[Cougar]

The tailbone is pretty good evidence we used to have tails. They didn't fall off man! Because they were useless when you didn't need them anymore ( I assume a prehensile tail is most useful in trees) there was no reason for them to be a feature on which survival/continuation of the race depended and they gradually bred out.

The reason we don't have no tailbone at all is because our spines would collapse so they haven't evolved out entirely.

Also landing with all your body weight on any bone fucking hurts, maybe more or less. If things hurting when we fell on them was a criteria for evolution we'd have no bollocks.

Also yes that is cool.

[Bent]

Cougar;361676 said:

The tailbone is pretty good evidence we used to have tails. They didn't fall of man but because they were useless when you didn't need them anymore there was no reason for them to be feature on which survival/continuation of the race depended.

The reason we don't have no tailbone at all is because our spines would collapse so they haven't evolved out entirely.

Also landing with all your body weight on any bone fucking hurts, maybe more or less. If things hurting when we fell on them was a criteria for evolution we'd have no bollocks.

Also yes that is cool.

But my point is this.....when you evolve you GROW things....You grow a stronger back bone....we would have "grown" opposible thumbs....father back we had to grow legs, we had to grow arms etc....Name one other "evolving feature that "fell off" I know of not one thing on Darwins chart....nothing, the tail just sort of vanished.

[Terez]

Gem Windcaster;361674 said:

See my previous post for my answer regarding this. My faith would not be affected if the theory of evolution was proven without a shadow of a doubt.

I never said that your faith would be shaken if it were proven. Why would you think that was what I am saying?

Gem said:

No, I am not one of those people. Are you throwing me out of the thread? I've been trying very hard to stop discussing in here, but you people keep dragging me back in.

No one can make you post.

Gem said:

I disagree. We should never take the scientists word for it. They serve the public, so we should really be critical of their work, because our society is build on their 'knowledge'.

If you seriously want to be critical of their work, then you should go into science. Scientists are critical of each other all the time, and this is why we keep getting closer and closer to the truth.

[Bent]

Also Global warming isn't man made...it happens its called nature...that ought to piss most of you off!

~Doing what should've been done long ago. John Wayne would be so very disappointed.

[Gem Windcaster]

Terez;361682 said:

I never said that your faith would be shaken if it were proven. Why would you think that was what I am saying?

Well, I'm not really sure what you were saying there for a while.

Terez;361682 said:

No one can make you post.

No, that's true, I made a choice to answer your posts that kept coming.

Terez;361682 said:

If you seriously want to be critical of their work, then you should go into science. Scientists are critical of each other all the time, and this is why we keep getting closer and closer to the truth.

Gah, Sometimes I wish I were a scientist. I love figuring stuff out. And criticizing is like second nature for me. I criticize on auto mode. People can get annoyed by that sometimes.

[Cold Iron]

Terez;361554 said:

It was never unclear. It's just not rational. It has little to do with not liking it, but at the same time, it has everything to do with it, because back when I liked the idea, it seemed rational to me. Later I realized that it only seemed rational in comparison to the religion I derived it from.

You keep saying this, I keep ignoring it. Soon maybe you'll figure out it's because it's completely irrelevant.

Quote

The point is that these concepts you're calling "santa" can best be described by other words. Calling them "santa" just confuses the issue, because it's arbitrary. Analogies are nice and all, but in the end, they're just analogies.

Because there is no difference between the make believe santa and the concept I'm talking about. When my parents told me about santa, they weren't telling me about a man in a red suit, they were telling me about a concept, a description of the world, whether they consciously knew it or not. Myths (like santa) have a purpose, and as such they do not fall under the category of lies despite the fact that they are not necessarily factually true. Whether or not you ever figure out the purpose of the myth influences only your impression of it, it does not influence the true meaning of it. How can you look at something like santa and acknowledge that it is an analogy and not look at the rest of religion and realise it is all analogy? I call santa santa because that is what it is called, i call god god because that is what it is called, over time my understanding of both has changed, but i see no need to change what I call it. In fact if I were to try to sum up everything I mean by santa or god with another word, it would not work, it wouldn't reflect what I'm actually talking about, because part of what I'm talking about is the history of the concept, which the original title carries, any new title would not carry the same history.

Quote

Why would I do this, though? I can come up with all sorts of explanations for what happened. Why should I assume that god destroyed Sodom? It makes much more sense to assume that a bunch of fag-hating crazies destroyed it (assuming that it actually existed in the first place - if it didn't, then it makes more sense to assume that the story was conceived as a way of justifying hatred, and the "don't look back"/pillar of salt part of it just drives the point home).

There is no assumption necessary, if god is the reason for everything then of course god destroyed sodom. You can claim that it was fag-hating crazies if you want but this is not a complete explanation. I'm not saying "god did it" is the only explanation we need and everything else is a waste of time, I'm just saying that there can be value in the statement "god did it" because it transcends the mundane, it prevents us from becoming bogged down in blame placing and hate mongering, and it enables us to talk about the event in isolation from preceding events, because even if fag-hating crazies really did do it, this is not the whole picture.

Quote

Why can't I just strive to be a loving person with attributes that I admire without god? God is an arbitrary element in this argument.

Because your mind can change due to the smallest influence, and it is hard to know your mind at the best of times, it is made up of all the conflicting desires of life. Conceiving of an external entity and defining it "good" (call it what you want but to my mind god is the best name for it) will enable you to examine what is good and follow it when you are conflicted. Supplicating yourself to this entity will go one step further, and will enable you to follow it even when you aren't consciously conflicted. You can't achieve this by simply deciding to strive to be good or loving, because this decision or desire will not always win out, you might suddenly strongly desire to do something else. This is why religious "nuts" are constantly trying to prove that they are true followers, to themselves and to others, they are trying to influence their subconscious, drive it towards good. The physical or sentient entity of god is simply a tool for making this easier, it's in our nature to follow a person, not a concept, we feel we can know a person, so defining a perfect person or good person makes it easier for us to follow that than just some arbitrary concept called goodness. We define what is good ourselves anyway, but there are deep influences on this that our consciousness can simply not grasp.

Quote

The only irrational parts of what you said stem from your need to believe that god exists.

The god that you are talking about when you say the word god does not exist any more than santa exists. Interpret that how you will, you know what I'm saying is not irrational.

Quote

No one has proved to me, or even made a good case for, the validity of the Bible, so why should I concern myself overmuch with interpreting it?

Don't then. It is not for me to tell you where to find wisdom, in fact I myself do not concern myself overmuch with the bible, but I do acknowledge it's wisdom, which at the least prevents me from condescending others.

Quote

But to answer your question, or at least as close as I can come to answering it, the Bible clearly describes God as a sentient being that, at some time in the past, communicated with people. Yeah, those stories are obviously irrational and easily discarded. But despite this fact, you seem to believe that the people who wrote these stories know something we don't know. Why?

Because it makes more sense this way, in fact as you yourself have said, it makes no sense without it. Why do you imagine that this made up story would be passed down through the ages as wisdom for any other reason than certain people see wisdom in it? There are people out there who can make up better stories than this one, but they struggle to sell a million copies and are forgotten in a handful or decades.

Quote

We don't have any good reason to believe that god exists. What makes you think that they did?

They had and needed no more reason than we do now.

Quote

What is the purpose of the pantheistic analogy? Why do you have to have some concept of god being real to aspire to these lofty characteristics that you ascribe to god?

I think I covered this above, let me know if you disagree.

Quote

If you have a need to envision these lofty characteristics as something greater than yourself, then call a spade a spade. These lofty characteristics are greater than ourselves as individuals, because we can't make the world a better place alone. Only when great masses of individuals aspire to those same lofty characteristics does the world become a better place.

Fine, so you accept my position, you just don't agree that the Abrahamic god is the same as my god. I may never be able to prove that to you, but if you are interested enough as you seem to be in what I'm saying, keep it in mind, when someone tells you "god is love", ask yourself which definition fits better, yours or mine, when someone says "god is within you" ask yourself the same.

Quote

This whole "god" business is still arbitrary, and bringing it into the equation only sets people against each other. It has nothing to do with said lofty characteristics, and adds nothing to the reality of our world but contention. Admittedly, your beliefs are in and of themselves fairly benign. But that doesn't make them rational.

If this were a private conversation, I would ask you who it sets against you.

[Terez]

[quote=Cold Iron;361742]Because there is no difference between the make believe santa and the concept I'm talking about.[/quote]
So? It's still a make believe santa...

[quote=CI]How can you look at something like santa and acknowledge that it is an analogy and not look at the rest of religion and realise it is all analogy?[/quote]
I never said it wasn't all analogy.

[quote name='CI]I call santa santa because that is what it is called' date=' i call god god because that is what it is called, over time my understanding of both has changed, but i see no need to change what I call it.[/quote']
Because it's a misnomer. Your definition of "santa" and your definition of "god" are not in any way universal definitions, so those words don't convey what you actually are talking about to anyone other than yourself.

[quote name='CI]In fact if I were to try to sum up everything I mean by santa or god with another word' date=' it would not work, it wouldn't reflect what I'm actually talking about, because part of what I'm talking about is the history of the concept, which the original title carries, any new title would not carry the same history.[/quote']
That makes no sense.

[quote name='CI]There is no assumption necessary' date=' if god is the reason for everything then of course god destroyed sodom.[/quote']
Why are you assuming that there is some mystical reason for everything?

[quote name='CI]You can claim that it was fag-hating crazies if you want but this is not a complete explanation. I'm not saying "god did it" is the only explanation we need and everything else is a waste of time' date=' I'm just saying that there can be value in the statement "god did it" because it transcends the mundane, it prevents us from becoming bogged down in blame placing and hate mongering, and it enables us to talk about the event in isolation from preceding events, because even if fag-hating crazies really did do it, this is not the whole picture.[/quote']
Of course it's not the whole picture - the people who conceived or told the story used god as a justification for destroying the city, or as a justification for hatred. But I don't see how there is any value in the statement "god did it". Transcends the mundane? wtf. I'm sure there were all sorts of things that went into the events of the story if they actually happened, or into the making of the story if it didn't actually happen. Do we know what those things are? No. Can we guess? Sure. We can even make educated guesses. I don't see how it amounts to much, though.


[quote name='CI][quote name='Terez]Why can't I just strive to be a loving person with attributes that I admire without god? God is an arbitrary element in this argument.[/quote]Because your mind can change due to the smallest influence' date=' and it is hard to know your mind at the best of times' date=' it is made up of all the conflicting desires of life. Conceiving of an external entity and defining it "good" (call it what you want but to my mind god is the best name for it) will enable you to examine what is good and follow it when you are conflicted.[/quote'']
I don't see how this external entity is helpful at all. Good is good - call a spade a spade.

[quote name='CI]Supplicating yourself to this entity will go one step further' date=' and will enable you to follow it even when you aren't consciously conflicted.[/quote']
Why can't you just supplicate yourself to the concept of good? Why call it god?

[quote name='CI]You can't achieve this by simply deciding to strive to be good or loving' date=' because this decision or desire will not always win out, you might suddenly strongly desire to do something else.[/quote']
This is a bullshit argument because applying a misnomer to the concept of good shouldn't make a difference in how that concept affects you.

[quote name='CI]This is why religious "nuts" are constantly trying to prove that they are true followers' date=' to themselves and to others, they are trying to influence their subconscious, drive it towards good.[/quote']
And it's their fellow followers who hold them accountable, along with their fear of god. Since you don't believe that god is any sort of conscious entity, then I don't see how this works for you. If you believe in karma, then why not say that instead of god?

[quote name='CI]The physical or sentient entity of god is simply a tool for making this easier' date=' it's in our nature to follow a person, not a concept, we feel we can know a person, so defining a perfect person or good person makes it easier for us to follow that than just some arbitrary concept called goodness.[/quote']
If you don't believe it, then how is it helpful? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have been saying all along that you don't believe god is a conscious being. And the concept of goodness isn't arbitrary at all. The concept of god, on the other hand...

[quote name='CI]We define what is good ourselves anyway' date=' but there are deep influences on this that our consciousness can simply not grasp.[/quote']
Oh, we can grasp them, though we can't necessarily always keep up with them or control them. But it's fairly easy to analyze thought processes, and recognize how we lie to ourselves, and justify things that we probably shouldn't try to justify. It's usually easier to do in retrospect, though.

[quote name='CI]It is not for me to tell you where to find wisdom' date=' in fact I myself do not concern myself overmuch with the bible, but I do acknowledge it's wisdom, which at the least prevents me from condescending others.[/quote']
Oh, there's tons of wisdom in the Bible. I never said there wasn't. I still like reading a lot of the stuff that's in it (Jesus and Solomon are still my faves), but I also like reading the Tao te Ching and other stuff. But the Bible as a whole has a lot of anti-wisdom as well.

[quote name='CI][quote name='Terez]But to answer your question' date=' or at least as close as I can come to answering it' date=' the Bible clearly describes God as a sentient being that, at some time in the past, communicated with people. Yeah, those stories are obviously irrational and easily discarded. But despite this fact, you seem to believe that the people who wrote these stories know something we don't know. Why?[/quote'']Because it makes more sense this way, in fact as you yourself have said, it makes no sense without it. Why do you imagine that this made up story would be passed down through the ages as wisdom for any other reason than certain people see wisdom in it?[/quote]
After a certain point, it was passed down because people believed it. When people knew it wasn't true, it was passed down for the same reason that fables are popular today, I'm sure. But I'm not talking about the wisdom that can be found in the stories here. I'm talking about the concept of god being arbitrary. The concept of god has no value in and of itself. It can be described better by different words, because virtues and wisdom that are real trump imaginary virtues and wisdom.

[quote name='CI]There are people out there who can make up better stories than this one' date=' but they struggle to sell a million copies and are forgotten in a handful or decades.[/quote']
Not all of them do - some stories that are much better and contain greater wisdom have stuck around for a long time. The Bible has stuck around for so long because people believed in god. That doesn't make the wisdom found in the Bible any better than wisdom found elsewhere without the same associated problems of of the Bible.

[quote=CI][quote=Terez]We don't have any good reason to believe that god exists. What makes you think that they did?[/quote]They had and needed no more reason than we do now.[/quote]
Sure they did - there were all sorts of mysteries about how the world worked back then, so they came up with god to explain them. We've been discovering as time goes on all sorts of fascinating stuff that shows that god was a bad explanation for those things. The more we learn about how the universe works, the less reason we have to believe in god.

[quote name='CI]Fine' date=' so you accept my position, you just don't agree that the Abrahamic god is the same as my god. I may never be able to prove that to you, but if you are interested enough as you seem to be in what I'm saying, keep it in mind, when someone tells you "god is love", ask yourself which definition fits better, yours or mine, when someone says "god is within you" ask yourself the same.[/quote']
You haven't said anything that's convinced me your misnomer is any more than worthless. In fact, I think that the misnomer devalues the concepts you're applying it to.

[quote name='CI][quote name='Terez] This whole "god" business is still arbitrary' date=' and bringing it into the equation only sets people against each other. It has nothing to do with said lofty characteristics' date=' and adds nothing to the reality of our world but contention. Admittedly, [i']your[/i] beliefs are in and of themselves fairly benign. But that doesn't make them rational.[/quote']If this were a private conversation, I would ask you who it sets against you.[/quote]
Who it sets against me as an individual is pretty irrelevant. I could name my dad and stepmom, for instance, but they're not really set against me in any way that affects my life. My stepmom told me once that her friends from church who had visited saw my demons and knew their names, lol. That's pretty ridiculous, but it doesn't amount to much more than hilarious. If that sort of thing really got to me, I wouldn't be staying here this summer - I'd be staying at my mom's. Like I said in the bit before, individuals don't amount to much. What does amount to much is the religious beliefs people use to justify attacking science, or attacking people, or infringe on other people's rights, especially when these things are happening en masse.

[Cold Iron]

[quote name='Terez;361768']So? It's still a make believe santa...[/quote]
No, it's a conceptual analogy.

[quote]I never said it wasn't all analogy.[/quote]
All but god?

[quote]Because it's a misnomer. Your definition of "santa" and your definition of "god" are not in any way universal definitions, so those words don't convey what you actually are talking about to anyone other than yourself.[/quote]
I say your definition is a misnomer.

[quote]That makes no sense.[/quote]
If you change your name from Terez to Rackgrl you lose the history associated with the name Terez. If I call god nature, existence or spiritual concept 433 I lose the associated meanings of the word god that I want. Irrationality is not a defining quality of god, I don't have to call it something else when I take that away.

[quote]Why are you assuming that there is some mystical reason for everything?[/quote]
There is nothing mystical about it beyond the fact that it is intrinsically unknowable due to it's infinite nature. What makes you you? An infinite number of events extending back an infinite amount of time. Thus, god.

[quote]Of course it's not the whole picture - the people who conceived or told the story used god as a justification for destroying the city, or as a justification for hatred. But I don't see how there is any value in the statement "god did it". Transcends the mundane? wtf. I'm sure there were all sorts of things that went into the events of the story if they actually happened, or into the making of the story if it didn't actually happen. Do we know what those things are? No. Can we guess? Sure. We can even make educated guesses. I don't see how it amounts to much, though.[/quote]
Even if you were't guessing and you know precisely what caused each event, you would quickly regress to the infinite. Saying god did it is synonymous to saying there is heaps of shit that caused it, and it's pointless to get into all the mundanities (new word!)

[quote]I don't see how this external entity is helpful at all. Good is good - call a spade a spade.

Why can't you just supplicate yourself to the concept of good? Why call it god?[/quote]
Good is subjective, there is no real ultimate or transcendent good, it's an ideal only, and as such calling it god is completely valid, I am calling it a goddamn spade.

[quote]This is a bullshit argument because applying a misnomer to the concept of good shouldn't make a difference in how that concept affects you.[/quote]
Thanks for the qualitative analysis, now that we all know how you think the world should be, let's all come back to the real one. Further to what I just said, people feel comfortable with the idea of an ultimate good, they can personify it or not as they with and worship it or not as they wish, but they call it god because good is not enough. Would it help if you knew a little about the etymology (possibly not)? Good comes from the proto-indo-european *ghedh- "to unite, be associated, suitable" and god from *ghut- "that which is invoked". Good on it's own is not sufficient to invoke feelings of perfection, things can be good enough or good to go, good doesn't cut it.


[quote]And it's their fellow followers who hold them accountable, along with their fear of god. Since you don't believe that god is any sort of conscious entity, then I don't see how this works for you. If you believe in karma, then why not say that instead of god?[/quote]
I fear god just as much as any christian, possibly more because I know it is real. And I have ideas about the real mechanisms by which it keeps me accountable. Karma is not the same thing, it is external, it is based on the concept that the universe has balance. My god keeps me accountable through internal mechanisms, because I know everything that I do. I believe the two to be different perspectives on the same general concept but it is possible to make distinctions none the less. Karma is not considered to be the creator of the universe, god is.

[quote]If you don't believe it, then how is it helpful? Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to have been saying all along that you don't believe god is a conscious being. And the concept of goodness isn't arbitrary at all. The concept of god, on the other hand...[/quote]
It provides me with an image, we can't go back to a time when santa rode in the back of a sleigh, but we can still use the image to represent the abstract. Have you read any Jung? From wiki: [quote name='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archtypes']The concept of psychological archetypes was advanced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, c. 1919. In Jung's psychological framework archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex, e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype. Jung treated the archetypes as psychological organs, analogous to physical ones in that both are morphological constructs that arose through evolution.[/quote]
The father or lord or leader is one of the strongest archetypes (hence religious language) and has strong ties with the archetype of the self. Humans are psychologically inclined to respond to the father archetype by following or imitating. Yes it works better with literal belief but as I said, we can't go back to believing in santa can we? One of the strongest ways for me to encourage the association is prayer. Ever read the papers that showed the act of [url="http://web.psych.ualberta.ca/~varn/bc/Kleinke.htm"]smiling makes you happy[/url] even if you're doing it consciously. By talking to god I both personify and externalise it. By asking it for things I also raise it above myself. With a simple act, I can turn a benign concept into a powerful archetype.

[quote]Oh, we can grasp them, though we can't necessarily always keep up with them or control them. But it's fairly easy to analyze thought processes, and recognize how we lie to ourselves, and justify things that we probably shouldn't try to justify. It's usually easier to do in retrospect, though. [/quote]
Sure, not very helpful in retrospect though is it? And that's only the ones that you become consciously aware of.

[quote]Oh, there's tons of wisdom in the Bible. I never said there wasn't. I still like reading a lot of the stuff that's in it (Jesus and Solomon are still my faves), but I also like reading the Tao te Ching and other stuff. But the Bible as a whole has a lot of anti-wisdom as well.[/quote]
This I will whole heartedly agree with, and cite the sexism as number 1 anti-wisdom imo.

[quote]After a certain point, it was passed down because people believed it. When people knew it wasn't true, it was passed down for the same reason that fables are popular today, I'm sure. But I'm not talking about the wisdom that can be found in the stories here. I'm talking about the concept of god being arbitrary. The concept of god has no value in and of itself. It can be described better by different words, because virtues and wisdom that are real trump imaginary virtues and wisdom.[/quote]
I think I covered this above.

[quote]Not all of them do - some stories that are much better and contain greater wisdom have stuck around for a long time. The Bible has stuck around for so long because people believed in god. That doesn't make the wisdom found in the Bible any better than wisdom found elsewhere without the same associated problems of of the Bible.[/quote]
Fair enough, but we're a little past the days where you can easily add something in.

[quote]Sure they did - there were all sorts of mysteries about how the world worked back then, so they came up with god to explain them. We've been discovering as time goes on all sorts of fascinating stuff that shows that god was a bad explanation for those things. The more we learn about how the universe works, the less reason we have to believe in god.[/quote]
I would say the more we know about god

[quote]You haven't said anything that's convinced me your misnomer is any more than worthless. In fact, I think that the misnomer devalues the concepts you're applying it to.[/quote]
So call it something else then, as long as you know it's the same thing as what you used to call god

[quote]Who it sets against me as an individual is pretty irrelevant. I could name my dad and stepmom, for instance, but they're not really set against me in any way that affects my life. My stepmom told me once that her friends from church who had visited saw my demons and knew their names, lol. That's pretty ridiculous, but it doesn't amount to much more than hilarious. If that sort of thing really got to me, I wouldn't be staying here this summer - I'd be staying at my mom's. Like I said in the bit before, individuals don't amount to much. What does amount to much is the religious beliefs people use to justify attacking science, or attacking people, or infringe on other people's rights, especially when these things are happening en masse.[/quote]
That's another discussion that has been had here. When you start talking about religious organisations we exit the realm of religion and enter the realm of politics. People who are still living in the world of santa claus god can be manipulated through their beliefs. But these people could be just as easily manipulated through other means.

Also, you live with your parents?

[Cougar]

Bent;361681 said:

But my point is this.....when you evolve you GROW things....You grow a stronger back bone....we would have "grown" opposible thumbs....father back we had to grow legs, we had to grow arms etc....Name one other "evolving feature that "fell off" I know of not one thing on Darwins chart....nothing, the tail just sort of vanished.

Dude that is the most gross over-simplification I've ever heard. If that's what you think I wouldn't even know where to start. So I won't.

[Mezla PigDog]

Bent;361681 said:

But my point is this.....when you evolve you GROW things...

Maybe the tail just GREW smaller as the selective pressure for having a long one reduced?

And nobody has said that evolution is a FACT!! It's a theory but all the EVIDENCE available points to it being a VALID theory. If an equally valid scientific theory emerged, everyone would love it as perhaps it would give us ideas on how to solve lots of current scientific problems.

Also, I agree with Gem in that you shouldn't just take scientists word for things. However, you shouldn't simply point at "scientists" in general and say you don't believe them, that's just ignorant and to avoid hypocrisy you would have to shun modern medicine. You should look to the bodies governing scientists who provide ethical approval for experiments and who measure the quality of different academic qualifications. What's their motivation? Where are they funded from? If you are satisfied by that then I think you can start to trust the information that's coming out.

But then I'm biased as it's my profession.

I can speak for the UK and say that our scientists are really rigorously monitored by peer review and ethical commities. Everyone has to state financial conflicts of interest, show licenses they have to perform certain experiments and have said licenses continually renewed. There's no conspiracy going on anywhere. Everyone has an open mind or we'd never discover anything, one of the rules of laboratory science is to never take anything foregranted.

[Cause]

Bent;361681 said:

But my point is this.....when you evolve you GROW things....You grow a stronger back bone....we would have "grown" opposible thumbs....father back we had to grow legs, we had to grow arms etc....Name one other "evolving feature that "fell off" I know of not one thing on Darwins chart....nothing, the tail just sort of vanished.

Birds that can no longer fly

Organs which no longer perform their intended function, appendix,

Blindness in animals that live in caves. Loss of pigemtn in the same.

Also evolution does not have to be 'better'. One of the strongest evidences for evolution is how so many people in africa have sickle cell disease. It helps fight malaria. Yet its a delibetating disease which can be fatal in its self. But its better than malaria.

[Gimli's love child]

@ Gem

Guys no one here (I think ) is trying to imply that you are not an intelligent person, its pretty obvious by your posting that this is not the case.

Actually I think it is the fact that you DO come accross as intelligent is why you are receiving so much attention to your posts.

As a Atheist I am intrigued how others have arrived at their decission to believe in God.

You have said before that you have not simply arrived at thie decission to believe in God but have formed your opinion over analysis of available information which you have weighed and measured.

Now if this is indeed the case I cant understand why you have simply said that you dont care how long ago homosapians came into existence. The suggests an essential area that hasn't been studied in depth. But if you dont care about this particular aspect this leaves a gap in knowledge.

Now i have plenty of MASSIVE gaps in my knowledge and as such retain an open mind on what is possible but tend to follow where the evidence points. I dont know any athesits that are 100% confident that what they believe is true but they do lean the way the available evidence suggests.

Now your faith is unshakable (to be honest fair play , this impresses me) but to have this unshakable faith would suggest that all possible routes and avenues have been explored (which you freely admit, you havn't done)

Faith however does not allow for an open mind to all possiblities. This is why it is viewed as such a commodity in religious circles. So to say that you have faith and that you have studied, weighed a measured and drawn a conclusion is a contradiction in terms.

So my question to you (or any other religious people) Is what have you studied and what results have prompted your position for

a) Believing in God
Not beliving in Evolution

Side note (nothing to do with you Gem)*

I am sick and tired of this crap over Evolution is JUST a theory. it is SCIENTIFIC theory somewhat different to the normal definition. Everyone is happy to accept the theory of electricity! What gives anyone the right to pick an select the none threatening theories and accept the ones that argee with their outlook, Accept science or not its that simple!

Gotta love a good argument!

[Dolorous Menhir]

Gem Windcaster;361646 said:

If the theory was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, I would still feel the way I do about christ, I would still believe that the Bible is true and all that jazz. The Bible doesn't necessarily contradict any points of the evolution except what/who started it all, so it's not really a problem for me.

Ok Gem. To help this debate, I'd like to explain what I saw when I read the above paragraph:

"If the theory was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, I would still feel the way I do about christ, I would still believe that the Bible is true and all that jazz. The Bible doesn't necessarily contradict any points of the evolution except for the part about God making the world, which is pretty fundamental, so it's not really a problem for me."

You're saying "even if evolution was proven beyond doubt, it wouldn't really affect my faith except for disproving one of the central planks of it. I'm not concerned about that."

I find this confusing.

Bent;361672 said:

Let me just say that I am proud of Gem for continuing the fight under such scrutiny. Also. I think Evolution is bullocks. If the theory of evolution is to be believed, we used to have tails. but they fell off. First of all when things evolve they continue to adapt and that doesn't mean they stop using bodyparts. Or else the appendix would have been discarded. Second, who here has sat down hard or fallen on their tail bone. IT HURTS! What is the benifit of losing said tail? how much pain would you go through not having a tail bone at all.

Lastly evolution is a THEORY! Not a science. I have no proof that God exists, You have no proof we evolved from sludge. Yet, those of you who believe in evolution talk about it like it was a proven fact? Anyway, Keep up the good work Gem, I hope this helped your cause a bit. As for the rest of you. here is a little known fact.

Elephants can stand for 2 days after they die....cool huh?

This is a good post for furthering the debate here, Bent. You've included several classic creationist talking points in one easy-to-refute package. It's a great opportunity which I see several posters have already taken advantage of.

I just hope you weren't sincere when you wrote this.

[Optimus Prime]

We have tails in the womb for a short period, do we not?

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I don't know about that.

[Optimus Prime]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;362520 said:

I don't know about that.

Ah...as embryos we have them briefly, I just looked it up to clarify.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Cool. Can you find a pic? Not that I need proof, I just thin it would be cool to see.

[Optimus Prime]

Raymond Luxury Yacht;362525 said:

Cool. Can you find a pic? Not that I need proof, I just thin it would be cool to see.

I'm too tired to do that. Basically it sounds like the "tail" ends up going back into our bodies as we develop and forms the coccyx I believe.

[Cold Iron]

Yep, we have gill slits too.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I knew about the gill slits but wasn't sure if I was making it up or not.