Evidence for the existence of God (Part 2)

perhaps, then, the evidence is self-evident, as it were................ie the lily really doesnt need gilding at all........................(and that, I think, is supposedly by a mythical biblical figure called Solomon,isnt it?)

The most significant words are, I do not understand.

The reasons for the lack of understanding are many.

Lack of information, lack of the ability to evaluate the information you have and the total disregard for the obvious in many instances but above all is man's arrogance.

The numbers involved in anything in dispute are of no account if the majority are wrong.

The numbers involved in anything in dispute are of no account if the majority are wrong.

In any argument the only things that count are evidence and reason, common ancestry has all the evidence and the bible has none, a reasonable mind has only one choice.

Next case, move along now, nothing more going on here.

The evidence is there if you care to seek it with an open mind.

There is no evidence except to those with empty minds, religious wackos count everything as evidence which renders it untestable, if it cannot be tested then its just not evidence.

Simple logic obvious to all except simpletons.

Why do religious nutters with absolutely no scientific training feel they have the right to form scientific conclusions without evidence.

Any lunatic who states you cannot get something from nothing outside our universe is telling lies, and is a bold faced liar.

I see the same demented duo are denying evolution but cannot come up with an explanation for the following evidence.

1. Diversity of life.
2. Genetic variation.
3. Common structure of DNA.
4. 2 billion years of fossils from simplicity to complexity.
5. Transitional fossils.
6. Atavism.


I read some maniac insisting on a step by step explanation of the evolution of a butterfly but left school at 11, its just mind boggling ignorance.

Two months ago, a wise woman said to me, “‘I don’t know’ are the three most underused words in the English language.”

.....mmm...and you don't know God exists, so stop claiming otherwise.

Evolution is seemingly not true until we prove every step of every variation of every species on our planet for the last 2 billion years.

These people are just not right in the head, their delusions are bordering on certifiable.

Lack of information, lack of the ability to evaluate the information you have and the total disregard for the obvious in many instances but above all is man's arrogance.

= the definition of a creationist, I would include deep neurosis.

Definition of a wally incapable of saying anything sensible, Tosh.

http://www.evolutionfaq.com/videos/carl-sagan-evolution


Watch and weep you deluded clowns.

Definition of a wally incapable of saying anything sensible, Tosh.

You are the clown claiming evolution has not been proven, not me.

Five Proofs of Evolution
In this article, we look at five simple examples which support the Theory of Evolution.
by Richard Peacock

1. The universal genetic code. All cells on Earth, from our white blood cells, to simple bacteria, to cells in the leaves of trees, are capable of reading any piece of DNA from any life form on Earth. This is very strong evidence for a common ancestor from which all life descended.



2. The fossil record. The fossil record shows that the simplest fossils will be found in the oldest rocks, and it can also show a smooth and gradual transition from one form of life to another.





3. Genetic commonalities. Human beings have approximately 96% of genes in common with chimpanzees, about 90% of genes in common with cats (source), 80% with cows (source), 75% with mice (source), and so on. This does not prove that we evolved from chimpanzees or cats, though, only that we shared a common ancestor in the past. And the amount of difference between our genomes corresponds to how long ago our genetic lines diverged.



4. Common traits in embryos. Humans, dogs, snakes, fish, monkeys, eels (and many more life forms) are all considered "chordates" because we belong to the phylum Chordata. One of the features of this phylum is that, as embryos, all these life forms have gill slits, tails, and specific anatomical structures involving the spine. For humans (and other non-fish) the gill slits reform into the bones of the ear and jaw at a later stage in development. But, initially, all chordate embryos strongly resemble each other.

In fact, pig embryos are often dissected in biology classes because of how similar they look to human embryos. These common characteristics could only be possible if all members of the phylum Chordata descended from a common ancestor.



5. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Bacteria colonies can only build up a resistance to antibiotics through evolution. It is important to note that in every colony of bacteria, there are a tiny few individuals which are naturally resistant to certain antibiotics. This is because of the random nature of mutations.

When an antibiotic is applied, the initial innoculation will kill most bacteria, leaving behind only those few cells which happen to have the mutations necessary to resist the antibiotics. In subsequent generations, the resistant bacteria reproduce, forming a new colony where every member is resistant to the antibiotic. This is natural selection in action. The antibiotic is "selecting" for organisms which are resistant, and killing any that are not.

http://www.evolutionfaq.com/articles/five-proofs-evolution

Nice to see you back, Tosh

Nice to see you back, Tosh

Reading polyglide and RoB's blatant lies and deceptions acted like a magnet.

How do we know that it isn’t?

Because evolution has never decided the course of a species based on what a species believes. Hey, I'll be the first to say that NONE of us really knows what happens to us after we die. Perhaps there IS an afterlife after all. But I don't believe for a nanosecond that these religious gate keepers exist, telling this person to enter paradise and throwing that person into hell.

Do you know what that reminds me of, Rock? Nazi concentration camps. I'm sure you're aware of how Nazi guards would line up the Jews and have some go to the right and some go to the left. Those that went in one direction were spared and put to work. Those who went in the opposite direction were immediately gassed. It's just one more reason why I find most religions to be morally bankrupt.

Two months ago, a wise woman said to me, “‘I don’t know’ are the three most underused words in the English language.”

I totally agree. I don't doubt your experiences while sleeping or seeing your grandmother "leave." I've had more than my fair share of unexplained events in my life, several of which seemed to be supernatural while others were just plain uncanny. I remember driving from Florida to Pennsylvania. When I drive and don't have a schedule to keep, I often drive the back roads so I can really see America as I drive through small towns and big cities. The interstate is boring travel. So, on this particular trip, I was on the back roads in northern Georgia. Suddenly, it seemed, I was roughly 30 miles further along in the trip than I should have been. I distinctly remember "waking up" as if I had been asleep, yet somehow I managed to navigate these back roads, through several towns, traffic lights, stop signs, and other cars, as perfectly as if I had been awake. Where had I gone? How could I have driven so far and not wrecked? I can't believe I was simply "sleeping" because no doubt I would have crashed. Yet I have no memory of where my consciousness was while driving those 30 miles. To this day, I have no idea what happened.

So yeah, I don't doubt there are mysteries in life. I just find religious explanations to be a form of jumping the gun. We do not know how to explain these mysteries while religion attempts to slap a band-aid explanation on a wound seeping with the unexplained.

Tosh.......witty and to the point you are, indeed, but having had a scientific eddication(but not lost myself in all the impressive sounding complexity of it), dont forget that there is no proof in science, as in religion, and that although the evidence is compelling, you werent actually there at the time, and even if you were, observer bias is a big factor in any 'proof', it remains a theory,and always will............
Comparing religion with science is like comparing Tuesday with Sainsburys.................no connection; n o point,either.............(tho its reasonable to say that religion is surely nuts,and if nothing else, is breathtaking in its lunacy!)

Dont forget that there is no proof in science, as in religion, and that although the evidence is compelling, you werent actually there at the time, and even if you were, observer bias is a big factor in any 'proof', it remains a theory,and always will

If you had a scientific education, you would understand the difference between the colloquial theory and scientific theory. Scientific theories can be facts. Evolution is an example of a scientific theory being a fact. There is no question that evolution occurs. It maintains its theory status because new data is being added to it on a daily basis. The supporting evidence is so vast that whether someone was there or not is irrelevant.

You state that ,as if by saying it, it becomes fact. I had an extensive scientific eddication,and apart from feeling the need to challenge your 'if',rarely use it to beat people with, and,BTW, never heard of the 'colloquial theory'.....................
Of course evolution occurs, but all the same, although you can extrapolate from your own day to day experience, to greater time scales, you never SAW a dinosaur;you deduce their previous existence from the fossil record and taxonomy of existing species,is all; you are probably right in that they existed, but you still have no proof.
The evidence, as u say, is supporting,not panoramic.

Production of a Birth Certificate may "prove" legitimate existence, unless the witness is familiar with the plot of "Day of the Jackal".

but you still have no proof.

The fossil record is proof of a dinosaur's existence. Are you suggesting that just because we don't see live dinosaurs we can't be certain of their existence? Dinosaurs are a fact. And in case you didn't know, air is also a fact.
Some scientific theories are facts. We know they exist because the evidence is there to support their existence. The idea that you have to 'see' something to prove it's existence is ridiculous. We would have half the loonies in the asylum telling us God is real because they 'saw' him!

Of course evolution occurs, but all the same, although you can extrapolate from your own day to day experience, to greater time scales, you never SAW a dinosaur;you deduce their previous existence from the fossil record and taxonomy of existing species,is all; you are probably right in that they existed, but you still have no proof.

If this was REALLY the way things worked, we'd still be living in caves trying to start the first fire. If we had to personally witness everything for it to be proof, then it would be impossible for generations to pass down their knowledge to the next generations. That's how civilizations advance and thrive.

Fortunately, I learned about airplanes before I actually saw one - so when I went outside and looked up to see a plane flying overhead, I didn't mistake it for a silver monster about to eat the sun. I have yet to personally visit Tokyo, but I know it exists. Nor have I personally seen Mount Everest, Stonehenge, or in fact, YOU. But I don't doubt their existence nor yours, for that matter.

Luckily for us, the Wright Brothers were able to build an airplane before seeing one (after all how COULD they have seen one if they built the first one?) Personal experience only takes us so far. After that, we must learn from the experiences of OTHERS. That way we can be told the stove is hot instead of sticking our hands in the fire to personally find out for ourselves. It's called teaching. We build upon our knowledge so that the sum total of all knowledge continues to grow. Just because we don't know all of that knowledge doesn't mean there is no proof the knowledge exists.

Therefore, saying there is no proof of dinosaurs even while standing there looking at a brontosaurus skeleton is a little hard to swallow. The proof of dinosaur existence is tangible and empirical. We can quibble over the details about how each type behaved, what they ate, what climate they preferred, etc. But there is no questioning the fact that dinosaurs existed.

I see what youre saying, and agree, but what I am saying, is perhaps as much a matter of principle as anything else;Im talking about accurate thinking,as much as anything else;iuts the concept of proof that we are discussing, not evolution, or creationism.This is why such importance was/is put on geometrical(Euclidean)proofs, and every kid knows the proof of 'Pythagoras' theorem'.its a matter of philosophy, rather than 'knowledge'.
So, to illustrate,imagine that you watch me put an orange in a box and close the lid....................do you kn ow for sure that the orange is in that box?
A/......NO!- you have FAITH,based on your having seen the orange go into the box,as you can no longer see the orange;you are as irrational at this point as any religios apologist. .
Your eyes may have deceived you; your mind may have misinterpreted what your eyes saw,the orange may have just disappeared,or you may be dreaming the whole thing;You have no way of telling for sure that the orange is in the box,and to test the point ;if you had to bet your life againt ,say a million bucks, you wouldnt make that bet!

Egg,

Proof is a term of logic and wacko creationists keep insisting evolution is not proven, to prove in science is to test and genetic variation has been empirically tested and observed without cognitive bias.

Evolution is inherited genetic variation and natural selection and common ancestry is the theory, the overwhelming evidence tests the theory and in effect proves it,a rational mind believes in proportion to the evidence and common ancestry is now considered an evidence based fact.

Anyone with a grass lawn which they cut with a power-mower will probably have observed that weeds "learn" to grow closer to the ground so as to survive beneath the cutting blade. In the autumn they grow taller again, above the uncut grass.

If that's not evolution, presumably their Mummy told 'em what to do.

Anyone with a grass lawn which they cut with a power-mower will probably have observed that weeds "learn" to grow closer to the ground so as to survive beneath the cutting blade. In the autumn they grow taller again, above the uncut grass.

Weeds don't learn, natural selection is a process of elimination, traits that have a survival advantage SURVIVE, and the survivor passes on its traits. Growing patterns are a surviving genetic trait, much like immunity from weed killer.

Of course evolution occurs, but all the same, although you can extrapolate from your own day to day experience, to greater time scales, you never SAW a dinosaur;you deduce their previous existence from the fossil record and taxonomy of existing species,is all; you are probably right in that they existed, but you still have no proof.

You keep using the word proof which is a term of deductive logic, evolution has been proven because it is the only over arching explanation that fits the evidence.

You are suggesting we could not prove the earth revolved around the sun or the earth was round until Neil Armstrong physically observed it from the moon.

Production of a Birth Certificate may "prove" legitimate existence, unless the witness is familiar with the plot of "Day of the Jackal".

.....and along came DNA.

This is why such importance was/is put on geometrical(Euclidean)proofs

Heh, yeah, I remember geometry class. The Angle-Side-Side postulate was a rip-roaring favorite among my prankster friends!

So, to illustrate,imagine that you watch me put an orange in a box and close the lid....................do you kn ow for sure that the orange is in that box?

Well, here's the thing about that, Egg. There is a legal term known as "reasonable," i.e. "reasonable doubt" or "reasonable precautions." If you put an orange in a box and I saw you do it, I would be reasonably certain the orange really is in that box. Yes, it possible that the orange isn't in there, but, barring unreasonable things such as the box having a secret trap door or there being a wormhole in it that transported the orange to another dimension, there is every reason to believe the orange is in the box. The possibility of the orange being in the box is so high, in fact, that my seeing you put the orange inside constitutes proof that the orange is in there.

If this were not the case, then all of us would suffer from a form of solipsism whereby everything out of sight disappears and essentially ceases to exist. Thus, if I put my car keys in a drawer, I know those keys will be there when I open it again tomorrow. Without this as proof, we would go half-mad with paranoia. If I open the drawer and my keys are NOT there, I have to conclude they exist somewhere else in our space-time continuum, and that means a frustrating search through the house knowing I've simply misplaced them. If putting the keys in the drawer did not constitute proof, I could just as easily assume that I imagined putting the keys in the drawer - or even that I never had keys to begin with. And if that's the case, well hey, I guess I won't be going to work!

So again, it comes down to what is reasonable and what is not. Around that assumption comes proof. It is reasonable to believe as proof that I exist because my post exists - and you're reading it. Sure, one could argue that MAYBE a cat walked across the keyboard several hundred times and randomly produced this post, but who is really going to believe that?

Ergo, with creationism vs. evolution, I see evolution as the most reasonable answer. Many creationists give these extremely long odds for humans to have evolved, but the fact that we're here proves that we beat the odds. What it DOESN'T prove is that we were magically created by an all-powerful entity that loves us yet still has no compunction over sending us to hell to be tortured for eternity simply for not believing he exists. Why do I find it to be the most reasonable explanation? Because there is no evidence of magic in the universe. I find it very hard to believe that a God of any kind possessing a plethora of magical powers only used them to create the universe in seven days, then used them a few more times to kill a bunch of people in the Old Testament, then suddenly decided to refrain from ever using those magical powers again. It sounds WAY too much like a fantasy novel.

To suggest that we were created instantaneously by a magical god that no one has ever seen, a god who used forces of sorcery that exist nowhere else in the universe is essentially the same as suggesting that the orange you just put into the box really isn't in there. Instead, it magically transformed into a sentient cheeseburger that ate its way through the bottom of the box and is now on its way to Norway to accept a Nobel Prize in physics. It really is THAT unreasonable.

Take care, Egg.

So again, it comes down to what is reasonable and what is not. Around that assumption comes proof. It is reasonable to believe as proof that I exist because my post exists - and you're reading it.

Its called rationality, the word " ratio " meaning a comparison of probabilities.

I am still waiting for the divine duo to provide me the bio-chemical obstacles to macro evolution, what prevents genetic mutation within species from evolving into another species ?

I am still waiting for the divine duo to provide me the bio-chemical obstacles to macro evolution, what prevents genetic mutation within species from evolving into another species ?

Since macro-evolution is the same thing as micro-evolution over a long period of time, saying micro exists while macro doesn't is like saying your car can go down your driveway but not down the street to the store.

I see evolution as the most reasonable answer.

Evolution is the only explanation that incorporates all the evidence, there is no evidence that disputes or contradicts evolution, evolution is the ONLY answer that explains the diversity of life.

Can Creationism explain why God made humans by fusing two Chimp chromosomes into one ? Why did God have to use a chimp template to make Adam and Eve, why did he not use Homo Erectus for a template ?

Can Creationists explain why there is a 2 billion year chronological fossil record of simple lifeforms becoming more and more complex ?

Crazed fundamentalists should spend less time gulping down every word of their scriptures and more time chewing over evidence, their minds are being blocked by lumps of fear and insecurity.

Don't be fooled by all the pseudo intellectual wrapping, they desperately need the " who " and the " why " answer, their emotional well being needs to know why they are here.

Actually I have no problem with this, each of us are entitled to write their own private story, but please don't publicly deny incontrovertible facts and expect me to respect obvious delusions.

Minds and people are rightly judged on their beliefs, a sound reasoning mind cannot view the evidence for evolution and deny it, its simply perverse.

Good old polyglide rants and raves about all the evidence and answers we don't have, she thinks its gold dust, babbling on about butterflies, worms and fish, its complete nonsense. Science deals in the evidence and answers we do have and that is what their conclusions are built on.

Science has determined common ancestry as an evidence based fact because the evidence and answers are both voluminous and incontrovertible. Science admits there are open questions about the precise details of evolutionary change but no scientific evidence has ever contradicted common ancestry.

In a nutshell all we know confirms common ancestry and not knowing everything does not cancel out what we do know.

Excuse my suspension of posting, as the arguments above have impelled me to sit in front of the refrigerator, opening and closing the door. Rgrettably I cannot be absolutely certain that the light goes out when the door closes.

So, if either of our two defenders of the faith would like to detail their scientific objections to macro evolution, then please proceed. I wish to hear the science behind their claim it has not been proven.

If not, we will consider it an evidence based fact, and join every science academy and education system in the modern world.

Excuse my suspension of posting, as the arguments above have impelled me to sit in front of the refrigerator, opening and closing the door. Rgrettably I cannot be absolutely certain that the light goes out when the door closes.

Science, knowledge and reality are governed by probabilities not absolute certainties, and it appears to be working fairly efficiently, it seems most of our calculated predictions are accurate. An intelligent person takes this on board and rationally deduces this method is fit for purpose, on balance most reasonable and evidence based conclusions are reliable.

There are those who wish to deny the very fabric of knowledge , its predictability disturbs them, it doesn't have to contradict their religious beliefs, nope it just has to reduce their special status.

Its just another version of polyglide's mantra of not knowing everything, from this we are to deduce all knowledge acquired could be wrong. There are many things we have yet to discover but humans are governed by the laws of physics, and all the natural laws cannot be wrong, if they were then nothing would work, and I mean nothing.

A rational mind looks at the probabilities and practicalities of the basic laws being wrong and compares this against a sceptic's or agnostic's charter, there is only verdict, reality does exist and it mostly consists of scientific knowledge.

Each mind writes its own life story with its unique self as the central character, life is in relation to ourselves or cognitive bias.

Naturally any story that dilutes the importance of the central character is not viewed kindly, its why we intuitively dislike a lot of concepts, we don't like things that restrict our freedom to create our story. Its a form of non- conformity, an emotional revolt against the so called " thought police ".

Its juvenile nonsense, grown ups accept reality and deal with it with grace and humility, I am not grasping at primordial straws to increase my special status.

Rock, I have posted several websites that show evidence of macro-evolution. Did you even look at them?