[X] My Assistant

[bijoukaiba]

I'd have to side with evolution. I used to be Christian, but I'm a turn away now since it doesn't really make sense to me. My family and friends are all Christians and only about 3 of my friends know about my atheism.
Evolution makes more sense to me.

Evolution:
Wouldn't fossils leave evidence of the evolution of creatures?
How would you explain the "founded" Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat?

So yeah, sorry if my little brain wastes your time.

I'm also going through the same "phase" of starting to tell my friends/family about my atheism as well. I've told a handful of my closest friends, and only my cat (though that probably doesn't count ), little brother, and mom know that I'm an atheist - as far as I can tell, I am the first non-Christian in the family.

Anyway, to answer your questions...

1) Do you mean transitional fossils? The problem with those is that it seems to suggest that you find every single generational fossil between species.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejbNVWES4LI

Watch this video, but click on random time intervals first to see random pictures... say, 0:01 .... 0:12 ... 0:35.. 0:48... 1:12 .... 1:23. Six different pictures of the same girl. We can see that she has changed over time, even without looking at the day-by-day pictures in between. Evolution is sort of the same... even if we can't get fossils from each and every generation of species, we can still see the evolutionary divergence present.

2) Three reasons why Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat was a fake:

1. They claim that radiocarbon dates the wood to 4800 years before present, but the Ark was constructed of pre-Flood wood, which would mean that the carbon dating should be much, much older.

2. The modern "Mt. Ararat" (Agri Dagh) is a post-Flood volcano. The Ark could not have landed on Agri Dagh because it did not exist at the end of the Flood, and even if it did land on modern Agri Dagh, it would have been destroyed by the many, many eruptions of Ararat since the Flood. You can observe all the fresh lava flows on Agri Dagh at Google Maps.

3. Given that the Flood survivors left the Ark to find a devastated world, the Ark would have been the best source of timber for the first decade or so. I think it highly likely that the Ark would have been dismantled to supply the growing population with building material for shelter.

[Reyo]

I'd have to side with evolution. I used to be Christian, but I'm a turn away now since it doesn't really make sense to me. My family and friends are all Christians and only about 3 of my friends know about my atheism.
Evolution makes more sense to me.

Though, I still have questions for both choices.

Creation:
According to most/some Christians, things could not appear by chance. If so, then how did God came to be?

1. I've never heard that said in church, but maybe I'm jusy biased.
2. He/She/It was unintentional? Then there's the possibility that he's always been there, and thus never needed to "came to be".

How do you explain that there are still other religions that claim their own religion is the only true one?

Because people like to be right about ERRTHING. If you don't believe me, tell someone...anyone...hell, it could be some random guy on the street that he's wrong about anything.

If all the animals came out of the Ark, how did the kangaroos get back to Australia?

They swam.
/smartassanswer

I don't know, but then again I don't trust half of the stories in the bible as 100% truth anyway.

Quoted from Epicurus:
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

All of those are human attempts to predict the personality of a being who is truely omnipotent and omniscient. Maybe God's just a dick. I don't know, but it's certainly possible. And evil is something I never did like hearing people try and say is this big bad thing that needs to be destroyed. For one thing, try defining evil. What makes someone evil? Some of the hugest dickheads that I've seen have had the most normal lives possible, and that's when they did that shit on purpose. Let's say a guy in his mid-forties runs over a kid who was playing in the street, and the kid dies. Now let's say that guy has a loving wife, 2 kids (one of which is in college as a science major (for obviouse reasons...(science is awesome))), a dog, and a hobby as an R/C plane flyer. Is he evil?

Evolution:
Wouldn't fossils leave evidence of the evolution of creatures?

They technically do, but the argument isn't whether or not the fossils show a chronological path of an organisms transition...or at least it isn't anymore. Now it's a matter of "WELL WHERE'S THE CONNECTION BETWEEN X FOSSIL AND Y FOSSIL!!!??!" Even if a new "missing link" is found, people will demand a "missing link" between that new fossil and the one before it. It's like proving that 2 is less than 3. Well...2.1 is greater than 2 but less than 3, so 2 must be less than 3.

BUT PROVE THAT 2.1 IS LESS THAN 3!!!!

How would you explain the "founded" Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat?

Some guy a bamillion years ago crashed his boat in the side of a mountain and it's been there ever sense? That boat being compared to Noah's Ark is founded in human emotion, like saying that a parking spot is a gift from God for you to get where you're going on time. It's a normal event being glorified as a supernatural phenomenon.

So yeah, sorry if my little brain wastes your time.

<filler quote>

This post has been edited by Reyo: Jul 10 2011, 07:07 PM

[Skins T]

I don't reject the concept of divine intervention, but am baffled by the idea of people believing a random book or two would know about said intervention.

Evolution vs. Creationism is no contest, not to mention a rather pointless argument. Creationism is a religious story, made real by evangelists who take a book too seriously. Evolution actually has proof.

[PawsrentOrigin]

I believe that the FSM, in all of His infinite wisdom and glory, first created the mountains, the trees, then a midget. Then he dipped His noodly appendage in the primordial ooze, and created the sea creatures. Then he made more species to make future scientists believe it was all evolution, to keep the pastarazzi away from his macaroni gates and beer volcano.

But seriously, to qoute the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, there is a conversation that occurs.

God: I refuse to prove that I exist, for proof denies faith, and without faith, I am nothing.
Man: But [life] proves that you exist, and therefore, you do not.
God: Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that.
The God promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Man: Well, that was easy.
Man then goes on to prove that black is white, and gets trampled by a herd of stampeding zebras.

This post has been edited by PawsrentOrigin: Oct 9 2011, 12:32 PM

[kirby163]

I'm going to say this: if God does exist, then I want to have a long talk with him. A very long talk.

What really bothers me about religion is when people use it as an excuse to hurt people.

In my opinion, any God who encourages pain and death is not a God, and should be ignored and forgotten.

[Reyo]

I believe that the FSM, in all of His infinite wisdom and glory, first created the mountains, the trees, then a midget. Then he dipped His noodly appendage in the primordial ooze, and created the sea creatures. Then he made more species to make future scientists believe it was all evolution, to keep the pastarazzi away from his macaroni gates and beer volcano.

I HATE HATE HATE it when someone decides to bring the FSM into any religious conversation. It's an attempt to avoid a legitimate conversation for the sake of bashing the side of religion. Some dick decided to try that with me when we were having a discussion about evolution vs. creationism (I was playing devil's advocate). We were on something related to the validity of the bible and out of nowhere he says "Well I have a book detailing the death, and eventual resurrection of the Flying Spaghetti Monster."

"Dude...what's the point of bringing the FSM into this?"
"The point is you're masking your ignorance for evolution by hiding behind a fiction book"
"......you DO know that I'm making a better grade in Biology class than you...right?"
"Whatever dude, you're just a closet believer."

In 99% of the religious conversations I've had with someone, the SECOND they run out of a clear and concise argument, the FSM rears it's head to muck it up.

So please, if you will...don't.

I'm going to say this: if God does exist, then I want to have a long talk with him. A very long talk.

What really bothers me about religion is when people use it as an excuse to hurt people.

In my opinion, any God who encourages pain and death is not a God, and should be ignored and forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Don't assume that just because a group of people are dicks in the name of God, that God himself is truly in agreement with what they're doing. If God wanted a group of people dead, he'd use his omnipotence to kill them. Plain and simple.

This post has been edited by Reyo: Sep 16 2011, 06:09 PM

[Dragonflames1994]

God: No proof.

Evolution: Proof.

The End.

[nitrodog96]

That's true. But God does make sense.

(but if the Good Book is right, then am I related to Chinese people I don't even know?

I've got a pretty good compromise here.

God might have made evolution, then all that bible stuff with Noah's Ark and Jesus and everything happens.

If no one likes that, I say God. His way is much more believable, and seriously, the average human isn't as hairy as a monkey.

[Reyo]

That's true. But God does make sense.

(but if the Good Book is right, then am I related to Chinese people I don't even know?

I've got a pretty good compromise here.

God might have made evolution, then all that bible stuff with Noah's Ark and Jesus and everything happens.

If no one likes that, I say God. His way is much more believable, and seriously, the average human isn't as hairy as a monkey.

*brain cells start popping*

While I agree in your stance that God and Evolution are compatible, that statement right there leads me to believe you have VERY little of understanding of even the fundamental workings of evolution.

I'll make it quick: 2 things!

1. Hair and hair alone isn't what determines how similar, or dissimilar two species are to each other.
2. That statement is under the impression that you believe in the argument "If people evolved from apes..." which has been shot down multiple times in this very thread alone, so many times in fact that now it's nothing more than a siren that goes off whenever somebody is unfortunate enough to ask "CAN I go to the bathroom" instead of "MAY I go to the bathroom."

This post has been edited by Reyo: Oct 12 2011, 06:10 PM

[Me Gusta]

i don't believe in religion so it'll be stupid if i believe in a god. there are fossils that prove that the earth is way older than what the bible says and some people even try to fix or teak their believes which are flawed in the first place.

[Lugia182]

I haven't read most of the replies to this thread (there are too many), so sorry if I'm just re-hashing what others have said.

I'm not religious in the slightest, so (for now*) evolution is the only thing I can believe in that I can think of. It's logical to me, and I'm largely logical-minded, so yeah. The evidence for it (that I've seen, anyway) is overwhelming. For that reason, it angers me that some schools don't teach it. To me, that's a form of brainwashing!

*I say "for now" because who knows? Scientists might discover something in the future that contradicts evolution completely and that offers some new explanation as to where we came from.

[nokrow889]

the one fatal flaw i always see in evolution is how it all started the big bang is what most people support but let me ask how did that single atom or mass of junk or w/e get there? most scientists dont even have an explanation for that and the ones that do are so far out of this world to make any sense the movie exspelled (while i know not the best thing out there) does have real scientists on it and one of them said he believes aliens place that first blob of everything that exploded but then the question arises who made the alien??? has anyone ever thought what if the big bang did happen the odds of everything going the way they did is astounding considering how little room for error there was...also scientists have stated that life cant be made from nothing so how did the first atom come to be? honestly i dont know if God is real but there has to be something greater than us that did all this it happened in a way that just isnt possible thru any other means other than divine intervention.

(sorry for bad grammar i never picked it up in school :/)

[Reyo]

the one fatal flaw i always see in evolution is how it all started the big bang is what most people support but let me ask how did that single atom or mass of junk or w/e get there? most scientists dont even have an explanation for that and the ones that do are so far out of this world to make any sense the movie exspelled (while i know not the best thing out there) does have real scientists on it and one of them said he believes aliens place that first blob of everything that exploded but then the question arises who made the alien??? has anyone ever thought what if the big bang did happen the odds of everything going the way they did is astounding considering how little room for error there was...also scientists have stated that life cant be made from nothing so how did the first atom come to be? honestly i dont know if God is real but there has to be something greater than us that did all this it happened in a way that just isnt possible thru any other means other than divine intervention.

(sorry for bad grammar i never picked it up in school :/)

Evolution was never meant to explain how life started, only how life gets from point A to point B. Evolution is more fit to explain how you got from your house to school than it is fit to explain how you came to be (Ironic given that biology is actually pretty fluent as the specifics of just that). Besides, there are several cases exploring just how life most likely started by trying to replicate it in a lab, and they're being mildly successful at it.

On the Origin of Life on Earth
SCIENCE VOL 323, 9 JANUARY 2009, p. 199
by Carl Zimmer

AN AMAZON OF WORDS FLOWED FROM Charles Darwin’s pen. His books covered the gamut from barnacles to orchids, from geology to domestication. At the same time, he filled notebooks with his ruminations and scribbled thousands of letters packed with
observations and speculations on nature. Yet Darwin dedicated only a few words of his great verbal flood to one of the biggest questions in all of biology: how life began.

The only words he published in a book appeared near the end of On the Origin of Species: “Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed,” Darwin wrote.

Darwin believed that life likely emerged spontaneously from the chemicals it is made of today, such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus. But he did not publish these musings. The English naturalist had built his argument for evolution, in large part, on the processes he could observe around him. He did not think it would be possible to see life originating now because the life that’s already here would prevent it from emerging.

In 1871, he outlined the problem in a letter to his friend, botanist Joseph Hooker: “But if (and Oh! what a big if!) we could conceive in some warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc., present, that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.”

Scientists today who study the origin of life do not share Darwin’s pessimism about our ability to reconstruct those early moments. “Now is a good time to be doing this research, because the prospects for success are greater than they have ever been,” says John Sutherland, a chemist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. He and others are addressing each of the steps involved in the transition to life: where the raw materials came from, how complex organic molecules such as RNA formed, and how the first cells arose. In doing so, they are inching their way toward making life from scratch. “When I was in graduate school, people thought investigating the origin of life was something old scientists did at the end of their career, when they could sit in an armchair and speculate,” says Henderson James Cleaves of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. “Now making an artificial cell doesn’t sound like science fiction any more. It’s a reasonable pursuit.”


RAW INGREDIENTS

Life—or at least life as we know it—appears to have emerged on Earth only once. Just about all organisms use double-stranded DNA to encode genetic information, for example. They copy their genes into RNA and then translate RNA into proteins. The genetic code they use to translate DNA into proteins is identical, whether they are emus or bread mold. The simplest explanation for this shared biology is that all living things inherited it from a common ancestor— namely, DNA-based microbes that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago. That common ancestor was already fairly complex, and many scientists have wondered how it might have evolved from a simpler predecessor. Some now argue that membrane-bound cells with only RNA inside predated both DNA and proteins. Later, RNA-based life may have evolved the ability to assemble amino acids into proteins. It’s a small step, biochemically, for DNA to evolve from RNA.

In modern cells, RNA is remarkably versatile. It can sense the levels of various compounds inside a cell and switch genes on and off to adjust these concentrations, for example. It can also join together amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Thus, the first cells might have tapped RNA for all the tasks on which life depends.

For 60 years, researchers have been honing theories about the sources of the amino acids and RNA’s building blocks. Over time, they have had to refine their ideas to take into account an ever-clearer understanding of what early Earth was like.

In an iconic experiment in 1953, Stanley Miller, then at the University of Chicago, ignited a spark that zapped through a chamber filled with ammonia, methane, and other gases. The spark created a goo rich in amino acids, and, based on his results, Miller suggested that lightning on the early Earth could have created many compounds that would later be assembled into living things. By the 1990s, however, the accumulated
evidence indicated that the early Earth was dominated by carbon dioxide, with a pinch of nitrogen—two gases not found in Miller’s flask. When scientists tried to replicate Miller’s experiments with carbon dioxide in the mix, their sparks seemed to make almost no amino acids. The raw materials for life would have had to come from elsewhere, they concluded.

In 2008, however, lightning began to look promising once again. Cleaves and his colleagues suspected that the failed experiments were flawed because the sparks might have produced nitrogen compounds that destroyed any newly formed amino acids. When they added buffering chemicals that could take up these nitrogen compounds, the experiments generated hundreds of times more amino acids than scientists had previously found. Cleaves suspects that lightning was only one of several ways in which organic compounds built up on Earth. Meteorites that fall to Earth contain amino acids and organic carbon molecules such as formaldehyde. Hydrothermal vents spew out other compounds that could have been incorporated into the first life forms. Raw materials were not an issue, he says: “The real hurdle is how you put together organic compounds into a living system.”

STEP 1: MAKE RNA

An RNA molecule is a chain of linked nucleotides. Each nucleotide in turn consists
of three parts: a base (which functions as a “letter” in a gene’s recipe), a sugar molecule, and a cluster of phosphorus and oxygen atoms, which link one sugar to the next. For years, researchers have tried in vain to synthesize RNA by producing sugars and bases, joining them together, and then adding phosphates. “It just doesn’t work,” says Sutherland.

This failure has led scientists to consider two other hypotheses about how RNA came to be. Cleaves and others think RNA-based life may have evolved from organisms that used a different genetic material—one no longer found in nature. Chemists have been able to use other compounds to build backbones for nucleotides (Science, 17 November 2000, p. 1306). They’re now investigating whether these human made genetic molecules, called PNA and TNA, could have emerged on their own on the early Earth more easily than RNA. According to this hypothesis, RNA evolved later and replaced the earlier molecule.

But it could also be that RNA wasn’t put together the way scientists have thought. “If you want to get from Boston to New York, there is an obvious way to go. But if you can’t get there that way, there are other ways you could go,” says Sutherland. He and his colleagues have been trying to build RNA from simple organic compounds, such as formaldehyde, that existed on Earth before life began. They find they make better progress toward producing RNA if they combine the components of sugars and the components of bases together instead of separately making complete sugars and bases first.

Over the past few years, they have documented almost an entire route from prebiotic molecules to RNA and are preparing to publish even more details of their success. Discovering these new reactions makes Sutherland suspect it wouldn’t have been that hard for RNA to emerge directly from an organic soup. “We’ve got the molecules in our sights,” he says. Sutherland can’t say for sure where these reactions took place on the early Earth, but he notes that they work well at the temperatures and pH levels found in ponds. If those ponds dried up temporarily, they would concentrate the nucleotides, making conditions for life even more favorable.

Were these Darwin’s warm little ponds? “It might just be that he wasn’t too far off,” says Sutherland.


STEP 2: THE CELL

If life did start out with RNA alone, that RNA would need to make copies of itself without help from proteins. Online in Science this week (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/
abstract/1167856), Tracey Lincoln and Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, California, have shown how that might have been possible. They designed a pair of RNA molecules that join together and assemble loose nucleotides to match their partner. Once the replication is complete, old and new RNA molecules separate and join with new partners to form new RNA. In 30 hours, Lincoln and Joyce found, a population of RNA molecules could grow 100 million times bigger.

Lincoln and Joyce kept their RNA molecules in beakers. On the early Earth, however, replicating RNA might have been packed in the first cells. Jack Szostak and his colleagues at Harvard Medical School in Boston have been investigating how fatty acids and other molecules on the early Earth might have trapped RNA, producing the first protocells. “The goal is to have something that can replicate by itself, using just chemistry,” says Szostak.

After 2 decades, he and his colleagues have come up with RNA molecules that can build copies of other short RNA molecules. They have been able to mix RNA and fatty acids together in such a way that the RNA gets trapped in vesicles. The vesicles are able to add fatty acids to their membranes and grow. In July 2008, Szostak reported that he had figured out how protocells could “eat” and bring in nucleotides to build the RNA.

All living cells depend on complicated channels to draw nucleotides across their membranes, raising the question of how a primitive protocell membrane brought in these molecules. By experimenting with different recipes for membranes, Szostak and his colleagues have come up with protocells leaky enough to let nucleic acids slip inside, where they could be assembled into RNA, but not so porous that the large RNA could slip out.

Their experiments also show that these vesicles survive over a 100°C range. At high temperatures, protocells take in nucleotides quickly, and at lower temperatures, Szostak found, they build RNA molecules faster. He speculates that regular temperature cycles could have helped simple protocells survive on the early Earth. They could draw in
nucleotides when they were warm and then use them to build RNA when the temperature dropped. In Szostak’s protocells, nucleotides are arranged along a template of RNA. Strands of RNA tend to stick together at low temperatures. When the protocell warmed up again, the heat might cause the two strands to pull apart, allowing the new RNA molecule to function.

Now Szostak is running experiments to bring his protocells closer to life. He is developing new forms of RNA that may be able to replicate longer molecules faster. For him, the true test of his experiments will be whether his protocells not only grow and reproduce, but evolve. “To me, the origin of life and the origin of Darwinian evolution are essentially the same thing,” says Szostak. And if Darwin was alive today, he might well be willing to write a lot more about how life began.


Carl Zimmer is the author of Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life.

So far the best bet is that the raw materials were around, and a catalyst (lightning, if you read the posting) caused the initial chemical reactions that lead to very simple life forms made of a lipid bi-layer, proteins, and DNA/RNA until it grew more complicated. That's not even evolution though, that's biochemistry.

has anyone ever thought what if the big bang did happen the odds of everything going the way they did is astounding considering how little room for error there was

I have actually, and it's easily explained by the notion given in statistics that, given an infinite amount of time, and an infinite amount of trials, an anticipated outcome can be said to have 100% certainty. That's why I like to think of some parts of evolution as one big trial and error experiment.

This post has been edited by Reyo: Nov 11 2011, 04:10 AM

[BurnedHeart]

Evolution. Sorry, don't have a big statement why like everyone else.

[RoboFloatzel]

The answer was always so simple: God created evolution, so everybody wins!

This post has been edited by Masterge77: Nov 16 2011, 06:22 PM

[Ariana Grande]

I really don't know enough to participate in this debate but I do have a question for all of you.

If evolution is the correct theory, where did the ideas of gods originate from?
And seriously, don't say the Bible.

I don't think one day, some random person thought about creating this idea of a super human that created all existence, but hey, I could be wrong.

[Reyo]

I really don't know enough to participate in this debate but I do have a question for all of you.

If evolution is the correct theory, where did the ideas of gods originate from?
And seriously, don't say the Bible.

I don't think one day, some random person thought about creating this idea of a super human that created all existence, but hey, I could be wrong.

You can say that about any idea.

I don't think one day, some random person thought about creating this device that harnesses free flowing electrons in the form of light, but hey, I could be wrong.

[Uwtkhgs]

God: No proof.

Evolution: Proof.

The End.

where is that proof. tell me. i want to know. what is it. I have a beautiful counter-argument for carbon dating btw, if thats your proof for a billion year-old earth.

[Reyo]

God: No proof.

Evolution: Proof.

The End.

where is that proof. tell me. i want to know. what is it. I have a beautiful counter-argument for carbon dating btw, if thats your proof for a billion year-old earth.

Sounds like your specific beef is with Carbon dating, which is actually a topic I don't have much experience with. Besides, carbon dating is only really a sliver of Evolution, much like genesis is for the entire bible. Is there any specific quarrel with evolution you have? Macroevolution, Microevolution, Natural Selection, human evolution specifically, I know immunology has it's own little tentacle in evolution. Problem is I'm lazy and don't want to over explain something you already agree with.

[The Dark Assassi...]

i think its all of GOD.......