Atheism is unreasonable

[Simon Moon]

These are serious problems that cannot be just swept up under the rug. Now, if you are REALLY opened-minded and want to see good arguments against the theory of evolution, just check out Kent Hovind...you may already be familiar with him, but he has been the most prominent anti-evolutionist that the world has ever seen...he is the William Lane Craig of anti-evolution...and his seminar's, lectures, debates have all been on youtube, and you should check him out because he has debated some pretty prominent folks in the field of biology, like Massimo Pigliucci, Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, Michael Shermer (not a biologist).

Good stuff.

Hovind is a dishonest charlatan.

EVERY one of his claims have been refuted.

His "water canopy" hypothesis is laughable on every level possible.

He, like you, is fractally wrong.

[Jackalope]

These are serious problems that cannot be just swept up under the rug. Now, if you are REALLY opened-minded and want to see good arguments against the theory of evolution, just check out Kent Hovind...you may already be familiar with him, but he has been the most prominent anti-evolutionist that the world has ever seen...he is the William Lane Craig of anti-evolution...and his seminar's, lectures, debates have all been on youtube, and you should check him out because he has debated some pretty prominent folks in the field of biology, like Massimo Pigliucci, Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, Michael Shermer (not a biologist).

Good stuff.

Hovind is a dishonest charlatan.

EVERY one of his claims have been refuted.

His "water canopy" hypothesis is laughable on every level possible.

He, like you, are fractally wrong.

Say, where is the illustrious Mr. Hovind these days?

Oh, yeah - in prison, for tax fraud.

Speaks volumes to his character.

[pocaracas]

I have just about given up on this guy, so I'm going in, psychoanalyst style!
He refuses to acknowledge real science while claiming his view is the real one... how about we try to find out why that is?

"Real science" is supposed to be based on observation and repeated experiment...yet you believe in a theory that is unobserved, and can't be experimentally validated...and I am the one who refuses to acknowledge real science?

yes, but that's been taken care of, so let's continue.

1. According to your posting timestamps and mastery of the english language, I'd say you're living in the United States. Is that correct? Are you from the place generally called "the bible belt"? The US South? Where?

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Army veteran of 6 years. Married. One son. Currently residing in Phoenix, AZ.

Nice!

2. Did you grow up in a city, town... village? (do you guys have villages in the US?)

East side, Detroit.

So, city, then.
You're no country boy... you should know better...

3. How religious are your parents? How religious were your parents/caregivers during your younger years, say, up to 13yo?

My parent's weren't "religious", but my family (in general) all believed in God. Some were more religious than others. I credit my Christian foundation to my big cousin, "Delnora" (Dell). Me and her son (my cousin), were very close as youngers and when I used to spend nights over there, the place was always booming with children's Christian music, children's Christian books...she was always in to the Word, and she was always willing to talk to me about God...I was like 10, and she was speaking to me as if I was an adult because of my mature level with the Word. The whole house was like a holy safe haven. Fond memories.

I am saying that to say that those experiences over her house helped set my entire Christian foundation, and for that I am thankful to her for.

Can you say: indoctrination by cousin?

4. How was your formal education up to that age? Public school? public school in a creationist town with creationist bias? Home school? private creationist school?

Of my 12 years in school, two of them were in a private Christian school. The rest was in Detroit Public Schoos (DPS).

Two of them? can you say which ones?
And how did you like that christian school?

5. Back home, did you go to church every Sunday? Did you go there more than every Sunday?

I was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh-day...ist_Church, and as a SDA, we actually went to church on Saturdays, which was considered the "Sabbath Day". That was as a child...as I got older and matured I took an issue with a few scriptural/doctrinal teachings by the SDA church...but I still love'em.

"Raised as a SDA"?... I thought your parents weren't "religious".
Who raised you?
Your cousin Dell?

6. What denomination of churches did you go to, while growing up?

First SDA, then Word Faith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_Faith

Right now I guess you can call me a "free agent", not affilliated with any particular denomination. Right now, my main focus is apologetics.

You know... a few centuries ago, christianity was essentially split in two: catholics, taking most of Europe, and orthodox, taking western Europe and russia.
Then, a guy started reading the bible and came up with his own branch of christianity... I believe he went by the name of Luther... came up with what is widely known as protestantism.
From that protestantism, several smaller denominations crept up.
Can you see yourself as... just one more?
What do you call that? Free agentism? "his majestism"?
Can you imagine what may happen if you talk to an audience and some 10% of that audience step over to your newly-formed branch of christianity? Bang! New denomination created! Congratz!

Why, do you think, is it that the same book (or collection of books) can sprout so many different views over the same entity?

Considering, for a moment, that this god does exist and did, at some point, make people write those things you read.... Do you think this is what god intended? Everyone splitting hairs over details of what was written? Why would you carry on with that behavior?

7. How religious would you say your friends were at that age?

I wouldn't say I had any "religious" friends, or at least from what I could tell. I mean, a lot of times the subject of religion is the least thing on most kids minds from the ages of 10-16'ish...the only thing that was on our minds was music, money, girls, sports, cartoons...and not in that particular order.

No homework?

As an adult, I don't have any friends...but even the aquaintances that I do have, religion isn't a subject that comes up much...but it is good to know that if it does come up...I will be ready

Standard person.. who'd have thought?!

8. You said somewhere that you're african-american. How do you perceive your society's acceptance of your race (or variety, if you prefer)?

I've never experienced nor seen anyone of African American descent be discriminated against or treated differently because of our race...I've never (from what I can tell) experienced racism, nor have I ever seen (from what I can tell) racism in action.

So from my view, society has accepted my race well. I've had a few caucasion women have crushes on me before I've had many different friends with people of different races...I love and embrace diversity.

Nice!

(do note I said "your society", not society at large... I mean your local personal interaction with everyone else there)

I live in Phoenix, AZ where it seems as if the whites and blacks are the minority (which is saying a lot). I am a lovable guy out here, to answer the question

Bottom line, you were indoctrinated.
No harm was intended with that indoctrination, I'm sure... but it has put a person on this world which seems incapable of handling science... hence the "bio-babble" claims when people try to teach you some stuff.
I can anticipate some "geo-babble" from orogenicman....

Anyway, I'd like to show you a video which features some heavily indoctrinated children. If you are shocked by what they say, then please be aware that is how we feel with what you say:

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Replace the machine guns with the ability to ignore science that contradicts your belief and you'll have a much better analogy of yourself.

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It is the same thing, though. The "millions of years" crap is just another way of plugging in igorance with a "time" filler.

What does that even mean? You have no concept of the difference between the span of a human lifetime and millions of years.

You have never been to a museum of natural history; have you ever read a book on evolution by an evolutionary biologist?

I will pay for your museum admission and the book.

He already answered that some days ago: he said he's never gone to one and has no desire of going to one.
Can you believe it?!

[Jenny A]

however an early mammal very closely related to birds and reptiles and sharing a number a characteristics with them including egg laying.

Minor quibble, Shared primitive trait, such as egg laying, does not denote close evolutionary relationship. Only shared derived trait can be an indication of closeness in relationships.

Birds and earliest mammals clearly share few true common derived traits, and those which they might superficially appear to share, like endothermy and insulating body coverings, are clearly derived separately through convergent evolution, and do not share the same derivation.

So early mammals are not closely related to birds at all. The earliest mammals are already separated from birds by 150-200 million years of independent evolution from carboniferous era (or earlier) onwards, along two widely separated evolutionary lineages. So Platypus, only ~150 million years separated from humans, is already as different from any birds as humans are from platypus.

Your right about the birds. But it is much closer to reptiles. It's the DNA from whence the traits come that matters:

World's Strangest Creature? Part Mammal, Part Reptile
Jeanna Bryner | May 06, 2008 08:00pm ET
The platypus sports a patchwork of features from mammals, reptiles and birds.
Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation.
View full size image

The platypus sports fur like a mammal, paddles its duck feet like a bird and lays eggs in the manner of a reptile.

Nature's instruction manual for this oddball, it turns out, is just as much of a mishmash.

Researchers just mapped the genome of a female platypus from Australia. The genetic sequence of this Aussie monotreme (a type of mammal) is detailed in the May 8 issue of the journal Nature.

"The platypus is a very ancient offshoot of the mammal tree, so it was 166 million years ago that we last shared a common ancestor with platypuses," said study team member Jenny Graves, head of the Comparative Genomics Group at the Australian National University. "And that puts them somewhere between mammals and reptiles, because they still maintain quite a lot of reptilian characteristics that we’ve lost, for instance they still lay eggs."

She added, "So we can use them to trace the changes that have occurred as we went from being a reptile, to having fur to making milk to having live-born young."

http://www.livescience.com/7488-world-st...ptile.html

[Thumpalumpacus]

Hey, His_Majesty. What 'kind' of animal is a platypus?

Maybe it is the only member of its "kind", whatever that is.

Or maybe you're just full of shit.

I'll take "Full of Shit" for $500, Alex.

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In other words, "time of the gaps" reasoning is being used. Once you start the "it took millions of generations", or "it took millions of years"...once you start to say that, you are leaving science and diving right into the portal of religion.

It happened that fast. You are relying on the unseen...and not only that, but the statement "it takes millions of years", that statement in itself cannot be scientifically validated. You cannot conduct an experiment to draw that kind of conclusion, can you? Nor can you conduct an experiment to predict when the next change would occur.

So you are basically not even using science!!!

You can, however, avail yourself of the fossil record, which supports exactly what he's saying, largely in the timescales he mentions.

Of course, you have to use science to understand the fossil record. Which means it's beyond the scope of your intellect.

[Anomalocaris]

Minor quibble, Shared primitive trait, such as egg laying, does not denote close evolutionary relationship. Only shared derived trait can be an indication of closeness in relationships.

Birds and earliest mammals clearly share few true common derived traits, and those which they might superficially appear to share, like endothermy and insulating body coverings, are clearly derived separately through convergent evolution, and do not share the same derivation.

So early mammals are not closely related to birds at all. The earliest mammals are already separated from birds by 150-200 million years of independent evolution from carboniferous era (or earlier) onwards, along two widely separated evolutionary lineages. So Platypus, only ~150 million years separated from humans, is already as different from any birds as humans are from platypus.

Your right about the birds. But it is much closer to reptiles. It's the DNA from whence the traits come that matters:

World's Strangest Creature? Part Mammal, Part Reptile
Jeanna Bryner | May 06, 2008 08:00pm ET
The platypus sports a patchwork of features from mammals, reptiles and birds.
Credit: Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation.
View full size image

The platypus sports fur like a mammal, paddles its duck feet like a bird and lays eggs in the manner of a reptile.

Nature's instruction manual for this oddball, it turns out, is just as much of a mishmash.

Researchers just mapped the genome of a female platypus from Australia. The genetic sequence of this Aussie monotreme (a type of mammal) is detailed in the May 8 issue of the journal Nature.

"The platypus is a very ancient offshoot of the mammal tree, so it was 166 million years ago that we last shared a common ancestor with platypuses," said study team member Jenny Graves, head of the Comparative Genomics Group at the Australian National University. "And that puts them somewhere between mammals and reptiles, because they still maintain quite a lot of reptilian characteristics that we’ve lost, for instance they still lay eggs."

She added, "So we can use them to trace the changes that have occurred as we went from being a reptile, to having fur to making milk to having live-born young."

http://www.livescience.com/7488-world-st...ptile.html

Unfortunately, the article chose to use somewhat obsolete term reptile to exploit a popular, but obsolete understanding and land vertebrate classification.

Traditional classifications say all air breathing quadrupedal vertebrate animals which lay hard shell eggs, has or were thought to have scaly skin and cold blood were more closely related to each other than to other groups of air breathing vertebrates, and formed a natural grouping.

Modern genetic and cladistic analysis shows traditional "reptile" do not form a natural, closely related group. Instead it is made up of 3, possibly 4 widely separated lineages, 2 of these lineages are more closely related to other groups not traditionally considered to be reptiles - birds and mammals respectively - than they each are to other lineages within the traditional reptile group.

So the best that could be said for the comparison made in the article is yes, platypus laid eggs and lad scales. So what? What group of "reptiles" is platypus actually similar to? And what are they like? As it turns out, the group the "reptiles" platypus is most closely related to and similar to are the selves remarkably mammal like. If you see one alive, you would surely call it a furry critter, and would never call it reptile. That group of animals had fur, was almost certainly warm blooded, often had dog like dentition and many had a dog like face, and all had a distinctly mammal like upright walk, not sprawled like our usual notion of reptiles at all. Sure, they also laid eggs, and at least early members would not have nursed, so they would not be called mammals. But at first sight they would sure as hell fool most people into thinking they were mammals.

Is it any wonder primitive mammal platypus should be very close to "reptiles" which are so uncannily Mammal like in the first place?

The point is there is no abrupt transition from mammalian ancesters (traditionally called mammal like reptiles) to mammals. The process is gradual. Every part of mammal lineage is close to its immediate ancester. Even humans are closer to later mammal like reptiles than those mammal like reptiles are to crocodiles or turtles. Mammalian traits accumulated over a long time, at least 100 million years. The earliest synapsid (the proper name for the lineage, formerly assigned to reptiles, which are ancesteral to mammals) is 300+ million years old. It already had distinctive features which sets it apart from any other "reptile" and mark it as an early relation of the mammal family.

[GrandizerII]

Life from non-life pretty much means movement and activity becoming more complex and coordinated over time. Not sure where the problem here is that would warrant the necessity of God's existence for life to occur.

if it was that simple, abiogenesis wouldn't be such a problem, now would it?

It is that simple in terms of the fundamentals (I'm talking about any life here, not just organic life). The problem isn't in the probability of life coming from non-life, but in figuring out the details.

The problems you proposed are not problems that demand the existence of a God.

So God can be infinite but the universe not? This is special pleading, and I will not accept that as an argument.

[dyresand]

These are serious problems that cannot be just swept up under the rug. Now, if you are REALLY opened-minded and want to see good arguments against the theory of evolution, just check out Kent Hovind...you may already be familiar with him, but he has been the most prominent anti-evolutionist that the world has ever seen...he is the William Lane Craig of anti-evolution...and his seminar's, lectures, debates have all been on youtube, and you should check him out because he has debated some pretty prominent folks in the field of biology, like Massimo Pigliucci, Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, Michael Shermer (not a biologist).

Good stuff.

Hovind is a dishonest charlatan.

EVERY one of his claims have been refuted.

His "water canopy" hypothesis is laughable on every level possible.

He, like you, is fractally wrong.

The law and federal and irs caught up with the guy. do i feel bad no.
am i happy yes so he can stop brainwashing people.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Species of the same kind of animal. You can get as many species of dogs you want...but they will all be dogs. No new "kind" of animal is being created like you would want to believe. No reptile-bird stuff has ever been observed.

Wrong. All dogs belong to one species, as has already been pointed out to you. And you've already been presented with reptile-avian fossil transitionals.

I do, for the most part. Some of the premises in the arguments for the existence of my God have been scientifically verified with science...mainly, in cosmology...as we can scientifically prove that the universe began to exist. See how that works?

I can also prove that the Eiffel Tower didn't exist before 1889. That doesn't mean that Joe Blow from Pascagoula, MS built it in six days using tinkertoys.

"See how that works"?

The scientific evidence followed by the philosophical evidence together as a whole allows me to draw the conclusion, unlike evolution.

There is no such thing as "philosophical evidence", firstly. Secondly, any conclusion about the source of the origin of the Universe necessarily oversteps the evidence currently at hand, because we are unable to examine the point of expansion.

But I understand why you must believe in evolution, because after all, you have to be able to somehow explain the diversity in life without God, and evolution is the only game left in town...for you, it just HAVE to be evolution.

No, I mustn't believe in anything. However, I must follow the evidence. (That's a heuristic you'd do well to apply to yourself). The evidence for your deity is absent.

Feel free to correct me, in detail, either in this thread or another that you may start, called "The Evidence for the Christian God". I challenge you to do the latter ... if you dare.

But sorry, charlie. No matter what the apostles for your religion tell you, there is no experimental nor observational evidence that has ever validated macroevolution.

As I've already pointed out, your dire need for education is obvious. You really don't need to buttress my point with these retarded claims of yours ... but hey, I'm nothing if not grateful. Keep talkin', kid.

When you want that education, let me know; I'll be happy to give you some pointers as to where to look.

No, I'm not holding my breath.

[Whateverist]

In other words, "time of the gaps" reasoning is being used. Once you start the "it took millions of generations", or "it took millions of years"...once you start to say that, you are leaving science and diving right into the portal of religion.

One more whacko assertion. Flies in the face of common sense without any support, as usual. I guess we are dependent on science now to test the validity of the existence of a past and a future. If we can't do that I suppose we should just roll over and admit goddidit. Or .. we can just ignore this fool and his nonsense. I'm going with (b), final answer.