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Welcome, rk, but please be careful.
.Proverbs describes / defines the fool as the one who despises wisdom and instruction and the one who hates knowledge. See Proverbs 1:7,22.
The genuine fool would be a practical atheist and have heart attitudes that deny God's existence. He / she may not be a professing atheist.
We have professing atheists who do not despise wisdom and instruction and knowledge. They may be atheists in their heads but have hearts that seek after truth and God.
Jesus gave a serious warning about using terminology like "raca" or "fool" and applying it to others (Matthew 5:22) Almighty God can read hearts in ways that we can't. Almighty God knows who is an atheist in their head only and sadly who is one in their heart.
No, all that evolution needs is a driver and that is what Darwin provided through the theory of natural selection. Call it survival of the fittest, if you like, but what it really is, is an arms race. The arms race is a major driver. There is no foresight in evolution, there doesn't need to be. Whether it's better eyesight, better hearing, greater speed or more manoeuverability it is the arms race that drives species to adapt. Plants devise, by chance and through millions of generations, defence mechanisms against herbivores, prey animals improve their ability to escape predation, and the carnivores either keep up or die off. An improvement in one species calls for alterations in the next.
NL, nothing in evolution requires coordination between species. Species either adapt or go extinct. It is that simple, and it is estimated that 99.9 % of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. So failures are common. Not all species leave descendants.
All species show symmetry, that doesn't mean anything. Can you imagine all humans with one leg shorter than the other? People are born that way, and now-a-days they survive, but in an earlier age they would likely have perished. Try to imagine a race of human stone age hunters with one leg shorter than the other. Clearly evolution is responsible for symmetry for the simple reason that it leads to greater survivability – survival of the fittest. Those who have more reproductive success are the ones who leave their genes to posterity. Over thousands of generations nature culls those who are less reproductively fit. This is why Africa is filled with people with dark skin pigmentation. Those with light pigmentation were culled.
Do you believe in Noah's flood? Look at the variety of human types that have arisen in only 4000 years. Not even evolutionists think change can happen that quickly. We think that kind of diversity is the result at least 200,000 years. So creationists must believe in a more rampant form of evolution than even scientists accept.
That's silly. All fetuses start out as female. Those with the Y chromosome begin, after some weeks, the production of hormones that develop male characteristics. So much for the female being made from the male (that story is the product of a male dominated society).
Besides, if evolution produced such a significant difference between the female and the male as to render reproduction impossible that would be the end of that particular lineage. Evolutionary results that by chance go the other direction and enhance reproductive success leave more offspring, and more members of a species then carry the enhanced genes. What's so hard to understand?
We all understand how the genes of domesticated plants and animals can be manipulated over time by farmers, even if those farmers lived in the Bronze Age and didn't really understand the mechanisms involved. Evolution is simply 'domestication' of species by natural events, instead of by the human hand.
No, no, no. The genetic change takes place in the mechanism that creates both eyes. Now I see what you are going on about. You think that a change that makes the legs of the ancestral giraffe longer has to happen four times – once for each leg. No, it doesn't work that way. I am taller than my brother. I didn't have to have two genetic changes, one for each leg to make me taller. Think about it. Do you know anyone with arms longer or shorter than your own? Do you think there are chance mechanisms that some how keep an individual’s arms and legs the same length. Tell me, did you read this somewhere or did you come up with it on your own.
Forget about this symmetry argument. It's a red-herring.
NL, nothing in evolution requires coordination between species. Species either adapt or go extinct. It is that simple, and it is estimated that 99.9 % of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. So failures are common. Not all species leave descendants.
All species show symmetry, that doesn't mean anything. Can you imagine all humans with one leg shorter than the other? People are born that way, and now-a-days they survive, but in an earlier age they would likely have perished. Try to imagine a race of human stone age hunters with one leg shorter than the other. Clearly evolution is responsible for symmetry for the simple reason that it leads to greater survivability – survival of the fittest. Those who have more reproductive success are the ones who leave their genes to posterity. Over thousands of generations nature culls those who are less reproductively fit. This is why Africa is filled with people with dark skin pigmentation. Those with light pigmentation were culled.
Do you believe in Noah's flood? Look at the variety of human types that have arisen in only 4000 years. Not even evolutionists think change can happen that quickly. We think that kind of diversity is the result at least 200,000 years. So creationists must believe in a more rampant form of evolution than even scientists accept.
That's silly. All fetuses start out as female. Those with the Y chromosome begin, after some weeks, the production of hormones that develop male characteristics. So much for the female being made from the male (that story is the product of a male dominated society).
Besides, if evolution produced such a significant difference between the female and the male as to render reproduction impossible that would be the end of that particular lineage. Evolutionary results that by chance go the other direction and enhance reproductive success leave more offspring, and more members of a species then carry the enhanced genes. What's so hard to understand?
We all understand how the genes of domesticated plants and animals can be manipulated over time by farmers, even if those farmers lived in the Bronze Age and didn't really understand the mechanisms involved. Evolution is simply 'domestication' of species by natural events, instead of by the human hand.
No, no, no. The genetic change takes place in the mechanism that creates both eyes. Now I see what you are going on about. You think that a change that makes the legs of the ancestral giraffe longer has to happen four times – once for each leg. No, it doesn't work that way. I am taller than my brother. I didn't have to have two genetic changes, one for each leg to make me taller. Think about it. Do you know anyone with arms longer or shorter than your own? Do you think there are chance mechanisms that some how keep an individual’s arms and legs the same length. Tell me, did you read this somewhere or did you come up with it on your own.
Forget about this symmetry argument. It's a red-herring.
Below is a short 4 minute video that gives one very good example of why this is wrong. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Richard Dawkins demonstrates laryngeal nerve of the giraffe - YouTube
Richard Dawkins demonstrates laryngeal nerve of the giraffe - YouTube
It sure looks like you are believing in something that isn't there. Natural selection may kill off the weak and the slow but there's no driver to create something and have it be useful. If evolution were to have a driver at all, evolution would be driving blind. If unguided, an eye might try to form on the feet or on the elbow. What would place it on the front of the face? Where are all of the failed attempts in the fossil record or in the zoo? Long before the eye could evolve over multiple generations and function, it would fail and be selected out. Long before muscle, bone and feathers, could form a bird wing, it would fail and impede survival rather than support it. What would "drive" it to form at all?
Yes, I have been exposed to some authors on intelligent design so I have pondered some thoughts there. If the eye could form by some impossible chance once on the left side of the face, what evolutionary force would cause it to form with matching structures on the right side of the face? What evolutionary force drives symmetry? What drives the left side of an organism to match the right side of an organism consistently and repeatedly? Evolution is driving blindly if it manages to drive at all so how could evolution be guided to do the same things on the left side as on the right? Where are all the un-symmetrical evolutionary failures that were replaced by the successes of natural selection? Why does symmetry succeed and non-symmetry fail?
Faith in the improbable happening repeatedly is a false hope that is really a faith in the impossible. It seem much more rational to believe in an Intelligent Designer and to seek his/her identity and attributes and then to seek an ongoing relationship of mutual initiation and response.
Yes, I have been exposed to some authors on intelligent design so I have pondered some thoughts there. If the eye could form by some impossible chance once on the left side of the face, what evolutionary force would cause it to form with matching structures on the right side of the face? What evolutionary force drives symmetry? What drives the left side of an organism to match the right side of an organism consistently and repeatedly? Evolution is driving blindly if it manages to drive at all so how could evolution be guided to do the same things on the left side as on the right? Where are all the un-symmetrical evolutionary failures that were replaced by the successes of natural selection? Why does symmetry succeed and non-symmetry fail?
Faith in the improbable happening repeatedly is a false hope that is really a faith in the impossible. It seem much more rational to believe in an Intelligent Designer and to seek his/her identity and attributes and then to seek an ongoing relationship of mutual initiation and response.
Richard Dawkins criticizes the design of the largyngeal nerve because it seems to take the long route and assumes that the design is poor and accidental. I saw the video. It was entertaining and a bit bloody but it was OK.
Yes, four times.
I think that a left wing and a right wing must have developed together or a bird couldn't fly. If the bone, muscle, feather, and nervous system of the two wings had developed gradually over multiple generations, then they would have hindered survival until they were formed well enough to fly. There was nothing to drive the coordinated development of left and right bird wings and nothing to sustain that development across multiple generations. The design would have needed to be preserved in DNA which is another marvel impossible to accidental development.
Nothing generates nothing. Designers developed airplanes and jets. A designer was needed to develop a giraffe, a bird, an Adam and an Eve.
Yes, four times.
I think that a left wing and a right wing must have developed together or a bird couldn't fly. If the bone, muscle, feather, and nervous system of the two wings had developed gradually over multiple generations, then they would have hindered survival until they were formed well enough to fly. There was nothing to drive the coordinated development of left and right bird wings and nothing to sustain that development across multiple generations. The design would have needed to be preserved in DNA which is another marvel impossible to accidental development.
Nothing generates nothing. Designers developed airplanes and jets. A designer was needed to develop a giraffe, a bird, an Adam and an Eve.
Void, I had thought about saying something like that (more than once and including yesterday) but had not said it. Void, you did say it (Thanks. .). Void, "do you believe in magic"? Do you believe in magic (that behaves like a god)?
How could four legs of the giraffe evolve in a coordinated fashion? How do four legged creatures develop four coordinated legs that are coordinated by a nervous system to work together to enable efficient walking? Where are all the clumsy, uncoordinated, four-footed creatures who stumble along while blind evolution fails and naturally selects, then fails and naturally selects repeatedly again. In observations today, I see only four-legged creatures with an elegant, coordinated walking process.
We don't see failing designs for four-legged walking that are on their way to being naturally selected out of existence. Has evolution and natural selection gone on hold for four-legged creatures for recent centuries of recorded human history? The natural selection path for blind evolution would require a large volume of dead, rotting failures. Four-legged creatures like giraffes, horses and dogs all walk in an elegant, coordinated manner. I saw my two dogs run yesterday and their legs all matched and worked together well to run well.
"Magic" and idolatrous gods never ask for repentance from sin and never ask for things like love and humility and faith and picking up crosses and following Jesus Christ. Therefore, they could easily be more popular than a God who does ask for those things.
Naturalistic, blind evolution faces many questions that an Intelligent Designer could answer but many don't want that answer. Intelligent Design is revealed in the natural order on earth and in the universe. The Intelligent Designer is revealed in 66 Books of the Bible written by over 40 authors during a period of approximately 1500-1600 years. The Intelligent Designer is also affirmed in the personal testimonies of individual Christians who have been influenced by the Providential hand of God in history, supernatural grace and the supernatural Holy Spirit.
.). Void, "do you believe in magic"? Do you believe in magic (that behaves like a god)?How could four legs of the giraffe evolve in a coordinated fashion? How do four legged creatures develop four coordinated legs that are coordinated by a nervous system to work together to enable efficient walking? Where are all the clumsy, uncoordinated, four-footed creatures who stumble along while blind evolution fails and naturally selects, then fails and naturally selects repeatedly again. In observations today, I see only four-legged creatures with an elegant, coordinated walking process.
We don't see failing designs for four-legged walking that are on their way to being naturally selected out of existence. Has evolution and natural selection gone on hold for four-legged creatures for recent centuries of recorded human history? The natural selection path for blind evolution would require a large volume of dead, rotting failures. Four-legged creatures like giraffes, horses and dogs all walk in an elegant, coordinated manner. I saw my two dogs run yesterday and their legs all matched and worked together well to run well.
"Magic" and idolatrous gods never ask for repentance from sin and never ask for things like love and humility and faith and picking up crosses and following Jesus Christ. Therefore, they could easily be more popular than a God who does ask for those things.
Naturalistic, blind evolution faces many questions that an Intelligent Designer could answer but many don't want that answer. Intelligent Design is revealed in the natural order on earth and in the universe. The Intelligent Designer is revealed in 66 Books of the Bible written by over 40 authors during a period of approximately 1500-1600 years. The Intelligent Designer is also affirmed in the personal testimonies of individual Christians who have been influenced by the Providential hand of God in history, supernatural grace and the supernatural Holy Spirit.
You Say There Is No God
You say there is no God
But there's a God for me
He walked among us on this earth
He made the lame to walk - He caused the blind to see
You say there is no God
But daily He would teach
People crowded round about
There is not one soul that He does not try to reach
You say there is no God
But you see the sun shine bright
You breath the air - Your heart beats on
Your eyes they give you sight
You say there is no God
But His love for you abounds
There's proof in nature and in the skies
You just have to look around
You say there is not God
But His heart aches for you
He won't force you to love Him back
It's your choice - What will you do?
by Darlene written 3/9/14
You say there is no God
But there's a God for me
He walked among us on this earth
He made the lame to walk - He caused the blind to see
You say there is no God
But daily He would teach
People crowded round about
There is not one soul that He does not try to reach
You say there is no God
But you see the sun shine bright
You breath the air - Your heart beats on
Your eyes they give you sight
You say there is no God
But His love for you abounds
There's proof in nature and in the skies
You just have to look around
You say there is not God
But His heart aches for you
He won't force you to love Him back
It's your choice - What will you do?
by Darlene written 3/9/14
Hi JL, I have heard of the Hydroplate Theory, I have read a bit about it, I did watch the video, and I totally discount it.
Donald Prothero, a geologist, has a book entitled Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. He has a very good section on the Grand Canyon, examines it in detail, and explains why the arguments for it being caused by a single flood make no sense at all. Brown doesn't answer any of the objections in his video, in fact he doesn't even make the viewer aware that there are significant objections to his hypothesis. If Brown's claims stand or fall based on observations from the Grand Canyon, then the Hydroplate Theory is, indeed, in tatters.
I will try to find something on-line from Prothero for you, but if you really do want to know the truth look for his book in a public library. He snaps the door shut on Walter Brown's ragtag notions. By the way, Brown is an engineer, not a geologist. It takes a geologist to explain why Brown's arguments are nothing more than pseudo science.
There is a lot of information on-line explaining why this is nothing but pseudo science. I can post some of it for you if you wish.
Donald Prothero, a geologist, has a book entitled Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters. He has a very good section on the Grand Canyon, examines it in detail, and explains why the arguments for it being caused by a single flood make no sense at all. Brown doesn't answer any of the objections in his video, in fact he doesn't even make the viewer aware that there are significant objections to his hypothesis. If Brown's claims stand or fall based on observations from the Grand Canyon, then the Hydroplate Theory is, indeed, in tatters.
I will try to find something on-line from Prothero for you, but if you really do want to know the truth look for his book in a public library. He snaps the door shut on Walter Brown's ragtag notions. By the way, Brown is an engineer, not a geologist. It takes a geologist to explain why Brown's arguments are nothing more than pseudo science.
There is a lot of information on-line explaining why this is nothing but pseudo science. I can post some of it for you if you wish.
Boiled down to ground Zero, the one that caused and created all here that we see and beyond, JUST LOVES US all. people are dogmatic and tyrants to their way against others ways and thoughts ans wars have broken out, Where Christ did not fight back and willingly took the whippings and beatings from man.
Now that is amazing, would anyone else do this for anyone else? Did this man go to a cross and get crucified, in all your studies, was there such a man here on earth that this happened to?
Now that is amazing, would anyone else do this for anyone else? Did this man go to a cross and get crucified, in all your studies, was there such a man here on earth that this happened to?
JL, you have asked why I don't believe in God, and I have tried to explain, but it is not my desire to turn you into an atheist. There are leading American scientists, like Francis Collins, who are devout Christians, and they believe everything I do in every field of science. Collins is one of the foremost geneticists in the world and he says the genes prove the case for evolution. This is a man who believes Jesus died for our sins. If Collins can accept evolution then why can't you? His book, The Language of God, is not very long and personally I think it is a very lively read (but then I enjoy reading about biology). He also has a section explaining his faith and there he presents why he sees no conflict between science and God. Read it, you might be persuaded.
I have looked around. The things you interpret as evidence of God in nature I have scientific explanations for. For example, Job is asked:
Have you visited the storehouse of the snow
or seen the arsenal where hail is stored,
which I have kept ready for the day of calamity,
for war and for the hour of battle? (Job 38:22-23)
Now Job, I think, is meant to represent all of us. When he is asked if he has seen the storehouses for hail and snow, kept by God, the author is pointing out that none of us is privy to that knowledge, to that understanding – it is really beyond the comprehension of mortal men. At least that was the case in that author’s day. JL, though this is poetry it is not metaphor. The author of Job really did imagine that God kept storehouses in heaven. How else to explain snow falling from the sky, let alone understanding where hail came from. This really is a primitive understanding. If you asked kids in public school today about storehouses in the sky for snow and hail how do you think they would respond? Children in our own era have a better understanding of the cause of snow and hail than did educated men in the 6th century BC when this text may have been penned.
So no, when I look at the natural world I do not see evidence of God. The science I accept does not disprove God, it simply provides rationales that have no need of supernatural explanations.
As I have explained, I started out with belief in God, the belief waned, and then I tried very hard to get it back. It is not as if I have willfully ignored God. I did reach out, but if God is there he did not take my hand. Essentially, after the first doubts arose I tried for six years to find him. I gave it my best shot. The evidence, that is God, never presented himself. The idea that God has tried to talk with me, but I have been unable to hear him, is absurd. When God talks to you, you hear him. He’s God! What kind of deity can’t make himself heard. That’s nonsense. What’s really happening here, I think, is apologists are trying to get around the problem of why people become atheists in the first place. What’s often ignored is that many of these atheists were first Christians. We’ve simply lost an earlier belief that we once had. When believers presume that atheists are ignoring God, or that God won’t talk with atheists, this ignores that these people were Christians first. They believed in God but over time lost that belief. Why didn’t God talk with us back when we believed? Why didn’t he make himself heard when some of us tried to talk with him before completely losing our faith? Your poem does not address these issues.
JL, I presume you are the poet?
I have written some poetry in my own time, though I don’t claim it’s very good.
I have looked around. The things you interpret as evidence of God in nature I have scientific explanations for. For example, Job is asked:
Have you visited the storehouse of the snow
or seen the arsenal where hail is stored,
which I have kept ready for the day of calamity,
for war and for the hour of battle? (Job 38:22-23)
Now Job, I think, is meant to represent all of us. When he is asked if he has seen the storehouses for hail and snow, kept by God, the author is pointing out that none of us is privy to that knowledge, to that understanding – it is really beyond the comprehension of mortal men. At least that was the case in that author’s day. JL, though this is poetry it is not metaphor. The author of Job really did imagine that God kept storehouses in heaven. How else to explain snow falling from the sky, let alone understanding where hail came from. This really is a primitive understanding. If you asked kids in public school today about storehouses in the sky for snow and hail how do you think they would respond? Children in our own era have a better understanding of the cause of snow and hail than did educated men in the 6th century BC when this text may have been penned.
So no, when I look at the natural world I do not see evidence of God. The science I accept does not disprove God, it simply provides rationales that have no need of supernatural explanations.
As I have explained, I started out with belief in God, the belief waned, and then I tried very hard to get it back. It is not as if I have willfully ignored God. I did reach out, but if God is there he did not take my hand. Essentially, after the first doubts arose I tried for six years to find him. I gave it my best shot. The evidence, that is God, never presented himself. The idea that God has tried to talk with me, but I have been unable to hear him, is absurd. When God talks to you, you hear him. He’s God! What kind of deity can’t make himself heard. That’s nonsense. What’s really happening here, I think, is apologists are trying to get around the problem of why people become atheists in the first place. What’s often ignored is that many of these atheists were first Christians. We’ve simply lost an earlier belief that we once had. When believers presume that atheists are ignoring God, or that God won’t talk with atheists, this ignores that these people were Christians first. They believed in God but over time lost that belief. Why didn’t God talk with us back when we believed? Why didn’t he make himself heard when some of us tried to talk with him before completely losing our faith? Your poem does not address these issues.
JL, I presume you are the poet?
I have written some poetry in my own time, though I don’t claim it’s very good.
People at the time of both Moses And Jesus saw miracles but yet didn't believe.
People believe what they want to believe.
Reasons why people don't believe include:
The humble response to the awesome is worship of the Awe-Inspiring.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall see God (Matthew 5).
People believe what they want to believe.
Reasons why people don't believe include:
- Fear of Humiliation
- Fear of Rejection
The humble response to the awesome is worship of the Awe-Inspiring.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall see God (Matthew 5).
The evidence for evolution is overwhelming. No faith is required.
This is all nonsense. I will bet you that everything you witnessed on the DVD was staged. No atheist would respond that way. No one teaching evolution would be so inept. What were the names of the professors being interviewed? No student would say he believed only because he had faith in the professor.
What is the title of this DVD? I think you've been had.
This is all nonsense. I will bet you that everything you witnessed on the DVD was staged. No atheist would respond that way. No one teaching evolution would be so inept. What were the names of the professors being interviewed? No student would say he believed only because he had faith in the professor.
What is the title of this DVD? I think you've been had.