Evolution and Science Acceptance

[Princess Bubblegum]

I suggest a new strategy for arguing against evolution:
"I am not any more intelligent than a caveman, so evolution must not occur!"

Not arguing, but random facts for 'cavemen' before we start throwing the word around.

-fire was invented by homo ergaster, who did not live in caves
-early modern homo sapiens lives in caves, but there were just as intelligent as anyone alive today, they spoke, drew, buried their dead, ect. If you met one today, they would be equivalent to a hill-billy.
-spoken word is believed to have been made by homo heidelbergensis (which is the ancestor of homo sapiens and homo neanderthalis), although it may have had its origins earlier in homo ergaster
-Neanderthals were about as smart as regular people today, they had even bigger brains than us, they are even believed to be better speakers than us and there is evidence than they even sung. Their downfall is the lack of innovation and communication between groups. They are our cousins, not our ancestors.
-the wheel was invented by the Babylonians (I hate popular culture)

 

[Glen]

 

[vonFiedler]

i never said you weren't a true christian; your claims in this thread simply led me to believe that you were atheist. i apologize for my assumption. now please read my bible verses?

In that we were directly or indirectly endowed with intelligence and creativity, I wholeheartedly believe that God is the muse that inspires all works. That doesn't mean that I hold The Lord of the Rings or Twilight (both written by Christians) to be absolute truths. The Bible has the same authority as any other written scripture has; the authority it commands through its own words. The teachings and philosophies of Jesus Christ demand this authority in my own opinion. The interpretations of his disciples, those of the church, and those of the old testament, these are fine to read and consider but I don't find the old testament to be of literal or even metaphorical significance. The stories are only historically and culturally significant to understand your own religion better (and frankly so is Zoroastrianism).

And don't quote Timothy to me, the Bible can't affirm its own truth that is clearly circular logic.

 

[moonbound]

There's no contradiction between religion and scientific theories because the Bible (especially the Old Testament) consists of many spiritualistic, symbolic stories that were created to reveal greater religious truths to the often uneducated Hebrews and early Christians. Was all of existence created in 6 periods of 24 hours with each species created individually? Science says no, but that doesn't mean the Bible is inaccurate or fundamentally wrong. The creation stories were written by a group of people who had no concept of the inter-relatedness of species, and their purpose was to show the people that they owed everything to the one, giving creator God, not to provide an accurate depiction of scientific history (which would have been of almost no concern to an ancient nomadic people). The Church prescribes to the religious truths revealed by scripture, not to the historical accuracy of every story used to reveal those truths (that doesn't mean nothing in the Bible ever happened, it's likely that a significant portion, including a near-majority of the New Testament, recounts real events in ways that reveal spiritual meaning). Since providing evidence from actual Church doctrine would be a pain here is a decent summary of the Church's official stance (specific to Catholic denomination, I'm aware that different denominations follow different interpretations of Christian teaching).

 

[ssbbm]

i never said you weren't a true christian; your claims in this thread simply led me to believe that you were atheist. i apologize for my assumption. now please read my bible verses?

hi this is off topic but pwnemon do you also not wear clothing made of different materials????????????

also doesn't natural selection imply evolution?
a small change + a small change + a small change + a small change = a big change

theory of evolution can be reconciled with religious beliefs iirc pope benedict believes in evolution

Is it reasonable to allow a candidates views on evolution to affect your vote? yes because if they don't believe in evolution they are probably stupid

Is the theory of evolution the best explain of biological diversity and the origin of the human species?
its the most supported by "the scientific community" atm

 

[Stratos]

hi this is off topic but pwnemon do you also not wear clothing made of different materials????????????

every time someone says this i secretly believe they are spies put there by the church to weed out the people who actually know their scripture because there's a perfect defense right in Acts 10:

"13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat. 14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common."


in which God in a vision says those things that were proclaimed unclean in Leviticus have been cleansed and are now available for Christians to consume freely (and, presumably, Jews, but of course they don't believe the new testament so sucks to suck i guess)

also: 1 Cor 6:12

"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient"

in which Paul is responding to a debate over whether old jewish customs are to be observed, and says in essence "you don't have to, but don't be a jerk about it."

now obviously these are just possible interpretations of the word, since it is much less clear than other passages (such as genesis 1), but it is the interpretation i hold to. so dont go asking if i eat shellfish either.


EDIT: oh and to respond to your second point, that's not necessarily true. small + small + small + small CAN equal big but only if given enough time, and if the model holds. evolution is basically taking the natural selection we /can/ observe and extrapolating it back a couple billion years. statisticians are afraid to extrapolate a couple years. going back a couple billion and expecting the model to always hold without any interruption or catastrophe is a bit silly. EDIT2: basically what lati0s said

 

[lati0s]

also doesn't natural selection imply evolution?
a small change + a small change + a small change + a small change = a big change

Natural selection implies that evolution is possible but without other forms of evidence it doesn't prove that it happened.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

No offense, but anyone who claims that the bible shows the periods of time used to make the Earth is either scientifically illiterate, or hasn't read the bible:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Disregarding that you can't have an evening or morning or day and night... if there isn't a planet, yes there was light soon after the universe was created.

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” 7 And God made the expanse and separated the waters that were under the expanse from the waters that were above the expanse. And it was so. 8 And God called the expanse Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

I guess the first passage just refers to the making of the sun because here he starts on earth, but I guess we can let billion years slide, why not. The rest of this is ok, although first there was land (and before that lava), then water. The sky as we know it does fall in after the water.

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

Plants were not the first life (especially not fruit bearing plants). The only point here is pants were the first on "land," wo ho.

nd God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

Wait, so now this guy creates the sun after the Earth, wait no the rest of the fucking universe after the earth. Let us not forget that he makes the entire fucking universe in one day, yet takes 5 days to make the Earth. I hate to break it to you, but Earth isn't that special. Oh and the moon was made before plants to.

And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

So fucking wrong, simply put: water life -> plants as food -> plants ON LAND -> animals on land -> birds -> Man -> livestock.

Stop saying Gensis is right in any fucking way.

and before I get some nut up my ass saying Ive never read the bible, I have indeed read all of Genesis, the best comedy out there, seriously if you need a good joke book give it a gander

 

[Codraroll]

I think the theory of evolution is the best we've got, at any rate. In the scientific community, there's a wide consensus that evolution does occur.

I don't know if anybody have made and presented a proper hypothesis for an alternative to evolution, but if so I'd like to see it. One that doesn't point at evolution every other turn and says "That is wrong", but presents its own explanation and the evidence for it without wasting time bashing alternate theories. Keep in mind that a theory succeeding another would have to take all the data into account, and also explain why the other theory was accepted for so long, and where it failed.

Also, it seems to me that the so-called "scientific, independent evidence" for Creationism can be applied to every form of creationism. The stuff that points to Genesis can also point to the writings of Snorri, to the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or into the void. Even if we prove that the world was created, we have no means of telling what kind of creator was at work. According to the lore, there are tons of deities just as capable of world-creating as our friend JHVH. For all we know, Arceism might be true. Flood Geology that points to the Biblical flood, it might as well be Kyogre who was behind it.

If you first involve one god, or any supernatural deity, in your theory about the origins of everything, you open the floodgates of absurdity. If He can exist beyond the limits of the physically observable, why can't She? Or It? Or They?

And at any rate, scripture shouldn't be counted as any kind of evidence. "Because it says so in this book" is pretty much the worst argument ever in science.

 

[Chou Toshio]

I posted once saying basically the same thing already but honestly...

As a Christian (though admittedly not the most devout of Christians), I still don't get how fellow Christians can basically be incapable of reconciling their Christian faith with evolution. Honestly, it's not that hard. Just don't be an ass who shoves the Bible down your throat, your family's throat, or anyone else's throat as if it were the absolute truth in stone carved by God (it's not; if you've studied properly, you should know exactly why it's not). The writer's were not infallible; they were just as imperfect and capable of screwing up as the rest of us. THEY PROVE IT THEMSELVES IN THE SCRIPTURE (*cough*Judas*cough*). It's pretty obvious that not only is it an imperfect scripture (if you are trying to use it as a book of God's ultimate truths), but it's also pretty obvious that it's up to interpretation.

I don't think God intended for us to let scripture written thousands of years ago by handfuls of his followers over centuries dictate our every perception of the universe he made. I don't think he meant for this piece of literature, which he himself didn't even write, to become an intellectual and mental crutch to let us throw out thinking for ourselves. Certainly, if you believe that people have free will, as Christian doctrine says they do, than you must believe that God also gave us will in order to also take responsibility for our own perceptions of the world-- and be able to see truth, God's truth, as it's speaking to us in the face.

(And yes, there is a copy of the Origin of Species sitting on my desk as we speak, lol)

 

[Razza]

it wasnt so long ago that scientists were being persecuted and tortured by the catholic church for putting forward scientific theories that christians now accept and have the nerve to claim "were in the bible all along".

 

[vonFiedler]

it wasnt so long ago that scientists were being persecuted and tortured by the catholic church for putting forward scientific theories that christians now accept and have the nerve to claim "were in the bible all along".

No one will say that the Catholic Church weren't irrational shitbags from time to time.

But they also did a lot of fucking science. You might notice on the list some of the big names in developing the scientific method, and the priest who came up with the Big Bang theory.

You want to talk nerve? You want to revision history so that no religious person ever contributed to science, when for about a thousand years seminaries and jewish/muslim equivalents were one of the only ways to get an education. And even guys not on that list, like Newton and Kepler, weren't secretly not Christian or something, some of the smartest guys throughout the dark ages and the renaissance were often very eccentrically religious and formed their own unique opinions on the matter.

 

[billymills]

Please don't confuse an organisation doing something with adherants to that organisation doing something.

If you want to talk lists of Popes with scientific discoveries or lists of scientific research funded by the catholic church, then you can talk about the Catholic church doing science.

And education was restricted to seminaries and temples because it allowed religions to maintain hegemony over it. The smartest people at the time were religious because they were the only ones with access to education.

 

[vonFiedler]

You could have at least read the list Billy.

Two Popes.
Numerous positions appointed by the church.
All were scientists AND clergymen/theologists which is in fact the point of the list, not scientists who happen to be Christian.

And education was restricted to seminaries and temples because it allowed religions to maintain hegemony over it. The smartest people at the time were religious because they were the only ones with access to education.

Not untrue, but seeing as I brought it up in response Razza's claims what is your point?

 

[billymills]

You can't provide a list of names of 100 christians and then claim they are all evidence that the Catholic church does science when all of 2 of the people on the list actually qualify. Most of the list isn't even Catholic.

The fact that they were scientists and priests/theologists is simply a result of the church being heavily involved in facets of education at the time, as I've already stated.

 

[vonFiedler]

I'm not a Catholic.

But I've heard that more than Popes have significant roles in their organization. I mean they can say it all comes down to the Pope and God but you and I know an organization usually involves multiple people. Again, it helps to read up on some of these people.

Most of the list isn't even Catholic.

Ah, I see you've caught onto the color coding. I guess there is no fooling you.

 

[billymills]

Don't condescend to me.

Razza claims the Catholic Church cracked down on scientists and science.

You come up with a list of Christians who have done science. I am arguing the fact that they are Christian is irrelevant to the matter and does not remotely detract from Razza's claim that the Catholic Church has historically had an anti-science position.

 

[vonFiedler]

Well there's your problem. Razza made two claims and so you think I must be arguing with everything he said and not just half of it. Which is weird, cause I opened by calling the Catholic Church irrational shitbags. Maybe the wording there was too vague. The list is indeed as a good a list for learning about the Christian contribution to science as it is at pointing out some of the offenses against it. But for his "meme" assertion that Christians have done nothing for science but "claim it is in the bible", that is what I detract from. I don't, and the Clergy Letter plainly does not "claim that evolution is in the bible". How could it fucking be? People didn't know about it thousands of years ago.

If I had to guess, I'd say that his little flowchart was made by a high school student with a vague understanding of Galileo and Darwin. Not that heliocentrism took 200 years to be accepted, but it's the jump to generalize here that I am refuting. While Roger Bacon was under house arrest for a few years, his christian contemporaries were still fast to embrace the forming scientific method with him.

 

[J-man]

let's make this distinction early in this potentially long thread. In order for a theory to have any sense or credibility, it has to have evidence to support it. If you can provide one scientific, peer-reviewed study based upon observable evidence that supports creationism, it can be accepted as a sensible and intelligent theory with credibility.

go on, I'll wait.

This is an "Evolution and Science acceptance" Thread. It has nothing to do with creation. And such I am arguing against evolution and not for anything. In any case, creationism is derived from a christian worldview, not a naturalistic one. Thus, it is not fully and solely described by science. It would include science, but it would also encompass areas such as philosophy and history as proofs. Providing such a theory in this thread would lead to a breakdown and derailment of the thread.

 

[omgocd]

"let's try to describe the natural world without a 'natural worldview' so we don't need evidence"

 

[Razza]

You want to talk nerve? You want to revision history so that no religious person ever contributed to science, when for about a thousand years seminaries and jewish/muslim equivalents were one of the only ways to get an education. And even guys not on that list, like Newton and Kepler, weren't secretly not Christian or something, some of the smartest guys throughout the dark ages and the renaissance were often very eccentrically religious and formed their own unique opinions on the matter.

im glad you brought up the dark ages:

thank you christianity for your contributions to science throughout the centuries......

 

[v]

 

[Thorns]

WHO PLAYED BATMAN IN THE DARK KNIGHT?

az??

THAT'S RIGHT

CHRISTIAN MOTHERFUCKING BALE

CHECKMATE ATHEISTS

but yeah can we not post stuff from the atheism reddit lol

 

[Aura Guardian]

Hey, Razza. A few problems with that argument:

1) Reason, etc. was increasingly held high in the "Dark Ages"
2) The lack of science from Europe was not due to Christianity. It was due to the Latin West being cut off from its Greek roots / Fall of Rome
3) Deurbanization

Really, even cursory research showed that image to be horribly flawed, misleading, and incomplete. Yes, science fell entering that time. However, it was due to other causes. The argument also holds no water, in light of the schools - not there previously - managed by cathedrals, etc.

 

[Smith]

Just want to say that the term "theory" of evolution is very misleading, evolution is a theory like Germ theory is a theory, and we're past thinking that God sends us plagues. The only reason it's a theory and not a fact is that there's no way of totally proving it- but BEFORE you go quoting that out of context, if you have a campsite and the tent get torn up, your food is gone, there's claw marks on the tree nearby and there is what you can very clearly identify as bear shit where your tent used to be, chances are there was a bear.