Don't Believe In Evolution?....give Us Your Theory Christians

[Neon Genesis]

Snopes.com is your friend: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/laminin.asp We're seven pages into the thread and there's still been no alternative Christian theory to evolution and things seem quiet on the LNC front.

[Guest end3]

Surely the relationships I described exist Davka, because if someone as dumb as me can see them?

Surely the relationship between sacrificing virgins and annual rainfall exists, because so many people were convinced they could see them?

 

Surely Mary appears on freeway underpasses, because people are able to see her?

 

Surely Allah is Great and Christianity is deception, because so many Muslims can see that?

 

You do not appear to understand what a verifiable relationship is, or how to tell the difference between coincidence and a causal relationship. And i doubt you ever will, which is fine - as long as you don't try to legislate your belief system.

I take it you swayed the last forum you were on this well and is why you landed here?

 

The last forum I was on was a Christian forum. I stopped being a Christian, so I stopped hanging out there.

 

I used to believe the things you believe. But I'm smarter than you, and better able to reason. So I grew up.

 

Flame throwing aside, if you have a minute, what happened to change your belief?

[LNC]

That is a pretty good summation of the naturalistic position. I would say that, obviously, my viewpoint is that live came about as a result of an intelligent intervention. When I look at the record, including events such as the Avalon and Cambrian explosion events, I don't see enough time to allow for the variety of speciation that suddenly appears in those eras. So, although I do believe that the earth is 4-5 billion years old, it is not a straight line of evolution from that point until now due to catastrophic events like the late heavy bombardment and other events in Earth's history that had destroyed either all of or most of life on the planet.

 

For these reasons and more, I believe that a purely naturalistic process is an unsatisfactory explanation to me. I would also add in issues like consciousness and the mind as other hurdles that a purely naturalistic explanation does not adequately explain.

 

 

Thank you LNC. Now, let's take them one by one. You're first objection is you don't feel that there was enough 'time to allow for the variety of speciation that suddenly appears in those eras'. So, let's look at the time scale.

 

3.4 Billion Years Ago Single-Celled Life ( Fossil Record )

2.4 Billion Years Ago Oxygen was released from the seas as a byproduct of photosynthesis by cyanobacteria (Single-Celled Life).

800 Million Years Ago Oxygen levels reached about 21 percent and began to breathe life into more complex organisms.

600 Million Years Ago Multicelled Soft-Bodied Life

580 Million Years Ago Fish

405 Million Years Ago Amphibians

310 Million Years Ago Reptiles

210 Million Years Ago Mammals

40 Million Years Ago Apes

3.5 to 4 Mill. Yrs Ago Australopithecus

2.5 - 1.6 Mill.Yrs Ago Homo habilis

1.6 Mill - 500,000 Yrs Ago Homo erectus - Recently a Homo erectus lower jaw has been found in Georgia and said to be 1.6 million years ago.

500,000 to 275,000 Years Ago Homo sapiens

 

Which gap in time do you want to dispute?

 

Where did I say anything about a gap? And, where did you explain the sudden appearance of vast numbers of species in the Avalon and Cambrian explosions?

[Antlerman]

Where did I say anything about a gap? And, where did you explain the sudden appearance of vast numbers of species in the Avalon and Cambrian explosions?

I did. Did you read it?

[Guest Davka]

Flame throwing aside, if you have a minute, what happened to change your belief?

It was a long, gradual process. It started during the seven years I lived in Jerusalem. Yeah, that's probably bragging, but it also happens to be true - my wife is Israeli, so we were able to emigrate on the Israeli government's dime. Now I have dual US/Israeli citizenship, which makes me uberspecial in most churches, because I have the inside scoop on the Holy Land and can predict the End Times.

 

Sorry, I'm not good at resisting sarcasm. Where was I?

 

Oh, yeah - while in Israel, my work brought me into contact with some very learned people. Christian archaeologists, Bible translators, Hebrew scholars, and the like. I was able to ask intelligent, educated people some extremely probing questions. And what I began to learn was that most of what I had learned in Church was wrong. American pastors are talking out their ass, for the most part. They don't do any original research, or even bother to look for other people who are doing original research. They simply repeat the same old pablum they've been told, without ever bothering to find out if there's any truth in it.

 

Example: Biblical archaeologists have determined that there is zero evidence for the Exodus story. None. They can find the remains of 3,000-year-old temporary Bedoin encampments in the Sinai with satellite imagery, but there is absolutely no physical record of a million-plus people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. What's more, the archaeological record in Israel itself reveals a slow, gradual incursion of Hebrew tribes over a period of a hundred years or so, not the triumphant crossing of the Jordan followed by the heroic taking of the Land by Joshua's army. That's what every single archaeologist working in Israel will tell you, even the fundamentalists (although they tend to scramble desperately for explanations as to why the Bible isn't really "wrong").

 

That's just one single example. I don't really have room for 7 years' worth of similar revelations here, so I hope you get the idea. Even the fundamentalist Christian scholars in Israel know the Bible is not an accurate historical record.

 

I also learned to speak (and read, albeit clumsily) Hebrew, as well as to study Judaism and Jewish tradition. This dramatically changed my understanding of the entire Bible, especially that very Jewish collection of writings we call the New Testament. Jesus the Jew is a far more complex individual than Jesus the blue-eyed straight-nosed gentile who shows up in the storybooks.

 

After 7 years in Israel, I returned to the USA, specifically to the Nashville area, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt. And the more I tried to share what I had learned with other Christians, the more they shut me out. They simply did not want to know. Here I was, trying to reconcile a huge amount of information with my faith, and the Church pretty much said "quit making us uncomfortable, just be quiet."

 

I kept trying to follow Jesus, and praying, and seeking guidance from the Holy Spirit. And everywhere I turned, doors closed, plans fell apart, nothing I thought God was telling me worked. Meanwhile I was dealing with deep bouts of depression, which I had been struggling with my whole life. I sought my pastor's counsel with regard to the depression, and he gave me the only piece of sound advice I've ever gotten from a Pastor: get thee to a Psychiatrist and get hold of some meds.

 

I started taking Zoloft about 2 years ago. And within a few months, changing my brain's chemistry did what 18 years of prayer and fasting and weeping and speaking in tongues could not do: it gave me back my life. For the first time since adolescence, I was really, truly free. And instead of blaming myself for the Church's negative reactions to my struggles with faith, I began to realize that it wasn't me, it was them.

 

Within a few months I had an epiphany: the Church does not follow God (and never has) because there is no God. It took another year to really reconcile myself to my newfound hardcore agnosticism (not total atheism, I'm open to God proving otherwise at any moment, assuming I turn out to be wrong), but once I did I began to experience real, deep, abiding peace. It's not as giddy as it was when I was a Christian, but it's far more real. And it's steady, too.

 

The only downside is that now I have to take responsibility for my own life decisions. No more "god" to lean on, no more "devil" to blame. Just me, and the rest of you naked apes.

 

I can live with that.

[Antlerman]

All things came through God. That's what the Christian believes. So to you at least, it doesn't matter how, only that there is a single purpose for everything. You theory then, as it were, is that everything no matter how it came into existence has a single cause: Divinity.

 

I read this with emphasis on "it doesn't matter how", you placing me in the group of Christians that have absolute blind faith and walk as such and think as such.

No, I actually wasn't. I was saying that for you, since you don't believe that Genesis is a literal record of factual events, seem to be taking the importance of the story to be tying all of existence to God as First Cause. So to you, specifically, it doesn't matter so much the mechanics of how. That's what I was saying.

 

This is to contrast you with those who are those of absolute blind faith who insist against knowledge in a literal reading of story as scientific facts. That was a compliment to you.

 

I am sorry it is not comfortable for you anymore to read or listen to this type statement.

I was making a joke in reference to you saying we have to "remain in him". Think about the implication of the way you worded that. It could be taken a couple ways. That's why the funny emoticon. Get it now?

 

Anyway, if the divine is the all encompassing fabric/cause of everything, then it is impossible to not be "in him", as you so eloquently put it. But to be fair, seeing the world as part of the divine won't ever let you understand the mechanics , or the "how" of things outside of what we are seeing being exposed through science.

 

You again assume Christians don't actively participate in anything other than "reactionary", devoid of thought.

That's a very incorrect assumption. I don't believe that about all Christians. But more to the point above, this was not meant as a criticism of any Christian. It was a continuation of thought and tie in to what you said later about "remaining in God" in order to one day understand the "how" of creation. I was saying that the understanding of how, with or without faith, would not contradict what science has thus far revealed about the mechanics of the natural world. That is the how. Having faith in God, to me would be about contextualizing the whole into a layer of 'divine' purpose or will. There would be inherently no contradictions with what we have discovered.

 

In fact this whole dichotomy between science and religion began with early understandings of the mechanics of the universe, which understanding at the time revealed a different world than what the religious layer of thought conveyed in their cosmological imagination. The emergence of life seemed to contradict a world that was winding down. But now we are seeing systems of the natural world which "wind up" that they were unaware of in early science. Life emerging in the cosmos does not contradict the natural world. Complex systems of organization do in fact arise naturally out of "chaos". It happens in the everyday world in front of us.

 

You are saying the two interests diverged...and you remain confident that the two are separate.

I believe the arguments we focus on today stem from and are based on a worldview that assumes a dichotomy as a fact. I lean toward there being no dichotomy. I believe that a synthesis, a harmony of worldview is achievable.

 

So the nature and place of religious thought underwent a shift in the face of this in the early days of science, and today with your Creationist pseudo-science you have the manifestation of the most radical reactionary thought in response to this whole dichotomy begun back then. It is, in my opinion, the heights of a fractured worldview. Understanding the nature of existence with a divine layer addresses a psychological, or "mind" aspect of our being in the face of our conscious awareness of ourselves both within and as an active part of the cosmos. To me, those that see it this way are not doing so in order to explain the mechanics of nature, but overall 'intent' of it, the 'web' if you will. That's very different than those who try to deny reliable knowledge to force fit their god into a broken worldview.

 

You are saying Christians went reactionary, but you see it as an opportunity.....

I'm saying there was a gulf created in this, and those who saw things on this side and those who saw things on that side. Who I was saying was reactionary, is the fundamentalist, those who came up with this whole pseudoscience of Creationism (please realize that believing God created the world is NOT the same as a Creation Scientist! One is religious faith, the other is fraudulent posers coming up with a pseudoscience in a reaction to real science).

 

 

I hope this helps clarify things. If I poke at you once in a while, it's not meant to put you down, but rather its more a friendly jab at you in the spirit of being lighthearted. You've been long enough to be considered a regular here, plus you're likable as well. If I felt you were an idiot, I wouldn't waste my time.

 

Better?

[Guest end3]

There would be inherently no contradictions with what we have discovered.

 

I really agree here....but think you hold a somewhat unique take in group of unbelivers.... I could be wrong.

 

I believe the arguments we focus on today stem from and are based on a worldview that assumes a dichotomy as a fact. I lean toward there being no dichotomy. I believe that a synthesis, a harmony of worldview is achievable.

 

You had that experience, and are better than most with words.....how, in words and actions, would you describe the harmony you propose.....seriously.

 

I hope this helps clarify things. If I poke at you once in a while, it's not meant to put you down, but rather its more a friendly jab at you in the spirit of being lighthearted. You've been long enough to be considered a regular here, plus you're likable as well. If I felt you were an idiot, I wouldn't waste my time.

 

I have a difficult time with trust even with people who are in agreement with me, much less ones that don't. And then there is my lack of comprehension past a certain reading level....

 

Better?

 

Yes, thanks for the effort, I shall try harder.

[Guest end3]

Flame throwing aside, if you have a minute, what happened to change your belief?

It was a long, gradual process. It started during the seven years I lived in Jerusalem. Yeah, that's probably bragging, but it also happens to be true - my wife is Israeli, so we were able to emigrate on the Israeli government's dime. Now I have dual US/Israeli citizenship, which makes me uberspecial in most churches, because I have the inside scoop on the Holy Land and can predict the End Times.

 

Sorry, I'm not good at resisting sarcasm. Where was I?

 

Oh, yeah - while in Israel, my work brought me into contact with some very learned people. Christian archaeologists, Bible translators, Hebrew scholars, and the like. I was able to ask intelligent, educated people some extremely probing questions. And what I began to learn was that most of what I had learned in Church was wrong. American pastors are talking out their ass, for the most part. They don't do any original research, or even bother to look for other people who are doing original research. They simply repeat the same old pablum they've been told, without ever bothering to find out if there's any truth in it.

 

Example: Biblical archaeologists have determined that there is zero evidence for the Exodus story. None. They can find the remains of 3,000-year-old temporary Bedoin encampments in the Sinai with satellite imagery, but there is absolutely no physical record of a million-plus people wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. What's more, the archaeological record in Israel itself reveals a slow, gradual incursion of Hebrew tribes over a period of a hundred years or so, not the triumphant crossing of the Jordan followed by the heroic taking of the Land by Joshua's army. That's what every single archaeologist working in Israel will tell you, even the fundamentalists (although they tend to scramble desperately for explanations as to why the Bible isn't really "wrong").

 

That's just one single example. I don't really have room for 7 years' worth of similar revelations here, so I hope you get the idea. Even the fundamentalist Christian scholars in Israel know the Bible is not an accurate historical record.

 

I also learned to speak (and read, albeit clumsily) Hebrew, as well as to study Judaism and Jewish tradition. This dramatically changed my understanding of the entire Bible, especially that very Jewish collection of writings we call the New Testament. Jesus the Jew is a far more complex individual than Jesus the blue-eyed straight-nosed gentile who shows up in the storybooks.

 

After 7 years in Israel, I returned to the USA, specifically to the Nashville area, smack in the middle of the Bible Belt. And the more I tried to share what I had learned with other Christians, the more they shut me out. They simply did not want to know. Here I was, trying to reconcile a huge amount of information with my faith, and the Church pretty much said "quit making us uncomfortable, just be quiet."

 

I kept trying to follow Jesus, and praying, and seeking guidance from the Holy Spirit. And everywhere I turned, doors closed, plans fell apart, nothing I thought God was telling me worked. Meanwhile I was dealing with deep bouts of depression, which I had been struggling with my whole life. I sought my pastor's counsel with regard to the depression, and he gave me the only piece of sound advice I've ever gotten from a Pastor: get thee to a Psychiatrist and get hold of some meds.

 

I started taking Zoloft about 2 years ago. And within a few months, changing my brain's chemistry did what 18 years of prayer and fasting and weeping and speaking in tongues could not do: it gave me back my life. For the first time since adolescence, I was really, truly free. And instead of blaming myself for the Church's negative reactions to my struggles with faith, I began to realize that it wasn't me, it was them.

 

Within a few months I had an epiphany: the Church does not follow God (and never has) because there is no God. It took another year to really reconcile myself to my newfound hardcore agnosticism (not total atheism, I'm open to God proving otherwise at any moment, assuming I turn out to be wrong), but once I did I began to experience real, deep, abiding peace. It's not as giddy as it was when I was a Christian, but it's far more real. And it's steady, too.

 

The only downside is that now I have to take responsibility for my own life decisions. No more "god" to lean on, no more "devil" to blame. Just me, and the rest of you naked apes.

 

I can live with that.

 

Thank you, I wish we had time to visit about your time in Jerusalem. I have to admit being like the others and wanting to know. What would you put Davka, as the biggest misgiving about the presentation of Christianity in the US as opposed to the Israeli view ?

[Antlerman]

I believe the arguments we focus on today stem from and are based on a worldview that assumes a dichotomy as a fact. I lean toward there being no dichotomy. I believe that a synthesis, a harmony of worldview is achievable.

 

You had that experience, and are better than most with words.....how, in words and actions, would you describe the harmony you propose.....seriously.

I've been thinking since last night how to attempt to answer this in a single post. Not sure I can without it either being so vague as to generate a flood of misunderstandings and assumptions, or that it turns into a mountainous discussion in itself beyond this one. It's something that I've been fleshing out in all my explorations of thoughts since I began on this site, looking at things from this side and from that side. I certainly by no means have it all "figured out", but I do see the direction for things that is bringing things together for me with what I perceive, understand, and experience as an individual.

 

In a nutshell it's all a case of perception and language and purpose, the nature of truth, the nature of perception, the nature of mind, the nature of spirit, the nature of nature, the nature of humanity. It's a case of embracing knowledge with faith. It's a case of having faith with knowledge. It's a case of embracing the whole in the nature of our humanity with a respect to the many ways of looking at the universe. It's a philosophy of reverence, respect, and awe, in a language that acknowledges and celebrates the whole of life as part of us, and us within Life. It's faith and reason wed. Reason tempers faith, and faith tempers reason. And neither denies or suppresses the other, but celebrates, explores and supports the whole person within themselves, their society, and within the world. How we might do this is that whole discussion in itself.

 

Now that leaves a huge amount of room for all sorts of assumptions and misunderstandings, but there it is in a nutshell as best I could blurt out in a few sentences, while waking up with my morning coffee.

[Guest Marty]

And water demonstrates the trinity in its phases.

 

But water can not exist in all three phases at the same time like the trinity is said to, so the analogy breaks down as soon as you think about it...just like the trinity does.

[Antlerman]

And water demonstrates the trinity in its phases.

 

But water can not exist in all three phases at the same time like the trinity is said to, so the analogy breaks down as soon as you think about it...just like the trinity does.

Actually, End is correct. Water can exist in all 3 phases at the same time. It's called the triple point. He pointed this out to me at one point in the past (he's a chemist): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point

 

 

Here's his picture, "doing science"

 

[Neon Genesis]

But water can not exist in all three phases at the same time like the trinity is said to, so the analogy breaks down as soon as you think about it...just like the trinity does.

Furthermore, the trinity is not actually in the scriptures, contrary to popular Christian belief.

[Guest Davka]

Thank you, I wish we had time to visit about your time in Jerusalem. I have to admit being like the others and wanting to know. What would you put Davka, as the biggest misgiving about the presentation of Christianity in the US as opposed to the Israeli view ?

 

Probably the most glaring difference between the Western church and the Israeli Messianic church is in the area of the role of Israel in the world today and in eschatology (end times prophecy). Most Israeli Believers agree that this could easily NOT be the "in-gathering" of the Jews to Israel prophesied in scripture. They do not see the modern State of Israel as something ordained by God.

 

They also tend not to read the daily news in Israel and look for connections in the Book of Revelation. There is a broad consensus that many of the prophecies in the NT came to pass in the First century AD, and were never intended as "end times" prophecies at all. Many Israeli Believers do not believe in the doctrine of the "rapture." Most are disinterested in eschatology, and are far more concerned with living as followers of Messiah on a daily basis.

 

Oh, and Jesus? He's a nice Jewish boy who made good. His Jewish mother, Miriam, acts like a Jewish mother at the wedding in Cana. His Jewish disciples ask Jewish questions in a Jewish context. Saul/Paul is a Jewish rabbinic scholar whose arguments are typically Talmudic. The New Testament is a book written by Jews (except Luke) largely for Jews, within the context of a Jewish culture. Its focus is the Jewish Messiah. Sure, Gentiles are welcome, but if they don't understand the context they will end up like Zulus trying to understand Shakespeare outside the context of Elizabethan England: confused and misinterpreting nearly everything.

[Guest end3]

Thank you, I wish we had time to visit about your time in Jerusalem. I have to admit being like the others and wanting to know. What would you put Davka, as the biggest misgiving about the presentation of Christianity in the US as opposed to the Israeli view ?

 

Probably the most glaring difference between the Western church and the Israeli Messianic church is in the area of the role of Israel in the world today and in eschatology (end times prophecy). Most Israeli Believers agree that this could easily NOT be the "in-gathering" of the Jews to Israel prophesied in scripture. They do not see the modern State of Israel as something ordained by God.

 

They also tend not to read the daily news in Israel and look for connections in the Book of Revelation. There is a broad consensus that many of the prophecies in the NT came to pass in the First century AD, and were never intended as "end times" prophecies at all. Many Israeli Believers do not believe in the doctrine of the "rapture." Most are disinterested in eschatology, and are far more concerned with living as followers of Messiah on a daily basis.

 

Oh, and Jesus? He's a nice Jewish boy who made good. His Jewish mother, Miriam, acts like a Jewish mother at the wedding in Cana. His Jewish disciples ask Jewish questions in a Jewish context. Saul/Paul is a Jewish rabbinic scholar whose arguments are typically Talmudic. The New Testament is a book written by Jews (except Luke) largely for Jews, within the context of a Jewish culture. Its focus is the Jewish Messiah. Sure, Gentiles are welcome, but if they don't understand the context they will end up like Zulus trying to understand Shakespeare outside the context of Elizabethan England: confused and misinterpreting nearly everything.

 

 

What group makes up the Messianic church there? In my mind, not understanding anything other than western influence, I still see people like Netanyahu (sp) and his devote attitude....but he is not Messianic, right?

[Guest Davka]

What group makes up the Messianic church there? In my mind, not understanding anything other than western influence, I still see people like Netanyahu (sp) and his devote attitude....but he is not Messianic, right?

 

Messianic Jews are a tiny minority, perhaps 1,000 - 2,000 total nationwide. Most Israelis are secular Jews, celebrating the Jewish holidays much the way Americans celebrate the Christian holidays, without any thought of religious meaning.

 

About 10% of Israelis are Orthodox Jews. Probably 40% - 60% are nominally religious, praying only when in desperate need. Judaism is practiced more as a superstition than as a religion by most. Give to the poor for a blessing, avert the "evil eye." For the most part, Israel is overwhelmingly secular. It was, after all, founded by European Socialists.

 

Netanyahu is not devout. He's a typical right-wing Israeli politician, giving lip service to religion in exchange for the support of the religious parties. Israel has a totally unworkable political system, based on the British Parliament. People vote for parties, not individuals, and the leader of the party that gets the most votes is invited to try to put together a coalition comprising more than half the members of the Knesset (parliament). The trouble is, the two largest parties rarely get more than 35% of the seats in the Knesset, so they have to broker deals with the smaller parties in order to form a government. And at any time, the Knesset can hold a vote of no confidence in the government--if more than half the Knesset members vote against the government, it is dissolved and new elections are held.

 

This means that if your party has a coalition with, say, 63 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, a tiny party with only 4 of those seats can threaten to dissolve your government if they don't get what they want. Political blackmail is the norm, and the small parties wield disproportionate power. 2 of these parties are Orthodox Jewish parties, and one is a religious party that caters to the racism in Israel by claiming to represent the Jews of Middle Eastern descent. In order to put together a coalition, the winning party must include at least one of these religious parties. And that means pretending to be a "good Jew."

 

Netanyahu is a self-serving demagogue. I hate to think that I actually voted for him back in the 90s.

[Guest end3]

Then your opinion of why the endtimes frenzy is prevalent today? Sheep counting?

[LNC]

Are you aware of how many years these periods are? Gould theorized of Punctuated Equilibrium . These are still periods of 30 to 60 million years each, relatively short time periods in geological terms. Evolution doesn't need to follow straight, steady, even lines. One can compare any periods of rapid changes with a society due to external pressures to see evolution at work at accelerated rates (evolution is not limited to biology).

 

I am reading a book now by Paul Ehrlich and even he doesn't see much, if any evidence for punctuated equilibrium. It is an interesting idea in theory, but the actual evidence is quite thin and the problems are numerous. In fact, many believe that even PE does not account for the explosive appearances in both the Avalon and Cambrian events. So, I am not confident that PE is an adequate explanation of these events.

 

Extinction level events never wiped out all life. If it had, we would not be here. All animal life forms emerged from one single animal. Not many different animals.

 

That is question-begging on your part. I don't think that you can produce evidence that life wouldn't have been wiped out through these types of events. In fact, you would have to show how any life could have survived these events. I am curious where you got the idea that all life forms emerged from one single animal, which animal was that and where is your evidence to reinforce this idea?

 

Since your understanding seems to be incorrect, then would your conclusion be also less than on solid grounds?

 

As far as mind goes, that is a very interesting point. But I believe it is part of the natural system. However, I will not take from that a point of view of reductionism. I go somewhere very different than that.

 

Where is my understanding incorrect? I don't think you have made your case for that conclusion by what you have said above, so let me know what I am missing.

 

If the mind is part of the natural system, in what form does it exist? You say you don't take the position of reductionism, so how do you reconcile naturalism and the existence of the mind without doing so?

[Guest Davka]

Are you aware of how many years these periods are? Gould theorized of

Extinction level events never wiped out all life. If it had, we would not be here. All animal life forms emerged from one single animal. Not many different animals.

 

That is question-begging on your part. I don't think that you can produce evidence that life wouldn't have been wiped out through these types of events. In fact, you would have to show how any life could have survived these events.

The fossil record shows that this is exactly what happened.

 

I am curious where you got the idea that all life forms emerged from one single animal, which animal was that and where is your evidence to reinforce this idea?

Again, that's what the fossil record shows. That animal was a primordial single-celled animal living in the oceans.

[Vigile]

Oh Fuck, leave it to a xian to take a thread that specifically asks for their own theory and a few pages later they weasel it into an evolution debate using pseudo science as a source.

 

I've been on this forum for 4 years now and I have yet to see a single xian provide an alternative theory beyond goddidit. And during this time Dave's server has been bogged down with endless debates about evolution.

 

This speaks volumes, at least to me, about the vacuousness of your positions.

[Ouroboros]

LNC,

 

Title of the topic is: "[G]ive Us Your Theory Christians..."

 

What is so hard to understand?

 

You still are attacking Evolution, while the topic is about Creationism and the defense of Creationism, and not defense of Evolution.

 

Again the topic is about Creationism as an alternative to Evolution, and your arguments for it as a Christian.

 

Are you really that slow???

 

 

Okay, I get it, here's the Christians scientific evidence of Creationism: Evolution is wrong.

 

Wow. I'm so impressed. ... *not*

[Guest Davka]

Allow me, if I may, to summarize the Christian argument for Creation Science:

 

- Since we do not have every single conceivable fact about the past 4.5 billion years, that means that there are significant gaps in our understanding.

 

- Some pretty smart people think there are holes in Evolutionary theory.

 

- Since Evolutionary theory cannot be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, there is no reason to accept is as fact. It has the word "theory" right there in the name. Everybody knows theories aren't facts.

 

- The unknown and/or questionable things about Evolutionary Theory "prove" that it can't be right, therefore something else must be true.

 

- The only conceivable "something else" is that God did it.

 

- Therefore God did it.

 

There. We're done.

[RationalOkie]

Are you aware of how many years these periods are? Gould theorized of Punctuated Equilibrium . These are still periods of 30 to 60 million years each, relatively short time periods in geological terms. Evolution doesn't need to follow straight, steady, even lines. One can compare any periods of rapid changes with a society due to external pressures to see evolution at work at accelerated rates (evolution is not limited to biology).

 

I am reading a book now by Paul Ehrlich and even he doesn't see much, if any evidence for punctuated equilibrium. It is an interesting idea in theory, but the actual evidence is quite thin and the problems are numerous. In fact, many believe that even PE does not account for the explosive appearances in both the Avalon and Cambrian events. So, I am not confident that PE is an adequate explanation of these events.

 

Extinction level events never wiped out all life. If it had, we would not be here. All animal life forms emerged from one single animal. Not many different animals.

 

That is question-begging on your part. I don't think that you can produce evidence that life wouldn't have been wiped out through these types of events. In fact, you would have to show how any life could have survived these events. I am curious where you got the idea that all life forms emerged from one single animal, which animal was that and where is your evidence to reinforce this idea?

 

Since your understanding seems to be incorrect, then would your conclusion be also less than on solid grounds?

 

As far as mind goes, that is a very interesting point. But I believe it is part of the natural system. However, I will not take from that a point of view of reductionism. I go somewhere very different than that.

 

Where is my understanding incorrect? I don't think you have made your case for that conclusion by what you have said above, so let me know what I am missing.

 

If the mind is part of the natural system, in what form does it exist? You say you don't take the position of reductionism, so how do you reconcile naturalism and the existence of the mind without doing so?

 

Hey.... I've got an idea. How about you answer the question that was asked instead of the one you wished had been asked. STOP TALKING ABOUT EVOLUTION AND TELL US YOUR HYPOTHESIS. GIVE US YOUR EVIDENCES. Let's just take it from Day 1 and tell us where life came from.

[Legion]

Impeccable logic Davka. Well done.

[Antlerman]

Are you aware of how many years these periods are? Gould theorized of Punctuated Equilibrium . These are still periods of 30 to 60 million years each, relatively short time periods in geological terms. Evolution doesn't need to follow straight, steady, even lines. One can compare any periods of rapid changes with a society due to external pressures to see evolution at work at accelerated rates (evolution is not limited to biology).

 

I am reading a book now by Paul Ehrlich and even he doesn't see much, if any evidence for punctuated equilibrium. It is an interesting idea in theory, but the actual evidence is quite thin and the problems are numerous. In fact, many believe that even PE does not account for the explosive appearances in both the Avalon and Cambrian events. So, I am not confident that PE is an adequate explanation of these events.

I wasn't suggesting that PE is THE answer, but as stated above it was a hypothesis presented by Gould. Scientists are free to consider and examine various hypothesis against the data. That's doing science. If however as a believer in a Faith-Based Science you should challenge the God hypothesis, you are risking your very eternal soul in so doing. And is that really science then?

 

Now I'd like to point out that you seem prone to NOT want to accept PE as a possible explanation for these relatively "sudden" (30 - 60 million year period referred to as "sudden" against geological time - not sudden as in "instantly" as in God spoke it into existence) so-called "explosions" of evolution. You are looking for an answer that supports Miracle explanations. This however is not doing science. Because we see data that we have yet to have good working models for, in no way shape or form negates the mountains of data that we do have good explanations for. In fact, one should expect it to have a natural explanation like the rest. But it appears you hope that by poking a hole into this one idea here, or that one idea there, you can undermine the entire structure that the Theory of Evolution rests upon. That is simply desperate thinking.

 

Seriously, why do you NEED it to support a reading of Genesis that is uniquely modern and literal? Will your faith fall if how you read the Bible needs revision? If so, how strong is what your faith is built upon?

 

Extinction level events never wiped out all life. If it had, we would not be here. All animal life forms emerged from one single animal. Not many different animals.

 

That is question-begging on your part. I don't think that you can produce evidence that life wouldn't have been wiped out through these types of events. In fact, you would have to show how any life could have survived these events. I am curious where you got the idea that all life forms emerged from one single animal, which animal was that and where is your evidence to reinforce this idea?

Question-begging? No. I'm well aware of that fallacy and am not that sloppy in my argument.

 

Here's the line of reasoning:

 

1. We have evidence that all animal species evolved from a single animal.

 

2. We have NO evidence that you have entirely unique animal life forms on this planet, i.e., some sort of entirely unrelated makeup coming into existence out of nothing independently.

 

3. With this evidence in hand (viz, the entire evidence presented for the Theory of Evolution (genetics, fossil records, etc), to say that ALL animals went extinct would require a new set of "creation" of animal life to occur all over again. There is zero data supporting that, nor does any scientist hint at it.

 

4. Therefore, with both the evidence in hand showing a continuity of life from the first animal until now, in addition to no scientist (using the tools of science as opposed to a Bible) suggesting a model that has unique creation events of unique, unrelated animals, it is safe to make the connection as I did that if all life ended, we would not be here.

 

This is not begging the question.

 

What's the first animal? Likely the sponge, but some are moving back to something even before that. But for now, here's a blurb on the DNA map leading back to the ancient sea sponge: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...apeoflife1.html

 

 

If the mind is part of the natural system, in what form does it exist? You say you don't take the position of reductionism, so how do you reconcile naturalism and the existence of the mind without doing so?

I don't think understanding that the mind evolves from nature leads to the conclusions of reductionism. There are plenty who don't, without needing to resort to the supernatural to talk about it. From wiki:

Limits of reductionism

 

A contrast to the reductionist approach is holism or emergentism. Holism recognizes the idea that things can have properties as a whole that are not explainable from the sum of their parts (emergent properties). The principle of holism was concisely summarized by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".

 

The term Greedy reductionism, coined by Daniel Dennett, is used to criticize inappropriate use of reductionism. Other authors use different language when describing the same thing.

 

In philosophy

 

The concept of downward causation poses an alternative to reductionism within philosophy. This view is developed and explored by Peter Bøgh Andersen, Claus Emmeche, Niels Ole Finnemann, and Peder Voetmann Christiansen, among others. These philosophers explore ways in which one can talk about phenomena at a larger-scale level of organization exerting causal influence on a smaller-scale level, and find that some, but not all proposed types of downward causation are compatible with science. In particular, they find that constraint is one way in which downward causation can operate.[9] The notion of causality as constraint has also been explored as a way to shed light on scientific concepts such as self-organization, natural selection, adaptation, and control.[10]

 

In science

 

Phenomena such as emergence and work within the field of complex systems theory pose limits to reductionism. Stuart Kauffman is one of the advocates of this viewpoint.[11] Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity.[12] The limits of the application of reductionism become especially evident at levels of organization with higher amounts of complexity, including culture, neural networks, ecosystems, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of interacting components. Symmetry breaking is an example of an emergent phenomenon. Nobel laureate P.W.Anderson used this idea in his famous paper in Science in 1972, 'More is different'[13] to expose some of the limitations of reductionism. The limitation of reductionism was explained as follows. The sciences can be arranged roughly linearly in a hierarchy as particle physics, many body physics, chemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, ..., physiology, psychology and social sciences. The elementary entities of one science obeys the laws of the science that precedes it in the above hierarchy. But, this does not imply that one science is just an applied version of the science that precedes it. Quoting from the article, "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied biology nor is biology applied chemistry."

 

Sven Erik Jorgensen, an ecologist, lays out both theoretical and practical arguments for a holistic approach in certain areas of science, especially ecology. He argues that many systems are so complex that it will not ever be possible to describe all their details. Drawing an analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, he argues that many interesting and relevant ecological phenomena cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions, and thus cannot be measured or observed without influencing and changing the system in some way. He also points to the importance of interconnectedness in biological systems. His viewpoint is that science can only progress by outlining what questions are unanswerable and by using models that do not attempt to explain everything in terms of smaller hierarchical levels of organization, but instead model them on the scale of the system itself, taking into account some (but not all) factors from levels both higher and lower in the hierarchy.[14]

 

Disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory strongly embrace a non-reductionist view of science, sometimes going as far as explaining phenomena at a given level of hierarchy in terms of phenomena at a higher level, in a sense, the opposite of a reductionist approach.[15].

[Legion]

Uh... As I know it, the alternative to reductionism is called “relational science”. And I think it makes organization the “object” of its study. It was through Kauffman that I was introduced to it.