Poll : Do you accept the current theory of Evolution.[Christians Only Please.]

Turtwig

Just simple Yes or No's please.

Please do not post detailed replies here.
If you want to discuss it further pop over to the BCP whopper thread.

Wiki wrote:

evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a process that can result in the emergence of new species

It being the 150th anniversary, I wanted to get a slice of the Christian Demographic we have here.

monosharp

No.

Malty_T wrote: »

[Christians Only Please.]

Ah crap! Can someone (PDN/FANNY) remove my vote ? Sorry I am half asleep.

Turtwig

monosharp wrote: »

Ah crap! Can someone (PDN/FANNY) remove my vote ? Sorry I am half asleep.

No worries.
(I don't think they can remove votes though?)

Fanny Cradock

No.

Sorry, we can't remove votes already cast.

I fully accept the theory of evolution. However, I also would add the proviso that God can - if he chooses - direct it to his end.

Fanny Cradock

No.

I've posted it before in the B,C&P thread, but I wonder what those Christians rejecting evolution make of this talk by Revd Dr Ernest Lucas?

(Apologies if this is derailing your thread, Malty)

Turtwig

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I've posted it before in the B,C&P thread, but I wonder what those Christians rejecting evolution make of this talk by Revd Dr Ernest Lucas?

(Apologies if this is derailing your thread, Malty)

Ehh, I think there's a error in that link.
Is this the correct one?

santing

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

I've posted it before in the B,C&P thread, but I wonder what those Christians rejecting evolution make of this talk by Revd Dr Ernest Lucas?

(Apologies if this is derailing your thread, Malty)

I couldn't get the talk so I looked up something else from Ernest Lucas. It is a very well written paper on Theistic Evolution, a position I would reject.

Sam Vimes

I think the poll would be better of with the options yes, no, and yes but god did it

Zombrex

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I think the poll would be better of with the options yes, no, and yes but god did it

Possibly complicate things as you get into the whole area of what God did and when. I think most if not all Christians would believe that ultimately God did everything, whether they believe in completely undirected natural evolution or evolution that is "tweaked" by God as it goes on.

Sam Vimes

Wicknight wrote: »

Possibly complicate things as you get into the whole area of what God did and when. I think most if not all Christians would believe that ultimately God did everything, whether they believe in completely undirected natural evolution or evolution that is "tweaked" by God as it goes on.

You're probably right, it would get too complicated. Maybe people can give details on the thread instead of having loads of poll options

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I think the poll would be better of with the options yes, no, and yes but god did it

Or maybe define what the theory of evolution actually encapsulates, then ask the question.

Is it:

A) Evolution has been observed to happen in nature whereby species adapt to changes in the their environment over time?

Or

Life organizes itself by unguided natural selection into the complexity we see today and all that is needed is a vast amount of time to get from the very first cell (which nobody knows or claims to know where it came from) to millions of different species over 3 billion years of lapsed time.

I have no problem with option A at all. B has a lot going for it but there are so many holes in it that I'd scarcely be regarding it as an un-refuted fact. Even the most basic cell embodies an ensemble of complexity that boggles the mind. To stick to the theory that life just trudges along by an unguided process called Natural Selection is not following the evidence where it is leading. Darwin could never have imagined the complexity of the simplest of cells. Closing the door on ID to the extent that it's not even regarded as a possible option to explain nature, and basing that postion on Darwin’s limited knowledge of even the simplest of cells, just seems a bit no, very much closed minded, which I feel even Darwin himself would not endorse if he were alive today. But even if it were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Darwinian Evolution is a fact, it wouldn’t affect my faith in the least, as my faith is not based on that theory being false anyway. I feel sorry for people whose faith is based on it being false, that's tragic. It is what Jesus referred to as building on sand.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Or maybe define what the theory of evolution actually encapsulates, then ask the question.

Is it:

A) Evolution has been observed to happen in nature whereby species adapt to changes in the their environment over time?

Or

Life organizes itself by unguided natural selection into the complexity we see today and all that is needed is a vast amount of time to get from the very first cell (which nobody knows or claims to know where it came from) to millions of different species over 3 billion years of lapsed time.

I have no problem with option A at all. B has a lot going for it but there are so many holes in it that I'd scarcely be regarding it as an un-refuted fact. Even the most basic cell embodies an ensemble of complexity that boggles the mind.

Life started out an awful lot simpler than a cell. The current theory is that the first self-replicating molecule was RNA, which can form naturally and was formed by scientists a few months ago:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16382-artificial-molecule-evolves-in-the-lab.html

Soul Winner wrote: »

To stick to the theory that life just trudges along by an unguided process called Natural Selection is not following the evidence where it is leading.

Firstly, natural selection is the guiding process and secondly it very much is where the evidence is leading, if you take the time to look at the evidence. It seems counter intuitive but it has been shown to have happened.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Darwin could never have imagined the complexity of the simplest of cells. Closing the door on ID at this stage based on Darwin’s limited knowledge of even the simplest of cells just seems a bit close minded,

The door has not been closed on ID because of closed mindedness, it has been closed because ID has spectacularly failed to show that it has any merit to it whatsoever. Have a look at this lecture from catholic scientist Ken Miller who was involved in the Dover trial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd5uqzlwsU

Soul Winner wrote: »

which I feel even Darwin himself would not endorse if he were alive today. But even if it were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Darwinian Evolution is a fact,

Which it has been

Soul Winner wrote: »

it wouldn’t affect my faith in the least, as my faith is not based on that theory being false anyway. I feel sorry for people whose faith is based on it being false, that's tragic. It is what Jesus referred to as building on sand.

Something I've been wondering is why christians who acknowledge the plain fact of evolution aren't as fervent as atheists in tackling the ID/creationist* movement. They're damaging both science and christianity with their antics.


*I put them together because they are about 99% the same thing, ID is what creationists came up with because creationism was ruled to be religious dogma and so not permissible in American schools

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Life started out an awful lot simpler than a cell. The current theory is that the first self-replicating molecule was RNA, which can form naturally and was formed by scientists a few months ago:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16382-artificial-molecule-evolves-in-the-lab.html

If life has a habit of spontaneously popping into existences then why does the theory of evolution point to one single occasion for this instead of multiple occasions? If it is so easy for the elementary particles of life to self assemble, then why is all life supposed to be descended from one single occurrence? Given the billions of years of time which has elapsed you'd think that it would have happened more than once, wouldn't you?

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Firstly, natural selection is the guiding process and secondly it very much is where the evidence is leading, if you take the time to look at the evidence. It seems counter intuitive but it has been shown to have happened.

Natural Selection is not a guided process. It is a blind and purposeless process with no goals or desired outcomes, i.e it doesn't know what will come out the other side, all that matters is that the organism/species survives.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The door has not been closed on ID because of closed mindedness, it has been closed because ID has spectacularly failed to show that it has any merit to it whatsoever. Have a look at this lecture from catholic scientist Ken Miller who was involved in the Dover trial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd5uqzlwsU

Watched it before, several times. He does a great job on Irreducible Complexity. I fail to see where he shuts the door on ID as an option to be tested with the same methods that other theories are tested. If the odds of the basic proteins for life just happening to come together are greater that the number of seconds in the universe by many orders of magnitude, then why the absolute resolute refusal to even give ID a foot in the science lab door? ID does not promote any particular God, nor does it even suggest that a God wass the designer, it just looks at the evidence and sees that life has to jump through a hell of a lot of loops in order to come about by itself. I'm not suggesting that ID is true, but surely it deserves a place in the LAB for testing at least? Nobody is trying to bring religion into the science lab or anything, that’s just scare mongering and false.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Something I've been wondering is why christians who acknowledge the plain fact of evolution aren't as fervent as atheists in tackling the ID/creationist* movement. They're damaging both science and christianity with their antics.

ID is not the same as Creationism and no matter how many times you try to make it so it is still not true.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

*I put them together because they are about 99% the same thing, ID is what creationists came up with because creationism was ruled to be religious dogma and so not permissible in American schools

So we need courts of law to prove that something be scientific or not? Darwin would spin in his grave. Anyway, who was the creationist who came up with ID?

Mark Hamill

Soul Winner wrote: »

If life has a habit of spontaneously popping into existences then why does the theory of evolution point to one single occasion for this instead of multiple occasions?

The theory of evolution has nothing to do with life spontaneously popping into existence, thats called abiogenisis. The theory of evolution doesn't even point only one common ancestor for all life on earth (which is what you meant, I'm sure), its simply that all the animals whose dna have been mapped have shown similaroties that point to a common ancestor.

Soul Winner wrote: »

If it is so easy for the elementary particles of life to self assemble, then why is all life supposed to be descended from one single occurrence?

Who said it was easy? Who said life hasn't started multiple times? The thing you have to remember, is that whichever life starts first is presumambly going to have a major advantage over any life that starts thousands or millions of years later so its possible that life started multiple times, but it was the first one, which because of its head start that became dominant and so other lifes couldn't evolve past simple rna or single cells. Again, this is abiogenesis though, not evolution.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Given the billions of years of time which has elapsed you'd think that it would have happened more than once, wouldn't you?

How many planets have you been to? For all we know, it has happened millions of times, just on other planets.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Natural Selection is not a guided process. It is a blind and purposeless process with no goals or desired outcomes, i.e it doesn't know what will come out the other side, all that matters is that the organism/species survives.

Gravity is not a guided process, it is a blind and purposeless process with no goals or desired outcomes, however it is the process that guides what happens when you fall. Likewise, natural selection is (part of) the process that guides what survives and what doesn't.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Watched it before, several times. He does a great job on Irreducible Complexity. I fail to see where he shuts the door on ID as an option to be tested with the same methods that other theories are tested. If the odds of the basic proteins for life just happening to come together are greater that the number of seconds in the universe by many orders of magnitude, then why the absolute resolute refusal to even give ID a foot in the science lab door? ID does not promote any particular God, nor does it even suggest that a God wass the designer, it just looks at the evidence and sees that life has to jump through a hell of a lot of loops in order to come about by itself. I'm not suggesting that ID is true, but surely it deserves a place in the LAB for testing at least? Nobody is trying to bring religion into the science lab or anything, that’s just scare mongering and false.

ID fails at the first hurdle: If something intelligently designed us then where did that thing come from? Either it itself is simpler than life on earth but still created it (something which contradicst irriducible complexity, thus contradicting ID) it itself evolved (which merely displaces evolution onto some other set of creatures with out any evidence for why you should do this), or it itself has always existed always with the power to creat us, making itself god ergo ID is either self contradiction, pointlessly overly complicated evolution or creationsim.

Soul Winner wrote: »

ID is not the same as Creationism and no matter how many times you try to make it so it is still not true.

As above. Yes its so plainly is.

Soul Winner wrote: »

So we need courts of law to prove that something be scientific or not? Darwin would spin in his grave.

Maybe out of joy.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Anyway, who was the creationist who came up with ID?

Behe and Minnich ripped it off the teleogical argument made up by Reverend Paley:

The Ruling of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Trial wrote:

"ID is not a new scientific argument, but is rather an old religious argument for the existence of God. He traced this argument back to at least Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, who framed the argument as a syllogism: Wherever complex design exists, there must have been a designer; nature is complex; therefore nature must have had an intelligent designer." "This argument for the existence of God was advanced early in the 19th century by Reverend Paley" (the teleological argument) "The only apparent difference between the argument made by Paley and the argument for ID, as expressed by defense expert witnesses Behe and Minnich, is that ID's 'official position' does not acknowledge that the designer is God."

Maybe the mods should move these posts into the BC&P thread, leave this thread for the poll?

pts

Soul Winner wrote: »

ID is not the same as Creationism and no matter how many times you try to make it so it is still not true.

According to the famous Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District it is. From page 31 of Judge Jones 139 page decision:

Judge Jones wrote:

Plaintiffs’ expert in the philosophy of science, concurred with Professor Haught and concluded that because its basic proposition is that the features of the natural world are produced by a transcendent, immaterial, non-natural being, ID is a religious proposition regardless of whether that religious proposition is given a recognized religious label. (5:55-56 (Pennock)). It is notable that not one defense expert was able to explain how the supernatural action suggested by ID could be anything other than an inherently religious proposition. Accordingly, we find that ID’s religious nature would be further evident to our objective observer because it directly involves a supernatural designer.
A “hypothetical reasonable observer,” adult or child, who is “aware of the history and context of the community and forum” is also presumed to know that ID is a form of creationism. Child Evangelism, 386 F.3d at 531 (citations omitted); Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 624-25. The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. What is likely the strongest evidence supporting the finding of ID’s creationist nature is the history and historical pedigree of the book to which students in Dover’s ninth grade biology class are referred, Pandas. Pandas is published by an organization called FTE, as noted, whose articles of incorporation and filings with the Internal Revenue Service describe it as a religious, Christian organization. (P-461; P-28; P-566; P-633;

EDIT: Good old Dover trial, you beat me to it Mark Hamill.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

If life has a habit of spontaneously popping into existences then why does the theory of evolution point to one single occasion for this instead of multiple occasions? If it is so easy for the elementary particles of life to self assemble, then why is all life supposed to be descended from one single occurrence? Given the billions of years of time which has elapsed you'd think that it would have happened more than once, wouldn't you?

No one said it was easy or common. But it's entirely possible that it happened millions of times but those occurrences got snuffed out by something or other and never made it past the first stage.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Natural Selection is not a guided process. It is a blind and purposeless process with no goals or desired outcomes, i.e it doesn't know what will come out the other side, all that matters is that the organism/species survives.

Blind and purposeless =/= unguided. It tries many different combinations and the ones that work survive and the ones that don't die. That is guidance.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Watched it before, several times. He does a great job on Irreducible Complexity. I fail to see where he shuts the door on ID as an option to be tested with the same methods that other theories are tested. If the odds of the basic proteins for life just happening to come together are greater that the number of seconds in the universe by many orders of magnitude, then why the absolute resolute refusal to even give ID a foot in the science lab door?

For a few reasons. Firstly what you're talking about is abiogenesis and not evolution and secondly, even if you prove abiogenesis and evolution wrong that does not make ID right. ID has been debunked, it's pseudo science and it will always be pseudo science. It's little more than an argument from ignorance, ie "I don't know how this could happen therefore it must have been intelligently guided". It's a flaw in human reasoning where we look for meaning and purpose in everything

Soul Winner wrote: »

ID is not the same as Creationism and no matter how many times you try to make it so it is still not true.

I can't remember where I read it now (I can look it up if you don't believe me) but there was a book on creationism and when it was ruled religious dogma they basically did a find and replace on the word "god" for "designer" and "creation" for "intelligent design". ID is creationism in a lab coat, it is creationism without the honesty to admit its true purpose.

pts

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I can't remember where I read it now (I can look it up if you don't believe me) but there was a book on creationism and when it was ruled religious dogma they basically did a find and replace on the word "god" for "designer" and "creation" for "intelligent design". ID is creationism in a lab coat, it is creationism without the honesty to admit its true purpose.

You're probably thinking of "Of Pandas and People" from the Dover trial

Judge Jones wrote:

As Plaintiffs meticulously and effectively presented to the Court, Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times, were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religious and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards. This word substitution is telling, significant, and reveals that a purposeful change of words was effected without any corresponding change in content .... The weight of the evidence clearly demonstrates, as noted, that the systemic change from “creation” to “intelligent design” occurred sometime in 1987, after the Supreme Court’s important Edwards decision.

Sam Vimes

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I can't remember where I read it now (I can look it up if you don't believe me) but there was a book on creationism and when it was ruled religious dogma they basically did a find and replace on the word "god" for "designer" and "creation" for "intelligent design". ID is creationism in a lab coat, it is creationism without the honesty to admit its true purpose.

Thera ya go:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/02/10/creation-science-and-intelligent-design-different-names-for-religious-theory.html

When ID got its own day in court in 2005 in the historic Kitzmiller case, the plaintiffs subpoenaed drafts of the book and discovered how the key terms had been switched after the 1987 Supreme Court decision against Creation-science. In draft, Pandas had been titled Creation Biology, and the concepts were familiar as well. For instance, in the published book ID was explained in this way:

Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact—fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. [Pandas 99-100]

But in the pre-1987 drafts, the prior creationist terminology had been used:

Creation means that various forms of life began abruptly through the agency of an intelligent Creator with their distinctive features already intact—fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. (Pandas draft pp 2-14, 2-15)

This kind of search-and-replace substitution was found throughout the book. Expert witness Barbara Forrest even unearthed a linguistic transitional form showing how the ID authors had slipped when doing a hasty cut-and-paste in the manuscripts. In trying to replace the term "creationists" at one point, they failed to select the whole word before pasting in the new term "design proponent," resulting in the hybrid "cdesign proponentists."

edit: They've certainly managed to convince me of cdesign proponentism

Turtwig

Arghh guys,

I gave the wiki definition in the OP.
Soul, if you really need to find out what evolution is then read a biology textbook - Ken Miller has written quite a few, so why not start with his?

Red Alert

No.

Abstractly viewed, both evolutionism and creationism are compatible to some extent. An extreme view either way isn't.

monosharp

No.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Or maybe define what the theory of evolution actually encapsulates, then ask the question.

Life organizes itself by unguided natural selection into the complexity we see today and all that is needed is a vast amount of time to get from the very first cell (which nobody knows or claims to know where it came from) to millions of different species over 3 billion years of lapsed time.

Or a better question, "Do you understand Evolution ?"

Because time and time again the people who support creationism/ID here have proven that they don't and even mix up parts of Evolution not just with abiogenesis but with astrophysics!

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

Or maybe define what the theory of evolution actually encapsulates, then ask the question.

Is it:

A) Evolution has been observed to happen in nature whereby species adapt to changes in the their environment over time?

Or

Life organizes itself by unguided natural selection into the complexity we see today and all that is needed is a vast amount of time to get from the very first cell (which nobody knows or claims to know where it came from) to millions of different species over 3 billion years of lapsed time.

Neither of those are Darwinian evolution.

B is sort of it but "unguided" is misleading (as is "first cell" as has already been pointed out), since evolution is guided by the environment in the same way a river's course is not unguided, it is guided by gravity and always ends up at the sea.

I think the Boards.ie poll system would break if we included all the misrepresentations and inaccurate ideas of what evolution is.

And people say there is no harm to Creationist propaganda

Soul Winner

Mark Hamill wrote: »

How many planets have you been to? For all we know, it has happened millions of times, just on other planets.

I was restricting my point to earth not to other planets, but as you have pointed out it could have happened millions of times on earth, I'm not disputing that, I'm just following the line of what the theory of evolution actually teaches, that all living things are descended from a common ancestor, that was Darwin's hypotheses not mine.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Gravity is not a guided process, it is a blind and purposeless process with no goals or desired outcomes, however it is the process that guides what happens when you fall. Likewise, natural selection is (part of) the process that guides what survives and what doesn't.

Gravity is a force and it's principles are constant everywhere in the universe as far as we know. Natural Selection is a completely different animal though. Changes in the environment due to cataclysmic events which drastically change the environment, dictate how life evolves. These events are random – unlike gravity - and life must continually adapt to the changes they create.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

ID fails at the first hurdle: If something intelligently designed us then where did that thing come from?

Is that supposed to be the best argument against ID? That the only way to determine if something is designed or not is to first find out who designed the designer? I'm not sure how that follows. If you were digging up your back garden tomorrow morning and found some arrow heads and coins made by a bygone civilization but you couldn’t determine which one it was, would you turn around and make the jump to the position that the coins and arrows were not designed by anyone because you could find out who the designers were? That's a terrible argument. We don't have to establish the identity of the designer or even who designed the designer in order to determine that something which can be observed in the lab has all the characteristic of being designed. Do we?

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Either it itself is simpler than life on earth but still created it (something which contradicst irriducible complexity, thus contradicting ID) it itself evolved (which merely displaces evolution onto some other set of creatures with out any evidence for why you should do this), or it itself has always existed always with the power to creat us, making itself god ergo ID is either self contradiction, pointlessly overly complicated evolution or creationsim.

Again we don't even have to go there to be able to determine whether something displays characteristics of design or not.

Mark Hamill wrote: »

Behe and Minnich ripped it off the teleogical argument made up by Reverend Paley:

Paley made the point that if you find a watch, even a badly designed watch with all its moving components all working together in tandem you don't jump to the conclusion that it simply came about by natural means in the same way that rocks and earth did. It bares all the hall marks of design. But even the most complex of watches couldn't hold a candle to the simplest of cells. ID starts out with the hypotheses that it was designed. Now all one need do in order to refute this hypotheses is to subject it to the same tests that all other theories are subjected to. I want to find out that ID is in fact false by the scientific method, why can't we do this and be done with it?

Turtwig

Can I ask that all these posts get moved to BCP.


Soul,

A watch is an inanimate object.
A cell isn't.

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

It bares all the hall marks of design.

That is subjective opinion, not science. The giants causeway bares all the hall marks of design if you don't understand how it could come about by a natural process (which ancient man didn't and thus decide it was made by a giant)

Soul Winner wrote: »

ID starts out with the hypotheses that it was designed. Now all one need do in order to refute this hypotheses is to subject it to the same tests that all other theories are subjected to. I want to find out that ID is in fact false by the scientific method, why can't we do this and be done with it?

No one has every come up with a scientific test for ID. If Creationists or IDers had they wouldn't be wasting all this time on propaganda and school boards, they would be done science.

A test for ID is actually a test to determine something isn't intelligently designed. If you run this on various things and find you can't show it wasn't intelligently designed you build up a case that it was intelligently designed.

No one has so far come up with such a test. And I doubt IDers would even if they could since it requires that you open up to being shown to be wrong. If you test everything and find out they are all not intelligently designed then you end up having to reject that hypothesis, and possibly since 99.9% of IDers are religious motivated that is not something they seem willing to consider.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Paley made the point that if you find a watch, even a badly designed watch with all its moving components all working together in tandem you don't jump to the conclusion that it simply came about by natural means in the same way that rocks and earth did.

So Paley proposed irreducible complexity, the very thing that was debunked at the Dover trial and every time they've tried since that date.

Soul Winner wrote: »

It bares all the hall marks of design. But even the most complex of watches couldn't hold a candle to the simplest of cells. ID starts out with the hypotheses that it was designed. Now all one need do in order to refute this hypotheses is to subject it to the same tests that all other theories are subjected to. I want to find out that ID is in fact false by the scientific method, why can't we do this and be done with it?

Say something by your estimation bears the "hallmarks of design". Firstly how do you define "hallmarks of design" and how would your theory be falsified? Remember that an unfalsifiable theory is not a scientific theory.

Zombrex

Malty_T wrote: »

Can I ask that all these posts get moved to BCP.

Yeah sorry about that, we really shouldn't be baited by such obvious Creationist silliness ... but ... can't ... help .. myself

patmartino

No.

I can see that some posters here must be embarassed by the poll results.

Evolution is real, you do not have a choice about that.

You have a choice whether you believe it or not, but evolution is TRUE.

Surely you can see that by having such a belief in god encourages you to ignore what the actual truth and facts are, and if you are incorrect about evolution then you must be incorrect about other religious issues.

Turtwig

patmartino wrote: »

I can see that some posters here must be embarassed by the poll results.

Evolution is real, you do not have a choice about that.

You have a choice whether you believe it or not, but evolution is TRUE.

Surely you can see that by having such a belief in god encourages you to ignore what the actual truth and facts are, and if you are incorrect about evolution then you must be incorrect about other religious issues.

Not helping,
I'd like to keep this thread open so that as many Christians as possible can vote.
And guys seriously....[Christians only Please].
While I think it's great that you regained your faith, I have suspicions about it happening in this thread.
Perhaps wait and month or so and then try posting here?
That way you'll have more credibility.

Mark Hamill

Malty_T wrote: »

I'd like to keep this thread open so that as many Christians as possible can vote.
And guys seriously....[Christians only Please].

Sorry Malty , like Wicknight, I couldn't help myself. I'll wait if/until the appropiate posts are moved to the BC&P thread to respond to Soul Winners latest post.

Turtwig

Might I make the suggestion that a separate thread is made for ID.
While ID was started by creationists and is no doubt heavily influenced by them, the creationists in the BCP thread seem to fundamentally disagree with the public arguments proposed nowadays by ID proponents.
Mainly :

• The eye evolved.
• Any God e.g Zeus can be the designer.
• Diversification from Common Ancestor is accepted.
• Evolution is accepted (yeah??).
• Natural Selection is true but it might not be the only mechanism.
• Universe is 13.72±.12 billion years old.

Soul Winner

patmartino wrote: »

I can see that some posters here must be embarassed by the poll results.

Evolution is real, you do not have a choice about that.

You have a choice whether you believe it or not, but evolution is TRUE.

Surely you can see that by having such a belief in god encourages you to ignore what the actual truth and facts are, and if you are incorrect about evolution then you must be incorrect about other religious issues.

You've been convinced by the evidence for evolution, good for you. I don't care even if it is true, or even if ID turns out to be false, neither of which does anything to alter my faith in Jesus as the Son of God. It has no bearing on whether He rose form the dead or not. Prove that to be false and I'll have no basis for faith. Like you with evolution I've being convinced that the resurrection is true by simply scrutinizing the available evidence. Evolution doesn't bother me one bit. It only conflicts with one particular interpretation of the early chapters of the book of Genesis, a literal one. But there are many different interpretations that one can derive from Genesis 1v1 and 1v2 alone, never mind the other parts. The theory of evolution can’t do anything to undermine a faith in Christ unless your faith in Christ is not actually based in His resurrection but on a litteral rendering of Genesis.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

You've been convinced by the evidence for evolution, good for you. I don't care even if it is true, or even if ID turns out to be false, neither of which does anything to alter my faith in Jesus as the Son of God. It has no bearing on whether He rose form the dead or not. Prove that to be false and I'll have no basis for faith.

When someone really really really doesn't want their position proven false, they will make it unfalsifiable as you have done. As far as I'm concerned it's proven false by 6 simple words: "People don't raise from the dead" and the burden of evidence is on the people making the extraordinary claim that one guy did but the only acceptable proof for yourself would be a time machine to go back and actually witness it not happening. you have manoeuvred yourself into a position where it is impossible for anyone to prove you wrong.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

When someone really really really doesn't want their position proven false, they will make it unfalsifiable as you have done. As far as I'm concerned it's proven false by 6 simple words: "People don't raise from the dead" and the burden of evidence is on the people making the extraordinary claim that one guy did but the only acceptable proof for yourself would be a time machine to go back and actually witness it not happening. you have manoeuvred yourself into a position where it is impossible for anyone to prove you wrong.

In a court of law the burden of proof is always on the objector. The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is passive and will be defended by his council. If the story of Jesus' resurrection is false then the burden of proof is on the objector to prove it so. So fire away with your objections and I'll endeavor to refute them.

Nobody ever doubts the power of the message of Christianity so the world is forever coming up with theories to explain it. And no other explanation explains it better than the original one that the disciples gave. And that is that He rose. I'm well aware that people don't raise from the dead but that is not what is being claimed, what is being claimed is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Which means that the resurrection story hinges on only one other presupposition, and that is that God exists. Christians believe all this to be true already. They do not require further proof. If there is an objection to this then the it is incumbent on the objector to prove it false.

Turtwig

Soul Winner wrote: »

In a court of law the burden of proof is always on the objector. The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is passive and will be defended by his council. If the story of Jesus' resurrection is false then the burden of proof is on the objector to prove it so. So fire away with your objections and I'll endeavor to refute them.

Your analogy is......

You're a Christian i.e you believe in Loving and Righteous God who will judge us when our time on this planet is over. According to your beliefs any non believer is going to be judged guilty, so in the court of law shouldn't you be showing us proof that we are going to be judged guilty?
If Jesus was resurrected by God then we are guilty, prove our guilt.
In the court of law we don't have to prove our innocence do we?

Also Sam and Soul don't we have an apologetics thread for this??:)

Soul Winner

Malty_T wrote: »

Your analogy is......

You're a Christian i.e you believe in Loving and Righteous God who will judge us when our time on this planet is over. According to your beliefs any non believer is going to be judged guilty, so in the court of law shouldn't you be showing us proof that we are going to be judged guilty?
If Jesus was resurrected by God then we are guilty, prove our guilt.
In the court of law we don't have to prove our innocence do we?

If the resurrection is false then all the above is false too. You're standing before God is between you and He. It is not my place to judge either way.

Malty_T wrote: »

Also Sam and Soul don't we have an apologetics thread for this??:)

Yeah and we were just going around in circles there too :rolleyes:

Mark Hamill

Soul Winner wrote: »

In a court of law the burden of proof is always on the objector. The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is passive and will be defended by his council. If the story of Jesus' resurrection is false then the burden of proof is on the objector to prove it so. So fire away with your objections and I'll endeavor to refute them.

You are the objector in this case. The base position is that no one can resurrect from being dead. You are claimimng that Jesus did so you have to give proof.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nobody ever doubts the power of the message of Christianity so the world is forever coming up with theories to explain it.

You know, I could have sworn that you have had conversations with atheists here on this forum, so I dont know where you are making that up from. That aside, surely the 4 billion non catholics in the world deny the power of the message of christianity.

Soul Winner wrote: »

And no other explanation explains it better than the original one that the disciples gave. And that is that He rose.

Wasn't it you that started the Apologetics thread where a myriad of other explanations were given? I would say most of them explain it better.

Soul Winner wrote: »

I'm well aware that people don't raise from the dead but that is not what is being claimed, what is being claimed is that God raised Jesus from the dead.

God raising Jesus from the dead is not the same a s someone raising from teh dead?

Soul Winner wrote: »

Which means that the resurrection story hinges on only one other presupposition, and that is that God exists.

Prove it

Soul Winner wrote: »

Christians believe all this to be true already. They do not require further proof. If there is an objection to this then the it is incumbent on the objector to prove it false.

So because some people already believe something that makes it true? and its up to other people to provide evidence to the contrary? Does this just show that the people who believe in the first place, believe without any evidence to do so?

Zombrex

Soul Winner wrote: »

In a court of law the burden of proof is always on the objector. The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is passive and will be defended by his council. If the story of Jesus' resurrection is false then the burden of proof is on the objector to prove it so. So fire away with your objections and I'll endeavor to refute them.

Er, I'm glad you didn't come up with our legal system

Totally Off Topic, but the burden of proof is not on the "objector". The burden of proof is on the person attempting to assert something. Have you heard the phrase "innocent until proven guilty" That is because the default state of anyone is to be considered innocent.

The prosecution then attempts to shift this by asserting that you are not in fact innocent you are guilty. They are asking the jury to accept their version of events. The burden of proof is on them because they are the ones asserting something from the default position.

The burden of proof is most certainly not on the objector. If I object to the prosecution's assertion I do not have to prove I'm right, the prosecution has to prove their case, their version of events, because they are asserting a change from already established facts (ie I am innocent)

If the prosecution asserts something and I say that is not true I do not need to prove that I'm right, the prosecution needs to prove they are right, because my position is the default one assumed at the start to be true (ie I'm innocent)

The Bible is asserting something. It is asserting something on top of establish facts.

It is asserting that we should move from the default position to a position of accepting it's version of events. It is it's responsibility to prove this. Objectors to what it is asserting do not have to prove they are right because they are at the default position.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

In a court of law the burden of proof is always on the objector. The prosecution must prove guilt. The accused is passive and will be defended by his council. If the story of Jesus' resurrection is false then the burden of proof is on the objector to prove it so.

You'd got it backwards there mate. You are making a claim, that a man raised from the dead. It's not up to me to prove that it didn't happen, it's up to you to prove that it did. Can you imagine a world where anything anybody said was accepted as true unless it was definitively proven false :eek:

Me: "Yes your honour I saw Soul Winner murder that guy"
Judge: "Soul Winner can you prove his claim false?"
You: "No judge I was sitting home alone and have no corroborating evidence"
Judge: "20 years hard labour!!!!!"

Soul Winner wrote: »

So fire away with your objections and I'll endeavor to refute them.

I tried to in the apologetics thread but you stopped responding.

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nobody ever doubts the power of the message of Christianity so the world is forever coming up with theories to explain it. And no other explanation explains it better than the original one that the disciples gave.

Eh, plenty of explanations explain it quite easily, they're the same ones used to explain all the other thousands of religions. you just don't accept them

Fanny Cradock

No.

As you all went and created yet another Creationism thread when my guard was down for that split second, I'm going to remind people to stay on topic. From here on in anything that is better off in the B,C&P thread gets deleted, not moved.

philologos

I thought this thread was meant to be a Christian response thread?

BrianCalgary

Jakkass wrote: »

I thought this thread was meant to be a Christian response thread?

I did too, but the Atheists really get excited about this topic. I was actually looking forward to some of the CHRISTIAN opinions.

Fanny Cradock

No.

BrianCalgary wrote: »

I did too, but the Atheists really get excited about this topic. I was actually looking forward to some of the CHRISTIAN opinions.

To be perfectly honest, evolution just doesn't tickle my fancy. I accept it because intelligent people believe it to be the best explanation for genetic variation between generations. Great! Fantastic! Wonderful!

However, I look on a little bemused at all the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book and the and endless energy that goes into discussing his achievement.

Yes! More power to him. But my world view (my metaphysical understanding of our place in the universe) isn't contingent on whether evolution is true or not. Besides, I see there being more immediate concerns pressing down on us as a species (not to mention every other species). For example, tackling the naysayers when it comes to climate change - specifically those who deny our species has an integral involvement in the process.

Sam Vimes

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

However, I look on a little bemused at all the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the 150th anniversary of Darwin's book and the and endless energy that goes into discussing his achievement.

Imo that's largely thanks to creationists. By whipping up controversy about it they make people get very excited about defending it and science in general against the onslaught of pseudo science coming from the creationists

Without them it might be just another branch of biology. Thanks J C

PDN

BrianCalgary wrote: »

I did too, but the Atheists really get excited about this topic. I was actually looking forward to some of the CHRISTIAN opinions.

Indeed. Anyone wanting to discuss Creationism & Evolution take it to the BC&P thread. Anyone wanting to discuss apologetics take it to the apologetics thread.