I grew up atheist for 16 years. I had always kept an open mind towards religion, but never really felt a need to believe in it. My sister started going to a Wednesday night children's program at a church. Eventually, I was dragged into a Christmas Eve service. Scoffing, I reluctantly went, assuming that this was going to be a load of crap, but when I went, I felt something. Something that I've never felt before. I felt a sense of empowerment and a sense of calling. Jesus called upon my soul, just like he did with his disciples. he wanted me to follow him. Now, my life is being lived for Christ. He died on the cross for my sins, and the sins of everyone who believes in him. He was beaten, brutalized, struck with a whip 39 times, made to carry a cross up to the stage of his death. This I believe to be true, and I can never repay him for what he has done. I still have my struggles with Christianity, but I've found this bit of information most useful. Religion is not comprehensible in the human mind, because we cannot comprehend the idea of a perfect and supreme being, a God, but we can believe it in our heart, and that's the idea of faith. Faith is, even though everything rides against me believing in Jesus, I still believe in him because I know that it's true in my heart. I invite my fellow Brothers and sisters of the LORD to talk about how Jesus has helped you in your life. No atheists and no insults please
As a christian I believe God created, well basically everything! I find it hard to believe that everything came out of nothing.
Because it didn't. True nothing doesn't exist, so technically even what we think of as nothing is something as we still have quantum fluctuations. In this sense we could essentially say something can come from nothing, but it wouldn't be a technically accurate statement.
Ok time to debunk another Christian sentence by sentence if there is something to debunk in that sentence.
I see word juggling all over the place here. Hum.
1.What do you mean by pure creationist because it seems like your overgeneralizing.2.and Angels aren't the most perfect since Lucifer(satan) obviously wasn't.
1. Overgeneralization intended. "Pure" means position to its extreme, as in "ure radical" in terms of "let's kill em all FTGJ", or Wahhabism in Islam. Opposite position is also "ure" in the same terms. 2. Angels are "erfect" in terms of "cannot change", if something is able to change, it is not perfect. Angels cannot change by themselves, so if they chose to live without God as Lucifer (or Satan) did, and convinced many to do the same, they can't change this.
Basically saying that God is in another Universe?
Basically saying God is above the universe. The same approach can be applied to the source of randomness, as no one yet can determine how randomness occurs.
All I can say is you should read up on Evolution because it's not just about mutations.And evolution doesn't explain how we started.
I think you should read this debate wholly first, before throwing such statements. Evolution consists of three factors. One is mutations, that happen randomly from our POV. Two is negative selection, detrimental mutations are eradicated from the populace of a species because the specimen with them lose in terms of survival. Three is positive selection, the specimen with mutations that allow something to be done better flourish in terms of procrastination and survival. And there is a hidden four, that is mutations that do not affect immediate selection but can act as positive or negative later (or both, in fact, if by some means the populace of certain species will split, and in one part the mutation will be evolutionary beneficial, and in other detrimental, due to change in existential conditions).
Evolution started as a result of imperfect molecular replication. Also the processes involved aren't all random.
They aren't ALL random indeed, but while SOME of them are random, there is room for God's interference. And no, some of the mutations are caused by radiation whacking at the DNA/RNA, causing source damage.
Watch this "I'm denying God because of that". No I'm going to be excessively punished just because I don't believe in him?
You ask this again? You definitely need to read this whole.
and what's not in the Bible isn't God's word
Trolling huh?
Wait, if you find it hard to believe that everything came out of nothing, what do you believe God created everything out of?
"Everything came out of nothing" is hard to believe, if not for God who can do this. Actually Catechism contains some words that God didn't need anything to create the world from.
"Quantum fluctuations" you say MGW? Well, if you can create something out of them, you can claim they are "something".
They aren't ALL random indeed, but while SOME of them are random, there is room for God's interference.
Er, not a lot of room, honestly. Because mutations, when not due because of any external source, happen at a certain frequency due to "sloppy" work of DNA replicating enzymes. Most of it are eliminated by proofreading activity of the enzyme, there are a few that are overseen. If god acts through systemic mutations, why is there an enzyme activity that eliminates most mutations?
If god acts through systemic mutations, why is there an enzyme activity that eliminates most mutations?
Because creation is imperfect. Basically, any logical explanation of why a DNA protection is needed, eventually comes here. Be it energy interference, Brownian movement that is required for the proteins to be successfully combined from aminoacids (as well as DNA replication), other factors I hadn't come up to yet, everything hits the wall of imperfectness. But these imperfections are the closer reason of why we are not all clones with a completely identical DNA (of two types, in case of gender), the more distant reason lies within God.
About "not a lot of room" - well, God does not need much room to act through, note that He had 4.5b years of Earth's existence, this means there was a LOT of "room" already. And, this is only one aspect of the many where God can interfere with creation. Say, nuclear instability. A certain nucleus of 137-Cs can break apart at any given moment, but the half-life of 137-Cs en masse is ~30 years. The usual result of 137-Cs nucleus dissociation is a gamma-quantum and a beta-particle, and a 137-Ba nucleus. This gamma-quantum does the most damage to living body due to its high penetrative ability and possibility to hit DNAs, while the beta particle normally reacts with the outer layers, membranes etc. The reason of why atoms break up is known to us, but the reason of why did this atom break up if nothing influenced it is unknown.
You forgot genetic recombination. We still would be different genetic individuals even if the enzymes were perfect and made no mistake. God is not needed to make such mishaps in order to avoid everyone from being clones.
, note that He had 4.5b years of Earth's existence, this means there was a LOT of "room" already.
Just a bit of nitpicking - life isn't as old as the planet itself, and modern genus only arose rather late. Not to speak of how young the human species is. This, just to say that it's rather unimportant how long exactly 'god' had time to fine-tune life.
But I think I get your point, if you believe god exists, you can also believe in evolution since it doesn't exclude the presence of a deity. This would mean creationists could 'coexist' with evolutionists.. theoretically. Practically, creationists reject the current theory of evolution, since apparently they still believe god created the world otherwise and humans coexisted with dinosaurs.
For myself, I must say I don't believe so I don't see a reason to assume god is behind the mechanisms we can't explain today.. see my point? Everything you said: it could be, but as long as one does not believe, there is no reason to assume, nor any evidence pointing towards, a god steering molecular/submolecular processes in order to develop creation. It is basically open to belief and research.
You forgot genetic recombination. We still would be different genetic individuals even if the enzymes were perfect and made no mistake. God is not needed to make such mishaps in order to avoid everyone from being clones.
These require mutations to be produced in the first place. If there could be no mutation, there could be no difference in humans because only one available variation of any gene will appear. (In case of this, there could be no evolution as well, since there will be no base to select anything from.)
This would mean creationists could 'coexist' with evolutionists.. theoretically. Practically, creationists reject the current theory of evolution, since apparently they still believe god created the world otherwise and humans coexisted with dinosaurs.
Practically we always have to face personal opinions that can differ from our own, and some people can be both stubborn and pressing enough to make their personal opinion dominant in their vicinity, and spread it sround with zeal using support of their convinced neighbors. This is common to any sphere of choice, be it evolution, religion, scientific theories (if unable to provide experiments to prove either side - there was time when Rutherford, Bohr and Planck (IIRC) were opposed by a strong common opinion on the atom's structure, even having experiments as proof they failed to convince their opposition. Eventually their theory prevailed as more experiments amass complying data, but still), theories of how the world should be run, philosophy, arts, etc etc etc. As Christians who want to live by the law of "love God" and "love thy neighbor", we have to explain what's wrong and what's right and not enforce our POV into others. Unfortunately, this is not the case everywhere. We have to work on ourselves to fix this.
For myself, I must say I don't believe so I don't see a reason to assume god is behind the mechanisms we can't explain today.. see my point? Everything you said: it could be, but as long as one does not believe, there is no reason to assume, nor any evidence pointing towards, a god steering molecular/submolecular processes in order to develop creation. It is basically open to belief and research.
I see. We are not to enforce the beliefs into people as well.
I agree, without mutations diversity wouldn't have arose like it did. My point was more, if from now on there were no mutations, that wouldn't lead to people getting similar or even clones. Genetic recombination is enough to keep a certain level of diversity, even though it can't bring totally new aspects in.
Just a thought, why would god care for physical diversity? You claim we have souls, I guess each soul is unique and has it's free will. Of course it's nice that we don't all look too similar, but wouldn't it become optional in the assumption of souls existing?
They aren't ALL random indeed, but while SOME of them are random, there is room for God's interference.
This is just a God of the gaps argument. Really I'm no more impressed here than if I were to role a die and have it come up three. That is also just as random and requires God to be involved just as much.
"Quantum fluctuations" you say MGW? Well, if you can create something out of them, you can claim they are "something".
There are currently no known ways of using them. Though some hypothesize these fluctuations are what kick started the Big Bang.
Ohh , im an atheist. I don't think there is a god. I think its just a tradition in life to listen to stuff that may not be true *May* key word there. But i dont go against others beleifs , cause thats rude.
Why don't you think that creation was intended to be imperfect?
I don't think it was creation at all. Though you God becomes less than perfect by using imperfect means.
Any valid debunking here?
What I'm saying is your argument is just arbitrarily inserting God into an unknown and suggesting God as a default. There is no basis to make such a claim.
Though you God becomes less than perfect by using imperfect means.
How come? God uses prophets, imperfect humans by default, as tools to fulfill His will (speak Jonah, Jeremiah etc) and actually continues to do so with some people. Why does this make Him "less perfect"? He just wants us to be involved, and people like to be involved in something good. (At least there's me, I like to see the fruit of my work)
What I'm saying is your argument is just arbitrarily inserting God into an unknown and suggesting God as a default. There is no basis to make such a claim.
This means there's no disproof. But yes, no proof either. I'm in fact just indicating that God can interfere through what we call random, this actually solves a lot of contradictions if accepted.
How come? God uses prophets, imperfect humans by default, as tools to fulfill His will (speak Jonah, Jeremiah etc) and actually continues to do so with some people. Why does this make Him "less perfect"? He just wants us to be involved, and people like to be involved in something good. (At least there's me, I like to see the fruit of my work)
If you have God doing something imperfectly that makes him no longer perfect. Also the process of evolution from a consciously guided design perspective is real sloppy. So a perfect being picking this as a means to arrive at his chosen people leaves your God looking pathetically far from being perfect.
This means there's no disproof. But yes, no proof either. I'm in fact just indicating that God can interfere through what we call random, this actually solves a lot of contradictions if accepted.
It this isn't just an argument from ignorance "We don't know how these mutations will turn out, so God did it", this is also moving the goalpost. Since the evidence and explanations for evolution are so demonstrable, your forced to moved the argument from ignorance from a larger scale to a smaller one. Since many want to still hold to this larger unknown this is where we get attempts to debunk evolution, so they can continue to insert God into that unknown. While I think it's good to try and poke holes in a theory the reasons behind it are bad ones and it's a poor mindset to do it in.
This also makes God useless. If we can get these outcomes without God there is no point to add him beyond some feeble grasp to hang on to a silly misplaced belief. It's like my comment on rolling a die. Here we have only six outcomes, we can reduce this with a coin flip giving only two outcomes. Adding God here is superfluous because regardless if there is or isn't one we can still get one of six or one of two outcomes. With evolution these randoms events are more varied but the possibilities to end up with what we have still exist with or without adding God.
This also doesn't really solve the contradictions but it just claims the stories to be metaphor and it ignores them in a form of cherry picking to make it say something that allows you to maintain your cognitive dissonance. The story in the Bible doesn't make sense in light of the evidence for Evolution, so you say god fit's into these random events and the stories in the Bible are metaphorical of that relieving that in order to alleviate that conflict.
If you have God doing something imperfectly that makes him no longer perfect.
Incorrect.
If we can get these outcomes without God
You can GET something without God? In order to do this, you first have to prove there is no God to start with. Otherwise you can only theorize how something can occur without God, but with evolution you are talking one of the continuum of possibilities, which makes this theory useless in disproving God.
You speak of possible outcomes in throwing dice. Yes, a throw of a die can result in only 7 outcomes, they are 1 to 6, and an invalid value otherwise, say you overdid it and the die broke apart or was lost, or it say ended up in grass with its corner upwards. A coin flip has 4 outcomes, not two, they are heads, tails, edges, lost/invalid. (I have once thrown a coin and it came edge up.) If you speak with probabilities, you are oversimplifying both, which is technically wrong if applied to reality.
It this isn't just an argument from ignorance "We don't know how these mutations will turn out, so God did it", this is also moving the goalpost. Since the evidence and explanations for evolution are so demonstrable, your forced to moved the argument from ignorance from a larger scale to a smaller one. Since many want to still hold to this larger unknown this is where we get attempts to debunk evolution, so they can continue to insert God into that unknown. While I think it's good to try and poke holes in a theory the reasons behind it are bad ones and it's a poor mindset to do it in.
This seems to be a really refined "ure evolutionist" position, very close to an ideal. You have science as your god, and if presented miracles, you seem to seek for any explanation that could fit into your mind, and if you fail, you just say "LALALA I don't hear it" as I have seen you accusing some of us that do like this. But if you have a possible explanation, but there are nitpicks that contradict it, you throw an argument from ignorance yourself "Ahh humans, they are imperfect, so this should be verified with an experiment, unbiased, stuff". While this works with science (I used "mundane" to designate this field of application), this does not work with supernatural. So even if you try, you fail, then you call it experiment error and plain ignore. Aren't you a hypocrite when you do like this?
