Atheism, 21st century-style. New? Militant?

[The Atheist]

I agree though that they a result of such processes. This doesn't preclude me from finding qualia themselves interesting.

I find the idea interesting enough, my only concern is that qualia aren't put into the non-material basket.


I can see this idea being taken advantage of perhaps for arguments sake, but I don't see anyone providing money for this kind of research. There is just as yet, no technology, or scientific framework by which to evaluate it. Although people are pretty idiotic..

Unfortunately, actual universities do provide funding for idiotic groups like the Parapsychological Institute, which is the problem. If they get any encouragement that non-material things exist, they'll be in with their hands out.


That is some committed atheism.

Oh, plenty of people have said I should be committed!

:D

[BienvenuJDC]

God. God needs to be explained, as already voiced numerous times on this thread.

It is only your opinion that God needs to be explained. How can finite minds explain an Infinite Being? How ignorant of a comment.

[MarkBastable]

It is only your opinion that God needs to be explained. How can finite minds explain an Infinite Being? How ignorant of a comment.


Then again, it is only your opinion that God is an Infinite Being.

[MystyrMystyry]

Science can not explain the big bang and Theology can not explain anything. How about we just don't know.


Science can and has explained the Big Bang beyond adequately.

Why bother saying 'I don't know' when there's interesting information at the touch of your fingertips?

And it's really easy to understand too:


In the very beginning the Universe was a very small very hot ball of pure energy - the stuff that atoms and elecrtricity and and light and gamma radiation and x-rays and magnetism and everything compressed so tightly under the weight of itself that it couldn't move

Energy doesn't naturally like to be compressed into this state and so a brief nanosecond after it found itself like this it exploded. The biggest explosion the Universe had ever seen.

Except for the explosion that happened about a bazillion trillion (just pick a really big number) aeons before that produced the previous Universe.

You heard right - the Previous Universe.

See, what happens is every time the plasma ball explodes (Big Bang) it at first expands exponentially (really fast) and creates almost infinitillium simple hydrogen and helium atoms that scatter all over the place, some (megagazillions) of these atoms cluster together (a natural state of matter within a vaccuum) to form huge gas clouds then very dense gas clouds, then very large gas planets and then when the pressure is too great they self combust.

But the matter and left over energy from the Big Bang keeps moving apart from itself relative to the power of the attraction (gravity), regardless how many suns are formed, explosions occur and how many planets and galaxies appear.

But the energy from the Big Bang is finite and the force which impels the Universe to expand, eventually will cease, and slowly slowly slowly everything will begin to attract everything else back toward the central hub and ultimately into a very small very hot ball of pure energy... ...

[JuniperWoolf]

Let's not pretend that the big bang is a simple and irrefutable theory, it isn't. It's a complex and barely gestated theory for which evidence is just starting to be accumulated. We don't even really know what matter is yet, how can you say that the beginning of the universe is "really easy to understand?" On top of that, given what you've described the obvious next question is "how did things get like that - what started it, and what came before?" (not to mention the dozens of other questions that occur to pretty much every science undergrad who studies physics at some point).

[cyberbob]

Science CAN necessarily explain the big bang because it's a part of science.

Science exists beyond human knowledge. For example, in mathematics there may be conjectures which we may never prove but nevertheless either can or can't be proven.

Math and science are man-made tools to explain what already is. Since every effect must have a cause, so then must everything have an explanation.

Our science can explain the events of the big bang. It may not be able to explain its origins (the pre-universe) but I believe if it can't, then another science with its own physical laws can.

[JuniperWoolf]

Science is just a method used to arrive at an acceptable theory that we go by until the next theory comes around that can disprove the current one, it's not an entity. It's a process of gathering information then interpreting that information in a peer-reviewed and logical way, that's it. There's no "other science" or "our science." Saying that the big bang is "part of science" doesn't make sense, because science isn't a thing, it's just a method.

If what you're saying is that everything that happens does indeed happen and everything that has happened has indeed happened, then "duh." As for some creature named science knowing something that we don't know yet, that's not how it works. Everything is understanable if we understand it, if we don't get something yet then it has yet to be described. There's no need to make it more complicated than that.

[MarkBastable]

Science is just a method used to arrive at an acceptable theory that we go by until the next theory comes around that can disprove the current one, it's not an entity. It's a process of gathering information then interpreting that information in a peer-reviewed and logical way, that's it. There's no "other science" or "our science." Saying that the big bang is "part of science" doesn't make sense, because science isn't a thing, it's just a method.

If what you're saying is that everything that happens does indeed happen and everything that has happened has indeed happened, then "duh." As for some creature named science knowing something that we don't know yet, that's not how it works. Everything is understanable if we understand it, if we don't get something yet then it has yet to be described. There's no need to make it more complicated than that.

Exackerlly. If God exists, he - or even the debate as to whether or not he does - falls within the scope of scientific enquiry. Everything falls within that scope, because it's an approach - it's not a territory and it's not a conclusion.

[Rores28]

It is only your opinion that God needs to be explained. How can finite minds explain an Infinite Being? How ignorant of a comment.

Yet you have just explained God as an infinite being. It looks like it may tacitly be your opinion as well.

Further, I may say that the universe is an infinite entity. And this does not require as many leaps as God is a infinite entity who created the universe a non-infinite entity.

If I'm an ornithologist and I tag a bird in Charlotte NC, and a few days later I take a trip to Atlanta GA and astoundingly run across the same bird with the same exact tag. What would my conclusion be?

Looks like the bird flew to Atlanta. I think any reasonable person would come to that conclusion. The conclusion most people would not come to is that that bird flew to Tampa, then Miami, then Savannah, where a fellow ornithologist caught the bird brought it to Atlanta in their car on a dare from their old college roommate and re-released it downtown. Any reasonable person would find this conclusion less likely.

It's not that these events couldn't have transpired its that their invocation is less preferred than the first scenario.

[YesNo]

Are you sure? What an "inspired" post! It almost seems like.... a revelation!

My guess: the authors of the Bible had a great many purposes and motivations. In addition, the motives of the authors are not of primary importance to the value of the text.
The motives help the reader understand the text. When those motives can be seen to be devious, reading into the text something else in order to justify a belief is simply a misreading of it.

[cyberbob]

I think you misunderstood me. My fault since I made my post confusing.

What I meant was that whether or not we ever find the means to explain something like the big bang doesn't mean we can't. It's as explicable as anything else that follow the physical laws of the universe.

I said it was man-made and never said it was alive.

By "our science" I meant the physical laws that we observe in our universe. By "another science" I meant the possible physical laws of another universe.

[YesNo]

You heard right - the Previous Universe.


Glad to hear that it didn't just happen once.



But the energy from the Big Bang is finite and the force which impels the Universe to expand, eventually will cease, and slowly slowly slowly everything will begin to attract everything else back toward the central hub and ultimately into a very small very hot ball of pure energy... ...

Is there entropy in this system? That is, can it wind down after a period of time and not go back to the state where it will explode again? Or is it a perpetual motion system?

I suspect it can wind down, so then there is something that must have started it. This pushes the actual beginning ever deeper into the past.

The reason there must be some beginning, or some input from the outside, is because the universe is still going on now (since we are here). If it could wind down in a finite amount of time and the past is infinitely deep, it would have exhausted itself by now. Every finite length of time has already occurred.

[cyberbob]

Perpetual motion isn't possible in our current understanding of physics.

The universe probably will collapse into itself in a Big Crunch. Or it might expand indefinitely causing temperatures to drop to the point where no life will be able to exist. AKA a Big Freeze.

[YesNo]

Perpetual motion isn't possible in our current understanding of physics.

The universe probably will collapse into itself in a Big Crunch. Or it might expand indefinitely causing temperatures to drop to the point where no life will be able to exist. AKA a Big Freeze.
That sounds reasonable.

There seems to be three explanations for what started it all in the first place:

1) Chance.

2) G-g-g-god.

3) Something that is not subject to the laws of entropy or we would have to then ask what started that cause.

[IceM]

I would like to challenge the idea that evolution in the biological sense does not exist, and that, even if it did, science does not prove this idea.

The stratigraphic history of the Earth, filled with fossils from the myriad of eras prior to the one we currently live in, tells the story of unfortunate species either unable to adjust to the changing environment or unable to live longer; and from this body of fossils a trained paleontologist is able to deduce the structural qualities of the life-form in question. I ask, for anyone whom challenges the notion of evolution, what makes one life-form more successful in surviving in a certain environment than anothers? (When I say surviving, I don't mean longer life-spans, I mean an ability to live in an ever-changing environment, although I know you can manipulate it to make both terms seem synonymous). Certain finches on the Galapagos islands had beaks too thick to puncture holes and eat larvae while others had beaks too thin to puncture the trees where larvae were living. Those poor birds, they died. Others that were able to live in the aforementioned environments lived. Why? What gave them the ability to exist in an environment that killed others? The short-answer of course, is genetics. Something about their cellular, deoxyribonucleic build-up gives these birds an inherent advantage whereas others have an inherent weakness. In the case of the finches, such advantages manifest themselves in either thicker or thinner beaks, depending on what the landscape of the island requires.

Let's begin on the premise evolution does not exist. I then ask you, what explains the difference between appearances in birds of similar species (oh wait, that's a contraption of evolution too, isn't it)? What explains the difference in appearances between two parents and their offspring? Evolution is most broadly considered change over time, regardless of the progress made or lost by that change. If two parents of different ethnicities (let us say, Asian and Mexican) engage in mating practices and have children, what explains the appearance of that child, who will inevitably possess facial characteristics of both races? Notice, evolution is noticable first and foremost through visual aide. Few could suggest an idea of evolution if everything looked the same. Yet it is this ability to distinguish notable differences that makes evolution noticable. Over successive generations there is a noticable change between what is and what was. What explains this mechanism?

Of course, evolution in a scientific sense aligns itself with a notion of changes in skeletal structure over time. But let us speak of it broadly. If evolution is change over time, and the appearances of offspring change from generation to generation--indicating a chance of some sort in the genetic makeup of the children--then there is a change occurring, yes? And as the different combinations of genetic sequences and chromosones enter the DNA pool, DNA changes are likely to continue to change, yes? If change occurs, and evolution is change over time, then evolution is occurring, yes? And if skeletal structures change, too, over time, evolution is occurring, for human form has changed from one stage to another.

Let us move to the premise that science cannot prove evolution. If we reject genetics and evolutionary theory as is necessary to reject the science behind it, I wonder if one too can reject history. Fossils are evidence of life in prior forms in a previous era. If contemporary skeletons of similar species demonstrate changes in skeletal structure in comparison to prior species, there is a change over time--an evolution in a broad sense. What causes this mechanism? Of course, as you observe the fossils, you realize there is still skeletal tissue remaining. We living creatures still have skeletal tissue. There must be some inherent connection between the qualities of that creature--perhaps embodied in the tissue?--that causes a contrast between the creatures of today. Notice I don't say genetics, but it is logical to assume there is something about the tissues that make them distinct.

Let us assume God played an active hand in creating the change. Notice, there is a still a change over time that causes that of tomorrow to be different from that of today. Is that still not evolution? Is there still no change that creates different creatures? Evolution still hence exists.

There's no need to reject evolution or be militant against science. While some may attempt to portray science and/or evolution as against God, this simply isn't the case. Science can only study that which lies in the known universe. It can only test hypotheses within the realm of possibility. If we act on the premise that there is a God, there is no scientific test to prove His existence; an entity beyond our dimension is also beyond our means of enquiry. Nor does evolution counterract His existence: is it not possible to say God created the means by which creatures evolved? Is it not possible to say God created the means by which the Big Bang gave birth to the universe? Ultimately, determining God through human reasoning is a guessing game; and while I will take no sides between atheists and theists, I find it incredulous for one to outright discredit science and evolution when they pose no threat under any circumstance to the existence of a supernatural entity.

[MystyrMystyry]

Yes/No - your response is appropriate, but inconclusive

I wasn't posting a question in need of reply, but a fact

The Universe is the only perpetual motion system

The Universe is expanding still rapidly but with such dynamics of scale we cannot discern at the speed of our lifetimes and scientific means of measurement are hardly as old as the universe - a hundred years isn't a blink of an eye in cosmological terms, it's a complete nothingth


Put a start on the beginning of this Universe at the estimated (and very close 14 billion years, and you can put an end on it at about 100 billion years - give or take a few billion years (so far away it doesn't matter)

After every sun has finally died, and every galaxy has been consumed by its black hole, and every galaxy cluster has collapsed in on itself, and the power of the energy cannot push any more, then it shall have ceased to expand

And then the force of gravity will slowly (slowly at first I say) take over, black holes will eventually eat each other, and all scatty bits of matter be sucked in with increasing speed as their weight increases


It looks fantastic in reverse

[JuniperWoolf]

Why are you guys talking about astrophysics? Besides, you're totally oversimplifying things. It's like you got all of your information from an Eye Wonder book (zing!).

[YesNo]

Why are you guys talking about astrophysics? Besides, you're totally oversimplifying things. It's like you got all of your information from an Eye Wonder book (zing!).

:D

I'm pretty sure none of us are rocket scientists.

I'm certainly not.

[cyberbob]

^^^ The universe is not a perpetual motion system. If it was then why would it stop expanding and collapse into itself?

If the Big Bang theory is true, and the universe had a finite past, then so too must it have a finite future. That is, it must eventually stop expanding, which will cause a Big Crunch.

Perpetual motion is probably not possible in our universe. No machine (including our universe) can produce more energy than it consumes. So if the universe had a definite, finite past then it MUST run out of energy and stop expanding. That is because nothing with a finite past can have infinite energy. So if the Big Bang theory is true, the universe will possibly end after it runs out of energy.

[MystyrMystyry]

@cyberbob

The system of Universe to Universe is a perpetual motion

The Universe does not run out of energy because all energy is not consumed

No more no less

Constant from Universe to Universe


The weight of Energy - An entire Universe worth

[The Atheist]

There's no need to reject evolution or be militant against science. While some may attempt to portray science and/or evolution as against God, this simply isn't the case.

Most excellent post!

The RCC, Anglican and many other churches accept evolution, so thankfully your point is already understood by the majority of christians.


The Universe is the only perpetual motion system

Sorry, but I must concur with other posters.

The things you're quoting are far from factual. They may well be right, although the laws of thermodynamics suggest not, but either way, the premises remain unproven.

[manolia]

That sounds reasonable.

There seems to be three explanations for what started it all in the first place:

1) Chance.

2) G-g-g-god.

3) Something that is not subject to the laws of entropy or we would have to then ask what started that cause.

For a discussion of this sort one has to take quantum mechanics into account, since mass and energy was compressed what takes place in a subatomic level can no longer be ignored. That and gravity.
But i agree that it has little to do with the OP.


^^^ The universe is not a perpetual motion system. If it was then why would it stop expanding and collapse into itself?

If the Big Bang theory is true, and the universe had a finite past, then so too must it have a finite future. That is, it must eventually stop expanding, which will cause a Big Crunch.
.

Well that's only one model of the universe (it may be the prevailing model but i am not sure about that).
Have a look here, at the last image where Ω is explained.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_constant

[OrphanPip]

Here's a great presentation on current ideas on the origins of the universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Don't worry, Dawkins is just doing the introduction.

[IceM]

I also would like to challenge the idea that the universe has a finite end on the premise that it had a finite beginning.

I read somewhere that the edges of the universe is expanding at the speed of light in all direction. It seems a puzzling notion to consider. We don't know what lies beyond the edge of the universe. By all means, the forces responsible for creating the edges of the universe could be transforming extra-galactic life into matter for all we know. There is no way to test what lies beyond the Universe.

To assume that the expansion of the universe will someday end insinuates that the creative forces responsible for said growth will eventually terminate, or that the materials necessary for such growth will run out. But your logic relies on the assumption that the universe operates on the structure of a beginning-middle-end. This is highly unlikely. To even understand what lies beyond the universe requires an evolution of thought, from what is to what can be--and in the vast spectrum of things possible, those both within and beyond us, to assume such forces are limited to a specific limetime seems limited. Time, space, matter, God: these ideas are all infinite. "There is no vestige of a beginning, no sight of an end." Excluding God, the universe is a physical, or metaphyiscal, representation of the three infinte notions; how then do they all terminate? Under what circumstances can an infinitely expanding universe just implode and end? If matter exists, so too does the universe.

[OrphanPip]

Physicist think the net energy in the universe is 0, so it's entirely possible there was no matter, no space, and no time prior to the Big Bang. We also know from observation that the universe is actually accelerating in all directions, and it will eventually reach a point where light from other galaxies will no longer be able to reach us, it is possible in general relativity for galaxies to move away from us faster than the speed of light.

It's true we don't know what's happening beyond our universe, or even at the edges of our universe, but I don't think the question is all that relevant since we will never know what happens beyond our universe.

[YesNo]

Here's a great presentation on current ideas on the origins of the universe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo

Don't worry, Dawkins is just doing the introduction.

Yes, Lawrence Krauss was very entertaining.

The universe is flat!

[MystyrMystyry]

Such a relaxing thread

Why OrphanPip?

Beyond the Universe, Time

E=mc2



Don't try to encapsulate the universe as though it's a Galaxy within a Universe - look at it from the perspective of the Plasma Ball

And imagine the Plasma Ball to be all there is

[YesNo]

Physicist think the net energy in the universe is 0, so it's entirely possible there was no matter, no space, and no time prior to the Big Bang. We also know from observation that the universe is actually accelerating in all directions, and it will eventually reach a point where light from other galaxies will no longer be able to reach us, it is possible in general relativity for galaxies to move away from us faster than the speed of light.

I rewatched some parts of the ending of Lawrence Krauss' talk that you linked earlier because, after sleeping on it, it made me wonder if I really heard right what he said and if it made sense.

He says the following about the universe (starting 40:34): "The universe is flat. It has zero total energy and it could have begun from nothing."

This nothingness of the universe seems to support the Hindu/Buddhist idea that the universe is an illusion or "maya", basically, nothing. All one needs is an agent to even justify the view that the universe was created by God from nothing which is what I think many Christians believe. Far from defeating theism, showing that the universe could have come from nothing actually supports those traditions.

The data does not support Creationism, that is, a literal acceptance of J's version of creation in Genesis, since that has been contradicted by the 13.72 billion year age of the universe. But Creationism is a marginal and extreme belief. I think the majority of Christians could toss Creationism, if they haven't done so already.

The existence of a beginning (The Big Bang) and the new evidence that this beginning could have come from nothing (The Universe is Flat) falls right in line with theistic beliefs.

A steady state universe or one that MystyrMystyry has supported of the universe being a perpetual motion machine going eternally from big bang to big bust would be something more opposed to a general religious perspective. A theist would have to do more explaining if such a universe existed.

[OrphanPip]

I'm not sure it really falls in line with theistic views though. The fact that the universe came about from quantum fluctuations, that nothing needed to be created to create the universe so to speak, suggests that no outside source was needed to trigger the universe. It just exists so to speak, if nothingness exists at some point then a universe such as ours can come about by random chance. It defeats the argument that a God was needed to create the universe, if the universe had a net positive energy or was round we would have a problem of where the energy came from.

[MystyrMystyry]

One must dissect an atom to understand the proportion of nothingness in the universe

We're all used to seeing the diagram of an atomic cross-section of hydrogen - nucleus at the centre with electron circling around it

If the atom was life size (the size of the diagram) the distance of the electron to proton would be as Pluto is to the Sun

Atoms are mostly nothing

Likewise the space between planets and galaxies and Big Bang to Big Bang is mostly nothing

[OrphanPip]

One must dissect an atom to understand the proportion of nothingness in the universe

We're all used to seeing the diagram of an atomic cross-section of hydrogen - nucleus at the centre with electron circling around it

If the atom was life size (the size of the diagram) the distance of the electron to proton would be as Pluto is to the Sun

Atoms are mostly nothing

Likewise the space between planets and galaxies and Big Bang to Big Bang is mostly nothing

There's actually a lot of something in between planets and galaxies, radiation primarily.

The Bohr-Rutherford atomic model is also highly oversimplified, in actuality there is a probabilistic cloud where the electron can exist at any given time around the nucleus.

[MystyrMystyry]

Thankyou for the clarification OrphanPip

I was referring to the way we think of the Universe in material terms

The radiation is electro-magnetic

and electrons, protons and neutrons are of course not material entities individually

[The Atheist]

and electrons, protons and neutrons are of course not material entities

You need to shine up what you think "material" means, because they most certainly are material.

[JuniperWoolf]

That is exactly what "material" is, and nothing more (well, you can actually break that down a bit further hypothetically).

[MystyrMystyry]

You need to shine up what you think "material" means, because they most certainly are material.

cheeky

[jocky]

The problem with the idea of the big bang, if it actually happened, which I think it did, is that people, including myself, think it was some sort of unique event. That uniqueness makes it unknowable, spooky and miraculous. But if it happened once, it probably happened many times in the past.

How about this for the worst explanation ever? The Big Bang was created by Earthlings who in their ignorance created the Hadron Collider. At first the Earthlings cowered in fear as they realised the experiment cost more than the collapse of the whole Western economy. Stronger intellects intervened " the cause of science is more important than the survival of mankind " And so it goes on. Come on guys if anyone is capable of destroying life as we know it ,I reckon it is down to us? Unless God will save us. :D


You've got to understand their frustration, though. I mean, when you watch Fox or hear/read some of the willfully ignorant things that the new American far-right are saying, don't you feel that little twinge of reactionairy hostility? Honestly, I've spoken to so many people who think just like Bien that they could fill stadiums - we're not talking about a poor small group of nieve opressed eccentrics that believe that Jesus rode around on a velociraptor. There are so many of them that hostile rebuttal is actually necissairy if you don't want your kids being taught fairy tales from someone who knows absolutely nothing about basic geology because all professionals who understand their field of study before they decide to teach others are "elitist." It's maddening, how can you expect people to not get angry?

The way I see it, when you're dealing with a group that is already too far off the healthy neutral social balance then sometimes you have to take a strong stance in favour of the opposite just to maintain some balance. It results in polarization and there's a lot of anger and fighting involved, there are mobs created on the opposite side too which isn't exactly progress, but that's better than just going with it and allowing people to push laws that force teachers to teach creationism in biology class, outlaw gay marriage because they aren't given permission in a tampered-with book that's over a thousand years old and ban abortion even in rape cases and even very early because a jumble of undeveloped tissues has a "soul." That is dangerous thinking which will cause harm to people if it isn't adressed in some way by someone. The "militant" atheists are irritating and agressive, but they fill a purpose, and that purpose is keeping the fundies from getting too much steam.

I have got to reply to your post and simply to let you know that Europeans do actually follow American current affairs. I always watch Glenn Beck and respect his intelligence and wondered how he would respond to the latest outrage. I should have known he would come out swinging and in a total state of denial. I will give him this he is a half decent historian but his conclusions are always flawed. I hope the American people ,and I know one or two, rise above it.

[The Atheist]

How about this for the worst explanation ever? The Big Bang was created by Earthlings who in their ignorance created the Hadron Collider.

Can you imagine what Douglas Adams would have made of it all?

[prendrelemick]

^ He would've liked the Theory that every thing is held together by bits of string.

[The Atheist]

^ He would've liked the Theory that every thing is held together by bits of string.

:smilielol5:

Quite right!

Although, maybe he already did; the earth was a string of sausages in Part V of the trilogy.

[IceM]

To respond to the original question:

I've been an atheist for three years and was a devout Catholic for fourteen before, and even when I was a Catholic, I didn't see anything wrong with them. Of course, I'm 17, so for the first 14 years of my life, I just viewed atheism as those looking for God but needing better reasons to pursure him. Now, I'm a little smarter than that.

Is atheism militant? Sure, just in the same way that religion is becoming militant. There is this fear that if one view dominates, the minority will be marginalized and oppressed. My evidence: my years in the Catholic Church. Atheism was preached as an equivalent of satanism, but I knew better. I think it's this fear that continues to drive much of this perception of militantism. Are there militants? Of course, on both sides. However, evidence has shown us that one side is much more willing to incriminate the other of crimes that both are guilty of. Either side can be considered militant because it has such radical members, yet anyone with common sense can tell you a radical sect of a greater whole does not taint the whole.

Perhaps this springs out of ignorance. Not all atheists believe in science, nor do all theists blindly accept the "Word of God" without actual reasoning. It perhaps is this underlying desire to show one's absolute commitment while cloaking underlying doubts that spawns such an absolutist idea. Then again, maybe peer pressure has an effect too. Saying "I'm not sure if God exists" is held with much more contempt than taking a side.

In defense of the Catholic Church, this is a bald-faced lie. I don't ever recall them preaching on Atheism in my time as a Catholic, and I misrepresented them and harmed their image by saying this.


I would like to challenge the idea that evolution in the biological sense does not exist, and that, even if it did, science does not prove this idea.

The stratigraphic history of the Earth, filled with fossils from the myriad of eras prior to the one we currently live in, tells the story of unfortunate species either unable to adjust to the changing environment or unable to live longer; and from this body of fossils a trained paleontologist is able to deduce the structural qualities of the life-form in question. I ask, for anyone whom challenges the notion of evolution, what makes one life-form more successful in surviving in a certain environment than anothers? (When I say surviving, I don't mean longer life-spans, I mean an ability to live in an ever-changing environment, although I know you can manipulate it to make both terms seem synonymous). Certain finches on the Galapagos islands had beaks too thick to puncture holes and eat larvae while others had beaks too thin to puncture the trees where larvae were living. Those poor birds, they died. Others that were able to live in the aforementioned environments lived. Why? What gave them the ability to exist in an environment that killed others? The short-answer of course, is genetics. Something about their cellular, deoxyribonucleic build-up gives these birds an inherent advantage whereas others have an inherent weakness. In the case of the finches, such advantages manifest themselves in either thicker or thinner beaks, depending on what the landscape of the island requires.

Let's begin on the premise evolution does not exist. I then ask you, what explains the difference between appearances in birds of similar species (oh wait, that's a contraption of evolution too, isn't it)? What explains the difference in appearances between two parents and their offspring? Evolution is most broadly considered change over time, regardless of the progress made or lost by that change. If two parents of different ethnicities (let us say, Asian and Mexican) engage in mating practices and have children, what explains the appearance of that child, who will inevitably possess facial characteristics of both races? Notice, evolution is noticable first and foremost through visual aide. Few could suggest an idea of evolution if everything looked the same. Yet it is this ability to distinguish notable differences that makes evolution noticable. Over successive generations there is a noticable change between what is and what was. What explains this mechanism?

Of course, evolution in a scientific sense aligns itself with a notion of changes in skeletal structure over time. But let us speak of it broadly. If evolution is change over time, and the appearances of offspring change from generation to generation--indicating a chance of some sort in the genetic makeup of the children--then there is a change occurring, yes? And as the different combinations of genetic sequences and chromosones enter the DNA pool, DNA changes are likely to continue to change, yes? If change occurs, and evolution is change over time, then evolution is occurring, yes? And if skeletal structures change, too, over time, evolution is occurring, for human form has changed from one stage to another.

Let us move to the premise that science cannot prove evolution. If we reject genetics and evolutionary theory as is necessary to reject the science behind it, I wonder if one too can reject history. Fossils are evidence of life in prior forms in a previous era. If contemporary skeletons of similar species demonstrate changes in skeletal structure in comparison to prior species, there is a change over time--an evolution in a broad sense. What causes this mechanism? Of course, as you observe the fossils, you realize there is still skeletal tissue remaining. We living creatures still have skeletal tissue. There must be some inherent connection between the qualities of that creature--perhaps embodied in the tissue?--that causes a contrast between the creatures of today. Notice I don't say genetics, but it is logical to assume there is something about the tissues that make them distinct.

Let us assume God played an active hand in creating the change. Notice, there is a still a change over time that causes that of tomorrow to be different from that of today. Is that still not evolution? Is there still no change that creates different creatures? Evolution still hence exists.

There's no need to reject evolution or be militant against science. While some may attempt to portray science and/or evolution as against God, this simply isn't the case. Science can only study that which lies in the known universe. It can only test hypotheses within the realm of possibility. If we act on the premise that there is a God, there is no scientific test to prove His existence; an entity beyond our dimension is also beyond our means of enquiry. Nor does evolution counterract His existence: is it not possible to say God created the means by which creatures evolved? Is it not possible to say God created the means by which the Big Bang gave birth to the universe? Ultimately, determining God through human reasoning is a guessing game; and while I will take no sides between atheists and theists, I find it incredulous for one to outright discredit science and evolution when they pose no threat under any circumstance to the existence of a supernatural entity.

Just some points of clarification here. While evolution and the Big Bang theoretically do not eliminate the existence of a god in general, for evangelicals who hold to a Young Earth creationism (or for anyone that does), the Big Bang and creationism are at odds. Also, evolution supposes an origin to life that the Old Testament fundamentally rejects. So, for people who hold the Bible to be inerrant (like myself), there is a sense in which evangelicals must reject evolution and the Big Bang in order to be consistent with the Old Testament narrative.

Glory to God in the highest.

[newby]

I find such statements rather dangerous. There are plenty religious philosphers extreme lucid, such as Leibniz and Thomas Aquinas.
Intelligence is not determined by what a person chooses to believe, I think that you generalized religion for meeting way too many people that are ''believers'' but never studied the bible - which also holds great knowledge, truth or not.

[NikolaiI]

I think you may have to fix your quotes IceM. It reads like you are quoting yourself.