I feel sorry for all of you who don't believe in God. How can you
believe that all of this was created in any other way

For any of you who might be interested, have something new going in the
'are humans superior' topic. Mass, Invisible - check it out.

cheryllynn
Just because we dont buy into one theory or another
has nothing to do with belief in god...

Cheryllynn wrote:
“I feel sorry for all of you who don't believe in God. How can you
believe that all of this was created in any other way”

A belief in evolution does not rule out a belief in a god. It simply
reveals how god works.

I personally feel sorry for those who reject observational evidence in
favor of believing in unsubstantiated dogma.

You see, the existence of a god does not in any way support Christianity
or any similar dogma. Just because a god exists doesn’t mean that any
particular religion is correct.

Moreover, the existence of a god does not imply that any of the standard
beliefs of dogmatic religions are correct. God could, in fact, be
non-judgmental. God could actually be this universe and everything in
it including you and me.

In addition, by assuming the existence of a god you haven’t solved a
single solitary thing.

You ask how someone can believe that all of this was created any other
way like as if the answer to this question is entirely unthinkable?

Yet if the answer to the question is that god created all of this. Then
you’re immediately stuck with the question, “Well then who created god?”
Who is god’s god?

If you pass that off by saying, “Oh well god didn’t need a creator”

Then you’re right back where you started from. Why bother taking the
extra step to being with? Why not just say, “Oh well the universe
didn’t need a creator”.

Invoking a god as the explanation of the universe gets you nowhere.
Then you’re just stuck with the fact that god that has no explanation.
A belief in a god doesn’t provide an explanation for anything. That’s
really nothing more than just throwing your hands up in the air and
saying, “I give up, there must be a god because I can’t explain all of
this”.

So you’ve just swept the problem underneath a rug that you call ‘god’?

You haven’t provided any more answers than you had before you swept it
all under the carpet.

So why you are feeling sorry for people who are at least willing to ask
questions is totally beyond me.

I personally feel sorry for the people who give up on asking the
questions.

And yet, once again, you dismiss valid questions. Come on, abra, I've
asked repeatedly- how would wings evolve? Don't give large vagueries.

Give specific points as to how nonfunctional biological features, which
by all evidence in modern observation tend to atropy and eventually
vanish. Might instead grow larger?


Consider this an attempt to educate people. Because I've been looking
for an answer to that question since highschool. There may very well be
a good natural explanation- no one's given it, to my knowlege.

Hell, even Darwin himself acknowleged "irreducibly complex" systems.
Aka- things that could not evolve, because if you take away one thing
from them, they are useless. Examples include eyes, ears, and the
circulatory system.

A direct, confirmable quote from Darwin himself- go ahead, look around.

"To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for
adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely
confess, absurd in the highest degree."

Poetnartist wrote:
“Give specific points as to how nonfunctional biological features, which
by all evidence in modern observation tend to atropy and eventually
vanish. Might instead grow larger?”

“which by all evidence in modern observation”?

Give my a link to your source for this.

You’re starting out with bogus information no wonder you’re confused.

If you want to be educated you need to begin with the facts.

damn. those monkeys are back and they are up and running.

What "links"? I didn't get this information off the internet. Have you
ever actually READ "The Origins of Species"? Do you even know what
"Irreducibly complex" means? The laws of natural selection states that
useless traits tend to vanish. So unless wings have an evolutionary
benefit *LONG* before they become flight (or even glide) capable- they
can't come into existence.


This isn't source necessary. It's biology 101 and having intelligence
and free will exceeding that of a lemming. Stop following your dogma and
actually look at the question.

Poetnartist wrote:
“It's biology 101”

Well that explains everything.

Biology 101 is just an introduction to biology. Darwin’s own personal
theories were just the early beginnings of the theory. It has come a
long way since then.

If you’re reading Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species” then you’re only
seeing the very beginning of what actually led up to the theory of
evolution as we know it today.

Darwin merely gave birth to the theory, he didn’t have it down pat. In
fact many of the specific guesses that he made were incorrect in their
details. This is the way science progresses.

The term “Irreducible complexity” (IC) is a term that people use to
argue against evolution and in favor of Intelligent Design. However,
their argument doesn’t hold water, because an argument for Intelligent
Design can’t be used to disprove evolution. It can always be understood
that the Intelligent Design came first in the form and shape of the
atoms and the laws of physics. So any arguments against evolution that
use Intelligent Design as their premise simply don’t hold water.

Evolution and Intelligent Design can coexist quite easily. However,
that type of Intelligent Design is not what religious people would like
because it introduces randomness as in throwing the dice that I posted
about before. In other words, that kind of Intelligent Design did not
necessarily have humans as a goal.

In any case, if you’re interested in some explanations of how wings
evolved here are some sites you might try.

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates/flight/enter.html

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0611/feature4/

I think they explain things quite well to anyone who is genuinely open
to the theory.

Poetnartist wrote:
“The laws of natural selection states that useless traits tend to
vanish”

“tend to vanish” does not mean that they will necessarily vanish. If
they don’t actually hinder anything there’s no reason for them to be
selected out.


Poetnartist wrote:
“So unless wings have an evolutionary benefit *LONG* before they become
flight (or even glide) capable- they can't come into existence”

The National Geographic article suggests precisely this. It is believed
that wings did indeed have evolutionary benefit *LONG* before they
became capable of flight (or even glide). It is well-known that all
birds use their wings in mating dances. They could easily have used
their early stubs to attracted mates *LONG* before they could fly.
Attracting makes will obviously have a huge benefit for their survival.

So there you have it. You’re question has been answered. Early
flightless wings were used for attracting mates *LONG* before the
animals could fly and therefore gave the animals an evolutionary benefit
(Attracting mates is an evolutionary benifit). The article also suggest
that any wing is better than no wing at all for escaping predators. If
a stubby wing helps you jump just a *little bit* further than your
predator that’s an advantage. Getting away saves your life.

So there's your answer.

Anymore questions?

Irreducibly complex isn't necessarily an "intelligent design" argument.
It isn't even a *typically* ID theory. A great many expert biologists
have acknowleged the existence of irreducibly complex traits. Eyes,
ears, and the circulatory system are the three big ones in humans. There
are many "rapid evolution" theories that state the possibility of a
species making massive evolutionary leaps in a single generation.

And, even if in birds (and those are painfully weak arguments- perhaps
possible, but still grasping at a barely existent straw), what of the
afformentioned flying squirrels- and my personal favorite- bats? Neither
of those examples use their "wings" for mating dances. And anyone who
knows anything about physics could tell you a flying squirrel's
membranes are *barely* good enough. Any smaller, and you've got a
falling squirrel.


Plus, again, the all-time favorite example- EYES. You're using them to
read this information, presumably. Human eyes, admittedly, are
reducible. We can drop a copied nerve pattern and become black-and-white
vision. But therein lies the crux.

We have the light receptors- those are well and good- and we have
(extremely special) nerves to bring this information to the brain. And
then we have the brain receptors, themselves. Remove any of these, and
vision doesn't work. Irreducibly complex. Unless you want to try to
claim three otherwise useless traits all spontaneously evolved at the
same time.


And that's entirely without going into the monocellular stage. Even the
bio-scientists freely admit that cells are irreducibly complex. In fact,
even the most simplistic cell has a "9 point" irreducible featuring.
Including cell membranes, organelle placement, osmosis functions,
metabolic regulators, RNA assembly, DNA itself, protien sorting
functions.... and a few other things. Remove a single one of those
things- and the cell dies, period. There's no possible way that the
first cells that appeared (however in the hell that occured) without all
of those things- if missing even one, it'd die before doing anything.
Much less reproducing.

No rational person could consider all of that occuring at once to be
POSSIBLE. And even if it did- it's even less likely that those traits
would be "attuned" to each other enough to successfully interact. Me
inventing a time machine, then going back and cranking it into the
primordial ooze is a more rational theory of cellular origins.

So in other words you were never really interested in having your
question answered to begin with.

You just want to argue for the sake of arguing.

I don’t have time to waste on that nonsense.

You claimed to have a ‘show-stopper’ of why evolution could not possibly
be true.

It has been explained to you why your ‘show-stopper’ is not a
‘show-stopper’ at all.

Your original assertion was wrong.

You were wrong.

Period.

It doesn’t have to be *proven* that wings were used for mating to
disprove your assertion. All that needed to be shown is that there are
a rational and plausible reasons for how wings *could* have evolved over
more than one generation to disprove your claim that they couldn’t.
That’s been done.

If you can’t even admit (or see) that your original claim has been
invalidated then there’s not much sense in talking with you any further.
Why bother? It’s like talking to a brick wall.

You just want to argue for the sake of arguing.

Invisible has you pegged!

You lost this argument. Your initial assertion was WRONG!

I’m not going to sit here and let you pretend that you weren't defeated.

>> damn. those monkeys are back and they are up and running.

I believed in evolution, but my whole family believed in creation (Roman
Catholics),




Izzy

poetnartist......


i cannot be bothered to go thru the massive and detailed study to give
you the answers you seek...but they are there.
i suggest you do as has been recommended...and educate yourself, as it
is seriously evident you are lacking in that area.


for beginners....The Structure of Evolutionary Theroy, by Jay Gould


that ought to keep you busy and quiet for awhile

cheryllynn ... why do you feel the need for sorrow for us who dont
believe?

We don't need eyes or ears. There are many species of this planet that
had them to begin with, the traces of the outlines are still there, the
socket of the eye still remains, however, they exist today, sightless
and or without the ability to hear, at least as we do. These creatures
survive today, having 'de-evolved' from that which Poet says we need.

Here is why we do in fact need these things. Because we have built a
society that requires them. If we lived in the wild as other creatures
do, we would find a way to survive, a place to survive. Obviously we
would not be the creatures we are today, for we would have evolved other
protections or maybe even other senses that may actually be laying
dormant right now, deep in the recesses of our minds, or our cells.

Now here's a neat concept - think of all time and space existing all at
once, without order as we view it, without the liniar forward only
motions. Would humans become extinct, have we become extinct, or will
we, did we, do we simply evolve into something less than, other than,
the nature of that thing we call human?

For those who believe in a seperate God, imagine it's view of the
universe applicable to the concept above. Now ask yourself, are we
superior or are we one faction in the mix of its creation of all the
time and space of that one seperate being?

Of course, for those protecting the safety net of their safe place "God
knows all, God will protect me, God has reasons beyond my understanding"
they will come to only one conclusion. That they were never meant to
dwell on such thoughts, for it is not theirs to have this knowledge, and
besides, what would they do with such knowledge, the can not supercede
anything that God deems anyway. AND OF COURSE THIS WILL LEAD TO some
reason why they think God made us superior.
For this is interwoven into the mesh of that same safety net that leads
them to belief in the first. To be logical about one is to deny the
other.

There is not a right or wrong answer, there is only a will to seek the
knowledge or the will to continue on a path more easily accomplished.

The winners and loosers of the superior topic is everything and everyone
that is affected only by actions and reactions that each individual adds
to the chain of events in a lifetime.

Superior or not means little, how you view your stand on this topic and
the effects of all the actions, reaction and inaction is how "we" humans
will be judged by the threads that bind the universe, no matter your
concept of the Label by which you refer to these threads.

That's what happens when people run out of good arguments. They insult
the opposing side and then give up.

still waiting for just one piece of evidence that disproves creationism.
it dont exist, apparantly.... hmmmmmm
abra is long winded if nothing else.

Well, if it does exist, no human's found it yet. I've said repeatedly
that there very well may be a natural explanation to the gaps in
evolution.

It's certain gaps exist, so much so that many evolutionary scientists
have "evolutionary leap" theories tagged onto evolution. That sometimes,
a species will undergo a million's years worth of "natural selective"
changes in a single generation. Which is more or less proven true- just
lacking in a HOW or WHY yet.

These leaps may be divine intervention. And they may be another, as yet
undiscovered, natural phenomenon.



For almost a century, "scientists" refused to believe the stories of
Yellowstone. That the legends spoken by the native americans was just
more mythology. Even after Lewis and Clark visited the place, most
people considered their claims to be fanciful and innacurate.

I defy anyone to claim the geological events of Yellowstone are fantasy
these days.

evolution means changing from one species to another. havent seen one
example of it that wasent a hoax. when we learn, or become resistant to
a disease, we are still human. the fossil record clearly shows a given
species comming to life, existing for a time, then becoming extinct.
exactly what the bible claims.