I said control c = copy for PC but CTRL is what the key says and is probably better for communicating...
Is there such a thing as an atheist?
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God..." Psalm 14:1a
No, all that evolution needs is a driver and that is what Darwin provided through the theory of natural selection. Call it survival of the fittest, if you like, but what it really is, is an arms race. The arms race is a major driver. There is no foresight in evolution, there doesn't need to be. Whether it's better eyesight, better hearing, greater speed or more manoeuverability it is the arms race that drives species to adapt. Plants devise, by chance and through millions of generations, defence mechanisms against herbivores, prey animals improve their ability to escape predation, and the carnivores either keep up or die off. An improvement in one species calls for alterations in the next.Gradual improvements over time would need a sustained purpose and design in order to arrive at a coordinated result.
All species show symmetry, that doesn't mean anything. Can you imagine all humans with one leg shorter than the other? People are born that way, and now-a-days they survive, but in an earlier age they would likely have perished. Try to imagine a race of human stone age hunters with one leg shorter than the other. Clearly evolution is responsible for symmetry for the simple reason that it leads to greater survivability – survival of the fittest. Those who have more reproductive success are the ones who leave their genes to posterity. Over thousands of generations nature culls those who are less reproductively fit. This is why Africa is filled with people with dark skin pigmentation. Those with light pigmentation were culled.nl said:The human body demonstrates consistent symmetry.
That's silly. All fetuses start out as female. Those with the Y chromosome begin, after some weeks, the production of hormones that develop male characteristics. So much for the female being made from the male (that story is the product of a male dominated society).nl said:Purposeful intent was necessary to develop the coordinated design between male and female.
No, no, no. The genetic change takes place in the mechanism that creates both eyes. Now I see what you are going on about. You think that a change that makes the legs of the ancestral giraffe longer has to happen four times – once for each leg. No, it doesn't work that way. I am taller than my brother. I didn't have to have two genetic changes, one for each leg to make me taller. Think about it. Do you know anyone with arms longer or shorter than your own? Do you think there are chance mechanisms that some how keep an individual’s arms and legs the same length. Tell me, did you read this somewhere or did you come up with it on your own.NL said:The development of the eye required coordinated development of its multiple components. The same thing needed to happen twice to create the second, matching eye.
Below is a short 4 minute video that gives one very good example of why this is wrong. Check it out and let me know what you think.Gradual improvements over time would need a sustained purpose and design in order to arrive at a coordinated result.
No, all that evolution needs is a driver and that is what Darwin provided through the theory of natural selection. Call it survival of the fittest, if you like, but what it really is, is an arms race. The arms race is a major driver. There is no foresight in evolution, there doesn't need to be. Whether it's better eyesight, better hearing, greater speed or more manoeuverability it is the arms race that drives species to adapt.
It sure looks like you are believing in something that isn't there. Natural selection may kill off the weak and the slow but there's no driver to create something and have it be useful. If evolution were to have a driver at all, evolution would be driving blind. If unguided, an eye might try to form on the feet or on the elbow. What would place it on the front of the face? Where are all of the failed attempts in the fossil record or in the zoo? Long before the eye could evolve over multiple generations and function, it would fail and be selected out. Long before muscle, bone and feathers, could form a bird wing, it would fail and impede survival rather than support it. What would "drive" it to form at all?
Yes, I have been exposed to some authors on intelligent design so I have pondered some thoughts there. If the eye could form by some impossible chance once on the left side of the face, what evolutionary force would cause it to form with matching structures on the right side of the face? What evolutionary force drives symmetry? What drives the left side of an organism to match the right side of an organism consistently and repeatedly? Evolution is driving blindly if it manages to drive at all so how could evolution be guided to do the same things on the left side as on the right? Where are all the un-symmetrical evolutionary failures that were replaced by the successes of natural selection? Why does symmetry succeed and non-symmetry fail?
Faith in the improbable happening repeatedly is a false hope that is really a faith in the impossible. It seem much more rational to believe in an Intelligent Designer and to seek his/her identity and attributes and then to seek an ongoing relationship of mutual initiation and response.
Below is a short 4 minute video that gives one very good example of why this is wrong. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Richard Dawkins demonstrates laryngeal nerve of the giraffe - YouTube
You think that a change that makes the legs of the ancestral giraffe longer has to happen four times – once for each leg.
Richard Dawkins criticizes the design of the largyngeal nerve because it seems to take the long route and assumes that the design is poor and accidental. I saw the video. It was entertaining and a bit bloody but it was OK.
Yes, four times.
I think that a left wing and a right wing must have developed together or a bird couldn't fly. If the bone, muscle, feather, and nervous system of the two wings had developed gradually over multiple generations, then they would have hindered survival until they were formed well enough to fly. There was nothing to drive the coordinated development of left and right bird wings and nothing to sustain that development across multiple generations. The design would have needed to be preserved in DNA which is another marvel impossible to accidental development.
Nothing generates nothing. Designers developed airplanes and jets. A designer was needed to develop a giraffe, a bird, an Adam and an Eve.
You might as well say "I can't explain how this could happen... Therefore It's Magic"
ignorance is not a virtue nor an escape goat, but these are not ignorant. Hell is heating its flame for them.
Thank you for your opinion, but not helpful here in trying to show them God's love.
Hi JL, I have heard of the Hydroplate Theory, I have read a bit about it, I did watch the video, and I totally discount it.Cycel, IntoTheVoid, Percipi, TheKringledOne
O.K. guys I totally admit that I am technology challenged and don't know how to share a YouTube video to anywhere. However, there is a thread that was started recently on CC that is titled Hydroplate Theory and I found it to be very interesting. Have any of you heard of this explanation of a global flood? If not please take a look at this thread and let me know what you think?
Or if any other CC member knows how to post that video to this thread for their viewing pleasure would you please help a young old lady out? Thanks guys. Could be some scientific proof for you.
JL, you have asked why I don't believe in God, and I have tried to explain, but it is not my desire to turn you into an atheist. There are leading American scientists, like Francis Collins, who are devout Christians, and they believe everything I do in every field of science. Collins is one of the foremost geneticists in the world and he says the genes prove the case for evolution. This is a man who believes Jesus died for our sins. If Collins can accept evolution then why can't you? His book, The Language of God, is not very long and personally I think it is a very lively read (but then I enjoy reading about biology). He also has a section explaining his faith and there he presents why he sees no conflict between science and God. Read it, you might be persuaded.You Say There Is No God
You say there is no God
But there's a God for me...
I have looked around. The things you interpret as evidence of God in nature I have scientific explanations for. For example, Job is asked:JesusLives said:You say there is no God
But His love for you abounds
There's proof in nature and in the skies
You just have to look around
As I have explained, I started out with belief in God, the belief waned, and then I tried very hard to get it back. It is not as if I have willfully ignored God. I did reach out, but if God is there he did not take my hand. Essentially, after the first doubts arose I tried for six years to find him. I gave it my best shot. The evidence, that is God, never presented himself. The idea that God has tried to talk with me, but I have been unable to hear him, is absurd. When God talks to you, you hear him. He’s God! What kind of deity can’t make himself heard. That’s nonsense. What’s really happening here, I think, is apologists are trying to get around the problem of why people become atheists in the first place. What’s often ignored is that many of these atheists were first Christians. We’ve simply lost an earlier belief that we once had. When believers presume that atheists are ignoring God, or that God won’t talk with atheists, this ignores that these people were Christians first. They believed in God but over time lost that belief. Why didn’t God talk with us back when we believed? Why didn’t he make himself heard when some of us tried to talk with him before completely losing our faith? Your poem does not address these issues.JesusLives said:... You say there is no God
But His heart aches for you
He won't force you to love Him back
It's your choice - What will you do?
JL, I presume you are the poet?JesusLives said:by Darlene written 3/9/14
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. No faith is required.If atheism is based on reason why is it that their underpinning evolution, needs large amounts of faith to believe?
This is all nonsense. I will bet you that everything you witnessed on the DVD was staged. No atheist would respond that way. No one teaching evolution would be so inept. What were the names of the professors being interviewed? No student would say he believed only because he had faith in the professor.mustaphadrink said:I say this because yesterday I watched a DVD where a Christian visited a USA university campus and interveiwed professors and students who were teaching and studying, science, biology, environmental biology and similar subjects. All claimed to be atheists.
The interviewer asked each one “Can you tell me about one observable fact that indicated that one species changed into another species.”
One professor spoke of something that happened 60 million years ago. The interviewer asked who observed it? The professor said no one.
All the students except one said they could not produce one observable incident that changed one species into another.
One brought up the changed finches beaks on the Galapagos Islands. The interviewer asked “What were the birds before their beaks changed.” The student said finches. Then he asked “what were the birds after the finches beaks changed.” The student said finches. So, said the interviewer, there was no change in the species. The student said “yes, their beaks adapted.” But said the interviewer, finches before the adaptation and finches after the adaptation so no evolution of species.
The interviewer went on and said “as you have no observable evidence of evolution, where do you get your information that evolution happened?” Everyone said their lecturer. So they are asked “you have faith in what your lecturer says?”
Everyone said yes. “In that case” said the interviewer, “your belief in evolution is not based on facts, it is based on faith in your lecturer. Is that right.” They all said yes.
So the interviewer said “If all you have for proof of evolution is what your lecturer says, then surely you have a belief system.” All agreed that was the case proving that evolution is a belief system not an observable fact so it is as religious as the next belief system.
He finally said as evolution is a belief system that requires large amounts of faith in what people say, without any observable fact to back it up, it is more fanciful than Christianity.
So David, there is not much reason in the thinking of the experts but there is definitely a lot of faith.