I don't understand evolution.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: SuperFrog

Croe can you help this guy out with his grammar.
You're so eager to cor..rect.

Wow, ad-hominem from fellow worshiper?!

It is quite interesting tho how you avoid to comment songs such as 'Thank you God'.

originally posted by: randyvs
We're approaching eight billion human beings, stuck out in the middle
of a vast vacuum expanse spread out to the kind of infinities your
pubescent little mind

I'm in my 40s and have a degree, I'm not pubescent.

...couldn't possibly comprehend. We are quite
likely the only ones like us in existence.

That's a very arrogant statement. What makes you think we're so special in the universe? I suspect, though I have no proof, that we are in fact, not alone and there are many other civilisations out there with incredible knowledge to them.

Giving how reactive carbon is, and how much of it there is in the universe, it stands to reason that there are other carbon-based life forms out there. That's my logic behind my assumption.

We're stuck with each other
on this tiny blue ball that hangs in perfection in so many ways you
can never believe you know them all let alone count them.

Don't be so melodramatic. What "perfection" are you talking about? Name them. I've not seen anything in nature that is "perfect". Evolution certainly isn't -- which is even more evidence that there is NO intelligent design behind things.

And you want me to believe there is something that is unbelievable?

No. YOU want to believe in something that is unbelievable; ie: God.

The only thing I can see that's even close to unbelievable is the
audacity of you suggesting such a thing. And that we just magically
burst forth out of nowhere to be the ultimate challenge of intelligence
for what cosmically will amount to two seconds. Ha ha it's funny as hell
because you're trying to sell me as the one being absurd here, when
it's really you and your whole tribe of gargantuan thinkers. Well
I'm sorry but I'm not impressed.

It isn't about impressing you. You're right - I can't explain *how* the universe came into being. No one can. But I will not "back out" and simply say it has to be intelligent design because I don't know the answer.

I'm happy to search and question and investigate and learn and *evolve* my understanding of the world and the universe.

I'm sorry you do not.

One pictures tells you all...

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: noonebutme

Science is just the study of the mechanics God uses to
make everything work. I thought I made it pretty clear
in the OP I have no problem with science. But what about
transhumanism and other abominable attempts at becoming
God like. What if I choose to see it this way? Learning the
mechanics of the automobile doesn't negate the designer or
the manufacturer. Science seems stuck on this stupid idea
that just because men can find out how things work, they can
then take credit for it. You can tell me all day long how the sun
works. But lets see you create one and set it out there in
space with out ruining the entire universe like the jerk man
is most of the time. I think somebody was capable of doing all
this. You seem to think I need to be exterminated for it. Well
keep try'n to be God, maybe you'll get your way.

And if my God, as you put it, is my God? Then he's your God to and
you have nothing to say about it.

you are aware the sun is a star?? And you are aware there are millions and millions of stars in the universe, so were they all "created" for earth?? Why??

a reply to: SuperFrog

I find it incredibly ironic that the credibility of a 3000 year old 'goat-herder' far exceeds that of modern day 'Science'.

Might even be proof of evolution going in reverse, who knows...

a reply to: Murgatroid

If something must exist, it seems more likely that the thing that exists is… well… the thing that has always existed.
Sure, we could add a God to the equation, but then we’d also have to go about proving that non-material life can exist, and can think, and have knowledge without origin, and can create matter from nothing. Why not just say that the THING that exists is what exists?

The creationist has to accept:

1. Supernatural spiritual beings can exist.
2. Spiritual beings can exist eternally.
3. Spiritual beings can create new matter and energy from nothing.
4. Spiritual beings can exist outside of space and time.
5. Spiritual beings can think and store information.
6. Spiritual beings have needs or emotions that lead them to create things.
7. Spiritual beings can have knowledge without ever being educated.

Persons who acknowledge evolution must accept:

1. Matter and/or energy has always existed (in some form or another), and occasionally give rise to more complex things made of the same eternal stuff.

originally posted by: randyvs
Don't try to tell me that my belief in a deity is immature in the face of a pseudoscience that has existed for what? A hundred and eighty years? Woop de ####en doo! A lie that also just happens to make your life far less complicated and more comfy for precious little you.

A couple of things...

First off, has it ever occurred to you that maybe neither evolution as we postulate it to be now nor religion have it right? Both could be completely wrong, partially wrong, or as has been argued, both could be correct at the same time.

Secondly, I would argue that religion makes life far less complicated and more comfy for precious little (insert name here).

And last, length of time that a theory exists does not validate or invalidate it...if it's correct, it's correct, even if it's 5 minutes old. If it's wrong, there are no amount of years that will make it correct.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: noonebutme

on the unbelievable.

We're approaching eight billion human beings, stuck out in the middle
of a vast vacuum expanse spread out to the kind of infinities your
pubescent little mind couldn't possibly comprehend.

If I may, I have a suggestion..
Rather than continuing on with these personal insults and uninformed opinion, arguing from assertion and ignoring requests for a scientific argument, avoiding difficult questions and responding only with arrogant snark and a condescending attitude.. Why not go and learn something about the subject you are attempting to debate?

You have demonstrated willful ignorance not only towards scientific method, but towards theological standards and your own religion as well. Your position and belief is, from what I can see, logically untenable at best, and downright ludicrous at worst. I am not trying to disparage or belittle your beliefs, I simply cannot understand how one can continue to claim the things you do in the face of such truths as those you have been repeatedly presented with.

I notice my questions to you have gone unanswered, in fact there has been very little response from you to anything I have said in this thread. You seem to display a pattern of making a claim, waiting for responses, then picking an adversary and personally attacking one or two those responses. This is, in fact, trolling. It is not debating. It is saying the same thing over and over again, wording it differently on occasion, and insulting those who respond with counterarguments.

I don't think it would be wise to encourage any more of this non-debate. If you are not willing to properly address the points raised by those holding the opposing opinion on the matter. In fact, I would go so far as to say there has never been any debate whatsoever in any "evolution vs creationism" thread on ATS, because there simply is no debate to be had. It's the opinion of the few critising the knowledge of the many, and an opinion is by no means comparable to a scientific theory.

a reply to: spygeek

this thread really should end on that note, but it probably wont.

time for a reload, have a feeling we might need it.

a reply to: TzarChasm

My participation is certainly ending on that note. I'll still drink along and spectate though, for the thread's comedic value alone xD

I do feel sorry for randy. I know some people have made some jokes in this thread.

I hope randy will really read and understand evolution and make good contribution to his own thread.

originally posted by: Deaf Alien
I do feel sorry for randy. I know some people have made some jokes in this thread.

I hope randy will really read and understand evolution and make good contribution to his own thread.

If anything he probably feels validated. You can't be the underdog if you aren't a victim.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

First off, has it ever occurred to you that maybe neither evolution as we postulate it to be now nor religion have it right? Both could be completely wrong, partially wrong, or as has been argued, both could be correct at the same time.

The power of God is to great to need such debacles. According to scripture.

It should seem funny to everyone, in fact any sense of humor at
all would see it. That despite all the leaps and bounds science has
made recently. Science can't shake off a measely goat herders religion.
I love how upset you higher intellects get over it. You are laughed
at because you are just as human as anybody else. Ineffectual to
the world around you. It is what it is with or with out you, before
and after you. To bad for you.

a reply to: Murgatroid

And that poster is supposed to be funny? Shameful... but what else to expect?!

Here is real meaning of Irony...



This covers this topic completely...

a reply to: TzarChasm

You can't be the underdog if you aren't a victim.

You guys stay with me long enough to get a point spread in Vegas?
And we'll all be on a beach in the Bahamas, earning 20%.

Why science and religion are incompatible...

Because God is more intelligent then any Bozo quack scientist.
Especially those who only think their scientists and spend all
their jobless lives arguing on ATS.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: Ghost147

So without any understanding of the topic whatsoever (as you have admitted several times in your post and title), you immediately claim it is a lie? Do you honestly not see the issue with this process of determining what is reality and what isn't?

Yes, but I've always been quick to identify a lie. No
big talent involved.

It boggles my mind that you find your position to be accurate, yet time and time again claim to know nothing about the topic.

I just cant wrap my head around this form of processing information. Could you please explain to me how you've come to such a conclusion? You know nothing of the topic, so how can you come to a conclusion of its validity?

It sounds like your only form of reasoning and deciphering perceived information is through bias and bias alone.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: SlapMonkey

First off, has it ever occurred to you that maybe neither evolution as we postulate it to be now nor religion have it right? Both could be completely wrong, partially wrong, or as has been argued, both could be correct at the same time.

The power of God is to great to need such debacles. According to scripture.

It should seem funny to everyone, in fact any sense of humor at
all would see it. That despite all the leaps and bounds science has
made recently. Science can't shake off a measely goat herders religion.
I love how upset you higher intellects get over it. You are laughed
at because you are just as human as anybody else. Ineffectual to
the world around you. It is what it is with or with out you, before
and after you. To bad for you.

statements like "science can't shake off a measley goat herder's religion" show exactly what your attitude toward it is. science doesn't have to shake off anything. it ignores religion and studies the physical world we can all observe. if we reversed that statement and said something like "God's mighty religion of christianity can't shake off the measly theory of evolution proposed and affirmed through mere mortal scientific method", what would your reaction be? anger? would you feel offended and belittled?

i bet you would reply with something like:

...God is more intelligent then any Bozo quack scientist.
Especially those who only think their scientists and spend all
their jobless lives arguing on ATS.

more ad hominem argument from assertion. you say we are laughed at because we are just as human as anybody else, ineffectual to the world around us, as if you are somehow not because of what you believe. you seem to want us to kneel down before your God and repent for our sinful rationality and critical thinking. you have given up on attempting to debate evolution altogether at this point, and your thread had descended into name-calling and personal attacks.

i'm sorry we were unable to help you understand evolution. i am sorry you feel that the world changing work of some of the brightest minds in human history is inferior, ineffectual and irrelevant when compared to your "good book". most of all i am sorry that you represent a considerable population of people in the world whose mind has been closed by fundamentalist teaching and dogmatic rhetoric. you will not even entertain the idea that the theory of evolution has a solid grounding in objective physical reality. there is really nowhere to go from here.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle, (384-322 BC, first "genuine scientist", still influences christian theology today)

live long and prosper.

After reading way to many pages of this i realize what the real issue is here-

OP randyvs looks at evolution and science as a religion, like we all got our one and only holy "science" book and we just believe whatever it says, and it was written by some random "quack" as he puts it to fool us all and turn our minds away from the only true religion, which is christianity.

I was just about to say words like "ignorance" and such but i'll refrain. Hopefully anyone tuning in at this point will see this and stop feeding the troll.

originally posted by: DanoDGreat
After reading way to many pages of this i realize what the real issue is here-

OP randyvs looks at evolution and science as a religion, like we all got our one and only holy "science" book and we just believe whatever it says, and it was written by some random "quack" as he puts it to fool us all and turn our minds away from the only true religion, which is christianity.

I was just about to say words like "ignorance" and such but i'll refrain. Hopefully anyone tuning in at this point will see this and stop feeding the troll.

It really can go either way with the OP's way of thinking. He could be a troll, but he could honestly really believe all the things he's been saying and it wouldn't really be too far fetched for a person of the mentality he projects to really accomplish.

Good ol' Poe's Law

"Without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."

a reply to: DanoDGreat

I was just about to say words like "ignorance" and such but i'll refrain.

I'll be damned, you're right there at the door of figuring the whole thing
out. Can you do it? Can you push on thru to the other side? Just drop the
troll crap so you have two empty hands and go from there. Back peddle
and one side step behind the curtain. Perfect.

DA

I do feel sorry for randy.

Save it Pal, I smile and laugh everyday. Life is good and I live it
large. I sky dive rock climb and hang iron for a living. I have a pretty
wife and the greatest of any hope on the planet that one day I will
meet my beautiful King. So bugger off with your sympathy my fellow
member. You couldn't waste it with more temerity.