.and the debate continues.

what is with you im not going to defend my believes for you just cuz i dont believe in evolution doesn't mean im going to fight about
im just going to be the bigger man here and shut up

These discussions do hold some relevance to the original post for as the topic's subject suggests.. the debate goes on...

As for the professor not receiving his grant, the point of me sharing that is that I found it extremely disturbing that here we are in 2006 and with all our discoveries in science reinforcing the theory of evolution from the fossils we dig up which support the undeniable evidence to the molecular level of actually seeing the progession of evolution as it stands ( http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/scien ... ref=slogin ) and yet, people, especially these eductional policy makers, are turning a deaf ear toward science....and for what? To accomplish what I ask? To keep people in the dark? To maintain ignorance?



"... if i am right then i will go to heaven.... but if you are wrong you will burn in the pits of hell...." This quite possibly is what the heart of the creationism/religious belief boils down to - fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of death. The answer to this fear? God. Because everything will be ok because I love god and god will take me from this place and put me in paradise and keep me away from the pits of hell....

I'm sorry, but in this age of man, today's age... that just doesn't cut it, at least for me.



Something I feel creationists should examine more often when stepping into a discussion that places the bible in question.

OK this is getting old i seem to be the only person debating. I'm tried of geting beat on so this is my last post

I have no idea why I'm getting involved in this, other than the fact that this:

kind of thinking is the major reasoning I'm not a Christian.
I was brought up in a Christian environment with the specific instructions from my (Christian) parents to "make up your own mind, come to church if you want to find out more. There's a Bible over there if you want to read it". OK, so maybe I haven't been particularly thorough in my investigations but the quoted argument is one of the central problems I just cannot rationalise enough to myself.

Let's have a look at some examples:
1. I kill 1,000 people. I believe in God.
Result? Unsure. Murder is not permitted in the Bible but I believe in God.

2. I kill 1,000 people. I believe in God. On my death bed I ask for forgiveness.
Result? I go to heaven. I repented, I believe in God.

3. I kill 1,000 people. I don't believe in God.
Result? I'm burning

4. I kill 1,000 people. I don't believe in God. On my death bed I turn to Christianity and ask forgiveness.
Result? Paradise for me.

5. I kill 1,000 people knowing that asking for forgiveness on my death bed will get me into heaven. I ask forgiveness on my death bed.
Result? Heaven

6. I live a model life, don't believe in God and die saving someone trapped in a burning building.
Result? Unbeliever goes to Hell.


Does the simple act of believing in God get you into heaven? Because if so, heaven doesn't sound like the kind of paradise it's made out to be. I'd rather be partying in Hell with Gandhi and the rest of the non-believers than having pretzels with Dubya.

Does the act of believing in God because otherwise you're going to Hell, ie fear (as seems to be protrayed in the quote) guarantee you entry? Because tricking a supreme being in that way doesn't, to me, inspire confidence in his 'infallibility'.

One final point before I'm stabbed for not working, returning to the creationist vs evolution theory. As I mentioned, my parents were Christian and one of the most memorable things they said to me when I brought up this debate as a kid was: "the Bible contains advice for living right and stories / metaphors to illustrate these. The world was created in 6 days fits with dinosaurs and the Big Bang in so much as each 'day' is more a 'stage', with the evolution / creation of man being the final step. It was written by men for men in relation to the conduct of men, therefore is the final stage. Who knows, if in 2,000,000 years we have evolved into another species their bible may say 'and on the 7th day, God made xxxxxxx'".

Anyways, enough rambling. Just my tuppennorth-worth

Regardless of what you do in life, Belief in and following Christ is the only thing that will save you.

If you don't believe me, let's look at some of the great men of the Bible.

Paul.... before he started to follow Christ his mission was to seek out and kill Christians. Not only was he a brutal murderer, he murdered God's people. Then after all of this, you think God will forgive Him just for turning his life over and following Christ?

Absolutly. The only way into heaven is to be perfect. If you break any one of the 10 commandments, doesnt' matter which one, then you must pay the penalty, which is eternal death. But since Jesus was able to keep the law perfectly, yet he still died, he paid the price for you. All you have to do now is accept His gift.

Another great man of the Bible, King David, a man that was said to be a man after God's own heart.

Want to know what he did? While walking outside his pallace one night he saw a woman bathing. He started to obsess about her, found out who she was from one of his servants and then had her brought to her pallace. Knowing full well that she was married, and her husband was gone fighting the king's war, the king slept with her. She got pregnant, so the king freaked out and tried to cover it up. He had her husband, his loyal servant, put to death and made to look like a cassualty of war.

Adultry, murder, from a man of God? We all mess up, doesn't make it right, doesn't mean we will not pay, but we all mess up. King David paid a great price for what he did, but he followed God and God forgave him.




The debate about intelligent design or evolution is usually a useless one. there are a lot of facts that support both sides, but obviously both can't be true. I can give you a lot of evidence that proves that evolution is wrong, and there has to be an intelligence behind the creation of life, but if you don't want to believe it then no amount of evidence will change your mind.

How is it that we have complex creatures, living breathing creatures, that are the most complex thing in life, and you can look at that and say that it was a random accident?

The laws of science state that life cannot arrise from non life, so where did life come from then?

there are soo many things I could say on this subject, but like I mentioned earlier, I doubt that it will do any good.

Dammit, I wish I could pay the high price of eternal salvation for getting a married woman pregnant and killing off the husband while he was out fighting a war for me.
Makes all these earthly penalties such as a lifetime imprisonment seem like child's play

Here is the basic.

You assume that anybody who is good enough should get into heaven. This is true, but what standard are you using? You think that someone should be able to get into heaven because even though he breaks the laws, he hasn't killed 1,000 or even 1 person. In your mind you have your own criteria. Anybody who is better than that should be allowed into heaven, anybody who is worse than that deserves punishment.

Here is the thing though, God has a standard, and anybody who reaches it gets into heaven, but the penalty for breaking His laws is eternal death. God's standard is perfection, to keep His laws perfectly throughout your entire life.



Everybody fails at keeping His standard. the truth is NOBODY deserves heaven at all, every single one of us deserves our punishment.

You may not have killed anybody, but have you ever lied? stolen anything? looked lustfully at another woman? (Jesus said this is the same as adultry) have you ever hated anybody? (that's the same as murder!)

It doesn't matter how well you keep the laws, if you break one, then you are guilty. And the brutal honesty is that every one of us constantly break the law. There is nobody alive who kept the law perfectly except for once or twice. God demands perfection, but we fail to give it.

Since we all deserve hell, there is no reason for God to allow us into heaven. But, since God is a God of love and mercy (along with being a God of justice) God created a simple way for you to be redeemed.

And what do you do with that? You have been given the chance to follow God, and be redeemed and forgiven of your sin even though you don't deserve it and instead you just sit there and scoff and brush it all away.

Let me ask you this...

Why?

Why do you not want to follow God?

You probably have an excuse that you will give, I'll give a logical response to it that shows that you have nothing to doubt but instead of realizing that maybe i'm telling the truth you will come up with another objection, and another, and another.

Why? What do you have against God? He gave you much more than you deserve, he gave you a free ticket out of your prison and you choose to slap His hand away instead.

I just don't get it.

creation or evolution, nevermind that...how is 40k going to accomplish anything? man already wrote the book, so why fund him now what new exiting evidence that would change everybodys mind could he provide if granted that money? sounds like wasting govs money on issue 200 years old... why not fund research is earth really a globe while we at it? because there might be people who don't belive in it? maybe something new is to be find? sheesh

Please don't preach, I find it offensive.


What law is this? One you have just made up? Or one you are confusing with the Conservation of energy?

Science very much does state that life can come from non-life. How this happened is still a mystery, But i don't think that give us licence to credit "god" with it.
Unless of course you would be willing to admit god doesn't exist when science has found out exactly how life initially sparked... If not, I don't see how you can use it as evidence of a creator.


This is the trouble. You don't understand evolution.
There was no accident about it, Creatures didn't accidently develope these abilities. The ones that were not able to live in the enviroment died, thier genes were not passed on. So if we use the model of "crap animals die" and go back to when there were only single cell life, it makes perfect sense that we would have a wide variety of creatues each perfectly suited to the enviroment in which they live.

It's the same as when people say "isn't it amasing that the earth is the right distance from the sun for us to live here"...
No, it isn't... because one of two things could have happened. Either life would have developed to live on a planet this distance from a star,, or no life would have developed. Either life can, or it can not. It just so happens that on this planet life can.

Whatever debate is had with religious it allways boils down to them being completely ignorant of science.

OK, let me turn this one round. Why do you not want to follow Allah, for example? What evidence do you have that your God is the only God?
Let's say Allah is the only God, because I have as much evidence of that as for 'God'.

Why?

Why do you not want to follow Allah?

Or the Roman pantheon? Or the Greek? Or... I could carry on but the fact is that you have chosen your way. You 'hope' it is right, but you can't 'know' until the afterlife, if there is one.
As far as I'm concerned if there is a heaven, of whatever denomination, and I dont get in because I didn't arbitrarily choose a deity to take time out of my life to worship / mourn / celebrate (delete as applicable) and rather just followed, to the best of my ability (no, I'm not perfect, but I try my best), a good life drawing on sources from the Bible to the Tao Te Ching to, hell, Good Housekeeping then heaven isn't as perfect as the brochure says.

And ocrist - the funding is for research into "the detrimental effects of intelligent design on Canadian academics and leaders." rather than the theory of evolution / creationism itself

Please don't tell me not to preach, I find that offensive...honestly, it's my constitutional right, just like it's your right to say that there is no God.


Evolution may explain in broad terms how one animal changes into another, but it can't explain it in any detail.

Every little change that happens from one creature to the next means that thousands or even millions of cells in that body have to spontaneously change. it isn't as simple as a fish's scales turning into the hide of a reptile, it is absolutly impossible from a microbiological view.

How did such complex functions come about? such as sight or the blood clotting system. These are complex sytems in our bodies that cannot arrise one piece at a time. either the entire system as to be ther or it fails, and sometimes fatally. If you don't have all hte pieces for the blood clotting system to work then every animal that gets a bruise or cut will bleed to death. There is no logical way for it to arise piece by piece.



I think you are wrong there, It was science in part that helped me realize that God does exist, it was from observations such as I have mentioned. Life is too complex for there not to be an intelligent creator behind it. When I tried to study evolution in detail, it completly fell apart. Sure evolution shows a monkey changing to a man, but how? how did it change, what were all the steps, and how did 2 of the exact same changes happen at once, one male ane one female in the same area so they could mate with eachother? I think that the different sexes are another example of a creator, but we will not get into that now.



You never answered my question

Why do I follow God? Because Jesus Christ proved which way was true. Mohommad (sp?) never proved it, Joseph Smith never proved it, Buddah never ....

Anyway, Jesus Christ answered well over a hundred prophacies. I'll give you that some were vauge and could mean different things, but many, if not most were very specific. Down to the fact that he would be born of a virgin, where he would be born, several event in His life, etc...

There is so much documented evidence for Christ raising from the dead, from the Bible, and extra Biblical sources. Jewish historians (such as Josephus), and Ceasar's journals include a lot of things about Christ, those who saw him after he was risen, and those who were persecuted as a part of the early church.


Jesus claimed that He was God. Not a teacher, not a prophet, but God in the flesh. That means that either He was a lunatic and a liar, or He was telling the truth. After examining all the evidence it's easy to conclude that Jesus is who He claimed to be.

OK, quickie reply as a beast of a JS file is shouting at me still...

I don't believe in God as I haven't seen any evidence to conclusively prove there is one or which is the true one if there is.

As far as I can see, there was a documented life of a man called Jesus. David Ike claimed to be God. I aren't going to suddenly see in him the path to salvation. Similarly, I aren't going to drink some lethal concoction just because some cult leader tell me he is the earthly representation of some deity. And make no mistake, in the early days, Christianity was a cult: the cult of Jesus.

Nostradamus made prophecies, they came true. Horroscopes make prophecies, they come true. It all depends on how you look at it.

Now, not to defame the name of the mother of God, but Mary was a married (or in a relationship. either way) woman. She has a child, not of the man she is with. If you can get away with claiming you're still a virgin and have people 2,000 years later believe you, you go girl! (note: this is only a might have been - no flames for branding the mother of god a lying whore )

And you say Jesus wasn't a prophet? In Islam that's precisely what he is.

As far as I'm concerned the following scenario could quite happily have happened:
2,000 years ago there lived a man called Jesus. He was born of a carpenter's wife (and of whoever else). He did a lot of good things, helped a lot of people, started a cult (deliberatley or otherwise) and was crucified as a martyr by a threatened government.

I am not going to build the foundation of my religious being on the fact that this could have happened because a document whose historical credentials (accuracy, authenticity, the fact it is a secondary source of stories about Jesus and, prior to that, about various occurences of people 'seeing God'. Also, not to sound conspiracy theory-tastic but there is plenty of 'evidence', should you care to dig around, that the Vatican and other interested parties have tampered with content. There is no definitive proof either way on this either) have not been proven.

My personal outlook on life is simple. I am on earth this moment. All I can be sure about is that earth exists, I have to interact with other people and I (like to think) I am, deep down, a 'good' person. Beyond this, I have no idea.
Therefore, if I live my life right that is all I can do. If I do that to the best of my ability and there is a 'kind, merciful, loving God' that refuses me entry to heaven, he can stick it. I'm off for espresso with the Morning Star

Anyways, I'm not going to change anyone else's point of view, I know this. I can, however, stop my application shouting at me every time I change a drop down box. So I'm going to apply myself and stop procrastinating!

I didn't say it explains how life come about in detail,,, I said it doesnt prove god done it.
So instead of trying to pick apart evolution, why don't you concentrate of explaining why your position is correct? All we seem to hear is why evolution is wrong, even though there is tons of evidence supporting it. and nothing to support what you think.

Then we get a few passages from a story book instead of any scientific evidence.
The thread isn't about people wanting to hear about jesus, so why post it?


Animals mutate. The mutations that benifit the animal mean that animal is more able to pass on the genes that cause the benificial mutation.


It doesnt take much for a cell to be able to detect light.
You don't need eyes to detect radiation. So eyes would have started as radiation sensitive cells, and evolved into the eyes we have. Blood clotting would have progressed because animals that bleed to death would die more often, and this would reinforce the clotting gene in the gene pool. It would have started as a genetic freak mutation, just like we have people who are genetic freaks now that have blood unable to clot.. If it was benificial for blood to not clot, it would be these people flooding the gene pool with genes that cause our blood to not clot..

Seriously, this is kids science.. You really should have an understanding of this..


Classic.. A creationist talking about logical arguments.
Dont forget, you are the one saying "well i don't know how it's done, so god must have done it"

Good responses, this should be fun



Anybody can claim to be God, but like I said before, that either makes them a lying lunatic... or it means they are telling the truth. Jesus not only made the claim, he backed it up. Yeah he had healings and did miracles, so what. But you have to also think, not only did he raise people from the dead, He Himself raised from the dead! Who, besides God, has power over death? along with all the prophacies that were made in the 4,000 years before He was born.



Good point, but, do they ALL come true? If even one prophacy from a person does not come true then it proves that they are not from God. EVERY prophecy about Christ was fulfilled. In fact, EVERY prophecy in the Bible has come true (with the exception of the end times prophecies, only that group has not happened yet but will happen, and soon).


As far as your comments about Mary, The laws of the time in that region were very strict. If she had slept with another man, then Joseph, being a good man, would not have had anything to do with her. He had 2 options if she had slept with someone else, either to divorce her, which would sentense her to execution but save his name, or he could quietly divorce her, saving his name by not letting it be known. But no, he stayed with her.



I'm not saying what other religions say that Jesus is, I'm telling you what Jesus said that He is. Jesus called Himself God and allowed men to worship Him. In the Bible, not even the angels let men worship them. Jesus was admitting that He was God.



How 'good' of a person are you?
Have you ever broken any of the ten commandments?

more than once?

if you keep breaking God's laws, then how can you bee a good person?



There is a kind, merciful, loving God, and he isn't refusing you anything. God tells us how to receive His forgiveness. You choose to not accept it, therefore it's entirely on you if you spend an eternity in hell.




It's simple logic. If there is a building, then there is a builder. If there is a piece of artwork, then there is an artist, if there is a car, then there is a mechanic and factory and company that built that car.

Complex designs are never known to arise by chance. It was a person with intelligence that built that computer you are sitting at. that computer is not nearly as complex as a human body and I don't think you would ever argue that computers are a random freak of nature. You never saw the creator of that computer. (Well, there is a good chance that you built it yourself... but you never saw the creators of the parts. How do you know that the video card wasn't just a discovery in the dep jungle? You assume that someone built it.) I'm just using the same logic. It's obvious that some type of intelligence had to design this universe, and life.




Every mutation that is in an animal is still a part of the same species. Never has a mutation been seen that goes beyond that species to even hint at a different species.

A duck may have mutations, many of them, but every one is still a duck. Not a half duck have hippo or any other animal.


If I were to tell you a story, and say that there was this frog, and one day a beautiful princess kissed that frog and he turned into a hansome prince, would you believe me? Of course not. Why? because you use simple logic to deduct that:

frog + kiss != man

but at the same time, you say that if you turn that kiss into millions of years, then it's totally possible. You believe that:

frog + time == man

Tell me how that's logical?

There is a lot of evidence that shows that this earth isnt' even 10,000 years old, but if I bring that up, will you listen? probably not, but if you want me to I will anyway. I have nothing to fear by you questioning my beliefs, because I know that the answers to those questions is truth.




This is the typical response for evolution. a light detecting patch can simply evolve into an eye over the course of many mutations.

but how?

You would have to not only change the cellular structure in each mutation, but also the complete function. This theory only sounds good if you don't look at how it's possible.




so did the first animal have this system in place or not? the first animal to arise (which, btw, who would it mate with?) would not have such a complex system, so it would have bled to death. There are about 15 or 20 steps in the blood clotting system, each of which has a crucial role, and without a single piece the whole thing fails.

You have parts detect the rupture in the vessel, parts that activate the blood clot, parts that actually clott, and parts that know exactly where the clot needs to form, and parts that shut off the process when it's done so the clot doesnt' clot the entire vein.

So which part came first? It's a system that you can't take pieces out of. The blood clot would not work if it was not put in place in it's entirety.

What about DNA? What created the first strand of DNA? What created the RNA that produces the DNA? The DNA is needed to make the RNA and the RNA is needed to make more DNA.



God gave us logic so I use it...Why do you suggest that a "creationist" doesn't use logical arguments?



So you are blaming dell of making computers cuz.. why?

I'm saying God made everything not because I don't know enough about it, but because I see His design and fingerprints all over it.

I break the 10 commandments all the time and I consider myself a good person but then again I don't believe in god.