"stamping my feet"...LOL..now that's funny..that would allude to me being upset with your comments. Have I appeared this way? Hardly! Look, I'm smiling You keep using the term "grown ups" in your posts. Does this indicate you are much younger than I? An accepted way for behaviour in my book would be two individuals respecting each other's opinions. Now, I certainly respect your opinion and my objective is for you to maybe consider some things you may not have thought of. However, going by history, I can't see you taking that in. Trust me lad. I ain't upset at you, my fingers are well away from my ears. That's the point exactly...you expect me to believe in scientific theory that has holes in many places. The missing links between the animal life and human life we have now and the animal, plant and human life before. It's a catch 22 isn't it? I can't make you see a living God and you can't show me the proof of evolution between a giraffe and whatever else it was before. Agreed? I don't do anything out of spite so I don't see what your point is with that one. You speak of loads of evidence but you can't show me the evidence that I asked for. There's that catch 22 again Nonsense? How so? The discussion is about how life begun...how is that nonsense?
You didn't answer my question. I asked if you thought your level of education afforded you with the capacity and understanding to refute evolution, The evidence supporting it and the science used in gathering that evidence. In other words, Do you think you are right and 99.9% of the planets biologists, geneticists and zoologists are wrong, Given your understanding of the science when compared to theirs? So because it's impossible, Not because we just don't know, But because it's impossible to know every stage of development of every species it means that evolution is wrong? Yet you feel so comfortable claiming a "spark" from god is needed to trigger the breathing in a baby....go figure.
99.9%?? Can you back that up with evidence or is that a little over the top? In regards to the question, you have not answered mine. Catch 22 again. If it is impossible to know then it can no way be deemed as fact. Correct? Therefore, evolution is not factual, it's not proof because it is "impossible" to know every stage of development between the beginning of life to a giraffe according to the evolutionary process. I say God is the source of all life because of the evidence I have seen and read. You say evolution is the source of life because of the evidence you have seen and read. Is this what is called an impasse? I never said the "spark" from God is needed to trigger the breathing in a baby. That's you jumping to your own conclusions. I am asking you exactly what causes breathing to begin in a newborn baby. You talked about involuntary muscle spasms. What makes the muscle spasm to enable the lungs to function?
99.9% is an underestimate if anything. Thing is, anyone smart enough to become a scientist discards primitive desert myths pretty easily and they follow the evidence. LOL magic man done it, Could you imagine anyone except the blindly obedient believing such a thing. According to this video, which used the discover institutes's own figures, 0.00275% of biologists reject common descent. So sorry, It's not 99.9% who believe in evolution, it's actually 99.99725%, Fractionally higher than the generous figures i gave you last time. Thanks for pointing out i was giving your side the benefit of the doubt where it wasn't deserved. that works out at 1 in every 40,000 "scientists" rejecting common descent... Wow, the scientific community are certainly divided on this one. if you find 80,000 scientists there will be enough creationists for a game of ping pong. Of course, We are still giving you the benefit of the doubt because a closer inspection of the discover institutes list revealed that there are only 3 biologists on their list who reject common descent (so divide all previous numbers by 33.3) and countless ones who were appalled to find their names being tied to such a disgusting campaign of lies and misinformation and numerous scientists who have been waiting years to have their names removed. but then, What do we expect from creationists? Honesty? yeah, I wont hold my breath. Most of the people on the list aren't even scientists, One is a park ranger. Lots of things are impossible to know, But we don't need to know every aspect of something to know some things are true. For instance, you are unable to tell me exactly how many atoms make up your computer and it's impossible for you to find out, But only someone with deceitful intentions would attempt to deny the existence of the computer on those grounds. I demand you tell me how many atoms are in your computer or admit it's existence isn't factual! You believe the computer exists even though it's impossible to know how many tiny particles make it up, right? Any why is that? because the other evidence supports the belief that it exists in such a compelling way as to make this petty insignificant absence of a trivial piece of data meaningless. I told you what causes it. A reflex action which is caused by decreased oxygen and increased Co2. I'm not going to type it all out again, I explained this to you in as infantile language as i possibly could. I can only suggest you re-read it, try reading out loud, see if that helps.
The problem with your argument is I have 7 million+ sources of evidence on my side (and that's just in the organisation I am in). But! You won't cross the line to try and find out what these one's want to show you. Of course, I am not going to deny my computer's existence. I can see it right in front of me. But, on the same token, can you see the links between an amoeba and a giraffe? I think that's called "touche". But, again, I am not here to argue with you. Just bringing in a different angle.
We share genes that are responsible for protein manufacture with the simplest life. And as the final nail in the coffin, We don't even make those particular proteins any more. So either we got those genes from a common ancestor, Or your god is unimaginative, incompetent and lazy. Just like snakes have genes for legs and chickens have genes for teeth, All species have remnant DNA left over from what they used to be.
THe thing I don't understand is why believers still hold on to their beliefs? It's not scary at all to think that we're not the creature of any superbeing and that when we die it's like before we were born: nothing. Once you cease to exist you cannot be sad or regret not being alive anymore. When you can still worry about death it means you're still alive, so enjoy it, I don't see any need for a belief in an imaginary friend.. Why? Because life is hard, so you need to believe in something to give you a sense of purpose or as I said an imaginary friend who would make life seem worthwhile? Is that all there is in holding tight to a belief that is obviously based on wet sand? You can simply accept that life is hard, that you could end it whenever you see fit, but that you might as well continue living until you're bored or until, well, you die even when you don't want to. But it's no big deal. Maybe believers who go to social events also like the sense of belonging to a community. And for this there's no question, you cannot afford to not believe in the story, otherwise you're out of the community. But apart from very earthly concerns, there's nothing to support the existence of god, especially when god is defined as per the main monotheist religion, with many details.
All of these things you mention as far as living, dying, being bored etc..well..if one looks at and listens to mainstream Christianity, I don't blame you one bit. I thought the very same for 29 years. However, as I stated before, I had information presented to me that I had not previously thought about. I certainly had a large change towards spiritual interests. But! It's for everybody and it's not for everybody at the same time. Billions don't want to know, but millions do want to know. In our organisation we have about 800+ coming in every day and approximately 15 million currently studying the Bible with our people. Many of these people were just like you, and not that long ago, like me. So, the question is "what is it that is turning these people towards God?" With all the hypocrisy in the churches today, why are people streaming in to our organisation worldwide?
I'm asking you, why is it that people don't give up the weak beliefs altogether? Is it to be part of a community? To feel secure in an imaginary world because not having answers is too frightening to them? I don't know. But to me, talking about numbers don't prove that something is right, quite the contrary in fact, when I'm told that about a billion people are muslims, it doesn't make me thing that islam must have some part of truth in it. I don't like groups, so when you say your organisation has 800 new members every day I don't look up to them. I know many people have beliefs, I'm simply wondering why they need those when it's clear the monotheists religions are man made and nothing more than an invention based on old (but not very old either compared to other things) beliefs and refined over the centuries. Anyway, someone who have strong beliefs is not going to answer me about that, since to answer me you'd need to be aware that your beliefs are most probably false but that you choose to still believe in them, which is quite difficult, I don't think you can really force your mind into doing that. You could *pretend* to believe, in order to get control on others in your community, but you couldn't "believe AND not believe" at the same time
I didn't know either..until I found out the truth. I don't have weak beliefs at all and it has nothing to do with being in a community. It is about truth. Point blank. True. There is no way I would do what I do (which is invite people to learn, not to force them) if I was not form in my belief. Who in their right mind would go out and preach to people if they didn't know what they were talking about or didn't believe in God? As far as the control goes...there is none...in our organisation, we are governed by Bible principles, which we believe is from God. There's no "man" controlling us or telling us what we should or should not do. Everything we can possible need for guidance and wisdom is in the Bible. On the point of new members. I was not boasting, I was just asking the question "why are they coming in?" In this day and age when pretty much all cards are on the table. Mainstream churches could pull the wool over your eyes decades ago (and some still do which is incredible to say the least), but it ain't easy for them to do so these days. Their deeds exposed who and what they were and these days many of their buildings are now unused because no one has faith in their leaders anymore. Our organisation I can say is certainly not man-made. It could not possibly run without God's backing. No organisation on earth operates as cleanly and as efficiently as ours does AND is also a not for profit organisation. However, you being on the outside will be skeptical of these comments as you most likely will have no idea about these matters. But I can tell you this, if you ever took the opportunity to find out about these things you will certainly get a shock.
makes me laugh, I choose to ignore the whole thing to save time except for the "It could not possibly run without God's backing" because that is so hilarious
That's OK...you can laugh as long as you feel fit to..I used to do the same...hehehe...just wait...your time will come one day and you will go...hmmmmmmm
You are counting the people that believes the same as you as evidence for what you believe in? It's a strange concept of evidence. What do they have to show? (please exclude manifestations of psychological nature) We know much more on this than you would be comfortable with, if you cared to learn about it, so ignoring it keeps you feeling safe. Strictly speaking, the amoeba is not an ancestor of animals, most likely animals derived from a lineage of flagellates, amoebas (the amoeba everybody knows, there are other amoebas) are related to the fungal-animal group but are not ancestral to it. [/quote] Of course you are not about arguing, it is incompatible with believing in magic. An angle that blindly denies reality for a scenario that only exists in the imagination of some people (even many people) is not going to help us understand the world.
How would you know where or what state we were in before birth? It's incomprehensible on this plane, there are some things made not to be known, at least immediately. What a boring outlook man, just live till you get bored? Do you think the complexity and inconceivability of this Universe expands every moment just so we can "live" for no real purpose other than to pass on our DNA? Plants do that, animals do that, leave that to them. What separates humans is feelings and thoughts that happen to be a vehicle to accomplish our purpose on this plane.
I don't, but I'm not imagining things and I'm not relying on a fairy tales book to tell me how it is. I'm sorry it does sound dull to you, but in my opinion we're not that much different from animals and plants, hey we're all stuck on the same place, we're all relying on the same kind of things, sun, water, air, and each our own flavours of food... If you like to believe that there's more to it than that, then fine, I understand, but it isn't true. Personnally I'm confortable with what you find a boring outlook, it's just the way it is. I'm sure if dolphins or others communicate as much as we do, perhaps some of them too think they're so special that they can't be there only to pass on their DNA One thing that saved them from farting higher than their asses though is that they still haven't invented writing, so in my opinion they do believe things, but they've not yet wrote it down to use as power and a way to tell other tribes what the stories they believe in should be. So in this regard yes we're different, because we invented writing and that helped tremendously in developping even faster afterwards. As with all inventions, they're as good as what you do with them.
You will have to ask them face to face. Be brave now, no hiding behind a PC to try and win an argument. It's the only way to communicate effectively. errrmmm...I have had many conversations with atheists about this topic and many have differing views to what you are presenting. Many say we came from fungus, amoeba and other gooey things. I mean, this is "evolution" right? Evolving means coming from something doesn't it? So, according to you, which one evolved into a giraffe and which one evolved into us? understanding the world is a very difficult thing to achieve, I agree. I guess it takes a good look to find out what it is that we have?
Why do I have to be brave to face them? Are they gonna hit me? I talk to them when they knock at my door, but they always give the same arguments. That's why I asked you, maybe there is something you know that they didn't tell me. The same old story about considering atheists as a special category of people. The only common thing about them is they don't believe in god. Only a few are biologists, and even less are experts in eukaryotic phylogeny. Many are architects, engineers or bakers. Most of them don't know the difference between one protist or another, so obviously you'll get different answers about the detail on where the animals came from. Does it mean anything about evolution happening or not? Well, not at all of course. I don't know about buildings even though some architects are atheists like me, but their buildings stand. If you really want to know what's the current view of the origin of metazoa don't ask your atheist mailman, better search Pubmed and read an updated review. according to me, if you believe that biologists think that giraffes and humans evolved from different unicellular organisms you are hopelessly mistaken (but safely insulated from reality)
all cheap knows is what they told him. he accepts what he is allowed to accept and he parrots whatever deceitful rhetoric they parroted to him. He is happy in the collective, he has been assimilated, he is borg. To you and me this is a worthless, pitiful and empty existence. But somehow, This collective got him to believe in magic and invisible men. Once you are tricked to believing this kind of thing by an "organisation" (his words) there is no depth of self delusion and willful ignorance you are willing to sink to. To him the world is simple, If the collective don't agree it happened then it didn't happen, Regardless of the evidence and regardless of the science, The collectives will is final. To him reality is something to be fought against, not embraced.