GOD ? or Evolution?

OK!

I have already debated the existence of the moon, George Bush and JFK!

But what about GOD?

Do you believe in GOD? as a scientist I have in my time came across the theory of Evolution etc, it seems a very good theory and has lots of good things going for it, it is most likely that this theory is true as there is some evidence pointing to this fact.

But if we indeed did evolve, what happens to the GOD making everyone theory? its gone out of the window, and no matter how many people I ask I can never seem to find any PHYSICAL PROOF that GOD exists.

All I get is people quoting the bible to me, which is no good to me at all as this would not hold up in court as physical proof,

So can any one here actually give me the physical proof I am looking for without quoting the bible?

Thank you please.

 

Why not both? Why must people keep going on with this false duality? As if the existance of a god would negate evolution, or that evolution negates God... At most, evolution only disagrees with a small part of Hebrew scripture (the first few parts of genesis).

I really doubt anyone can give you any proof of God that you would accept (nor any I would accept). But though God may not be provable like evolution, that doesn't preclude his existance. It may be that we are thinking of God in the wrong way, and so our search is stymied.

 

In order to believe in something I would prefer to see some physical proof, rathere that just belive a fairy tale-like story, like santa claus!

 

ok well, my personal opinion is that god (a omniscient, omnipotent spiritual energy, non biblical) created a variety of creatures that adapted and changed into the species we have today. My reason for believing in a creator is that a complex chemical like DNA cannot just be formed by chance from chemicals in the sea. Even if the individual component chemicals miraculously managed to float into each other, surely this is not sufficient to spawn an incredibly complex (despite being one-celled) phenominon such as the (alledged) first life on earth.

So I think it probable that life must have been created by design at some point. If it was so easy to create life from scratch that it happened by fluke in the sea, how come we can only manipulate already existing life or DNA. I have never heard of DNA being created completely artificially and with the result of a new life form.

I think a variety of creatures were created because I do not believe evolution has sufficient evidence to prove that we all came from amoebas. It is obvious to see that animals adapt over the generations to suit their environments. Strong genetic traits flourishing and breeding more etc. But the whole survival of the fittest evolution theory doesn't explain how new DNA can be formed in order to create new species.

For example- Exact beak shape is a natural variable in bird DNA, just as eye colour in humans. A bird hatched with a beaked shaped to give it a superior ability to eat nuts (or whatever) has many offspring due to it's sucess, many of which are likely to carry it's beak shape advantage, and wil also flourish, gradually dispersing that genetic strength down the generations. The shape of that beak was already present in their parents DNA.

For any previously aquatic animal to begin the process of developing in order to become the first amphibious life there has to be one parent (exclusively aquatic DNA, no adaptations for processing air in its genetic history) that has an offspring with the beginnings of lung tissue as an adaptation. This new lung tissue gene cannot have come from the DNA of either parent. It is entirely new, and except for genetic mutations (which are almost always undesirable deformaties, not original, useful organs) , that is not possible through natural breeding. Strong traits survive, but new ones are not spontaneously formed.

There are many examples along the amoeba to man chain where new DNA would have to be formed. I think most likely there was some form of mammal, reptile, fish, amphibian, bird in the first place to adapt into the current species. I believe that this if anything supports (but doesn't prove) the existance of a higher power at work as a guiding force in the process. It doesn't even really disprove the christian creation story, as the link from man-monkey is still so ridden with giant gaps that it is uncertain.

 

Your opinion is duly noted young man!


although I like the whole evolution thing better I must admit.

If You can answer this please do,

God invented Adam and Eve right, they were the first humans on earth, ever.

what happend when the dinosours came?

Man and dinosaurs dont mix well as we have seen on Jurassic Park, so what Happened?

Did man just hide for a few years?

Also why did God, out of all the many planets in the universe, which he made only make life on one planet and why did he name it Earth?

 

I agree, but then, I also think it's foolish to take such a fairy tale at face value (that is, literally). Most are metaphorical, you have to read into them for the message. And anyways, spiritual beliefs are never going to be proved in the way evolution is proved (scientific inquiry). It is an inward, personal route, not empirical in nature, rather, it is experiential; known through the experience. It's like a whole different way of knowing, a seperate but parallel branch from science.

 

And anyways, spiritual beliefs are never going to be proved in the way evolution is proved (scientific inquiry).

Exactly. We will never (dis)prove the existence of God through logical reasoning.

And Winston, it seems that you are more trying to disprove the Jewish/Catholic scriptures, or their beliefs in God. And, although I don't particularly disagree with you when it comes to that, it wouldn't disprove the existence of a God not revealed through "holy texts."

 

I'm not trying to defend genesis (which is exactly what I am about to do), but you still seem to have some information mixed up so I'm going to respond.

The animals were created first. We have no idea how much took place before man was created because it's not relevant to the story of mankind and then the Jews.

How do you know God only made life on this planet? All that can be ascertained from Genesis is that God created life on this planet. It would not be relevant to the story of mankind and then the Jews (I would suggest that even this is only part of the story of the Jews) to go into a long talk about how God created life on another planet. It's not teaching scientific truth. If it were it would get much more specific on all the little intricacies of creation. It's more interested in the spiritual truths that arise through the telling of creation.

Further, nowhere in the masoretic text does the word Earth appear. Of course you were addressing somebody else and I happened to check in on this thread.

Dauer

edit: It's funny because I'm having a related conversation from something closer to your position somewhere else.

 

why not believe in both? do you think god could explain to the ancients how he created life if he started talking about genetics and evolution, he'd use language theyd understand at the time.

 

I don't want to tell you what to believe, but your understanding of evolution seems somewhat limited. New DNA formed through mutations is indeed often harmful, usually the young are never even born. A good deal more of the mutations are neutral, so they serve no immediate advantage. A small amount are adventageous. However, both neutral and adventageous mutations are copied and passed down. Neutral now might end up serving a useful function later. Also, most new features evolve from old features that serve a different purpose. Evolution builds on existing hardware, but small changes in DNA can effect significant changes in usage patterns. I don't have the space here to explain it, nor would I do a great job, check out your library if you're interested.

As far as beak shapes as an example...there is always a variety of features in an existing population due to slightly varying forms of that gene (called an allele, these variations are the result of simple genetic variability, caused by mutation and/or genetic recombination during reproduction). The beaks aren't all the same exact shape but vary slightly in the population. So some birds may be better at cracking this nut than others, but it doesn't matter because there's plenty of other types of nuts. But then say a drought hits, and the food is limited mainly to one type of nut...birds that already have that variety of the beak that helps them eat that nut will survive (and thus reproduce) more effectively. Yes, the shape was already in the population, but it's not hard for such new shapes to form. All it takes is a tiny change in, say, a gene that codes for timing of how long another gene that controls the beak growth is expressed. If these cells grow for a bit longer or shorter, the shape of the beak is changed.

Small changes in complex systems can have large effects, given enough time. The adaptive power of life is amazing, and over billions of years of evolution, I see it as no difficulty for life to evolve from single cells to the amazingly complex life we have now. The time scales are so vast, and life reproduces very quickly in most species (hours, days, weeks, or months for most species). This means DNA is copied very very often, giving ample opprotunity for change.

 

• First, you must take alook at our planet we call Earth. In the vastness of the Universe, the Infinity that we cannot possibly comprehend when we look among the stars, you have to ask yourself (possibly zoning of a joint:H) are we alone? I believe strongly in the distance of our planet from our mother star, has to do with everything that we know and feel and smell and touch and taste and see in this spacetime. Our planet formed because of the gravitational force of our sun, bringing together parts of floating, highly radiating metallic-rock, in the early infant universe, to form and give birth to a complex weather system, which formed the clouds to give us WATER. This my friends can be argued as an act of a GOD, or totally by chance. But, as I asked you before if this happened by chance why could this not have happened elsewhere. The odds might be alot higher than we assume, because when you have a infinite number, then the chances are possibly infinite as well. There is absolutely no way in knowing, all we can do as humans is sit and wonder. Evolving and adapting go hand in hand. That is why we stand on two feet. The earth changed dramatically over billions of years, we came down from the trees in search for food, and the rest is history. But the crazy thing is, that I always wonder, is the NEXT EVOLUTION of the HOMO SAPIEN. Imagine that!? because when you take a look at evolution you see it telescoping if you look at the time scales that are involved here, "two billion years for life, six million years for the hominid, 100,000 years for mankind as we know it, And then when you get to agriculture, when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution, you're looking at 10,0000 years, 400 years, 150 years, What this means is that as we go through the new evolution, it's going to telescope to the point we should be able to manifest it within our lifetime, within a generation." So, are you prepared to Evolve?

 

from a house, a builder is inferred. from Nature, nothing so certain is evident but nor is the negative provable. considering that the question is unanswerable, maybe it would be better to concentrate our energy on subjects that will tend to increase our knowledge about that which concerns us.

 

argueing against evolution is like believing the earth is flat, a century from now people will be laughing about there being creationists. again evolution doesnt give us the moral of why, it gives us the how, people who ask why man is what he is turn to god, if you wanna know about how we came to be enroll in a biology class.

 

Winston


when you look at the world around you does it lead you to believe intelligent design or random chaos?

the universe is finely tuned, axial tilt etc...etc
the flagella motor in bacteria,
your eye,...irreducible complexity
heat death

Naturalism neccessarily ends in Existentialism and Nihilism, and they have a problem with the logic of their belief system from morals. That is "whatever is truth to you is truth for you", this is prevalent on this site. However once you find that they care for something you have them in a corner. For example, why did Nietzsche write crybaby letters home to mama?
out of time sorry.

 

The point was that it was possible for someone to become a reformed nihilist. Revaluating values and such.

 

thumontico,

I love the dancing men but it is very distracting as I am simple minded and we are discussing important and complex issues. just kidding,....about the importance.

I didn't complete earlier post, had to run.

As the soft spot of existentialism is from morals, so the soft spot for theology has been from evil as your quote above shows. I do not suppose to be able to answer the questions that have perplexed the greatest minds of history as it seems many on this site are able to do with arrogance.

However I do suppose to be able to properly form the questions and the arguments and it is rather nice to be able to do it in such a relaxed atmosphere, though I have seen some tempers on here.

Belief claims are very difficult to defend, whatever they may be. Truth is almost impossible to prove, whatever it may be. Thus I prefer not to make belief claims, I'm a wimp. I would add, in the category of some of the greatest minds, socrates professed to know nothing, Newton had the honesty to admit he did not know the why of gravity and refused to postulate a hypotheses. Enough.

Theology is currently taken to defending the argument from evil by means other than "greater good" and they have admitted the circuitousness of "greater good". That is, if every evil either brings about a greater good or prevents a greater evil" then to prevent evil would be to prevent a greater good or the stopping of a greater evil.

example "if Tom had not died in that car wreck then Suzy would have never joined the church and accepted Christ" Logic says christians should want more people to die in car wrecks so that more people can accept Christ. Surely this is not the case and you can think of an example of preventing a greater evil....etc...etc.

The more recent writings on the topic present a "best of all worlds scenario". My apologies to the men working on this as I will surely butcher it. Basically this world, as bad as it is with evil and all, is the best possible world out of all possible worlds God could have created. For God to have a meaningful relationship with man it was neccessary for man to be able to make moral choices (free will). Evil then exist because of mans moral (or not moral) choices. God has never promised to stop all evil in this world(this could be a whole other subject, admitted) so the existence of evil does not count against him being all good and all powerful. Also you must accept that all powerful does not mean that he can do the non doable, ie create a rock that is too heavy for him to lift.

I must run out again, I have a young son with places to be.

 

Even evolutionists vigorously debate the nature of evolutionary theory. The thinking that evolution is without reasonable challenge is to ascribe to scientific dogma surrounding the theory. Even evolutionists disagree as to the mechanism, so saying that "argueing against evolution is like believing the earth is flat" does little more than demonstrate ignorance regarding the arguments being thrown around by the disunified factions within the scientific community.

“The central question of the Chicago conference was whether the mechanisms underlying microevolution can be extrapolated to explain the phenomena of macroevolution. At the risk of doing violence to the positions of some of the people at the meeting, the answer can be given as a clear No.”
[As reported by Roger Lewin (evolutionist), “Evolutionary theory under fire,” Science, vol. 210 (4472), 21 November 1980, p. 883]

 

I came across this extremely intresting article about God & Evolution. Take A Look - http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1423450,00.html

Its titled Test of Faith - Religion may be a survival mechanism. So are we born to believe?

 

Evolution...definantley, But why is it that evolution in it's self cannot be spiritual....

There was a Nebula (gas and dust) some forces caused a great swirling in the nebula, and our solar system was created, and in our solar system our plantes, and in our planets bacetria, and from the bascteria fish, then from fish reptiles and so forth up to humans....Essentially we were created from dust....and eventually thats where our organic containers (bodies) will return....but the more amazing thing (to me) is not where we evolved from ect it is life it's self, All these organs and cells working in perfect unison (most of the time0 to create one living thinking breathing peice of matter, that utilizes all of the resources about it (not just humans all living things)

Forget where we came from, And just stand in awe of the mind boggling-ness of Life it's self.

 

there is two kinds Evolution and evolution the first means the theoy of Evolution the latter means things change over time to adaped. there is no solid proof the theoy is true the guy who came up with it said we would find it in the fossels. but we have not. insted animals are just there. yes they found changes in animals but they have yet to find animals changing into othere animals. why is there still crocodiles shouldn't they have evoled.

if you look at all things space, earth, life they all have intelegent disign.

don't think of god in the context of the bible or any othere religen becuase man knows nothing.

think of the big bang theoy. one thing they don't adress much is what was befor it. nothing . so what caused it?