Do you accept the theory of evolution? - Part 1

[Kelly]

That's true. You don't have to be Christian to reject science.

Nor do you have to be non-Christian to agree with Science...

 

[Thundercrack85]

Just certain sciences.

 

[childeroland]

No, the evidence is there with the dinosaur examples from the videos. The clear descriptions cannot be ignored by the "artwork." I gave the reason as to why it isn't being taught inmy last post to you. And the evidence doesn't "prove" that dinos existed with man, it simply is exactly what it is, evidence - an open possiblity.

Those examples are visual impressions of that the guys in the video THINK the artists were depicting. That doesn't trump paleontological evidence, nor is it even a possibility unless backed by something other than sense impressions. SO of course they can be ignored without further proof. And the idea that teaching this would overturn the orthodoxy is not in and of itself reason that the orthodoxy is wrong -- only that teaching its opposite would disrupt it.

The common literature from what you said may be common with man but if the Bible is truly inspired by God, then the author/story/meaning is not man, only written by man. The description stands as I have already said, beasts that existed in Job's day and a message where God is clearly defining (remember, it's God speaking) these creatures and giving Job (man) a warning about them and their power.

According to religious belief the Bible is inspired by God, but so are scriptures contradictory to it -- that is one reason why we do not substitute religious belief for scientific evidence in matters of science. The beasts described by Job (whose existence is nowhere in evidence, as opposed to all the evidence that he is a fictional character) are not evidenced as anything but mythological creatures -- at best an Egyptian hippopotamus (the Behemoth) and an Egyptian crocodile (the Leviathan) it is not certain the poet ever witnessed.

You see, about the common teaching, we simply don't know if it is wrong (even though there is evidence against it) so the change would be too steep ATM.

Evolution does not continue to be taught because we don't know if it is wrong but because it continues to supply the best explanation for the diversification of life on earth. There is no evidence that justifies abandoning it, and certainly no evidence of creationism to justify replacing evolution.

One piece of dinosaur behaviour is in the third vider and about the t-rex (?) that is biting into the horse by it's neck at the juggular. The description of the dino with the stripes was pretty amazing since a dino with stripes has been recently found (first video). Just to many examples and I can't just brush them off.

That's not specific dinosaur behavior, so it is not evidence that the artists were depicting dinosaurs. That video shows no examples that would be specific to dinosaurs, whatever those might be. And depicting creatures with stripes is not indicative of anything but that the artists depicting some creatures with stripes -- which are hardly exclusive to dinosaurs and which for all we know may well have been some sort of convention.

Here is a newer article by trueorigin. http://www.trueorigin.org/evomyth01.asp

Some examples of why that article is, at best, out of date, and at worse purposely ignoring evidence:

Actually, Miller-Urey HAS been successfully repeated: http://www.newscientist.com/channel...righthanded-amino-acids-were-left-behind.html In fact, it turns out that though their model of early earth clearly needed updating, their basic idea that amino acids and other structures naturally formed in such an environment seems to have merit.

Sarfati's views on carbon dating have already been refuted, or rather, geologists and evolutionists do not use carbon dating the way he says they do.: http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/09/08/sarfatis-yec-nonsense/

Aside from conflating evolution with cosmology when they should not be and objecting that scientists can't observe it happening (which logic apparently does nothing to his view on creationism), Faulkner does not refute the Big Bang, but only complains that we now know of extra-solar planets, which does not contradict the Big Bang model and notes that scientists have come up with many models of how the universe got started.

NASA data has not refuted the nebular hypothesis, only uncovered some of the many problems with it. I'm not sure what this does for creationism, unless we're resorting to a God-in-the-Gaps explanation. There is still more evidence for this hypothesis than there is for that alternative.

As far as the ATP stuff: one theory for the origin of ATP synthase suggests that two subunits with independent functions, one of these a helicase already possessing ATPase functionality found a way to bind and this form the rotation of the motor device. (http://www.life.illinois.edu/crofts/bioph354/lect10.html). This mechanism then evolved through selection pressure into the modern version we have today. It's also possible that a protomechamism consisting of the helicase and an H plus motor may already have existed and simply evolved to rotate in the way needed to help form life as we know it.

The stuff on apparent design merely makes the argument from improbability, which has already been answered by numerous people from Dawkins to Smith, who may have put it best: "Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature… provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects." It's not evidence against design, but it does put down the teleological argument -- which after all, is an a posteriori argument anyway that becomes circular without any evidence to back it.

As far as Sanford, evolution is not solely a process where the genetic mutations lead to more information -- sometimes they lead to less, which may also be a beneficial mutation, and of course it depends how you define "beneficial." For example,sickle cell disease is caused by the gene which helped its earliest carriers fight malaria. Those with only one of the two alleles of the sickle-cell disease are more resistant to malaria, since the infestation of the malaria plasmodium is halted by the sickling of the cells which it infests.

Evolution doesn't always mean building brand-new organs, which won't happen if what is already in use can be adapted by the later species. And it doesn't necessarily always mean simple to complex, which could explain things like the trilobites' eye "optimal" design.

Emil Silvestru and Carl Wielan's work was already discredited as at worse purposely deceptive and at best merely mistaken: (http://www.grisda.org/origins/08007.htm) (http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199709/0101.html)

As for the Cambrian explosion stuff -- also already refuted: (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm)

As far as the jellyfish: they can fossilize, it is just very rare.

Some further things on the article:

On the Burgess Shale stuff: While Gould's interpretation of the phyla relied on Simon Conway Morris' work on Charles Walcott's publications, Conway Morris himself strongly disagreed with Gould's -- he thinks almost all the Cambrian fauna could be classified into modern day phyla. This could be connected to the Anomalocaris's rapid dispersal.

As far as the dinosaur soft tissue stuff: http://kgov.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue

Mammals did not evolve from reptiles, but from synapsids, which evolved from amniotes, from which reptiles also evolved. They all go back to the tetrapods. I could go on, but if such a basic example is misconstrued by this article (as well as misunderstand the nature of intermediate forms)...

 

[Piper Maru]

Have they found any Precambrian rabbits yet?

 

[rodhulk]

Those examples are visual impressions of that the guys in the video THINK the artists were depicting. That doesn't trump paleontological evidence, nor is it even a possibility unless backed by something other than sense impressions. SO of course they can be ignored without further proof. And the idea that teaching this would overturn the orthodoxy is not in and of itself reason that the orthodoxy is wrong -- only that teaching its opposite would disrupt it.

According to religious belief the Bible is inspired by God, but so are scriptures contradictory to it -- that is one reason why we do not substitute religious belief for scientific evidence in matters of science. The beasts described by Job (whose existence is nowhere in evidence, as opposed to all the evidence that he is a fictional character) are not evidenced as anything but mythological creatures -- at best an Egyptian hippopotamus (the Behemoth) and an Egyptian crocodile (the Leviathan) it is not certain the poet ever witnessed.

Evolution does not continue to be taught because we don't know if it is wrong but because it continues to supply the best explanation for the diversification of life on earth. There is no evidence that justifies abandoning it, and certainly no evidence of creationism to justify replacing evolution.

That's not specific dinosaur behavior, so it is not evidence that the artists were depicting dinosaurs. That video shows no examples that would be specific to dinosaurs, whatever those might be. And depicting creatures with stripes is not indicative of anything but that the artists depicting some creatures with stripes -- which are hardly exclusive to dinosaurs and which for all we know may well have been some sort of convention.

Some examples of why that article is, at best, out of date, and at worse purposely ignoring evidence:

Actually, Miller-Urey HAS been successfully repeated: http://www.newscientist.com/channel...righthanded-amino-acids-were-left-behind.html In fact, it turns out that though their model of early earth clearly needed updating, their basic idea that amino acids and other structures naturally formed in such an environment seems to have merit.

Sarfati's views on carbon dating have already been refuted, or rather, geologists and evolutionists do not use carbon dating the way he says they do.: http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2011/09/08/sarfatis-yec-nonsense/

Aside from conflating evolution with cosmology when they should not be and objecting that scientists can't observe it happening (which logic apparently does nothing to his view on creationism), Faulkner does not refute the Big Bang, but only complains that we now know of extra-solar planets, which does not contradict the Big Bang model and notes that scientists have come up with many models of how the universe got started.

NASA data has not refuted the nebular hypothesis, only uncovered some of the many problems with it. I'm not sure what this does for creationism, unless we're resorting to a God-in-the-Gaps explanation. There is still more evidence for this hypothesis than there is for that alternative.

As far as the ATP stuff: one theory for the origin of ATP synthase suggests that two subunits with independent functions, one of these a helicase already possessing ATPase functionality found a way to bind and this form the rotation of the motor device. (http://www.life.illinois.edu/crofts/bioph354/lect10.html). This mechanism then evolved through selection pressure into the modern version we have today. It's also possible that a protomechamism consisting of the helicase and an H plus motor may already have existed and simply evolved to rotate in the way needed to help form life as we know it.

The stuff on apparent design merely makes the argument from improbability, which has already been answered by numerous people from Dawkins to Smith, who may have put it best: "Consider the idea that nature itself is the product of design. How could this be demonstrated? Nature… provides the basis of comparison by which we distinguish between designed objects and natural objects. We are able to infer the presence of design only to the extent that the characteristics of an object differ from natural characteristics. Therefore, to claim that nature as a whole was designed is to destroy the basis by which we differentiate between artifacts and natural objects." It's not evidence against design, but it does put down the teleological argument -- which after all, is an a posteriori argument anyway that becomes circular without any evidence to back it.

As far as Sanford, evolution is not solely a process where the genetic mutations lead to more information -- sometimes they lead to less, which may also be a beneficial mutation, and of course it depends how you define "beneficial." For example,sickle cell disease is caused by the gene which helped its earliest carriers fight malaria. Those with only one of the two alleles of the sickle-cell disease are more resistant to malaria, since the infestation of the malaria plasmodium is halted by the sickling of the cells which it infests.

Evolution doesn't always mean building brand-new organs, which won't happen if what is already in use can be adapted by the later species.

Emil Silvestru and Carl Wielan's work was already discredited as at worse purposely deceptive and at best merely mistaken: (http://www.grisda.org/origins/08007.htm) (http://www.asa3.org/archive/asa/199709/0101.html)

As for the Cambrian explosion stuff -- also already refuted: (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/cambevol.htm)

As far as the jellyfish: they can fossilize, it is just very rare.

Actually, the two men in the video are presenting something that bears a lot more weight than you are willing to give.... thing is, you are relying on our modern day tests over actual glimpses of people who were actually there in the past and wrote down or drew what they "potentially" saw. I'm sorry but I cannot buy into the idea that the artwork should all but be ignored. I'll trust first hand accounts over science tests/theories anyday.

Religious belief is not meant to be understood as science. It simply let's us know how we got here in simple words and on how life will go on in the future ("after it's kind." That's it). That's all we need to know (if we even needed to know that). Yes, it is fun on the how's and why's (how and why it happened this way - evolution/creation), but God's purpose for us isn't that we have to know all this stuff. If you believe in him, then you trust him. It is only science that is making claims on the how's and why's.

The neat thing about Job is that he goes into great detail in telling us about these seemingly extraordinary beasts. The leviathan, for example, I had mentioned how it could be a 37-40 foot croc about 112 million years ago. Or perhaps something else. Because there are so many stories on fire breathing dragons and beasts, as I've mentioned before, is it because people saw these beasts that they keep writing about them or drawing them. The dragons may actually be the dino in ther Job 41 scripture but dragon may have been the best word people could have used back then. It all fits together if you really wanted to, that man and dinos co-existed together since the beginning.

If I can use a "religious" reason as to why evolution is being taught, it's simply because Satan rules the world (under God's overall control) and this is the perfect lie to deceive people to taking God's glory away from actually being the creator (there may even be a scripture on this). You know I had to say that with my belief. But to use a non-religious answer, I have to go back to what I said before, evolution was accepted in the past and you will need something very extraordinary to get it removed. While I have always said creation has a stronger stance for my belief, to the unbelieving public, the evidence for creation may not be at that extraordinary stage (yet), but it definitely does still place some doubt on evolution. We'll see what happens with this dino stuff over the next little while but according to scripture, it seems like the world would rather believe in a lie than the truth (please note, this last part about "people believeing in a lie" is all my POV to my belief since it is a spiritual matter).

As for the behaviour, it is actually most interesting because many animals stategically go for the neck and this is showing that. It didn't seem to be any random drawing but a drawing of an actual situation that happened. That said, sure it might just be a random drawing, too, but the artwork looked very convincing of dinos as we know them (the ones featured, that is). Again and I must keep saying this, how would they know what dinos looked like if they never saw them. It seems conclusive that the same has happened the world over. Too overwhelming!

As for the stripes, very interesting and the video clearly showed that. At first, the thought by scientists was that dinos didn't have stripes but new findings concluded at least one did... and that dino seemed to be the same as the one in the artwork. Absolutely amazing!

Finally, as per your last part, I'll have to study it a bit more but I'm not sure everything is proper and/or really refuting the trueorigins article. Plus the true origins article was 4 pages long, I'm not sure everything was refuted. But again, I haven't read everything so I'll hesitate to say anything official here but you should send the trueorigins an email with what you mentioned in your reply to me. I'd be curious on what they would say if they reply. But the best way to really engage in a debate is not through sites (which is still the best we can do sometimes) but an actual debate between a creationist and an evolutionist sitting together and debating. This way, replies are quick and on the spot. I posted such a debate in the past in another thread, I may dig it back up tomorrow if I can find it and post it here.

 

[childeroland]

Actually, the two men in the video are presenting something that bears a lot more weight than you are willing to give.... thing is, you are relying on our modern day tests over actual glimpses of people who were actually there in the past and wrote down or drew what they "potentially" saw. I'm sorry but I cannot buy into the idea that the artwork should all but be ignored. I'll trust first hand accounts over science tests/theories anyday.

No they're not. They're basically saying this art looks like a dinosaur, so therefore dinos and humans walked the earth together. That's not weightier than actual hard evidence, and we don't know that these artists were viewing dinosaurs or creating firsthand accounts of dinos -- only that the guys in the videos think they were. That does not take precedence over scientific evidence -- quite the opposite, because that evidence is independently verifiable and not reliant on sense impressions of what we think someone else may have been fabricating.

Religious belief is not meant to be understood as science. It simply let's us know how we got here in simple words and on how life will go on in the future ("after it's kind." That's it). That's all we need to know (if we even needed to know that). Yes, it is fun on the how's and why's (how and why it happened this way - evolution/creation), but God's purpose for us isn't that we have to know all this stuff. If you believe in him, then you trust him. It is only science that is making claims on the how's and why's.

Of course belief is not meant to be seen as science, but when it makes claims about "how we got here" and "how life will go on in the future," it needs more than it actually presents in order to be credible to nonbelievers. After all, what to make of contradictory belief systems that say different things about "how we got here" and where life is going, when all those systems can't be right? How does one choose? On what basis? I need to know more.

The neat thing about Job is that he goes into great detail in telling us about these seemingly extraordinary beasts. The leviathan, for example, I had mentioned how it could be a 37-40 foot croc about 112 million years ago. Or perhaps something else. Because there are so many stories on fire breathing dragons and beasts, as I've mentioned before, is it because people saw these beasts that they keep writing about them or drawing them. The dragons may actually be the dino in ther Job 41 scripture but dragon may have been the best word people could have used back then. It all fits together if you really wanted to, that man and dinos co-existed together since the beginning.

Great detail (which provides a picture no one can agree is a croc...or a mythological creature...or something else), yet the leviathan "could" have been a croc from 112 million years ago or something else. So did the croc survive that long or is the poem actually that old? If the former, where is the evidence outside of a description which may or may not have been the croc or something else? People telling and re-telling stories about dragons is not evidence that they saw these creatures, whether these creatures were dinos or something else, only that people told stories. If they were evidence, what about all the pagan myths -- are Zeus and Hercules stand-ins for real figures also?

If I can use a "religious" reason as to why evolution is being taught, it's simply because Satan rules the world (under God's overall control) and this is the perfect lie to deceive people to taking God's glory away from actually being the creator (there may even be a scripture on this). You know I had to say that with my belief. But to use a non-religious answer, I have to go back to what I said before, evolution was accepted in the past and you will need something very extraordinary to get it removed. While I have always said creation has a stronger stance for my belief, to the unbelieving public, the evidence for creation may not be at that extraordinary stage (yet), but it definitely does still place some doubt on evolution. We'll see what happens with this dino stuff over the next little while but according to scripture, it seems like the world would rather believe in a lie than the truth (please note, this last part about "people believeing in a lie" is all my POV to my belief since it is a spiritual matter).

Setting aside the religious belief stuff (which can only be asserted, not evidenced to a non-believer), creation certainly is not placing any doubt on evolution -- if anything, it is the other way around -- and evolution is not being taught merely because it is orthodoxy, but because it provides the more comprehensive framework to explain the diversification of life on earth.

As for the behaviour, it is actually most interesting because many animals stategically go for the neck and this is showing that. It didn't seem to be any random drawing but a drawing of an actual situation that happened. That said, sure it might just be a random drawing, too, but the artwork looked very convincing of dinos as we know them (the ones featured, that is). Again and I must keep saying this, how would they know what dinos looked like if they never saw them. It seems conclusive that the same has happened the world over. Too overwhelming!

Nothing about that behavior is exclusively dinosaur, whether the art depicts actual creature behavior or only uses viewed behavior to create a story. We do not know if the creatures were dinosaurs, so we don't know from the artwork if the artists knew what they looked like. We just know what the artwork looks like to us? Impressions of this sort against the mass of paleontological evidence simply isn't enough, and many motifs (including the aforementioned Job motif) are repeated the world over. That does not indicate anything necessarily but the similarity in our artistic endeavors.

As for the stripes, very interesting and the video clearly showed that. At first, the thought by scientists was that dinos didn't have stripes but new findings concluded at least one did... and that dino seemed to be the same as the one in the artwork. Absolutely amazing!

Again, only a sense impression that the art -- which the people in the video don't seem to show evidence for dating -- depict dinosaurs as opposed to some other striped creature, real or imagined.

Finally, as per your last part, I'll have to study it a bit more but I'm not sure everything is proper and/or really refuting the trueorigins article. Plus the true origins article was 4 pages long, I'm not sure everything was refuted. But again, I haven't read everything so I'll hesitate to say anything official here but you should send the trueorigins an email with what you mentioned in your reply to me. I'd be curious on what they would say if they reply. But the best way to really engage in a debate is not through sites (which is still the best we can do sometimes) but an actual debate between a creationist and an evolutionist sitting together and debating. This way, replies are quick and on the spot. I posted such a debate in the past in another thread, I may dig it back up tomorrow if I can find it and post it here.

I didn't go through the whole article, only the first two or three parts. I could go through the rest, but much of what I already found shows it at best to be outdated in what it's refuting (the ATPase stuff, for example) or flat out wrong (mammals from lizards -- a fundamental error, dinosaur soft tissue). The article is long and if it contains such a fundamental error with the mammal-lizard stuff or doesn't even try to make a case, as in the Big Bang stuff, it seemed pointless to go through the rest. I doubt trueorigins would care if I sent them an email -- much of this stuff they could have refuted themselves with only a little work -- but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing that debate if you posted it.

 

[Thundercrack85]

So... logically, if I go draw a horse with a horn on its head on a cave wall, that makes unicorns real?

 

[8wid]

Does anyone know the biological advantage of reproduction through sexual means versus asexual when it comes to natural selection?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Does anyone know the biological advantage of reproduction through sexual means versus asexual when it comes to natural selection?

Well I think one obvious advantage would be having two parents. Two parents can provide more protection and resources for one infant than one parent.

Another obvious advantage is that the individual pregnant is much less vulnerable when she is protected / taken care of by another individual (i.e. the husband).

 

[Marvolo]

Does anyone know the biological advantage of reproduction through sexual means versus asexual when it comes to natural selection?

It allows the species to develop a stronger immune system and breeds out defects. Sceientists have done experiments in this. Some species can reproduce both ways and the asexual offspring carry over the same defects as the the pregenitor. The average sexual means that is male and female allows defects to be bred out and the offspring's system to benefit from two parents instead of one. This allows for a longer and more varried generational line. Google it. You should be able to find more info.

 

[rodhulk]

No they're not. They're basically saying this art looks like a dinosaur, so therefore dinos and humans walked the earth together. That's not weightier than actual hard evidence, and we don't know that these artists were viewing dinosaurs or creating firsthand accounts of dinos -- only that the guys in the videos think they were. That does not take precedence over scientific evidence -- quite the opposite, because that evidence is independently verifiable and not reliant on sense impressions of what we think someone else may have been fabricating.

Of course belief is not meant to be seen as science, but when it makes claims about "how we got here" and "how life will go on in the future," it needs more than it actually presents in order to be credible to nonbelievers. After all, what to make of contradictory belief systems that say different things about "how we got here" and where life is going, when all those systems can't be right? How does one choose? On what basis? I need to know more.

Great detail (which provides a picture no one can agree is a croc...or a mythological creature...or something else), yet the leviathan "could" have been a croc from 112 million years ago or something else. So did the croc survive that long or is the poem actually that old? If the former, where is the evidence outside of a description which may or may not have been the croc or something else? People telling and re-telling stories about dragons is not evidence that they saw these creatures, whether these creatures were dinos or something else, only that people told stories. If they were evidence, what about all the pagan myths -- are Zeus and Hercules stand-ins for real figures also?

Setting aside the religious belief stuff (which can only be asserted, not evidenced to a non-believer), creation certainly is not placing any doubt on evolution -- if anything, it is the other way around -- and evolution is not being taught merely because it is orthodoxy, but because it provides the more comprehensive framework to explain the diversification of life on earth.

Nothing about that behavior is exclusively dinosaur, whether the art depicts actual creature behavior or only uses viewed behavior to create a story. We do not know if the creatures were dinosaurs, so we don't know from the artwork if the artists knew what they looked like. We just know what the artwork looks like to us? Impressions of this sort against the mass of paleontological evidence simply isn't enough, and many motifs (including the aforementioned Job motif) are repeated the world over. That does not indicate anything necessarily but the similarity in our artistic endeavors.

Again, only a sense impression that the art -- which the people in the video don't seem to show evidence for dating -- depict dinosaurs as opposed to some other striped creature, real or imagined.


I didn't go through the whole article, only the first two or three parts. I could go through the rest, but much of what I already found shows it at best to be outdated in what it's refuting (the ATPase stuff, for example) or flat out wrong (mammals from lizards -- a fundamental error, dinosaur soft tissue). The article is long and if it contains such a fundamental error with the mammal-lizard stuff or doesn't even try to make a case, as in the Big Bang stuff, it seemed pointless to go through the rest. I doubt trueorigins would care if I sent them an email -- much of this stuff they could have refuted themselves with only a little work -- but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing that debate if you posted it.

If we keep dismissing all the evidence that backs up the creation event of the Bible, then of course the creation event will lack in any real world possibility. The artwork, numerous amounts of it as the videos show, are just that, too numerous to dismiss it all. It doesn't mean all the artwork could be real world observations at the time, just some imahination, but to dismiss it all entirely I would consider as foolish. Just like the UFO videos and photos, most would say that the majority are fake but to say every single one is fake, a lot of people say "no" to that...... Think of the artwork that way and perhaps a light will go on in that respct.

If it is a fact in science and there are undoubtly a lot of facts, then it would be hard to dismiss it, I agree, but I'm still not convinced the facts lead to the millions and millions of years of evolution as science theory suggests. I'm still finding things to be going exactly in the fashion that the Bible said, "after it's kind." With that, I also won't allow science lab tests to be (at least not just because lab tests are showing evidence of something) "above" people who were there at the time and depicted in literature, drawings, and artwork, things they may have saw in the day. The Bible and it's writings are understood to be a serious and informative book for people and the Job account seems keep that theme as it appears to be written in a serious manner.

You had mentioned the thing about Zeus and Hercules but this is no different than a muslim and Allah, these are religious characters and who knows what people saw back then, again, being a believer in the Bible, I wonder if people did see anything back then, satan is deceiving as can appear/deceive in many different ways so as to lead the world astray. People seeing Zeus or what have you could be the same as people seeing ghosts. Do you beleve ghosts exist? Well, some do because they claim to have seen them. The same is true with UFO's and aliens.

But the thing is, we're actually finding eveidence in the artwork of dinos and we know through science that dinos existed. The same can't be said about Zeus unless there is something I am missing.

The stripes is phenomenal of the dinosaur and again, I can't take your position and think nothing of it. The video clearly showed where science has found a similar looking dino as to the two presenters in the video show.

With Job, I'll add something to what you said, ..... perhaps it's not because the croc survived that long but maybe the croc was never that old to begin with. I will also use what I said at the start of this post, if we dismiss everything that lends support to the creation claim, then we'll have nothing of course. But as some questioned pages ago, that if dinos existed with man, why is there nothing in literature..... well, as I've been pointing out, there just might be and Job is a perfect example. Is it a myth or just a poem? Perhaps, but equally, Job could be describing something he saw, something that others may have seen to where they described it as having fire coming out of it like Job (and often described it as dragons).

The behavior we've beeen talking about may not be exclusive to dinos, but they are very often exclusive to carnivores who kill by the neck and as pointed out in the video, this is exactly what is going on. And just that artwork of the dinos is pretty remarkable as it is so similar to the t-rex, think that's what it was.

I'll go check for the video and edit it in if I find it.

 

[Dr.]

If these cave paintings suggest human-dinosaur co-existence, we should expect dinosaur fossils to occur in much more recently laid down rock strata (contemporaneous with human fossils and artifacts). But we don’t see this.

We do, however, see concurrent evidence for humans and mammoths. So while cave paintings of mammoths - by themselves - don’t prove the existence of these extinct critters, they do count as corroboration (to the degree that any is needed) of the (much more compelling) fossil record. There’s no such corroboration for the cave paintings of "dinosaurs."

 

[childeroland]

If we keep dismissing all the evidence that backs up the creation event of the Bible, then of course the creation event will lack in any real world possibility. The artwork, numerous amounts of it as the videos show, are just that, too numerous to dismiss it all. It doesn't mean all the artwork could be real world observations at the time, just some imahination, but to dismiss it all entirely I would consider as foolish. Just like the UFO videos and photos, most would say that the majority are fake but to say every single one is fake, a lot of people say "no" to that...... Think of the artwork that way and perhaps a light will go on in that respct.

I'm not dismissing evidence, but saying that visual impression without further confirmation that a supposedly prehistoric artwork depicts dinosaurs isn't evidence, especially in light of paleontological evidence stating the humans and dinosaurs did not co-exist. The number of impressions based on interpretation counter to the paleontological evidence does not make it more convincing. Same with UFO "evidence" -- without hard data to back it up, simply having a lot of claims does not make the claims more credible. (I don't know if UFO data isn't credible, knowing little about the phenomenon -- only that if it isn't backed up by anything more than the number of claims, the number itself does not lend it more credence.) What do the guys in the video say about the paleontological evidence, if anything?

If it is a fact in science and there are undoubtly a lot of facts, then it would be hard to dismiss it, I agree, but I'm still not convinced the facts lead to the millions and millions of years of evolution as science theory suggests. I'm still finding things to be going exactly in the fashion that the Bible said, "after it's kind." With that, I also won't allow science lab tests to be (at least not just because lab tests are showing evidence of something) "above" people who were there at the time and depicted in literature, drawings, and artwork, things they may have saw in the day. The Bible and it's writings are understood to be a serious and informative book for people and the Job account seems keep that theme as it appears to be written in a serious manner.

There's no "if" about the science, which is more than a mere collection of data, and any look at the theory shows it to be too strong to dismiss in favor of the alternative, which has little if any evidence backing it up. For example, if animals merely go "after their kind" as the scriptures put it, how does the Bible explain speciation, which is incontrovertibly evidenced? The lab tests are things we can confirm and verify independently; the supposed claims of people "who were there" without credible evidence to back that up cannot be. The Bible is not understood to be informative in that way by anyone but believers -- as are the Quran and other scriptures which contradict the Bible. Job being written in a "serious" way is not evidence of anything but that the writer(s) took their work seriously, particularly when we cannot know the intention of the poet anyway, whether he intended to write a historical event or a mythological one. Nothing in the book itself even makes that claim.

You had mentioned the thing about Zeus and Hercules but this is no different than a muslim and Allah, these are religious characters and who knows what people saw back then, again, being a believer in the Bible, I wonder if people did see anything back then, satan is deceiving as can appear/deceive in many different ways so as to lead the world astray. People seeing Zeus or what have you could be the same as people seeing ghosts. Do you beleve ghosts exist? Well, some do because they claim to have seen them. The same is true with UFO's and aliens.

Exactly. But why is Satan supposedly deceiving Muslims and pagans but not Christians? Because Christians say so? Based on what? What makes your claims any better than theirs? If people who believed in Zeus are only seeing ghosts, why aren't Christians? What about the claims of Muslims today concerning their religious experiences -- are they all "being deceived" and "seeing ghosts"? And Christians aren't? Why?

But the thing is, we're actually finding eveidence in the artwork of dinos and we know through science that dinos existed. The same can't be said about Zeus unless there is something I am missing.

Visual impressions that a drawing, etc looks like a dinosaur is not evidence, particularly when we don't know if the art was intended to depict historical events, what the conventions of the artists may have been, etc. And there is as much evidence for Zeus existing as there is that the artists were depicting dinosaurs or other long extinct creatures.

The stripes is phenomenal of the dinosaur and again, I can't take your position and think nothing of it. The video clearly showed where science has found a similar looking dino as to the two presenters in the video show.

The video shows nothing of the kind. It's assuming that the striped creature depicted was a dinosaur, as opposed to some other striped creature real or imagined, and assumes that the artist intended it to be taken as real. The similarity in appearance between the art -- which, again, the video shows no evidence of its prehistoric nature -- and real dinosaurs is not evidence. Are all the artworks of unicorns evidence that such a creature existed? What about leprechauns, brownies, other creatures of fairy tale and myth?

With Job, I'll add something to what you said, ..... perhaps it's not because the croc survived that long but maybe the croc was never that old to begin with. I will also use what I said at the start of this post, if we dismiss everything that lends support to the creation claim, then we'll have nothing of course. But as some questioned pages ago, that if dinos existed with man, why is there nothing in literature..... well, as I've been pointing out, there just might be and Job is a perfect example. Is it a myth or just a poem? Perhaps, but equally, Job could be describing something he saw, something that others may have seen to where they described it as having fire coming out of it like Job (and often described it as dragons).

The creature not being that old to begin with counters paleontological evidence too strong to be countered by the writings of a likely mythological document. In any event, if the creature was real -- no evidence for this -- it was likely a mythological heightening of an animal contemporaneous with the poet, not a prehistoric animal, according to the latest scholarship, and nothing in the poem indicates otherwise. If creationism cannot back up its claims with scientific evidence, it should be dismissed as "science," because it is not. Job is not an example of literature depicting dinos existing with man, particularly since nothing in the poem itself makes any claims for historicity or justifies any assumptions that it was trying to depict its creatures as real.

The behavior we've beeen talking about may not be exclusive to dinos, but they are very often exclusive to carnivores who kill by the neck and as pointed out in the video, this is exactly what is going on. And just that artwork of the dinos is pretty remarkable as it is so similar to the t-rex, think that's what it was.

The similarity is a visual impression without any evidence to back it up. Carnivores killing by the neck does not indicate that prehistoric humans saw a dinosaur doing the same thing -- only that some art depicts a predatory creature killing by the neck. What is there beside this as evidence, and how do the guys in the video counter the existing actual evidence from paleontology, etc?

 

[Bill]

If these cave paintings suggest human-dinosaur co-existence, we should expect dinosaur fossils to occur in much more recently laid down rock strata (contemporaneous with human fossils and artifacts). But we don’t see this.

We do, however, see concurrent evidence for humans and mammoths. So while cave paintings of mammoths - by themselves - don’t prove the existence of these extinct critters, they do count as corroboration (to the degree that any is needed) of the (much more compelling) fossil record. There’s no such corroboration for the cave paintings of "dinosaurs."

It's a very strong possibility, and much more likely than the idea that they actually existed at that time, that these people saw fossils of extinct dinosaurs and drew ideas for legends and myths of dragons and other fantastical creatures.

The notion that we should automatically jump to the conclusion that any creature depicted in drawings must have existed simply because of it's representation on a cave wall or rendered in sculpture is lacking any type of critical thinking. There is no corroborating evidence whatsoever.

 

[chaseter]

Can you stop the stereotyping?
Get this through your head:
Not all Creationists in this country are Christians.
Creationist ≠ Christian
OK?

First...I'm a Christian. Shocked that I believe in evolution!?

Second..we are talking about the Christian creationism in here...not the Native American belief that the earth was created by giant feathered snakes. Atheists don't believe in creationism.

 

[Shemtov]

First...I'm a Christian. Shocked that I believe in evolution!?

Did I say that all Christians are creationists?
Were would you get that from!?
I said Creationists are not automatically Christians.

Second..we are talking about the Christian creationism in here...not the Native American belief that the earth was created by giant feathered snakes. Atheists don't believe in creationism.

You mean Judeochristian creationism.
That is my whole objection.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Rodhulk, you say that religion isn't meant to be scientific, and that one should trust god...but then you go on to say how science is "the devil" as if science, evolution in particular, is something that could over throw God. That's two wildly contradicting beliefs.

Look, I'm a Christian. I would lie if I didn't say I had my crisis of faith on occasion, but that just pushes me to try and understand more. Just like with scientific subjects, I don't wallow in ignorance or lack of understanding, and I certainly don't have any fear that one can trump the other because despite what people on both sides of the subject might want to shout from the roof tops, the two are NOT in a race nor mutually exclusive.

Evolution is our heliocentric universe. 200 years from now, kids will laugh in their classrooms at the idea that we once dismissed evolution purely because it doesn't fit with our tightly molded view of life. Evolution, like the earth not bein the center of the universe, does not negate or threaten my faith. If you believe in a higher power, you should therefore believe that he/she/it is in no way at risk of being affected negatively by our better understanding of the universe. Wouldn't you WANT to better understand how the life/universe that God created works?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Evolution should shake your belief. All science should.

And one day, we won't have any more need for belief, because we will know everything.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Evolution should shake your belief. All science should.

And one day, we won't have any more need for belief, because we will know everything.

We will never know EVERY thing. The more we learn, the more we always realize how much there is we don't know. And why should evolution shake my beliefs? Because it'll make you feel better? Learning the world isn't flat, that the earth revolves around the sun, discovery of DNA, the ability to clone life...my religion and faith are not dependent on what we discover and know through science. They are two totally different aspects of the humann experience and to think that they aren't is a shockingly small minded view of both.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Well, actually because it goes completely against the teaching of the churches until fairly recently. To their credit, a couple wisely threw in the towel (like the Catholic church). And now they say it's part of "the plan". Too bad about all those heretics they tortured for years.

Religions have always battled with science. Even now they're duking it out with Darwin. Hell, some are still fighting the good fight with Copernicus.

And for a good reason. The more science is accepted and understood, the less people sit in the pews.

Has anyone in this thread rejected evolution for secular reasons? I don't think so.

 

[Bill]

Well, actually because it goes completely against the teaching of the churches until fairly recently. To their credit, a couple wisely threw in the towel (like the Catholic church). And now they say it's part of "the plan". Too bad about all those heretics they tortured for years.

Religions have always battled with science. Even now they're duking it out with Darwin. Hell, some are still fighting the good fight with Copernicus.

And for a good reason. The more science is accepted and understood, the less people sit in the pews.

Has anyone in this thread rejected evolution for secular reasons? I don't think so.

I'd be happy if those who rejected it for any reason understood what they were rejecting. Not one has demonstrated that ability.

 

[Lighthouse]

I have a genuine question for Christians who believe in evolution. How do you view the Holy Bible?

 

[Breogan]

No, the evidence is there with the dinosaur examples from the videos. The clear descriptions cannot be ignored by the "artwork."

...One piece of dinosaur behaviour is in the third video and about the t-rex (?) that is biting into the horse by it's neck at the juggular.

I believe animals use the jugular attack to bring down animals which are usually much BIGGER ore weigh more than themselves, as one bite in any one place alone won't do it, they need to slowly hang on and asphyxiate or slowly bleed the much bigger animal to actually bring it down.

The idea pictured in that artwork that a giant T-Rex or Cryolophosaurus or whatever they are pretending is pictured there, would have to use this slow hang on for your life method to bring down a much smaller horse it could probably tear in half or carry away, seems odd.

 

[Spider-Who?]

Well, actually because it goes completely against the teaching of the churches until fairly recently. To their credit, a couple wisely threw in the towel (like the Catholic church). And now they say it's part of "the plan". Too bad about all those heretics they tortured for years.

Religions have always battled with science. Even now they're duking it out with Darwin. Hell, some are still fighting the good fight with Copernicus.

Someone's been reading too much Dan Brown. I won't deny that the Catholic Church made a LARGE amount of mistakes in the past (people using the Church's power for their own gain is nothing new, unfortunately), but you are aware that Christianity pretty much built modern science...right? That the majority of the greatest minds to ever offer up scientific theories and who set the stage for what would become modern science believed that their studies where their "sacred duty", and that studying and understanding the world was an act of worship? That it was the Church whose desire to rekindle Greek Thought and literacy helped usher in the age of enlightenment? That nearly all scientific endeavors in Europe were funded by the Church who pushed people to think and learn more about the world, and that many of the scientists who ushered in reason and logic and the scientific method where devout believers and even clerics and church officials themselves?

As for Galileo, are you aware that he was ridiculed by many fellow scientists (geocentricity was still widely accepted as fact thanks to Aristotle) because he started touting heliocentricity as fact without actually proving it? That being said, there were several other astronomers who were trying to disprove geocentricity, but they where not persecuted. If the Catholic Church was so against science and the idea of a heliocentric world, why weren't Kepler or Copernicus jailed as well? It was Galileo's ways and attitude that caused the uproar for him. The Pope, who was friends with him, allowed Galileo to publish his famous Dialogue on the Two World Systems. In it, Galileo unintentionally insulted the Pope, who - thanks to the politics of the time - was unable to let it slide, which lead to his infamous case and house arrest (which, as any historian will tell you, was a quite lavish lifestyle as ordained by his friend, the Pope). And after all of this, did you know that the heliocentric theory that Galileo fought for was WRONG (he believed that the sun was stationary, among other things)?

Has anyone in this thread rejected evolution for secular reasons? I don't think so.

I knew a few people who aren't religious at all who didn't accept evolution. They weren't the brightest crayons in the box, but dismissing evolution (and plenty of other scientific theories) isn't a "religious only" club.

 

[Spider-Who?]

I have a genuine question for Christians who believe in evolution. How do you view the Holy Bible?

It's hard to put down into a concise answer, since each book within it has a different purpose, but the short version is that I view the Bible as a handbook for how to live my life (though I fail miserably plenty)...a collection of stories, both literal and metaphorical, told for philosophical and cultural purposes. I'll readily admit that its nearly impossible to make the distinction between what is literal and what is not, but that is part of the charm I suppose, and it is certainly a corner stone of the faith needed - not in the sense of needing to decide which is which, but acknowledging that I DON'T know but they're all equally important in their own ways. Can I know that Noah's Ark was real? I have NO idea (but I've read some interesting analyses from mathematicians and biologists), but its factual basis isn't the story's intent - its the lessons told within that story that are what's important to me.