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+--- Thread: Evolution? (/Thread-Evolution)
Evolution? - publius2k4 - 06-16-2014
Jack1798 Wrote:Yet you post a video that purports evolution (which, by all accounts, is still a theory) as fact?
A theory is an explanation of a body of evidence. When a hypothesis has reached the level of "theory" in science, it has gone as high as it can go.
Let's discuss other things that are "just" theories;
Plate Tectonics
Germs
Gravity
Oxygen Theory of Combustion
Heliocentrism (sun at the center of our solar system)
Theory of Radioactivity
Molecular bonds
Atomic Theory
sanantone Wrote:I thought a law was the highest position an idea in science can have. Theories have a lot of research to back them up, but they haven't been proven to be 100% true.
Leebo Wrote:Laws are a different category of idea, I guess. They aren't on the same hierarchy. When you have enough observations to say with a high degree of certainty that something will behave a certain way, it becomes a law, but no proposed mechanisms or explanations are required.
And proving something true is never the goal, in my understanding. Everything is always waiting for new data or observations to come along and demand reworking. Laws are often only found to be applicable to certain sets of circumstances and not universally true, anyway.
A law, and a theory are different things. A law is a synonymous with a fact in science.....
In other words, its a law that what goes up must come down. The theory of gravity explains why.
Here's an article that better explains the differences:
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm
cookderosa Wrote:There are 41,000 denominations of just Christianity! So, to assume that *all* Christians are this way or that way doesn't respect the variance of each denomination or their interpretation of their doctrine.
You are correct. I was generalizing. It's wrong of me to include ALL Christians in my generalization. I apologize. I'll say "many christians" from this point forward.
Evolution? - bluebooger - 06-16-2014
publius2k4 Wrote:..
You are correct. I was generalizing. It's wrong of me to include ALL Christians in my generalization. I apologize. I'll say "many christians" from this point forward.
why do you even specify christians ?
it's not the only religions in the world you know
Evolution? - cookderosa - 06-16-2014
bluebooger Wrote:why do you even specify christians ?
it's not the only religions in the world you know
I believe that is because the discussion of creation implied Creationism, which is believing in the literal translation of Genesis. Of course there are other religions, but generally have their own idea about creation. Apologists of Creationism would oppose evolution as a theory of creation.
Evolution? - publius2k4 - 06-16-2014
bluebooger Wrote:why do you even specify christians ?
it's not the only religions in the world you know
The original post mentioned "God." It is generally understood that when someone is speaking of the Judeo-Christian god, they simply call it "God." Most other religions call their deity by name (Mythra, Oden, Ra, Zeus, Allah [although Islam worships the same God as Christianity and Judaism] etc.)
Therefore, I understood that the OP was speaking about the Judeo-Christian god, since the context of the term was as a proper name (i.e. capitalized).
Evolution? - Dr John - 06-17-2014
I find it difficult to see how anyone can believe that the bible is not an accurate book of history, how they believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk upon this earth, or that the accounts of what he did and claimed to be are false or simply stories of legend. There is simply too much evidence that supports the biblical account. From ancient works of antiquity from Taciturn and Josepheoues, to more recent archelogical evidence. So I pose this, if the bible is correct and Jesus did walk upon this earth, and he performed the accounts that the bible says he did (again there is a mountain of evidence, too lengthy to write here) then accepting all this, how can we believe that God did not create the heavens and the earth? How do we say creationism did not occur and that instead, suddenly without any provocation that a big bang of sufficient force to create life suddenly occured? Life is too exact, too tightly intertwined to have happened by chance.
I am greatly enjoying the scholarly debate that is going on here between to well educated members of our forum. For those who are interested in reading about the mountains of evidence for the bible and for Christ, I point you to a good book called "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. As for me, I came away from this book believing that it would take a greater leap of faith to be an atheist then to be a Christian.
Evolution? - Leebo - 06-17-2014
Dr John Wrote:I find it difficult to see how anyone can believe that the bible is not an accurate book of history, how they believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk upon this earth, or that the accounts of what he did and claimed to be are false or simply stories of legend. There is simply too much evidence that supports the biblical account. From ancient works of antiquity from Taciturn and Josepheoues, to more recent archelogical evidence. So I pose this, if the bible is correct and Jesus did walk upon this earth, and he performed the accounts that the bible says he did (again there is a mountain of evidence, too lengthy to write here) then accepting all this, how can we believe that God did not create the heavens and the earth? How do we say creationism did not occur and that instead, suddenly without any provocation that a big bang of sufficient force to create life suddenly occured? Life is too exact, too tightly intertwined to have happened by chance.
I am greatly enjoying the scholarly debate that is going on here between to well educated members of our forum. For those who are interested in reading about the mountains of evidence for the bible and for Christ, I point you to a good book called "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. As for me, I came away from this book believing that it would take a greater leap of faith to be an atheist then to be a Christian.
It sounds to me like you are making a leap from "Jesus was a real historical figure and the Bible contains some real historical accounts" to "therefore everything in the Bible must be true."
You can believe there was probably a person named Jesus who had a following, while not believing the rest of the mythological accounts. A good portion of the Bible's accounts of geological history are demonstrably false. There is also very little material to document Jesus's life outside of the Bible.
Additionally, the theory of evolution does not say that life took its current form by chance. You equated the Big Bang, the origin of life, and evolution in a single sentence, when those are 3 completely separate areas of study. Earth is a tiny speck in a remote area of a galaxy which is just one of hundreds of billions. The universe seems to largely be a lifeless, inhospitable, empty place.
And I just want to say, since it's come up a few times, the Big Bang was not an explosion in the way we think of it, it was an expansion of space itself.
Evolution? - publius2k4 - 06-17-2014
Dr John Wrote:I find it difficult to see how anyone can believe that the bible is not an accurate book of history, how they believe that Jesus of Nazareth did not walk upon this earth, or that the accounts of what he did and claimed to be are false or simply stories of legend. There is simply too much evidence that supports the biblical account. From ancient works of antiquity from Taciturn and Josepheoues, to more recent archelogical evidence. So I pose this, if the bible is correct and Jesus did walk upon this earth, and he performed the accounts that the bible says he did (again there is a mountain of evidence, too lengthy to write here) then accepting all this, how can we believe that God did not create the heavens and the earth? How do we say creationism did not occur and that instead, suddenly without any provocation that a big bang of sufficient force to create life suddenly occured? Life is too exact, too tightly intertwined to have happened by chance.
I am greatly enjoying the scholarly debate that is going on here between to well educated members of our forum. For those who are interested in reading about the mountains of evidence for the bible and for Christ, I point you to a good book called "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. As for me, I came away from this book believing that it would take a greater leap of faith to be an atheist then to be a Christian.
I love you brother, but I've gotta disagree with you on this one;
The bible cannot be used as a historical guide. Each book in the bible was written by different people, and it was simply their versions of what they claimed to have seen. There may well have been a Jewish man born to parents named Mary and Joseph....but beyond that, everything is hearsay. None of the "miracles" Jesus performed can be validated because the results cannot be replicated in a controlled environment. And therefore, scientifically, the claims hold no merit.
You start your argument by saying "if the bible is correct" but we cannot use the bible as a scientific text. Also, we cannot begin our scientific inquiry with the answer and work back (god did it, now lets figure out how to prove it). You have to start with the question (How did it happen?).
Richard Dawkins wrote "The God Delusion." I highly recommend it.
****Edit; Please don't think I'm saying any of this in a rude way. As you said, it's a scholarly debate
Evolution? - Dr John - 06-17-2014
You wrote: "You can believe there was probably a person named Jesus who had a following, while not believing the rest of the mythological accounts. A good portion of the Bible's accounts of geological history are demonstrably false. There is also very little material to document Jesus's life outside of the Bible."
I disagree with you on this my friend, there is ample of evidence of the works of Jesus outside of the bible, several 1st century jewish historians even mention Jesus in the writings of antiquity, the crucifixion and the resurrection are also mentioned. It is important to also note that the bible was not written thousands of years after the death of Jesus, but rather the earliest writings are well within the lifetimes of some of the people who witnessed these events and would have or could have stood up if this was false. For example, there is evidence among many historians that the book of Mark was written no later then about AD 60, perhaps even the late 50's. If Jesus was put to death in AD 30 or 33, we're talking about a maximum gap of 30 years or so. Historically speaking, especially when compared to Alexander the great, that's like a news flash. As a comparison, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written more then 400 years after his death in 323 BC, yet historians generally consider them to be trustworthy.
This is probably not the place and time to delve into the debate on whether the bible is fact or fantasy, as the original posting of this has to do with evolution. Since I can not add much to that conversation with the little time I have left in the day, I will say that we could debate all day on the bible and on Christ. I urge you look at Lee Strobel's book, the Case for Christ. It is a very easy read and presents the case as if it was to be a court case. As an aside, Lee Strobel was an Atheist, he took a two year journey to do an in depth investigation into what evidence do we have for Jesus and for the claims the bible makes about him. Lee is also a graduate of Yale Law School and was the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune.
Evolution? - Leebo - 06-17-2014
Forgive me if all of that doesn't sound particularly convincing. From what I've heard, a lot of the non-Bible accounts are vague at best. For instance, I recall something like there being a record of someone with the name Jesus being crucified. That's not remarkable, and it doesn't lend credence to any of the supernatural elements of the Bible. If I remember correctly, Jesus wasn't an entirely unique name for someone to have at the time. Several decades at best is still a long time for accounts to be written. Never mind the fact that the gospels don't even agree with each other on the events.
Like I said, I'm perfectly happy to accept that someone named Jesus existed, and that he had followers, and he said things similar to those attributed in the Bible (the odds of being quoted with perfect accuracy after decades are pretty much zero). None of that means that the supernatural claims are true, or that the other parts of the Bible become true by also being included with something true.
If I say 4 true things, it doesn't make the 5th thing true by default.
I will check out the book at some point. In turn, will you be reading something on evolution?
Evolution? - publius2k4 - 06-17-2014
Dr John Wrote:You wrote: "You can believe there was probably a person named Jesus who had a following, while not believing the rest of the mythological accounts. A good portion of the Bible's accounts of geological history are demonstrably false. There is also very little material to document Jesus's life outside of the Bible."
I disagree with you on this my friend, there is ample of evidence of the works of Jesus outside of the bible, several 1st century jewish historians even mention Jesus in the writings of antiquity, the crucifixion and the resurrection are also mentioned. It is important to also note that the bible was not written thousands of years after the death of Jesus, but rather the earliest writings are well within the lifetimes of some of the people who witnessed these events and would have or could have stood up if this was false. For example, there is evidence among many historians that the book of Mark was written no later then about AD 60, perhaps even the late 50's. If Jesus was put to death in AD 30 or 33, we're talking about a maximum gap of 30 years or so. Historically speaking, especially when compared to Alexander the great, that's like a news flash. As a comparison, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written more then 400 years after his death in 323 BC, yet historians generally consider them to be trustworthy.
This is probably not the place and time to delve into the debate on whether the bible is fact or fantasy, as the original posting of this has to do with evolution. Since I can not add much to that conversation with the little time I have left in the day, I will say that we could debate all day on the bible and on Christ. I urge you look at Lee Strobel's book, the Case for Christ. It is a very easy read and presents the case as if it was to be a court case. As an aside, Lee Strobel was an Atheist, he took a two year journey to do an in depth investigation into what evidence do we have for Jesus and for the claims the bible makes about him. Lee is also a graduate of Yale Law School and was the legal editor for the Chicago Tribune.
I'm willing to grant you that there is a possibility that Jesus existed. Even the Islamic religions believe he existed. But there is no scientific evidence to support anything beyond that. We can't prove he turned water into wine (at least, not instantly), nor can we prove he fed 5000 with a happy meal. Saying "Josephus said it happened, so it must have happened" doesn't work. I mean, the only people who claimed to have seen Jesus after his resurrection were his 12 disciples (minus Judas, who either hung himself [according to Matthew 27:5] or died by disembowelment [according to Acts 1:18]).
I wasn't really trying to argue whether the bible was fact or fantasy, but you brought the bible into this evolutionary debate as evidence of creationism. While the bible may be a historical document, it has no more scientific credibility than Egyptian hieroglyphs.