Should God be judged?

[curious-er]

So, then it was an intelligent force then that took the 98 part of chimp DNA and advanced it to man?
Ever hear of genetic variation?

Clay or dirt has no DNA.

Regards
DL

Ah yes, variation with in the parameters of what is there. No one denies diversaty among the species, however that diversaty comes from what is there. The differences come when information is removed. For example: You have a litter of pupps, you bread only the brown spotted rather than solid colored ones. Eventually you no longer have solid colored pups, only the spotted. The genetic information has been slowly removed. Granted you could then again introduce the information into the mix by bringing in a solid colored dog, but again, it is information the solid colored dog has to pass on. Every creature can only pass on what it possesses. Where does the extra information come from to evolve?

That God used similar building blocks in one species to the next does not evolution make. The basic elements that we are made up of, are the same basic elements found in dirt. They are simply arranged in far more complex ways. When anything dies it breaks down and eventually becomes dirt, or part of another organism. (gotta love worms and maggots)

 

[Greatest I am]

Ah yes, variation with in the parameters of what is there. No one denies diversaty among the species, however that diversaty comes from what is there. The differences come when information is removed. For example: You have a litter of pupps, you bread only the brown spotted rather than solid colored ones. Eventually you no longer have solid colored pups, only the spotted. The genetic information has been slowly removed. Granted you could then again introduce the information into the mix by bringing in a solid colored dog, but again, it is information the solid colored dog has to pass on. Every creature can only pass on what it possesses. Where does the extra information come from to evolve?

That God used similar building blocks in one species to the next does not evolution make. The basic elements that we are made up of, are the same basic elements found in dirt. They are simply arranged in far more complex ways. When anything dies it breaks down and eventually becomes dirt, or part of another organism. (gotta love worms and maggots)

What comes to mind is, what was it Darwin predicted, a finch with a foot long proboscis. it was just recently discovered. No original finch DNA said to this bird that 10,000 years hence you will need a foot long tong.

Regards
DL

 

[curious-er]

What comes to mind is, what was it Darwin predicted, a finch with a foot long proboscis. it was just recently discovered. No original finch DNA said to this bird that 10,000 years hence you will need a foot long tong.

Regards
DL

Obviously it is in it's DNA, which was handed down to it from it's parents, from it's grand parents, etc. It is simple well established biology. You still did not answer the question. Where does the new information come from to evolve?

 

[Greatest I am]

Obviously it is in it's DNA, which was handed down to it from it's parents, from it's grand parents, etc. It is simple well established biology. You still did not answer the question. Where does the new information come from to evolve?

I am not an expert on this issue but, genetic variation and errors.
Why are some born with two heads or the sex organs of both male and female?
Is your creator a clown or does He too make errors?

Regards
DL

 

[Copernicus]

Obviously it is in it's DNA, which was handed down to it from it's parents, from it's grand parents, etc. It is simple well established biology. You still did not answer the question. Where does the new information come from to evolve?

I think that he has answered the question, and it is very clear where the new information "comes" from. Besides genetic variation, which sometimes produces traits that might ultimately prove an advantage in succeeding generations that face different environmental challenges, there is also mutation--transcription errors--which sometimes leads to novel versions of DNA whose changed "information" proves useful. None of the so-called acquisitions and losses of "information" have anything to do with an intelligent agent using that information to make decisions.

 

[curious-er]

I am not an expert on this issue but, genetic variation and errors.
Why are some born with two heads or the sex organs of both male and female?
Is your creator a clown or does He too make errors?

Regards
DL

Those born with two heads are conjoined twins that failed to seperate. As for those born with both sex organs, this could indeed be considered a mutation, variation or error, however, a new species it is not.

 

[curious-er]

I think that he has answered the question, and it is very clear where the new information "comes" from. Besides genetic variation, which sometimes produces traits that might ultimately prove an advantage in succeeding generations that face different environmental challenges, there is also mutation--transcription errors--which sometimes leads to novel versions of DNA whose changed "information" proves useful. None of the so-called acquisitions and losses of "information" have anything to do with an intelligent agent using that information to make decisions.

Genetic mutations as a whole are detrimental rather than beneficial. That is why
mutations are said to be responsible for hundreds of diseases that are genetically determined. Down syndrom, Systic Fybrosis, Albinism, etc. They do not create improvements, but more importantly they do not create new species. Someone with webbed feet, or lack of skin pigment, or an extra toe, is still a human, they have not become something else. And they have received the mutation or recesive gene from thier parents.

For mutation to create new species, a directed gradual improvement would need to take place. It would require intellegence on a cellular level. Cellular intelligence that would comunicate needed changes from one generation to the next. This does not happen.

 

[Copernicus]

Genetic mutations as a whole are detrimental rather than beneficial. That is why mutations are said to be responsible for hundreds of diseases that are genetically determined. Down syndrom, Systic Fybrosis, Albinism, etc. They do not create improvements, but more importantly they do not create new species...

You are right that the vast majority of mutations produce no advantage and may even result in less survivable traits, but that is completely beside the point. Most of the time, it is just genetic variation that selects for survivability. Occasionally, a mutation can prove beneficial. When it does, that does not necessarily create a new species, but populations (genetic pools) of the same species that face different environmental challenges tend to evolve in different directions. Ultimately, that can result in new species. The existence of ring species tends to corroborate evolutionary theory. When the intermediate populations that separate the ends of a ring species die out, then you get speciation. In principle, all living beings are members of the same ring species whose intermediate populations have gone extinct.

For mutation to create new species, a directed gradual improvement would need to take place. It would require intellegence on a cellular level. Cellular intelligence that would comunicate needed changes from one generation to the next. This does not happen.

Nonsense. There is no intelligence as we know it at the cellular level, and none is needed. The principles that drive evolution are well understood, and that is why evolution can be modeled in computers as an unintelligent algorithmic process. Don't forget that evolution takes place over geologic time scales. What seems improbable in the span of a human life is not improbable when you are talking about millions of generations.

 

[hey_amigo]

if god punishes then he judges us. i believe in a god that does not judge or punish. all wise all peaceful. we judge because we are all different from each other, we mean not to judge but to visually understand what we see. judging would be to assume something about something.
this is why stereotypes are bad. and also why racisim, sexism, etc.. exists.

there is nothing wrong with visually understanding something. and hey, maybe we were meant to look more like one other. like the rest of the animal kingdom.

 

[Greatest I am]

Those born with two heads are conjoined twins that failed to seperate. As for those born with both sex organs, this could indeed be considered a mutation, variation or error, however, a new species it is not.

Neither is man. We are 98% chimp.

Regards
DL

 

[curious-er]

Neither is man. We are 98% chimp.

Regards
DL

The mouse genome effort, according to Nature's editors, had revealed "about 30,000 genes, with 99% having direct counterparts in humans. This does not mean that we evolved from mice. It means that the same building blocks are used to create all life.

 

[curious-er]

You are right that the vast majority of mutations produce no advantage and may even result in less survivable traits, but that is completely beside the point. Most of the time, it is just genetic variation that selects for survivability. Occasionally, a mutation can prove beneficial. When it does, that does not necessarily create a new species, but populations (genetic pools) of the same species that face different environmental challenges tend to evolve in different directions. Ultimately, that can result in new species. The existence of ring species tends to corroborate evolutionary theory. When the intermediate populations that separate the ends of a ring species die out, then you get speciation. In principle, all living beings are members of the same ring species whose intermediate populations have gone extinct.

Nonsense. There is no intelligence as we know it at the cellular level, and none is needed. The principles that drive evolution are well understood, and that is why evolution can be modeled in computers as an unintelligent algorithmic process. Don't forget that evolution takes place over geologic time scales. What seems improbable in the span of a human life is not improbable when you are talking about millions of generations.

Your right there is not intelligence taking place on a cellular level, but I dissagree that it is not necessary. It would take a directed intelligence to go from a single cell life form to humans, even on a geologic scale. Unfortunately the fossil record simply doesn't support it.

Since the 1960's scientists have been "listening" for intelligence from space, by way of radio tellescopes. The idea is that an intelligence would send some kind of pattern or sequence. A sequence of prime numbers is a commonly predicted first message from alien intelligence, since mathematics is considered a "universal language," and it is conjectured that algorithems that produce successive prime numbers are sufficiently complicated so as to require intelligence to implement them. It is a simple easily understood theory. One plausable enough for millions upon millions of dollars to be devoted to it.

Yet all around us in nature there are patterns. Fractals are everywhere, in flowers, sea shells, snowflakes, leaves, blood vesels, crystals, etc. There is a division of math called fractal math. It is far more complicated than prime number sequences, yet all the fractal patterns in nature has no intelligence behind it?

Italian mathematicain Leonardo Fibonacci first described a series of numbers, now known as Fibanaccci sequence. Flowers of many plants that have spiral growth often have a Fibonacci number of petels. Fruits and vegetables often have features that correspond to Fibonacci numbers. But there is no intelligence behind it?

About 300 years ago, only 12 elements were known—antimony, arsenic, bismuth, carbon, copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, silver, sulfur, and tin. As more were discovered, scientists noticed that the elements reflected a distinct order. Because there were gaps in the order, scientists such as Mendeleyev, Ramsay, Moseley, and Bohr theorized the existence of unknown elements and their characteristics. Those elements were subsequently discovered just as predicted. Why could those scientists predict that there were forms of matter that were unknown at the time? Because, the elements follow a natural numerical order based on the structure of their atoms. But there is no intelligence behind it?
　
　
How can you ignore the evidence all around you of an intelligence that created it all?

 

[Greatest I am]

The mouse genome effort, according to Nature's editors, had revealed "about 30,000 genes, with 99% having direct counterparts in humans. This does not mean that we evolved from mice. It means that the same building blocks are used to create all life.

That exclude mud or clay. They have no DNA.

So much for the 6 day creation.

Regards
DL

 

[Greatest I am]

　
　
How can you ignore the evidence all around you of an intelligence that created it all?

How can you ignore 200 years of science and the judgment of the intelligentsia?

Dover Trial - Intelligent Design Get's It's Day In Court #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAnIoXPLMdo&feature=PlayList&p=DDE24BF64A815FCD&index=0

Regards
DL

 

[AlsoAnima]

I think it is pointless to judge the Deity, the Deity is perfect. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be the Deity.

 

[Copernicus]

Your right there is not intelligence taking place on a cellular level, but I dissagree that it is not necessary. It would take a directed intelligence to go from a single cell life form to humans, even on a geologic scale. Unfortunately the fossil record simply doesn't support it.

In fact, the fossil record does support the conclusion that new species have evolved. That it does not contain a complete and comprehensive record of all life forms that ever lived is neither surprising nor necessary to draw the conclusion that new species have emerged via a process of evolution over geologic time scales.

Since the 1960's scientists have been "listening" for intelligence from space, by way of radio tellescopes. The idea is that an intelligence would send some kind of pattern or sequence. A sequence of prime numbers is a commonly predicted first message from alien intelligence, since mathematics is considered a "universal language," and it is conjectured that algorithems that produce successive prime numbers are sufficiently complicated so as to require intelligence to implement them. It is a simple easily understood theory. One plausable enough for millions upon millions of dollars to be devoted to it.

It is true that we have not observed radio signals that might indicate the presence of intelligent life in the universe yet. However, we have observed an overwhelming amount of evidence to confirm the existence of biological evolution. The question is whether observed evolutionary patterns require an intelligent agency of some kind to produce them. So your argument is essentially based on your inability to imagine that such complexity could emerge naturally over a geologic time scale. That is not beyond the ability of scientists to imagine, however, and that is why they have devoted far more money to it than SETI. If your argument has any support from the judgment of scientists and research budgets, then it contradicts your conclusion about the validity of evolution theory.

Yet all around us in nature there are patterns. Fractals are everywhere, in flowers, sea shells, snowflakes, leaves, blood vesels, crystals, etc. There is a division of math called fractal math. It is far more complicated than prime number sequences, yet all the fractal patterns in nature has no intelligence behind it?

That is correct. You do not need to posit the intervention of an intelligent agency to explain what causes a snowflake to form in nature. It happens because of the way physical phenomena interact with each other. If you model chaotic interactions with computer programs, you often do see the emergence of complex patterns.

Italian mathematicain Leonardo Fibonacci first described a series of numbers, now known as Fibanaccci sequence. Flowers of many plants that have spiral growth often have a Fibonacci number of petels. Fruits and vegetables often have features that correspond to Fibonacci numbers. But there is no intelligence behind it?

Correct. Why do you think that there needs to be an intelligence behind Fibonacci sequences? What makes that hypothesis necessary? If you think that God somehow explains the existence of complex structure in nature, then what makes you think that there could be a being that could imagine and plan all that complexity? Where would such a being come up with all the knowledge and experience to engineer it all?

Frankly, if you are going to mount an argument from personal incredulity, I've got a better one that trumps yours. If complexity requires an intelligent inventor, then an intelligent inventor also requires an intelligent inventor, because such a being would have to be even more complex than the thing it invented.

About 300 years ago, only 12 elements were known—antimony, arsenic, bismuth, carbon, copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, silver, sulfur, and tin. As more were discovered, scientists noticed that the elements reflected a distinct order. Because there were gaps in the order, scientists such as Mendeleyev, Ramsay, Moseley, and Bohr theorized the existence of unknown elements and their characteristics. Those elements were subsequently discovered just as predicted. Why could those scientists predict that there were forms of matter that were unknown at the time? Because, the elements follow a natural numerical order based on the structure of their atoms. But there is no intelligence behind it?

That is correct. There is no intelligence behind the complexity that exists in nature. Your argument ultimately collapses under its own weight, because it assumes that complexity can only emerge from even greater complexity. You end up with an infinite regression of complexity. However, if complexity can emerge from less complex interactions--which is what evolution explains--then no intelligent agency need be hypothesized to explain the existence of complexity.

How can you ignore the evidence all around you of an intelligence that created it all?

I see no compelling evidence that intelligence is necessary to create complexity in nature. Indeed, I see compelling evidence for the opposite conclusion.

 

[curious-er]

That exclude mud or clay. They have no DNA.

So much for the 6 day creation.

Regards
DL

It is interesting to note that the creation account of Genesis is that of the earth, not the universe. Also when the "first day" begins the earth is already formed with water covering it.

When speaking of creation as 6 days, it is refering to 6 time periods, as can be seen from the fact that all 6 days are spoken of as a "day" (Gen.2:4). Also that the 7th rest day was not and is not concluded. It can therefore be concluded that each time period or day, is a minimum of a couple thousand of years.

Do you view mud and clay as life?

 

[curious-er]

We are way off topic of the OP but anyway..

In fact, the fossil record does support the conclusion that new species have evolved. That it does not contain a complete and comprehensive record of all life forms that ever lived is neither surprising nor necessary to draw the conclusion that new species have emerged via a process of evolution over geologic time scales.

What the fossil record shows is sudden starts and stops. As I stated in previous posts, that there are some similarities in some creatures, does not evolution make.

"Despite the bright promise - that paleontology provides a means of ‘seeing’ evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them. The gaps must therefore be a contingent feature of the record." (Kitts, David B., "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, vol. 28, 1974, p. 467.)

"Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series." (Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, What Evolution Is, 2001, p.14.)

"All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt. Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record." (Gould, Stephen J. The Panda’s Thumb, 1980, p. 189.)

"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23.)

"What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types." (Carroll, Robert L., "Towards a new evolutionary synthesis," in Trends in Evolution and Ecology 15(1):27-32, 2000, p. 27.)

"Given that evolution, according to Darwin, was in a continual state of motion ...it followed logically that the fossil record should be rife with examples of transitional forms leading from the less to more evolved. ...Instead of filling the gaps in the fossil record with so-called missing links, most paleontologists found themselves facing a situation in which there were only gaps in the fossil record, with no evidence of transformational evolutionary intermediates between documented fossil species." (Schwartz, Jeffrey H., Sudden Origins, 1999, p. 89.)

"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is out-pacing integration...The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps." (George, T. Neville, "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science Progress, vol. 48 January 1960, pp. 1-3.)

"Instead of finding the gradual unfolding of life, what geologists of Darwin’s time, and geologists of the present day actually find is a highly uneven or jerky record; that is, species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. and it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find." (Raup, David M., "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, 1979, p. 23.)

Chicago Field Museum, Prof. of Geology, Univ. of Chicago, "A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semi-popular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks...One of the ironies of the creation evolution debate is that the creationists have accepted the mistaken notion that the fossil record shows a detailed and orderly progression and they have gone to great lengths to accommodate this 'fact' in their Flood (Raup, David, "Geology" New Scientist, Vol. 90, p.832, 1981.)

"Transitions between major groups of organisms . . . are difficult to establish in the fossil record." (Padian, K., The Origin of Turtles: One Fewer Problem for Creationists, 1991, p. 18.)

"A persistent problem in evolutionary biology has been the absence of intermediate forms in the fossil record. Long term gradual transformations of single lineages are rare and generally involve simple size increase or trivial phenotypic effects. Typically, the record consists of successive ancestor-descendant lineages, morphologically invariant through time and unconnected by intermediates." (Williamson, P.G., Palaeontological Documentation of Speciation in Cenozoic Molluscs from Turkana Basin, 1982, p. 163.)

"What one actually found was nothing but discontinuities: All species are separated from each other by bridgeless gaps; intermediates between species are not observed . . . The problem was even more serious at the level of the higher categories." (Mayr, E., Animal Species and Evolution, 1982, p. 524.)

"The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured . . . ‘The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin’s stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation.’ . . . their story has been suppressed." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable, 1981, p. 71.)

"One must acknowledge that there are many, many gaps in the fossil record . . . There is no reason to think that all or most of these gaps will be bridged." (Ruse, "Is There a Limit to Our Knowledge of Evolution," 1984, p.101.)

"We are faced more with a great leap of faith . . . that gradual progressive adaptive change underlies the general pattern of evolutionary change we see in the rocks . . . than any hard evidence." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 57.)

"The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life’s history - not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Eldredge, N. and Tattersall, I., The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 59.)

"Gaps in the fossil record - particularly those parts of it that are most needed for interpreting the course of evolution - are not surprising." (Stebbins, G. L., Darwin to DNA, Molecules to Humanity, 1982, p. 107.)

"The fossil record itself provided no documentation of continuity - of gradual transition from one animal or plant to another of quite different form." (Stanley, S.M., The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes and the Origin of Species, 1981, p. 40.)

"The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." (Gould, Stephen J., "Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?," 1982, p. 140.)

"Gaps between higher taxonomic levels are general and large." (Raff R.A, and Kaufman, T.C., Embryos, Genes, and Evolution: The Developmental-Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, 1991, p. 35.)

"We have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life, gaps in such key areas as the origin of the multicellular organisms, the origin of the vertebrates, not to mention the origins of most invertebrate groups." (McGowan, C., In the Beginning . . . A Scientist Shows Why Creationists are Wrong, 1984, p. 95.)

"People and advertising copywriters tend to see human evolution as a line stretching from apes to man, into which one can fit new-found fossils as easily as links in a chain. Even modern anthropologists fall into this trap . . .[W]e tend to look at those few tips of the bush we know about, connect them with lines, and make them into a linear sequence of ancestors and descendants that never was. But it should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable." (Gee, Henry, "Face of Yesterday," The Guardian, Thursday July 11, 2002.)

 

[Greatest I am]

It is interesting to note that the creation account of Genesis is that of the earth, not the universe. Also when the "first day" begins the earth is already formed with water covering it.

When speaking of creation as 6 days, it is refering to 6 time periods, as can be seen from the fact that all 6 days are spoken of as a "day" (Gen.2:4). Also that the 7th rest day was not and is not concluded. It can therefore be concluded that each time period or day, is a minimum of a couple thousand of years.

Do you view mud and clay as life?

Man can eat basically anyhing that lives. Animal life that is.

Try eating clay or mud.

Regards
DL

 

[ManTimeForgot]

I have absolutely no idea how creationism versus evolution ended up being discussed on a thread about "Judging God," but I will bite albeit temporarily.

Curios-er: The answer to your "problem" is something called Punctuated Equilibrium. Look it up here.


As far as judging a deity, let alone a "supreme" one, is concerned: Exactly who here has greater experience, evidence, perspective, and intellectual/moral framework than a deity? I wasn't aware I was in the presence of anyone possessed of the traits of pan-galactic greatness...

MTF