Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A Question Of Origins

Evolutionists eventually admit they cannot explain what caused the universe to come into being. To use their language, they can't explain what caused the Big Bang. They also admit they cannot explain what caused the evolutionary process to begin. I find this interesting because they claim evolution to be a fact of biological history. We also do not observe Darwinian evolution happening. Oh yes we see examples of changes within species through natural selection, but we have never observed a transformation of one species into another. We do not observe new DNA information being introduced. We see variations on information that was already present in the DNA. So evolutionists cannot explain how the universe or evolution began. We also do not observe evolution. So how can this be considered a fact? It sounds more like a faith to me. We don't see Jesus physically today. We cannot explain how Jesus was born. We cannot explain how God is eternal. However we can explain how faith in Jesus began. It began with a well documented and witnessed historical event. The crucifixion and with that the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing else can explain how the origins of the church. So the choice is yours. Either way it is a step of faith, however chosing evolution is a greater step of faith than trusting in Christ and His word. You may question why both cannot be true. They both cannot be true because Jesus Himself endorsed the writings of Moses as the word of God. If we trust in Jesus, then we acknowledge He is God in the flesh. Moses wrote of the creation in such a way that it cannot be compatable with evolutionary theory. Death did not exist until man sinned in the Garden of Eden. Likewise God said He created each creature after its own kind. It does not say he created one creature that became other kinds. So the question is simple. Trust the word of God or the words of man. The words and theories of man are proven wrong everyday, God's word has never been proven wrong. Remember you can't know who you are if you dont know who you came from.

16 comments:

  1. As for your example of Nylonase. You may be familiar with this, but check out a video on You Tube called Evolution Delusion Nylonase.

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  2. I cannot be bothered wasting time arguing with you when you admit the points I have made are correct and then continue to throw insults at me about how uneducated I am. You admit an argument from silence is a fallacy, yet you go on to use that argument and exagerate the details of the Biblical account to support your fallacy. You also admitted Atheists cannot explain the origins of the universe or evolution, yet you continue to say my points are wrong and uneducated. C'mon get real.

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  3. First of all, speciation has in fact been observed.

    Second, your question on what caused evolution or the big bang. I assume that in the former case, you're talking about abiogenesis. We do have some hypotheses about what happened to cause the abiogenesis event, but we don't know for sure what did. Same thing with the Big Bang; we don't know what caused (if that's an applicable word) it, though we have some good hypotheses. So what? Even if we had absolutely no idea how anything worked, it wouldn't support the God hypothesis. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

    Third, why does there have to be anything to have caused the Big Bang? We already know that the laws of causality most likely don't even apply at that point, so why would we expect it to have been caused by anything?

    ~Ian

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  4. Ok, please explain it then. I have asked over and over again and you have yet to explain it. Dont refer me to your talk origins site. Explain it yourself for me.

    As for your point Ian. If you want to play with the definitions species, then you can make a case for observed species to species evolution. However this is a mere play on words. God uses the word "Kind" in the Bible which clearly cannot mean the same thing as what your talk origins bloggers define as a species. We have not observed dinosaurs become birds or apes become man or a land mammal become a whale. We have observed changes within "Kinds." These changes are not part of some evolutionary "Goo to you" process, these are simply changes due to natural selection.

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  5. First, nobody said anything about "Goo to you" (whatever that even means). If you mean from the first life form to the diversity of life today, then that's also simply a bunch of changes due to natural selection.

    Second, what is a "kind"? If you don't give a definition that can be tested, your position is completely unfalsifiable.

    While we haven't *directly* observed the transitions you mentioned (because they all take at least millions of years), we have plenty of evidence that they did.

    ~Ian

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  6. I have not been deceitful about anything. If you don't know what constitutes a "Kind" read Genesis 1. A living organism is part of a kind in that all organisms within that kind came from the same ancestoral gene pool. There has been no evolving, only a loss of information has occured. Our Human ancestors had a much stronger more diverse gene pool. This is why we read accounts in Genesis of men living hundreds of years. However all humans come from the same Kind, the human kind, not apes or anything else. You have admitted yourself that we have not observed these types of big changes because they supposedly would have taken millions or billions of years. Therefore your evolutionary and atheistic hypothesis is an act of faith on your part. This makes atheism and evolutionism religous in nature.

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  7. No. My criteria is Genesis 1. Just because God used the same elements and similar genomes in apes this does not prove we evolved from them. That is a leap of faith on your part in your religion. I am not using faith as a dirty word, it is you who are rejecting it. I am simply just trying to bring you back to reality in that we are all dependent upon faith to shape our opinions and world views. It is sad that you chosen to place yoir faith on such a meaningless hopeless life. You claim we are all biological accidents. If that is the case why would you an accident of nature care about another's world view such as mine? It is quite contradictory on your part to claim some sort of moral high road in a world you believe has no moral authority.

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  8. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good." --Genesis 1:24-25.

    This isn't exactly the most clear definition, but I'll go with the one you provided: A living organism is part of a kind in that all organisms within that kind came from the same ancestoral gene pool.

    Alright, so we have that; now how can we determine what species are from which kind? This is important, since we can't test your other claim--that evolution between kinds is impossible--unless we first know where the boundaries lie.

    Your next claim--that information has only been lost in the genome--requires a definition of information. If you're using the standard definition used in information theory (a reduction in the uncertainty of an outcome), I can give an example of new information being generated in evolution.

    Atheism isn't religious by definition, for the same reason theism isn't. Atheism and theism are the responses to a specific question (do you believe any gods exist?); religion is usually a much more specific set of beliefs. I don't deny that there are atheistic religions (Buddhists and Raelians come to mind), but atheism and theism themselves are not religions.

    As for whether evolution is a religion, that's not true either. Evolution has evidence to support it; the first piece of evidence to come in being the fossil record. Even if we had no fossils, however, the evidence from genetics, comparative anatomy, and geographical distribution would be more than enough to confirm what you call "macroevolution"; the trees generated by each field line up perfectly.

    Your argument against this seems to be along the lines of "similarity doesn't imply common descent." Well, no, it doesn't imply it in the logical, 100% certain way. I'm sorry; did you want to know how we came about with 100% certainty? Unfortunately, neither evolution nor any other science provides that. Our understanding is always tentative; we're always open to new evidence coming in; such is the secret behind the power of the scientific method. The reason we infer common descent is because the more the similarities from different fields line up perfectly (not just kinda-sorta, but perfectly), the more likely it is that they have a common source.

    Finally, atheists don't have a "meaningless hopeless life," nor is "we are all biological accidents" an accurate characterization of evolutionary theory. I find my life very meaningful indeed; the difference is I'm able to find my own meaning, while you apparently are unable to do so without your God. This, to me, is one of the worst things about Christianity; it teaches that we are all worthless unless redeemed by Jesus, and that we are helped by God in everything we do, so we wouldn't even be able to breathe without Him (I've heard more than one apologist say "I'm nothing without God"). How is that not placing one's faith in "a meaningless hopeless life"?

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  9. Ian. Your idea of a meaningful life is an illusion. By your view, you die in a few decades at most and thats it. Your legacy will be forgotten, all you did in this life will eventually mean nothing as biological accidents continue to evolve. And to what end? Until the sun finally goes supernova. Then what? You see unless God is real(and He is) life really has no meaning. To pretend it does is an act of futillity on your part. Evolution does make you a mere biological accident. You can deny that all you want, but logically that is what you are in the evolutionary scheme. You hate Christianity for one reason and one reason alone. You love sin. If Christianity did not require us to repent of sin, it would not be hated.

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  10. >>By your view, you die in a few decades at most and thats [sic] it.<<

    Speaking as a transhumanist; no, that's not my view.

    >>Your legacy will be forgotten<<

    If I make a lasting contribution to humanity, as I hope to, they will remember me.

    >>Until the sun finally goes supernova.<<

    The sun isn't nearly massive enough to go supernova. It's going to collapse into a white dwarf.

    >>Then what?<<

    Well, my hope is that our society still exists in some form after that point. By the time the sun collapses into a white dwarf, we hopefully will have spread across the galaxy. As for what exactly these people will do, your guess is as good as mine.

    >>You see unless God is real(and He is) life really has no meaning.<<

    Even if that were true, it wouldn't make God's existence any more likely; merely more desirable. That doesn't matter, though, because it's not true. I find a great amount of fulfillment in the meaning I've chosen for my life. What you seem to be saying is that if there is no objective meaning, there is no meaning, and that's simply false. If you're so mentally weak you can't stand the idea of having to make meaning for yourself, that's fine; believe whatever you want. Just don't impose the meaning of your life onto the rest of us.

    >>Evolution does make you a mere biological accident [...] logically that is what you are in the evolutionary scheme.<<

    No, it doesn't; and no, it isn't. Natural selection is a deterministic process; given the state of the environment, and given what mutations come about, you can absolutely predict what future organisms will come to be. There's no room for "accident" in this scheme. By the way, I'd love to see what "logic" you're using to conclude that natural selection is an accident.

    >>You hate Christianity for one reason and one reason alone. You love sin.<<

    It depends on what sins you're talking about. If you mean things like thinking for yourself, skeptically examining claims, standing up against authority, trying to improve the human condition, being a transhumanist, blaspheming, and sleeping with someone of the same gender, then yeah, I'm a big fan of sin. I don't see them as wrong at all, though; in fact, I see many of them as virtues.

    If, however, you're talking about murder, theft, and other things that actually decrease societal well-being, then no, I don't love sin. That's one of the problems with the concept of "sin"; it encompasses both categories, when they are two completely different things.

    >>If Christianity did not require us to repent of sin, it would not be hated.<<

    I can think of several things that would make Christianity seem a lot less repulsive to me: if it encouraged critical thinking; if it didn't accept faith as a virtue; if it didn't provide justification for the ultimate tyranny; if its adherents didn't advocate banning human enhancement technologies that would greatly improve the human condition; if it didn't tell people that they were worthless, and so full of pure evil that they deserve nothing less than eternal torment; if it didn't tell people that they can escape what they invariably deserve just by apologizing; if it didn't advocate eternal punishment or reward for finite deeds; if its adherents didn't care so much about who a person sleeps with; and, finally, if it didn't sap people's mental strength to the point where they can't survive without Jesus. Those are just a few improvements that could be made.

    Of course, the primary reason Christianity is not believed is that there is no good reason to believe that any of it is true; give us some actual evidence, and we can start treating it on the same playing field as scientific fields.

    ~Ian

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  11. Ian, I am not imposing anything on you as this is my blog. If you dont like it go elsewhere. You say certain sins like homosexuality and idol worship are not bad like murder and theft. Yet homosexuality and adultery have brought us AIDS and othe sexually transmitted diseases and idol worship caused the terrorists on 9/11 to kill over 3000 people. So you are simply being short sighted there in many ways. To say there is no evidence to support the claims of Christianity is either utterly ignorant on your part or extremely dishonest. Just as claiming macro-evolution is a fact is dishonest.

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  12. And I could say the same thing to you as you have not presented any convincing evidence to support evolution or your belief that there is no God.

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  13. Let me clarify: I'm not saying that you, personally, right now, are trying to impose your beliefs on me or anyone else. The sort of imposition I'm talking about are those who are trying to get their religious commandments legislated; things like abolishing gay marriage.

    Which brings me to the issue of homosexuality. Are you saying that if all gay people got themselves checked for STIs before having sex, you'd have no problem with them? For that matter, would you be opposed to the marriage of two heterosexuals if one of them did carry an STI? Well, if you have any reverence for consistency, this is exactly what you're forced to conclude. Not only that, but lesbians are the only ones who physically cannot transmit STIs, so you presumably have no problem with them?

    But maybe I'm misrepresenting your position; perhaps you're saying that, if homosexuals and adulterers didn't exist, HIV and other such pathogens would never have come about in the first place. I can't help wondering how you got to this position. The current consensus is that HIV originated (through what you call microevolution, so you shouldn't find it too controversial) from SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus; a virus which does similar things to certain other apes). Indeed, almost all known viruses pathogenic to humans originated from similar viruses in other animals; H1N1 is a perfect example of this.

    The reason, I think, that many people think HIV to have been caused by homosexuality is because, before the discovery of it and other recent STIs, there was no reason for gays to use contraception, since they couldn't have gotten each other pregnant. As a result, they transmitted STIs much more than heterosexuals. But homosexuals didn't cause HIV any more than the Black Plague.

    Of course, I didn't mention adultery or idol worship anywhere in my list of sins, but while we're on the subject of idol worship, let's talk about that for a bit. First, I'm not exactly enamored with it either. My question is, however, why Christianity isn't an example of that. After all, in Christianity, you are worshiping a certain being, many depictions of which are anthropomorphic, and there are people who have killed in the name of this being, just as the 9/11 attackers did. How is this not idol worship?

    Perhaps I am ignorant about the evidence for Christianity; in which case, would you care to enlighten me? You'd honestly be the first person to give me a sound argument in favor of the existence of the Christian God.

    Finally, "macroevolution" *is* a fact, as confirmed not only by the fossil record, but by genetics and comparative physiology. Are we 100% certain that it happened? No, but we have a pretty good idea. Of course, nobody has given a definition of a "kind" that can be rigorously tested against and falsified, so the idea of kinds can't be considered scientific, anyway. The definition you provided--that all members of a kind came from the same ancestral gene pool--only assumes what you're concluding.

    In any case, how is this prevention of evolution between kinds done, anyway? You'd need two different types of genetic material for that to happen. One type would be specific to the kind of organism, and would be completely resistant to frame-shifts, mutations, and crossing-over, and the other type would be completely vulnerable to those mechanisms that create diversity. Unfortunately, all parts of an organism's genetic material are equally likely to suffer a mutation, thus falsifying your hypothesis.

    ~Ian

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  14. The whole "government has no right to redefine a well established religous doctrine" argument was also used in support of the Racial Integrity Act, which defined marriage such that whites could not marry non-whites. In any case, the question then becomes: let's say that we defined another institution; let's call it "schmarriage" or something. This institution would bestow all the benefits of marriage, the difference being that it is open to all couples, and is not the same institution as marriage. Would you be in support of gay schmarriage, then?

    To be honest, I didn't think you actually advocated that gays and adulterers caused HIV, a position that I've only seen the followers of Pat Robertson advocate; I responded to that argument in case I was wrong. However, the question I posed still applies. Your stated reason for opposing gay marriage is that it causes harm, in the form of helping spread HIV. My question is, then, why not simply ban all marriages in which one partner has a STI, and allow all marriages in which neither does? It seems that would be a much more efficient way of preventing its spread.

    Congratulations, by the way: you have Opinion #341,625 about what constitutes "true Christianity". Those people you dismiss as "idol worshipers" would say exactly the same about you: that you aren't following Christ, and are not acting Christian. How do you tell which of you has it right?

    Like I said, the definition of kind in the Bible is not falsifiable, and cannot be tested. I can't defend against a claim if I don't even know what the claim is, or how to distinguish its truth from its falsehood.

    ~Ian

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  15. 1- It does not matter what you call it, it is still the sanctioning of a sexual union outside of God's parameters. If you want equal benefits go after those who dish out benefits.

    2-where in the Bible does it say whites cannot marry non whites? Oh I know...No where! Therefore those who used the Bible to support that position were using the Lords name in vein.

    3-As for your false dilemma, I still reject either option because both still sanction sin and the consequences of sin is death. So its not just sexual disease that is the problem here, it is rebellion against God.

    4-How do I tell what true Christianity looks like? Read the Bible and live according to its precepts. And dont give me the response that there are many interpretations of the Bible. Wrong, when it comes to core Christian doctrine and how christians are to conduct themselves, the Bible is crystal clear. Those who disagree are rejecting what the Bible says period.

    5- As I said before. You want to know what a kind is so bad? Read Genesis 1.

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  16. 1- The point is whether you would be opposed to an institution, with all the legal benefits of marriage, but is not "sanctioned" in the same way as marriage, being open to gays.

    2-I don't recall the bible saying anything about gay marriage, either. It doesn't say that you should prevent gays from getting married, it says you should kill them.

    In any case, I didn't say they were using the Bible to support the position, I said they were using your argument to support it. Your argument is essentially that we have no right to change this traditional institution. So was theirs; marriage had always been between whites or between non-whites, therefore, according to them, it always should be.

    3-So your argument against homosexuality is that God doesn't sanction it? In that case, my initial criticism applies, that it's an imposition of your religious beliefs on everyone else.

    4-It's hardly crystal clear. Why do you think there are over 30,000 denominations of Christianity? Are you implying that they all reject what the Bible says? But again, the Westboro Baptist Church would be equally, if not more, passionate that they've got it right and you're rejecting what the Bible clearly says. Are you the one who finally, after millenia, and amongst thousands of conflicting contemporary interpretations, has got the correct one?

    5-As I've said before, I not only read it, I quoted the relevant passage in an earlier comment. The question is, how can your claim that evolution between kinds is impossible be tested? In order for it to be tested, I need to be able to point to groups of organisms and say "These are in this kind, these in that one." Yet, your definition is completely circular; a kind is defined as those that came from the same ancestral gene pool, but then you use that as an argument that there were different ancestral gene pools (this is essentially what you're claiming when you argue against common ancestry).

    ~Ian

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