right4life on July 29, 2008 at 9:39 PM

check this out and tell me there is no evolution…

birds with beaks shaped like flowers… however the same birds in other locations with different shaped beaks? mmmm wonder how that happened?

have you ever read anything about gene mutation? come on… you do your argument no favors by being oblivious to the facts… why not adopt the facts and refine your argument? why not argue that God designed evolution? then all you would have to do is explain who made God… and that should be pretty easy right?

Which interpretation should be the one the Government follows? The hardcore fundamentalist every word is true version? Once again, you make the error of Christianity being homogenus. Unitarians, Orthodox (Greek and Russian), Roman Catholic, Protestant and the dozens of splinters from Protestantism have serious doctrinal differences. That’s just Christianity. Outside of lip service, what else do you want?

oh I have the GALL to say all sorts of things to morons like you. I wasn’t talking about christianity in particular, since the quote I gave from adams mentioned religion, not christianity. and your post seems to want all religions out of government, except atheism of course, or do you just hate christians? do you have a final solution in mind for christians? since we are to have no role in government, what role do you see for christians in society? perhaps as a dhimmi, as in muslim societies? discrminated against, abused, etc?

This is awesome. So, Islam is the moral equivalent of Christianity? No, pal, not a straw man. That is your argument, that Adams was speaking of religion in general and not Christianity in particular, which is wrong. Adams writes often of the superior moral base Christianity has/had. Context is everything.

I love the persecuted Christian schtick, though. It’s laughable. Why, it’s just like 1933 and Nazi Germany all over again. You’ll be lucky to make it out alive, when the combined might of the Gays and Atheists join up to encompass nearly 10% of the population! How will you ever strike back? If only there were some amendment in the constitution to allow you to bear arms! The horror!

Hang in there, my brave little soldier.

I can’t believe you still don’t see the irony of that argument.

no irony, just the truth. but you can’t even argue this point nor any of my others.

there is no evolution. sorry. the fossil record doesn’t show it, and it cannot be reproduced in a lab. its an atheist fairy tale, nothing more.

since according to you, ID cannot be falsified…then how was miller able to claim he falsified the irreducable complexity of the flagellum?

his doing that proves ID is testable…ie it is science.

right4life on July 29, 2008 at 8:20 PM

I can’t believe you still don’t see the irony of that argument.

*snip* Well, in the first place (and I mention this first because it was last), not virtually every biologist supports evolution. It’s nice for rhetoric but it’s simply false.

*snip*
emailnuevo on July 29, 2008 at 8:14 PM

If it were false we wouldn’t be having this controversy about what to teach in high school. I think Project Steve says it all, though.

All I’ve got to say is – the universe is a big place, and it’s been around a long time. Human life, amazing as it is, probably isn’t even the strangest thing there is to find in it.

The bible is more scientific than intelligent design, because at least it makes falsifiable claims (plainly, since they’re so easily falsified).

since according to you, ID cannot be falsified…then how was miller able to claim he falsified the irreducable complexity of the flagellum?

his doing that proves ID is testable…ie it is science.

Evolution hypothesizes a specific range of mechanisms for change which have been directly observed.

actually they have not. the fossil record does not support gradual evolution…thus the need for punctuated equilibrium….. and when tested in the lab, evolution fails…mutations do not ‘add up’

The tendency for genetic architectures to exhibit epistasis among mutations plays a central role in the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology and in theoretical descriptions of many evolutionary processes. Nevertheless, few studies unquestionably show whether, and how, mutations typically interact. Beneficial mutations are especially difficult to identify because of their scarcity. Consequently, epistasis among pairs of this important class of mutations has, to our knowledge, never before been explored. Interactions among genome components should be of special relevance in compacted genomes such as those of RNA viruses. To tackle these issues, we first generated 47 genotypes of vesicular stomatitis virus carrying pairs of nucleotide substitution mutations whose separated and combined deleterious effects on fitness were determined. Several pairs exhibited significant interactions for fitness, including antagonistic and synergistic epistasis. Synthetic lethals represented 50% of the latter. In a second set of experiments, 15 genotypes carrying pairs of beneficial mutations were also created. In this case, all significant interactions were antagonistic. Our results show that the architecture of the fitness depends on complex interactions among genome components.

link

The irreducible complexity argument has been debunked so thoroughly that creationists hardly bother mentioning it , anymore

miller telling some just-so story doesn’t debunk anything, sorry.

Finally, the NAS’s abridged booklet asserts that biologists “have found intermediate forms of flagella.” But no reference or description is given for these alleged “intermediate forms of flagella,” because this claim is false. In 2006 Pallen co-wrote, “it is clear that all (bacterial) flagella share a conserved core set of proteins,” observing that “[t]his reduced flagellum is still a challenge to explain.” Pallen co-identified a core set of structural components “at the heart of the bacterial flagellum”:
“Three modular molecular devices are at the heart of the bacterial flagellum: the rotorstator that powers flagellar rotation, the chemotaxis apparatus that mediates changes in the direction of motion and the T3SS that mediates export of the axial components of the flagellum.”
Pallen’s article further admitted that “the flagellar research community has scarcely begun to consider how these systems have evolved.” By claiming “there is no single, uniform structure that is found in all flagellar bacteria” and that there are “intermediate forms of flagella,” the NAS is promoting incorrect information about the flagellar structure, and the NAS is wrong to imply that the evolution of the flagellum is understood.

link

RightOFLeft on July 29, 2008 at 7:42 PM

Well, in the first place (and I mention this first because it was last), not virtually every biologist supports evolution. It’s nice for rhetoric but it’s simply false.

The bible says something about dragons and sea monsters and a big-ass ark that apparently got round the globe in a few days to pick them all up.

Alright, that cracked me up. To be picky, I think Noah “called them,” so they managed to crawl from all corners of the globe in time for a flood. It took a while to build that thing, though, so who knows? (Not to mention a cataclysmic flood, it is argued, greatly changed the landscape, so that nothing is as it once was.)

Intelligent design has not been around “for 10 years,” though it may have found its most famous champion in Michael Behe. It’s an old-fashioned view. Or, it was around before Darwin. What exactly, though, is the evidence for evolution? I’ve always seen the “this is what she looked like!” derived from a skull fragment, or some other insanely overblown vision. I’ve never seen evidence; I’ve seen projection.

What I object to in evolution is this idea that complexity just began arising, so that a single-celled organism can figure out how to become a human being. I reject the idea that the intricacies of a tree frog, let alone the human body, just evolved from a tree frog. It’s like the Buckley quote from his This I Believe, about the schoolmaster’s refusal to believe in that the random mutation of goo produced Hamlet, rather than God.

That, and:
We haven’t been able to reproduce DNA/RNA under primitive earth conditions.
For evolutionary theory to work, as I understand it, chemicals have to become a cell, and that’s where the ball starts rolling. The current level of oxygen prevents UV radiation from killing life; if it were less (as it presumably would be, according to evolution) life would not begin.
We simply don’t have all these little birds with one wing or animals with strange deformities, arising out of nowhere. We also don’t have the missing link (apropos, no?). It is a theory. The common dogmatic, slavish devotion to it is expected of cults, not science.

I didn’t mean to imply Dr. Dawkins was evil; I haven’t yet read his book (for the record, Hitchens is hilarious and Sam Harris is a clearly vindictive bore). Just that I disagree with him on evolution. Not for religious reasons necessarily, though I do happen to like the more eloquent defenders of imago dei; I just am not convinced. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in adaptation, which I do. I don’t buy that species are a human construct; otherwise we’d consider different melanin levels to be indicative of different species.

DanKenton on July 29, 2008 at 6:30 PM

I do feel sorry for you, you must be in a great deal of pain, such stupidity and hatred has to hurt.

You’re completely wrong you imbecile. Christianity, with ALL OF ITS SUBGROUPS, accounts for roughly 33% of the world’s religions

hey moron, I was correct, christianity is the largest religion in the world by far. truth hurts doesn’t it? oh and the mormons would agree with me on much more than they would with you. they are my allies, not yours.

read it and weep loser…

. As evidence, only nine million Christians were in Africa in 1900, but by the year 2000, there were an estimated 380 million Christians. According to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study, 147 millions of African Christians were “renewalists” (a term that includes both Pentecostals and charismatics).[1] Much of the Christian growth in Africa is now due to African evangelism rather than Western missionaries

link

it may be growing even faster in china!!! atheism is a spent force, a lie, and everyone knows it!! how does it feel to base your whole life on a lie?

keep posting your spittle-laden lies….I enjoy seeing you atheist wackos become unhinged!! truth hurts doesn’t it??

ps: your hairygod darwin had to steal his idea from wallace!! and his theory is as laughable as you are! LOL

Why is it garbage? Dawkins admits that to believe in evolution, you first have to allow for a huge stroke of luck. Once you cross that barrier, of course, you can buy Neodarwinism, but what makes competing theories “garbage”? (I distinguish evolution from adaptation, which of course happens.)

Why is the belief that things like the complexity of cells, even the most basic of which require long chains of precise DNA, and the strength of the force holding atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them (10 to the 36th power), show evidence of an intelligent designer, garbage? Martin Rees is at least more polite about disagreeing with the theory.

emailnuevo on July 29, 2008 at 4:28 PM

Intelligent design doesn’t show evidence of a designer. That’s on of its many flaws. It claims to prove statistically that Darwinian evolution can’t account for speciation – ineffectively – but even granting that they’re doing the math right (they’re not), they completely ignore the epigenetic processes that Darwin couldn’t have known about. The irreducible complexity argument has been debunked so thoroughly that creationists hardly bother mentioning it , anymore.

There is no evidence that a designer has been tinkering with genomes, or manufacturing new species every few million years. Let’s pretend there was, though. Just how many miracles do you think God needed to create the life? Assuming you believe in God, your choices are:

a – 1 miracle, creating the universe and all its laws such that life would arise as a natural consequence of creation.

b – 1 miracle to make the universe, 1 miracle for every single species that has ever existed, another miracle thrown in to wipe out the dinosaurs when they got too uppity, and any future miracles he may feel like performing. Maybe his plan really was to make a super-race of intelligent bears or something, intelligent design can’t rule it out.

Evolution fits the evidence of an ancient Earth, with progressively more complex lifeforms appearing over it’s history. The bible directly contradicts both of these well-established observations, but at least it offers an explanation. Intelligent design can’t be bothered to actually look for evidence of the designer’s motives.

Evolution hypothesizes a specific range of mechanisms for change which have been directly observed. The results of these mechanisms have been indirectly observed in the fossil record. Intelligent design claims the mechanisms are necessarily degenerative, despite the clear evidence of the fossil record, and despite being unable to offer an alternative mechanism. The bible says something about dragons and sea monsters and a big-ass ark that apparently got round the globe in a few days to pick them all up.

The bible is more scientific than intelligent design, because at least it makes falsifiable claims (plainly, since they’re so easily falsified).

Forget that evil Dr. Dawkins supports evolution for a moment. So does virtually every biologist on the planet. Why is that? Its not some atheist conspiracy. Even among Christian scientists, evolution is overwhelmingly accepted. Intelligent design has been around for ten years without gaining traction among the people who actually do science (despite its political success). Why? Because it’s pretty damn silly to the people who’ve spent their lives learning how to do science. How to measure things just so, how to make and test inferences; the erudite art of mathematical analysis. Scientists earned their expertise through honest labor, which is why its so offensive to see con-men like Dembski and Behe take advantage of people’s sincere religious beliefs so they can sell a few books.

/rant

DanKenton on July 29, 2008 at 6:30 PM

In the first place, Christianity is growing rapidly in South America and Asia, as well as Africa. It’s having trouble growing (the rise of the new atheism, etc.) chiefly, if not only, in the Western world. Just for perspective, Islam made news recently when it passed, in number of believers, Roman Catholicism – and given that Islam is the 2nd largest religion in the world, and that Roman Catholicism does not take into account the Protestant or Orthodox Christian faith, I think right4life’s point is valid. At 33%, which is more or less true (2.1-2.6 bil out of 6.7), it is still the largest religion. And it is still growing.

We don’t consider Romney/Mormons “Christian” because we a)don’t think Joseph Smith was a prophet, and b)don’t think there are three heavens. Most of us also believe in damnation, too. There are more reasons, theological and otherwise, we can get into (they don’t have the Book of Jasher, which they claim to need); but remember that we didn’t make the rules. At best, it can be argued by a secularist, St. Paul did. As for JW, the Watchtower has been and is heretical, as well.

The unbridled hatred for Christianity is sort-of off-putting,though, coming from someone so obviously ignorant of its doctrines. The problem is the (false) belief that rejection of Christianity keeps one from “drinking the Kool Aid,” when in reality, ascribing to atheism takes just as much faith as ascribing to Christianity. As people more important than me have pointed out, it takes faith to believe Julius Caesar really ruled Rome.

ever hear of louisiana? they’re going to be teaching the flaws, which are so so many, in evolution…the damn has cracked. The truth is winning, thats why you darwiniacs have to try to sue, silence, and harass, all who disagree, you’ve lost the argument, otherwis you wouldn’t act like that.

Even though we were taught evolution, we still believed that God created it all. I do not know anyone who doesn’t believe this in my immediate circle.

Did your pastor tell you that? You’re completely wrong you imbecile. Christianity, with ALL OF ITS SUBGROUPS, accounts for roughly 33% of the world’s religions but of course you being a wet-head jeebus freak don’t consider the other sub-groups “true christians” so don’t go taking credit for the Mormons, JW’s and the many other religions that happen to fall under the “christian” umbrella. You stupid jeebus freaks like to claim them all when the argument suits you but don’t like to associate with guys like Mitt Romney (who believes in Christ and was baptised) because he doesn’t go to your tamborine-banging, tax-evading crap-shack you call the house of jeebus.

Come on Right2Die, put the purple Nikes on already and drink the kool-aid.

Failed? You’d better rethink that statement. I don’t see ID being taught in our local schools nor will it anytime soon.

ever hear of louisiana? they’re going to be teaching the flaws, which are so so many, in evolution…the damn has cracked. The truth is winning, thats why you darwiniacs have to try to sue, silence, and harass, all who disagree, you’ve lost the argument, otherwis you wouldn’t act like that.

And at a 33% literal belief rate in the bible, I wouldn’t go around bragging that you’re winning. In fact, it’s not even a passing grade

get a clue, christianity is the largest religion in the world, and its growing by leaps and bounds around the world….and the people who believe in evolution hasn’t changed in decades…all those lies to no avail!! LOL

you’re just a pathetic little loser, ie a typical darwiniac! you can’t defeat christianity, and your ideas are just a bunch of lies!! Jesus has already won…and you’ll find out someday…to your horror

have a nice day!!

ID remains garbage. Those that think it is science are idiots on the scale of flat earthers. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, for they are charlatans of the highest degree.

Why is it garbage? Dawkins admits that to believe in evolution, you first have to allow for a huge stroke of luck. Once you cross that barrier, of course, you can buy Neodarwinism, but what makes competing theories “garbage”? (I distinguish evolution from adaptation, which of course happens.)

Why is the belief that things like the complexity of cells, even the most basic of which require long chains of precise DNA, and the strength of the force holding atoms together divided by the force of gravity between them (10 to the 36th power), show evidence of an intelligent designer, garbage? Martin Rees is at least more polite about disagreeing with the theory.

Failed? You’d better rethink that statement. I don’t see ID being taught in our local schools nor will it anytime soon. And at a 33% literal belief rate in the bible, I wouldn’t go around bragging that you’re winning. In fact, it’s not even a passing grade. Face it, you’re a hollow little person who needs to believe in a death-worshiping religion whose main marketing scheme is guilt and fear. Your ridiculous Right4Life moniker only applies to fetuses, not adults which is simply another example of the major double-speak you pathetic wet-heads practice. Jeebus is coming alright…wait for it….wait for it….wait for it….

LOL

Folks like you make it seem like Christianity is a monolithic religion. There are enough schisms and splinters to warrant that it stays the hell out of the governing process outside of minor lip service.

why would you want christianity out of the governing process? do you want judaism out of the governing process? how about islam? sounds like you just want atheism as the governing religion, and we’ve all seen what that does.

my response was to indicate that religion is needed for our form of government, even Adams admitted this. when we have a people unrestrained on their own, as we do now, then we have more government restraints, as we do now.

So, I started talking about Christianity in relation to the US Constitution and you interject and have the GALL to say that wasn’t what you were talking about

oh I have the GALL to say all sorts of things to morons like you. I wasn’t talking about christianity in particular, since the quote I gave from adams mentioned religion, not christianity. and your post seems to want all religions out of government, except atheism of course, or do you just hate christians? do you have a final solution in mind for christians? since we are to have no role in government, what role do you see for christians in society? perhaps as a dhimmi, as in muslim societies? discrminated against, abused, etc?

ID remains garbage

yeah thats why you darwiniacs are so terrified by it, that you have to try to silence and supress it. you cannot win the argument, so you have to treat anyone who disagrees with your hellish faith of evolution as they did sternberg. sue, silence, harass, intimidate…thats the language of the evolution these days. definately not science.

evolutionists are the charlatans, as dawkins illustrated when he said ID is ok if its aliens, just can’t be God…evolution is all about atheism.

emailnuevo on July 29, 2008

I know what it is, and it wasn’t mainstream in Adams’ time. Hell, it’s hardly mainstream now. Tibits like that help put the why’s into focus.

I suspect we have our wires crossed, as my initial post in this thread was addressed to flenser.

That’s true. But they did not want or expect the government to exist outside of Christianity as a whole. Given that they created “government by the people, of the people, for the people” and that “the people” were Christian, that would be impossible.

flenser

They expected the country to exist regardless of the religious beliefs of those elected to govern. Folks like you make it seem like Christianity is a monolithic religion. There are enough schisms and splinters to warrant that it stays the hell out of the governing process outside of minor lip service.

Krydor on July 29, 2008 at 10:02 AM

So, I started talking about Christianity in relation to the US Constitution and you interject and have the GALL to say that wasn’t what you were talking about. Well, it was what I was talking about and what you responded to. To say that wasn’t the topic at hand is crap, and I suspect you know it. Such things explain why HA will not institute the ability to edit posts.

ID remains garbage. Those that think it is science are idiots on the scale of flat earthers. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, for they are charlatans of the highest degree.

I wish you would have mentioned the pics of me onstage with Maiden. That was awesome.

Hey Allah, I’m right there with ya…lonely at the top isn’t it?