the supposed "oldest" period with metazoan fossils, all the present-day animal phyla are found as fossils, largely in modern form. As Gould says: In one of the most crucial and enigmatic episodes in the history of life, . . . nearly all animal phyla made their first appearance in the fossil record at essentially the same time, an interval of some 5 million years (about 525 to 530 million years ago) called the Cambrian explosion.6 Speaking of the Cambrian fauna, there are many that still survive, all looking much like they did over 500 million years ago. The prominent British evolutionists, Richard Dawkins, has made the following comment: And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.7 Indeed it has. Until recently, the phylum of vertebrates had been considered a later arrival in evolutionary history. But not now! Even the vertebrate phylum now extends into the Cambrian period, especially with the recent discovery of two fossil fish in China: The two new fossils . . . from Chengjiang are the most convincing Early Cambrian vertebrates ever found.8 The insects and other land invertebrates are also a very important group, and these practically all seem to be living fossils. With respect to the arthropod phylum (the largest in the animal kingdom), consider the millipedes, for example. Indeed, the oldest fossils of land-dwelling animals are millipedes, dating to more than 425 million years ago. Incredibly, the archaic forms are nearly indistinguishable from certain groups living today.9 The same phenomenon holds for practically all the insects. Compared with other life forms, insects are actually slow to evolve new families—but they are even slower to go extinct. Some 84 percent of the insect families alive today were alive 100 million years ago. . . .10 Whether bees or ants, cicadas or beetles, termites or cockroaches, the fossils of these and other insects are always practically identical with (though often larger than) their modern descendants. The same applies to the arachnids and myriapods. Space does not allow discussion of modern amphibians (e.g., frogs, toads), reptiles (crocodiles, alligators, turtles), mammals (bats, squirrels, shrews, opossums, tarsiers, etc.), all of which (and many, many others) are practically identical with their fossil representatives. Speaking of extinction, the dinosaurs come to mind. These also may have been living fossils up until modern times, except that they were called dragons. Not many people realize how closely the ancient and medieval descriptions of various types of dragons correspond with modern paleontological reconstructions of various dinosaurs. But encyclopedia articles on "Dragons" have occasionally noted this characteristic. Dinosaurs were according to two of these, . . . gigantic and astonishingly dragon-like extinct reptiles of past ages.11 The dragons of legend are strangely like . . . the great reptiles which inhabited the earth long before man is supposed to have appeared on the earth.12 The Bible, of course, also mentions dragons as real living animals at the time it was being written. There is no space here to discuss the various ages themselves but, in the young-earth model of geologic history, all the alleged "ages" were actually different deposits either of the great flood or of the residual catastrophes following it. Thus, it is not surprising that the sedimentary rocks laid down by the Flood contain fossils of most of the creatures still surviving in the present age. Still further correlation with extant plants and animals will, no doubt, be developed as more fossils are discovered. The fossil record is often so sparse that . . . there are plenty of cases where groups survived for tens of millions of years without leaving a single fossil.13 In actuality, as documented in many books by young-earth creationists, the fossil record is not a record of long evolutionary ages, with distinctive life forms in each age, as evolutionists allege, but of just one age, that of the great flood. No wonder, then, that practically all living organisms are represented in the rocks of the geologic column. And in their marvelous variety and complexity they all bear witness to the wisdom and power of their Creator, while the great panorama of suffering and death (often even extinction) displayed in their fossilized preservation is a perpetual reminder, not of evolution, but of the terrible consequences of human sin on man's entire dominion.

a reply to: AfterInfinity

a reply to: GetHyped

micro evolution; stuff that's happening on a microscopic scale
macro evolution; stuff that's happening on a macroscopic scale

were you asserting there is a bridge between the two?
..that the micro can extend to the macro?

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

"God" doesn't actually kill those babies though, does he?
that all happens due to the actions of mankind, doesn't it?

..how's all those IMF, WHO grants to the third world goin'?

2. Your god is a piece of fecal matter plastered to a hyena's backside.

PMSL

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Oh, look. A massive wall of copied and pasted text. *ignores and continues scrolling*

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Yes you do. You made the claim. Back it up. We've posted up examples of speciation a million times before on here already. Now show us why it can't happen. What is this magical barrier that stops genetic mutation after an arbitrary point? Care to explain how many mutations can occur before this magical barrier kicks in? give us some details other than "because I said so".

You make the claim God doesn't exist now prove it.....I make the claim God does exist...Who has the Burden of Proof? Atheist/agnostics always use this argument right? Now I am using it on you, I am claiming that something doesn't exist not that something does exist. The burden of proof lies on you.

a reply to: AfterInfinity

You asked for examples.....why ask if your just going to ignore them...

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Stop trying to dodge the question. You said macro evolution cannot/does not happen.

What is this magical barrier that stops genetic mutation after an arbitrary point? Care to explain how many mutations can occur before this magical barrier kicks in?

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: AfterInfinity

You asked for examples.....why ask if your just going to ignore them...

I asked for examples, I didn't ask you to disregard the terms and conditions of your membership by posting a massive irritating wall of text. I also don't see a source. Tsk tsk.

And yes, it is aggravating when someone just ignores your evidence, isn't it? I'm glad you noticed that.

originally posted by: AfterInfinity

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: UNIT76

micro-evolution into macro-evolution seems to indicate a speck of dust can become a living thing (with consciousness) and continue evolving to (what?) a type of "godhood" (?)

..we may have heard this before?

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

Are you implying there is such a thing as objective Evil?

You know better than that, so don't play coy with me.

I am saying that there are two possibilities:

1. We are subject to the whims of chance and probability

2. Your god is a piece of fecal matter plastered to a hyena's backside.

Well dont try to use the argument of Evil if you dont believe in an Objective Evil. Option 2 is just because you dont study theology.

..he should've been effectively SHUT DOWN by all the science an' stuff by now?
/whistles

a reply to: AfterInfinity

Its in the edit.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb

originally posted by: AfterInfinity

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb

originally posted by: AfterInfinity
a reply to: UNIT76

micro-evolution into macro-evolution seems to indicate a speck of dust can become a living thing (with consciousness) and continue evolving to (what?) a type of "godhood" (?)

..we may have heard this before?

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

Are you implying there is such a thing as objective Evil?

You know better than that, so don't play coy with me.

I am saying that there are two possibilities:

1. We are subject to the whims of chance and probability

2. Your god is a piece of fecal matter plastered to a hyena's backside.

Well dont try to use the argument of Evil if you dont believe in an Objective Evil. Option 2 is just because you dont study theology.

My lack of studying theology is about as relevant as my lack of interest in the mythology behind Santa Claus. Also, I never once mentioned the word "evil", so no, I didn't use any argument centering around such. My point was that even if evolutionary theory is flawed, theism is ten times more so. If evolution is a leaky boat, theism is a spoon with a gaping hole in the middle of the bowl part. Such was my point.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

You arguing hat just because Humans chose to give the prefix Micro and Macro to a word that it makes that fact.

No, that is what you are arguing. Evolutionary theory makes no distinctions between 'macro' and 'micro' evolution.

Not one animal in the fossil record is complete.

So?

There are fossils of animals that are alive today buried very deep, but they aren't found in any of the layers in between.

So?

Are you really going to try and tell me you don't know why evolution will ever produce completely new organisms?

Again, that is what you are arguing. Evolution continually produces entirely new organisms.

as bacteria evolve to resist a drug they live and become more plentiful as long as the drug is applied, but as soon as the drug is removed those bacteria die off

So?

I think a guy has been experimenting on fruit flies for 30 years and still not one sign of the morphological changes you are saying are cold hard fact.

Citation needed.

originally posted by: GetHyped
a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

Stop trying to dodge the question. You said macro evolution cannot/does not happen.

What is this magical barrier that stops genetic mutation after an arbitrary point? Care to explain how many mutations can occur before this magical barrier kicks in?

Once again I said it wasn't magic it was because our genetics don't have the ability to produce those types of morphological changes because there is no genetic pathway for with which that can occur. That is my claim. Macro-evolution cant happen because a genetic pathway does not exist. If you are saying it does happen you now much show that those typse of morphological changes have a genetic pathway. I cannot show their isnt one.....I am not avoiding anything

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb

a reply to: AfterInfinity

Its in the edit.

Would you mind giving me examples from a website that isn't oriented around confirming its own bias?

a reply to: AfterInfinity

I'll explain that to you when you explain to me why thousands of children are dying of starvation and disease every day. Is that what you consider "divine justice"?

That is just another way of presenting the argument of Evil, and you presented it in a way that made it seem like those actions disprove the existence of God. Don't tell me you didnt mention Evil cause thats exactly what you were getting at here. You lack of understanding for Christian theology is why you don't understand that Evil doesn't disprove God.