There Is No Devil.

CrackerJax

CrackerJax

New Member
A flowers life is one of quiet desperation.

A kitten is always hungry, a long life of killing ahead of it.

The planet is violent to the extreme. Almost...... beyond belief.
 
g00sEgg

g00sEgg

Well-Known Member
I think, since you believe an elderly man built a HUGE ark...then rounded up 2 of every species and loaded em up, you would be the mentally challenged one.

herm.
 
P

PadawanBater

Guest
This is not the Darwinian theory of evolution. Darwin didn't write, "How established species change over time." He wrote a book called, "The Origin of (ALL) Species..."
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Textbook Darwinian theory states that random mutations subjected to natural selection will give rise to ALL species.
This is an example of why I HATE the term 'evolution.' The term is a loaded term. What does it mean? That is why I call it random mutation/natural selection driven 'evolution', just to try and make clear what I mean when I say 'evolution.'
Your definition of 'evolution' is much different than mine (and Darwin's). I wouldn't dare deny your definition of 'evolution.' Species clearly change over time. No argument there.
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The book is called On the Origin of Species. I've read a lot of it, he clearly states the mechanisms involved in his theory. His theory includes the idea that all life present on earth came from the same form of life billions of years ago, but the book mainly focuses on the observed changes in specific species over time, like dogs and birds, finches in particular, and his travels to the Galapagos Islands where he started putting everything together after observing the nature around him. This book was published in 1859.. that's 150 years ago. The theory of evolution back in that day was at it's most basic level, nowhere near where it is today, so the point you're trying to make, even if it was valid, is moot because the theory is not the same today and nobody believes the exact same things Darwin did, that's why it's sort of silly to call someone a "Darwinist" or an "Evolutionist" (also why you only hear those terms from the religious community, also another reason I think you are not telling me the full truth to your background, scientists don't use those terms, those words were made up to make the theory seem less valid to the layman who doesn't understand it).. it makes about as much sense as calling someone a "Newtonian" or a "Gravitationist" if they believe in the theory of gravity, or a "Einsteinian" or a "Relativist" if they believe in the theory of relativity..

It does state that, but it also states a lot of other things too. It's not just natural selection that drives evolution, there are five other (known) factors involved. What's the point?

So basically what you're saying is you accept 'micro-evolution' - that is, change in the same species over time, ex. dogs, birds, cats, etc. but you deny 'macro-evolution' - that is, change from one species to another totally different species (the definition of that simply being one species one generation then another species a few generations later that is incapable of breeding fertile offspring with the original species, which we've observed multiple times aleady..) ex. land animals evolving into whales, dinosaurs evolving into birds, reptiles/amphibians evolving into mammals. - Is that right?

To that I ask, what's the difference? What if I changed a million different things about you, do you think people would still be able to recognize who you are?

It is true that Darwin did NOT speculate on the origin of life, except in a letter to some guy in the 1800s. He only had a theory of how established life changed into higher forms through random mutation AND natural selection.
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Again, the term 'evolution' is screwing this whole discussion up. To me, 'evolution' also means how life began in some pond with certain compounds and electricity (Miller experiment.)
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That's not what it is though, you can't just call something what you think it is and go from there.. How life began is a-biogenesis, not evolution. It's a very important distinction, one has nothing to do with the other.


The Miller experiment was one of the things that floored me when I learned about it (my pro Darwinain evolution days). One of the many problems with it is that it doesn't explain the INFORMATION content of DNA. What good are amino acids without DNA (and all the other machines in the cell) to tell it how to create proteins. In order for there to be life, there needs to be INFORMATION. Where did the information come from? Random mutation and natural selection are totally insufficient to explain the information content in DNA, even for the simplest of life.
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Amino acids are the building blocks OF DNA. They are what hold the information within the DNA code. They have recreated these in the lab, established the beginning stages of synthetic life, that is amazing. What will you guys say when they actually create single celled lifeforms under laboratory conditions? - that they're not actually 'alive'? (probably because they don't have ''souls''... am I right?)

Also, explain to me why every single living thing on earth is coded with DNA and carbon based. Why would an intelligent God do that? Doesn't the fact that every single living organism on earth ever discovered all have the exact same information structure - that is DNA, with the base pairs being Guanine, Cytosine, Adenine and Thymine - suggest that all living things on earth are related? You would think, out of all of them, all the millions of species ever studied, ONE would come out with some other element to be based on other than Carbon, right?


Like I said in the original post, I did believe all this stuff, and it wasn't a problem with my Christianity. So if it wasn't a problem with my Christianity, why would I NOT want to believe it?
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Again, my conversion was based on science, not my Christianity.
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If you believe in evolution, what reason would you have to believe in God? Where does God come into play in this equation? What indicates, to you, that God had anything to do with the process of evolution on earth (even after already admitting that macro-evolution is impossible)? I think this is a weak position to hold because you don't have to choose a side, you can pick the happy middle and figure it's all good. But to me, the problem still exists. I don't see a reason to believe in God (honestly, regardless of if evolution were true or not), so how would evolution being false make creationism correct? I see no evidence to suggest God had anything to do with the process, what evidence do you see?


I totally get it. I am not a researcher in the field though, but you don't need to be a physicist to understand F=ma.
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Natural selection selects things that are beneficial to the organism. The Darwinian thought is that these beneficial things result from random mutations. Natural selection is not random, but mutation is.
The way I understand life's evolution, which is not totally Darwinian, is that some random mutations (like the whole peppered moth thing) are actually adaptations from what is already encoded in DNA. These codes just need to be 'acitvated' by external stimuli, such as smog.
Bruce Lipton talks about this kind of stuff.
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So then why is it hard to believe that all these little changes would be passed down to the next generations, all of them would slowly add up and create new species that are incapable of producing fertile offspring, after thousands of generations? I don't understand, what is stopping the larger changes from happening that is not stopping the smaller ones?


The leaders at the churches I have been a member of have never talked about such things. As for websites, I don't go such places because most of the time they are quite unscientific and outdated.
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I am not one to fall into propaganda. I never have been.
Which two fields? You lost me.
Any more questions???? I hope I addressed your questions, at least somewhat to your satisfaction.
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Biology and Chemistry

And yes, that was much better, thank you for taking it point by point.
 
CrackerJax

CrackerJax

New Member
Well, strictly speaking when a Buddhist says G*D like, they aren't talking about the Christian interpretation of G*D.
 
anhedonia

anhedonia

Well-Known Member
Buddhism is a non-thiestic religion. If you lead a moral life and have good karma, you can be reborn into a godlike realm where you would be I guess god-like, but even then you eventually will succumb to death and rebirth. Being a human is the perfect vehicle to attain enlightenment. It is one of the reasons buddhists consider human form so precious.
 
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