Ricketty, I don't think there have been "many major and discontinuous changes" in the evolution of life. But I guess it depends on what you consider to be major and discontinuous.

I do believe that through natural variation and natural selection there may be certain traits that dominate very quickly and may lead to a spurt of relatively rapid evolution. But nothing "discontinuous".

looks like many people on this site are non religious / atheists.
Question for you? What is stopping you from stealing, lying, killing, ....
Other than laws which can easily be manipulated.

When a family member is sick and such, what do you believe in? What greater power do you ask for help?

I find it so wierd.

kgeorge, you have an inquisitive mind. Be careful, or you may get answers you don't want to hear. ;)
Question for you? What is stopping you from stealing, lying, killing, ....Let me turn it around... if you believe that you can ask for forgiveness and still get to heaven, then what is stopping *you* from stealing, lying, killing?

Morals are not strictly the domain of the religious. I have them too.
When a family member is sick and such, what do you believe in? What greater power do you ask for help?I take sick family members to the doctor. You simply pray for them or take them to a priest, I suppose.

No? Well how about that! I guess we believe in the same thing for curing sick people!

And I can confirm that medicine has successfully cured myself and many sick members of my family, despite my lack of belief in a god. :)

looks like many people on this site are non religious / atheists.
Question for you? What is stopping you from stealing, lying, killing, ....
Other than laws which can easily be manipulated.

When a family member is sick and such, what do you believe in? What greater power do you ask for help?

I find it so wierd.

What stops me from stealing, lying and killing is not primarily laws, but my own sense of natural justice. If you examine the major religions of the world, you'll find that the basic principles about how we should treat one another are very similar across all of them. This, to me, is natural justice.

Ricketty

Ricketty, I don't think there have been "many major and discontinuous changes" in the evolution of life. But I guess it depends on what you consider to be major and discontinuous.

I do believe that through natural variation and natural selection there may be certain traits that dominate very quickly and may lead to a spurt of relatively rapid evolution. But nothing "discontinuous".

Even a Darwinian like Gould sees discontinuous change as vital to evolution.

"Indeed, if we do not invoke discontinuous change by small alteration in rates of development, I do not see how most major evolutionary transitions can be accomplished at all."

Ricketty

What is stopping you from stealing, lying, killing, ....
Other than laws which can easily be manipulated.

As has already been mentioned, it is natural for most human beings to behave in a way that adheres to a personal code of conduct and is beneficial to the group as a whole. If everyone went around and acted crazy, societies would simply fail. People learned that it was best to work together in the interest of mutual group benefit than to continuously seek out and satisfy personal interest. (Of course, this trend is returning due to the "corporate entity", viewed under the law as a person with distinct rights, and its pursuit of pure self-interest, but that's another topic for another day...)

Society simply works better when we don't steal, don't kill, and don't destroy each other's property. Religion does not stop anyone from doing any of these things; in fact, it often encourages them. :rolleyes:

Ethics and morals are results of societal and cultural development, and were adopted by religions when their obvious benefits became apparent.

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_ethics):

The Dalai Lama has said that compassion and affection are human values independent of religion: "We need these human values. I call these secular ethics, secular beliefs. There’s no relationship with any particular religion. Even without religion, even as nonbelievers, we have the capacity to promote these things."

[...]

Despite the width and diversity of their philosophical views, secular ethicists generally share one or more principles:
Human beings, through their ability to empathise, are capable of determining ethical grounds.
Human beings, through logic and reason, are capable of deriving normative principles of behaviour.
This may lead to a behaviour morally preferable to that propagated or condoned based on religious texts. When a family member is sick and such, what do you believe in? What greater power do you ask for help?As others have stated, when dealing with sickness, it is the competence and compassion of the medical staff in which I place my trust.

I find it so wierd.Understandable, as prayer is an attempt to control outcomes in a universe where we obviously have little or no control. If we appeal to the deity, perhaps we will be spared tragedy and attract good fortune. As we have repeatedly seen, this practice does not work. For us, the notion of a god interfering with the lives of selected individuals is strange.

Yeah, a fossil is not found yet, therefore, God exists. Nice theory. What happens when they find the missing fossils, though? God dies? All you creationists denounce him? Aren't you risking God's life by entrusting his fate to scientists, who keep digging up and finding new stuff?

Not at all, for the BILLIONS of non atheists in the world today, science is a means to discover how God manifests himself in the physical realm, not as means to write him out of existence. As for the missing fossils, It's interesting how paleontologists have often unearthed layers of strata and discovered extinct species dating back as far as the precambrian era, yet each new discovery has always been a distinct animal, never a transitional one. Correct me if I'm wrong but since fossils of trilobites are as common as dinosaurs and early mammals of which spans hundreds of millions of years you would think there would have to be some transitional species in there somewhere no?
Also interesting to note how at various layers these animals suddenly appear in a given age. No signs of gradual progression to their respective stages of evolution whatsoever.

Question for you? What is stopping you from stealing, lying, killing, ....

As if a valid answer to this question is: "An arbitrary, unprovable, mystical belief in a supernatural being who makes ethical pronouncements"?! Bizarre. Just bizarre. You may think atheists have no valid basis for morality, but saying religionists do is laughable.

Further, those who attempt to arrive at rational, reality-based ethical systems can argue reasonably with one another by evaluating the evidence for opposing theories. What can religious people do? Nothing but say "I believe this." If someone, say radical Moslems, disagree, argument is pointless -- the only avenue open to "convince" others is force. Hence what we see today with fatwas being issued over authors and cartoonists expressing their disagreement, not to mention the history of religious wars and violence.

Mark

Not at all, for the BILLIONS of non atheists in the world today, science is a means to discover how God manifests himself in the physical realm, not as means to write him out of existence.

Those who want to "discover how God manifests himself in the physical realm" are a bunch of people in the scientific world, more like hundreds, rather than billions. Let's be clear on the actual numbers. :)
The billions you are talking about are religious people who don't mess with science. They believe and do whatever their parents, holy books and priest say, and are NOT scientists (quite on the opposite side of the intellectual scale, actually). Creationists (which appear like a religious sect, which G.W. seems to be an honorary member of) are rightfully not embraced by the official religious institutions, because priests have learned the hard way not to mix God with science (the "non-overlapping magisteria" term used by Stephen Jay). I understand how creationism has come to existence as a result of a beautiful dream to see how God and science work together, but it is laughable from scientific and dangerous (for religion) from religious point of view.
I would like to not go into detailed argument about whether evolution or gravity is proved or not. I am not a scientist, neither are you. Evolution is just as solid theory as gravity - if you choose to deny them, you deny science and don't have the moral right to use that word in your arguments.

I don't deny some aspects of the theory of evolution, most of it is sound. So far all I see in this thread is a mutual exclusivity mindset. "Science proves physical manifestations therefore God can't exist because his existence can't be proven physically." No kidding. What about the paranormal? Are all people who have witnessed unexplainable supernatural phenomena simply brushed off as hallucinating nutjobs on drugs? Are they all mental cases? Insane? Just plain liars? BTW I go to the doctor for my medical needs. As for my faith in God. It has brought me piece of mind, a happy stable marriage and well mannered kids that aren't getting into drugs, sex or criminal behavior and a comfortable standard of living. Sounds like Ozzie and Harriet? Maybe, but I got everything I want out of my life and am content. Physically, emotionally and spiritually. Laugh at me if you want to but I feel complete as a human being because of my faith. :)

I don't wish to go into how you or anybody else benefits or not from their faith in God. None of the facts you mentioned even remotely prove the existence of God, or even the need for it. The burden of proof for the existence of God (God is the most illogical, outlandish and without a shred of evidence hypothesis created by Man) is on those who say it exists. No emptiness in our scientific knowledge can serve as a proof. It just makes no sense.
As for all unexplained or paranormal phenomena - they have nothing to do with our topic. They are just not explained yet and inapplicable to the question of God's existence.

What about the paranormal? Are all people who have witnessed unexplainable supernatural phenomena simply brushed off as hallucinating nutjobs on drugs? Are they all mental cases? Insane? Just plain liars?

Those are a few options, and there are probably many more. Is there any evidence to suggest which of them is most likely?

Ricketty

HT gearhead.


You and you family did all that not the skyman.

And well done.

looks like many people on this site are non religious / atheists.Here's what this thread needs: :cool:

http://technut.canada.googlepages.com/evolution.gif

It's interesting how paleontologists have often unearthed layers of strata and discovered extinct species dating back as far as the precambrian era, yet each new discovery has always been a distinct animal, never a transitional one.


I may regret wading in on this but I have to ask.

What exactly is a "transitional animal"? Every animal is going to be distinct. It's not like they change before your eyes. Nor are you going to find an animal with the head of one species and the body of another. These are very tiny changes from one generation to the next that may give an advantage to a organism (99.9% of these changes won't) yet each generation is still a distinct organism. Evolution never posits anything different.

Not only have these changes been documented in nature (see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080421-lizard-evolution.html ), but they have been replicated in the lab with microorganisms and insects. And scientists find all kinds of organisms with physical characteristics that are common to other species. It took me 5 minutes to find a discovery of fossils on the dinosaur to bird lineage: (See: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9806/23/feathered.dinosaur/ ) You can draw the same linage through all the proto human species: Australopithecine, Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalis and Homo Sapiens. I would be surprised if we didn't continue to evolve (if we don't kill ourselves off).

I am a practising Anglican yet have no trouble with rational thinking, science or evolution. When I read the objections of creationists (which are only a small percentage of Christians, BTW) it's pretty clear that they don't understand taxonomy, genetics or evolution and intentionally or unintentionally distort it to build a strawman to attack it, or are ignorant of what the fossil record has shown so far. And while they try to tear down evolution, they offer no evidence that supports the literal interpretation of the first of the two creation stories found in Genesis. As if disproving one makes the other more palatable.

Speaking for myself, I believe in God but recognize that I may be wrong. I accept the Christian story as mythic in nature (a narrative which may or may not contain fact used to convey a larger truth) and am agnostic about whether it is factual or historical or not. That doesn't really matter to me. What brought me into the church was the Sermon on the Mount, which still speaks out against the social order and goes against human nature, and I am glad to part of a community that intentionally (but imperfectly) tries to live it out. I have no problem with those who disagree and don't mock their agnosticism or atheism. Who knows? They could be right. But at the same time, I leave room in my worldview for mystery and for something that exists and that I believe I have experienced, but is beyond my ability to fully discern and understand. Some Christians think I am not Christian enough and most others think I have too much faith.

This article may be of interest: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html

A major evolutionary innovation has unfurled right in front of researchers' eyes. It's the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait.

And because the species in question is a bacterium, scientists have been able to replay history to show how this evolutionary novelty grew from the accumulation of unpredictable, chance events.

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.

The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.
Profound change

Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use....

When I have a sick family member, I do take them to a doctor. A close family member had an organ transplant and all as well. We are holding a fundraising golf tourny to raise money for the hospital.

Believing in God helped us through the process. Believing in something helps with many aspects in life. I'm not super religious nor do I go to church often but I do have a relationship with God.

p.s. All athiests are going to hell. Hope you bring your sunscreen! :D

na, I don't care what others believe or not believe but I'm sick of this site bashing religion time and time again. I can't control it though. I guess the 5 billion non athiest people walking this earth are wrong.

p.s. All athiests are going to hell.lol... that's a completely meaningless threat to an atheist. Pretty funny line. :D

I'm sick of this site bashing religion time and time again.Then you simply avoid such posts as there are many other ones which are very interesting to even a christian;)! I very seldo glance at such posts, I prefer positive DHC posts to negative ones and there are so many (you have a few your self, right?)

God bless!

I'm sick of this site bashing religion time and time again...

It's not "bashing" to challenge established beliefs or to be critical of others' opinions.

For example, if someone says Speaker A is better than Speaker B, we'd expect them to provide an informed opinion as to why they feel that way, not get upset and claim they are being unfairly persecuted or demeaned. We'd expect more than "I just like it". We'd want specs, we'd want comparisons to similar models, we'd want it shown exactly how one speaker is better than another. Many of us also apply this thinking to our general lives. Religion, along with many other personal topics, does not get a "free pass" in this regard. It, too, must be able to withstand criticism and inquiry.

Arguments are healthy and often both informative and entertaining. Agreed, sometimes it gets too personal and inflammatory, but that's normal when the topic arouses such passionate reactions. Hugh and the mods are often quick to slap those who get too carried away with their invective.

All atheists are going to hell...Careful, that statement could be construed as a "bash"... ;)