I don't understand evolution.

I have studied evolution and understand it and have looked at the evidence, with a curious mind, eager to understand, and have come away with the understanding that it is not a proven theory.

The more they try to prove the theory the more they are proven wrong and come up with different theories to gap the holes. And people who believe in evolution don't even believe in the same things, and there are many differing opinions on the matter itself.

When I observe the complexity of life and the universe, and see that life has never ever been proven to come from non-life, and organization from disorder, something from nothing, I make the informed choice to reject the idea as false.

Now there is always a smart aleck that will say, will if something never came from nothing, where did God come from? And one would reason logically, will he never had a beginning. Well how is that possible? If something never came from nothing? They would repeat themselves. Well, simply put, he never had a beginning he always was.

Now these same people are willing to believe the the universe, or whatever the universe came from always existed. Because, if you get them to reason just a tiny tiny bit, you can help the see that something has always been in order for us to be here today.

Now if you say the universe is eternal, they will accept that. Even though we know the universe had a beginning. Now if you say whatever caused the universe to exist always has been, they will accept that, if you tell them that "something" couldn't think.

But as soon as you use the most logical thing to conclude, that someone with a thinking mind always existed and at a certain point caused our universe into existence they will whole-hardheartedly reject the notion as fairy-tale nonsense, and their thinking ability breaks down.

originally posted by: randyvs

The problem is sin.

Sin like life is another human term. Everyone sins, everyone, so why is it the problem?

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: randyvs

The idea that the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, the earth, life upon the earth...all arose by random chance...

Except that has nothing to do with evolution.

It has EVERYTHING to do with it, all of the time.

Gotta love those who attempt to separate things into compartments.

a reply to: randyvs
Replace 'lie' with 'theory' in your OP and it starts to make sense. First there is a theory, hypothesis, or idea that comes about. Then you search for facts that can confirm or deny this idea. You admit to not understanding evolution but somehow you know it's a lie. That isn't giving evolution a chance. Most atheists I know gave Christianity a chance for years before they changed their beliefs.

180 years is not nearly enough time to have collected specimens that fill the timeline for billions of years of life. We still discover living species that are new to science all the time. 99% of species to ever exist on the earth (including all the ones existing now) are extinct. Most evidence is in the ground making things hard to find. As more and more fossils are found it fills in the evolution record. It just depends on you personally how many pieces have to be there before you could undeniably agree everything is and has been evolving for billions of years.

The TOE evolves itself over time as more knowledge is acquired. The idea humans are descendants from apes is antiquated (kinda ironic that's the one religious people still use as an example of evolution). Just because there is no 'indesputable evidence' of where it all came from only means we need to keep looking. The reality that we can communicate with each other using machines built from material found in the ground because of knowledge acquired over the last 180 years should be enough to tell you if science if a lie or not.

originally posted by: randyvs
But why would he?

Alternatively, why wouldn't he?

originally posted by: randyvs
Graduated 12th grade at public school...

Same here, in fact I barely graduated...

The way I see it, just less indoctrination to have to unlearn.

Stalin said: “Education is a weapon.”

Why is it that the majority of those on the biggest conspiracy site on the planet can't seem to figure that out?

BTW, I've been called LOTS of things before on ATS but NEVER a 'giant #ing Troll'...

Congratulations Randy, you must be on the right track..

"The louder the opposition protests, the more I know I am on the right track." Zorgon

a reply to: randyvs

I'll just take the title as a statement because admittedly I couldn't get though the entire op...

I just have one question...

Why couldn't an all powerful God have created evolution?

likely because he has better things to do then watch our soap opera of an existence...

Satan or the adversary of the character God in christian mythology isn't that a bad of a guy! He gave us consciousnesses according to your myths, am I wrong about that? On top of that he killed a total of ten people and guess who ordered Satan do so? #ing God! Am I wrong?

So because you clearly have no grasp on the mechanics of evolution therefore we should disregard it because you think it's just some big grand conspiracy by some satanist worshiping academics? Seriously # you! People like you are the reason aliens won't visit us! There are a ton of resources just within a few clicks that lead you to the right info about evolution. I respect your right to have religious beliefs but this is just #ing nonsense...

As we do not know it all complete answers have not yet been given, but im confident that as science progresses the picture becomes clear. Natural selection is an easy thing to grasp and is a drive of evolution. This is easily proven. Another proof is research done on children born after a hunger winter in holland after ww2. These people have a different expression of genes that allows them to better cope with less nutrients. The fetus got signals from the outside world (less nutrients) and adapted. Ofcourse after ww2 food was back and these people had problems wirh the abundance of food, diabetis and obesity etc. Another piece of the puzzle. Although i have a feeling evolution is not completely random, like natural selection states, i think evolution is the truth. If you want to follow a 2000+ year old book from a time where they did not even understood basic biology thats allright.

a reply to: NateTheAnimator

He gave us consciousnesses according to your myths, am I wrong about that?

what?

Yes?

So because you clearly have no grasp on the mechanics of evolution therefore we should disregard it because you think it's just some big grand conspiracy by some satanist worshiping academics? Seriously # you! People like you are the reason aliens won't visit us! There are a ton of resources just within a few clicks that lead you to the right info about evolution. I respect your right to have religious beliefs but this is just #ing nonsense...

Sounds like you need a good rant...

we do have a place for those... ye know

It wasn't just Darwin who worked on this. Proof none of you know what you are talking about and are just repeating Darwins and the Societies version.
Read Alfred r Wallace. Co discoverer of evolution with Darwin. They approached the scientific community with the evidence, they where ordered to dumb it down and Wallace refused so Darwin accepted the doctored version and Wallace went on to do other things. He became extremely spiritual.

Do you feel the need to complain about evolution?

Here we have the solution: find a counter-example. Disproof evolution. Really, if you can do that, evolution will just go *poof* and disappear to be replaced by your idea. Not in days, but as long as your theory is better in defending itself than evolution against scientific attacks, evolution will be replaced.

It is a contest of proof, not of "fee-fees".
Don't come crying about some feeled "anti-religious evolutionists". That is the same like an ex-/or im-pressionistic painter complaining about architectural draftsman. Simply not the same playground.

originally posted by: JackReyes
I have studied evolution and understand it and have looked at the evidence, with a curious mind, eager to understand, and have come away with the understanding that it is not a proven theory.

This is a common mistake made by those without an understanding of scientfic method. What is a proven theory? The theory of gravity? The theory of thermodynamic nuclear fusion? No theory is ever completely, 100%, guaranteed, proven fact.

A scientifc theory begins as a hypothesis, i.e. a theory that has not been verified by experiment, supported by evidence or "proven" through scientific experiment yet. If enough evidence accumulates to support a hypothesis, it moves to the next step in the scientific method; i.e. a theory, and becomes accepted as a valid explanation of a phenomenon. This only happens after vigorous experiment, peer review, and careful examination of every part of the theory.

The more they try to prove the theory the more they are proven wrong and come up with different theories to gap the holes. And people who believe in evolution don't even believe in the same things, and there are many differing opinions on the matter itself.

Again, a theory is a hypothesis that has accumulated enough evidence through experiment, using the scientific method, to be considered an acceptable explanation of a particular phenomenon. This is as close to "proven" as you can get using the scientific method, and it works.

If something doesn't fit, or new information comes to light that the theory is unable to explain, more hypothesising, experimentation, and application of the scientific method is employed in order to find the best explanation for it. If it discredits or makes the original theory obsolete, then the old theory is thrown out in favour of a better one. This is how scientific method works. This has not happened to the theory of evolution as a whole.

The general public may have different levels of understanding of the theory, have read different studies on it and seen different evidence supportng it, and therefore believe different things about what the theory says. This does not change the fact that in it's current state it is the best explanation and most widely accepted explanation we have for how speciation and changes to dna occur over generations of living things.

When I observe the complexity of life and the universe, and see that life has never ever been proven to come from non-life, and organization from disorder, something from nothing, I make the informed choice to reject the idea as false.

That is of course your prerogative, however you should be made aware that abiogenesis has been proven possible through experiment. Furthermore, evolution says nothing about the origin of life, it only seeks to explain what is observed to happen to life. As for order from disorder, that is entropy, kind of, and applies to the realm of physics, a separate field to evolutionary biology.

Now there is always a smart aleck that will say, will if something never came from nothing, where did God come from? And one would reason logically, will he never had a beginning. Well how is that possible? If something never came from nothing? They would repeat themselves. Well, simply put, he never had a beginning he always was.

There is no scientific theory that says anything about the nature of God. This isn't really related to evolution at all, i fear you are getting off track here.. I can accept a God that has no beginning and no end, but if He created the universe, he must have created it out of something, not nothing, as you have pointed out..

Now these same people are willing to believe the the universe, or whatever the universe came from always existed. Because, if you get them to reason just a tiny tiny bit, you can help the see that something has always been in order for us to be here today.

One of the simplest theories currently being developed through string theory is that the beginning of our universe, the big bang, was the result of a collision between two "parent universes". This would of course require the existence of multiple universes, which is mathematically probable.

Now if you say the universe is eternal, they will accept that. Even though we know the universe had a beginning. Now if you say whatever caused the universe to exist always has been, they will accept that, if you tell them that "something" couldn't think.

But as soon as you use the most logical thing to conclude, that someone with a thinking mind always existed and at a certain point caused our universe into existence they will whole-hardheartedly reject the notion as fairy-tale nonsense, and their thinking ability breaks down.

"Someone with a thinking mind always existed and at some point caused our universe into existence" is rightly rejected by those seeking a plausible explanation for the beginning of our universe that can be verified or at least has some supporting physical evidence to observe and study. Occam's razor slices this concept apart unfortunately, as it requires a multitude of assumptions and raises considerably more questions that are unanswerable, than the one question it is supposed to be answering.

It is the opinion of myself and most theoretical physicists that the most logical thing to conclude is that our universe was born from a collision between two other universes, which in turn were born the same way.. Taking the current age of the universe, going on 14billion years, and extrapolating that back over generations of universes, the time scales become so massive that for all practical purposes, universes have always existed..

Our universe was born and will die. It is entirely possible, if not probable, that our universe is the product of the same evolution we ourselves are in the process of. It is possible our universe is the first in long line to evolve to the point of being capable of producing life. It is equally possible our universe is one of many to produce life.

The fact that there is no observable evidence for God to experiment and hypothesise on, outside of a number of historical myths and publications, is the only reason scientific method can not say whether He exists or not.

Scietific method only studies what is observable and replicatable through experiment, it does not disprove, disparage, or undermine the idea of God, nor does it seek to. Science simply makes no comment whatsoever on the matter. If only religious fundamentalists and biblical literalists would extended the same courtesy, arguments like the one in the op would not exist.

a reply to: randyvs

I don't understand evolution.

About this gang of monkey typing at random on writing machine and eventually writing a masterpiece...

Well here the "splaining"

Evolution is like a random generator, random mutation are done everywhere.

Then, the random mutation are passed thru some kind of filter called "natural selection". By brute force, every combination are tryied and "filtered" by "only the fittest stay alive and reproduce", not hard to understand don't you think?

About those typing monkey, they type at random many caracters. Sometime these caracters form coherent words, then only those words are kept, then those words provided at random will sometime form coherent phrases. Those phrases will be kept by the evolution filtering, and eventually theses phrase will form with time, coherent paragraph that will be kept by evolution filtering.

This is not hard to understand... Natural selection is like an incremential filter, only what provide a survival/reproductive advantage is amplified, everything else is attenuated.

I'll just sit here for a thousand years or so and wait for people to maybe learn a teeny bit more about those things they have no real real understanding of.

I do know I don't actually know all that much about anything in particular....

Maybe jump into the conversation when somebody comes up with a new theory to consider.

Theology literally means the science of theory doesn't it?, at least evolutionary theory is a bit more forthcoming about the whole deal as it is called "Evolutionary Theory" all the time by people who know a lot more stuff about things than I do.

Sometimes I find some of these threads hard to wrap my head around.

originally posted by: MyHappyDogShiner
Theology literally means the science of theory doesn't it?, at least evolutionary theory is a bit more forthcoming about the whole deal as it is called "Evolutionary Theory" all the time by people who know a lot more stuff about things than I do.

Sometimes I find some of these threads hard to wrap my head around.

Well, technically, theology comes from the Latin "theologia" meaning "reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity". So I guess you could call it the science of God and the nature of religious thought, if you were so inclined. It isn't a physical "science" however, more like a kind of study of religious philosophy and teaching..

Evolutionary biology on the other hand is a physical science, based on observable and verifiable/falsifiable results.

The two aren't really comparable, any more than astrophysics is to etymology.

I think the fact a lot of people think evolution concerns the origin of life, or the universe, is what makes it hard for some to wrap their head around. Evolution is only about what we can clearly see happens to life, once it's here. I think the problem biblical literalists have with it is that it seems to contradict God creating the animals as they are as described in the bible.. But it's not the theory of evolution they actually have a problem with, it's the evidence, the irrefutable proof in the world around us that we can clearly observe and examine and build solid scientific theories on, that contradicts some of the stories in the bible..

P.s. I'm sorry about your dog

originally posted by: VoidHawk
Sometimes when I read your threads I cant help but wonder if your sitting at your computer with a bottle Jack d
Not all your threads, but some of them.

if it comes down to a choice?
Christ or evolution?

What about aliens?

I'm with aliens.

That simply puts you back to square one because where did the aliens come from ?

originally posted by: ParasuvO

It has EVERYTHING to do with it, all of the time.

Then maybe you can show me where evolution deals with how life formed on earth? They are two wholly separate issues.

Even the Original Poster agrees. Try to follow along.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: ParasuvO

It has EVERYTHING to do with it, all of the time.

Then maybe you can show me where evolution deals with how life formed on earth? They are two wholly separate issues.

Even the Original Poster agrees. Try to follow along.

Masons have to believe in a higher being. To try and make yourself out as a mason and defend evolution is stupid.

originally posted by: JackReyes

Masons have to believe in a higher being. To try and make yourself out as a mason and defend evolution is stupid.

Why? You think you have any idea what my spiritual beliefs happen to be Captain Over-Generalization?