Some of my issues with "intelligent design."

[mrdevious]

Mr. Devious chooses to put his faith in man, and I choose to put mine in God.

Ah that old chestnut. Thing is, Evolution isn't strictly a matter of faith because it is supported by VAST amoungs of evidence, and most people don't understand or know of 1% of the evidence that exists. I'm no evolutionary biologist, but I have a friend who's a 3rd year science student and has explained quite a huge amount to me. As he pointed out "I've argued with creationists and I haven't heard from one that actually understood evolution, or how it works. Every argument they've given against it I can already explain". Evolutionists put "faith" in evolution, like Albert Hoffman put "faith" in his formula for LSD.

Regardless (and here's the kicker), I'm not a strict proponent of evolution. I believe, from examining the huge amount of facts, that evolution plays some degree in the developement of species. I don't actually know if evolution is the sole catylist of complexity found in life.
But therein lies the different between our supposed "faiths". Evolution is based on the interpretation of empiricle evidence. Creationism is based on filling god in as an explanation where we don't currently have one. Creation doesn't actually utilize any empiracle evidence, or examine and build on observable and repeatable evidence, it rather works under a false notion of "well we don't have the answers here, here, and here.... therefor that proves god did it."

So yes, there is a clear distinciton between the two supposed "faiths". And as for faith itself, I only hold it for that which has repeatedly and consistently held true. The only absolute faith I have is that the world is a very complex place that we'll continuously need to explore and examine. I'm not just going to fill in the answer where I don't have one.

You can try as hard as you like, but you will NEVER prove God wrong. It's not possible.

Funny, because it's been done countless of times. But in a way you are right, I've seen a thousand different creationist arguments proved wrong time and again, only to be ignored by the devoted and used once again. So yes, it is impossible to prove god wrong in the eyes of those so devoted to him that they won't consider reasoning which doesn't match up with their presuppositions. God has been proven wrong on many fronts, however, in the eyes of those who weigh information objectively.

You can say I'm biasedly only supporting evidence in favour of my presupposition, but you would be wrong. I firmly believed in god till I was 19 years old, and I only became an atheist (at least in the sense of god being some spitefull external being as portrayed in many primitive texts) after spending 2 year examing every logical argument made by every side of the debate. Every creationist argument I heard, no matter how much I wanted to believe it, had an obvious logical flaw. My 2 year search was with the purpose of finding the right arguments and confirming what I so badly wanted to believe, that god really was up there. Instead I found a much harder truth.

[Stemis516]

theres two different types of evolution

micro and macro....micro being what some1 described with the flu virus example...macro being the theory that we evolved from apes

show me the proof of macroevolution plz....it has yet to be reproduced in a lab, and there is still no full blown proof of evolution over millions of years......sure a few things in humans have changed...for example some people have wisdom teeth some dont, but we have yet to prove evolving into a completely differnet spiecies

i respect your beliefs bro but to think that evolution in the sense of macroevolution is complete and infallible fact is just being ignorant....u give plenty of evidence to back ur point up and thats fine, but i can list plenty of evidence in support of God too...can i prove God exists??? not a chance

faith brother....ur using it one way or another

[MastaChronic]

ho hum....what will i do? oh what willlll i do?....... i could go on to repeat the same exact things that mrdevious has stated, but i wont because you obviously just refuse to open your eyes to the truth that is science and insted keep looking up in the sky searching for your invisible magical man that protects you from evil

[mrdevious]

theres two different types of evolution

micro and macro....micro being what some1 described with the flu virus example...macro being the theory that we evolved from apes

show me the proof of macroevolution plz....it has yet to be reproduced in a lab, and there is still no full blown proof of evolution over millions of years......sure a few things in humans have changed...for example some people have wisdom teeth some dont, but we have yet to prove evolving into a completely differnet spiecies

i respect your beliefs bro but to think that evolution in the sense of macroevolution is complete and infallible fact is just being ignorant....u give plenty of evidence to back ur point up and thats fine, but i can list plenty of evidence in support of God too...can i prove God exists??? not a chance

faith brother....ur using it one way or another

I was under the impression that Macro and Micro evolution were terms coined by creationists. Regardless, both perspectives can be presented.

First of all, you can't reproduce large-scale evolution in a lab because it would require a lab with extremely varrying environmental factors all of which we can understand and take into consideration regarding their effects (which is damn-near impossible), several different species, and a few hundred million years to carry out the experiment. So no, it can't be reproduced in a lab.

Here's one interesting site regarding evolution on a larger scale. You may want to actually research the potential arguments before dismissing them as non-existent.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/


And once again, I'm not stating evolution as an infallable fact, I'm stating that it obviously has some degree of influence on the course of speciation, how much influence remains in question.

Still, creationist's greatest weapon is their distortion of all theory, law, and ideas; that being, trying to place scientists and creationists on equal grounds by perpetuating the false notion that any and every point of view is just "faith", that every idea and standpoint is all just a matter of faith and therefor it all is equally valid. I've yet to hear a real, solid creationist argument based on real research, sound logic, and reasonable interpretation of empiricle evidence. If anybody can prove to me, or at least present reasonable and existent evidence that god exists, I'll not only believe in your god, I just might dance a jig with joy.

[mrdevious]

Nobody can, and that's whats so damned cool about it. It's kind of like how the government beats down on marijuana, when we all knows it's not as bad as they claim.

And our belief that marijuana isn't as bad as they say, and our believe that we don't deserve to be imprisoned for it, is based on real evidence. It's based on a huge multitude of scientific studies (IE. some of the ones in my sig), a logical interpretation of the success of the "war on drugs", and our own observations of its effects and how it doesn't destroy our lives like we're told. Simply "experiencing" god is not evidence of him, it's evidence of a mental event that has all sorts of causes such as emotion, social/parental conditioning, and fallable leaps of logic. We would need to actually see this god, or have some physical evidence of his existence, in order to believe in him.

Otherwise people interpret their own neuro-chemical events which create certain psychological images/notions, as their "proof" because "I can just feel it deep down. I know deep in my heart".... IE. the processes in their brain have convinced them so thoroughly there's a god, they replicate the emotional/psychological conditions that would arise from actual evidence, leading them to accept the pre-concieved notion as fact because it has the same psychological impact. What people don't, or refuse to consider, is that the right mental conditioning, regarding any concept, can easily convince you of anything with the same result of actually seeing it with your own eyes. Most people think that there would surely be some small degree of doubt within their psyche to counteract this if it didn't really exist, but this is simply not so. People don't give the capabilities of their own brains to fool them enough credit. There are solid neuro-chemical reasons why schizophrenics can be CONVINCED beyond any doubt whatsoever, more real than any belief in god, that the voices in their head threatening them are absolutely real.

Well, some of us have a relationship with God that others do not. Feels just as good.

I'm sure it does feel just as good, but this only proves an internal mental event, not an external being (especially one that has a petty ego, imposes codes of morality that are primite products of primitive societies, and imparts wisdom that's immensely weak. "thou shalt not kill"? Anybody can do that, how about a blueprint for a clean-burning car fuel? How about a cure for cancer?).

All I'm saying is that if you really believe in god, there should be no fear in considering and thoroughly researching every argument and every argument against that argument. I went in, firmly holding to my belief in god, researching these arguments and debates so that I could firmly know that my assumption of god was correct. Instead I found the opposite of what I was looking for, and rather than throwing away my intellect and believing what I wanted, I realized that I couldn't hold to something just because it's a nice idea, the evidence supporting the non-existence of god was clearly more logical.

Merry Christmas all.

[Stemis516]

how many times do i have to say it??? i believe in evolution, i also believe in God but not in the way that ur typical born again christians believe...basically i acknowledge he exists and that he is good...and thats as far as it goes for now, but one again, i believe in evolution

but i dont accept it has fact...just like i dont accept God to be a fact....i realize that both views could be completely wrong and we have no way of finding out

ok so u cant repeat macro evolution in a lab....can u observe it in the world??? did any1 observe apes evolve into us??? didnt think so, and until some1 invents a time machine we will never know for sure, no matter how much "evidence" u think there is

[mrdevious]

how many times do i have to say it??? i believe in evolution, i also believe in God but not in the way that ur typical born again christians believe...basically i acknowledge he exists and that he is good...and thats as far as it goes for now, but one again, i believe in evolution

but i dont accept it has fact...just like i dont accept God to be a fact....i realize that both views could be completely wrong and we have no way of finding out

ok so u cant repeat macro evolution in a lab....can u observe it in the world??? did any1 observe apes evolve into us??? didnt think so, and until some1 invents a time machine we will never know for sure, no matter how much "evidence" u think there is

I'm not sure you entirely understand evolution. Even if we could go back in time, we STILL couldn't observe it. Evolution is only observable through transitional fossile records and genetic variations with consistencies. Evolution isn't a magical force that makes a monkey one day turn into a man, it's an incredibly gradual process.

But still, my point stands, evolution is based on real empiricle evidence that exists in every species and fossil known. What is the evidence for god? I understand that you don't believe in the old-school traditional god, and that's actually admirable in that you most likely have a more reasonable view of the universe. Even my best friend, the 3rd year biology/chemistry student I told you about, believes in god closer to your sense. But if god is based on these ancient scriptures, and these scriptures don't stand up, what is the rest being based on? Logical reasoning you might say, but if so I've yet to hear it.

[harris7]

theres two different types of evolution

micro and macro....micro being what some1 described with the flu virus example...macro being the theory that we evolved from apes

show me the proof of macroevolution plz....it has yet to be reproduced in a lab, and there is still no full blown proof of evolution over millions of years......sure a few things in humans have changed...for example some people have wisdom teeth some dont, but we have yet to prove evolving into a completely differnet spiecies

i respect your beliefs bro but to think that evolution in the sense of macroevolution is complete and infallible fact is just being ignorant....u give plenty of evidence to back ur point up and thats fine, but i can list plenty of evidence in support of God too...can i prove God exists???

I am currently at second year university biology level and starting third year genetics next semester.

There is no differentiation in science between the two, micro and macro. They are one and the same. There is one theory, Evolution, this theory has lots and lots of aspects to it. Iâ??m sure 99% of them youâ??ve never heard of. (like genetic drift)

This distinction I assume was created by creationists because they know they canâ??t object to micro itâ??s too obvious. Itâ??s pretty much the same tactic religious people always use.
Something else is proved wrong, so they just keep going with the other bullshit.


No one in science believes that anything â??is complete and infallible factâ?�
Only religious people believe things like that.

Scientists look at all the data we have, think up some ideas that explain it. And accept the best one. If more data is complied which contradict something. Our views change.
Eventually a â??theoryâ?� explains so much information and is constantly correctly predicting amazing things (eg, genetics) and this theory has little or nothing against it, we start to consider it fact. Just as we consider theories of electricity/gravity and so on, fact.

I cant â??proveâ?� electrons exist to you. Nor can I â??proveâ?� evolution occurred.

We essential accept the best solution. And even if creationism was equal to evolution in itâ??s explanatory ability (it is not) science always accepts the simplest solution (itâ??s called Occamâ??s Razor)


I suggest you inform yourself on the Theory before you try to speak against it. Because if everyone on here understood evolutionary theory, we wouldnâ??t be having these discussions.

[harris7]

Oh yes and something doesn’t have to be observed to be “proven”.

There is something called scientific inference, it’s how we know what is in the middle of the earth.

[mrdevious]

It's nice to have your on board harris!

Sometimes it feels like I'm the only person who goes against the general concensus and and questions all this stuff.