Is there such a thing as a Christian?

It's impossible to prove anything, or even present evidence of anything, to a person who is determined not to accept it. There is an abundance of evidence for evolution, most fully developed for the horse. The evidence is presented on a number of websites that I posted recently on this thread, and the evidence and arguments are presented on at least three other sites on this forum. The arguments are based on inference from an impressive body of circumstantial evidence--molecular, genetic, fossil, homologies, etc. The evidence becomes more impressive every year, as a result of new finds. There is no alternative scientific theory. Against it, we have a Bronze Age tale of a six day creation, a talking snake, a God who likes to stroll in his garden, and a creation in which the earth was made before the sun and moon. I believe that the Genesis account, the very center of the religious experience that made me a Christian, is a powerful allegory, not an account of how Creation actually happened. Even Michael Behe, guru of Intelligent Design, accepts virtually all of evolution, including common descent, but argues for some je ne sais qua that the theory is lacking. His irreducible complexity argument seems to have been adequately refuted by Kenneth Miller at the Dover textbook trial. Show me a talking snake, and I'll certainly change my mind, but so far the evolutionists seem to have the better of the argument.

 

If it were settled there would be no argument.

 

Tell that to the Flat Earth Society.

 

Why

 

who is to say what a chair really looks like to them though....

 

My point exactly. Evolutionary theory is based on inference and circumstantial evidence, not hard, irrefutable fact. I just wish it were presented as what it is rather than what it isn't. And I do not need any type of religious connotation to any aspect of it to see and appreciate that.
Remove the question of evolution from any religious arena and study it on it's own merits to see if it stands or falls. Few people do that on both sides of the debate. It is sad really that those who would try to convince others of the validity of the theory can't separate it from any religious connotation, and insist on having it juxtaposed to a religious theory of creation.
Settle the theory of evolution FIRST then move it into the religious arena if you want.

Your view of the creation story is so child like as to render it meaningless.

At this juncture may I point out one thing that is often not considered in these type of "debates".
According to everything I have read about it and in it, the Bible is the account of God's relationship with man, and specifically God's dealings with the Hebrews and those cultures they were in direct contact with them.
Given that, the creation of the universe is secondary to the main message and intent of the Bible. It also renders any questions concerning dinosaurs, UFOs, extraterrestrial life, one celled diatoms, Native Americans and a whole host of other topics mute because it does not directly deal with them because that is not the focus of the Bible, nor does it explicitly claim to.

It is like saying the theory of evolution is false because it doesn't address interstellar space travel.

 

My suggestion that their is no evidence functions to denounce the idea that there IS.

Those asserting this "evidence" would also have to explain why the particular evidence is indicating god and not something else.

Evolution teaches people about a common ancestor because that is what the theory insinuates.

Its millions of years of "She has her mothers eyes, and her fathers nose" going backwards.

A snippet from wikipedia from a picture:

The Tree of Life as depicted by Ernst Haeckel in The Evolution of Man (1879) illustrates the 19th-century view that evolution was a progressive process leading towards man.



We are now talking about three things.
1.The theory of evolution, which is evident in successive generations
2.The history of evolution, which is evident in fossils, DNA, radioactive decay, predictions, ect...
3.The history of the theory of evolution, which can be found in plenty of textbooks, i imagine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolution

Thats how evolution works.

A species adapts and becomes another species.

Like the question: "What came first, the chicken or the egg with the chicken inside of it".

It was neither. Something that wasn't a chicken lay'ed the first chicken egg.

Science is a system of knowledge based on observation, empirical evidence and testable explanations of natural phenomena. By contrast, creationism is based on literal interpretations of the narratives of particular religious texts. Some creationist beliefs involve purported forces that lie outside of nature, such as supernatural intervention, and these cannot be confirmed or disproved by scientists.[134] However, many creationist beliefs can be framed as testable predictions about phenomena such as the age of the Earth, its geological history and the origins, distributions and relationships of living organisms found on it. Early science incorporated elements of these beliefs, but as science developed these beliefs were gradually falsified and were replaced with understandings based on accumulated and reproducible evidence.

 

Again, is that not simply the adaptation of a species to enviromental factors?

Why does that seem to be such a hard thing to grasp.

 

To apprehend is to take somebody suspected of wrongdoing into legal custody, to grasp the importance, significance, or meaning of something, or to
become aware of something: by use of the senses .

I need to amend my statement on apprehension by virtue of definition. Our senses do make us aware of something . The senses make us aware of something but perception is not knowledge. Perception by it's nature is ignorant.
Form is defined by negative space.

I am sure we can agree on the subjective nature of our sensational regard however homo sapien is more than taste. It is both tasting man and knowing man. The human being has an objective nature, we are real. To commune with this objective nature of self is the only avenue we possess to discover, "truth".
Know thyself.

It is because of the abstract nature of the mind, that the truth can be obscured by mental simulations that are more or less accurate.

 

You are using the word "see" incorrectly.

First you say that we do not see the table, then you describe what it means to see the table by using the word see.

The word "seeing" already takes into account that "seeing" something is detecting light with your eyeballs. So saying that you do not "see" a table, but "see" light is incorrect because seeing the table means seeing the light that the table reflects.

Again, the word "see" is being used incorrectly. Reflected light is what our eyes process, its not what we "see".

I don't understand the rest of the sentence though. And i'm not trying to be funny but i think its because it doesn't make sense.

What exactly do you think "fact" means?

 

One of the things you are doing with your arguments is defining terms. I am using the word see to represent the physical sense. I would use the word vision to describe what we do with it.

Because we do not apprehend things directly with our senses, we can "envision" things that are not there or misidentify what is there by virtue of some distorting factor between you and the object, fog for instance.

 

Defining terms is necessary in communication. If our definitions don't match, our meanings never will.

Also, I am a naturalist in both name and state of mind. I don't understand the distinction between spiritual and physical and cant understand why you would use the term "physical sense" as if there were something to contrast it against. You will need to use more detail so I understand what you mean.

But the table is there, else there would be nothing for the light to reflect off of.

 

Yes, that's exactly what it is. It's called natural selection. I get it. Do you?

 

I only wish I could keep up with you guys....I love it though.

 

damn double post

 

Natural selection is NOT the same as evolution in it's totality.
Natural selection is a PART and PROCESS of evolutionary theory, but it is NOT the complete theory.
You still have to account for the lack of evidence of crossover or links between the different families of plant and animals, or at least show the distinct differentiations of a common ancestor in the fossil record to account for the different families of life on the planet. Evolutionary theory has yet to produce that evidence.

I'm growing weary of this whole thread. It is mostly based on interpretation and opinion.
Opinions are like assholes, Everybody has one and they all stink. Including mine.

 

Precisely, I think it unfair to proclaim that I had used the word see incorrectly
as there are 22 conjugations of the word and 2 of them are nouns. However, I readily admit that I myself had not allowed for every conjugation of the word, apprehend.

I couldn't tell you what I am other than a philosopher in the following sense:

[14th century. < Anglo-Norman philosophre , variant of Old French philosophe < Latin philosophus < Greek philosophos "lover of knowledge" < philos "loving" + sophia "learning, wisdom"]

The love of knowledge is one thing that motivates the "christian" practitioner,
Knowing that those who thirst and hunger for righteousness, rightness, shall be satisfied and that the truth sets us free.

I am not making a distinction between physical and spirit, I am making a distinction between perception and knowledge.

If you recall I said the table is there, but our senses do not apprehend it directly.

 

That Is why I stepped in, not that my opinion is less assholish, but it helps to start building consensus with terms that we can agree upon.

 

I agree.

Biology, in contrast, uses the term evolution a bit more specifically. At its most basic, evolution in biology can be used to refer either to the change in the gene pool of a population over time or to the concept of descent with modification. Here are some examples from basic biology texts:

“In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next.” Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989.

“Biological evolution ...is change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual.” Douglas J. Futuyma in Evolutionary Biology, 1986.

The two definitions look a bit different, but they are expressing similar things — the first is to a large extent more technical.

The second common use of the term evolution within biology is for the concept of common descent, the idea that all living beings are descended from a common ancestor. This typically occurs in the context of allele frequencies changing in populations over time, but there are also other factors as well. Thus, “change in allele frequency over time” is a narrow and technical definition of evolution while “descent with modification” is a broader understanding.

That portion in bold is the aspect and definition of the word I am focusing on because it directly relates to the religious arena in which this discussion is taking place.

The majority of the "proofs" being offered are in reality examples of phylogeny;

Definition of PHYLOGENY
1: the evolutionary history of a kind of organism
2: the evolution of a genetically related group of organisms as distinguished from the development of the individual organism
3: the history or course of the development of something (as a word or custom)

I honestly don't know how to make the distinction any clearer.

 

I've only met one person I would consider to be a True Christian in my entire life.