Are you a Christian?

[Squirreloncrack]

however,

"If evolution were true and we evolved from apes why is it than when you go to the museum you see dinosaur skeletons and no half man half monkey skeletons are they still frozen in the ice? im yet to see one."

is one of them. simplistic, misguided, utterly clueless... these are the adjectives that leap to mind. at best, you haven't the faintest clue as to what the theory of evolution actually says.

This was a simple statement against the simplistic belief to the people that believe only in evolution. That?s all it was.

possibly, but evolution is not a religion, it is a theory constructed from scientific inquiry.

I agree.

You will also find many inaccuracies in the way evolutionists derive dates and time of events.

yet you don't have the balls to cite any of these "many inaccuracies?" funny, all i've found is specious arguments from morally-bankrupt creationists who apparently believe that as long as your'e doing God's work, the end justifies the means.

and if all the dates are wrong, that wouldn't be 1/1,000,000 of the way toward refuting the theory of evolution.

there are a whole lot of things the creationists sneakily ignore just coz they hate the idea that we have some ancestors in common with chimps and apes.

One of the inaccuracies is dating fossils it seems that the older the fossil the less accurate the date of it's creation is.

I do very much agree that creationists do justify themselves buy doing God?s work it justifies there sinful life with an hour at church a small donation and a prayer of forgiveness.

The bible has foretold many places and events before they were discovered.

until you name one, i'll have to assume that this is vague, silly nonsense, pulled kicking and screaming directly out of your ass.

But you have read the bible right! So I don?t understand this comment.

It's not vague but I don't have time at the presant to give this information as i will have to look up scriptures and historical findings these books are in my home town and would have to spend time on the net to find them.

But I will post them within the week!

Not sure what the point of you?re next two comments are for..

do you think they have an agenda?

I think the answer to this is obvious. Serving the comunity as a whole would be one of them.

[English_George]

Well.........I joined TF to find anywhere to play some sports and have a chat with people........that was 2 days ago. Since then I have met a woman, got married, joined a football team, uploaded a picture that makes me look like a cock and now become a born again believer!

The theory of evolution and religion are two things that are always changing, new beliefs are formed and different schools of thought are created. Look at Christianity and the numerable 'sects' it has produced, from 7th day adventists to David Karesh and his Waco club.

Evolutionist theories are the same, always changing. No-one believed that the bottom of the ocean could support life, based on earlier research, how wrong were they! The bottom of the ocean is teaming with life and there are crustaceans and organisms who flourish on the hot vents coming up from the earths core!!

One recent claim for the uncertanty of evolution is that mathematically, going on how we evolve today, the earth would of had to be 'seeded' minutes after the first pools of 'acids and proteins' were formed, which was pretty much instantly, where did that come from, chance? I doubt. So really evolution has an 'X' factor which always raises the bar when we think we have a solution.

"When we say that the creation of life on Earth is purely coincedental, that would be like saying we could create a Boeing 747 from a tornado in a scrap heap"

Very interesting thread and there is some good stuff there, it's almost like Radio 2 in the afternoon.

[jdv]

Actually zeus' knowledge of the form of science in general is above average and although he isn't presenting his points very nicely, where he does state a fact I can't find anything wrong with it. Maybe he had a bad week at the office..

English_george congratulations if you really have just got married! I agree with you there is an X factor to evolution that continues to jump up and bite us in the behind. The way I like to think about this is, rather than evidence of a fault in the general theory, that we simply do not know enough about the natural world to fill in the gap. It is not terrible useful, I think, to challenge biologists on their personal imagination when it comes to filling these gaps. As zeusbheld stated, science is never about certainty yet we all avoid sticking our tongues into electrical sockets. Similarly with evolutionary science, it's the very best explanation and while we have a fairly good understanding of the form of the theory, we don't yet have all the details. Actually, evolution is wonderfully simple, which is partly I suspect why it faces more criticism than it might. It's just about things changing over time, and some things being better things than other things.

[English_George]

If any one has any doubts about their beliefs and where they are from/what they should believe, i recommended a healthy dose of Psilocybin mushrooms and a natural environment, you don't think Moses was straight when he went up on the mountain and spoke to a 'burning bush' do you?

The only man i believe to have said anything remotely accurate about religion and the human psyche was the late great Bill Hicks, God rest his soul (hold on, I'm an agnostic......Jesus Christ, I nearly made an error there).

[condotown]

Thanks Deester for starting a very entertaining and informative thread.

If you want the real truth, talk to me. I was working on my Ph.D in Religious Studies at ABAC until I had my fill.

See you ALL in HELL!!!!

(Ummm if there is a hell)

[Loburt]

See you ALL in HELL!!!!

(Ummm if there is a hell)

Have you seen most Bangkok condos?

[DanMorgan]

Welcome to God's family!

Who want to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost?

[ttesta]

Welcome to God's family!

Who want to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost?

No theory will ever be able to explain a funny guy like Dan...

He's God's revenge for all this nonsense ... hahaha

[zeusbheld]

keep up the good work squiral it seems zuesbheld just likes to try to create an argument to fuel his ego??

or maybe just because it entertains me?

i'd rather be booed than applauded, is that so wrong?

the cheap seats hahah hey we have found our god not!!

the cheap seats have spoken.

i was hoping to provoke some interesting responses. i can't tell if yours was one of them by the way--i dont care about the grammar, or the spelling... but if you're gonna run longer than A4, an occasional paragraph break or two might be helpful.

[ttesta]

i'd rather be booed than applauded

BOOOOOEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[zeusbheld]

zueshbold`s facts are 100% accurate i would imagine. But his idea that he is so certain that there is no creator behind this could cause offense to others

hey sunshine, might be helpful if you actually read what i said.

i never claimed that there is no God, that God didn't create the universe, that religion is wrong, etc.

i merely claimed that

a) the theory of evolution is science and as such is supported by a ton of evidence and valid arguments, so pulling some nonsense out of your ass won't refute it, and

if you're going to say there's something wrong with it scientifically you have to use science and not pull shoddy claims out of your ass that will *seem* to make sense to people who haven't done their homework.

there are some easy ways of reconciling religion and science--for instance, the funamentalist christian could say "God made the universe in 7 days to look exactly as your 'science' says it did, and who are we to question the ways of God? or as a jesuit once put it to me--"'metaphysics' means outside of phyics. " he was a pro-science christian, who had no problem with the theory of evolution by the way.

just a bit of consideration

i have offered exactly as much consideration as i've (anonymously, it wasn't directed at me specifically) been given--i find it utterly morally repugnant to claim vaguely that "the scientific evidence for evolution is shaky" without being able to back it up scienfically or rationally. how about some 'consideration' for *my* beliefs? nope? didn't think so. sorry, but if you resort to thirdhand quoting the smoke and mirrors from charlatans, expect a verbal beat-down.even if they weren't your ideas to begin with.

but then this is a debate on beliefs now rather than just a simple question are you a christian? his facts are fine his attack on others inteligence??

dear sunshine--did it ever occur to you that my intent might be to provoke a better-reasoned response? and to get other people who might have put more thought into it to jump in and offer stronger arguments, thus ensuring a more lively debate?

guess not huh?

some of the strongest minds on earth had faith.

and indeed many scientists, and many scientists still do. as long as faith doesn't try to pretend it is science, i have no problem with people having faith.. in God, in UFOs, or whatever... as long as they recognize that FAITH is FAITH and FAITH isn't SCIENCE. even jesus said "give unto caesar that which is caesar's."

now i can admit religion is flawed as its been stated it cause more grief then it solves and sombody else pointed it out it was used as a way to police people and was written by men who have ego`s beliefs and some of those found there way in to the bible its not too good for woman when you read it but also as squirrel said there are a few things in the bible which coincide with some events on the planet that have been dated i saw that on a program yeah a bit vague i know but thats me :roll:

well that falls into the realm of testable claiims doesn't it? bring the specifics then. until then it's about as credible as crop circles. the burden of proof is on you guys who say the bible predicts things.

by the way if the bible doesn't predict a damn thing that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether there is a God or whether one should be Christian. not a damn thing really.

" the greatest trick zeus b held ever did was convincing the world he didnt exist"

no comment.

[farang_subson]

and if all the dates are wrong, that wouldn't be 1/1,000,000 of the way toward refuting the theory of evolution.

Even if you make the wacko assumption that the various dating methods are all hugely wrong (the "young earthers" think the earth is 6,000 years old), isn't it odd that the dates for various fossils virtually always pop out in the correct sequence? I mean, a trilobite will always date further back than a dinosaur, which will always date further back than a human.

************

As for the first photoreceptor, all you need is a very simple molecule like retinoic acid, and you've got a photoreceptor....an electron goes zooming down its carbon backbone in response to photons.

[zeusbheld]

Anyway please don't think that holding a firm opinion means someone is close-minded to possibilities. It some cases it actually means they have spent many years getting there and it's the best they have come across so far.

amen.

[zeusbheld]

Actually zeus' knowledge of the form of science in general is above average and although he isn't presenting his points very nicely, where he does state a fact I can't find anything wrong with it. Maybe he had a bad week at the office..

not at all--great week so far.

i'm just an obnoxious prick.

[jdv]

If you want the real truth, talk to me. I was working on my Ph.D in Religious Studies at ABAC

Haha yea, because academics never disagree with one another..

Zeusbheld - :wink:

[English_George]

["farang_subson"]

As for the first photoreceptor, all you need is a very simple molecule like retinoic acid, and you've got a photoreceptor....an electron goes zooming down its carbon backbone in response to photons.

Checkmate.........

Back to religion, I am surprised that no-one has brought up Alien intervention to our religious beliefs. If they have then ok, I missed it. Seriousely though, many stories in the Bible have strong indications of intergalactic interpretation.

'The firey wheels of Ezekiel?", "Moses and the burning bush"

"Nuclear explosions" and people living until they are 200 years old.

One of the first know civilisations on earth where the Sumerians. They believed, and there is recorded evidence of their beliefs, that people called the "Anunaki" gave them the arts, culture and religion. The name "Anunaki" roughly translates as "Those who from heaven to earth came",

Why would a civilisation from thousands of years ago attribute everything it knows to extraterrestrials, that's crazy!!!!!!!

So if that's crazy then it's just a bit weird that the Mayans, Aztects, Messapotamians, Inca, Egyptians, Ancients Greeks.......etc.. Also claim to have been guided by 'the gods'.

That's more than frequent enough to be entertainable for a very good conversation.

If my girlfriend told me to go away more than once I wouldn't argue,

[English_George]

This thread has been a great example of how science will always try and tame philosophy, the question was philosophical and science interviened. However at least everyone's thinking about it and pondering their existence in a country where religion and spirituality are strong.

If anyone doesn't know.........the Bible is made from paper and written by a man called Vernon.

Hail Vernon, he's my messiah!!!

[Kitschiguy]

I don't read books. I google keywords and make up what I don't know.

[zeusbheld]

This thread has been a great example of how science will always try and tame philosophy, the question was philosophical and science interviened.

quite the opposite, it's more an example of philosophy trying to tame science. science didn't intervene, it was called out, twisted distorted and smeared.

[zeusbheld]

I didn't state that any of the aforementioned early forms of Man are the 'missing link'. I was merely illustrating the fact that there is in fact a hefty amount of evidence to support the theory of evolution, thus lending weight to your argument.

was just clarifying for passersby--there had been a request for missing links i believe.

There is evidence that Man has a natural tendency toward religiosity. In Fact there is evidence that Cro-magnon Man indulged himself in ritual and ceremony that could be called religion.

there is a lot of that kind of evidence; we're (from cro magnon etc onward) the only hominid that has symbolic tendencies.

With regards to the rest of the paragraph you wrote about my comments on Creationism.. don't really understand, 'seems to be a trick of language'? 'set up to be predisposed to acquire language'? Waah? I think you're grasping at straws.

there is a ton of evidence that we humans are 'wired' to be able to aquire language. ALL the various attempts to teach apes and chimps language have failed to teach them grammar. large, impressive vocabularies, but no grammar. yet children acquire grammar without formally being schooled in it (yeah i know we get schooled in grammar but that doens't happen until after we speak our mother tongue).

as for the 'trick of language' business, we humans are symbolic animals, and our thinking is structured by language. concepts like infinity, eternity, the beginning, the end, are built into us. they may describe the world, they may not, bbut they'd still be in our heads if they didn't.

however, there is a fairly interesting argument (and possibly convincing) that philosophy itself is an error, a byproduct of how language is constructed. i'd challenge you to read ludwig wittgenstein rather than googling a few words, as you say, if you really are curious about it. i don't necessarily agree, or disagree--it's something that cannot be cobbled into a falsifiable claim and thus outside of science.

o.k. Now I'm gonna say something, just because i know how highly strung you are and i wanna watch you go off on one. ( i don't really mean it I'm just being a git) here goes..

don't tip your hand when you're being a git, it'll be more effective :twisted:

There have been many a convincing argument for Creationism. And many other theories. I'd challenge you to make the author of any of them look like morons. Take some light reading; Eric Von Daniken, Colin Wilson, Graham Hancock, to name but a few..and actually read them instead of googling key words and making up what you don't know.

by threatening to make them look like morons i was hoping to piss them off enough that someone might come up with something that wasn't either lame or deceptive. hasn't worked so far.

there are some fairly interesting arguments against science but every argument claiming to be scientific that i've seen has been either lame or highly deceitful. i feel like i'm being generous calling these "theories" stupid as i believe they are packed with lies and deliberately manipulative, generally. these "theories" seem to make sense on the surface, and are thus very contagious because they flatter what many people want to believe.

i didnt find erich von daniken's 'chariots of the gods' theories all that convincing.

don't know colin wilson and graham hancock. have read a fair amount of philip e johnson however. johnson is one of the foremost anti-evolutionists.

both von daniken and johnson are very, very selective when it comes to facts, and ignore a lot of facts to make their theories SEEM to work.

creationists in particular tend to focus on unresolved aspects of the details of *how* evolution proceeds (which is very definitely a work in progress) and completely ignore evidence that one way or another, it did in fact proceed.

sorry but one misidentified fossil doesn't "refute" evolution. a shift in biologists' conception of how evolution works, accompanied by the usual careerism and academic acrimony, doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that we don't know everything and science is done by fallible humans.

so-called "intelligent design" is another matter, but the stuff brought up here such as "isn't the eye amazing" is so weak even the ID people (the skilled ones not the wankers) don't dare use it.

johnson et al are definitely *not* idiots, but i do believe them to be manipulative charlatans. and von daniken has been thoroughly discredited and (i'm guessing) just wanted to sell books. i do hope there is a God so that God can bitchslap philip e johnson in the great hereafter for presuming God wanted him to be a manipulative, dishonest **** (but then what would one expect, johnson's a lawyer).

[zeusbheld]

dear Squirreloncrack:

mmmm this was a quotebox trainwreck, i'm gonna muddle through and pick out what you said best i can.

anything amazing *needs* to be designed by someone? that's an assumption at best; i'd be curious to see how you justify this assumption.

Isn?t that what this post is about is there someone/something that is the designer or not and/or do you believe?

sure, and the only time i have a problem with you believing in a designer is when you claim that the scientific evidence doesn't support evolution. feel free to claim that, but it requires a great deal of proving.

My assumption is justified by there being so many religions in this world which is still something that is turning over in my mind. I haven?t got it worked out yet and probably never will. That does not mean I am right or wrong yes an assumption.

there are tons of whorehouses in bangkok, that doesn't make me interested in going to one

seriously, though, there is a very strong storyline supported by tons of evidence that it could have "just happened." if it did "just happen" without "being designed" that shouldn't affect your spiritual quest if you don't want it to IMO.

i dont know much about religions but my impression is that buddhism, taoism and hinduism are somewhat compatible with science. there are also many christians and muslims willing to accept that the science should be allowed to proceed on its own terms regardless of what stories we want to believe. the evidence that evolution happened doesn't shake their faith, that's why it's called "faith," ya know?

-90 points for not having a clue as to how science works and progresses, or understanding the nature of an inductive argument.

at what point have scientists claimed to have understood every aspect of everything?

I have my own understandings and beliefs right wrong or indifferent. Maybe I don?t understand how science works in progress. I am also sure that scientists will never understand the aspects of everything.

which is fine--until you try to use ignorance to discredit science. just because you dont know something doesn't mean that someone somewhere hasn't figured something out about it.

if you want to offer up alternatives to evolution and claim there is a scientific basis for your doubts then you have to support your argument scientifically. if you don't you are, in my opinion, doing something very, very bad.

I could have one the lottery yesterday does that mean I did?

so?

if you offer alternative explanations, the burden of offering up evidence and constructing an argument to support you explanation is on *you*. feel free to start...

[/quote}

I will just be repeating myself.

do you really seriously believe you have offered up evidence, and constructed an argument????

My goodness why don't you lighten up a bit it seems that most of the posts on TF are hell bent on pointing the finger.

exactly what you mean by "pointing the finger" is beyond me. i've always understood the expression to mean fixing blame on someone. who is fixing blame for what? not sure i understand what your'e getting at.

You cannot provide righteousness from assumptions to gain credit it is how I felt

ok now you're confusing me even more.

what does " You cannot provide righteousness from assumptions to gain credit" mean???

maybe I?m just paranoid and sensitive.

well if that is the case, then keep in mind that this is an internet forum and not to be taken so seriously.

[Neo]

One recent claim for the uncertanty of evolution is that mathematically, going on how we evolve today, the earth would of had to be 'seeded' minutes after the first pools of 'acids and proteins' were formed, which was pretty much instantly, where did that come from, chance? I doubt. So really evolution has an 'X' factor which always raises the bar when we think we have a solution.

Very good point. The process that needed to happen almost immediately is called autocatalysis. It preceeds anything that we would normally call life, but has been shown to occur spontaneously in lab experiments and has even been observed 'in the wild'. Once you have autocatalytic sets of molecules then the development of something like RNA (the predecesor to DNA) is just a matter of time.

"When we say that the creation of life on Earth is purely coincedental, that would be like saying we could create a Boeing 747 from a tornado in a scrap heap"

If you agree with that statement then perhaps you should read Darwin's "Origin Of The Species". When Darwin started his research he was actually trying to add to the understanding of the wonderful things that God has created, but gradually he realised that there was so much evidence against creationism that he had to abandon that position. His book is filled with examples of 'designs' that don't make sense in terms of creationism, but make perfect sense in terms of evolution via natural selection. It's a very factual book, and it's clear that even Darwin himself was somewhat ashamed to admit that creationism doesn't have answers to the quiestions posed by his research.

[Neo]

there are some easy ways of reconciling religion and science--for instance, the funamentalist christian could say "God made the universe in 7 days to look exactly as your 'science' says it did, and who are we to question the ways of God? or as a jesuit once put it to me--"'metaphysics' means outside of phyics. " he was a pro-science christian, who had no problem with the theory of evolution by the way.

Another way for Christians to reconcile their religious beliefs with science is Theisitic Evolution, which basically claims that God uses evolution to create the life. I like this one because if God is really as smart as everyone says he is then surely he'd avoid the messy hands-on approach and would simply set up the right conditions and natural laws to accomplish his work. If I was a Christian I'd be all for it.

[frankenburner2]

there are some easy ways of reconciling religion and science--for instance, the funamentalist christian could say "God made the universe in 7 days to look exactly as your 'science' says it did, and who are we to question the ways of God? or as a jesuit once put it to me--"'metaphysics' means outside of phyics. " he was a pro-science christian, who had no problem with the theory of evolution by the way.

Another way for Christians to reconcile their religious beliefs with science is Theisitic Evolution, which basically claims that God uses evolution to create the life. I like this one because if God is really as smart as everyone says he is then surely he'd avoid the messy hands-on approach and would simply set up the right conditions and natural laws to accomplish his work. If I was a Christian I'd be all for it.

nah...too easy...religious people much prefer to make unproven leaps of faith...

[Neo]

I didn't state that any of the aforementioned early forms of Man are the 'missing link'. I was merely illustrating the fact that there is in fact a hefty amount of evidence to support the theory of evolution, thus lending weight to your argument.

Yes lots of juicy evidence. Over the past 20 years researchers in one valley in Africa have dug up over 200 humanoid skeletons spanning the continuous development of homo sapiens from small primates that lived many millions of years ago. This valley (I should look up the name, but I have it at home) is particularly useful for constructing a potential history of species because the sediments make it very easy to date the discoveries. The evidence for human evolution is way way beyond Neanderthals and Lucy these days. Also there have been thousands of other fossils recovered from the same area providing evidence for the evolution all sorts of modern plants and animals. Very compelling stuff, and even more so if I can dig up a reference for you guys. :wink: