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Actually, it was the calling others God-hating, indecent, dishonest, pro-abortion, global warmist, sick, self loathing, haters who "glorify death" that clued me in.
Gee, I wonder what his religious and political affiliations are!
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyNTexas
Really? Where did I do that? Oh ... it must be that dirty word "morality" ? Is that it? I'm sure that's what you are "reacting" to. Well now, that seems to be saying a lot more about you than it says about me.
To be perfectly blunt, let me correct you by informing you that I don't need religion to teach or guide me with lessons about morality, and I certainly wouldn't expect to find any role models for that purpose in "politics". No, thankfully, I'm perfectly capable of handling the issues of right and wrong all by myself, largely due to the lessons and ideals that were instilled in me by my grand parents and parents, who collectively spent far more time enjoying life, playing guitars and drinking, than they ever did attending Church, or reading a Bible.
Maybe you were not so fortunate, but don't despair, it's really pretty simple stuff ... and anyone can do it. Just don't be a hater. Treat others the same way you'd want them to treat you, even when others don't reciprocate ...because they are the ones that need lessons in good behavior and kindness more than anyone else. Don't steal or lie ... not because some book or some preacher tells you you shouldn't ... but because you should know that's wrong without being told. You can feel the wrongness of doing wrong ... because it's inside of you, not outside. Your conscience is the big clue to this truth.
Don't be an evil selfish arse, because nobody likes those kinds of people, including themselves. Be quick to offer an hand to others, and slow to point your finger. Help that stranger in need if you can ... because you never know when that unexpected favor will come back to you just when you need it.
At the end of the day, if you live your life this way, it will be easier to see the goodness in the world, because like attracts like, and goodness seeks to surround itself in goodness. It's a metaphysical, energetic, magnetic thing, not a religious thing.
Try it. It's much better than living your life under the ridiculous and self defeating idea that morality is a dirty word, and right and wrong are outdated principles. Such things never go out of style ... only people do.
You are the one who compared human beings to amoebas as percieved by some hypothetical "superior" lifeform on another planet.
That is no excuse. If there are beings with 1000 times the brain capacity and IQ's than humans, we would seem insignificant to them. If you cannot stretch your mind to understand the analogy and figure of speech I used, it's no wonder that you have problems accepting other concepts. Everythng is relative. It is presumptuous to think that humans are the end all be all. The state of the world proves just how imperfect we are and how we would not be difficult to surpass in intelligence and common sense.
This is what evolutionists claim because they state that all life came from a common ancestor. Now how is this possible if changes did not occur above the species or genus level?
I'm going to explain this one final time... If we want to find a transitional fossil between two modern day species we do not look for a cross between those two species. For instance, if we're looking for the common ancestor of the chimpanzee and the human, we are not looking for a creature that is half chimp and half human. What we are looking for on the taxonomical chart is the divergence point from when an earlier species split off to form the branch that chimpanzees and humans share. That is the starting point by which we look around to find the approximate split. I explained all that in my previous post.
If we look at the chimpanzee's taxonomy it looks like this:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Pan
Species: Pan troglodytes
And if we look at the human, it looks like this:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: Homo sapiens
Let me reiterate. We are NOT looking for a cross between a human and a chimpanzee (Pan sapiens or Homo troglodytes)! Please, take note of that.
What we are doing by looking at the individual taxonomies is getting a decent divergence point. We are NOT saying the change happened at the family level. What we are saying is that if we look at the family level, we see the chimpanzee and the human share their last commonality at this point. What this means is that if we are to look in the fossil record, we need to look for some sort of hominid that had primitive characteristics of both the human and the chimpanzee. That hominid would have been a species of its own. It's wouldn't have simply been called "hominid."
Again, looking at the taxonomy gives us a fair guess at the divergence point. If we took it a notch or two higher, say at the class level, we would be in error of our divergence point because early mammals pre-dated primates and hominids by millions of years. Yes, one of those early mammals would have been the ancestor to both the chimp and the human but its predation of the hominid shows us nothing in terms of the "transitional" nature previously requested.
Let's look at the taxonomy of a likely candidate, Ardipithecus Ramidus which lived approximately 4.4 mya:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Subfamily: Homininae
Tribe: Hominini
Species: Ardipithecus Ramidus
As you'll see, "Ardy" belongs exactly where I said it should belong - in the hominid family but is/was a species of its own. Because he lived 4.4 million years ago, he certainly wasn't around when humans or chimpanzees were around. But, he did have a number of characteristics similar to humans and chimpanzees such as:
A brain roughly the size of a female chimpanzee but about 20% smaller than a human brain
A big toe adaptable to climbing through the trees but certain skeletal structures forming the basis of bipedalism (upright walking)
The jaw was more prognathic than modern humans but very similar to that of chimpanzees.
More research still needs to be done on "Ardy" but he's a prime example of what I've been trying to convey to you. Ardy was a hominid. And, let's just say for argument's sake that he was the ancestor of the human and chimpanzee. That means we should be able to follow the lineage of Ardy's "kin" on two separate paths. One path as a series of species of hominids that leads to humans and another path of a series of species of hominids that leads to chimpanzees.
I should note there were other hominids at approximately the same time as Ardy that were not related to us or chimps but may have been related to other modern day apes or gorillas, etc... All of those hominids (related to us or not) would have shared a common ancestor. Where would we go to find that common ancestor? We'd take a very good guess by once again looking at the taxonomy chart of all the hominids at that time. We see that they are all mammals. So, we realize that some time after mammals appeared but some time before hominids appeared, there must have been some mammal intermediaries that had hominid-like features.
This is not hard and I hope it's quite obvious at this point that I am in no way speculating on changes at the family level. I am merely pointing out that we are using taxonomy to put us in the ballpark of a divergence point. If that divergence point happened at the family level then so be it.
Either way, your insistence of what evolutionist's believe (despite a pretty firm contrariness on my part) is what you're attacking. Or, should I say, you're attacking an evolution that is not claimed to exist and doesn't purport to work that way. Sorry to break the news to you but it's very obvious you understand very little of it.
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Originally Posted by Harrier
This is where the argument falls apart - you note changes on one level of your taxonomy chart and assume that changes took place higher on the same chart - without observation(directly or evidentially).
I noted a likely divergence point! That is NOT the same thing as all changes happening at the Family level!
Gee, you're not getting it, not surprising though. If this God created the universe, don't you think that you are being a bit presumptuous to imagine that this is the only planet that can sustain life? Why would it be so difficult to believe that there are entities that are far more evolved than the inhabitants of this tiny world? I recognize that there is massive hypocrisy within groups that claim to be religious as to how they relate to and treat the planet...the planet that supposedly their God created.
I'm not "getting it"? For the nineteenth gazillionth time, where did I say anything about God? Or other planets? Where in the world do you broken records come up with this stuff? You're behaving like brainwashed automatons. About the only thing I have to say about God is .. if he indeed exists ... he's not just "their" God, or my God ... he'll be yours too ... so it wouldn't be unwise to hedge your bets. Just sayin'
Fact is, I have no idea about whether God actually exists ... I reckon if he does, he's probably not at all interested in the upcoming election, or whether I got drunk last night. What I do believe is very likely is that the Universe is a vastly complex and mysterious place, with abundant life scattered about the cosmos. And let me remind you in case you have forgotten, it's your trusted scientists who are the ones that defy the laws of mathematics by routinely rejecting the idea of extraterrestrial life ... not I. With Billions of Stars in each Galaxy, and Billions of Galaxies, I'd say that the mathematical probability of life on other planets is somewhere between 100% and guaranteed. That I have no proof of their existence is immaterial. Yet, in stark contradiction, science embraces all sorts of mathematical equations predicting all sorts of unseen and unproven things as scientific fact, like the "Big Bang", which really takes a tremendous imagination to come up with that one. Then, science turns right around and embraces theories that have ZERO mathematical possibility ... such as self replicating life springing into existence by random mixing of inert chemicals. To say that science is rather irrational, fickle, and a bit schizophrenic would be the understatement of the century. All the while, here I sit, reading post after post touting the purity and integrity and rationality and the sound logic of science, along with the obligatory attacks on straw man arguments about how foolish the notion of God is. It's like the Twilight Zone and Planet Stupid have joined forces.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sickofnyc
Don't put words in my mouth...btw. Where did I say that there are not people that do good deeds?
I didn't put any words in your mouth ... they all came right from your mouth (or your keyboard, to be precise). Best you go back and re-read your own post, in all it's doom, gloom, and condemnation of human behavior for yourself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sickofnyc
Unfortunately, some people that attempt to do good deeds are called tree huggers or bleeding hearts...no? Where did I say people are animals, although some do act that way. You are judging me and yet you claim to be of a religious ilk. That's enough proof of your lack of humility and your self righteous hypocrisy.
That's what you believe and what you are here defending. That human beings are nothing but animals. What do you think this Darwinian deception is all about, anyway? Darwinian Evolution says 1) we are all just accidents of natural forces, randomly mixing chemicals which created a tiny organism (Virus) that mutated over and over, creating every species that ever existed .. plants, fish, mammals, humans ... the whole works! 2) Because that is the case, there really isn't much difference between you and a monkey, save for a few million years of genetic mutation. So, I stand corrected ... you aren't just an animal, you a mutated animal. 3) Because of this, your life has no real meaning, because you are an accident of nature!
And let me correct you again ... listen up this time .... I'm not religious. The last time I was in a Church was 30+ years ago, and that time I was there for a wedding. I'd consider myself spiritual ... with my beliefs more along the lines of metaphysical ... certainly not religious.
And I'm not judging you ... your behavior and beliefs perhaps, but not you. I'm trying to educate you ... not for my own good, but for yours and everyone's good. Because we all share this tiny world ... operating under the extreme misconceptions and deceptions that you are is in no one's best interests, none the least of which, yours.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sickofnyc
As for global warming deniers, here's a quote from someone that you so called religious types could learn a thing or two from... "Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth."
Now see .... one false doctrine after another. And when the bell rings, you salivate on Que., just as surely as if you were one of Pavlov's dogs.
Global Warming "Deniers" ... how original! You come up with that all on your own? No .. of course not. This is sock puppet talk .... reject evolution and you're a religious fanatic ... and no matter how many times I tell you I'm not .. you can't help yourself ... you continue to claim I am ... right on Que.
Reject the man made Co2 cause of global warming ... "denier" ... right on Que.
The reality is, you obviously don't even realize it ... but you are not expressing thoughts of your own here .. you're regurgitating nonsense that's been downloaded into you just as surely as that computer you're using is programmed to do a specific thing when you press a specific key on the keyboard.
Now, listen carefully, and pay attention. I do not deny global warming OR global cooling. It would be foolish to do so given that the globe has been warming and cooling for HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS.
What I reject is that man made CO2 will cause either of them. And it is not "denial" as that tends to insinuate that someone is avoiding the truth ... I'm not such a type. I embrace truth, even if I don't like what truth has to reveal. I reject CRAP ...and that is what man made CO2 story is .. total, unadulterated crap, coming from politicians and corrupt scientists who stand to make a killing based on your's and others inexplicable gullibility.
CO2 is a life sustaining gas for which life on earth could not exist without. Moreover, the more of it, the better. The more CO2, the more abundant and prosperous plant life is .. and the more abundant plant life leads to more abundant and prosperous mammalian life .. including humans! Got it? Warm=Good ... Cold=Not so good. When do you plant gardens? In the spring or the winter?
Secondly, CO2 has never caused a change in climate, ever. CO2 levels rise and fall in response to warming and cooling ... CO2 levels react to warming and cooling .. it doesn't cause warming or cooling ... and certainly not the tiny portion that human activity generates.
Now moving on to tie all of this together for you. You spoke of "Tree Huggers" ... and I personally love trees ... but not so much that I'd actually hug one ... nor would I hug a tree hugger ... I'd like to slap some sense into them, but I'm afraid most of them are too far gone to reach.
You see, the reason many folks dismiss the typical "tree hugger" type is because the level of drooling idiocy is just intolerable. Here in Austin we've had the greenies promoting this Carbon Cap Crap for years .... and what they are actually saying is ... "Please raise our electricity rates and our gasoline rates to astronomical levels ... and, while you're at it, slap us with a Carbon Tax too ... pretty please?" Such self defeating stupidity should be a capital crime, punishable by hanging from ..... a tree. All to save mother earth. Arghhh!!
Yes, the new push here in Austin is to eliminate plastic bags in grocery stores, forcing us to buy and bring in our own, reusable bags. Now, on the surface, that might seem to be a good thing to some people. And I'm sure you're sitting there thinking "what's wrong with that?" ... Sounds like a good idea. Well, let me explain it to you this way ..... We have had British Petroleum destroy the Gulf of Mexico ... we have Monsanto currently destroying the entire biosphere and food chain with their Genetically Modified Organisms .... we have poison in our water ... poison in our food ... chemicals poisoning the air ... wars raging around the globe, and talk of more war, including the potential use of nuclear weapons .... we have Fukashima irradiating the planet .... and a worldwide economic collapse teetering on the edge .... and the response to all of this is a bunch of drooling imbecile weenies running around worrying about CO2 and plastic freaking grocery bags!
Having said that ... if you're still confused as to why some of us might find such activity a little more than just annoying .... you're probably beyond hope too.
Quickly ... in summary ... to tie all of this together ....
1) We have evolution - this teaches you that your existence is accidental, and therefore your life has no real purpose. Therefore, no purpose ... no value! You're just an animal, and no big deal, now shut up and eat your GMO food, your pink slime .. and wash it down with a tall glass of fluoridated water.
2) CO2 is bad - Since you exhale CO2 you are bad ... you're not just an animal anymore (as Darwin has proven), you're actually more like that virus you came from ... you're a cancer upon mother earth with your selfishness ... SUV's .. Air Conditioning ... single family homes with back yards ... you're really a greedy, selfish little cancer and you should be ashamed of yourself. So we're going to have to train you to be more thoughtful ... reject all of these unnecessary and selfish luxuries. Austerity baby ....
And so the story goes .... and the masses demand their own execution. Raise our taxes .. poison our food ... charge us for the air we breathe ... and take away our selfish luxuries like back yards and gardens ... and our cars .. we'll ride bikes ... we'll live in Agenda 21 planned communities of concentrated city developments with our smart meters that our authorities can turn on and off our electricity if they think we've use more than our "green" allotment.
YES ... we the people DEMAND THESE CHANGES ... because mother earth is valuable, and we human viruses have none, and deserve nothing.
You meant to say bacteria. We all evolved from bacteria, not viruses. Viruses came along later.
I wonder how you think humans magically appeared on earth.
Also, you should probably look up "the greenhouse effect" to get your carbon dioxide story straight. If I were you, I'd stick to evolution debates. You seem to be better at it.
None of those are transitional fossils - they are all examples of changes within species.
What an uneducated back-pedalling load of Ark Cr@p! YOu really do not understand it, or else you are simply being argumentative for the sake of it!
Wowsers! How mature and charming! I'll bet you had lots of girlfriends once, huh? Esp. when they figured out you lie specifically and to deceive? Nice technique!
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Originally Posted by GCSTroop
Wrong, Harrier! I explicitly explained the definition of a species in that post so that you couldn't backpedal and say "It's still just a..." But, you go ahead and do it anyway. For someone who has claimed to have studied the theory of evolution on his own and came to the conclusion that it was invalid, perhaps your understanding of species from a taxonomic and phylogenetic level is inaccurate.
He won't buy it, since it utterly wrecks his useless argument. First he demands instant macro-evolution, i.e.: the cat that gives birth to a dog overnight, but in the next post, he ridicules the obviously slow changes that create speciation.
But also: Lenski's 2008 publication of his demonstration of mutation-caused speciation will be too much for this illiterate toadie, so he won't read it. Or, alternately, he'll just change the definition of species to suit!
Too bad, Harrier; but sadly you don't get to arbitrarily change the rules & definitions that bioscience has laid down. It's like us telling you that Jesus was a transexual goat-lover, and that she only spoke Russian. All a buncha crap, but if we say that's now how it is, then I guess that's now how it is.
After all, we're the scientists, not you!
Too bad for that durned new DNA mapping record though ,huh?, Troop? It's Harrier's complete downfall, and so he don't evuhn whanna kno 'bout ut!
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Originally Posted by Harrier
Yes - go ahead and change definitions when it suits your purposes.
Whatever.
I agree: whatever. So you define "species", you obviously illiterate toad!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harrier
Exactly - I am asking for evidence of macroevolution - so far everyone is showing examples of changes within species and taking a leap of faith that over millions of years these small inter-species changes added up to big changes between species. My argument is that this hardly a scientific analysis of the data.
Nope. So... when yah goin' to read Dr. Richard Lenski's entire paper, not just the writhing, hand-wringing escapist & revisionist AiG cop-out version??
Or read up on macro-evolution and that fascinating study of the cross-continental tracking, via mtRNA, (which I'd also like ot read your reviewand dnial of... ) that allowed us to track the migration and Evolution of our ancestors from Africa (Lucy, to be exact) through to the modern-day southern US American Indians?
When, Harrier? When? And then, when you gonna answer a few simple questions we've previously asked, huh?
{Ahh yes: palpable fear... it's such a distinct odor...}
Quote:
Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
That doesn't answer my question. It was (this time in bold):
Show me evidence of whatever you believe in and want to be taught in school.
Exactly, EG, exactly! (He will never answer anyone's rational questions, btw. Christians simply can't!)
I for one want to hear specifically what is wrong with the known mechanisms of Evolution, either micro- or it's longer-term sister, macro-Evolution. I want to hear exactly which component simply does not function as we've now so repeatedly and reliably observed and documented them.
Then, when we've been convinced of their obvious errors, we'll delete that part from the science curriculum. NO, that would not be in the spirit he is requiring: rather, we'll outline those critical errors to these kids as part of the learning structure, and discuss at length their "obvious failings" as it were...
But then, by the same standard, when we must also prove, point by point, the utter ridiculousness of The Genesis/Creation fairy-tale, and we'll also have to present that outlook as well, right? Or do you not want that part to see the light of day?
So, again... when are you going to do that simple little exercise, Harrier? Show us exactly where it's all wrong, point by point, rather than some overwhelming dismissive write off but non-specific hand wave?
After all, since Evolution is all such a pile of crud, this should be a real easy assignment, right?
Alternate explanation: You are nothing but a complete and unethical (lying is a sin, is it not?) spiteful troll and scientific neophyte, off on some illusionary and denialist wild goose chase solely ([pun intended..] to save your eternal soul, or so you imagine.
But your posts are just endless steaming streams of utterly inane and unsupportable turgid troll-drivel, so what are we to conclude about you? Hmmm...
wrong. the only thng that belongs in mythology are fairy tales. The Bible is a book of fairy tales.
Evolution is a fact based science, with thousands upon thousands of researched and imperical data.
creationism is the word of a fictional being.
You show with every post that you can't discern fiction from reality.
I may not have the impressive articulation to explain my feelings on evolution here, but I do know how to refute that.
Keep in your mind that many portions of the Bible were never meant to be historically accurate. For instance, Genesis is just a theological account of Earth's creation. It's not as if they claimed to be writing the completely accurate and chronological history of the world, there.
Most if not all of the Bible can be proven, either with historical records from ancient civilizations, archaeological findings and common sense. Funny how science won't help you disprove a truth, but it will help with your truth.
Let me ask what part exactly of the Bible is pure fiction? (Not to get off subject, but I can tell you everything about the truth...whether you believe it is your matter).
Actually, to add to the discussion, you should know that:
a) creationism as a thought process is compatible with science because it explains the why of evolution (evo. itself being the how)
b) evolution is accepted by most religions because in the Bible/Koran/Torah it never explicitly states how the Earth began, and that's a fact
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Just sayin'
... nor would I hug a tree hugger ... I'd like to slap some sense into them, but I'm afraid most of them are too far gone to reach.
He diggeth his own Grave! And deeply to boot
