Is Christianity nonsense?

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Is the bible society theologically opposed to evolution or do y'all just have an anti-evo policy?

Which "bible society" are you referring to?

Yours

We are theologically opposed to evolution. Our beliefs are based on what the bible teaches. The bible teaches us that Almighty God has a name (Jehovah), and it is Jehovah who created all things. (Ps 83:18; Hebrews 3:4)

then you are factually wrong,

unless what you eman is that evolution isnt the cause of life but god is, in which case you have seriosuly misunderstood evolution, it only tells us why there are so many different species, not why.

The bible not only tells us who created all life but also explains the variety of animal and plant species.

And the earth began to put forth grass, vegetation bearing seed according to its kind and trees yielding fruit, the seed of which is in it according to its kind. (Genesis 1:12)

And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind. (Genesis 1:21)

Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind.” And it came to be so. And God proceeded to make the wild beast of the earth according to its kind and the domestic animal according to its kind and every moving animal of the ground according to its kind. (Genesis 1:24-25)

@kxmode:

Evolution does NOT say that God did not create life. It has nothing to say for or against that idea. All evolution does is describe and explain how life diversified on this planet once life began, and it does that exceedingly well. No evidence yet found has falsified evolution, and more and more evidence is being found all the time that supports evolution and expands our understanding of it.

Evolution happens with breeding populations. Any particular offspring will greatly resemble its parents, so evolution does NOT contradict the Bible saying creatures produce offspring "after their kind." Over time a shift in allele frequencies in the DNA within a population may result in a new species.

For me, any church that denies the demonstrable FACT that the evidence supports evolution and is explained by it is out of touch with reality, just as much as if that church were to insist that gravity doesn't happen or the earth is really flat in spite of all evidence to the contrary. That IS just how ridiculous it is, no exaggeration.

Now if your church were to admit that the evidence exists for evolution and evolution explains that evidence, but your church chooses not to accept that reality because of faith, that would be different. What offends me are the LIES told by your church (and certain others) that ignore most of the evidence and deny or distort the rest.

It is ironic that you claim to be spreading truth and correcting lies, when your church spreads misinformation about this subject. This is probably from genuine ignorance for the most part, but at the same time, there is so much evidence that evolution happens that for the leaders of your church to deny it makes me question their intelligence or possibly their sanity. Nothing personal against you or your church. I'm just saying what I see.

Last edited by TheBicyclingGuitarist on 14 Sep 2012, 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That was quite disingenuous. Yes it's considered that the inquisition may have only killed the kind of numbers you're talking about. The crusades on the other hand killed tens of thousands. No I absolutely don't think that all of those ex-muslims would do that. But I also doubt that they would be actually exploding themselves with no care for what happens because they think they are going to paradise. Regardless, like I already pointed out the fact that bad things would happen anyway is not relevant. The point I am making (which you keep evading) is that religion is a powerful motivator for some people to do really bad things. The fact that other people do other bad things for other reasons is not important. Yes racism and material inequality make people do bad things as well and that is reprehensible but the fact that those motivators for bad things exist doesn't mean we should not question other motivators - in this case religion.



It's not correct to say that "different sets of DNA pairs" are used. The link you gave doesn't even say that. What it actually says is that in some organisms a sequence of base pairs which acts as a stop codon in most organisms codes for a protein instead and that a bunch of other organisms also read the DNA code differently. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that over the course of hundreds of millions of years and, in the case of microorganisms, billions upon billions of generations that some mutations have occurred to the way that the cellular apparatus reads genetic code. In fact I'm suprised that there are as few as there are. I already mentioned that I don't especially like Dawkins because of his confrontational style. I also think he's a bit smug. I'd agree with you that using this piece of information in isolation as a proof of evolution would absolutely be incorrect. That would be like convicting somebody of a crime based only on one piece of circumstantial evidence.



Having re-read what I typed I realised that I kinda said the opposite of what I intended to say. I'll show you what I mean. The quote below is what I said. The "not" in bold is the word that shouldhave been there but I evidently forgot to put there - a good debate gets me passionate so I hope you will excuse that I think the beginning of the sentence indicates that that is what I meant all along and as you can see the sentence makes much more sense with the "not" in place :p So I apologise for the confusion I caused. You are of course right this time - mutations which occur at not so important parts of the gene are the ones which are useful for tracking these things exactly as you said above. My earlier point remains that a comparison of the entire gene is not useful and that the kind of comparison done in the study which I linked *is* useful.





As I already mentioned this particular gene is part of a cellular structure called a mitochondrion. They actually have their own genome because, and this is the generally accepted explanation, they were once a primitive form of life which underwent a failed attempt at phagocytosis (a cell eating another cell) by some other life form and accidentally ended up forming a symbiotic relationship which turned out to be very successful. Somebody explained that part earlier. Anyway the main point about them is that they have their very own genome which is not passed in the usual way as the rest of your genome i.e. that part of your genome coded for by the nuclear DNA (the DNA in the nucleus of the cell). In mammals for example the mother's egg is the medium by which we inherit our mitochondria. The sperms also have mitochondria but after they fuse with the egg those mitochondria are disposed of meaning that the mitochondria only come from your mother. This is why mitochondrial DNA studies are so useful because they can be used to trace a direct matrilineal line.

The percentages you are talking about are the differences at that specific gene in the mitochondrial DNA. When people say things like we are "98% genetically identical to chimpanzees" they are referencing the nuclear DNA only and they are not saying that on a codon-by-codon level we are identical but that when you compare the entire nuclear genome it is about 98% similar. Without checking I'd be inclined to think that on a level of the entire mitochondrial genome that we are probably even more similar. The mitochondria isn't what makes a chimpanzee a chimpanzee or a human a human though - it's the genetic code contained in the nucleus which "tells" our cells which shape of body we are going to have, what colour our hair will be etc etc. That's why people talk about "98% similar" and only consider the nuclear DNA.



I would suggest that in this context faith and trust can be considered to be the same thing. You trust in god. You have faith in god. I don't see much difference between those two positions. There actually isn't any evidence in god aside from personally arrived at experiences of faith. Like the Martin Luther quote I mentioned: reason is the enemy of faith. In order to not be making mental somersaults (perhaps unconsciously) then one must suspend one's faculty of reason to a degree in order to remain faithful. God asks for your faith, he even gets pretty pissed with people who ask for proof. So don't look for proof except for that derived from your own faith - especially when that search attempts to impinge on scientific progress which is helping the entire world - you included.



Religion and faith are absolutely not about "using evidence". It's right there in that word: faith. Religion might allow you to arrive at a personal truth - that personal truth, depending on your inclination, could be considered evidence. But it cannot allow you to arrive at universal truths. This is manifest in the fact that people of nearly EVERY faith are able to derive benefit from that. They all feel that they know the answer and it is clearly providing something in their lives. So in the face of that it's staggeringly arrogant to believe that YOUR religion (and even your denomination within a specific religion) is the ONLY correct one. Use faith to examine the world; again that is your prerogative. But that is not what science is about. It's not about a bias (except for some rogue individuals but saying rogue scientists mean that science is invalid is like saying that all preachers are paedophiles because a few chose to fiddle some kids). It's not about everybody agreeing with one another. It's about an, at times adversarial, process of asking EVERY question and never taking anything for granted. The technique has been demonstrably proven a million fold - the computer you're using, the car you drive, the food you eat, the refrigerator you keep your food in, the medicine you take. Probably nearly every item in your house is able to exist and to have gotten to you because of scientific advances because the scientific method works. It's the most useful tool humanity has ever discovered. But allowing faith to become involved in science is dangerous because religious faith is inherently about taking things for granted or, if you like, arriving at a personal truth. If those personal truths conflict with the scientific method and attempt to dictate that NO, things are THIS way it is very dangerous because in science we can afford to take NOTHING for granted. Evolution is accepted because for over a hundred years now people have been questioning EVERYTHING about it and the vastly overwhelming majority of evidence we have proves that it is true. Most of the arguments against evolution that people come out with were dealt with in Darwin's day. We can observe evolution happening.

Now hypothetically, if somebody were to come up with some really good evidence that actually really disproved evolution then scientists would be all over it like a rash! There is nothing scientists like better than being right and proving rival scientists wrong. It would be studied by hundreds of teams across the globe within weeks. There is no scientific conspiracy to cover up that evolution is not real. We'd LOVE to find out that there was a different mechanism in place than evolution because we want to advance our knowledge!



Time for you to wheel out the logical fallacies again hey? "What's usually presented as evidence of evolution is our similarity to other animals" - no, that's one tiny aspect of the vast, overwhelming ocean of evidence for evolution. As far as creators go, I know that creators of cars exist. I used to *think* I knew that a creator of the universe exists but logic tells me it probably does not. By attempting to invoke Occam's Razor as a proof against evolution you look foolish. It's an incredibly simple mechanism. Are you trying to tell me that GOD is more simple than evolution. Really? It's also an infinite regress. Who created god? I suppose your answer would probably be "God just is" or "God is eternal". I really don't find that to be a very satisfying answer and my mind boggles that anybody of intellect could.



I never encountered that man before but from that he is one of the most disingenuous individuals I have heard about this year. He attacks the very thing which makes the scientific method work as the reason for the idea that it is in some way faulty. Science works by coming up with competing models for how a particular thing works. Different scientists approach problems from as many different angles as they can think of. Those models are then tested and if they stand up to the testing i.e. they make accurate real-world predictions then they will be accepted as the current understanding. In the meantime it's entirely probable that another competing team of scientists are theorising and saying that some other way of explaining things may be correct - the "just so" stories that your guy is talking about. If our explanation for something is not entirely satisfying then we theorise and suggest a way that something may work and then attempt to test it. If that way makes better predictions then a consensus is eventually arrived at and our knowledge moves on. Even if something seems counter-intuitive or an unreasonable line of enquiry then it is often still worth checking because things have been proven to often work counter-intuitively or mysteriously. We can't allow a "divine foot" in the door because faith is the enemy of this process of reason in the exact same way that reason is the enemy of faith. So lets just keep the two separate and science can go on advancing because we are gonna need to figure a few things out in the next few decades or we are gonna have some big problems with overpopulation. Standing in the way of that is madness and I will argue til I'm blue in the face against anyone trying to compromise scientific progress.



It really isn't based on circular reasoning. You're projecting again. Religion is based on circular reasoning. Science is based on never assuming anything and questioning everything. I wasn't always convinced by evolution you know. I used to be religiously faithful and learning to NOT be religious was a hard struggle for me. "Belief" in science is NOT the same thing as "belief" in religion - it's about arriving at conclusions based on evidence and suspending any preconceptions one might have. (edit: In fact many experiments are usually designed in order to make it impossible for any preconceptions to affect the outcome).



The number you quoted is utterly meaningless in the absence of a bunch of qualifying information e.g. the number of differences between a very large number of species similarly related to one another. Statistical analysis would then have to be done to determine whether the differences are significant or not. Additionally, "gene" is quite a flexible word and can be used to refer to various different sizes of segment of genetic code so without knowing exactly which genes were different then no useful conclusions can be drawn.



So now we're down to the god of the gaps. Because we do not have a fully comprehensive understanding of some things (and actually we are quite some way toward definitively discovering the origin(s) of life on Earth) then that must mean it is god.

In conclusion: You show me or any biologist worth his salt some evidence that disproves evolution and proves that there is something else going on then we will probably hug you in excitement. We have no agenda, we're not trying to take your faith away from you: scientists just want to be left alone to carry on using the techniques which have proven results and which have allowed nearly everything you enjoy about your modern life to happen. That in itself is the ultimate proof that science works and when an existential threat to that progress is presented then you are damn right people are gonna get pissed off about it. That is the axe Dawkins has to grind and while I don't like him I understand why he feels that way.

I honestly think I'm done now. I've disproven all of your arguments and I don't imagine anything I can say will change your position so I kinda feel as if I am wasting my time. If you happen to post something particularly compelling I will consider replying but until such time I cba anymore; I'm getting bored of this now.

edit: I hope some day you find a way to reconcile your faith with science because if you are a believer and you can't see the wonder of evolution and other such mechanisms in action then you're missing out on a whole new and amazing way to admire your god's creation.

The Bible is mostly nonsense. Fairy tales for bronze age dudes who did not know that matter is composed of atoms.

The Hebrew scriptures TNKH are sanctified stories we Jews exchange with each other. Any relation to material or physical fact is purely coincidental. TNKH is our mythology and it is a shame that Christians grabbed hold of it.,

ruveyn

Do secular authorities agree with this?

Science Digest states: “Evolutionary revisionists believe mutations in key regulatory genes may be just the genetic jackhammers their quantum-leap theory requires.” However, the magazine also quotes British zoologist Colin Patterson as stating: “Speculation is free. We know nothing about these regulatory master genes.” (February 1982, p. 92) In other words, there is no evidence to support the theory.

The Encyclopedia Americana acknowledges: “The fact that most mutations are damaging to the organism seems hard to reconcile with the view that mutation is the source of raw materials for evolution. Indeed, mutants illustrated in biology textbooks are a collection of freaks and monstrosities and mutation seems to be a destructive rather than a constructive process.”—(1977), Vol. 10, p. 742.

The theory of evolution tries to account for the origin of life on earth without the necessity of divine intervention. However, the more that scientists discover about life, the less likely it appears that it could arise by chance. So to sidestep this dilemma, some evolutionary scientists would like to make a distinction between the theory of evolution and the question of the origin of life. But does that sound reasonable to you?

The theory of evolution rests on the notion that a long series of fortunate accidents produced life to start with. It then proposes that another series of undirected accidents produced the astonishing diversity
and complexity of all living things. However, if the foundation of the theory is missing, what happens to the other theories that are built on this assumption? Just as a skyscraper built without a foundation
would collapse, a theory of evolution that cannot explain the origin of life will crumble.



If you believes the bible is God's word, and you believe that God created all things then consider this. Those scriptures I quoted from Genesis show that Jehovah God not only created an abundant variety of animals and plants, but he also created them according their kind or according to their species. This simply means that plants and animals produce offspring with their own kind. Birds with birds, horse with horse. The same is true with humans. No where in the bible - from Genesis to Revelation - does it even hint at some sort of evolutionary process that took place as a result of mutations, that is, sudden drastic changes in genes. To suggest such an event would make God seem like a shoddy creator and not capable of perfection.

The bottom line is evolution and creation are simply not compatible.



How are we teaching lies when all our beliefs comes from the bible? If you want to say we teach lies, then by extension you call the source of our beliefs a lie.

Last edited by kxmode on 14 Sep 2012, 7:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No so much a lie. Rather an un-truth. The non-truth of the Bible is a manifestation of the ignorance that bronze age dudes had about how the material physical world works.

ruveyn

Where is your evidence? How is it untruth? What part of the bible makes it a lie? Throwing out your one or two sentences without a single bit of evidence to back up your words does nothing but make you look like a classic forum troll.

The book of Genesis assumes the world is flat. The four corners of the Earth indeed. Spheres or oblate spheroids don't have corners. Also the assumption that there are waters above the atmosphere (which is why the sky is blue). Then there is the little matter of Jacob shaving branches to induce his ewes to give birth to spotted and striped sheep. And of course the howler about the water basin being three times the length around than it is across. Pi is NOT equal to 3.0 . It never was.

Then there is the psalm celebrating the immovability of the earth. The Lord made the Earth so it shall not be moved. And of course Joshua commanding the Sun and Moon to stop moving. A physical impossibility. And there never was a world wide flood with the oceans rising 15 cubits higher than Mt. Everest.

And that is only a small number of howlers in the bible. There are hundreds but I picked out some of the more obvious Big Howlers. I think I thew out more than one or two sentences, don't you agree. The Bible is nonsense as far as the physical nature of the world is concerned. It should not be taken as a book of fact about the material, physical real world we live in.
What do you expect of a book written by and for late bronze age dudes?

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 15 Sep 2012, 8:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

The Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible both contain statements that God cannot lie and that lying is immoral (Num. 23:19, Hab. 2:3, Heb. 6:13–18). Nevertheless, there are examples of God deliberately causing enemies to become disoriented and confused, in order to provide victory (2 Thess. 2:11; 1 Kings 22:23; Ezek. 14:9):

"And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie" (2 Thess. 2:11 NKJV[28])

Various passages of the Bible feature exchanges that assert lying is immoral and wrong (Prov. 6:16–19; Ps. 5:6), (Lev. 19:11; Prov. 14:5; Prov. 30:6; Zeph. 3:13), (Isa. 28:15; Dan. 11:27), most famously, in the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not bear false witness" (Ex. 20:2–17; Deut. 5:6–21); Ex. 23:1; Matt. 19:18; Mark 10:19; and Luke 18:20 (a specific reference to perjury).

Other passages feature exchanges where lying seems to be seen as acceptable. Old Testament accounts of lying include:

• The midwives lied about their inability to kill the Israelite children. (Ex. 1:15-21).
• Rahab lied to the king of Jericho about hiding the Hebrew spies (Josh. 2:4–5) and was not killed with those who were disobedient because of her faith (Heb. 11:31).
• Abraham instructed his wife, Sarah, to mislead the Egyptians and say that she is his sister (Gen. 12:10). Abraham's story was strictly true -- Sarah was his half-sister -- but intentionally misleading because it was designed to lead the Egyptians to believe that Sarah was not Abraham's wife for Abraham feared that they would kill him in order to take her, for she was very beautiful.

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to the Devil as the father of lies (John 8:44) and Paul commands Christians "Do not lie to one another" (Col. 3:9; cf. Lev. 19:11).

"In the Day of Judgement, liars will be punished in the lake of fire." (Rev. 21:8; 21:27).

And that lie about the basin being 30 cubits around and 10 cubits across ("Pi equal 3") ... it looks like Jeremiah is in for a hot time!

The best you can find to support your arguments are two 28+ year old references? I'd expect better from a Jehovah's Witness considering you likely have some experience of evangelism. Lets examine the quality of the magazine you cited:



I don't think we can call that an especially reliable source of information. I admit the irony of saying that as I myself quote wikipedia for that piece of information but I think you can agree that this is a fairly uncontroversial topic and I could find no other information summarising it. Really though, magazines and newspapers are renowned for mis-representing science stories; not through maliciousness but through incompetence or sensationalism. As for the encyclopaedia I note you cited a 35 year old version of that. 35 years is a VERY, VERY long time in science so a 35 year old controversy proves nothing (and without context we don't even know how much of a controversy that ever was anyway). Besides, disagreement, strife and argument is a big part of what makes science work. You're attacking science on the basis of one of the very qualities which makes it such a powerful tool.



What "some" scientists do is irrelevant. Like I said, approaching problems in lots of different ways is what makes science works. Sometimes considering something in isolation is a useful tool to advance a specific area of knowledge. That is not a weakness but a strength of science.

Also what you are trying to say is that we are missing a few key pieces of knowledge and so all of the other stuff which is already proven beyond doubt is incorrect. No, sorry that is utter crap. Actually some very promising ideas towards explaining the exact origin(s) of life on Earth are floating around now; it's only a matter of time really. The fact that we have not yet arrived at a definitive conclusion to the origin of life does not in one swoop wipe out everything we have learned and proven. We're talking about the god of the gaps again. We never used to be able to explain the change of the seasons. So we prayed to gods to change them for us. We prayed for the wind to come and the rain to come, for natural disasters to be averted because as far as we were concerned there was no other way to explain it. You can observe that pattern all the way up through history, as we have learned more fewer and fewer things are attributed to god or gods. Additionally, there are billions of planets around billions of stars in BILLIONS of galaxies in the universe. An incomprehensible number of opportunities for life to have, by mind boggling good fortune as you have said, occurred. But evidently it did occur here because here we are to talk about it. There is unsurmountable evidence that evolution happens. That cannot be denied and doing so is intellectual childishness; the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING". If you wish to explain the fact that all of this happened by invoking a god then feel free to do so. But do not be so arrogant as to try to "prove" that that things which are beyond doubt are not beyond doubt and do not try to stand in the way of the progress of the single most powerful force for good which humanity has ever conceived.



Then you have to stop acting like King Cnut and adjust your world view to account for the indisputable facts. Fine believe god exists if you want But, even if he does evolution is still happening. The evidence for these things is so vast and overwhelming that if you want to maintain your position, your only options are: (a) you admit that your god played a really f****d up trick to convince us that evolution and an old-earth are true (in which case he is in no way merciful and is absolutely a messed up tyrant OR (b) you have to invoke satan and say that *he* tricked us. In which case just lol.



I'm pretty sure that was what he was implying. "Because the bible says so" is not a very convincing answer to any question because you immediately end up in an infinite regress because the following question "Why is it true if the bible says so?" is of course answered by "Because the bible is the literal word of god". Even if atheists are wrong and there is a god then there is a not a single chance that any religious text is literally true (not just the bible btw I have no particular axe to grind against christians).

Edit: my statements in no way actually accurately represent my beliefs. Contrary to what you think about me, I am normally not that mocking. I didn't even realize that I was being mocking: I have a super-super-super hard time telling what the tone of my writing is. I apologize - I meant in no way to mock. I was being sincere, but my inability to 1) accurately express what I believe in writing and 2) tell what subtle (or not so subtle) tones I am putting in my writing screwed everything up. I assure you, if you were to run into me (but knowing me I would probably quite literally run into you) you would never guess that I was UDAspie13. First, because I don't know if you know this but I'm only 13. Secondly because I would never cross your path - I choose which aisles to go down by whether there are any people in it. Thirdly, because if we did cross paths I would look away and walk by trying not to make eye contact. And lastly, event if I did talk to you, I would never bring up my beliefs, because I know that I inadvertently offend people in various ways way too often. Forgive me?