My problem is that evolution isn't reasonable. That's why this topic exists. There is no reason for you to bring your anti-Christianity hate into this topic. If you persist derailing this topic I'll have to ask some moderators to clean it up and hand out severity, to me as well if necessary.

Isn't evolution more reasonable than any other alternative?

If it was, this topic wouldn't exist.

I'm surprised. Maybe its because I'm only skimming and because 99.9% of the posts in the last several pages are just clearing up misunderstandings about their opponents arguments, but I don't think I've seen anyone state that physics, biology, the whole gamut of science are simply tools of God. In a general sense, I have yet to understand why Intelligent Design has a bad rep when in these arguments.

Thank you Fire_Kame.

You mean like the Isrealites were in Egypt?

You don't understand that slavery in Isreal was not like slavery in America was.

One of them is based on racism and white people being superior and the other is a form employment for people who have nothing.
I'm not saying it didn't happen ever, but generally slaves were held within their own will. It's much more equivalent to labor during the industrial revolution.
Would you rather be employed, with food, clothing, and shelter or a homeless starving bum in the city?

You're labouring under a false definition of "slavery". Here's a real one for you:
"1. (Law) the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune"

Yes, slaves in ancient times may have been better treated than their modern day equivalents. But they were still slaves. They still have no choice over their life and no money to choose to buy anything - everything they had was provided to them by their master. So if their master didn't think they deserved bedding, or water-tight shelter, or good food, or new clothes, or better tools to do their jobs with, then they didn't get it.

Slavery is specifically *not* just a form of employment, it goes much further and touches every aspect of your life. You might notice that many modern American companies are trying to dictate control over their employees lives too - monitoring facebook pages and drug screening etc. But that's because they're starting to treat their employees as slaves, not because that is a "normal" part of employment.

If you say all of these things are tools of god, you're just being intellectually lazy. This is essentially "god of the gaps." Intellectual Design still argues for creation, not evolution, so even that doesn't cut it. If the religious leaders want to pretend every new scientific discovery is simply "god working in mysterious ways" and "correct" their previous interpretations of scripture to align with science, there wouldn't be any need for these discussions. They do tend to have a history of holding onto mistruths, however.

I have asked for evidence of this at least three times, still have yet to see any.

I have heard that you could volunteer to be a slave (in Greece/Rome) to pay off debt (before being forced to by a court or when your debt got worse) or for those sorts of purposes, but it was never really a 'choice' to become a slave. Why would you 'choose' to give up your freedom, just because? It was done because the people had no alternative, much the same as most prostitution (particularly street walkers) is done by women who don't have any alternative to make the same sorts of money.

Most slaves in Greece and Rome were foreigners captured during war, or people from towns that were invaded by slavers who picked them up on boats and took them back home (very similar to slavery in the 1800's).

I don't hate Christianity. I may have come across a bit harsh in my sarcastic comments, and I apologize if I have offended anyone. After all, I agree with most of the Bible's moral values. It's the unmovable position on a few certain subjects that I dislike, and the resistance of certain people to reasonable, gradual change.

Jack, please stop avoiding the questions. You shouldn't be afraid of doubting your beliefs. Last night I was even questioning the theory of evolution in light of Cecil's arguments. I thought about it and asked myself... how could anyone prove that the Earth is a certain number of years old? If I was born in the year 1900, I could argue that the Earth did not exist before 1900. And I realized, well, you can't prove that unless you believe in certain assumptions.

I can see how you believe that the Bible is unrelated to the theory of evolution, but in this topic, creationism is the opposite force in our debate. Because creationism is based on Abrahamic religious beliefs, the Bible is naturally the major source of the details of creationism.

The reason I "persist derailing" this topic is simple: You believe the Bible is infallible, and you always follow its teachings. If you admit to not following the Bible (or its morals), then that hurts your credibility. Thus, if the Bible is wrong in one place, it is not infallible, and other parts of the Bible may be incorrect.

So please, Jack, and any other creationist, please respond to my questions. Give them your best answers, and if you don't, I'll assume "yes" for every answer, seeing that you believe in every page of the Bible.

A lot of the world has been built upon slavery because when slavery occurred, there was no guiding moral compass or understanding to outlaw it. Ancient Romans viewed themselves as the proud and rightful rulers of the world (aristocratic, upper class - not their plebian underlings, and certainly not roman or foreign slaves). European conquest and colonialism rationalized slavery due to misapplication of Darwinian thought (as mentioned before). This was particularly prevalent in the United States (and I don't know enough about US history to bring that into this).

To say that slavery doesn't exist today is, quite frankly, wrong. It exists as it always has but is simply camouflaged and hidden. Take for example the US prison labor alone accounts for $2.4 billion dollars annually (source). Is this not some inherent form of slavery? Whereby if you commit a crime, are sentenced to jail, stripped of your freedom, your fortune and your liberties and made to work?

I can see very strong parallels in the prison labor analogy to this quote by Lanthanide:


Sure, it is not one person outright 'owning' another; it is the state, owning millions of individuals. The obvious counter argument to this is that 'they are criminals, they murder, rape, steal and do not belong in normal society unless they reform'.

Are we not all slaves in some romantic sense of the word to the governments that we pay taxes to? I personally see no benefit to paying my national insurance tax (£200 a year), nor does the value added tax (20% of whatever I purchase) give me any benefit. Cigarettes and Alcohol I buy are taxed at around 1000% and 400% respectively, where does this money go? If I earn £20,000 a year, I will pay 20% in tax, on top of national insurance, vat, etc. If I earn more money, I pay more tax - what kind of incentive is that? We have 'free healthcare' here - but it is appalling. Take this for example, I went in last year and was diagnosed with swine flu (maybe you heard about it), what did the doctor suggest? Go home, lie in bed, take paracetamol. Seriously. Anyone who can afford to, already pays for private healthcare, adding to their costs since their taxes supposedly prop up the free healthcare system already. I have no choice but to pay these taxes, other than leave the country and live elsewhere. No choice.

When I lived in South Africa we had a maid and a gardener. They had no education, no skills, no vocations, but we paid them handsomely (relatively speaking), gave them housing and they were content to work for us. When I first came to Britain people were shocked and they interpreted it as us having 'slaves' or 'servants'.

So why do I rant on about slavery in the evolution debate? Well, simple really. There will always be some form of social subordination, or some hierarchy in play, so long as their exists a class system or perceived social standing. If God created us all equal, why are there such divisions in society?

Lets not derail this thread with tax issues. There are other threads on government where you can talk about it.

The flu is a virus. Anti-viral drugs are very limited in effectiveness, and in particular tamiflu which was known to be somewhat effective at combating influenza, but was in very limited supply. It makes sense to reserve the tamiflu for those who need it most - the elderly, people with weakened immune systems, people recovering from other illnesses already like pneumonia etc. Giving the limited supply of drugs, with limited effectiveness, out to every tom dick and harry that shows up at the hospital with an illness that in 99% of cases will just make you feel like crap for a week would be completely irresponsible. So yes, your public health service made the best decision possible - if you want special private treatment, be prepared to pay for it, but really you would still be showing arrogance by using up scarce medical resources that you actually, truly, didn't need.

I think the problem with trying to separate this with the religion issue is that people who do not believe in evolution do not do so on empirical grounds. They do so because of religious convictions.

From what I can see those who choose not to believe in what specialists say about evolution do so because it contradicts their understandings of their religion. And of course, their religious beliefs are far more important to them then the beliefs of the majority of scientists.

With many things in life you have to simply trust what the specialists say about them. I barely know how this computer works, yet I trust what the specialists say as to how it works, and not believe that it works by magic, or any other thing I would like to think it to be. The difference between things that empirical specialists say to you and things that religious 'specialists' say to you is that you can look at the evidence yourself, and you will see through your own reason what is true and what is not. In every case, religious truth cannot be substantiated and shown to be truth.

"When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts, and what are the truths that the facts bear out." - Bertrand Russell.

Uh, how can you make a claim like that? I don't believe in evolution for reasons very far from religious convictions. I would say that most people who believe in evolution think they have vasts amount of "proof" simply because they've always been told it's true. That could easily be considered a form of religious conviction, could it not? I'd be more careful in saying things like this, as what you said just isn't true.

Why not? In every case? The bible states that life lies within the blood, i.e. you won't live without it. One could say god put this into the bible so that people wouldn't spend centuries draining sick people's blood out of the belief it was spoiled blood. It turns it out was correct. Lots of religions say lots of things that are true. How can you claim that no religion is true?

I had a thought along these lines the other day while reply to Cecil's questions in the other thread. Scientists all study particular things in great great detail. There are geologists, biologists, physicists that all specialise in their own areas. In all of these areas, they have come up with observations that point towards evolution and away from creationism.

There's a clear corroboration between biology and geology - evolution as we understand it requires millions, if not billions of years to operate, and the age of the earth being billions of years old enables evolution to take place. That's why there are huge amounts of attacks on geology and earth science by creationists, because if they prove the earth is only 6,000 years old then by default they've proven evolution to be wrong.

But basically each discipline is separate - the geologists look at the earth and say "we think this is over 4 billion years old", and the biologists look at genetics and the way animals live and say "we think these things have evolved over long periods of time", but they didn't come to that conclusion *because* the earth is 4 billion years old, and likewise the geologists didn't conclude the earth is 4 billion years old *because* evolution indicates this to be the case.

What creationists try to do, however, is explain all the varied different fields of science with a simple explanation - the earth was creation 6,000 years ago, and at some point there was a global flood that created all of the geology and animal life that we see today. But they're really missing the point - they haven't spent 40 years studying geology, 40 years studying biology, 40 years studying linguistics, 40 years studying anthropology, 40 years studying astronomy, etc, so they don't actually have a detailed understanding of just how much evidence there is supporting both the age of the earth and the theory of evolution. It's like some kid going to university, getting a 4 year science degree and then thinking they're authoritative on areas of science far outside their speciality, as well as other disciplines like social sciences and history.

Another example is the brevity in which their theories can be described. "There was a flood, and then when the water evaporated [how long did this take? where did it go? where did the energy come from?] the land was reformed so that lots of mountains were created out of the seabed". Ok great. Now lets look at the thousands of books written about plate tectonics and the mechanisms through which they work, and compare it to your little sentence about how mountains were formed. Ok, so your sentence actually isn't the full story, maybe there's a 20 page article written about it - but that still doesn't compare to thousands of books written by hundreds of authors. If you want to put forth your theories credibly, you need to show that you can create a consistent theory that is *AT LEAST AS GOOD* as all present existing theories at explaining the various minutia from each field. Despite thousands of Christians trying to do this, they've met with very limited success.

Sure, I'm not a geologist, or a biologist, or a linguist. But when there is an overwhelming consensus among the experts as to what the most likely explanation for something happening is, I trust their judgements, even if I have no hope of fully comprehending all of the details and knowledge that went into formulating that explanation.
Lots of religions say lots of things that aren't true, or are clear reflections on the society on which they flourished. So what's your point? Just because it says a few things that are true (most likely because they're obvious conclusions to draw from every day life) doesn't mean that somehow the whole documents are accurate.

It's entirely possible to have a good observation and a bad conclusion. Just because people observe layers in the Earth doesn't mean the Earth is millions of years old. There are hundreds of ways to determine the Earth's age. Out of those hundreds of methods, if one of them pointed to the Earth being not millions of years old, with certainty, then the rest of the methods can nearly be ignored. For example say you find a sunken ship in the bottom of the ocean. Within this ship is a treasure chest full of coins. If you want to estimate when the ship sunk you use the most recent coin as the basis for estimation. Just because many observations are made doesn't mean that they support evolution. I think it's more along the lines of most observations made by evolutionists are claimed to point towards evolution, and the thing is, evolution is tax supported, thus it is heard louder than the opposing groups.

I'm trying to promote open-mindedness in these forums, but I just don't get where people get off with ideas like this. Honestly Lanthanide how do you know that creationists are so under-qualified? How do you know that the observations made by evolutionists actually support only evolution? Where is all this evidence that everyone claims evolution has? Everyone constantly talks about all this evidence, but all the evidence I've been shown is either evidence for micro-evolution, inaccurate, or a hoax. It seems to me that many people around here who believe in evolution believe in it with the same faith that people who believe in many of today's religions have.

Lanthanide, I don't think you know anything about creationism. You really should give things a fair chance and a fair study before choosing what to believe in. The water didn't evaporate, it's theorized the water is still here today in the oceans and in the polar caps. It is theorized it was all placed underground at first when the Earth was created. Also, just because there are more people or more content towards one idea doesn't mean that it's true. I can bring up the common retort of back in the day everyone was told by the Church that the Earth was flat. You could consider this analogous to today when so many people I talk to believe in evolution.

You trust their judgements even if you have no idea what they are really saying? Isn't this admitting that you really don't know much about evolution, but since so many people who are considered qualified to speak on the topic say one thing you follow? Back in the day many people who were considered qualified and apart of the Catholic Church made everyone believe the Earth was flat. However, just because a large majority of those considered to be qualified say something, doesn't mean it isn't true. You honestly should study each topic yourself and in-depth, as it's clear you have very minimal understanding of both the theory of evolution and creationism; you only have an understanding for the general reputation of both.

Well I would be more inclined to believe you if you actually said why you do not believe in evolution instead of just making the assertion that you do not do it for religious reasons. I am inclined to believe that you do.

And seriously, that is the best argument you can come up with? That belief in evolution is like a form of religious conviction? Your shooting yourself in the foot with that one.

I don't deny that there are banal things in the book that could be construed to be true. But you are just twisting the words original meaning to fit the discoveries that empirical science has made. Aha - yes, the bible was right all along! But the Bible also said in Exodus that one should 'suffer not a witch to live', this resulted in hundreds of innocent women dying terrifying deaths on the stake. Of course, we now know today that there is no such thing as a witch. But if God hadn't included that stupid sentence in his book then that would not have happened...

Look at all the advances empirical science has given us. A huge multitude. What has religion given us? Nothing.

6000 years of history, survival, and technologic advances. That's what religion has given us. There's a reason Christianity is the most widespread religion on the planet. Christians were smarter, help each other, and were vigorous in spreading those ideas to improve quality of life for everyone. You are foolish if you think that religion has done nothing. It's possibly the single most important aspect of human nature in years past, because it makes people be *good* rather than selfish.

I am not saying religion has done nothing it has done stuff, however almost all of it is not beneficial to humanity. I will however, give credit where credit is due. Religion was our first attempt. Our first attempt at healthcare, we thought diseases came from witches/demons, etc.; our first attempt at morality, our first attempt at astronomy, and our first attempt at philosophy. Yet because it is our first attempt it is also our worst.
Hitchens explains what I just said much more eloquently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeVi7jf-KVA

A quote from Heinrich Heine sums it up rather well also:
In dark ages people are best guided by religion, as in a pitch-black night a blind man is the best guide; he knows the roads and paths better than a man who can see. When daylight comes, however, it is foolish to use blind old men as guides.


"Christians were smarter, help each other, and were vigorous in spreading those ideas to improve quality of life for everyone."
You made that up. Seriously, try to back that wild assertion with something, anything.

Also Christianity has not been around for 6000 years.

"It's possibly the single most important aspect of human nature in years past, because it makes people be *good* rather than selfish."
You have no idea how insulting this is to me and to all the other atheists out there. You cannot explain all the atheists who behave good and unselfishly. Religious morality is a 'dog-on-a-leash' morality that I utterly despise. Follow rules x, z, & y and you'll get paradise, don't follow them you will go to hell. Is your fear of punishment and desire for reward the only thing making you a good person?

People be good because they want to be good, they don't do to people what they would not want done to them, it is that simple. If you were to know 100% that God was not real, would you immediately go on some big raping/murdering/pillaging rampage? If yes, you are not a moral person in my eyes.

Here is a challenge used by Hitchens to those who always propose such a thing.
Name a moral action that a believer could make but that an unbeliever could not make. (not possible)
Then name a immoral action undertaken by a believer that could not be made by an unbeliever. (heaps, suicide bombing, genital mutilation, witch-burning, etc.)
Hitchens argument: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xjMBIlgpX0&feature=related

Post has been edited 5 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2011, 3:22 pm by private_parts.

This topic is about evolution right? I'm talking about evolution and religion. There's clearly an evolutionary advantage to having an abrahamic religion. Your family and their descendents are more than likely Christian. Virtually every caucasian in America are the descendents of people seeking religious freedom from Europe.

Our first attempt at bettering ourselves is religion, and it's taught us all those things you have mentioned. We have improved since then considerably using science. However without religion, I'm doubtful we would have ever developed at the rate in which we did. there's a graph on the internet which describes the dark ages and how they left a void in technology because of religion. That's simply not true. Rome collapsed. Not because of Christianity, but because of crappy dictators. You'll note that Constantinople did surprisingly well all throughout the Dark Ages. Islam took off during this time and we have Islam to thank for our numeral system and base 10 (though I wish someone smarter would have popularized base 4, 8 or 16 instead as it's much more efficient).

Treat others like you would want to be treated. That single rule covers everything. So follow that rule, and you'll get paradise (ie... you will be happy). Don't follow that rule and you will go to hell (your life will suck and you probably won't be happy). The idea of an afterlife is irrelevant, and the people who hate/look down upon/or inflict violence upon others in the name of God are breaking that rule.

This is stupid. Neither one is possible. Unbelievers are capable of the exact same things believers are.

It's only insulting because you think I said that atheists can't be good people, which I clearly didn't. I will, however, go so far as to say that if humans did not have religion, then there would be a long delay in the development of technology because it would have taken a lot longer for us to develop the idea of being a "good" person. Good and Evil are pretty much religious terms aren't they?

Okay.
European whites have larger brains than other races found nearby and east asians (who have even larger brains) are pretty well separated from the Mediterranean world. More reading that I just skimmed. From an evolutionary standpoint, having a larger brain means you are smarter, other things being equal.
Mission work and christian communities are a fundamental part of the Christian religion. Most Christian conversions occur through a personal choice, usually because the missionaries are providing education, technology, and food, all for very low prices or free. These are all common knowledge though. Wars and such between different religions were mostly fought over land, and things like the inquisition are stupid people with power deviating from the teachings of Jesus, or interpreting them differently. They have a low rate of conversion as well.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2011, 4:48 pm by rockz.

I don't believe in Evolution because:

Maybe you should point out why it's a bad argument and provide some discussion? I'm all open for discussion, but I don't support you simply stating that what I'm saying is me shooting me in the foot.

I'm not sure about twisting words. I could say the same thing about your claim, and I don't think telling other people that their just twisting words promotes quality discussion. You should probably explain to me why or how I was simply twisting words. Also, the Bible said "Thou shalt not kill", and I don't think killing of people who were defined to be a witch by arbitrary definitions was following the bible in any way. I'd also very much like to see where exactly that quote is, I'm just curious to read it within the context it was written.

I don't think anyone here has a problem with empirical evidence giving humanity a lot of insight. However, I would have a problem with making a point about empirical evidence assuming that it somehow connects back to and supports evolution, or to assume it means that religion does nothing for humanity. Nobody is saying that evolution = empirical evidence, or that religion != empirical evidence. The scientific theory != evolution. Just because someone is religious does not mean that they cannot use the scientific theory. The Wright brothers were devout Christians that wanted to study God's design of birds' wings in order to create a flying machine. http://www.examiner.com/christian-spirituality-in-columbus/the-wright-brothers-faith-to-be-the-first-to-fly

Leonardo da Vinci very heavily trusted in relying on empirical evidence and experience, though he believed in God and was some sort of Theologist. I think he was Catholic (X).

If you're careful of what you say, instead of letting a negative bias drive your words what you say would be more clear to people that read it. I looked at these two lines and was completely confused for a while, had to go back and read what you wrote two or three times.

Here's a list of a lot of influential scientists that were religious: http://www.adherents.com/people/100_scientists.html

It's easy for a person who has a religion similar to Christianity to have a healthy mindset in trying to understand how our world works. The bible tells people to study and learn and understand the world. If you believe and infinitely smart being created everything, then you'll more than likely be inclined to figure everything out. Perhaps you want to understand how the "design" of everything works together. However with evolution you are told you are an animal and share a common heritage with earthworms. Evolution is the idea that the most evolved deserve to live, and the weak deserve to die. Evolution is a theory of death. By death society is bettered. What sort of lines of thinking would evolve from thinking, that the best way for society to advance is to evolve? Many people start thinking of how to speed up evolution, and things like genocide and eugenics start popping up. If I were to believe that there is no god, nor a reason for my existence, then I really would feel okay with shooting Aborigines because I'd feel like I was bettering all of humanity.

There is also the worry that people will go off and kill witches if they listen to the bible, but it clearly states to not kill anyone. The only time people were to kill another is when god says to, and he doesn't say that very often.

I'd like to know what major advancements today came forth from the theory of evolution. I haven't been able to find one yet. Perhaps it just doesn't promote healthy lines of thinking, I'm not sure. I do know however that most major advancements in society came from people who were religious. Einstein was Jewish, yet Agnostic (there is some uncertainty). Isaac Newton was devoutly religious and considered Theology highly important (X).

This wiki page says Benjamin Frankling was a "proponent of religion in general". (X)

Marie Curie was a Roman Catholic until her mother and or sister died.

Niels Bohr went to the University of Copenhagen which was "a centre of Roman Catholic theological learning, but also had faculties for the study of law, medicine, and philosophy" (X). I also found that he was a Theologist: "He believed in an underlying order, but it was a good deal messier than that which Einstein could accept. For Bhor, God could play dice because probability ruled the universe. (X)

Max Planck was also a Theologist (X).

It seems Leonardo da Vinci believed in god as well (X).

Galileo was deeply religious, I think Catholic (X).

Nikola Tesla grew up with a father as a Serbian Orthodox Priest.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 4 2011, 7:23 pm by CecilSunkure.

Brain size beyond a certain point has little to do with intelligence. Sounds like someone needs to ditch the phrenology, and it's good evidence for my earlier assertion that the theory of evolution has a dark side to it.