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Forums - General - Ben Stein to take on Darwinism on April 18

Rath on 07 March 2008

There is no way to disprove the bible because of the stubborn belief of creationists that everything that disproves it was set that way by god.

The universe and earth are clearly billions of years old yet 'God created the universe to look old', that to me is the biggest heap of baloney I have ever read. Why on earth would God go to the effort of misleading humanity, creating the world and the universe and earth to look billions of years older than it is. Heck according to you guys he even laid down fossils just to screw us over.

I'm also sure he laid down complete evolutionary lines of fossils over periods of tens of millions of years just to trick as too eh? Hes a tricky one.
http://chem.tufts.edu/science/evolution/HorseEvolution.htm

Blah, I hate these debates.

 Edit: @Resi. I believe I will probably be alive tommorrow due to my young age, my healthy body and a complete lack of evidence that I won't be alive tommorrow. Also try to understand the science of evolution on at least a basic level before you try to argue against it.



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ResiRiley on 07 March 2008

ANd to Stoff that same question can be put to where the first molecules came from and where did the stuff that made that come from and so om so fourth......

This topic will neer die even if one side is finally able to prove tjat tey are right beyond a shadow of a doubt. Die hard christians will never listen to a scientis telling them God doesnt exist.........



Smidlee on 07 March 2008
stof said:
A question to the creationists, if the underlying belief is that biological organisms are far too complicated to have occurred randomly, and that surely some intelligent and powerful creator being is responsible for our existence, wouldn't said creator being be far more complicated?

Surely a being capable of creating life is too complex to have just occurred. So who created the creator? And wouldn't that being also be far too complicated to just occur? So who created that being? and wouldn't a being capable of creating a being capable of creating a being capable of creating all life on earth be far too complex to just occur? And if *you get where I'm going with this*

That's the whole idea that something greater than materialism. Have any scientist ever seen a black hole at any time? No but they do have reason for believing of their existance. The same with understanding of the natural world teaches us everything seems to be running down. It's like asking " Can a human with all of his knowledge ever produce his equal? "

The Ghost of RubangB on 07 March 2008

The only person INTELLIGENTLY designed was me, so I don't know why they have a whole theory about it.



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Zucas on 07 March 2008

Haha I find it so hypocritical when religions backers of their faith whine and complain about how science and other things rule over their opinions at time or even discredit theirs. Now sure its not right to tell other people's opinions it isn't right, but religious backers and creationists have nothing to say on that front. For all the bullshit, tyranny, and genocide they committed on people who had different beliefs than them. They should simply sit back and not say much unless they have something with factual backings to make it worthwhile. Otherwise accusing the other side of simply saying religion doesn't belong in science as bad is nothing compared to what they did to the opposite back then.



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Escherichia on 07 March 2008
ResiRiley said:

No I think I got this whole thing down pretty good as you guys have all given enough information here to write a text book on........and now things are getting a little too complex for my own liking so I jus t try to look at it more simply.

If I jump in the air I fall back down......right? That's basic and simple and I can understand that.

All the specifics of gravity and weight and everything are details that I dont choose to get caught up in.

 

Now

I just keep tryna close my eyes and actually imagine this "evolution" happen. Dinsosaurs into birds, or a fish into a lizard that turned into a mammal...... I am picturing it and it just doesnt match up

 

Let's say there were 1000 fish living in a pond that was drying up. There is an obvious pressure on the fish to change and adapt. One fish actually does manage to mutate or evlolve or whatever. Now there are 1000 fish that are the same as they were before and 1 lone fish that is now something completley different that ca survive in its changing enviornment. At what point would the superior fish cross breed with the inferior fish and if it did breed with them would it be guaranteed that the offspring would be as superior as the original mutated fish? Or why would the superior fish breed with the inferior.....

Like a mental reatrd breeding with a normal person. Why would they do that and is it assured that the offspring will be as retarded, and even if he was. There would still be only that one retard versus the 1000 normal...

 

Maybe my outlook is juvenile but all of your complex, over drawn theories have yielded 0 proof. I believe in God and don't need proof to say why I do.... its called FAITH and billions of us have it..

If someone asked you did you love your wife, or kids, or friends or whatever. Would u have a reason why? Is there just one overewhelming thing or piece of proof that you can point to and say "This is why I love this person and here's my proof" It just doesnt work like that for some of us and if it's not the same for you thats fine, but dont knock the rest of us.

 

Yeah that's good, but science needs evidence, of which there is an overwheming amount of evidence in support of evolution, despite the fact that so many people choose to ignore it.

Faith requires no concrete evidence, and therefore is not science. Nor should you try and confuse faith and science. There more to it than that, what about when something challenges your faith, and let me tell you evolution should be much less a challenge to anyone's faith than the hundred of other religions that exist and yet you choose not to believe in. But when a challenge does happen is it really appropriate to lock up, close your mind and ignore it completely? I guess that is what most people do.

A good anology invovling creationism and the theory of evolution is that of a puzzle. With evolution you have a puzzle, you have many pieces but you don't quite know how everything fits together. Creationism is like imagining the missing pieces and disgarding those pieces that do not agree with the imagined one, even if it means throwing the whole puzzle aside.

Some very religious people are scientists by the way (including Charles Darwin), and many of them have very little problem reconciling science with their beliefs. Why then do so many other people have a problem doing so?

 



niem on 07 March 2008
timmah said:
GotchayeA said:
There are several problems with all of that, timmah. First, no one's talking about the origins of the universe here. This is creationism insofar as it is opposed to evolution, and evolution says nothing whatsoever about the origins of life or of the universe before life began (if in fact there was such a time). All of your talk about the big bang not being explicable by modern physics is interesting, but it's completely irrelevant to the matter at hand. Science doesn't have a rigorous theory as to how or why the Big Bang occurred - you're not really arguing with anyone here.

Your only defense of intelligent design (of life) is your talk about DNA. You ask for a plausible nontheistic mechanism, which is somewhat surprising to me. Biologists call this mechanism 'natural selection' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection). It should be apparent how this can result in a logical order without design, but, if you'd like real-world proof of the same idea, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_computation.

Anyway, none of what you offer is particularly useful evidence for a theistic theory of anything.

Known facts invariably underdetermine an explanation. Knowing that the bus arrives at the corner every day at 9AM, I can't choose between a theory about a person driving the same bus in from elsewhere every morning or a theory about a deity creating new buses ex nihilo every morning.

In science, we choose between underdetermined theories by testing their predictions, which could have been otherwise. Every scientific theory that enjoys widespread support in the scientific community (including evolution) enjoys that support because the theory has successfully predicted the outcomes of many experiments.

Something like intelligent design, however, makes no useful predictions, and so no rational person can sensibly choose it over other theories which are indicated by the same set of facts. One might maintain that it is equally as likely as other theories which are equally untested, but you simply cannot maintain that it is particularly likely to be the explanation.

To clarify, let's consider the difference between the sort of predictions evolution and ID make. Evolution predicts that ecosystems which are similar will have similar sorts of animals in them and that animals will be more like each other when their habitats are geographically close. We can imagine that this would not be the case, and so each time these predictions are confirmed, evidence for evolution grows. ID, however, does not make these predictions. It is compatible with these predictions, yes, but it is equally compatible with the opposite outcomes, and so neither can be taken as evidence.

I only have a short time, so I can't answer all this. You're missing the point, I'm not saying that changes in species can't happen, I'm not saying that there are not types of 'evolution' or natural selection that change animals and plants over time to better adapt to their environment. My belief is that an intelligent being (God) created the universe as we know it, and that he created a set of animals, plants, and humans that were designed to adapt. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it's very obvious that animals adapt over time, I'm not denying that. My contention is that there's no way life could START on it's own. Scientists haven't even been able to create basic life in a test tube from nonliving substances with their intelligence. They've created building blocks for life, but not life.

My contention is that a godless system has no way of explaining the ORIGIN of life and our universe for precisely the reasons I mentioned before. Creationism is not so narrow as to deny natural selection or changes in species, that is where you are missing my point. I personally believe that there can be DRASTIC changes in animals over time as one genetic trait affords for better survivability, i just differ on how the whole thing got started, as physics does not allow for things 'starting' without an external starting force. We are not all as narrow as you think.

i haven't read the whole thread yet so i'm sorry if someone else has brought this up but if you're looking for how life began darwinism isn't where you should be looking look up abiogenesis that is the science studying how ilfe began

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

 



Smidlee on 07 March 2008
Zucas said:
Haha I find it so hypocritical when religions backers of their faith whine and complain about how science and other things rule over their opinions at time or even discredit theirs. Now sure its not right to tell other people's opinions it isn't right, but religious backers and creationists have nothing to say on that front. For all the bullshit, tyranny, and genocide they committed on people who had different beliefs than them. They should simply sit back and not say much unless they have something with factual backings to make it worthwhile. Otherwise accusing the other side of simply saying religion doesn't belong in science as bad is nothing compared to what they did to the opposite back then.

Well that would put the phones and internet out of business. As for evil in religion that was one of the mian teachings of Jesus himself. He told his disciple that they will kill you in the name of God. Thus the church is a place where rightous people meet as well as the unrightous who want to hide and justify their evil deeds.



ResiRiley on 07 March 2008

You are wise and mature beyond your years Escherichia!!!!!!!!

I actually have respect for you and your opinions unlike some of these war mongers who just are pushin bottons just to be pushing them. I still completely and whole heartidly disagree with ya but I can respect your positions and leave this thread in peace with you genius'



viewtiful_jon on 07 March 2008

Scientist get questioned whenever they go against the status-quo on most things not just this subject, I dont belive in Creationisum and im not going to watch this even thought i normally like documentrys, but that advert seemed like it lasted the length of a normal film and im not sitting through the whole thing that would be touture.

From what i saw it seemed like it was all based on opinion anyway i would prefer something based on facts.