1.8M-year-old skull gives glimpse of our evolution

[Esquilax]

Please don't tell Christians what they must believe, dolt. The Church speaks about faith, morals, and God. It's place is not to explain science. Thus, there is room in Christianity for creationism belief, intelligent design, and yes evolution. The bible must not be demanded to be interpreted literally in all it's books.

So I'll ask you the same thing I ask a lot of christians who give me this line of reasoning: what method do you use to determine which passages are literal, and which ones are metaphorical, how do you determine what the metaphors are, and how do you know your interpretation matches the intention of the creator god who inspired the writing itself?

I'll give you a hint: the answer shouldn't be "through personal experience," or "through my pastor."

God could have evolved an animal thru millions of years into a final human form.

Humans are still evolving now, we haven't stopped or anything.

Then he picked the best one, gave him a soul and started humanity. We don't know. Not really important to the church or our salvation.

If you don't know, then how do you know that it isn't important to your salvation?

[Minimalist]

God could have evolved an animal thru millions of years into a final human form.

God could have shit silver nickels into a big pile, too. You fools created god...you can make it do whatever you want it to. The only limit is your own imagination.


Meanwhile, the rest of us will simply get on with reality.

[Zazzy]

The article points out that paleontology is largely guesswork, without even operational definitions for a species.

We don't have practical operational definitions for species, and this is because evolution is a process. It's very hard to draw lines between transitional forms. The standard high school science textbook definition- organisms who can produce fertile offspring- gets less and less useful as it becomes more and more evident that among closely related species, more interbreeding happens than was previously supposed, and the majority of life on Earth isn't sexually reproducing, anyway, and (among most animals, anyway) there usually isn't a clear moment when one species transitions into another (anymore than there's a clear moment where a middle-aged person suddenly becomes an old person).

Most people who yap on about this don't understand that the very reason determining species is a headache is because, in the real world, species largely doesn't exist- it's a human-invented term to try to categorize organisms that often fall along subtle lines of genetic relationships.

[Tkcjpii]

Please don't tell Christians what they must believe, dolt. The Church speaks about faith, morals, and God. It's place is not to explain science. Thus, there is room in Christianity for creationism belief, intelligent design, and yes evolution. The bible must not be demanded to be interpreted literally in all it's books. God could have evolved an animal thru millions of years into a final human form. Then he picked the best one, gave him a soul and started humanity. We don't know. Not really important to the church or our salvation.

Since there is no evidence of the existence of 'souls', on what do you base this idea?

I base it onfaith. It's a cornerstone of Christianity. Not everything in this universe, horatio, is what you can measure scientifically. Just as you believe in evolution from faith. FYI, not all Christians are creationists, not all Christian doctrines force creationism, and those that are or do, not all espouse a YOUNG EARTH creationism. I personally favor evolution even with its holes, missing links. Your beef with young earthers is a small fraction of card carrying Christians. Sorry to minimize your hater influence.

[Silver]

I base it onfaith.

Children have faith that Santa and the Easter Bunny are real. Their misguided faith does not make their fantasies real. The same can be logically applied to religion and its misguided inherents.

[Esquilax]

I base it onfaith. It's a cornerstone of Christianity. Not everything in this universe, horatio, is what you can measure scientifically. Just as you believe in evolution from faith.

Oh, now you done goofed, son.

We don't have faith in evolution, because we don't need to. Faith, as you've so aptly demonstrated with this post, is believing in something without a good reason for it. There are plenty of good reasons to accept evolution: Here's eight observable examples of it happening. Here's some more.

And that's setting aside all of the genetic, fossil and laboratory evidence that fully confirms evolution. Faith isn't required, and your desperate attempt to drag it down to the level of your religion, is just foolish and dishonest, and demonstrates your own ignorance regarding this subject.

I personally favor evolution even with its holes, missing links.

There aren't any.

Your beef with young earthers is a small fraction of card carrying Christians. Sorry to minimize your hater influence.

Can you produce one single reason why we should be barred from discussing young earth creationism and evolution deniers in a couple of threads, when the majority of other threads within this forum address mainstream christianity?

Dude, we know YECs are a lunatic fringe, that's not a reason to stop quashing their nonsense when it occurs. This isn't some grand attack against you and yours, because we aren't talking about your denomination of this insipid religion.

You're coming into, what, three threads that happen to discuss this stuff and acting all offended, when a simple trip to the christianity section would show you what's actually going on.

[Tkcjpii]

No problem, dude. Just heard on this thread and most, a lumping of all Christians into that young earther fringe. Its tired. That's all.
And who was that above who denied there are any evidentiary holes in the evolution theory? I am an evolutionist myself and would never make that claim. Dig sand, insert head?

---

Quash away, just not all Christians.

[Zazzy]

And who was that above who denied there are any evidentiary holes in the evolution theory? I am an evolutionist myself and would never make that claim. Dig sand, insert head?

Do you know what the biological- not the dictionary- definition of evolution is? I'll help you: it's that genomes change in populations over time, or, if you want to get fancy about it, that allele frequencies in populations change over time.

There is absolutely no doubt that this occurs. None. Zip. Zero. So no, there are no holes in evolutionary theory.

There are many mechanisms by which this change occurs, and there is indeed healthy debate over how some of those mechanisms happen (and just flat-out ignorance by all over how some of those occur).

This argument over the mechanisms of newly discovered modes of genetic change is willfully (and just stupidly) misinterpreted by some who either don't understand what evolution is, or who don't want to understand. If you're really an "evolutionist" (a weird term), then stop yapping BS and start understanding what you claim to be a proponent of.

If people are tarring you with the "creationist" brush, then stop with the creationist sounding bullshit.

[Esquilax]

And who was that above who denied there are any evidentiary holes in the evolution theory? I am an evolutionist myself and would never make that claim. Dig sand, insert head?

When one considers the fossil record, in many lineages- humans included- we have a fairly complete record, and certainly enough evidence besides that we don't really need to consider evolution as anything other than the done deal that it is. Sure, we don't know everything yet, but to characterize acceptance of it as an act of faith is simply ludicrous; one doesn't need to know everything about a thing to know that it's real.

This line of dominoes is falling, but since I don't know how the first one began to fall, and I haven't seen some dominoes from earlier in the line, I can only take it on faith that they're actually falling. It's as ludicrous as that.

Quash away, just not all Christians.

We have other reasons to quash the rest of your religion, believe me.

[Tkcjpii]

Bring it on. Seen nothing yet. Will it include foul language and silly logic?