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Robb
SFN Regular

USA
1223 Posts

Posted - 04/01/2004 :  12:58:39   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Robb a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Renae

Verlch, honey, don't even be postin' the anti-woman bigoted archaic domagic Biblical crap disguised as righteousness when I'm around, mmmmmkaaaaaay?


If God thinks women are not important, why did Jesus first reveal to a woman that he was the Messiah (John 11: 25-26) and first gave the great commission to a woman (Luke 7:22-23)? Why was a woman first to see Jesus after he was resurrected (Luke 24:1-7)? Remember also, that men deserted Jesus at the cross but the bible does not record one woman that deserted him. Jesus was also born of a woman and let a woman take care of Jesus, the son of God, as a child. Surely, God has great love for women.

Some christians do not read and understand the bible with the help of the Holy Spirit. You need to read the whole bible and meditate on it and ask God for understanding. You cannot take a few verses and make a doctrine from them. I ask Verlch to again read how Jesus treated women and what he taught about women. Also read Proverbs 30:10-31 and see what God says what a woman should be. I find most are as they are described here.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 04/01/2004 :  19:15:22   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Robb
Some christians do not read and understand the bible with the help of the Holy Spirit. You need to read the whole bible and meditate on it and ask God for understanding. You cannot take a few verses and make a doctrine from them.


If we, evilotionists try to talk some sense into him, he probably will not listen.

I suppose it is up to the Christians on this board, you(?), Hippie4Christ, Doomar and the rest to set verlch straight. He's an embarresment to Christianity with his unusually backward ideas.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
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"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

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Robb
SFN Regular

USA
1223 Posts

Posted - 04/02/2004 :  11:21:09   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Robb a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse

I suppose it is up to the Christians on this board, you(?), Hippie4Christ, Doomar and the rest to set verlch straight. He's an embarresment to Christianity with his unusually backward ideas.


I never said he was an embarrassment. I am ecstatic that he has found Christ. However, that does not mean that we will agree on theology or interpretations of Bible verses. I was expressing my point of view of the Bible and how to study the word. Christians can disagree, as long as we agree on Christ.

I bet if I agreed with his idea's, you would have had something
negative to say about that as well.

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. - George Washington
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 04/02/2004 :  12:34:14   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Be cool, guys. Verlch is yet another Hit & Run, now happy that he's laid a big, fat Witnessing upon the heathen. :yawn:

He may or may not come back to smite us yet again, but I'd be a bit suprised if he did. I'd be even more suprised if he responded to the answers to the OP, and astonished if he did it coherently. There's been a multitude of verlchs through here and none that I can recall have done any differently. You can almost predict course of their brief tenures, even before you finish reading their first post.

Not worth arguing about.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 04/07/2004 :  22:37:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
Hi everyone, I'm new here and I saw some answers to the things that the original post, but not too many, so I would like to start fresh:

"Creationists believe the earth was destroyed in a flood and covered in water, this is what explains all of the fossils everywhere. Fish gasping for air, backs broken and such."

You know what else explains the fossils? Constant changes over millions of years in the earth's surface. Occam's razor, which is more likely, millions, no trillions of gallons of water came from no where and disappeared without a trace, or the Earth is constanly going through changes we can observe today?

"So then why are you here then, who made you the idividual that you are. Why are you different and unique from all the other humans that have ever walked the earth. Why are all the flowers and trees on earth unique? How can that be if life is so simple to exist?"

The problem you are having is that you can only see life in one time frame, now. You did not see it through the billions of years it evolved. Life slowly got more and more complex, it didn't happen overnight. Evolution happend in steps, very small, simple changes, but when all put together, can be complex.

"Do you remember that man who tried to prove evolution. He took fruit flies and breed them over several billion generations. They never changed, or evolved, but you know what they all were different. Infinity to the max each fruit fly was different, had its own unique characteristics. Just as humans are not alike down to the fingerprint, animals aren't either. Explain that away."

This is from SkepticTank.org:

Insects:

"There is a lot of literature about speciation in fruit flies and house flies. Different experiments have been carried out to examine separately the effects of natural selection and genetic drift. See, for example, J. Ringo, et. al, "An experiment testing two hypotheses of speciation," The American Naturalist (1989) 126, pp. 642661, or A. B. Soans, et. al, "Evolution of reproductive isolation in allopatric and sympatric populations," The American Naturalist (1974) 108, pp. 117- 124."

But wait, there's more:

"In the genus Tragopogon (a plant genus consisting mostly of diploids), two new species (T. mirus and T. miscellus) have evolved within the past 50-60 years. The new species are allopolyploid descendants of two separate diploid parent species.

Here is how this speciation occurred. The new species were formed when one diploid species fertilised a different diploid species and produced a tetraploid offspring. This tetraploid offspring could not fertilize or be fertilised by either of its two parent species types. It is reproductively isolated, the very definition of a species.

Mammals:

Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse occurred less than 250 years after humans brought it to the island. Species identification in this case was based on morphology, since breeding experiments could not be performed with the parent stock . (S. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco: W. H. Freeman & Company, 1979, p. 41)

Birds:

During a series of natural catastrophes, the Galapagos island finch- species Geospitza fortis developed a larger beak, necessary for consuming a variety of seed unaffected by the ravages. This was a new phenotype never observed before, made manifest i n just a few years time."

"If life is so simple, why is every flower and tree on earth different. If you find a watch in the middle of a feild you know somebody is a watch maker. If you find a planet earth in the middle of nowhere traveling in space at over 3,000,000 mph you know somebody had to have made us. Since we are way more complicated than a watch. Just your brain alone defies nature, there are more neuological connections in your brain than there are known stars in the universe!!!!"

What your doing is called Argument from Design, this is from PositiveAtheism.org:

"1. Everything we've seen that looks designed has a designer. (Axiom)
2. The Universe looks like it has been designed. (Axiom)
3. Therefore the Universe must have a designer. (From 2 & 3)
4. This designer is God.

A better known version of this argument uses a watch as an allegory for the universe. It goes like this: Suppose that you were walking along a beach somewhere, and suddenly you saw a pocketwatch lying on the ground. Opening the watch you would see the intricate detail that makes it all work. You would immediately assume that something like this had been designed, that it could not have come about by mere chance.
If you look at the human eye you see even more detail and complexity, and you must likewise assume a designer for the human eye. The natural conclusion would of course be that the entire universe has a designer, being God.

Now does this line of reasoning work, or is it flawed? Let's look at Axiom 1, which states that everything we've seen that looks designed has a creator. You should, of course, think about watches, computers, televisions, Positive Atheism FAQ's, etc. However, if you really think about the axiom, you see that it is the prelude to a monstrous circular reasoning: saying that everything we've seen that looks designed has a designer assumes that the Universe and the solar system and many more things in nature, which look designed, have a designer. But how can we accept this statement as an axiom, since it is exactly what one wants to prove? Thus the first axiom should be 'Many things we've seen that look designed have a designer.' But changing the axiom in this way invalidates the third step of the reasoning, thus destroying Paley's argument.

But is there not a very strong link between the Universe and a watch? Is this not a powerful allegory? No, and for several reasons. First, as Hume said, it is almost preposterous to compare the Universe to a watch. We know very little about the universe, and almost everything about a pocketwatch. He argued that for a comparison to make any sense it should be made between two objects we have equal understanding about. The dissimilarity between the Universe and even the most complex of things we know are designed is so huge that the worth of the argument is almost zero.

Secondly, it can be easily seen that everything we know is designed was designed by living beings from earth. Thus, the first axiom might well be changed to 'All things made by living beings from earth that look designed have a designer.' This shows once again that the argument cannot be used on anything like the Universe, or for that matter, the eye. We could even change the axiom to 'All things that we know are designed have been designed by beings from earth'. This leads to the preposterous conclusion that the Universe has been designed by someone from earth! But this line of reasoning is no less valid than Paley's.

Thirdly, watches show marks of being made (marks from milling, stamping, etc.). The Universe does not show those marks. This is another huge difference between the Universe and a watch.

Fourthly, we can visit any number of watchmakers we want. We can see watches being made. We can read how watches are made. We can ask the local watchmaker to make a specially designed watch for us. If I showed you an egg and told you that I knew a man who made custom eggs, you would rightly doubt my word, for you've never seen an eggmaker. Thus the conclusion that a certain object was designed and made is based on the knowledge that such an object can be made, more than on the complexity of the object itself.

There are still more arguments against the Argument from Design. For God is surely more detailed, sophisticated and purposeful than anything in the universe? Then God mus

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  04:49:20   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
You know what else explains the fossils? Constant changes over millions of years in the earth's surface. Occam's razor, which is more likely, millions, no trillions of gallons of water came from no where and disappeared without a trace, or the Earth is constanly going through changes we can observe today?

Ricky, Creationists believe Occam's razor was a razor that Occam used to shave himelf with.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  05:53:08   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Ricky wrote:
quote:
Because if we did rebuild Babylon, you would go intrepert the Bible a different way, just as it has been done for the center of the universe and the earth is flat. Each of these things man used to believe because of the Bible, each has been found false. So what happened? Christians changed their interpretations.
Welcome to the Skeptic Friends Network!

To be charitable, beliefs like geocentrism and a flat Earth probably did not originate with the Bible. Instead, since there's no feeling of motion, and the world is big enough to look flat locally, they were probably the "obvious" conclusions for many thousands of years. The Bible just reinforced those beliefs, and the Church attempted to enforce geocentrism for a while. Columbus, however, knew the Earth was round (he just didn't know the size correctly).

Strangely, while there is (or was) The International Flat Earth Research Society, I don't think I've ever heard anyone in modern times promote the idea of a round-Earth geocentrism. I mean, you don't even need to claim that the Space Shuttle or Moon landings are frauds to do that, you just need lots of epicycles.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  11:24:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
"Ricky, Creationists believe Occam's razor was a razor that Occam used to shave himelf with."

Haha, good one, but I think Creationists deserve a little more credit than that. Especially verlch, who comes here willing to put his beliefs on the line in a "hostile" forum (as opposed to a Christian one).

"Columbus, however, knew the Earth was round (he just didn't know the size correctly)."

Sometimes I think that everyone in the world thinks Columbus proved that the world was round. How does sailing across 1/2 of the world prove this? Wouldn't you have to sail all the way around it to do that? Just a common misconception.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
Edited by - Ricky on 04/08/2004 11:28:06
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Woody D
Skeptic Friend

Thailand
285 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  19:55:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Woody D a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
Sometimes I think that everyone in the world thinks Columbus proved that the world was round. How does sailing across 1/2 of the world prove this? Wouldn't you have to sail all the way around it to do that? Just a common misconception.


Ricky!!
I'm going to enjoy reading your posts.
You are someone with a truly higher perception. (I think?)
Welcome.
nlm

www.Carabao.net
As long as there's, you know, sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.
Mick Shrimpton
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  20:41:01   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Ricky wrote:
quote:
Sometimes I think that everyone in the world thinks Columbus proved that the world was round. How does sailing across 1/2 of the world prove this? Wouldn't you have to sail all the way around it to do that? Just a common misconception.
Heck, hundreds of year BCE, the Greeks measured the diameter of the spherical Earth, and I believe had a more-accurate number than Columbus (but too big, while Chris' was too small). Columbus' aim, of course, was not to sail around the world, but just to find a faster route from Spain to India (avoiding the hell of going all the way around Africa). A much-larger Earth than anticipated, coupled with two entirely unknown continents (unknown to southern Europeans, that is) put the big kibosh on that idea. Not that Spain didn't make out like a bandit on the deal...

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Ricky
SFN Die Hard

USA
4907 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  21:02:40   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Ricky an AOL message Send Ricky a Private Message
"Heck, hundreds of year BCE, the Greeks measured the diameter of the spherical Earth, and I believe had a more-accurate number than Columbus (but too big, while Chris' was too small). Columbus' aim, of course, was not to sail around the world, but just to find a faster route from Spain to India (avoiding the hell of going all the way around Africa). A much-larger Earth than anticipated, coupled with two entirely unknown continents (unknown to southern Europeans, that is) put the big kibosh on that idea. Not that Spain didn't make out like a bandit on the deal..."

Whoops, I used the wrong number in my last post. What I really meant was 1/4. Yes, his goal was to sail 1/2 way around the world to get to India, but they already knew they could get to India going east, so this would prove the world round. Alright, I think this was off topic enough, so lets get back to evolution.

On another forum, I was debating a Christian about evolution. After about 2 months, he/she finally admitted to micro evolution, but still refuses to do so for macro evolution. I tried to explain that macro evolution was just a number of micro evolutions built up which completely change the animal, say from fish to tetrapod, but he/she won't accept that. I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas on how to link the two.

Edit: I forgot to add that his/her argument for this was that we can only observe micro evolution today, no macro evolution.

Why continue? Because we must. Because we have the call. Because it is nobler to fight for rationality without winning than to give up in the face of continued defeats. Because whatever true progress humanity makes is through the rationality of the occasional individual and because any one individual we may win for the cause may do more for humanity than a hundred thousand who hug their superstitions to their breast.
- Isaac Asimov
Edited by - Ricky on 04/08/2004 21:05:02
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  22:43:13   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Ricky wrote:
quote:
Whoops, I used the wrong number in my last post. What I really meant was 1/4. Yes, his goal was to sail 1/2 way around the world to get to India, but they already knew they could get to India going east, so this would prove the world round.
No, actually the goal was to sail more than halfway around the world, but fewer total nautical miles than were required to first sail thousands of miles south around Africa.

Both Columbus and his investors already knew the Earth was round, they had no need for proof of that. What they did need evidence for was that a westerly route would get them to India faster than the established route. That was the risk: that the normal way of doing things took umpty-ump months, while it was possible that Columbus' route would take umpty-ump-plus-six months, making the western voyage more expensive.

Columbus was betting that North and South America didn't exist, and that the Pacific Ocean was only slightly smaller than it is. He was wrong.
quote:
...I tried to explain that macro evolution was just a number of micro evolutions built up which completely change the animal, say from fish to tetrapod, but he/she won't accept that. I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas on how to link the two.

Edit: I forgot to add that his/her argument for this was that we can only observe micro evolution today, no macro evolution.
If your "opponent" won't accept the obvious morphological similarities between lobe-finned fish and terrestrial tetrapods, via the fossil record and radiometric dating of the strata in which these things are first found, I don't know what else will be convincing. After all, to reject all the data requires a certain power of will, or outright ignorance, both of which are extremely compelling to those who experience them.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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tomk80
SFN Regular

Netherlands
1278 Posts

Posted - 04/08/2004 :  22:52:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit tomk80's Homepage Send tomk80 a Private Message
I was just wondering about the whole 'hit and run'-thing. I read some Answers in Genesis articles about 'talking to the evilutionist' and in these articles it seemed so simple to convert evolutionists by pointing out the 'obvious fallacies' of evolutionary thinking. Could it be that the posters think they'll get loud acclaims by everybody on the forum for posting their message, because the posters think nobody on the forum has thought about that before? Then they get such an overwhelming response (like in this topic) that they don't know what to do and just don't write back anymore? Any ideas anyone?

Tom

`Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, `if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.'
-Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Caroll-
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 04/09/2004 :  07:39:00   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
I think it's difficult to speculate with any accuracy on the motives of drive-by posters. Although, as I just noticed, verlch did this before, about 11 months ago. There appears to be nothing new in the argument this time around (except the verses about women - what the heck?), it's just the same old incredulity coupled with bad logic and a refusal to examine the evidence. And verlch called it "reason" in the prior posts.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9687 Posts

Posted - 04/11/2004 :  14:37:36   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Ricky
On another forum, I was debating a Christian about evolution. After about 2 months, he/she finally admitted to micro evolution, but still refuses to do so for macro evolution. I tried to explain that macro evolution was just a number of micro evolutions built up which completely change the animal, say from fish to tetrapod, but he/she won't accept that. I was wondering if anyone had any other ideas on how to link the two.

Edit: I forgot to add that his/her argument for this was that we can only observe micro evolution today, no macro evolution.

Try to convince him of the truth that there is no such thing as Macro-evolution. The distinction between micro- and macro- evolution is an artificial construct. Micro/Macro is created by creationists in order to be able to acknowledge (micro-) evolution without acknowledging the implication of (macro) changes over long periods of time, like major morphological transitions.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder.
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