NationStates Jolt Archive

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

Their warped “logic” really isn’t worth that much thought. Attempting to comprehend their fascist garbage is a waste of my time and yours.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

Hypocritical, duh.

I'm not entirely sure about the logic of your statement. It seems a little off to me.

In any case, logic is never heard when one is dealing with emotionally-charged subjects like religion and abortion.

They're not hypocrites, they genuinely believe every inherently contradictory statement they make. The psychological term is "logic-tight compartments".

Working by their logic, it's a free-will thing, and every child is meant to be born (unless miscarried) and abortion is thus violation of God's will.

Now I need to scrub out my brain.

that doesnt make any sense

one is a political/ethical position the other is a science/religious position. you really can hold both

if there is no evolution, the life or death of any particular entity is irrelevant to the change of species, there IS no change of species.

abortion is a sin because its murder. one could even suggest its a sin because its twarting the will of god.

Working by their logic, it's a free-will thing, and every child is meant to be born (unless miscarried) and abortion is thus violation of God's will.

Now I need to scrub out my brain.

Problem is, if sex is a free will thing, then evolution has to happen. Come to think of it, a similar argument can be made (albeit even more sketchily) with homosexuality.

So, Righties, you want to have your cake, or eat it?

that doesnt make any sense

one is a political/ethical position the other is a science/religious position. you really can hold both

if there is no evolution, the life or death of any particular entity is irrelevant to the change of species, there IS no change of species.

abortion is a sin because its murder. one could even suggest its a sin because its twarting the will of god.

If there is no evolution, every pregnancy would have to be determined by God's will, as anything else would cause species to change. God would have to be actively stopping evolution from happening for it not to exist.

How is not having an abortion a contradiction of Gods will. God knows that it will happen but that does not mean that he likes it. Its the same with murder. One could argue ising our arguement that God knew that the murder would take place and thus it is not a sin.

How is not having an abortion a contradiction of Gods will. God knows that it will happen but that does not mean that he likes it. Its the same with murder. One could argue ising our arguement that God knew that the murder would take place and thus it is not a sin.

It's not a matter of him knowing it. Knowing that species vary is not an abscence of evolution. It's a matter of active divine intervention to change the natural order. It would be like if God grabbed your arm, put a knife in it, and thrust it into someone's heart. Would you be guilty of murder.

I guess ill go with antiabortion because I think that it is very possible for evolution to exist. I believe that God set the world up that way. Of course things evolve. I think that abortion is murder.

However, I can not see why it is hypocritical to believe in both. Evolution could very well be controlled by God. In one sense abortion is not Gods will. It is of course in the large picture of Gods plan for the world.

I think they think of it as there not being any change of species at all(even if God didn't force the abortions), especially since there would be a quite large amount of time before this where there was no abortion, they realize this(hopefully), and they still argue there is no such thing as evolution.

I think they think of it as there not being any change of species at all(even if God didn't force the abortions), especially since there would be a quite large amount of time before this where there was no abortion, they realize this(hopefully), and they still argue there is no such thing as evolution.

Issue is, as long as there is any bias in what gets born and what doesn't, the species will shift to match those biases. The only thing that could stop this would be if each and every birth's result was directly determined. Evolution can't just be nonexistent, it would have to be actively fought by an outside force.

Evolution can't just be nonexistent, it would have to be actively fought by an outside force.
Not in their minds.

If there is no evolution, every pregnancy would have to be determined by God's will, as anything else would cause species to change. God would have to be actively stopping evolution from happening for it not to exist.

no vegas. for the religious fundamentalist evolution doesnt exist and the mechanics of evolution dont exist.

you cant argue a flaw in their logic based on factors outside of their logic.

besides if god is holding back the tide of evolution, he is doing so in every single conception.

Not in their minds.

This is the problem, of course. Once you go beyond the point where logic matters, logic doesn't matter. I was hoping some of them thought they were logical.

There is no contradiction if someone disagrees with both evolution and abortion. Heres how it works, they believe that evolution isn't true and therefore there will never be an evolutionary jump in a species. That means that neither God nor nature controls the non-existant concept. Therefore it is possible to be against an activity that kills a living human. Secondly if God didn't want a child to be born he could have prevented the pregnancy so by your logic it is the religious rights duty to protect the life of a child God wished to be born.

And lastly not every Christian believes that God controls every aspect of their lives. Then we would be robots. Although if this were true I wouldn't have to read illogically anti-religious messages.

There is no contradiction if someone disagrees with both evolution and abortion. Heres how it works, they believe that evolution isn't true and therefore there will never be an evolutionary jump in a species. That means that neither God nor nature controls the non-existant concept. Therefore it is possible to be against an activity that kills a living human. Secondly if God didn't want a child to be born he could have prevented the pregnancy so by your logic it is the religious rights duty to protect the life of a child God wished to be born.

And lastly not every Christian believes that God controls every aspect of their lives. Then we would be robots. Although if this were true I wouldn't have to read illogically anti-religious messages.
Bit late, we already covered this.

Dang it you covered alot while I was typing (I knew making a sandwich was a bad idea). But, jolly good folks. I apologize for the lateness of my reply.

This is a reply to the first post- it's called free will.

Abortion is a result of free will.

This is a reply to the first post- it's called free will.

Abortion is a result of free will.

Free will in pregnancy causes evolution.

I realize that a total denial of logic would stop both, but that makes me arguing the issue irrelevant anyway. If logic exists, however:

1. People/nature/etc. make choices regarding when and with whom to get pregnant and whether or not a pregnancy is terminated.
2. Those choices mean that more children that correspond to those criteria get born.
3. As more children are born with certain qualities, the average member of the population gets closer to those qualities.
4. Evolution happens.

The only way to stop this is if God intervenes in the first step and alters every choice made so as to keep species static. That would mean that the outcome of every pregnancy is the result of a direct intervention from God. So abortion is a form of divine intervention.

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.


They're anti-logic; therefore, they can be against both.

Free will in pregnancy causes evolution.

I realize that a total denial of logic would stop both, but that makes me arguing the issue irrelevant anyway. If logic exists, however:

1. People/nature/etc. make choices regarding when and with whom to get pregnant and whether or not a pregnancy is terminated.
2. Those choices mean that more children that correspond to those criteria get born.
3. As more children are born with certain qualities, the average member of the population gets closer to those qualities.
4. Evolution happens.

The only way to stop this is if God intervenes in the first step and alters every choice made so as to keep species static. That would mean that the outcome of every pregnancy is the result of a direct intervention from God. So abortion is a form of divine intervention.

people dont have abortion for "evolutionary" reasons. they have abortions for factors in their own lives. it cant have an impact on evolution.

Again, not if you see it as there being no such thing as evolution in the first place.
Which most of them do.
And it isn't really anti-logic, just anti-science, as there were no big gaps in logic before Darwin proposed his theory. Just gaps in science.

people dont have abortion for "evolutionary" reasons. they have abortions for factors in their own lives. it cant have an impact on evolution.
Certainly can. For example:
If they don't have enough money to support the baby they will get an abortion.
So people who CAN support more children have more.
So qualities that make people money are now both evolutionary more valuable, and will be more common.

Again, not if you see it as there being no such thing as evolution in the first place.
Which most of them do.
And it isn't really anti-logic, just anti-science, as there were no big gaps in logic before Darwin proposed his theory. Just gaps in science.

If you look at the train of thought, there was a gap in logic. It's sort of like you can't decide to believe that the derivative of x^2 is 2x. It wasn't known forever, but once it was discovered it becomes obvious that it has to be true. Same thing with evolution. Those steps I listed in the earlier post have to happen.

Free will in pregnancy causes evolution.

I realize that a total denial of logic would stop both, but that makes me arguing the issue irrelevant anyway. If logic exists, however:

1. People/nature/etc. make choices regarding when and with whom to get pregnant and whether or not a pregnancy is terminated.
2. Those choices mean that more children that correspond to those criteria get born.
3. As more children are born with certain qualities, the average member of the population gets closer to those qualities.
4. Evolution happens.

The only way to stop this is if God intervenes in the first step and alters every choice made so as to keep species static. That would mean that the outcome of every pregnancy is the result of a direct intervention from God. So abortion is a form of divine intervention.

Most of that is too large for my mono-ized brain, but let me ask you this, do you think that in no way can God cause evolution? Or that he could not possibly be God if he allowed humans to evolve and become better?

Most of that is too large for my mono-ized brain, but let me ask you this, do you think that in no way can God cause evolution? Or that he could not possibly be God if he allowed humans to evolve and become better?

There can certainly be a God that allows evolution. The whole point of my post is that only a God that allows evolution allows its followers to oppose abortion. If you reject evolution, you must accept abortion.

From various responses, I'm guessing you've chosen anti-abortion and accepting evolution, right? That's one of the three choices I listed in my original post.

If you look at the train of thought, there was a gap in logic. It's sort of like you can't decide to believe that the derivative of x^2 is 2x. It wasn't known forever, but once it was discovered it becomes obvious that it has to be true. Same thing with evolution. Those steps I listed in the earlier post have to happen.
One of the the strengths of science is that nothing HAS to be true.
Granted, without evolution large parts of science would collapse, but there would be a new theory that explained everything within a reasonable amount of time.
So again, they're just anti-science, not anti-logic.
To a point, anyway.

Now I need to scrub out my brain.

Make sure to get behind your brain's uh, ears, or....whatever.

One of the the strengths of science is that nothing HAS to be true.
Granted, without evolution large parts of science would collapse, but there would be a new theory that explained everything within a reasonable amount of time.
So again, they're just anti-science, not anti-logic.
To a point, anyway.

The evidence/biology support is secondary to my argument.

The point is not that reality/science supports evolution, but that logic alone does. The steps I outlined logically must happen, and they prove that some form of evolution must happen on a merely logical level, before the concept even gets to science.

In theory, it would be possible to make a logical way to get around evolution.
Granted, it would almost certainly defy Occam's Razor, but that's more of a guideline then an absolute rule.

I hate when Christians use false logic to make points. As I've seen, they're the worst about doing that. Making connections where they dont fit, or forming a paradox, and then they're totally blind to see why it just doesn't work. It seems like when anybody, highly intelligent, or dumb as a rock, tries to argue their said religion, their IQ drops around a good 30 points or so.

In theory, it would be possible to make a logical way to get around evolution.
Granted, it would almost certainly defy Occam's Razor, but that's more of a guideline then an absolute rule.

Anything doing that, though, would involve some process getting in and screwing up the first step. The only process the Religious Right has to do that is God, unless they can find some sort of "static species force" or something.

I hate when Christians use false logic to make points. As I've seen, they're the worst about doing that. Making connections where they dont fit, or forming a paradox, and then they're totally blind to see why it just doesn't work. It seems like when anybody, highly intelligent, or dumb as a rock, tries to argue their said religion, their IQ drops around a good 30 points or so.
Because God is outside logic, and they always try to make it fit in there.

Heh, and then some of them try to make the argument you just did, which is arguably better, however to my mind it seems more like a copout because they dont know to me. Whenever I have a question for them that they are unable to anwser, they either pull a false logic, or say that it was God's will, and that he's omnipotent and infalliable, so it has to be right, and it basically doesn't matter what I think, and I am unable to accept that for some reason.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Christians, or Muslums, or Jews, or anybody else for that matter. It's the religions I hate, not the followers of them. Granted, some followers of various religions I hate, take, Osama Bin Laden, or the leader of the KKK, or whatever. I just can't stand religion in general because it doesn't make sence to me, my mind refuses to accept most things that dont make sence. The one thing I do accept, is God. I believe he exists... I don't know why, because believing in something I cannot prove goes against the grain of almost everything else I believe in, but I do none the less. As for religion... I just think they cause more harm then good in general. I do have a tendancy to go against the grain of most Christians with my beliefs though. My best friend is a strong follower of the Christian faith, and we sometimes get into arguments about it. Ususally we try to keep it on an intellectual basis, as not to get so personal that we get angry with each other... but it's a fine line. I love her to death, but when it comes down to it, I think she's being deluded, and I feel guilty for thinking that. Ugh.

Idealy, they'd just believe what they wanted to without trying to force it on everyone else with bad logic. Too bad they do try it, they should take a point from the fact that the only religios argument I've ever seen won(And possibly the only one in existance) was one between an agonstic/atheist and various other people over semantics. (He said that he was only an agnostic because he couldn't disprove God even though he didn't think it existed. Everyone else argued that that made him a weak atheist, not an agnostic. They won eventually.)

Well of course, considering agnostic refers to somebody who doesn't know and doesn't care about weather God exists or not (weather God does or doesn't, they wouldn't give a shit either way), and athiest refers to somebody who potentially would care if God existed, however they do not think, for one reason or another, that God exists. Said person said that they could not disporve the existance of God, and they would not have even tried to disprove the existance of God if they were truely agnostic, because they would have no reason to.

I think one thing that needs to be defined is what everyone means when they mean evolution. I consider evolution to be a sudden jump in a species such as monkey to human but not neccessarily that dramactic. That is the process that I don't believe in it based mainly on the lack of evidence i.e. the missing link. I do believe in something like adabtation (sp) where a species will continue to carry a specific trait do to the majority of the creatures with that trait being more successful at life but, would remain the same species. So abortion would effect adabtation but, not evolution. Secondly, if there were evolution I believe that God would just let it happen naturally i.e. free-willish. That doesn't mean that we have to support abortion.

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

Is there some confusion here? New species don't just pop out of a single womb, last I checked. There will be numerous generations before the new sub-population becomes different enough to become reproductively isolated from the parental population, hence a new species. I don't quite follow your first para.

I do understand that it is ill-defined as to whom the responsibility of abortion lies. On the parents? The abortion doctor? Or in a hypothesis where a Omniscient/potent God is responsible for the whole Universe - is it in his turf?

I think one thing that needs to be defined is what everyone means when they mean evolution. I consider evolution to be a sudden jump in a species such as monkey to human but not neccessarily that dramactic. That is the process that I don't believe in it based mainly on the lack of evidence i.e. the missing link. I do believe in something like adabtation (sp) where a species will continue to carry a specific trait do to the majority of the creatures with that trait being more successful at life but, would remain the same species. So abortion would effect adabtation but, not evolution. Secondly, if there were evolution I believe that God would just let it happen naturally i.e. free-willish. That doesn't mean that we have to support abortion.

This is a mistaken view. There is no reason for adaptive change to "magically" exclude reproductive isolation. In fact one of the frontiers of modern molecular evolution is to find the suite of regulatory genes that tie morphological changes to reproductive changes. Living systems can and do cross the species barrier, just not by a single hop. There is a massive amount of evidence supporting the continuity of life at the organism level (morphology and function) down to the molecular level (specific DNA sequence changes leading to evolutionary changes).

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

Okay folks, for those of you who thought there was something screwy with this logic but couldn't quite put your finger on it, I thought I would outline exactly what is wrong with it. And just to clear up my own biases, I am pro-evolution, pro-choice, and non-Christian. :cool:

The first proposition is self-contradictory (thus illogical) - "In order for evolution to not happen and species shift to be under the direct determination of God..." I'm not sure if anyone knows how to do this, or if I could demonstrate here with the symbols, but writing this out in symbolic form and working through it as a truth table demonstrates it to be self-contradictory (illogical) as well. In short, it would be along the lines of (~E*E). Evolution can't not happen and at the same time species shift (which is evolution, by definition) be directed by God. Either it happens, or it does not.

The statement "Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur." This is the fallacy of denying the consequent. Once again, we can demonstrate this using the symbolic form (A then U//~U).

Aside from the self-contradictory proposition and the fallacy of denying the consequent, there are some general assumptions with this argument that are untrue, although not really subject to logic.

1. This statement assumes that God micro-manages pregnancies. It ignores the fact that Christians since Thomas Aquinas have generally believed in a static natural law that God set into motion during creation, rather than God having to hold everything together at every moment. Thus, there is no room for what is dubbed here as "unplanned evolution."

2. The statement "if abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin" is incorrect in the context of the predestination that this situation implies. In general, Christians that believe in predestination of this form also believe that God predestinates certain persons to sin and be doomed to hell. There is no problem with an "act of God" causing a person to sin, and it still being a sin that sends them to hell.

3. The same statement in #2 confuses an "act of God" with the act of a person.

Well of course, considering agnostic refers to somebody who doesn't know and doesn't care about weather God exists or not (weather God does or doesn't, they wouldn't give a shit either way), and athiest refers to somebody who potentially would care if God existed, however they do not think, for one reason or another, that God exists. Said person said that they could not disporve the existance of God, and they would not have even tried to disprove the existance of God if they were truely agnostic, because they would have no reason to.

I would have to respectfully disagree. Agnostics maintain that there is not enough real information one way or the other to prove or disprove the existence of God (gods). We, for the most part, do care. We would like very much to have proof one way or another.

It requires as much of an act of faith to be an atheist as it does to believe, because, as an agnostic would tell you, there is no proof that god doesn't exist.

As an agnostic, I fervently hope that God does exist. Because it would be so much easier to blame him for all the crap that's happened in the world than it would be to take responsibility for my share of it.

I would have to respectfully disagree. Agnostics maintain that there is not enough real information one way or the other to prove or disprove the existence of God (gods). We, for the most part, do care. We would like very much to have proof one way or another.

It requires as much of an act of faith to be an atheist as it does to believe, because, as an agnostic would tell you, there is no proof that god doesn't exist.

As an agnostic, I fervently hope that God does exist. Because it would be so much easier to blame him for all the crap that's happened in the world than it would be to take responsibility for my share of it.
I like this post. That is all.


:)

Working by their logic, it's a free-will thing, and every child is meant to be born (unless miscarried) and abortion is thus violation of God's will.

Now I need to scrub out my brain.

I'm going to use the common argument of the "Even in the womb I had a plan for you" or whatever it is.

What if God's plan was for that baby to die in the womb?

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

You're really not applying any logic here, or confining anyone into a corner of choice, because you're positing this argument outside of their POV and in your own. You just simply assume that it's logical because it is from your POV, and that you'll some how win this argument...

1. "In Order for evolution to not happen..." the ones you are positing this to, do not believe evolution occurs in the first place... So the statement is meaningless

2. "God would have to determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy.." For the religious right (which this is directed to) most of them would believe that only the natural course is the determination of God, human interference is sinful (applied to Abortion).

3. "If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin." To the Religious Right human operations are sinful (abortion), they do not recognize human operations as that of God's plan (for the most part)... While I for the most part would agree with the first part of that, I myself disagree with the second, within my own scope of belief, sin is determined not by operation but by intent; thus abortion is part of God's plan IMHO; however abortion can also be sinful because of the intent of the agents (persons) performing and/or undergoing the operation. It is quite possible for someone to perform acts to bring about the expressed purpose of God, and yet sin to their own condemnation in doing it for performing those acts out of the intents of a wicked heart (the Assyrian King).

Okay folks, for those of you who thought there was something screwy with this logic but couldn't quite put your finger on it, I thought I would outline exactly what is wrong with it. And just to clear up my own biases, I am pro-evolution, pro-choice, and non-Christian. :cool:

The first proposition is self-contradictory (thus illogical) - "In order for evolution to not happen and species shift to be under the direct determination of God..." I'm not sure if anyone knows how to do this, or if I could demonstrate here with the symbols, but writing this out in symbolic form and working through it as a truth table demonstrates it to be self-contradictory (illogical) as well. In short, it would be along the lines of (~E*E). Evolution can't not happen and at the same time species shift (which is evolution, by definition) be directed by God. Either it happens, or it does not.

The statement "Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur." This is the fallacy of denying the consequent. Once again, we can demonstrate this using the symbolic form (A then U//~U).

Aside from the self-contradictory proposition and the fallacy of denying the consequent, there are some general assumptions with this argument that are untrue, although not really subject to logic.

1. This statement assumes that God micro-manages pregnancies. It ignores the fact that Christians since Thomas Aquinas have generally believed in a static natural law that God set into motion during creation, rather than God having to hold everything together at every moment. Thus, there is no room for what is dubbed here as "unplanned evolution."

2. The statement "if abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin" is incorrect in the context of the predestination that this situation implies. In general, Christians that believe in predestination of this form also believe that God predestinates certain persons to sin and be doomed to hell. There is no problem with an "act of God" causing a person to sin, and it still being a sin that sends them to hell.

3. The same statement in #2 confuses an "act of God" with the act of a person.
What he said.

The logic in the first post is spotty at best. It tries to find a correlation where none exists.

"The Religious Right can't be both anti-evolution and anti-abortion."

Sure they can. These people have the ability to believe that an all-powerful and all-good diety allowed His only child to be horribly murdered because it was the only way He could save His chosen creations from the torture He sentenced them to when their ancestors decided to take dietary advice from a talking snake.

They can believe that the sky is orange and hot snow falls up.

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

This is pretty creative. I've heard death penality and abortion, but not evolution and abortion.

Really, though, it isn't worth it. Debunk them when they come to argue about it or try to enshrine their irrational stupidity into law, but don't corrupt your brain cells trying to reason out their chains of twisted 'logic' otherwise.

This does not compute.

I think one thing that needs to be defined is what everyone means when they mean evolution. I consider evolution to be a sudden jump in a species such as monkey to human but not neccessarily that dramactic. That is the process that I don't believe in it based mainly on the lack of evidence i.e. the missing link. I do believe in something like adabtation (sp) where a species will continue to carry a specific trait do to the majority of the creatures with that trait being more successful at life but, would remain the same species. So abortion would effect adabtation but, not evolution. Secondly, if there were evolution I believe that God would just let it happen naturally i.e. free-willish. That doesn't mean that we have to support abortion.

You should read the news. They are finding missing links left and right.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/12/fossil.evolution.ap/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4879672.stm

But addressing your adaptation view:
How much can a species change, or adapt, before its no longer the same species?
Also, why cant God be pushing us up the evolutionary ladder?

"The Religious Right can't be both anti-evolution and anti-abortion."

Sure they can. These people have the ability to believe that an all-powerful and all-good diety allowed His only child to be horribly murdered because it was the only way He could save His chosen creations from the torture He sentenced them to when their ancestors decided to take dietary advice from a talking snake.

They can believe that the sky is orange and hot snow falls up.

Sure we do... with the obvious reason that it's true.

The sky IS orange:
http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f293/DubyaGoat/orangesky.jpg
And as everyone knows, hot snow skips the liquid stage and turns immediately to gas/steam and steam rises...


Should I link you to accepting Christ page now or will you google it yourself?

I really don't think this question is valid, because as someone stated earlier, you're arguing an issue of science being compared to one of morality.

Human beings do an awful lot of things that don't link with nature, whatever your worldview on that is. For example, if Darwinist Evolution is fact, then humans habitually work against it by helping the poor rather than allowing natural selection to let them die off. Let me make the example even more specific. In the USA, the wealthier class of family tend to have fewer children than the poorer classes do, for whatever reason. Various social programs subsidize those additional children, thus giving th epoorer classes a higher birthrate and an evolutionary advantage, despite the fact that the wealthier classes generally tend to be more educated and ambitious. (No flames, please. I'm just making a general observation I don't pretend to be able to cite statistics.)

Now, I'm sure we all aree that we have a moral duty to help the poor, despite the fact that it is arguably counterproductive in an evolutionary sense. Why? because it's morally the right thing to do. Since Christians, as well as those of any religion, derive their sense of morality from their belief in God, it would seem to be the same sort of contradiction. It isn't a contradiction though, because what's right isn't the same as what evolution would dictate.

The same holds true on the issue of abortion. It's a moral argument that can't be compared to evolution. I know what you're getting at in asking how one can believe in both, i just don't think the logic connects.

You really can't expect these religious right-wing loonies to make any sense :rolleyes:

"The Religious Right can't be both anti-evolution and anti-abortion."

Sure they can. These people have the ability to believe that an all-powerful and all-good diety allowed His only child to be horribly murdered because it was the only way He could save His chosen creations from the torture He sentenced them to when their ancestors decided to take dietary advice from a talking snake.

They can believe that the sky is orange and hot snow falls up.

Exactly.

The idea of an omnipresent god micromanaging is just comical to me. If I were God, I so wouldn't care. I would be busy working on my next universe.

You should read the news. They are finding missing links left and right.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/04/12/fossil.evolution.ap/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4879672.stm

But addressing your adaptation view:
How much can a species change, or adapt, before its no longer the same species?
Also, why cant God be pushing us up the evolutionary ladder?

This may sound ignorant but, I am not completely convinced that those are actual evolutionary jumps. It could just be a similar species of animal.

I consider a species to remain the same species as long as there are no major changes in the physiology of a species. So humans going taller on average over the course time would not be evolution since it could be explaned by taller people passing on their traits more on average and increased nutrition. But, a person suddenly growing wings, extra arms, etc... would be evolution. If anyone has better terms for what I mean I would appreciate knowing them.

And lastly I haven't completely ruled out the possibility that God did put evolution in to motion nor have I completely ruled out evolution. I am interested in all points of view and trying to make my decision based on what sounds right to me. But, right now evolution just leaves to many gaps unexplained to me. My main problem was that the first post made illogical connections between two unrelated things.

Issue is, as long as there is any bias in what gets born and what doesn't, the species will shift to match those biases. The only thing that could stop this would be if each and every birth's result was directly determined. Evolution can't just be nonexistent, it would have to be actively fought by an outside force.

And how does birth of babies within a species cause evolution?

Everyone acknowledges variations within species. What those of us who disbelieve evolution would argue against is that variations within species could never add up to creation of a new species.

Abortion is man's influence on the species. By your logic, every action we take is directly God's responsibility, because if he does not stop us, it is his fault.

This is not the normative theological position. God created beings with free will, who are allowed to save life and take life as they choose. He does not put knives into murderer's hands or take those knives away in every instance.

Sometimes he prevents actions or facilitates them, but since even the most intelligent human being's mind is so small compared to his, like an atom compared to a galaxy, we do not understand why he does or does not intervene in any particular case.

This may sound ignorant but, I am not completely convinced that those are actual evolutionary jumps. It could just be a similar species of animal.

Your problem is that you don't actually understand the theory. It doesn't suggest that an ape becomes a human. Instead, it posits that an ape gives birth to an ape slightly different from itself, which gives to a different ape, which gives birth to a different ape, and so on and so on and so on until the number of changes accrued makes the new ape so different that it cannot successfully breed with the original (or couldn't anyways, since the original is long dead).

Take, for instance, the following sentence fragment:

The brown dog

Now, we begin to make tiny changes in it, one by one.

The grown dog
The grown cog
Fhe grown cog
Fhe grewn cog
Fhe grewn cot
Fht grewn cot
Fht green cot
Fht green cat
Fat green cat

Now, at the end, we have a completely different subject, do we not? No single change was major, but the combination of all of the changes resulted in an entirely different idea.

The problem is that there isn't in my opinion enough missing links to justify this slow progressive change, there are still massive gaps left in the theory.

Secondly if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys. And you may say that a group of monkeys stayed seperate of the more evolved monkeys and weren't effected by the changes. But, by that logic some of the mid-stage monkey-humans should have stayed at that stage of evolution. So we should have monkeys, humans, and monkey-humans of various stages of evolution.

P.S. I understand the theory for the most part. I just think that it has some logical inconsistances.

Your problem is that you don't actually understand the theory. It doesn't suggest that an ape becomes a human. Instead, it posits that an ape gives birth to an ape slightly different from itself, which gives to a different ape, which gives birth to a different ape, and so on and so on and so on until the number of changes accrued makes the new ape so different that it cannot successfully breed with the original (or couldn't anyways, since the original is long dead).

Take, for instance, the following sentence fragment:

The brown dog

Now, we begin to make tiny changes in it, one by one.

The grown dog
The grown cog
Fhe grown cog
Fhe grewn cog
Fhe grewn cot
Fht grewn cot
Fht green cot
Fht green cat
Fat green cat

Now, at the end, we have a completely different subject, do we not? No single change was major, but the combination of all of the changes resulted in an entirely different idea.


To be a true picture of evolution, that example must use legitimate words for each intermediate phrase, and each phrase must be legible and have meaning. Each nonsense word represents a dead end, and the steps end when the first nonsense phrase appears.

The problem is that there isn't in my opinion enough missing links to justify this slow progressive change, there are still massive gaps left in the theory.

Secondly if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys. And you may say that a group of monkeys stayed seperate of the more evolved monkeys and weren't effected by the changes. But, by that logic some of the mid-stage monkey-humans should have stayed at that stage of evolution. So we should have monkeys, humans, and monkey-humans of various stages of evolution.

P.S. I understand the theory for the most part. I just think that it has some logical inconsistances.

No. I'm afraid you don't understand the theory particularly well. Thus your inane objections.

Their warped “logic” really isn’t worth that much thought. Attempting to comprehend their fascist garbage is a waste of my time and yours.
You've come a long way. I remember the days when you rammed into discussions frothing at the mouth over the "outright baby murder" that is abortion. ;)

This is something I just figured out. In order for evolution to not happen and for species shift to be completely under the direct determination of God, God would have to directly determine the outcome of each and every pregnancy. Anything beyond his control that affected the results of a pregnancy would cause unplanned evolution. Thus, when a child is aborted, God must have decided that the abortion would occur. If abortion is an act of God, it can hardly be termed a sin.

So, Religious Right, which one do you chose? Are you anti-abortion, anti-evolution, or hypocritical? It's your decision.

Hmm interesting one, never really considered that angle before. To be honest, being from the UK I find the whole evolution / creationism debate in the US incredible. It was an issue settled over here over a century ago, and I find it hard to believe how deeply penitrated by Christian fundamentalism the US educational and scientific communities seem to have been.

Certainly a good philosophical question though.

The problem is that there isn't in my opinion enough missing links to justify this slow progressive change, there are still massive gaps left in the theory.

Secondly if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys. And you may say that a group of monkeys stayed seperate of the more evolved monkeys and weren't effected by the changes. But, by that logic some of the mid-stage monkey-humans should have stayed at that stage of evolution. So we should have monkeys, humans, and monkey-humans of various stages of evolution.

P.S. I understand the theory for the most part. I just think that it has some logical inconsistances.
we didnt evolve from monkeys. monkey, apes and people all evolved from some common ancestor that existed in the way past. the various monkeys apes and humans are the end products of several branches that came from the proto-monkey millions of years ago. the rest of the branches and species have died out leaving all us "cousins".

Should I link you to accepting Christ page now or will you google it yourself?

He has a pager?

This may sound ignorant but, I am not completely convinced that those are actual evolutionary jumps. It could just be a similar species of animal.

I consider a species to remain the same species as long as there are no major changes in the physiology of a species. So humans going taller on average over the course time would not be evolution since it could be explaned by taller people passing on their traits more on average and increased nutrition. But, a person suddenly growing wings, extra arms, etc... would be evolution. If anyone has better terms for what I mean I would appreciate knowing them.

And lastly I haven't completely ruled out the possibility that God did put evolution in to motion nor have I completely ruled out evolution. I am interested in all points of view and trying to make my decision based on what sounds right to me. But, right now evolution just leaves to many gaps unexplained to me. My main problem was that the first post made illogical connections between two unrelated things.

With respect evolution isn't "Jumping" from one species to another, one species dosen't suddenly become another overnight. Basicly a gradual selective process (which you stated you believe in) IS evolution. It generally happens over a huge stretch of time, 100's of thousands of years if not longer, depending greatly on the life span of the animals in question.

A good example would be dogs (origonally bred from wolves), look at a terrier for example, then look at an English sheep dog and a wolf It can be hard to believe that they are even related. Many species of dog are actually very recent, and yet already they can tell you what breed a dog is through just a sample of DNA because they have begun to diverge to such a great extent.

Oh and another point (not aimed at you in paticular, more at Creationists) if evolution dosen't happen, please could you explain how we went from a planet of say the Jurassic period, ie. dinosaurs etc. to a world dominated by mammals without it? Or why genetic testing shows common origins for various species etc. and if genetic testing is at fault, how it can tell say which man is the father of which child, or is Genetics, Geology and Archaeology all the work of the devil?

Well of course, considering agnostic refers to somebody who doesn't know and doesn't care about weather God exists or not (weather God does or doesn't, they wouldn't give a shit either way), and athiest refers to somebody who potentially would care if God existed, however they do not think, for one reason or another, that God exists. Said person said that they could not disporve the existance of God, and they would not have even tried to disprove the existance of God if they were truely agnostic, because they would have no reason to.

Hmm as I understand it an Agnostic is somone who is undecided as to the exsistence of god (sort of sitting on the theological fence) rather than being hostile or apathetic.

The problem is that there isn't in my opinion enough missing links to justify this slow progressive change, there are still massive gaps left in the theory.

Massive gaps? I am not sure what you are talking about here. We are finding "missing links" all the time. Tim White just announced one and he has another that he hasn't.


Secondly if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys.

Common misconception of the faithful. We are related to apes; not monkeys.

On the road that led to us; monkeys split off a long time ago. Followed by the lessor apes (the Gibbons), the Organgutan, the Gorilla, the chimp and Bonobo.

And you may say that a group of monkeys stayed separate of the more evolved monkeys and weren't effected by the changes.

If you look at the prosimians, they were all over the place at one point. Along came the monkeys and they basically outperformed them. If it wasn't for Madagascar splitting off Africa, we would not have any lemurs today.

Man will probably wipe out the monkeys and apes in the wild.


But, by that logic some of the mid-stage monkey-humans should have stayed at that stage of evolution. So we should have monkeys, humans, and monkey-humans of various stages of evolution.


No, because the more "advanced" creature will drive the other to extinction. Why don't we see Homo-Habalis, cro-magnon or Neanderthals today?


P.S. I understand the theory for the most part. I just think that it has some logical inconsistances.

Actually; you don't. I think you have been reading from Religious sites that are against Evolution.......

There can certainly be a God that allows evolution. The whole point of my post is that only a God that allows evolution allows its followers to oppose abortion. If you reject evolution, you must accept abortion.

From various responses, I'm guessing you've chosen anti-abortion and accepting evolution, right? That's one of the three choices I listed in my original post.


Yeah... sorry, missed that bit. I told you it was all past my brain. I probably could have understood that bit of your first post had I read it this time yesterday. Not at almost 10 on practically no sleep... and mono. Lol.