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speaking about horrible things,

'church' is just one horrible sect eating of the good believing people their money ...  and pooring out the believes in making every thing THEY dissaprove taboo ...

discuss :)

There is no missing link. That point made sense decades ago before the millions of pieces of evidence we have now from all over the world. I hate to see old research spread around to this day like it's still true.

million of pieces if evidence? go ahead and tell me some of them, because I have yet to see a really good piece of evidence to make me believe in evolution.

Evolution does not explain why we are evolving today, like if i were to live in Antarctica why don't i start growing lubber and such so i better adapted for Antarctica? also why aren't animals still evolving today? Like if we came from apes why don't apes keep evolving?

Oh and to discuss Mielo's thing....well I have little to discuss...mostly I just agree. Yeah some of the poor people but on their good-guy hat once a week and pretend to be decent people. For the most part though, the church is a scam based on fooling some good people and some not-so-smart people.

“lol, i think your to blind to see anything else but your own ass^^”

Yeah… wonderful comeback there, full of insight and intellect.  Care to address what I actually said and grow up past childish name calling?

“i will start to trust evolution the day that i can see everything with my own eyes.”

I see a flaw with that.  How can you possibly believe in God if you’ve never seen him directly with your own eyes?

“also i find it easier to believe that God has been forever and created everything, instead nothing created anything, like the evolution believes.”

Yeah… what is easy to believe isn’t what is correct.

“(evolution for me: first there were nothing, then there was a bang, and suddently there was apes turning into men:P)”

Damn, why do I have to keep saying this, THE BIG BANG IS NOT PART OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY!  It sounds like you have a very poor idea of evolution.  Try learning it from actual science and biology textbooks and not through the biased filter of creationist/intelligent design web sites.

“there were alot of good arguments from both sides, but one thing i find rather weird is that humanistic can't explane the feelings like love and the free will.”

Love:  Humans are social creatures and live in groups.  Clans, villages, towns, cities… etc.  Human survival depends on teamwork.  One man couldn’t take down a mammoth.  Therefore it became necessary to have an awareness for the public good… ie, keep your buddies alive.  And of course it’s only natural to try and protect youth.  Love is a chemical and emotional response to others due to this social dependency.

Free will:  Not fully sure what you mean by this.  Please explain further.

“most people should have a feeling that there is more out there then just material and things you can see. and this feeling can't evolution describe.”

Yes.  But you don’t need to believe that the earth is only 5000 years old and designed by one entity to love your neighbors, be inspired to create art, and work to better humanity.  If you want an explanation on why humans think about such “feelings” you should study psychology and learn how the human mind attempts to create order out of chaos.  Similar to how you might interpret a blob on a page to be something since you have no recognition of the actual blob, heaven is a way to interpret life after death.  Random sequences of stars in the sky turn into animals and figures.

“most people should have a feeling that there is more out there then just material and things you can see. and this feeling can't evolution describe.”

LEARN ABOUT EVOLUTION BEFORE YOU TRY AND DEBATE IT!  I can’t stress this enough!  Evolution is a process that can take up to millions of years and is highly dependent on survival of the fittest.  When you’re the top of the food change, there’s not much need to change.  Humans are, for the most part, at the top.  You are not going to genetically change in a single lifetime!

 If you truly want to run this experiment, you’re going to need a group of humans, and you’ll need to isolate them from virtually all manmade luxuries (including clothing!), and let the people who aren’t hairy enough to keep themselves warm die.  Come back in many thousand years and observe what kind of humans are left alive (if any at all.)

In regards to the supposed “missing link”:

The missing link theory assumes that there is a single “chain” of adaptations that turn an ape into a human.  This is truly a misleading model, as this is really not how evolution works.  How does one define a species?  There are many different ways.  We say that all humans are of the same species, even though we have largely varying characteristics.  You wouldn’t say a black person is not a human because their skin is dark, or vice versa with a white person.  But when classifying animals, whether a deer’s tail is white or not can be enough to classify them into different species.

Species can potentially interbreed.  Take for example a mule:  a genetic combination of a donkey and horse that appears largely different from both.  If you’re looking for a genetic chain, you can’t find one.  It looks like you have a missing link, when in reality there was no such chain to begin with.  So when does an ape (technically humans are more closely descended from chimapanzees) first become an early human?  When it begins walking upright?  When it first creates tools?  Sorry, but there is no “aha!” fossil that could prove a link anyway.  It’s largely up to interpretation.

Also consider this:  fossils do not form except under the right conditions.  Let’s say a species is migrating from two environments.  You might find a fossil from where the species first grew up and more fossils in their current location, but not from the many generations from on the move.

Also consider this:  humans are not the only sentient species to have evolved.  Consider Neanderthals and the recent findings of tool-wielding pigmy species.  Humans just seem to be the only species to have survived to this day.  And it still is possible that, given enough time, chimpanzees and other apelike species could develop humanlike qualities and become a sentient species.  In fact, who is also to say this hasn’t happened once already millions of years ago, but humans have not yet stumbled upon such evidence?

To Mielo, I agree that can be right in many instances, but religion has been a part of human society for thousands of years and you can weigh all the bad points of religion and good points (in strictly societal terms) without ever finding the net benefit or harm.  If fear of a wrathful god scares someone into being kind and loving, even if they don’t mean it in the slightest bit in their heart, isn’t that all the more benefit for you?  There are many churches who are open to different ideologies, cultures, traditions, etc.  Such as Unitarian Univeralism, which has absolutely no official church doctrine and follows the lines of humanitarianism than any sort of theistic religion.

I'm glad to hear your grandmother is doing well!

But still, it's not easy to prove the correlation between praying and actual healing.

EVERYBODY IS WRONG!!!

Gaia created everything, married Uranus, then had the hundred handed giants, cyclopses, and the titans. The titans had the Olympian Gods whom battled the titans and won! Now the Gods of Olympus are shy and don't want to appear anywhere, so they stay up here and have incestuous relations with one another.

VU Theory

ZeTa created the Universe and is also shy, but doesn't have incestuous relations...

"But still, it's not easy to prove the correlation between praying and actual healing."

that is why people are having a hard time believing it.
but there has been some experient about praying. i dont remember the example that was brough to me. but it involved 3 parts. one part was not being prayed for, another was prayed for and the third party was praying.

i dont remember what they were praying for or what the benefith was. but i remember that the party that was prayed for showed much more proggress then the other one=)

but i've heard studies about that, and that it actually work=) cause calm music helps plants^^

....did you exist?

so you side is that the funeral service costed a lot? well that may be but you cant include coffins or poll bearers or suchlike the only thing the church would be paid for is the service and no one is saying "you will go to hell if you dont pay" anyway if you wanted a christian burial you could probably get a priest to just say something appropriate when the coffin is being lowered for free. missionaries go primarily to help places and if you look at the work done: clean wells, schools, hospitals, homeas and yes churches but that is not the main reason they are there. Sure the church asks money during collections which is completely voluntary and done during hymns so people arnt shown up if they do not wish to donate. I cant think of any time any church, synagogue or misc forces to pay cash cept i think judaism which they need to pay 4.5% to charity NOT to the religious community.

ftw then your church is going against the bible as donations and suchlike are meant to be private things, for those very reasons you made. I think death is pronounced when thers no more electricity running through the brain as unconscienciousnesuses i basically, when you get down to it, sleeping. and you dont go to hell/heaven when brain damaged cuz yer not technically dead.

p.s RUGBY RULEZZ!

then it isnt the faiths fault, its that single churches leaders, if you dont stand up to a bully you have only yourself to blame, i have personally never heard of donation records in churches

actually im from scotland if youv read in the no offence thred you will see my posts :P anyway now i see your point, as soon as you cant form a reasonably defence in a debate you try going for petty insults. Of course the whole church isnt pure, nothing in humanity is. And priests DO do volunteer work, at least those serious about their faith do. Churches everywhere are usually seen as places to organise charity events and the like to help the under priviledged. I say again if no one in your congregation has a strong enough faith to stand up to your resident priest or minister w/e then why are you still going?

I never said i was still going. I go for family events and thats it.

Intellectually i cannot accept a higher being, its just like Santa and the like, there will be those who beleive it untill it disproven, seeing Daddy dress up as santa, and there will be others who guess it right before they can logically work out why it doesnt exist.

*Having a budget on christmas presents was enough for me at the age of 5 to figure that one out*

So i choose to not follow another fairy tale person like Santa blindly. Unless i see some real evidence, not just some coincidence, I know deep down there is no god which is just as good an arguement as a person saying, deep down they beleive their is a god

why does anyone believe in the big bang? why does anyone believe in string theory? why does anyone believe in the atom core? i havent seen any of these yet i believe in each of those things, god isnt much of a huge jump i mean a divine being is easy to see in comparison. I am not a conventional catholic, or any other religion for that mater though i do believe in a god and i completely repect all the values and cerimonies in the church as they are valuable. i would join if i didnt dispute creationism.

Meilo if you arnt prepared to dispute your opinion then why did you post this is a debate thread, if you arnt secure in your point then it shouldnt be taken seriously

"it's not me that replied on my own point "

sorry what?

if you arnt prepared to discuss it then dont post simple as

In my own opinion, and view of the bible, I am a firm believer that the entirty of what is considered cannon in the bibble as it is commonly refered to today, has been divinely inspired by God himself. I believe that the the Genisis chapter 1, however, is poetic. Its symbolic of how God created the world, as we, as petty mortals, can't truly comprehend the workings of it. It is not my place to say how or when this universe created, or even why, but I know that while I am here, I will live my life by serving others and respecting nothing in return. Thats how you bring honor and Glory to God.  As far as if Jesus ever existed, would you mind telling me what year this is? 2008 Ano domini(year of our lord)?

And as far as scientific theory goes, The theory of "gravity" still has yet to be scientifically proven. We still don't know exactly why we don't go flying off into space, or why larger objects attract smaller ones.


Alright, so that is an extremely dramatized example, but provides for a decent counter argument. I know im not gonna be able to change peoples opinoins on this, nor will anyone else change mine. I alone will decide my beliefs, but there is room for influence. How do you know that the bone fragments were not placed there specifically as a test of faith for modern day christians? I mean, Jesus himself said that you must be like a child, and not think logically, as honestly, the Gospel defies Logic.

For a decent argument on Christianity, there is the story of the Atheist professor, who presents several counterarguments to Christianity. Its a bit lengthy but it goes as so:

Taken from: http://ecclesia.org/truth/professor.html

"LET ME EXPLAIN the problem science has with Jesus Christ." The atheist professor of philosophy pauses before his class and then asks one of his new students to stand. "You're a Christian, aren't you, son?" "Yes, sir." "So you believe in God?" "Absolutely." "Is God good?" "Sure! God's good." "Is God all-powerful? Can God do anything?" "Yes." "Are you good or evil?" "The Bible says I'm evil."

The professor grins knowingly. "Ahh! THE BIBLE!" He considers for a moment. "Here's one for you. Let's say there's a sick person over here and you can cure him. You can do it. Would you help them? Would you try?" "Yes sir, I would." "So you're good...!" "I wouldn't say that." "Why not say that? You would help a sick and maimed person if you could... in fact most of us would if we could...God doesn't." No answer.

"He doesn't, does he? My brother was a Christian who died of cancer even though he prayed to Jesus to heal him. How is this Jesus good? Hmmm? Can you answer that one?" No answer

The elderly man is sympathetic. "No, you can't, can you?" He takes a sip of water from a glass on his desk to give the student time to relax. In philosophy, you have to go easy with the new ones. "Let's start again young fella. Is God good?" "Er... Yes." "Is Satan good?" "No." "Where does Satan come from?" The student falters. "From... God..."

"That's right. God made Satan, didn't he?" The elderly man runs his bony fingers through his thinning hair and turns to the smirking, student audience. "I think we're going to have a lot of fun this semester, ladies and gentlemen." He turns back to the Christian. "Tell me, son. Is there evil in this world?" "Yes, sir." "Evil's everywhere, isn't it? Did God make everything?" "Yes." "Who created evil?" No answer

"Is there sickness in this world? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness? All the terrible things - do they exist in this world?" The student squirms on his feet. "Yes." "Who created them? " No answer The professor suddenly shouts at his student. "WHO CREATED THEM? TELL ME, PLEASE!" The professor closes in for the kill and climbs into the Christian's face. In a still small voice: "God created all evil, didn't He, son?" No answer

The student tries to hold the steady, experienced gaze and fails. Suddenly the lecturer breaks away to pace the front of the classroom like an aging panther. The class is mesmerized. "Tell me," he continues, "How is it that this God is good if He created all evil throughout all time?" The professor swishes his arms around to encompass the wickedness of the world. "All the hatred, the brutality, all the pain, all the torture, all the death and ugliness and all the suffering created by this good God is all over the world, isn't it, young man?" No answer.

"Don't you see it all over the place? Huh? "Don't you?" The professor leans into the student's face again and whispers, "Is God good?" No answer. "Do you believe in Jesus Christ, son?" The student's voice betrays him and cracks. "Yes, professor. I do." The old man shakes his head sadly. "Science says you have five senses you use to identify and observe the world around you. Have you ever seen God?" "No, sir. I've never seen Him." "Then tell us if you've ever heard your Jesus?" "No, sir. I have not." "Have you ever felt your Jesus, tasted your Jesus or smelt your Jesus... in fact, do you have any sensory perception of your God whatsoever?" No answer

"Answer me, please." "No, sir, I'm afraid I haven't." "You're AFRAID... you haven't ?" "No, sir." "Yet you still believe in him?" "...yes..." "That takes FAITH!" the professor smiles sagely at the underling. "According to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science says your God doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son? Where is your God now?" The student doesn't answer. "Sit down, please." The Christian sits...Defeated.

Another Christian raises his hand. "Professor, may I address the class?" The professor turns and smiles. "Ah, another Christian in the vanguard! Come, come, young man. Speak some proper wisdom to the gathering." The Christian looks around the room. "Some interesting points you are making, sir. Now I've got a question for you. Is there such a thing as heat?" "Yes," the professor replies. "There's heat." "Is there such a thing as cold?" "Yes, son, there's cold too." "No, sir, there isn't." The professor's grin freezes. The room suddenly goes very cold.

The second Christian continues. "You can have lots of heat, even more heat, super-heat, mega-heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat but we don't have anything called 'cold'. We can hit 458 degrees below zero, which is no heat, but we can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold, otherwise we would be able to go colder than 458. You see, sir, cold is only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure cold. Heat we can measure in thermal units because heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the absence of it." Silence. A pin drops somewhere in the classroom.

"Is there such a thing as darkness, professor?" "That's a dumb question, son. What is night if it isn't darkness? What are you getting at...?" "So you say there is such a thing as darkness?" "Yes..." "You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is not something, it is the absence of something. You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light but if you have no light constantly you have nothing and it's called darkness, isn't it? That's the meaning we use to define the word. In reality, darkness isn't. If it were, you would be able to make darkness darker and give me a jar of it. Can you...give me a jar of darker darkness, professor?"

Despite himself, the professor smiles at the young effrontery before him. This will indeed be a good semester. "Would you mind telling us what your point is, young man?" "Yes, professor. My point is, your philosophical premise is flawed to start with and so your conclusion must be in error...." The professor goes toxic. "Flawed...? How dare you...!" "Sir, may I explain what I mean?" The class is all e*beep*xplain... oh, explain..." The professor makes an admirable effort to regain control. Suddenly he is affability itself. He waves his hand to silence the class, for the student to continue.

"You are working on the premise of duality," the Christian explains. "That, for example, there is life and then there's death; a good God and a bad God. You are viewing the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir, science cannot even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism but has never seen, much less fully understood them. To view death as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life, merely the absence of it."

The young man holds up a newspaper he takes from the desk of a neighbor who has been reading it. "Here is one of the most disgusting tabloids this country hosts, professor. Is there such a thing as immorality?" "Of course there is, now look..." "Wrong again, sir. You see, immorality is merely the absence of morality. Is there such a thing as injustice? No. Injustice is the absence of justice. Is there such a thing as evil?" The Christian pauses. "Isn't evil the absence of good?" The professor's face has turned an alarming color. He is so angry he is temporarily speechless.

The Christian continues. "If there is evil in the world, professor, and we all agree there is, then God, if he exists, must be accomplishing a work through the agency of evil. What is that work God is accomplishing? The Bible tells us it is to see if each one of us will, of our own free will, choose good over evil."

The professor bridles. "As a philosophical scientist, I don't view this matter as having anything to do with any choice; as a realist, I absolutely do not recognize the concept of God or any other theological factor as being part of the world equation because God is not observable."

"I would have thought that the absence of God's moral code in this world is probably one of the most observable phenomena going," the Christian replies. "Newspapers make billions of dollars reporting it every week! Tell me, professor, Do you teach your students that they evolved from a monkey?" "If you are referring to the natural evolutionary process, young man, yes, of course I do." "Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?" The professor makes a sucking sound with his teeth and gives his student a silent, stony stare.

"Professor. Since no-one has ever observed the process of evolution at work and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you now not a scientist, but a priest?" "I'll overlook your impudence in the light of our philosophical discussion. Now, have you quite finished?" the professor hisses. "So you don't accept God's moral code to do what is righteous?" "I believe in what is - that's science!"

"Ah! SCIENCE!" the student's face splits into a grin. "Sir, you rightly state that science is the study of observed phenomena. Science too is a premise which is flawed..." "SCIENCE IS FLAWED..?" the professor splutters. The class is in an uproar. The Christian remains standing until the commotion has subsided. "To continue the point you were making earlier to the other student, may I give you an example of what I mean?" The professor wisely keeps silent.

The Christian looks around the room. "Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the professor's brain?" The class breaks out in laughter. The Christian points towards his elderly, crumbling tutor. "Is there anyone here who has ever heard the professor's brain...felt the professor's brain, touched or smelt the professor's brain?" No one appears to have done so.

The Christian shakes his head sadly. "It appears no-one here has had any sensory perception of the professor's brain whatsoever. Well, according to the rules of empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science, the professor has no brain."

The class is in chaos. The Christian sits...because that is what a chair is for. An atheist has a reason, but no hope for his reason. A hypocrite has a hope, but no reason for his hope. A Christian has a reason for his hope and a hope for his reason; and, I might add: Life with Christ is an endless hope. Without Christ is a hopeless end.

Mr. Isildur

Report


3/21/2008 6:23:06 PMAnd for the darwinists out there:

Did you know that the eye has 40,000,000 nerve endings, the focusing muscles move an estimated 100,000 times a day, and the retina contains 137,000,000 light sensitive cells?

Charles Darwin said,

"To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree." (The Origin of Species, Chapter 6).

If you didnt know, a swedish scientist reconstructed the whole evolution of the eye about 2 years ago.. The ammount of one celltype isnt really impresse u know, the impressive is all the time it has taken for the cells to evolve into all these kinds of cells.

Who really cares about what darwin supposedly thought?

I dont see myself as a darwinist, evolution isnt darwinism, evolution is Science.

Everyday we encounter evidence of what really doesnt have to be proved since long ago, take these last news of the huge jelly fish found on antarctica, all from the same origin as all other jelly fish, just evolved in another fashion separated from all other kinds, like everything else, look at the pisea family (spruce) compare it all over the world and u see how different they look, only southern and northern europe has huge differences, not to mention usa and eastern russia. Still they all started in the same place..

Evolution is also the reason why u get horny, why you feel satisfied when you accomplish something, why we arent born as finished products but learn and adapt from everything around us when we grow, to best survive in our surroundings.

"Evolution is also the reason why u get horny, why you feel satisfied when you accomplish something, why we arent born as finished products but learn and adapt from everything around us when we grow, to best survive in our surroundings."

You do realize that you just contradicted yourself, didn't you? If we were pre programmed to "get horny", then how is it that we are supposed to learn and adapt? By learning and adapting to do all of our actions, you suggest that a man doesn't crave sex until he has learned how it feels.

How so is it that a man knows that food goes into its mouth, even as a baybe, as it reaches for a nipple?

Yet another point would be that we have countless types of cells and cell parts in our body, and over 6 trillion of them. we, as humans, are like a complete building. That would be much like having 6 trillion building blocks of all shapes fall from the sky and land in the shape of a pyramid, even if it did take 'millions or billions' of years.


And, from your point of view, it must take a significant time for all of those cell types to develope in the eye. Lets suppose it did take 100,000,000 years to develope. Wouldn't you think we would have more humans on earth than 6,000,000,000 if we had 100,000,000 years of reproducing? In the past 10 years alone, we have grown nearly 1,000,000,000 people. It would seem that such a "small" number of people would only need, say, 6,000 or so years of reproducing to achieve that number.

By definition, no one knows what lies outside their tiny circle of knowledge. Don't be like a blind person trying to convince himself that because he has never seen, everyone else claiming to see must be mistaken.

"Evolution is also the reason why u get horny, why you feel satisfied when you accomplish something, why we arent born as finished products but learn and adapt from everything around us when we grow, to best survive in our surroundings."

and there was me thinking evolution was from positive genetic mutations.......you learn something new every day. How does that that make you horny (which is caused by  different pherimones and hormones) and im pretty sure that getting an opposable thumb doesnt make an animal jolly everytime it solves a puzzle :P

anyway air what happend to ur long reply post? whyd ya change it, i dint get enough time to finish before my internet went wonky?

lol good idea :P i shouldnt but tis fun

lol, you call that sufficient arguement? :-p

"why does anyone believe in the big bang? why does anyone believe in string theory? why does anyone believe in the atom core? i havent seen any of these yet i believe in each of those things, god isnt much of a huge jump i mean a divine being is easy to see in comparison."

All that has mathematical proofs and an observable part of nature.  It all has to do with physics and math.  Believers are told to believe in a supernatural entity that has less merit and is virtually untestable.

"You do realize that you just contradicted yourself, didn't you? If we were pre programmed to "get horny", then how is it that we are supposed to learn and adapt? By learning and adapting to do all of our actions, you suggest that a man doesn't crave sex until he has learned how it feels."

No.  Our behaviors are a result of both genetics/insticts and learned behavior.

"Yet another point would be that we have countless types of cells and cell parts in our body, and over 6 trillion of them. we, as humans, are like a complete building. That would be much like having 6 trillion building blocks of all shapes fall from the sky and land in the shape of a pyramid, even if it did take 'millions or billions' of years."

No.  That would indicate everything has happened instantaneously by mere chance.  Think of a million small buildings that gets built up each generation based on whether or not the environment tears them down or not.

"And, from your point of view, it must take a significant time for all of those cell types to develope in the eye. Lets suppose it did take 100,000,000 years to develope. Wouldn't you think we would have more humans on earth than 6,000,000,000 if we had 100,000,000 years of reproducing? In the past 10 years alone, we have grown nearly 1,000,000,000 people. It would seem that such a "small" number of people would only need, say, 6,000 or so years of reproducing to achieve that number."

Yes, it did take significant amount of time.  And human eyes still aren't the best of them out there.

And don't forget population growth is never as simple as a graph might indicate.  Consider plagues, w*beep*ven changeable climate conditions that causes humans to die faster than reproduce.  Only in recent years has man been able to more closely "master" the environment, ie ship in food from another continent, develop advanced medicine, etc.  But there is still no guarantee a worldwide plague will not devastate civilization, or that global improvements flood coastal societies, or nuclear war, etc.

"and there was me thinking evolution was from positive genetic mutations.......you learn something new every day. How does that that make you horny (which is caused by  different pherimones and hormones) and im pretty sure that getting an opposable thumb doesnt make an animal jolly everytime it solves a puzzle :P"

It is.  Horniness is an instinct caused by chemicals in our body.  That's been around since sexual reproduction began many hundreds of millions of years ago.  Being happy after solving a puzzle is perhaps more of a learned reaction, though, so you do have merit there.

You do know what a mathmatical proof is, don't you?  It's not the same thing as, "evidence proof" or whatnot.