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[_ Old Earth _] Evolution Vs Evolution Concerning Textbooks

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Hi Victorhadin, you know there are many educated men who teach creation science. Many. I think it unrealistic to say the atheists are correct and the christians are wrong.

One of my favorite people is Dr. Carl Baugh and I watch his television program faithfully. He had Kent Hovind as a guest the other night.

To say they are incorrect isn't realistic, it isn't even sensible that an atheist is correct against the christians.

Their teachings make perfect sense and all in line with the Bible, they back up everything they say with science and the Bible, there is no reason to not believe them.

I understand your position as my brother believes we evolved and he is a man who loves God,but thinks God just set us in motion and we took off, but if that were the case, why aren't we flying?

I think it is quite obvious God created us. I can't understand how anyone can look at the sky and clouds and all nature and see it could not have just happened by wild chance.

I can see by reading your posts you're quite intelligent even though I don't agree with you, but makes me wonder how you were raised and taught to believe man came from a monkey.

God gave me a funny thought when I was wondering about this...monkeys being my ancestors because I was laughing when I thought of the monkeys wherever they are..

He chose that time to say what he did to me..."You wouldn't laugh at your parents, would you?"

Okay, Victorhadin, God talks to christians, so tell me, would you laugh at your parents?
 
Rebecka said:
Hi Victorhadin, you know there are many educated men who teach creation science. Many. I think it unrealistic to say the atheists are correct and the christians are wrong.

One of my favorite people is Dr. Carl Baugh and I watch his television program faithfully. He had Kent Hovind as a guest the other night.

To say they are incorrect isn't realistic, it isn't even sensible that an atheist is correct against the christians.

Well here's the problem; none of these people follow the scientific method properly or submit findings in published journals for peer review. If they did, and those findings passed peer review and were given merit, then I would pay much more attention to them. As it is, however, the majority of so-called 'creation scientists' start with a pre-conceived goal in mind; to find evidence backing their religious beliefs. This is not scientific and, frequently, the 'evidence' found by such institutes is fraudulent or simply picked-and-mixed from inaccurate scientific surveys previously made. Good examples would be the Polonium 218 Halo issue and the 'sun shrinking' argument, both of which originated from such institutes. The former originates from skewed and faulty (and unrepeatable, as it turns out) experimental data and the latter is simply a pick-and-mix assertion, taking the results of several less-than-accurate measurements of solar diameter and choosing to highlight those results which showed a 'reduction' in diameter. In reality, there is no sun-shrinking.

If either of these 'findings' had been published in a scientific journal and put up for peer review, they would have been torched and debunked within no time flat.

This is why I don't trust 'creation scientists'; they put politics and religion first and don't place their 'findings' through peer-review. This betrays a lot of underhand behaviour and, in some cases, outright lying. If they were at all confident that their results and conclusions were accurate, you can be sure they would place them before the scientific community at large.

Their teachings make perfect sense and all in line with the Bible, they back up everything they say with science and the Bible, there is no reason to not believe them.

I just listed several very good reasons. Sadly for you, the bible does not count as empirical data upon which a conclusion may be based in a scientific study.

I understand your position as my brother believes we evolved and he is a man who loves God,but thinks God just set us in motion and we took off, but if that were the case, why aren't we flying?

Do you want an evolutionary response of why we have not evolved into birds or an aerodynamic one of why we have no chance of flying?

Quite simply, we never went down into that particular environmental niche and we have become, in any event, too bloody cumbersome to fly. There is no easy turnaround. Evolution doesn't encourage superbeings which can do anything; it allows creatures to adapt to specific niches.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, I took your statement too literally there. :robot: :wink:

I think it is quite obvious God created us. I can't understand how anyone can look at the sky and clouds and all nature and see it could not have just happened by wild chance.

That's an entirely aesthetic point of view, which is all well and good provided you don't have to justify it in a scientific context.

I can see by reading your posts you're quite intelligent even though I don't agree with you, but makes me wonder how you were raised and taught to believe man came from a monkey.

God gave me a funny thought when I was wondering about this...monkeys being my ancestors because I was laughing when I thought of the monkeys wherever they are..

He chose that time to say what he did to me..."You wouldn't laugh at your parents, would you?"

Okay, Victorhadin, God talks to christians, so tell me, would you laugh at your parents?

If they did something humorous, why not? ;)

In any case, we are not separated from primates by a few generations, but by hundreds of thousands of generations; a million or more, possibly. Small changes can allow for larger cumulative effects over such timescales.

But to nitpick; we are not actually all that closely related to monkeys. Our closest genetic relative today in the animal kingdom is the chimpanzee, which is not a monkey at all.
-That is not to say that we evolved from chimps, however (in case you make this common error). It means that both we and chimpanzees evolved from a common ancestor. We simply evolved in different directions for different niches.
-I can't climb through trees like a chimp.
-Mr. Bobo from the zoo can't design a rocket engine. Suits me just fine.

Aside from religious convictions, many simply find it distasteful that we may have evolved from a common simian ancestor. The chimpanzee has been known in the past by some as 'the most loathesome of all creatures' simply for this connection.
Personally I don't find it distasteful, but promising. Look how far life has come, in all it's forms. Aside from our success and our intelligence (which would certainly rank highly on any human's list of assets) there is nothing inherently 'superior' about us in comparison to chimps or even termites.

Different niches, different forms.

So endeth my rather tiring monologue. ;)
 
I know very little, but this I do know that if we did evolve, the world would be aware in such a way that we would be universally conscious that we came from monkeys. We would know it.

It would be as normal to think and believe as waking up every morning and knowing we're human. Also, when peltdown man was tried, it failed, so if there are any transitional fossils, the world would know, not just the scientific world, but everyone would know, none would disagree they exist for it would be knowledge and knowledge has a way in this world of getting around quick.

CNN and Fox and BBC and MSNBC would broadcast it as fact and knowledge that we came from some animal, that we didn't come from a living loving God, but are evolved from animals and are on our own with no God to love us, no Saviour to turn to and no hope beyond the grave.

Transitional fossils are too important to be hidden or only known to a few.

There was a time when what happened even across town could not be known because of lack of communication methods, but now we can know everything at once. Ask a person on the street in any civilized society what is happening in Iraq or what do you think of choelestrol or whatever and he knows.

We live in a world that knows. The Bible said we would reach this knowledge.

Something that significant would be conscious knowledge to every living person on planet earth.

If one takes a look around, one will notice that to know the "scientific truth" that man came from some monkey or ape is not a necessary part of existence, so how can one live in darkness and still be in light as man so obviously is.

The scientific community cannot be trusted.
It might have been Hawking, but one scientist said, "Perhaps the universe was created by a baby god and that is why there is evil here. It was his first universe and he didn't get it right." or, "We might live in a parallel universe." or "If there was a God, we should be able to see him."

Victohadin, these statements cannot be taken seriously as they make no sense. Coming from PHd's mind you. Pure guesses about something they know absolutely nothing about.
 
victorhadin said:
As it is, however, the majority of so-called 'creation scientists' start with a pre-conceived goal in mind; to find evidence backing their religious beliefs. This is not scientific and, frequently, the 'evidence' found by such institutes is fraudulent or simply picked-and-mixed from inaccurate scientific surveys previously made.

And there we have it, the pot calls the kettle black.
 
Rebecka said:
I know very little, but this I do know that if we did evolve, the world would be aware in such a way that we would be universally conscious that we came from monkeys. We would know it.

It would be as normal to think and believe as waking up every morning and knowing we're human. Also, when peltdown man was tried, it failed, so if there are any transitional fossils, the world would know, not just the scientific world, but everyone would know, none would disagree they exist for it would be knowledge and knowledge has a way in this world of getting around quick.

As it stands, pretty much the entire scientific community do agree that we evolved from a common simian ancestor to chimpanzees.
I see no reason to suggest that every person would 'just know it' any more than a pigeon and a hawk would acknowledge their common ancestry.

And 'Piltdown man' was not the only simian-human transitional fossil. There are others, and here are a few for you to look up:

Sahelanthropus tchadensis, or 'Toumai'
Australopithecus afarensis; 'Lucy'
Australopithecus afarensis; remains of a family
Australopithecus afarensis; skull
Kenyanthropus platyops
Australopithecus africanus; face, teeth, jaws etc
Australopithecus africanus; cranium
Homo Habilus; quite a few fossils. Many craniums, jaws etc.
Homo Erectus; numerous skulls and a complete skeleton
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis; more of the same. It must be noted, of course, that we are not descended from Neanderthals; they went extinct.

I've only listed a few, but you get the idea.




You seem to be making the significant error of assuming that if you don't know it, or if the public at large is unsure about it, then it doesn't exist. Could you, then, outline to me the Navier-Stokes equations and their application in viscous fluid dynamics (a subject of great importance indeed), operating from the same logic?

Again; there is no reason that christianity (at least in a moderate form) cannot exist side-by-side with evolutionary theory, even if humanity's simian origins are accepted.

CNN and Fox and BBC and MSNBC would broadcast it as fact and knowledge that we came from some animal, that we didn't come from a living loving God, but are evolved from animals and are on our own with no God to love us, no Saviour to turn to and no hope beyond the grave.

Why? What kind of global story is that when all other transitionals have scarcely been widely advertised?

Transitional fossils are too important to be hidden or only known to a few.

And yet most people do not know of them or their details. *Shrug.*

There was a time when what happened even across town could not be known because of lack of communication methods, but now we can know everything at once. Ask a person on the street in any civilized society what is happening in Iraq or what do you think of choelestrol or whatever and he knows.

So? Do you understand common derivations of the Navier-Stokes equations?
We have access to much knowledge. That does not mean everyone knows of it.

The scientific community cannot be trusted.
It might have been Hawking, but one scientist said, "Perhaps the universe was created by a baby god and that is why there is evil here. It was his first universe and he didn't get it right." or, "We might live in a parallel universe." or "If there was a God, we should be able to see him."

Victohadin, these statements cannot be taken seriously as they make no sense. Coming from PHd's mind you. Pure guesses about something they know absolutely nothing about.

So? These pure guesses were not submitted in a peer-reviewed journal and are not commonly-held scientific views. The opinion of individual scientists does not matter as much as the opinion of scientific bodies and organisations.

Bryan said:
And there we have it, the pot calls the kettle black.

Not at all. The opinions I have shown here are thegenerally-accepted opinions of the scientific community, which does not exist with a set bias for or against any religion.

Your 'creation scientists', however, are indeed biased as hell, and do not allow their work to be peer-reviewed.
 
victorhadin said:
Not at all. The opinions I have shown here are thegenerally-accepted opinions of the scientific community, which does not exist with a set bias for or against any religion.

Your 'creation scientists', however, are indeed biased as hell, and do not allow their work to be peer-reviewed.

If anything, the reality is the exact opposite. The evolutionary model is pre-set, and the evidence is placed to fit the theory, not the other way around. Anyone who TRIES to present evidence that is contrary to the accepted model is ridiculed and black listed. Creationists would love to have their articles peer-reviewed and published in mainline journals, but the evolutionists immediately reject anything that even smells like it might contradict their religion.

And again, the creation scientists aren't "mine". I thought I already made this clear to you.
 
Bryan said:
If anything, the reality is the exact opposite. The evolutionary model is pre-set, and the evidence is placed to fit the theory, not the other way around. Anyone who TRIES to present evidence that is contrary to the accepted model is ridiculed and black listed. Creationists would love to have their articles peer-reviewed and published in mainline journals, but the evolutionists immediately reject anything that even smells like it might contradict their religion.

And again, the creation scientists aren't "mine". I thought I already made this clear to you.

Oh yes; the good old 'scientific conspiracy' hypothesis again. :roll:

Peer review criticizes based on the facts of the matter, not because of ideological reasons. If creationism could hold it's own, it would have. You seem to forget that the majority of scientists are indeed theists who would no doubt love to think that their religion has good scientific merit if they could.
 
I'm still wondering exactly how this went from Evo. vs Evo. to Creation vs Evo..... Oh well. I've read most of the posts by now and like every bit of it, even if it's not what I was looking for.

Next time I'll post creation vs evolution so I can ready about Evo vs Evo :lol:

BTW - I'm a literal young earth believer. I'm not in the debate though :tongue
 
Hi VictorHadin, you have brought up things I know nothing about. I don't mean I don't know what you're talking about, but I have never gave it much thought and have never studied what you do.

I study the Bible much, it is incredible and interesting and even funny, but I don't see things as you do. Scientists say the universe is expanding and the Bible records God saying that it is He that stretches out the heavens (space)like a curtain.
Now that word "curtain" God used is revealing. A curtain is used to cover, so as God stretches out the heavens like a curtain, he is revealing something.

A question; If you don't believe in God, how do you account for what is greater than you?

For example; Your breath. You have no control over it.
Flowers are one thing, but what makes them grow is greater than the flower.
There is a power behind everything.

Did you know the Name of Jesus is written into the universe mathematically?
It is and has been proven mathematically.

Also, only a young earth accounts for the population of the earth now. There could not be six billion now if we were evolved.

Jaktak, I'm sure sorry I didn't follow the thread, but I do things wrong all the time. Please forgive.

I will gladly move.
 
Hey you didn't do anything wrong, m8. Just because I didn't want to read about this doesn't mean I don't like it or that other people don't.

I still wish I had kept that article though, so I could scan it and you could read the details instead of my 'by memory' post.

I like the discussion.
 
Rebecka said:
A question; If you don't believe in God, how do you account for what is greater than you?

Depends on how you define 'greater', really. I respect my government and I will respect the company I work for, but I suspect this is not what you mean.

In my opinion, the universe is full of massive, almost unimaginable forces. A comet could snuff out half the life on this planet in a single impact and as things are now we probably wouldn't see it coming until too late. A collapsing black hole releases beams of 'light' so powerful they could sterilise a planet like the Earth from hundreds of light years away. Undernearth Yellowstone park lies a magma plume that could one day erupt into a gigantic flood basalt event, causing another mass-extinction.

There are powers beyond my control all over the place, and one might be lured into thinking that that makes them insignificant, which is true in a way. Religion, I suspect, helps relieve this, by giving a person the impression that they are in a special group and that there is a larger plan for life as a whole.

For example; Your breath. You have no control over it.
Flowers are one thing, but what makes them grow is greater than the flower.
There is a power behind everything.

Certainly, and I fervently support attempts to shed light on the processes behind such things (though breath and the growth of flowers are fairly well documented), for only through the extension of knowledge and enquiry, in my opinion, can our species hope to better understand the universe we live in.
-And I feel that simply allocating such things to a deity does not in any way answer the question.

Did you know the Name of Jesus is written into the universe mathematically?
It is and has been proven mathematically.

I did not. Have you any details on that, as I would be interested in reading further on this matter, especially with regards to what mathematical model was used.

Also, only a young earth accounts for the population of the earth now. There could not be six billion now if we were evolved.

That is wrong on a number of scales. For one, our species has not been in a constant stage of growth. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, populations were level for quite a long time until the past few centuries, in which they have exploded at an incredible rate. Population growth in Europe, by contrast, has slowed or even reversed in some areas, and Russia's population is freefalling right now. The nation now called China once wiped out 5/6ths of it's population in a series of bloody wars and famines.

Indeed there is much archaeological evidence to suggest that during the ice-age, our species very nearly went extinct.

The long-term rate of population growth for most species is zero. The population explosion we are enjoying now is down to the advances we have developed on the technological field, particularly in agriculture, and our spread around the Earth.

Now granted, you could attain a population level similar to what we have today by assuming a growth rate of, say, 0.36% per year for 6'000 years from two people (ignoring in-breeding issues etc).

But wait; by the time of the building of the great pyramid, in 2'500BC, you have a global population of just a touch over 400 people. That can't be right, can it?

-Which is exactly my point. Population growth is not a problem that can be mapped so easily. We are currently, as a species, experiencing some of the most rapid sustainable population growth, in gross and percentage terms, ever in recorded history.

To apply this wooly thinking to another species, for example, a starling can lay, say, 6 eggs per year. All will usually hatch. Assuming (following current human growth rates) that 2/3rds, say, of the chicks survive to adulthood to lay eggs and the trend continues, then starting from two birds, the world starling population (600 million, approximately) will be reached in a touch over 28 years.

Were starlings created 28 years ago? Obviously not.
 
Depends on how you define 'greater'
You know as well as I what greater means as you said you suspect that isn't what I meant. You just know.
The president of the USA isn't greater than you or I, but a fellow human. I refer to exactly the meaning of it.

If you tried to hold your breath for 10 minutes, you wouldn't be able to do it as you have no control, but something within you would make you breathe.

I hope I'm not posting to a book, but that you are giving me your own thoughts. I told you I didn't know about all this speciation, etc, but I stayed away from here awhile to think about it, so now I have a question for you.
My own thoughts.


If you build a company from the ground up beginning with a dollar and work hard and build and learn and build and learn, and finally your company is worldwide and is worth millions of dollars.

There is nothing about your company you don't know because you built it yourself. You were there for every decision, every move, every advancemet went through you first. You know it inside and out.
You are that company.

Hold that thought...

If evolution is true, how come we don't know where we came from according to evolution?

How come Jack of 1,000,000,000,000 B.C. didn't pass on to Jack of 2003 A.D. the gene that contains this knowledge? What happened to it?

All science does is assume, guess, suppose, take notions and make conjectures. You had knowledge to build your company. You assumed nothing.

Don't say that knowledge passed only to Darwin because then how would you account for he not being superior to every living thing?

His death proved what he was. Just like us.

Science says that nature is mechanical, it as an emotionless unseen power making things happen with no concern for anything and anyone and for no apparent reason.

A lion in the jungle attacks the weakest zebra and kills it for food so it can survive.

The lion can be looked as as mechanical, emotionless, but the one who built the company cannot be looked at as mechanical since he built the company from the ground up and.........thought, reasoned and in every way displayed intelligence whereas the lion simply saw food and attacked.

I see here two things. An animal and a human being.

Now, if you say we used to be animals and became human, then where did emotions and the mind come from?

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Why was there a need for emotions and a mind in some animals (man)? and yet that need failed to evolve into the lion who kills the "inferior" zebra ? What happened? What determined that the man is superior to the lion who didn't get any compassion?

Why is it wrong for a human being to kill another human being, yet it is not wrong for the lion?

You will say..it is not wrong to the aborigines in the backward Bongo Bojungo to kill.

Okay, then what determined that it is wrong for us, but not for them?

Why does kill mean one thing to us and another thing to them, and why isn't it spelled differently and also if killing is okay in Bongo Bujungo does this mean I can go there and kill? If not, how come?

You will say, we have evolved faster in some places than in others.

Okay, but where did we get the idea that it is wrong?

You will say, we just decided...

By what authority and knowledge since we are all basically wrongdoers (sinners)?

None is capable of doing right unless he is taught, so how do you figure the conscience evolved?
 
Christians main tenet is that "might makes right."

God is greater than people because he is much more powerful.

Anything he does to us is justified because of that.

I would call that "brown-nosing."
 
SFL says......God is greater than people because he is much more powerful
...and because he is our Maker. If you built a house, what would be greater? you or the house? If you say the house, then I need post to you no longer. But if you say you, then we are in harmony.
 
Rebecka said:
SFL says......God is greater than people because he is much more powerful
...and because he is our Maker. If you built a house, what would be greater? you or the house? If you say the house, then I need post to you no longer. But if you say you, then we are in harmony.

Again, in what sense?

My house would be bigger than me, sturdier than me, heavier than me, etc.

God is greater just because he is more powerful.

God can't be compared to us in a moral sense, because he doesn't live in the same context as us.

He doesn't steal because he doesn't want anything or need anything. He doesn't get hungry, either. He can make whatever he wants.

He doesn't have sex outside of marriage because he has no sex drive. No instincts placed into him by some outside source.

He doesn't get...um, well, I was about to say he doesn't get jealous but the Bible says he does.

Does any of that make sense to you?
 
SFL, you said that God doesn't steal because he doesn't need anything, but it is because he is not a thief. It is not possible for God to lie and a liar is brother to the thief.

He cannot need anything because he is holy, complete and self existent.
In knowledge; He doesn't need or lack knowledge when he himself is knowledge.


I used house because the Bible says we didn't make ourselves, but God made us.

It is not that God can't be compared to us, it is that we cannot be compared to him, nor can anything compare to him when he himself is the Maker of all things that exist. Everything is dependent on him.

About he being hungry, he said if he was hungry he would not tell us because everything belongs to him anyway.

No, God doesn't have sex, but he invented it.

God is omnipresent and cannot be limited to one place or to one thing.

I am aware of God's Presence continually.

A preacher said a professor was telling his class that we came from monkeys and the student stood up and asked him to listen to the poem he wrote just for him;

"It was a molecule,
yes a molecule, you see
then it was a tadpole swimming in the sea
then it was a monkey swinging from a tree
then it was a professor with a PHd"
 
If I may use that in my signature, I will
Good idea! But don't use my name because I didn't say it first, remember a preacher told it in his sermon.

I'm thinking of putting this as my signature I found in a christian vs evolution book;

"Now faith is the substance of fossils hoped for,
the evidence of links unseen"

LOL
 
Rebecka said:
You know as well as I what greater means as you said you suspect that isn't what I meant. You just know.
The president of the USA isn't greater than you or I, but a fellow human. I refer to exactly the meaning of it.

If you tried to hold your breath for 10 minutes, you wouldn't be able to do it as you have no control, but something within you would make you breathe.

Certainly. It is a hardwired instinct, much similar to the self-contained nerve system that regulates the heart in that we have little or no conscious control over it. An instinct who's steady evolution came as an immediate short-term benefit.

If you build a company from the ground up beginning with a dollar and work hard and build and learn and build and learn, and finally your company is worldwide and is worth millions of dollars.

There is nothing about your company you don't know because you built it yourself. You were there for every decision, every move, every advancemet went through you first. You know it inside and out.
You are that company.

Hold that thought...

If evolution is true, how come we don't know where we came from according to evolution?

How come Jack of 1,000,000,000,000 B.C. didn't pass on to Jack of 2003 A.D. the gene that contains this knowledge? What happened to it?

Well 1) there was no Jack in year 1'000'000'000'000BC. There wasn't even a planet or a universe, almost certainly. However, typos occur so I will get onto addressing your point.

2) Your analogy is comparing two very dissimilar things. One is a centralised organisational structure built top-down by an individual. Evolution, by contrast, merely describes the process by which features of short-term benefit to an animal or plant, or to it's wider population, may be selected for.
'Evolution' doesn't talk about the origins of the universe, but merely the origins of species, and in that direction we have a fairly good idea 'where we came from', according to available evidence.

3) There is no gene for memory. I feel you are making a fundamental flaw in your understanding of evolutionary theory. If a mouse or smart dinosaur once (heh) had a philosophical breakthrough in the distant past and exclaimed to itself "by George! That's what it's all about!", it would have no way of passing on that knowledge, as the patterns in your memory do not affect your genetic makeup.

Consciously-derived memory can only be passed on by teaching within a social species. This might be the teaching of hunting routines in a pack of wolves or a tribe of chimps, or the teaching of moral values and mathematics within a human society.

All science does is assume, guess, suppose, take notions and make conjectures. You had knowledge to build your company. You assumed nothing.

Don't say that knowledge passed only to Darwin because then how would you account for he not being superior to every living thing?

His death proved what he was. Just like us.

Of course. Whoever tried to claim that 'knowledge was passed only to Darwin' regarding evolutionary theory? He was indeed one of (one of) the founders of evolutionary theory, but he is not it's god.
Evolutionary theory has been taught, analysed, cross-checked against evidence and subtley modified to better represent findings many times since; it has not been set in stone since the time of Darwin, and many new discoveries have come to light regarding this; Darwin didn't even know of the existence of DNA and it's relevance to genetic inheritance!

Again, your analogies compare apples and oranges. The scientific method applied to current knowledge and research is not akin to your hypothetical company.
-And science does a lot more than assume and make guesses; it forcibly criticises itself by demanding that hypotheses are backed by evidence and can be verified by repeatable experiment. It does not make a guess and construct loose evidence around that guess, but does it the other way around, taking evidence and data and constructing hypotheses out of them, which are then ruthlessly criticised in turn.

Science is not a company created by an individual out to spread his opinions. It is a self-checking analytical system by which research and raw data can be turned into functioning hypothetical models for various aspects of nature, and checks itself constantly to see that the smallest number of assumptions has been made at any given point.

Science says that nature is mechanical, it as an emotionless unseen power making things happen with no concern for anything and anyone and for no apparent reason.

It isn't even a power. It is an unpredictable dynamic system of emergent order, but I shall let that slide.

A lion in the jungle attacks the weakest zebra and kills it for food so it can survive.

The lion can be looked as as mechanical, emotionless, but the one who built the company cannot be looked at as mechanical since he built the company from the ground up and.........thought, reasoned and in every way displayed intelligence whereas the lion simply saw food and attacked.

I see here two things. An animal and a human being.

Now, if you say we used to be animals and became human, then where did emotions and the mind come from?

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Why was there a need for emotions and a mind in some animals (man)? and yet that need failed to evolve into the lion who kills the "inferior" zebra ? What happened? What determined that the man is superior to the lion who didn't get any compassion?

Again you misunderstand evolutionary theory. The process has no prescience, dictating how species should evolve. It is a blind process of selection; nothing more.

Say, for example, the lion (or a single lion, or a small population of lions) evolves a larger brain with the capacity for improved analytical thought. Is this useful to it?
Not really. Our own intelligence became useful because we had a pre-existing social order, the dextrous limbs necessary for tool-use, a complex 'language' system and the ability to evolve improved linguistics due to our vocal agility. We were damned lucky in that respect.

The 'smart lions' would have none of these advantages, so it would be of no real benefit, since increased intelligence is only useful if there is a real benefit to be derived from it or a social structure allowing knowledge to be passed through generations. Indeed, a lion with a large brain may actually be more vulnerable to brain injury, may have (as we do) quite thin skulls and so forth; an active handicap, given their environmental niche.

Evolution is not a guiding prescient force. No collection of proto-elephants ever gathered together to conclude "we shall evolve trunks! That will be jolly useful!" It is merely a matter of blind selection of traits based on how much they affect the viability and success, on average, of a population.

And, incidentally, the Zebra isn't 'inferior' to the lion, per se. Despite what many creationists think, evolution isn't constructed with a table with 'inferior' leading to 'superior'.
It has it's niche and it is well-adapted to it. The lion has it's own niche. Niches or the creatures within them change over time in any case, often unpredictably, and so from an evolutionary point of view it is very hard to make any kind of generalised assumption of superiority or inferiority.

Why is it wrong for a human being to kill another human being, yet it is not wrong for the lion?

Since I do not speak lion and do not know of their social structures, how could I possibly comment on their limited perception of 'right' and 'wrong'? ;)

You will say..it is not wrong to the aborigines in the backward Bongo Bojungo to kill.

Okay, then what determined that it is wrong for us, but not for them?

Why does kill mean one thing to us and another thing to them, and why isn't it spelled differently and also if killing is okay in Bongo Bujungo does this mean I can go there and kill? If not, how come?

Morality is a thing that cannot really be defined from an objective standpoint, really, as it is a creation of societies for the purposes within those societies.
In some Islamic nations it is thought acceptable to chop off a thief's hand, whereas we imprison them or even give them community service work to do.

Which is 'right', from an objective point of view, and how do you define that?

To put it in a more bunt fashion, say you lived in the Soviet Union in the 50s or 60s. There, it would be thought, at least officially, that capitalism is morally wrong and that capitalist leanings could get you thrown into prison or the gulags.

You would disagree and so would I, but are you really going to speak out, in a society of over 250 million communists?

No. As ever, the matter is subjective. What is wrong to us is not necessarily wrong for everyone, and vice-versa. Defining an objective viewpoint from empirical data (and I'm sorry but religious assertion isn't that) is horribly difficult.

You will say, we have evolved faster in some places than in others.

Okay, but where did we get the idea that it is wrong?

No I wouldn't. Differing moral values are not normally reflective of genetics or evolution. It is sociological.

You will say, we just decided...

By what authority and knowledge since we are all basically wrongdoers (sinners)?

By your point of view.

None is capable of doing right unless he is taught, so how do you figure the conscience evolved?

Well I'm no sociologist (and that is really what this is about), so I will say that it most likely evolved as a slightly different facet of natural selection. -Tribes or groups which employed rules like "don't kill other tribesmen" thrived and survived, on average, better than tribes in which murder was not addressed. As such, before long most tribes employed such 'beneficial' guidelines. This applies just as much to chimps or wolves or even rabbits, for that matter. Not killing your own is a fairly well-founded guideline possessed by many creatures on an instinctive level, since it is of obvious benefit.

But here we blur the lines between genetic selection and social selection. Not killing your own kind and other more vague selfless instincts can be said to have an instinctive, and so genetic, base, but not all morals do, naturally. Not stealing, for example, is something that has to be taught (as it is a trait only really relevant to humanity, and there has been insufficient time to evolve it per se) and, again, societies which employ the rule are better off than those without (and people on an individual level support it too since nobody wants their stuff nicked).

I am not entirely sure why we are talking about morality in an evolution/ creationism debate, but hey ho. Internet debates are odd things. :wink:
 
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