Creation vs. Evolution

[H2Andy]

well, the "real" person is jewish: that's Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor

and then he plays various characters. Borat is a character supposed to be a reporter from Kazhakstan. he's got a bunch of funny skits, and now a movie coming out

go to YouTube and do a search for "Borat"

you'll find some of his stuff there ... its... well.... not family-friendly =)

Borat is anti-semitic and rather mysogenous (sp?). he's also homophobic.

here's a small taste:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVbIM5PvWyQ

 

[Cacia]

I will look...I keep hearing about him but live under a rock..on a rock.

 

[MikeFerrara]

that's a big if



but my point is, and i mean this sincerely, would i want to follow a God whose law means billions of human beings will fry?

isn't there something wrong with that?

to me, there is.

thus, i can't follow "that" version of the Christian God. either God is not worth following, or his "followers" got it wrong

I see some problems with your logic. If Christians have it right then you say God is not worth following. But...not to follow is to fry. It sounds to me like it is worth following unless, of course, you think that willingly choosing to fry makes sense.

now for what i hope is not too much of an explosive comparison. if you are born into a land where it's ok to incinerate members of a particular race, do you say "hey, that's the law of the land" or do you say "wait a minute ... there's something wrong here?"

i hope it's the later

Now you switch from discussing tha laws of God to the laws of man. Fair enough. We live in a country where they will put you in jail of even fry you for not following the law.

How can you follow a government that would see fit to lock up or fry all those people simply for not following that law? If you rebel against this countries law there is a penalty. How wrong must that be? I know that I'd much rather be able to write my own laws. Do you think our government will accept that?

The problem between man and God is exactly that same sort of rebellion. Dispite mans ongoing rebellion, God still provides a fool proof way to be saved from it.

That fool proof way that God privided doesn't seem to suit you though. You apparently want to be able to come up with your own way and have God accept it.

Maybe you missed it in your reading of the Bible but that's what has repeatedly gotten men in trouble with God since the beginning.

God told Adam and Eve...don't eat that. Eve baught the surpents arguement that surely God didn't say that...and if he did, surely he didn't mean it. They ate. Eve blamed the surpent. Adam blamed Eve and even tried to pin it on God for having given Eve to him in the first place.

Cain offered God the fruits of his own labor determined that it should be good enough. It wasn't. Even though God explained to Cain that he would be accepted if he did well and that sin was at the door if he didn't, he continued in his rebellion and got himself in deeper.

David, Solomon, Moses and others all decided at one time or another that their own way was better than Gods way. The whole nation of Isreal (not to mention other nations) continuously rebelled and payed the price.

To make the nature of this rebellion absolutely clear God then includes reams and reams of text explaining, in detail, the folly of putting mans wisdom above Gods.

So yes after the many many crystal clear illustrations and explainations, the repeated chances and finally the implimentation of a perfect and fool proof plan to save us from ourselves, those who still insist on open rebellion against God will finally end up punished. Not fair?

But, what is really the nature of that punishment. Is it the physical pain of burning in a lake of fire? I don't know exactly what portion of suffering would be from physical pain but I do believe that the lions share of the suffering will come from being eternally seperated from God. By the time anyone recieves a sentance of eternal seperation from God, I don't think there will be any doubt that it was their choice.

 

[Soggy]

I wonder, were apples even around at the dawn of the human race for Adam to eat?

 

[chrisch]

Chris

 

[mikerault]

For you "The <insert prefered version of Bible> is the Absolute word of God" types out there I suggest:

"Misquoting Jesus - The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why" by Bart D. Ehrman who is considered one of the worlds most knowledgable Bibical Scholars.

Mike

 

[Thalassamania]

Video Richard Dawkins speaks with Ted Haggard, the defrocked Preacher

 

[MikeFerrara]

I wonder, were apples even around at the dawn of the human race for Adam to eat?

Who said it was an apple?

 

[Soggy]

Who said it was an apple?

Hmm, I always thought it was, but doing a search, I guess it just says fruit. My mistake.

 

[Warthaug]

Wow, go away for 2 days and I'm 10 pages behind (

I'm not the only one that feels that way. Cool!


This is good. I'm learning something here. Thans Bryan. (Also for those links).

From one link given:
There are a variety of different species concept currently in use by biologists.

Ahh - this helps to clear things up.... um - actually, it makes it more confusing. Now when I'm talking to you (or anyone else) about species on this thread, (or kinds) we'll have to have a footnote describing what we mean by our 'term' species. I guess it's no different to different people having a different take on the word 'theory'.

Actually, the other definitions for species are due to the complexity of life, rather than any controversy in science. After all, the traditional definition of species doesn't work for organisms which don't have sex, or self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. Since these organisms account for ~99% of life on earth, our traditional definitions simply do not work.

Also, there are certain specific definitions for species used to describe specific characteristics. For example, there is a definition (which I've forgotten) for species which genetically are the same species, but won't breed with each other (i.e. due to behavior). A chewawa vs wolf would be an example of that.

I'm beginning to think that maybe one of the problems with this conversation is that we're trying to relate to each other, while we're thinking of different descriptions of "Evolution".

A lot of the creationist/evolutionist debate surrounds the creationists trying to redefine the terminology of evolution. Thing is, evolution is a scientific concept, so any definition outside of what science uses is incorrect. Many of your posts are a good example of this - you mis-use terminology, and based on that I end up having to try and define it for you properly, rather then countering the actual point.

I've never disagreed that life changes. My understanding is that when the changes occur, it is loss (or corruption) of information in the Gene pool. Some times this might have a temporary benefit - but in the end the information passed on has decayed / deteoriated - instead of being enhanced.
[/QUOTE

This is simply incorrect. Many of the articles I pointed you to demonstrated mutations which lead to new function, hence INCREASED (enhanced) genetic content of that species. Plus, you have to understand that many mutations will dramatically increase the amount of DNA in an organism - insertional mutation and duplication mutations being examples of that.

This once again goes with my understanding. You make call them new species of flies. Ok - as discussed above, what someone calls a species may be different from another. They're still flies.

But they are a different species. If what you think is needed to prove evolution actually occurred (i.e. a fly giving birth to a cat) it would actually be a direct disproof of evolution. Evolutionary theory states, quite explicitly, that evolution occurs via descent my modification. What you are suggesting would have to happen to "prove" evolution would actually disprove the theory - a rapid and immediate changes in the overall form of the organism would disprove, rather then prove, the theory.

Further more - they have lost ability - not gained it. This agrees with the bible interpertation of a 'curse' on the universe - that things will contine to decay, and not the other way around.

And what exactly have they lost? They still have all of the characteristics of flys; they simply cannot breed with each other. But everything else works as it did before.

Seriously though - here's another example of mutation (as described by the webpages I found). The ant in this case has legs growing out of its head where the antenna were. This does not show new information being inserted into the structure of the ant - instead it's a corruption of information (double up of the 'leg' information being placed where the antenna are).

That is not entirely true. The information for the antenna is still there; what has happened is that where those genes (and the genes for legs) gets turned on has been changed. The original information is still there.

This is actually how most major structural changes occur. For example, the biggest difference between humans and chimps is how long the genes which regulate brain growth are active - in humans the brain continues to grow long after the brain of the chimp has. So we get bigger brains, and hence are smarter. But the genes behind that are pretty much the same.

Bryan