Nothing in the bible has ever come true, not surprisingly. Those who force themselves to believe in absurd fictional superbeing daddies in the sky doom themselves to wasting the only life they will ever have. Before it's too late, please get a grip on reality and join humanity here on Earth.
Ok mags, here is my thinking on a couple of your questions. In my daily life, when mingling with Christians I will almost never discuss god v atheism because it's a tough topic for many. Here, we are in an off topic section and this is a perfect to discuss these issues with those who wish to participate, while others can check out other threads. I rarely talk with other atheists about these issues because the fun is the debate, and if we agree it just gets boring quick. I do find this topic important in the long run because those that believe strictly in the bible (more than simple allegory) tend to deny any scientific findings that don't match with their religion, and in some cases that can be dangerous for society. This may make me seem petty, but I feel like this whole society is set up for the religious, and it just gets annoying. Specifically Christian. Growing up Jewish and having every tv show, class musical, political speech, radio song, news report ..... In December have to do with Christmas really got under my skin. Now growing older, I've gained perspective and the grudge is gone, but although I have gained respect for many Christian individuals, I really haven't gained any respect for that, or any religion. I find many parts beautiful and historically important, producing many great people and even many inspiring concepts. But as a whole, I just think it's wrong and overall a detriment to our current modern society. I do believe in the past it may have been beneficial,but it's outlived it's purpose. Odenroylma2 I know there is no convincing you, so I won't try, but I believe just as strongly that your throwing away of good science in order to fit your world view is bad for our society, as you likely feel that my throwing away of god is bad for my soul. Just as you may pray for me to accept Christ and see the beauty in his words, I hope one day you lose faith and are able to discover there is immense beauty in this world from a purely scientific, artistic and atheistic perspective. In no way do I wish anything bad upon you, I am looking at losing faith as a chance for blinders to be removed and a better world to be revealed, one based on evidence.
Do you look the same as when you were 5 years old? No. Why? because you evolved. That's the deal. Evidence of it is right in front of our face, just in a longer form. Everything evolves.
Bro it's all good and I actually like the debate. I can understand your frustration, especially being a Jew as well. The concept of God is a very hard thing to grasp, when you lack Faith in the matter. I'm sure it's even more frustrating when debates with theists are like bashing your head against the wall. For me, it's not "what God(s) you believe in", because believing in a God is the first step. Then I truly believe that your pursuit of finding which God is right for you will be the one I worship. My direction isn't trying to tell you atheists are a bunch of dull tools in a shed, but that the idea is flawed. The idea that organic programming "DNA", just somehow programmed itself is insane! It makes as much sense as the spaghetti monster from space gushed it's plasm all over our planet to form life. Darwin said evolution aren't jumps but gradual steps, yet even the empirical evidence on evolution had considerable "jumps" in it. At least what has been observed.
Conscious evolving has no similarities to natural selection. Evolution is physical changes to DNA coding. Growing up and getting smarter doesn't change your DNA.
Do the typical players in the NBA look different now, then they did in the 60s? That is a form of selection, but not natural.
So you think coaches and management picking taller players, is a form of evolution? I would love to read your theory on this.
Yes, the rules of the game change (what plants and animals are available to eat, or the temperature and the chemicals in the air change) and the players (animals) adapt or lose their contract (die). The teams that are more successful, will be emulated (more three point shooting now, less bigs that stand around in the middle).
It's probably not the complete picture of how evolution actually works, but environmental selection makes perfect logical sense if you take the time to understand it. It's perfectly logical that selection has the ability to mimic what humans intuitively think of as design. It's just not something you can make an intuitive judgment about, which is what you are apparently doing. Quantum mechanics seems "insane" to me intuitively, yet it is the most accurately tested theory in history. depends on what you mean by jump. there is no evidence one species changed into another overnight. evolutionary change does seem to have different speeds, but you would logically expect it to operate slowly if the environment is stable, but speed up in response to sudden extreme environmental change, or after large extinction events.
I know you have other reasons for belief, but in the case of statements like this "faith" is obviously just being used as an excuse for belief and not a reason anyone should care about. Also most atheists grasp the concept of God (as well as it is definable) every bit as well as theists, in most cases better than. tell that to a billion Hindus
The logic is evident when the genetics are already there. The major difference is "Nothing has been observed that states genetic coding has manifested from nothing". Even with all the primordial soup and excellent environmental conditions. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_51 From the article from Berkely, there have been observations of "quick jumps", but also explained that those jumps could be irregular fossil preservations. The general masses believe evolution is "slow and steady", over millions of years.
Crow and Mags, please stop with this polite debate. Or if you're going to continue it please include a few insults. Both of you are making this God Hating site look bad.
Hey, they talk about Mags' banana-boy in this: [video=youtube;GAU-HQPRk2g]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAU-HQPRk2g[/video]
As a theist, at least we understand that we do have some level of "faith" that drives our belief. As for the atheists... I think it's pretty arrogant that they believe they require no faith on the many outlining "faith driven" concepts of singularity, first self replicating genetics and lack of God. Yes they do... They can hate a deity that they don't even believe exists. That is a high level of Faith! http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/larryglasco/H1772/BBC_Hinduism.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_India There has been an excess increase of Christian conversion in India. Yes, the Hindus are still very dominant in India, but that number is at a slow decline. I guess the Christian Faith has more pull than you would like to give it credit for.
Nothing has been observed that states that it hasn't, or even that it was unlikely. That's just your intuitive assumption. As I said it depends on your definition of Jump. Sharks haven't changed much in 100 million years. Other lineages such as whales have changed radically in a few million. There are different speeds, just nothing "overnight".
Except atheists don't "believe" in God-free origins. They think it is the best current explanation based on lack of evidence for a God. No faith is required for that. Islam is growing faster than Christianity. Irrelevant. My point was religious belief is obviously much more heavily biased by cultural heritage than by people choosing to believe in God and then being divinely led to some sort of universally true "path" to God.
