The Watchmakers's Argument basically says that anything that is complex must be designed by a creator, and can't simply evolve on it's own.

However, if you look at life, throughout time life has become more and more complex as it evolved. So, even many Christians accept evolution, and have tried to apply it ad hoc to Creationism.

But I ask, if Christians accept evolution to a degree, why don't we run it into reverse, and see exactly where Creationism fits into the puzzle?

Take man. Right now we are Homo Sapiens, right? We're a pretty complex design, the most intelligent lifeform to ever exist on our planet. But let's devolve down to a simpler form, our ancestor Homo neanderthalensis. Not quite as intelligent as us, but close. Our closest ancestor. Let's simplify the human body a little more, to Homo rhodesiensis. Not quite up to Homo neanderthanensis but still close. I know, I know, yadda, yadda, yadda. We can go all the way back to the original human, Homo habilis, then back to the ancestor we share with gorillas and chimps, Sahelanthropus. From there, let's jump to the Carboniferous period when the first mammals, synapsids, came into being. From there we can go to reptiles, to amphibians, to fish, to algae, clear to the LUA, the Last Universal Ancestor, that existed 3.8 billion years ago. Even from there we can break things down to simpler forms, such as chemicals, to matter created from supernovas, to the hydrogen atoms that made the stars that exploded, clear down to the sub-atomic particles that created the hydrogen.

What am I getting at? If there was a Creator, a god, where exactly did his designs for life come into play? We can take a step-by-step analysis of every lifeform on the Earth today, clear back to when we were just chemicals in a soup. Even farther. Where does God come into all of this? It is perfectly clear that we were not just "created." We came from the evolution of matter in the universe. Particles became atoms, atoms became stars, stars became matter, matter became life, on and on and on. The billions of lifeforms on this planet didn't have a starting point where we break down evolution to a point and then say, "Well, this complex lifeform just popped up out of nowhere, it started out already complex, so a god must have done it." It's not scientifically, naturally or reasonably sound to think that way.

"A universal common ancestor is at least 10 to the 2860 times more probable than having multiple ancestors…"

"A model with a single common ancestor but allowing for some gene swapping among species was... 10 to the 3489 times more probable than the best multi-ancestor model..."

Both quotes from:
Hesman Saey, T. (14 May 2010). "All Modern Life on Earth Derived from Common Ancestor". Discovery News.

As incredible as it can seem to believe, Evolution can explain every step of life that ever existed, and why life is so complex. Creationism cannot.

And that is why I do not believe in a god.

Glad you asked
http://atheistforums.org/thread-14190.ht...+evolution

(September 18, 2013 at 10:07 pm)Drich Wrote: Glad you asked
http://atheistforums.org/thread-14190.ht...+evolution

I knew this would be an old topic, but no way was I going to read through this entire website to find previous debates.

Drich, do you know what ad hoc means?

ad hoc: the addition of extraneous hypotheses to a theory to save it from being falsified

Now, that is exactly what your post does. It alters the meanings of the Biblical writings, and interpolates a great deal of speculation just so Evolution can be applied to Biblical revelation. Your theories turn Biblical "facts" into metaphors, just so the Biblical timeline can "work" with the evolutionary one.

Although your post explains a lot of things moderately well, they are far less provable than anything Evolution has ever stated. It's just Christians trying to keep their ideas from sounding like myth, and so it adds a lot of unsubstainable hypotheses ad hoc to make the Bible sound logical.

It fails.

I think the biggest part of the problem is that idiot creatards cannot understand the difference between a mechanical contrivance and a biological entity capable of reproduction.

There is a reason for that, of course.


They are all fucking idiots.

(September 18, 2013 at 10:59 pm)Minimalist Wrote: They are all fucking willing idiots.

Fixed that for you Min

Quote:We can take a step-by-step analysis of every lifeform on the Earth today, clear back to when we were just chemicals in a soup.

If we could actually do that you'd have a point.

(September 18, 2013 at 10:37 pm)Beta Ray Bill Wrote: I knew this would be an old topic, but no way was I going to read through this entire website to find previous debates.

Drich, do you know what ad hoc means?

Indeed I do, as I just looked it up.
In science and philosophy, ad hoc means the addition of extraneous[u] hypotheses to a theory to save it from being falsified. Ad hoc hypotheses compensate for anomalies not anticipated by the theory in its unmodified form.

Quote:Now, that is exactly what your post does.

Actually no. My theory does nothing of the sort. It does not change one single element of the theory of evolution, nor does it change anything whatso ever in the genesis account. all it says is we do not know how long it was from the final day of creation to the fall of man. Which we do not know. It simply point out the obvious error is established church doctrine.

Quote: It alters the meanings of the Biblical writings, and interpolates a great deal of speculation just so Evolution can be applied to Biblical revelation.

It absolutely does not do any such thing. Again the only thing changed is the unfounded church doctrine that says the fall of man happened right after creation. Just because a monk denoted or placed Chapter and verse numbers along side the scripture does not mean verse or chapter numbers are tied to specific time frames. There could have been a day between chapter 2 and 3. It could have been a week, year, Trillion years Hundreds of trillions of years. The point is we do not know. Now couple this void of time in the bible with the fossil record, and all of the 'theories/evidence' that supports them. When you do, you will note 'science' has given us an estimated time that all of that took place. Now look again at the void of time between chapter 2 and 3 of genesis. Whatever time frame science comes up with will now simply fit between the time of chapter two and chapter three of genesis.

Again nothing changes in the documented History of Genesis of the theory of evolution. Only the perception of the time spanning genesis 2 and genesis 3. Instead of assigning or insisting that there were only a few days or weeks between chapter 2 and 3 I simply reinforce the bible silence and return that time to an unknown. Then I point to the theory of evolution and simply suggest that it in it's entirety can fit into that 'unknown' space.

Again nothing changes except the perception of the events in genesis, which was originally biblically unfounded.

Quote: Your theories turn Biblical "facts" into metaphors, just so the Biblical timeline can "work" with the evolutionary one.

This is a Strawman.
I've changed nothing in the bible nor in the theory of evolution.

Quote:Although your post explains a lot of things moderately well, they are far less provable than anything Evolution has ever stated.

The only thing that needs to be 'prooved' is that there is no time indicators between the end of creation and the fall of Man. And the bible does this quite well as it is completely silent on that time frame.

Quote: It's just Christians trying to keep their ideas from sounding like myth, and so it adds a lot of unsubstainable hypotheses ad hoc to make the Bible sound logical.

Again by the true definition of Ad hoc I would have to add to a given theory to qualify.. I've added nothing, I've only taken away an unfounded belief.

Once that belief is gone, the two orgins accounts sync up on their own.

The bible is a comic book, nothing more. It has nothing in it that reflects any knowledge of modern science.

I must tell you that Muslims and Jews have also tried to retrofit modern science to prop up their comic books too.

DNA backs up evolution. Evolution is a FACT like gravity.

The bible is a book of myth, like the OT and Koran, and the Reg Vedas. Human invented myth.

Yeah, Drich, right.

Get a time machine. Go back to the year 1300 BCE and ask Moses if what you wrote is EXACTLY what the Jewish philosophy of creation means. Every word of it. He'd have you burned for blasphemy and make a "sweet savor unto the LORD." What you wrote is completely ad hoc. It was added only so the Bible could work with Evolution. There is not an ounce of verifiable truth to your ideas.

Geeze, it's like trying to teach a blind man to play Pictionary. I can draw the clearest picture over and over, but he'll never see it. Your problem, Drich, is that you're not blind, you just won't open your eyes.

No what Drich needs to do is ask himself if someone with a different pet god claim used the same arguments he makes for his pet god claim, would he buy their arugments.

He won't do that, but that is what he needs to do.