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I have some honest questions for someone that claims to be liberal politically and believes evolution (on a macro scale) to be true.
But, first I will get a few things out of the way.
I am a Bible believing Christian. I hold no political stance. I don't vote on anything merely because it is a very comforting thing to know that Gods will be done regardless of my emotions or biased beliefs about things.
I believe the natural world to be between 10k and 6k years old. I understand this belief is laughed at. The amount of time and investigation spent by me to come to this conclusion will not be altered by a post that is coming from some unknown person on the inter webs, so spare me.
Now for the questions.
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
I understand the whole world hasn't been dug up, but still assuming those fossils are there is a faith based belief.
The same could be said about human fossils not being found with dinosaur fossils. Maybe we just haven't found them yet.
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"? So why would you want laws to protect people when you yourself make jokes about the world being a better place with out them?
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
Fossil formation isn't an automatic thing. The conditions have to be right. That's why certain geologic eras have far more fossils than others - sometimes the fossil-makin' business is good, sometimes it is not.
Quote:
(snip again)
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
I'm not sure most liberals/humanists think religion is stupid. If half the country is generally liberalish, and 90 percent of the country is religious, then it serves that most liberals are, in fact, religious. Its just that most of the liberal Christians are probably not literalists/young earth creationists. And the reason they tend to mock Bible literalists and young earth creationists is because all the science shows they are wrong. It'd be like debating with someone who believes the Earth is flat - it'd be hard to keep a straight face, really. They instead go with the "science is true, but that doesn't mean God isn't true either" route.
Quote:
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"? So why would you want laws to protect people when you yourself make jokes about the world being a better place with out them?
Again, most liberals are religious, so it wouldn't make sense to wipe themselves out.
Secondly, I'm not sure you know what evolution means, based on your idea of using natural selection to "weed out the believers." What you're suggesting is eugenics, which is something else altogether. And no, liberals generally tend to shy away from the mass extermination of any group of people.
I have some honest questions for someone that claims to be liberal politically and believes evolution (on a macro scale) to be true.
But, first I will get a few things out of the way.
I am a Bible believing Christian. I hold no political stance. I don't vote on anything merely because it is a very comforting thing to know that Gods will be done regardless of my emotions or biased beliefs about things.
I believe the natural world to be between 10k and 6k years old. I understand this belief is laughed at. The amount of time and investigation spent by me to come to this conclusion will not be altered by a post that is coming from some unknown person on the inter webs, so spare me.
Now for the questions.
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
I understand the whole world hasn't been dug up, but still assuming those fossils are there is a faith based belief.
The same could be said about human fossils not being found with dinosaur fossils. Maybe we just haven't found them yet.
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"? So why would you want laws to protect people when you yourself make jokes about the world being a better place with out them?
Thanks in advance!
Before criticizing any subject one should first educate himself on that subject if one expects to be taken seriously....Perhaps this will help...
Evidence of common descent of living things has been discovered by scientists working in a variety of fields over many years. This evidence has demonstrated and verified the occurrence of evolution and provided a wealth of information on the natural processes by which the variety and diversity of life on Earth developed. This evidence supports the modern evolutionary synthesis, the current scientific theory that explains how and why life changes over time. Evolutionary biologists document the fact of common descent: making testable predictions, testing hypotheses, and developing theories that illustrate and describe its causes.
Fossils are important for estimating when various lineages developed in geologic time. As fossilization is an uncommon occurrence, usually requiring hard body parts and death near a site where sediments are being deposited, the fossil record only provides sparse and intermittent information about the evolution of life. Evidence of organisms prior to the development of hard body parts such as shells, bones and teeth is especially scarce, but exists in the form of ancient microfossils, as well as impressions of various soft-bodied organisms. Evidence of common descent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I suggest that you read the entire article, as it will give you at least a basic understanding of evolution.
I have some honest questions for someone that claims to be liberal politically and believes evolution (on a macro scale) to be true.
. . .
The amount of time and investigation spent by me to come to this conclusion will not be altered by a post that is coming from some unknown person on the inter webs, so spare me.
Now for the questions.
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
I understand the whole world hasn't been dug up, but still assuming those fossils are there is a faith based belief.
The same could be said about human fossils not being found with dinosaur fossils. Maybe we just haven't found them yet.
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"? So why would you want laws to protect people when you yourself make jokes about the world being a better place with out them?
Thanks in advance!
First off, it's hard to understand why you would start a discussion here, since you started out by saying that you refuse to be persuaded by anything the people here say.
Nevertheless, you are proceeding from a number of incorrect assumptions, starting with the idea that fossils are formed so easily that they should be everywhere.
To illustrate why this is wrong, go along with me on a thought experiment.
On your drive to work today you see a dead deer by the side of the road. It was hit by a car last night (it wasn't there yesterday) so it's all ready to form a fossil, with the carcass pretty much intact. On your way home you see the deer again. Still there, but one or two cars have driven over it so the body parts have started to spread several yards along the side of the road. Also, as you drive by you notice a couple of crows picking at the carcass and a few more standing around waiting their turn. They're picking apart the body, and you notice one of them flying away with dinner for its baby crows. Overnight a few stray dogs and maybe a fox or coyote has been by, and they've eaten off some pretty big pieces. In the process they have also dragged away some big pieces of leg, so the largest bones are gone. In the morning you notice that some of the carcass has been dragged back on the roadway by scavengers, so as cars drive by they drive over the disintegrating carcass. Maybe you drive over it yourself, but by this time the pieces of bone are pretty small so you barely notice them, like driving over loose gravel. Also it's raining today, so although there are still crows picking at what's left of the carcass, some of it just runs off into the gutter.
This is typical. At the end of a few days there is nothing left for nature to turn into a fossil. By the end of a week you won't even see any blood stains on the road, and in a couple of million years this animal will not have left a fossil. It takes very specific, very rare conditions to form fossils, yet they're out there. The mystery isn't why we have so few fossils, but why we have so many.
Sanspeur is also 100% correct. It's not just the fossils. Everything we know about biology today, almost every single thing, is tied to our understanding of evolution. Without evolution, which, by the way, is a fact, not a theory, nothing in biology makes sense. This might be why all the phony scientists and experts who claim they can disprove evolution aren't biologists: if they were they would know better.
Finally, most liberals in the United States are not only theists, but Christians. They believe in the bible as much as you do, although they don't necessarily believe in every single word, the way I suspect you do. Liberals are not trying to stamp out religion. Even the atheists among us are not generally trying to abolish religion: we'd be happy enough if conservatives and the government would stop trying to force us and our children to knuckle under to their religious ideas.
From your starting point I really don't believe you entered into this discussion with an open mind, but I hope you can prove me wrong.
Fossil formation isn't an automatic thing. The conditions have to be right. That's why certain geologic eras have far more fossils than others - sometimes the fossil-makin' business is good, sometimes it is not.
I'm not sure most liberals/humanists think religion is stupid. If half the country is generally liberalish, and 90 percent of the country is religious, then it serves that most liberals are, in fact, religious. Its just that most of the liberal Christians are probably not literalists/young earth creationists. And the reason they tend to mock Bible literalists and young earth creationists is because all the science shows they are wrong. It'd be like debating with someone who believes the Earth is flat - it'd be hard to keep a straight face, really. They instead go with the "science is true, but that doesn't mean God isn't true either" route.
Again, most liberals are religious, so it wouldn't make sense to wipe themselves out.
Secondly, I'm not sure you know what evolution means, based on your idea of using natural selection to "weed out the believers." What you're suggesting is eugenics, which is something else altogether. And no, liberals generally tend to shy away from the mass extermination of any group of people.
I think of the people I know who are into YEC, as stupid. They may be capable and intelligent in all manner of ways, but that sort of thinking shows where they are at intellectually. I'm just glad such people are a minority.
Before criticizing any subject one should first educate himself on that subject if one expects to be taken seriously....Perhaps this will help...
Evidence of common descent of living things has been discovered by scientists working in a variety of fields over many years. This evidence has demonstrated and verified the occurrence of evolution and provided a wealth of information on the natural processes by which the variety and diversity of life on Earth developed. This evidence supports the modern evolutionary synthesis, the current scientific theory that explains how and why life changes over time. Evolutionary biologists document the fact of common descent: making testable predictions, testing hypotheses, and developing theories that illustrate and describe its causes.
Fossils are important for estimating when various lineages developed in geologic time. As fossilization is an uncommon occurrence, usually requiring hard body parts and death near a site where sediments are being deposited, the fossil record only provides sparse and intermittent information about the evolution of life. Evidence of organisms prior to the development of hard body parts such as shells, bones and teeth is especially scarce, but exists in the form of ancient microfossils, as well as impressions of various soft-bodied organisms. Evidence of common descent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I suggest that you read the entire article, as it will give you at least a basic understanding of evolution.
First off, it's hard to understand why you would start a discussion here, since you started out by saying that you refuse to be persuaded by anything the people here say.
Nevertheless, you are proceeding from a number of incorrect assumptions, starting with the idea that fossils are formed so easily that they should be everywhere.
To illustrate why this is wrong, go along with me on a thought experiment.
On your drive to work today you see a dead deer by the side of the road. It was hit by a car last night (it wasn't there yesterday) so it's all ready to form a fossil, with the carcass pretty much intact. On your way home you see the deer again. Still there, but one or two cars have driven over it so the body parts have started to spread several yards along the side of the road. Also, as you drive by you notice a couple of crows picking at the carcass and a few more standing around waiting their turn. They're picking apart the body, and you notice one of them flying away with dinner for its baby crows. Overnight a few stray dogs and maybe a fox or coyote has been by, and they've eaten off some pretty big pieces. In the process they have also dragged away some big pieces of leg, so the largest bones are gone. In the morning you notice that some of the carcass has been dragged back on the roadway by scavengers, so as cars drive by they drive over the disintegrating carcass. Maybe you drive over it yourself, but by this time the pieces of bone are pretty small so you barely notice them, like driving over loose gravel. Also it's raining today, so although there are still crows picking at what's left of the carcass, some of it just runs off into the gutter.
This is typical. At the end of a few days there is nothing left for nature to turn into a fossil. By the end of a week you won't even see any blood stains on the road, and in a couple of million years this animal will not have left a fossil. It takes very specific, very rare conditions to form fossils, yet they're out there. The mystery isn't why we have so few fossils, but why we have so many.
Sanspeur is also 100% correct. It's not just the fossils. Everything we know about biology today, almost every single thing, is tied to our understanding of evolution. Without evolution, which, by the way, is a fact, not a theory, nothing in biology makes sense. This might be why all the phony scientists and experts who claim they can disprove evolution aren't biologists: if they were they would know better.
Finally, most liberals in the United States are not only theists, but Christians. They believe in the bible as much as you do, although they don't necessarily believe in every single word, the way I suspect you do. Liberals are not trying to stamp out religion. Even the atheists among us are not generally trying to abolish religion: we'd be happy enough if conservatives and the government would stop trying to force us and our children to knuckle under to their religious ideas.
From your starting point I really don't believe you entered into this discussion with an open mind, but I hope you can prove me wrong.
I have some honest questions for someone that claims to be liberal politically and believes evolution (on a macro scale) to be true.
How about from non-liberals who also understand science?
Quote:
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
Yes, and they've been found so your next few paragraphs are pointless.
Quote:
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
Don't confuse believing in God and believing that the world is 6000 years old and that Moses rode on the back of a dinosaur or whatever it is that YECs believe.
Quote:
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"?
I have some honest questions for someone that claims to be liberal politically and believes evolution (on a macro scale) to be true.
But, first I will get a few things out of the way.
I am a Bible believing Christian. I hold no political stance. I don't vote on anything merely because it is a very comforting thing to know that Gods will be done regardless of my emotions or biased beliefs about things.
I believe the natural world to be between 10k and 6k years old. I understand this belief is laughed at. The amount of time and investigation spent by me to come to this conclusion will not be altered by a post that is coming from some unknown person on the inter webs, so spare me.
The oldest rocks which have been found so far (on the Earth) date to about 3.8 to 3.9 billion years ago (by several radiometric dating methods). Some of these rocks are sedimentary, and include minerals which are themselves as old as 4.1 to 4.2 billion years. Rocks of this age are relatively rare, however rocks that are at least 3.5 billion years in age have been found on North America, Greenland, Australia, Africa, and Asia.
How can you believe the earth is younger than the oldest rocks we have found on it?
Now for the questions.
Shouldn't there be millions of fossils that show the transition of a sea bound creature into the current form of man today?
I understand the whole world hasn't been dug up, but still assuming those fossils are there is a faith based belief.
The same could be said about human fossils not being found with dinosaur fossils. Maybe we just haven't found them yet.
http://biologos.org/questions/fossil-record
There are several reason for these gaps in the fossil record. First, fossilization is a very rare event. Plus, transitional species tend to appear in small populations, where rapid changes in the environment can provide a stronger evolutionary drive. Finally, because fossilization itself is a rare event, smaller populations are sure to produce fewer fossils. The fact that transitional species have been found at all is remarkable, and it offers further support of gradual, evolutionary change.
Liberalism tends to be a humanist stance. Always claiming to want to further human rights. This is not a bad thing, but why when debating a liberal that believes in evolution they seem to attack the intelligence of anyone that believes in the God of the Bible? It seems the norm that anyone that believes in God is "stupid".
The thing is that a very large percent of the world believes in God, so wouldn't a liberal that believes in evolution want natural selection to do away with these humans that believe in such "fairy tales"? So why would you want laws to protect people when you yourself make jokes about the world being a better place with out them?
Thanks in advance!
Many liberals believe in God. They just believe that evolution was the mechanism God used to create man and other creatures. They do see the scientific evidence for the age of the earth as valid.
Note that one way people allow the Bible to fit their evolutionary beliefs is to assume that God's time was longer than our time. There is no reason to suppose that the length of the day god used was the standard 24 hour day.
As for wanting natural selection to do away with any particular belief, that is absurd. Evolution doesn't revolve around humans and their belief systems, but around the survival of a whole species.
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