Former agnostic, now Christian

[ArmchairAtheist]

Some people like to think they are descended from some guy created out of dirt and some woman cloned out of his rib, which effectively makes that woman his identical twin sister.

I had just looked up this very thing yesterday to see what the apologists had to say about it and apparently their god endowed Adam and Eve with their own supergenes that are far superior to our own thereby making them immune from being related. This reasoning also takes care of the problem of the incest issue with the children.

So why don't we have those supergenes? Well, he gave humans a chance to be good but it failed so he took the genes away. Nevermind the whole "born with sin" thing.

There's just not enough aspirin for this....

[lucent]

Hey Stimbo, nice to meet you. I'm also including Zenbadger for this response..

I haven't ignored the facts..the facts were what convinced me evolution is a fairy tale. I came into it believing evolution was true, and had no reason to doubt it, because like everyone else it was taught me as fact and I believed there was incontrovertible evidence to support it. Turns out there isn't a shred of evidence for it, anywhere.

Let's start with transitional fossils. Here is a list of the best ones:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tra...al_fossils

Note the disclaimer:

Ideally, this list would only recursively include 'true' transitionals, fossils representing ancestral specie from which later groups evolved, but most, if not all, of the fossils shown here represent extinct side branches, more or less closely related to the true ancestor

IE, no true ancestors have been found. They've only been inferred from other species that they assume are closely related. The intermediates between species simply do not exist. What we observe in the fossil record are species entering into it suddenly and fully formed as in a statis, and then just as suddenly disappearing. This is especially true in the Cambrian explosion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DkbmuRhXRY

The transitional fossils simply are not there, or anywhere. The best intermediate that has been discovered, Archaeopteryx, has actually recently been debunked by secular scientists:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v47...10288.html

Now, I do believe that there is diversity within a species, such as the different types of dogs we see. However, macroevolution, is not science. It has never been tested, nor can it be observed...rather, it is entirely historical and untestable. That's not science, and some scientists agree:

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate.

After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Loren C. Eiseley,
Ph.D. Anthropology. "The Immense Journey". Random House, NY, p. 199

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain:

I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other.

Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation."

Professor Jerome Lejeune,
Internationally recognised geneticist at a lecture given in Paris

"Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

Michael Denton,
Molecular Biologist. "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Adler and Adler, p. 358

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

L.Harrison Matthews,
British biologist

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."


L. Harrison Matthews,
Introduction to 'Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', p. xxii (1977 edition).


"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

Sorry if I'm throwing this thread into reverse, just trying to catch up.

you still can't discard the possibility of a hallucination, it would be ignorant to do so.

Not only ignorant, but also highly arrogant.

I don't ignore facts, I think my faith in God is reasoned and reasonable. I was a proponent of evolution when I became a Christian, and I assumed at the time that Genesis wasn't literal and that there had been some sort of guided evolution which had taken place. I was suprised to learn, when I actually investigated evolution, that it was predicated on a number of unproven assumptions, and that there wasn't a shred of real evidence that it actually happened. I had always assumed that it was true, as it was taught to me as fact, but upon investigation it doesn't hold up.

I'm sure we would all be interested to hear what these unproven assumptions are and what your investigation consisted of.

Yes, me too, seeing that many branches of science owe their very existences to the principle of evolution. It's the reason why medical science can treat things such as diabetes and urinary tract infections, while faith and praying... doesn't.

Sorry, Lucent, (and welcome aboard, by the way) but evolution has been known about since the time of the Ancient Greeks; though the precise mechanism hadn't been discovered until Charles Darwin's day, people have known enough about how it works to produce all the varieties of fruit and veg, not to mention different breeds of animals, that we take for granted today. Bananas must get a special mention here as one of the most spectacularly embarrassing creationist own goals in history.

You claim not to ignore facts and then promptly disregard anything that doesn't fit the conclusion you have already drawn. Yet you seemed so specific in your initial posts. Surely if whatever converted you into any religious position was so convincing you could... in fact, if it's that life-changing you most certainly would... present it without hesitation. It was clearly something of immense importance to you; what's the harm in sharing? If it's as irrefutable as you claim, then surely it'll withstand any criticism we poor godless heathens might throw at it.

Or perhaps you aren't as certain in your faith as you think?

[ElDinero]

Transitional Fossils? That's the best you can come up with? Idiotic. Do more reading.

---

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34eKAm48LfM

[Cyberman]

A question, if I may: why did you post the link to the Nature article? Clearly you haven't read it; or if you have, you failed to understand the words. Nowhere in that article does it say anything about the debunking of Archaeopteryx. What it does say, however, is that a recent discovery appears to supplant that more famous fossil as the basal type of the species. Hey, how about that; science learns new stuff!

In other words, and bearing in mind any apparent expert knowledge is merely the result of trying to learn from others more knowledgable in the field, we once thought that Archaeopteryx was the archetypal bird, on the transition point between reptile and avian. Now we find that, apparently, this previously-unknown theropod is the real archetypal bird, on the transition point between reptile and avian. Congratulations - you've used a transtional fossil to shoot down a transitional fossil. Keep up the good work, and pretty soon you'll have single-handedly shut down the entire creationist/intelligent design/etc movement.

As for your carefully-mined quotes - and I use the word 'carefully' quite wrongly -have a quick read-through of the ever-popular TalkOrigins Quote Mine Project (with emphasis on the section entitled "Quote #4.7" regarding Harrison Matthews) then get back to us. I'd be very interested in your response.

[ElDinero]

Stimbo with a steel boot to the balls. Oh dear, Lucent, this looks bad for you. More acrobatics required!

[lucent]

I think you're the one hallucinating because the article doesn't say any of that at all. What it says is that the recent find, called Xiaotingia, knocks Archaeopteryx off of its perch as the ancestral bird/reptile intermediate because the traits they both have in common make it appear that Archaeopteryx is not actually a bird and more closely related to Velociraptors. It didn't supplement it at all, as you can clearly see here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaotingia

As far as this quote mining is concerned, all I have to say is, are you kidding me? 4.7 spends about 20 paragraphs trying to prove that he didn't actually mean what he said. There are those acrobatics eldiniro is referring to.

So, to sum up here..you addressed nothing I said, countered none of my assertions, but rather tried to play a gotcha game with me on Archaeopteryx and one particular quote. This is a rather weak response, I have to say.

A question, if I may: why did you post the link to the Nature article? Clearly you haven't read it; or if you have, you failed to understand the words. Nowhere in that article does it say anything about the debunking of Archaeopteryx. What it does say, however, is that a recent discovery appears to supplant that more famous fossil as the basal type of the species. Hey, how about that; science learns new stuff!

In other words, and bearing in mind any apparent expert knowledge is merely the result of trying to learn from others more knowledgable in the field, we once thought that Archaeopteryx was the archetypal bird, on the transition point between reptile and avian. Now we find that, apparently, this previously-unknown theropod is the real archetypal bird, on the transition point between reptile and avian. Congratulations - you've used a transtional fossil to shoot down a transitional fossil. Keep up the good work, and pretty soon you'll have single-handedly shut down the entire creationist/intelligent design/etc movement.

As for your carefully-mined quotes - and I use the word 'carefully' quite wrongly -have a quick read-through of the ever-popular TalkOrigins Quote Mine Project (with emphasis on the section entitled "Quote #4.7" regarding Harrison Matthews) then get back to us. I'd be very interested in your response.

---

Fraid not.

Stimbo with a steel boot to the balls. Oh dear, Lucent, this looks bad for you. More acrobatics required!

[Cyberman]

Anyone else feel like pointy-sticking this guy for a while? It's too far past my bedtime for me to think straight right now. Unless of course I'm hallucinating again, which is a beautiful response from someone with an imaginary wizard for a friend. That'll keep me chuckling all night, that will.

[Edit to add:] Just out of curiosity, if the evidence against evolution is so compelling, why (in your opinion) do so many scientists in related fields still hold it to be true? Also, if you'll indulge me, if evolution is false, and bad science etc, what would you put in its place? Remember, any alternative theory would have to account for everything the existing one does - which it does with beautiful economy.

[cdog]

Again do you even read the articles you cite?


"This led to popular reports that "Archaeopteryx is no longer a bird",[2] though Xu et al. noted that there are several competing definitions of the clade Aves currently in use, pointing out that their definitions are compatible with a traditional Aves with Archaeopteryx as a specifier.[1]"

Not that it really matters, since your claim that there are no transitional fossils is wrong.

[Epimethean]

There comes a time when debating with xtian lunatics becomes like a spinning class cooldown that has gone on too long.

[Zen Badger]

Hmm....

I notice that this quote by Dr Albert Fleismann
""I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

Was originally made in 1911. Science has moved on a bit since then lad.

As to not a shred of evidence?

What about molecular genetics which pretty much makes the fossil record unnecessary?

And what do you define as a "transitional fossil"
Since technically ALL fossils are transitional forms.
And all of the supporting sciences such as geology, astronomy etc which show the Earth to be of an age required for Evolution to take place.

Another question, where did you do your "research" it appears to me to consist entirely of material from AIG and the like.