• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Evolution, maybe someone can explain?

Dan From Smithville

The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter
Staff member
Premium Member
The moral atrocities committed by Hamas and the IDF push me further from religious indoctrination.
It's interesting that we see these things come up like items from a playbook. That is how creationist tactics have always been described since I first began participating in these debates. Like going by a playbook of the same tired tactics.

When they finally realize they don't understand the science and all their efforts on that front are continually thwarted, they switch to other tactics like guilt by association. Quote mine or reference the personal opinion of select scientists and use that as evidence the theory has failed.

It would be the same as me trying to condemn Jehovah's Witnesses for the view or atrocious behavior of a single individual. I wonder if they ever see that or do just know going in what they are about when trying this tactic?
 

Dan From Smithville

The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter
Staff member
Premium Member
Does this mean the Catholics are standing down this election?
Do Jehovah's Witnesses vote? I've been reading the history of that denomination, but voting hasn't been mentioned.

From my understanding, JW's consider that Catholics and all other Christians except themselves stood down a long time ago.
 

Dan From Smithville

The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter
Staff member
Premium Member
I believe they are strongly encouraged not to vote.
That is an interesting dichotomy. Rushing to the laws and protections afforded by a country, but refusing to stand up for that country at the same time. I hope that is not true, but I do know they reject their duties to this country in time of war as conscientious objectors.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
First in the period when the first fish/amphibians had the capability walking on the shallow coastal sea floor and had capabilities of gill breathing and primitive lungs there were at least several candidates.

The earliest species before amphibians related to lobe-fined fish: 29.3A: Characteristics and Evolution of Amphibians.

One of the earliest known tetrapods is from the genus Acanthostega. Acanthostega was aquatic; fossils show that it had gills similar to fishes. However, it also had four limbs, with the skeletal structure of limbs found in present-day tetrapods, including amphibians.

Read more in the above reference.


The earliest fish with amphibian attributes were lobe-finned fish, which evolved into amphibians around 370 million years ago. These fish had leg-like fins with digits that allowed them to crawl along the sea floor.


Some characteristics of lobe-finned fish include:
  • Lungs
    They had lungs that allowed them to breathe air. These lungs evolved from modified swim bladders.
  • Appendages
    They had appendages with internal skeletal support that extended beyond their trunk muscles.
  • Fins
    They had four fleshy fins that were supported by bones, similar to the structure of a tetrapod's hand.
The three groups of lobe-finned fish that are relevant to the evolution of amphibians are coelacanths, lung-fish, and panderichtyids. The panderichtyids are the ancestors of amphibians, but they are now extinct. Coelacanths and lung-fish are still living relatives of the panderichtyids, and can provide clues about the biology of the ancestors of amphibians.
Actually lungs may have pre-existed air bladders. Currently it seems that the consensus is that they evolved separately:


The above is just about lung evolution.

This article concentrates on both and it does point out different sources for each organ:


"Several times throughout their radiation fish have evolved either lungs or swim bladders as gas-holding structures. Lungs and swim bladders have different ontogenetic origins and can be used either for buoyancy or as an accessory respiratory organ. "
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
Ain't that interesting...
It is. This in that article is a strong opinion about atheists and "moral law":
I am perplexed by Coyne’s view that Hamas culpably violated objective moral law, considering Coyne’s metaphysical commitment to atheism, determinism, and free will denial. After all, if there is no God, there is no source for objective moral law at all. Nature is a collection of facts; without God nature has no overarching values, and the only values on tap are the separate values of individual human beings. Without God, value judgments are merely individual human opinions, akin to individual preferences for flavors of ice cream. There is no factual basis to prefer Coyne’s value judgments to Hamas’ value judgments — values like “don’t kill innocent people” are not facts of nature. But Coyne clearly (and rightly) holds Hamas to the moral responsibility not to kill innocents. If there is no God, from where does Coyne get this objective moral law that he invokes? Who is Coyne to judge?
After all ...they don't really mind.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
I don't care. I don't judge persons, I'm not biased about who I talk or listen to.
I could even thumb up a post of yourself if I consider it true and right. ... still waiting, though.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
As I have not ignored the majority of your posts.

I have had many many instances of someone quoting the answer, information, or evidence I provide and tell me I am running from the question. There was a gadfly on one site who did this repeatedly even when when the sentence was just a few words so it couldn't be overlooked.

If I don't respond to something there are only two possible reasons; either the individual is on my ignore list because he refuses to parse the word "metaphysics" when I use it as "basis of science" so I don't know it OR I have provided the same answer many many times. I've listed Darwin's assumptions comprehensively countless times and have listed many many more individually or in small clusters. There must be hundreds and hundreds of instances. There's no point in continuing. Everybody has assumptions and I believe many fundamental assumption that most of us share are false. But we each including almost every experiment designer and interpreter have assumptions that usually include the prevailing paradigm and common beliefs.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
It is. This in that article is a strong opinion about atheists and "moral law":

After all ...they don't really mind.
Nothing here remotely relates to the thread. The problem in the Middle East is a very long religious Tribal war between Muslims, Jews, and Christians that has been going on for thousands of years. Atheists are not involved,

Yes, they do not care, It is tribal war based on Old Testament morals.

Stay on the subject of the thread. Start a thread on the Hamas war and I will deal with it. Your source is an anti=science anti evolution rag. It is a religious war atheists are not involved.

It does not consider the history of atrocities by both sides.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
I have had many many instances of someone quoting the answer, information, or evidence I provide and tell me I am running from the question. There was a gadfly on one site who did this repeatedly even when when the sentence was just a few words so it couldn't be overlooked.

If I don't respond to something there are only two possible reasons; either the individual is on my ignore list because he refuses to parse the word "metaphysics" when I use it as "basis of science" and I don't know it OR I have provided the same answer many many times. I've listed Darwin's assumptions comprehensively countless times and have listed many many more individually or in small clusters. There must be hundreds and hundreds of instances. There's no point in continuing. Everybody has assumptions and I believe many fundamental assumption that most of us share are false. But we each including almost every experiment designer and interpreter have assumptions that usually include the prevailing paradigm and common beliefs.
It is basically a history of your anti-science and anti-evolution perspective trying to make science in your own personal metaphysic paradigm totally out of touch with reality.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I don't care. I don't judge persons, I'm not biased about who I talk or listen to.
I could even thumb up a post of yourself if I consider it true and right. ... still waiting, though.
Good so no attacks on Darwin, I always offer to go over the concept of evidence. There is a standard for scientific evidence. It is what makes it the most reliable evidence that exist because it tries to take out the human element as much as possible. People will often claim things to be existence that others disagree about and others will deny evidence. So in the sciences this is the standard:

Scientific evidence consists of observations that support or oppose a scientific theory or hypothesis.

That is the definition. It seems rather easy to have that sort of evidence. But that would be a mistake. The tricky part is coming up with a testable explanation. One has to at least come up with a hypothesis. That is an explanation that makes at least some predictions and the explanation can be tested based on those idea. In other words on has to not only put one's money where one's mouth is, (one has to come up with an explanation) one has to actually try to refute one's own idea. But this makes sense once a person thinks about it just a little. If someone writes an explanation and does not test it properly there is a very good chance that it is wrong and other scientists will gladly test that idea and show it to be wrong. It is as good idea to try to refute one's own ideas before publishing so that one does not look foolish.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I don't care. I don't judge persons, I'm not biased about who I talk or listen to.
I could even thumb up a post of yourself if I consider it true and right. ... still waiting, though.
Here is the wonderful think about education. If one learns just the basics of science it is often easy to test the claims of others. But if you refuse to do so you will always be shooting in the dark and will be much more likely to be wrong than to be right.
 

Dan From Smithville

The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter
Staff member
Premium Member
I have had many many instances of someone quoting the answer, information, or evidence I provide and tell me I am running from the question.
Really? Where? Show me.

All I've seen is the running.

There have been literally 100's, perhaps 1000's of requests for evidence put to you that have gone unanswered. The only consistent response has been the same as here, that you have provided the answers gajillions of times. Yet they don't seem to exist. Around but never found eh?
There was a gadfly on one site who did this repeatedly even when when the sentence was just a few words so it couldn't be overlooked.
I've seen the same request for answers from you on other sites as well. Numerous requests that seem to fall on the same deaf ears as here. I've
seen the same complaints and comments in those places as well. I've not seen your on point answers. You just seem to wait and then return saying the same things over again. As if ignoring anything anyone else says as unimportant to you.

I still haven't seen any sort of list of Darwin's assumptions for the theory of evolution and your detailed analysis of why they are all wrong. About as close as it has gotten is you claiming he lived during the 19th Century and we all know anyone living during that time was all wrong according to you. Wow! To disdain for the population of an entire Century, how remarkable.

Other than correcting your empty claims, semantic games and butchered terminology, what do you offer to maintain interest in a discussion or a debate with you?

If I don't respond to something there are only two possible reasons;
There are more possible reasons than that.

1. You don't know the answer and don't want to reveal that fact.
2. You don't understand the question and don't want to reveal that fact.
3. You know that you are wrong and don't want to reveal that fact.
4. You believe you are right no matter how disconnected your belief might be.
5. You are always right and everyone else is always wrong.
6. I'm sure I could go on or others could list further reasons.


either the individual is on my ignore list because he refuses to parse the word "metaphysics" when I use it as "basis of science" so I don't know it OR I have provided the same answer many many times.
All this seems like blame the other person. No one has to recognize your claimed definitions that you offer without reason and support. We just correct them routinely knowing they will keep coming up.

I've listed Darwin's assumptions comprehensively countless times and have listed many many more individually or in small clusters.
I'm aware of the assumptions of Darwin's theory of evolution and haven't seen you list them or provide that keen analysis demonstrating how they are all wrong. I have no knowledge that you have ever provided a link to such a post and haven't when I've asked. You do know that the forum is searchable right? I've searched and not found what you claim is there "billions and billions" of times.
There must be hundreds and hundreds of instances.
Not at all. Even you seem to recognize that in this sentence I'm responding to. "Must be" not "are" or a link to even one.
There's no point in continuing.
There is no point in expecting you will provide meaningful, stable definitions consistent with a subject and existing knowledge. There is no point in requesting that you provide evidence. There is no point requesting you provide reasonable explanations. There is no point in thinking that you might actually listen to others.

I find it difficult to appeal to you, since you don't seem to pay attention to or care what anyone else says. It seems that unless you see it as directly flattering to you, nothing else said matters at all to you.

I can't see how ego soothing is a way to maintain serious discussion and debate.

Everybody has assumptions and I believe many fundamental assumption that most of us share are false.
A meaningless statement that tells me nothing other than what you think and I don't have to care about that when it has no impact on the topic of discussion.
But we each including almost every experiment designer and interpreter have assumptions that usually include the prevailing paradigm and common beliefs.
More meaningless jibber that doesn't support the claims of your post here. You are becoming famous for that in forums around the internet. Is that really what you want? I don't expect answers, but I can't imagine that a person would do this on purpose unless it was just to get attention.

You could get that by rational discussion with evidence too.
 
Last edited:
Top