"Evolution isn't science"

Jesus -Freak, everyone has a right to believe whatever they want. If you choose to believe to literaly interpret the bible as factual then you cannot throw any portion of it out because you think or feel that it is not right or that it is symbolic of something else. To say that the bible is literal is to say that EVERYTHING in is at it says it it is.
To do otherwise would be to be hypocritical.

Now having said that be sure to read the bible completely from cover to cover with that in mind and compare that with what you see today.

If the bible is truely the word of god and literal then it cannot change or be changed or re-interpreted to mean anything other than what it says.

Be honest, like a good christian, does the present day world and the what we belive is good and just the same as it is in the bible? Explain why there are difference in the world today than in the bible. Why do some of the things which the bible say are just and good not considered just and good today? Some things the bible say are ok are illegal today. Why is that?


Now on to the Evolution part.

Evolution is a science. It is a fact just like gravity is a fact.
We have evidence that says gravity exists. We know it is real but our theory of gravity is not yet complete. There are still things about gravity we still do not fully understand about it but yet we still teach it in the classroom.

Do you see the difference between the theory and the existance of a thing.
The "thing" exists. The thoery is our explination or understanding of that thing.

Evolution is the same. It exists, we have evidence that says evolution exists. The whole agriculture and medical field depends on certain aspects of evolution being true. We know evolution is real but our theory of evolution is not yet complete. There is still alot of things we do not know about evolution but we are discover more and more everyday.

We do not yet fully understand gravity but yet we still teach it in our classrooms. Why should it be different for evolution?


Now you do believe in Microevolution. What do you think happens when a whole long string of microevolution events happens to a species?
 
jesus_freak said:
Ok here is a quick one I found!
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Response:

  1. Although the experiments were not perfect, they were not fatally flawed. Even though Kettlewell released his moths in daylight when a night release would have been more true to nature, he used the same procedure in areas that differed only in the amount of industrial pollution, showing conclusively that industrial pollution was a factor responsible for the difference in predation between color varieties. Similar arguments can be made for all other experiments. Although no experiment is perfect (nor can be), even imperfect experiments can give supporting or disconfirming evidence. In the case of peppered moths, many experiments have been done, and they all support the traditional story (Grant 1999).
  2. Even without the experiments, the peppered moth story would be well established. Peppered moth melanism has both risen and fallen with pollution levels, and they have done so in many sites on two continents (Cook 2003; Grant 1999).
  3. The peppered moth story is consistent with many other experiments and observations of crypsis and coloration in other species. For example, bird predation maintains the colorations of Heliconius cydno, which has different coloration in different regions, in both regions mimicking a noxious Heliconius species (Kapan 2001). Natural selection acting on the peppered moth would be the parsimonious hypothesis even if there were no evidence to support it.
  4. The peppered moth story is not simple. The full story as it is known today fills thousands of pages of journal articles. Familiarity with the literature and with the moths in the field is needed to evaluate all the articles. But the research and the debates over its implications have all been done in the open. Charges of fraud and misconduct stem from neglect and misrepresentation of the research by the people making the charges (Grant 2000). Of those familiar with the literature, none doubt that bird predation is of primary importance in the changing frequencies of melanism in peppered moths (Majerus 1999).

    In teaching any subject to beginners, simplifying complex topics is proper. The peppered moth story is a valuable tool for helping students understand how nature really works. Teachers would be right to omit the complexities from the story if they judged that their students were not yet ready for that higher level of learning (Rudge 2000).
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http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB601.html
 
Belz... Originally Posted by gypsey
I also want to thank jf for reminding me of why I started lurking on these forums and for reinforcing my aversion to some forms of Christianity

You don't have an aversion to ALL its forms ?
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well actually I do but living where I do some are more tolerable than others :bwall :D
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
I didn't mean to put words in your mouth and I apologize if I made you think I did. 4,000 years is a common estimate used by Young-Earth Creationists. So using your longest estimate, 6,000 years, Adam lived for about 15.5% of the Earth's age and Noah lived about 10%. Interesting.

I think we can narrow your range down somewhat. It's been 2,000 years since Jesus was crucified, right? I mean, the Earth has to be more than 1,000 years old. Otherwise, Adam only died 70 years ago.
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I strongly suspect that Jesus Freak mean 6000-10,000. All Young Earth Creationists (YECs) that I've encountered use a number somewhere in that range.
 
uruk said:
Not to lend Jeseus freak any undue support, I asked a friend of mine who went through divinity school in which he learned Greek, latin and Hebrew (so that he could read the untranslated texts) which version of the bible was most accurately translated. I was shocked and suprised when he said that, for an english translation and all the problems associated with translating one language to another, the KJV was the most accurate. That is when compared to other english versions of the bible.

Nothing is more accurate then the untranslated text. The trans-litteration versions are little dodgy because they do not take into account vernacular and differences in grammer.

What is really questionable about the bible is the heavy editing done with the original texts. There are alot of sections within the original scrolls and texts which are not in the KJV and present versions of the bible.
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If you haven't picked up the new issue of Skeptic, the review for
The Word of the Lord? Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman
reviewed by Tim Callahan
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Is excellent for highlighting some of the translation issues.
 
Jesus_freak. I have two words for you, Archaeopteryx and Tiktaalik. I am curious jf as to what you think both of these specimines are. If you are unfamiliar with either of these wikipedia should suffice.
 
Arkan_Wolfshade said:
If you haven't picked up the new issue of Skeptic, the review for
Is excellent for highlighting some of the translation issues.
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Thanks. Having read the book twice I'm interested in that review. Later this afternoon I'll have another look at the relevant chapter and summarize the problems with KJV that Ehrman wrote about.
 
Foster Zygote said:
Thanks. Having read the book twice I'm interested in that review. Later this afternoon I'll have another look at the relevant chapter and summarize the problems with KJV that Ehrman wrote about.
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Let me know what you think of the review. Based on what I read there, I am interested to pick up the book.
 
RenaissanceBiker said:
I'll take Bertrand Russell for $800, Alex.
"How do you know he didn't do that 5 minutes ago?"
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Or that the Magratheans didn't do it?

You can take this sort of thing to highly disturbing (or entertaining, depending on your viewpoint) extremes. For instance, how do we know that, given everything in the Bible is true, that God really IS the ruler of the universe, and is not simply an omnipotent being that is either

A) lying, or
B) deluded.

He could be (Star Trek-style) the misbehaving child of even greater beings who simply aren't interested in his "Universe" game.
 
uruk, I wouldn't necessarily trust your friend's judgment on the KJV. From a literary point of view it's the best thing out there. As far as the "original" texts, there really isn't such a thing. Most of the important variations among modern English translations are due to different choices of texts.

Just a couple of important examples. The original Jewish Bible was not in Hebrew, but in Greek. It's called the Septuagint (literally, "seventy") and was assembled by seventy-two Jewish scholars around 300 BC. The definitive Hebrew text was not assembled until around 1 AD and it differs considerably.

Although the New Testament books were written in Greek, some manuscripts in Coptic are older and are believed to be translations of older, less altered versions of the original texts.

And on and on...
 
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