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
Life has been around much earlier than you think, MasterC. I'm reclarifying so we are all on the same page.
I never really knew the approximate amount of time, but my point was to show that it's been around for awhile. Thank you though Freakenstein for the clarification.
Here's a more expanded history of dogs as taken from RationalWiki:
Modern dogs are generally believed to have genetically diverged from their wolf ancestors roughly 15,000 years ago. It is not known whether this was a result of humans actively domesticating the wolf (artificial selection), or rather the result of evolutionary pressure that favored canines who were less frightened by, and therefore more willing to approach, humans (which would be natural selection). It is quite possible that it was a combination of both factors, with wolves being naturally selected to evolve into something similar to so-called "village dogs" that are domesticated but not really owned, before being selectively bred from there. In any event, the relationship between dogs and humans greatly improved the chances of survival for both and brought them together in the situation they are in now. Over time, the selective breeding of canines by man has resulted in the many different breeds of dog that we know today.
No i'm not, although i'm still chuckling about that sun comment on it being too close to the earth.
im saying the sun was near the earth and then it shrunk by your standpoint.
Fine, i'll be back in a bit with a fossil record site, a site telling you how old the earth is and when life started with unicellular organisms, and the different periods and extinctions withen them, and how old the sun is.
i mean not just 'that's preposterous!' actual stuff.
Of course it's Natural Selection! Natural Selection is, obviously, one of the driving forces behind Evolution. But let me make something clear (so I wouldn't have to triple post and feel guilty). I'm pretty sure that millions of years is *not* fast work. We can take Evolution on different scales and see that it affects organisms faster than others, but again, it is a relatively very slow process. A faster scale would include size, gestation period, number of offspring, etc. Regardless of how much and how fast organisms breed, Evolution of the species is still a slow process.
another person said we could see it through fast breeding orginisims
@avorne i may skim those. but i see that the lake victoria on your first link there are other explanations.
we can not see minor creatures evolving.we can see natural selction
Yes we can see above. natural selection is just a mechanism by which evolution works.
actually, you have seen fossils, but you have not seen your inbetween fossil what is it called again?
Yes we have them, in fact with the line leading to us is so complete we have a hard time distinguishing if we have a new species or just a slight variation of a pre-established species. It's so complete a guy was able to do this using artistic renderings of the species we've found so far. Quest for Truth: Transitional Species
Millions of years to change quite noticably.
We can see noticeable changes in short periods of time as well, such as with the Italian wall Lizard or Nylonase.
wait, so now your say evolution is fast?
Evolution occurs in generations, the more generations the more likely we are to see the incremental changed amount to noticeable differences.
natural selection is short.Dogs are example. earth is too young for them too 'become a different species' in fact even with time this probably wont happen.
The earth is 4.5 billion years old, plenty of time for evolution to do it's thing.
if the earth is old, it and the sun would have touched at one point.this is because the sun shrinks a few feet every year.
The sun is in flux, it shrinks and expands.
too you its old.not to me. it is because of God.
That's because you ignore evidence in favor of your mythology.
in fact the bible its self has been written by different authors in different places in different times. Yet they all match up. How is that possible? By a divine being. GOD.
Again: LOL. There are soooooooo many contradictions in the Bible. Have you ever read about Jesus' resurrection? There are 4 different accounts in the Bible and all of them contradict each other.
I'm not even gonna talk to you about evolution and the age of the earth. It's always the same. Every other month there's someone new in the WEPR stating that evolution is wrong. Then Avorne or Mage have to teach them a lesson e.g. by showing them a list of good sites. The sad thing is just that probably none of the creationists will read those sites because they don't want accept evolution as a fact. They WANT to believe in creation.
oh well. About Isaiah 45 Here, however the Vulgate has "malum" ("evil" in this place. But I have reached a Kabbala source (translated to Russian) that also quoted Isaiah 45:7 as "creating disasters". Old Orthodox translation holds "evil" as an adjective, not as a noun, that is "evil somethings" that are in fact anything that does humans harm, we can call these disasters. Also, "God is source of all evil" as an opposition to whatever NT states is a heresy officially condemned with Origen and Marcion. So this argument is wrong.
@vesperbot My brain may be cooked by today's sun, but I can't see what Marcion has to do with the current discussion. I read the whole article. He proposed a dualistic god notion; where does that play a role in what we've been discussing? You might have to enlighten me... Also, I don't know if"'god is the source of all evil" is a heresy as an opposition to the NT, specifically, but I do think that god can only be the source, ultimately, of all evil; and I won't use that as any kind of evidence against his existence, I just find it stupid when christians deny his responsibility for the evil happening.
I just find it stupid when christians deny his responsibility for the evil happening.
I expect that you take the phrase "we are responsible for evil" as "God is utterly not responsible for evil", which is a kind of a false dichotomy. God lets evil happen sometimes, and we are those who provoke it happening in the first place.
Aobut Marcion - he used a theory that God in OT was like a demiurg, whacking hard at everyone who does bad, and that God in NT is a different God, kind and all that. Still, "God is a source of all evil" is wrong, as we are responsible for at least its initiation.
God lets evil happen sometimes, and we are those who provoke it happening in the first place.
Still, "God is a source of all evil" is wrong, as we are responsible for at least its initiation.
God knew evil would happen, and let's it happen. Therefore he is the very first responsible for all evil, whether we do it or not, whether it happens or not. Maybe he can't be blamed for a specific evil a single human has done, but he can be blamed for making it possible and accepting it.
