What convinced you that Evolution is the truth?

[TagliatelliMonster]

It seems you are correct, on the irreducible complexity Theory,

To call that a "theory" is an insult to the word.
It's not a "theory". It's barely even an idea.
It's instead a dishonest attempt at hiding a blatant argument from ignorance.
It's fundamental intellectual dishonesty from a bunch of exposed liars with an exposed hidden agenda.

This still does not change the reasonable understanding that the cell and it's components could not have come together randomly.

There is nothing "reasonable" about a blatant strawman.
Nobody, except dishonest creationists, say that the modern cell came together "randomly".
3.5 billion years of non-random evolution by natural selection is the opposite of "randomly".

How long have the experts, tried to replicate a cell, within the lab with every element and having the perfect resources and environment to their advantage and still have not done so with all their techknowledgy and expertise.

Did you expect science to replicate 3.5 billion years worth of evolution in a lab?

Also, another argument from ignorance: "science doesn't know, therefor my silly religious claim".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

“What convinced you that Evolution is the truth?”​

(This may be a different take on this subject that many haven’t thought of, even among my brothers & sisters; please bear with me, I don’t want to offend….)

Because of the adaptations we have observed in life forms. But its effects have limitations. And I believe there’s a Divine purpose behind this ability to adapt / mutate….

Now I’m a staunch supporter of the Bible, and that while there are unlimited ways to misunderstand it, there is really only one specific way to understand it accurately.

Just as 2 + 2 will always equal 4, and nothing else. Any other answer, is simply wrong. That is the nature of truth…. you could say it’s narrow. So, too, there’s a specific way to understand those Scriptures.

That being said… the Bible indicates there’d be changes in some living things.

The Bible states that God told Adam, “every seed-bearing plant / every green plant” was given to Adam & the animals, to eat.

Genesis 1:29 - The Sixth Day

Then God said, Behold, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. They will be yours for food.

biblehub.com

Genesis 1:30 - The Sixth Day

And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth--everything that has the breath of life in it--I have given every green plant for food. And it was so.

biblehub.com

Now the question: can we eat every green plant today? I’m sure even back in the author’s day - the person who wrote this was Moses I believe - even back then, there were some green plants which were dangerous to eat!

So what should that tell us? That the Bible indicates that adaptations within living things - evolution, if you will - would occur!

But adapting in manners that are harmful to humans, wasn’t initially Jehovah’s purpose… just as A&E rebelling against His sovereignty, was not part of His purpose, either.

When mutations did happen, they were originally to be for our benefit.

In Genesis 3, the question / issue of whether man is able to govern himself or not, was raised…. Jehovah, for the most part, has stayed out of human affairs, till the issue of sovereignty is settled. Even removing His protection from all earthly life.
All life - plants and animals - have developed on their own, without His guidance. Especially after the Edenic Fall / Rebellion.

The issue of sovereignty is close to being resolved. It’s almost been shown beyond doubt that man is incapable of / unwilling to fix the problems he’s mostly created, so Jehovah will soon step in — “God…will bring to ruin those ruining the Earth.” — Revelation 11:17,18

Earlier in this post, I wrote:
“When mutations did happen, they were originally to be for our benefit.”

Why? Because when God created Adam&Eve, they were perfect. (Hence their long lifespans, even after their rebellion.) He wanted humans to enjoy their lives, forever…we were made to live forever.

And seeing new species of animals & plants naturally arise over time under Jehovah’s guidance, within their families, would be one way He would use to enrich our endless lives…we would never get bored.

To put it simply… IMO, adaptations within family taxa — ?”kinds”? — were for our benefit, so we could always enjoy some new variety throughout our unending life, as Earth’s caretakers.

I’ll be glad to answer any sincere, respectful questions.


Have a good day.

When you start out pretending you already have the answers before even asking the question (since you approach the subject from the DOGMATIC position that your bible interpretation is correct), then there is no way you are going to get the answers right. Or that you are even in a position to give the question an honest evaluation.

All that you do is trying to paint the bullseye around the arrow.
And you literally make stuff up to "explain away" all the evidence that doesn't fit your a priori beliefs.


You also strawman evolution.
For example, when you say that things only evolve "within" their family, what does that mean exactly?
Give an example of the type of evolution that this would mean could NOT occur which in your opinion would have to be possible if the theory of evolution from biology is correct.

Think it through.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

LET'S TALK ABOUT REAL SCIENCE;
One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.

So moving to the actual functioning components of the cell that make it work. These crucial accidents, as you believe, are absolutely necessary to function in unison with one another within a very short period of time, lest although they may somehow form separately (by your assumed accidental miracles) all other vital parts of the cell need to simultaneously come into existence at the same time, or they will become useless and die!
So much for billions of years happening while each individual part comes to life for no apparent reason, and just waitng around to connect and function together, to then POOF (but remember, no intelligent design involved) a cell has evolved!! Because that is what evolution is correct "Change".


The Protein
WHICH IS ONLY ONE of the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible. Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called "amino acids" that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units
constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.

The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand. For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless or else potentially harmful to living things. In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300". The probability of this "1" to occur is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").

When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 "types" of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.

Please tell me the errors ABOVE!, BUT NOT with vague comments, Please state real facts that refute them!

Irreducible complexity has been refuted. There are numerous examples of this available for those that want to talk about "real science" whatever that means. Generally, I have found it to mean those that don't have much knowledge of science, but want to artificially disconnect valid science that doesn't appeal to their personal views call only that which they will accept for arbitrary, personal reasons to be "real science".

Briefly, in order to demonstrate that something is irreducibly complex (cannot exist in a lesser state with function), all possible iterations of reduced state and condition must be known and demonstrated functionless. How would that be achieved? Logically, it can't be.

Further, all examples of systems and structures offered as irreducibly complex systems and structures have been shown to have function in reduced condition.

What this is, is an argument from ignorance. God of the gaps. We don't know, so therefore irreducible complexity (or your favorite believed cause). That is religion and not science. Apply that to anything you don't know and throw in your favorite belief of anything and see what actual solution to a problem that provides. I hope it isn't in an emergency situation. It is not a very sound approach to a problem and isn't science.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

LET'S TALK ABOUT REAL SCIENCE;
One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.

So moving to the actual functioning components of the cell that make it work. These crucial accidents, as you believe, are absolutely necessary to function in unison with one another within a very short period of time, lest although they may somehow form separately (by your assumed accidental miracles) all other vital parts of the cell need to simultaneously come into existence at the same time, or they will become useless and die!
So much for billions of years happening while each individual part comes to life for no apparent reason, and just waitng around to connect and function together, to then POOF (but remember, no intelligent design involved) a cell has evolved!! Because that is what evolution is correct "Change".


The Protein
WHICH IS ONLY ONE of the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible. Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called "amino acids" that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units
constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.

The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand. For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless or else potentially harmful to living things. In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300". The probability of this "1" to occur is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").

When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 "types" of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made above for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.

Please tell me the errors ABOVE!, BUT NOT with vague comments, Please state real facts that refute them!

It is always the same it seems. Every time a creationist stumbles onto this underbelly, pseudoscience, they bring it up as if no scientist ever thought about these things and as if they have discovered some intellectual Holy Grail that has been ignored or denied by scientists. They never bother to do "real science" and challenge it on their own by seeing what has been determined from full review. It gives the answer the creationist wants and they stop there. If there was any interest in real understanding, a person would dig into what has been said for and against this "real truth" before lobbing once again into the discussion only to see it met with those things the creationist didn't bother to find out or have the resources to look and understand if they did find it.

These odds arguments are always based on the idea that the protein would assemble fully formed and functional in the role that it plays in present biological systems. Of course they are astronomically impossible. But the theory doesn't propose that things spring into existence fully formed and simple changes to an ancestral molecule may have been sufficient for the environment in which it existed. Slow, subtle changes that meet the the changing conditions of the environment over time.

I wonder often if an untrained person ever considered that they really don't have the knowledge to wonder haplessly into a discussion where specific understanding and knowledge of a complex subject are required and somehow come to a correct answer by chance. What are the odds of that? What are they when failed arguments are brought to the table?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As it should because new evidence can add to or alter what we understand. Does your religion do that?

It is often a demand of some religions and some interpretations of religion that no new information is to be allowed. What exists is to be taken as literal truth even in the face of conflicting and contradicting evidence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

God did, I put my faith in Jesus Christ believing him to be my savior, and accepted his salvation. I then experienced his presence and have been believing in him ever since. The experience was then confirmed later when I read the Bible and in Romans 8:16 it Says, And the Spirit of God witnesses with our Spirit that we are Children of God...........It is absolutely fact based to me. Your unbelief does not nullify that for me.....Only for you!

I feel the same way spiritually, but your unbelief in valid knowledge, rationally obtained, only nullifies that knowledge for you and does nothing to it in fact nor in the acquisition and understanding of it for others.

In my view and understanding, God gave me a mind, senses, the intellect and the curiosity to examine this world around us that we were gifted with. To deny what is found there, is in my mind, as much a denial of God, the same judgment that you bequeath on others, without the authority to do so spiritually or factually.

 

[YoursTrue]

What would you accept as compelling evidence for evolution? Scientists have the evidence from comparative anatomy, evidence that led Linnaeus to classify humans with the apes decades before Charles Darwin was born, the evidence from the pattern of genetic similarities and differences that links all living things, and the fossil evidence that living things have changed radically through geological history. There is the evidence that animal and plant breeders have produced strikingly different forms of dogs, horses, cabbages, roses, etc. by selective breeding over a few centuries.

There is the evidence that living things reproduce themselves, that their offspring are not identical either to the parents or to one another, and that only some of the offspring live to produce the next generation. These changes from generation to generation, and the differential reproductive success of members of the same generation, are bound, over long periods of time, to produce large changes.

Why do you regard this evidence as insufficient, and what would you accept as valid evidence for evolution?

What do you mean by 'Kinds of life forms'? Do you regard all snails as belonging to the same kind, or all butterflies, or all jellyfish, or all primates? Please give me a precise definition of a kind, and explain why variations beyond the limits of a kind are impossible.

Meantime, why do you as an evolutionist, believe in God? So far I have seen no explanation. @metis also. This is really what this discussion is about. I'm asking those who believe in evolution and God to explain why they believe in God.

 

[metis]

So far I have seen no explanation. @metis also. This is really what this discussion is about. I'm asking those who believe in evolution and God to explain why they believe in God.

So, even if we say we believe in God, and some explain that we do consider ourselves Christian, that's not good enough for you and imply that we are lying?

 

[YoursTrue]

So, even if we say we believe in God, and some explain that we do consider ourselves Christian, that's not good enough for you and imply that we are lying?

You can seriously explain why you believe in the theory of evolution with details, but so far I have seen no explanation as to why you believe in God other than you believe. It has nothing to do with my thought that you are lying -- but I would hope you could at least offer a modicum of an explanation for God-deniers why you DO believe there is a God other than you believe. Thank you.

 

[YoursTrue]

I feel the same way spiritually, but your unbelief in valid knowledge, rationally obtained, only nullifies that knowledge for you and does nothing to it in fact nor in the acquisition and understanding of it for others.

In my view and understanding, God gave me a mind, senses, the intellect and the curiosity to examine this world around us that we were gifted with. To deny what is found there, is in my mind, as much a denial of God, the same judgment that you bequeath on others, without the authority to do so spiritually or factually.

@Subduction Zone I give @Dan From Smithville kudos for explaining in part why he believes in God. Thank you, Dan.

 

[McBell]

You can seriously explain why you believe in the theory of evolution with details, but so far I have seen no explanation as to why you believe in God other than you believe.

What makes you think you are entitled to know why they believe in God?

 

[Subduction Zone]

@Subduction Zone I give @Dan From Smithville kudos for explaining in part why he believes in God. Thank you, Dan.

Amazing, the same error in another thread.

 

[YoursTrue]

So, even if we say we believe in God, and some explain that we do consider ourselves Christian, that's not good enough for you and imply that we are lying?

P.S. As an addendum, you say you believe in God but offer no evidence for your belief so far, and one of the reasons you say you believe in God is that the ToE does not say there is no God.

 

[YoursTrue]

What makes you think you are entitled to know why they believe in God?

I can ask with the entitlement you have for asking me why I would like to know their reasons for believing in God and evolution. So far--and I appreciate the answers, one says he believes in God because the theory of evolution does not say there is no God, and another says he believes in God because God gave him a mind, senses, the intellect and the curiosity to examine this world around us that we were gifted with.

 

[metis]

You can seriously explain why you believe in the theory of evolution with details, but so far I have seen no explanation as to why you believe in God other than you believe. It has nothing to do with my thought that you are lying -- but I would hope you could at least offer a modicum of an explanation for God-deniers why you DO believe there is a God other than you believe. Thank you.

I'm sorta busy for now but let me provide this link to a theologian who's belief in God pretty much parallels mine: Baruch Spinoza - Wikipedia

 

[Astrophile]

Meantime, why do you as an evolutionist, believe in God? So far I have seen no explanation. @metis also. This is really what this discussion is about. I'm asking those who believe in evolution and God to explain why they believe in God.

I used to believe in God because I had been brought up as a Christian and had assumed that the people who taught me knew what they were talking about. I regarded, and in fact still regard, the existence of God and the truth of Christianity as entirely separate questions from evolution, the age of the universe and other scientific matters.

I eventually rejected Christianity as a result of studying the Bible; I concluded that the Bible is historically inaccurate, that its legal and moral precepts are those of barbarians, and that its prophecies, particularly that of the imminent end of the world, have been falsified by events. If I had had enough time, and enough knowledge, to study the other religions of the world in the same detail, I should probably have concluded that they were equally false.

 

[Saved by grace 2]

That is a bit of a strawman argument on your part. Didn't you read the Genesis myths? God set Adam and Eve up for failure in that story. Also if you understood all of the endless evidence for evolution and only evidence against the creation myths you would realize that the only way that the events could have happened is if God lied by planting endless false evidence telling us that the myths of Genesis never happened. If God cannot lie then you cannot read Genesis literally.

I have read and studied and believe that all of Genesis to Revelation is true. I'm not sure what you mean about God setting up Adam and Eve and the other comments, please elaborate.

 

[Sargonski]

I have read and studied and believe that all of Genesis to Revelation is true. I'm not sure what you mean about God setting up Adam and Eve and the other comments, please elaborate.

butting in here I know and sorry but, as a point of clarification, .which Genesis to Revelation are we referring to ? the age old "which Bible is the correct one" puzzle that no one has ever solved .. untill now .. and I am excited to hear .. which version my dear to which I should Run .. if I really want God's Honest Truth ?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have read and studied and believe that all of Genesis to Revelation is true. I'm not sure what you mean about God setting up Adam and Eve and the other comments, please elaborate.

If you only read the Bible then you are only using circular reasoning. We know that Genesis is a book of myths. We know that even if there was an Exodus, and that is quite dubious, that it was nothing like the Bible version. I will leave the countless flaws in the Old Testament behind and point out that the birth of Jesus was ten years later in Luke than it was in Matthew. There are errors to be found all throughout the Bible.

 

[Sargonski]

Meantime, why do you as an evolutionist, believe in God? So far I have seen no explanation. @metis also. This is really what this discussion is about. I'm asking those who believe in evolution and God to explain why they believe in God.

believing in Gods ---- as in the Bible .. and associated near east mythology and religious belief .. explains evolution .. the creative force .. the all spark .. of which there is one .. but there are other Gods .. with varying degrees of control over the All spark.

When you see order arise from the Chaos .. get up on two feet and begin to walk towards you .. thats when you know there was a directional force in play --- driving that result .. call it "The hand of a God" if you like .. just not "The Hand of God" .. as this assumes too much and misses the point.