The Anti-theist Thread

[Khadrane]

I've got another question since you all evaded my other ones. Okay, so a rat evolves into a bat. Wouldn't there be a time where the rat/bat's wings were not developed enough to fly well, and where it's legs were batlike enough to not run well? Then it would not be the fittest and would not survive. Right?

[Cirdan]

Definition of faith (Wester's Encyclipedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language)

Faith 1. confidence or trust in a person or thing. 2. belief that is not based on proof

It comes right after fait accompli and faithcure

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Khadrane
I've got another question since you all evaded my other ones. Okay, so a rat evolves into a bat. Wouldn't there be a time where the rat/bat's wings were not developed enough to fly well, and where it's legs were batlike enough to not run well? Then it would not be the fittest and would not survive. Right?

ever seen a flying squirrel?

[Rána Eressëa]

Originally posted by Khadrane
Evolution. Does that mean if I put a rock outside and wait a couple billion years it will turn into a human?

Hmm...obviously you didn't pay any attention in science class Only organic a.k.a. "living" creatures/cells can evolve. We've found the bones of the earliest known horse which looks very much like a dog body with a horse head (DNA proves it is a horse). Obviously, over that long period of time, it had evolved to what we now call a horse. What? You think they magically appeared out of nowhere?

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane
I've got another question since you all evaded my other ones. Okay, so a rat evolves into a bat. Wouldn't there be a time where the rat/bat's wings were not developed enough to fly well, and where it's legs were batlike enough to not run well? Then it would not be the fittest and would not survive. Right?

See my last answer. I did not evade it, so don't lie. There are many processes in the fossil record which show the evolution from A to B, and all the in betweenies. (Like the horse, like the cat, like the dog, like the monkey).

Now, an organism will only select for, or evolve into something if it increases their fitness, or chances of survival. Therefore, your proverbial rat will not evolve to develope stumpy wings, unless it gives it an advantage over the other rat species. Remember, natural selection is just one part of the equation. There is also sexual selection, in that all the female rats would look at stumpy winged rat, and decide, either A) his stumpy winged genotype will aid my offspring in lasting longer, or B) There is no way in heck that stumpy winged rats are going to survive, so I'm not going to mate with him.

[afro-elf]

Faith:

1)Confident belief in the truth

Facts do not need FAITH


I NYC is in America. That is a fact not a belief.

My supposition was that any Order which can be shown to be the result of Disorder is invalid

HMMM ever see a snow flake

Unless there has always been some order, no order is valid.

WHY? So going from a state of anarchy to a civil governement invalidates the latter?

Having read through the entirity of your first link, I have concluded that it has absolutely nothing to do with my arguement.

You seemed to suggest that it was necessary for a creator by looking at the Universe or how is there order out of chaos

In other words, the global conservation "laws" are exactly what one expects for an isolated universe with no outside agent acting. Only a violation of these laws would imply an outside agent. The data so far are consistent with no agent.

it seem that you think that the universe is ordered IE needs god to do it

Broken symmetry is actually very common at the everyday scale. Not all cars travel in straight lines at constant speed. They roll to a stop when the engine cuts off, as energy is lost to friction. Neither are the material structures we see around us fully symmetric. The earth is not a sphere but a flattened spheroid. A tree looks different from different angles. Our faces look different in a mirror. Mirror symmetry is broken when a system is not precisely left-right or mirror symmetric, like our faces. That is no surprise, and indeed we can view much of what we call material structure as a combination of broken and unbroken symmetries. Again, think of a snowflake. Structure and beauty seem to be combinations of both unbroken and broken symmetries, of both order and randomness

again

The most powerful "laws of physics," the conservation laws, were shown to be evidence against design rather than for it. They are directly related to the "symmetries of nothing" that would exist in the absence of design. Furthermore, the observed forces, particles, and other structure in our universe are consistent with the accidental, or spontaneous, breaking of symmetries at local points in spacetime. This also mitigates against design or creation.

Or do atoms react differently to true beleivers than to non-beleivers

don't know about atoms but maybe web sites do

[Khadrane]

BeardofPants, the evading question thing was kind of a joke. (Hence the smiley-face ) So I didn't lie. And on the rat with the stumpy wings, if it wouldn't give him an advantage and another rat wouldn't mate with him, he would die. Therefore, his wings would never completely develope so he would never become a bat. I still don't get how evolution would work like this.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Wayfarer

One more thing. Would you concur that since Pantheism, even if wrong, was believed by the masses of Greece and Early Rome, and Monotheism, even if wrong, was held by the masses during the Middle Ages, it is not unreasonable to assume that Athiesm , even if false, is held by the masses today? [/B]

Atheism is not a religion. The Greek were more Polytheistic in their religion. How do you know they were wrong about the existance of multiple gods? Monotheism is not a religion or a system of praticed beliefs. It is a category of religion; a religious concept.

Last I checked 90% of people in the world beleive in some higher power or powers so I wouldn't say atheism is "held by the masses".

Sorry if you missed my point. Religion is not a science. Science is not a religion.

As for order, your commentary was pointless. Case in point:

Molten SiO2 is a disordered liquid.

If cooled rapidly it will form glass, an amorphous solid.

If cooled very slowly it will form symetric quartz crystals.

All of this is very orderly based on the geometric and thermal properties. Yet the quartz will "twin" as well as create an indeterminant number of crystals. Order exists molded by random and chaotic events.

Does god manage the placement of every quartz atom in the crystals or are the atoms different from one another; trained by god to behave differently at a particular moment in time? If the order is managed by god what possible mechanism would you propose to transmit all this information throughout the universe from a central conscience being billions of light years away?

The fundementalist belief that the bible is the word of god verbatim is utter nonsense. Creationism isn't a defense of Theism as much as it is a way to defend the narrow interpretation of the bible by a very small sect of fanatical fundamentalists.

Most conflicts in the world are occuring because of disagreements among different theistic groups of fundamentalist who must kill those that disagree to protect their interpretation. Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, Othodox Serbs vs Muslims decended from Turks, Shiites vs Sunni.

Won't it have been great if god had just written one book for us so we could all get along?

The earth is billions of years old. get use to it. This fact has nothing to do with god. The bible is wrong on this point. It was written by men during a time when there was little understanding of the universe and it reflects their ignorance on the issue of the creation of the world.

People have found strength from their faith; good. This has nothing to do with science.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane
BeardofPants, the evading question thing was kind of a joke. (Hence the smiley-face ) So I didn't lie. And on the rat with the stumpy wings, if it wouldn't give him an advantage and another rat wouldn't mate with him, he would die. Therefore, his wings would never completely develope so he would never become a bat. I still don't get how evolution would work like this.

Oops, sorry, I can get a bit touchy when people diss my profession Apologies Khadrane. That was following your analogy, in this case, the rat with the stumpy wings would die out. However, if the rat developed wings from his shoulder blades, that didn't impede his walking, and other rats liked that characteristic, (made him look more attractive, run faster or something,) they would select for stumpy rat wings. The whole idea about evolution, is to select for something that would increase your fitness, or chances of survival. An example, if you look at grey spiders, they can blend in with a birch tree, and birds can't see them. In the same species, are the black spiders, who can be seen by birds. Hence their lower numbers. All the female spiders will only breed with grey spiders, so their offspring will have a better chance at survival. The black spiders still remain in the genepool, because they still breed with each other, and sometimes, with grey spiders. BUT with the industrial revolution, the pollution turned the tree bark black. Now the birds can see the grey spider! But they can't see the black one. Now the black ones are the ones being selected for in the species. Does this explain it a bit better?

Again, apologies for being a meanie, forgive me?

[Khadrane]

Won't it have been great if god had just written one book for us so we could all get along?

He did. The Bible. But we're not getting along.

The earth is billions of years old. get use to it.

Actually, it's not. (Trust me on this. That is all I've learned about this entire year in science. )

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Rogue Elf


Hmm...obviously you didn't pay any attention in science class Only organic a.k.a. "living" creatures/cells can evolve. We've found the bones of the earliest known horse which looks very much like a dog body with a horse head (DNA proves it is a horse). Obviously, over that long period of time, it had evolved to what we now call a horse. What? You think they magically appeared out of nowhere?

Actually, I think they do beleive that

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane


Actually, it's not. (Trust me on this. That is all I've learned about this entire year in science. )

Actually, the earth is at leat 4 billion years old:

"The generally accepted age for the Earth and the rest of the solar system is about 4.55 billion years (plus or minus about 1%). This value is derived from several different lines of evidence.

Unfortunately, the age cannot be computed directly from material that is solely from the Earth. There is evidence that energy from the Earth's accumulation caused the surface to be molten. Further, the processes of erosion and crustal recycling have apparently destroyed all of the earliest surface.

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

While these values do not compute an age for the Earth, they do establish a lower limit (the Earth must be at least as old as any formation on it). This lower limit is at least concordant with the independently derived figure of 4.55 billion years for the Earth's actual age.

The most direct means for calculating the Earth's age is a Pb/Pb isochron age, derived from samples of the Earth and meteorites. This involves measurement of three isotopes of lead (Pb-206, Pb-207, and either Pb-208 or Pb-204). A plot is constructed of Pb-206/Pb-204 versus Pb-207/Pb-204."

From here:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-...th.html#howold

[afro-elf]

The earth is billions of years old. get use to it.

Actually, it's not. (Trust me on this. That is all I've learned about this entire year in science. )

where do you go to school

and


WHAT kind of school is it ?

[Khadrane]

I go to Nampa Christian. It is a Christian school. (As you probably guessed from the name. ) My science teacher just started teaching at our school and can finally teach what he believes. (He used to teach at a public school.) I guess if I really wanted to prove my faith, I should have paid more attention... oh well. No one would have believed me anyway.

The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

I learned in my science class how radiocarbon dating can be wrong. Unfortunatly, I can't remember the evidence and I don't have my science book home. I won't be getting it anytime soon either, because I'm on spring break.

[Darth Tater]

Everyone should read the creationists vs. evolutionists thread in the archives before continuing this debate, since it's probably all been covered in that respect.

[Cirdan]

Originally posted by Khadrane

He did. The Bible. But we're not getting along.

I'd sure like to see ?him? write a sequel... real soon.

[Khadrane]

Everyone should read the creationists vs. evolutionists thread in the archives before continuing this debate, since it's probably all been covered in that respect.

We probably should. But I probably won't.

Hmm...obviously you didn't pay any attention in science class Only organic a.k.a. "living" creatures/cells can evolve. We've found the bones of the earliest known horse which looks very much like a dog body with a horse head (DNA proves it is a horse). Obviously, over that long period of time, it had evolved to what we now call a horse. What? You think they magically appeared out of nowhere?

That's not what I think. That's what evolutionists think.

[BeardofPants]

The bible may be the word of God, but it was written by man, who has, on occasion, been known to be fallible.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Khadrane


We probably should. But I probably won't.

Yep, and I probably won't be able to find it! LOL

Why ruin our fun? We're not hurting anybody.

[Khadrane]

The bible may be the word of God, but it was written by man, who has, on occasion, been known to be fallible.

It was inspired by God though, and they wrote what he told them to write. Kind of. That's not quite how it worked, but I couldn't think of a better wording.