In God We Trust... or, do we?

Well?

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Mikael Grizzly said:
So, you are an atheist, yet reject scientifically proven fact evolution is on the basis that you don't understand it?

Figures, less-than-intelligent people are in all beliefs.
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It's hardly fact, whether you're religious or not it's THEORY.

There is fact that animal do evolve and adapt, however taking it a step further than that is where you run into difficulties.
 
Do I have to post that damned "ZOMG IT'S JUST A THEORY" rebuttal again?
 
Evolution = Theory

God = Theory

!God = Theory.

Facts.
 
Even though they are all theories (few things can be proven, anyway) stating they're the same thing is an oversimplification. So, in retrospect, the existence of a god seems far-fetched while evolution seems plausible.
 
phantomdesign said:
It's hardly fact, whether you're religious or not it's THEORY.

There is fact that animal do evolve and adapt, however taking it a step further than that is where you run into difficulties.
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You really need to get a better grasp of what "theory" means in this case.

Oh no! Gravity's a theory! Best not believe in that either.
 
Bingo.

Some people get way too hung up on the word "theory". When the term is applied in its scientific usage, it does not mean that you're just throwing out your personal guess. This is very different from mere conjecture. What a theory means here is a model for explaining phenomena with consistently accurate predictions and strong scientific support, being both testable and falsifiable. Evolution is a theory in just the same way that gravity and plate tectonics are. But nobody is bandying about slogans defying their factuality.

Evolution is supported by almost every credible member of the scientific community. The terms "fact" and "theory" are not mutually exclusive, and it would lift a tremendous weight off everybody's backs if people just accepted this and moved on. These kinds of needless hang-ups on the word would have been dealt with years ago if most of the world's education systems cleaned the **** up over this matter. We should probably just invent a new word to differentiate the two. Like "neu-theory" or something.
 
Absinthe said:
Bingo.

Some people get way too hung up on the word "theory". When the term is applied in its scientific usage, it does not mean that you're just throwing out your personal guess. This is very different from mere conjecture. What a theory means here is a model for explaining phenomena with consistently accurate predictions and strong scientific support, being both testable and falsifiable. Evolution is a theory in just the same way that gravity and plate tectonics are. But nobody is bandying about slogans defying their factuality.

Evolution is supported by almost every credible member of the scientific community. The terms "fact" and "theory" are not mutually exclusive, and it would lift a tremendous weight off everybody's backs if people just accepted this and moved on. These kinds of needless hang-ups on the word would have been dealt with years ago if most of the world's education systems cleaned the **** up over this matter. We should probably just invent a new word to differentiate the two. Like "neu-theory" or something.
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It's just a matter of time before the process of scientific inquiry begins with "theory" and ends with "hypothesis".
 
Macro and Micro Evolution... which one are we talking about...?
 
No. They're not.

Micro evolution, adapting to the current climate etc. is imediate. It includes things like moths being different where-ever you go, and the patterns changing as its environments change and such.

Macro evolution is where you get whole creatures developing, and is far more far-fetched. It doesn't have any proof behind it, just tons of evidence. (sorry, use the word tons lightly)
 
Its alright to deny evolution, however if you do so you have to take the evidence for evolution and turn into a theory which makes more sense and use of the evidence. No-one has yet managed to do that, and I can't think of anything else.
 
If you believe in microevolution, you might as well also believe in macroevolution. Otherwise, you're just propping up some arbitrary, fake barrier that prevents organisms from evolving at or above the species level.

You think it's far-fetched. Well, I'm sorry to report that macroevolution is accepted by and supported by pretty much all of the scientific community as well. The biggest opponent it has are religious groups who wish to paint it as invalid in their quest to push creationism.

You might want to reassess which side of the argument you're on.
 
God put them there to make us all think that Evolution was real.

Done.
 
Druckles said:
Macro evolution is where you get whole creatures developing, and is far more far-fetched. It doesn't have any proof behind it, just tons of evidence. (sorry, use the word tons lightly)
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In the same way there is no proof that dinosaurs walked the earth, just a massive amount of evidence.

The evidence for macroevolution is undeniable. Feel free to refute any of the evidence in the link and have your pick of science awards and prizes.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
 
Um. Evolution is theory. It's not been proven. We haven't had visual evidence for ourselves. We have visual evidence of dinosaurs, alot of it. Things which would prove evolution are a characteristic evolving from a creature which gave it a benefit, and thus allowed it to reproduce.

Funny, because the article you linked to doesn't even have a grammatically correct title, and the first sentence of the first paragraph following the introduction states "hypothesis".
 
Druckles said:
No. They're not.

Micro evolution, adapting to the current climate etc. is imediate. It includes things like moths being different where-ever you go, and the patterns changing as its environments change and such.

Macro evolution is where you get whole creatures developing, and is far more far-fetched. It doesn't have any proof behind it, just tons of evidence. (sorry, use the word tons lightly)
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Find me a scientist in the field of biology that makes a distinction in the workings of macro- and micro evolution and I'll show you a scientist who bought his degree at a diploma mill.

Macro- and micro evolution are arbitrary definitions of scale. Like how a week is something different than a year. But by no means do they function differently. The terms are mostly used by angsty creationists who realize they're full of shit and try to salvage some credibility by acknowledging the existence of adaptation in creatures, but no further.
 
Druckles said:
Um. Evolution is theory. It's not been proven. We haven't had visual evidence for ourselves. We have visual evidence of dinosaurs, alot of it. Things which would prove evolution are a characteristic evolving from a creature which gave it a benefit, and thus allowed it to reproduce.

Funny, because the article you linked to doesn't even have a grammatically correct title, and the first sentence of the first paragraph following the introduction states "hypothesis".
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Sweet Jesus you are dense.

Please read the definition of a scientific theory before you spout such nonsense.
 
Druckles said:
Um. Evolution is theory. It's not been proven. We haven't had visual evidence for ourselves. We have visual evidence of dinosaurs, alot of it. Things which would prove evolution are a characteristic evolving from a creature which gave it a benefit, and thus allowed it to reproduce.

Funny, because the article you linked to doesn't even have a grammatically correct title, and the first sentence of the first paragraph following the introduction states "hypothesis".
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You haven't read the article.

Read the article, your questions are adressed in the article. If you don't want to read the article at least consult the FAQ on the site.

www.talkorigins.org

Your points have been made a 1000 times before and debunked a thousand times before.
 
Druckles said:
No. They're not.

Micro evolution, adapting to the current climate etc. is imediate. It includes things like moths being different where-ever you go, and the patterns changing as its environments change and such.

Macro evolution is where you get whole creatures developing, and is far more far-fetched. It doesn't have any proof behind it, just tons of evidence. (sorry, use the word tons lightly)
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Bullshit.

Microevolution deals with very small changes over a period of ten to one thousand generations. Macroevolution deals with very small changes over one thousand generations, usually resulting in speciation. Both are very tiny changes driven by natural selection, macro and micro are just arbitrary terms dealing with scale and time period.
 
Druckles said:
Evolution = Theory

God = Theory

!God = Theory.

Facts.
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Evolution= fact. Natural Selection, Sexual Selection and Group selection are all theories explaining evolution with tons of scientific evidence backing them up.

God= unprovable hypothesis with no evidence.

!God= nothing. It does not take a hypothesis or theory to reject the god hypothesis or any other unproven hypothesis for that matter.
 
theotherguy said:
Bullshit.

Microevolution deals with very small changes over a period of ten to one thousand generations. Macroevolution deals with very small changes over one thousand generations, usually resulting in speciation. Both are very tiny changes driven by natural selection, macro and micro are just arbitrary terms dealing with scale and time period.
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Stop saying arbitary! The very fact that you're never going to live as long as it takes for speciation, and yet you can observe a thousand micro-evolutions, clearly states there's a difference in the two terms.

The small changes aren't enough to create new species, but merely show that they do adapt. The fact that your direct family line is more likely to die out before anyone can actually observe and prove species are created should actually show how insignificant you are.
 
The very fact that so many thousands of people believe in God doesn't count as moving enough. You can't altogether deny his existance, as there's so many more questions unanswered.

Believing that God doesn't exist does require hypothesis for the questions unanswered, how are you going to explain how things work. At least Christians all have an answer.

And to just assume God doesn't exist is ignorant.
 
Druckles said:
Stop saying arbitary! The very fact that you're never going to live as long as it takes for speciation, and yet you can observe a thousand micro-evolutions, clearly states there's a difference in the two terms.

The small changes aren't enough to create new species, but merely show that they do adapt. The fact that your direct family line is more likely to die out before anyone can actually observe and prove species are created should actually show how insignificant you are.
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All evolution is small changes over time. Even speciation happens when two identical species are separated geographically and then change slightly over time until neither can breed with one another.

As for evidence, there is this thing called the fossil record. You may not have heard of it, but there are these rocks in the ground that used to be dead animals, and, wouldn't you know, their positions in the rock strata correlate with evolutionary models, and there seems to be a remarkably predictable change in the type of species over time found in the fossil record.
 
Druckles said:
The very fact that so many thousands of people believe in God doesn't count as moving enough. You can't altogether deny his existance, as there's so many more questions unanswered.

Believing that God doesn't exist does require hypothesis for the questions unanswered, how are you going to explain how things work. At least Christians all have an answer.

And to just assume God doesn't exist is ignorant.
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Hypotheses based on evidence (i.e. scientific theory) are much more plausible and satisfying explanations than "a magic man did it!"
 
It ****ing is arbitrary though, unless you can explain why it's not. All you're doing is creating some made-up cutoff point where things don't change at or above the species level without ever detailing why this would be the case.

Please explain what magic, invisible force separates microevolution from macroevolution if they both boil down to the same mechanics of natural selection.
 
But the fact that you can't observe that is pretty clear evidence that you can't prove it.

Fossil records are, again, just evidence. The fact that there are still gaps there states that it's not proof.

And Dinosaurs are not contradictory to the bible. Quite the opposite, they're mentioned in the book of Job, while Evolution is contradictory to the bible's exact words.

And even then, there are still Christians who consider Dinosaurs to be a myth.
 
Druckles said:
The very fact that so many thousands of people believe in God doesn't count as moving enough. You can't altogether deny his existance, as there's so many more questions unanswered.
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You can't deny the existance of a teapot in orbit around the rings of saturn, but you can put a probability on it.

Druckles said:
Believing that God doesn't exist does require hypothesis for the questions unanswered, how are you going to explain how things work. At least Christians all have an answer.
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No.
You explain how things work by actually trying to answer the questions instead of asuming blindly that a god did it.

Druckles said:
And to just asume God doesn't exist is ignorant.
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Is asuming that pink invisible unicrons do not exist ignorant?
There is no evidence for a god, why would it be ignorant to assume that in all likleyhood there isn't one?
 
Druckles said:
The very fact that so many thousands of people believe in God doesn't count as moving enough. You can't altogether deny his existance, as there's so many more questions unanswered.
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No, I can deny altogether his existence if there isn't a shred of evidence for it and if your entire reasoning for belief in one is based on unanswered questions. It should be a telling sign that your personal deity is crap when every question mark you irrationally defend as proof is eventually dealt with by science. We couldn't explain loads of things at one point or another throughout history, but we've eventually come to understand a great deal. Scientific progress often comes at the expense of religious superstition.

Believing that God doesn't exist does require hypothesis for the questions unanswered, how are you going to explain how things work. At least Christians all have an answer.
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Oh, really? What answer is that? "God did it"? That's not an answer. The truth is that you're no less clueless than the rest of us. Christians don't have some magical answer for explaining any gaps of knowledge. No, they point to a fantasy creature and then absolve themselves of any kind of explanation. That's just ignorance dressed up in a lame-ass cloak of virtuous piety. There's also the ever-present issue of evidence. I could point to my potato salad as an explanation for all we don't understand, and it really would be no more legitimate than your God.
 
To answer you, there is evidence that God exists, logical "proofs" as you call it. And if you're just going to accept the evidence behind evolution as proof, then you'll have to accept God as existing. There are plenty of arguments behind God's existance which I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned, including the Cosmological, Teleological, Ontological and Empirical arguments. They all attempt to prove God in their own way, Descartes even attempting to prove it almost mathematically. True, they're all pretty weak, and all easily counterable. However you can't ignore them. If God were so blindingly non existant, then why the hell are the so many people that believe that he does exist?
 
Druckles said:
True, they're all pretty weak, and all easily counterable. However you can't ignore them.
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Err... what? You just said they're weak and easy to counter. Why on Earth should we not ignore them? They clearly amount to snuff, so I don't understand how you think citing admittedly debunked arguments is helping your case.

If God were so blindingly non existant, then why the hell are the so many people that believe that he does exist?
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Because most people are not thinking rationally when it comes to this.

Take a few minutes of your time to run through these logical proofs of yours for the existence of God. Because last I checked, evolution has overwhelming evidence to support it. God doesn't.
 
Blank-Picard_Facepalm.jpg
 
Druckles said:
To answer you, there is evidence that God exists, logical "proofs" as you call it. And if you're just going to accept the evidence behind evolution as proof, then you'll have to accept God as existing. There are plenty of arguments behind God's existance which I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned, including the Cosmological, Teleological, Ontological and Empirical arguments. They all attempt to prove God in their own way, Descartes even attempting to prove it almost mathematically. True, they're all pretty weak, and all easily counterable. However you can't ignore them.
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Sure i can, because they are weak and easily debunked. If you are trying to prove something you need strong evidence that cannot be easily debunked. I cannot believe you thought you had some kind of argument there.

Druckles said:
If God were so blindingly non existant, then why the hell are the so many people that believe that he does exist?
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Logical fallacy. The majority of people thought the sun moved around the earth at one point.
 
I'll be mostly repeating stuff for the people who are having trouble understanding the arguments:

Nobody's saying a god doesn't exist for sure. No man in his right mind could be so definite. What we're all saying is that there is nothing really to suggest that he does.

Equating the statements "God exists" and "Evolution works" is just plain wrong. One has much more evidence than the other one. We can't prove or disprove either of the two but it's a simple fact that things that are accompanied with evidence are more likely to be true.

This is why some people are atheists. In the same way that you can't arbitrarily say "There are green people on Mars", you can't really say that god exists. Sure, a lot of people would like to, but that doesn't mean anything really. It's a logical fallacy and it even has a name: argumentum ad populus. Of course, I wouldn't like to downplay the importance of the fact that many people believe in god. It could mean a couple of things and it's interesting.
 
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